Syed Firdaus Ashraf offers a ready reckoner on Javed Akhtar's great great grandfather Fazl e Haq Khairabadi who fought the British empire during the 1857 Mutiny and was imprisoned in the Cellular Jail in Port Blair.
When I approached Shah Rukh, my palms were sweaty. I didn't know what to say to him. But there is\n\nalways a first time.
'The BJP's top leadership realised that their cadres are not happy with them, so they changed the ministers and got in new faces.'
'He is a man of action and goes to the ground and solves the problem.' 'Be it the Air India crash of Ahmedabad, Morbi bridge collapse, Deesa blast or Gambhira bridge collapse, he is on the spot.'
'Many senior Bangladeshis feel Bangladesh will fall into anarchy if the Jamaat becomes an important part of a future government or has disproportionate influence in the government.'
'Critics say the political leadership abandoned the army chief or did not back him. I disagree. 'Military leaders are trained to take decisions when given a free hand.' 'This was a clear go-ahead from the prime minister to the army chief.'
'He is the same man who has won honours for the country across the world.'
'We cannot enter any flat in Satguru building until the watchman gives us access.'
'The worst part is that after the attack on December 9, the Dehradun police refused to register an FIR for the murder.'
'MGNREGA was about a guaranteed right to work.' 'The new law does not guarantee employment at all.' 'It removes everything that made MGNREGA a legal guarantee.'
Dominic Xavier offers his take on how Sachin Pilot is keeping everyone guessing about his future move.
'The Pakistan establishment keeps him well protected.'
'Punjab floods are a calamity.' 'Right from Firozpur to Amritsar nearly 1 lakh homes have been completely damaged due to floods.'concern about the state of affairs.
'He decides who will be Pakistan's prime minister, president, even provincial chief ministers.'
Bobby Deol talks about his next film, Ab Tumhare
'I believe Modiji hai toh mumkin hai.'
As the year draws to a close, Rediff's Senior Contributor Roshmila Bhattacharya takes a look at the hits and misses, the highs and lows, the newsmakers and the dealbreakers in alphabetical order.
'Women in crime can turn on and off emotions like a tap.' 'Something that comes in the way of their goals can be eliminated without a second thought.'
'As a defence lawyer I won't know if a policeman under cross questioning is being prompted to answer by someone behind his computer screen.'
'Afzal Guru became a victim of Pakistan's conspiracy. He was used as a means, just like all other innocent Kashmiris.'
At Srinagar's famed Lal Chowk, Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf meets a computer engineer who drives an auto for a living and discovers that Kashmiris are more interested in finding jobs than discussing the assembly election.
A sixth of AAP's 67 MLAs in Delhi are either out on bail or behind bars in cases ranging from domestic abuse to sexual harassment, to desecration of holy books, to corruption charges.
Syed Firdaus Ashraf feels director Omung Kumar shares too much in the trailer of his upcoming film, Bhoomi.
'Anyone they don't like can be potentially arrested and thrown in jail for 30 days to induce regime change.'
Scenes from Azad Maidan.
'There is no substantive basis for Bangladesh-Pakistan relations. The only real link they can have is mischief, with Pakistan's intelligence agency using Bangladesh to create trouble along our eastern borders.'
'It makes law-making on the part of the state governments much more difficult and throws up bottlenecks as governors are not acting on bills.'
'IndiGo is fooling the country and the government has succumbed to it.'
'We have 38 Dalits who are MLAs and ministers. But that does not mean the Dalits of Bihar are prospering.'
One Anil Kapoor seems more entertaining than two Arjun Kapoors!
Puzzled about the Waqf Bill? Syed Firdaus Ashraf explains how the amended Waqf law will plug loopholes in the existing legislation.
All the 12 cabin crew members, including two pilots, on board the ill-fated London-bound Air India flight were killed in the Ahmedabad air crash on Thursday.
'The implementation of the judgment has largely been left to the discretion of the very executive authorities it sought to restrain.'
A seasoned politician and two-term Member of Parliament, Dr Shakeel Ahmad, who has served as a Union minister and senior Congress leader, resigned from the Congress party, marking the end of his decades-long association with an organisation that his family has been part of for three generations. In an interview with Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff he speaks why he quit the party.
'I don't want to be called a new Indian voter when I am an old Indian voter.'
'Maharashtra election result is a chamatkar of EVM.' 'There has been a sudden one percent rise in the voting percentage after the counting day.' 'This is what made the difference to the election results.' 'How did this vote percentage increase after counting day?
A look at the fun pictures of the visit.
'Shashi Tharoor is destroying the history of India.' 'He is distorting facts about the Congress party.'
