Can male MPs stop harking back to mythological honour and chastity to illustrate sexual crimes, asks VRINDA GOPINATH They were sombre and anguished as MPs in both Houses of Parliament stood and spoke of the heinous and barbaric gangrape of a 23-year-old paramedic student in the heart of the Capital — the mood was subdued [...]

Vadra’s dodgy Corp Bank draft can invite a probe, says VRINDA GOPINATH   Will the mysterious overdraft of Rs 7.94 crore issued by public sector Corporation Bank on behalf of Robert Vadra’s Sky Light Hospitality invite a probe? Last week, as details about the Family’s son-in-law Robert Vadra’s brass-to-gold business dealings emerged, one particular transaction [...]

Please save us from pompous & self-obsessive hacks, writes VRINDA GOPINATH   The Salman & Louise Khursheed full-blown media eruption because of their alleged misappropriation of funds from their private trust, the Zakir Hussein Memorial Trust, raises several issues for journalists. The Union Law Minister Salman Khursheed himself began his Press conference on Sunday afternoon [...]

But Ek Tha Tiger questions intel agencies, says AJAZ ASHRAF There has always existed a chasm between the narratives of Bollywood and those the Indian state spawns. But this gulf seems to have widened over the last six months, during which three significant Hindi films have questioned, in their own kitschy ways, extant perspectives on [...]

It’s time for an ethics rule book & transparent business model for IPL Did you get a sense that it was a somewhat defiant Shah Rukh Khan (SRK) who once again strutted on the Chennai grounds with his troop of wife, daughter, their friends, especially in the aftermath of the Wankhede Stadium fracas? It was [...]

Lessons from the Red Carpet, by VRINDA GOPINATH God alone knows if Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is on some Manglorean post-natal chubby mummy nourishment diet but what she could do now is to finally grasp at what most global celebrities do in dire times – hire a fashion stylist and an ace publicist. Ash made her [...]

Karl Lagerfeld’s Paris-Bombay show where he unveiled his India-inspired new collection have got its howls of protest from editorials here for  his allegedly intemperate remarks about celebrating Indian poverty chic. For god’s sake that is not what he meant at all. For starters, Lagerfeld said he was celebrating the “fantastical idea of India” when models [...]