A look at few gurus who have attracted controversy in recent times.
'I have to fight to ensure something like this doesn't happen to any other child, that no other parent faces what we are going through.' 'That is how I will find strength.'
Mohammad Sajjad profiles Professor Riazur Rahman Sherwani, 94, versatile mind, intrepid intellectual.
'If you see the way Shammi Kapoor danced... that was Geeta Bali's personality. My mother was a bigger and more successful star than my father when they got married.'
'Burhan Wani's killing served as a spark for the anti-establishment fire that has been raging in the minds of Kashmiris ever since the Centre stopped engaging them for their political future,' says Air Vice Marshal (retd) Kapil Kak in an interview with Rediff.com
The top posts on social media from your favourite Bollywood celebrities.
Making her film debut with The Householder, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala wrote more screenplays than novels, winning two Oscars -- for A Room with a View and Howards End. She kept her distance from the film crowd, seeking refuge in the 'protective' company of her two life-long collaborators, Director James Ivory and Producer Ismail Merchant.
'Guruji inspired and indeed, changed the lives of so many for the better in the United States, in India, and elsewhere.' 'If you knew him, ever saw him teach, saw him dance, you would have thought that if anyone would live forever, if anyone could defy the inevitability of mortality, it would have been Pandit Chitresh Dasji.' Hours after renowned Kathak maestro Pandit Chitresh Das, 70, died of acute aortic dissection in his home in California, tributes poured in honouring the great dancer, and an even greater human being. Ritu Jha/Rediff.com reports
Is Shivraj Singh Chouhan paying the price of being in the wrong camp? Aditi Phadnis and Shashikant Trivedi find out.
Conversations between one of the seven terrorists and his handler have been recovered before he blew himself up inside the ArmyPublic School
I love India and intend to live and die here, but I also want to be able to freely question its imperfections. Just as I have the freedom to say that Islam has been hijacked by a gang of demonic and utterly vile hoodlums and that the rest of us Muslims seem helpless to combat this evil, says Laila Tyabji.
'...incarcerated in jails, ruining their entire families.' 'You would see that Dalits who displayed so much agitation over the Bhima-Koregaon issue are effectively silenced by the arrests of their activists by the police.' 'What can be a more pitiable state than this for a people who had just seen a ray of hope after darkness of millennia?'
Asaram is also facing a rape case in Surat in Gujarat in which the Supreme Court earlier this month gave five weeks time to the prosecution to complete the trial.
32 years ago, CPI-M activists hacked both the legs of Sadanandan Master, a former party member who has moved over to the RSS. Master learnt to walk using prosthetic legs and rebuilt his life. Today he is the BJP candidate highly-sensitive Koothuparamba constituency of Kannur. He told Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com his story.
#Not In My Name, said ordinary citizens, as they took to the streets to reclaim the India they believed in.
'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.'
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Friday
There is a great danger of the government getting stampeded into actions in Kashmir that could result in long lasting damage, warns Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Vaihayasi Pande Daniel glances at the life and political career of Alexey Navalny who has been banned from challenging Vladimir Putin in Russia's presidential election.
At seven, Laxman Singh was one of the first children to be rescued by Kailash Satyarthi from bonded labour. Through his story, the author traces the Nobel Peace Prize awardee's campaign
Rajiv Malhotra's plagiarism may not be as horrifying as impersonating an exam candidate in Indore -- but they're both forms of cheating.
Taking an apparent dig at Modi, Gandhi satirised a song, saying "Aapka toh lagta hai bas yahi sapna, ram ram japna garibo kaa maal apna (It seems your only dream is to take away money from poor while chanting the name of Ram)".
The street-fighter is back and the introspecting, sparingly speaking avatar of Kejriwal has gone on an extended recess. In this grime of heightened Delhi politics, all the good work done by the Delhi government may go down the drain, warns Sudhir Bisht.
'If a bloodbath of this nature can occur in a high security area like Gulshan, I shudder to think how vulnerable other parts of this country are.'
Do the students who chanted pro-separatist slogans and their teachers/supporters want the army to withdraw from Kashmir or not fight the terrorists?
In an interview to HarmonyIndia.org, the artist, who had famously said that he lived to paint and painted to live, spoke of what the 'bindu' meant to him, about his friend M F Husain and the legacy that he will leave behind.
'Any Muslim who shows even the slightest hint of revolutionary thought is marked as 'infected'.' 'At that point, he is taken to the nearest Detention Centre where a procedure called Reconditioning awaits him.' 'Areas with a high Muslim population have been designated as Scheduled Religion Zones.' 'To be an active participant in this social cleansing ritual, there is only one prerequisite: You have to be an undying patriot whose friend and family is his country.'
Rediff.com presents some of the oddest Guinness world records held by Indians.
Kainchi, near Nainital, attracts devotees from near and far, 42 years after the death of its spiritual leader, Neem Karoli Baba.
US president was unaware that the son of a manual labourer had to abandon studies
As Soumitra Chatterjee turns 80 on January 19, we look back at his best movies.
'The forces of good are on the run.' 'But dark times also challenge people to fight.' 'I believe Indians will rise against these dark times.'
'Where have we failed, as parents, teachers and leaders, that our children have forgotten all tenets of decent behaviour and respect for women?' President Pranab Mukherjee asks the nation on the eve of Republic Day.
'Is standing in a queue any bigger sacrifice than that of a soldier's family?'
'Amitabh Bachchan told me, "I don't appreciate other people doing my voice".'
'Only the smoke is coming out now. Let us prevent the lava from coming out by taking proper measures.' 'I have told every leader that you cannot have a stable government without winning the confidence of the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and the most backward castes.' 'Leaders feel that by giving a sop here and there and by symbolic actions, they can win votes. That's all they want. Votes.'
Sanjeeb Mukherjee, who was eight years old when the deadly gas leaked from Union Carbide's factory, gives his account of living in the city during that fateful period
'This can lift us out of confusion, misery, melancholy and failure, and indeed guide us when it is contacted.' 'For us to ignite our spirituality, we need to look inward and transcend our egos. We need to recognize, connect with and integrate the eternal spirit within,' says A P J Abdul Kalam in his latest book, Transcendence.
Foreigners from various corners of the globe to move out of Kathmandu and others parts of Nepal.
Rediff.com gives you a look at newbies in the Council of Ministers
