'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?
At a time when even family relationships have come under strain over political differences, how have Mahesh Bhatt and Anupam Kher remained friends despite their ideological differences?
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.
Hrithik Roshan and Yami Gautam are blind and beautiful in Kaabil.
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.
8 ministers in Modi Sarkar.2 are undergraduates.
'We have 38 Dalits who are MLAs and ministers. But that does not mean the Dalits of Bihar are prospering.'
Syed Firdaus Ashraf marches through time to trace the bitter history between Russia and its West European neighbours.
'Shashi Tharoor is destroying the history of India.' 'He is distorting facts about the Congress party.'
Varun Dhawan excels in the Judwaa 2 trailer.
'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.'
'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.'
'Iranians admire Indian cinema and often mention Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan when you meet them.'
'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.'
'IndiGo is fooling the country and the government has succumbed to it.'
Shankar is India's answer to Hollywood, feels Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
'The implementation of the judgment has largely been left to the discretion of the very executive authorities it sought to restrain.'
'I want to request the central government that they should not target someone just for the sake of targeting him if he has not done anything wrong.'
'If the INDIA bloc ever forms the government, they will be more than tempted to use such provisions to bring about regime change in BJP-ruled states.'
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.
'The people who were protesting and getting violent were all in the age group of 14-25.'
The trailer has everything you were looking for: Suspense, action, drama, plotting and vengeance, cheers Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
Shaheed Maqbool Sherwani changed the course of Indian history forever, but himself lies forgotten in the town he saved.
It's a different Srinagar from what Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf encountered 24 years ago. Tourists throng the Kashmir Valley post-Article 370, azaadi appears dead, and everyone says one man is responsible for this change, so what if his poster is nowhere to be seen.
'I don't want to be called a new Indian voter when I am an old Indian voter.'
'I hope we can move towards peace, stability, and national unity.' 'I believe most Kashmiris want that too.'
Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com does a deep dive into four elections when Narendra Modi resorted to anti-Muslim fervour and points out that Hindu-Muslim politics does not necessarily mean victory for the BJP.
'When you compare Bihar's poverty from its earlier times, then there is a huge difference. Things have improved a lot. And migration has played an important role in reducing poverty.'
...It was original, feels Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
'The government only wakes up after devastation.' 'The government does not understand the gravity of the situation nor they do not want to understand the gravity of the situation.'
If you're young and depressed, and don't know where your life is heading, Naseeruddin Shah seems to have the answer.
'Pakistan wanted India out of Afghanistan to which again the Taliban told Pakistan to take a walk.' 'Six months after they came back to power in 2021 India was back in Afghanistan at the request of the Taliban.' 'The Taliban realised that India has no agenda of its own in Afghanistan.'
'Kashmir needs to be divided and we need the land of Panun Kashmir in Kashmir.'
'These Marathas are farmers and they only do farming. They have no other business other than farming. Now, they want reservations because farming is no longer a profitable business.'In this interview, veteran farmers' rights advocate and founding member of the Shetkari Sanghatna, Vijay Jawandhia, with Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff unpacks the historical and structural roots of the agitation.
And one big, angry family, says Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
'This is just the beginning. You have to wait and watch to see things getting better.'
'The government is distributing land in Ladakh as if they are selling cinema hall tickets.'
Before the violence and rioting that erupted in Nagpur on Monday, March 17, over Mughal emperor Aurangzeb's tomb came provocative statements from various political leaders.
'The government's priority is not farmers.'
