A childhood favourite turned silver. A childhood icon passed away. And a childhood heartthrob from Hollywood showed up to surprise a movie screening. Sukanya Verma's super-filmi week.
If India is to follow a smart cultural diplomacy, it has unmatched advantages over both China and Pakistan, says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Aruneel Sadadekar/Rediff.com lists five matches you can't afford to miss out at the ICC's marquee event.
Pakistan's hawkish Army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who did little to change the force's India-centric stance, will leave the world's sixth-largest army grappling with a host of security challenges when he steps down on Friday.
The much-anticipated IPL-style football league to be held early next year will be christened as the Indian Super League even as the organisers IMG-Reliance disclosed the roping in of four more big international stars.
Further deterioration of the US-Saudi relationship will have geo-economic and geopolitical effects, says Nitin Pai.
The start of Indian lobbying in the US can be traced back to Pakistan's anti-India lobbying. Policy wonk Ashok Sharma documents this journey and its catalytic role in transforming the US-India relationship.
'I wasn't sure if I could carry off a bikini well. So I did a photo shoot and showed it Madhur Bhandarkar. He said it looked great. That gave me the confidence to carry it off.' Meet Calendar girl Avani Modi.
A round-up of all the results from the 16th World Athletic Championships in London
'India alone cannot walk the path of peace. It also has to be Pakistan's journey to make,' says Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the government's geo-political flagship initiative "Raisina Dialogue-II".
The party also said it would be a travesty to treat the current unrest in the Valley as a mere law and order problem.
According to community leaders, Rajnath Singh has filled party posts with Thakurs and pushed Brahmins to the margins. Archis Mohan reports
'Nitish is now a helpless junior ally of Hindutva.' 'He just cannot think of reining in the hoodlums raging, marauding and killing in the mohallas,' argues Mohammad Sajjad.
'Xi Jinping got a dose of Modi's medicine inside the tent where he was being hosted on the banks of the Sabarmati river.' 'Modi reportedly told him, looking deep into his eyes: "This was not expected of your country. Can you tell me when the troops are withdrawing?".'
India's Muslims need to assert their educational and economic upliftment and political empowerment rather than be provoked by communal remarks, says Mohammad Sajjad, reflecting on the Malda riot.
The Andhra Pradesh chief minister has just witnessed his state's division and the idea of leaving the Congress to launch a regional party might leave him with nothing, says Aditi Phadnis
With nearly a million identified slums, UP urgently requires housing for the poor
Almost three hours go like a breeze in the company of Bahubali's eclectic protagonists, where every single one makes an 'entry' designed for wolf-whistle.
Six serials blasts rocked the venue of Narendra Modi's rally in Patna minutes before he arrived there to address the gathering while another crude bomb exploded at the railway station, leaving five dead and over a fifty injured.
PM Modi seems to be gradually ending India's strategic ambiguity
'With the recent challenging of the notion of the Indian Ocean Region being India's strategic backyard, China is gradually upping the ante in the maritime realm around India.'
'It was a mission undertaken in darkness in every sense -- literally, because Afghanistan had no electricity at that time; and, metaphorically because Delhi historically dealt only with the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and the foreign ministry's vast archives had nothing to offer on the culture and politics of the northern tribes in the Hindu Kush.'
Coming full circle, Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party, which left the National Democratic Alliance in 2002, is all set to align with in Bihar for Lok Sabha polls, giving a jolt to Congress' plans to have a "secular" alliance with LJP and Rashtriya Janata Dal.
'Clearly, from the Indian viewpoint, the US retrenchment from Asia cannot be happening as good news.' 'The abandonment of the US' pivot to Asia exposes the US-Indian partnership to be a mere transactional relationship,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar
In our special series revisiting great Hindi film classics, we look back at Randhir Kapoor and Jaya Bhaduri's 1972 film, Jawani Diwani.
All Naxal-affected states demonstrate police as well as governance incapacities. Odd occasions of success and temporary dip in Naxal violence notwithstanding, the states have utterly failed to dominate and make their presence felt over areas under the extremist domination, says Bibhu Prasad Routray.
The California Superbike School, which has trained many MotoGP and WSBK champions in various countries, will train Indian riders now.
During his lifetime and after, Ambani aroused extreme responses in others.
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Monday
While even the Opposition doesn't believe that Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy is personally involved in the solar scam, the Congress leaders reputation has been tainted. And while he tells Indulekha Aravind that it is only a conspiracy, it may have a bearing on the coming general elections
Bogged down by inefficient administration and unable to attract financing, the once legendary football clubs of Kolkata are fading into irrelevance.
'The path to a resolution of the ethnic conflict is likely to be complicated and controversial with the majority Sinhalese community, and will become less likely if delayed.' 'It will certainly give Rajapaksa fresh political oxygen with which to revive himself and rally the opposition.'
'The ISI has given a stunning display of its capacity to do with impunity what it likes within Kabul. Incensed over the triumphalism of the hardliners in Kabul, the ISI has hit out; it is a typical ISI reflex action that Indians are familiar with,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'If the government starts playing favourites, if the government acts in a manner which is not transparent, then natural resources which belong to not just you and me, but future generations, they fritter away. The anger against corruption, the anger against India's natural resources being looted is a consequence of the fact that within society there is a huge amount of turmoil and discontentment. Why should an Empowered Group Of Ministers or the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs decide the administered price of gas?' asks Paranjoy Guha Thakurta in this exclusive interview with Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
Reason must triumph over blind faith, says Praful Bidwai in this tribute to murdered rationalist Narendra Dabholkar.
'The obsession of the Pakistan army with India leads to several destabilising things. Support for the Taliban in Afghanistan. Support for groups like the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, that have attacked India. Every time you get an attack like that there is a possibility of a war. And then the build up of the their nuclear arsenals. Chances of a nuclear weapon landing in the hands of a terrorist group, or a nuclear war breaking out, are tiny. But they are higher here than anywhere else in the world.'
'It is time for all Indians to understand the truth that led to a 10-year long bloodbath in Punjab and not attempt to glorify the terrorists under the garb of human rights violations or scratch old wounds,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd), on the 30th anniversary of Operation Bluestar.
'The horrific episode of January 18 in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, is quite different from what happened in Muzaffarnagar, UP, in September 2013. The Akhilesh Yadav-led administration in UP and riot-mongers among our political formations need to learn lessons from the response of the state and society in Bihar's Muzaffarpur,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
New Delhi and Beijing are the only two regional capitals that have commented on US President Donald Trump's speech on August 21 outlining the way forward in Afghanistan. The Indian foreign ministry statement was effusive in praise, while the Chinese statement has been one of cautious and guarded hope. Delhi has identified itself with Trump's Afghan strategy, whereas the Chinese stance is calibrated -- observant and objective, keeping a distance, says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Mary just stopped talking to me. Maybe she did not like the fact that she was the gold medallist, but it was me (Sarita), not her, who was getting all the attention.'
