When Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje Scindia decided to convert her government's capital outpost into a hub of culture, she transformed Bikaner House into Delhi's premier cultural space, notes Kishore Singh.
Shakespeare Wallah had been out of circulation for a long time, but a restored version of the film opened in New York on November 10. It will travel after that to other cities in the US and hopefully, soon to India as well, says Aseem Chhabra, author of the bestseller Shashi Kapoor: The Householder, The Star.
It also dismissed Jaitley's remarks that India of 2017 is different from what it was in 1962, saying China too is different.
'Having dealt with security and insurgency for 15 years, I am fully convinced that the steps taken by the government in regard to J&K and the measures in force there are essential,' says B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
Rafael Nadal looked something close to his old masterful self on clay again as he crushed Czech Tomas Berdych.
These images from across the globe tell that it is a crazy world out there!
As the threat of a showdown between Russia and the West over Ukraine loomed large, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has deplored Moscow's military build up on the Crimean peninsula and called on President Vladimir Putin to respect the country's territorial integrity.
Jasjit Singh sent two rasping penalty corner drag flicks into the net as India edged past hosts Malaysia 3-2 to move to the semifinals of the Hockey World League semi-finals in Antwerp.
Usain Bolt is perhaps the only man who can salvage a dismal year for athletics with one final flash of lightning, says Dhruv Munjal.
Iron-willed Czech Tomas Berdych ended eight years of tyranny under nemesis Rafa Nadal to storm into the Australian Open semi-finals on Tuesday before his next opponent Andy Murray restored British colonial rule to the floodlit centre court.
We bring you a presentation of some of the best photos from around the world in the month gone by
'It is vital that objects such as the Harihara -- and collections from South Asia generally -- remain here,' the British Museum tells Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.
Here's a collection of stories that prove we live in a truly mad, mad world.
'This is potentially escalatory, as China does not believe that India has any basis for interfering in a bilateral dispute between China and one of its neighbours.'
'The year in pictures' treks across the globe, looking back on the moments that shaped 2016. From the United States presidential race, to demonetisation in India to the refugee crisis, the news has kept pouring in. Here are our top 50 moments from the world.
The narrative in America after Donald Trump's victory sounds like the questions and debates that took place in India after May 2014. Were both electoral results all about jobs and economic anxiety? Mihir S Sharma doubts it.
'If they were really serious (about conferring the Bharat Ratna on Savarkar) what were they doing for the last five years?' 'Why do they have to take so long?' 'Gandhi himself never got the Bharat Ratna so it does not really matter.'
Incisive Editor, brilliant scholar on Islam, and now BJP leader, M J Akbar is at his intellectual best when he dissects the Muslim world and its problems, and offers up a solution from his unique perspective, as he did in this recent speech at the 10th R N Kao Memorial Lecture in New Delhi.
It will have made uneasy viewing for coach Jorge Sampaoli and emphasised more than ever how reliant his side are on their talisman Messi, who has been struggling with a muscle problem.
Lewis Hamilton won his home British Grand Prix on Sunday and slashed Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg's Formula One lead to four points after the German retired for the first time this season.
'There are hundreds of items from Madhya Pradesh, Andhra, Rajasthan, Gujarat in Subhash Kapoor's loot. The Tamil Nadu Idol Wing wants to just prosecute Kapoor for three cases and close it. To me that's myopic.'
Reaction to the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) council's vote to provisionally suspend Russia from the sport for widespread, state-sponsored doping
Here are Aseem Chhabra's picks -- 'films that mattered to me, entertained me and will stay with me through the year.'
'France's challenges revolve around an uncertain economic future, multiple terrorist attacks on French soil and a European migration crisis tied to the situation in Syria and Iraq.'
Rejecting allegations of vendetta levelled against him and the United Progressive Alliance, former Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday demanded that the government should ensure that Lalit Modi returns to India to face the probe by the Enforcement Directorate on various charges, including money laundering.
Administration is an evolving process, requiring the civil service to constantly re-invent itself to meet new challenges. The administration must become accountable to the law of the land and to the people.
'Our policy seems to be to give away part of J&K, even though we are entitled to the entire state.' 'The Congress has done so, and the BJP is following the same policy.' 'No one is applying their mind to the legal position.' 'Kashmir is not a part of Pakistan under its own constitution.'
Egypt's defiant Muslim Brotherhood on Thursday vowed to bring down the military-backed government as it called for a massive anti-regime rally, a day after over 525 people were killed in the deadliest crackdown by security forces on supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi.
Indian liberals' sanctimony is matched only by their inability to think clearly. They need lessons in logic
'The temptation of governments, to have a finger in the RBI pie will be just too great to resist, unless extensive amendments are carried out in the RBI Act treating it almost as the fourth branch of the government.'
'Even apart from the Bengal famine, there was a great deal more bloodshed and deceit than I was prepared for.' 'Almost every one of the acquisitions was won by extreme extortionate methods and what came out was that these relatively honest officers found themselves doing very dishonest things.'
In putting the country's economy back on the rails, it is best that Narendra Modi and Arun Jaitley draw on grass-roots feedback and their own practical sense and native wisdom without allowing themselves to be sucked into the quicksand of economic punditry, says B S Raghavan.
Delhi's inability to open up a new canvas with Pakistan and Sharif is symptomatic of its sluggish thinking. Jyoti Malhotra analyses
Nitin Gadkari has seven portfolios, but does not seem weighed down at all by the many things on his plate. The minister is brimming with ideas...
Do Modi's foreign visits actually serve India or they nothing more than expensive tools for domestic positioning and image-building, asks Shehzad Poonawalla.
'We should not flatter ourselves that China is fixated on encircling India. She has greater goals, becoming the pre-eminent power in the world, and India as a major power is dealt with as part of that strategy.'
'The parallels between 1914 and 2014 are striking. The crumbling of American and Russian hegemony, the rise of powerful terrorist groups, ferment in the Middle East and the rise of China... These closely mirror the world of 1914,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Swiss qualifier Timea Bacsinszky continued to swipe past the seeds at the Wuhan Open on Wednesday by dumping World No 4 Maria Sharapova from the hard court tournament with a 7-6(3), 7-5 victory.
'The US-India relationship is in a different league altogether,' Obama administration officials tell Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com in Washington, DC.
