Calcutta: Sania Mirza will be the star attraction at the second edition of the Videocon Challenge Tennis Tournament to be held in Siliguri on November 19. The exhibition includes both doubles and singles matches.

Shikha and Neha Uberoi and Rushmi Chakravarthy will be the others vying for honours. “Last time we held both a men’s and women’s tournament, but the growing popularity of women’s tennis in India has prompted us to think of an exclusive ladies’ meet,” urban development minister Asok Bhattacharjee said at a press conference on Thursday.

The tournament, organised by the Siliguri Stadium Committee and managed by Jaidip Mukerjea Tennis Academy, will offer a total prize money of Rs 5 lakh. Mahesh Bhupathi and Sourav Ganguly will be guests at the meet.

And here are some more of her pics :

Here are some pics of Sania Mirza for her fans all over the world. Hope you people like them :

Sania goes two rungs down to 69

Sania Mirza‘s steady decline continues in the WTA singles rankings and the Indian slipped two rungs in the ladder to the 69th spot, while Davis Cupper Leander Paes returned to the top 10.

After a week of stability, Sania Mirza again plummeted two rungs on the rankings ladder to be placed 69th on the latest WTA Tour chart.

The Indian tennis sensation, who was out of action for around a month, has 382 singles points.

Sania Mirza, who last played in the Bangkok Open where she lost in the singles first round, has resumed her practice last week ahead of the six-nation Hopman Cup to be staged in her home town of Hyderabad, where she will play along side Leander Pace in the mixed doubles.

Sania Mirza, who had confessed during the recent Sunfeast Open in Kolkata that fitness was not her forte, has said she was perfectly fit to play any number of tournaments now.

In the doubles, Sania Mirza was steady at 25th with 1070 points.

Among the men, Paes slipped out of the top-10 list.

He lost two places to be 12th while Mahesh Bhupathi was lying constant at 31st on the ATP computer.

Sania Mirza

Designers Dev r Nil’s collection was titled Chocolate. The message of the line appeared to be: Indulge yourself and your style quotient.
Here, we see an asymmetrical silhouette that looks chic, yet wearable. And the pants are all the rage. The duo from Kolkota, aged 25 and 28, showcased their first collection at the Fashion Week in March.

Do the twist
The sari gets a twist. This one, sported by model Shruti Sharma, has a waistband and seems quite easy to manoeuvre. The choli is made of a silk jersey fabric, comfortable to wear because of its soft texture.

More good stuff
A chic and trendy ensemble, although we’d rather team the top with a more fitted pair of trousers. The flat pumps and ballet shoes are also hot.

A touch of nostalgia
Baby doll dresses are still going strong for eveningwear. This one has a smidge of tulle at the hemline.

A new trend?
We spotted the bubble skirt quite a few times on and off the ramp this season, like this one sported by model Walusha.

Any takers?
Big girls are wearing smocks too, but with a twist. Here, we see a dress in a jersey silk material with a smocked waist and a hemline, which ends just below the knees. In terms of price, the range starts from Rs 2,500. To buy, visit the designers online at devnil.com

Summer may have left us, but this year’s hottest action spectacular is coming up in November.
Here are some stills from Dhoom:2.

John Abraham was the bad guy last time around, but the sequel sees Hrithik Roshan step in.
With Aishwarya Rai as his partner in crime!

Hrithik plays international supercriminal, Mr A.
The mysterious character is well known for pulling off impossible heists, across the world. That, and he’s a complete ladykiller.

And Abhishek Bachchan reprises his role as no-nonsense cop, Jai Dixit.
Jai’s ready to fight crime, not just criminals. But the elusive Mr A seems like his greatest challenge yet…

Don’t call her ‘babe’. Bipasha Basu plays the stunning Shonali Bose, a ravishing seductress who just happens to be a top cop. A sharpshooter, she believes in shooting down any criminal in her sights. Nothing personal.

Aishwarya Rai is Sunehri, the girl who lives in the moment. Seizing life by the horns, she throws caution to the winds. But nothing’s going to be the same after Mr A walks into her world.

What can be said about Ali? Uday Chopra reprises his role as the incorrigible lout with an eye for candy — all the time. So he’s a cop now, and Jai constantly shouts him down, but Ali is, well, Ali.

The story is set in the world’s oldest desert, the Namib. There is a solitary railway line, with a royal family on a journey. But then, there’s a flash as the robber strikes, and the ancient Royal Crown is stolen!

Jai and his loyal buddies are all out to nab the thieves, in a high-stakes chase that spans the world from Namibia to Goa, Rajasthan to Brazil. It’s no holds barred in this thrilling game of cat-and-mouse.

It promises to be the megabudget adventure of the year. Catch Dhoom:2 as it hits theatres November 24.

Ever since J P Dutta started making his Umrao Jaan he has been shouting at the top of his voice that he is not remaking Muzaffar Ali’s Umrao Jaan but is making a film based on Mirza Mohammed Hadi Ruswa’s novel.

After seeing the film, one can believe this because this Aishwarya Rai is a very different film, and far truer to the 1904 Ruswa novel. This is Bollywood’s fourth attempt at adapting the classic novel.

The plot goes thus: A little girl, Ameeran, from a lower middle class family in Faizabad is kidnapped and sold to a brothel in Lucknow. Played by Aishwarya Rai, she grows up to be the most famous nautch girl of her times and is re-christened Umrao Jaan.

While performing her first mujra she falls in love with Nawab Sultan (Abhishek Bachchan) and vows to be loyal to him all her life. However fate decides otherwise, and Umrao ends up losing him after the Nawab’s father throws him out of his home.

Umrao decides to wait for her lover, even as the dacoit Faiz Ali (Sunil Shetty) wants to woo her.

The film is a journey of a woman who is living a life born out of circumstances, and has no control over her own destiny.

Though the courtesan wants to live like any other woman, that isn’t her destiny; she believes that she was just born unlucky.

Dutta has done a good job, keeping today’s audiences in mind. The dialogue by his father O P Dutta is worth mentioning, and the attention to detail given in the sets is very impressive.

The songs, penned by Javed Akhtar and set to music by Anu Malik, work after you see it on screen. Listen carefully to the lyrics, and the songs are as masterful as those in the 1981 film — though the music may not be.

Then again, in terms of detailing, once could say Ash shouldn’t have worn a cap while performing the mujra. Caps of that kind were not worn in ancient Lucknow, and Nawabs of the area never wore the kind of turban Abhishek wears. But such minute details aside, the film transports you to the 19th century.

The weakest link is Aishwarya’s dancing. Even though the steps were right, she lacked the grace of a courtesan. It looked like she was being told to perform; her expressions are very weak.

But that drawback is compensated for with her acting, and her scintillating chemistry with Abhishek. They have a great rapport on screen, and he often outperforms her. The actor is a treat.

Watch the penniless and defeated Nawab Sultan walking out of Umrao Jaan’s brothel in pride only to tell Madam Khanum (Shabana Azmi) and Umrao that he will be back. That scene is worth applause.

Shabana Azmi as Khanum Sahib is great, and makes you believe that she is ruling her kotha with an iron fist. The actress is simply too good. Sunil Shetty, Puru Raj Kumar and Ayesha Jhulka don’t disappoint either.

If you are an avid lover of the Urdu language and Lucknowi tehzeeb, then the film is a must-watch. Others may not love it — the 20 reel film is over three hours long.

Recreating the past is hard, and filmmakers seldom succeed in replacing the memory of the past vision with their own.

The same is true of director J P Dutta’s efforts, which are not nearly enough. His interpretation of Mirza Mohammed Hadi Ruswa’s Urdu novel never achieves the creative brilliance and emotional poignancy of Muzzafar Ali’s benchmark 1981 adaptation. To be fair, even if you steer clear of comparisons, the new Umrao Jaan barely demonstrates the soul or fabric of a classic. Instead it alternates between a hollow, glossy romance and an outrageous period drama.

The film documents the heartbreaks and disillusionments in the life of gifted courtesan Umrao Jaan (Aishwarya Rai). As in the novel, the story unfolds in flashbacks told to the author (Anwar Nadeem in a mind-numbing performance) by the lady herself, a la Interview With The Vampire (and a shabbily executed one at that).

Before winning the hearts of her mujra-loving admirers in Lucknow, Umrao nursed dreams of a normal life like any other regular teenage girl. Born Ameeran to a poor but respectable family of Faizabad, she is kidnapped by an enemy (Vishwajeet Pradhan) of her father (Parikshit Sahni) and sold to a sharp Madame Khanum Jaan (Shabana Azmi). Mesmerized by the lure of fancy clothes, pretty ornaments and carefree dancing, Ameeran, now rechristened Umrao, masters the art of dance and poetry.

In her first public performance itself, she falls hard for the dashing Nawab Sultan (Abhishek Bachchan). Her passion is likewise reciprocated. Here Dutta literally forces the romance down the viewer’s throat. In their second meeting itself, they are exchanging rings and eternal promises of ever-lasting togetherness. Instead of building a simmering chemistry, he inserts unnecessary, lengthy songs and ruins the momentum. And then he adds threats to their romance in the form of rivalry eleme nts like a dacoit-in-the-garb-of-a-nawab, Faiz Ali (Sunil Shetty) and Umrao’s childhood mate, Gauhar (Puru Raaj Kumar). At this juncture, Umrao Jaan begins to lose whatever grip it had and stops making sense.

Essentially, Umrao Jaan talks about a woman being let down by all the three men she got involved with. Here Dutta weaves the three episodes into one and takes away the impact of Umrao’s great loss making the men in her life come across as spineless, ruthless and hopelessm respectively.

If you are the soft-hearted types, you will feel a lump down your throat everytime the heart-wrenching Agle janam mohe bitiya plays in the background. Sadly, the drama of Anu Malik’s composition is not echoed in the dialogues. The makers misconstrue misery as an invitation to invent a weepy melodrama.

Ironically, even as Dutta adapts to the old style of filmmaking: prolonged scenes, compelling close-ups, symbolic gestures and a series of songs (did I say there are too many of those? I must reiterate!), he doesn’t ever capture the old world charm.

Ostentatiously painted sets of havelis and kothas sporting ornate silver paan boxes, hookah pipes, Persian carpets and hand-operated ceiling fans give an exhausted, jaded appearance. Sure, the place looks enormous but not opulent, flamboyant but not fantastic. The concepts of shayari (poetry), aadabs (greeting) and mehfils (gatherings) never find an outlet in the proceedings. Instead, aristocrats are positioned like bland extras to fill up the picture. There is no subtext to pay attention to the etiquette-heavy culture of the nawabs and their refined elegance in the customs of the tawaif.

Deficiency in detailing aside, Umrao Jaan‘s biggest guilty party is majority of its cast. Dutta has chosen wrong actors for wrong roles — lousy actors play key parts and an exceptional artist like Divya Dutta is reduced to a sidekick. Puru Raaj Kumar and Sunil Shetty are grossly miscast as Gauhar Mirza and Faiz Ali. Forget getting into the skin of the character, they don’t even touch it. Filmi acting coupled with incorrectly pronounced Urdu rubbishes the authenticity.

The dialogues are emphatic, and an interesting mix of weighty literary lines and those with poetic simplicity. Thank God for Shabana Azmi. Her literary background and intimidating personality prove to be a formidable mix as she effortlessly conveys the flavour and mentality of an era with hard-hitting conviction.

The chemistry between Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan is pleasant, though not necessarily passionate. Like in their previous outings — Dhaai Akshar Prem Ke and Kuch Naa Kaho — the couple share a relaxed rapport.

Bachchan Jr is wasted in what was supposed to be charming but turned out to be inconsequential role. True, he wears a scruffy beard and designer sherwanis with elan, but the same cannot be said about his edgy and weakly-written role. The film doesn’t extract any of his charm or vulnerability. Nawab Sultan’s connection with Umrao is supposed to be based on the duo’s collective love for poetry. But the way he dumps her here shows it was only lust that brought them together.

Finally, there is Aishwarya Rai — the star, queen and saving grace of Umrao Jaan. She enthralls with her gorgeousness, the precision in her dance movements, elegance in her gestures and sincerity in her willingness to become Umrao Jaan Ada. Don’t expect an Umrao Jaan. Don’t expect a Rekha. But Aishwarya Rai? You’ll get plenty.

Friday, November 03, 2006 Source: Indiafm.com, Image Source: SantaBanta.com

Another exclusive news, even before the show is officially announced later in the day today to the media.

‘Sabsey Favourite Kaun’ Star Gold’s TV show, is going bigger and ultra-glam, with a new format and new hosts. Accompanying them on the show is the vivacious Ayesha Takia.

‘Sabsey Favourite Kaun’ is all set to rock and that too at the international level. The award will cover a host of nations including the Middle East, South East Asia, US, UK, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Australia and New Zealand.

This award is completely different from other Bollywood award shows. Here, the winners are decided exclusively by the fans who not only vote the winners of every category, but also vote to shortlist the stars as nominees. And the vote is for popularity, not performance – winners can win even if they have not had a single release in the last year, but are popular with the masses.

The hosts for this year will be the ‘funny trio’ – Ranveer Shourey, Vinay Pathak and Suresh Menon. Accompanying them will be the ‘Sabsey Favourite Kaun International’ ambassador Ayesha Takia. The first episode goes on air on November 12.

Source: MSN INDIA – Ayesha joins Ranveer, pals on TV show