I am an action guy, Rohit Shetty is romantic, says Shah Rukh Khan

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November 19, 2015

Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, known as the ‘king of romance’, insists that he is more of an action guy.

However, the 50-year-old actor believes Bollywood filmmaker Rohit Shetty, known for his action movies, is a romantic person.

“I think RohitShetty, our director, is romantic. I am more like action (guy). I seem soft and sweet from outside but I am hard and tough from within. While with Rohit it seems he is different from out… Tough, but from within he is sweet … Soft person,” Shah Rukh told reporters.

Shah Rukh and Kajol are back with yet another love song, ‘Gerua’ from RohitShetty’s ‘Dilwale’, which releases on December 18.

“The story is the inspiration behind romance. That song ‘SurajHuaMadham’ we shot in the hot climate… In Egypt while this song ‘Gerua’ we shot in cold temperature in Iceland. I think it is about expression of love,” SRK said when asked about the similarities between the two songs.

The song ‘Gerua’ was shot at various locations that looked exotic on screen.

But Kajol reveals, “It was very challenging as we shot in Iceland…We were freezing.”

Sharing similar views, the ‘Chennai Express’ star says, “It was difficult to shoot the song. It took two-three hours to set the song… RohitShetty, our director, wanted wider shot so we had helicopter to capture the moments.”

Khloe Kardashian still faces body shaming

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Afternoon Voice

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November 19, 2015

Reality TV personality Khloé Kardashian, who worked hard to get into shape over the past few years, says she still faces comments on how “big” she used to be in the past.

In an episode of the reality-based television show “Keeping Up With The Kardashians”, Khloe told her sister Kim: “Someone said to me the other day they go ‘I looked at old pictures of you’ and they were like ‘you were so big’ and I was like ‘why are you looking at old pictures of me? Guys and girls say this to me. It’s like a known thing how fat I was.”

However, on the show, Kim praised Khloe’s figure and told her she is in the best shape of her life.

“Look at you! How is your stomach so flat? You are such a freak! This is the Khloe I love, this is the best shape you’ve ever been in,” she said.

To which, Khloe replied: “I’m not there yet.”

“Yes you are, you always say that. You’ve been saying that for two years and I don’t know how much closer to you’re going to get. Your belly button is tiny. That is like my pet peeve, mine is so big. You literally look amazing,” Kim said.

Jennifer Lawrence reveals she got ‘really drunk’ before sex scene with Chris Pratt

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Afternoon Voice

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November 19, 2015

Speaking as part of the always fascinating Hollywood actress roundtable, Lawrence opened up about her work in the upcoming Passengers, a space-set romance in which she stars opposite Chris Pratt: “I had my first real sex scene a couple weeks ago, and it was really bizarre. It was really weird.”

Not that anything went wrong on the set—according to Lawrence, everyone was perfectly professional, which from what we hear is basically the only way to survive filming a sex scene. But for all the time she’s spent kissing both Liam Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson in the Hunger Games films, a sex scene in Passengers was a major shift—especially because Pratt is married. “It was going to be my first time kissing a married man, and guilt is the worst feeling in your stomach,” Lawrence explained. “And I knew it was my job, but I couldn’t tell my stomach that.”

She even called her mom to tell her it was O.K. to film the scene, and even afterwards the discomfort didn’t end: “You want to do it real, you want everything to be real, but then . . . That was the most vulnerable I’ve ever been.”

So for those of you needing more evidence that Lawrence, more than maybe any other star, is Just Like Us, look no further: in the same way any of us would panic and run away when asked to do a sex scene with a married near-stranger, Lawrence didn’t take the duty any more lightly. But she’s also not at all like us, because she‘s an actual professional: you know not an ounce of that anxiety will show on-screen.

Lawrence further revealed saying she would be a nurse if she weren’t an actress.

Spring Breakers was career highlight says, Selena Gomez

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Afternoon Voice

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November 19, 2015

Selena Gomez believes coming-of-age movie Spring Breakers was her career highlight until her new album Revival came along.

The singer-and-actress has an impressive CV, boasting Hollywood film roles and chart hits like Stars Dance and Good For You. Although 2012 teen drama Spring Breakers received mixed reviews, the 23-year-old will always look back on it fondly.

While discussing record Revival, she even said it was her biggest moment since the flick was released: ”I haven’t been this proud of something since Spring Breakers.”

It’s not all be plain sailing for Selena though, with the star battling autoimmune disease lupus and facing a tumultuous on/off relationship with ex-boyfriend Justin Bieber. Luckily she’s always had her friend and fellow singer Taylor Swift to guide her through the tough times.

”Taylor and I dated Jonas bothers together,” she previously smiled to Herald Sun. “We met when she was 18. I was 15 or 16. She was so great to me. Then we became best friends. She would fly out to see me when I was going through something really hard. We’d eat a lot of fattening food and vent.”

Taylor, 25, and Selena are both enjoying successful careers, but the younger star insists she’s always learning from her best friend.

“I learnt a lot from her. She’s an amazing musician,” she smiled. “Everything I go through or say is filtered through her eyes and vision.”

Taylor also counts A-listers such as Gigi Hadid and Lorde among her closest pals. While some might be suspicious their bond is fake, Taylor insists she knows them better than that.

“I think one of my main goals in trying to preserve my sense of reality has been to surround myself with friends who have their own careers, and who don’t need me for any sense of validation or social climbing, or a career statement,” she added.

A peek into bureaucracy!

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Afternoon Voice

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November 19, 2015

Have you ever been to a government office to get your work done? Here are some things that may happen to you when you go to a government office to get your work done. Be it the passport office, a ration office, an electricity billing office or just getting a license renewed. Government offices are just UGH! Here are some of the stages that you have to go through starting from the time you get out of your house.

The false hope: You have this hope that your day is going to be good in the morning. You think that you are going to the government office to get the work done in a hour or two. You may also think that maybe you can get the work done early and visit the mall or the cinema hall and spend the next half of the day chilling. But sadly, the hope gets crumpled soon.

Wastage of paper: You walk into the government office and the first thing you notice are huge piles of paper/files everywhere. Piles as high as a ten-storeyed building. You wonder why! Didn’t India go digital? Shouldn’t every task be done online?

Circle of counters: You ask for directions to the department you have to report to and you receive reply “It’s on the third floor, then you take a right and then the first left and then look for the water cooler and hidden behind that is the department that you want.” And then, you are thrown out from one counter to another in an attempt to get your work done.

Unending queues: When you finally manage to find where you have to be, you see huge queues everywhere. When you actually get to the counter that man says, “it’s the same line.” But because it is so long, it feels like there are multiple lines. Now for the task of finding the end of that line, the time you take to find it out, the line already grows to at least three kilometres.

Multiple forms: You somehow stood in that line and walked the three kilometres to the end that is the counter. Behind that counter is the man who will bombard you with silly questions and name a number of forms you haven’t filled. You stand right at the counter and fill in those forms while the people in the queue grumble at you for taking their time up. Even after you fill in those forms out and submit them to the official at the counter, he will still find out faults and consume more time. You are finally shoved out of the line and you go to a bench to sit and refill those forms.

Lunch break: You fill every detail and somehow make it to the counter again. And just when you reach it, the clerk behind the counter puts up old wooden signboard which mentions ‘LUNCH BREAK’.

Last attempt: After the lunch, you hurry back to the counter but see that they have stopped accepting the forms for the day and shut the windows. You call up your parents, try to talk to the officials to accept your forms but in vain. Finally you are left with no other option but to return the next day.

Jubel D’Cruz

US court incompetent to try Headley under IPC: Ujjwal Nikam

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Afternoon Voice

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November 18, 2015

The charges for which Headley has been convicted by the US court and the charges filed against him in India are entirely different says Ujjwal Nikam.

A special TADA court made American terrorist of Pakistan origin David Coleman Headley, an accused in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack case and has asked him to appear before the court through video links on December 10. Special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said that American court is incompetent to try offences under Indian Penal Code. Earlier the Mumbai police had filed an application before special TADA court to allow Headley to attend the court via video conferencing on December 10. The sessions court had earlier this month reserved its order on the Mumbai Police’s plea. The 26/11 trial against Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal is going on in Mumbai. TADA court has framed charges against Ansari for his alleged role in the 26/11 terror attacks but the prosecution wants Headley to be tried along as well.

“We had moved to the court on the basis of the judgment passed by the US Court that David Headley being one of the conspirators, should be joined as one of the accused along with Indian citizen Abu Jundal,” Ujjwal Nikam, Special public prosecutor said.

“An American court is not competent to try offences under Indian Penal Code. The charges for which Headley has been convicted by the US court and the charges we are pursuing against him are entirely different,” he added.

Nikam contended that Headley had not been tried under Indian law for criminal conspiracy before his conviction in the US in 2013.

The prosecution had told the sessions court that Headley had not been tried under Indian law for 26/11 conspiracy.

The judge had then said that the judgement of a foreign court only has “persuasive value” and it cannot be relied upon as evidence. “He should have been made a wanted accused. You are coming with evidence collected by others,” Nikam added.

Headley was convicted in the US for conducting video-surveillance of locations targeted by Kasab and the other 9 terrorists in November 2008. He also surveyed possible locations in Delhi for a terror attack and communicated his findings to the LeT in Pakistan and his associate Tahawwur Rana in USA.

Double cross Headley should be deported to India

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Vaidehi Taman

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November 18, 2015

A sessions court finally allowed police’s plea to try Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Taiba operative David Coleman Headley as an accused in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack case. Headley double crossed Pakistan as well as America. Since he was deployed by the USA, there might be some sort of understanding of protection between him and the American spy agencies, in case of an arrest like situation. He should have been made an accused and faced trial. The Mumbai police on October 08 had moved an application before the court saying that Headley (who is currently serving 35 years in an American prison for his role in the terror attacks) deserves to be tried by this (Mumbai) court together with 26/11 key plotter Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal as both of them are conspirators and abettors behind the dastardly strikes on November 26, 2008.

The court will decide if he is a culprit after completion of trial. Headley, who was arrested by the US authorities, confessed to them about his role in the 26/11 attacks. In 2013, a US court sentenced him to 35 years’ imprisonment for a dozen federal terrorism crimes related to his role in the Mumbai attacks. A special court allowed the prosecution’s plea to make Pakistan-born American terror operative David Coleman Headley an accused in the November 26, 2008, terror attacks. Headley will be produced before the court on December 10 via video conferencing. The court has issued summons to the authorities in the US where Headley was convicted and imprisoned for his role in the attacks.

Headley is charged with conducting reconnaissance of target locations. Posing as an American, he made five extended trips to Mumbai — in September 2006, February and September 2007, and April and July 2008 — each time making videotapes of various potential targets, including those attacked in November 2008. After these trips, he travelled to Pakistan to meet Lashkar members and hand over his surveillance material. The court directed that Headley be produced via video-conferencing on December 10.

Headley is an American terrorist of Pakistani origin, and a spy who conspired with the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist organization and Pakistani intelligence officers in plotting the 2008 Mumbai attacks. It has been alleged that, between 2002 and 2005, Headley made several trips to Pakistan for Lashkar training while simultaneously working as an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, but this is disputed. Under the direction of Lashkar chiefs, Headley performed five spying missions in Mumbai to scout targets for the attacks, which killed 168 people. The following year, he performed a similar mission in Copenhagen to help plan an attack against the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which had published cartoons of Muhammad. He was arrested at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago while on his way to Pakistan in October 2009.

The Indian public has followed Headley’s story closely, considering him to be their equivalent of Osama bin Laden. U.S. authorities gave Indian investigators direct access to Headley, but some in India have questioned why the U.S. had not shared suspicions about him with Indian authorities before the Mumbai attacks. At the trial of Tahawwur Hussain Rana, an alleged co-conspirator, Headley gave detailed information about the participation of Pakistan’s Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in carrying out the attacks. Since his arrest and guilty plea, Headley has cooperated with U.S. and Indian authorities and given information about his associates.

The police had pleaded that the (Mumbai) court may kindly issue a letter of request to US district court of Illinois to produce Headley before this (Mumbai) court through video-conferencing. The offences with which Headley is likely to be charged by this court are distinct and separate than the offences with which he had been charged and punished in USA. The police had prayed that court may proceed (the trial) against Headley after taking cognizance of the offences committed by him. In the application, the Mumbai police had said that from the judgement passed by the US court against Headley, it was clear that he was a member of LeT and he had played an active role in the criminal conspiracy in the terror attack. The application also said that Headley has entered into a plea agreement with US in 2010 and thereby willingly and voluntarily agreed that he has committed the conspiracy. He has also been accused of intentionally aiding and abetting the LeT in Pakistan for committing illegal acts in Mumbai, mischief by fire with intent to destroy Hotel Taj, Oberoi and Nariman House, offences under Explosives Act and Explosives Substances Act as also under the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act. A native of Beed district of Maharashtra, Jundal was interrogated after he was brought here from Delhi where he had been arrested following his deportation from Saudi Arabia in June 2012. According to Jundal’s confession, LeT training camps enjoyed full support from local, federal police and paramilitary organisations in Pakistan.

As per the chargesheet, after fleeing Maharashtra, Jundal entered Bangladesh in May 2006, where he was received by an ISI agent. He then used a boarding pass issued in a fictitious name to fly PIA flight to Pakistan. In Maharashtra, Jundal is also accused of involvement in Aurangabad arms haul case, 2010 German Bakery blast case in Pune, and Nashik police academy attack conspiracy case. In the case Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab was caught alive and later he was tried in court and was executed. Let’s see, one by one India will succeed in eliminating terrorists.

(With inputs from agencies)

Central team tours drought-hit areas, Maharashtra seeks Rs. 4000 cr aid

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Afternoon Voice

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November 18, 2015

A Central team is on a two-day visit to Maharashtra to assess the damage in drought-hit areas, after the state government sought a relief package of Rs. 4,000 crore from the Union government.

The state had earlier declared drought in 15,747 villages across Maharashtra.

“We have submitted a memorandum to the Centre three days back seeking Rs. 4,002.82 crore as drought relief aid. Out of the total relief package sought, Rs. 3,578.43 is for compensation, Rs. 314.56 crore for water supply and Rs. 109.83 crore for cattle maintenance,” state Agriculture Minister Eknath Khadse said.

The Central team has begun its visit from Aurangabad region to assess the damages. Once the entire assessment is done, a decision to provide relief will be taken within 15 days, he said.

The state received only 59.4 per cent of the total annual rainfall this year. Seven districts got 25-50 per cent rainfall while 16 districts received 50-75 per cent rains.

“The poor rainfall led to loss of Kharif and Rabi crops which resulted in a drop in agricultural output. There has been crop loss on 53.1 lakh hectares from 21 districts,” Khadse said.

He said the number of tankers supplying water to the drought-hit areas is expected to go up from the current 653 to 2,500 over the next seven months, at an expenditure of Rs. 162.15 crore.

“Out of the 74 sanctioned cattle camps, the government has already set up 20. We plan to set up another 380 cattle camps for nearly 4.10 lakh cattle at an expenditure of Rs. 86.63 crore,” the minister said.

Leader of Opposition in state Legislative Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil had earlier demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should himself tour the drought-affected regions of the state.

Despite three Central teams having visited Maharashtra earlier this year, no relief has been provided by the Union government, he said.

MP launches awareness campaign on Deemed Conveyance

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Afternoon Voice

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November 18, 2015

MP Gopal Shetty launched a campaign to make aware house owners about Deemed Conveyance and facilitate them in obtaining the same from the authorities concerned.

Grant of Deemed Conveyance arms housing societies with title rights to the land on which the building is developed.

Shetty, along with Maharashtra Societies Welfare Association (MSWA), as part of the campaign launched a van and a helpline number.

The van will visit various places across the city and make dwellers aware about deemed conveyance and issues surrounding it and educate them on seeking it.

“Lakhs of flat owners have spent their hard earned money to buy flats in societies and have shelled out huge sum for paying stamp duty and registration fee. Despite all this, if societies are not given the title of the land, it is sheer injustice meted out to flat owners,” said Shetty.

The MP from North Mumbai constituency said granting deemed conveyance can be done without spending a single penny on behalf of the government.

Till the grant of deemed conveyance, right on the land (of building) remains with the builder. In such cases, housing societies are left helpless to go for redevelopment.

“Builders have unholy nexus with government officials, who play a negative role in the grant processes. If this continues under BJP’s term as well, then whom the common people believe,” the leader said.

Meanwhile, MSWA spokesperson Sunil Sharma, when asked on the hurdles faced in the grant procedures, said, “Stamp duty authority does not accept the transfer deed for Stamp Duty, stating reasons like building has not got OC (occupation certificate) or CC (Commencement Certificate) etc and society office bearers have to run pillar to post for no fault of theirs.”

The Deemed Conveyance law was passed through an amendment made in the Maharashtra Ownership Flats Act 1963 (MOFA) by the state government.

It has been implemented in Maharashtra from the year 2010 to grant Deemed conveyance to the societies, but lakhs of flat owners across the state have alleged that due to the tedious process, this amendment have become a sham only and societies are yet to get justice.

Hit and run case: Evidence suggests Salman Khan drove car, High Court told

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Afternoon Voice

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November 18, 2015

Evidence suggests Salman Khan was driving his car when it rammed into a shop in Bandra in 2002 killing one person and injuring four others sleeping outside, the prosecution on Wednesday told the Bombay High Court, hearing the actor’s appeal against his conviction by a lower court for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

“Two witnesses had seen the Bollywood hero Salman Khan occupying the driver’s seat of his car… This implies that he was driving the car,” public prosecutor S S Shinde told Justice A R Joshi who is hearing Salman’s appeal against the five-year sentence awarded to him by the sessions trial court on May 6.

Shinde referred to evidence of PW-6 (prosecution witness), a parking attendant at JW Marriott Hotel in suburban Juhu, which the actor had visited along with his friends just before the accident occurred on the night of September 28, 2002.

“This witness has said that he had seen Salman at the driver’s seat of the car in the parking slot at JW Marriott Hotel,” the public prosecutor said, adding that even Salman had admitted to this in the trial court.

The actor had said in the trial court that on the night of the incident he was waiting in the car, parked at the hotel, for his family driver Ashok Singh to come and take over from other driver who had fallen sick and wanted to leave.

Salman had said that he occupied the driver’s seat in the car for some time but got up after Singh arrived.

However, the public prosecutor said that the witness did not see Singh arriving at the hotel. So it is not known whether the driver had indeed arrived and if so then at what time.

Shinde also referred to evidence of another witness, who was injured in the mishap, saying that the latter had seen Salman getting down from the driver’s seat of the car, thereby implying that the actor was behind the wheels of the car.

“Two witnesses have thus said in their evidence that they had seen the actor at the driver’s seat of the car. This clearly establishes that he was driving the vehicle,” Shinde told the court.

According to prosecution, Salman’s Land Cruiser had ran over five persons, killing one of them, sleeping outside the American Express Bakery.