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Director Vinod Pande, known for making films with sensual overtones like 'Sins' and 'Red Swastik', is now trying his hand at comedy for the first time with 'Chaloo Movie'. And he dismisses rumours that his film has been inspired by the hit 'Munnabhai' series. ''Chaloo Movie' draws no inspirations from the 'Munnabhai' series except that it expects the same level of success. In fact, if people are saying that my movie is like the hit series, I'd take it as a compliment,' Pande told IANS over telephone from Mumbai. Set in Mumbai, the story of 'Chaloo Movie' revolves around a spotboy (Rajpal Yadav) who accidentally ends up being a director, resulting in complete comic mayhem. 'It's not mindless slapstick comedy but it is more like British humour with a fresher appeal that will have an introspective look into society despite being a comedy. ' 'Chaloo Movie' is a hundred percent commercial film with the p

Sounding excited after her engagement to NRI businessman Elesh Parunjwala, item girl Rakhi Sawant says she wants all her friends, including ex-boyfriend Abhishek Awasthi, to attend her wedding but will not invite her mother. 'I completely forgive Abhishek Awasthi. I was very surprised to know that he showed up on Sunday for my scheduled wedding. Surprised and touched. If I knew, I'd have welcomed him. Yesterday, he was my boyfriend. Today, he's my friend,' Rakhi told IANS. But she hasn't forgiven her mother. 'Please, all that nautanki on television for five minutes can't take away the pain I've gone through. As far as I'm concerned that chapter of my life is closed,' she said. Eliminated contestants from the 'Rakhi Ka Swayamvar' reality show were among those who had showed up to wish the couple Sunday. But although a wedding was expected, Rakhi and Elesh only got engaged. 'I was all set to marry Elesh on Sunday. But it was Elesh who s

New Delhi, Aug 3 (IANS) Instead of hosting a grand party following his win on 'Rakhi Ka Swayamvar', 30-year-old Elesh Parujanwala is busy arranging a Canadian visa for his fiancee Rakhi Sawant, so that they can attend his sister's wedding together in Toronto. 'I'm heading back to Toronto soon. As of now, I am busy trying to arrange a visa for Rakhi. My sister is getting married on August 16 and it would be really great if both of us would be there. It would be like twin celebration for my family,' Elesh, who was the only NRI contestant on Rakhi's 'swayamvar', told IANS over phone from Mumbai. Last year Elesh set up an acting academy with his business partner in Kandivali, Mumbai. But soon 'Rakhi Ka Swayamvar' came up and he decided to 'probe into the real Rakhi Sawant' through the show. 'Nothing was planned about coming on the show. I guess, I happened to be at the right place at the right time -- that's all. Everyone had an o

Euphoria gripped the entire nation as item girl Rakhi Sawant created history when she made her decision on her Swayamvar. After weeks of speculation and amidst high drama she chose Toronto based Elesh Parujanwala as her life partner at her glittering swayamvar ceremony. True to the spirit and grandeur of a Swayamvar, the atmosphere around breathed an air of royalty from every aspect ranging from the ambience to the cuisine. Rakhi looked her best in a pink and gold Neeta Lulla creation, adorned herself with invaluable Jewellery set in gold designed especially for her by Farah Ali Khan. Rakhi made her decision amidst the presence of hundreds of people ranging from close friends to the who's who of the television industry like Saroj Khan, Ravi Kissen, Apurva Agnihotri, Shilpa Sakhlani, Karan Patel, Sudha Shivpuri, Raju Shrivastav, Anjori Alagh, Sayantani Ghosh and likewise. An ecstatic Rakhi said, ''Elesh made an impact on me since day one of my Swayamvar. He came across as a

A visibly-rattled Rakhi Sawant drew India's first reality groom-hunt show to a predictable conclusion on Sunday. Devoid of any voyeuristic action, the scandal-prone Sawant demurely chose the suave Tornoto-based businessman Elesh Parunjanwala with uncharacteristic restraint. Barring a guttural declaration of how Rakhi rocks, the 28-year-old starlet went about her televised engagement with a fair serve of jitters. "I have been watching Elesh from day one. On and off the camera, he has been the same and has really taken care of me. He is everything I was looking for and I am glad to have found him on the Swayamvar. Swayamvar means finding a jeevan saathi (life partner) and I have found Elesh," said Sawant. But the betrothed couple has decided to adopt the wait and see policy when setting their wedding date. "If we wish, we can get married right away. But we have decided to wait because we need some time to get to one another away from the camera," explained Sawant

No serious case was made out against Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty for apparently breaking the rules while shooting at Orissa's revered Sakhigopal temple, the police said on Saturday, adding they were trying to find out if she had hurt religious sentiments. Shetty was accused of entering the Gopinath Deb temple of Sakhigopal near Puri on Thursday with her shoes on. "The temple executive Sachidananda Das along with some staff members of the temple have filed a complaint against Shilpa Shetty. They have complained that the Bollywood actress has violated the shrine rules," said officer in-charge of Satyabadi police station Prasanna Kumar Biswal. "I was present when the actress reached the spot as we had instructions to go there for her protection. The crew had already taken the permission of temple authorities to shoot there. Since the complaint has come we are looking into the matter. No serious case is made out against the actress as per IPC [Indian Penal code],"

You'll be hearing more of Christina Aguilera's voice on the radio soon, but it won't be in the form of a song. Instead, the pop singer will work as a DJ. Christina Aguilera's very own radio station debuted on Friday. The 24-hour online channel is distributed across Clear Channel Radio's iheartradio network, and features interviews, news, personal commentary from Aguilera as well as her favourite tunes. "It stands across so many different feels and genres from A Tribe Called Quest to the Beatles to Billie Holiday to Bjork to Black Sabbath, Jay-Z," she said in a phone interview from Los Angeles on Wednesday. The new radio venture, A.P.E. Radio (Artist Personal Experience), also launched The Eagles' own channel, to be hosted by guitarist Joe Walsh. Weezer's station is set to launch next month. The radio station is not the only project she's working on. Aguilera, a 28-year-old mother to a 1-year-old son, is also working on a new CD and has signed o

Michael Jackson's father has confirmed reports that the late American entertainer has a fourth child - Omer Bhatti, whose parents worked in the Jackson household, British media reported Friday. Joe Jackson said: "I knew Michael had another son - yes, I did. "He looks like a Jackson, he acts like a Jackson and he can dance like a Jackson. This boy's a fantastic dancer - as a matter of fact, he teaches dance," he told The Sun. The Sun reported last week that Michael Jackson told friends in 2004 that Omer, a 25-year-old aspiring dancer from Oslo, was his son from a one-night stand. ABC News quoted Jackson biographer Stacy Brown as saying Omer's mother is Pia Bhatti, a Norwegian who worked as a nanny to the singer's first son Prince. Her husband, Riz Bhatti, of Pakistani origin, is said to have been a driver for Michael Jackson, who died on June 25 from a heart attack. Asked whether Omer could be the future of the Jackson legacy, Joe said: "I don't k

Spanish actress Penelope Cruz was left shame-faced as she walked down a red carpet in a scarlet suit and blamed losing her luggage on a flight to London for the fashion faux pas. The Volver beauty jetted in to the British capital from Madrid to attend a glamorous event at the city's Somerset House with her Broken Embraces director, Pedro Almodovar and instead of donning a full-length gown for the glitzy bash, Cruz was forced to pull on a red suit she kept in her hand luggage - after the airline she was travelling with misplaced her bags, reports contactmusic.com. But she wasn't fazed by blending in with the garish red carpet, and seemed more concerned with the unpredictable English weather. She told reporters at the event: "I looked up at the sky and said, 'Don't you rain on me - I'm Penelope Cruz!'"

Maria Sharapova still wears her long, shimmering silver earrings. She still elevates the sound of her ground strokes, the grunts that reverberate throughout stadiums and indicate the effort needed to produce her whip-like forehands and backhands. What Sharapova is now trying to locate is a new comfort zone with her serve. She has a rebuilt shoulder, an in-progress service motion and the firm belief that at 22, she may have some aches and pains, she may need to spend more time working out and less time just playing, but ultimately winning tennis matches is a passion that hasn't ebbed. While she isn't seeded, the former Wimbledon, US Open and Australian Open champion will be a top draw at the LA Women's Tennis Championships that began yesterday at the Home Depot Centre in Carson. It is fellow Russian Dinara Safina who has earned the No 1 spot in the 56-woman draw. While the top eight seeded players get first-round byes, Sharapova was to play Jarmila Groth of Slovakia yesterda

Tehran: Iran's supreme leader formally approved the second term presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday after a disputed election that leading reformists say was rigged to ensure the incumbent's victory. "The official ceremony was held and Supreme Leader approved Mr. Ahmadinejad's presidency," Al Alam state television said. Khamenei has endorsed the June 12 election result and demanded an end to protests during which at least 20 people were killed. Moderate defeated candidates Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi say the next government will be illegitimate. Iranian officials deny any fraud in the election, in which the hardline Ahmadinejad was declared to have won 63 per cent of 40 million votes cast, against 34 percent for Mousavi. Ahmadinejad will be sworn in by parliament on Wednesday. He then has two weeks to submit his cabinet list to the mostly conservative parliament, which may object if he names only members of his inner circle. Iranian opposition lea

Dubai: A man was allegedly murdered in Dubai International Airport's parking area in a bid to cover up a fraud case. The Dubai Court of First Instance is looking into the case of SH.D. and T.A., the two suspects who are charged with the murder of Y.A., a sales executive, who was found dead in his car in the parking lot at Dubai International Airport Terminal 2 on November 13, 2008. The Dubai Police Prosecution charged SH.D., 31, an Indian driver and T.A., a 23, an Indian worker with the murder of Y.A. in addition to robbery. SH.D. allegedly murdered the victim by slitting his throat with a knife in his car, while T.A. prevented him from leaving the car by holding his hands. Public Prosecution claim the suspects decided to get rid of the victim as he was blackmailing SH.D. as he knew that he had swindled money from the company he worked for. "SH.D. told me that he wanted me to help kill Y.A. because he was blackmailing him as he knew that he had swindled money from his company.

Police have arrested a gang that allegedly cheated a landowner out of Dh160,000. Two African fraudsters posing as interested buyers cheated M.R, a landowner, of his money after he advertised a plot for sale online. The two suspects told the victim they would only be able to pay him after they gave Dh400,000 to their bank in Africa to unfreeze their funds. M.R gave the two men about Dh160,000 in good faith, but after they received the money they started to give various excuses to delay the deal. They then said their money had been stamped with a UN stamp and that they needed to buy a chemical to remove it. After M.R realised he had been cheated he contacted Dubai Police and the department that tackles financial fraud raided the apartment they were staying in and arrested them.

Abu Dhabi: President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan made a telephone call to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday congratulating him on taking the oath and assuming power. Shaikh Khalifa reiterated the UAE's keenness to develop its relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Until recently, retailers in the UAE have had little to fear from online stores such as Amazon.com. Difficulties getting items delivered overseas have often kept people from shopping on the web, especially when the products were coming from Europe or the United States. But the growth of Internet users in the Middle East and shipping services aimed at online shoppers are now making buying on the web easier, and that is causing a growing number of "brick and mortar" companies in the UAE to start taking the threat seriously. "Because the world has become smaller and smaller, we have to very much care about the prices of our products worldwide," said Osamu Miura, the managing director of Sony Gulf. The competition comes not only from rivals trying to break into the market. Often the worst competition comes from the companies themselves, Miura said. Following a bad Christmas in the US, Sony started to liquidate a number of digital cameras, including a number of models so

The crowd in the packed Guosen Securities office jostles around buzzing printers that spit out receipts for their share buys, hoping to cash in on China's stimulus-fuelled stock market boom. "The central government has to fulfill their promise of 8 per cent economic growth," said Wu Jun, 62, a retired civil servant who has part of his life savings of $7,300 (Dh26,800) in stocks and lives on a $290 a month pension. "They'll come up with measures to keep the market in good shape." But while investors expect the market - up more than 80 per cent this year - to keep rising, Chinese leaders are alarmed. They worry that too much of the $1 trillion lending binge by state banks that paid for China's nascent revival was diverted into stocks and real estate, raising the danger of a boom and bust cycle and higher inflation less than two years after an earlier stock market bubble burst. Beijing is trying to tighten credit controls without derailing the economic revi

A surplus of supertankers competing to deliver two million-barrel cargoes of Middle East crude was unchanged after a week in which oil companies hired more than half the ships they will need for August. There are 20 per cent more very large crude carriers, or VLCCs, for hire over the next 30 days than there are cargoes that need to be shipped, according to the median estimate of five shipbrokers, one trader and one owner surveyed by Bloomberg yesterday. That's the same as last week. The surplus has cut owners' earnings to $10,716 (Dh33,359) a day on the industry-benchmark Saudi Arabia to Japan voyage, according to July 31 data from the Baltic Exchange. The fleet of VLCCs has expanded six per cent this year to 529 ships while Middle East producers in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries cut combined output by a 3.7 per cent to 19.3 million barrels a day. "The oversupply of vessels is having an impact," Petter Narvestad, an analyst at Fondsfinans in Oslo, s

Kuwait's Al Raya Investment Company, whose chief executive officer was found dead last week, yesterday said it will cooperate with US authorities in a lawsuit filed against it over allegedly improper stock trades. "The company would like to declare to the public and to its shareholders that it will cooperate with all regulatory authorities with regard to allegations from the SEC," Al Raya said. Al Raya said its board has been investigating the lawsuit filed against it by US securities regulators despite the death of its CEO, Hazeem Al Braikan. "We regret that he [Al Braikan] was not able to clear his position against the allegations from the SEC," it said. Last week, Braikan was found dead in an apparent suicide that sent shockwaves through the Gulf Arab financial sector. The US Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against Al Braikan and two other financial firms last month, accusing them of having improperly earned millions of dollars from trades

For stores here to feel the pressure from online sales, the e-commerce environment will have to improve, but Jumbo CEO Peter McElwaine doesn't see that happening for the next 2 to 3 years. He said that Jumbo doesn't have any plans to enter the online market for at least the next 12 months. Aubrey Ghose, the CEO of AIS Brand Lab a, brand-design firm that specialises in brand-building, thinks that now is the time for companies in the region to be thinking about developing integrated strategies. He says so far he just doesn't see it happening in the region. "Everyone thought [e-commerce] would be great and take off but it hasn't until recently," he said. "So everyone here is of the mindset that online isn't a big thing to have." But Ghosh is predicting that online sales in 2009 will increase 50 per cent globally, due mainly to better internet penetration, faster computers and improving logistics. E-commerce in the US saw sales of $130.1 billion (Dh4

Japan's Panasonic Corp reported a smaller-than-expected quarterly loss and sharply lifted its half-year outlook as it cuts costs to cope with a firmer yen and weak TV sales, but stuck to its outlook for a second annual net loss. Panasonic saw sales of its electronics gadgets slow as the global downturn forced consumers to tighten their purse strings, while sluggish corporate capital spending hit demand for its factory automation equipment. Like arch-rival Sony Corp, Panasonic logged a first quarter that beat market expectations and signalled a bottoming-out in demand, but both cautioned that it was still too early to call a recovery. Panasonic is shutting 40 manufacturing sites and shedding 15,000 jobs to counter the headwind and better compete with Sony, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and LG Electronics Inc. Panasonic, which vies with Sony for the title of the world's largest consumer electronics maker, kept its net loss forecast of 195 billion yen (Dh7.56 billion) for the year to

LG Electronics, the third largest mobile phone manufacturer, has become the latest vendor to launch its own online application store to enhance the mobile experience of its handset users. The application was launched last month and this facility will be available in the UAE this month. "The service is designed to expand and improve the mobile experience for LG mobile device owners," Min Jang, Director, China and MEA, MC New Business PBL, LG Electronics, said. "It aims to provide additional value to consumers by promising quality and providing a wide-ranging selection of software in one location. The LG Application Store is fully optimised for the LG handsets." The LG Application Store was first introduced in Asia with the service being expanded to 24 countries. During the launch, only two models - GM730, KS20 - will be supported and later more feature phones from LG will be able to access the LG Application Store in the future. Apart from the South Korean company, B

Riyadh: A group of Saudi-based investors, including the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), will launch later this year a seven-year plan worth $1 billion (Dh3.67 billion) in Africa to reduce dependency on rice imports and supply the Middle East region. The so-called 7X7 project aims to develop and plant 700,000 hectares of farmland to produce, within seven years, 7 million tonnes of rice, said Salim Lalani, head of investments at Foras International Investment Company, one of the partners in the project. "We are looking at three to four countries: Mali, Senegal and maybe Sudan and Uganda," Lalani said. Food security has topped the policy agenda in the arid Gulf Arab region following rampant inflation in 2008 that underscored its dependence on imports and forced countries to invest abroad to ensure supplies of staples such as rice and wheat. The project's political backers are the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), which groups more than 50 countries, and the governmen