Mahindra United to be disbanded

- Owners shift focus to the grassroot level; Coach david Booth shocked


Mumbai: Indian football was dealt a blow on Friday with the Mahindra Group announcing the disbanding of its professional football team at the end of this season.

“We have decided to get out of competitive football and get into soccer at the school level. From the end of the I-League (2009-10 season), we will not take part in any competitive soccer,” Alan Durante, Chairman of the Mahindra Football Club, said.

Ruzbeh Irani, Executive Vice-President, Corporate Strategy of Mahindra and Mahindra, said that the decision reflected the company’s shift in focus.

“It was in line with our Group’s philosophy and shift in soccer, from taking part in professional sport to developing it. We feel we can make much difference to sport in India at the school level in soccer and grassroot level in basketball instead of running a professional team,” Irani said.

It may be recalled that Mahindra had recently announced a tie-up with the National Basketball Association (NBA) of the USA to create the ‘Mahindra NBA Challenge.’.
for mor info click here.......

Masand: 'Housefull' makes you cringe

Housefull

Cast: Akshay Kumar, Deepika Padukone, Ritesh Deshmukh, Arjun Rampal



In the climax of director Sajid Khan's 'Housefull', a cylinder of laughing gas is accidentally released during a state function at Buckingham Palace.

Hundreds of gathered guests break into unstoppable laughter, and even the famously stiff-lipped Queen cracks a smile. Ironically, by now your own laughter has long since dried up.

'Housefull' is the kind of pedestrian comedy that makes 'Singh Is King' feel like a Woody Allen gem. It's the kind of film that will stop at nothing to get a laugh out of you. So a monkey is slapped and punched, a black baby becomes the butt of a racist joke, and the words "homo" and "gay" are used liberally as a form of insult.

The humor here is strictly low-brow and the gags mostly slapstick. It doesn't help that the director plagiarizes many of his jokes directly from popular American comedies like 'Night at the Museum' and 'Meet The Parents', and even whacks an old gag involving a vacuum cleaner gone beserk from the "Mr Bean" TV series.

The premise itself is a flimsy one centered on a perennially unlucky fellow played by Akshay Kumar, and his misadventures during his search for the perfect bride. In the tradition of similarly dimwitted comedies like "Welcome" and "Golmaal Returns", the screenplay banks on instances of mistaken identities and misunderstandings to take the narrative forward.

Ritesh Deshmukh who stars as Akshay's best friend, is passed off by his wife Lara Dutta as the family cook when her father suddenly shows up unannounced. And Deepika Padukone, who stars as Akshay's girlfriend, must present Lara Dutta as his sister, when Deepika's brother Arjun Rampal decides to pay a visit.

This merry-go-round of madness is neither imaginative nor original, and when the director can't think of any other direction to go with his scenes, he gets his characters to stand in a circle and slap each other repeatedly.

Some genuine laughs are provided by peripheral characters like Chunky Pandey who plays a half-Italian hotel owner named Aakhri Pasta, and Boman Irani who appears as Lara Dutta's farsan-baron father who makes the trip from Gujarat to London to see his estranged daughter.

Of the leads, Akshay Kumar has a few moments of convincing straight-faced humor, but he does nothing new that you haven't seen him do before. The ladies aren't expected to do much more than look comfortable in skimpy beachwear, and Ritesh Deshmukh and Arjun Rampal make for reasonably engaging background distractions.

In all fairness, some jokes do make you laugh but those are few and far between. For the most part 'Housefull' makes you cringe in embarrassment and disgust for what passes off as 'entertainment' and 'cinema' these days. Bereft of craft and style, and lacking in even simple storytelling, the film is a test of your endurance.

I'm going with one-and-a-half out of five for director Sajid Khan's 'Housefull'. If corny humor is your thing, give this film a chance. If you have even a modicum of intelligence or taste, however, stay far away from this one!

for mor info click here......

Obama blasted, 13 nations cited on religious freedom

By Aamer Madhani, USA TODAY

A bipartisan U.S. commission on religious freedom says President Obama is softening his stand on protecting the right to one's faith at a time when religious persecution is on the rise, according to an annual report to be released today.

The 11th annual report by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom says Obama's recent call for nations to respect "freedom of worship" rather than "religious freedom" allows regimes to claim they are not oppressing certain religions if those faiths exist in a form acceptable to the regime.

"When you start narrowing the discussion, the signal the administration is sending to the international community is that as long as they prop up a few churches or houses of worship (of minority faiths), there isn't going to be a problem," Leonard Leo, the chairman of the commission, told USA TODAY.

The report also criticizes the administration for failing to nominate an ambassador-at-large for religious freedom.

The ambassador-at-large post, which falls under the State Department, is a requirement of a 1998 law that mandated religious freedom be an aim of U.S. diplomacy.

The commission was established to monitor religious freedom and issue an annual report on U.S. efforts in that area. Commission members are appointed by Congress and the White House. It recommends which countries should be named "countries of particular concern" (or CPCs) for egregious violations and suggests penalties.

Among the 13 countries that the State Department has already named CPCs are Burma, China, Iran, North Korea and Saudi Arabia. The label requires the administration to consider whether to levy sanctions against the nations.

The 2010 annual report notes that Obama spoke about the importance of religious freedom in speeches in Turkey and Cairo early in his term. But since then, Obama has stopped using the term, it says.

The White House disagreed. "The president has spoken clearly and unequivocally about his support for religious freedom," White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said.

Steven Groves, an analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank, said the change in the phrase raises a question about the administration's commitment to confront regimes in the Middle East and elsewhere, especially in Iraq and Iran where minority Christian and Muslim sects have been oppressed and even attacked.

"The term religious freedom carries with it a certain understanding in the international community that is a much broader right than the freedom of worship," Groves said.

The commission report slams U.S.-supported nations, such as Iraq and Pakistan, for failing to protect members of minority faiths who have been targeted with violence or discrimination.

In April 2009 in Ankara, Obama said that "freedom of religion and expression lead to a strong and vibrant civil society that only strengthens the state."

In subsequent speeches in China and Japan, Obama appeared to dial back his vision on religious freedom, according to the report. He referred to "freedom of worship" in Japan on Nov. 14 and used the same phrase in a town hall meeting with Chinese students two days later.

Contributing: David Jackson, USA TODAY

for more click here..