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It’s one of the most common dermatological conditions, with 7.8% of the Australian population suffering in the last 12 months1. The infection may begin as a white or yellow spot under the tip of your nail. As it spreads, the nail may discolour, thicken and develop crumbling edges. If left untreated, nail infections are highly contagious, and generally don’t resolve themselves without treatment.

What Is Nail Fungus?

Onychomycosis better known as nail fungus, is a fungal infection of the nail plate.
In 80% of cases, nail fungus occurs in the toenails.2 This is due to the environment inside your shoes – a
dark, warm moist environment where fungi can thrive. Nail infections can often occur due to increased use
of communal change rooms in gyms and pools.

Fingernail and toenail fungal infections occur when the nail bed is invaded by various types of fungi. Fungal
infections of the nails, also referred to as onychomycosis, account for almost half of the common nail
disorders. Lack of treatment can worsen the condition and make it difficult to treat. Fungal nail infections can
also be highly contagious. Listed below are some causes, symptoms and treatment for fungal toenail and
fingernail infections.

Causes for Fungal Nail Infections:

Fungal fingernail and toenail infections are caused due to fungi that don’t require sunlight to survive. A group
of fungi referred to as dermatophytes causes nail fungal infections. These fungal infections can be caused
due to some yeasts and molds.

Although Trichophyton rubrum is the most common dermatophyte which causes fungal nail infections,
Trichophyton violaceum, Trichophyton interdigitale, Microsporum gypseum, Epidermophyton floccosum,
Trichophyton soudanense and Trichophyton tonsurans may also cause infections. Common molds that
cause infections include Aspergillus, Neoscytalidium and Scopulariopsis.

Pathogens which cause nail infections enter the skin through small cuts between the nail and the nail bed.
They grow when the nail provides a warm and moist environment.

Symptoms of Fungal Nail Infections:

Discoloration: Discoloration of the nails is the most common symptom of fungal nail infections. The nail turns
yellow, brown or purple in color. The fungus lodges itself on the tip of the nail and then works its way to the
root.

Flaky Nails: Brittle, flaky and chipped nails are also a sign of fungal infections of the nails.
Patches on the Nail: Back or white patches start to appear on the infected nails. Sometimes it becomes
difficult to identify whether the white color on the nail is a fungal infection or an indication of the nail not
being attached to the skin.

Thickened Nails: If a nail becomes thick and causes discomfort while cutting, it is a symptom of fungal nail
infections. Thick nails become tender and cause pain. They become thicker due to the layers of fungi which
grow under the nail.

Itchiness: Fungal infections of the nails cause an itching sensation under the nails. The itching sensation
causes a lot of discomfort because it is difficult to reach under the nail.

Distorted Nails: Due to fungus under the nails, the nails lose their shape. The distortion of the nails could
also be caused because the nails are detached from the nail bed.

Bumps under the Nails: In cases of fungal nail infections, you may notice small bumps under the nails, which might be filled with pus. Pus is also an indication of fungal infections.
Google has released its Maps app for the iPhone, in the wake of complaints about Apple's software.

Apple controversially replaced the search giant's mapping service with its own when it released its latest handset, the iPhone 5.

The move was widely criticised after numerous mistakes were found in Apple Maps's search results.

Google's app introduces functions previously restricted to Android devices.

One analyst said it would prove popular, but added that Nokia still posed a challenge.

The Finnish company recently launched its own free maps app for the iPhone.

The firms are motivated in part by a desire to gather data automatically generated by handsets using their respective software, as well as users' own feedback.

This allows them to fine-tune their services and improve the accuracy of features such as traffic status updates.
Android's advantage

Features Google has introduced that were not available in its earlier iPhone app include:

    Voice guided turn-by-turn directions, with estimated travel times.
    Indoor panoramic images of buildings that have signed up to its Street View Business Photos service
    3D representations of the outlines of buildings that can be viewed from different angles
    Vector-based graphics based on mathematical lines and points rather than pre-created bitmap graphics, making it quicker to zoom in and out of an area.

Among the facilities Google's iPhone app lacks that are present in its Android equivalent are indoor maps, the ability to download maps for offline viewing, and voice search.

However, over time, project manager Kai Hansen told the BBC that what was on one platform should be on the other.

"The goal is clearly to make it as unified and consistent an experience as possible," he said.
Ground Truth

One area Apple's own software still has an edge is its integration of Flyover which offers interactive photo-realistic views of selected cities using 3D-rendered graphics within its maps app.

Google offers a similar facility via Google Earth which is promoted in its main maps app, but involves switching into a separate program.

However, for many users the key feature will be the level of accuracy that Google offers.

Since 2008, the firm's Ground Truth project has mashed together licensed data with information gathered by its own fleet of Street View cars and bicycles.

The images and sensor data they collect are analysed by computers and humans to identify street signs, business names, road junctions and other key features. To date, more than five million miles (eight million km) of roads across 45 countries have been covered.

This information is supplemented by the public filing their own reports. iPhone users are encouraged to do likewise by shaking their handsets to activate a feedback function.

"Google Maps, as much as any other map application, lives from the data that we receive," Mr Hansen explained.

"If a road is closed for the next six months, or a road was opened two days ago - these are things that somebody who lives next to the road immediately notices, but if you're not in the area it becomes hard to know.

"The more we can give you the ability to let us know about things that are changing on the map, the more other users will benefit from that corrected information."

He added that once operators verify these reports, changes can be made "within minutes, rather than hours".

Apple is also seeking to improve its own data through user feedback, but risks having less to work with if iPhone users switch to another product.

There had been speculation Apple would reject Google's app from its store for this reason.

But since iPhone sales are at the heart of Apple's fortunes, it may have felt it had more to lose than gain by allowing rival Android handsets to offer a popular app it lacked.
'Neutral' Nokia

Google's launch will also have consequences for Nokia, which recently launched its own Here Maps app on iOS.

The European firm's location division is decades older than Google's, and also has a strong reputation for accuracy.

However, the Here app has had a shaky start with many users complaining about problems with its interface - a consequence of it being written in the HTML5 web language rather than as a native app, specifically for the iOS system.

Even so, one telecoms analyst said it would be premature to write the company out of the game.

"I'm not convinced Nokia as a brand for maps will become a big thing in the consumer consciousness, but what I think is going to happen is that more businesses are going to quietly do deals with it for maps," said Ben Wood from CCS Insight.

"Because of the issues that Apple had, people have suddenly understood the importance of quality mapping and they may also say they don't want to go to Google as all of the data then runs through the search firm, strengthening it as a competitor. Nokia is more of a neutral partner.

"Amazon has already done a deal with Nokia on its Kindle tablets, and I wouldn't be surprised if RIM's new Blackberry devices and Facebook follow."

sorce: BBC
There is a reason why Yash Chopra and Shah Rukh Khan are called the Kings of Romance, they have managed to weave one unforgettable love story after the other that remains etched in our memories. 'Jab Tak Hai Jaan', Yash Chopra's last directorial venture had created ample pre-release buzz and the anticipation in the theatre was palpable. 'Jab Tak Hai Jaan' is yet another impossible love story made believable by the conviction of the makers.
Samar Anand (Shah Rukh) does odd jobs in London for sustenance, needless to say our quintessential Bollywood hero is multi-faceted; he croons, he grooves, he has a heart of gold and he is charmer all the way. On a cold London night, while cleaning snow from the sidewalks, Samar falls for the beautiful Meera (Katrina Kaif), Indian billionaire's daughter who is always negotiating with God and cutting deals to accomplish her unfulfilled wishes. Quite obviously their love for each other is mired by impossibilities.
Yash Chopra romances are historically high on sacrifices and the two besotted lovers are driven apart by circumstances. Our suave odd-job man is now Major Samar Anand, nicknamed 'The man who cannot die' because of his daredevil acts of courage. Rookie documentary filmmaker, Akira (Anushka Sharma) wants to film the fearless bomb squad head and needless to say, the feisty kudi soon finds herself falling hook, line and sinker for our intense army man.
Unrequited love and loyalty, pangs of separation and characters with a propensity for sacrifice; these are all familiar tropes in Bollywood but Yash Chopra has his way of creating the perfect mise-en-scène and converting you into a believer. For die hard romantics, philosophies like 'There is a time for every love story' is sure to become a mantra, much like, 'Someone somewhere is made for you'.
At 47, Shah Rukh, still strikes the right notes as the typical romantic hero. Anushka essays her part with ease but Katrina still needs to work on getting the emotional parts right. Rahman's music too doesn't really grow on you after you have watched the film.
JTHJ doesn't quite stand out like some of Yash Chopra's previous works and the pace of the second half seems to drag a bit. It's just that when you watch the film, the canvas is picturesque, the characters are gorgeous and the story restores your faith in good, in love and in impossible relationships.
 NEW DELHI: Thirteen years after the mutilated body of Captain Saurabh Kalia of the 4 Jat Regiment was handed over to Indian authorities, his father Dr NK Kalia has approached the United Nation Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for justice as the family wants the ghastly act to be declared a war crime.

The petition has been filed by Dr NK Kalia, Rajya Sabha member Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Flags of Honour Foundation.

The petitioners urged the UNHRC to ensure a full and independent investigation is opened immediately, justice is achieved and also to conduct enquires into this matter and takes appropriate steps to urge the Government of Pakistan to conduct an enquiry into the matter and ascertain those responsible for the torture and death of Captain Kalia.

Saurabh Kalia and his five men of the 4 Jat regiment were taken captive by Pakistani troops in the icy hills of Kargil and barbarically tortured for over 22 days.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, an active voice in urging the government to take up the issue with the UN Human Rights Council, said: "I am supporting this petition to UNHRC filed by Flags of Honour Foundation and Dr. N.K. Kalia to seek justice for the family of Capt Saurabh Kalia who was tortured and shot dead performing his duty - a clear case of war crime and violations of Geneva conventions.

This is about principles of natural justice and laws being violated against Indians anywhere in the world and about men and women in uniform who serve the nation and expect the nation to back them and take care of their families."

Saurabh's parents NK Kalia and Vijaya have been raising their voice against human rights violations and pleading with the government to take up the issue of war crimes at the international level.

Dr Kalia who has been running from pillar to post to fight for justice for his son, said: "This matter is about dignity and honour of Capt Saurabh Kalia and five soldiers and a national issue where country's prestige was slighted due to such heinous crimes which go unchallenged."

Saurabh Kalia of 4 Jat Regiment, who was the first army officer to report incursion by the Pakistani army on Indian soil, had along with five soldiers - Sepoys Arjun Ram, Bhanwar Lal Bagaria, Bhika Ram, Moola Ram and Naresh Singh - went for a routine patrol of the Bajrang Post in the Kaksar sector when they were taken captive by the Pakistani troops on May 15, 1999.
Sydney, Dec 11(ANI): A rare video featuring Sir Donald Bradman in action has been released, and the 13 minute black and white film titled 'Australians in Toronto' shows the cricket legend taking part in matches against Canadian teams in 1932.
Bradman was visiting Toronto as part of a 51-match tour organised by former Australian Test leg spinner Arthur Mailey, who had gathered a team of past and present cricketers including lower level grade players, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.
The tour also acted as an unofficial honeymoon for Bradman and his new wife Jessie Menzies, who joined the touring party at Bradman's request, the paper added.
Captured by the Ontario Motion Picture Bureau, it is believed to be only one of two known surviving films depicting Bradman at play somewhere other than Australia or the British Isles, it said.
The National Film and Sound Archive, whose curator Simon Smith said the archive was happy to share the clip made at a time when "the spirit of cricket was as important as the result", released the film, the paper concluded. (ANI)
Brazilian prison inmate trying to escape from a jail outside the capital city of Brasilia got stuck in a hole in wall, prompting prison guards to snap these photographs. According to local newspapers, four Brazilian prisoners tried to escape from the Ceres jail by using a shower pipe to create a hole in the wall. The first inmate was able to squeeze through the hole, scale a 5-metre (16-foot) wall and escape but the second inmate got stuck and eventually had to call for help, media said. Guards called in fire-fighters who rescued the prisoner by using a hammer and drill. Amnesty International has criticized the Brazilian government for conditions in the country's prisons which are frequently overcrowded and subject to riots.

This week Foreign Policy published a “Sex Issue.” They explained their decision to feature a special issue with these words
Foreign Policy's first-ever Sex Issue…is dedicated…to the consideration of how and why sex—in all the various meanings of the word—matters in shaping the world's politics. Why? In Foreign Policy, the magazine and the subject, sex is too often the missing part of the equation—the part that the policymakers and journalists talk about with each other, but not with their audiences.…Women's bodies are the world's battleground, the contested terrain on which politics is played out. We can keep ignoring it. For this one issue, we decided not to.
It is commendable that Foreign Policy highlights the all too common silence about sex and gender politics in its own pages. Hopefully, this is the beginning of a serious and continued engagement, rather than a one off matter. Despite the editors’ good intentions, however, Foreign Policy disturbingly reproduces much of the dominant and sensationalist discourse about sex in the Middle East. The “Sex Issue” leaves much to be desired. 

To begin with, it is purportedly about how sex shapes the world’s politics. But with the exception of one article that urges US foreign policy makers to understand women as a foreign policy issue and a target of their “smart-power arsenal,” its focus is almost exclusively on Iran, the Arab world, and China. Thus “the world” is reduced for the most part to Arabs, Iranians, and Chinese—not a coincidental conglomeration of the “enemy.” The current war on women in the United States is erased. 

The primary focus is Islam and its production and repression of sex and gender politics in the Middle East. In discussing the role of fatwas in the regulation of sexual practices, Karim Sadjadpour parades a tone of incredulity. Leaving aside his dismissal of the centuries old tradition of practicing Muslims asking and receiving advice on sexual and gender practices, the article assumes an unspoken consensus with its readers: the idea of a mullah writing about sex is amusing if a little perverted.

Then there is the visual. A naked and beautiful woman’s flawless body unfolds a niqab of black paint. She stares at us afraid and alluring. We are invited to sexualize and rescue her at once. The images reproduce what Gayatri Spivak critiqued as the masculine and imperial urge to save sexualized (and racialized) others. The photo spread is reminiscent of Theo van Gogh's film Submission, based on Ayyan Hirsli Ali’s writings, in which a woman with verses of the Quran painted on her naked body and wearing a transparent chador writhes around a dimly lit room. Foreign Policy’s “Sex Issue” montage is inspired by the same logic that fuels Submission: we selectively highlight the plight of women in Islam using the naked female body as currency. The female body is to be consumed, not covered! 

For those of us now long familiar with the depictions of the Arab/Muslim woman as repressed but uncontrollable sex object, these images only reify the fascination with the hidden underside of that liberated, secularized self. This week, they also echoed two other media events, which paraded European repulsion from and fascination with the Muslim other. One was the Breivik trial, in which the ultra-right wing crusader against multiculturalism cited al-Qaeda almost daily as a source of tactical inspiration in his war against Islam. As Roqaya Chamseddine argues, the other image Foreign Policy called to our imaginations was that other spectacle of desire and repulsion at the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm. There, artist Makode Linde howled in black face and feigned pain as the Swedish minister of culture sliced through his cake-body designed like a “native” African woman. Then she fed it to him.

The painted on niqab introduces, adorns, and interrupts Mona El Tahawy’s feature article: “Why Do They Hate Us: The Real War on Women is in the Middle East.” The title is an adaption of the Fareed Zakaria article that exposed the “real” reasons behind September 11. In a moment when many of us have been relieved to move past binaries, El Tahawy has chosen to revive them. 

That choice has inspired a deluge of tweets, blogs, articles, letters, and comments that have applauded her courage or attacked what many have called a reductive and simplistic analysis that flattens women’s lives, histories, and choices. The image of “Tahrir woman” who wore a blue bra that fateful day when Egyptian forces dragged, stripped, and beat her is the backdrop for El Tahawy’s argument: men in the Arab world, and especially Islamists, who she repeatedly locates in the seventh century, hate women.

We would suggest, as many have, that oppression is about men and women. The fate of women in the Arab world cannot be extracted from the fate of men in the Arab world, and vice versa. El Tahawy's article conjures an elaborate battle of the sexes where men and women are on opposing teams, rather than understanding that together men and women must fight patriarchal systems in addition to exploitative practices of capitalism, authoritarianism, colonialism, liberalism, religion, and/or secularism. 

Indeed, Mubarak’s authoritarian regime did not use the woman’s body alone as a site of its policies of repression and torture. El Tahawy cites Bouazizi several times as the spark of revolution in the Arab world. But she forgets Khalid Said, whose face—tortured and mangled beyond recognition—became an icon of the revolution. El Tahawy overlooks this shared experience of the body as a site of humiliation and pain. She does not see what Ahdaf Soueif powerfully explained: “As the tortured face of Khaled Said broke any credibility the ministry of the interior might have had, so the young woman in the blue jeans has destroyed the military’s reputation.” Indeed, the hatred of the people, women and men, has been a, if not the, unifying characteristic of colonial, neo-colonial, and authoritarian rulers in the Middle East and beyond.

In her sloppy indictment of Arabs, Muslims, authoritarian rulers, and Islamists, El Tahawy has papered over some messy issues that complicate her underlying message: liberalism is the solution. Why is female genital mutilation practiced widely in Egypt? Because men hate women. Why can't women drive in Saudi Arabia? Because men hate women. Why are men and women against raising the age of consent in Yemen? Because men hate women. Hatred is a one size fits all answer. The use of hatred in this way is important. Hatred is irrational. It is a state or emotion. As Wendy Brown reminds us, such emotional or affective states are understood to be outside of, or unwelcome in, liberalism. 

Of course, female genital mutilation and ages of consent are topics that require our careful attention. In the case of former, the reality is that women are often those that insist on the practice because of ways that gender and political economy regimes together make it a necessary rite of womanhood. In fact, critical thinkers have long argued that this practice has more to do with the lack of economic opportunity for women, the imperative to marry, and the hardening and modernization of tradition in response to colonial and neocolonial interventions (including rights frameworks) than some irrational and razor crazed “hatred.” The same insight could be extended to the question of ages of consent. A reductive framework of hatred makes these topics even more difficult to critically think about and work on. 

Many writers and activists have called El Tahawy to account for erasing women’s histories. For Arabs, like all peoples, have histories that one must engage, as Lila Abu-Lughod reminds us, in order to understand the “forms of lives we find around the world.” Critics have pointed to the long history of the Egyptian women’s movement and that formative moment in 1923 when Huda Sha‘rawi took off her face veil at the Ramses train station. This is a useful point to revisit, if only to reflect on why the liberalism that Sha‘rawi and her cohorts fought for—men and women—drastically and resoundingly failed. One reason, and there are many, was that liberalism resonated with only a small elite. As Hanan Kholoussy points out, women under domestic confinement who like Sha‘rawi were expected to don the face veil made up only two percent of Egypt’s five million females at the end of the nineteenth century. 

One would have to also critically and historically engage how women’s movements have been implicated in the policies and longevity of authoritarianism. After all, the two countries where women enjoyed the broadest scope of personal status law were Tunisia and Egypt, before the recent revolutions. Indeed, of all the countries of the Arab world, it was only in Tunisia and Egypt that a woman could pass her citizenship on to her children if she was married to a foreigner. (In Egypt there was a small qualification for women married to that other other, the Palestinian; post-revolutionary Egypt has, at least in law if not in practice, done away with this exception). 

How can we account for these legal achievements under authoritarian regimes? We could turn to the source of El Tahawy’s inspiration: Fareed Zakaria’s “Why They Hate Us: The Politics of Rage.” There, Zakaria’s muddled logic counsels: “we have to help moderate Arab states, but on the condition that they embrace moderation.” As Mahmood Mamdani and Lila Abu-Lughod often write, moderate Islam has often been produced on the wings of women's and minority rights. 

We can also look to the experiences of feminists and women’s activists. Rema Hammami and Eileen Kuttab have shown that in the Palestinian context, the women’s movement lacked a coherent strategy linking gender equality to democracy. The women’s movement thus appeared to be sponsored by the Palestinian Authority; its fate became dependent on that of the political system. In 1999, Hammami and Kuttab warned:
Examples are myriad—eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union saw massive attacks on women’s rights issues after the fall of communist regimes because they came to be associated with other undemocratic and unpopular regime policies. Turkey, Algeria, Egypt are situations where you have small women’s movements whose popular legitimacy is lost because over time they have been seen as linked to or sponsored by authoritarian secular regimes.
Is it liberalism then that will fight off the misogyny of authoritarianism? Is the much-feared Islamist summer the real enemy here? And if so, how do we explain that it is women just as much as men, as Shadi Hamid has noted, who have gone to the ballot box and voted Islamists into power? 

El Tahawy’s presumes that she is starting a conversation. We respectfully invite El Tahawy to join the conversation among women and men in Tahrir and outside of it. After all, the shameful and state-sanctioned sexual violence of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces’ “virginity tests” did not take place in silence. They happened a day after International Women’s Day when women claimed Tahrir as a space of gender equality and liberation. The “virginity tests” did not meet silence either, as El Tahawy herself points out. Samira Ibrahim continues her fight; her following and her courage are formidable. 

The battle against misogyny does not follow a “men hate women” formula. It cannot be reduced to a generic battle of the sexes spiced with a dose of Islam and culture. It cannot be extracted from the political and economic threads that, together with patriarchy, produce the uneven terrain that men and women together navigate. It is these lessons that one would have to engage before meting out an indictment about the politics of sex, much less envisioning a future of these politics. There is no one answer because there is no single culprit, no single “culture” or “hatred” that we can root out and replace with “tolerance” or “love.” Similarly, the absence of a sustained and critical attention to sex and gender cannot be solved, syllabus style, by a separate glossy special “Sex Issue,” the content and form of which reproduce what it purports to critique.

The making of B grade erotic movies are no more popular nowadays, strict rules from censor board and easy availability of sizzling stuff on internet led to decrease B-Grade craze, even the producers who were interested in making hot B-Grade films once upon a time, are not willing to take any risk fearing the financial Loss as there will not be any satellite rights issued for the film, and lack of theaters willing to project, so very rarely we are finding the stuff nowadays on the street end walls, in that availability this Seductress From Hyderabad is grabbing all the chances to act in erotic B-grades .
Tamil , Malayalam and Telugu are the rest house for this stumbling girl according to the sources. Waheedha started her career in a local channel as an anchor was caught suddenly on city posters posing horny.
Wheeda is not that sexy or she does not have much Tempting assets but  as there is not much competition in this line may be she is trying to reach the level of b-grade film queens  like Shakeela ,Ramya sree , babylona etc.
But the current busy generation is not having enough time to encourage B- grade stuff as they got more than that on internet if they want. This bold girl was starred in ‘Anagarikam’ part 1, 2 and many more films are ready to wet the screens. There are few more such films getting ready to divert the eyes on the street walls. So let’s wait and see whether this south Indian temptress can reach a level of a star or will she degrade herself to scandals and much more..?
The second annual London Indian Film Festival pulls the sheets off India’s hidden characters, says Michael Edison Hayden
A Leering gangster contemplates Ruth, a frightened Mumbai prostitute, from a soft leather chair. He has just slapped her and taken her money as pay back for debts owed by her drug-addict boyfriend.“Very hard money, I know,” he jeers. He jerks his wrist in a mimed hand-job.“Hey, very hard.”

It isn’t exactly Bollywood. That scene is from Anurag Kashyap’s That Girl In Yellow Boots, one of many cutting-edge independent Indian films that will be screened at the second annual London Indian Film Festival, which runs from June 30 to July 12. LIFF’S 2011 line-up builds on the success of its debut last year, which was half-jokingly called the “punk rock” of Indian film festivals, or as British newspaper the Guardian put it, “grown-up” Bollywood.

“I think Hindi commercial cinema will always have an audience,” says Cary Sawhney, the festival’s creative and executive director, who enjoys the “punk rock” label. “(But) the films winning the hearts and minds of new generations are cheaper to make, and much less constrained by the need to please the masses.”

LIFF’s mission is to showcase directors working off the well-beaten Bollywood path, in what could be termed the second wave of parallel cinema. Directors like Dibakar Banerjee, Srijit Mukherji and Anurag Kashyap are among the leading architects of a fresh cinematic challenge to Bollywood’s conventions: gritty, true-to-life storytelling over escapism, created with a comparatively microscopic budget and no major stars - but thats not the only criterion. Opening the festival this year is Aamir Khan's adult comedy Delhi Belly starring Imran Khan (See our exclusive interview with co-star Poorna Jagannathan) - a film that can well fall under commercial cinema but yet be a part of the burgeoning era of entertainment that goes beyond song and dance.
“When That Girl In Yellow Bootswas screened (in India), some were offended, and a lady from the censor board thought I needed psychiatric help,” Kayshap says. “Indian audiences think I’m too dark and push too much, whereas when the film was screened at the Venice Film Festival last year, fellow directors said I held back too much. So, my morality is caught between two (worlds).”

For Sawhney, the LIFF serves as a refuge for “taboo” material like that shown in Kayshap’s films, but also as a platform for new perspectives that are fascinating to Western audiences, who are more curious than ever about the intimate inner life of an emerging power.
This year’s festival includes Rituparno Ghosh’s Just Another Love Story, about two generations of gay lovers, and Ketan Mehta’s Rang Rasiya, about the sensual relationship between painter Raja Ravi Varma and his muse - two films any Indian who tires of the unnatural projection of sexuality in Bollywood should watch.
“Sex and sexuality is probably the last frontier in India,” says Sawhney. “In many ways I think our festival has captured the zeitgeist of emerging new Indian cinema, and this is reflected in the fact that we are drawing a younger crowd. Just over half our audience are South Asians,” Sawhney says. “The other part of the audience consists of mostly Caucasian Brits who feel aesthetically excluded from Bollywood but are nevertheless keen to see new images from around India.”

With or without make-up, the masked faces of Indian life are about to be revealed.
Lovemaking is the most painful activity on the planet. On film. Whenever I read “…and they make love” in a script, I wince. Memories of Aparna Sen saying, during the filming of 15, Park Avenue: “Relax your head to the side an inch” or “move your upper arm two inches left and tilt your neck a little lower” return with remorseless clarity.

Fact is, when it comes to lovemaking on film, you can never get it right. It’s nothing like the rest of acting. Emoting, dancing the bhangra, shooting old men, sobbing over a dead brother’s grave, masturbating, even dying – they’re all things one can do reasonably well with lots of practice, either by getting under the skin of the character or by sheer instinct. Lovemaking laughs at all these attempts. You can try all you will to use your 27 years of experience in the activity, your ease with your character or your ability to make the mojo flow at will, but nothing will work. Finally, your confidence broken, your sexiness evaporated, your inhibitions reminding you of the time you were 16, you will be reduced to a quivering heap of discomfiture, meekly following orders barked at you by an exasperated director.

So what makes lovemaking so painful? First, the scene has to be broken down into a series of shots that suggest passionate, uninhibited sex, an activity that, unlike filming, say, a game of badminton with your grandmother, cannot be “played” out for real. It all starts off rather inauspiciously with you seeing yourself with your receding hairline unfailingly noticeable in every storyboard frame thanks to a passive-aggressive sketching artist who hates the fact you’re going to be fondling Laila Rouass/Mallika Sherawat/Any Other Unfortunate. As each frame details, in desultory pencil strokes, where her lips will be in relation to yours, how her back will arch as you touch her neck, and finally a close-up of your buttocks, you realize this may as well be a science experiment in school.

Next, the actual shooting of the scene. Before anything can start, the director asks all female crew to leave the set, lest they get maddeningly aroused at the sight of two pretend-naked bodies and start ripping their clothes off. So now you have six, bored Malayali lightmen resetting their unforgiving lights as you and your co-star fake-banter your way on to a bed that’s as rickety and noisy on the inside as it is plush and silk-robed on the outside. Once all lights have been focused, the lightmen are asked to leave and the first AD shouts for the wardrobe and make-up persons. The heroine’s body is re-moisturized, and foundation reapplied to her cleavage, legs and face, in that order. Her hair is teased to lust-maddened untidiness. The sheets are adjusted so a heartstopping curve of her back-to-bum is made visible. Everybody is herded off the sets and it’s locked down. A closed set. And, we begin.

No, we don’t. It’s personal hygiene time. Time to check the breath. Check. Body odour. Check. Pieces of spinach stuck in the teeth. Removed. Out come a hail of mints, elaichi, mouthwash, deodorant, perfume, and then, just to be on the safe side, a few breath-freshening sheets tucked away under the pillow for takes three and four. And then we’re off. A few tentative sniffs; lip brushes; the first half-kiss; but then our noses knock and the director yells “cut!” and there’s nervous giggles all around. The director indulges us this once and pretends to be amused.
The camera rolls again. Somehow, the kissing and initial fondling is done with and we come to the business end of things. That’s when it gets harder. The man’s on top, so how does one do that without making any contact? How do we make sure the camera catches her desire-drenched face if she’s buried under me? Here’s how: I am on top of her, balancing on my toes and palms, arching my back, craning my head, smiling into her eyes and thrusting with gentlemanly passion into a cubic foot of air. She writhes, her nails tightening on my triceps, and all I can think of is, “God, get me out of here. I’m in physical pain, her mints are losing the battle to garlic prawn, the bed’s going to break and we’re losing the sunset light.”

Lovemaking on film is forcing two human beings who’ve never come within smelling distance of each other, to take off their clothes in front of 10 strangers, under hot lights, in an airless room, with the body odour of unwashed director’s assistants and the manic tension of a director thickening the air, and then asking them to simulate the most uplifting, ecstatic copulation ever known to man. Pain. Pure pain.
Looks like lip lock trend is gonna hit Tollywood also. After Samantha had it with Naga Chaitanya in ‘Yem maya chesave’, Kajal did it with Mahesh babu in Businessman. And now Samantha is again doing it with Nani in the upcoming film ‘Eto vellipoyindi manasu’ directed by Gautham Menon.

One side Bollywood is following Tollywood in grabbing masala scripts and our Tollywood is taking Bollywood culture.  Earlier Pawan Kalyan and Trisha took the pleasure of lip kiss in the movie ‘Teenmaar’.  How ever Venkatesh, Nagarjuna, Balakrishna and Chiru never got this lucky chance in their  30 years industry experience.
 I was sitting in a restaurant the other night,” Sunny Leone giggled, her brightly-coloured fingernails curling in her palms, “and aunties and uncles with their kids came looking for an autograph! I’ve never had nine- and ten-year-old boys ask me for an autograph before.”

Leone is right to be surprised. She has, after all, built her name and reputation as a porn star. And when Leone became a household Indian name last winter, thanks to her participation in Bigg Boss 5 (a reality show structured around the format of the Dutch-created, mega-franchise Big Brother), a public controversy erupted over her supposed “past”. It was enough to incite the Press Council of India (PCI) to weigh in on her growing popularity.

“My opinion is that Sunny Leone was earning her livelihood in America in a manner acceptable in that country, though it is not acceptable in India,” read a statement by Markandey Katju, the PCI chief. “There is no saint without a past, and no sinner without a future,” he added. But what was striking about Katju’s statements, and the debate surrounding Leone at large, was the expressed interest in her supposed past and future. Sunny Leone “was earning her livelihood”: the implication being that Leone somehow arrived on Indian shores seeking an entirely new life. Leone’s extremely popular website, however, broadcasts a different narrative to the millions of men (and perhaps women) who actively visit it: “Goddess”, a clickable icon proclaims in reference to Leone, “Watch Sunny’s first B/G [Boy/Girl] anal scene.”

Leone’s future, it would seem, does not involve any deliberation about whether she wants to be a sinner or a saint. What is most fascinating about the story that’s being told about her rise to mainstream Indian stardom – including the rash of rumours about Bollywood castings, and asinine celebrity gossip linking her romantically to Indian male celebs (Leone is, in fact, a married woman) – is that it misunderstands the obvious truth: Leone is exploiting her ethnicity (and, for that matter, cultural issues of Indian male sexual repression) for money. According to an article inMint, Leone’s X-rated website saw an increase in traffic numbering somewhere around 630 per cent during the run of Bigg Boss 5. Her website was (at the height of the show’s popularity) ranked at 296 in terms of viewership in India. (As a comparison point, the paper notes, the website for The Indian Express fell 15 slots behind it.) Charging over `1,000 in monthly subscription, Leone’s foray into the consciousness of Indians has earned her a lot of money, perhaps more than she could have earned as a B-grade Bollywood actress.

Strikingly attractive in person, Leone’s brown eyes brim with the confidence of a woman who has been told her entire life that she is good-looking, and been paid well for it. When asked about how active she is in the porn industry, Leone is completely forthright. “Oh, I’m not done,” she smiles, “I’m going home now to [host] the AVN [Adult Video News] awards in Las Vegas.” The AVN awards, heavily protested against in America by feminists and Christian groups, and referred to affectionately by insiders as the “Oscars of porn”, is hardly the place to go when a woman wants to escape her promiscuous past. It’s also located not too far from Leone’s wealthy and comfortable life in California.
I can't remember when the rest of the internet saw the Wreck-It Ralph trailer, but it was a while ago and I filed it away for future watching and then forgot about it. However, during a visit to Disney HQ yesterday (can't say why, embargoed, etc), I saw the poster for it and it reminded me that I still had to watch the trailer. Needless to say, the film has now rocketed onto my Dying To See list.

The idea is genuinely inspired, taking its cues from the likes of Toy Story, only this time it's video game characters that have lives outside of the games they're in. John C. Reilly voices Wreck-It Ralph, a hulking video game villain who's tired of being the bad guy and longs to be a hero, so he walks out of his game (“Fix-It Felix”, voiced by 30 Rock's Jack McBrayer) and signs up to a Call of Duty-style videogame as one of the good guys, before realising he may have bitten off more than he can chew (“When did videogames get so VIOLENT?”).

Sadly, I was never much of a videogame player beyond the likes of Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong and so on (I am slightly more familiar with the Mario characters thanks to my nephews' Wii, but that's as far as it goes), so a lot of the in-jokes and references are likely to be lost on me. In the now seemingly-obligatory support group scene (00m50s), for example, I can recognise Bowzer and the Pac-Man ghost and I get that the fighter is meant to be from Mortal Kombat (or whatever), but that's about it, so I'll have to rely on game-savvy friends to fill me in.

Anyway, the concept is inspired and the voice cast (which also includes Jane Lynch and Sarah Silverman) is extremely promising – I love the scene with Silverman's annoying little girl character at the end of the trailer. Unfortunately, the film doesn't open here till February, so quite a while to wait yet.
A strong earthquake centred off the coast of northeastern Japan shook buildings as far away as Tokyo on Friday and triggered a one-metre tsunami in an area devastated by last year's Fukushima disaster. The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.3, the U.S. Geological Survey said, adding that there was no risk of a widespread tsunami. There were no immediate reports of death or injury.
Thousands of children lined up the streets, clapping and waving the different national flags, as the ASEAN-India car rally reached the capital city of Cambodia after covering a total distance of 3,232kms across four nations on Wednesday.

Organised by the CII and MEA, the rally, which was flagged off from the Angkor Wat temple, the largest Hindu temple in the world, was given a rousing welcome by the Cambodians.

 Elders and school children lined up the streets throughout the highway to welcome the 124 participants, who had set out to cover around 8,000kms across nine nations from Yogyakarta, Indonesia on November 26.

As the 31 cars moved past the highway, children were seen waiting for the convoy. With paper flags of different countries in their hand, they waved, clapped and even stretched out their hands to greet the participants.

The participants also had a rare chance to cross the Kampong Kdei bridge, which is located in Doeumpor village in Chi Kreng district of Siem Reap province.

Erected in the 12th century, the bridge is 80m long and 14m wide with four naga heads on both its ends. It was a great experience for the participants as they clicked pictures and also marvelled at the archaeological sophistication.

The historic rally, which covered a distance of 322km on Wednesday from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, made a stop at Solar Cafe, where the participants were served deep fried spiders and crickets for lunch and they savoured them with pleasure.

The rally will cover around 250 km on Thursday and make its entry to Vietnam through the Babet border.

A five-storey house, which was marooned in the middle of a new road in China for more than a year because its owner refused to leave, has finally been demolished. The road, in China's eastern Zhejiang province, was built around the house because duck farmer Luo Baogen was holding out for more compensation, reports the BBC. Luo, 67, said he had just finished the home at a cost of 95,000 dollars and had been offered only 35,000 dollars to move. Officials said Luo and his wife had accepted a new compensation offer of 41,000 dollars, and moved to a relocation area with the help of relatives on Saturday morning. The house had earned the nickname "nail house" because, like a stubborn nail, it was difficult to move. "It was never a final solution for us to live in a lone house in the middle of the road. After the government's explanations, I finally decided to move," Luo said. The road is a key infrastructure project - linking the city to a new railway station on the outskirts. Luo was the only owner of 459 households to reject the relocation plans.The case has highlighted what is a major cause of unrest in China, as huge infrastructure and real estate developments spark hundreds of thousands of re locations.

How about using your mobile phone to beam an image or a presentation? There are phones that can be used as mini projectors. This is an emerging technology and is catching on fast. However, big companies are yet to invest in this segment, save for Samsung. There are many options from small handset companies such as Maxx, GFive and Intex. They may offer cheaper alternatives but they are not built very well. Here are some of the good options in this segment.

Samsung Galaxy Beam
Samsung should perhaps change its tagline to "We have a phone for everything" . The phone is available for pre-order on Samsung's website at Rs 29,900. It is a fully functional smartphone running on Android 2.1, and its 12.1 mm frame can pack a lamp with 15 lumens. It is ideal for a quick business presentation.
Obviously with a projector packed into the device , the battery life does take a beating, but the specs say the phone can run 14 hours on 2G network and about 7 hours on 3G network. With the projector, it's safe to assume the phone can run up to about 3 hours on a full charge.
The phone comes with a tripod and you would probably have to use office supplies to make a stand or keep it at the edge of the table, but it does come with an impromptu portable screen maker.
The telescopic rod extends out and has a small clip where one can place a sheet of paper and the base can support it during presentations. The sheet can be placed in landscape mode or portrait mode depending on your presentation.
The projector also tops up as a torch; and the intensity can be changed using the volume buttons and so too the colours. (Try beating Nokia 1100.)
Micromax X40
Micromax competes in this segment as always with a low-cost alternative. The X40 is a dual SIM phone and the projector's lamp is rated at 20 lumens. It is good value for money though the construction could be a bit more elegant.
The phone also comes with a tripod, so that should make presentations a bit more easy. The projector lens is also analog and the image can be focussed using a dial near the lens. However, there are some glaring problems with the projector . The image is beamed at 90 degrees and anti-clockwise , and there is no default program to correct this and one would have to tilt their heads to navigate to the file. The image corrects itself once the the video being played goes into full screen. It also runs on a rather old Java-based OS. Better luck next time Micromax.
Spice M9000 Popkorn
The problems that plague Micromax are present in Spice as well; and a lot more too. It can play videos in 3GP format and the projector is not that great. The image projected is a pain in the neck (literally) and projects is projected at 90 degrees and anti-clockwise . The build feels cheap and plastic. There are vents in the side to keep the projector cool.
The phone includes a tripod, which is even more cumbersome than the one Micromax has, and includes an external speaker; no marks again for the quality of the speakers. There were alarming reviews about the battery life. The phone's price varies from Rs 6,700 to Rs 5,700; keep an eye out for bargains.
New drugs could be developed to treat hardening of the arteries, say American scientists. Hardening of arteries - atherosclerosis - a major cause of heart disease, has been thought to be caused by complex interactions between excess cholesterol and swollen heart and blood vessels.

But now scientists from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, along with other American colleagues, believe a forerunner to cholesterol subdues inflammatory response genes.

This precursor molecule could be targeted by atherosclerosis drugs, according to the study published in the Cell medical journal.

In our arterial walls are immune system cells called macrophages (which means "big eater" in Greek) that consume other cells or matter that are believed to be foreign or dangerous.

Senior author Christopher Glass, MD, PhD, a professor in the Departments of Medicine and Cellular and Molecular Medicine and senior author says, "When they do that, it means they consume the other cell's store of cholesterol. As a result, they've developed very effective ways to metabolize the excess cholesterol and get rid of it."

Some macrophages do not adequately dispose of the excess cholesterol and allow it to build up as foamy lipid (fat) droplets, hence their name, macrophage foam cells.

These foam macrophages generate molecules that call other immune cells and release molecules, signalling some genes to launch an inflammatory response. It assumed that atherosclerotic lesions - areas of fat-laden foam cells in arterial walls - are caused by a link between unregulated cholesterol accumulation and inflammation, says Christopher Glass.

The researchers set out to discover how cholesterol accumulation causes inflammation, and why macrophages perform. Using modelling based on mice that produce many macrophage foam cells, they had two unexpected discoveries.

"The first is that foam cell formation suppressed activation of genes that promote inflammation. That's exactly the opposite of what we thought happened. Second, we identified a molecule that helps normal macrophages manage cholesterol balance. When it's in abundance, it turns on cellular pathways to get rid of cholesterol and turns off pathways for producing more cholesterol."

That molecule is desmosterol - the last forerunner in cholesterol production, which cells create and use as a structural component of their membranes. In atherosclerotic lesions, the ordinary function of desmosterol seems to be "crippled."

The next area of research is to discover why that happens, says Christopher Glass. It may be connected to overwhelming, pro-inflammatory signals from proteins called Toll-like receptors on macrophages and other cells that are vital parts of the immune system.

Discovering desmosterol's ability to cut macrophage cholesterol gives researchers and drug developers a new target to cut the risk of atherosclerosis.

Christopher Glass says a synthetic molecule much the same as desmosterol already exists, which offers an immediate test-case for new studies.

Scientists in the 1950s developed a drug called triparanol that reduces cholesterol production, effectively boosting desmosterol levels. It was sold as a heart disease drug, but was later found to cause severe side effects, including blindness, so it was abandoned.

"We've learned a lot in 50 years. Maybe there's a way now to create a new drug that mimics the cholesterol inhibition without the side effects," concludes Christopher Glass

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