Gaganyaan: India's baby step into the universe

Mum Mamata: For some time now, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been bashing the BJP, almost on a daily basis. So, it was surprising when she kept quiet on two recent developments involving the party. First, she did not comment on liquor baron Vijay Mallya’s claim that he had met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley before leaving for London. Usually, a bitter critic of the Centre would have pounced on such an opportunity. But Mamata, known to be close to Jaitley, apparently gave the issue a pass. Then, on September 17, she wished Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his birthday. That, too, in transit. She had left for an official visit to Germany and Italy. “We have time and again said there was a covert understanding between our Didi and Gujarat’s dada (Modi),” said a state committee member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) | Illustrations by Jairaj T.G.

Careless, carless: Recently, when H.D. Deve Gowda, family in tow, visited the Pashupatinath Temple in Nepal, there was no car to receive him at the airport. As former prime minister, he was entitled to the vehicle. Moreover, the assigned Indian embassy official did not turn up on time. A fuming Gowda made his displeasure known and the Nepalese government apologised profusely for its oversight. The incident came at a time when India-Nepal relations are rocky; Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj had to step in to smooth ruffled feathers. She called Gowda three times to calm him down, and prevented the situation from escalating.

Looking for a helping Hand: Two years ago, Lakshman Seth had quit the CPI(M) to join the BJP. But, his political career went nowhere. Once the point person of former Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee in Nandigram, Seth is apparently thinking of joining the Congress. However, the national party has been cautious about such an association; Seth is an accused in the 2007 Nandigram violence, which had resulted in several deaths. State Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has asked Seth to send him an application, which he would forward to party president Rahul Gandhi.

Starting trouble: Memes of Anushka Sharma from the trailer of her film Sui Dhaga are spreading like wild fire on the internet. And she is neck-deep in promotional activities—like becoming the face of the government’s Skill India campaign. But initially, it seems, she was not sure about doing the film, as she was scared it could become formulaic and cliched. But she trusted the instinct of director Sharat Katariya. “She watched the film and told me I was right,” he says | PTI

Blast from the past: Isabelle Kaif, the dashing sister of Katrina, might be as modern as they come, but for her Bollywood debut in Time to Dance, she has decided to time-travel to the ‘90s. She will be recreating Adayein Bhi Hain, a song in the 1991 hit Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin, starring Aamir Khan and Pooja Bhatt. The song was shot at Dover in Kent. Old, we guess, is still the best gold there is | Fotocorp

Action hero: Ranveer Singh is having fun on the sets of his upcoming film Simmba, a Rohit Shetty directorial in which he plays a tough cop. Recently, the actor posted a picture on Instagram and captioned it, “bhai from another aai” (brother from another mother). The picture shows Singh pulling off the ganjee of co-star Sonu Sood to reveal his chiselled abs, as Shetty grins and plays along. Singh’s beefed-up action avatar in Simmba is sure to give many ladies the flutters | AFP

Going public: Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi is back with a children’s book, The Rabbit and the Squirrel. Shanghvi, who had almost given up writing after two books, had first written The Rabbit... as a ‘private gift of love’. But he decided to make public the story, if not the love. The illustrated book is appropriate for these times as it has a bisexual bunny and an heiress squirrel! | Shekhar Karambelkar

Family man: Guess what one of the success mantras of A.R. Rahman is? Never take work home. Simple, right? If only that was enough to win you an Oscar, two Grammys and several national film awards. “I avoid talking [about] work at home because he says it becomes like business then,” says his wife Saira. She says it was the one thing that Rahman had promised her when they got married. For many other little-known nuggets about the composer, get your hands on a copy of the recently-released Notes of a Dream: The Authorised Biography of A.R. Rahman, by Krishna Trilok | PTI