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Guess what? The Hindi film mom is no longer the archetypal white-clad widow, plying her beloved son with the gaajar ka halwa that she made with her own two hands (come to think of it, how else could she have made it? With her own two feet?).

Meet the Mukherjees, in several degrees of separation from Rabindranath Tagore and in close proximity to Thai art. Ramkrishna Paramhans - think Baba Ramdev without the yoga-baba routine and a million times more cultural and spiritual cachet - and Goddess Kali, the other two pillars of the Holy Trinity in drawing room aesthetics of Bengali homes are also missing from the walls.

His distributor in Singapore calls them the Harry Potter books on Islam. Soon, one of his books My First Quran could become part of a catalogue recommended to teachers in British schools. New Delhi-based Saniyasnain Khan, owner of Goodword Books, is perhaps the only publisher in India who brings out children's books on Islam, in English.

Looks like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's e-campaigns are in good hands. This could come as a surprise, but the same pair of hands is managing the Republicans as well. Ravi Singh, the 35-year-old Indian-American who is in Delhi to set up an R and D lab and to nudge Indian politicians to get on a web page, explains why the all-party clientele should not be puzzling.

For most of the 1980s, and for part of the 1990s too I would imagine, Kathmandu was the place to go to - at least if you lived in Calcutta. The Calcutta non-Marwari elite (the rich Marwaris went to London even then) treated Kathmandu as an exotic foreign destination, full of classy hotels, fancy restaurants, imported cars, glamorous casinos, and a swinging local jet-set.

Last year, Austin Pinto's preparation for her Class 11 exams was an uphill effort. Visually-challenged, even getting to the chapter he needed was a painstaking scroll through pages of notes.

To make the annual International Film Festival of India (IFFI) at Goa a true global cinemascope, India will announce at the 61st edition of the Cannes film festival its decision of a four-fold increase in the prize money for the Golden Peacock award and introduction of an international critics' award.

Most of us know our myths from Amar Chitra Katha, but please do check out a lovely old book -that many of you have probably come across already - by Margaret Elizabeth Noble (1867- 1911). An Anglo-Irish associate of Swami Vivekananda, she did a very nice retelling in English of the wisdom stories we grow up with, called Cradle Tales of Hinduism.

He is credited with importing judo to India but Rabindranath Tagore's name had never been associated with sport in any way, barring a local car rally called Kabiguru Rally. Observed elaborately and almost religiously all over Bengal on both sides of the border, neither had his birth anniversary become an issue in any arena of sports.

Zafri Mudasser Nofil New Delhi, May 8 (PTI) Wacky titles and contents may sound interesting but such books have spawned more imitative work and might not entice readers who mostly like to gel

CHARBAGH HAD two unique visitors on Tuesday. Udham Singh and Mangal Singh, known for successfully chasing away simians from the Rashtrapati Bhawan and the PMO, were here to rid the junction of the monkey menace.

Ashley Vanristell can conjure up a dove out of thin air, but he can't wish his debilitating immune disorder away. So the nine-year-old magician has done the next best thing –- wielding the magic wand to pay his exorbitant medical bills.

It is indeed surreal for me to think that Pandit Kishan Maharaj is no more. My association with him goes back 45 years from our first concert together in Varanasi in 1963.

Hot pizzas delivered to your home in a wrapper or a perforated box can contaminate your body. Studies in rich countries suggest the presence of carcinogenic chemicals in human bodies by way of Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid also known as PFOS, the chemical used to manufacture those boxes.

The administration was on high alert and informers had been pressed into service in far-flung areas. Yet, scores of child marriages were solemnized in the interior parts of the state on Akha Teej on Wednesday.

Bangalore, May 7 (PTI) The brush and the palette lie idle on worktables, the pots, pans and ladles gather dust in their racks and the cogs of printing machines remain unused, barely two days

Leggy Carla Bruni is likely to live much longer than hubby, French President Nicolas Sarkozy. So will Naomi Campbell, Gisele Bundchen and closer home, Sushmita Sen. And the seemingly tall tale is backed by scientific research.

Google's got technology. And it has some guts. The world's leading search engine on Monday unveiled an online platform that translates between Hindi and English. The bold effort is hi-tech but low on utility, as translations often tend to be more funny than appropriate.

The first time young Aanchal Arora checked into a five-star hotel and boarded an aircraft, it was a dream come true. Soon, this was part of her life and she she quickly turned a role model for many girls from middle-class families in her neighbourhood who had similar dreams.

US President George W. Bush has reason to be a worried man. Not only are some Indians eating more and better, and driving up food prices, even their dogs and cats are doing better. Indians spent $20 million in feeding their pets in 2004 – a figure that went up to $29 million in 2007.