Mumbai, August 01: While he is right now in the news for being a real life villain accused of raping his maid servant and languishing in Mumbai’s infamous Arthur Road jail, Shiney Ahuja, it is learnt had missed a golden opportunity to play the villain onscreen opposite none other than B-Town Badshah Shah Rukh Khan.
New Delhi, August 01: One third of Indian students are not satisfied with the education they receive, says a recent study.
In a survey conducted by the Career 360, one of the leading career magazines in India, in collaboration with GfK Mode to rate the status of Technical Education, it was found that one third of the students were not satisfied with the education they received.
Nearly 38 per cent believed that they did not get great value for the money they invested in their courses.
Mumbai, August 01: : Meena Kumari or Mahajabeen Bano was born on August 1, 1932. Meena Kumari was born to a poor Parsi family and was the sole bread earner for her family.She was Indian cinemas most popular and sought after actress of her times.
London, August 01: Days after becoming one of the first Sikh guards at the Buckhingam palace, Signaller Simranjit Singh, says his proudest moment on duty was when Queen Elizabeth II gave him a wave.
“That was a good day,” he told newsmen modestly. “Things like that do matter to you as a soldier when you are doing your job protecting the Queen.”
26-year-old Signaler Singh and Lance Corporal Sarvjit Singh, 28, had become the first two Sikhs to join the fleet of royal guards at the Buckingham Palace.
Vijayawada, August 01: Former Union Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Andhra Pradesh unit President Bandaru Dattatreya today demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into the allegations of corruption in the export of non-basmati rice to certain African countries.
Addressing a press conference here, he said there were reports that this was a Rs 2,500 crore rice export scam. The State government was involed in the scam, he alleged.
Srinagar, August 01: A Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) trooper was killed and another injured as separatist guerrillas opened fire at the high-security Regal Chowk area here Saturday morning, police said.
The militants fired from a point blank range in the busy market place, half a kilometre from city centre Lal Chowk. As soon as the gunfire was heard, shoppers and passersby ran for cover.
The area has been cordoned off and a search for the militants is on.
— IANS
New Delhi, August 01: Bollywood actress Nandita Das has been made chairperson of Children’s Film Society India as former Miss India and Social Activist Nafisa Ali has resigned from the post. Her tenure will of three-year.
Nandita directed Firaq, the movie based on Gujarat riots, in 2008. She enthralled the audiences in Fire (1996), and Water (1998). She has been awarded with several awards.
New Delhi, August 01: Maruti had sold 58,543 vehicles in the same month last year.
The country’s largest car maker, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, reported a 33.36 per cent jump in sales at 78,074 units in July.
It had sold 58,543 vehicles in the same month last year. Sales in the domestic market grew by 27.63 per cent to 67,528 units in July from 52,911 units in the same month last year. Exports rose by 87.25 per cent to 10,546 units compared to 5,632 units in the year-ago period, Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) said in a statement.
Tehran, August 01: The abduction of the British computer expert Peter Moore and his four bodyguards was carried out partly in revenge for deadly bomb attacks in south-west Iran which Iranian officials blamed on Britain, according to a well-placed source in Baghdad.
The five men were abducted by an Iranian-backed group in 2007 and it is now believed four of them have been killed. The fate of Mr Moore remains unclear. The Iranians orchestrated the abduction through an Iraqi proxy, the Asaib al-Haq, which they largely controlled, the source said.
Mumbai, August 01: The recent hectic round of production-related activities and marketing culminating in the painful process of pacifying the Sikh federations on the length of his beard, has taken a toll on Saif Ali Khan.
The actor is exhausted and completely not in the mood for any more events related to the film.
The premiere last night was held in Delhi instead of Mumbai. This would be construed as odd behavior considering all of Saif and Kareena’s friends together at a Mumbai premiere would have constituted almost the entire industry. And they were just a phone call away.
Mumbai, Augutst 01: Rahul Bose in association with Bigadda.com, a networking site from Reliance, has volunteered to pen down his activities to bring environmental awareness.
“There are many things that India should know about the dangers in climate change and the initiatives that should be taken to combat it,” Rahul Bose said.
It may be known that Rahul Bose has always been actively involved in issues concerning global warming and volunteering to blog about the activities to combat the issue is yet another initiative taken up by the actor.
—-Agencies
Hyderabad, August 01: An Indian Air Force (IAF) trainer aircraft crashed in Andhra Pradesh Friday, killing both its pilots, police said.
A piston-engine HPT-32 aircraft crashed into a farm at Annaram village of Jinnaram Mandal in Medak district, about 100 km from here.
Police said the aircraft crashed soon after it took off from the Air Force Academy at Dundigal on the outskirts of Hyderabad.
According to Medak police chief M. Kantha Rao the two pilots, Squadron Leaders Ritin Jain and Nitin Chaturvedi died on the spot. Both of them were instructors.
Mumbai, August 01: Kunal Kapoor has been preparing hard for his role in Anurag Kashyap’s next Doga, which is based on comic book action hero.
Anurag has told Kunal to build his physique 50 times much than what he currently is, and he has to do it in a limited time. Kunal had already been training himself, but since it was not possible within a limited time Kunal it seems approached his Rang De Basanti co-star Aamir Khan to help him out.
London, August 01: Malaria parasites in western Cambodia have become resistant to artemisinin-based therapies, the first-line treatment for malaria, according to a study by Oxford University researchers.
The study, conducted by the university’s experts based in Thailand, has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Signs of artemisinin resistance have been reported in the region, but this new research is the first detailed study of the problem, a university release said.
Tokyo, August 01: Prime Minister Taro Aso kicked off a campaigning tour ahead of this month’s general election on Saturday by focusing on the issue of kidnappings of Japanese citizens by North Korean agents during the Cold War.
Aso went to a coastal area in Niigata, north of Tokyo, where a schoolgirl was snatched by Pyongyang agents three decades ago.
“We have to take stern action” on the issue, Aso was quoted by Jiji Press as telling reporters after he was briefed by local police officials about how Megumi Yokota was kidnapped in 1977.
Jerusalem, August 01: Israeli soldiers have arrested and taken as many as eight Palestinians into custody following pre-dawn raids in a number of occupied West Bank towns.
According to the Ma’an news agency, those detained in overnight operations were from the cities of Nablus, Ramallah as well as al-Khalil (Hebron). A large number of Israeli troops cordoned off and ransacked the residents’ houses in the areas in pursuit of what they called key documents.
Lucknow, August 01: After raising hopes of widespread rainfall in parts of Uttar Pradesh, the monsoon has once again disappointed the people of the state where 47 out of 71 districts have already been declared drought-hit.
The trough line that was passing over the state and was expected to bring rains to the state with the moisture feed from the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea has now shifted to the foothills of the Himalayas.
Mingora(Pakistan), August 01: Schools reopened in Pakistan’s restive northwest on Saturday after nearly three months of being closed due to fighting between the military and Taliban militants, officials said.
Pakistan has been returning families to the districts of Swat and Buner, where troops unleashed a massive summer offensive against the Taliban, with Islamabad claiming to have largely defeated the extremists.
“All schools in Malakand division are open from today,” North West Frontier Province education minister Qazi Asad told AFP.
Srinagar, August 01: Militants on Saturday shot at and critically injured two CRPF personnel deployed in the heart of the city, police said.
The incident took place at around 11:25 am at Regal Chowk, they said.
The injured have been rushed to a hospital.
–Agencies
United Nations, August 01: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged the Burmese military junta to release all political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi, the popular leader, who has spent 13 of the last 19 years under house arrest.
A spokesman of Ban told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York yesterday that the Secretary General met the Permanent Representative of Myanmar to the United Nations on Thursday.
Washington, August 01: The US president has extended sanctions against certain Syrian and pro-Syrian individuals, due to what he called their continued interference in neighbouring Lebanon.
Barack Obama decided to keep the sanctions in place for another year despite some encouraging steps by Syria in recent months, the White House said on Friday.
“In the past six months, the United States has used dialogue with the Syrian government to address concerns and identify areas of mutual interest, including support for Lebanese sovereignty,” Obama said in a statement.
Ahmedabad, August 01: Four people were charred to death after the car in which they were travelling caught fire following collision with a truck on the outskirts of the city on Friday, police said.
The incident occurred on the Sarkhej-Gandhinagar highway near Ognaj village when the car after dashing into a moving truck from behind caught fire, they said.
“All the four persons, who were employees of the BMW dealer in Ahmedabad were charred to death,” police said.
Their bodies have been sent to civil hospital for post-mortem, they added.
Baghdad, August 01: Pointing to similarities they see between the latest string of bombings against Shi’ite targets and a campaign by the “al-Qaeda in Iraq” organization in 2006, top security officials in Iraq are concerned that the bombings signal the start of a new effort by the group to destablize the nation.
Mumbai, August 01: Ashutosh Gowariker’s forthcoming romantic comedy WHAT’S YOUR RAASHEE? will have its world premier at the Toronto Film Festival on the 19th of September as a matinee at the Roy Thompson Hall in Toronto. The stars of the film Harman Baweja and Priyanka Chopra along with director Ashutosh Gowariker and producers Ronnie Screwvala and Sunita Gowariker will be present for this gala presentation at the festival.
WHAT’S YOUR RAASHEE? begins its 2nd schedule
London, August 01: The Commonwealth has issued an ultimatum to the military regime of Fiji to either commit itself within a month for “credible elections” in the country before October 2010 or face “full suspension” from the 53-member body.
This was announced by Anifah Aman, Foreign Affairs Minister of Malaysia and Chairman of Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG), after an extraordinary seven-hour meeting of the grouping here last evening.