His name was Irrfan Khan.
He was born in 1967 in Tonk, Rajasthan. His father ran a tyre business. He was selected for a national cricket tournament for under 23 players. He could not attend because he could not afford the travel expenses.
He won a scholarship to the National School of Drama in Delhi in 1984. Acting was not the plan. The scholarship was.
In his final year at NSD, Mira Nair cast him in Salaam Bombay. His scenes were cut because he was too tall for the frame.
He moved to Mumbai with nothing. He repaired air conditioners to pay rent while waiting for his next role.
The 1990s were television serials and forgettable films. The industry had no space for a man with unconventional looks who refused to perform emotions instead of feeling them.
He almost quit in 2001. A British film called The Warrior changed his mind.
Then everything shifted.
Slumdog Millionaire. Life of Pi. Paan Singh Tomar. The Lunchbox. Piku. Talvar. Two films he acted in collectively won 12 Oscars. At the Academy Awards, Julia Roberts stopped him outside the venue to tell him she loved his work in The Namesake. Christopher Nolan offered him a role in Interstellar. He turned it down because he had committed to The Lunchbox.
In 2016, he dropped Khan from his name. He said he wanted his work to define him, not his lineage.
In 2018, he was diagnosed with a rare neuroendocrine cancer. He flew to London for treatment. Came back in 2019 and went straight back to work. He completed Angrezi Medium while undergoing chemotherapy. It was his last film.
Today marks five years since he left. He was 53.
The man who repaired air conditioners in Mumbai turned down Christopher Nolan. India just never told that story loud enough.
Follow for real stories India never makes headlines about.
She was 23, a widow with a baby, when she parachuted into Nazi-occupied France—and changed history forever.
Violette Szabo's life should have been ordinary. Born in 1921 to a French mother and British father, she grew up between two worlds, fluent in both languages, dreaming of nothing more than love and family.
She found both. Married young to Étienne, a dashing French Foreign Legionnaire. Had a daughter, Tania. Built the beginning of a life.
Then the telegram came. Étienne—killed in action at El Alamein. Gone before he ever met his daughter.
Most 21-year-old widows would have collapsed into grief. Violette transformed hers into fire.
She walked into the offices of Britain's Special Operations Executive—the shadowy organization training agents for espionage and sabotage behind enemy lines. The same organization that barely believed women belonged in such dangerous work.
She didn't ask permission. She demanded training.
And they gave it to her. Weaponry. Parachuting. Demolition. Hand-to-hand combat. She mastered it all with a ferocity that stunned her instructors. This wasn't just duty—this was personal.
Violette parachuted into occupied France twice. Not as a nurse. Not as a secretary. As an operative. She gathered intelligence. Coordinated resistance networks. Armed the French underground. Moved through Nazi checkpoints with a calmness that belied the danger humming beneath every moment.
On her second mission in June 1944, everything went sideways. Ambushed by German troops, she could have run. She could have hidden.
Instead, she fought.
With her Sten gun blazing, Violette held her ground, providing covering fire so her comrade could escape. She exchanged shots with trained soldiers until her ammunition ran dry. Only then did they take her.
What followed was worse than any battlefield. Interrogation. Torture. The Gestapo tried everything to break her—to extract names, safe houses, codes that would destroy the resistance network she'd helped build.
She gave them nothing.
They sent her to Ravensbrück, the concentration camp designed to extinguish hope, especially in women. But even there, fellow prisoners remembered Violette's strength. Her defiance. Her humanity in a place built to erase it.
On February 5, 1945—just weeks before the war's end—she was executed. She was 23 years old. Her daughter was barely three.
Violette Szabo never wore a general's uniform. She never commanded armies. She fought in occupied villages and darkened safe houses, with false papers and a gun she knew how to use.
History didn't make room for women like her—so she made room for herself.
She reminds us that courage doesn't wait for permission. That grief can become power. That the most dangerous weapon in any war is someone with nothing left to lose and everything to fight for.
Her daughter Tania grew up without her. But she grew up free.
That's what Violette died for. That's what she'll always be remembered for.
Not as a victim. Not as a footnote.
As a warrior.
A female journalist asked a man old enough to be her father why slogans supporting Umar Khalid were being raised during a CJP protest that is meant to focus on students and examinations?
Cockroach Janta Party Supporter: Did Umar Khalid Raped you?
A rare murti of Maa Durga was discovered during the excavation of a pond in Chengtia village of Sirajganj, Bangladesh.
The murti was found on land belonging to a Muslim family who captured Hindu family land
Sanatan Hi Satya Hai 🚩
CM Devendra Fadnavis in ACTION mode 🔥
BMC has initiated the cancellation of over 19,700 suspicious birth certificates.
▪️ Probe uncovers record modifications without proper supporting documents
▪️ SIT and civic authorities directed to investigate irregularities
▪️ Strict action to ensure accountability and protect public records
▪️ Verification drive strengthened to curb misuse of official documents
#WATCH | West Champaran: Prashant Kishor, founder of Jan Suraaj Party, says, "Before the Bihar elections, women were lured with promises of Rs 2 lakh, but given only Rs 10,000 to influence their votes; their votes were bought. Jan Suraaj has raised its voice against this before and will continue to do so... Nitish Kumar took your vote by luring with Rs 2 lakh and now has fled to Delhi himself, installing his children and cronies in the government."
One of the Architects of India's Economic Reforms Just Punctured a Major Political Narrative of Rahul Gandhi
Montek Singh Ahluwalia says he does not find the crony capitalism argument against Adani "very sensible."
Why?
Because the real test is transparency and execution.
Adani's ports delivered both... timely completion, capacity expansion, and economic growth.
Facts continue to challenge rhetoric.
#WATCH | Patna, Bihar: Janshakti Janta Dal Founder Tej Pratap Yadav says, "... Rumours are being spread that security has been withdrawn, but that's not the case. I have spoken clearly with my mother (Rabri Devi), and she has not withdrawn the security. The security personnel deployed were showing them papers saying their command has been cut off, so she told them to leave... No security has been withdrawn... In Bihar, the security of daughters-in-law and daughters is the most important first... The security of the people of Bihar should be ensured... Samrat Choudhary is doing politics over home, security. Why don't they pay attention to the fact that youth in Bihar are unemployed...?"
Another MASSIVE decision by Suvendu Adhikari!
Anyone found guilty of damaging Govt Property during the Murshidabad anti-CAA riots and Waqf Riots will be forced to pay for the damage caused.
If they don't have the money, they will be forced to sell their property to pay up!
🚨 BIG BREAKING
Supreme Court DENIES BAIL to Haryana travel blogger Jyoti Malhotra in the Pakistan spying case.
Court notes the allegations are SERIOUS, including Pakistan visits and contacts with officials.
No relief granted at this stage.
Only a handful of countries on earth can build this. India just delivered seven of them ahead of schedule.
Nobody is talking about it. They should be.
What PM Modi is standing next to is a 700 MWe nuclear steam generator. Built entirely in India at L&T's facility in Hazira, Gujarat.
Most people will scroll past this image without understanding what they are looking at. That would be a mistake.
A nuclear steam generator is not a component you order from a catalogue. It sits at the absolute heart of a nuclear reactor, transferring heat from the reactor core to produce the steam that generates electricity. Building one requires metallurgy, precision engineering and manufacturing capability that takes decades to develop and cannot be rushed or imported. The countries that can produce it at scale can be counted on two hands.
India just confirmed its place on that list.
L&T's Hazira facility has manufactured more than 42 steam generators for India's nuclear sector. Seven have already been delivered to NPCIL ahead of schedule as part of India's indigenous 10 into 700 MWe PHWR programme. India's nuclear power capacity is projected to reach 22.38 gigawatts by 2031.
Ahead of schedule. On an indigenous nuclear programme. In a sector where delays are not the exception but the global standard.
Missiles get the headlines. Fighter jets get the documentaries. Defence exports get the investor attention.
But this is what industrial power actually looks like. The unglamorous, enormously complex, decades in the making capability to manufacture the components that sit inside the systems that power a civilisation.
Countries that can build nuclear steam generators do not depend on anyone else for their energy future. They build it themselves.
India just built seven. Delivered them early. And barely anyone noticed.
Shahnawaz topped BTech from VNIT. Comes from a wealthy middle class family. Father is an academic. Shahnawaz converted his wife Basanti, now Khadija, and started working for ISIS. Nabbed yesterday, he was about to plant high-intensity explosives at Ayodhya.
You can't stop this.
🚨 Just IN 🚨
Israel is planning to install a statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in one of its major cities, confirms Israel's Consul General to Mumbai.
🚨 BIG BREAKING
Anjana Om Kashyap & TV Today Network have filed a DEFAMATION suit in the Delhi High Court against Khan Sir, Abhinay Sharma, and others.
=> The suit seeks REMOVAL of allegedly abusive videos & comments from YouTube, Meta, and X, along with ₹2 crore in damages.
This afternoon, went to the L&T complex at Hazira. Witnessed some of their pioneering innovations across different sectors. The role played by L&T in furthering self-reliance in the defence sector is commendable.
@larsentoubro
🚨 BIG BREAKING
Khan Global Coaching in Patna may be SEALED for non-compliance with fire safety norms.
DIG Manoj Kumar Nat said the coaching institute could face ACTION after a fire audit reportedly flagged several serious deficiencies.
#WATCH | Patna, Bihar: On Stone pelting at Khan Sir's coaching centre, Director, Gyan Bindu Coaching, Raushan Anand says, "... There is a conspiracy against us. After the success of the Bihar police exam results, they are trying to trap us. Kisan cold storage owners and Khan Sir together are attempting to ruin Gyan Bindu..."
Lovekesh Bajaj is the owner of the hotel Flourish Stays B&B in Delhi's Malviya Nagar where a devastating fire had claimed 21 lives on June 3.
Most of the deceased were staying at Flourish Stay B&B as their relatives were undergoing treatment at Max Hospital, which is located in front of the hotel.
Lovekesh Bajaj, had previously been arrested in a case involving the alleged procurement of forged Indian identity documents for #Bangladeshi nationals.
During the investigation, police found that two individuals identified as Johra Khatoon(alias Sweety Sarkar) and her daughter, Puspo Saiyada Akther(alias Pushpo Sarkar), along with Pushpo's minor son, were residing in a house in Paharganj allegedly on the basis of fraudulently procured Indian documents, including passports and Aadhaar cards.
The two had obtained an Indian passport using an address in Chattarpur Enclave in south Delhi. Verification of the address established that the property belonged to Bajaj.
Bajaj was arrested on Wednesday evening in connection with the fire case.
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) launched a major crackdown across the national capital's Hauz Rani area.
Licenses of 12 establishments will be cancelled.
20 more establishments will be sealed. From https://t.co/ItCpJohJGT
BIG BREAKING 🚨 Anjana Om Kashyap files legal case against Faisal Khan Sir, Abhinay Maths and others.
Faisal Khan in big trouble !!
TV Today and Anjana Om Kashyap seek damages of ₹2 crore.
Petition also seeks the removal of allegedly defamatory comments and content posted against them on YouTube, Meta, and X.