Trend Guru

Tata Motors today announced that the much-awaited Tata Nano will be launched at a function in Mumbai on March 23, 2009.
The cars will be on display at Tata Motors dealerships from the first week of April 2009. Bookings will commence from the second week of April 2009.
Since its unveiling on January 10, 2008, the Tata Nano has evoked an unprecedented interest in the country, with its website having recorded over 30 million hits in the past one year and the creation of over 6,000 interest groups and communities.
Tata Motors is making arrangements for the widest possible network to book the car, so that prospective customers can conveniently avail of booking facilities at their locations, across the length and breadth of India. The booking process and other details will be announced on March 23, 2009.

Wed 25 19:00 local, 06:00 GMT
1st T20I - New Zealand v India AMI Stadium, Christchurch

Fri 27 19:00 local, 06:00 GMT
2nd T20I - New Zealand v India Westpac Stadium, Wellington

Tue 3 14:00 local, 01:00 GMT
1st ODI - New Zealand v India McLean Park, Napier

Fri 6 14:00 local, 01:00 GMT
2nd ODI - New Zealand v India Westpac Stadium, Wellington

Sun 8 14:00 local, 01:00 GMT
3rd ODI - New Zealand v India AMI Stadium, Christchurch

Wed 11 14:00 local, 01:00 GMT
4th ODI - New Zealand v India Seddon Park, Hamilton

Sat 14 14:00 local, 01:00 GMT
5th ODI - New Zealand v India Eden Park, Auckland

Wed 18 - Sun 22 11:00 local, 22:00 GMT
1st Test - New Zealand v India Seddon Park, Hamilton

Thu 26 - Mon 30 10:30 local, 21:30 GMT

2nd Test - New Zealand v India McLean

April 2009

Fri 3 - Tue 7 10:30 local, 21:30 GMT

3rd Test - New Zealand v India Basin Reserve, Wellington

Giving relief to the industry reeling under the impact of slowdown, the government today reduced the rates of excise duty and service tax.
While the general excise duty has been reduced from 10 per cent to 8 per cent, the rate of service tax has been cut from 12 per cent to 10 per cent.
Four per cent excise cut announced earlier in the stimulus package in December will continue beyond March 31, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said while winding up the debate on the Interim Budget in the Lok Sabha today.
The Lok Sabha later approved the Interim Budget by voice vote, amidst a walkout by the Opposition BJP and erstwhile supporters Left parties.
Mukherjee further said that duty on bulk cement has been reduced from 10 per cent to 8 per cent.

Source : NDTV Profit

 

Gujarat Gaun Seva Pasandgi Mandal Sahayak Clerk Result

Other News on GSWAN Website

Revision of Pay, Allowances & Pension of State Government & Panchayat Employees with reference to 6th CPC

Watch the Slumdog team receiving the Oscar. For more such videos log on to http://Oscar.com

India’s dream run at the Oscars has begun. Filmmaker Danny Boyle's rags-to-riches romance set in India, Slumdog Millionaire, won eight Oscar awards for best director, best original song, original score, sound mixing, editing, adapted screenplay and cinematography. The film has received 10 Oscar nominations.

Oscars Score Card

Best Picture

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire (Winner)

Actor

Richard Jenkins in The Visitor
Frank Langella in Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn in Milk (Winner)
Brad Pitt, in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler

Actress

Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie in Changeling
Melissa Leo in Frozen River
Meryl Streep in Doubt
Kate Winslet in The Reader (Winner)

Supporting Actor

Josh Brolin in Milk
Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman in Doubt
Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight (Winner)
Michael Shannon in Revolutionary Road

Supporting Actress

Amy Adams in Doubt
Penelope Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Winner)
Viola Davis in Doubt
Taraji P Henson in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei in The Wrestler

Director

David Fincher in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard in Frost/Nixon
Gus Van Sant in Milk
Stephen Daldry in The Reader
Danny Boyle in Slumdog Millionaire (Winner)

Foreign Film

The Baader Meinhof Complex Germany
The Class France
Departures Japan   (Winner)
Revanche Austria
Waltz With Bashir Israel

Adapted Screenplay

Eric Roth and Robin Swicord-The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
John Patrick Shanley-Doubt
Peter Morgan-Frost/Nixon
David Hare-The Reader
Simon Beaufoy-Slumdog Millionaire (Winner)

Original Screenplay

Courtney Hunt-Frozen River
Mike Leigh-Happy-Go-Lucky
Martin McDonagh-In Bruges
Dustin Lance Black- Milk (Winner)
Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon and Pete Docter-WALL-E

Animated Feature Film

Bolt
Kung Fu Panda
WALL-E (Winner)

Art Direction

Changeling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Winner)
The Dark Knight
The Duchess
Revolutionary Road

Cinematography

Changeling
The Dark Knight
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire (Winner)

Sound Mixing

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Slumdog Millionaire (Winner)
WALL-E
Wanted.

Sound Editing

The Dark Knight (Winner)
Iron Man
Slumdog Millionaire
WALL-E
Wanted

Original Score

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button-Alexandre Desplat
Defiance - James Newton Howard
Milk - Danny Elfman
Slumdog Millionaire- AR Rahman   (Winner)
WALL-E Thomas Newman

Original Song

Down to Earth from WALL-E - Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman
Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire- AR Rahman and Gulzar   (Winner)
O Saya from Slumdog Millionaire- AR Rahman and Maya Arulpragasam

Costume

Australia
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Duchess (Winner)
Milk
Revolutionary Road

Documentary Feature

The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)
Encounters at the End of the World
The Garden
Man on Wire (Winner)
Trouble the Water

Documentary (short subject)

The Conscience of Nhem En
The Final Inch
Smile Pinki (Winner)
The Witness — From the Balcony of Room 306

Film Editing

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixon
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire (Winner)

Makeup

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Winner)
The Dark Knight
Hell boy II
The Golden Army

Animated Short Film

La Maison en Petits Cubes (Winner)
Lavatory — Lovestory
Oktapodi
Presto
This Way Up

Live Action Short Film

Auf der Strecke (On the Line)
Manon on the Asphalt
New Boy
The Pig
Spielzeugland (Toyland) (Winner)

Visual Effects

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Winner)
The Dark Knight
Iron Man

It’s India’s day at Oscar. After a jubiliant performance of Slumdog millionaire, it was “Smile Pinky”, a documentary film , which won the oscar for the best short documentary.

The made in India documentary ‘Smile Pinky’ won an Oscar in the ‘Best Short Documentary’ category at the 81st Academy Awards declared in Los Angeles on February 22.

‘Smile Pinky’ is the story of a child with a lip deformity. The film had been nominated along with four other documentaries at the famed Academy Awards.

Residents of Dabai village in Uttar Pradesh’s Ahura district have been praying for the success of the documentary ‘Smile Pinky’ at the Oscars, since it is based on the life of a girl belonging to their village.

The film by Megan Mylan depicts the saga of six-year-old Pinky who becomes a social outcast because of a cleft lip. In the 39-minute documentary, the girl from this obscure village of Uttar Pradesh, undergoes corrective surgery and gets a normal childhood.

(With Inputs from Kerala Online.com)

Mahashivaratri falls on the 13th or the 14th night of the new moon during Krishna Paksha in the Hindu month of Phalgun. The Sanskrit term, Krishna Paksha means the period of waning moon or the dark fortnight and Phalguna corresponds to the month of February - March in English Calendar. Shivaratri Festival is celebrated on a moonless night.
According to Hindu mythology, Shivaratri or 'Shiva's Great Night' symbolizes the wedding day of Lord Shiva and Parvati. Many however, believe, Shivaratri is the night when Lord Shiva performed the Tandava Nritya - the dance of primordial creation, preservation and destruction. Celebrating the festival in a customary manner, devotees give a ritual bath to the Lingam with the panchagavya - milk, sour milk, urine, butter and dung. Celebrations of Shivaratri Festival mainly take place at night. Devotees of Lord Shiva throng Shiva temples across the country and spend ‘the Night of Lord Shiva’ by chanting verses and hymns in praise of the Lord. The festival holds special meaning for the ladies. They pray to Goddess Parvati also called 'Gaura', the giver of 'suhag' for good husbands, marital bliss and a long and prosperous married life.

This Year Shivaratri carries special significance since it is falling on Monday which is also considered as Day of Lord Shiva. In India, Unmarried girls keep fast on Mondays to please Lord Shiva and pray for a good husband.

 

SHIVA   AARTI

Jai Shiv Onkara Har Jai Shiv Onkara |
Brahma Vishnu Sadashiv Arddhagni Dhara ||

OM Jai Shiv Onkara

Ekanan Chaturanan Panchanan Raaje |
Hansanan Garudasan Vrishvahan Saaje ||

OM Jai Shiv Onkara

Do Bhuj Char Chaturbhuj Das Bhuj Te Sohe |
Tinon Roop Nirakhta Tribhuvan Jan Mohe ||

OM Jai Shiv Onkara

Akshaymala Vanmala Mundmala Dhari |
Chadan Mrigmad Sohai Bhale Shashi Dhari ||

OM Jai Shiv Onkara

Shvetambar Pitambar Baghambar Ange |
Sankadik Brahmadik Bhootadik Sang ||

OM Jai Shiv Onkara

Kar Men Shreshth Kamandal Chakra Trishooldharta |
Jagkarta Jagharta Jag Palankarta ||

OM Jai Shiv Onkara

Brahma Vishnu Sadashiv Janat Aviveka |
Pranvakshar Ke Madhye Yah Tinon Eka ||

OM Jai Shiv Onkara

Trigun Shiv Ki Aarti Jo Koi Nar Gave |
Kahat Shivanand Swami Manvanchhit Phal Pave ||

OM Jai Shiv Onkara

Bolo Shakar Bhagwan ki Jai

Bolo HAR HAR MAHADEVA

(With Inputs from http://www.mahashivratri.org )

Movie Review: Delhi 6; Star Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Sonam Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor, Om Puri and Waheeda Rehman; Director: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra

Delhi 6 is a delightful musical run through the Hindu and Muslim cultures of Old Delhi as seen through the eyes of protagonist Roshan (Abhishek Bachchan) who comes to India to fulfill the desire of his terminally ill Daadi (Waheeda Rehman) to spend the last days of her life in her hometown. As Roshan after a brief culture shock, tries to understand the complexities of relations that kept his people apart from each other as well as close to each other, he slowly gets attached to Bittu (Sonam Kapoor) and the chemistry grows, which is very convincingly directed using rich background music and believable day-to-day situations. Read the complete review on Real bollywood

Karnataka promises cheap farm credit, tax sops in 2009-10 budget

Proposing additional resource mobilisation to mop up Rs 100 crore, offering tax relief up to Rs 400 crore and extending farm credit at three per cent, Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa on Friday presented the state's 2009-10 budget which has a deficit of Rs 43.08 crore.

Karnataka slashed sales tax to four per cent from 12 per cent on vehicles driven by electricity including cars, vans and two-wheelers to promote eco-friendly vehicles in his budget proposals presented to the state assembly.

The government also decided to reduce stamps and registration, from 7.5 per cent to six per cent hoping to give a boost to property registration activities, while enhancing fee for duplicate registration from Rs 50 to Rs 500, besides enhancing fee levied on lease agreement registration.

Offering another sop to the government employees, the government announced hike in HRA, brought down sales tax on tamarind, soapnut, areca from four per cent to two per cent and exempted tax on footwear costing less than Rs 100. Yeddyurappa, presenting the budget for the fourth one in a row and second after becoming the Chief Minister, sought a vote on account for four months till July 31.

Source : The Hindu

NII Holdings, Inc. today announced that Nextel Argentina, Nextel Brazil, Nextel Mexico and Nextel Peru will offer the BlackBerry(R) Curve(TM) 8350i smart phone. The BlackBerry Curve 8350i is the first BlackBerry smart phone in Latin America to offer this unparalleled combination of services and features with Nextel's industry-leading Push-to-Talk (PTT) service along with premium phone features, the industry's leading email and messaging capabilities, web access, productivity applications and rich multimedia capabilities. Also, it includes Wi-Fi(R) and 128MB of internal memory. This powerful and flexible smart phone for mobile business users is available exclusively to Nextel customers in Latin America.

The BlackBerry Curve 8350i smart phone and the industry-leading Push-to-Talk service will provide one-touch, instant and effective communication between NII subscribers and over 10 million iDEN subscribers in North and South America. In addition to enabling easy access to personal and corporate email, the BlackBerry Curve 8350i comes with built-in Wi-Fi, a 2-megapixel camera, 128MB of memory and an expandable memory slot for additional storage to help subscribers in Latin America push their business to new heights.

RIM BlackBerry Curve (8350i) Features

• Built-in capabilities for assisted autonomous GPS capabilities
• 2.0-megapixel digital camera with 5x digital zoom, flash and video recording
• DataViz Documents to Go is preloaded to make it easy to edit Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents directly on the smart phone
• Speakerphone is optimized for sound quality with Direct Connect
• Advanced Media Player to listen to music, watch videos and show pictures
• Expandable micro SD memory card slot allows plenty of storage for pictures, videos, music and documents
• Bluetooth version 2.0 with support for (A2DP) stereo Bluetooth and more
• Group Connect feature enables group conversation up to 20 Persons.

if you are a fan of horse racing events, then here is a portal for you to track the latest races live and not only that you can also view the Latest Odds, Results, Selections and Dividends.

Latest on India race :

Bangalore Winter Meeting 2008-09

Mysore Winter Meeting 2008-09

Mumbai Winter Meeting 2008-09

Hyderabad Winter Races 2008-09

Kolkata Spring Meeting 2008-09

Delhi Meeting 2008-09

Bharti Airtel has launched world's first Windows based online desktop powered by Microsoft and Nivio, giving access to a personal virtual desktop from any computer conected to the internet for Airtel broadband customers.

The service has been launched across 95 cities in the country. Atul Bindal, President, Telemedia Services, Bharti Airtel said, " Our online desk platform will be useful in making computing more accessible to SMBs, SMEs and SOHOs as well as individual home customers of Airtel Broadband".

The new service from Airtel comes with 5 GB space along with free anti-virus protection and reduced IT infrastructure cost with no cost of CPU.

The Hug day is celebrated on 13th February. Hug is the best way to convey your feelings to your loved ones. When two bodies come together for a hug , it’s a feeling which can not be described in words. You get lost in a entirely different world of joy and happiness. So hug your near and dear ones today and show them that you really think and care for them.

Best ways of Hugging ?

A wrong way of hug may give a different interpretation to the person you are hugging. I came across an interesting article on “How to Hug ?” on  a Wikihows.  It describes the approach to Hug and different ways of hugging for each relationship.  Hugs have been classified as family hug, Friend Hug (Girl), Friend Hug (Boys), Crush Hug and Lover Hug.

Today is Kiss day in the series of Valentine Week and this is the most awaited day. Why not ? Here is a chance to kiss your valentine. After days of Gifts, Chocolates, Teddy’s and promises you surely deserve a smooching kiss. Be passionate and keep your eyes close while kissing your partner. Keeping your eyes open is a sign of betrayal. I agree you wouldn’t know if the other partner has his/her eyes open or not , but my advice it don’t experiment this today. Believe your partner. Trust is the biggest asset for any relationship !

Now this is going to be tricky one. After Rose, Chocolates and Teddy, it’s time to get down from the cloud nine and make a realistic promise to your valentine.  Be realistic ‘cos your valentine is going to take it by heart and if you make a promise that you can’t fulfil, you are in for a trouble. So don’t promise stars or white house. Promise something you can deliver. Moreover, a promise should be one which is relevant to the other person. This way you make sure that you head towards a happy Valentine day !

Feb 10 is celebrated by valentines as Teddy day or Teddy Bear day.  Your loved ones would expect you to gift them a cudlly, smoochy, soft teddy bears to hug (This is a game plan). In few days you would be offering yourself for a hug !  ha..ha..ha. So don’t forget to gift a Teddy bear to your loved ones.

The Valentine Week has started and it will be week full of showing your love and care towards your near and dear ones. Each day of the Valentine week has a special significance and it moves across the love chain from Proposal to Hug Day.

The 7 days of Valentine Week are celebrated as follows :

  7th Feb  is   Rose Day
  8th Feb  is  Propose Day
  9th Feb  is  Chocolate Day
10th Feb  is  Teddy Day
11th Feb  is  Promise Day
12th Feb  is  Kiss Day
13th Feb  is  Hug Day
14th Feb  is  VALENTINE’S DAY

Happy Valentine Week !!

Kavya Madhavan is all set to enter into wedlock today. As reported earlier, her marriage has been fixed with Nishal chandra whose family is settled in Thiruvananthapuram. Nihaal, who is working in Kuwait as the technical advisor to the National Bank of Kuwait, has also been a child artist.

The wedding will take place today at the famous Mookambika temple, followed by a reception at Kochi on the 9th. There will be yet another reception at Kavya’s native place, Neeleswaram, on February 12.
Kavya is busy acting in ‘Pattanathil Bhootham’, the Mammootty-starrer directed by Johnny Antony, at present.

Born in Nileshwaram in Kasargod district, the 24-year-old actress entered the Malayalam film industry as a child artist in the film “Pookkalam Varavayi” (1991). But she came into the reckoning when she played a role in acclaimed director Kamal’s “Azhakiya Ravanan” in 1996.

And since then she has not looked back and has acted with superstars Mammootty, Mohanlal and Jayaram. Her most successful films have been with actor Dileep. Her popular films include “Meesha Madhavan”, “Madhamabhi”, “Classmates” and “Ananthabhadram”. Kavya said she is happy that her fiance is familiar with her profession.

Source : Kerala Online