MUMBAI, India - Saturday, August 15. Independence Day in India. News trickled in that one of India’s most recognizable faces and names had been detained at an international airport in the United States. Questions about individual freedom, independence, liberty, and laws of the land are still being furiously debated in India.

Shah Rukh Khan said he was detained by authorities at the Newark, New Jersey, airport.

Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan says he was detained by immigration officials in the U.S. for up to two hours and questioned. He says he believes it’s because of his Muslim last name, Khan.

"They kept telling me it's because my name is common and I was too polite to say, common to what?" says Khan.

U.S. officials deny the superstar was held up because of his name and say the whole process took just 66 minutes – and that too, because the airline had misplaced his bags.

Whatever the reason, the incident has kicked up a furore in India. There’s an outpouring of outrage and anger at the way an Indian VIP was treated. Ambika Soni, India's Information and Broadcasting Minister, said of the U.S.: “The way they frisk us, I say we frisk them the same way.”

Is she overreacting?

Among all the support fans are offering Khan, there are those who have little sympathy. Fellow Bollywood actor Salman Khan asks: “What’s the big deal? We all have to go through security.”

Do you agree with him? Has this whole incident been blown out of proportion? One observer said: “No-one is above the law of the land, and the U.S. officials were just doing their job.”

We’d love to know what you think. Should Shah Rukh Khan have not made such a fuss about being detained at Newark airport – or do you understand why he felt slighted?

NEW DELHI, India - It was a concert backed to the hilt by Indian politicians otherwise opposed to "Western culture."

It was Michael Jackson's first and only show in India in its commercial capital of Mumbai.

Jackson performing in Mumbai.

Amid a row about tax concessions the pop icon landed in the home of Bollywood cinema on October 30, 1996.

It was around 9 a.m. local time and some 10,000 fans had crowded outside the airport, recalled Sabbas Joseph, director of Wizcraft, the company that organized the concert.

Bollywood actor Sonali Bendre, clad in a saree, gave a traditional Indian welcome to him, as a group of artists danced to drumbeats.

The excitement was such that most airport staff abandoned their posts to have a glimpse of the “King of Pop” as he walked out to the cheers of the thousands assembled at the main entrance, Joseph recalled.

He addressed them with the Hindu greeting of "Namaste" from a makeshift podium, before he got into his open-top car and traveled along a route lined with thousands more fans.

Among them were Mumbai's slum kids and the singer would often jump out to cuddle them, Joseph said.

Jackson spent the evening of his first day in India meeting the who's who of Mumbai - from Bollywood stars to captains of industry and politicians - at a banquet.

On his second day he met the slum children again.

This time at poolside in his hotel for a photo shoot that Joseph remembers was for a calendar the entertainer was making in honor of the children of the world.

Jackson also sought blessings from Mother Teresa as he spoke with her on phone, his show organizer said.

But all these activities didn't exhaust him for his big night in Mumbai.

On November 1, 1996, he chose to drive down to the concert venue. No matter, if it meant spending an hour on the congested roads of Mumbai.

Around 20,000 fans packed the stadium as the singer made a spectacular appearance on stage - a touchdown from a specially-designed rocket capsule.

"It was incredible," recalled Joseph. Thousands chanted his name while some fans even fainted. The two-hour show created history in India's entertainment world. Revenues for the sold-out concert were staggering - $1 million.

But organizers say the money is still with the court where a petition was filed against the then state government for exempting the show from entertainment tax.

"Michael Jackson had come to India ahead of India's time," remarked Joseph. "India was a different country 13 years ago."

NEW DELHI, India — Covering political rallies in India is never peachy. The weather is gruesome, the wait is long, the music is blaring at its cacophonous best and as we experienced today, there is the chance of being caught in the midst of an excited crowd. Today’s political rally in India’s capital, New Delhi, was addressed by one of India’s most recognized youth politicians, Rahul Gandhi. 

Enthusiasm grips a crowd at a political rally in New Delhi.

Often touted as the prime minister in waiting, the young Gandhi scion swooped down in a helicopter to adoring fans, more than an hour behind his scheduled appearance. As he approached the venue, a party member encouraged the masses to keep shouting slogans. And the masses complied. When Rahul got onto the stage there was welcoming applause. I saw some familiar faces from the other rallies as they screamed and waved toward the stage. 

When Rahul starts speaking, most of the folks in the VIP section climb on top of their chairs and listen, laughing when he says a joke or clapping when he points out why his party is best suited to lead the nation. 

When the 5pm deadline approaches (the public campaign has to end at 5 p.m., Tuesday, ahead of Thursday’s phase four of India’s polls) the crowd starts surging forward. Our cameraman, Sanjiv Talreja, and I make our way to the exit as the podium goes quiet. Little did we expect to be squashed, shoved and pushed. In an effort to catch a glimpse of Rahul taking off on the helicopter, the crowd surged forward and many people rushed toward the same exit that we took. I almost lost the ladder that I was carrying and held on with all my might to the battery bag. Sanjiv, who was carrying both the camera and the tripod, was more or less knocked over. We both managed to get out without a bruise and heaved a sigh of relief! 

As we left the grounds, we could see hundreds of people standing across the open ground watching skyward. As Rahul’s chopper took to the skies, people waved enthusiastically. 

Campaigning in India is never short of drama and the colors, songs, dances and speeches are all vibrant. And no matter how often you attend a rally, there is always some new quirk to take you by surprise.

NEW DELHI, India - India's capital is sweltering and so is the rest of the country. The oppressive heat wave felt across India has sent temperatures soaring well beyond 43 degrees Celsius (110 degrees Fahrenheit) in many parts of the country.

In the midst of this brutally hot weather we have been out covering political rallies.

CNN correspondent Sara Sidner gulps down water during a sweltering rally.

The latest one began at three in the afternoon, the absolute hottest part of the day. One would think this is a bad time to hold a rally but India is right in the middle of a general election.

Elections here take place once every five years. So no matter when rallies are held they are a huge draw, as people attempt to catch their favorite candidate in action.

Inevitably the politicians arrive late, which means we spend even longer at the mercy of the sun. "Under the sun," might sound very romantic for a movie title but let me tell you it’s anything but romantic in this context.

Lugging around heavy equipment, the crew sweats so much it feels like there's no liquid left in our bodies. Between the long wait for the candidate and the quest for the right shot, it is something of a small miracle that none of us have had heat stroke. Luckily water is handed out periodically.

The odd thing is the crowd seems immune to the heat. When the music plays, ladies in colorful saris dance with genuine enthusiasm. The men chant, push and shove to try and get a closer look.

Meanwhile the electric fans set up all along the huge field are not turned on and no one is complaining – well almost no one.

NEW DELHI, India  - Traditionally, going village to village, city to city across the vast expanse of India is the way campaigning works in the world's largest democracy.

But the times are changing as the national political parties try to adapt to the Internet age to woo the country's 714 million potential voters.

"I must admit here that we were somewhat inspired by the use of information technology, Internet in particular, in the recent American presidential elections," said, Sudheendra Kulkarni, an e-campaign manager for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), referring to the Obama campaign's use of the Internet.

And there's good reason. This year another 43 million people are eligible to vote – many of them young adults, and many of them more plugged into technology.

The BJP is pushing the technology envelope this year. It is using video phones, Google ads, cell phone text messages, YouTube, and social networking sites, such as Orkut and Facebook. The party also has a glossy Web site for its main candidate as prime minister.

Working behind the scenes are some of the very people the party is trying to attract.

Mallika Noorani is in her early 20s and left her job as a banker to volunteer for the BJP campaign.

"I work on average about 12 hours a day for not a penny. A complete 100 percent volunteer," Noorani said.

"I seized the opportunity to learn more but also to understand how exactly I could make a difference," she said.

"Because at the end of the day, you know you can't always blame someone else, you kind of have to hold yourself accountable as much you want to hold your politicians accountable."

Noorani is from Mumbai, where the terrorist attacks in 2008 triggered a rallying cry from the youth in particular to force government to take action and secure the country.

There is no doubt the campaigns have taken note of the clamor for change among young people.

"The youth vote acquires a greater importance for the simple reason that the largest segment of those who are going in voting on the polling booths.  That is why it is even more important," said Vishvjit P. Singh, e-campaign manager for India's National Congress Party - a longtime rival of the BJP.

At India's National Congress Party headquarters, they are working on their electronic campaign.

"We put up our Jai Ho ring tone on our Web site and you won't believe it– in the first two hours, we had 14,500 downloads," Singh said, referring to the theme song from the Oscar-winning movie "Slumdog Millionaire."

The National Congress Party also reworked the song with words to fit its campaign message.

But even in the Web world there is politics as usual. The National Congress Party, which offers information in three different languages, said its site was better for the common man in India and took a swipe at the BJP's site.

"It's got drop-down menus, it's got all kinds of navigation tricks, you know, which, is very, very good for a nerd, very good for a geek," e-campaign manager Singh said of the BJP site. "But how do you get a common man who is a young boy, who is just going into a cyber cafe, it will be very difficult for him to navigate."

Technology is making waves in the 2009 campaign, reaching tens of thousands of voters, but old-fashioned politics still reign supreme.

No one here believes Web sites will be the deciding factor this time around - but give it a few years and it just might click with millions more voters.

Especially the young and politically passionate, such as BJP volunteer Noorani.

"I am under no illusion. But I think it's the first step. We are reaching out, through the Web site, to 30,000 unique visitors a day."

MUMBAI, India - I was there watching the horror and feeling helpless. As I rattled on with the few details authorities would give us I stood, ducked and sometimes crouched next to my colleagues from all over the world as they did the same.

Children play at the hotel pool which left an mark on CNN’s Sara Sidner.

The scene was sheer madness unfolding before our eyes and through the camera's lens.

I was posted outside the Taj Hotel and Tower in Mumbai when terror rained down on India's financial capital for days last November.

For the 72 hours I was there, I slept exactly three, the same goes for many of my CNN colleagues working beside me or at other scenes.

There were four active scenes for at least two days. I happened to be posted at the one that ended last in a blaze of fire, bullets and grenade blasts.

Friends and co-workers watching on their television screens told me later it looked like a movie. But a movie ends in two hours. This went on for three days.

It looked like and felt like hell from the outside. On the inside it was hell for the dozens of workers and guests still alive but trapped as the dead lay where they were gunned down.

Today I am back at the scene for the first time since the attacks. I made myself stand in the same spot where I reported from and again turned to look at the majestic building.

I didn't want to go in at first. I was afraid of what I might feel. But I didn't want to remember it the way I first laid eyes on it. So I started walking towards the lobby of the 106-year-old building.

On the outside, the heritage part of the hotel still has boards covering some of the windows. The ones I watched burst with flames five months ago.

I had to pass white barricades that now lace the once open breezeway. There are three layers of security including an X-ray machine for every bag each guest brings with them.

Once inside you wouldn't know at first glance what happened here. The lobby is spotless.

But walk a dozen steps towards a glass enclosed area with a waterfall and you see a tree, a large marble plaque, and a sobering message. It has the names of the 31 people who died during those terrible four nights and three days.

Many of the public spaces have been restored. We walked farther in to the immense staircase that looks like something out of a fairytale. Not a thing out of place. Immaculate and almost too much for the eye to take in.

But as you climbed to the top there was another reminder. White planks of wood blocked two large windows that once looked out on to the ocean.

Then it was off to the poolside. I got one of those chills down my spine as I walked out between the chairs. It's because of that image in my head.

The image from the front page of a newspaper the morning after the attacks started. A man who was likely enjoying his drink poolside had been gunned down. He died there. Click. That picture won't leave my head.

But then you hear the noise of happiness. Children are splashing in the pool and adults are chatting and enjoying their lives.

It's trite but true; life goes on. Honestly, sometimes I forget to enjoy mine. What a fool I am.

The crew and I are staying at the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower for a couple of nights. We're here to cover the first day of the trial of the lone surviving suspect in the Mumbai attacks.

I picked the Taj as our hotel on purpose, I guess I needed to see a bit of normalcy here after what I witnessed from the outside.

I'm staying in the tower that is fully up and running. It had minimal damage during the attack. But next door in the old world rooms of the tower's older sister there is still a lot of work to do.

Of the 565 total rooms in the two buildings only 268 can be occupied. All I can say right now is, I am glad to be one of the occupants.

NEW DELHI, India – It's not every day that one gets to follow the Dalai Lama as he makes his presence felt in eight different places of prayer in Delhi as a tribute to India on the occasion of his 50 years in exile.

The Dalai Lama sits down with muslim elders at the Nizamuddin Chilla shrine.

We have the list of places that the Dalai Lama is visiting and our very first stop is the Gandhi Smriti - the place where Mahatma Gandhi spent the last 144 days of his life. 

He took his last breath on the same grounds after being assassinated while on his way to the daily prayer meeting. It's a piece of history that every Indian has read in school, myself included.

As we make our way inside the well-kept premises, devotional Indian music floats through the early morning sunlight and hazy blue skies. Despite the early hour and it being a working day, there is more than a smattering of people to witness the Dalai Lama's presence in this revered place.

The Dalai Lama's arrival creates a slight frenzy as media folks rush to capture his every move and visitors eagerly crane their neck to take a look. After paying tribute at Gandhi's memorial, he sits down on the sheet spread over the grass to enjoy a few minutes of the music.

Despite us rushing to get the right shots and the correct sound, one can't help but notice how peaceful this place feels amidst all the greenery. After the Dalai Lama graciously thanks the musicians, he heads for his next stop - an Ashram devoted to the cause of non-violence.

Meanwhile, we drive down to a Muslim shrine known as Nizamuddin Chilla located in central Delhi, the third stop on the Dalai Lama's tour. Named after a Sufi saint, this place is nestled right behind another famous monument, the Mughal emperor Humayun's tomb. Walking up the stairs the place feels lost in time, like we just stumbled back into a different century. A reminder of our current situation comes in the form of tight security.

We are frisked and our equipment is checked. As a mark of respect everyone has to remove their shoes before entering this holy place.

When the Dalai Lama arrives, he is greeted by the shrine elders and presented with the Islamic prayer cap. As the media crowds around the leaders to get a good shot, Sanjiv, our cameraman, mounts a short ladder we usually carry with our gear to get a bird's eye view.

In a sit down with all the visitors and the religious leaders, the shrine elders heap praise on the spiritual leader for promoting peace. The Dalai Lama praises Islam as an ancient religion which has much to contribute to the world. In a sit-down interview with our correspondent Sara Sidner yesterday, the Dalai Lama was quick to offer his views on the religion. Dalai Lama thanks India for 50 years in exile

Our fourth stop for the day is the Judah Hyam Synagogue. The Synagogue is crowded with worshippers and the Dalai Lama is given a warm welcome and a prayer is offered. Our next stop is the Sikh Temple, also known as the Gurudwara Rakab Ganj. Again, we leave our shoes at the entrance as a mark of respect and also cover our head with a scarf.

As we hurry to our next stop, Sara forgets to wear her shoes!  With little time left we make a dash to cover the Dalai Lama at The Cathedral church of Redemption.

Our final stop is at the Buddhist Society and the Laxmi Narayan Hindu Temple, both situated side-by-side. Security at the temple is more stringent than any of the other place of worship.

Covering the Dalai Lama as he visits different places in the city in quick succession has been tricky but we just had to make sure we made it on time, despite the Delhi traffic. No easy task.

One can't help but marvel at the Dalai Lama's energy. Watch Sara Sidner's exclusive interview with the Dalai Lama

NEW DELHI, India - Every day on my way to and from work I pass a community that exists on the side of the road in the dirtiest of conditions.

Homeless children play outside their destroyed huts.

Out in the open tiny children use the bathroom just outside their huts on sheets of newspaper, men wash themselves with a pail of water and women prepare breakfast on tin plates on the ground.

It's sometimes too much to behold. Seeing it makes me feel a sense of guilt for having so much and not doing enough coupled with a sense of curiosity about how they survive day in and day out.

But over the days and months that I have been watching another feeling has surfaced, a sense of amazement.

No matter where these families are tossed they somehow manage to form a real working neighborhood of their own.

Children play with jumps ropes made of rags, families keep pets (I see a great Dane tied up every morning protecting its owner's hut that is about the same height as the dog), and mothers comb their daughters hair on Charpoys (rope strung beds) that sit outside the huts.

Then there are the businesses that exist along side the homes.

There's the guy who makes furniture, the vegetable vendor, the ironsmith, and the people who go around collecting garbage found all over the streets of Delhi and bring it home to pick through it and recycle the bits that can bring in some money.

After a year of drive-bys, this Delhi street side neighborhood had become a small part of my daily life.

So when I drove by two nights ago I gasped, the entire neighborhood had been leveled. Its tenants left sitting on piles of bricks and mortar looking dazed.

They had no warning except for that fact that most knew this settlement was illegal though they had been living there for years.

This is life in the slums. One minute you have shelter, the next you don't.

These people live on about $1 a day so being able to afford proper housing is next to impossible. They are here to work, many from destitute villages, but they can't make a living in anymore.

The government said this settlement on government-owned land was bulldozed because it was encroaching on the right of way and more importantly the road had to be expanded to accommodate the thousands of visitors expected to attend the Commonwealth Games Delhi is hosting in 2010.

Delhi has a master plan to relocate its millions of slum dwellers but qualifying for housing can mean going through a maze of bureaucratic maneuvers.

In this case the residents don't qualify. Even if they did, right now there isn't enough housing built to accommodate them.

It's not politically correct to say aloud (just try getting a politician to admit this on camera) but the truth is the city is also trying to clean up its image by erasing its slums. The question is how to do it humanely.

It's easy to judge those in power for their actions or inaction but it is much harder to figure out real solutions. Maybe you have the answers. Any takers?

Devotees offer prayers at a Muslim neighborhood in Mumbai.

As recently as 2002 a massive Hindu-Muslim riot in the Indian state of Gujarat caused bloodshed and political catastrophe. There have been other incidences of communal violence since then. The aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks had the right ingredients for the different communities' anger to erupt into violence. But thankfully there was no war and no bloodshed. It is inevitable that religion is bought into focus during terrorist attacks.

Our correspondent Mallika Kapur decided to find out what the Muslim mood is like in Mumbai after the terror attacks on the city.

We headed to a Muslim neighborhood in Mumbai to talk to people and ask them what they feel the city was like. As our cameraman Sanjiv Talreja hoisted his camera, policemen came rushing to us asking if we had permission to shoot in the neighborhood. We were escorted to the office that runs the ‘Dargah' (shrine), and thankfully the head person over there said he had no problem with our shooting from outside the prayer hall.

The place was bustling, with devotees constantly streaming to and fro. Both sides of the street were lined with sellers who tried to cajole visitors into buying offerings for the shrine. But beneath the relatively light mood there was a feeling of tension. We were often reminded by the police to wrap up the shooting quickly.

One man, Javed Karim, who had come to attend prayers along with two of his kids told us, "What has happened here means anything can happen anywhere." Speaking about his two sons, he added, "When I send them to school, I am a little afraid of what might happen."

Another man that we spoke to told us, India is no longer a peaceful place to stay, and there was communal tension in Mumbai.

No matter what the people felt about the city's mood, they were all unanimous in denouncing the terror attacks.

The protest vigil that was held earlier against the backdrop of "Gateway of India" saw participation from all community members. A huge Muslim group carried placards that condemned terror. Many chanted "Vande Mataram," a nationalistic slogan made popular during India's freedom struggle and which translates to "bow to thee mother."

The terrorists killed in the attack have been refused burial at all the Muslim graveyards in Mumbai. People told us what the terrorists did was against the teachings of Islam.

This attack knew no religion. People from all different communities were affected by it. Even amid the blame game with Pakistan, there was unanimity among the different communities in India: Terrorists targeted all religion.

For a country that is celebrated for its diversity in religion, language and culture, India is often challenged by its own ethos. Even as the country is being talked about as the next emerging power, there are some real issues which need to be addressed and one among them is the harmony in its diversity.

As I sit in the hotel room writing this blog, I can hear the Muslim call for prayer floating from the mosque, swirling through the high-rises of Mumbai, "Allah o Akbar, Allah..."

Watch CNN's Mumbai-based correspondent Mallika Kapur's piece about Muslims' mood in Mumbai after the terrorist attack.

Sandra Samuel and Moshe Holtzberg were the only ones to survive a siege on Mumbai's Chabad House last week.

It is hard to believe this little boy lost his mother and father in the attack on Mumbai's Chabad House Jewish Center last week - his parents, the center's directors Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, were among six people who perished - but the hope is that he is too young to remember too much.

We keep out of sight. Strangers, understandably, upset him.

Only our Israeli cameraman Avi is allowed up close. He has a baby almost the same age as Moshe, and after handing him back his errant balloon he becomes accepted in the circle of trust.

His nanny Sandra Samuel is only told of our interview 10 minutes before we arrive. Those protecting her didn't want her worrying about it on top of the incredibly traumatic experience she has already been through. Watch more on Moshe's escape

As she walks into the room, I am struck by how petite and how poised she is.

Within minutes you feel this woman's inner strength and her utter devotion to the two-year-old whose life she saved.

During the height of the attacks that killed 179 people across Mumbai, Samuel spent 12 hours locked in a storeroom after being shot at by one of the gunmen. As the siege continued, she left this relative safe place, not knowing where the gunmen were, the second she heard the baby calling her name.

She denies she is brave, saying simply this baby is very precious to her and no one thinks of dying with a small precious baby in your arms.

She even feels guilt that she didn't also save the rabbi and his wife, both shot by the gunmen. When I ask her how she is coping, she laughs at the thought of worrying about herself or even talking about herself saying simply: "Baby's there, Sandra's there, that's it."

One thing that clearly disturbs her is that she knows Moshe was asleep on the fifth floor of the Jewish Center when the gunmen entered. She found him on the second floor and with a perfect handprint mark on his back. The thought of a gunman carrying him down the stairs and hitting him is too much for her.

We keep the interview fairly short - Moshe becomes inconsolable if he's parted from Sandra for too long. She is the one constant in his young life at the moment that he can cling to, and he is not letting go.

The second he is back in her arms, he smiles.

Moshe is surrounded by a lot of people who adore him, he will never want for help, financial or emotional. But the worry is he will never know his parents. Those close to him are torn between hoping he remembers nothing of the attack but hoping he will remember something of his parents who adored him.

For the first few days, he constantly cried for his mother and was inconsolable. He cries less now he has the distraction of a garden filled with toys, but Sandra knows the difficult and heart-breaking questions are still to come.

A family is destroyed; a little boy orphaned. The utter waste is heart-breaking.

Watch my interview with Sandra Samuel