Gali Nagaraja

Don’t touch any colleague’s feet in order to go up the party ladder, BJP president Nitin Gadkari said Thursday.

Concerned over a culture of patronage, Gadkari declared at the party’s National Council meeting here: “There will be no protocol in the party… I am ordering it.”

Citing his own example, Gadkari said if an ordinary worker like him could become the party president, others too had hope of moving up the ranks.

“If you deserve it, you will get it… Work hard and add to your weight,” he told the meeting, including leaders and some 1,200 delegates.

“Let the dark days of violence and conflict be left behind and a let a new dawn emerge,” President Pranab Mukherjee told the people of Jammu and Kashmir, promising to ensure that every Kashmiri lives with dignity.

Reaching out to people who have suffered decades of violence, Mukherjee candidly acknowledged that they have grievances.

“Many important issues need deft handling and speedy resolution,” he said, adding that both the Central and state governments were determined to ensure that people of Kashmir live with dignity having equal rights and equal opportunities.

Southern actress Nidhi Subbaiah, who makes her Bollywood debut with “Ajab Gazabb Love”, aspires to be a singer one day.

“Yes, after everyone’s convincing I’m planning to take training in singing sometime in the future. Hopefully, someday I’ll sing my own songs,” Nidhi said in a statement.

The actress was introduced to her hidden singing talent during the shooting of the film that also features Jackky Bhagnani, Arjun Rampal, Kirron Kher and Darshan Jariwala.

If Ajay Devgn rode horses and Sanjay Dutt drove powerful jeeps for their forthcoming Diwali release “Son Of Sardaar”, leading lady Sonakshi Sinha couldn’t have been left behind — she tried her hand at riding a bike.

Portraying a Sikhni look, Sonakshi held her breath and balanced herself perfectly on the two wheels to perform a few stunts for the action comedy, which releases Nov 13.

The actress is said to have been a tad apprehensive when she was told that her entry scene would be on a bike and she also had to do some antics on the mean machine.

Actor Varun Dhawan, who was an assistant director to Karan Johar while “My Name Is Khan” was under production, says he learned a lot from superstar Shah Rukh Khan during that time.

“During that film, his script used to be scribbled with notes. I used to take the scripts to him and asked him what it is? It was all his references, his homework. So we could just learn by looking at him,” the 24-year-old said here Wednesday during a promotional event for “Student of The Year”.

A college student in China sent a parcel to her 74-year-old grandmother containing a pile of dirty clothes, which she wanted to be cleaned and sent back.

The 74-year-old woman in Dalian in Liaoning province recently received the parcel containing a pile of clothes and socks from her granddaughter who had just entered college, reported China Daily citing China Youth Daily.

The young woman sent the clothes to her grandmother as she couldn’t wash them and wanted her grandmother to do it and send them back.

Army soldiers shot dead two “heavily armed” infiltrators Thursday while they were trying to sneak into India from Pakistan across the Line of Control (LOC) in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, an army official said.

Troops deployed on the LOC in Krishna Ghati sector, about 250 km from here, “noticed a group of armed infiltrators late Wednesday. They (troops) tracked the intruders and challenged them around 3 a.m. Thursday,” an army spokesperson told IANS.

Students at a university in China reach their library before it opens at 4 a.m. so that they can grab a seat and study.

A series of photographs in China Daily show students at Weifang University in east China’s Shandong province outside their library, waiting for it to open at 4 a.m.

The caption says that the students want to get a seat in the library, which is the best place to study.

Students have to get up really early because the library does not have enough seats for all the students.

The students are preparing for the graduate school entrance examination.

Newcomer Alia Bhatt says that her father Mahesh Bhatt and her mentor Karan Johar, who is launching her with his directorial venture “Student of The Year” (SOTY), are experts in their genre of cinema and she can’t choose between the two.

“The kind of films my father has made, like ‘Zakhm’, ‘Arth’, ‘Saaransh’, are very intense films. Karan, as we all know, is very youth-oriented, glossy, fun. So I can’t choose between my teacher and my father. I would say I love both of them,” the 19-year-old said here Wednesday at a promotional event for “SOTY.”

Why is Dia Mirza excited. The actress’ first Bengali film “Paanch Adhyay” will be showcased at the forthcoming Mumbai Film Festival, starting Oct 18, and she says the feeling is great.

A Reliance Entertainment initiative, the annual event is organised by Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI).

“I have a Bengali film releasing now during Durga Puja. I am really excited because the film has been selected by MAMI as well in the ‘New Faces of Indian Cinema’ category,” the 30-year-old said here Wednesday at the launch of Body Shop’s new product.

With an ever-increasing number of Indians suffering from heart diseases, a drastic change in lifestyle and eating habits is the need of the hour to tackle the alarming situation with a special focus on youth, say doctors.

Cardiovascular diseases would be the largest cause of death and disability in India by 2020 as per a World Health Organisation (WHO) report.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has accused US President Barack Obama of seeking to exploit the Arab Spring revolutions for political gain. He was addressing a gathering of diplomats at the UN through a satellite videolink.

Assange spoke from the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he sought refuge three months ago from extradition to Sweden. He is wanted for questioning on allegations of sex offences, reported guardian.co.uk.

Extra measures were in place here Thursday to provide
foolproof security cover to President Pranab Mukherjee during his visit here to address the 18th convocation of Kashmir University.

Police and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) men dotted the nearly eight kilometre route from Raj Bhawan to the Hazratbal campus of the University.

No vehicle was allowed to stop while moving on the route as a security measure.

Stating that he was not guilty, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Thursday expressed happiness that the Supreme Court had allowed former Gujarat minister Amit Shah, accused in the 2005 Sohrabuddin Sheikh shootout case, to return to the state.

“We are happy that he is allowed to enter Gujarat and will campaign for the state assembly elections. We believe and have firm faith in our leader that he is not guilty,” said BJP leader Prakash Javedekar.

The below-par show of Pakistan’s pace battery in the ongoing World Twenty20 has left the country’s former cricketers worried and they have called for changes in the line-up in the Super Eight stage starting today.

Former fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar has advised the team management to replace the struggling Sohail Tanvir with the experienced Abdul Razzaq.

Google turned 14 Thursday and celebrated its birthday with a doodle of a rich chocolate cake.

“Google” was inscribed across the cake and seconds after opening the site, the 14 candles atop the delicacy get extinguished.

A click on the doodle displayed a list of Google products.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google in September 1998. Since then, the company has grown to more than 30,000 employees worldwide.

Pakistan said Thursday that a quadrilateral summit here Oct 2-3 also involving Russia, Tajikistan and Afghanistan has been postponed.

New dates will be worked out after seeking the convenience of the respective leaders through diplomatic channels, Xinhua reported citing the foreign ministry.

The foreign ministry did not give any reason for the postponement.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was scheduled to attend the summit along with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Tajik President Emomalii Rahmon.

Actor Nana Patekar doesn’t believe in asking people to watch his films as he feels his job ends once he completes the shooting for a project.

“My work ends when the shoot is over, the dubbing is over. This is not my work to shout and tell people, ‘Please watch my film, it is very good’. If it is good, they will watch, if it’s bad then they will not,” the 61-year-old told reporters here Wednesday.

But given the aggressive marketing and promotion of films, Nana is changing with times, and opening up.

Sri Lanka is continuing discussions with China to purchase 3,000 new buses despite protests by private bus operators in the country, a minister said Thursday.

Minister of Transport Kumar Welgama told Xinhua that discussions are continuing with Chinese companies but a final decision has not yet been reached.

“We are looking at purchasing these buses but we are still having discussions,” the minister said.

The Sri Lankan government announced last week that it hoped to import buses from China to meet the demand in the public transport sector.

Actress Raima Sen, who was not seen in Bollywood for a long time, says she will start shooting for a Hindi film on gangsters from next month.

The 32-year-old actress has delivered some major hits in Tollywood with films like “Baishe Srabon” and “Chitrangada: The Crowning Wish”.

“It is an untitled film having six gangsters and the sole female lead that is me. It is being made by new director Nitin Shinghal who had assisted Pradip Sarkar in Parineeta,” Raima told.

She said the film unit will shoot in the hills of Dehradun and Mussorie.

The shutdown called by separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani against President Pranab Mukherjee’s Jammu and Kashmir visit received partial response here Thursday.

While shops, schools and business establishments remained closed here, very few public and private vehicles plied on the city roads. Government offices, banks and post offices functioned normally.

The main markets in some far flung areas of the Valley remained shut. However, many shops in these areas remained open.

India has rebutted Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari’s remarks on Kashmir at the United Nations, asserting that the Kashmiri people have “peacefully chosen their destiny” in accordance with democratic practises.

Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai said Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and the country’s position on the issue is well known.

The Supreme Court Thursday shifted the 2005 Sohrabuddin Sheikh shootout case outside Gujarat and also lifted its order restraining former Gujarat minister for state of home Amit Shah, an accused in the case, from entering the state.

The Supreme Court Thursday lifted its order restraining former Gujarat minister for state of home Amit Shah – an accused in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh staged shootout case – from entering the state. It also shifted the case outside Gujarat.

The apex court bench of Justice Aftab Alam and Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai, however, transferred the trial in Sohrabuddin and his wife Kausar Bi killing case outside Gujarat.

The rivalry between India and China will “help boost Africa’s success”, said an article in the state-run Chinese daily that asked whether the “traditional Indian grip” was likely to loosen as Chinese investors run across Africa for opportunities.

An article in the Global Times by Mark Kapchanga, a journalist based in Nairobi, noted a significant shift “as witnessed by the entry of Asian countries into what was once a cosy cocoon for the Western world”.