Superstar Rajnikant will be waxed into imnlorality at Madame Tussaud’s Museum in London. Created by wax, sculptor Marie Tussaud, the museum exhibits replicas of the world’s well-known personalities. ac It houses Indian personalities like in Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai and Shah Rukh Khan. With a receding hairline, the 57-year-old Rajnikant is all set to join the galaxy of world personalities at Tussaud’s. World famous for his stunts, Ranji’s dialogues have fans in Japan and China. Muthu, a film starring Rajni was the first Tamil film to be dubbed into Japanese as Muthu: The Dancing Maharaja. Most Chinese admire him for his action-packed sequences and rugged body language. It is said if Raj Kapoor conquered the Russians and Amitabh the Lebanese, Rajni seems to have carved up a major chunk of the Eastem belt for himself. In China, the youth watch on DVD system, Rajni delivering punchy dialogues to villains and romancing his lady love in caste Chinese. In Malaysia, a large number of Malay-speaking Chinese and Japanese are Rajni fans. Having acted in as many as 173 movies, including Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi and Bengali movies, Rajni became super-hero. By December, the superstar will create history by becoming the first Indian hero to be featured in an animated film. The 3D animated Sultan – The Warrior will be an action-packed adventure movie, featuring Rajni as a mythological and 1arger-than-life hero. The 90minute film will be offered as a gift to the superstar on his birthday by his younger daughter Soundarya Rajnikant. Directed by her, big names like music director A.R. Rehman, lyricist Vairamuthu and art director Thotta Tharani, besides a Hollywood stunt master, have been associated with the movie. Rajni himself will lend his voice to the animated version. Already in production, the movie may turn out to be India’s most expensive animated film. Those associated with its production say, it would be a treat to both children and adult alike, particularly to large Rajni fans. Now known to be the filmdom’s highest paid veteran, his last film Sivaji: The Boss grossed Rs 150 crore. Rajnikant was born in a Maharashtrian family based in Karnataka. His real name was Shivajirao Gaekwad. Coming from an ordinary family, he had a difficult childhood. In his youth he eked out a living by doing all kinds of odd jobs in Bangalore. He once worked as [...]
Archive for January 12th, 2008
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WILL GOVT BAIL OUT OIL PSUs?
January 12th, 2008 
krishna With global crude oil prices hitting the psychological barrier of $100 a barrel, the government has begun a desperate exercise to bail out the bleeding oil marketing companies with a solution that is acceptable to its allies. Wire money online to India with Xoom.com for as low as $4.99. The government is exploring all options ranging from an excise duty cut to a marginal hike in the prices of petrol and diesel. The Indian crude basket touched $92.29 a barrel on Tuesday (the new year begining). Petroleum Minister Murli Deora told newsmen that the group of ministers (GOM) would consider all options available on the issue by the end of the month. “Price hike is not the only solution. Others like an excise duty cut on auto fuel, as suggested by Left, are also being considered. My endeavour will be to get a decision this month,” he said. The GoM, which is expected to meet next week, will make recommendations to the Cabinet that will take a final decision. The prices of petrol and diesel were last reduced by Rs 2 and Re 1 a litre in middle of February 2007, with the average price of crude around $55 a barrel. As per the current estimates, petrol is being sold Rs 9 per litre below the international price parity, while diesel faces under recoveryof Rs 10.90 a litre. Liquefied petroleum gas is sold Rs 331 below per cylinder, while the under recovery in kerosene is Rs 19.89 a litre. The under recoveries for the current financial year have now ballooned to Rs 75,000 crore at current prices. The government would compensate the oil marketing companies through oil bonds to the exs tent of 42.70 per cent of their under recoveries, while upstream companies would share one-third of the burden. Inspite of these measures, the revenue loss of the oil marketing companies would still be in the vicinity of Rs 18,000 crore. An increase of Re 1 a litre in petrol price would cut under-recoveries by Rs 90 crore a litre and the same on diesel would slash the loss by Rs 360 crore a month. If the government increases kerosene price by the same amount, losses would come down by Rs 95 crore per month and if LPG prices were raised by Rs 10 a cylinder, they would come down by Rs 58 crore [...]
MODI’S FORMULAE
January 12th, 2008 krishna After quick and summary reactions of political parties and analysts to the Gujarat assembly election, a deeper assessment of its long-term impact is due. The election was a one-man victory and the closest historic parallel that is being drawn is of Indira Gandhi who had swept the poll after her revolt against the old guard of the Congress, her revolutionary steps like bank nationalisation and termination of privy purses and liberation of Bangladesh when she was hailed as goddess Durga. Modi is being projected as a model leader- decisive and determined as compared to the rest of the national leaders – and a future Prime Minister. Yes, he has rebuffed the opposition of all secular forces and media campaign and falsified all predictions of professional pollsters. But is strong leadership always an asset for a democracy? Indira Gandhi, with all her qualities of a good leader, landed the country into emergency, the blackest spot on Indian democracy and on the glorious history of the Congress party. After all Hitler, too, came to power through popular vote. The qualities for which Modi and his election, campaign are getting kudos are that he did not depend on the support of the Hindutva parivar like the RSS and the VHP and even the national leadership of his party did not matter much in his success. But these facts imply a threat to both of them. There is some truth in the Prime Minister’s comment that the sudden decision of the BJP to declare L.K. Advani as its Prime Ministerial candidate was to stem the threat that Modi posed to the BJP leadership. Apart from his personality and quality of leadership that he projected, Modi’s election campaign was based on Gujarati pride, development and good governance and at a later stage as a fighter against “Islamic terror” in a diluted form. It would be useful to analyse the role of each factor in his victory. To start with, he considered ‘jeetega Gujarat” his winning slogan. He enlisted the support of very dynamic and prosperous Gujarati NRI community and of the industrialists of the state. The Congress could not present an alternative vision of glory of Gujarat. It could neither project any past icons of Gujarat-as its own nor any present leader even as a tame imitation of Modi. The statement of iron man of India, Sardar Patel condemning [...]
