People needing a tune-up, oil change or other car maintenance services will be meeting fresh, young Saudi faces in the near future. Automobile repair and maintenance and sale of home furniture, household supplies, and ceramic and marble floor tiles will no longer be dominated by expatriates, as Saudis will soon take up these fields of work.
After helping set the Guinness World Record for the largest human awareness ribbon, Princess Reema Bint Bandar and the Zahra Breast Cancer Association have teamed up again to raise awareness about breast cancer, under the patronage of the Saudi Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education. This time they have their eyes set on the world’s tallest peak: Mount Everest.
Police say they arrested a woman carrying more than 4 pounds of cocaine stashed inside a fake pregnant belly strapped around her waist.
The federal police says in a statement the 20-year-old woman was arrested after arriving at the international airport in the northeastern city of Natal.
Police say the woman arrived from central-western Brazil and became nervous during routine questioning of passengers coming from areas where “drug trafficking levels are high.” Police say the woman acknowledged she was carrying 2.1 kilograms (4.6 pounds) of cocaine inside the fake belly.
Saudi Arabia is planning to stop its citizens from sponsoring expatriate workers and restrict visa sponsorship to companies as part of an ongoing strategy to expand the private sector and tackle local unemployment.
The new system is expected to be presented to the cabinet for approval within the next few months, the Arabic language daily Alwatan said.
Another newspaper said the Gulf kingdom, the largest Arab economy and the world’s oil basin, is considering changing its weekly holiday to Friday and Saturday instead of Thursday and Friday for both the public and private sectors.
It was a grand Bollywood gathering at the Mukesh Ambani bash to celebrate Sachin Tendulkar’s 100 centuries, earlier this week. Ex’s bumped into each other, many exchanged glances and a lot more happened at the bash. Well, lets just come to the point.
Salman Khan entered the party with the very gorgeous Karishma Kapoor, while Abhishek Bachchan made an entry with his oh-so-beautiful wife, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. Well, we all know the history about Salman-Ash and Abhi-Karishma.
However, the seating arrangements at the venue was made very cleverly. Yet, glances did get exchanged.
In a tiny plastic sheet-covered stable in Malad stands a legendary horse called Superman. At the grand old age of almost 39, equivalent to a human being’s 95 years, he is in bad shape, with wounds on his body and hooves. Unable to work any more for his master Jeetu Varma, a horse supplier for Bollywood shoots, he is spending his last days in pain and discomfort.
Employers will be obliged to pay monthly salaries of between SR600 and SR800 to their foreign domestic workers, said Saad Al-Badah, chairman of the national recruitment committee at the Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
The cost of recruitment will be in the vicinity of SR15,000 to SR17,000. “These are estimates. Costs might differ based on the charges of recruitment offices abroad,” Al-Badah was quoted as saying in a section of the Arabic press Saturday.
Are the wedding bells finally ringing for the Chopra and the Mukherjee?
Much has been talked and written about the relationship and marriage of actress Rani Mukherjee with her longtime boyfriend, filmmaker Aditya Chopra.
But the Bollywood star, who is off from limelight, has always stayed away from responding to these rumours. Sources say that Rani might soon announce her wedding with the Chopra scion.
Last year, Rani Mukherjee’s father Ram had once said in public that the actress would get married within a year, but the actress had kept mum on the issue.
A Gulf Arab man and his wife were killed when his car rammed into a heavy duty truck after he jumped the red lights on a busy street in Abu Dhabi.
Police and civil defence had to cut through the badly damaged car to pull out the bodies of the man, 22, and his 23-year-old wife, ‘Al Ittihad’ daily said.
“They were found dead…the accident happened after the Gulf driver jumped the red lights and hit a truck which drove through the green signal,” said Lt Colonel Ahmed Al Zayoudi, head of the accidents section in Abu Dhabi’s traffic police.
A Saudi girl bracing herself for marriage on the next day was surprised to find an uninvited visitor in her bedroom—a monkey.
The girl said she had first thought it was a cat as the light was dim at night inside her room in the southern town of Khamis Mushait.
When she came near it, her surprise turned into a shock when she saw the monkey baring its teeth at her.Her screams attracted the other family members, who tried to use a banana to get the monkey down after climbing on top of the lights.
We recently caught up with a reed-thin Sonakshi Sinha at a party.
When we quizzed her about her Dabangg2 co-star Salman Khan telling her to go on a strict diet and exercise regime to shed the flab, Sona corrected us, “No, Salman or Arbaaz haven’t told me anything that they haven’t been saying since Dabangg. In fact, I haven’t even been able to fit in my workouts into my schedule!
I guess working around the clock is doing me good.” Well, if it works for her, it couldn’t hurt much to keep this up because she’s really looking great! Wot say, Sona?
Her return to the film industry has created a buzz and producers and directors are vying to sign her on across the four south film industries.
Now, she’s back on sets after nearly a year shooting for Krish’s Krishnam Vande Jagathguru in Hyderabad. With four films on hand now, Nayanthara seeks to quickly regain the numero position in the south she had when she decided to call it quits. In an exclusive tete-a-tete with us, the actress opens up about love, her break-up with ace choreographer-director Prabhu Deva and return to films.
India’s total fertility rate (TFR) – the average number of children expected to be born per woman during her reproductive years – has fallen by19% over the past decade. Among bigger states, the percentage decline in TFR during this period the last decade varied from as high as 28% in Punjab to 5.6%in Kerala.
Maharashtra saw the second highest dip in TFR between 2000-2010 at 26.9%, followed by Haryana and Andhra Pradesh (25%), Uttar Pradesh (23%), Rajasthan (22%), Himachal Pradesh and West Bengal (21%).
Indian tennis veteran Leander Paes became only the 24th player in the ATP World Tour history to win 50 doubles titles after he and his Czech partner Radek Stepanek clinched the Miami Masters, their second team trophy of the season.
The 38-year-old also Paes and Stepanek, who were seeded seventh, rallied to upstage second seeds Max Mirnyi and Daniel Nestor 3-6 6-1 10-8 on Saturday.
After dropping the first set, the Australian Open champions broke Mirnyi and Nestor twice in the second set to force a match tie-break.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has conveyed to the Indian government his desire to visit the Sufi shrine of Ajmer Sharif in India this month, official sources here said.
The visit is expected to take place around April 8, official sources said.
The request was received by the Indian external affairs ministry a couple of days ago and the government is considering it, the sources said.
She is one of the most sought after actresses today but her journey in filmdom wasn’t a cake walk. Vidya Balan had to give over 60 screen tests for her debut Bollywood film, ‘Parineeta’. After appearing in several ad films and music videos, she made her debut in B-town with Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s home production in 2005.
Various student unions, intellectuals and professors came together to dem-and that beef be included in the menu of hostels in all the state universities, at a seminar on Democracy and Food Culture held at the Eflu campus on Saturday.
They said that not including beef in menus is violation of basic human rights.
Nowhere in the world, ex-cept in India, food is used as a means of discrimination, they said, condemning the “fascist Hindutva politics” and “undemocratic system” prevailing in secular universities. Government should secularise varsity campuses, they said.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa on Saturday said he wanted to bring in a “change” in his style of functioning in politics as he was a “victim of conspiracy hatched by the Congress, the Janata Dal – Secular and detractors within the Bharatiya Janata Party”.
“I am a victim of conspiracy scripted by Congress, JD-S and detractors with my party. To avoid getting victimised in the future, I have to be changed, I need to be changed and I will be changed,” he said at a meeting organised by his supporters.
Congress is worried that byelections to 17 seats held by rebels aligned with Jaganmohan Reddy could spell trouble for its embattled government in Andhra Pradesh, driving party managers to try shore up its defence.
Jaganmohan is likely to go all out in the byelections necessitated by the disqualification of 17 Congress and PRP MLAs who supported a no-trust motion in December. Most of them hail from Jagan’s coastal stronghold. The recent Congress wipeout in six seats in Telangana has set demoralisation in party ranks and hopes are not high from bypolls to be held by August.
(Pervez Bari) Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mr. Shivraj Singh Chouhan has urged Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to reconsider the provisions of the Food Security and Standards Act 2006.
(Pervez Bari) A two-day National seminar is being organised on “Prof. Abdul Qavi Desnavi Hyat Aur Adabi Khidmat” here on April 1 and 2 at Mulla Ramuzi Sanskriti Bhavan, the headquarters of Madhya Pradesh Urdu Academy, (MPUA).
The seminar is being organised by Ilma Education Society, Bhopal under the joint aegis of National Council for the Promotion of Urdu Language, (NCPUL) and MPUA.
The revived Telangana statehood agitation has taken a new turn with a spate of suicides being reported across the region despite political parties pleading the youth not to resort to such drastic steps. In the latest instance, a tribal youth attempted suicide in Nalgonda district, while another youth in the city succumbed to burns yesterday after battling for life for three days. In all as many as five incidents of suicide have been reported during the week.
More than 75 militia members of Korukonda Area Dalam Committee voluntarily surrendered before the Visakhaptnam Rural police today. Addressing a press conference here, Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police (Visakahapatnam Range) Dr Soumya Mishra said the 75 militia members, including eight well known members, surrendered voluntarily before police as they wanted to lead a normal life in future.
Three students were killed on the spot and three others injured when two motorcycles on which they were travelling dashed against a school bus in the city today. Police said they were on their way to write their SSC examinations when the mishap occurred. The injured were admitted to a local hospital. UNI
Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee Linguistic Minority Cell (APCCLMC) Chairman Ashok Singh today appealed AICC President Mrs Sonia Gandhi to concede the demand of separate Telangana with a capital city of Hyderabad.2 Addressing a press conference here, he requested Ms Gandhi to hold consulatations with the state and central leaders of Congress party including CWC to fulfil the 65 year old demand.