June 30, 2004

Hillary Clinton as Vice President?



Official Washington and the entire press corps will be rocked when Hillary Rodham Clinton is picked as John Kerry's VP and a massive love fest will begin!

So predicts a top Washington insider, who spoke to the DRUDGE REPORT on condition he not be named.

'All the signs point in her direction,' said the insider, one of the most influential and well-placed in the nation's capital. 'It is the solution to every Kerry problem.'


UPDATE: Better luck next time, Hillary, Drudge!
Headliner
Apple lets cat out of the bag
Steve Jobs wows programmers with a preview of the next major release of OS X, code-named Tiger
(www.wired.com)

June 29, 2004

Rotten Tomatoes, IGN.com merge
The Web portal for movie fans is being bought by the Peninsula-based video game Web site in a merger of two Internet firms that have caught their second wind after surviving the dot-com downturn
SMSing trouble
Reliance Infocomm sent out a press release stating that students could now get their marks for the SSC board exams through an SMS. Great, but...
Now, Punjabis storm Canadian Parliament
Trust Punjabis to be in the thick of political action. And not just the usual Badals and Amarinders


New Harry Potter title revealed
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince will be sixth of popular series, agent confirms

June 28, 2004

Wrigley gets ready to expand its Orbit in India
Close on the heels of its take-over of Joyco’s operations in India as part of its global acquisition of the Spanish Joyco Group, the confectionery major is believed to be setting the pace for its first launch in the country: a sugar-free chewing gum brand

June 26, 2004

Secret lives
12 days ago, four people were killed on an Ahmedabad highway for allegedly planning to assassinate Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Two were reportedly Pakistanis. Two were people we could meet everyday. Piecing together the stories of Ishrat Jahan and Javed Shaikh
A day in the life of Mid Day
Tariq Ansari, Managing Director, Mid Day Multimedia, describes a day in the life of one of my favourite newspapers

June 24, 2004

Miramax lands teen Bond books
UK-based writer Charlie Higson will write five books that will introduce readers to the teenage version of the boy who will grow up to become 'Bond, James Bond.'
So, do you take a girl out for coffee in Pak?
When eight youngsters from either side of the LoC talk about the challenges confronting each one, the single-most profound question that stands out: Do you take a girl out for coffee back home?

June 23, 2004

The condensed Bill Clinton



Slate reads My Life so you don't have to
(PS: Hurry and read it now, as it could move to the paid content section soon)

UPDATE: It has moved to the Archives!
Headliner
Computer makers sweat over cooling
(www.iht.com)

June 22, 2004

Teens rely more on TV than Internet for news
Although teens typically spend an hour online every day, only about 9 percent of teenagers say they get their information about current events from the Internet, according to a national survey to be released in the US.
Webcast brings families together
There were tears of joy on both sides of the Line of Control in Kashmir as the BBC brought together families divided by conflict.
Owning the desktop... or the RSS reader
The Times of India is working on a custom RSS reader.
Power trip: Boss as the bully
Every working adult has known one - a boss who loves making subordinates squirm, whose moods radiate through the office, sending workers scurrying for cover, whose very voice causes stomach muscles to clench and pulses to quicken.
Fender Bender
Leo Fender, the father of the electric guitar, had many children -- figuratively speaking. For decades now, guitar makers have been using his designs over and over, sharing his legacy.

June 21, 2004

Zee TV President Sunil Khanna quits
The word is that he has submitted his papers to Subhash Chandra, and is awaiting his release
New York splits over sexy cover
The magazine attempts to strut its stuff in this week's issue with a split press run that yields two covers — but you have to be a subscriber to get the cover with a woman in her birthday suit strolling up Park Avenue
Headliner
Where Chess Is King and the People Are the Pawns
(www.nytimes.com)

June 20, 2004

MSN plans it real hot, hot, hot(mail)!
'We are going to respond in a big way and will eliminate email storage as an issue for our users.'

June 19, 2004

Kaizad Gustad on wanted list of British police
Charged by the Mumbai police with culpable homicide for allegedly causing the death of assistant director Nadia Khan, 26, a British citizen, he is also wanted by the British police for threatening a former London friend and harassing his family with a baseball bat.

June 17, 2004

Intel's Tablet PC Centrino Surfboard
Intel has gone and taken the ur-joke of the internet and made it reality by incorporating a tablet PC into a surfboard, allowing pro surfer Duncan Scott to literally, yes, surf the web.
It all depends on Larry King
An embarrassing photograph of Larry King's garbage has been pulled from an art exhibit because it shows a box of Depend adult diapers among the detritus.
The diapers in the 70-year-old CNN talkmeister's trash set tongues wagging Tuesday night at four-star eatery Le Bernardin, where French photographers Pascal Rostain and Bruno Mouron previewed their exhibit Star Trash for which they shot the rubbish collected from the curbs of King, Jack Nicholson, Tom Hanks, Cindy Crawford, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Madonna, Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Melanie Griffith and other boldfaced names.
Rostain, who removed the King photo from his show yesterday, told PAGE SIX that the inclusion of the Depend box image was not an attempt to embarrass the bespectacled broadcaster. He said, "We didn't know that this product was for old people — we thought it was for babies.
"We were not trying to make a scandal. [At the party] some people were laughing. We said, 'Oh, [bleep]. And so now the picture will not be in the show."
-- New York Post

The litigious yogi



Bikram Choudhury
is trying to do to yoga what McDonald's did to food.


USA Today cracks down on use of anonymous sources
Less than two months after taking over in the wake of the Jack Kelley scandal, Editor Ken Paulson has made several changes aimed at improving the paper's credibility and public image.
Design a turban contest
New York Press' Page Two is soliciting ideas from readers.
Yahoo chokes upon offering additional user storage
Since Yahoo users' free e-mail accounts were boosted from 4MB of e-mail storage to 100MB, the vastly popular e-mail service has been sluggish if working at all; Yahoo says it is investigating the problems.
The artist formerly known as Madonna
The 45-year-old pop singer has changed her name to Esther, reports People magazine.
Rediff.com does a Gmail!
Rediff.com India Ltd has increased the e-mail space provided on its portal for free users to one GB from five MB and that of its premium users to two GB from 10 MB, even as the company hiked the single outgoing and incoming e-mail message size to 10 MB. The rediff.com offer becomes effective from 8 pm (IST) June 17.

June 16, 2004

Deepa Mehta shoots in Colombo with John, Lisa
The troubled project River Moon is finally being shot with an all-new and rather surprising cast.
Kids' Art@The Worldwide Art Gallery
Submit your art for display in The Worldwide Kids' Art Gallery.
14 killed as Matsyagandha derails
Konkan Railway update.
Blogs with flavor
Cooks can create and commiserate on the Web.
Fiber glass body rickshaw


It weighs less then 60 kg and can carry two passengers plus the driver very comfortably.

Harvard man loses 3,000 weblogs
Eccentric software developer Dave Winer has removed access to 3,000 weblogs hosted by the company he founded Userland at weblogs.com, without giving any notice.
IT manager fired for lunchtime Web surfing
It was five years ago... The moral of today's blast from the past is this: if you do have a couple of spare minutes at work between fielding phone and mobile calls, answering SMSes or responding to the 10,000 or so emails each and every one of us receives every day, then don't spend them surfing the Net.
All the PM's men
Dr Manmohan Singh, like his predecessors, will rely a great deal on the Prime Minister's Office.
2 million bank accounts robbed
Criminals taking advantage of online banking, Gartner says.
It's not all bad news for Kaizad Gustad
The film director accepted undisclosed compensation over a novel about a drug-smuggling film-maker called Faizad Gerstad who is implicated in murder.

June 15, 2004

Yahoo! storage goes negative
The announcement that it was increasing storage limits for its email service should have been good news all round. But some users got a rather strange email when they logged in.
STAR gets Hungama TV
Plans for STAR Kidz dropped.
Tots tackling baby fat on yoga mats
Lucy Brown somersaults backward down a ramp, leaps over a mat, rolls across a platform, jumps a series of hoops, squats into a yoga pose and hops over a row of cones. And all with her diaper intact.

June 14, 2004

Foreign students outsource homework to India
You'll never hear the last on outsourcing. The latest is that foreign students are getting into the act, paying money to Third World citizens to do their school and college assignments.
The father of 'www' finally gets his due
If Tim Berners-Lee had decided to patent his idea in 1989, the Internet would be a different place.

June 13, 2004

And the crown goes to Sourav Ganguly
The beloved beauty of Calcutta (not Kolkata) remains Aparna Sen.
India decides on envoys to key capitals
Some of the best diplomats, including Ronen Sen and Kanwal Sibal who have retired from service, are being posted as envoys to key capitals like New York, London and Moscow.
Karan Johar to host celebrity talk show on Star
Koffee With Karan may be on air by October and will be the second celebrity talk show hosted by a Bollywood personality on the channel. The other one is the immensely successful Rendezvous hosted by Simi Garewal.
Radio commentator Jasdev Singh soldiers on
At 72, when most people are well into retirement, he maintains he has many more years to go.

June 11, 2004

Pondering why Dave can't catch Jay
Reasons go beyond Letterman's quirky humor.
Headliner
US candy makers slim down their treats
(MSNBC.com)

June 10, 2004

More than 50 newspapers to carry 'new' Life
The New York Daily News and papers owned by Tribune Co, Knight Ridder and McClatchy will carry Time Inc's reincarnated magazine every Friday beginning October.

June 09, 2004

Jelly bean tribute to Reagan
In a strange mixture of marketing and mourning, a candy company that once fed his habit will honor the late President by draping black ribbons on its portraits of the leader.
Tampa Trib apologizes for running wrong editorial
Readers were surprised to read about the Tampa Bay Lightning's loss, when in fact the team won the National Hockey League's Stanley Cup.
Where were world's obituary writers when Reagan died?
Many were at the Sixth Great Obituary Writers' International Conference 2004 in New Mexico. And when they heard of the former US President's death, they all rushed to the phone. One pay phone.

June 08, 2004

Zulu's Indian music obsession
South African Patrick Ngcobo has proved that ethnicity and language are no barriers when it comes to learning about music far from home.
Bobby Jindal asks prayers for son
The Republican Congressional candidate in the 1st District asked supporters last week to pray for his month-old son Shaan who has been diagnosed with a congenital heart defect. In an e-mail message, Jindal said doctors expect the boy to be able to live a normal life but that in the next few weeks he is likely to need medication and surgery. A campaign official said the situation is not expected to affect Jindal's run for the House seat being vacated by Representative David Vitter, R-Metairie, who is running for the US Senate.

Courtesy: The Times-Picayune
Indian gravy train rolls to the West
Move over Veeraswamy, Indian cuisine is not just hot, but haute.
Yahoo tests new home page
While the redesign appears to be a preliminary test, the mock-ups show minor layout changes rather than a drastic overhaul of the home page, according to a screen shot viewed by CNET News.com.
PS: BetaNews has turned six and has also gone in for a new look.
Beatles online
It may be some time before Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Let it Be are sold on Apple Computer's iTunes or on Napster.
And, the number one reason to read books is...
In a bid to lure men in Britain away from television soccer games and into book shops, publisher Penguin Books will send out a sexy model to offer 1,000-pound ($1,837) prizes to males spotted reading a selected title.

June 07, 2004

Call it the Dead E-Mail Office
If you've been waiting for internet legal visionary
Lawrence Lessig to reply to your e-mail, forget about it.
Former Baywatch star held
David Hasselhoff was arrested in California on suspicion of driving while intoxicated.
World Media Group invests $10m in animation project
ANI 21, a Korea-based company, will outsource for $8 million animation production to Indian companies — Toonz Animation and CG Studio.
8 days ago, they killed an Indian in Saudi Arabia...
Charles Kiaps' family is still to come to terms with his death after they were told he was among the eight Indians killed in an Al Qaida attack.


Let your mobile cook your dinner
A personal mobile acting as a remote to turn on your home AC just as you leave office for home or to switch on your microwave or any electrical device — all for Rs 500.
You can soon shop for spiritual fabric
in this car with an umbrella

Very soon, your shopping list may read like this: a car umbrella to cool your parked vehicle, shirts made of soothing 'spiritual' fabric, foldable eco-friendly paper mugs and even a device that rotates rotis automatically.

June 06, 2004

Welcome to America
When writer Elena Lappin flew to LA, she dreamed of a sunkissed, laid-back city. But that was before airport officials decided to detain her as a threat to security...
Meet the Singhsons
From Badmash, the weekly South Asian comic strip.
Missing reporter stirs trouble on three continents
Guy-Andre Kieffer is stirring up trouble again. A journalist with a nose for news that powerful people prefer buried, he is troubling three governments, a multi-million- pound industry and a nation on the cusp of war.
Censors relax video ban on adult scenes
After 39 years of independence, Singaporean society has at last reached adulthood.
Could Google News be sued?
The way it selects photos and matches them with stories could land it into trouble some day.
101 ways to improve your news site
Do at least one thing on this list.

June 05, 2004

When the International Herald Tribune stumped India...
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting was caught unawares. Only when newspapers started reporting this fact did they wake up to the issue.
PS: Its editor? M J Akbar.


June 04, 2004

Journalism school shows bad judgment with workshop
The school can spend the rest of eternity arguing that students weren't assigned to do anything wrong, that they were instead assigned to find ingenious ways of getting around the tasks. But look at what happened: A student broke the law because of a class assignment. There's no way to get around that!
An icon, and then he's gone
The emblem of the 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests is a man facing down tanks. His identity and fate are a mystery.

June 03, 2004

Death insurance
The FBI charged a wealthy Manhattan restaurateur with plotting to hire a hit man to kill his fiancée in India so he could collect $1 million in life insurance money.
Also read: Who killed Leona Swiderski?
Hotmail incinerates customer files
Alexandria Felton logged in to her account last month and was shocked to find all her saved files were gone.
Tanks for the Memories
America hasn’t been the same since Bob Hope died, and now, when it needs him most, at war around the world, who will challenge the pompous and self-righteous? Grady Miller imagines what the great one-liner might say to its troops.
Dream headline (and intro)
Wah, Gustad!
Boom director changes tracks on assistant's death, takes road to perdition.
Inmates' medical tab nears $1 billion
Lawmakers are questioning the use of tax dollars for procedures such as a male inmate's breast reduction surgery and skin treatments at a Beverly Hills dermatologist.
Disney to launch three Indian TV channels
The US media giant plans to launch the channels in 12 months and is in talks with a local partner, a German newspaper reported.

June 01, 2004

Chicken a la The King
Long before cooking at Google, I worked in the kitchen of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel with a Southern gent named Robert Brown. Story was that at one time in his life, Mr. Brown had cooked for Elvis Presley. Mr Brown never gave us the details, but he did let us know that the King loved his fried chicken and biscuits.
(From the official Google blog)
Indian MP 'victimised' in House of Commons
Piara Khabra, 79, was evicted from his seat behind Prime Minister Tony Blair to make way for two women members of Parliament after they complained they were not seen enough on television.
The last time I took a date to a dhaba
In India there is every kind of restaurant. But none beats the dhaba experience.
Saint, peace seeker, hero by turns
Neither mud nor dung slows the Rolling Baba on his journey toward eternal bliss.
The lying game
An A-Z of the Iraq war and its aftermath, focusing on misrepresentation, manipulation, and mistakes.