Latest news with #Shashi
Indian Express
4 hours ago
- Politics
- Indian Express
‘This shouldn't be allowed': Shashi Tharoor's son questions him at diplomatic meet in Washington; netizens call him a ‘classic Indian dad'
In a striking moment of warmth and wit during India's diplomatic mission in Washington DC, following the Pahalgam terror attack and Operation Sindoor, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor had an unexpected exchange – not with a foreign diplomat, but with his own son. As Tharoor addressed a packed room of journalists, foreign policy wonks, and diplomats, a voice from the audience caught his attention. It was his son Ishaan Tharoor, a global affairs columnist with The Washington Post. With a grin and a hint of mock protest, Tharoor said, 'That shouldn't be allowed. This is my son,' drawing laughter from the crowd. Ishaan, clearly amused, introduced himself with dry humour: 'Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post. Definitely asking a question in a personal capacity. Mostly to say hi before you go off to your next engagement.' As Ishaan picked up the mic, his father couldn't help but slip into dad mode, gesturing for him to lift it higher – a scene instantly relatable to any Indian household. Then came the real question – pointed, and professional. Ishaan asked whether any foreign governments had demanded proof of Pakistan's involvement in the Pahalgam attack. Shashi, unfazed, replied with a chuckle, 'I'm very glad you raised this, Ishaan. I didn't plant it. I promise you. This guy does this to his dad.' A post shared by Asian News International (@ani_trending) On a serious note, Shashi clarified that 'no one had any doubt,' and said India wasn't asked for evidence by any of the governments they had engaged with, although 'two or three' media outlets did raise the question. 'India would not have done this without convincing evidence,' he asserted. He backed his claim with familiar patterns – pointing to a '37-year legacy' of cross-border terrorism and consistent Pakistani denials, from the 26/11 Mumbai attacks to the discovery of Osama bin Laden near a Pakistani military compound. 'They will dispatch terrorists, they will deny they did so until they're actually caught with red hands,' he said. The veteran parliamentarian also pushed back against suggestions of American mediation. Referring to past US claims of brokering peace between India and Pakistan, he made it clear that New Delhi wasn't interested in playing along. 'Mediation is not a term that we are particularly willing to entertain,' he said. 'You're implying an equivalence which simply doesn't exist… There is no equivalence between terrorists and their victims.' Shashi acknowledged calls of concern from high-level US officials following the attack but noted that if Washington was truly working the phones, it was Pakistan that needed the persuasion. The moment between father and son – candid, intelligent, and classically Indian – quickly made its way across social media, with netizens having a field day. One user called it a 'Classic Indian dad' moment, while another wrote, 'Raise your mike — just parent things.' A cricket fan weighed in with, 'Arjun Tendulkar bowling to Sachin Tendulkar.' And someone else summed it up with perfect desi flair: 'Beta ek numberi, baap dus numberi.'
Scroll.in
21-05-2025
- Scroll.in
In a new book, the former ACP of Mumbai Police recalls how he arrested serial killer Charles Sobhraj
Shashi Raut ordered his third Thums Up – three more than he had drunk in the last 13 years. The sugar kept him alert as he waited. This was already his second evening of waiting at Goa's famous O'Coqueiro Bar and Restaurant, located in Porvorim, just off the Mumbai-Goa highway. Shashi's friends sat inside the bar with their beers. O'Coqueiro's famous chicken cafreal went wonderfully with it. They were all trying to enjoy the India–Pakistan hockey match on the TV, but their attention was routinely diverted by the boisterous wedding party in progress. Loud, merry and very Goan, the generous hosts were welcoming of anyone who wanted to join the evening's revelry. At 11 pm, the party was just getting started. Shashi was not interested in any of this. Sitting at the table near the entrance of the bar, he kept an eye on every car that stopped at the entrance of O'Coqueiro. Thanks to the party, there were not too many more visitors today. He briefly scanned every face; he knew he would not need to look too closely. Even though he had last seen the man he sought nearly ten years ago, he knew that he would recognise him immediately. For the last five days, Shashi had put his entire life on hold, his sole purpose being to hunt down this one man. He had gone to great lengths – even giving up his name – for this singular quest. He had left his home in Mumbai; his wife and three children had only a vague idea of his whereabouts. Since his quarry had killed more than 20 people already and was known to carry a gun in his pocket, there was no telling if they would ever see him again. But Shashi had long stopped thinking about that. He was living at the Taj Hermitage, Goa's best hotel, located in Sinquerim, that was clearly beyond his means, pretending to be someone he was not, just so he could put this man away forever. Was there anything he would stop at to accomplish his mission, he wondered. All because he knew – no, he believed – that if anyone could find this man and prevent another string of deaths, it was he, Shashi Raut. The man was a robber, fraudster, confidence trickster, and strangler, killer and immolator of men and women across countries. Thanks to an Interpol Red corner notice, the police in at least one hundred countries were looking for him. His last string of victims was overland Western hippie travellers in Thailand and Nepal. Goa had plenty of those, and would have been the perfect base for him. He might have been hunting already. Gurmukh Charles Sobhraj was born in war-torn Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam. His father, Hotchand Sobhraj, was an influential and successful Indian-origin businessman based there. Charles's Vietnamese mother, Noi, was a survivor. She had escaped her abjectly poor childhood and started working as an assistant in Hotchand's tailoring shop, and became the mother of his two children. When her relationship with Hotchand was looking unlikely to result in marriage, she married a French armyman, Jacques Roussel, who had been forced out of his desk job to fight the Viet Minh on the ground. When Jacques could not bear the fighting any longer, he and Noi moved back to France. Charles reluctantly moved with them. Since Vietnam had been a French colony, in those days, it was possible for Sobhraj to get French citizenship. However, he turned to crime very early in life, and it took persistent efforts by his stepfather to get him this passport. Sobhraj had a troubled childhood, struggling to find a stable home and a sense of belonging. Starting as a street hustler, he graduated to gambling, theft and stealing cars. He progressively built up his reputation as a conman, fraudster, thief, armed robber, and of course, a killer. His biographers, Richard Neville and Julie Clarke, describe Charles as 'an incorrigible criminal whose career [sent] the world's press into paroxysms of grisly prose'. The man had admitted to killing at least a dozen people, although he also recanted that confession.2 Interpol's Red notice meant that all of its hundred-plus member nations were required to arrest Sobhraj whether or not he was wanted in their country. 'The first killing he confessed to, according to his biographers, was a Pakistani taxi driver in 1972. But it is in Thailand where his alleged murder spree ramped up.' He had killed the taxi driver, put his corpse in the car's boot and kept driving. Later, when the stench became too overwhelming, he threw the dead man into a stream that they were passing. Reuters reported that he was also wanted for the murder of six bikini-clad women in Pattaya, Thailand, in 1975. In October 1975, he befriended and killed American citizen Teresa Knowlton, who was headed to a Buddhist monastery. For a few hundred dollars' worth of possessions, Sobhraj drugged her, and when she was unconscious, changed her into a bikini and then drowned her. Her body was found in the Gulf of Thailand, earning Sobhraj the moniker 'Bikini Killer'. In 1976, two charred bodies were found near Ayutthaya in Thailand. They were later identified as a Dutch couple, Henricus Bintanja and Cornelia Hemker. Charles Sobhraj was convicted in a Thai court of having befriended, drugged, killed and burned this couple. In October 1975, Sobhraj is reported to have also killed a Turkish man, Vitali 'Ved' Hakim, whose charred body was found in some fields in the vicinity of the gem mines of Chanthaburi. A few days later he killed Ved's friend, Stephanie Barry, who had tried to investigate his death. The same year, he visited Nepal, where he killed a Canadian woman, Connie Jo Bronzich, and her American friend, Laurent Carriere. He was convicted of these murders decades later, and served 19 years in a Nepal jail. In both convictions, diligent investigations conducted by former Dutch diplomat Hermann Knippenberg are said to have helped significantly. During this period, he also visited India, and he was reported to have killed Israeli scholar Avoni Jacob and also Frenchman Jean-Luc Solomon. He liked to cast his net wide and befriend many people. Many of them saw him in possession of several passports. Possibly, he had murdered some or all of the passport owners. He was known to doctor the passports and travel around the world using them. He is said to have killed his own accomplice, Ajay Chowdhry, in Malaysia. In 1976, he used one such stolen passport and escaped from Thailand to India. In India, he was wanted for several crimes by then, but he managed to stay ahead of the police. That was until desperation and an alert hotel manager did him in. Raut and Sobhraj's connection went back a long time – 16 years to be precise. It began when Charles first appeared in Indian newspaper headlines in 1970.
Forbes
20-05-2025
- Forbes
Six Peaceful Places In Silicon Valley Where You Can Actually Unplug
Hikers make their way up and down the rolling paths of the, "Dish" trail on the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto, CA Photo by Michael Macor/ San Francisco Chronicle (Photo By Michael Macor/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images) Silicon Valley isn't exactly known for being chill. Stanford's acceptance rate hovers just below 4%, and getting your toddler into Bing Nursery School might be even tougher. Even the dog parks are full of Type-A retrievers perfecting their agility skills like their fluffy futures depend on it. From Palo Alto to San Jose, burnout is practically a badge of honor. Founders boast about 'biohacking' their sleep. VCs wedge in mindfulness sessions between morning pitch meetings. But for those craving a deeper kind of off-switch, there are still places in the Valley where you can genuinely unplug. So let's go. Take a breath and power down (after you finish reading this, of course). What follows are screen-free sanctuaries designed to help you loosen Silicon Valley's grip, if only for the weekend. Shashi has complimentary wine and cheese hour, a pantry loaded with treats and a pool and spa to shake away all of life's pings and dings. Shashi in Mountain View sits quietly between a Google campus and Stevens Creek Trail. Technically, the 200-room hotel is in the heart of Silicon Valley (you can also walk or take the free bikes to Intuit, NASA and Microsoft), but in spirit, it's somewhere else entirely. Forest-toned interiors, a courtyard pool, happy hours with live jazz, hallway scents to calm the nerves. Clearly, someone got the memo that here, productivity can wait. In a chic space downstairs, Broma offers a Spanish-inspired menu curated by Michelin-starred chef Jarad Gallagher, whose acclaimed Chez TJ restaurant in Mountain View kept its star for eight years. And the hotel's wellness spa has a sauna, steam room, and Jacuzzi, ideal for dissolving any lingering thoughts of the 36 open tabs waiting for you on Monday. This is what Silicon Valley would feel like if it stopped checking its metrics for five minutes. The trails around the Stanford Dish communicate calm and timelessness. The Stanford Dish, overlooking the campus, is where you go when your brain feels overclocked and you need a reset that doesn't involve control, alt or delete. The 3.5-mile nature loop winds through Stanford's rolling hills, past grazing cows, the occasional curious deer, and the giant Cold War-era radio telescope the place is named for—the dish was originally built in the 1960s to track Soviet satellites. Now it mostly listens to weather patterns and space noise, which to me feels like a suitable metaphor for trying to work in tech these days. From up 'there,' you can see all the way from the Bay to the Santa Cruz Mountains, and you start to remember that these hills have been here long before Google or Meta, and they'll still be here when whatever version of ChatGPT we're on gets replaced by something even more disruptive. Pool in formal garden. Filoli, Woodside, California. It's part of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Filoli, in Woodside, doesn't feel like Silicon Valley at all. Once the private estate of a wealthy gold mine magnate, this 654-acre property now functions as a living time capsule of flowery opulence. Stroll through meticulously designed formal gardens, wander the orchard path under century-old trees, or lose an afternoon (and your worries) under a canopy of wisteria. Inside the historic house (some may recall it from Dynasty or Heaven Can Wait), you'll find rooms preserved from the Great Gatsby era. But the real draw is outside, with roses taller than your inbox backlog, and fountains that gurgle with dignity, and wide lawns where you can sit and do nothing for as long as you want. There's also a shady café for pastries and lavender lemonade, and trails that stretch into the surrounding nature preserve if you want a little less prim, and a little more wild. It's hard to believe Hidden Villa is only 15 minutes from the boardrooms and kombucha bars of Palo Alto. This 1,600-acre nonprofit farm and wilderness preserve in Los Altos Hills celebrated its 100th anniversary last year, and it feels like it's existed in a parallel universe ever since. You can spend the day wandering oak-lined trails, feeding goats, watching udders get milked, or sitting under a tree while chickens cluck around like they own the place (because they kinda do). There's an education garden, shaded picnic tables, reptiles to meet, and crappy cell reception in the best possible way. Very little here is branded or curated; Hidden Villa just is. Breathe that in! It's a gentle reminder that not everything around Silicon Valley needs to scale. Red bridge over a man made pond, Japanese Friendship Garden, San Jose, San Francisco bay area, California In San Jose, the Japanese Friendship Garden is the anti-notification—a gorgeous space that is profoundly unconcerned with your to-do list. Set on six acres within Kelley Park and modeled after the Korakuen Garden in Okayama, Japan, the Friendship Garden has koi ponds, wooden footbridges, burbling waterfalls, and paths designed for more for strolling than power walking. You won't find loud music or vendors or selfie sticks. But if you're in need of trees, water, and an excuse to leave your phone in the car and not log into anything for an hour, this is your place. Just south of San Jose (in Campbell), Float Station is where you drift for an hour inside a watery pod without dings, distractions or gravity. There's a reason this place gets hundreds of five-star reviews: The futuristic facilities are sleek and spotless, the staff is gracious and well-informed, and the experience of floating your cares away is instantly addictive. It's also good for you. There's tons of research (just ask them to share it—no doubt it comes from Silicon Valley) on how floating can help you shake off arthritis, insomnia, PTSD, generalized anxiety disorder and whatever else made you sign up to bob inside a glow-y clamshell for 60 minutes. ALSO ON FORBES
India Today
19-05-2025
- India Today
Woman calls off wedding after groom arrives drunk. He says 'friends spiked drink'
A bride in Uttar Pradesh's Sambhal district called off her wedding after the groom arrived at her residence in an intoxicated state. Nineteen-year-old Shashi was supposed to get married to Amit Rana on Sunday, May 18.'My sister refused to marry the groom after seeing the entire procession intoxicated,' the bride's brother groom reached the bride's home on Sunday night with a wedding procession accompanied by a band and relatives. He was visibly drunk when he arrived. He alleged that his friends mixed alcohol with his cold drink without his Following the incident, the bride got furious and immediately refused to marry the groom. Attempts were made by both families to convince her, but she didn't budge.'I cannot marry a drunkard who can't even stay sober at his wedding,' the bride bride's family claimed that the groom was not the only one under the influence of alcohol. They alleged that the entire wedding procession was intoxicated, thereby dismissing the claim that Amit had unknowingly consumed alcohol mixed with his resolve the matter, a panchayat was convened, during which the bride's family demanded reimbursement for the wedding expenses, but the groom's side refused to no agreement reached, both parties approached the the bride gave her statement detailing the sequence of events, the police took the groom Amit and one of his relatives into custody, and the groom's family agreed to pay Rs 7 lakh as compensation to the bride's IN THIS STORY#Uttar Pradesh
Time of India
27-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
When Shashi Kapoor REACTED to the question of getting old: 'My children have grown up... I have been married to Jennifer Kendal for 100 years'
Shashi Kapoor , a legendary figure in Bollywood, began his acting journey as a child artist in the late 1940s and rose to fame in the 1960s as a leading man. His iconic roles in films like Anjaam, Haseena Maan Jayegi, and Fakira cemented his legacy in Indian cinema. Beyond his impressive film career, Shashi's enduring bond with his wife, Jennifer Kendal , was another facet of his life that captured the hearts of many. Shashi Kapoor rarely discussed his wife, Jennifer Kendal, but in one rare interview, he opened up about their relationship. This interview, now circulating online, offers a rare glimpse into their bond, showing a side of Kapoor not often seen by the public. Shashi Kapoor Reflects on Aging and Family In a rare interview, Shashi Kapoor humorously discussed his greying hair. When complimented on his dark hair, he revealed that most of his hair had been dyed, leaving only the sideburns untouched. He even pointed to them while making the light-hearted confession. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Trade Bitcoin & Ethereum – No Wallet Needed! IC Markets Start Now Undo He said, "I have done a lot of black hair, only this part has been left. I am a very old man. I am 46 years old. My children, by the grace of God, have grown up. The oldest is 24-25 years old. Kunal, Karan and Sanjana. I have been married to Jennifer for 100 years. But all this is because of my hair. There will be something from my last birth. I think there will be something in the next birth too. I told Jennifer that day too." Shashi's Legacy and Family Life Shashi Kapoor married Jennifer Kendal in 1958, and the couple had three children: Karan, Kunal, and Sanjana. Shashi passed away on December 4, 2017, following a long illness, while Jennifer sadly passed away earlier in 1984. Their bond and family life were an integral part of Shashi's personal legacy.
