23:32
Three bombs struck outside the interior ministry in Damascus today leaving dead and wounded, state media reported, without giving a precise breakdown of the casualties. Three terrorist explosions, including one caused by a car bomb, struck the interior ministry in Kfar Sousa in the southwest...
22:53
President Barack Obama will decide shortly how many US troops he wants to keep in Afghanistan after the US-led coalition military mission ends in December 2014, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said today as he opened two days of consultations with top US commanders and Afghan President Hamid...
22:37
NATO opened a new headquarters complex for its special forces today as part of a larger move aimed at offsetting the effects of deep defence cuts and better coordinating the elite military units. In a ceremony in Mons, Belgium, NATO's supreme commander Adm James Stavridis said the new...
22:33
Mali's interim president has named a replacement after soldiers behind a coup earlier this year forced out the prime minister and placed him under house arrest, provoking international condemnation. The political turmoil has deepened concerns about Mali's stability at a time when the...
22:04
Justice J Chelameswar of the Supreme Court, who had dissented with the majority order dismissing P A Sangma's plea against Pranab Mukherjee's election as President, today said allegation of holding an office of profit by the senior Congress leader needed a regular and detailed hearing.Justice...
21:44
Prime Minister's Office today rejected a claim by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi that Sir Creek was being handed over to Pakistan, terming it asmischievous and questioned its timing.Responding to a letter written by Modi to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, PMO said, Allegation in the letter...
19:49
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh replied to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's letter on Sir Creek. Allegations that Sir Creek will be handed over to Pakistan are untrue, he added. Modi on Thursday asked Dr Singh to stop dialogue with Pakistan at once on the Sir Creek issue and demanded that it...
18:57
The Supreme Court is expected to deliver its judgement in the disproportionate assets case against Samjwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh at 10 am.
18:52
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari over Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati's remark on him.I am not ready to listen to anything. We have seen in the last few days that every day the House is not allowed to function after 12 pm, It is your responsibility to...
18:06
Trinamool Congress MLA Sikha Mitra, the wife of party MP Somen Mitra, was suspended today. Mitra told Rediff.com that she has not got any official letter as yet. Trinamool sources say Somen Mitra has been instigating his wife to violate the party line. After Sikha Mitra's suspension, her husband...
18:02
A day after over seven persons brazenly opened fire in an ICU of a private hospital here, one of the injured persons today succumbed to his injuries while his father was battling for life, even as police today claimed to have arrested the key accused. The father-son duo, Satveer and Joginger,...
17:44
Just in: The Election Commission strongly disapproves of petroleum minister Veerappa Moily's announcement of raising subsidised LPG quota and asks him to be circumspect in future.
17:27
Pandit Kartik Kumar, an acclaimed sitarist and Pandit Ravi Shankar's oldest student speaks to Pandit Ravi Shankar.Panditji is not dead. For, such a great soul never dies. To me, my Guru was not only a musician -- he was music personified. He was like my teacher, my guide -- a father figure....
17:13
More reactions: Veteran vocalist Pandit Jasraj said that Ravi Shankar's exploration of the 'ragas' was of distinctive nature, which helped spread awareness and understanding of the depth of Indian classical music.The news has brought gloom to the world of music... it's like the heavens have...
17:00
The husband of Jacintha Saldanha, who allegedly committed suicide after becoming a victim of a hoax from Australian radio presenters, has informed the Indian mission in London that he would like the body to be sent to India. Our Mission is in touch with Saldanha's husband and is assisting in...
16:57
As the phase one of the Gujarat polls begins tomorrow, Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt speaks to the popular Gujarati writer Gunvant Shah, who holds some strong and firm views on Narendra Modi. Read
16:56
Having put Indian music on the world map, sitar legend Ravi Shankar was worried about the future of classical music back in his native country. Few months before his sad demise, Ravi Shankar enquired about the classical music scene in India while he was in the US, said santoor player Pt Satish...
16:28
A teenage girl set herself on fire last weekend to protest Chinese occupation of Tibet. Here's looking at the centuries-long practice of self-immolation -- and why it persists from India to Vietnam to Iran. Read
16:24
12/12/12, the century's last repeating date, has triggered thousands of marriages in China, Hong Kong, Singapore and a host of other Asian nations with people rushing to tie the knot believing the day would bring good fortune through matrimony. Love lorn couples formed massive ques outside...
16:20
Pandit Ravi Shankar took Indian music global and wrote the rules of the modern Indian classical performance. Rediff.com's Sumit Bhattacharya pays personal tribute to the legend. Read
16:17
Ravi Shankar's career was followed closely in the pages of The New York Times for more than 50 years. The classical Indian musician, who died on Tuesday at age 92, spent much of his adult life outside India, earning generations of fans in the United States and Europe, where he inspired...
16:07
Cricketer Irfan Pathan today shared the stage with Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the campaign rally of BJP, the party which is trying to appease minority community voters in the state.During the rally for the second phase polling in the state, Irfan was seen standing besides the Chief...
15:58
After Tuesday's scenes in the West Bengal Assembly, rumour mills are working overtime in Kolkata. It is being heard that there could be a split in the Trinamool Congress soon. Once one third of the TMC MLAs walk out of the party, the rumour mills say, they will elect Subrata Mukherjee as the new...
15:44
A study shows that there's been significant convergence between SCs/STs (as they are widely known) and everyone else, both in educational attainment and occupational choice. This manifests itself in wages paid to SCs/STs catching up. Read
15:40
One of the enduring legacies of sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, who died Tuesday in the U.S. at the age of 92, was that he successfully broadened the appeal of Indian classical music abroad. But Mr Shankar himself was ambivalent about this achievement. Read what the WSJ has to say.
15:35
Russia has said that it deeply regrets North Korea's long-range rocket launch, and warned that it would do nothing to help regional stability. Russia deeply regrets the new rocket launch undertaken by North Korea in defiance of international opinion, including calls by Moscow, the Foreign...
15:08
Zee Group chief Subhash Chandra tells a Delhi court that he will undergo lie detector test in the alleged Rs 100 crore extortion bid case. Zee editors Samir Ahluwalia and Sudhir Chaudhary were sent to judicial custody till December 22 after their two-day police custody ended on Monday. The...
15:02
If you've always cast an envious eye to actress Sonam Kapoor's sumptuous wardrobe, you're in luck. Starting Monday, December 24, Perniaspopupshop.com, the e-commerce website run by Kapoor's go-to-stylist Pernia Qureshi, will put up 60 pieces from Kapoor's wardrobe on the site. They include...
14:58
Under fire after back-to-back defeats in the home series against England, Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni is unhappy with Gautam Gambhir's attitude and on-field ethics and has lodged a complaint to the BCCI against the left-hander, a media report claimed today. Dhoni feels that Gambhir puts...
14:53
Earlier in the day, BSP chief Mayawati shocked the Rajya Sabha by telling Chairman Hamid Ansari that he is not seen in the House in the afternoon after which the House is not allowed to function. I am not ready to listen to anything. We have seen in the last few days that every day the House...
14:42
Mayawati's party colleagues started shouting 'dalit virodhi ye sarkar nahi chalegi' (anti-dalit government is not acceptable). A visibly upset Ansari adjourned the House till noon. When the House reassembled, BSP members again trooped into the Well shouting anti-government slogans.
14:41
Proceedings in Parliament touched a new low today with BSP chief Mayawati stunning the Rajya Sabha by her outbursts against Chairman Hamid Ansari over its frequent disruptions, because of which both Houses could not function for the third consecutive day. Mayawati, agitated over delay in...
14:34
A stunning slide show of Ravi Shankar from 1920 to 2010, on the LA Times. WatchAnd the obituary, also on the LA Times. Read
13:46
Ravi Shankar discusses his show at Long Beach's Terrace Theater, George Harrison, daughter Norah Jones, Philip Glass and more. Readthe March 2012 interview on the LA Times.
13:37
Tabla maestro Ustad Zakir Hussain on Ravi Shankar's death: Today he left us to go make heaven a better place. Beings like him just go back to heaven to take their place amongst gods. Safe travels, Uncle
13:36
Catherine Nixey's interview with Ravi Shankar on August 16, 2011 on the Times, London. Brilliant though his career has been, there is a slight sense that circumstances have in some ways circumscribed his own reputation: that Shankar the sitar player is too often known as Norah Jones' father or...
13:15
Sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar wore an oxygen mask for his last public performance at the California State University at Long Beach in the US on November four as he was suffering from respiratory problem.Panditji had his last public performance with an oxygen mask on before a select audience...
13:12
Anoushka Shankar on Norah Jones. Read the story of Pt Ravi Shankar's daughters on the Daily Mail.
13:09
Oprah Winfrey's 2003 interview with Norah Jones, Pt Ravi Shankar's daughter, after her Grammy win. Oprah: Much ado was made about the fact that at the Grammys, you didn't thank your father. I completely understand thatbut can you explain?Norah: I thanked everybodymy mom and my entire...
13:05
So, Pakistani microbiologist Mohammed Khalil Chishti was today acquitted by the Supreme Court of the murder charge in a 20-year-old criminal case and was allowed to return home without any restriction. However, the apex court declined to interfere with his conviction for voluntarily causing hurt...
12:59
Pandit Bickram Ghosh, tabla player, fusion artiste and a long associate of Pandit Ravi Shankar speaks to Rediff.com: My heart is too heavy at the moment. I am yet to come to terms with the fact that Panditji is no more. For, he was a part of the family, if not more. My father, tabla maestro...
12:59
Kathak exponent Pt Birju Maharaj said: He was the king of tunes and rhythms. I am in Los Angeles and wanted to meet him. He said a few days ago that he was not well. I'm really sad after hearing this. We have lost a big star. There are a lot of memories attached to him. I used to play tabla with...
12:31
Flautist Hari Prasad Chaurasia remembered the times he performed with Shankar at concerts. I started crying when I heard the news. I am still learning music under Annapurna Devi, who was Shankar's first wife. I was also associated with Allauddin Khan, who taught Shankar as well. He and I used to...
12:24
Mourning Pt Ravi Shankar's death, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar said India has lost a distinguished son. Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari said, With the death of Panditji, an era in classical music has come to an end. He was truly a multi-faceted personality. Through his...
12:21
Pop changes week to week, month to month. But great music is like literature, Ravi Shankar famously said.
12:16
When Pandit Ravi Shankar received the Bharat Ratna in 1999, Hindustani vocalist Pandit Jasraj had criticised him saying the sitarist had lobbied to get the award. This is a reaction to that story. Read
12:09
It seems so long ago that television stations began their day at a particular hour in the morning and ended it at a particular hour in the evening allowing us to go to sleep peacefully. Back in the days before satellite TV, Doordarshan began its proceedings at 6 am with this signature tune, a...
12:07
Dr Manmohan Singh: Prime Minister condoles the passing away of Pandit Ravishankar - A national treasure and global ambassador of India's cultural heritage.Michael Fisher: #RIPRaviShankar. Father of #NorahJones, influenced #TheBeatles, Indian music superstar passes at 92Purba Ray: ...
12:01
Just in case you wanted to know: Rajya Sabha has been adjourned till noon after uproar over the BSP's charge that Chairman Hamid Ansari remains absent from House after Question Hour.
12:00
More on Pandit Ravi Shankar: The Bharat Ratna awardee started as a dancer with the group of his brother Uday Shankar but gave it up in 1938 to learn sitar under Allauddin Khan. During the tour of Uday's dance group in Europe and America in the early to mid-1930s, Shankar discovered Western...
11:58
Martin Scorsese's George Harrison documentary is in cinemas for one night only on Tuesday 4 October. Here is a selection of images from the accompanying book by Olivia Harrison, published by Abrams. Read
11:57
Musician Kabir Suman tells a Bengali channel that when he was in New York, a black taxi driver refused to take money from him saying, he couldn't ask money from a person who came from Pandit Ravi Shankar's country.
11:47
And here is the YouTube video of George Harrison's sitar lessons with (a very young) Pandit Ravi Shankar. Watch
11:44
Pandit Ravi Shankar's title music for Satyajit Ray's debut film Pather Panchali. Listen
11:36
Amala Shankar, dancer and wife of the late Uday Shankar, sister-in-law of Pandit Ravi Shankar speaking to Indrani Roy of Rediff.com: I lost my brother this morning. Ravi was a caring friend, a loving brother, a compassionate musician and our competent dance partner. Life is so unjust. How can he...
11:32
Listening to Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury, more popularly known as Pandit Ravi Shankar, has always been an ethereal experience. Listen to Panditji playing for an incredibly lucky audience in Bengaluru with his daughter, Anoushka. Here you go.
11:28
We'll get back to more updates on Pandit Ravi Shakar in a bit, but first, in other news... -- Irfan Pathan joins Gujarat CM Narendra Modi at his rally in Kheda-- SC acquits 82-year-old Pakistani microbiologist Mohammed Khalil Chishti of murder chargeSC directs authorities to return...
11:21
Pandit Ravi Shakar is a three-time Grammy award winner, and last performed in California on November 4 along with his daughter Anoushka Shankar. Shankar has also been nominated for the 2013 Grammys for his album The Living Room Sessions Part-1 and was pitted against Anoushka in the same...
11:18
Pandit Ravi Shankar has authored violin-sitar compositions for Yehudi Menuhin and himself, music for flute virtuoso Jean Pierre Rampal, music for Hosan Yamamoto, master of the Shakuhachi and Musumi Miyashita - Koto virtuoso, and has collaborated with Phillip Glass (Passages). Harrison produced...
11:10
Tributes to Pandit Ravi Shankar from across the world. This is what the New York Times says on its front page. ReadThe Guardian, London, calls him the Godfather of world music (which is actually what George Harrison had labelled him). ReadAnd the Washington Post's front page story: Sitar...
11:01
Sukanya and Anoushka Shankar's joint statement:As you all know, his health has been fragile for the past several years and on Thursday he underwent a surgery that could have potentially given him a new lease of life. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of the surgeons and doctors taking care...
10:56
And another icon has passed away, classical vocalist Manas Chakraborty passes away at 71.
10:54
Pandit Ravi Shankar, whose health had been fragile for the past several years, underwent a surgery last Thursday at the Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, California where he breathed his last. The music icon was admitted to the hospital last week when he complained of breathlessness. It is...
10:48
Pt Ravi Shankar's niece (elder brother legendary dancer Uday Shankar's daughter) Mamata Shankar was sobbing uncontrollably when Rediff.com spoke to her this morning. I am shocked. The idea is yet to sink in. I would have liked to see him once, but that is not possible. His death created a vacuum...
10:43
I saw some music videos by Lady Gaga recently. I admire her theatricality -- she is a very intelligent performer, said Pt Ravi Shankar in an interview to the Guardian newspaper last year. Read
10:14
Sharpening its missile prowess, India on Wednesday successfully test-fired its indigenously developed nuclear capable Agni-I ballistic missile with a strike range of 700 km from a test range off Odisha coast.The surface-to-surface missile was test-fired from a mobile launcher at about 0830 hrs...
10:07
The BSE benchmark Sensex on Wednesday gained by nearly 92 points in early trade on fresh buying by funds and retailers ahead of industrial output data amid a firming trend in other Asian bourses.The 30-share barometer rose by 91.65 points, or 0.47 per cent, to 19,478.79. It had lost nearly 100...
09:52
Here's how personalities responded to Pt Ravi Shankar's death, on Twitter: @NMenonRao: Pandit Ravi Shankar: his last concert was particularly poignant. Anoushka and he played together in perfect unison. A torch was passed@Quiz Derek: The Music just died...Pandit Ravi Shankar@SriSriSpeaks :...
09:42
Just in: Sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar, who had been unwell since some time, passed away in San Diego, US on WednesdayHe was 92.The maestro at his bestWhen Pandit Ravi Shankar was beckoned to the West thanks mainly to The Beatles in the 1960s, many purists in India thought he had betrayed his...
09:14
Japan did not try to shoot down a North Korean rocket as it passed over its southern island chain of Okinawa, the government said today, strongly condemning the launch. Tokyo confirmed the launch had taken place and that said it believed parts of the rocket had fallen into the sea off the...
08:42
North Korea launched a long-range rocket on Wednesday, in defiance of UN sanctions threats over what Pyongyang's critics insist is a disguised ballistic missile test. The Yonhap news agency, citing a government source, said the rocket had taken off from the Sohae satellite launch centre at...
08:37
Two people were killed when a gunman wearing body armor opened fire at a mall in the western US state of Oregon, witnesses and local media have reported. At least one other person was shot in Clackamas, south of Portland, according to The Oregonian newspaper, reporting a man brandishing a...
03:40
The UN Security Council today condemned the arrest of Mali's prime minister by the armed forces and renewed a threat to impose sanctions on those who threaten the country's constitutional order. UN leader Ban Ki-moon is also troubled by the new turmoil in the African nation, where Islamist...
03:10
Malian Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra quit today under pressure from influential former putschists, a move slammed by the international community that urged the swift formation of a new government. The UN Security Council condemned the arrest of Diarra by soldiers on orders from former...
02:28
A Chicago man has been sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison for plotting to attend a Somalia training camp with dreams of becoming a suicide bomber for al-Qaida and another terrorist group, al-Shabab. Shaker Masri's sentencing Tuesday came two years after his arrest that relied heavily on...
01:57
British bank HSBC intentionally broke American sanctions on Iran and other countries while also laundering Mexican drug money, the US today said, as the banking major was to pay USD 1.92 billion to settle the allegations. A four-count felony criminal information was filed today in federal...
01:27
A top-secret mini-space shuttle has blasted off from Cape Canaveral in the US The Air Force launched the unmanned spacecraft today aboard an Atlas V rocket. It's the second flight for this original X-37B spaceplane. It circled the planet for seven months in 2010. A second X-37B spacecraft...
01:12
Israeli forces raided the West Bank offices of three Palestinian non-governmental organisations overnight, confiscating computers and other material, one of them said today. At 3:00 am (0630 IST) this morning, 11 December 2012, the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights office was raided by...
00:43
British bank HSBC intentionally broke US sanctions on Iran and other countries and laundered Mexican drug money, the US today said, and assessed a whooping USD 1.9 billion in penalties on the banking giant. The bank's breakdowns in anti-money laundering (AML) compliance were particularly...
00:41
Former South African President Nelson Mandela, who is 94 and has been in hospital since Saturday for tests, has suffered a recurrence of a lung infection but is responding to treatment, the government said on Tuesday.The revered anti-apartheid leader and Nobel Peace laureate is spending his...
00:38
Egypt's army chief called for talks on national unity to end the country's mounting political crisis after a vital loan from the IMF was delayed and thousands of pro- and anti-government demonstrators took to the streets.The meeting scheduled for Wednesday afternoon was called in response to an...
00:25
War of words heats up as Modi takes on Rahul 'baba'Modi only hears his own voice, not people's: RahulReveal Walmart bribe list or Parliament won't work: BJPHC to hear petition on constitutional validity of NIALink ration cards with Aadhar: HC suggests Maha govt
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances
