Record producer-rapper The-Dream has revealed that pop star Rihanna is “super close” to finishing her new album.
The 30-year-old singer released her last album “Anti” in 2016, reported Contactmusic.
”She’s cooking, she’s about done. She’s about done. Super close,” the rapper said.
He also shared that pop diva Beyonce is working on something new.
“She’s doing something. I actually haven’t talked to her about it – I’ve talked to the team about it because it’s kind of just being coordinated. But she’s doing something,” he said.
Rihanna recently teased her fans by joking that her “Internet connection was poor” when asked about the whereabouts of her new music.
Asserting his government’s resolve against corruption and nepotism, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday during his party’s rally said that the ‘justice’ against the country’s economic offenders and his ‘stir’ against graft has prompted a grand alliance of opposition parties. Any person who has cheated or looted the country shall be brought to justice. This is regardless of whether he is in India or abroad.
The Prime Minister was apparently referring to economic offenders Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi who are wanted in connection with defaulting on huge bank loans. All of them are now abroad. However, the union government was taking effective steps to rid the country of corruption and nepotism; he told the well-attended gathering that the union government’s effort against corruption has created a ‘stir’ from Chennai to Delhi. All those who were used to making ‘different bills’ in government contracts and welfare schemes are now facing the music.
Attacking the proposed ‘Mahagatbandhan’ of opposition parties that has vowed to dislodge him in the coming Lok Sabha polls, Modi said that, this is why they are all coming together. They say that keeping aside all other considerations they must unite to remove this watchman. However big a group they form, out of fear and negativity, Narendra Modi will stand firmly with the poor. He further urged the people of Madurai and the youth of Tamil Nadu to reject these forces of negativity.
Incidentally, MK Stalin-led DMK in Tamil Nadu has been playing an active role in the opposition grouping trying to take shape against the BJP-led NDA at the Centre. Stalin had last month at a public rally here proposed Congress chief Rahul Gandhi as the Opposition’s Prime Ministerial candidate, though it found a lukewarm response from parties, including Samajwadi Party and the Trinamool Congress (TMC). Earlier this month, he had also attended a mega rally in Kolkata helmed by West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, which saw the participation of various opposition parties, but refrained from referring to Gandhi.
Actor Bella Thorne believes people do not understand bisexuality.
The 21-year-old actor, who came out as bisexual in August 2016, said people still have a narrow-minded attitude towards sexuality, reported Contactmusic.
”It seems like no one understands bisexuality at all. In this world it’s like you’re either gay or you’re straight; there’s no in between. If you f****d a guy once, you must be gay. Like, what? No. That’s just been fluid,” she told Gay Times.
The “Famous in Love” star said she finds it easier to date men than women.
“It’s so hard. I can’t tell if a girl is trying to be best friends with me or if she wants to get with me or if she just wants social media followers. I’m just so confused when a girl talks to me. Girls can be very flirtatious, so I don’t want to make a move, and then you be like, ‘Whoa, girl. Not what I was thinking, I don’t roll that way.
”Then it’s so awkward. So I end up usually dating more guys, because with guys, I know if a guy’s hitting me up. They’re not just texting me to be my bestie. I know they want something, of some sort,” she said.
Alexander Dinelaris, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of “Birdman”, believes indie films and the big budget tentpoles are two pillars of Hollywood, but he says the onus lies on the “big ones” to sustain the industry.
The 50-year-old scribe, who came into limelight after co-penning the screenplay of Alejandro G. Inarritu’s 2014 black comedy, is here for the launch of actor Boman Irani’s production banner Irani MovieTone.
Citing the examples of “Roma”, director Alfonso Cuaron’s Spanish-language feature, and Warner Bros’ superhero film “Aquaman, which recently crossed the USD 1 billion mark at the global box office Dinelaris said in America there is a dedicated audience for both the kind of films and no one is less worth.
“It is about their taste, money and time. For the makers, if you are making independent film, it is a different paradigm. We have to spend two to five million dollars and if we make 20-30 million dollar that is a success and you can afford to make another one. However, the big ones have responsibility of making much more money,” Dinelaris told agencies.
“There are two Hollywoods. One with artwork, who does something visionary, small and interesting and they normally get lot of awards. And then there is commercial that keep theatres open and generate money that keep the industry open. Both are fine, he added.
He believes Hollywood is witnessing a Mexican cinema renaissance with the trinity of filmmakers — Alfonso Cuaron, Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu — making and winning awards for their compelling heart-warming stories.
He believes Indian mythological and folklore stories have great potential of working on the big screen.
“The wealth of mythology that exists in India seems to be the natural fit to what people are doing in the West with superhero films. I am looking forward to it. I do see the potential and I am waiting to learn something new,” he says in response to query about his plans for making Indian films.
With the advent of Netflix and streaming services, Dinelaris asserts that there may have been an overhaul in writing but writers are still not given their due in the industry.
“The demand is so high and that if you are good at your craft, you are going to work. You have to make sure your guild is covering you (in terms of remuneration). But writers are not respected as much as I think they should be as compared to director and producer.”
Dinelaris and Boman Irani are currently working on a script. The duo met in New York five-six years ago, when Boman approached him with a script, which he had penned.
He said he is not familiar with Indian cinema but has watched Irani’s “3 Idiots”. He believes his character in the Rajkumar Hirani’s directorial was “too glamorous”.
After the launch of Irani’s production house on Thursday, Dinelaris also conducted a day-long screenwriting workshop for budding writers, directors and students of cinema.
Foreign investors have pulled out close to Rs 6,000 crore so far from the Indian stock markets in January and experts believe this trend will continue in the coming months as well.
This comes following a collective net inflow of Rs 8,584 crore in the equity markets by Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) during November and December 2017. Prior to that, they had pulled out a massive Rs 28,900 crore in October.
According to data available with the depositories, FPIs withdrew a net amount of Rs 5,880 crore during January 1-25.
However, they invested a net Rs 163 crore in the country’s debt markets during the period under review.
The government has imposed an anti-dumping duty on a chemical from China, used in photography and manufacturing of dyes, for five years to protect domestic producers of the chemical intermediate from cheap shipments.
The anti-dumping duty on Meta Phenylenediamine (MPDA) imported from China will be in the range $573.92-$1,015.44 a tonne, according to a notification of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC).
It is for the second time in a row that anti-dumping duty has been imposed on the import of the chemical from China. The duty was to expire in March 2019.
The levy has been imposed after the Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR), under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, made a recommendation for the same. DGTR was earlier known as the Directorate General of Anti-dumping and Allied Duties (DGAD).
Countries carry out the anti-dumping probe to determine whether the domestic industries have been hurt because of a surge in cheap imports.
As a counter measure, they impose duties under the multilateral regime of the World Trade Organization.
The duty is aimed at ensuring fair trading practices and creating a level-playing field for domestic producers with regard to foreign producers and exporters.
According to the Law Ministry each high court judge is saddled with nearly 4,500 pending cases, however, at the same time, each judge of the subordinate judiciary has nearly 1,300 cases pending. Going by the number of cases pending in high courts and the lower courts, the ministry came up with the average cases pending per judge based on the sanctioned strength.
From January 1, Telangana has its own high court, taking the number of high courts in the country to 25. The data states that while 4,419 cases are pending per judge in the high courts, 1,288 are pending with each lower court judge. It also says that while the sanctioned strength of the subordinate courts is 22,644, the working strength is 17,509, a shortage of 5,135 judicial officers. Similarly, in the high courts, the sanctioned strength is 1,079, the working strength is 695, a shortfall of 384 judges.
The data was collated for parliamentary use. Successive law ministers have been writing to chief justices of high courts urging them to fill up vacancies in the lower courts. Incumbent Ravi Shankar Prasad recently urged the chief justices of high courts to speed up the recruitment of judicial officers for the lower judiciary, as according to him, one of the main reasons for high pendency was the inordinate delay in filling up the vacancies of judicial officers.
According to the National Judicial Data Grid, at the end of 2018, 2.91 crore cases were pending with the district and subordinate courts. In the 24 high courts, 47.68 lakh cases were pending. However, the minister has urged the chief justices to hold timely examination and interviews to recruit judges for the lower courts.
The CBI has transferred the investigating officer in the ICICI Bank case as its “discreet inquiry” suggested his role in leaking information related to searches, officials said on Sunday.
Superintendent of Police Sudhanshu Dhar Mishra was transferred to Ranchi, a day after filing the FIR in the case against former ICICI CEO Chanda Kochhar, her husband Deepak and Videocon group MD Venugopal Dhoot on January 22, they said.
The agency had carried out searches at multiple locations after the charge of the case was given to new Investigating officer Mohit Gupta. Justifying the transfer, the CBI pinned the blame on Mishra for keeping the preliminary enquiry pending without any reasons.
The officials said that after review some time ago, the PE wad sped up and was converted into a regular case. Immediately after the registration of the case, the searches were proposed.
A discreet inquiry was conducted and role of Sudhanshu Dhar Mishra was strongly suspected. Hence he has been transferred pending detailed inquiry in the matter, being serious. However, it was suspected that there was a possibility of information regarding searches being leaked, the officials claimed.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone for an All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Madurai, Tamil Nadu on January 27, a statement said.
He will also inaugurate the super speciality blocks of Rajaji Medical College (Madurai), Thanjavur Medical College (Thanjavur) and Tirunelveli Medical College (Tirunelveli) as a part of upgradation projects of government medical colleges.
The prime minister will visit Kochi on the same day and unveil a plaque to dedicate to the nation an integrated refinery expansion complex of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited.
He will also lay the foundation stone for a petrochemical complex at the same venue, inaugurate a mounded storage vessel at an LPG bottling plant of the Indian Oil Corporation Limited in Kochi and lay the foundation stone for skill development institute at Ettumanoor.
Actor Bella Thorne believes people do not understand bisexuality.
Actor Kate Beckinsale has been hospitalised with a ruptured ovarian cyst.
