Bollywood celebrities like Amitabh Bachchan, Ajay Devgn and Karan Johar are all set to light up Diwali this Friday with loved ones. Here is what some B-Town residents have to say about their plans: Priyanka Chopra: Thinking I’ll head to London. I have family there and may just be a fun holiday.
Human Resource and Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal is angry. His key education reform legislation – The Education Tribunal Bill – failed to pass in the Rajya Sabha. He has complained to the Prime Minister and now plans to meet his party boss – Sonia Gandhi. His grouse – the loudest opponent to the bill was his own party man K Keshav Rao.
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Producer: Atul Agnihotri
Director: Atul Agnihotri
Cast: Amrita Arora, Gul Panag, Isha Kopikar, Katrina Kaif, Salman Khan, Sohail Khan
Music: Sajid Wajid, Salim-Sulaiman
Hello, hello, hello? What is this, boss?
Chetan Bhagat’s bestseller “One Night @ The Call Centre” is converted on celluloid to ‘One Excruciating Night At A Call Centre’.
The six much-loved characters have a past before they gather at a call centre run by boss Dalip Tahil who dreams, sings and performs bodily functions based on his migration to Boston.
The call centre resembles a large Ekta Kapoor set for a saas-bahu serial. Those at least are less dead at the centre.
Crammed into this word space of telephonic babble are a betrayed wife (Amrita Arora), a girl (Gul Panag) who’s being forced by her singing-dancing-demented mother to marry an NRI, a mixed-up frazzled neurotic chick (Isha Koppikar), a senior citizen (Sharad Saxena) who’s been deserted by his son and two guys — Sharman Joshi and Sohail Khan — who don’t seem to know what they want.
Frankly, neither does this film. The filmmaker seems to be confused about the characters faster than we can keep up with their mind space.
What works within a novel’s format need not work as a film. The characters seem thoroughly scattered and go every which way that the woozy screenplay takes them. After a while, we just give up trying to make sense of the jumble of characters and their problems.
Sohail as always is what keeps us from walking out.
Staging a walkout would be the mildest form of protest for this urbane atrocity. What Anurag Basu achieved effortlessly in “Life… In A Metro” is here reduced to a mocking pantomime of urbane angst.
The film goes from fretful episodes mimicking the saucy witticism of the American series “Friends”, to a cheaply ironic shot at “Conversations With God” when our group of muddled call centre suburban nearly topple over and plunge to their death and are rescued by, ha ha, god.
God saves these ginks. But who will save this weird look-see at longings and eccentricities of people who would rather be unhappy than happy?
A few redeeming moments (like the time when Amrita connects with her long-distance husband and finds out about his extra-marital affair) cannot salvage this hip-and-non-happening disaster, probably the worst film you’ll see this year.
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At this time it is anyone’s guess if the first BJP Government in South India will survive the crisis in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly. The legislative affairs in Karnataka have been murky for some time now as the BJP engineered a series of defections and cross-overs to insulate itself from a fragmented Legislature. In what appears to be a case of reverse engineering, the JD-S H.D. Kumaraswamy has now been caught on tape holding out inducements to rebel MLAs.
While this all too familiar saga imbues a cynicism, it is time for us to seek a permanent solution to this problem.
At the heart of this problem is the nature of democracy our Constitutional fore-fathers chose for us. The Constituent Assembly debates throw a fascinating light into the considerations that drove Nehru to argue against a Presidential form of government. It is also strange that at the state level while the Constituent Assembly initially opted for a directly elected Governor even that proposition was subsequently diluted in favor of a parliamentary democracy in the state legislatures.
The current draft of the Constitution is quite clear that the President shall appoint as Chief Minister or Prime Minister he or she who enjoys the confidence of the House and is elected Leader of the House.
Given that the Supreme Court has ruled on multiple occassions that the basic structure of the Constitution cannot be altered we are stuck with little choice but to suffer a paralysed Governance and frequent elections on account of fragmented Legislatures. Artificial solutions and undemocratic laws like the Anti-defection bill, the extra-constitutional interventions by partisan Speakers have not helped.
Here is a proposal from Offstumped which may help get around this problem while preserving the basic structure of the Constitution:
Some would argue how is this proposal different from the current situation:
No solution is perfect. But status quo is unacceptable. We cannot afford legislative instability and frequent elections, setting us back by paralyzing Governance.
We need Constitutional Reform and now is the time to force the issue.
In National Interest both the Congress and BJP should make common cause to push for this reform for it is in their interest more than the interest of Regional Parties to insulate their Governments from fragmented legislatures.
Filed under: Assembly Polls 2009, betrayal of aam admi, Constituent Assembly, Karnataka Polls 2008, Narendra Modi, Nitin Gadkari, Uncategorized, UPA-II Critical Appraisal 
Offstumped – Commentary on an Impatient and Aspirational India
Mahadevan had a diploma in Hotel Management from a renowned institute in Delhi. This 24-year-old native of Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, had completed two years as a receptionist in the front office department of a mid-range Delhi hotel catering to overnight business travelers. The young man was restless because he worked in a 14- hour shift and had no savings. He was unable to get into any of the Five Star establishments where the pay was better and the opportunities for promotion were far greater than where he was. On checking his email one fine day, he saw a job offer from a well-known three-star English hotel chain. The email contained a list of jobs including Front Office Assistants. This was just up Mahadevan’s street! His own qualifications and job experience matched the requirements. Not just that, the salary was in British pounds. Calculating the exchange rate he found the amount to be far above anything he had ever imagined. Two meals and accommodation were also on offer. Excitedly, he completed the attached application form and sent it back, along with his resume. The very next day he received another mail telling him that he had been selected for the position he had applied for. The mail contained a two year contract letter on the Hotel Group’s letterhead laying out the terms and conditions. The contract was to be printed out, signed and returned. The mail also asked him to make a Western Union wire transfer of Rs 66,000 to a UK account. The money was required to pay for the processing fee, air ticket, work permit and visa fees. The mail also informed him that the vacancy had to be filled urgently, and therefore he had to make the transfer within the next six days or else the job would go to another candidate. Mahadevan then borrowed money from one of his hotel colleagues. Two lengthy phone calls to his father and an uncle ensured that the balance money was in his bank account. Withdrawing the whole amount the young man hopeful visited the nearest Western Union branch where he transferred the money to the account number mentioned in the email. Along with the money went Mahadevan’s hopes and dreams of a bright future. Two months of frantic phone calls to the UK numbers given in the emails (which did not exist anyway); visits and calls to the British High Commission in New Delhi and unanswered emails finally brought to him the fact that he had been conned. He also had a debt to repay. Keeping the present economic scenario in mind, companies in every sector are once again open to recruiting candidates. Taking advantage of this opportunity, fraudsters have created a sudden burst in the number of fake job offers. Unemployed youngsters who are in dire need of work have become extremely vulnerable to such fraudulent mails. Several organisations have fallen prey to daring attempts by swindlers who cheat the youth. Perpetrators generally misrepresent themselves as acting on behalf of companies to offer fictitious employment opportunities. Although the affected companies are trying to control the situation through various measures, it is very difficult to detect and intervene in every such case. “Fake job offers are a worrying occurrence. With major changes in the current economic environment, there are primarily three reasons contributing to the rise of such offers. First, the slowdown prevented many young graduates from bagging job offers. Second, a lot of people also lost jobs during this period of economic volatility. And third, companies in all sectors which were earlier extremely conservative in their recruitment, have now announced their hiring plans which are eagerly awaited and anticipated. Against this backdrop, fraudsters have found an opportunity to exploit,” says Ravi Shankar B, senior VP & HR head, India operations, HCL Technologies. Ajay Trehan, CEO, AuthBridge, a background screening company elucidates, “Now that businesses have begun to hire again, many organisations are scouting for talent and some of them are hiring in large numbers. These two factors have given fraudsters an ideal opportunity to make some quick bucks out of unsuspecting job seekers, particularly in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities.” “Today, candidates looking for white collar jobs come from varied backgrounds. Unlike graduates from Tier-1 colleges, they are unaware of the recruitment processes and easily fall prey to fake job offers. Such fake jobs are most common in overseas job offerings,” opines Anu Parthasarthy, founder & CEO, Global Executive Talent. Verifying the authenticity of such mails can help in curbing such crimes. To top it all, often at times, the offer looks extremely promising and prompts an immediate response from the victim. In such cases, what role can HR play in curbing this menace? “HR managers who are in touch with students and teachers in academic institutions must actively spread the word. Students must also be alert and should check the authenticity of offers; and share information only if they are convinced about the veracity of the company,” adds Shankar. “The mode of recruitment should be clearly mentioned on the company portal and HR managers should make sure that the company uses authentic mediums for recruitment. They can ask candidates to post their resumes on the company portal and should preferably conduct interviews at the company premises. In addition, for the recruitment process, they should hire only reputed HR consultants,” says Sunil Goel, director, GlobalHunt India. Today, there are no stringent laws for cyber criminals in place in India yet. Hence, the general approach is to set up a special section on the company’s website warning about the recruitment fraud, how to detect it and report it. Whatever the route, it is imperative for organisations to intervene in such cases and ensure their reputation is not maligned by such fraudulent practices. Article courtesy of Economic Times.
Salman Khan just celebrated his birthday as he turned 43. He remainder
Excerpts from an Interview:
You have prepared it a habit on your birthday to run for 20 kilometers at a stretch.
This way, I confirm to see if my ankles, knees, back and other body parts are fit and well,” revealed the actor who will perform that health test today.
Have you planned anything about your marriage?
You are unmarried awaiting you actually perform the nikaah or pheras.
Don’t you fear getting old?
You have heard about your hair dye. I have always had a little grey strands and I am completely fine about that. With age, the hair turns grey, the face gets lined. But if people still have love and respect for you… that’s a realization. I have an great quantity of that to keep me going. It’s natural to understand things in a broader perspective as you grow old but I live by the heart, I never have any regrets, and I work towards retaining my child-like innocence. It’s beautiful to be child-like, not childish.
What’s new in your life?
Maybe it’s time for me to pick up stuff from the others. Aamir and I have been good friends since Andaaz Apna Apna. There’s no insecurity, no malice and competition between us and that makes the base of our dosti strong. Over the last five years,we have also started hanging out more than often.
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Laxmi Puja is celebrated during the festival of Diwali(the festival of lights). According to old tradition people put small oil lamps(deeva) outside their homes and they would hope that Laxmi would come and bless them. Lakshmi is not only considered the goddess of wealth but also the supreme goddess. It is beleived that Lakshmi would [...]
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The heading of this article seems to suggest that the Governor is the primary villain of the piece, but that is not entirely true. The Governor of the state of Karnataka, H R Bhardwaj, has behaved in a most inappropriate manner; over the past many months, he would comment on the internal state of the [...]
Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday stressed the need for
capacity building by providing adequate police personnel to man the
police stations in the country, and said adequate funds should be
provided with matching technology to tackle crime rates in the country.
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