In Baahubali: The Conclusion (2017), the warrior Kattappa kills Amarendra Baahubali. Kattappa has sworn loyalty to the rulers of Mahishmati. “Bound by oath to serve the kingdom, Kattappa helplessly lures Amarendra” to his death. The order comes from the rulers, Sivagami and Bhallaladeva.
Before the second film, the question “Why did Kattappa kill Baahubali?” had been “on everyone’s mind since 2015,” The News Minute wrote.
The Arthashastra, the ancient treatise on statecraft attributed to Kautilya, tells the king to examine his ministers “by offering temptations.” Book 1, chapter 10, is titled “Ascertaining by Temptations Purity or Impurity in the Character of Ministers.”
In one test, the minister is told: “This king is unrighteous.” In another, he is urged to murder the king “in view of acquiring immense wealth.” In a third, he hears: “The queen is enamoured of thee.” The translation is by R. Shamasastry.
On November 27, 2019, the Haryana government transferred the IAS officer Ashok Khemka once more. It was his 53rd transfer in a career of 28 years, Scroll reported. Khemka tweeted: “Transferred again. Back to square one.” He added: “Some will be pleased. The reward for honesty is humiliation.”
Haath sar par rakhna: to put a hand on someone’s head. The Rekhta dictionary gives “patronize” and “show affection, kindness.” Its Hindi entry adds to become someone’s patron, murabbi banna, and to be their helper.
Pahunch: reach. Rekhta gives “access, entrance, admittance.” Its Hindi entry adds sampark, prabhav, contact and influence.
A popular picture of Hanuman shows him tearing open his chest. Inside, “everyone is stunned to see Rama and Sita literally in his heart,” as one retelling puts it.
Its origin is less clear. The scene “does not appear in Valmiki’s Ramayan,” the Indian site Shikshanam notes, and it says that the scene is also missing from the Ramcharitmanas. It notes that the scene appears in the Krittivasi Ramayan, a Bengali retelling of the 15th century. That origin rests on this one source.
In 1979 the first flight of India’s satellite launch vehicle, SLV-3, failed. Satish Dhawan, chairman of ISRO, “took all the blame,” in Kalam’s words. The next year, SLV-3 succeeded. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the project director, later told students: “again there was a press conference and Prof. Dhawan put me in the front to share the success story with the press.”
The Raman effect was discovered in 1928. It was “first reported by Raman and his coworker K. S. Krishnan,” Wikipedia notes, and it calls Krishnan a co-discoverer. The effect carries Raman’s name. In 1930 Raman received the Nobel Prize in Physics for it.
According to the magazine Madras Musings, Raman once told Sukumar Sircar that Krishnan deserved half the credit for the discovery.
Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar wrote Zanjeer (1973) together, as Salim-Javed. They wanted a writing credit on the film’s posters. The producer and director, Prakash Mehra, refused. Scroll reports what followed: “the two hired a painter to stencil ‘Written by Salim-Javed’ on posters plastered across Mumbai.”
The credit appeared because the writers put it there themselves.
In December 2012, the news agency PTI reported a reply from the Planning Ministry to a request under the Right to Information Act. Of 58 institutions and schemes run by the central government, 27 were named after former Prime Ministers. “As many as 16 of these were named after Rajiv while eight have been named after Indira and three after Nehru.”
In 2021, India’s Covid-19 vaccination certificates carried a photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a message from him. In August 2021, the Congress member Kumar Ketkar asked in the Rajya Sabha whether the photograph was necessary.
The minister of state for health, Bharati Pravin Pawar, replied that the photograph and message reinforce “the importance of creating awareness about following Covid-appropriate behaviour even after vaccination.”