Cross Connections

Turn the pages of a newspaper, surf television channels, visit news websites. What you get to see is plenty of freedom. Everybody is free ...

The word 'ban' is so potent that even those who do not know what is going on suddenly become agitated. Needless to say, these ar...

From the film 'The Sweet Smell of Success' Years ago, a web portal I wrote for in the nascent stages of news and views on the Ne...

A woman punches a man and he starts thinking about the Quran. Right? You know the script. And I have got so used to my daily fix of “Just lo...

A Pakistani columnist decides that “introspection is not as fashionable as Roberto Cavalli shades” and goes on to pen an ode to all the b...

It is lecture time. “The interest of ordinary Muslims in new India lies in embracing modernity,” says Minhaz Merchant. The headline of the e...

“Have you been there?” “How well do you know about the place, the person, the idea…?” These queries have beset me and, I am certain, sever...

A Pakistani commentator has come up with a Pavlovian response to how Indians salivate over Pakistan’s misfortunes and are not all smelling o...

I do not know which of these ‘outings’ is the worst. THIS: Fans of Marilyn Monroe will be able to bid for an intimate snap of the sta...

At 5.45 PM today, Indian Standard Time, I was on television. You couldn’t see me. No, I had not magically transformed into an invisible crea...

Why do we Indians wake up so late? Now that Mahatma Gandhi’s personal belongings are to be auctioned in the US, we have got into a tizzy. Di...

Maverick: Style kosher of the natty neta By Farzana Versey Covert, December 1-15 Elections are not about braving the cold, heat, ...

“Silence is of different kinds, and breathes different meanings.” - Charlotte Bronte Have yo u experienced that about to say somethin...

A short note on this for now. They are planning to impeach Pervez Musharraf. So what? Bill Clinton was impeached. Did anything change? He st...

The Dalai Lama's famous 'middle path' is the biggest cop-out. It works only at the level of Hollywood art-house cinema and to ...

Oprah no more queen of talk shows The talk show queen’s popularity has diminished after she declared her support for Barack Obama, even th...