“Please take him away,” the minister said after the missile was thrown at him. Congress party workers immediately took the white turbaned journalist away.

On a cloudy day, the New Zealand batsmen took crease to bat out the day and save the match. India was looking to bowl them out and win the series more comprehensively.

Both Taylor and Franklin, were not going for any runs. They were just bidding their time in the middle and waiting for any bad delievery. New Zealand were 179/4.

Taylor then gradually started to get the runs as he got he singles and got the scoreboard moving. He also scored his hundred in the process.

Soon after scoring the hundred, he was cleaned up by Harbhajan Singh who bowled in the right areas as Taylor played across the line and lost his middle stump.

Sachin Tendulkar was then introduced into the attack and the man with the golden arm was soon in the act as he got two quick wickets and that too of two important batsmen. First to go was Brendon McCullum, who edged one to Dravid at first slip and next to follow was well set James Franklin, who was caught plumb in front of the wicket. New Zealand were starring at a massive defeat. They were 254/7.

Rain then played spoilsport in the match as heavy showers started to pour in and the umprires called the play off as India take the three match series 1-0.

She submitted an affidavit to the district magistrate, stating the Italian house was valued at Rs.1.8 million (Rs.18.02 lakh).

Sonia Gandhi’s assets, according to the affidavit, totalled Rs.13.8 million (Rs.1.38 crore), nearly Rs.10 million less than what her son Rahul Gandhi reportedly has. He is contesting from nearby Amethi constituency.

Sonia Gandhi’s affidavit says that she had Rs.75,000 in cash and Rs.2.86 million (Rs.28.61 lakh) in bank deposits.

In addition she had mutual funds worth about Rs.2 million (Rs.20 lakh) and Rs.1.2 million (Rs.12 lakh) in Reserve Bank of India bonds.

1) Preity Zinta and Ness Wadia

We hate to believe it but apparently Preity Zinta and Ness Wadia, Bollywood’s trendy, cute couple are no longer an item. A little birdie told us that though they continue to co-own the IPL team Kings XI Punjab, on the personal front, they have apparently parted ways. We are quite disappointed as they were just perfect for each other.

2) Madonna and Jesus Luz

Madonna dumped her toyboy Jesus Luz after pictures of him getting cozy with a Brazilian pretty-young-thing surfaced. The girl, in question, is touted to be a lingerie model. Apparently, our sugar mama also wanted to play it safe since she didn’t want to ruin her chances of adopting four-year-old Mercy James from Malawi.

But it proved to be a double loss for the diva, as not only did she lose out on her hunky model but also on the kid, after a Malawian court ruled she couldn’t be granted an interim adoption of a second child.

3) Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer

On off, on off, on off - this is how the relationship between Jenny baby and her singer boyfriend was. But the F.R.I.E.N.D.S star decided she had enough of Your Body is a wonderland crooner, after she found him twittering away. Apparently, John Mayer would not send Jennifer a text message, an email or call her but spend hours on the social networking site.

4) Ujjwala Raut and Craig Maxwell Sherry

Supermodel and Mumbai girl Ujjwala Raut has filed for divorce from her model husband Craig Maxwell Sherry. Like most celebrity couples, the duo, who have a daughter together, are in the midst of parting ways, thanks to their larger-than-life lifestyle. Speculations are rife that Ujjwala proved to be super ambitious for her hubby.

As if that wasn’t enough, according to an eyewitness, she was seen holding hands with socialite Vikram Chatwal at the recently concluded Lakme Fashion Week Fall Winter. Nothing private about it!

Ajay Sethi was arrested by a special team of Delhi Police from Faridabad-Badarpur border last night and the car used in the crime was recovered, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) HGS Dhaliwal told PTI.

Sethi was on the run since last month after four persons were arrested in connection with the murders of Vishwanathan and IT executive Jigisha Ghosh.

Police had been conducting raids to catch Sethi but he had given the investigators a slip.

Delhi Police on March 23 had arrested four persons — Ravi Kapoor, Amit Kumar Shukla, Baljeet Malik and Vijay Kumar — for their alleged involvement in murders of Viswanathan and Ghosh.

Let’s try and make them understand us a little better. Don’t you get irritated when men look at your bag and say “What all do carry in that thing?” I know I do.

Well, I have a simple answer. I say “My life is in it!!!” Because quite simply, that’s a fact.

Don’t they realise that a woman’s bag has to contain everything she needs to run her everyday life? How many of you have seen the wonderful film called Mary Poppins? It stars the amazing Julie Andrews as a mystical nanny with a magical bag. Whenever Mary Poppins opened her bag, the strangest things came out of it, from coat stands to candy, from hats to medicine.

It’s kind of similar to the things we carry in our bags! I carry very big bags and if you were to ask me what I had in them, I wouldn’t have an answer. But, on the other hand, if there was something that you needed in an emergency like, say, if you suddenly chipped a nail, my hand would reach into my magical bag and voila, out would come a nail clipper.

Rest assured, if you need something, our bag would have it. Another thing that mystifies men is how we can fit so much into our bags.

Sometimes when I reach into my bag for something, they get this look in their eyes like I’m going to pull out a Harley Davidson! What stumps them still more is the small clutch we carry when we’re out painting the town red. “How???” I have been asked many times, “do you fit so many things into that small thing?” Well now, that’s a special skill only women have! Just be thankful that it’s small, because at the party, you’ll be the one holding it when I’m on the dance floor! A woman’s bag is just not a bag.

Each has its own size, shape, colour and stash of things. That’s what makes us special.

And so, I’m starting a special series in my column, the ‘My Sister Series’! The topic? Being a woman, everything about it. I’m sure that ladies will connect with what I’m saying.

And the guys, just think of it as a secret lesson in understanding women better! The Sister Series is not a weekly feature, but will pop up from time to time. It will oscillate between the inconsequential to the super serious.

I’m looking forward to it and I hope you like it.

Featuring over 20 films, with six in new 35 mm prints from the Academy Film Archive, “First Light: Satyajit Ray from the Apu Trilogy to the Calcutta Trilogy” concentrates on what is roughly the first half of Ray’s career, when he broke out internationally as an important new voice in world cinema.

“A Ray film invites you in, but also demands that you accept it on its own terms,” says Richard Pena, the Film Society’s director of programming. “And those who open themselves to Ray’s method are in for some of the richest experiences the cinema has to offer.”

The recent spike of interest in India - from its propitious emergence as a major economic power to the worldwide success of “Slumdog Millionaire” - makes this an especially apt moment to witness and celebrate Ray’s accomplishments, said the society.

Ray won the Honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement at the 1991 Academy Awards, “for his rare mastery of the art of motion pictures and for his profound humanitarian outlook, which has had an indelible influence on filmmakers and audiences throughout the world”.

“First Light” opens April 15 with the film that put him on the cinematic map, “Pather Panchali” (1955), which Pauline Kael wrote was “beautiful, sometimes funny, and full of love”.

With a brilliant soundtrack by Ravi Shankar, to which Wes Anderson paid tribute by using it in “The Darjeeling Limited” along with music from many other Ray films, “Pather Panchali” (Song of the Road) is the first part of the “Apu Trilogy” following a boy’s adventures in a remote Bengal village.

The trilogy’s second part “Aparajito” (The Unvanquished), made a year later, won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival (the Golden Lion). It follows Apu after his father passes away.

Finally, 1959’s “Apur Sansar” (The World of Apu), made two films after “Aparajito”, is considered by many as the trio’s masterpiece, a deeply affecting portrait of a more opaque, ambiguous Apu struggling to discover his place in the world.

Other new 35 mm prints made possible by the Satyajit Ray Preservation Project at the Academy Film Archive are “The Expedition” (1962), “The Coward and the Holy Man” (1965), “The Hero” (1966), “The Adventures of Goopy and Bagha” (1968) and “Two” (1965), a rare short made for the Esso World Theatre.

The series concluding with Ray’s “Calcutta Trilogy” is described as a tribute to the work of the Satyajit Ray Preservation Project at the Academy Film Archive in Los Angeles.

Together with the Satyajit Ray Film and Study Centre at the University of California, Santa Cruz, the archive has done much to preserve and promote the work of this major film artiste for future generations.

With the archive currently hard at work restoring the rest of Ray’s films, the society said it hoped to be able to present a series built around the second half of his career in the not-so-distant future.

In conjunction with this series, a major conference on Ray will be held at Columbia University April 25.

The conference will include a keynote lecture from Robert Young, Silver Professor of English and Comparative Literature, New York University, and talks by Samik Banerjee, theatre, film, and arts critic; filmmakers Shyam Benegal and Mira Nair, and Sandip Ray, film director and the son of Satyajit Ray.

Ray died on 23 April 1992 in Kolkata, a city where he lived and on which he based most of his acclaimed films.

The county stint with Worcestershire was his turning point. Having to bowl roughly 25 overs day in and day out, is the best way to learn about one’s bowling. You realise your strengths, your limitations and the fitness level it takes to perform all the time. In the county circuit, both teammates as well as the opposition look up to an international player. And while that brings added pressure, for some, the responsibility brings out the man in the boy.

For some people this understanding of oneself comes early, for some a little later. Once that comes, like it did to Zaheer at Worcester, you transfer ability to performance. You learn how to pace yourself to ensure that the 23rd or 24th over of the day or innings too, you are running in like you did in the first spell. All of a sudden, you know what skills to work on and how fit you need to be. Actually, Zaheer has recently moved on to an even higher platform. With active encouragement from Venkatesh Prasad, whose role in his rise cannot be overlooked, Zaheer has taken on the role of a mentor to the younger bowlers, guiding and empowering them, all so vital to the continued development of a team. He works more in partnership with the youngsters, rather than in a leadership role, making them very comfortable.

As for the rest of the team, it is so heartwarming to see the lower order contribute. It is something has been talked about for a while, wherein the bowlers did their bit with the bat and the batsmen chipped in with the odd wicket here and there, breaking a stubborn partnership or two. In team discussions, it was constantly stated that in order to win consistently, everyone needs to contribute and so the team has been working on getting it right. The skill has always been there - Harbhajan showed us that didn’t he - it is only that the required application too has been factored in.

Off as I am to Johannesburg for the IPL, I hope to catch the end of the Test there and should our team pull it off, you can bet I’ll be celebrating along with them. This team deserves the success. They have worked hard for it.

writes Anil Kumble.

Set a near impossible target of 617, the hosts were struggling at 167 for four before bad light brought an early end of the fourth day’s play.

The Indians first declared their second innings at 434 for 7 in the morning session by adding 85 quick runs to their overnight tally and then had the Kiwis on the mat to put themselves on the threshold of a 2-0 series triumph.

With one more day left, the Kiwis have to bat out three more sessions to save the game on a Basin Reserve pitch which has not shown any signs of drastic deterioration.

The Indians, on the other hand, need to capture the remaining six wickets, after Zaheer Khan (2/50) and Harbhajan Singh (2/36) inflicted early damage. Ross Taylor on 69 and James Franklin on 26 were at the crease when bad light stopped play with 21 overs remaining to be bowled on day four.

The court, while announcing the beginning of the trial, extended the judicial custody of Kasab and two other accused, Faheem Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed, till April 15.

More than 180 people were killed in the terror attacks on November 26 last.