I have kept this to myself for nearly 20 years but sharing now in view of GaneshNaik's shenanigans in Navi Mumbai.EknathShinde stole some corporators from Uddhav Thackeray and now Naik has stolen three of these Shinde men from him for the BJP - he should beware that BJP has no .. .. love for him. If they can attempt to finish a Thackeray, toh Shinde kis khet ki mooli hai!
But I am more interested in Naik. He was one of BalThackeray's apostles who had been given full charge of Navi Mumbai, like Narayan Rane of Konkan and Chhagan Bhujbal
of Nashik.The..

Actually the Shiv Sena is taking on Uddhav Thackeray's personality which is more refined than his father's. It is a welcome change from the lumpens who knew only to beat people or blacken their faces but Uddhav also never forgets or forgives a slighHis crib is that even when ...

https://twitter.com/saliltripathi/status/1499803063405658122

.. the BJP was in alliance with them, they were disrespectful of not just him but also his father. Even a small thing like a b'day greeting mattered - Congress leaders always called his father, BJP leaders never did. Then again Vilasrao Deshmukh as CM went over personally ..

Did u know five Maharajas, three from Rajputana and two 21-gun salute warlords conspired with the RSS to kill Mahatma Gandhi? One of these provided the Beretta gun to Nathuram Godse that killed the father of the nation. Read my interview with his great-grandson @TusharG andhi Two new books being released today reveal that the RSS conspiracy was much, much deeper aimed at a civil war that would have decimated all Muslims, every man, woman and child, right then in 1948. Bcoz the RSS never meant for Godse's identity to b discovered. Worth thinking - why

Here's my personal contribution to our 75th Independence Day. A retired banker came home on a visit and was full of praises for Modi. Here's what I told him - Nehru ke zamaane ki padhaai, Indira ke zamaane ki kamaai (she nationalised the banks, remember?), Rajiv ke zamaane ka ..pension le kar, abbi baithe,baithe bolte hain ki Modi hai toh mumkin hai? Zara apne potay se baat kar ke dekhiye, uske liye kya mumkin hai aur kya nahin! He came back a few days later much sobered up. His grandson, struggling for his education, had told him how his friend's ..

I do not know if I should go public on this because this concerns my sister and she is a very pvt person. But there are other public figures involved and since I see the chaos in UP and Delhi and how govts have failed to save the lives of people, I thought I should, with .. ..apologies to them in case they wanted to keep it between us, acknowledge how much better Maharashtra's politicians and bureaucrats are dealing with Covid and helping people. In mid-March my sister tested positive (I, negative) after travelling from Nagpur to Mumbai. ..

Have reported on MumbaiPolice for decades. I don't support arbitrary arrests but for all the fuss Arnab is making, I do not think they have beaten him up the way they would a regular criminal. Roughed up, yes, but no marks will be left behind for them to emerge on any medical But here's what they might do to celebrities. Keep them for hours b4 moving to court. Meanwhile let loose the lowliest constable for interrogation. No polite questioning by IPS officer. Now this constable will run his hand/fingers up your thighs/crotch, chest with great

Nearly 40 years apart, this picture reminds me so eerily and exactly of the one I had (almost) shot in Assam while reporting on the Nellie massacres for The Ilustrated Weekly.Her grandmother was the imperious prime minister of India d when she visited the refugee camp, a woman..

https://twitter.com/waglenikhil/status/1312427590263738368

..survivor threw herself into Mrs Gandhi's arms. The prime minister gathered her to her bosom just like this patting her head and saying, 'mat ro behan. Mat ro. Main hoon na. Main aap ke saath hoon." There was no security then and I was just behind the woman facing Mrs Gandhi..

For those who wonder why farmers are protesting - here's a live example from Kerala. A friend's uncle&I always in argument about Modi policies. He thought the sun shone out of Modi's unowhat. So he was ecstatic when Modi govt abolished coconut board, equal2 APMC, set up by ... .. previous Congress govt. Coconut Board was offering minimum support price of Rs 10 per coconut. Coconuts were this man's only source of income. After abolition of Coconut Board price offered by pvt operators was Rs 40 per coconut, the man was ecstatic at quadrupling of income..

@RahulGandhi has friends who will sell him down the drain, Just like his father had - I remember an industrialist telling me ArunNehru told him"I am the real Nehru. Rajiv is not," I do not want to publicly name these friends bcoz some r his closest cronies, RG must harden his .. ,, heart, forget about honouring friendships including those with the children of his parents friends and drain the poison from the party. They r all doing deals with the BJP as we have seen even with Scindia and Pilot, two of his closest friends..

Should I despair at the quality of the current crop of journalists or just dismiss some of them as inveterate stupuds?They have tried everything over a month2 target Thackerays and Pawar in SSRajput case2 bring down govt. Now they revive Vora committee report2 link Pawar 2 Dawood .,when Pawar already sued three newspapers including two I worked for for Rs 100 crore each in 1997 for making those allegations against him and they went on their knees to apologise bcoz report said nothing of the kind and they couldnt prove a thing. Also story about Ram J..

Something I have always wanted to say but never got an opportunity - with all the brouhaha over the Ram temple, why I will never pray there is not just political but deeply rooted in my own self worth and identity. Even as I first read the Children's Ramsyana, probably at 10 .. or 12 years of age, even before coming into issues of gender equality and feminism, even before learning words like male chauvinism, I thought how Ram was so unfair to Sita for no fault of her own. She warned him against making someone else's battle his own and Ravan kidnapped

On Rahul Gandhi's 50th birthday, I have written a piece which will be up later in English, Hindi and Marathi on why he confounds the RSS and BJP so much. They set out to ensure a Congress Mukt Bharat but six years later, the Congress is still around even though .. it may be a ghost of its former self. But its weakening has nothing to do with the BJP and everything to do with the fact that the Congress became a party of power brokers long before RG came on the scene - something that his father Rajiv Gandhi had flagged as far back as 1985

In view of this campaign of anti-Chinese, for people like me who were born or grew up in the 1960s, China has a very different flavour. My father's library was packed with books by Lin Yutang published in the 1930s and 1940s and I read them all voraciously ..

https://twitter.com/t_d_h_nair/status/1267397588182958080

.. My mother's cupboard had an enormous number of exquisite Chinese embroidery and cross stitch design books which I discovered as a teenager. I used needle and thread to many of those designs and even today they are the best embroidery works anyone in my friends' circle has

What a brilliant, poignant story. I was always a Bombay reporter so my exposure to Rajiv Gandhi was limited to his visits to the city. But I can connect with his concerns for reporters. On his campaign trail, as he spotted me past midnight, he wanted to know if I had had

https://twitter.com/AbdulHamidAhmad/status/1262802855284670464

.. anything to eat. When I shook my head he told Murli Deora @milinddeora 's father who was then Bombay Congress president , "Give her some food, right now!" . As he climbed on stage, a dismayed Murlibhai asked nme, "Raat ke doh baje main tere liye khaana kahan se launga?" ..

I dont mind saying this but the lockdown has altered my responses to things around me. I miss the stray dogs and cats, their barking and mewling and I simply hate the koyal who starts going coocoocoocoocoo outside my window from 330 am each day. Considering, I switch off only .. past two am, she and her partner seem ever inconsiderate. Then the parrots start screeching from five am followed by other birds. But I have fallen in love with the crow after a pitiable caaaw-caaaw at my kitchen window by one poor little specimen one day. I tried feeding

Since I read this article and agreed with every word of it, I discovered something about myself - the Tabligi controversy has become so part of our psyche that even without being anti Muslim, I am afraid of visiting pharmacies or grocery stores

https://twitter.com/virsanghvi/status/1250456392613289984

..for fear.of infection. Also discovered something in my sister, a hard core Modi supporter. I asked her to b careful since she is asthmatic. She promptly replied - u r afraid only bcoz u see them in the queue b4 u. I presume

Am not a bureaucrat but as a journalist who has covered many disasters, humble suggestions 1) They should not go hungry, else there will be food riots as I saw in Russia during collapse of Soviet Union. Was then very glad I belonged to India where this would never happen ..

https://twitter.com/deepolice12/status/1250110924104425472

..but now am not so sure.
2) Hate to say this but there are large sections of people in India who always look to profiteer from disasters. Have seen this during riots, earthquakes even bomb blasts and rail accidents Very important that traders do not charge for free rations

HAL, which was deprived of Rafael contract for a crony capitalist who has since declared his net worth as zero, is first off the mark inventing and developing a protective aerosol box for doctors treating Coronavirus patients. The first box has been produced in its Nashik unit... ... and given on trial to the Dr Zakir Hussain Municipal Hospital. It has proved so effective that the NMC has ordered them to make ten more boxes. They are making it from acrylic metal. It is like a cabinet that covers the patient and minimises the contact

Thank you, Elizabeth, for this thread. I agree with every last word you have said - but two big takeaways from here, points which I too have emphasised again and again. Rahul Gandhi is the only Indian leader consistently fighting the fascists, as no one else is and it cannot be

https://twitter.com/Elizatweetz/status/1246728820360499202

.. easy having two members of your family killed before your eyes. I will add to your tweet by saying Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were the last two prime ministers who fiercely protected and fought for Indian sovereignty, whatever their other failings(&that is why they had2go)

Why do the Chinese eat just about everything?
Here's a story from former president K R Narayanan who was ambassador to China when Vajpayee as foreign minister paid among the first visits to China by an Indian leader after we had ceased relations following the 1961 war He had to visit a border province to settle things h4 Vajpayee visit. The governor of that province pulled out all the stops for improvement of relations between the two countries. This involved an elaborate and exotic dinner with all sorts of non veg delicacies

Dear @RahulGandhi As a senior independent journalist I am taking this unusual step of reaching out to you for the simple reason of bringing light to the darkness in my heart with your campaign that was polite, refined, classy and devoid of hate Since 2014 Modi has unleashed a darker side of India which I thought could never be challenged until you came along and fought the good fight. If you have read John Milton you would know what rises to the top first and the best always comes in the last, so never mind this defeat