Aamir-Kiran name son after Maulana Azad - India

10 dec 2011

Aamir-Kiran name son after Maulana Azad

Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao have named their newborn son Azad Rao Khan after freedom fighter and independent India's first education minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Aamir's "great grand uncle".

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"Hey guys, most excited to share with y'all that we have finally chosen a name for our baby boy...Azad. Azad Rao Khan. I left the final choice to Kiran, and she has named him after my great grand uncle Maulana Azad, the great freedom fighter, whom the family is most proud of," Aamir revealed on Facebook.
"Azad means free or liberated. We want to thank everyone for their warm wishes and blessings, and needless to say we are absolutely overjoyed and feel most blessed. Much love," added the actor-producer.
Aamir-Kiran's son was born Dec 1 through IVF to a surrogate mother at a private clinic in Mumbai. The couple resorted to IVF due to medical complications.
This is Kiran's first baby, but Aamir has a son, Junaid, and a daughter, Ira, from his first wife Reena.
Aamir ended his 15-year-old marriage with Reena in 2002, and during the shooting of Ashutosh Gowariker's 'Lagaan', he and the film's assistant director Kiran ended up together.
They tied the knot in 2005.
In 2009, Kiran got pregnant, but she had a miscarriage. However, the duo now feel "blessed" with the newborn.

Govt admits $9 billion mistake in export figures - India

09 dec 2011

Govt admits $9 billion mistake in export figures

New Delhi:  Fears about exports being shown on the higher side have come true with the government conceding today that it made a mistake as the numbers got inflated by US $9 billion in the April-November period of the current fiscal.

"Every damn number for the last eight months has been revised..." Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar said, conceding the crucial balance of trade deficit was also kept under-valued at US $107 billion instead of US $117 billion.

"There were not only mis-classifications but also error in double counting and all sorts of things due to problems in the computer software which was recently upgraded," he said.

Having admitted mistakes, Mr Khullar said that at least now "the notion that the government is deliberately cooking up and telling lies... has got to stop. How many people will come and tell you that we have goofed up; there was a mistake. I have said it openly there is nothing to hide; there is no shame in admitting that there is something wrong".

However, he said that even after factoring in mistakes, the exports grew by 33.2 per cent between April-November.

The data goof-up was 4-5 per cent of the export billing and on an average it was inflated by US $1 billion a month, Mr Khullar said.

There were doubts on huge growth in exports which was even shown at 82 per cent in July at a time when the manufacturing was going down.

"Exports are still doing pretty damn well. (Earlier) you thought it (growth) would be 40-45 per cent, now it is down to 33 per cent (during April-November this fiscal)," he said.

For the eight month period, total exports have been calculated at US $192.7 billion, while imports at US $309.5 billion (growth of 30.2 per cent).

The fiscal-end trade gap may be US $150-160 billion, he said.

CBI set to file chargesheet against Essar group - India

08 dec 2011

CBI set to file chargesheet against Essar group

Sources said the chargesheet may not name any government officials as accused as the CBI believes that it was a boardroom conspiracy allegedly hatched by Essar to float Loop Telecom as a front company to bag 2G licences

New Delhi: The CBI will soon file its chargesheet against the Essar group promoters in the 2G scam despite law minister Salman Khurshid's disagreement with attorney general Goolam Vahanvati, who approved the filing of the chargesheet.

Khurshid has been claiming that Vahanvati did not consult his ministry before taking the decision. The law ministry had given a clean chit to Essar on an application filed by it and said it did not commit any illegality.

A CBI official said Vahanvati's opinion was final as far as legality of the matter was concerned as he is the top government lawyer and the minister could not overrule him.

"If the law ministry takes up the matter with our ministry, then the matter could be delayed further. But we are almost prepared to file our chargesheet and there are no remaining legal hurdles," an official said.



Sources said the chargesheet may not name any government officials as accused as the CBI believes that it was a boardroom conspiracy allegedly hatched by Essar to float Loop Telecom as a front company to bag 2G licences. Essar was itself not qualified for licences due to its holding of 33 per cent stake in Vodaphone-Essar.

A CBI official said the chargesheet was prepared and at an advanced stage and the delay was because of their careful calibration of its every aspect. He said it could be filed in a court in a couple of weeks.

The chargesheet could be filed against the accused for cheating and criminal conspiracy. The matter had reached the AG after the CBI's prosecution wing shot down the investigating officials' case against Essar and said it at best amounted to a civil offence.

Essar group has been insisting that they have been in agreement with telecom guidelines. It had taken opinions of several retired judges and leading lawyers in its favour.

Harvard University removes courses taught by Subramanian Swamy - India

07 dec 2011

Harvard University removes courses taught by Subramanian Swamy

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New Delhi:  The Harvard University has dropped courses taught by Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy because of a controversial article he wrote this summer that was deemed to be offensive to Muslims. After Mr Swamy's article was published in an Indian newspaper, a group of Harvard students had urged the University to cancel the courses that he teaches every summer at the university.

In October, an FIR was filed against Mr Swamy for his article. He was charged with Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code for spreading enmity between communities.

Mr Swamy is one of the main petitioners in the Supreme Court for the telecom scam, also referred to as "the 2G scam" after the sort of spectrum involved. Mr Swamy believes the case against him is a manifestation of political vendetta. "I wrote the article in July, the FIR is filed in October," he had said. "The motive seems to be for my stand on 2G."

Mr Swamy had urged the Supreme Court to monitor the investigation into the 2G scam, which is being conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Mr Swamy has recently asked the court to direct the CBI to investigate the alleged role of P Chidambaram, currently the Home Minister, in the scam. When the telecom scam unfolded in 2008, Mr Chidambaram was Finance Minister. 

Riteish Deshmukh's grand bachelor party - India

06 dec 2011

Band bajaa hai, band bajega

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Buzz is that Riteish Deshmukh's friends in Bollywood are planning a grand bachelor party for him.
In films, he's one harrowed bachelor, always getting into some kind of trouble, but this time it's different for Riteish Deshmukh. Buzz is that a bachelor party is in the offing for the actor, who's all set to tie the knot with long-time girlfriend, actress Genelia D'Souza soon. Sources say that Riteish's friends are planning a huge bachelor party for the actor before he gets hitched on February 4 next year.
"We are planning a party for Riteish and let me tell you, all his friends will be there. We are yet to zero in on how and where we are going to throw the party, but it's definitely on," says an actor friend of Riteish.
Filmmaker Sajid Khan, who's one of Riteish's closest friends, didn't deny that something's being planned for his actor buddy.
"We want everybody who's been close to Riteish to be there. Shah Rukh (Khan), Arjun (Rampal), Hrithik (Roshan), Akshay (Kumar), Abhishek (Bachchan) will all be there at his bachelor party. We want everybody to be there," says a friend.
The party will be a hush-hush one. In all probability, it will be held at one of their friend's places. It is learnt that Gauri Khan may host the party, but nothing is confirmed as yet.

05 dec 2011

America's recent grads, now sought in India

NYT

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New York:  Born and raised in Minneapolis, Win Bennet traveled extensively with his parents growing up, part of a family that enjoyed exploring different cultures.

When he graduated from Brown University with a major in economics and international relations in 2009, the American job market was less than welcoming, to say the least - so he looked to India.

"India is a natural choice for a few reasons," said Mr. Bennet, 24, who studied urban planning in Bangalore in his junior year. "The Indian overseas diaspora is a very vibrant and welcoming community." Also, he said, Indian professional networks with the West are large, deep and growing. "It was easy to explore opportunities and find a niche that fit my passion and skill set," just by talking to family friends and acquaintances, he said.

Mr. Bennet landed a job as an analyst at ICICI, India's largest private bank, and has lived in Mumbai for the past three years.

With the economy at home showing no signs of improving, an increasing number of recent graduates from the United States are job-hunting in India. Eager for the talent, Indian companies have responded by setting up recruiting programs overseas. While the pay in India is usually much lower than a graduate would earn in America, a lower cost of living can mean a better quality of life. "The chance to travel the world and live in a colorful Asian democracy far outweighs salary considerations when you have just graduated," Mr. Bennet.

Kunal Bahl, the co-founder of Snapdeal, an Indian e-commerce company, recently returned from a recruiting trip to the United States with stops at Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern and Stanford. "We don't have a very old legacy of Internet technology in India, and for a company that is as fast-growing as us the talent pool quickly dries up," said Mr. Bahl, 29, an engineer with a business degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

When Snapdeal's team spread the word that they were planning a U.S. recruiting trip, they were surprised by the response: more than 2,000 resumes, 30 percent of them from people who were not of Indian descent. For many non-Indians, Mr. Bahl said, "It's not that they are not getting jobs there, but they are not getting the jobs they want." So young American graduates "would rather come to India with all the resources available and get to do exciting things," he said. He plans to return in the spring for another recruiting drive.

Indians who have lived abroad for some time are also aggressively looking for work back home. "We do get a lot of C.V.'s from people abroad, especially Indians looking to come back to India," says Hitesh Oberoi, chief executive of Naukri.com, a leading Indian job site. "The number of Indians going abroad to study has increased significantly in the last few years, and they are potentially a great talent pool for companies here, especially start-ups," he said.

Snapdeal is not alone in looking for fresh talent overseas; Mahindra & Mahindra is recruiting at the Wharton School at Penn along with Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland. At job fairs held in New Jersey and California recently, Indian companies included FlipKart, InfoTech Enterprises, Jindal Steel & Power and Tata Motors.

"In the recent past, a lot of Indians who have been living and working abroad have shown an interest in moving back to the country," said Mekin Maheshwari, president of engineering at FlipKart, of the decision to participate in the job fair.

Universities have also noticed the trend. Rajiv Dewan, a senior associate dean at the Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester, said that about 20 percent of the school's 400 graduates were now taking jobs in Asia, up from less than 10 percent five years ago. Of the nearly 40 Indians in the class, about 10 have taken jobs back home, where in the past only a handful would have done so, he said.

"In the past, if people come back they would be considered a failure," Mr. Dewan said during a recent visit to India. "Now, when people come back they feel that this is the best start for them."

Dev Anand dies in London – His life story – India

04 dec 2011

Dev Anand dies in London – His life story – India

Dev Anand, the ‘Evergreen Romantic Superstar’ of Indian cinema, has passed away in London last night following cardiac arrest. He was 88. Dev Anand, who had come here for medical check up, was not keeping well for the last few days, family sources told the Press Trust of India.

 

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  Dr Sanjay Kumar Cardiac Cardiothoracic Heart Surgeon India

  
  

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    • After having played the lead actor for more than five decades and acting in over 110 motion pictures, Dev Anand continues to be the link connecting the Black and White era of filmmaking to the Eastman colour and the 3D era that is settling in. He was of the cornerstones of the film industry and his age didn’t really stop him from working on his first love, cinema.
    The Government of India honoured Dev Anand with the Padma Bhushan in 2001 and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2002 for his contribution to Indian cinema. In a career spanning over five decades, he has received three Filmfare Awards and the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award in 1991.
  
  
  • Dev Anand, the “evergreen star” is a successful director and producer as well. He directed 19 films and produced 31 films in his glorious career. He wrote the story for 13 of his films.
  
  
  • He got his first big break from Ashok Kumar. He picked him as the hero for the Bombay Talkies production, Ziddi (1948), co-starring Kamini Kaushal. The movie was a raging success and it prompted Dev Anand to start producing films.
  
  
  • So in 1949, he turned producer and launched his own production company Navketan (meaning newness). It has produced over 31 films and continues to produce movies even today.
  
  

  Dev Anand’s first film as an actor was the 1946 film Hum Ek Hain. The film also saw him share screen space with the legendary Guru Dutt. It was on the sets of this film that he and Guru Dutt became friends.
  They had a unique understanding between themselves that if one of the two becomes successful first in film industry then they would help the other to be successful so if Dev Anand produced a film, Guru Dutt would direct it and when Guru Dutt directed a film, Dev Anand would act in it.
  


• Dev Anand embodied an undying spirit and reaffirms the saying that age is just a number. “Dreams should never die. When the dreams are dead, you are dead,” the actor had famously said.

The evergreen actor Dev Anand was born on September 26th, 1923, in Shakargarh Tehsil of Gurudaspur district (now in Narowal District, Pakistan) in undivided Punjab. While Dev Anand’s mother was a pious, loving and deeply religious lady, his father was a leading lawyer of Gurdaspur, who wanted to give first grade education to all his children.
His father had a command over Persian and Arabic languages and at times he used to recite from the Islamic scriptures and explained the meaning to illiterate Muslims. At other times he used to narrate chaste Urdu poetry.Dev Anand is the second of three brothers who were in Hindi Cinema. His brothers are Chetan Anand and Vijay Anand.
Their sister, Sheel Kanta Kapur, is the mother of renowned Hindi and English film director Shekhar Kapur. He graduated in English Literature from the Government College, Lahore, (now in Pakistan).
After graduation, he left his hometown and came to Mumbai in the early 1940′s.
He began his career in the military censor office at Churchgate, Mumbai, for a salary of Rs 200.
Later, he joined his older brother Chetan as a member of the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA).

In the late forties Dev Anand started getting offers to star opposite singer-actress Suraiya in woman oriented films, as the male lead. Although Dev had tasted success in the films he starred in with Suraiya, the producers and directors attributed the success of these films to the acting prowess and screen presence of Suraiya.
Suraiya was always first billed star in credits implying that she was a bigger star than Dev Anand and he considered himself lucky to get a chance to star with an established actress and accepted the offers.The two of them were paired in six films together — Vidya (1948), Jeet (1949), Shair (1949), Afsar (1950), Nili (1950), Do Sitare (1951) and Sanam (1951), which were all successful at the box office and it was while shooting for them that the duo fell in love.
The relationship was affirmed during the shooting of the song Kinare Kinare Chale Jayenge from the film Vidya, where during the shoot, a boat capsized and Dev Anand ended up saving his ladylove Suraiya from drowning.The clandestine affair was aided by their friends Durga Khote and Kamini Kaushal, who went out of their way to engineer secret rendezvous between the two.
On the sets of the film Jeet, Dev Anand finally proposed to Suraiya and gave her a diamond ring worth Rs 3,000.
But as luck would have it, her maternal grandmother opposed the relationship as they were Muslim and Dev Anand Hindu, and so, Suraiya remained unmarried all her life. Dev was directed by Guru Dutt in the crime thriller, Baazi (1951). The film starred Dev Anand, Geeta Bali and Kalpana Kartik and became a cult classic, a trendsetter of urban crime films that followed in Bollywood in the 1950s.
Mona Singh was given the screen name of Kalpana Kartik by Dev Anand’s eldest brother Chetan Anand.
Her pairing with Dev was a big success at the box office and they were offered many films together. They signed all the offers and starred in Aandhiyan (1952), Taxi Driver (1954), House No. 44 (1954), and Nau Do Gyarah (1957), all of which went on to become big hits.
During the making of Taxi Driver, the couple fell in love and Dev proposed marriage to Kalpana. They married in a secret ceremony in 1954 and the couple have two children —a son, Suneil and a daughter Devina.
After her marriage, Kalpana Kartik decided not to pursue her acting career.Dev Anand starred opposite the then newcomer Waheeda Rehman in C.I.D. (1956), Solva Saal (1958), Kala Bazar (1960) and Baat Ek Raat Ki (1962) and the unforgettable Guide (1965) besides others.
Apart from his pairing with Suraiya and Kalpana Kartik, his pair with Nutan and Waheeda Rehman was popular among the audiences in late 50′s and 60′s. His films Rahee and Aandhiyaan, were screened along with Raj Guide was his first film in colour and was based on the R. K. Narayan’s novel of the same name.
Dev Anand was instrumental in making the film version of the book as he met and persuaded Narayan to give his assent to the project.The film was directed by younger brother Vijay Anand and was a runaway success at the Box Office. Dev Anand played the role of Raju, a verbose guide, who supports Rosy (Waheeda) in her bid for freedom while grappling with his emotions in his passage through love, shame and salvation. But while being supportive, he is not above exploiting her for personal gains.
Combining style with substance, he gave an telling performance, which is still remembered as one of his best.
The novel story alongwith SD Burman’s haunting music made it one of the masterpieces of Indian cinema.
Later, a 120-minute US version of the film was made with additional directing and writing, which was produced by Tad Danielewski. The film was screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007, about 42 years after its release.He reunited with Vijay Anand for the movie Jewel Thief, based on thriller genre which featured Vaijayantimala, Tanuja, Anju Mahendru, Faryal and Helen. Their next collaboration, Johny Mera Naam (1970), again a thriller was the highest grossing Bollywood film of 1970.
In the film, Dev was paired opposite Hema Malini was a big hit. The movie also made Hema Malini a big star.In the sixties, he acquired romantic image with films like Manzil and Tere Ghar Ke Samne with Nutan, Kinare Kinare with Meena Kumari, Maya with Mala Sinha , Asli-Naqli with Sadhana Shivdasani, Jab Pyar Kisise Hota Hai and Mahal with Asha Parekh and Teen Deviyaan opposite three heroines Kalpana, Simi Garewal and Nanda.Dev Anand like a few around him developed his unique and inimitable style that set him apart from his contemporaries.
Be it his rapid-fire style of dialogue delivery or a penchant for nodding while speaking, Dev Anand’s style got cult status with films like House No 44, Pocket Maar, Munimji, Funtoosh, C.I.D. and Paying Guest.He specialised in mystery, comedy and love story genre of films and his style was lapped up by the audience and was widely imitated.
His directorial debut, the espionage drama film Prem Pujaari, was a disaster at the Box Office but has developed a cult following over the years. However, he tasted success with his 1971 film, Hare Rama Hare Krishna, which talked about the rampant hippie culture. His find Zeenat Aman, who played the mini-skirt sporting, pot-smoking Janice, became an overnight sensation.
Dev Anand, since then, became known as a filmmaker of trenchantly topical themes. That year, he starred with Mumtaz in Tere Mere Sapne, an adaptation of A. J. Cronin’s novel, The Citadel. The film was directed by Dev’s brother, Vijay and was also successful.The year 2007 saw Dev Anand’s autobiography, Romancing with Life. The book is considered as his tell-all tale about his life, especially since he admitted to his relationship with Suraiya.The book also spilled the beans about his many muses over the years, one of which was Zeenat Aman. The actor, who admits to falling in love with the young actress, detailed about their relationship in his autobiography.
“Whenever and wherever she was talked about glowingly, I loved it. And whenever and wherever I was discussed in the same vein, she was jubilant. In the subconscious, we had become emotionally attached to each other.
“After the premiere of Ishq Ishq Ishq at Metro cinema, Raj Kapoor kissed Zeenat in full view of the invited audience, congratulating her for her sparkling performance in the film. That must have made her evening all the more sparkling. Again I felt proud of her, as much as I admired Raj Kapoor for his honest and spontaneous reaction. Complimenting her was indirectly complimenting her mentor, and I inwardly saluted my contemporary filmmaker for his sound judgement. Yet, I was jealous of him for making advances on what I considered my sole possession, my discovery, my leading lady, and desiring her with a kiss,” the star confessed in his bookDev Anand is credited with giving actors like Jackie Shroff, Tabu besides many others a break into the film industry. While he gave Jackie Shroff a break in Swami Dada, Tabu debuted in his 1985-film Hum Naujawan.From the early fifties till mid sixties, the trio of Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand ruled the roost.
Even though Raj Kapoor was younger than Dev Anand, he started getting plump and this affected his career as a hero and even Dilip Kumar’s films started flopping in the late sixties. But Dev Anand, fit as ever, continued to look much younger even in the late sixties and seventies and gave popular films till 1990 as the leading man.