Happy New Year! Let’s admit it, 2017 has been quite a ride. And, when the last day of the year is when Rajinikanth joins politics— you know— 2018 is only going to get exciting. Lest we forget, Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s ‘Padmavati’.. errr.. ‘Padmavat’ will be released, and according to our Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Muslim women finally have their freedom.
On the first day of the year, here’s a look back at the events that unfolded.
Here’s a list of the best stories from News18.com in the last one year.
Take a look at our coverage of #KashmirBeyondCliches— a nine-parties of the country’s most militarised zone. There’s the story of the boy who aspired to be the Osama Bin Laden of Kashmir, the story of the photo journalists who are caught in the crossfire of pellets and stones, witnessing a militants’s funeral to understand why thousands of people, including women and children, take risks to attend them regularly.
Five hours by road from the national capital is all it takes to hit the new conflict zone in the Hindi heartland. At night fall, there are more cops on the streets than residents in Ground Zero Shabbirpur. A community pushed to the wall is hitting back with its unanticipated resolve, and the lead players of this macabre theatre suddenly seems clueless about where it’s all headed. Our reporter spent weeks in Saharanpur to piece together this conflict calendar for you.
In January 1981, 200 Dalit families at Meenakshipuram in Tamil Nadu rebelled against upper caste discrimination and converted to Islam, setting in motion a chain of events which culminated with the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. It’s been 25 years since the Babri demolition. News18.com, in this immersive, told this story through the lives that got entangled in the gushing torrents. Some went on to become powerful politicians, others still are ready to die as ordinary kar sevaks for Ram Temple in Ayodhya.
The madrassa town that makes it to headlines mostly for its ‘rent-a-fatwa’ image is now setting new standards for girls education. This silent revolution that seeks to weld the faith with the future is led by a crop of committed educationists who have turned every crisis into an opportunity. Here’s the story of the girls of Deoband.
INS Kalvari has been commisioned to the Indian Navy as a first non-nuclear submarine after seventeen years. Here’s a detailed explainer on the latest addition to India’s submarine fleet and how it gives India an edge over its rivals above and under the waters.
Inderjit Singh Jaijee has spent last 29 years of his life documenting farmer suicides in Punjab. At first, it sounds like a mildly virtuous endeavor in a good-samaritan-passing-his-time sort of way. But in the face of successive governments’ efforts to downplay this continuing tragedy, his work spread over scores of files. It’s invaluable.
Shambulal Regar had once told his friend, “Ek din aisa kaam karunga ki duniya mujhe yaad rakhegi [One day I’ll do something that the world will remember me by]." One and a half year later, he is the new face of Hindu far right in poll-bound Rajasthan. A Muslim man was brutally murdered in Rajasthan— a state where elections are due in coming months. His killer recorded the whole act on his smartphone. The video spreads like wild fire on social media. Weeks after the gruesome murder, the killer is being celebrated.
A Bus to freedom in Bastar— Decade-long isolation of a Bastar village ended with a bus service that started recently. The ride from Jagargunda to Dornapal negotiates dangerous terrains, and the passengers— most of them former Salwa Judam members— make the bus a prized target for the Naxals.
The Prince is dead. Long live the legend. The Prince who died in Malcha Mahal was a pauper. Not just in the life he lived but also in the claims he made about his family lineage. The descendants of Wajid Ali Shah and Begum Hazrat Mahal, currently living in Kolkata, are calling the Malcha Mahal prince an imposter.
Can you be a devout Muslim and a proud swayamsevak? Meet the non-Hindus in the RSS.
‘Why can’t dancing girl be Goddess Parvati when there was a concept of Shiva?’ Chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research, Dr. Y Sudershan Rao, explains why Hindutva is an “irreligious term applicable to all Indians" and hence not condemnable.
The history of war films run deep in Hindi film industry, from Chetan Anand’s Haqeeqat to JP Dutta’s Border and even Farhan Akhtar’s Lakshya . Yet, Bollywood can never make a film like Christopher Nolan’s ‘Dunkirk’.
Nawaz Sharif, the beleaguered former Prime Minister of Pakistan, is one of the wealthiest men in South Asia with estimated net worth of $1.75 billion. The Sharif family’s palatial home in Raiwind on the outskirts of Lahore is testament to their ancestral wealth. But few people know that the house is named ‘Jati Umra’ after a small village in India’s Tarn Taran district. Here are the tales from Indian village where Nawaz Sharif’s great-grandfather rests in peace.
In this bare-it-all interview, actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui reflects back on his struggle and how those days have helped him as an artist.
Did Akshay Kumar’s performance in Rustom truly deserve a National Award?
Following his retirement from Test cricket, sudden and unplanned, it looked like Dhoni will call time on his limited overs career in the same fashion. After all, the man who had played for the majority of his cricket career as captain wouldn’t want to play under someone else, or so we believed. Dhoni, Indian cricket’s magic realist.
The time when the iconic Regal, the 84-year-old cinema hall, brought the curtains down leading to many heartbreaks and becoming an unforgettable memory.
Hadiya was a mute spectator while the courtroom drama unfolded in front of her eyes. Hadiya, the woman who became the centre of the Love Jihad storm this year. “I want my freedom," she said, when she finally got the chance. This is how the ‘Love Jihad’ hearing unfolded in the Supreme Court. Amid the gender lessons, there was Hadiya’s silence.
A R Rahman’s concert in London, with both Tamil and Hindi songs, kicked off a language controversy but the fact is that his music transcends borders and cultures. Rahman’s music is a symbol of India.
The haunting image of 15-year-old Insha Mushtaq Lone, her eyes covered with cotton and the rest of her face impaled by pellets, became in many ways the representative image of the violence Kashmir last year. This is the story of the struggle of a 15-year-old girl.
Around 40,000 Rohingya refugees, considered to be the most persecuted minority in the world, are still coping with news of India mulling their deportation back to Buddhist-majority Myanmar. One of Delhi’s Rohingya camps, a 300-square-yard land that stands dotted with small huts, most of which have a squeaky old ladder dividing the hut into two floors for the families to adjust in, has become ‘heaven’ for the refugees. “Kill us here, but don’t deport us," the refugees plead.
Calls to ban India’s beloved momo will never be taken seriously in the country.
Every Saturday, the Thar Link Express departs from Bhagat Ki Kothi Railway Station, on the outskirts of Jodhpur, and makes a 320 km journey to Munabao on the international border. The train then crosses over into Pakistan, where it is known as the Thar Express. Here’s the story of a train journey to Pakistan border, tracing lives in the Thar.
How a murder victim’s family prevented communal clashes in poll-bound Bijnor.
Remembering Shashi Kapoor, the thespian who brought India to the world stage.
Swarn Singh was not supposed to be in the tank full of sewage that killed him, as he tried to save three other men. The age old practice of cleaning untreated human waste — done mostly by Dalits with little to no other means of livelihood and often forced by caste prejudices — has run up a high toll in India, even though it was officially abolished by law in 2013.
When Saroj, 20, and Rukhsaar, 18, returned home to their village, Marora, from computer classes in the nearby town Nuh, they were greeted by the most unusual sight of Donald Trump, the President of the United States of America, beaming at them from a massive board erected at entry of the village. How three villages of the Marora gram panchayat, in Mewat, Haryana became the ‘Trump village’.
Municipal polls are interesting because local issues often overpower the wider narrative, making things unpredictable. Here’s why MCD elections are tougher to predict than Assembly Polls.
In a career that spanned nearly two decades, Ashish Nehra played 164 times for India. Kohli, in half that time, has accumulated 315 caps. Even Irfan Pathan, who last played for India five years ago, has 173. In the age of wall-to-wall social-media vanity, Nehra was a throwback in more ways than one. He was also a reminder to others of the endurance of the human spirit. A lesser man would have picked up his World Cup winner’s medal in 2011 and given his aching body a rest.
When Manipur emerged as the new football capital of India.
Nineteen constituencies in Bundelkhand — seen as one of Uttar Pradesh’s most backward regions and repeatedly hit by severe drought since 2007 — voted on February 23. Days before that, the local leaders and their campaigners came to life, like creatures of the unfolding spring, making rounds of villages, soliciting time and votes. Where the State has discarded all responsibility, a host of NGOs and civil societies have rushed in to help. Meet the stepchildren of Bundelkhand politics.
Watch
India’s frontier villages: That other train to Pakistan
A sneak-peek into the life of a social media troll
In case of a Doklam-like standoff, who will side with whom?
Delhi chokes as smog returns. But, are you concerned?
Does JNU really need a tank?
5 key factors for the BJP victory in Gujarat
Why UP chief ministers are afraid of visiting Noida
Hoping for a better, adventurous, exciting 2018. One with more freedom, less hate.
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