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Looks like Asus is on a roll as far as its Zenfone launches are concerned. According to company CEO, Jerry Shen, Asus plans to launch the Zenfone Zoom and Zenfone Max at the upcoming IFA technology show in Berlin.

Asus Zenfone Zoom comes with a 3x optical zoom. Zenfone Zoom will sport a 5.5-inch full HD display and come fuelled by a 3,000mAh battery. On the connectivity front, it supports 2G/3G/LTE 4G along with 802.11 ac, Wi-Fi Direct and Bluetooth 4.0. It will also come with ZenUI built on top of Android 5.0 Lollipop. Whereas the Zenfone Max comes with a 5,000mAh battery.

According to Digitimes, the company also plans to launch around 6 to 7 Zenfone models in 2016 with a standard 5.5-inch display size. Shen said that Asus plans to launch one premium Zenfone Deluxe, two models of the Zenfone Laser, one Zenfone Selfie, one Zenfone Max and one or two Zenfone Go models.

Asus uses chipsets from companies such as Intel, Qualcomm and MediaTek. But according to Digitimes, China-based Spreadtrum Communications and HiSilicon Technologies have also approached Asus for CPU orders. The company expects to ship over 21 million smartphones in 2015 and 30-40 million in 2016, said Shen.

Asus had recently launched the Zenfone Deluxe, Zenfone 2 Laser and the Zenfone Selfie in the maiden Asus Zen Festival in India. Asus Chairman Johnney Shih had announced all these phones and had also given is a sneek peak into the Asus Zenfone Max, the 5,000mAh battery sporting phone.
 

Bangkok: Thai police on Monday said they had found bomb-making materials over the weekend in a second apartment following the arrest of a suspect over the Bangkok shrine bombing that left 20 people dead.

"We found fertiliser bags, watches, radio controls — parts to make bombs and electric charges," national police spokesman Prawut Thavornsiri told AFP on Monday.

He said the items were found during a raid on an apartment in the northeastern suburb of Minburi over the weekend. He did not detail when the raid took place.

Media accompanied police during a search of multiple flats in Minburi on Sunday but no items were shown to the press or announcement made of any evidence discovery.

The area is near to where an unidentified foreigner was arrested on Saturday, allegedly in possession of bomb-making paraphernalia including detonators and ball-bearings as well as dozens of fake passports.

Police believe the suspect was part of a crime group who helped illegal migrants obtain counterfeit documents — and that the bomb attack on the shrine was retaliation for a recent crackdown by Thai authorities.

The blast that hit the Erawan shrine in a busy Bangkok shopping district on August 17 was Thailand's worst single mass-casualty attack, killing 20 people — most of them ethnic Chinese tourists from across Asia.

Thai authorities have played down any suggestion the attack was launched by international terrorists or specifically targeted Chinese tourists.

Instagram has added new layout options in addition to its signature square for pictures and videos in a bid to attract more advertisers and to stop users defecting to more flexible services such as Snapchat.

The move is the first major alteration to the photo-sharing, social media service since Facebook Inc bought it for $1 billion in 2012, and addresses the wishes of many of its 300 million users, who have been constrained by the square format.

“It boils down to giving advertisers and users more options,” said Debra Aho Williamson, a social media marketing and advertising analyst. “You want people to be able to see more of your ad. It’s something advertisers are definitely going to be interested in.”

One in five photos and videos posted on the service do not fit the square format, Instagram said in a blog post. “Friends get cut out of group shots, the subject of your video feels cramped and you can’t capture the Golden Gate Bridge from end to end,” it said.

From Thursday, Instagram’s web-based service and its mobile apps running on Google Inc’s Android system and Apple Inc’s iOS will allow portrait and landscape formats, giving both users and paying advertisers more options.

The move should help Instagram in its battle with newer rivals such as Snapchat for users in the fast-moving messaging and media-sharing market.

At the same time, it should attract more advertising revenue for Instagram, which said in June it would open its platform to all advertisers by the end of the year, rather than just to select brands.

Instagram is expected to generate nearly $600 million in advertising revenue by the end of this year and $2.8 billion in 2017, according to projections from research firm eMarketer.

By comparison Facebook, the world’s most popular online social network, generated more than $12 billion in revenue in 2014. The growing service hit one billion users in a single day for the first time on Monday.

To promote the new formats on Thursday, Walt Disney Co released exclusive footage of its upcoming film, “Star Wars, The Force Awakens,” using the new landscape option.

Taylor Swift won video of the year, Miley Cyrus briefly flashed one of her breasts and Kanye West ranted at the MTV Video Music Awards.

After Swift won the top prize for "Bad Blood," Cyrus was backstage speaking and hiding behind a curtain, but one of her breasts appeared onscreen before the camera cut away. MTV said the clip will be removed from all future broadcasts.

Cyrus closed the show at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles with a performance, which started with the line: "Yeah, I smoke pot."

She's not the only one: West, who said he got high before going onstage on Sunday, gave a rambling speech as he apologized to Taylor Swift for taking her microphone in 2009, admitting "I don't understand awards shows," bashing MTV, and claiming he would run for president in 2020.

Swift presented West with the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award on Sunday night at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.

"This arena tomorrow is gonna be a completely different setup, this stage will be gone. After that night, the stage was gone, but the affect that it had on people remained," West said of running onstage during Swift's speech at the 2009 VMAs. "The problem was the contradiction. The contradiction is I do fight for artists, but in that fight I somehow was disrespectful to artists. I didn't know how to say the right thing, the perfect thing."

It was just one of the dramatic moments at the awards show. Nicki Minaj called Miley Cyrus out at the MTV Video Music Awards after the 22-year-old said in an interview that the rapper was being a poor sport about not receiving a nomination for video of the year.

After collecting best hip-hop video for "Anaconda" on Sunday, Minaj told the audience: "And now back to this b---- that had a lot to say about me a lot in the press. Miley, what's good?"

Minaj's microphone was cut off, and Cyrus fired back with "we all know how they manipulate" words during interviews, referencing a pre-VMAs interview in the New York Times. Cyrus then stumbled over her words as she tried to read from cue cards about voting for the artist to watch award.

"I lost this award in 2008 and I was fine with it. Whatever! Because it's no big deal. It's just an award and I persevered," she yelled, appearing to look over at Minaj. She ended with: "Congratulations Nicki."

Justin Bieber returned to the big stage with slick dance moves to his hit "Where Are U Now" and new single, "What Do You Mean." He was emotional by the end of the performance and cried onstage.

Tori Kelly was a vocal powerhouse during her performance of "Should've Been Us," ending in a cappella to a rousing applause. The Weeknd's smoky performance of "Can't Feel My Face" was energetic and smooth, and even West, Swift and Selena Gomez got out of the chairs to dance to the upbeat track. And Demi Lovato brought a sexy vibe when she sang her anthemic "Cool for the Summer" outdoors with background dancers wearing bright colors that added to the song's summer-feel.

Cyrus hosted the VMAs two years after she stole the show with a risque, but memorable performance with Robin Thicke, and a year after winning the top prize for "Wrecking Ball." She took a selfie with people in the audience and asked them to yell: "Marijuana." "Ellen, you ain't got nothing on this," she said.

Cyrus announced at the end of the show that her new album is available online for free.

Here is a list of the winners of Sunday night's 2015 MTV Music Video Awards in Los Angeles:


Video of the Year: Taylor Swift featuring Kendrick Lamar, "Bad Blood."

Male Video: Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars, "Uptown Funk."

Female Video: Taylor Swift, "Blank Space."

Hip-hop Video: Nicki Minaj, "Anaconda."

Pop Video: Taylor Swift, "Blank Space."

Rock Video: Fall Out Boy, "Uma Thurman."

Artist to Watch: Fetty Wap, "Trap Queen."

Collaboration: Taylor Swift ft. Kendrick Lamar - "Bad Blood"

Video With a Social Message: Big Sean featuring Kanye West and John
Legend, "One Man Can Change the World."

Art Direction: Snoop Dogg - "So Many Pros" (Jason Fijal)

Choreography: OK Go - "I Won't Let You Down" (OK Go, air:man and Mori
Harano)

Cinematography: Flying Lotus ft. Kendrick Lamar - "Never Catch Me" (Larkin
Sieple)

Direction: Kendrick Lamar - "Alright" (Colin Tilley & The Little Homies)

Editing: Beyoncé - "7/11" (Beyoncé, Ed Burke, Jonathan Wing)

Visual Effects: Skrillex & Diplo - "Where Are U Now" with Justin Bieber
(Brewer)

Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award: Kanye West.

Lenovo Vibe P1, the Chinese company’s upcoming high capacity battery phone, is expected to be unveiled at IFA at Berlin next month. The USP of the upcoming Lenovo Vibe P1 is the presence of a 5,000mAh battery. According to Gforgames,  images of the Lenovo Vibe P1 were released by ‘EDGE Network’ on China’s Weibo platform.

In terms of specifications, the Lenovo Vibe P1 will come with a 5.5-inch full HD display, a finger-print scanner, a 13MP rear camera and a 5MP front-facing camera.



It is expected to be powered by a 5,000mAh battery. With a 1.5GHz octa-core processor (most likely the Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 chipset) paired with 3GB of RAM, the phone is expected to have 16GB of on-board storage with option to expand the storage.

The phone will come with Android 5.1.1 Lollipop and one should expect the Vibe UI v2.8 on it. The leaked images also show presence of an NFC chip, dual LED flash unit, microUSB connector surrounded by speaker grilles, removable top cover to add on the dual SIM cards and microSD card and so on.

While the price details aren’t yet known, according to Gforgames, the street price is expected to be around $310 (approx Rs 20,500).

The singer won the show at the grand finale episode aired tonight. Read on to know more!



The Voice India saw it’s grand finale today.Starring judges Sunidhi Chauhan, Mika Singh, Himmesh Reshammiya and Shaan, the show’s concept is based on the American series of the same name. Today’s grand finale episode was probably the most stretched and unnecessarily lengthy one, I have seen on Television. Filled with boring performances and unwanted drama, The Voice India’s finale was disappointing and hardly entertaining. The episode saw singing acts by all our judges along with some other singers from he industry. The finalists too were seen crooning on stage and in my opinion, their act was far better than those displayed by Shaan, Sunidhi, Mika and Himmesh.

I don’t understand why all the singers were made to dance on-stage. It’s a singing show, so please makers, stick to that! The only interesting part about tonight’s episode was Kapil Sharma’s special appearance. The popular comedian thankfully brought in some laughter, as he promoted his upcoming film Kis Kisko Pyaar Karoon on the show.

The two and a half hour long finale finally ended on a happy note where contestant Pawandeep Rajan was declared as the winner! The singer who was from Shaan’s team, took home the coveted trophy. Congrats Pawandeep!

‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’ and ‘Phantom’ director Kabir Khan was ecstatic with the gift he received from his producer, actor friend Salman Khan. He said he received the ‘best gift’ from Salman.

Salman Khan presented Kabir his famous black-and-white portrait of a man and woman. The woman is seen sporting a red bindi. The couple in the portrait look much in love. It was Salman’s creation which he titled ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’.

The ‘Phantom’ director posted its photograph on Twitter with the caption: “Just got the best gift… From my producer, my actor, my friend.”











Kabir is also happy to see two of his films running in theatres at the same time. He wrote: “I really wonder if I will ever see this in my career again… Two of my films running at the theatres at the same time.”

Even after a month of it’s release, ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’ continues it’s magic at the box-office. Bajrangi Bhaijaan, which also co-stars Kareena Kapoor Khan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Harshaali Malhotra, released on July 17, 2015.

Phantom, which stars Saif Ali Khan and Katrina Kaif, released on August 28, 2015.

Phantom was rock-steady on its 3rd day at the box office, as occupancy level for the morning and noon shows on Sunday was higher than Saturday. The film is performing very well at multiplexes in major cities.

Phantom is set for a good weekend total of around 35 crore net, but Monday will be crucial for the Kabir Khan directed film. The word-of-mouth is positive, so there are expectations that business will hold to respectable numbers on Monday too.

The timing of release is what has worked big time for ‘Phantom’, because the Kabir Khan factor after ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’ has helped the film get a reasonably good opening.

Still, Phantom is a costly film, so it has a long way to go before it can remove costs. It has to collect around 80-85 crore to break even.

Phantom Box office Collections

    Friday – 8.46 crore
    Saturday – 12.78 crore
    Total in 2 days – 21.24 crore

New Delhi - After increasing data tariffs for pre-paid customers in Delhi, Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular have now hiked charges for their post-paid users by around 20 percent in various circles including the national capital.

A couple of months back, the top three operators -- Airtel, Idea and Vodafone -- had raised pre-paid data tariffs for 2G and 3G services in Delhi by up to 47 percent.

However, there has been no hike in data charges by Vodafone in the post-paid category in Delhi or any other circles.

According to the information available on companies' website, Airtel has raised data tariffs in Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, UP East and UP West circles; while Idea Cellular has hiked charges in Delhi, Punjab and UP West.

Post-paid customers of the two operators in the above-mentioned circles will now have to pay Rs 300 for 1GB 3G data, against Rs 250 earlier for the same amount of data usage.

Vodafone continues to offer 1GB 3G data for Rs 250 in Delhi circle.

An Airtel spokesperson though told PTI that the increase is only for new post-paid customers and effected about two months ago. Queries in this regard sent to Idea Cellular remained unanswered.

Operators generally don't make public announcement about increase in tariffs and put all information in this regard on their websites. They generally inform their post-paid customers through SMS about change in rates of services before their next billing cycle starts.

Pre-paid customers, which constitute over 90 percent of market, get to know about the rates revision when they go to recharge their mobile phones or through companies website.

Telecom operators are required to report change in tariffs to sectoral regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

The increase in pre-paid tariffs in June came in the aftermath of March spectrum auction wherein telcos had paid around Rs 1.1 lakh crore to acquire airwaves.

Idea was the first telecom operator that increased data tariffs, followed by Airtel and Vodafone.

In a bid to improve profitability, telcos have been cutting back on discounts and freebies. Last year, firms including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea had increased data as well as call tariffs.

For investors worried about the health of emerging economies, India's gross domestic product data for April-June should supply some cheer on Monday - the country is expected to remain the fastest growing major economy for a second straight quarter.

The median estimate from a Reuters poll of economists put GDP annual growth at 7.4 percent in the quarter, just below 7.5 percent in January-March.

If the number is that high, it will be a boost for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose image as the country's economic saviour has taken a beating after his struggle to pass his legislative agenda.

But doubts persist over India's new way of calculating GDP, introduced early this year, even though the method gained an endorsement from the World Bank's chief economist. With the changed method, India's growth topped that of China in the first quarter this year.

Still, India's robust headline growth does not square with the not-so-rosy ground reality.

"Growth momentum has improved in the last two years," said Kaushik Das, an economist with Deutsche Bank. "But the pace of recovery has been frustratingly slow."

Monday's data is expected to fuel hopes in New Delhi of taking the baton of global growth as China's economic slowdown deepens.

NEW INVESTMENT COMMITMENTS

However, with an economy only one-fifth the size of China's, India is in no position to support the global economy as its northern neighbour has.

Blessed with a huge domestic market and a large cheap workforce, Asia's third-largest economy has an opportunity to get more investment.

Lured by its prospects, iPhone maker Foxconn this month announced a $5 billion investment in India.

The announcement came days after Sony Corp shipped its first made-in-India television sets, and General Motors unveiled a plan to spend $1 billion to expand its main plant.

"It is India's moment," junior finance minister Jayant Sinha said.

But very few believe it can seize the moment without making land, labour, bank and tax reforms.

Modi swept to power in last year's general election on a promise of speedier growth creating millions of manufacturing jobs.

But just 15 months after that electoral triumph, disenchantment has set in. Businesses are getting restless with slow progress in removing the hurdles that have stymied growth.

PARLIAMENTARY PARALYSIS

Political acrimony, meanwhile, has left parliament paralysed. The last session ended without passage of a single reform legislation.

Shilan Shah, India economist at Capital Economics, described the washout session as a "missed opportunity".

Yet India is on mend. Robust growth in indirect tax receipts points to a nascent revival in manufacturing sector. Foreign direct investments are up 30 percent from a year earlier.

However, the improvement in the economy is in large measure due to a crash in global commodity prices, which has cooled inflation and helped narrow the fiscal and current account deficits.

Sure, urban consumption demand is picking up, but rural consumers remain glum. With capacity utilisation rates showing no signs of improvement, firms are not in a hurry to invest in new plants and machinery.

Festering problem of bad loans, meanwhile, has impeded credit flow and delayed full transmission of interest rate cuts. The Reserve Bank of India has cut the policy repo rate by 75 basis points since January, but banks, in response, have lowered lending rates by just 30 basis points.

"Key structural reforms remain crucial for a sustained pickup in economic growth," analysts at Yes Bank said in a note.

Zurich/London - Spooked by the new black money law, a number of Swiss and other European banks have begun asking Indian clients to disclose their accounts to the tax
authorities back home as they fear being accused of 'abetting' the hoarding of untaxed assets.

These banks, which include those headquartered in Switzerland and London, are asking their customers from India, including those having turned NRIs, to avail the ongoing 'one-time compliance' window provided by the Indian tax authorities for disclosure of undeclared foreign assets.

Besides, these banks are also asking their clients to give fresh undertakings to state that they are 'in compliance' with all the laws in their home countries, executives at some of these large financial institutions said.

Under the new law, a three-month compliance window has been given for disclosure of all undeclared foreign assets till next month, for which they would need to pay 30 percent tax and 30 per cent penalty and escape further action.

After this window, anyone with undisclosed foreign assets would have to pay 30 per cent tax and 90 per cent penalty and they would also be labile for jail term of up to 10 years.
The law also provides for 'punishment for abetment'.

This provision would be applicable to everyone who "abets or induces in any manner another person to make and deliver an account or a statement or declaration relating to tax payable under this Act which is false and which he either knows to be false or does not believe to be true or to commit an offence".

The abettor would be "punishable with rigorous imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than six months but which may extend to seven years and with fine."

Seeking to come clean on illicit funds, the Swiss banks, including Switzerland-based arms of some other European banks, have asked their Indian clients to provide fresh undertakings to ensure that untaxed money is not stashed in their accounts.

Swiss banks, long perceived to be safe havens for parking unaccounted funds, have also started asking for auditor certificates from high net worth individuals and corporate clients to vouch for the "clean status" of their money.

India is aggressively making efforts to bring back illicit money parked by its citizens overseas and Switzerland has also agreed to cooperate on the issue.

Sources said that Swiss banks are asking their Indian customers to provide fresh undertakings that all taxes have been paid on funds deposited by them in these accounts.

Such directives are believed to have been issued to high net worth individuals, wealth management and portfolio management clients, sources said.

Indian authorities are already pursuing cases related to its citizens who had kept unaccounted funds in HSBC's Geneva branch, after receiving a list of names from the French government few years back.

HSBC was asked by the Indian authorities to show cause why action should not be initiated against it in case of non-cooperation with regard to "suspected tax evaders and offenders of tax crimes". The latest on these notices could not be ascertained.

HSBC has come under regulatory cross hairs in multiple jurisdictions including India, following an expose that revealed thousands of entities allegedly parked their illicit funds at its Swiss branch.

To curb the black money menace, a Supreme Court constituted special investigation team is probing various cases while the government would soon be coming out with a stringent that provides for hefty penalties as well as imprisonment for stashing away unaccounted money.

Efforts are already underway in India to bring to book those who were named in the HSBC list and against whom the Indian government has garnered evidence.

Meanwhile, Switzerland is also moving towards automatic exchange of tax information with various jurisdictions, including India.

Indian and Swiss officials have also held high-level deliberations on boosting co-operation with regard to the black money problem.

Colombo: India pacer Ishant Sharma claimed an impressive five-wicket haul, but Sri Lankan bowlers struck back to leave the visitors struggling in their second innings as rain forced early stumps on Day 3 of the third cricket Test at the Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC) here on Sunday.

Ishant returned figures of 5/54, as the hosts were bundled out for 201, in reply to India's first innings total of 312. Stuart Binny (2-24), Amit Mishra (2-25) and Umesh Yadav (1-64) also bowled superbly.

In India's second innings, Rohit Sharma (14 not out) and skipper Virat Kohli (1 not out) remained unbeaten at stumps as the visitors struggled to post a meagre 21/3. The visitors had a vital 132-run second innings lead at the end of the day's play.

With the SSC pitch offering appreciable lateral movement, Indian pacers struck early blows to reduce the hosts to 47/5 at lunch.

Following the break, Ishant continued his rampaging form as he had Lahiru Thirimanne (0) caught at first slip before forcing Dhammika Prasad to retire hurt with a blow on his left hand.

However, a 79-run partnership between Perera and Herath got the hosts back on track and although Perera departed before tea, Herath ensured that Sri Lanka did not stare at a big deficit.

Starting their second innings with a 111-run lead, the visitors were on the backfoot right away when Dhammika Prasad dislodged Cheteshwar Pujara's middle stump with an incoming delivery.

Pujara, who carried his bat through India's first innings, became the only man to follow such a feat with a duck in the same Test.

Lokesh Rahul soon followed Pujara back to the dressing room when he misread another incoming delivery from pacer Nuwan Pradeep. The opener attempted to leave the ball only to see his bails go flying all over.

Pradeep then trapped Ajinkya Rahane leg before as the Lankans clawed their way back into the match.

At the close, Pradeep had figures of 2/6 while Prasad had clinched one wicket for eight runs.

Earlier in the day, resuming the third day's play at 292/8 in the first innings, the Indians managed to add only 20 runs to their overnight score.

Opener Pujara remained unbeaten on 145 as India were bowled out for 312 in 100.1 overs in their first innings.

For the hosts, Prasad (4/100) and Herath (3/84) were the pick of the bowlers.

In reply, the Lankan batsmen looked in poor shape right from the start, losing wickets at regular intervals. The hosts lost their first six wickets for only 47 runs, thus putting their team on the back foot right at the start.

But Kausal Perera (55) and Rangana Herath (49) got together to put on a 80-run stand for the seventh wicket to take the Lankans past the 100-run mark.

With the dismissal of Perera, Herath took on the responsibility to keep the scoreboard ticking and take his team past to the 180-run mark.

But Indian bowlers showed their class to knock down the rest in style.

Alongside Ishant's five-wicket haul, Binny, Mishra and Yadav bowled superbly to wreck the host's batting order.

India batsmen resumed play in the second innings, but to their surprise Lankan bowlers struck in quick succession to bring down the visitors' first three wickets with just seven runs on the board.

Incoming batsmen skipper Kohli and Rohit held on as heavy rains forced early stumps on day 3, giving India a vital 132-run lead in their second innings.

Dr MM Kalburgi (78), renowned Kannada writer, research scholar and rationalist has entered the history books as the first litterateur from Karnataka to be shot dead allegedly for his views on idol worship and Hindu rituals. Though no group or persons have claimed responsibility for shooting Dr Kalburgi at point blank range at his home on Sunday morning, initial reports suggest that right-wing activists might be involved.

People and political leaders in Dharwad, the literary capital of Karnataka that has produced the highest number of Jnanpith awardees in Kannada, are still in a state of shock and disgust. For, this kind of cold-blooded murder targeting litterateurs was unheard of Karnataka till date.

Born in Vijayapura (Bijapur) district in 1938, Dr Kalburgi studied Kannada literature and taught at the Department of Kannada, Karnatak University, Dharwad, one of the oldest universities in Karnataka. He was also the vice-chancellor of the Kannada University, Hampi, Ballari (Bellary) district. He had won several important awards, including those from Central Sahitya Academy, Karnataka Sahitya Academy, Pampa Award, Nadoja Award and Nrupathunga Award.

He had authored over 100 books in Kannada and was a natural orator too. He was considered an authority on Vachana literature (propagated by the 12th Century philosopher and social reformer Basavanna). In fact, Basavanna was opposed to religion, religious practices and Brahminical rituals. Followers of Basavanna are called Lingayats in Karnataka and Dr Kalburgi belonged to the same community. Of late, Dr Kalburgi had developed a penchant for such subjects and they reflected in his public speeches, which led to anger among a section of society.

Last year, the police had filed a case against him for allegedly hurting the sentiments of Hindus after he criticised idol worship quoting a literary work of another celebrated writer and Jnanpith awardee late Dr UR Ananthamurthy. Not to be cowed down by such intimidations, Dr Kalburgi continued his campaign against idol worship and Brahminical rituals.

His home in Dharwad town was targeted by miscreants, who pelted stones and bottles. In another instance, activists disturbed his public speech when he raised the issue of idol worship. For the last eight months, the police had deployed personnel outside his home and they also accompanied him wherever he went, as he faced threats because of his comments. The litterateur had never revealed in public whether he received any threats directly or indirectly.

Only 15 days ago, he requested the police to withdraw the special protection given to him. On Sunday morning, at around 7.40 am, two youths knocked his door and his unsuspecting wife ushered them in. Introducing themselves as students of the professor, they entered his room and shot him twice in his forehead. Before Dr Kalburgi’s wife could come to her senses, the youths had fled on their motorbike.

While the circumstances leading to his death suggest that some rabid elements could be behind the incident, the police have not issued any official statement because they do not have any clues as of now. That a litterateur has been targeted in Karnataka for his sharp criticism of idol worship is something that has bewildered the police.

Dr Kalburgi led a content life with all his children pursuing different professions. There were absolutely no family feuds or property disputes that can provide different motives to the murder.

The police have to start probing the case from the scratch. Another hurdle for the police is that there were no official complaints or incidents involving right wing activists against Dr Kalburgi in the last six months. Establishing a motive for the murder will be a major challenge. The police have to rely on the description of the killers to be provided by Dr Kalburgi’s wife, who is still in shock.

The gruesome killing of Dr Kalburgi has already sparked widespread protests across Karnataka and the police has brought the situation under control. Now, there are calls to observe a bandh in North Karnataka district to condemn the killing.

It's been five days since Indrani Mukerjea was arrested by the Mumbai Police on 25 August and since then, the Sheena Bora murder case has become increasingly convoluted with each revelation.

While television channels, on the night of her arrest, had flashed that Indrani was arrested for allegedly murdering her sister, by the next morning things began to get more complicated when it was reported that Sheena was actually Indrani's daughter and not her sister.

News media and social media alike have been rife with theories behind the murder even as Mumbai Police chose to remain strictly tight-lipped although its Commissioner of Police Rakesh Maria said that they had a clear idea about the motive.

Friends, relatives and acquaintances of the Mukerjea-Bora family have been hounded by reporters, and each of them have provided their own versions of what they thought happened.

Here is a look at how the case, that is still top news across television channels and newspapers, has unfolded over the past few days.

DAY 6, SUNDAY, 30 AUGUST

Sanjeev Khanna, Indrani's driver taken to Raigad forest

Indrani Mukerjea's former husband Sanjeev Khanna and her driver Shyam Rai were today taken to Raigad district to 'recreate' the crime scene in the Sheena Bora murder case by the Mumbai Police, as investigators sought to gather evidence.

Accused Sanjeev Khanna was brought to Khar police station and later taken to the forest in Pen tehsil, along with the driver, the police said.

Police take apart Indrani Mukerjea's new passport claim

The claims of Indrani Mukerjea, wife of Star TV's former CEO Peter Mukerjea, that her daughter Sheena Bora had gone to the US seem to have fallen flat, as the police is probing how Sheena could have travelled abroad if her passport was at Rahul Mukerjea's Dehra Dun house. Police seize a suitcase from residential premises of Indrani and Peter Mukerjea in Mumbai's Worli area.

Indrani's father speaks out

Indrani Mukerjea's father Upendra Kumar Bora on Saturday confirmed to TV channels that Indrani is his daughter and not stepdaughter as being circulated in certain reports.  "Indrani is my daughter," a frail Bora told a TV cameraperson from the window of his house.

Mumbai psychiatrist had been paid off by Indrani to claim son Mikhail was mentally unstable

NDTV reports that a Mumbai psychiatrist was bribed by Indrani Mukerjea to forge a certificate declaring her son Mikhail mentally unstable. According to the police, she had planned to use this certificate if Mikhail had continued with his attempts to find his sister Sheena.

Indrani Mukerjea's birth name was Pari Bora

According to multiple media reports, Indrani Mukerjea's birth name is actually Pari Bora.  The Telegraph quoted her neighbours as saying that Indrani made a trip home to Guwahati in 1990 with two kids in tow — Sheena (2) and Mikhail (1) — and left them with her parents.

DAY 5, SATURDAY, 29 AUGUST

Raigad police admit lapses

The sensational Sheena Bora murder mystery on Saturday produced a new twist with police admitting that no case of murder or accidental death was registered after her human remains were recovered in Pen tehsil of Raigad three years ago.

For the first time, the Raigad police virtually confessed to the casual way in which its personnel treated the case when a burnt body was located in their area on 23 May, 2012, a month after Sheena was believed to have been murdered.

"Neither a crime, nor a report of accidental death was registered when Raigad police sent the recovered skeletal remains to JJ hospital in 2012," Raigad SP Suvez Haque told reporters in Alibaug, the Raigad district headquarters.

"I have been ordered to probe all the wrongs or lapses that were committed," said Haque, who took over as Raigad SP earlier this year. (Read more here.)

Car in which Sheen was strangled traced

Now, television reports suggest that the police have said that the car in which Sheena Bora was murdered has been traced.

NDTV reports that Sheena was murdered inside a hired car.

Mikhail was in Mumbai during Sheena's murder

A report by The Times of India says that Mikhail told the police that a few days before Sheena went missing, Indrani had called him to Mumbai when her husband Peter was abroad.

The reports quotes a senior police officer saying that Mikhail said that he had been called to discuss Sheena's marriage where a sedative was slipped into his drink. The report says that he felt giddy after that and fled when Indrani left to bring Sheena. Mikhail's statement to the police allegedly says that their mother planned to kill them both on the same day, however he managed to escape. (Read more here.)

Villager helped police find burial spot

The Mumbai police team, probing the mysterious Sheena Bora murder, have a lot for which to thank Ganesh Dhene, a village official in Pen tehsil of Raigad district, who assisted them in locating the spot where Sheena was allegedly buried in 2012.

A team of police, forensic experts and villagers had exhumed skeletal remains on Friday after Dhene identified the exact spot where Sheena's body was allegedly dumped in the forests there three years ago.

DAY 4, FRIDAY, 28 AUGUST

Sheena's remains exhumed

The remains of Sheena Bora are being exhumed to find more clues that can help solve the murder case, if reports are to be believed.

According to The Times of India, "In an important breakthrough, the Mumbai Police on Friday morning dug the place where Sheena Bora's body was dumped and recovered some bones, a skull and a suitcase. The police are at the spot and digging for more remains is still on in Pen in Maharashtra's Raigad district."

NDTV reported that JJ Hospital too gave the police 2012 reports on tests run on the last reamains of Sheena.

Rakesh Maria, meanwhile told the media that, "Sheena Bora's skeletal remains were recovered today and will be sent for DNA test tomorrow."

He also said that her passport had been recovered from Dehradun.

Sanjeev Khanna remanded in police custody

Sanjeev Khanna, the former husband of Indrani Mukherjea, was on Friday remanded in Mumbai Police custody till 31 August by the court of Bandra Metropolitan Magistrate.

Maria after interrogation said, "Khanna has admitted to his role in the murder."

Khanna, dressed in an off-white shirt and khaki trousers, was produced in the court amid tight security with his face covered with a white cloth. The order was passed by the court on an application by the police seeking his custody. The police alleged in the court that Khanna had played an active role in the conspiracy and murder of Sheena, and had to be taken to the spot where her body was disposed.

PTI reported, Khanna was arrested under IPC sections 364 (kidnapping), 302 (murder), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) and 120-B (conspiracy).

Mikhail Bora brought to Mumbai

Sheena Bora's brother Mikhail, who arrived in Mumbai from Guwahati, on Friday said he will cooperate with police in the probe of his sister's murder as more details of the murky case and cover-up bid were expected to emerge later in the day.

"I will extend full cooperation to Mumbai Police. I will get justice for her," Mikhail, who arrived in Mumbai that afternoon, told a TV channel on board the flight. He said the Sheena murder case was not the only reason he was going to Mumbai.

"I have some other personal work in Mumbai as well," said Mikhail who was likely to be quizzed by police in connection with the murder case. (Read more here)

Cops reveal details on how Indrani was questioned

Indrani Mukerjea was interrogated by Mumbai Police commissioner Rakesh Maria for over nine hours on Thursday. But the cops at the Khar police station were pretty flummoxed at the disposition of the 'cold and calculated' Indrani. "Indrani has proved to be a tough nut to crack even for a team of experienced interrogators as she has been skilfully answering the questions. She has been curt with her replies and this forced investigators to confront her with questions that emerged from the statement of Peter Mukerjea's younger son, Rahul," a police officer told The Hindustan Times.

According to The Hindustan Times, since the start of the probe, Indrani had maintained a cool composure reiterating that Sheena was her sister who had moved to the US. It was only after she saw her driver that Indrani relented and confessed that Sheena was her daughter from an earlier marriage.

Sources added that Indrani turned out to be quite a struggle even for seasoned interrogators. That's when Maria personally arrived to take over the interrogation. Though the investigators were yet to reach definite conclusions on the motive of the murder, all angles including Indrani's dislike of Sheena's alleged relationship with Rahul and the financial aspect, were being probed.

"While being interrogated about her past relationships, Indrani broke down and spilled the beans. She told the police about her relationships with Siddharth Das and Sanjeev Khanna before marrying Peter Mukerjea. When questioned further, she told us about how her father forced himself on her during her childhood... she later said she gave birth to Sheena when she was 17. It was the result of her physical relationship with her father," a police source told Ashwin Aghor of Catchnews. (Read more).

DAY 3, THURSDAY, 27 AUGUST

Have fair idea behind motive of murder, says Rakesh Maria

In a late night press conference Mumbai Police commissioner Rakesh Maria told the press that Indrani Mukerjea had gotten a third person to forge the signature of Sheena Bora in her resignation letter to the company she worked in and to her landlord.

Maria told the media, "With regard to Sheena Bora's resignation letter, letter to landlord, we have traced the person who gave the signature of Sheena."

Confirming all the theories about how Sheena was murdered Maria said, "Sheena Bora was killed by strangulation in a car. Then, the body was set on fire in a bag."

However he refused to divulge too many details about the motive behind the murder. "We have a fair idea on the motive but we will only be able to comment after questioning the third accused. Investigation is going at a brisk pace."

Sheena had told me she was Indrani's daughter, says Peter Mukerjea

While Peter Mukerjea had earlier told television channels and the police that he was completely unaware that Sheena was Indrani's daughter, he has now told Times Now that Sheena had told him that she was actually Indrani's daughter and not sister.

He told Times Now, "Indrani said it was utter rubbish... Why would I not believe my wife?"

Mukerjea also told the news channel that "Indrani flatly refused that Sheena was her sister. Rahul had also told me the exact same thing, but I chose to believe my wife." Mukerjea told Times Now that Indrani disapproved of Rahul's relationship with Sheena and wanted them to break up. "Indrani felt that Sheena could get herself a better guy."

Sheena's grandfather speaks out

Upendra Kumar Bora, father of Indrani Mukherjea, too disputed his daughter's claim that murdered Sheena Bora was his daughter.

"She is not my daughter. I am her grandfather," 80-year-old Bora, whose name was said to have been given by Indrani as father in the birth certificate of Sheena (who was born in February, 1989) told PTI.

He named Sheena's father as one Siddarth Das.

Asked if there was another person in Shillong who is believed to be the biological father of the murdered girl, Upen Bora told PTI "that needs to be explored".

What Mikhail told the police

In Guwahati, Mumbai policemen questioned Mikhail Bora at his grandparents (Indrani's parents) home in Ganeshpuri area.

While the investigators were tight-lipped, Mikhail said he could be the "next target" after his sister (Sheena) if he visited Mumbai for the murder probe.

"I do not know. I may be the next target of my mother. She is very powerful. She can do anything she wants," he told the media.

"I can go to Mumbai only if the Assam government ensures that two nurses take care of my (ailing) grandparents. They are both in their 80s and suffer from dementia," he said.

Mikhail reiterated that he had repeatedly asked Indrani about Sheena's whereabouts but the former maintained she was in the US.













The driver's statement to the police

The driver Shyam Rai, whose statement led the police to Indrani allegedly in his statement said that the murder was pre-planned and that Sheena was strangled to death by Indrani and her first husband Sanjeev Khanna.

According to CNN-IBN, which had access to the statement by the driver, "Indrani went for a recce on April 23, 2012 along with him in Gagode village near Khopli Pen road in Mumbai where she planned to dump Sheena's body after killing her. Following this, she gave a call to her ex-husband Sanjeev Khanna."

The report suggested that she booked a room in Worli's Hill Top hotel the day after Sanjeev arrived in Mumbai from Kolkata.

CNN-IBN reported that the driver told the police that on 24 April Indrani and Sanjeev picked up Sheena from National College near Linking Road and then strangled her to death and put her body in a bag.

"Later, the bag was allegedly set on fire at around 4 am on 25 April. Sanjeev returned to Kolkata after disposing off Sheena's body," reported CNN-IBN.

Sanjeev Khanna questioned

The Mumbai Police on Thursday got a five-day transit remand for Sanjeev Khanna and he was set to be brought to Mumbai by Friday. According to television reports, Khanna had admitted that he was present in the car on the day of Sheena's murder.

CNN-IBN reported, "Sanjeev Khanna reportedly told the police that he was inside the car in which Sheena was murdered, but did not confess to the killing. This was confirmed by public prosecutor Shorin Ghaushal."

What the police asked Rahul Mukerjea

For a third time in less than 24 hours, Rahul was questioned about his long relationship with Sheena, his step-mother Indrani Mukherjea, why he didn't pursue the "missing person" complaint filed after Sheena disappeared and other related aspects.

According to reports, Rahul told the police that after Sheena's disappearance he did try to look for her and get in touch with her but he remained unsuccessful.

"I tried very hard to find out about her whereabouts but I had no luck," Rahul told the police according to The Times of India. He also told the police that his parents told him she had gone to study abroad.

Later, Rahul was escorted to his two flats in Khar and Bandra, where he and Sheena had spent time together, a fact brought in the open by his step-father Peter Mukherjea, Indrani's husband.

DAY 2, WEDNESDAY, 26 AUGUST

Sheena was Indrani's daughter, not sister

While initial reports said that Sheena was Indrani's sister, it turns out that she was her daughter. According to Times Now, Indrani confessed to the police that Sheena was her daughter. (Read more here)

According to The Telegraph, Indrani's relatives too confirmed to the paper that Sheena was actually her daughter. The accused also has a son from a "relationship with a person who divided his time between Calcutta and Tripura". Later, Indrani was married to a man who had businesses in Kolkata and Jamshedpur.

The Telegraph reports: "Sheena and her brother, who works in an airline now, were brought up by their maternal grandparents in Guwahati. The children eventually moved to Mumbai and Sheena did her graduation from St. Xavier's College there. After Indrani married Peter, who made a name for himself at the helm of STAR India and during whose tenure the blockbuster Kaun Banega Crorepati was launched, Sheena moved in with the family. The family friend said Sheena, who was known as Indrani's sister, became close to Peter's son from an earlier marriage. It is not clear whether the alleged relationship played any role in Sheena's death."

Indrani's son Mikhail speaks out

Meanwhile news channels also spoke to Mikhail Bora, Sheena's brother who confirmed the fact that Indrani was their mother.

When asked whether Indrani and Sheena had any reason for conflict, he said,"Yes, many times." However, he refused to specify what the arguments between the two were regarding. He told CNN-IBN that he didn't believe that the murder had anything to do with property or money.

"I want her to reveal everything herself... After 31 September when I come to know that she has admitted everything. If she lies, I will give every evidence. I have all the evidence and photos. I will provide it to the media," he said.

Speaking to Times Now, Bora said that his sister had been living with him and his grandparents in Guwahati for a long time and Indrani had been living in Mumbai. He said that Sheena had gone to Mumbai to study in St Xavier's college after which she had been working in Mumbai.

"In 2012 she came here for a wedding of her friend. After that she has no contact," he said. Mikhail said that he had always asked his mother where his elder sister was but had received vague answers. "She always replied she was abroad. She said she (Sheena) had got a job there," he told the channel.

He said that he had stopped asking questions about Sheena since he was dependent on funds from Indrani to take care of his ailing grandparents and she had threatened to cut him off. (read more here)

What Indrani's husband Peter Mukerjea said

Indrani's husband Peter has now gone on to say that he was completely unaware of the whole ordeal and was in a 'state of shock'.

Reacting to the revelations, Peter had said to CNN-IBN that he had no clue about this fact. He further said that Sheena and her son were introduced to him as Indrani as her siblings. He added that the revelations are shocking to him.

Peter claimed that Sheena had an affair with his younger son and that Indrani did not approve of their relationship. He said that he did not know about the conversations between Sheena and Indrani used to be in Assamese, and so he did not understand them.

"When she disappeared in 2012, I was told that she was studying in the US. I asked Indrani and she showed me pictures of Sheena at a Diwali function there," Mukherjea said.

Admitting that he was completely stumped by the police action of nabbing Indrani Mukherjea, he said: "I am dumbstruck by this level of criminality..."

Theories behind the murder

Tehelka suggested that it may not have been Bora getting involved with her stepson which may have enraged Indrani enough to have Sheena killed.

It may have got to do with something bigger than that - and what's bigger motive for murder than money? According to Tehelka, the Mukerjeas had siphoned a lot of money from INX media, a company they later stepped down from. To avoid suspicion, a lot of this money had been transferred to their relatives' accounts. One of those accounts may have belonged to Sheena Bora, who later refused to return the money.

Tehelka reported: "Singapore based company Temasek invested in the the media company of the Mukherjea’s and after the global recession, Temasek got the media company audited. It was found out during this audit that Peter and Indrani had siphoned of huge sums of money from the company in the name of various family members, including Peter’s brother Gautam Mukherjea who brings out the magazine Planet Goa."

How Sheena went missing

Sheena studied in St Xavier's College in Mumbai, and according to her LinkedIn profile, was employed with Reliance ADAG when she disappeared in 2012. She was 24-years-old at the time.

A missing persons complaint had been filed in May 2012 at the Khar police station after Sheena, who lived in the suburb was untraceable.

According to an Indian Express report, around the same time the police had found partially burned remains of a woman's body near a farm house in Lonavala.

DAY 1, TUESDAY, 25 AUGUST

Indrani Mukerjea detained

The wife of former Star India CEO Peter Mukerjea, Indrani was detained by police for her alleged role in Sheena's murder. PTI reported that she was detained by suburban Khar police, DCP (Detection) Dhananjay Kulkarni said without elaborating.

Narendra Modi's final retreat on the Land Acquisition Ordinance, announced by the man himself in his monthly radio conversation Mann ki Baat, is a sad commentary on his government's political acumen.

Retreat on a bill that was so crucial to growth means that the government will now struggle to deliver on its core promise of “sabka saath, sabka vikas”. With crucial state elections now due every year leading upto 2019, one can wonder if this government will ever re-discover its appetite for reforms — even though the options of leaving it all to the states still exists.

It is worth analysing the key reasons for this failure. Without an acknowledgement of political mistakes, no change is possible. And time is running out for Modi. A quarter of his tenure as PM is already over, and if we can assume that the last year will be spent building political momentum before the May 2019 general elections, and more months are lost in playing to the gallery in the critical state of Uttar Pradesh in 2017, it is clear that Modi has less than two years to deliver on difficult reforms.

So what did he do wrong?

First, it is clear he wasted his honeymoon. The land and GST bills should have been negotiated in the first six months of his tenure, when the opposition was still to recover from the May 2014 drubbing he gave them. Only unimportant bills got passed in this period.

Second, in the second six months the opposition recovered as Modi's Sangh loud-mouths queered the pitch for the government. The Sangh rabble-rousers made it possible for Modi's divided opposition to unite and halt his most crucial reforms. It is worth recalling that the Land Ordinance was promulgated during this crucial phase last December – just when Modi’s political supremacy was about to be challenged. This left only the budget session window for the government, and three useful bills were passed — on insurance, coal and minerals mining. But after that, the government went into a tailspin over the land and GST bills.

Third, and this is the crucial point, Modi left it to political lightweights like Venkaiah Naidu and Arun Jaitley to talk to the opposition on these bills. This was a strategic mistake. It became easier for the opposition to send them packing, and claim the government did not discuss anything of importance with them. If a bill is so important, you don't use political lightweights to do your bargaining. Sonia Gandhi used Pranab Mukherjee for her heavy lifting. Modi should have done the same.

Fourth, you cannot win a war by depending on poor generals. As I have repeatedly stated before, the Modi government is not overloaded on talent. While this was partially remedied earlier this year with the induction of Manohar Parrikar in defence and Suresh Prabhu in railways, the most crucial finance ministry remained with the man who has never won an election and who has only a nodding acquaintance with finance. Jaitley has spent most of his political life devising backroom strategy for the BJP and arguing its case in TV studios. His competence in finance was questionable and Modi’s decision in his favour was a mistake he couldn’t have afforded. The most important ministry in his administration went to the man least deserving of it. He might as well have given the ministry to Smriti Irani.

So what are the remedies?

#1: Modi must now lead from the front. Convincing people and political parties of his seriousness on reforms must be done directly from him or his office, and he has to sell the idea of reforms openly to both. If Modi puts his personal prestige on the line and consistently explains why we need a land bill or labour reforms, he can surely get things done - things that the Venkiah Naidus and Jaitleys cannot deliver.

#2: Modi must read the verse from the Gita which says that you must do your duty without expectation of a reward. He must draw on the lessons from Vajpayee's experience, after the dotcom meltdown and the post-Pokharan sanctions left the economy gasping for growth. Vajpayee then went full tilt for reforms in power, public sector (through disinvestment) and telecom. He lost 2004, but he left an Indian economy in much better shape than how he inherited in. With low inflation, a current account surplus, and a reviving global economy, India had the right internal and external conditions for sustaining growth at a high rate for the next seven years. It needed extraordinary incompetence in the Manmohan Singh government to ruin the party. The same can be said about Narasimha Rao. He sowed so that the country could reap even though his reforms may have cost his party the 1996 elections.

Modi has to do the right things even if they may conceivably affect his re-election prospects him 2019. However, it is by no means certain that history will repeat itself in 2019 as long as Modi is willing to sell the idea of change aggressively. Neither Rao nor Vajpayee did that – and they paid the price. My gut feel is that the country is ready to face the truth this time. It is looking for politicians who will level with them. And even if Modi were to lose, isn’t it better for him to do so fighting for the right causes rather than avoiding battles on the reforms front?

#3: Modi has to start playing the federalism game - and take the issues to the people. Today we have grown to expect the centre to deliver on everything, when in reality power has shifted to the states. As I had said before, the only way to make this clear is for Modi to talk to his own BJP chief ministers and get them to carry out reforms in their states. This will pressure the other parties ruling other states to also willy-nilly embrace reform. If Modi can't get his own BJP CMs to reform, how can he expect the rest to play ball?

#4: Modi must now recalibrate expectations by outlining areas where the centre can deliver. These areas are defence, diplomacy, railways, and fiscal and monetary policy. In other areas, he can only be an inspiring leader and facilitator. The people of India need to be told — if they don't already know — the limitations of prime ministerial and central power. This may be difficult for Modi, whose superman image is tough to dismantle, but it is necessary. Modi has to tell the world he can make superhuman efforts, but he is not Superman.

#5: Modi must induct talented people in crucial ministries - especially finance. There is no reason why a Yashwant Sinha can't be utilised here or even an Arun Shourie. Vajpayee used Shourie to reform telecom when he found Pramod Mahajan and previous incumbents a liability in this ministry. Modi should see talented outsiders like RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan as his allies rather than roadblocks to reform.

The Prime Minister needs to understand two realities: as the most powerful leader in his party, change depends on him. He has to lead the fight from the front and surround himself with competent people, if necessary by looking at talent outside his party. Even the ablest leader needs competent generals to prosecute a successful war.

GSAT-6 is the 25th geostationary communication satellite of India built by ISRO and 12th in the GSAT series. It will provide communication through five spot beams in S-band and a national beam in C-band for strategic users, ISRO said. PTI

Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) D6 carrying GSAT-6, lifts off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh on Thursday. PTI

Kaun Kitney Paani Mein is based in a village in Odisha, where old values and prejudices face a drought and poverty. Raja Braj Kishore Singh Deo (Saurabh Shukla) owns a village that has no water. He lives in a palace but hasn’t been able to pay his electricity bill for three years. Sozzled — he has to drink his whisky neat because there’s no water — he tells his son, Raj (Kunal Kapoor), “Raja ki baat toh door, hum toh praja bhi nahi rahenge.” It’s a masterclass in acting by Shukla, who is superb as the drunk and tottering king.

If only Kapoor could react suitably. The dismay you feel is mirrored every time the Raja calls his son and asks, “Kuchh kiya?” and his son has nothing to report. Only in case of the father-son conversation, they’re talking about sex. Sex that Raja Braj Singh Deo hopes will turn his fortunes around.

As a descendant of a wealthy Kshatriya family that has exploited poor farmers for generations, Raja Braj has inherited the barren hilltop village of Upri, in drought-struck Orissa. As a young woman, his sister committed the cardinal sin of falling in love with a low caste lad and the two young lovers paid with their lives. Not just that, Raja Braj’s father constructed a wall to keep the poor, lower caste lot out of Upri.

They moved downhill, to a village called Bairi, and begin to change their fortunes. Under the leadership of Kharu Pehalwan (Gulshan Grover) and his clever daughter Paro (Radhika Apte), the villagers toil, build dams, collect rain water and grow crops. Thirty years later, Upri is poor and impoverised, while Bairi is flourishing.

Defined by water politics, water is everything in Upri. It is even used as currency between the locals, with people paying everyone from prostitute to pundit with packets of water. A poor, desperate weaver decides to dig a well and then a secret tunnel that will connect to a lake in Bairi. His story, and what ends up being the fruit of his efforts, is the most telling sequence on the pathetic state of the poor.

Sick of his wretched circumstances, Raja Braj decides to sell off his land holdings. However, no one wants to buy a village that has no water. His son, Raj, wants money to go study abroad, but there’s no money for him either. Neither is there water, so father and son are reduced to drinking neat whisky.

Ultimately, Raja Braj and Raj decide that the best way to save themselves and Upri is to by getting Paro pregnant. This will put Kharu Pehelwan in a tight and vulnerable spot, and to save his daughter’s reputation, he’ll agree to whatever Raja Braj demands — including allowing Upri to access Bairi’s hard-won water. It’s not the most brilliant of plans, especially considering how feisty Paro is and how pregnancies have often been dealt with discreetly (from abortion to sending the woman to another place, the options have traditionally been many). However, since things don’t go according to plan, the merits of the plan may be ignored.

As the shamelessly conniving, arrogant King who lives on liquor and covers his lost dignity with a false moustache, Shukla is great as the hilarious but pathetic Raja Braj. Shot three years ago, before Radhika Apte became one of the most talked-about talents of Bollywood, the actress proves yet again that she can make the tackiest and dreary scenes come alive. Unfortunately, these two actors can’t make up for the problems in the film.

Writer-director Nila Madhab Panda made his debut with critically acclaimed I am Kalam. With Kaun Kitney Paani Mein, he has an excellent premise. He’s chosen to tell his story as a satire, which makes the film entertaining in parts, but he struggles to make it look and feel credible. Only the scenes involving Raja Braj and the poor weaver digging his well feel authentic. In Bairi, everything looks staged and all the characters are stereotypes. The romantic track between Raj and Paro is so theatrical, it could be straight out of a play.

Yet despite its pitfalls, Kaun Kitney Paani Mein has moments of fun and a subject that is relevant. Watch it for Saurabh Shukla.

Instagram has added new layout options in addition to its signature square for pictures and videos in a bid to attract more advertisers and to stop users defecting to more flexible services such as Snapchat.

The move is the first major alteration to the photo-sharing, social media service since Facebook Inc bought it for $1 billion in 2012, and addresses the wishes of many of its 300 million users, who have been constrained by the square format.

“It boils down to giving advertisers and users more options,” said Debra Aho Williamson, a social media marketing and advertising analyst. “You want people to be able to see more of your ad. It’s something advertisers are definitely going to be interested in.”

One in five photos and videos posted on the service do not fit the square format, Instagram said in a blog post. “Friends get cut out of group shots, the subject of your video feels cramped and you can’t capture the Golden Gate Bridge from end to end,” it said.

From Thursday, Instagram’s web-based service and its mobile apps running on Google Inc’s Android system and Apple Inc’s iOS will allow portrait and landscape formats, giving both users and paying advertisers more options.

The move should help Instagram in its battle with newer rivals such as Snapchat for users in the fast-moving messaging and media-sharing market.

At the same time, it should attract more advertising revenue for Instagram, which said in June it would open its platform to all advertisers by the end of the year, rather than just to select brands.

Instagram is expected to generate nearly $600 million in advertising revenue by the end of this year and $2.8 billion in 2017, according to projections from research firm eMarketer.

By comparison Facebook, the world’s most popular online social network, generated more than $12 billion in revenue in 2014. The growing service hit one billion users in a single day for the first time on Monday.

To promote the new formats on Thursday, Walt Disney Co released exclusive footage of its upcoming film, “Star Wars, The Force Awakens,” using the new landscape option.

The biggest social networking platform Facebook has just gotten even bigger. Company CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook had one billion people logged on to the site on a single day, marking the first time in company history to reach this milestone.

According to a Facebook post by the CEO, “On Monday, 1 in 7 people on Earth used Facebook to connect with their friends and family.” He stated that the company uses average numbers but this instance was different!  “This was the first time we reached this milestone, and it’s just the beginning of connecting the whole world,” he added.

Facebook has also released a special video to commemorate the milestone.

The CEO went to say how proud he was of their community and the progress which has been made. He states, “A more open and connected world is a better world. It brings stronger relationships with those you love, a stronger economy with more opportunities, and a stronger society that reflects all of our values.”

However, no information was provided from which source the new users came from but the company definitely had a reason to celebrate, along with the advertisers too. In the end, the young CEO thanked its users for being a part of his community and for everything they have done to help Facebook reach this milestone.

Facebook Co-Founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg is also the wealthiest individual under the age of 35, with a personal fortune of $41.6 billion (roughly Rs 2,72,667 crores). According to a previous report, Facebook aims to bring 4.5 billion users online with Internet.org.

In a blogpost released to mark the first year of the initiative, Facebook said it will open a portal allowing any mobile operator to offer the service under its Internet.org platform. Facebook currently partners with specific operators to launch the service in different countries.

Oh, India has found its 'Gone Girl'. Apparently Indrani Mukerjea, who now stands accused of murdering her own daughter, is our desi Amy Dunne. Thanks to wall-to-wall newspaper spreads, hashtags and ominous background scores accompanying her story on news television, you'll have no problem imagining Indrani stumbling out of a car, dripping blood, her dress crumpled and soiled but Vogue-worthy nevertheless.  For example, if you have read this Times of India article - the same one which calls her 'Gone Girl' - the picture in your head will be quite defined. It quotes Indrani's acquaintance describing her as a woman with 'diabolical eyes'. To make sure that the readers have no doubt about her Satanical qualities, the same article turns her husband Peter Mukerjea into a foil, a man with an "innocent demeanor".

This story has stopped being about the murder of Sheena Bora long back. It is now about Indrani Mukerjea - attractive, expensively-dressed, sipping cocktails in exotic locations in most photos accessed by the media. Perhaps a murderer. Were you also thinking gold-digger, social climber, Machiavellian? Bingo.

In a Business Standard column imaginatively titled 'Of ruthless social climbers and Indrani Mukerjea', Shyamal Majumdar attempts to demystify people 'who don't mind leaving more than claw marks on people around them in their march to the top'. He begins by stating that Indrani, named Pori by her parents, had no wealth, or lineage to ever make it to the 'upper crust' which in his mind can only be accessed with what we call 'old money'. He then tells us what helped Indrani gatecrash the sanctum sanctorum of this 'swish set' was 'naked ambition'.

In short, beware the ambitious woman. Majumdar has strong advice for the whisky-sipping top executive who might fall headlong into her deadly cleavage. Men, after all, have no capacity for restraint.

"Next time you are in one of those countless cocktail parties, look out for those who come in designer labels from head to toe and start scanning the room for bigger fish even while chatting with you. They will do anything to make sure you know the cool, exclusive, elitist things they are doing," he warns.

While Majumdar has been blunt in his warning, most other newspapers have taken the roundabout way to help you feast on the 'sordid' past of Indrani Mukerjea and seemingly warn you against the deadly attraction of the femme fatale. Almost everyone has carried a 'family tree', with three arrows emanating from Indrani's face and leading to the names and thumbnails of three men.

They in turn, lead to the children they have.

The point of the infographic is very simple - to elicit a 'OMG, how many men has she had' gasp. In India, a woman who admittedly has been in relationships with more than one man in her life, has always been subject of much shock, awe and suspicion. In the Indrani Mukherjea case, her love life, her multiple husbands, her Page 3 status are all becoming arrows pointing to the crime she stands accused of.

In India, the femme fatale is supposed to revile, as much she is supposed to fascinate. We raise our eyebrows at the men on her arm and wonder about her antecedents. Remember the time news broke that Shashi Tharoor was set to marry Sunanda Pushkar?

After the country was done asking, "Sunanda, who?", there were elaborate reports on her earlier marriages. Sunanda was married twice before she married Tharoor. A recurrent theme on almost every report on Sunanda was her previous husbands, especially her first husband who had allegedly committed suicide.

The Indian Express' profile of Sunanda Tharoor reads uncannily like the 'profiles' of Indrani Mukerjea, tracing her life as Pori Bora in Guwahati.

"The city that judges you by the size of your house as well as the size of your diamond never quite noticed her. But now,the most fashionable boutiques want her as a client She had the socialite uniform: blonde streaks,manicured nails and diamonds that glittered in the sun. Yet Dubai’'s high society is only now discovering Sunanda Pushkar," goes the 2010 article on Sunanda Pushkar.

Pushkar might have had her blonde streaks but what we want to know are whether her roots are showing. The rest of the article has quotes from gossip columnists and socialites, who take turns to establish that Sunanda Pushkar was as nobody that a nobody can get before she got engaged to Tharoor. And they all wonder how did she land Tharoor.

Interestingly, Tharoor too was married twice before he married Sunanda. There was not much snooping about his former wives or the conditions under which those relationships ended. In a country filled with stories of businessmen making it from rags to riches and male politicians who rose to great heights from ordinary backgrounds, that narrative is all about the drive of alpha achievers - successful, charismatic, intelligent. However, women, who have negotiated power relations successfully to climb to the top have to have something 'diabolical' about them, or "Machiavellian", who hypnotized powerful men by batting their false eyelashes.

So a Smriti Irani will always have to keep defending her position as the HRD minister unlike many of her male colleagues, equally unqualified on paper for their ministries. While Lalit Modi's murky deals were, and rightly so, never traced back to his gender, a great part of the interest in Niira Radia stemmed from the shock at the idea of a woman playing broker between powerful men, and a hot woman at that. In fact, Vinod Mehta, in an article on Niira Radia, started with a quote from Freud on women.

"Freud impatiently asked, what do women want? And was unable to provide an answer. I often wonder what Niira Radia wanted. I speak of her in the past tense although that may be premature..."

The article quickly goes on to the men who wanted to woo Radia. "She lived in a luxurious farmhouse in Delhi. She had men of a certain age queuing up to woo her. (Niira’s mean-spirited critics accuse her of being our very own Mata Hari.) She bought her wardrobe from Italy. She began with almost nothing and in a few years became rich and famous and awesomely well-connected."

Now read that last sentence again: 'She began with almost nothing...'. The entire paragraph was building up for the innate shock value of that last sentence - the woman who now buys clothes from Italy, actually began with nothing. That sentence could fit right into an article on Sunanda Pushkar, or Indrani Mukerjea.

In Indrani's story, a recurring note has been how Indrani headed a sinking media venture INX. "Her soaring popularity, however, didn’t help her channels’ fortunes. Despite high profile launches and exciting media campaigns, her network couldn’t make a dent in the hugely competitive broadcast market," an article in The Indian Express states. Later in the article, while it is stated that the Mukerjeas were accused of bungling INX's finances, the rest of the article seems to place the venture's failure on Indrani's shoulders. The fact that Peter Mukerjea, himself a mega-successful TV business personality in the past, failed at it too and might have been equally culpable in squandering the money is almost never mentioned. That's perhaps because it doesn't fall into the scheme of the story, titled, 'From Pori Bora to Mrs Indrani Mukerjea: The rise of the femme fatale'.  In that story Peter is just a puppet, dumbly following Indrani's siren call.

Indrani Mukerjea might have murdered Sheena Bora or she might not have. But what is on trial here is not just her but women like her - too ambitious to be of any good. Indrani Mukerjea is being tried in the media not just for her alleged crime but for her lifestyle.

After the moderate success of Shoojit Sircar’s Madras Café and Akshay Kumar’s Baby, Heart-stopping No-nonsense Indian-military-covert-mission Action Thriller’ is now a legitimate genre. Directed by Kabir Khan, fresh from the roaring success of Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Phantom plays out like a post-26/11, wish fulfillment sequel to Baby.

Phantom was co-written by Parvez Shaikh (Queen) in collaboration with Hussain Zaidi (Black Friday, Dongri to Dubai) – and the premise is quite interesting. India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) captures a terrorist crossing over into Indian territory and learns that the LET is planning yet another major terror attack. This time, RAW decides it is not going to sit around waiting for the bad guys to cause damage in India. So they concoct a plan to send a message to Pakistan. They recruit an unlikely but lethal hero and send him on a covert mission to infiltrate and kill everyone responsible for 26/11. The expert, codenamed Phantom, is of course Saif Ali Khan, who is flown to various parts of the world to carry out the assassinations.

This is an exciting plot and Khan does a fairly good job of maintaining the tension throughout the film. Little time is wasted in frivolous things. Even the romantic angle between Phantom and a Darkwater operative named Nawaz (Katrina Kaif) is kept to a minimum, and the ticket-selling commercial value songs are used to actually drive the story forward.

Technically Phantom is one of the most accomplished films to have come from Bollywood – all the military stuff is legit, the shootouts carry weight instead of sounding like Diwali crackers and there’s even a U-boat which looks fairly real. It’s also hard not to be entertained by Phantom zooming across London, the US, Syria and Pakistan to exterminate very obvious scumbags like Hafiz Saeed and David Coleman Headley.There are a couple of applause-worthy lines thrown in for a good jingoistic measure, but it’s nice to see the film being less in your face than, say, Gadar and even Bajrangi.

While technically good, the film, along with Saeed and Headley, also terminates one other thing – logic. There are so many plot holes in the Phantom plan you’ll begin to wonder if RAW is full of eighth graders plotting revenge against girls in school who dumped them. The film opens with Khan getting involved in a hit and run in Chicago, then chasing the perpetrator in a long-drawn action sequence, almost turning towards the camera and asking why the guy hit his car, after which the guy falls off a bridge, disappears. Next thing we know, Khan is sent to the exact same prison as Headley.

This kind of convenience and contrivance peppers the movie as Phantom prances around from one country to another, relying on feeble and laughably improbable mission guidelines. It’s actually more teenage fan fiction than a probable military mission.

The film is also gratingly miscast. Khan has very little screen presence and looks exactly the way he did in Bullet Raja. Whether there’s shock, or relief or fright, there’s little shift in Khan’s bearded countenance or body language. The less said about Kaif the better. The makers of Baby took a chance and cast a lesser known face (Taapasee) for the role of a female operative aiding the hero, and it worked powerfully – Kaif on the other hand is once again relegated to looking photogenic in various exotic locations.

Taking the cake and the whole bakery along with it is Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, the gifted actor from Shahid and Raanjhanaa who is seen hamming away to glory as an overenthusiastic RAW newbie. He’s given some of the worst lines of the movie and does his utmost to deliver them with the least possible control. Just when you think he’s done delivering lines that clunk, he pops up alone on top of a submarine in the middle of the ocean, hilariously searching for our marooned hero.

If you’re willing to ignore the plot holes and are a fan of Khan and Kaif, Phantom will please you. But it’s just entertainment, and never really makes you wonder about the ethical boundaries or the global consequences of the Indian military carrying out a mission like this. It’s quite silly from start to end, but it’s never boring.

India is on the threshold of another “million mutinies”, to use VS Naipaul's evocative phrase. The ongoing agitations by ex-servicemen over OROP (one rank, one pension) and the Patidars of Gujarat for job reservations, and the oncoming public sector strike are symptoms of this mutinous on-rush. Further ahead, there is every chance that the rural distress over unviable small-time farming may also come to a boil, even though the contentious Land Bill has been defanged and possibly sent into cold storage.

Narendra Modi baiters may derive vicarious pleasure from the fact that his government is facing the music, but the reason why this seems so is that his rivals have adroitly used the seething discontent to direct it towards the Modi government. Given Modi's high profile and big promises made before May 2014, they may even be succeeding in deflecting public anger against themselves towards Modi. However, it is more than likely that the revolt brewing in many parts of India are against an inept political system and the complete lack of credible leadership in all parties.

It is best to read the current public discontent as a continuation of the citizen mutinies that began around 2010-11 with the Anna movement, the overthrow of the Left Front in West Bengal and the DMK in Tamil Nadu, and the gathering storm that peaked in 2014-15, resulting in the rise of two politicians - Narendra Modi at the centre, and Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi.

The tragedy is that both leaders - Modi and Kejriwal - and their rivals are misreading their mandates. Both of them are viewing their respective victories in May 2014 and February 2015 as massive personal votes of confidence, when that may be true in only a limited way. Their mandates are a personal endorsement only to the limited extent that they personified the promise of change and bring credibility back to the political process. It was never a blank cheque for either of them.

Political pundits are fond of saying that the old Indian anti-incumbency syndrome – where voters kept defeating incumbent governments every five years – had changed in the 2000s once a few politicians started delivering some degree of governance and development. But this may again be about to change, for the aspirations of the newer generations are no longer about obtaining rudimentary public goods like roads and power, but something more – education, health, jobs, and higher incomes. It is not that the public has suddenly become more demanding of government largesse when the latter can’t simply afford to please everybody; rather, the public seems to be making unreasonable demands on the state precisely because it can no longer believe what politicians promise and what they deliver.

It is also worth recalling that most mandates tend to get misinterpreted in India’s first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system where small vote swings result in large gains in seat shares. In UP, for instance, the Samajwadi Party got a roaring majority in 2012 on a vote share of less than 30 percent. The AIADMK won an overwhelming majority in 2001 with less than 32 percent of the vote – the vast majority still voted against it; it lost badly in 2006 even with a 1 percent rise in its vote share. The 2011 mandate, where it won 150 seats on a 38 percent vote, was 6 percent below its best-ever performance in 1991. When Mamata Banerjee sent the Left Front packing in West Bengal in 2011, the Left’s vote share was a massive 41 percent – hardly a big mandate for change (“poribortan”).

So, to interpret Indian election results as massive mandates in favour of one party or the other is always a mistake. All mandates are conditional on leaders delivering credible performance quickly.

That neither Modi nor Kejriwal has done so is why we are seeing the eruption of new forms of discontent in many places. Modi has not changed the way government and central government do business, and Kejriwal has reduced his party to a one-man show, and has now fallen back on traditional vote-bank rhetoric to avoid having to take responsibility for his own failures.

The real reason why Modi and Kejriwal got hugely unexpected majorities was because of the FPTP electoral system, and also become a critical mass of swing voters saw genuine possibilities of change in their leadership. But neither has so far lived up to expectations.

The people expect a new form of political communication that is direct and truthful and believable, but that has not quite happened. It is not that the people expected everything to improve from Day One, but they did expect to be told what was happening and why some improvements may take time. But neither Modi nor Kejriwal has done this.

Take the case of OROP. Let us also, for argument's sake, assume that the costs of implementing OROP are so high as to completely mess up the central exchequer. Any credible government will then have to lay out the facts and figures honestly so that people can see for themselves why OROP may need compromises or delayed implementation. But we are actually getting mixed messages: that government is claiming full commitment to it but also adding a phrase that the issue is complex. This is equal to telling the people that they are too stupid to understand the issues. If politicians cannot explain complexities in language everyone can understand, they will lose credibility.

Now take the case of Kejriwal. He has done nothing beyond what a Sheila Dikshit or a BJP Chief Minister would have done, by making higher provisions for power and water subsidies and higher allocations for education. He has forgotten all about his Lokpal bill, and has, in fact, focused all his rhetoric on fighting with the Lt Governor when he could have spent the time more usefully delivering on his mandate. He must think the voters of Delhi are stupid enough to buy his rhetoric when he is busy schmoozing with Nitish Kumar in Bihar as though what happens in that state is more important to his politics in Delhi than what he does with the power he does have. Sheila Dikshit was seen as a good CM most of the time because she delivered within the power constraints. But Kejriwal is busy trying to shift the blame. His high-profile fallout with Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan surely has not gone unnoticed by voters. Kejriwal is clearly trying to target Modi and the centre in order to deflect public anger away from his own performance to another target.

If Modi is currently at the receiving end of criticism from all political parties, it constitutes further confirmation of a coming shift in the public mood away from traditional politics. Modi's political rivals (Rahul Gandhi, Nitish Kumar, Arvind Kejriwal) know the ground is shifting under them; they are pointing fingers in his direction because they sense that the groundswell will consume them if they do not deflect the blame elsewhere. They are choosing the easier option of blaming someone else instead of becoming credible themselves. Nothing exemplifies this more than Rahul Gandhi's sudden love and empty rhetoric in favour of any and every cause - from OROP to civilian casualties to the land bill to the real estate bill.

The chances are the real causes of discontent are different from the stated ones of India's current mutineers. The Patidar demand for reservations in jobs and a change in their status to OBCs is actually an indirect acknowledgement of the failure of affirmative action policies and the need for finding better solutions. The OROP agitation is less about grabbing unfair benefits for ex-servicemen and more about frustration with politicians who promise something and then backtrack when faced with fiscal realities and competing demands from other segments of babudom. The agitation against the land bill is less about fears of land confiscation and more about unviable agriculture and the lack of exit opportunities from it without being shortchanged by politicians on land prices.

Modi and Kejriwal will fail if they interpret their mandates as being about delivering freebies and not about creating a new politics that people can understand and believe in. India will pay a high price for their respective failures to understand their mandates. The mandate is for more honest politics, not more unbelievable promises.

There is, of course, time to change. For starters, Modi needs to take the message of what he intends to do directly to the public. He has to reset expectations honestly. If he cannot deliver on some rash promises made on the campaign trail, he should admit it and apologise for it instead of keeping silent and pretending people will forget. Modi’s mandate is about change, and the first change needed is in the way politicians explain their policies – both success and failures - to the public. He does not have to pretend business is unimportant in his scheme of things, or attempt to play Robin Hood by promising to bring all the black money back home asap. The public knows the difference between rhetoric and deliver; it will not hold him to his promises if he levels with them even now.

Kejriwal’s mandate is about delivering honest politics, not constant battles with the central government. His post-February politics have been dishonest and unnecessarily anti-centre. He won’t be forgiven by the voters of Delhi if he continues along this path and fails to deliver.

The Indian public is all-forgiving when faced given the real truth and when politicians appear genuinely apologetic about their errors. Ask Kejriwal, He apologised for his political errors of 2014, and got a massive endorsement in February 2015. It is another matter that he is again misinterpreting his mandate – but that is another story.