Mumbai, Feb 22 (IANS)

Saif was arrested after he was brought by Mumbai police to the Colaba Police station for interrogation in the case.

A battery of top police officers were waiting for the actor, besides the media and scores of fans outside the police station.

In the afternoon, police sent a team to Saif’s house and after failing to locate him there, had ordered him to appear before it as early as possible.

Saif was virtually declared ‘wanted’ for assaulting South African NRI businessman Iqbal Sharma, who is also the director general and CEO of the Trade, Industry & Investments of South Africa.

The actor has been charged under various sections of the Indian Penal Code for allegedly assaulting Sharma in the Taj Mahal Hotel around 1 a.m. Wednesday morning. Police said a case of assault had been registered at the Colaba police station.

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Mumbai, Feb 22 (IANS)

“A team of officers has gone to Saif’s residence for further investigations and the further course will be decided later,” Assistant Commissioner of Police Iqbal Shaikh of the Colaba region, which lodged the complaint, told IANS.

The incident occurred shortly after midnight Tuesday when Saif, along with his girlfriend Kareena Kapoor and some other friends, was sitting in the Wasabi Restaurant at the Taj Mahal Hotel.

Disturbed by their ruckus, the patron, Iqbal Sharma requested them to keep their voices down.

Apparently enraged by this, Saif allegedly punched Sharma on the face, reportedly breaking his nose.

Later, Sharma went to the Colaba police station and lodged a complaint against Saif.

Saif has been booked under, among others, Section 325 of the Indian Penal Code (assault), but Shaikh declined to specify whether he would be arrested, saying: “Investigations are in progress.”

NEW DELHI (Reuters)

The regulator has asked other carriers to accommodate Kingfisher’s passengers, the source said, as the airline stands on the brink of collapse after nearly a week of flight cancellations and the resignation of dozens of its pilots.

According to The Hindustan Times, Abhishek says that, “we’ve got a name, and I’ll announce it very soon, but in terms of releasing a photograph you know I… if people see her in everyday life that’s fine by me, but I just think releasing the photograph is a very pompous thing to do.” Abhishek, who was the guest speaker at a forum added that their family does not believe in any ceremony in terms of ‘namkaran.’ Read more

The buzz doing rounds however is that the family is waiting for Amitabh Bachchan to get back from the hospital to make it official. Beti B visits grandpa in hospital

As soon as the baby was born, Abhishek tweeted that they are looking for a name for the baby. Anything that starts with the alphabet ‘A’ would be welcome, he had said.  There were a couple of names which started with ‘A’ that kept popping up every time there was something written about the baby – Aaliya being one of them.

New Delhi/Mumbai, Feb 20 (IANS)

‘Government is not going to give any bailout or ask the banks to bailout any private airline or any private industry for that matter,’ Civil aviation minister Ajit Singh told reporters here.

According to Singh, the the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is looking into the matter and is awaiting a reply from the airline.

‘DGCA is inquiring into the matter. Our first concern is about the ongoing flights and that passenger safety should not be compromised. Let us see what reply they (Kingfisher Airlines) give,’ Singh said.

Singh blamed the crisis on the airline management for not paying its employees as a reason behind Saturday’s strike in Kolkata.

‘They did not give salary to their employees for many months, people went on strike in Kolkata. Naturally, the flights got cancelled,’ Singh said.

On Sunday the regulator ordered an inquiry into the large-scale cancellations.

‘We have called for the cancellation data from all over the country. They did not inform us of any cancellation plans,’ DGCA director general E.K. Bharat Bhusan told IANS.

The protest was provoked by the Indian Foreign Ministry’s orders to make visa verifications stricter for Ukrainian, Russian, Kazakh and Kyrgyzstani women aged between 18 and 40 years. More than a lakh tourists from the Soviet region are estimated to visit India every year, and many of them are alleged to perpetrate sex tourism and prostitution.

FEMEN’s topless protests have been chiefly protesting the chastity of Ukrainian women who are being internationally abused a lot, and directed against sexist issues. Starting Ukraine, they have toured almost the whole of Europe, including the Holy See of Vatican. These photos take you through some of their topless demonstrations, and enlighten on their vision and motives.

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Solapur (Maharashtra), Feb 20 (IANS)

According to police official N. N. Dede of Mangalwedha sub-district police station, the blaze engulfed the premises of Sagar Fireworks in Bhalwani village around 5 p.m.

Fire brigade and police rushed to the factory even as local villagers pitched in to fight the blaze which was spreading to nearby sheds, Dede said.

‘We have reports of at least four women having succumbed in the fire and villagers said another 40 workers are still trapped inside the factory. We are trying to search and rescue them,’ Dede told IANS.

The officials managed to rescue eight workers who sustained severe burn injuries and have been rushed to nearby hospitals. The cause of the fire is not clear yet.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)

They are the latest in a long line of missteps by large Internet companies that have faced little punishment for pushing privacy boundaries, which are already more expansive than most consumers understand.

Despite all the chatter about online privacy and the regular introductions of proposed data protection laws in Congress, Silicon Valley is in the midst of a veritable arms race of personal data collection that is intensifying.

Many innovative companies, most prominently Facebook, base virtually all of their services on the ability to personalize, which requires them to know their users well. Their business models likewise depend to an increasing degree on the ability to target a banner advertisement or other marketing pitch to an individual. Millions of times each day, the right to advertise to a specific user is auctioned off in a fraction of a second by computers talking to one another.

For both the buyers and the sellers of the advertising, the business advantage goes to the participant with the most knowledge, and that race is driving companies like Google to learn as much about its users as Facebook does.

Video – Is Google tracking you: click http://r.reuters.com/tat66s

Few U.S. laws prevent those companies and others from collecting all manner of information – ranging from credit cards numbers and real names and addresses to buying patterns and Web surfing habits – then selling the data to advertisers and other third parties.

“Companies are feeling along in the dark, trying to figure out how to serve consumers with cool new toys and while protecting consumer interests,” said Jim Harper, a privacy policy specialist at the libertarian Cato Institute. “More often than not, they fall in love with their cool new toys and forget the privacy interests.”

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New Delhi, Feb 19 (IANS)

Czech Pakistani model Nargis, who was introduced to Bollywood by director Imtiaz Ali as Ranbir Kapoor’s love interest in the hit movie “Rockstar”, walked the ramp at the final day of Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week (WIFW) Sunday as the showstopper for designer Sakshee Pradhan. She wore shimmery trousers with a long flowy asymmetrical top.

After the show when Nargis came out for the press conference, she was heard saying: “It freaks me out to see so many people in front of me.”

Walking the ramp as a showstopper is a completely different experience, Nargis told IANS, adding that “it is a very different experience.”

“Words cannot describe what you feel when you get on to the runway and you transform to something else. With this outfit, I feel like a glamorous diva,” she added.

Pradhan’s collection was urban and chic and included outfits like gowns, shorts, shimmery trousers, tunics in nude colours.

The models symbolised urban and free-spirited women when they walked the ramp in her creation along with headphones and spectacles.