Obama demands release of Aung San Suu Kyi

Singapore, Nov.16 (ANI): US President Barack Obama has demanded the release of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

In an unprecedented encounter with Burmese Prime Minister Lt. Gen Thein Sein here on Sunday, Obama also pushed for the release of other political prisoners held by the Burmese regime.
According to The Times, the message was delivered across the table to Sein during a meeting with the leaders of the ten countries that make up the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).
The White House spokesman Ben Rhodes said that the President used the meeting to urge Burma's rulers to release the opposition leader and all other political prisoners.
Obama's comments follow last week's meeting between Suu Kyi and a group of US diplomats who were allowed to visit the pro-democracy leader despite her persistent and widely reviled house arrest that has locked her away from the world for 14 of the past 20 years. (ANI)

ANI

PTIThackeray's criticism of Tendulkar uncalled for: BCCI ignores Vinod Kambli

New Delhi, Nov 16 (PTI) The Indian Cricket Board today reacted angrily to Bal Thackeray's criticism of Sachin Tendulkar for his 'Mumbai is for all' comments, saying the Shiv Sena chief should be brought to book as his verbal attack on the batting maestro was uncalled for. In an interaction with the media on completing 20 years in international cricket, Tendulkar had said, "I am a Maharashtrian and I am extremely proud of that.

But I am an Indian first. And Mumbai belongs to all Indians."
Thackeray criticised the statement saying, "There was no need to take a cheeky single by making these remarks. By making these remarks, you have got run-out from the "pitch" of Marathi psyche."
"You were not even born when the 'Marathi Manoos' got Mumbai and 105 Marathi people sacrificed their lives to get Mumbai," Sena mouthpiece 'Samana' quoted Thackeray as saying. The BCCI reacted sharply to Thackeray''s statement with its Finance Committee chairman and spokesperson Rajiv Shukla saying that the Shiv Sena chief was talking like Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
"These kind of comments are completely uncalled for. Shiv Sena people have no business to talk like this.
Tendulkar is a nationalist. He is for Maharashtra, he is for India.
If somebody calls himself an Indian, is it a crime?" he fumed.

Cell phones make many feel ignored : maya of Tech

Having a decent, uninterrupted conversation with someone is becoming extremely difficult because everyone’s interested only in their cell phones. Going out to eat with Crackberry addicts (Blackberry owners) is so annoying as they are either playing the game Brickbreaker or are boasting about how high their score is if there is a fellow addict in the group. The phone’s instant messenger service is even more irritating when hanging out with friends, as realisation dawns that you are not the only one the guy you fancy is messaging constantly.
iPhone lovers are no better ’cos they feel very insecure about the fact that many feel the Blackberry is superior. They have taken it upon themselves to lecture fellow iPhone owners on how important it is to remain a loyalist and after the lecturebaazi is over, it’s time to show-off all the latest software they have downloaded.
Vertu, Dior and other ridiculously expensive phone owners are equally insufferable. Now, no one wants to be portrayed as a rich flake. “I like a simple phone with basic features like messaging and calling features, my secretary is there to check mails and I have a camera for pictures,” is one silly line you have to constantly listen too. Another one is, “Oh the concierge feature is such a blessing. Sitting in Delhi, I got my son a table at Maddox (one of the hippest nightclubs) on Friday night in London.”
Next in line are the Simple Simons, with non-fancy phones. Since there are no features to boast of, they rely on the most basic function of all — incoming calls — to demonstrate how much in demand they are. Be prepared to listen in on their conversations forever while sitting with them.
Fitness expert Leena Mogre has noticed that this incessant need to text or chat even tempts her clients at the gym. “Cellphones can be very distracting and while doing weight training and other rigorous exercises. We have a strict policy against cell phone usage. If the rule is flouted, the phone is confiscated,” says Leena as this is the only way to prevent injury.
You can be that strict only at a gym, place of worship, school or workplace. Designer Manish Gupta confesses, “I am quite addicted. Without the phone it seems that life is still. But I use only the basic function i.e calling and messaging which I think nobody can live without.” Workaholics like Madonna sleep with their Blackberry so that they can answer urgent calls and emails 24x7.
So how do you get someone’s undivided attention when the conversation doesn’t revolve around the reading of a will, a case verdict or an answer to a proposal? A rare exception in the mobile crazy world, designer Nalandda Bhandari says, “The responsibility lies in one’s hand. It depends on how he/she prioritise things in his/her life.” Nalandda, doesn’t own a laptop at home as she doesn’t want to work after work and doesn’t carry a Blackberry for the same reason.
Honestly, it’s impossible to be like her for most of us. So looks like the best way to get your fair share of attention is to be the person, at the other end of the line. This way you will have their full attention.

Jr doctors find reason to strike this year too: studying with public money and killing public lives

Hyderabad
Nov. 15: The ongoing junior doctors’ strike, demanding a steep increase in their montly stipend, is not the first in the history of the state.
Every year, the doctors go on strike following an initial difference of opinion and, later, alleged indifference shown by the state government in responding to their demands.
In 2007, trouble arose when some junior doctors were attacked by relatives of a patient and activists of a political party.
Though senior doctors resumed work after an assurance from the state government that security in hospitals would be beefed up, the junior doctors were not convinced and continued with the strike till the Essential Services Maintenance Act was invoked. The strike was called off after 12 days.
The following year, in 2008, the AP Government Doctors Association undertook a relay hunger strike in Hyderabad and other parts of the state in support of their pending demands. The junior doctors joined in.
In 2009, the junior doctors called a strike in support of their demand for a steep rise in their stipend as against their counterparts in the other states, who were being paid three-four times more.
To press their demands, seven junior doctors from different medical colleges, led by the APJUDA convenor, Dr S. Nagesh, are currently sitting on an indefinite hunger strike. On all three occasions, the Andhra Pradesh High Court has ruled that the strike must end. In the latest instance, too, a PIL has been filed in the High Court, which will be heard on Monday.
The state government has submitted a proposal of the increased stipend structure to the state Election Commission. Since the code of conduct is in vogue, in view of the GHMC elections, the state government cannot announce any other programme or scheme without the prior approval of the Election Commission.
“Once the proposal is approved, the junior doctors will get a 75 per cent hike in their stipend and a 15 per cent hike in the stipend every two years,” said Mr J. Satyanarayana, principal secretary, department of health and family welfare, Andhra Pradesh.
But the state government’s offer has not gone down well with the junior doctors.
“There was a committee formed on the direction of the High Court, which submitted its recommendations to the state government in 2008. We want a revision of the stipend based on those recommendations,” said Dr G. Raghu Kishore, treasurer of APJUDA.
Significantly, the committee, consisting of the then director of Medical Education (DME), Mr K. N. Sudha Ramani, Mr G. Sai Gopal (former DME), Registrar of NTR Health University, Prof. T. Venugopala Rao and two representatives of junior doctors, submitted its report to the state government on in December 20, 2008 with the sole purpose of finalising the stipend for interns and post-graduates.
According to the sixth recommendation submitted by the committee, “After extension of the UGC Scales, the pay scales of these members of the teaching faculty will be de-linked from the state government Pay Revision Commission (PRC) and will be linked to the UGC scales and whenever UGC pay scales and allowances are revised, such revision will automatically be implemented to these teaching faculty also.”
It further read: “The structured pay scales will consist of basic pay, annual increment and other allowances.”
Dr S. Nagesh, APJUDA convenor, said: “Once this is implemented, the issue will be sorted.”
But the medical education minister, Mr P. Sudarshan Reddy, said: “We cannot create a separate pay structure for them at par with government employees. This increase itself will put a financial burden of Rs 20-25 crore on the state annually, we cannot extend it further.” Mr Reddy said that for the release of the extra amount, too, the Chief Minister and the state finance department “had to be convinced a lot.”

 

6 infants die in faulty incubators: FUTURE OF India at stake

VIJAYAWADA
Nov. 15: Six infants died at the Old Government Hospital in Vijayawada on Sunday following failure of incubators.
The issue came to light at 9.30 pm on Sunday after the death of the sixth baby, who was born on Saturday night in the hospital.

The doctors and hospital staff did not reveal the reasons for the five other deaths that occurred earlier in the day till late on Sunday evening. The issue came to light when the parents of the sixth baby, Ms Durga Bhavani and Mr Adinarayana, raised a commotion and alleged that their baby died due to the negligence of the doctors.

Ms Padma, the grandmother, alleged that the doctors were responsible for the death. The relatives and family members protested on the hospital premises. The details of the five children who died during the day are not known. The hospital superintendent, Dr H.B. Lal, said a probe will be ordered into the deaths. He said the sixth baby was a neo-natal case suffering from some ailment.

The death of the six babies once again highlighted the negligence and the poor facility at the old hospital. After the construction of the New Government Hospital, the authorities began neglecting the old hospital.

There are 11 incubators at the Old Government Hospital of which only four are working. The authorities apparently tried to hush up the cases since morning by send away the parents of the dead infants. Four infants occupy the functioning incubators.

The legislators, Ms Devineni Uma, and Mr Malladi Vishnu, visited the hospital and consoled the victims. The police officials too rushed to the hospital but no case has been registered so far.

Some ways to invest in gold!

For centuries gold has been the ultimate cushion against the dangers of stocks price falls, fluctuating rate changes, inflation, rising/falling real estate prices, natural calamities, wars and more. Gold has been the best way to safeguard your investments against unstable financial markets.
Why is gold such a good investment?
Whether or not gold is a good investment, is a question that does not have a simple answer. Gold has appreciated substantially over the past couple of years. The growth rate of late has been much higher than the conventional rate of appreciation.
However, if we look at the past 15-20 years record, it is seen that Gold is a hedge against inflation. Over the last 20 years, the average return from Gold has been around 7%. So, if the past trend continues, one could expect around say 6-9% returns from gold in the long-term.
Also, another aspect that we should look at is a weakening currency. No matter which country you originate from, there is a chance that your country’s currency will suffer a downfall at a particular point of time. Gold, on the other hand, retains its true value and can help you protect your riches because it does not rely on the state of the country's economic, whether it is on the up or downtrend. Therefore, investing a small portion of one's investment portfolio in gold would be a good idea.
How can one invest in gold?
Gold can be bought in various forms and the decision should be based on the reason you need gold. If you see this purely as an investment, you can either buy it in the form of physical gold - bars, biscuits and or coins or even in a dematerialized form.
For most Indians, gold purchases usually mean buying jewellery. However, the disadvantage of buying gold in the form of jewellery is that its resale is not always a profitable proposition.
Here are some other ways of investing in gold:
Gold ETFs
You can invest in gold by buying Gold Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). Being ETFs, these funds are listed and traded on the stock exchange i.e. investors can buy and sell them like any other stock on the stock exchange, on a real- time basis. All you need is a demat account and a share trading account with a broker or sub-broker who deals in stocks. These are traded in units of one. That means you can buy one or more units at a time. Each unit represents approximately the market value of one gram of gold.
Gold ETFs are traded close to real-time gold prices in the market, that is, ETF prices move up and down with the market price of gold in the conventional marketplace.
Your expenses in an ETF would be very low: you would pay securities transaction tax (STT), brokerage /service tax, and the like, which are unlikely to exceed around 1% of market price. You'd hold gold in demat form in your demat account, just as you hold shares. If you decide to sell your ETF units, you can do so through your stock broker or sub-broker and the charges would be the same as what you paid while buying the ETF.
Thus an ETF is very convenient, and you need not worry about the purity of the gold, secure storage, insurance against theft, and so on.
Physical gold
This is the traditional way to invest in gold. Investors can buy gold and then store it in a bank's locker. If you are one of those people who keep buying gold jewellery for a marriage of a daughter or son, a better option would be to buy gold ETF units now at the current price of gold, hold them in your demat account, and sell them in the future, whenever you want, and use the money to buy jewellery then.
In this way, you will be protecting yourself from rising gold prices, while also sparing yourself anxiety about the purity and safety of your gold. You can keep accumulating gold at a slow rate, perhaps even one gram at a time.
It is evident that gold is an asset class that you can rarely go wrong with. Therefore, think seriously about investing in gold.

Sept. 11 suspects face battles in NY prosecution

  U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder fields a question during a news conference in Washington November...

Rights groups and legal scholars on Friday praised the Obama administration's decision to bring Sept. 11 suspects to trial in civilian court in New York, but they questioned whether defendants could get a fair trial so close to Ground Zero.

Rights groups said the decision to move the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four others to face criminal charges at U.S. District Court in Manhattan could help repair America's tarnished image.
"We did not want a flawed process to be used against some of the most notorious criminal defendants in modern history," said Anthony Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, praising the move.
The Friday announcement by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was a reversal of Bush administration policy, under which those held at Guantanamo were to be tried by military tribunals.
But some law experts and others said the defendants might face obstacles to a fair trial, not least seating an impartial jury. "He certainly won't get the jury that people think of when they think about the average criminal jury," Colombia Law School professor Daniel Richman said of Mohammed.
But he added: "I'll bet that if one were to move the trial to the least affected place (by the attacks) in the United States, one would find a jury pool there that the defendants would not much like either."
Some ordinary New Yorkers also questioned how you could find an impartial jury in the city.
"Finding a jury that's comfortable in dealing with it -- that's going to be the problem," said Frank Zuccarello, a 68-year-old janitorial services manager from Manhattan.
Holder said he was unsure if statements gained through interrogations that included waterboarding will be used, but that he would seek the death penalty and would use classified evidence that may result in the courtroom being cleared.
"How relevant were those statements? Will those statements be used?" he said. Holder has called waterboarding torture.
"But I am quite confident on the basis of the evidence that we will be able to present, some of which has not been publicly discussed before, that we will be successful in our attempts to convict those men," Holder added.
WINDOWS OVERLOOKING GROUND ZERO
In the Manhattan federal courthouse, which offers views of the site of the former World Trade Center, past jurors of terrorism trials have pledged to be impartial.
But since the Sept. 11 attacks, nearly every defendant charged with terrorism at the Manhattan court, one of America's busiest, has either pleaded guilty or been convicted.
Omar Abdel-Rahman, known as the "Blind Sheik", was one of 10 people convicted in 1995 for conspiring to blow up the United Nations building and other New York City landmarks, following the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
Other terrorism suspects convicted in the courthouse have included Uzair Paracha, a then 25-year-old Pakistani found guilty in 2005 of supporting al Qaeda after he helped an al Qaeda operative obtain a travel document, and Rafiq Sabir, a Florida doctor who prosecutors said swore allegiance to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
"Naturally not every trial turns out to be a fair trial," said Norman Reimer, executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
"But ... in a federal district court, all of the tools and implements provided by the Constitution will be there to give the best chance to get a fair trial," he said.
Others said it would be difficult to introduce evidence from Guantanamo as defense lawyers are expected to argue that the men were tortured. Mohammed has been waterboarded 183 times.
Security concerns are also an issue. In 2000, an accused former top aide to bin Laden, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, stabbed a Manhattan jail guard through the eye with a sharpened comb while awaiting trial for conspiring to kill Americans.
New York officials including Mayor Michael Bloomberg said they were confident police would keep the trial safe.
Lorie Van Auken, whose husband Kenneth was 47 when he was killed in the World Trade Center attacks, said the trials would help to bring closure.
"I'm glad to hear they are going to be brought to New York to the scene of the crime and giving the families that were affected the chance to actually watch the trial," Van Auken told Reuters.

Indian Army still facing a dearth of officers: Need to change Recruitment policy and to increase Reservation quota

New Delhi, Nov 12  The Indian Army is grappling with an acute shortage of officers. Despite the recession, it has been unable to attract more talent and contain their outflow. In 2008, the army was able to take in 1,500 officers - but over 1,800 left the force.

The army now faces a shortage of 11,238 officers.
'It is a very peculiar situation. Despite the recession and relaxation of our requirements the number of officers leaving the army is more than the number of officers we have managed to take in,' a senior officer familiar with the situation told IANS.
'What adds to the worry is that the negative inflow has been witnessed despite an economic slump,' he added.
The negative flow of the officers in the army has been witnessed since 2007 when nearly 1,780 officers resigned or retired, compared to the intake of about 1,750. While there has been a constant outflow of officers in the past, the army had managed to induct more before that year.
The army received 535 voluntary retirement applications in 2005, 810 in 2006, and 1,265 in 2007. The defence ministry's approval depends on the need of the armed forces. The army approved voluntary retirement for 365 officers in 2005, 464 in 2006 and 608 in 2007.
'Concerned by the situation, we have made it mandatory that officers with less than 15 years service will be considered for premature retirement or resignation only on medical grounds,' another officer said.
The army's sanctioned strength is 46,615 officers, but it has been facing a shortage of 11,238. The problem was aggravated when about 3,000 officers sought premature retirement in the last three years. Most of them moved to the lucrative corporate sector.
The data for 2009 has not been compiled yet.
'But there has been an increase in the number of withdrawals of premature retirement applications since January 2009. We hope that the trend will be reversed this year,' the officer said.
'In the past six months 65 officers have withdrawn their applications for premature retirement.'
Now, the army is hoping the financial crisis and the Sixth Pay Commission -- which has increased their salaries -- will help bring in many more to the armed forces that is facing a shortage of middle-rung officers in particular.

Peshawar bombing kills 87, injures 200

eshawar, Oct 28 (IANS) More than 80 people were killed in one of the most horrific terror attacks in Pakistan this year when a massive bomb blast tore through a bustling market here Wednesday, shortly after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton began a three-day trip to the country.
As doctors battled to save several of the seriously injured in hospitals, North West Frontier Province (NWFP) officials said many of the 200 injured could succumb to their injuries. Hospital sources told The News that 87 people had been killed in the blast.
Pakistani media reported that a building in the congested locality of Meena Bazar collapsed. A mosque bore the brunt. The windows of buildings were shattered. Several vehicles and around 15 shops were burnt.
The deafening blast, heard almost all over Peshawar, occurred in a market that is hugely popular with women. Most of the dead were said to be women.
Once the dust raised by the explosion settled down, stunned shopkeepers rushed to the rescue of the injured, including children. They also joined security personnel in digging through the debris in a desperate hunt for survivors.
Many people broke down on seeing the ghastly sight -- of mutilated bodies and raging fires -- and on hearing the screams of the wounded. The injured were shifted to the Lady Reading Hospital and other hospitals.
The bomb disposal squad blamed a car bomb for the disaster. Xinhua news agency quoted an eyewitness as saying that a parked car exploded, raining death and destruction.
Clouds of smoke rose from the area and several shops were reduced to rubble, their roofs blown off.
The latest terror strike -- amid a wave of bombings and suicide attacks that have shaken Pakistan -- comes just five days after a bombing outside a restaurant in Peshawar.
Police said that about 25 people may have been buried under the rubble.
District Coordination Officer Sahibzada Anees said rescuers faced difficulties in accessing the area because the burning shops were located in congested lanes.
All markets in Peshawar were closed after the blast.
President Asif Ali Zardari denounced the blast. NWFP Chief Minister Amir Hyder Khan Hoti ordered inquiry into the blast.
Pakistan has been witnessing a spate of terror attacks even as the army continues to assault against the Taliban in South Waziristan.

Blasts rip through Russian arms depot killing two

At least two people were killed on Friday when a chain of explosions ripped apart a Russian arms depot on Friday, shattering windows for miles around and forcing the evacuation of 3,000 people.

Russia's Federal Security Service said a fire broke out at 1300 GMT when soldiers attempted to decommission munitions at navy Arsenal No. 31 on the outskirts of Ulyanovsk, a city of 625,000 people, 800 km (500 miles) southeast of Moscow.
The fire raged for at least five hours, lighting up the evening sky above the city, said a Reuters witness who added the windows of houses several kilometres away were shattered by the force of the blasts.
A Defence Ministry spokesman said two people were killed and seven injured. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered officials to ensure civilians were properly evacuated.
Ulyanovsk Governor Sergei Morozov said more than 40 people who had been feared dead had been found alive and well in a bomb shelter at the depot.
"I am extremely happy that more than 40 people escaped from that warehouse because they were exactly those people we considered were missing," Morozov said in comments broadcast on Russia's First Channel television.
Morozov said he did not see any "particular cause for concern" for local residents.
"The dangerous radius is not more than 7 kilometres," Morozov told Vesti-24 state television.
Witnesses compared the blast to a giant firework display, visible from 15 km (eight miles) away. At least 400 firefighters battled the flames for hours. At least two military firemen were killed, the Defence Ministry said.
Russia's poorly trained and badly paid military has suffered frequent accidents with their ageing equipment in recent years. Western military attaches say safety standards are low.
Previous mishaps in the Russian armed forces have sometimes led to sackings of senior generals and military officials.
The Prosecutor-General's main investigative unit said in a statement that a criminal case had been opened for negligence and breaching rules on handling weapons.
Russia's navy chief, Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky, took a flight to the region to head a commission looking into the accident, a Defence Ministry spokesman said.
(Additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Conor Humphries; Editing by Jon Hemming)

movie review Tum Mile

movie review Tum Mile

Critic Rating :

By movietalkies

Friday Nov 13 4:15 PM

Director Kunal Deshmukh's second movie, Tum Mile, is a passionate, contemporary take on relationships, with the July 26 deluge as a backdrop. A word of caution here: the film is not really about the deluge but about two lovers who rediscover their love for each other in the midst of disaster.
The film is about Sanjana (Soha Ali Khan) and Akshay (Emraan Hashmi), who belong to two diametrically different spectrums of society. While Sanjana is the only child of a rich businessman, with a secure job, Akshay is a struggling artist, a typical case of opposites attracting. So far, so good, however, things go out of hand when they move in together. He loses his inspiration and is absolutely penniless while she pays all the bills. Each goes through their own hell and insecurities within the relationship but is never able to convey it to the other. They are like two hurting souls, who only further exacerbate each other's wounds every time they collide. Inevitably, they drift apart, break up, only to meet again on the fateful day, on a flight. Both are flying in to Mumbai and arrive to a city besieged with heavy showers, traffic snarls and flooding. The two go their separate ways, till the rain becomes too heavy and Akshay decides to go out in search of Sanjana. They find each other and navigate the city, surviving the odds and, in the process, rediscover their love for each other.
Kunal Deshmukh has done a fine job of etching out the love story between Sanjana and Akshay. In fact, his choice of actors for the two characters is quite impeccable. While Soha has that natural air of sophistication about her, and therefore seems to be a good choice for Sanjana, Emraan too is perfectly cast as the struggler with his passionate outbursts and need for solitude. The actor has a certain man of the street kind of air about him, which lends itself brilliantly to the current role.
Tum Mile, the love story, works very well indeed, but the disaster angle which the director brings in, is not as impressive. While Deshmukh makes a good attempt at revisiting the terror of that night, there seems to be something missing in the depiction. The sense of desperation and urgency is just not there. Actually, it never seems to be horrifying enough. Plus, the director seems to be in two minds about how important a role he wants to give the deluge. While on the one hand, the director gives a point of view from the Met Office two scenes in fact, he then quickly shifts the focus back to the oscillating love story of Sanjana and Akshay and their flashbacks. The deluge does not seem to have been properly melded into the main story. There are also some clichéd scenes like when the hero acts like one and jumps into the fray to rescue a small child, or the manner in which the hero's friend dies. But the director seems to have spent a lot of attention to details in the manner in which the deluge is portrayed and the flooded streets, recreating the disaster well, and the aerial shots are impressive.
To come back to the love story, it works very well as the actors seem to be quite involved in their characters and their lives, but again, the relationship is not very clearly delineated. The reason for their drift is never quite clear. In a sense, Akshay's character is bit of a cliché as he is the typical poor, struggling, honest and idealistic artist. Again shades of a cliché in Sanjana's portrayal, as she is rich and hence, controlling. Again, the deluge does not revive the love between the two protagonists, the process starts much earlier, when they spot each other on the plane, so the film's focus is not much surviving and reviving a relationship triggered by the disaster but more about the relationship. The deluge is just a by of the way, which is a bit of a letdown.
The film has been well shot and there are some beautiful shots of South Africa in the film. The flood too is well executed. One just feels that one would have wanted to see a bit more of the disaster and a little less of the constant flashbacks, for it to work and for it to play a stronger role in the dramatic set up. There's just too little of the flood and that too at the fag end, and therefore can hardly be the film's USP. The music, which has been composed by Pritam, is very easy on the ears, and the title track stands out.
One has heard enough about the huge sets that were erected to depict July 26, all of which is very nice. But the film is actually a love story from the Vishesh Films banner. Both the lead actors do their best and do full justice to their roles. There is enough passion and emotion here to justify this as a contemporary take on love, and is a must see for the romance.

Merger talks as Chiru meets CM

Hyderabad, Nov. 13: In the backdrop of a possible alliance and merger with the Congress, the Praja Rajyam chief, Mr K. Chiranjeevi on Friday met the Chief Minister, Mr K. Rosaiah, at the latter’s residence. Though the PR leaders claimed that the meeting was purely to demand a concrete inquiry into Obulapuram mines, sources said such meetings would take the PR “closer” to the Congress in future.

The PR did not attend the all party meeting organised by the Telugu Desam chief, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu, on Friday but preferred to meet Mr Rosaiah over the same issue. He was closeted with the Chief Minister for more than half an hour.

In fact, both the leaders were scheduled to meet two weeks ago to finalise an alliance between the PR and the Congress. However, Mr Chiranjeevi decided not to meet Mr Rosaiah after the breakdown of talks between the two parties when the supporters of the Kadapa MP, Mr Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy vehemently opposed a truck between the two parties. An alliance between the two parties is likely to be finalised for the zilla parishad and civic elections scheduled for next year.

“Mr Chiranjeevi has made it clear that he was not averse to have an alliance with the Congress in future. However, he will not accept a merger proposal since he will remain as one of the leaders in the Congress,” said a source in the party.

Meanwhile, the Rajya Sabha MP, Mr K.V.P. Ramachandra Rao and the minister for panchayat raj, Mr Botsa Satyanarayana, held discussions with Chiranjeevi’s brother-in-law, Mr Allu Aravind in a five star hotel on Friday night.

 

Abducted RJD candidate returns unharmed

Latehar (Jharkhand): RJD candidate, Mr Ramchandra Singh, who was abducted by suspected Naxals in this district of the poll-bound Jharkhand, returned unharmed, police said here.

He returned to the Latehar police station along with his aide, and was closeted with DIG Mr Shashinath Jha.

Mr Singh, along with his aide and some supporters, was abducted on Thursday night by suspected Naxals while returning from a function in Dhanukua village.

The abductors let off five of his supporters midway, but took away Mr Singh and one of his aides with them. The reason behind the abduction was yet to be known.

Mr Singh was an RJD MLA from Maneka constituency from 2005 till its dissolution on November 1. He has been renominated from the seat for the forthcoming Assembly polls in the state.

 

Woman denies 'love jihad', court lets her to go with lover

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court on Friday allowed a woman to go with her Muslim husband as the state police sought more time to complete its probe into reports of non-Muslim women being lured by Muslim youth with the intention to convert them to Islam.

"There is no 'love jihad' and I had gone with my boyfriend on my own," Ms Siljaraj told reporters as she left the court premises with her lover whom she married.

Earlier on October 21, the court had sent Ms Siljaraj to her parents' custody for three weeks.

Ms Siljaraj's father, Mr C. Selvaraj of Chamarajnagar district, about 180 km from here, had moved a habeas corpus petition before the High Court, saying his daughter was missing since August last year and he had come to know she had eloped with a Muslim youth to Kerala.

He filed the petition after posters had come up in Kerala warning of "love jihad", referring to attempts to lure non-Muslim girls with the promise of marriage and then convert them to Islam.

The Karnataka police had traced Ms Siljaraj with the help of the Kerala police and brought her before Justice K. Sreedhar Rao and Justice Ravi Malimath of the Karnataka High Court on October 21.

Ms Siljaraj had told the judges that she had married Aksar of Kannur in Kerala on her own and was undergoing religious training after getting converted to Islam.

Justice Rao and Justice Malimath had directed her to stay with her parents till the police complete the investigations. They had also said that since she was an adult, if it was found to be a bonafide love marriage, she could go back to Aksar.

chandra Babu Naidu: It’s like 100 Bofors

Hyderabad, Nov. 13: The Telugu Desam president, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu, hit back at the Obulapuram Mining Corporation chief, Mr Gali Janardhan Reddy, for making personal and casteist remarks and said his audacity flowed from his money power.

“We will not be cowed down by mafia threats,” said the TD chief. “I have no prejudice against anyone. We are fighting for justice.”

Mr Naidu lost his cool when mediapersons sought his reaction to all the derisive comments made by the Karnataka politician.

“Listen....you also have responsibility like us,” he said. “You cannot question politicians alone. Media had fought emergency. This scam is more than 100 Bofors.” He warned that what had happened in Karnataka could be repeated in Andhra Pradesh if the mining mafia was not curbed.

“We are fighting on issues,” he said. “We are fighting anti-social elements. Who owns Red Gold? Where is the 50 percent share of OMC going?” he asked.