Monday, November 28, 2011
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Ashwaria rai born baby
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan have become proud parents of a baby girl. The actress gave birth to a girl this morning at the Seven Hills hospital in Andheri, a western Mumbai suburb.The 38-year-old actress developed labour pains around 4 am and was rushed to the labour room where the delivery took place after nearly six hours.
Hospital sources said the delivery was normal and that mother and daughter were both doing fine.
An ecstatic Amitabh Bachchan [ tweeted, "I AM DADA to the cutest baby girl !!" While first-time dad Abhishek tweeted, "IT'S A GIRL!!!!!! :)))))"
Ash was accompanied to the hospital by her parents Vrinda and Krishnaraj Rai, brother Aditya, husband Abhishek and in-laws Amitabh, Jaya and Shweta Nanda.
Close friends Sonali Bendre and husband Goldie Behl were among the first to visit Ash, and congratulate the family. Behl is a childhood friend of Abhishek, and also directed him in Drona.
Amar Singh also paid a visit to the Bachchans.
The news of Ash's pregnancy was broken by Amitabh Bachchan through Twitter in June this year. As Bollywood's first family and their well-wishers celebrated the Big B received over 2,000 congratulatory tweets the same day and people thronged the Bachchan residence in Juhu to celebrate.
The Bachchans chose a suburban hospital for the delivery, presumably to avoid media glare. While TV news channels, on their part, had agreed to stay away from the developments, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry had ordered television media not to park their vans outside the hospital.
Bachchan was questioned about having asked the I&B ministry to intervene in the matter. To which, he replied: 'HaHa ! Print MidDay asking if I have told I&B Ministry to block media news of Aish delivery ! Absolute rubbish ! Good try MDay ! &B and media matter ! Firstly I have no such intention ever, secondly do you really think I&B would listen to me !?? No way baby !'
Ash and Abhishek got together during the filming of Guru and got married in a glitzy ceremony in 2007 in the presence of the family's closest friends and associates.
Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan are also grandparents to daughter Shweta Nanda's two kids -- daughter Navya Naveli and son Agastya.
Here's wishing the proud parents a happy life ahead with their bundle of joy!
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Actress Evan Rachel stripped for a steamy photo shoot
She put on a black nail varnish and a pout as she posed on her hands and knees for the August issue of i-D Magazine.
Controversial photographer Terry Richardson, known for his sexually explicit works took the pictures, one of which shows her wearing lacy black underwear and thigh-high socks.
A particular snap has the ex-Marilyn Manson's girlfriend tied to a chair but she said that she was comfortable working with Terry.
"You know what you're going to get with Terry. But he makes you feel so comfortable. He was like, "OK, take off all your clothes," and I was like, "OK," the Daily Star quoted her as saying.
She added: "Then he tied me to a chair and pushed me over. I was like, "You know, I've only done this for three people - Manson, (Across The Universe director) Julie Taymor, and you, so feel special!"
One-child policy debate reignites in China
SHANGHAI nurse Lu Ming wants a second baby but it is not China’s one-child policy that is holding her back. If anything, she is being encouraged to increase the size of her family as the city faces the challenge of providing for its ageing population. Last week it reminded couples such as Lu and her husband - both of whom are only children because of the policy - that they are eligible to have a second child. Comments by Shanghai family planning director Xie Lingli published on the front page of the government-run China Daily were initially seen as a signal that the one-child policy was about to be relaxed after 30 years.
However, days later a report by China’s official Xinhua news agency quoted Xie as saying she was simply stating rules that had been in place for years and that Shanghai never pursued measures that parted from national policies. Yet for young university-educated mothers such as Lu, who said she was aware of the policy exceptions for having a second child, government officials’ words alone mean little in the face of the rising costs of raising a bigger family. “I had one child and now I want to have a second one,” the 31-year-old said. “But not every family can afford to have a second child,” she added. “To raise a second child you have to take all the financial costs into consideration, otherwise it’s not responsible.” Nevertheless, analysts say recent media attention reflects a struggle between demographers alarmed by a shrinking workforce and ageing population and officials clinging to the mindset that China has too many people. “The fact this caused such a media storm shows the wind is blowing the other way and it’s about time,” said Wang Feng, a sociology professor at the University of California, Irvine.
“It’s a monumental decision that China has to face: what to do about a policy that came out as an emergency measure and was supposed to last for only a generation,” Wang said. Regardless of whether China decides to phase out the one-child policy, population decline is inevitable after more than 15 years of fertility rates below the replacement level of 2.1, Wang said. The government has yet to understand that young career-minded women and rising living costs signal demographic trends similar to those in Western Europe, and birth rates will fall even further, Wang said. “China needs to realise there is a demographic crisis quickly in order to prevent it from deepening,” he said. Even though the rules for having a second child are not new, by publicly encouraging people to take advantage of them Shanghai officials may be trying to counter propaganda tilted towards encouraging only one child, he said.
“Having a second child is often portrayed as if it’s a sign of backwardness and not contributing to the country’s goal of controlling population growth,” Wang said. A senior Shanghai district family planning official insisted that encouraging eligible couples to have a second child had been going on for nearly five years since new exceptions to the one-child policy were introduced. Couples are asked a series of questions when they register to marry to determine if they can have more than one child, the official said, declining to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue. She provided a bright booklet distributed in Shanghai since 2005 which spells out who is eligible to have a second baby, with children’s book-style illustrations showing a young father with two children hanging off his arms.
Conditions include one of the couple being disabled, one working on a fishing boat at sea for five years, and one being an only child from a rural household. Urban couples who do not meet the criteria but have a second child nonetheless, are fined the equivalent of three times the per capita income in their city, the booklet said. The fine for a Shanghai couple, based on 2008 figures, would be about 80,000 yuan (11,800 dollars) - a price wealthy families are often willing to pay. But in a Shanghai park bouncing her six-month-old grandson on her knee, 51-year-old Huang Yuanxiang said that, for most of the younger generation, the biggest barrier to having more than one child is economic. For her grandson to prosper, he will have to go to good schools that cost money. “In my generation, none of us was rich and things were not expensive so it cost little to have more than one child,” she said. “We didn’t face the same financial burden as they do.” afp
However, days later a report by China’s official Xinhua news agency quoted Xie as saying she was simply stating rules that had been in place for years and that Shanghai never pursued measures that parted from national policies. Yet for young university-educated mothers such as Lu, who said she was aware of the policy exceptions for having a second child, government officials’ words alone mean little in the face of the rising costs of raising a bigger family. “I had one child and now I want to have a second one,” the 31-year-old said. “But not every family can afford to have a second child,” she added. “To raise a second child you have to take all the financial costs into consideration, otherwise it’s not responsible.” Nevertheless, analysts say recent media attention reflects a struggle between demographers alarmed by a shrinking workforce and ageing population and officials clinging to the mindset that China has too many people. “The fact this caused such a media storm shows the wind is blowing the other way and it’s about time,” said Wang Feng, a sociology professor at the University of California, Irvine.
“It’s a monumental decision that China has to face: what to do about a policy that came out as an emergency measure and was supposed to last for only a generation,” Wang said. Regardless of whether China decides to phase out the one-child policy, population decline is inevitable after more than 15 years of fertility rates below the replacement level of 2.1, Wang said. The government has yet to understand that young career-minded women and rising living costs signal demographic trends similar to those in Western Europe, and birth rates will fall even further, Wang said. “China needs to realise there is a demographic crisis quickly in order to prevent it from deepening,” he said. Even though the rules for having a second child are not new, by publicly encouraging people to take advantage of them Shanghai officials may be trying to counter propaganda tilted towards encouraging only one child, he said.
“Having a second child is often portrayed as if it’s a sign of backwardness and not contributing to the country’s goal of controlling population growth,” Wang said. A senior Shanghai district family planning official insisted that encouraging eligible couples to have a second child had been going on for nearly five years since new exceptions to the one-child policy were introduced. Couples are asked a series of questions when they register to marry to determine if they can have more than one child, the official said, declining to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue. She provided a bright booklet distributed in Shanghai since 2005 which spells out who is eligible to have a second baby, with children’s book-style illustrations showing a young father with two children hanging off his arms.
Conditions include one of the couple being disabled, one working on a fishing boat at sea for five years, and one being an only child from a rural household. Urban couples who do not meet the criteria but have a second child nonetheless, are fined the equivalent of three times the per capita income in their city, the booklet said. The fine for a Shanghai couple, based on 2008 figures, would be about 80,000 yuan (11,800 dollars) - a price wealthy families are often willing to pay. But in a Shanghai park bouncing her six-month-old grandson on her knee, 51-year-old Huang Yuanxiang said that, for most of the younger generation, the biggest barrier to having more than one child is economic. For her grandson to prosper, he will have to go to good schools that cost money. “In my generation, none of us was rich and things were not expensive so it cost little to have more than one child,” she said. “We didn’t face the same financial burden as they do.” afp
Zardari is thankful of Angelina Jolie for $1m aid
Zardari thanked Angelina and her companion Brad Pitt, who jointly run the Jolie-Pitt Foundation, during the phone call yesterday and also invited them to visit Pakistan, sources said.
The Hollywood power couple has been running the Jolie-Pitt Foundation to assist in humanitarian crises around the world.
Angelina, who has been a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commission on Refugees since 2001, donated a million dollars on World Refugee Day to aid displaced people in Pakistan.
Angelina has said she decided to provide aid to the displaced Pakistanis because the refugee crisis in the country was relatively new and the numbers of displaced persons had "jumped so quickly".
"I think in the last few weeks, there were about 100,000 displaced a day. There's over two million now. I think it's just there has been a giant appeal, a lot of funds have been sent in, a lot of aid has come to the people... But the numbers are so extraordinary and they're growing," Angelina told CNN after making the donati
Veena Malik taking bath in swimming pool
Veena Malik has given some great shots to Indian TV Program Big Boss, this shot is one of the catching shots.
I hate to be known as Wasim Akram s girlfriend, Humaima Malik
During the Indian Premier League matches earlier this year, Malik says that she had to cancel her trip to India to support Shah Rukh Khan’s Kolkta Knight Riders (KKR) team because of the loud whispers regarding her and Akram.
“I was going to support KKR, not because Wasim was the team’s coach. Unfortunately, the Indian press went to town linking my visit to Wasim and I had to cancel my trip,” she said.
“In India being linked with a cricketer is seen as a big deal. Every journalist asks me about Wasim. As if that’s all there is to me,” said Malik. She adds that even the Pakistani media is equally inquisitive about her private life. “Even if we go out for just a cup of coffee, there are loud whispers,” she said.
She is not flattered by the link ups as “I was a super-model and the Pakistani brand ambassador for Sunsilk, an international brand of shampoo, before being selected by Shoaib Mansoor for my first film Bol, for which I had to go completely against my image. It was tough on me, but the results have been so rewarding. It’s been a truly life-changing experience,” she said.
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