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Showing posts with label indian news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label indian news. Show all posts

Saturday, December 17, 2011

2ft tall Jyoti dreams of Bollywood acting career after being crowned world's shortest woman

smallest woman
Jyoti is measured at 61.95cm on her 18th birthday by Guinness World Record

joyti
Jyoti with a family friend two years ago - who, at 13 months, bigger than she is
Celebrating your 18th birthday is a momentous occasion for anyone, but for tiny Jyoti Amge the milestone is even bigger news.

The 2ft teenager is already a mini celebrity in her hometown of Nagpur, India, but is now set for a huge record when she is officially declared the world's smallest woman.

And despite her miniature stature, 61.95cm-tall Jyoti hopes to celebrate being crowned the world's shortest woman by launching a Bollywood movie career.

She took the Guinness World Record from 2ft 3in American Bridgette Jordan, and celebrated her birthday with a teddy bear which loomed over her tiny 24.4in frame.

She measured 7 centimeters (2.76 inches) shorter than the 22-year-old American Bridgette Jordan, who had held the title since September.

A teary-eyed Jyoti, dressed in one of her finest saris, called the honor an 'extra birthday present' and said she felt grateful for being small, as it had brought her recognition.

She also blew out candles on a birthday cake which was comfortably bigger than her.

Even the Guinness World Records book at the ceremony came up to Jyoti's waist.

Jyoti weighs just 12lbs (5.5kg) - only 9lbs more than she did at birth - and has a form of dwarfism call achondroplasia, which stopped her growing after her first birthday.

She has brittle bones and is likely to need care for the rest of her life, but that has not stopped her tall ambitions of cracking the movie industry.

udding actress Jyoti, who is set to appear in two Bollywood films next year, told The Sun: 'I want to make people happy.'

As a teenager at school in Nagpur, Jyoti had her own small desk and chair, but said the other students didn't treat her any differently.

She also has to sleep in a specially-made bed and uses utensils that are smaller than average.

This was not Amge's first Guinness record. Until Friday she was considered the world's shortest teenager, but in turning 18 qualified for the new title.

She has grown less than 1cm (0.4in) in the last two years, Guinness said in a statement, and will grow no more due to a form of dwarfism called achondroplasia.

Her teenage title brought the chance for multiple Guinness-sponsored trips to Japan and Italy for tours and meetings with other record holders, she said.

The title of shortest woman in history continues to be held by Pauline Musters, who lived in the Netherlands from 1876 to 1895 and stood 61 centimeters (24 inches) tall.

Jyoti insists in being treated like a normal young woman, and likes nothing more than doing her make-up, going clothes shopping with friends or enjoying DVDs.

As she celebrated turning 18, Jyoti said: 'It's been my dream to be recognised as the world's smallest woman for many years. I'm now a woman so I hope I don't have to wait much longer!'

She was officially crowned the world's shortest woman at a Guinness World Records ceremony in Nagpur with her mother Ranjana.

News by Dailymail


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Friday, December 09, 2011

Hospital fire kills at least 84 in eastern India

recent
Fire in Kolkata AMRI Hospital, India
(Reuters) - A fire tore through a seven-story private hospital in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata before dawn Friday, killing at least 84 people, most of them intensive care patients who were asleep and suffocated in the fumes.

Thick smoke engulfed the crowded hospital and fire-fighters smashed windows to evacuate people down ladders and with sheets from upper floors. Other patients were wheeled out on trolleys.

Rescue workers and locals criticised a lack of safety equipment and said staff fled the scene leaving windows and doors locked. The hospital had been warned there was a fire hazard months ago, state officials said.

"My sons and I rushed to the hospital and started breaking the windows so that some of the smoke would escape," said 35-year-old Saraswati Mondal, who lives in a crowded shanty town near the clinic in south Kolkata.

"As we broke the windows we could hear the patients crying out for help," said Mondal said.

The fire broke out in the basement and flames and smoke quickly spread through the building through air-conditioning shafts. Witnesses said the fire brigade took an hour to arrive. Police arrested six of the hospital's directors for negligence.

By mid-morning, the flames were under control and rescue workers had begun to bring the dead from the still-smoking building, including at least two children whose bodies were covered by green blankets, a Reuters witness said.

Kolkata's Joint Commissioner of Police Shivaji Ghosh said 84 people died in the incident, Indian news agency PTI reported.

West Bengal's fire service head Javed Khan said the hospital did not have proper fire-fighting equipment.

The vice-president of the AMRI hospital, in a mostly middle-income area of Kolkata, told reporters at least 73 people died in the blaze, all but three of them patients.

He said 90 more were evacuated and that the hospital complied with statutory safety rules.

"The fire was detected at 3.30 (a.m.)...we called the fire brigade within five to 10 minutes," S. Upadhyay told a news conference.

Angry local residents accused the hospital authorities of reacting too slowly and not helping patients to safety, and pointed out another fire had broken out there three years ago. That time there were no casualties.

Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta, was for years the capital of British-ruled India. It is one of South Asia's largest cities, known as much for literary culture as for cramped slums. It is now the capital of West Bengal.

"It was horrifying that the hospital authorities did not make any effort to rescue trapped patients," Subrata Mukherjee, West Bengal's health minister told cable network NDTV.

The state's chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, immediately cancelled the operating licence for the hospital, part of a prominent chain of clinics in the city.

"Law will take its own course. Those responsible for so many deaths will be dealt with seriously," Banerjee told reporters.

Shares in the conglomerate that partly owns the AMRI chain, Emami Ltd, fell 2.3 percent to 390.95 rupees Friday.



Wednesday, November 09, 2011

A Bollywood film allowed after removal of the Tibetan flag

Tibetan flag
Tibetan flag
AFP - A Bollywood film was allowed in India after the removal of a scene in which appeared the flag of Tibet region of China where people claim real autonomy and religious freedom, said Wednesday The Times of India . To ensure the dissemination of his film Rockstar in cinemas in the country, the director Imtiaz Ali has cut a scene showing a Tibetan flag waved by fans as the main character, a singer played by actor Ranbir Kapoor, sings "Saada Haq" (Our right).


The scene was filmed in the Norbulingka Tibetan monastery, McLeod Ganj, a town in the foothills of the Himalayas Indian, near the residence of the Tibetan government in exile and the Dalai Lama. "Ali has made the cuts" required by the Indian Council of censorship, the Times said its director, Pankaj Thakur. Excerpts from the film are uncensored, however, available on the Internet. Imtiaz Ali has denied any "controversy" policy, saying he wanted to address the issue of individual freedom.

Tibet is a constant source of friction between India and China. India hosted the Dalai Lama when he fled Tibet after a failed anti-Chinese uprising of 1959. The Dalai Lama calls for genuine autonomy for the roof of the world, but Beijing continues to regard it as a dangerous "separatist". The many Tibetans living on Indian soil have announced that they take to the streets to protest the censorship of Rockstar. "It is extremely troubling that so gross violation of freedom of expression occurs in the largest democracy in the world," responded the Internet Dorjee Tseten, the association's "Students for a Free Tibet."

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Saturday, October 29, 2011

The wax effigy of Kareena at the Madame Tussauds museum

wax of karina
Wax effigy of Kareena

 The wax effigy of Kareena has been unveiled at the Madame Tussauds museum in Blackpool, Britain. "It is an honor and a privilege for me to have my own wax figure at Madame Tussauds Blackpool and even more so to launch a global Bollywood exhibition. This is a moment of pride for the Indian cinema," Kareena said.

It took almost four months to create the wax statue, which is said to have cost £150,000.

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Thursday, October 27, 2011