'My heart weeps for Vajpayee, the prince among poets, the king among politicians and the emperor among statesmen,' says Sudhir Bisht.
Noisy protests disrupted the both houses of the Parliament on the first day of the second part of the budget session
'Suddenly, a deafening silence surrounds us. Broken occasionally by the sighs of those who admired this consummate actor, this splendid human being, and trying to grapple with the impermanence of mortal life.' Rinki Roy Bhattacharya, legendary filmmaker Bimal Roy's eldest daughter, celebrates Farouque Shaikh's life.
He was the army commander who planned Operation Bluestar. As army chief he planned Operation Brasstacks which rattled the Pakistan army. General K Sundarji was brilliant, ambitious and controversial, remembers Rahul Bedi.
The swearing in of the new members will begin on Thursday and continue on Friday, when the Lok Sabha speaker will be elected. Rediff.com contributor Renu Mittal reports
Carrie Fisher, who made Star Wars character Princess Leia so popular, passed into the ages on December 28
The last session of Parliament started off on a noisy note as pro and anti-Telangana MPs sparred with each other on the floor of the two houses.
Phillip Hughes's sad demise barely a week before the first India and Australia Test has put a question mark over the series opener and batting great Sunil Gavaskar feels the onus is on the cricket boards of the two countries to decide whether to call off the match or not.
Members from parties like the Congress, the Trinamool Congress, the Left parties and the Rashtriya Janata Dal created uproar in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha as soon as the Houses met for the day.
Congress workers must feel what their BJP counterparts did in 2009, but that could change.
Slogan shouting Congress and BJP members on Monday forced four adjournments of Rajya Sabha demanding dismissal of SAD-BJP government in Punjab over alleged atrocities against Dalit youths.
'Every Ali obituary I read made the point that he 'transcended his sport' -- a reference to the many battles he fought with America even as he fought in America.' 'What the obituaries leave out is that Ali equally transcended the boundaries of geography and of information -- as witness the Chennai teen who assimilated that most mobile of fighters through still images shorn of context.'
A rare meeting of the Congress Working Committee was held at 24 Akbar Road but after several hours of deliberations, Congress President Sonia Gandhi failed to put forward a road map for the party's revival or how to broaden the party's shrinking voter base. Instead, Gandhi focused much of her opening remarks on laying out a critique of the Narendra Modi government.
'Terrorism is merely a symptom of a deeper disease in Pakistan's body politic,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Where do the big guns stand as counting underway for the Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand elections?
Over the years, Mr Singh has got in and out of innumerable businesses, cutting across sectors. He is one businessman who I have always found to be in a start-up mode, says Bhupesh Bhandari.
Opposition members kept on shouting 'Pradhan Mantri sadan me aao'.
Mohammad Sajjad salutes the memory of Mushirul Hasan -- historian, thinker, academic, institution builder, -- who passed into the ages this week.
'I used to be humiliated.' 'If I would approach an actor, he would just say hello and then turn away.' 'That's when I understood the whole game of the industry.'
A game that is synonymous with the values of fair play and sportsmanship was left heartbroken at the loss of one its favourite sons, a kid from a banana plantation who dared to dream big.
'His essential doctrine was only the local police can fight terror.' '"You can't fire at mobs throwing stones," he said, adding one has to think innovatively, even defensively, sometimes.' Shekhar Gupta remembers the uncoventional SuperCop.
With almost 300 seats to the Lok Sabha being dominated by regional outfits, the Congress has added to the list by giving space to more regional forces in the Seema-Andhra and Telangana regions, says Saroj Nagi.
The yellowing obituaries are looking premature as serve-and-volley tennis creeps, with a few tweaks, towards a renaissance of sorts.
'Castro's huge appeal lies in the fact that he stood up to the Americans.' 'However, it becomes difficult to be judgmental about his legacy, because there are huge uncertainties about the future of the Cuba that he built,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
On Thursday, November 3, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav will launch his Samajwadi Rath Yatra. The official launch of the party's election campaign, but also a way of assessing how much traction he has among the people.
Adamant on External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj's resignation, Congress forced three adjournments in pre-lunch session of Rajya Sabha
The key to every Daniel Day-Lewis performance was a big theme and a thousand details. And in the final phase of his acting career, says Sreehari Nair, America became his big theme, and the details... well, he just popped them out like waffles.
The extended Winter session of Parliament got off a stormy start on Wednesday with uproar over the Telangana and caste-reservation issue stalling proceedings.
'We will never really lose him because in death, his spirit, trapped in a frail body, has been set free and will surround us like the air we breathe.'
Armed with a warm smile, the Swede shares his thoughts about Federer, Becker and modern-day tennis. Norma Godinho/Rediff.com speaks to the legend, who made the art of serve and volley a potent weapon, reckons Federer should skip French Open to focus on winning Wimbledon and that technology in the sport is here to stay.
Australia's cricket board will launch an 'immediate' review into player safety in the wake of Phillip Hughes' death, as the global cricket community mourned on Friday.
Dilip Shanghvi has never tried to be everything to everybody.
Both Houses adjourned till Wednesday amid din.
'Laxman will be remembered for years to come as the person whom everybody turned to the first thing in the morning and drew a smile, however depressing the situation. It will be impossible to replace him...'
'The dragon is Narendra Modi. While it may be harsh -- a tad -- to say that it was sleeping, it is fair to say that the government's approach in tackling corruption cases was lackadaisical.' 'By choosing corruption as an issue the Opposition has goaded the Treasury benches to return fire -- and the BJP has more potent ammunition,' says T V R Shenoy.
Venkaiah Naidu said 'let there be a discussion... November 8 is a historic day'.
India's foremost architect and town planner was renowned as much for his 'breathing' spaces as for his irascible personality
'Feeling claustrophobic and humiliated by the manner in which the Congress vice-president was treating him, he started toying with the idea of floating his own party.'
The Planning Commission has not been central to the policy making process since the mid-1960s, says Nitin Desai.
When you walk out of Thithi, you walk out with a feeling of having been completely inside its characters' heads, says Sreehari Nair.
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