Marriage is not just about the sex, at least not in India. Look at our serials. Films. It's the Sita syndrome everywhere.
Every morning, at my parlour. Usual suspects. A bunch of ladies, getting ready for their mid-week kitty.
"Pinks, iss baar let's do Macau… suna hain wahan pe bara casino wasino hain…" a woman in her early 40s with the broadest hips and the most hideous pink lip colour hissed.
"Please ya… Macau is so LS. Let's do Spain." the lady called Pinks answered. Blowing over her gel manicured nails.
Arvind Kejriwal has deliberately created ambiguity around the definition of "aam aadmi", in order to advance AAP's political agenda at opportune intervals.
Since October 2013, Indians' adrenaline has been politically charged. India has witnessed a never seen before unprecedented interest in politics. Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms overflowed with debates, discussions, arguments and trolls about various political leaders and parties.
Around the country, conservancy workers are illegally hired on contracts and then denied basic privileges.
It is no secret that labour laws in India are routinely violated. But if labourers with permanent jobs have a hard time ensuring their rights, those working as contract labour are at a double disadvantage.
For the thousands of conservancy or sanitation workers in India who are illegally employed by government bodies through private contractors, the fight for basic rights is an endless cycle of filing cases in industrial courts.
What appears a rag-tag bunch of old fogies and has-beens could emerge as the real opposition to the BJP, especially in the Hindi heartland.
The Janata Dal is back. And the men behind this resurrection are Mulayam Singh Yadav, Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad, HD Deve Gowda, Sharad Yadav and Om Prakash Chautala. Each one of them (except for Sharad Yadav) is a former chief minister of a major state, each one of them reeling under a defeat at the hands of the BJP juggernaut under Narendra Modi.
In what could have been a scene out of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, or more likely Rajkumar Santoshi's China Gate, the dramatis personae of this Janata Parivar 2.0 met at the residence of Mulayam Singh Yadav in New Delhi. The incarcerated Chautala was represented by his son Abhay, but all the other chieftains were present.
The conclusion of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in Nepal last week highlighted a couple of trends that India should be keen to change.
As the largest member of the regional grouping, India has, so far, been quite comfortable in its contemplation of the number one position in the eight-member club. But that thinking needs to change if New Delhi is to capitalize on the existing window of opportunity to strengthen ties across South Asia.
For most of its three-decade existence, SAARC has been prey to the reverberations in bilateral ties between India and Pakistan. Given the fraught nature of that relationship, there is small wonder that there have rarely been concrete outcomes from SAARC summit meetings.
Bollywood’s reigning stars are no longer its brawny males. Believe it or not but the most successful actor this year based on returns that her movies have made from domestic net box office collections is the youth heartthrob Alia Bhatt.
Alia might be new in Bollywood, but she has given three consecutive blockbusters this year in Highway, 2 States and Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhaniya. And based on ROI from the box office she is well ahead of super stars like Salman Khan, Hrithik Roshan and even Shah Rukh Khan. And of course much ahead in the pecking order compared to co-actresses Deepika Padukone and Priyanka Chopra.
It is hard to argue with the kind of fame Salman Khan found with his second coming, which started in 2009 with Wanted. He’s had a bit of a Midas touch since, with a slew of hits. As a result, he is, at present, the best example of what Bollywood likes to call a ‘bankable’ star.
But with a crucial new development in his 2002 hit-and-run case (a chemical analysis expert recently testified that the alcohol content in his blood on the day of the incident was higher than normal), many in Bollywood and the ad world are nervous about the eventual outcome.
“Currently, he is the biggest star, who churns out one box-office success after another,” says trade analyst Komal Nahta. As per industry estimates, a whopping Rs. 650-700 crore is riding on the star — combining big-ticket films, ad campaigns and a particular TV show contract.
Bigg Boss is slowly turning into one big yawn. And I’m one of the few people I know who is extremely accepting of its mediocrity. The one thing you can usually bank on Bigg Boss for is some high jinks drama.
But ever since Kim Kardashian turned into a no-show, Bigg Boss seems to have run out of steam. It’s the same old screaming matches, faux fisticuffs and slightly suspect romances. So, what’s been going under at the Bigg Boss house in the last week or so?
