'There is no future for the Shiv Sena under Uddhavji's leadership.'
Lata: 'Do you feel you are happy now?' Kishore Kumar: 'I am very happy. By the grace of God, I want nothing. If there is anything I want, it is to return back home, home is Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh. I hear it calling me.'
As soon as he entered his barrack, Rahul noticed a group of seven inmates seated on their mattresses under the television set. They must be the terrorists, Rahul thought to himself. He knew that such accused are usually housed in murder barracks, far from jingoistic gangsters, who tend to abuse and attack them. A fascinating excerpt from Gangster On The Run: The True Story Of A Reformed Criminal.
An illuminating excerpt from T C A Raghavan's History Men: Jadunath Sarkar, G S Sardesai, Raghubir Sinh And Their Quest For India's Past.
The star was chosen to deliver the Penguin Annual Lecture.
'Never before in Bengal had a single party been re-elected with two-thirds of the assembly,' notes Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien.
Drones may have been used for non-lethal purposes but state-sponsored assassinations and semi-covert wars are fuelling their boom and not scientific missions or creative activists, says American political activist Medea Benjamin.
Former Miss India International Sveta Jaishankar's new cookbook has recipes from India's top models and actors.
'ISI's leverage on the Kashmir insurgency turned out less than successful...'
Satyajit Ray would have been 97 today, May 2. Soumendu Roy, who worked with the legendary director for many years, looks back on the Genius that was Manikda, as the Master was known to family, friends and admirers.
Pandit Ravi Shankar was George Harrison's link into the Vedic world.
'Yes, seriously. This was the time she was going through a bad phase; her personal life was a mess after her alleged affair with Amitabh Bachchan ended and her career was going nowhere.'
'Some of his decisions were not so good, but his intentions were always guided by a deep national interest.'
'I wasn't interested in shackling my freedom to a Bollywood actor.' A fascinating excerpt from Lisa Ray's memoir Close To The Bone.
Devdutt Pattanaik, who has simplified the ancient Indian scriptures for millions of readers, highlights what our scriptures have to say about homosexuals and transgenders.
The ongoing civil war in the White House between representatives of the Alt Right, such as Steve Bannon, and the pragmatists has to end for Trump to complete a four-year term, says Hardeep S Puri.
Film music flourished in the 1970s. Some old masters did some great work, but it was also the decade of new composers.
'The lush green of Kashmir was exactly like the postcards and posters I had seen growing up.'
'A Life With Wildlife is a must for all who are concerned about how a billion Indians will coexist with over 500 mammals and 1,300 birds, not to mention 25,000 flowering plant species in the new century,' says Mahesh Rangarajan.
'We did not know we would one day dominate nearly 70 per cent of the market.' 'Today, of 100 diamonds available for trade in Antwerp, 93 are cut and polished in India.' A fascinating excerpt from Shantanu Guha Ray's The Diamond Trail: How India Rose To Global Domination.
'I will need a few more pictures, sir, can I get some time from you for a more extended photo shoot?' asked Singh. Modi, ever-obliging before the camera, laughed. 'Sure, but let us plan to do it after my swearing-in is over in May!' The Balakot effect was evident. A fascinating excerpt from Rajdeep Sardesai's 2019: How Modi Won India.
'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.'
'Unquestionably, the spirit behind the Panchsheel agreement and the 'Hindi Chini bhai bhai' slogan were thrown overboard by the Chinese, and a trust deficit was injected between the two nations.' A revealing excerpt from General J J Singh's The McMahon Line: A Century Of Discord.
Manmohan Singh had joined a pre-medical course as his father wanted him to become a doctor but pulled out after a couple of months, losing interest in the subject, according to a book on the former prime minister by his daughter.
The Quantico star reveals it all.
His challenge now may be coping with Alibaba's undoubted status as a whale in the world of e-commerce.
'Imagine a situation where an upright officer refuses to carry out a chief minister's or a central minister's orders that he considers wrong.' 'Can he be summarily thrashed at a meeting at your residence, or in his own office?' 'If AAP legitimises political violence, there are many, many, tougher political leaders elsewhere to draw the wrong lessons,' warns Shekhar Gupta.
'Extravagant new promises can buy him time, but far from solving the problem, they compound the risk.' 'His main alternative is to stress not aspirations, but resentments.' 'He has already de-emphasised aspirational appeals: Nothing has been heard for over two years of the coming of achhe din,' points out James Manor.
Mukund Rajan, who worked closely with Ratan Tata, recalls the unique experience of working with the corporate titan.
'The Hindu quest for political power in terms of a Hindu identity can pose a problem for tolerance, as the alignment of religion with power often does.'
No matter how much the likes of Modi brag about cleaning up politics, the goondas and the godfathers will flourish until India can deliver justice to its poor and the system can work to the benefit of ordinary Indians, says Vir Sanghvi.
'Smita had it all planned out. She was pregnant then and planning to leave Raj Babbar after the baby was born. In an enthralling new book Smita Patil, A Brief Incandescence (HarperCollins), Maithili Rao reveals the many fascinating facets of the incomparable actress whom we lost too young.
The markets are in meltdown. Time then to turn to the Master Investor for advice and guidance. Yefei Lu explains how Warren Buffet's investment strategy includes everything from how to look at risk versus reward to how to think about portfolio concentration.
'My age? It keeps changing every year. I can't remember it. I don't like ageing at all,' dancer Mrinalini Sarabhai, who passed into the ages on Thursday, told Jasmine Shah Verma in October 2004. Reproduced with kind permission from Harmony - Celebrate Age magazine.
'India must close the missile technology gap with both China and Pakistan as early as possible, or else the credibility of India's nuclear deterrence will remain suspect,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
Zarreen Khan's book Koi Good News? is hilarious journal of a reluctant Indian couple's journey into parenthood.
'They will talk about secularism, but communalism -- they just won't say there exists such a beast.' 'It's harmful for society to brush it under the carpet.' 'If we talk about secularism, we must talk about communalism.'
'The military aim in a future conflict, if it can't be avoided, should be to cause maximum damage to the adversary's war waging capability and capture limited amount of territory as a bargaining counter,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
29 years ago, Karnataka was hurled into a huge political crisis after MLAs withdrew support to S R Bommai's Janata Dal ministry. As the governor recommended that the chief minister be dismissed and President's Rule imposed in the state, then President R Venkataraman disagreed with Rajiv Gandhi's Cabinet and argued that 'the question whether a ministry commanded the confidence of the assembly should be tested in the House and not by the governor.' A fascinating excerpt from President Venkataraman's My Presidential Years, published with the kind permission of the publishers HarperCollins India.
The solution to the Kashmir problem does not lie in India speaking to Pakistan; it does not lie in the Indian government speaking to the separatists; it lies in the Kashmiris talking to their inner selves. They need to trace their history to include their rich cultural heritage of Hindu Saivism and Sufi mysticism. Only then will Kashmiris be at peace with themselves, says Vivek Gumaste.
