Author: Anil Malik

A few news items which caught my eye today, and which I want to share with you are: 1 Tree-cutting controversy at Aarey for Mumbai Metro 3 project– This Metro project which is going on for the last 6 years has been delayed by a number of years. This is because of the location of its car shed, when the project started, it was planned that the car shed will be located in the area of Aarey, which was quite close to the last station of the Metro project. But from the beginning, the environmental activists were objecting, as Aarey is considered to be a green area, and the project required the cutting of thousands of trees. The matter went to various courts, and in the end, the Supreme Court (SC) gave the permission to cut a certain number of trees (about 2600), with condition that the number of trees…

SHARING GRIEF When someone known to us is in grief, we all feel for them and want to help them. They could be our family members, friends, or neighbours, and our intentions to help are genuine. Often, we struggle with what to do and how we can help them. Sometimes, we feel that they might consider our involvement as an intrusion into their privacy, as they want to be alone. At other times, we wonder if they are feeling isolated, having proper meals or not, etc. Grief is a universal emotion, and often, when people around us grieve, it affects us too. Some people reach out for help, but many do not. We have to take calls on proactively reaching out to help based on the signs of grief shown by people. As they say, if intentions are genuine, you will most likely succeed in helping people. They may not…

The film business is a very tricky business, sometimes highly acclaimed film fails to generate a good box office collection, and there are times when the film highly panned by the critics become the highest-grossing film of that year. Here is the list of year wise highest grossing films: 1951 Awara– a film directed by Raj Kapoor, and starring Prithviraj Kapoor, Nargis, and Raj Kapoor did business of Rs 5.25 Cr. 1952 Aan– a film directed by Mehboob Khan, and starring Dilip Kumar, Nadira, Nimmi and Premnath, did business of Rs 3.57 Cr. 1953 Anarkali– a film directed by Nandlal Jaswantlal, and starring Bina Rai and Pradeep Kumar, did business of Rs 2.35 Cr 1954  Naagin– a film directed by Nandlal Jaswantlal, and starring Pradeep Kumar and Vyjayantimala, did business of Rs 2.9 Cr. 1955  Pather Panchali( Bengali Film) – a film directed by Satyajit Ray, the film did the…

Every year CANCER kills nearly 10 million people, and almost 70% of these fatalities are of people over 60 years. However, despite these grim numbers, scientists and doctors have made considerable progress over the years that has helped improve our chances of surviving cancer. As per experts, there are certain lifestyle changes that you can adapt in your daily life, it will make a significant difference in reducing the risk of you getting cancer. Here are some ways you can reduce your risk of getting cancer: 1 Avoid Tobacco– According to studies, smoking is linked to various types of cancer including mouth, throat, pancreas, kidney, bladder, and cervix. Meanwhile, chewing tobacco can result in cancer of the oval cavity and pancreas. Avoiding tobacco in all forms is one of the foremost changes you can make to reduce cancer risk. Even if you are not a smoker yourself, it is best…

Online Gaming and Indian Law In a recent survey, it was found that around 40% of Indian adults have gambled at least once on online platforms. It is not a secret that Indians are fond of gambling activities like card games and sports betting. While online gambling activities are significantly growing in India over the last few years, there are a lot of questions about its legal status. The truth is that gambling on betting sites is still in a gray area in most of the states of the country. The regulations in place are based on the Public Gaming Act of 1867. Since the current law was passed before the advent of the internet, , online casino and betting activities are then considered neither legal nor illegal. The Information Technology Act of 2000, which is used to regulate online activities has no mention of online gaming/gambling activities. Only the…

There has been a spate of heart-attack-related deaths, especially post Covid pandemic times. While many young have fallen prey to death due to heart attacks, the aged population is also at risk of heart attacks. It is always good to listen to your heart and take care of it. If you already have heart issues, then follow the doctor’s advice. However, there are a few other ways to ensure a HEALTHY HEART. A healthy diet is integral to a healthy heart regime. Did you know there are surprising and simple ways to reduce the chances of getting heart disease? A few of them are listed below: Laughter It is good for our health, and we know this rather hilariously because of Dr Asthana played by Boman Irani, from the hit film Munnabhai MBBS. Indeed, laughter is good for your heart. It seems laughter dilates your blood vessels by 22%, which…

Are politicians in our country Elite class citizens? The answer to this could be YES, as one of the petitions filed by the 14 opposition parties in the Supreme Court (SC) seems to give this indication. But yesterday the SC made this observation and said “ Politicians can not claim higher immunity” while hearing the said petition. In the said petition, the 14 parties alleged that central investigating agencies such as the Enforcement  Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) are being weaponised by the Union Government to clamp down on dissent by arresting opposition leaders. The Sr advocate for petitioners Abhishek M Sanghavi (who is also a member of the Congress party) took the court through certain data and statistics to argue the central agencies are being increasingly deployed in a ‘selective and targeted’ manner against political opponents and further added that there should be proper guidelines…

Nowadays it has become very difficult to know whether the news that you are reading/seeing in the media is true or fake. Many times it is political parties who put fake news in the media against their opponents. The general public is fooled by these types of posts in print and other media. So many times, it so happens that even respected daily newspapers also get trapped in these types of stories and they are published in the newspapers, and sometimes the editorial team of the newspaper have to admit that they have printed fake story. The Congress party is among the leading opposition party that spreads fake news quite often. Here are some of the fake news spread by the Congress party in recent times: 1 The 265-ton gold was mortgaged by the government to an overseas country, and nobody knows where that money went– the fact is In…

Friends, to date I have failed to understand why the Congress party has always been an anti-Hindu political party after the independence. Our first  Prime Minister always had a soft corner for the Muslim community, and there is much news on the media saying that in fact, the Nehru family’s ancestors were Muslims. If you go by one of those theories which are floating on social media, says that Sheikh Abdullah and Jawaharlal Nehru were half-brothers. Natwar Singh, who has associated with PM Indira Gandhi for so many years, has written in his book that “once when he visited Afghanistan with Indira Gandhi, there she visited the tomb of Taimur, the barbaric ruler who ruled India 500 years back, and prayed there and said we are your children”. And present de facto head of the Congress party Sonia Gandhi, who is Italian by birth, has time and again shown that…

In my last weekend blog, I had written about strong female roles in the Bollywood films of the 21st century. Here is the concluding part of that blog. 7 Usha, played by Ratna Pathak Shah in Lipstick Under My Burkha 2016 She is a 55-year-old widow living in Bhopal, the revered matriarch of her locality. What is interesting is that she is nursing a secret crush on her young, muscular swimming coach. That a woman of her age can have sexual fantasies is bizarre and even shameful. So she begins to lead a parallel life in which she reads erotic novels and has steamy phone conversations with her coach. Watch her in the scene where she’s asked her name, and she takes a while to say Usha as if she has forgotten her identity. Ratna Pathak was brilliant. 8 Safeena, played by Alia Bhatt in Gully Goy 2019 Anti-feminism apologists…