The women in blue stood out at the Women’s Asia Cup Twenty20 tournament in Dubai. The team, led by Harmanpreet Kaur, brooked no opposition from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Pakistan after disposing off minnows Thailand and Hong Kong. It proved its supremacy in the Asian region. The women in blue have lost only three of 18 to Pakistan, three of 25 to Bangladesh, and five of 32 to Sri Lanka in Twenty20 Internationals. India has truly roughed up the main Asian opponents, winning all 64 matches together and losing a mere 11. Clearly, the team benefited largely from Shefali Varma’s run-getting ability in her typical belligerent style in Dubai. The next big test for Harmanpreet’s team (don’t know why Diana Edulji is shouting from the rooftop for Harmanpreet to be replaced by Smriti Mandhana in all three formats) will be the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan. The “Punjabi Kudi” has set her sights on the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, and she is keen to grab a medal in the USA. All said and done, the Asia Cup has to be labelled a non-competitive event, with Pakistan skittled out for 55, Bangladesh restricted to 109, and Sri Lanka shot out for 111. While India steamrolled five teams, the inevitability of the team refusing to step onto the stage to receive the prize from the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) President Mohsin Naqvi – Pakistan’s Interior Minister – happened, with the women in blue doing what Suryakumar Yadav’s team did after winning the men’s Asia Cup post the Pahalgam terror attack in April 2025. Naqvi’s ACC office in Dubai has both cups. Hopefully, the BCCI will be able to get them once Naqvi leaves his post as ACC chief.

Dressed in dashing motor sport white and red regalia, Ajith Kumar waited at the Silverstone Racing Circuit, UK to receive his friend and film contemporary of 34 years, the newly minted Tamil Nadu chief minister C Joseph Vijay. The atmosphere turned charged, adrenalin rushed and frankly dumbfounded. The Karmic destiny of powerful colonialism had turned full circle today…the mesmerising screen magnetism of two super stars held sway. Vijay sprinted few steps to hug and kiss Ajith. One a powerful CM of a highly developed state in India, the other, Ajith Kumar multi-tasking as a Tamil film superstar and formula car racing ace. Both have made significant change from the original careers they excelled in — a luxury not many can aspire for. London it seems, is this week’s popular destination for Tamil filmdom. Radhika Sarathkumar and Trisha too camped there for a film shoot. Radhika may have missed meeting Ajith in Chennai…she made a special effort to see him and have a few happy moments with gentleman Ajith. People in the know are talking about Trisha too …did she miss her co-star Ajith with whom she has done some hit films? Even after the buzz that Vijay’s planned London visit was deferred by the MEA request, to stay back a couple of days as the PM of Malaysia was intending to come to Chennai, Vijay could make it for the inaugural of the start of the Michelin Le Mans Cup race where actor and racer Ajith was competing. TN CM Vijay had recently announced that a thumping new Motor Sports City would come up in Chennai …so he was accompanied by his capo di Aadav Arjuna, Sports Minister to study the logistics and layout of a car race grid. Coincidences often masquerade as plans.

Sony LIV built its reputation on originals that felt bigger than television. Scam 1992 turned Harshad Mehta into a national conversation. Rocket Boys gave Homi Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai the prestige treatment. Maharani and a handful of other series suggested the platform could invent a new Indian drama grammar.; sharper, slower, more ambitious than the daily soap. For a few years that bet looked right. Then the music stopped. With capital tight, Sony LIV has slowed greenlighting of new web shows. Only a few proven franchises are still being nursed. The rest of the slate is being handed back to the old SET playbook: Kaun Banega Crorepati, a revived Crime Patrol fronted by Ajay Devgn, MasterChef, cricket, and regional non-fiction. The same company that once used streaming to escape linear TV is now using linear TV to rescue streaming. Platforms discovered that prestige series are expensive, hard to market, and easy to abandon after two seasons. What travels cheaper and farther is television’s familiar furniture: game shows, crime procedurals, talent formats, and soaps that already have an audience. That is why The Kapil Sharma Show still works as both Saturday night appointment viewing and clip culture. That is why India’s Got Latent, a roast-and-talent panel that looks like late-night television rebuilt for phones, could premiere on YouTube and Netflix at once and become one of 2026’s most-watched Indian titles. That is why Anupamaa and Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah keep ranking among the most-watched properties on OTT and why JioHotstar treats multiple Bigg Boss editions as core inventory. OTT did not kill television. It absorbed television’s formats, stars, and economics, then added pause and skip. The living-room screen is now a hybrid: KBC and Crime Patrol sitting next to whatever remains of Scam 1992. The platforms that last will be the ones that stop pretending those two worlds were ever separate.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s India visit on Saturday (Sept 12) and his bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi acquired significance beyond the BRICS summit, coming at a time when Russian President Vladimir Putin has been actively pushing for a thaw between the two Asian powers. Putin’s private message to Modi had been unequivocal: India must move beyond the bitterness over Chinese incursions and anti-India posturing that had strained ties for the present, notwithstanding the personal equation Modi had painstakingly built with Jinping over the years—first as Gujarat Chief Minister and subsequently as Prime Minister. The Russian President’s intervention assumes greater significance against the backdrop of Moscow’s own strategic calculations. With Russia seeking stronger relations with both India and China, Putin has an obvious interest in preventing the two major Asian powers from remaining locked in confrontation. There is also an intriguing economic dimension to this triangular relationship. Chinese shipping vessels have been deployed to carry Russian crude to India, underscoring how geopolitical compulsions can override the otherwise adversarial India-China relationship. For New Delhi, Russian energy remains strategically important; for Beijing, facilitating the movement of Russian crude to the Indian market demonstrates the complexities of its relationship with both Moscow and New Delhi. For Modi, however, forgiving Beijing is hardly a question of forgetting. The relationship carries the baggage of the border dispute and China’s incursions, even as economic and geopolitical realities demand engagement. Xi’s visit—the first to India in seven years—therefore provides an opportunity to reopen a channel that had effectively narrowed after the military tensions on the Line of Actual Control. For Putin, a Modi-Xi rapprochement strengthens the larger Eurasian equation. For Modi, it offers strategic space to engage Beijing without surrendering India’s position...

Four months into its first government in West Bengal, the BJP is confronting a political battle it may have expected to fight outside government — over what constitutes Bengali culture. The immediate flashpoint is Durga Puja, the state’s defining festival that featured prominently in the BJP’s electoral pitch around Bengali identity. The fault line has sharpened over attempts by sections of the hardline camp advocating vegetarian food during the five-day festivities. To add to this, the state government hosted self-styled godman Dhirendra Shastri aka Bageshwar Baba who has not only professed vegetarianism during Durga Puja, but also terming non-veg eating Bengalis as “pakhandi”. He was welcomed by chief minister Suvendu Adhikari and his Cabinet and a gala dinner was hosted for him. The ruling party had to address growing discontent over Baba’s  term as well as “food diktat”, arguing that such prescriptions run against the lived cultural practices of Bengal and risk turning “Bangaliana” into an electoral slogan rather than a political commitment. The CM has announced restrictions on DJs, liquor sales and road blockades, alongside financial assistance for smaller puja committees and plans for a major Mahalaya programme at Eden Gardens with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah. The political optics have been complicated further by the government’s decision to discontinue the Durga Puja carnival on Kolkata’s Red Road, the brainchild of former CM Mamata Banerjee. The carnival had evolved into a major public spectacle, showcasing award-winning idols and puja committees. The irony is hard to miss. In 2021, UNESCO recognised Durga Puja in Kolkata as an intangible cultural heritage. For BJP that campaigned on reclaiming Bengal’s cultural identity, the question is no longer merely who controls Durga Puja — but who gets to define Bengal.

Maharashtra’s most controversial former police commissioner, Parambir Singh, has done it again — and again. But this time, karma appears to have caught up with one of the controversial legacies of his policing years. The BMC, now administered by the BJP with Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis mandating an end to ‘corruption raj’ witnessed under erstwhile Uddhav Thackeray, issued a demolition notice two months ago to Vasundhara Cooperative Housing Society in Mumbai’s plush JVPD Scheme for its 10th, 11th and 12th floors, bringing back into focus the controversial 2008 episode surrounding the property. The Vasundhara saga had its origins in a plot earmarked for police housing. Instead of potentially accommodating around 250 policemen’s families, the project reportedly benefited just 36 IPS officers, including a CBI official. The reported deal — around 3,000 sq ft flats for merely Rs 25 lakh — looks particularly startling against the lakhs of rupees per square foot commanded by property in the JVPD neighbourhood. Now, another high-profile property has landed on the BMC’s demolition radar. Kutch Terrace, owned by Mrs Rohini Devi Jadeja (who resides in the first three floors), a princess from Gujarat’s Kutch region, has been served a notice covering four allegedly illegal floors — the 10th through the 13th. But the real question is not merely why these floors were allowed to come up. It is why the civic administration is suddenly reluctant to talk about them. Ward officer Chakrapani Alle directed Short Post to Building Proposals Department officer Sachin Ghevde. Ghevde confirmed the notices and promised further details. Thereafter, however, calls and messages went unanswered. Additional Municipal Commissioner Vipin Sharma has similarly maintained radio silence despite repeated efforts of due diligence. Chakrapani too is suddenly silent. Why is the BMC officialdom holding back on details related to these high-profile societies?

A star of Akshay Kumar’s scale does not lose the mass belt overnight. He leaks it, film by film, until the opening weekend no longer answers to his name. That is the story Haiwaan told on 11 September 2026: a Priyadarshan remake of the Malayalam film Oppam, pairing Akshay with Saif Ali Khan after 18 years, and still opening in the Rs 3.5 crore net zone, one of the weakest Day 1s of the year for two frontline faces. The peak years of 2007 to 2012 were built on rhythm and hunger: big openings as habit, not accident. Then came Action Replayy, Joker, Thank You and the first break with the mass circuit. The 2015 to 2020 revival was real, but it was also the phase of Padman-style “message” cinema that never fully reset the mass contract. Post-Covid, the pattern hardened: remakes and niche bets; Atrangi Re, Cuttputlli, Selfiee, Raksha Bandhan, Mission Raniganj, Sarfira, Khel Khel Mein, and now Haiwaan. Reviews called it stretched, illogical, a frame-to-frame lift that wasted both stars. The trailer had already written the box-office line. Originals that clicked were OMG 2 and Sooryavanshi, and the ensemble franchise lift of Welcome to the Jungle, prove the audience is not dead. What is dead is the solo pull. Ajay Devgn corrected course and started serving fans across genres. Akshay is still signing the same mistake: low-effort remakes, thin promotion, no visible hunger, not even the extra craft a villain role like Parshuram in Haiwaan demanded. He is working. He is not fighting. Haiwaan is not one bad Friday. It is the question the trade has been postponing: is the mass area still his, or is the star now over-exposed as a reliable loss-maker between two clicks? Until that check is honest, the openings will keep answering for him.

Why do two senior Congress leaders take opposite stands on the same issue? Does one do it to please Rahul Gandhi, or does the other want to show he thinks independently on the matter? A day after P Chidambaram questioned the tangible benefits India has gained from recent BRICS Summits, saying he had not seen any significant outcomes from the last two or three meetings, his party colleague and MP Shashi Tharoor said that the grouping shows India’s “diplomatic convening power”. Speaking ahead of the BRICS Summit in Delhi, Tharoor called the summit an important platform for the Global South. Tharoor highlighted the importance of the BRICS Summit and said the 11 BRICS countries represent a majority of the world’s population and 41% of global GDP. Saying it is no small matter, he said the rest of the world must take it very seriously. Earlier, Chidambaram talked about the BRICS Summit 2026 in Delhi and questioned what concrete benefits the country has received from it. He said he doesn’t know how many Presidents and how many Prime Ministers are coming, but he doesn’t think the last two or three BRICS Summits have delivered tangible benefits or results for India. However, the BJP lashed out at Chidambaram and called him part of the “naraaz phupha” lot (angry uncle as described by Modi) who can’t digest India’s growth and development. India assumed the BRICS chairmanship for the fourth time on January 1, with its 2026 presidency driven by the theme, “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”. Among the delegates are Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, and several other global leaders who have come to Delhi to attend the summit. It is being said the Congress is upset that Chinese President Xi is also attending BRICS summit. And the party felt left out of the loop.

Following bilateral talks at Bharat Mandapam, PM Modi and President Putin travelled together in an armoured Aurus Senat limousine to the INNOPROM industrial exhibition on September 11, marking their fourth shared ride within a year. Normally, talks between top leaders usually happen across negotiating tables. It was the same “Aurus Senat” car that made headlines after Modi rode in it with Putin during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in China in September 2025. The two leaders have used cars for secret negotiations. Putin shares car rides — often dubbed “carplomacy”— to showcase their strong personal bond and hold private, uninterrupted discussions. Travelling together creates the world’s secure private room away from aides and officials, allowing the two leaders to speak candidly about major geopolitical updates or sensitive matters. It is uncommon for PM Modi to travel with a foreign dignitary in the same vehicle, but an exception was again made for Putin who visited India for the first time in four years. Back in September 2025, during the SCO Summit in Tianjin (China), the two were seen travelling together in Putin’s bulletproof car, drawing widespread global attention. Later, Putin said, “The car ride with Modi was my idea. It was a symbol of our friendship. We talked throughout the drive; there’s always something to discuss. We even sat inside the car for quite some time afterwards.” Modi has shared car rides with a few foreign leaders in the past, former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe during a 2017 roadshow, and UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan during a 2024 roadshow. Putin last visited India in December 2025 for the India-Russia summit, but it will be his first in-person participation at a BRICS Summit outside Russia since the war in Ukraine began in February 2022.

Pune, the seat of the vast Maratha empire, continues to hit headlines, mostly for wrong reasons. However, an observation by the Bombay High Court on Friday (Sept 11) has somehow restored Pune’s pride and pleased its tippler community immensely. The bench has castigated the Pune district administration for imposing an arbitrary liquor sales ban for the duration of the Ganesh festival. Already, the administration has banned the use of DJ sound systems and laser beams during the famous public celebration of the festival, ending September 26. That restriction has been welcomed all around. However, the liquor ban was immediately challenged by the wine shop owners while those enjoying a swig or two were waiting patiently for divine intervention. It has come from the HC, which said that the ban is an arbitrary decision. The bench has queried why only Pune has been singled out. It noted that Mumbai and other areas have no such restrictions. The court observed the ban unfairly portrays Pune residents as troublemakers after drinking. The judges remarked that stopping alcohol for 10 days could cause medical issues and flood hospitals with habitual drinkers. The Bench was headed by newly appointed Chief Justice M C Tripathi and Justice Advait Sethna. The Petitioners are hotel and wine shop owner associations, who unitedly rose to challenge the Pune district collector’s order. The HC has asked the authorities to withdraw the ban or face direct judicial intervention.