Compromise has won over conviction once again in Indian politics with the passing of the much-contested Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill in the Lok Sabha with the BJP's support. "We have brought new amendments. We have agreed to the (concerns of) the principal opposition party," Minister of State for Science and Technology Prithviraj Chavan said in the House while ...

Neetu Singh is finally out of exile and will be back on the silver screen after 26 years. It seems husband Rishi Kapoor has waved the green flag. But there are a few conditions. She'll be starring in the family movie Do Dooni Chaar. And yes, it's opposite her husband, who will be playing a father and schoolteacher, Mr Duggal, ...

Unlike its Delhi twin, Ahmedabad's Colombia-inspired Bus Rapid Transport System (BRTS) is its pride. It is nearly 30 km long and will grow to 90 km in two years. It won the prestigious 2010 Sustainable Transport Award this year from the Transportation Research Board in Washington. From being clouded by doubt on whether bus rapid transit, which works well in ...

MUMBAI FABLESby GYAN PRAKASHHarperCollinsPrice: RS 599, Pages: 396In his novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Salman Rushdie calls the city that shaped his imagination Wombay, a neologism that expresses more than mere nostalgia for his lost home of Bombay. It marks the very beginning of his story, and defines the space that grows in memory. It is the city that ...

Last month, the Amritsar Police rushed to the scene of what they believed was the kidnapping of a bank executive. The victim, Pawan Sharma, was allegedly dragged away by unidentified persons in the early hours. The caper was unravelled the same day when it was discovered that Sharma had staged his kidnapping to obtain an arms licence. Recent executive orders ...

All that Murugan (33) wanted for himself and his family was peace. When a tout in his strife-torn home town of Trincomalee in Sri Lanka offered him a passage to Australia, Murugan was motivated enough to sell his wife's ornaments and contemplate leaving the war-ravaged nation for good. He paid Rs 50,000 to a local contact called Siva and a ...

A soggy, sorry evening with dug-up asphalt swimming in monsoon slush choking with traffic. Rahul Gandhi is forced to take the Delhi Metro to get home. As ad guru Dan Bellack said, "Life is too short for traffic.Another place, another time. Priya Dutt is two minutes too late to file her Lok Sabha nomination, unable to reach the collector's office ...

ABSOLUTE KHUSHWANT: THE LOW-DOWN ON LIFE, DEATH AND MOST THINGS IN-BETWEENby KHUSHWANT SINGH WITH HUMRA QURAISHIPenguinPrice: RS 250, Pages: 189Here's a bit of literary trivia. How many books has Khushwant Singh written? The answer, 56! The world record is 904 but even so, 56 books over 95 years is amazingly prolific. Here's the downside: there are a few in that ...

Even as a controversial study linking antibiotic-resistant microbe strains to India hogs the limelight, the dark underside of the country's healthcare system is unravelling across Madhya Pradesh. The Monsoon Session of the state Assembly saw the issue of unsuspecting patients being turned into human guinea pigs for unethical trial of drugs gripping the House. In response to a motion by ...

Kamal Nath, the Minister of Road Transport and Highways, speaks to Editor-at-Large Ravi Shankar and Deputy Editor Damayanti Datta on the politics of road management and makes an argument to sort out the mess on Indian roads. What is your key challenge?India's road network of 3.32 million km is second only to the US. But why do our roads differ ...

C. Gobinath was on his way to attend an environmental seminar in Coimbatore. "My flight was at 11.30 a.m. and I started off from my place in Kodambakkam at 8.30 a.m. I meant to have breakfast at the airport," he says. But man proposes and traffic disposes. The entire route was blocked, thanks to developmental work underway in the city. ...

Was it the renal failure or the traffic? Businessman Biplab Das, 36, can't decide which to blame for the death of his mother Gauri Rani Das. What haunts him is the nerve-racking trip to the hospital as his mother writhed in pain and the ambulance came to a standstill between New Alipore and Joka. "Everybody was scampering to overtake others. ...

As West Bengal gears up for Durga Puja, the celebrations promise to be green. Puja organisers have promised the West Bengal Pollution Control Board (PCB) that only lead-free paints will be used for idols. PCB officials have spelt out guidelines on the kind of 'pandal' material to be used to follow cleanliness and idol immersion norms. The state's environment department ...

Seeing is believing. Unless you see the never-ending, ever-moving sea of vehicles on the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway, you wouldn't believe traffic could compromise a nation's security. Ask those brave souls who stand between people and terror-the National Security Guard (NSG), called Black Cats for their nomex coveralls. Just across the road from Delhi's IGI airport, a group waits in restless readiness ...

Jaipur: Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's government seems to be losing the plot: polls in 126 municipalities (mostly in semi-urban towns) held after 20 months of Congress rule gave the BJP more seats (57 board chiefs, 61 deputies, 1,260 members and 39.87 per cent votes) than the Congress (49 chiefs, 61 deputies, 1,158 members and 37.19 per cent of the ...

Corruption is the unacknowledged mistress of the Indian politician. Something we live with stoically, though with latent unease, like the ghost in the attic. Then why suddenly all this ballyhoo about bribes, doctored e-mails, manipulated tenders and multi-crore deals concerning the Commonwealth Games?Simple. Corruption has poisoned sports, that stormy petrel of national pride, something that makes India feel good. Or ...

From the troubled Apu of Udaan to the nerdy Saurabh in Aisha, Anand Tiwari, 27, is stepping up to play a Sri Lankan gangster in Hollywood. The star is in three scenes in Doug Liman's Fair Game with actor Naomi Watts. Although he didn't get to act with Sean Penn, Tiwari is not too upset. "To say that working with ...

Sushila Ashtekar, 75, could have died on the road. Just because she got a heart attack at the wrong time. So intense was the 5 p.m. traffic chokehold that the wailing ambulance made no impact. With thousands of vehicles banked up, the 10-minute stretch between her home in Parel and the hospital in Byculla lengthened to 45. As the crucial ...

Do you feel so exhausted that even combing your hair or brushing your teeth seems like climbing Everest? If you do feel this way and also keep coming down with skin allergies and joint pain, then it's time to seek a specialist's help. There's a debilitating syndrome that's silently creeping upon urban Indians, but is little known and often misdiagnosed. ...

When she was born 14 years ago, her parents Shamuddin and Hamdo Bano named her after the Bollywood singer Shamshad Begum. A year later, they realised she was deaf and dumb and mentally-challenged. Today, the child is kept in isolation as she has fits of anger. Pain proliferates her surroundings where there are many like her. Shamuddin and Hamdo are ...

Adage says the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. A recent memo from the Union Ministry of Personnel perhaps suggests who to blame if government employees underperform: the bad quality of government canteen food. The ministry seems to have concluded that grub cooked at departmental canteens in Central government offices is of poor merit and taste compared ...

Who: Jaiwardhan Singh, the 26-year-old son of AICC general secretary and leader of the internal opposition Digvijay Singh.What: The Doon School alumnus has joined the Youth Congress at Raghogarh, Madhya Pradesh. With a commerce degree from Shri Ram College of Commerce and one in business administration, Singh is readying for an MBA from abroad.--Compiled by Nishat Bari

PARICHAYSa re ga maRs 75The strength of a good Hindi film song is its lyrics, music and vocals. One remembers the song and the situation when it is sung and how it aids in telling the story. In most reality shows these days, the contestants sing old film songs. Modern music directors also keep going back to old songs for ...

When she was 19, Apphia Kumar had a sexual epiphany. She realised that birds and bees were not part of her libidinal zoology and her erotic appetite trespassed on both genders. Kumar realised she was bisexual. When she was 21 years old, she confessed to her elder sister about her amorous duality; the sibling was supportive but her mother refused ...

Arulnidhi Thamizharasu's debut movie in Tamil is titled Vamsam, which literally means "lineage", and there could hardly have been a more apt title considering that the young hero is the grandson of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi. At the movie's music launch last month, the DMK patriarch advised the youngster: "I want to see you make a successful career ...