How unfair!
While dark complexion is attractive, a majority of people equate only 'fair' with beautiful
So, we have over a dozen fairness creams and an equal number of celebs endorsing them. We have foreign models walking the ramps flaunting Indian creations. And, we have an airbrushed Aishwarya Rai on the cover page of a fashion magazine looking much fairer.






I wasn't considered pretty due to my dusky complexion, but I gradually learnt how to deal with people's stares
Diana Hayden, former Miss World

With Deepti on a wintry day
A cold winter day, hot coffee and the poems of Deepti Naval make for an ideal combination. Poetry buffs in the city can have their fill of it as this woman of many talents comes face to face with them at a poetry reading at the British Library on Tuesday afternoon.

Bits about bytes
Rose in another language
People are going to access the Internet in their mother tongue in greater numbers as it becomes more and more pervasive. In India, we have many languages that are mother tongues of our people, and in the recent centuries, English has emerged as the lingua franca, which means a language used to communicate between persons who "do not share a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons' mother tongues".

Geek SPEAK
Charged up
The dependency of humans on electronic items has grown by leaps and bounds. Today, one can hardly imagine a life without electronic gadgets and they have made our life convenient in more ways than one. In general, direct-current powers static devices like computers and televisions whereas portable handheld devices such as laptops, mobiles, notebooks, tables, music and video players are battery-powered.

Passion Unplugged
Today's generation is so much hooked to mobiles and the Internet that depriving them of their cell phones, emails and gadgets like television and iPod could leave them suffering from symptoms similar to those seen in drug addicts trying to give up, a new study has revealed.

Cool call
Samsung India has launched a new range of frost-free and direct-cool refrigerators for the Indian market. The 29 models across four different capacities in the Inspira frost-free and Pride direct cool range, are all five star rated. Both the Inspira and Pride ranges represent the perfect blend of design, convenience and performance.

Drink to it
Want to get a drink that goes well with your age and gender? Well, you can do it now as Japanese scientists have developed a new vending machine that uses facial recognition to recommend drinks based on a customer's age and gender.

Home Front
Touch of Class
Historians Karuna and BN Goswamy's home spread in close to three kanals is all about elegance
Har ek makan ko hay makeen se sharaf asad (every house gets its character from those who live in it), wrote Ghalib. And the Sector-19 home of Goswamys is one fine example of it. Padma Bhushan BN Goswamy and historian Karuna Goswamy's abode is austere as well as elegant. This five-bedroom home with three lawns houses the best of art from across India.
The master bedroom presents many shades

Spade work
What a pest!
Insects appeared on this planet even before our race did. Our existence was in fact a hurdle for them but over ages, we have learnt about the co-existence to the tolerable limits. However, it's one upmanship on either side. And to be one up, it is very important to know about them and control them at an appropriate stage in their lifecycle using appropriate method, whether physical, organic or by use of recommended chemicals.

Show-stopper
Many traits — anchor, actor and poet — combine to constitute the persona of Satinder Satti, whose charismatic compeering of any show is capable of eclipsing the performance of any star artist. Satti was born and brought up in Batala. She graduated from RR DAV College in Batala and later completed her LLB, LLM from Guru Nanak Dev University.


                                                                                             Satinder Satti

Fat chance
If you think that children are part of the obesity epidemic, then here's something you should know. A new study has revealed that obesity can begin in babies as young as nine months old."With the consistent evidence that the percent of overweight children has steadily increased over the past decade, we weren't surprised by the prevalence rates we found in our study, but we were surprised the trend began at such a young age," said lead study author Brian Moss, at the social work school at Wayne State University in Detroit.

Naked truth
Shedding clothes is the order of the day, says Tanushree Dutta
Bollywood bombshell Tanushree Dutta feels that actors are asked to shed inhibitions in front of the camera mainly to cater to the public demand and not because the script demands it.

Taylor-made success
Hollywood hunk Taylor Lautner said he had no clue that the Twilight series would be such a phenomenal success when he first signed for it.

Pele’s support to Beckham
Pele has thrown his support behind David Beckham who wants to kickstart his Hollywood career. He even offered to appear alongside him on the big screen. The Brazilian legend starred with Bobby Moore and Sylvester Stallone in football movie ‘Escape To Victory’ and he is thrilled the film is to be remade.

Love-ly time
Hollywood beauty Kate Winslet reportedly has found a new love interest just two months after splitting from Burberry model Louis Dowler.

Jumbo bond
It was not his glamorous co-star Reese Witherspoon but Tai, a 42-year-old pachyderm that made Hollywood heartthrob Robert Pattinson say yes to the period drama Water For The Elephants.

Oh Boy!
Elton John’s baby has a flat of his own with two nannies
Pop superstar Elton John’s new baby Zachery may just be a few days old but his famous father has already bought him an apartment worth $2 million where he lives with two round-the-clock nannies. Zachery, who was born through a surrogate mother, is ‘living like royalty’ in the apartment adjoining the singer’s exclusive Los Angeles pad. The 63-year-old and his partner David Furnish had appointed a top Hollywood interior designer to turn the flat beside their luxury home into a dream nursery for eight-day-old Zachery.
                                                                                             Elton John