'Aisha' earns Rs 260 million in the Weekend

BNO Desk: Sonam Kapoor has come of age now. Her splendid performance in "Aisha", has bewitched the moviegoers. The movie based on Jane Austin's "Emma" earned Rs 260 million worldwide during the opening weekend.

"Aisha [Aisha Review] " was released on 475 screens across India and at 135 screens abroad. Besides India, it also did well in the overseas market.

Perhaps for the first time, a Bollywood movie with a female protagonist at the helm, has done so well in India and overseas. This time the magic did not come from big names Aishwarya Rai or Priyanka Chopra. It came from Sonam Kapoor, whose father Anil Kapoor should be a proud father.

Although the movie also features Abhay Deol, Arunoday Singh, Cyrus Sahukar and Ira Dubey, it revolves around Sonam Kapoor and definitely she has dominated all by her great performance.

The movie is doing very well in big cities, although the responses have been average in small cities and towns. Sonam Kapoor in "Aisha" represents the modern era girl of India.

Mumbai port hires Dutch ship to check oil spill

MUMBAI: The government’s apathy towards Coast Guards’ repeated pleas for special ships that help contain oil spill was underscored even as the Mumbai Port Trust was learnt to have engaged a Netherlands-based company to control the environmental damage.

Agencies quoting a senior port official said the Mumbai Port Trust has appointed SMIT Salvage, a Netherlands-based company, to control the oil-spill. Currently, the company is working hard with 11 vessels to look after the operation there, the official said. "We’ve appointed SMIT Salvage... The company is working there with 11 off-shore vessels out of which six vessels were received from Mumbai-based Great Offshore Ltd," the official added.

It was as late as last year that the government sanctioned special ships to contain oil spills, the first of which meant for Mumbai will be commissioned in October. A source in the Coast Guard said, "At present, the Coast Guard uses buckets mounted on helicopters which spray dispersants. The helicopters are sent from INS Shikra in Colaba with divers on it. Two helicopters are used to make six sorties a day and we have sprayed nearly 4,000 litres of dispersants." But the Mumbai Port Trust officials said that the Coast Guard does not have special ships like the US to contain the slick. The special ship will have holds to suck in the spill. Constructed by the ABG shipyard in Surat, it’s currently undergoing modifications in Goa. It will also have special equipment to spray dispersants. The ship will be headed by DIG Manoj Baadkar who heads the anti-pollution unit of Coast Guard. Two other ships will be coming in for the other areas of the country.

On Monday, Coast Guard sent five ships — Sankalp, Sangram, Amrit Kaur, Subhadra Kumari Chauhan and C-145 — to battle the spill, while Kamala Devi was sent to the dock for fitting long arms to spray dispersants, said the official.

The directorate general of shipping’s chief nautical advisor, M M Saggi, said the anti-pollution operation by the Coast Guard is still on. Anti-pollution disposal spray systems are on the job. All coastal districts of Maharashtra are on high alert as the oil slick has spread to the Alibaug and Uran areas, and also close to Elephanta caves.

After Aiyar, Digvijay Singh speaks on Delhi CWG

Shahjahanpur, Aug 10: After Rajya Sabha MP Mani Shankar Aiyar, Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh has now spoken on the Delhi Commonwealth Games 2010 row.


The Congress leader in-charge of UP opined that Commonwealth Games (CWG) Organising Committee (OC) chairman, Suresh Kalmadi should step down on moral grounds if his name figures in a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) prima facie case.


“If his name is in a CBI prima facie case, then on moral grounds he should resign,” he said.

Earlier Mr Aiyar, a senior Congressman and former sport minister, had sparked off a row saying that he would be happy if the Delhi Commonwealth Games would turn out to be a failure.

As he claimed, the MP opened up a "can of worms" as his statement was followed by an eruption of a slew of corruption charges against the CWG organisers.