Extra muscle throws Jankovic game into crisis

INDIAN WELLS - Jelena Jankovic is carrying more than the weight of expectations on her shoulder after going out to 17-year-old Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova at the Indian Wells Masters.

Winning hearts is the key to poll victory: says minister Handique

JORHAT - Winning the hearts of the people is the key to electoral success, says union Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilisers Bijoy Krishna Handique as he bids for six straight terms as MP from Assam’s Jorhat constituency.

West’s Shangri-la fantasy creates China’s `Virtual Tibet’

BEIJING - When Herge’s ‘Adventures of Tintin’ spread from Belgium across Europe in the 1960s, Tintin’s fictional travels in Tibet featured in one of the most popular strip-cartoon stories.

After family drama ‘Yuvvraj’, Subhash Ghai offers comedy

NEW DELHI - After failing to revive his magic through 2008 box office dud ‘Yuvvraj’, filmmaker Subhash Ghai is set to create a laugh riot with his next production ‘Paying Guest’, releasing Apr 24.

Three common mistakes men make when proposing

SEOUL - Men unknowingly annoy women by proposing or professing their love in a way that they mean to be romantic but that ends up disappointing their partners.

Fashion dolls plot to edge out Barbie, 50

NUREMBERG - Barbie, the original fashion doll, turns an ageless 50 next month and must fight off a string of equally skinny challengers vying for attention from the world’s little girls.

Winter carnival begins in snow-covered Gulmarg

GULMARG - Fresh morning snowfall provided an idyllic background for the two-day snow carnival that started in this tourist resort of Jammu and Kashmir Tuesday.

Safin ends the Dokic fairytale with fighting victory

MELBOURNE - Third seed Dinara Safina brought the improbable dream run of Jelena Dokic to an end in the Australian Open quarter-finals, defeating the resurrected home player 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 Tuesday.

I write for the sake of the handkerchief: Vikas Swarup

JAIPUR - He is no ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, and neither is he the street-smart protagonist of this year’s favourite at the Golden Globes.

India Inc looks to Obama for end to global economic crisis

NEW DELHI - With Barack Obama inaugurated the 44th US president, India Inc looks to him with the hope that he will be able to end the global economic crisis, which has retarded the country’s growth, pulled down markets, let loose a financial turmoil and caused anxiety among its workforce.

What Obama read as he went on to become US president

NEW YORK - Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography ‘The Story of My Experiments with Truth’, The Bible, writings of Abraham Lincoln and Herman Melville’s ‘Moby Dick’ are among US president-elect Barack Obama’s all-time favoured readings.

On revival path, Bangalore’s Bandstand gets Japanese singer

BANGALORE - It will be another milestone in the history of a grand old venue here when a Japanese singer belts out light Kannada numbers this Sunday at the Bandstand in Cubbon Park, whose musical legacy is being slowly but surely revived.

At 43, Rahman is a name most singers swear by

NEW DELHI - When he started his career in the early 1990s, music maestro Alla Rakha Rahman wouldn’t have thought his popularity will skyrocket to such an extent that budding as well as established musicians alike would swear by his name nearly two decades on.

Cosmic colours of angst and consciousness (Rainbow Palette: Weekly Art Column)

NEW DELHI - Why do some troubled children turn out to be artists and others turn their sufferings back against the world?

2008: Watershed year for Indian telecom (Yearender 14)

NEW DELHI - For a country that stood at the bottom of the pyramid in terms of telecom penetration a decade ago, 2008 was a watershed when India’s subscriber base topped 350 million users to make its network the second largest in the world after China, displacing the US.