Shital

  The Buddha has smiled," Dr  Raja Ramanna , director of India's nuclear program and led India's first nuclear test, had reportedly said to the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi after the nation entered the elite group.  On May 18, 1974, India became the sixth country to carry out its first nuclear test, catching United States and other nations off-guard. A nuclear device was detonated in Rajasthan, near Pokhran, and the operation was code-named  Smiling Buddha . On the morning of May 18, 1974, a nuclear device was detonated in the Rajasthan desert near Pokhran, India. This event came as a shock to the entire world. Work on a nuclear fission device had been authorized by Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on September 7, 1972.  A select team of around 75 scientists and engineers from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) undertook the secret mission to design and develop India’s first atomic bomb. The result was  Pokhran-I , an underground nuclear test ...

  LUCKNOW: What began as a dream of a better life overseas ended in fear, abuse, and captivity for 30-year-old Vinod Kumar, son of an e-rickshaw driver from Ghazipur district of Uttar Pradesh, who recently returned to India after being deported from Myanmar. Kumar is one of the 38 other men from UP who were rescued after Thailand and Myanmar police arrested 100 people in the last week of January as a part of its crackdown on the scam centres in the country.  A senior UP Police officer said that Indian embassies in Myanmar and Thailand coordinated with local authorities to secure the repatriation of 283 Indian nationals by an IAF aircraft from Mae Sot in Thailand, 38 of whom were from UP. Back home, they recounted their tales of horror from the notorious KK Park, a major hub of cybercrimes, internet frauds, investment frauds, on the Myanmar-Thailand border.  Atul Singh, a 25-year-old BCA graduate from Auraiya, had his eyes welled up while talking to TOI. “My mother sold he...

  Hyderabad Charminar Fire:  Thirteen people, including four children died and over 15 injured in a massive fire at a residential building in Gulzar House, near Hyderabad’s Charminar, early Sunday morning. The blaze, which started around 6 AM, prompted a swift response from Fire and Emergency Services. Officials said they received a call around 6:30 AM and rushed 12 fire tenders to the location. Firefighters worked for several hours to bring the flames under control. Several people were found unconscious inside the premises and were immediately rescued and shifted to nearby hospitals for treatment. According to officials, the fire started at a building identified as Srikrishna Pearls. The exact cause has not yet been confirmed, though preliminary findings suggest a short circuit may have triggered the blaze. A detailed investigation is currently underway. Among those injured were several children and the condition of some victims is reported to be critical. Medical teams at ne...

  CAST: Sanya Malhotra, Nishant Dahiya, Kanwaljit, Varun Badola, Loveleen Mishra Mrs. revisits the themes of patriarchal oppression and domestic drudgery explored in The Great Indian Kitchen. While Jeo Baby’s 2021 Malayalam film was raw and immersive, almost documentary-like in its portrayal of the exhausting, repetitive nature of "women’s work," Mrs. doesn’t suffocate you in the same way. The Great Indian Kitchen was unwatchable at times because of the horror it slowly emanated. You wanted to run away from it. Mrs. doesn't hit you quite that hard. Arati Kadav’s direction makes it more accessible to a mainstream audience while retaining the core message. In Mrs., for instance, the scenes depicting the pariah-like attitude towards the new bride during the days she’s on her period are almost normalised. The humiliation that the protagonist felt in the Malayalam original is toned down.  What director Arati Kadav has done differently is that from a teacher, she has turned the...

  CAST: John Abraham, Sadia Khateeb, Kumud Mishra, Sharib Hashmi, Revathy, Ashwath Bhatt How refreshing it is to see John Abraham not punching Pakistanis with a hand pump, like Sunny Deol in Gadar. His weapon of choice is a phone and he’s trying to diplomatically solve a crisis. Who knew the man was capable of not using his muscles as the main tool in his skill set? The Diplomat, inspired by the real-life rescue of Uzma Ahmed, revolves around Indian diplomat J P Singh (John Abraham), who finds himself in the middle of a very uncomfortable diplomatic situation. A woman, Uzma (Sadia Khateeb), shows up at the Indian High Commission in Pakistan, claiming she’s been abducted by a Pakistani man who tricked her into a marriage. Now, it's up to J P, a man of courageous diplomacy, to wade through a minefield of international tension. And no, John doesn’t rip off his shirt and beats the bad guys to a pulp while enacting J P. This time, he’s acting as if speaking calmly to his Pakistani count...

  CAST: Nushrratt Bharuccha, Soha Ali Khan, Hardika Mehta & Gashmeer Mahajan Director Vishal Furia made the Marathi film Lapachhapi back in 2017 and remade it in Hindi as Chhorii (2021). It was headlined by Nushrratt Bharuccha. Despite being a far from perfect horror film, it did give us the required chills. In Chhorii, Sakshi (Nushrratt Bharuccha) is taken to a lonely place by her husband when she's heavily pregnant. She keeps seeing visions of small girls and later learns that her husband has brought her here to sacrifice her child if it turns out to be a female. Guided by ghosts, she somehow makes her escape. Chhorii 2 is set seven years later. Sakshi now has a kid Ishaani (Hardika Sharma), who suffers from a rare skin disorder in the sense that she can't bear to be out in direct sunlight. Guess what, Ishaani gets abducted and Sakshi and her policeman friend Samar (Gashmeer Mahajani) trace her back to the same village where Sakshi had escaped from earlier. She's to b...

  Amol Parashar, Vinay Pathak, Akansha Ranjan Kapoor, Anandeshwar Dwivedi, Akash Makhija, Garima Vikrant Singh, Santoo Kumar TVF’s Gram Chikitsalay brings us back to the rural heartland of India, treading a path well-worn by its predecessor Panchayat. Set in the fictional village of Bhatkandi, the series explores the challenges of delivering healthcare in under-resourced settings with a mix of satire, realism, and sincerity. While the show shines in its performances and atmosphere, it struggles to rise above the familiarity of its format. Dr. Prabhat Sinha (Amol Parashar) arrives in a remote village of Bhatkandi, Jharkhand totally unprepared for the chaos that’s rural India. He should have at least watched Panchayat, where Jeetendra Kumar was shown facing similar issues. Dr. Prabhat barely has time to unpack before he’s handed his to-do list. Approve vaccines for the upcoming camp without a receipt? Obviously—because who needs proper protocols? Falsify medical certificates to help ...

  CAST: Ishaan Khatter, Bhumi Pednekar, Sakshi Tanwar, Adinath Kothare, Zeenat Aman, Vihaan Samat, Kavya Trehan, Milind Soman, Chunky Pandey, Dino Morea, Jagdish Purohit The latest Indian series on OTT is called The Royals and it has an intriguing premise - an Indian royal family, grappling with financial woes, is compelled to convert their ancestral palace Motibaug into a luxury homestay under a hospitality venture named Royal B&B. This setup offers an ideal scenario for exploring themes of tradition clashing with modernity, class dynamics, cultural identity with a dash of modern-age start-up and entrepreneurial jargons. Visually, the series is a feast. The opulent production design captures the grandeur of royal life, with well-crafted sets and well-designed costumes that exude authenticity. At one point we see real-life rockstar designers Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla walk the ramp with the show's characters, so naturally this costume drama benefits from their supervision. Com...

  Quick Thoughts and Rating: 5 stars! I can’t imagine how challenging it would be to tackle the voice of a movement like Black Lives Matter, but I do know that Thomas did it with a finesse only a talented author like herself possibly could. With an unapologetically realistic delivery packed with emotion, The Hate U Give is a crucially important portrayal of the difficulties minorities face in our country every single day. I have no doubt that this book will be met with resistance by some (possibly many) and slapped with a “controversial” label, but if you’ve ever wondered what it was like to walk in a POC’s shoes, then I feel like this is an unflinchingly honest place to start. In Angie Thomas’s debut novel, Starr Carter bursts on to the YA scene with both heart-wrecking and heartwarming sincerity. This author is definitely one to watch. ♥ Review: The hype around this book has been unquestionable and, admittedly, that made me both eager to get my hands on it and terrified to read i...

  I am still dipping my toes into the literally fiction pool, finding what works for me and what doesn’t. Books like The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray are definitely my cup of tea. Althea and Proctor Cochran had been pillars of their economically disadvantaged community for years – with their local restaurant/small market and their charity drives. Until they are found guilty of fraud for stealing and keeping most of the money they raised and sent to jail. Now disgraced, their entire family is suffering the consequences, specially their twin teenage daughters Baby Vi and Kim.  To complicate matters even more: Kim was actually the one to call the police on her parents after yet another fight with her mother.

  In Doane’s debut novel, a young man embarks on a journey of self-discovery with surprising results. An unnamed protagonist (The Narrator) is dealing with heartbreak. His love, determined to see the world, sets out for Portland, Oregon. But he’s a small-town boy who hasn’t traveled much. So, the Narrator mourns her loss and hides from life, throwing himself into rehabbing an old motorcycle. Until one day, he takes a leap; he packs his bike and a few belongings and heads out to find the Girl. Following in the footsteps of Jack Kerouac and William Least Heat-Moon, Doane offers a coming of age story about a man finding himself on the backroads of America. Doane’s a gifted writer with fluid prose and insightful observations, using The Narrator’s personal interactions to illuminate the diversity of the United States. The Narrator initially sticks to the highways, trying to make it to the West Coast as quickly as possible. But a hitchhiker named Duke convinces him to get off the beaten ...

  YOU. ARE. THE. DEAD. Oh my God. I got the chills so many times toward the end of this book. It completely blew my mind. It managed to surpass my high expectations AND be nothing at all like I expected. Or in Newspeak "Double Plus Good." Let me preface this with an apology. If I sound stunningly inarticulate at times in this review, I can't help it. My mind is completely fried. This book is like the dystopian Lord of the Rings, with its richly developed culture and economics, not to mention a fully developed language called Newspeak, or rather more of the anti-language, whose purpose is to limit speech and understanding instead of to enhance and expand it. The world-building is so fully fleshed out and spine-tinglingly terrifying that it's almost as if George travelled to such a place, escaped from it, and then just wrote it all down. I read Fahrenheit 451 over ten years ago in my early teens. At the time, I remember really wanting to read 1984, although I never mana...

  Kashmir Pahalgam Terror Defence Minister Rajnath Singh spoke with his US counterpart Pete Hegseth in the wake of the Pahalgam terror attack. His phone call comes hours after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with EAM Dr S Jaishankar regarding the April 22 attack and “encouraged India to work with Pakistan to de-escalate tensions”. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday chaired a high-level security meeting and granted the armed forces full operational freedom to decide the timing, mode, and targets of India’s retaliation amid onion tensions with Pakistan following the Pahalgam terror attack. Massive anti-terror operations and search efforts are currently underway in Jammu and Kashmir, even as Pakistan continues unprovoked firing along the border.  Meanwhile, India, in a tit-for-tat move, closed its airspace to all flights operated by Pakistan-based airlines days after the Pahalgam terror attack. Last week, Pakistan announced its decision to shut its airspace for India...

  BSF Jawan Purnam Kumar Shaw, who had been in the custody of Pakistan Rangers since April 23, 2025, was handed back to India today. The exchange took place around 10:30 am at the Joint Check Post in Attari, Amritsar. The process was carried out peacefully and followed all standard procedures   This exchange involved one soldier from each side. While Pakistan returned BSF Jawan Shaw, India handed over a Pakistan Rangers personnel member who had been in Indian custody. Shaw, who belongs to West Bengal, was welcomed back by Indian officials at the border . Meanwhile in Riyadh, once  again took credit for securing what he called a “historic ceasefire” between India and Pakistan, following a period of heightened military tensions between the two countries. He explained that trade played a significant role in bringing about the ceasefire, encouraging both countries to focus on economic deals rather than military conflict. He stressed on the idea of trading goods instead of nuc...