'If I get posted to a place, if people engage with me just as an Indian diplomat, I have X amount of leverage.' 'But when they look at me as the high commissioner of India and the author of Slumdog Millionaire, many more people are willing to meet me, more quickly than they would as a pure diplomat.'
Sreehari Nair attempts to bring you up-close the pleasures of Javed Akhtar's poetry.
Aseem Chhabra salutes the late Italian Master and his cinema.
A group of 'queer' and 'cis queer' women in Chennai have come together to form this space on Facebook where they can interact with like-minded girls about themselves and their day to day problems.
Thirty years after the massacre at Tiananmen Square, coerced collective amnesia envelops the Chinese nation about that horrific event. Claude Arpi glances back at how the student uprising could have changed the Middle Kingdom forever had the Chinese Communist party not traveled on the route of martial law.
Going behind the scenes with director Mira Nair.
Insurance companies are going all out to grab eyeballs.
Do we really need to wait for a special day to be reminded of our country's rich heritage and culture, asks author and management guru Virender Kapoor.
'Outsiders are the ones who have to make the biggest journey to realise themselves, to come back to some sense of normality.' Director Jacques Audiard and actor Jesuthasan Antonythasan discuss the human landscape behind the award-winning film, Dheepan, with Aseem Chhabra/Rediff.com
After performing with Manipuri artistes the world over, Astad Deboo, India's greatest contemporary dancer, performed with artistes of the Shri Shri Govindajee Nat Sankirtan in Imphal for the first time.
Mumbai dancers fuse lyrical hip hop and b-boying with elements of American cheerleading and trapeze-esque bits from the circus.
One of the best stories coming out of Bihar is about a place where Chandragupta Maurya, Buddha, Ashoka, Sher Shah Suri and India's Mona Lisa meet.
Here's a glimpse of all that happened around the world last month.
'Not only are the concerns expressed in Stree (patriarchy, consent, prejudice against women) mere excuses to touch our 'sentimental hotspots', the movie itself is a few tricks cobbled together,' says Sreehari Nair.
Aseem Chhabra gives us the top films that enriched his year.
With the festival of colours only a few days away, we thought we'd bask in the glory of its many shades through effervescent Bollywood songs.
All the action from around the world last week, in case you missed it.
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy's next film is about aging Pakistani musicians who get a second chance because of jazz.
R K Studios is not just another piece of real estate; it is part of India's movie history.
Her great grandfather began sugar co-operatives in Maharashtra. Her grandfather was an eight time MP. Her uncle is currently leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra assembly. Her cousin joined the BJP on Tuesday, March 12. Nila Vikhe Patil, who could one day become prime minister of Sweden, unravels her India connections in an e-mail interaction with Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.
He recalled that democracy-lovers had fought a big battle against the Emergency.
Sreehari Nair could not put up with turgid and self-serious ones like Super Deluxe and Gully Boy. His list of favourite Indian movies of 2019 contains just five names.
Remnants of the Khalistan movement in Vancouver may stage a protest against Prime Minister Modi
Over 70,000 people are expected to turn out for the event on November 13.
'Guruji inspired and indeed, changed the lives of so many for the better in the United States, in India, and elsewhere.' 'If you knew him, ever saw him teach, saw him dance, you would have thought that if anyone would live forever, if anyone could defy the inevitability of mortality, it would have been Pandit Chitresh Dasji.' Hours after renowned Kathak maestro Pandit Chitresh Das, 70, died of acute aortic dissection in his home in California, tributes poured in honouring the great dancer, and an even greater human being. Ritu Jha/Rediff.com reports
The band's trip to Rishikesh delayed their split till 1970! This & other unheard stories...
'Chetan Bhagat is not great literature. Is that like you write third rate books and people can't do much better than to read those third rate books. Is it really an achievement?'
Eatwithindia is creating an event wherein 36 royal families will play host and share their culinary traditions.
The situation is unlike any other legislation/ordinance that governments at the Centre and states had passed on earlier occasions after the higher judiciary had held certain laws, orders or decisions ultra vires of the Constitution, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The real danger in India right now is that identity politics is being stoked in extremely dangerous ways.' 'The narrative you get about churches in the mainstream Indian media and the narrative you get in the social media is very different.' 'Many Americans today want to appropriate Indian culture. They want yoga, but they say yoga has nothing to do with Hinduism. They want Ayurveda, but they say it's got nothing to do with Hinduism.' 'Hinduism has been failed by political constituencies in India -- seculars and the right-wing.'
'The nicest thing is that it is not my film.' 'People bring their own stories and life histories to the film.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi sells his Indian dream to the Diaspora at a packed Madison Square Garden in New York
'When I woke up on New Year's morning last week, it occurred to me that nobody had bothered to investigate how Christmas and the year end were different in my adopted home town of Bournemouth -- a charming place on the south coast of England -- from what played out on the streets of Pala in Kerala. This was clearly an important omission,' says Chindu Sreedharan, and sets out to correct it.
Few in India know that Elvis & Namrata won at the World Salsa Summit in Miami!
GenNext designer Akshat Bansal believes Indians are finally ready to experiment with fashion and look for individuality.
Rediff.com's Rajesh Karkera shares his impressions from the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India's landmark artistic extravaganza.
Don't miss the hottest buzz from the world of fashion and entertainment.
Making her film debut with The Householder, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala wrote more screenplays than novels, winning two Oscars -- for A Room with a View and Howards End. She kept her distance from the film crowd, seeking refuge in the 'protective' company of her two life-long collaborators, Director James Ivory and Producer Ismail Merchant.
Make The World Wonderful, an NGO founded by Meghana Dabbara in 2015, is on a mission to set up 2,500 child adoption programme centres by 2023.
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