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.
Rajinikanth may have made his last Hindi film two decades ago but he can still set the screen alight, blazing away with a gun that has dozens of barrels. As Thalaiva turns 75 on December 12, Dinesh Raheja looks back at his 17 year journey in Hindi cinema.
The brother of the chancellor of Al Falah University, linked to the Delhi blast probe, has been arrested by Madhya Pradesh police from Hyderabad in connection with nearly 25-year-old fraud cases.
Dharmendra remained one of the most loved stars of all time, even when his movies tapered off, and age caught up with him.
Nitish thought that his stakes as chief minister were far greater than his stakes in protecting one of his party MLAs. He could not allow his rule-of-law train to be derailed by a small rock on the track. On the contrary, if he removed it to keep the train moving at a steady speed he would gain strong public admiration and sympathy that would help him take the masses along in carrying out other tasks. A fascinating excerpt from Arun Sinha's Nitish Kumar And The Rise Of Bihar.
Wondering what to watch on OTT this weekend? Namrata Thakker lists options to choose from.
Records stretching back to 1947 suggest a consistent strategy by Pakistan's military and intelligence apparatus, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), of using terrorism as a state policy against India.
A woman and her teenage son were allegedly killed by their domestic help at their home in the Lajpat Nagar area of southeast Delhi. The accused was later arrested while trying to flee.
A BJP youth wing leader and his cousin were murdered by armed assailants in Thane district, Maharashtra. Police have launched an investigation and detained two people for questioning.
'The CM's credibility is on the line.'
An Australian court on Friday sentenced a 22-year-old student from Punjab to life imprisonment for stabbing two of his Indian flatmates to death over a dispute. Jagdeep Singh pleaded guilty to murdering Navdeep Singh, 20, and Kawaldeep Singh, 19, on February 11 this year.During the sentencing, Justice John McKechnie in the Perth Supreme Court, noted the high level of stabbings carried out by young men in Perth.
Shivkumar Rajbhar told police that he and four others eliminated the duo in Mumbai after Hema defaulted on a payment for an idol made by his employer, Vidyadhar alias Vidya, a metal fabrication artist who is missing and is prime suspect.
A 24-year-old man killed his employer's wife and teenage son in Delhi's Lajpat Nagar after being publicly scolded for not repaying a loan. The accused, Mukesh Kumar, was arrested while trying to flee.
A local court on Friday denied the police the permission to conduct a narco analysis test on artist Chintan Upadhyay, arrested in connection with murders of his estranged wife Hema Upadhyay and her lawyer Harish Bhambhani, after he refused to give his consent for the procedure.
Deepak Yadav confessed that he shot at his daughter Radhika because he was often taunted for living off her income.
Maa, Mission, Salman Khan back to his Bigg Boss ways, Sukanya Verma lists your OTT picks this week.
The similar modus operandi in all these murders has led the police to suspect the involvement of gangsters, the officer further said.
Akshay Kumar's patriotism, Rana Naidu's fury, Snow White's fair and lovely attitude... emotions run high on OTT this week.
The Congress party has accused the Election Commission of India (ECI) of incompetence and partisanship following the Chief Election Commissioner's (CEC) defense of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar. The party alleges the CEC failed to address concerns about voter list irregularities and is acting in favor of the ruling BJP.
A surge in violent crimes, including targeted killings, has raised concerns about law and order in Bihar. Police attribute the rise to the widespread availability of illegal firearms and ammunition.
The Congress on Sunday demanded a thorough probe into Siddique's murder and said Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his deputy Devendra Fadnavis, who holds home portfolio, should take moral responsibility for law and order "failure" and resign.
SpiceJet on Sunday said a senior Army officer, who was to board a flight to Delhi, assaulted four airline ground staffers at the Srinagar airport on July 26, and one of them suffered a spinal fracture.
A 55-year-old Dalit government official and his wife were found murdered in their house in an Azamgarh village on Monday morning with their throats slit open with some sharp-edged weapon, police said.
Soldiers, cops, detectives, K-Pop idols, here's everything you can catch on OTT this week.
A SpiceJet employee, Mudasir Ahmad Khan, claims he was assaulted by an army officer at Srinagar airport for enforcing baggage rules. He demands action against the officer, while the army says it is cooperating with the investigation.
With 17 films crossing the Rs 100 crore mark in the first six months, this year relied less on big-ticket blockbusters.
"From the beginning, as of last summer, we've worked closely with our Five Eyes partners, particularly with the United States, where they have gone through a similar pattern of behaviour from India in regards to an attempted extrajudicial killing," Trudeau told reporters at a news conference in Ottawa.
He made the comments while visiting the site of an early morning Iranian missile strike in the city of Bat Yam, close to Tel Aviv.
In Uttar Pradesh's Budaun double murder case, the surviving brother of the two deceased children and an eyewitness to the incident has claimed that two people came to the house and took his brothers on the terrace.
Until they were arrested on charges of murdering their husbands. That they were women from small towns who broke out of stereotype in the most brutal way possible led to sensational headlines, frantic curiosity and also gave fodder to a series of misogynistic memes and jokes.
Witches and westerns, goosebumps and goldfish, it's all there on OTT this week.
South African athlete Oscar Pistorius, known as the "Blade Runner" for his carbon-fibre prosthetic legs, was released on parole on Friday, nearly 11 years after murdering his girlfriend.
Housefull 5 is the most idiotic thing I've watched this year so far, asserts Sukanya Verma.
South African former Paralympic star Oscar Pistorius is set to be released on parole on Friday, nearly 11 years after murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in a crime that shocked a nation long inured to violence against women.
Everything in Good Bad Ugly seems copied, rues A Ganesh Nadar.
On Monday, stockbroker Gautam Vora was arrested for shielding Vijay Palande, the key accused in the gruesome double murders of Delhi-based businessman Arun Kumar Tikku and consultant Karan Kakkar. He also happened to be the boyfriend of supermodel Viveka Babajee, who had allegedly committed suicide in 2010 and was almost implicated in the case.
Body parts of the man's mother were found on February 19 near Cherrapunji.
The Delhi high court on Monday granted bail to four convicts serving life imprisonment in the murder case of TV journalist Soumya Vishwanathan.
'The prowess with which they executed the shootings unmistakably bear the imprint of someone who has had professional training.'
All the 10 accused who were found guilty under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including 302 (murder), 364A (kidnapping for ransom) and Section 506 (2) (Punishment for criminal intimidation) have been awarded double life term in the case, Special Public Prosecutor C S Ajayan told reporters.
