Is This The Costliest Indian Wedding?

By Amit Singh and Shashank Shekhar

Delhi, Mar 2 : Bollywood biggies, top netas expected to attend wedding of Congress leader Kanwar Singh Tanwar's son and ex-MLA Sukhbir Singh Jaunapuria's daughter.

A wedding is an all family affair in India. It also spells big business. And when the people tying the knot are heirs of two of the country's richest politicians then the scale of everything associated with the event is likely to reach astronomical proportions.

On Tuesday, Congress leader Kanwar Singh Tanwar's son Lalit will marry ex-MLA from Sohna Sukhbir Singh Jaunapuria's daughter Yogita at Jaunapur village in Haryana. Around 15,000 people are expected to attend the ceremony.

From gifting a chopper to inviting every Gujjar in town, Jaunapuria and Tanwar have made sure that the wedding of their scions remains etched in people's memory for years to come.  But it's not just the aam aadmi who is invited. According to close associates of Kanwar Singh Tanwar, more than ten Bollywood celebrities including Shahrukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai are expected to attend a special ceremony on March 6 in the Capital.

Room service: The Ashok hotel in Delhi will host the special wedding
reception on March 6. The PM and SRK, among others, have been invited.
Flight tickets have been sent and hotels have been booked.  VIP invitations have also been sent to political leaders of all major parties. Intelligence sources have told MiD DAY that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been specially invited and is likely to attend the ceremony. It is also expected that a Hollywood artist, whose name wasn't revealed, may perform for the guests on the 6th of this month.

Deep pockets: Kanwar Singh Tanwar was the richest candidate from
Delhi in the 2009 general elections, which he lost. Pic/Rajeev Tyagi
Big-ticket event
The celebrities are expected to come under one roof for the event on March 6 at Delhi's Ashok Hotel. Tanwar had specifically ordered around 1000 special cards which were sent to all the VIPs. The thousands who will be attending the reception on March 3 at Tanwar's residence at 127 Asola, Fatehpur Beri in Delhi, will get a chance to see actor/singer Gurdas Mann and Bollywood starlet Neha Dhupia perform. The week-long celebrations include a musical night to be graced by famous folk performances with artistes arriving from different parts of the country. Seven musical bands have been hired for the baraat. The Tanwars have also ordered 1100 designer turbans for their family, relatives and friends. Around 125 people will be there to tie the headgear. A source also said that in all around 11,000 wedding invitations were printed for the event.  
Gift gallery
The lagan ceremony that was held on February 25 was attended by over 4000 guests from eight different villages. All the guests who attended were presented a packet as return gift which comprised a 30-gm silver biscuit, a safari suit set, a shawl and Rs 2100 cash. A villager who attended the lagan ceremony said: "It was a huge event. There are around eight villages in Fatehpur Beri area and people from each and every household were invited. This is one of the biggest weddings we have witnessed in our lifetime." "During the ceremony, money amounting to Rs 21 crore along with a silver dummy of a helicopter among other gifts was offered by the bride's family. The family also promised that all demands of whosoever is coming in the barat will be fulfilled. The groom's grandfather was also offered money amounting to about Rs 2.5 crore during the lagan ceremony by the bride's family," a source said.
Picture this!
Some of those who attended the lagan function also said that Sukhbir Singh Jaunapuria, a former MLA from Sohna and bride's father, even handed over a photograph of the gift - a 5-seater chopper - to Tanwar. The ceremony was held at Tanwar's farmhouse in Asola, south Delhi and was attended by several village elders besides politicians from rural Delhi. When MiD DAY contacted Tanwar to find out about the mega wedding, he replied: "You are welcome there to see it yourself. The baraat will leave at 6 pm." When our reporters visited Tanwar's house in Delhi with the intention of meeting the groom, they found the house heavily guarded. A close relative of the family invited us to the ceremony on March 1 to witness the event first-hand.
Offers galore
During the ceremony, money amounting to Rs 21 crore along with a silver dummy of a helicopter among other gifts was offered by the bride's family.
High-end marriages
Vanisha Mittal and Amit Bhatia

Date: November 18, 2006
Cost: $78 million
The highest ranked in Forbes list of most expensive weddings. Daughter of steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, Vanisha  was married to investment banker Amit Bhatia at Vaux le Vicomte, a 17th-century chateau in France, in 2004. The wedding celebrations went on for five days, and included extravagances such as invitations on a 20 page silver book.
Elizabeth Hurley and Arun Nayar

Date: March 2, 2007
Cost: $2.5 million
Hollywood actress Elizabeth Hurley and Indian textile heir Arun Nayar got hitched at a lavish wedding including an eight-day celebration spanning Europe and Asia. The couple was married at Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire, Britain for Hurley's family and friends, then again in Umaid Bhawan Palace, Jodhpur, India for Nayar's people.
Vikram Chatwal and Priya Sachdev

Date: February 18, 2006
Cost: $20 million
The son of a New York hotelier, Vikram Chatwal married model/actress Priya Sachdev during a 10-day celebration spread across three Indian cities Mumbai, Udaipur, and Delhi. Six hundred guests from 26 countries attended the nuptials, and were flown in on private chartered jets. Guests included Bill Clinton, Naomi Campbell, and P Diddy.

Delhi's Slum Children To Get Australian Degrees

New Delhi: Delhi's slum children will now be able to study in Australia under an exchange programme between the University of Melbourne and voluntary organisation Asha, officials said here Tuesday.

"This is going to be the first-of-its-kind Asha model as we focus on urban poor, mainly slum children, to give them access to higher education from a country other than India," Asha founder Kiran Martin said.

A new India-Australia partnership to support the needs of Delhi's urban poor will operate in three areas - research, education and community engagement.

"This is going to be a unique programme in terms of catering to the needs of the urban poor, who can't even afford the basic education. We also aim at finding solutions to the needs of urban poor as we begin interacting with the students," said Amitabh Mattoo, director of the University of Melbourne's Australia India Institute.

The collaborative programme will fund 40 projects during 2011 across areas such as resource and environment, contemporary India, regional relationships, health, education, economics and business.

"A memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Australia India Institute, University of Melbourne, and Asha community health and development society has also been signed," added Martin.

The programme will be launched by Human Resource and Development Minister Kapil Sibal here Wednesday.

Source: IANS

Things People Do To Get Jobs

Citing God as reference and other things people do to get jobs

It’s true that one should try to stand out to garner more attention but some people cross the line when it comes to creating their resumes.

Recruiters face everything from a CV written in rhyme to the hopeful who went straight to the top with his references - and cited God.

Another candidate boasted that he was a direct descendant of the Vikings, while someone else modestly listed "Master of Time and Universe" under his experience.

The survey of more than 700 employers by website Careerbuilder.co.uk to revealed what employers advise against in job applications.

One candidate ended up submitting a resume with someone else's photograph while another only gave their name and number with the phrase: "I want a job."

The attempt from a jobseeker who sent his CV from email address "lovesbeer" also failed to make quite the desired impression.

Not surprisingly, employers' biggest peeve was spelling errors and typos, followed by CVs filled with off-putting reams of text, chunks lifted from the job advert and those lacking a cover letter.

Businesses did not like CVs of three pages or longer, those that were not targeted at the position and any that listed objectives instead of a career summary.

"You want to stack the deck in your favour when writing a CV," the Telegraph quoted Tony Roy, president of CareerBuilder EMEA, as saying.

"Make sure to highlight key accomplishments with quantifiable results, so employers can see how you put your skills into action. It's also important to remember that employers often use electronic devices to screen and rank CVs.

"Pepper in keywords from the job ad into your CV as it relates to your experience to improve your ranking."

Source: ANI

Nelly Furtado To Give Away Gaddafi fee

Los Angeles, Mar 2 : Singer Nelly Furtado said on Monday that she will give away $1 million she received to perform in Italy for the family of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Gaddafi has been condemned for using violence to quell a popular uprising, with the death toll from nearly two weeks of fighting estimated by diplomats at about 2,000.

Furtado, a Canadian singer whose hits include "I'm Like a Bird" and "Promiscuous," used the website Twitter to disclose her plans for the $1 million.

"In 2007, I received 1 million$ from the Qaddafi clan to perform a 45 min. Show for guests at a hotel in Italy," she wrote. "I am going to donate the $"

A spokeswoman for Furtado could not be reached to say which group Furtado plans to designate for her donation.

Furtado first rose to fame with the 2000 album "Whoa, Nelly!" She also appeared in the 2008 movie "Max Payne."

Why You Should Not Date A Beautiful Girl!

London, Mar 2 : If you are dating a beautiful girl, please take note: Relationships in which the woman is more attractive than the man may be doomed to failure, says a new study.

However, having a handsome husband or boyfriend is no barrier to the couple's success, according to the study.

A team from the Stirling, Chester and Liverpool University in the UK spotted the strange phenomenon while studying whether people tend to pair up with those who are similarly attractive to themselves.

The findings could help explain why Angelina Jolie's marriages to actors Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton ended in just three years, while her relationship with Brad Pitt -- one of the world's most handsome celebrities – has already lasted six years, the Daily Mail reported.

For the study, the researchers took photos of the men and women in more than 100 couples. Some had been together for just a few months, others for several years. The individual men and women were then rated on their looks.

Their analysis revealed that having an attractive husband or boyfriend was no barrier to a relationship succeeding. But, if the woman was extremely beautiful, the relationships tended to last only a matter of months, the researchers found.

Researcher Rob Burriss said: "This would indicate it is the woman who is in control of whether the relationship continues."

"Beautiful women may realise they can afford to pick and choose," he suggested, adding that they may also have the confidence to leave behind relationships that have run their course.

"Attractive women might generally prefer short-term relationships. They're better placed to move on," he said. It is also possible that the relationships end due to jealous behaviour from the woman's less photogenic partner.

Conversely, the less attractive women "may have to make do with what they have, hence the longer relationships", noted Dr Burriss.

The study also found that people tend to pair up with people whose facial features have a similar level of symmetry -- a sign of beauty -- to our own.

"Are all men trying to go out with Anne Hathaway or Angelina Jolie, or do you really wanted to be with someone at the same level of attractiveness as yourself? These findings suggest our ideal partner is one on our own kind of level," Dr Burriss concluded.

The new study was published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Binge Drinking? Blame It On Your Genes

Washington: Two genes that seem to trigger binge drinking have been identified, potentially paving the way to better treatments for excessive alcohol consumption.

Researchers found that manipulating two brain receptors, GABA receptor and toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), "caused profound reduction" of binge drinking for two weeks in rodents that had been engineered to drink excessively.

The study found that treatments that manipulate both the GABA receptor and toll-like receptor 4 have the potential to reduce anxiety and control craving, with little to no risk for addiction, says lead investigator Harry June, the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports.

"Binge drinking -- defined as achieving a blood-alcohol content of .08 g percent, the legal limit in many states, in a two-hour period -- is a serious form of excessive drinking," says June, a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology and experimental therapeutics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

About 30 percent of Americans drink excessively, and about 75,000 people die each year from the effects of excessive drinking.

Current treatments for excessive alcohol drinking include prescription drugs Revia and Campral for controlling craving. To ease withdrawal symptoms, doctors often prescribe medications such as Valium and Librium, which reduce the anxiety alcoholics feel when they stop drinking but do not reduce the cravings. Both drugs also carry their own risks of addiction.

Sukhoi Lands in Northeast India

Sukhoi adds to Chabua arsenal

- Aircraft lends strength to easternmost air base

By RIPUNJOY DAS

A Sukhoi-30MKI at Chabua in Dibrugarh on Tuesday.

Chabua air base, Dibrugarh, Mar 2 : The air force today added more teeth to its easternmost air base here in Upper Assam’s Dibrugarh district by induction of the sophisticated Sukhoi-30MKI.

The aircraft was inducted during a ceremony at the base here in the presence of Air Marshal K.K. Nohwar, Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Shillong-headquartered Eastern Air Command.

Although senior IAF officers were tightlipped on the possibility of Chinese threat in Arunachal Pradesh and the region, the move to induct the aircraft is seen as part of India’s counter-offensive strategy to remain prepared to thwart any external threats., Sukhois were inducted a few months back at the Tezpur airbase as well.

The Sukhoi-30MKI, a multi-role combat aircraft jointly developed by Russia’s Sukhoi Corporation and India’s Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, is a variant of the Sukhoi-30 and is an all-weather capable, heavy class, long range air superiority fighter, which can also act as a strike fighter aircraft.

As a Sukhoi-30MKI aircraft, piloted by Wng Cmdr K. Sundaramani and Flt Lt M.B. Walunj, took off in style, there was applause all around as the Chabua air station, which was constructed just before World War II in 1939, witnessed history.

Senior officers of the air force, army and some civil officials, including Tinsukia deputy commissioner S.S. Meenakshi Sundaram, who were present on the occasion, were elated to witness three Sukhois which took off from the Tezpur air base and flew past in different formations.

“It is indeed a happy occasion for all of us to have the Sukhois inducted at the easternmost air base of the country. We are happy to implement the decision taken by the air force to induct its latest and most sophisticated aircraft in all the air stations across the country,” Air Marshal Nohwar told the media after the function.

“The aircraft is tailor-made to our specifications and incorporates Indian systems as well as French and Israeli subsystems. It is the most advanced of all the variants of the Sukhoi-30 and is a force to be reckoned with,” he added.

On the intent of inducting the Sukhois at Chabua, Air Marshal Nohwar said the air base was the first line of defence for carrying out both offensive as well as defensive task by the Eastern Air Command. “Our job is to ensure that the sky in the east remains safe”, he said.

The Chabua air base was used extensively by the Allies for the operations against the Japanese, and was abandoned after World War II. In 1962, in response to the Chinese invasion of Tibet and subsequent threat to the Northeast, the Wing 14 was formed at Jorhat and moved to Chabua. The first IAF aircraft to operate here were the Dakotas of the 49 Squadron and the Vampires of the 24 Squadron.

During the Chinese aggression, air transport support for Lohit, Siang and Subansiri divisions was provided from Chabua. In 1965, it was used as the base for a squadron each of the Hunters, the Otters and Mi-4 helicopters.

After the war, in 1974, the runway was renovated to enable high performance fighter operations and the 47 Squadron moved here with MiG-21 aircraft. Before its closure in 1992, there were no fighter squadrons here, but the station had two Mi-17 units for air logistics operations in Arunachal Pradesh.

In 1993, it was decided to expand Chabua to once again house fighters. The helicopters were relocated to neighbouring Mohanbari and Chabua remained without any flying squadrons till 1995. The 20 Squadron, the erstwhile Thunderbolts, equipped with MiG-21FL, started operations from mid-1995. They undertook the task of training newly commissioned officers of the fighter stream.

In January 1998, it was replaced by Operational Conversion Units, relocated from Chabua to Kalaikunda towards the end of 2009. On December 1, 2010, the 102 Squadron was resurrected with the magnificent Sukhoi-30MKI and Chabua once again became the easternmost fighter base of the air force.

ULFA For Solution Within Singh’s Tenure

By UMANAND JAISWAL

Arabinda Rajkhowa

Guwahati, Mar 2 : The Ulfa group led by chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa has requested Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to complete the process of dialogue and find a solution within his tenure.

The group revealed this to the Sanmilita Jatiya Abhibartan (SJA) during a meeting here yesterday. Ulfa had met the SJA to brief the latter about its meeting with the Prime Minister last month.

The request assumes significance as the Centre has not set any timeframe for completing the dialogue, which is expected to begin after the Assembly elections, scheduled for April 4 and 11 in the state.

Ulfa vice-chairman Pradip Gogoi told The Telegraph today that the group had made the request because it did not want a repeat of the NSCN (I-M)-Centre peace talks which have been going on since 1997.

Another reason is the Prime Minister himself. The group feels that Singh, who represents Assam in the Rajya Sabha, is well placed to “appreciate” the state’s problems and expedite the talks. “We have been very straightforward with the Centre. We want a permanent and amicable solution. Accordingly, we have requested the Prime Minister to wrap up the talks within his tenure. We don’t want lengthy talks like that of the NSCN (I-M). The Prime Minister was equally keen to arrive at a solution within his tenure. Even home minister P. Chidambaram was very positive, assuring us that the Constitution would be amended, if required,” Gogoi said.

Going by the group’s request, a solution can be expected by 2014, the year Singh’s second innings as Prime Minister ends, given that all other factors remain equal.

In his interview with editors of TV channels on February 16, Singh had ruled out quitting in the wake of scams and scandals that have hit UPA II. He had said he never felt like resigning because he had a job to do and there was a lot of unfinished business. “I have never felt like quitting, I will stay the course,” the Prime Minister had said.

The participants at yesterday’s four-hour meeting also discussed the status of the agenda the Abhibartan is preparing for the group. “We have requested the SJA to expedite the preparation of the agenda. We expect it within a month,” Gogoi said, reflecting the group’s urgency to get the talks off the ground.

Manmohan Singh

The chief convenor of Abhibartan, Hiren Gohain, said it would take a month or two at the most to finalise the charter of demands. “We had a formal discussion yesterday on what happened in Delhi and on the charter of demands. Ulfa has given us a wishlist which it feels can ensure the security and prosperity of the state,” he said.

Abhibartan had constituted six committees to prepare the charter of demands with each committee working on a specific area to secure the interests of the state. Of the six, three have submitted their reports. “We have got the reports on education, ethnic issues and demography-migration. The other committees are also on the verge of finishing their reports on constitutional arrangements, economy and administrative mechanism. Once we compile the reports, we will submit it to Ulfa which will take the final call on what would comprise the charter of demands,” Gohain said.