In the backdrop of the US mid-term elections slated for November 2, Rediff.com's Prasanna D Zore visits a small gathering of Muslims in Miami who despite feeling persecuted are fighting their battle in a peaceful way to break out of the stereotypes and prejudices that they experience in every day life post 9/11 America.
"She chose a path less trodden and turned it into a road paved with gold as far as her dance was concerned. There will never be another Sitara Devi," says her son, musician Ranjit Barot.
Mantras from a successful professional on how young Indians can become more successful and employable.
Who's the real Abu Jindal aka Zabiuddin Ansari? This is one of the most disturbing questions that the residents of Beed and Gevrai towns, in the dusty cotton bowl of Beed district in Maharashtra, are trying to come to terms with ever since news broke out that intelligence agencies have identified one of the handlers from Pakistan, who spoke to the 26/11 terrorists at the Chabad House, as Syed Zabiuddin Syed Zakiuddin aka Abu Jindal.
'They should not forget that had we decided not to rebel, they would still be chanting slogans from the footsteps of the Vidhan Sabha.'
Arch rivals India and Pakistan clash in the second semi-final of the World Cup on Wednesday. Prasanna D Zore tells us what's the match holds in front of a partisan Mohali crowd.
'This incident is likely to embolden the radicals as also the sleeper cells of terrorists and their masters hiding abroad, including Pakistan.'
Activists Arundhati Roy and Himanshu Kumar slam a newspaper report that Lingaram Kodopi, a tribal from Dantewada, is the mastermind behind last week's Maoist attacks in Bastar.
'As Rana is not an Indian citizen, our leverage on the US system -- whether it's their judiciary or the executive -- is very limited in that sense.'
Two Israeli Jews take an emotional tour of the Chabad House, which was targetted by terrorists during the Novmeber 26, 2008 carnage, along with rediff.com journalists Prasanna D Zore and Abhishek Mande.
'Very few of small investors stay invested for those three or four or five years.' 'If there's like a six month, one-year period when market is not doing well, you exit.' 'After the market has run up, you get in again.' 'This way you will never make returns.'
'The consolidation of the Congress and NCP alliance does not provide any space for such splits,' feels Dr Rajeshwari Deshpande, a scholar on Maharashtra politics.
'You may put hundreds of checks and balances but human beings are ingenious.'
'Many veteran leaders in the Odisha BJP had met them, but their problems were never sorted out.'
'If the Kukis and Meiteis are the warring groups, then we need to find space for a third group which can mediate between the two.'
From politics to fashion, the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance remains intact. Prasanna D Zore reports
'We will win all the 28 Lok Sabha seats in 2024.'
Fear and rage writ across their faces, the eyewitnesses who helped take the injured and the dead to hospitals after the German bakery blast in Pune, described their horrific experiences.
Dozens of young students have gone missing from Beed in the last eight years. While intelligence agencies fear that the youth have been brainwashed into the doctrine of terror in the wake of the communal carnage in Gujarat, anxious family members spend sleepless nights worrying over the safety of their missing sons.
Who's the real Abu Jindal aka Zabiuddin Ansari? This is one of the most disturbing questions that the residents of Beed and Gevrai towns, in the dusty cotton bowl of Beed district in Maharashtra, are trying to come to terms with ever since news broke out that intelligence agencies have identified one of the handlers from Pakistan, who spoke to the 26/11 terrorists at the Chabad House, as Syed Zabiuddin Syed Zakiuddin aka Abu Jindal.
'Was the entire place properly sanitised by the police before he was brought out of the prison for this medical check-up?' 'Once he filed a plea in the Supreme Court stating there was a threat to his life, the UP police should have maintained stricter vigilance.'
'I am not saying start buying from today. but start buying in the next three-four months.'
'Both of them want to cow down people who are daring them, demanding justice for the tribals and are not following their agendas in Chhattisgarh,' says Lingaram Kodopi, who the state police has branded a Maoist.
Will Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena make its mark in the forthcoming assembly election in the state?
'There were no stretchers available immediately, so the people who gathered around tore down tarpaulin and cloth from adjoining shops and made them into makeshift stretchers to ferry the injured to the nearby Saifee Hospital.'
'I don't see any major setback for the Indian markets post the US Fed event.'
Rajesh Laxman Pille, a Mumbai lad, aced his school-leaving exams writing with his leg. An inspiring story of how he surmounted challenges associated with being limbless and achieved success.
A year after November 26, 2008, as the clock struck 9.44 pm again, rediff.com correspondent Prasanna D Zore and photographer Sanjay Sawant spend some time at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus to find that nothing much has changed as far as securing the station is concerned.
The Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984 changed an entire generation of women in Bhopal to shed their social inhibitions and fight for a righteous cause. Despite opposition from a conservative society.
How the the Border Security Force, the Coast Guard, the Navy and the marine police in Gujarat is maintaining a day-night vigil to protect India's western coast.
Rediff.com's Prasanna D Zore speaks to the survivors of the Bhopal gas tragedy, who recount their tales of horror after chief judicial magistrate Mohan P Tiwari gave his verdict on June 7, after a tortuous 25-year fight for justice.
'I defended them -- Amit Shah and Narendra Modi -- in over 10,000 national debates, but I never asked for any favour.'
On the final day of his two-day visit to India's financial capital, Congres vice president Rahul Gandhi tried to connect with Mumbaikars by raising the issue of high electricity bills en route his padyatra from National College, Bandra to Dharavi, Asia's largest slum colony.
'These are the people who don't want peace in the state, who want to disturb the harmony in the state.'
'The decision to arrest Aryan Khan was a consensual decision, not a one-man command.'
'This is not China. There is freedom of movement in Kashmir, even in Sikkim. I can go anywhere. But in the SEZs created in my own hinterland I can only enter if I have a pass issued by a civil servant who is appointed as the caretaker of that SEZ,' says Magsaysay Award winner Aruna Roy.
'Those who looted the nation have fled the country.' 'Those with rooms full of cash have already converted their cash into gold and property.'
'They are doing a good surveillance job.' 'It is not easy to undertake this task on such a huge scale given the risks.' 'But home quarantine is not effective.' 'Only institutional quarantine can bring good results.'
The former head commander of the Israeli Security Agency's Anti Terror Security School talks about Al Qaeda, dirty bombs, Chabad House and the 26/11 terror attacks.
'And be confident that we will do a successful operation... Don't ask for a deadline. It is very difficult to say in such cases,' says Major General R K Hooda.
