Crowns & couture
Kangana lets Priyanka dance  to Fashion songs for  Miss India finale
Subhash K. Jha

Kangana Ranaut was all set to perform at the grand finale of Femina Miss India on Sunday, but when she got to know that Priyanka Chopra would also be dancing, she decided to let her groove to the songs of Fashion.

For the show, Kangana performed to Madhuri Dixit and Aishwarya Rai’s hit numbers.

“When I got to know that Priyanka is performing I asked her about her songs. When she said she was doing the ‘Fashion’ songs, I happily decided to do the tribute to Aishwarya and Madhuri,” Kangana said.

“I’ll be dancing to songs like Madhuri’s Mera piya ghar aaya and Aishwarya’s Nimbooda. This gives me a chance to try out my Kathak which I’ve been 
learning for three years,” she added.

So much for the belief that two actors can never get along together.

“I think girl bonding is very cool. I can’t say  Priyanka and I are best friends. I think two actors fighting is very unfashionable. After Fashion there’s a comfort level. And if we can share a platform  without getting in one another’s way then isn’t that just great,” Kangana said.

Kangana has been rehearsing non-stop for two back-to-back shows and says it has taken its toll on her legs. She was scheduled to perform Friday for an FM  channel and her legs could barely move.

“On Thursday, I kept rehearsing non-stop for two shows for six hours. I never realised what I was putting myself through until the next morning when I woke up with swollen legs,” she said. —IANS

For the first time Kolkata witnessed a deluge of celebrity models and top fashion designers, who were there to participate in the inaugural Kolkata Fashion Week.While Bollywood hotbod and model John Abraham walked the ramp for ace designer Rohit Bals collection, his girlfriend and actor Bipasha Basu presented a Monapali collection at PC Chandra Greens.Yesteryear actor and top model Zeenat Aman also sashayed for the weavers collection tomorrow.“This is the first fashion week in Kolkata and all reputed models and designers easily agreed to come here.

It was a new experience for them as well,” organiser Yudhajit Dutta of Mindscapes Maestros said.Bengali sisters Riya Sen and Raima Sen, actor and model Neha Dhupia, Dino Morea and Minissha Lamba also walked the ramp that had begun on Thursday. Jab We Met director Imtiaz Ali, VJ Rannvijay Singh, Dev D actor Mahi Gill also strutted the ramp.Actor Raima Sen, who walked the ramp for weavers in a red tussar sari, said: “I haven’t walked the ramp in my home city ever since I became an actor. The fashion week here is the same we have in Mumbai and Delhi.” —PTI 

Former Bollywood actor Zeenat Aman revived the romance of yesteryears when she walked the ramp to the tunes of Churaliya hain tumne jo dil ko, a hit in eighties, at the Kolkata Fashion Week. The show presented a gorgeous selection of saris and dhotis.

Zeenat Aman, credited with bringing the western heroine look to Bollywood, said it was important to walk the ramp as it focused on weaves of the local talent.

“For me, it’s very important to walk the ramp here because the weaves of the local talent being showcased. I really requested the organisers if they could get the weavers to come and walk the ramp with me but they said no as the weavers have dropped their clothes and gone back to their villages,” said Aman.

The fashion week focuses on the cultural heritage of Bengal, especially that of the weavers.

At least 35 of the country’s top models sashayed down the ramp during the four-day show. —ANI

All good things don’t happen by chance. And to make them happen, the tested process of planning and execution has to be followed. So, when 19 artists having some or the other connection with the IKSVV Khairagarh University in Chattisgarh came together to hold series of exhibition across the country, they too adhered to the same procedure but with an addition, “Besides planning and executing, right intentions are also important to make things happen. The participants in the exhibition are now settled in various parts of India. We asked them all to join hands to pay tribute to our Alma mater,” says Mahesh Prajapati, now a city based artist, who has studied art from the same university. Other then the obvious aim of promoting their art, these artists, through the display of their works, want people to know the source of their talent.

And we believe people will get the message after seeing the spectacle themselves. Different mediums, diverse themes and dissimilar thought process, thirty-seven paintings on display have something to offer to every art lover. “We didn’t decide on the theme of the exhibition before as the idea was to encourage originality. As a result, you will see complete paradox in works of few artists here,” says Anant, who conceptualized this exhibition. The title of the exhibition, The agony and the ecstasy hence proves it.

Bringing to the exhibition one painting from his national award winning series, Soldier after a war, Mahesh has tried to once again focus on the life of a soldier. In his painting, he has shown an army man in uniform with a red background and guns targeting his forehead. “It depicts that even after the war is over, a soldier cannot forget what all had happened in the battlefield. The colour red here symbolises all negativities surrounding him.” In his other painting, he has painted small squares, symbolic of our past and memories that stay in our subconscious brain.

As expected, the artists here have also tried to highlight some social and very relevant issues. Anant’s paintings themed, Message from Pakistan- message to Pakistan depicts the terror situation there. “My paintings convey the message that terror was born and nurtured there. Now, when it has grown, it is natural to see it destructing its very surroundings.”

Making a rather philosophical point are paintings by Hukum Lal Verma. His abstract landscape work talks about the very basic law of evolution. He says, “My paintings portray how and what all we learn from the society and incorporate the same in our lives. But then, there also comes a time, when we start contributing towards the society.”

The exhibition is on display at the Government Museum and Art gallery-10 till April 9. 

No doubt today’s rain and sweet weather is relief for the gardeners for the time being but the benefit will be short lived. The ensuing summers will command water availability and application to the plants. There are water application restrictions too. So, the most important gardening aspect now will be to fix the watering priorities.

Normally, the first pressure of the summer water scarcity is on the watering of lawn, the most water consumer in the garden. There are restrictions and the watering is restricted only to the evening hours. This is good too. We have also been advocating watering in the evening hours. What is more important is the way you do it. Do not leave the watering hose at one point and keep shifting it frequently. It is better if you use water sprinklers or pop-ups for watering the lawns.

Watering the pots or the plants in the ground is altogether different. Pots are shallow and need frequent irrigation. At times, you must have noticed that even when the pots are watered there is wilting of plants. What could be the reason? Direct water run off from the bottom hole could be one reason and this could be due to the faulty mixture or invasion by ants that make gullies in the pots. On the contrary there could also be stagnation of water in the pot. Do not try to correct the fault but do repotting. While watering the pots make sure you water them thrice in one go. This means watering the whole lot and coming back to the beginning. This will ensure a good fill of the pot. It is always good to keep the indoor plants in groups as it maintains good humidity. The best treatment to the plants would; however, be ‘syringing’, that is spraying the plants with a jet of water washing all the leaves. It is like rain for the plants. It has other benefits too. The insects like scales do not like it and the mites and aphids get washed.

While watering the fruit plants fix priorities. Plants like ber have already borne fruit and do not need water. This is rather resting time for them. Loquat is also through with fruiting and due to waxy leaves does not need much watering. Litchi and mango have recently set the fruit and should be watered. Keep the frequency at ten to 15 days in case of full-grown mango and at least weekly in case of litchi. As the temperature rises increase the frequency to ten days and twice a week respectively as during fruit development, litchi needs plenty of water. Any stress leads to the splitting of fruit. Lemon, peach, and plum are shallow rooted crops and need frequent watering, say twice a week. So do the lemons, which also need repeated feeding due to the baramasi bearing nature. In this case, however, the watering should be light, just wetting the surface. A deep fill might lead to flower or fruit drop.

No doubt the cacti and succulents are the plants from harsh deserts, surviving on meager moisture conditions, but mere survival is not what we want in our homegrown specimens. We want no shortening of specimens or damage due to such conditions, we have to pamper them. In fact, they need watering everyday, till the holes leak. It is good to keep them in water bath after every few days so as to let them get water from the pothole. Another mantra is to water them at night as that is the time when the spores in such plants open. Instead of full sun, keep them in semi-shade. They will give better results.

Alankrit, an exhibition would be presenting fabrics, dupattas, kurtis intricately designed with gotta patti, fusion embroidery on large variety of fabrics like banarsi, organzas, lehrayras from today.

An initiative by Manju Jalota, Alankrit has been the revival of the Indian oldest craft chikankari and upliftment of the craftsmen. Today the company has workers in forty different villages around Lucknow.

The exhibition specialises in hand embroideries, traditional Indian clothes and yardages. Its ensemble also has Indo Western fusion wear which has all the trappings of block prints, fusion of various fabrics, embroidery and craft inputs in a Western style. A fusion of traditional fabrics and prints like bandini, ikat, kalmkari, dabo, bandej, lehariya and baghru prints, the collection is has unique colour effects. Exhibition is on today and tomorrow at # 34, Sector 9, Chandigarh.

To satisfy the need of staying fresh throughout the active day, Cinthol - the flagship brand of Godrej Consumer Products Ltd. launched India’s first 2-in-1 freshness and skin hydration soap ‘Cinthol Fresh Aqua’ unleashing 24-hr confidence and invigorating freshness to beat the heat this summer.

 Cinthol the much-loved brand of Godrej Consumer Products Limited (GCPL), now offers ‘Cinthol Fresh Aqua Soap’ which is specially formulated with revolutionary aqua formula to ensure that your skin doesn’t look dehydrated even when the active day takes your freshness away. Cinthol Fresh Aqua has aqua minerals along with aqua scent technology for long lasting fragrance.

 The New Cinthol Fresh aqua range will be available at outlets across India.  — TNS

If you've been collecting music on your computer for long enough and from enough sources, it's easy to wind up with more than one copy of a song. To find these extras in Apple's iTunes program, select your music library in the left-hand sidebar, go to the File menu and select 'Show Duplicates'.

Considering that the opening of car doors into the path of oncoming vehicles has been a major cause of road accidents, scientists have now developed a new technology to avoid such mishaps-doors that sense potential impacts and get jammed. Named the "haptic"-the technology provides tactile feedback to the users, and can thus help reduce both road injuries and repair bills Invented by Michael Graf at BMW and Michael Strolz's team at the Technical University of Munich, the current prototype looks like a normal car door.

However, there's an extra metal bar that runs through the door's centre, and connects it to the car's frame between the hinges.

When in normal mode, the bar moves freely and doesn't affect the door's movement.

But if the sensors happen to detect a nearby obstacle while an accelerometer detects an attempt to open the door, a linear motor attached to the bar restricts the door's swing, making it impossible to open it fully.

For user-convenience, the amount of door resistance is in proportion to the proximity of an object, which means that one may swing a door halfway open without problems before it gets stiffer as it nears a lamppost.

Strolz has revealed that the current prototype uses ultrasonic sensors to spot dangers, but because of their limited field of view, the next version will use cameras that can span 180 degrees.

"Then we will be able to sense the complete workspace of the door and detect people walking by the car or cycling towards it," New Scientist quoted him as saying.

Strolz also said that the technology was mature enough that a car factory could be pumping it out in cars within a year. -ANI

Peep through the gates of the Internet Cemetery, and you can see the gravediggers are never idle. Day after day, hour after hour, the dead withered from a lack of interest, ran out of money, were overtaken by a rival with snazzier technology, or just lost their cool.

The headstones tell their own story: "HotBot.com. Dearly beloved search engine. Born 1996. Downgraded 2002ish. Forever in our bookmarks".

"Webvan.com. Born 1999. Died 2001, of a broken business plan. A lesson to us all." "Boo.com. Online Fashion Retailer. 1999-2000. Only sleeping". And, in a less well-tended corner of the graveyard, where the flowers haven't been changed for months and the cheap lettering is starting to fade a little, are millions of blogs and home pages. "Janice Swinley's Blog. Born, with jottings from family holidays, in 2005. Died, after a long battle with boredom, in 2008." And overlooking the cemetery, in a virtual kind of way, is another place: the Twilight Home for Once-Fashionable Websites. Here, with rugs over their knees and their carrots mashed up for them, sit the once great names of the net: Compuserve, Lycos, Excite, Prodigy, GeoCities, and AOL (a fitting punishment for smothering the world with their introductory discs).

Netscape's heading there, and so, too, is Friends Reunited. And, if last week's runes are read correctly, the day may not be far off when Second Life, Facebook and Twitter end up there too.

Not so long ago, these sites were cutting edge. Now, your granny's on Facebook and threatening to poke you. Second Life's for saddos and corporate suits who thought there might be a bit of marketing mileage there, and Twitter's celebs have got the ghostwriters in. The last two have even been discovered by the designers of the new National Curriculum. Worse, Twitter's been embraced by the mainstream. It had 22 national press mentions in the first week of the year. Last week, articles on the phenomenon mushroomed to three figures. If you're a hot website, you can survive almost anything but that sort of attention.

What Friends Reunited (now worth only a third of the (pounds sterling)120m that ITV paid for it in 2005), Facebook and MySpace (whose visitor numbers fell in February) are experiencing is the breathtaking speed at which the internet evolves. Sixteen years ago, only one per cent of all internet traffic was on the web. But now investors have grasped what the internet is, even estate agents believed, and the dot.com boom was under way. You could flog a hairbrush to a hedgehog providing it had .com attached; and no idea, however mad, was unfloatable. There was kozmo.com, which promised to deliver anything you wanted within the hour for free. Flooz.com, which thought it could replace credit cards with an online currency, and found out the hard way ($35m down the toilet) that it couldn't. Scores of over-hyped sites jostled to be The Next Big Thing. None made it.

What only slowly dawned on the markets (and is still ignored by some investors) is that in order to have a business you have to have at least the faint prospect of revenue overtaking spending. And, in too many cases, the business model, while highly efficient at disposing of cash, was not too clever at getting it. But investors piled in. Dot.coms had money to burn, and many proceeded to do exactly that. Boo.com, for instance, managed to incinerate (pounds sterling)125m in six months.

Some start-ups survived long enough to discover the second great truth about venturing on to the net: almost anyone could do it. The barriers to entry (the cost of starting up) are quite high in conventional retail and media. It takes many millions to run even the most modest TV station, newspaper or chain of shops. But do it online, and the costs can be as low as a desktop, a cable modem, plus your time.