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Bored of melodramatic soaps and spooky thrillers on the idiot box? Try watching 'Mahi Way', 'Rishta.com', 'Powder' or 'Seven' that, with their distinct style, content and weekly outings, have breathed freshness into Indian television. All these are new offerings by YRF Television, the television arm of Yash Raj Films. Though the TRPs are not overwhelming, the makers are undeterred and say quality content and word of mouth publicity will propel them to the top. '(We will boost TRPs) by continuing to maintain our quality and staying true to the concepts of our shows and our model of production,' Ravina Kohli, creative head of Yash Raj Television, told IANS in an e-mail interview. 'It is early days yet and we have achieved the response from our defined target group and there has been phenomenal word of mouth. That in itself is satisfying,' she said. YRF's serials, aired on Sony, are perceived as breezy, down to earth and close to reality

It had to happen sometime, but nobody expected the biggest film of all time to lose its North American box office crown this weekend to "Dear John," a low-budget "chick flick" with a pair of little-known stars. The romantic drama opened at No. 1 with three-day sales of $32.4 million across the United States and Canada, crushing both industry forecasts and reigning champ "Avatar," according to studio estimates issued on Sunday. James Cameron's 3D sci-fi spectacular slipped to No. 2 with $23.6 million in its eighth weekend. But "Avatar" remained the top pick overseas, earning $76 million. Its worldwide tally rose to $2.21 billion, divided between $630.1 million from North America and $1.58 billion from foreign markets. "Avatar" last Tuesday surpassed the $601 million haul of Cameron's 1997 release "Titanic" to become the biggest movie of all time in North America. It had already taken the international and worldwide

Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan , who arrived on a visit here Sunday , said Mumbai, where he has lived for over four decades, is 'fine' and healthy. 'Mumbai's health is fine,' Bachchan replied at a function here when reporters asked him about the recent Shiv Sena activities that have triggered tensions in the city. 'Please, I have come here to your state for a good thing, to launch a health programme,' Bachchan said. This led to the next question that the query was relevant because it concerned the health of Mumbai, prompting his response. Bachchan was in the city to launch a health project of the Resul Pookutty Foundation and a private hospital which will treat the poor and needy. He also donated Rs.11 lakh to the foundation.

China can't seem to keep out of the news about hacking and cyberwar can it? The country's police have scored a positive news report, however: They've closed down the nation's biggest hacker training school. It does raise some questions though. The action went down in Hubei province in Central China, and three people were arrested and a pile of money and other assets were seized. The three were responsible for running the Black Hawk Safety Net, allegedly, and they're facing charges of providing online hacking code to others--a new offense in China. It all stems back to a cyberattack in 2007, which revealed connections to Black Hawk when some of the suspects were caught. What exactly were these guys up to? It seems that their main crime isn't so much hacking themselves, but running a subscription site which provided sophisticated tools like trojans and account-hijacking code. They also ran training sessions in which they'd show other coders how to write mali

A huge explosion rocked a power plant in the northeastern US state of Connecticut Sunday, resulting in numerous casualties, media reports said. Dozens of ambulances and fire trucks were rushing to the scene at the town of Middletown. Further details were not immediately known about the cause of the explosion or whether there were any dead among the casualties.

British actress Keira Knightley felt threatened by a fan, who would turn up regularly outside a theatre, and reported him to police. The fan would regularly wait outside a stage door at the Comedy Theatre, where the actress is performing in 'The Misanthrope', reports The Sun. The 41-year-old man was apprehended outside the venue and taken into custody Thursday. 'Keira felt threatened by this guy who turned up a number of times and tried to speak to her. He did not make any specific threats to her but she was concerned enough to call the police,' said a source. Added a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police: 'A 41-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of harassment on Thursday. The arrest follows concern expressed by a woman.'

Acclaimed filmmaker James Cameron's ex-wife Linda Hamilton has revealed that the film maker left her because of his dedication towards his movie 'Titanic'. Hamilton says Cameron marries every movie he makes, and insists his devotion to the 1997 epic hit played a damaging role in their relations, reports thesun.co.uk. 'Titanic was the mistress he left me for. He was the kind of man who really would rather be at work with the mistress than at home with the wife. That was hard to come to terms with,' she said. Cameron's affair with 'Titanic' actress Suzy Amis, his fifth and current wife, is also widely cited as the final straw for the split that awarded Hamilton a $50-million divorce settlement in 1999 after a two-year marriage with the filmmaker. Having scooped 11 Oscars with 'Titanic', Cameron's movie-making obsession spilled over into all areas of his life to the detriment of his family, reveals Hamilton. The actress, 53, who has a child, 16-

TOKYO — Japanese authorities said Monday they are trying to identify a body found inside one of the landing gear compartments on a Delta Airlines plane flight that arrived in Tokyo from New York. The body of the apparent stowaway, identified only as that of a male with dark skin, was clad only in a long-sleeved, plaid shirt and jeans, police at the Narita International Airport said Monday. A mechanic found the body lying inside the landing gear compartment of the Boeing 777-200 during maintenance after Delta Flight 59 from New York landed at Narita on Sunday night, police official Zenjiro Watanabe said. "All we know is that he must have sneaked in just before departure, because it is impossible for him to enter the storage during flight," Watanabe said. The body had no visible injuries except signs of frostbite, and the man might have died of hypothermia during the flight, Watanabe said. The temperature in that part of the plane falls to about minus 58 degrees (minus 50 degre

There doesn’t appear to have been an official announcement, but Twitter has begun soliciting spam reports to a “spam” user account via direct messages. Are you a victim of Twitter spam? Just begin following @spam and send it a direct message with the username of your spammer. As the following email autoresponse to spam reporters instructs, you can send these direct messages from your mobile phone or opt for a public tweet as well: Howdy! Thanks for reporting spam- we’re working really hard on getting rid of it! Did you know: you can now easily report spam directly from your Twitter account? Visit: http://twitter.com/spam and follow the account. You can then send: * a direct message to @spam: @moneybagsnow is a spammer! * a direct message from your phone using d+ username + message: d spam @carmoney, @cashnow is spam! * a reply to @spam like so: @spam this is a spam account: @bigmoney5 and we’ll take care of it. You can send as many spam user names as will fit in one d

Martin Crowe , the former New Zealand captain, will assist the new national coach Mark Greatbatch as a batting advisor to some leading players, with a particular focus on Test cricket. Crowe has already been working with batsmen such as Ross Taylor and Tim McIntosh as part of a programme in which players choose their own mentors. "It's nice to be asked, finally," Crowe told Sunday Star-Times . "It's only for Test matches and getting players up for Test matches, including Ross Taylor and Tim McIntosh. Mark will guide me where he feels I can be of use. It's not an appointment as such, but in my spare time away from the Rugby Channel I will do the odd bit helping our guys prepare for Tests." Greatbatch was pleased to have Crowe's services. "We've got an initial focus on the longer form of the game, which we need to do if we're going to get our Test ranking up. Martin will be doing some hard yakka, talking about the game, talking about g

Another series, another opponent, same result. Two days after completing a tri-format clean-sweep against Pakistan, Australia continued their unbeaten summer with a 113-run victory over West Indies, set up by Shane Watson's half-century and Doug Bollinger's new-ball efforts. Chris Gayle's prediction of a 4-1 West Indies win can still come true but they have only one day to regroup before Tuesday's second match in Adelaide. The result was understandable given the number of stars missing from West Indies' line-up through injury, but disappointing after Kieron Pollard's career-best bowling performance helped peg Australia back following a strong start from Watson and Ricky Ponting. Keeping Australia to 8 for 256 after they were 1 for 135 having been sent in was a good effort and a brisk start from Gayle would have caused some flutters in the Australian camp. Sadly for the sake of a close contest, Gayle departed for 7 in the third over when his miscued pull off Bo

The feedback I hear from project manager job seekers is that some HR organizations are weeding out any applicants who don’t have their Project Management Professional (PMP) certification. I think this is a lazy hiring practice. I understand that these organizations sometimes get 10,000 applicants for one position, but HR might be overlooking great project managers with years of successful experience leading projects simply because they don’t have this certification. This doesn’t mean that I don’t think the PMP is a valuable certification; I believe that any certification is good because it shows dedication to your profession. However, not having a certification doesn’t automatically mean you aren’t a good candidate to manage a project. So, to put the cert in more concrete terms, this is what it takes to achieve the PMP certification: 35 hours of verifiable project management-related training 5 years of verifiable hands-on project management experience Successful completion of the PM