National News

Jokes help. So does audience participation. The trick to making an effective presentation, says Alex Macris, chief of Themis Group, a Durham, N.C., holding company for gaming and media Web sites, is to keep your energy high and engage the crowd.

New Delhi, Oct. 13 -- It is not just roads, flyovers and stadiums that need overhauling before the Games.

We've been going out on a date every Tuesday morning for months now. All thanks to the love and affection you've been showering me with, Tuesdays are the new Sundays for me.

On most days Ketki Shah and her husband Shailesh are immersed in their furniture business. Except for the last Sunday of every month. That?s when they wake up at the crack of dawn to join a group of people known as the Bombay Hash House Harriers.

No item songs, no outdoor locations, no star cast, no pomp and panache, just a sweet, slice of life film about a boy waking up to his responsibilities in life. This couldn?t possibly be a Dharma Productions film, could it?

India, Oct. 4 -- 'When Adam left heaven and came to earth, he came to India.' I heard this grand declaration six years ago, just one of many made by delighted members of parliament in Khartoum, capital of the war-wracked central African State of Sudan. India's former President, the charismatic A.P.J.

Whether you have a fear of public speaking and clam up in crowds, or are the loudest, most affable personality in the room, few experiences can match the nervousness and trepidation that hits you like a tidal wave the first time you walk onto your film set as a freshman director.

I?m sick. I?m tired. I?m stressed. And I?m scared. I hope you?re better than I am! God, it?s been a rough couple of weeks. I keep waiting for this run of luck to break, but apparently things are coming to a head in my life. Sometimes, I feel life has to get really hard, in order for one to take stock, to look at what?s wrong, and what needs to change. I think I?m in one of those phases.

I have said this many times before?no matter who we are or what we do? there is an inherent need in all of us to be recognised and appreciated. For someone like me, from the entertainment business, this is also a critical factor of our success and the connect that we have been able to create with the audience at large.

If a poll is conducted on the most well known Indian singer alive, Lata Mangeshkar would win it hands down. There may be differences among music lovers as to who has been the greatest singer but there is bound to be unanimity on her name when it comes to naming the most successful singer the country has produced.

The man?s cheeks are sunken pits; his legs bulge against the restraining trouser seam. There is a feral quality to his gait, like a cat on the prowl. Somdev Devvarman has been busy over the last six months since your correspondent last met him.

India, Sept. 26 -- Two bar dancer girls walked up to the Ramlila stage in the eastern Uttar Pradesh city of Mirzapur this autumn, performing to a titillating Bollywood number - to celebrate the 'swayamvar' (wedding) of Rama and Sita.

Il faut souffrir pour etre belle. As always, the French say it the best but it seems to be a truth universally acknowledged by all women that one must suffer to be beautiful.

When it comes to Chinese food, I judge restaurants by their fried rice. If a kitchen can?t turn out a good fried rice, the rest of the food will be pretty lousy too.

India, Sept. 26 -- What makes a complete deed? The deed (karma) in which the soul (atma) is infused is a complete deed - it's a deed done with karmatma.

In designing and thinking about policy to promote economic development, it is a handicap not to know the fundamental causes of economic growth. The only greater handicap is to believe that one knows the fundamental causes of economic growth. It is, of course, useful to be acquainted with the theory and to be familiar with the statistics. But in the end there is no substitute for commonsense.

They graduated from being small time pickpockets to snatchers to owners of a hotel in Paharganj and a cable television network.

We used to spend all our summers up there. I was a child in Delhi and, before the swarming heat of the city became unbearable, our family would escape to the mountains, curling Dad's military green Ambassador up and round the sloping roads until the air ran clear and the hum of everyday life dropped away with the ant-like towns below. It was so beautiful.

Armed with a Rs 150-crore budget for branding and advertising and a brand new couple to deliver its messages to consumers this year, the MIRC Electronics-owned brand, Onida, has finally buried its iconic devil, the decades-old mascot that had already seen one burial and resurrection earlier.

There has been a fair amount of excitement about public sector stocks in recent weeks, with a reasonably high-profile IPO in NHPC, and more like Oil India in the pipeline. There are also at least two PSU-focussed mutual funds in the pipeline ? from Religare and SBI. Naturally, there has been analyses of these companies? business, financials and their future prospects.