Aneet Padda: Glamorous Debut

Not everyone gets to be a showstopper for couturier Tarun Tahiliani at Lakmé Fashion Week, but Aneet Padda, the star of Saiyaara at all of 22, managed to walk the ramp in a too-tight-to-breathe corset and saree. She was visibly nervous, but with Tahiliani holding her hand, it was a debut well done.

  Ambitious Mission

He aims to unseat 20-term incumbent Nancy Pelosi in 2026, which is no easy task. Saikat Chakrabarti is former chief-of-staff to New York representa­tive Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez and a former tech executive. Chakrabarti launched his bid this week at San Francisco’s Mission District, promising health­care for all, making tuition of public colleges and trade schools free, taxing billionaires, and prohibiting Congress members from trading stocks. Will he be another Zohran Mamdani?

 Charity Begins at Home

Akshata Murty, wife of former British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been busy launching The Richmond Project. It’s a charity that hopes to tackle numeracy problems among children in England. Named in honour of the area of North Yorkshire where they live and which Sunak represents as an MP, the charity aims to help chil­dren struggling at school, families lacking in number confidence and adults who never mastered basic maths (though Murty insists on calling it math like most Americans). Since leaving No 10, Sunak has become an ambassador for Prostate Cancer Research and accept­ed visiting academic posts at Oxford and Stanford.