Dil Se

One of the most brutal tales of woman empowerment has been scripted in Nagpur's Kasturbanagar. Tired of suffering rape and terror unleashed by a local goonda, 150 women of the locality caught hold of him in the courtroom, dismembered him, sliced his genitals and stoned him to death. Shielded by the police, the slumlord had left a trail of rape, intimidation and extortion in the 10 years of his criminal career. The rough and ready justice administered to Akku by his victims has struck a chill in the hearts of his gangmen who are now either underground or thinking of alternate careers. Meenakshi Rao meets Nagpur's overnight women heroes who are on a victory trail and daring the goons to come near them Nagpur is otherwise a quiet city, quiet and disciplined. On the crime graph, it takes only a bronze, with Mumbai and Thane doing the more respected (dis)honours for Maharashtra. But, for the past 10 days, it has been celebrating something it never would have dreamt of serenading

Has the scourge of rape, like corruption and environmental degradation, gone beyond any hope of damage control? Will the ailing system ever get healthy enough to be in a position to drive the fear of punishment in potential rapists? MEENAKSHI RAO  explores If I am ever raped — who knows who’s next — here’s what I should expect (going by what I have seen and heard in these last few days, here goes the list: 1) At least one speech in Parliament, of course by a woman while the men can keep watching porn; 2) Water-shelling on anyone who bothers to be vocal; 3) Top cops getting kudos for outstanding performance; and 4) More helplines for women set up where you can call for an update on K-serials for sure, but just try asking for help!” So screams a post on Facebook which has gone viral with outrage over the December 16’s brutal rape of a 23-year-old paramedical student hailing from Dehra Dun. Outside of the cyber zone, Delhi’s streets have been spilling over and even fighting pitched

As he looks down at you from his imposing height, dressed casually in navy blue corduroy pants and a body hugger Tee of the same colour, seemingly intent at what you are going to ask him, you realise how different he is from other athletes who often flick aside the veneer around them being mechanised answer-poppers.    Ian Thorpe, a master achiever who broke 70s American legend Mark Spitz’s world record of most gold medals ever in the pool, is refreshingly humble, surprisingly candid and shockingly sincere about all that he feels for and talks about. He tells you of his continuous battle with depression as candidly as he calls on fellow athletes to give back to the sport a little bit of the huge territory they have got from it but, with equal enormity, says “it’s ok if you don’t want to.” Thorpe, now 30, has views on endorsement which are as fierce as his gentleness is in charity work. But beyond his personal thrill that is philanthropy, he is a thinking sporting mind with cle

It was a meet of top sporting minds, but it was the colourful and incisive French ex-president Nicholas Sarkozy who stole the show with a speech which threw open challenges at administrators no less than Olympic supremo Lord Sebastian Coe. And just to let you know, he was speaking at a show produced by Richard Attias, present husband of his ex-wife Cecilia with whom Sarkozy has had a less  than cordial and more  than outrageous prelude to a divorce. Not that the two were caught exchanging either glances or small talk, but Cecilia Attias sat in the front row, listening to the big talk on stage after her husband introduced the man she had once accused of being always surrounded by women offering him their phone numbers, as a distinguished speaker of the day. Known to be a variant of the Richard Branson school of grandiose living, Sarkozy, who earlier in the year lost the Presidential race to Francois Hollande and stepped down as the French President, talked of how old, industria

DOHA:  Lalit Modi has dropped out and, no, there is no Lionel Messi type of football sensation visiting this 2022 venue for the FIFA World Cup. But Blade Runner Oscar Pistorius will be doing the impossible — racing a royal Arabian horse to show off the strength of prosthetics and, of course, human endeavour, in the face of all odds. The idea behind the Doha Goals Summit, which kicked off its three-day mission to make Sport a potent vehicle for social change, is similarly ambitious. But it is also well-meaning. Going by the looks of it, the turnout is as diverse as it is impressive, though where this will all lead is still a question being taken hesitantly by the organisers.  But, for a forum to be propelled by a taskforce of top policymakers, innovators, sport scientists, physicians, federation heads, academicians, athletes and corporate executives, the outcome is unlikely to be frugal.   For now though, amid some teething problems, a whole lot of aspirations, loads of promis

  The rumours of Ram Kapoor being killed in a maha episode of Bade Achhe Lagte Hain and Kya Hua Tera Vaada have created a storm in the soap dish.  MEENAKSHI RAO  tells you why Ram Kapoor can’t be caught dead on Sony’s flagship show and how this is a good marketing trick by the channel’s creatives to get back on track at a time when rival channels are flexing their muscle with good, new shows even as its own content is sagging. Just when Sony’s soap dish line-up was letting up, in a top secret operation — second only to Kasab’s hanging — the channel’s creatives have engineered a coup to get back the eyeballs. Without even a whiff or any kind of leaks, last week, they aired the promo of a  maha  episode of  Kya Hua Tera Vaada with  Bade Achhe Lagte Hain , scheduled for December 4. That the channel’s two flagship shows were coming together for a one-off booster may have been a pleasant surprise, but what the promo contained pulled the rug from under the feet of many a fan. A pistol-

Ricky Ponting retired from Test cricket in a barrage of tears at Perth on Thursday.  Seventeen years, 41 Test centuries, an eventful captainship and a deep-set bond with the boys over this period, it was a legendary career  well-punctuated with success. While Ponting took the difficult decision to walk away from what was the only form of life he knew for close to 20 years, because he had started failing too frequently, Sachin Tendulkar, at a similar juncture in his otherwise brilliant career, is still struggling to dust away the rust, desperate to give himself and the millions behind him that one last syrupy innings he is so capable of, wanting to perhaps step out of the crease forever in a blaze of glory. The difference between the two greats of this era (though Tendulkar is mostly beyond compare for his contribution to the game), is as good or as bad as are the similarities. In the autumn of their iconic careers, both the legends have been struggling with runs; in t

Stand-up comedy is just about making inroads into our evenings. The first-time performance of the world famous Melbourne Comedy Roadshow, in the Capital, Bangalore and Mumbai this Diwali was quite a rollercoaster, though one wishes that it was organised for a bigger audience. MEENAKSHI RAO brings you a report on one pile-up of laughter in a very Aussie way He is Irish, he says, peering out of his handsomely flowing silver locks. Oh, the land where all those stupid couples wait up whole night for their sexual relations to arrive, you are tempted to ask Dave Callan as he launches on to the nutcases he has met in India. Then there is Matt Okine from Ghana — a country in west Africa where clothing is optional and breast-feeding a public event, not to mention the fact that most non-Africans apparently need geography lessons in spotting this nation 15 or so countries away from the more visited Kenya. There are others too, like Alan David who looks amazingly like Alan from Hangover  (Zac