India's majoritarian regime is now making a dangerously fast-paced move towards theocracy, like its western counterpart did a few decades ago, warns Mohammad Sajjad.
So many films have been made with Muslim characters. But how many have actually got them right?
Through its early days to the 1980s, Pakistan sought to expand its sphere of Islamic influence through Afghanistan to Central Asia and got Pakistani citizens recruited in the Afghan government institutions in the 1990s when the Taliban were power. Now, it is looking eastward through India to Bangladesh and Myanmar to establish an imaginary caliphate.
Rana knew about my association with LeT. I informed him about the training imparted by me to LeT operatives. I disclosed to Rana that I was spying for LeT. This was four to five months before the 26/11 attacks," said Headley.
Not only do Modi and Trump's personalities overshadow the high offices they hold, the way they attack people and speak are very similar, observes Karan Thapar.
Movies, their motives and time of release make me wonder if we'll ever be able to see India as India and not a reflection of its governments, notes Sukanya Verma.
The lie detector test on Naved, who is in NIA custody till August 24, be carried out at 11 am on Tuesday at the Central Forensic Science Laboratory in CGO complex, after his interrogators claimed he was lying on many accounts.
Mamnoon Hussain, the India-born nominee of ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, is set to become the 12th president of Pakistan on Tuesday, succeeding incumbent Asif Ali Zardari.
'India serves itself poorly with its latter-day discovery of Pakistan as an instrument in domestic politics,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
David Coleman Headley pens down his life as a terrorist and his turn towards extremism in his new memoir.
'The biggest advantage for India was its seasoned and experienced political leadership who had spent decades struggling against the Raj and had spent years behind bars.' 'Not a single prominent leader of the Muslim League spent one day in jail.' 'Gandhiji, Nehru and Sardar Patel were intelligent, shrewd men with their hands on the popular pulse.'
'Given that he would have a good understanding of how many jobs the economy can create at the moment, was Modi hailing the modest pakoda-seller to infuse some charm in self-employment?' asks Udit Misra.
'There is need to invent another enemy.' 'If you can add Maoists to Muslims, the tukde-tukde thread will tie in nicely.' 'You might even have a 'nation in grave danger' story by the summer of 2019,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
From Pakeezah to Ladies vs Ricky Bahl, from Shatranj ki Khilari to Umrao Jaan, the great city of Lucknow has made its way to the wornderful world of Hindi films.
India slams the Pakistani prime minister for 'unwarranted reference to J&K' during pious occasion.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has announced a reward of Rs 5 lakh for anyone providing information on Zishan Johar and Amjad Ali Rana, the two persons who were killed in an encounter along with Ishrat Jahan in June 2004.
'He was carrying his Indian passport. This seems like a very different sort of spy than the ones we see in movies, who carry fake passports and are highly trained,' says Aakar Patel.
Between its sentimental leanings and farcical outbursts, the superficial sermonising of Dharam Sankat Mein remains just that -- superficial, says Sukanya Verma.
'The current government must act sooner rather than later,' asserts Vivek Gumaste.
Don't forget to make your pick for the newsmaker of 2015.
If viewed as a part of the Al Qaeda's radicalisation effort to produce jihadists out of discontented Muslim youth in India, the call could well have a much larger dimension, both in the near as well as long term, directly impacting on national security, says Bibhu Prasad Routray.
Only nine out of India's 29 states have Hindi as the official language, so why impose Hindi on the other states, asks Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
The man behind Aligarh Muslim University 200 years on.
Fresh clashes erupted on Monday morning between police and hundreds of anti-government protesters who forcibly entered the heavily-guarded Pakistan Secretariat in Islamabad after breaking its gate, hours after the powerful military asked all parties to peacefully resolve the political crisis.
'The so-called separatists are representatives of Pakistan. They get paid from Islamabad for propagating that country's policy and conniving in her ploy of accession of Kashmir to Pakistan.'
'Of all the PMs of India, I had the closest relationships with Morarji and Rajiv.' Mark Tully, the most famous foreign correspondent in India, remembers some encounters with prime ministers, dictators and militants.
Bilawal Bhutto's political inheritance is his biggest asset as well as the biggest liability as he tries to make his mark in Pakistan politics. Challenging the Taliban militants is part of that strategy, though it matches with his political ideology. Shahzad Raza profiles the son of Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari.
'News is rife that Pakistan will attack the next day. They have no idea that this is where they will take on the might of 1 Armoured Division of Pakistan in a three-day bloody battle that will be remembered in military history as the Battle of Asal Uttar.' Rachna Bisht Rawat salutes the brave men turned the tide of the '65 war.
Aston Villa's relegation from the Premier League for the first time and from the English the top flight after 28 years leaves Bikash Mohapatra/Rediff.com with a tinge of regret.
What got the Jats of Haryana so furious?
'She's a young, fragile, innocent girl who is put through a tumultuous journey.' 'Her fragility remains intact, and she does not metamorphose into a superwoman.' 'Alia has that vulnerability and fragility in her.'
'Tigers fails to understand that the phenomenon of a million babies dying because there is not enough clean drinking water in which to mix a certain packaged baby formula may have its source in a system where deprivation runs so deep that even a small gift works like a tonic,' argues Sreehari Nair.
'Today, where are singers like Udit Narayan, Kumar Sanu and Abhijit Bhattacharya? They didn't sing anything apart from Bollywood. When there is a change in trend, you are gone. But I will remain for another 50 years. I will sing for films and do other stuff too.' The Rathods discuss their music.
The various theories and statements about the culpability/innocence of 1993 blasts accused Yakub Memon present him with a Rashomon act, says Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
In a golden moment in Pakistan's chequered 66-year political history, President Asif Ali Zardari on Sunday left the presidency after successfully completing his five-year term, paving the way for India-born Mamnoon Hussain to take over.
I love India and intend to live and die here, but I also want to be able to freely question its imperfections. Just as I have the freedom to say that Islam has been hijacked by a gang of demonic and utterly vile hoodlums and that the rest of us Muslims seem helpless to combat this evil, says Laila Tyabji.
'Sent off to interview him in the late 1970s I met him in a cafe in New Delhi's Regal Building called The Parlour. With impromptu send-ups of Laurence Olivier, Sybil Thorndike and the rich, gravelly tones of a well-known All India Radio Hindi newsreader called Devki Nandan Pandey, he soon had the whole restaurant listening in.'
'Besides electoral opportunism, a sustained vilification of AMU on one or the other pretext helps them sustain their 'everyday communalism', the new strategy of the BJP of the Narendra Damodardas Modi-Amit Anilchandra Shah era,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
Has New Delhi internalised the truth that it does not matter, asks Saeed Naqvi. Such deafening silence from the government, principal opposition, even the pundits!
Director Danis Tanovic, producer Anurag Kashyap and actor Emraan Hashmi have created an inspiring work of international collaboration with Tigers. Arthur J Pais reports from Toronto.
