After Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984, when Rajiv Gandhi revealed that he was being asked to take over as prime minister, Sonia Gandhi sobbed, “They’ll kill you, they’ll kill you!…” This may not be exactly what happened. But Spanish author Javier Moro’s version of the Congress president’s life, “The Red Sari”, is finally in Indian bookstores for readers to decide. The author calls it a “dramatized biography” as the dialogues […]

  Talk of overcoming the odds in the Hindi film industry, and this has to be a rare success story. Did you know that as recent as last year, Deepika Padukone was struggling with anxiety and depression, at a time when she was establishing her credentials as one of Bollywood’s most sought after actors. In an exclusive piece for Hindustan Times, she bares her heart for the first time about […]

The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, today called upon the Indian diaspora across the world to unite as a positive global force in the cause of humanity. In his inaugural address at the Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas at the Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar, the Prime Minister recalled that exactly 100 years ago, a Non Resident Indian – Gandhi – had returned to India to serve the people. Today, he said, he […]

  This is the flamingo season. But, it looks the Pink Wall in the wetlands along the shores in Pulicat and Point Calimere, is thinning down. Two decades ago, there were a million birds flying into Point Calimere, half-a-lakh of which were flamingos. Similarly, the bird census in Pulicat, a decade ago, used to reveal a count of over a lakh flamingos. Last week, the Nature Trust volunteers spotted about […]

He is famous for his aggressive politics and curt actions. But did anyone know that Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray has a penchant for photography? Uddhav’s interest in photography can be seen in his various shots, which range from wildlife, landscapes, and portraits to infra-red photography, which requires a special understanding of the subject since it is a mix of art and technology. The Sena chief, who takes time from […]

CBI on Monday raised a question mark on NGOs in the country, informing the Supreme Court that of the more than 22 lakh NGOs in various states, less than 10% had filed their balance sheets on grants received and their expenditures with the authorities. CBI collated data from 20 states and seven UTs, and informed the court that 22,45,655 NGOs were operating in the states. Of these only 2,234,78 NGOs, […]

AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi has stirred a controversy with remarks that every child is born a Muslim as he locked horns with right-wing Hindu outfits over their ‘ghar wapsi’ programme. “Every child is born a Muslim. His parents and society convert him to other religions,” Owaisi said, apparently in a tit-for-tat to hardline Hindu organisations which have been claiming that ancestors of all Indians were Hindus. “Islam is the real […]

  The 4th of January 1994 was a dark day for music – especially the Bollywood music industry. An era came to an end when Pancham took his last breath just before the release of `1942: A Love Story`. The life of RD Burman or Pancham da was music. Pancham enthusiasts all over the world swear by his work and his compositions. Whether it was a soulful collaborations with Gulzar, […]

A fishing boat from Pakistan with four people on board went up in flames off the Gujarat coast in what appeared to be an attempt to evade investigation by the Indian Navy on New Year’s Eve, the government disclosed today. So far, no survivors have been found from the vessel which set sail from near Karachi in Pakistan for what the government described as “an illicit transaction” in the Arabian […]

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s comments in October, that Lord Ganesha was the product of plastic surgery, has prompted the Indian History Congress, attended by over 2000 professional historians in Delhi, to pass a resolution that says “genuine historians would stand by the values of their profession and resist interested distortions of our past.” The resolution, adopted during its Platinum Jubilee meet on Tuesday, mentions the Prime Minister’s statement and also […]