Deepika Padukone clearly loves her tattoos. First it was the RK tattoo at the base of her neck and then another one depicting an anklet. No wonder, she was chosen as an ambassador by the organizers of the first Tattoo Convention.

The remixed version of the iconic song ‘Mit Jayee gham’ sees Deepika sporting a scorpion tattoo and swinging to the tune with an attitude. After watching the song, IndiaInk Invention got in touch with her and requested her to visit their first ever convention which took place on Sunday, 10th April 2011.

However, the actress was shooting in London for ‘Desi Boyz’ and was unable to attend the convention.She forwarded the invitation to the ‘Dum Maaro Dum’ team. Abhishek Bachchan, Prateik and Rohan Sippy attended the convention instead.
Manoj Thakur, Partner at Par Excellance Entertainment says, “Deepika Padukone’s absence was felt, especially at an event that she would have readily identified with. With her own much-written about the tattoo at the base of her neck and the cutting-edge tattoo she’s seen sporting in the movie, she would have been the perfect ambassador for this tattoo expo.”

The cast of Dum Maro Dum launched the special Dum Maaro Dum tattoo at the convention.

A wealthy New York woman is facing criminal charges after being accused of keeping an illegal immigrant as an indentured servant and forcing her to live in a closet for nearly six years.

Documents posted on the Smoking Gun allege that Annie George, 39, and her now-deceased husband, Mathai Kolath George, hired an illegal immigrant from the Indian state of Kerala. The immigrant, identified only as "V.M.," was promised about $1,000 a month in wages to live in the family's 34-room, 30,000-square-foot home, known as Llenroc mansion, which houses a helicopter pad, 15 fireplaces, marble flooring, 24-karat gold gilded ceilings and a glass elevator. V.M. was tasked with taking care of the Georges' four young children, along with performing household duties in the mansion located about 20 miles north of Albany.

New York's minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Even if V.M. had been allowed to leave the residence at the end of a regular 40-hour workweek, she would have been entitled to a minimum, pretax income of $290 per week, or $1,160 per month.

Instead, the "forced labor situation" (as described in the court papers) was even worse than the already-below minimum wage offer of $1,000 month. V.M. received 85 cents an hour, working 17-hour days, seven days a week, over the 67 months she was kept inside the George residence.

All told, V.M. received only about $29,000 over the five and a half years she was forced to work for the George family.

Georgia O’Keefe once wrote to Mabel Dodge Luhan, “I feel there is something unexplored about women that only a woman can explore.” With this in mind, we present the work of Claiborne Swanson Frank, a photographer living and working in New York. Swanson Frank was formerly Anna Wintour’s assistant at Vogue, and from the photos below we can see the magazine’s influence on this budding photographer.

We talked to Swanson Frank over the phone as she walked her dog and answered questions about her work. Slightly breathless, she was excited to discuss her debut photo collection from Assouline, titled, “American Beauty" -- which features over 100 photos of inspirational women from their twenties to mid-forties.

After taking a class, she decided to follow her dream of becoming a professional photographer in 2010. Her first project was “Indigo Light” -- a series of 29 portraits of her female friends and family members that present the women on their own terms. To Swanson Frank, portraiture is a collaborative process; she works with each woman to present her at her very best, but also remembers that the clothes should always be the woman’s own; it’s not a fashion shoot, but a moment of being, crystallized in time.
CSF: To be a woman in America is such a gift because we have such a freedom to express ourselves and to celebrate our accomplishments. I wanted to tell that story through portraits of these women, through these conversations. There’s been two wars, the collapse of the economy, 9/11, and women in America are wildly different now than ever before -- this really hasn’t been explored on this level before. This is the new creative guard, in a sense.

Andrew Breitbart used the Internet relentlessly to ignite political scandal and expose what he saw as media bias, even if he sometimes had to edit the facts to do it.

The fiery online publisher and blogger who collapsed and died Thursday at 43 relished public combat with liberals -- a YouTube clip last month shows him bellowing at Occupy Wall Street protesters, "Stop raping people, you freaks!" Yet the conservatives and tea party activists who loved him said he exposed corrupt leaders and what he called the hopelessly liberal "old media guard."

The converted Hollywood lefty who partied his way through Tulane University was also a soft-spoken father of four. The conservative warrior chose to live on enemy turf, Brentwood, the tony Los Angeles enclave favored by the Hollywood elite he so often mocked.

Breitbart used his website to promote a hidden-camera video with actors posing as customers that led the downfall of the liberal Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. He posted explicit photos of former Rep. Anthony Weiner that caused the New York congressman to resign in a sexting scandal, and an edited video that caused former U.S. Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod to resign over since-reversed perceptions she was a racist.

In a new media age, Breitbart argued that anyone with a laptop could reshape public discourse. He used his skills at sites like Big Journalism and Big Government, and his takedown of Weiner established him as a conservative media star.

He was filled with contradictions. He was a self-avowed enemy of the mainstream media, yet he subscribed to The Associated Press and admitted loving the venerable news agency's photos that came from afar. "It's a love-hate relationship," he confided at a quiet moment. He pleaded with conservatives to drive relentlessly forward -- walk into the line of fire, he would say -- yet the final sentence from his prolific and often caustic voice on Twitter was, ironically, an apology for calling a follower a "putz," just in case he misunderstood a message to him.

His business partner and lifelong friend, Larry Solov, once said Breitbart had two speeds: lighthearted jokester and fiery culture warrior.

"They flip back and forth," Solov said. "And there is not that much in between."

Breitbart died after collapsing shortly after midnight during a walk near his home. He was rushed to the emergency room at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.

Breitbart suffered heart problems a year earlier, but his father-in-law, actor Orson Bean, said he could not pinpoint what happened. Larry Dietz, watch commander at the Los Angeles County coroner's office, said an autopsy was likely.
CLICK MORE HERE

When Zac Efron dropped a Magnum condom at The Lorax premiere, you’d just assume it was a simple mistake at best or a deliberate message to the ladies at worst. Except if you’re The National Enquirer, you immediately assume it’s a clever stunt to woo his two decades older The Paperboy co-star Nicole Kidman away from Keith Urban which makes all the sense in the world. I don’t know how we missed it. Via Gossip Cop:

“He thinks she’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever laid eyes on,” reveals a so-called “insider,” adding, “Zac said if Nicole wasn’t married, he’d put the moves on her hard.”
…
The Enquirer alleges that Efron’s recent red carpet miscue was all part of a plan to “impress” Kidman.
Efron dropped the “gold magnum condom – which is used by well-endowed men” because, as the magazine’s source explains, “He knew reports of the incident would get back to her.”
“He wanted to let her know what kind of man he really is,” says the Enquirer insider. CLICK HERE

In Mumbai the rich build helipads atop their houses, the poor beg not just for food but also water. The condominiums of the wealthy tower above the tarp roofs of the poor so that when they turn to the heavens in prayer they see instead the rich at play. Obvious disparity is a defining feature of Mumbai, and the city's survival and relative harmony despite this is what makes it so fascinating to writers.

I don't recall when I slipped from writing about the mainstream to writing only of the margins. But one evening a few years ago I found myself accompanying a young hijra, an Indian transgender, to the home of her guru for a story I was reporting. I was then invited to attend a brothel madam's birthday party in the red light district. Thereafter it seemed only natural that when the brothel workers went on pilgrimage to a shrine high up in the hills outside Mumbai, that they would invite me along.

With every interview, I learnt a little more of the intimate hardships of poverty. Through every shared experience I saw how great a struggle it was for an already marginalized person to survive in a city with eyes only for the prize of power and wealth. For the courage they displayed, everyone I met deserved to have his or her story told. Then in 2005 I was introduced to a girl called Leela who didn't just have a story, but who became part of a story that captivated India.

Leela was 19, and a bar dancer. Every night she danced fully clothed to Bollywood music in a seedy little bar called Night Lovers. The more energetic and calculated her dancing, the more likely it was that her customers, the men who'd come to watch her, would reward her. If they liked what they saw, they flung money at her. On a good night Leela earned the equivalent of $50. Customers also showed their appreciation with gifts of perfume and offers of money for sex.

Leela was one of 75,000 women who danced in bars. And at the time there were 1,500 such bars in Mumbai. Their aesthetic was a curious blend of a 1970s nightclub and a Bollywood set. But even among the crowd, Leela stood out. Most bar dancers were illiterate. Leela read novels. She had a wicked sense of humor. And she knew without a doubt that she deserved better than her customers. Through hundreds of hours of interviews I found that despite the physical hardship and routine degradation at the hands of customers and cops, Leela's life, relative to the alternative of the street or back in the village was under her own control, and, as far as she was concerned, a happy one.

In the summer of 2005, the local government decided to ban dancing in bars. The decision was a bald attempt to capture the middle class vote, and cost thousands of women their livelihood. Innumerable bar owners, waiters, bouncers, even taxi drivers and tailors who'd earned money from the bars also suffered losses.

Leela's life, which I chronicle in my book Beautiful Thing, was now out of her control. Like the Bollywood films to whose music she danced, it was chaos in the extreme. READ MORE

"Punk'd" is back, and its causing some series drama for its Hollywood targets. In this sneak-peek of the wedding-crashing premiere, Justin Bieber -- who is celebrating his 18th birthday -- punks his good friend, pop superstar Taylor Swift, and from the look on her shocked face, you'd think she won an award.

This season, Ashton Kutcher is passing the torch to a different celebrity host each week, including Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Kellan Lutz, Hayden Panettiere, Bam Margera and “Punk’d” alum Dax Shepard, among many others, who will punk their unsuspecting famous friends, including Khloe Kardashian Odom, “Teen Wolf’s” Tyler Posey, Demi Lovato, and more.

This just in: President Obama will be re-elected president in 2012.

At least, that's what the newly discovered Academy Awards/Golden Globes Rule suggests.

With only two exceptions over the past 50 years, a Democrat has won the White House when the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture (Drama) and the Oscar for Best Picture have not gone to the same film. When the same picture takes both honors, a Republican wins.

This year, "The Descendants" won Best Motion Picture (Drama) at the Globes, and "The Artist" won Oscar's Best Picture. (Full disclosure: "The Artist" also won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture (Comedy or Musical).)

CNN's OutFront blog spotted the pattern (and yes, even they float the question of whether or not they have too much time on their hands), and the details are pretty intriguing. Of the two times the rule failed to hold true, one can be somewhat easily explained away:

In 1976, when "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" won both awards, things went crazy, and Gerald Ford failed to win.

But as Ford was never actually elected as president or vice president in the first place, there is an argument to be made he was never a true incumbent.

The other, CNN notes, was when the filmic adaptation of Steinbeck's "East of Eden" won the Golden Globe but failed to capture the Oscar. Steinbeck himself was fiercely political and published a long memo outlining a plan that he hoped would keep Eisenhower from a second term.

Every other election cycle, the award shows have "predicted" the party of the next president. Reagan won his second term the year that "Terms of Endearment" won both honors, and Bill Clinton won in 1996 when "Braveheart" and "Sense and Sensibility" split the statuettes.

The Conservative Party is reviewing tapes of every call made by the Responsive Marketing Group call centre in Thunder Bay, Ont., in the last election before Elections Canada investigators arrive next week, CBC News has learned.

Investigators are planning to interview the centre's staff, which the Conservative Party hired to make phone calls to identify and rally supporters in the 2011 federal election.

The news comes on a day when Conservative MPs' counterattack backfired after they accused the Liberals of being behind mysterious election calls — but mixed up two similarly named call companies, naming the wrong one as the smoking gun.

After a week of denials over the role the Conservative Party and a campaign team played in phone calls directing voters to the wrong polling station, and opposition party allegations over harassing calls in other ridings, Prime Minister Stephen Harper pushed back in question period.

The Liberals, Harper said in the House, have said people got misleading phone calls from numbers in the United States. But when two of his MPs tried to offer more details, they named a U.S.-based company that the Liberals have never used.

Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae said Harper was smearing thousands of Canadians complaining about the calls.

"The prime minister and his colleagues have remarkable ability to turn themselves into victims," Rae said.

"The prime minister cannot deny the fact that two of the companies that are involved with respect to [campaign] activities are now under serious investigation. Nor can he deny the fact that there is an RCMP investigation ongoing with respect to what happened in Guelph."

Elections Canada is investigating automated robocalls in Guelph, Ont., that tried to send voters to the wrong polling station on election day.

Opposition MPs say they have reports of robocalls or strange, harassing live calls from more than 45 ridings in the lead-up to the May 2, 2011, election. They allege the Conservative campaigns made the rude calls, claiming to be the Liberals, in an attempt to make the Liberal campaigns look bad. Harper says the opposition parties didn't report the calls at the time and are acting like sore losers.

This just in: President Obama will be re-elected president in 2012.

At least, that's what the newly discovered Academy Awards/Golden Globes Rule suggests.

With only two exceptions over the past 50 years, a Democrat has won the White House when the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture (Drama) and the Oscar for Best Picture have not gone to the same film. When the same picture takes both honors, a Republican wins.

This year, "The Descendants" won Best Motion Picture (Drama) at the Globes, and "The Artist" won Oscar's Best Picture. (Full disclosure: "The Artist" also won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture (Comedy or Musical).)

CNN's OutFront blog spotted the pattern (and yes, even they float the question of whether or not they have too much time on their hands), and the details are pretty intriguing. Of the two times the rule failed to hold true, one can be somewhat easily explained away:

In 1976, when "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" won both awards, things went crazy, and Gerald Ford failed to win.

But as Ford was never actually elected as president or vice president in the first place, there is an argument to be made he was never a true incumbent.

The other, CNN notes, was when the filmic adaptation of Steinbeck's "East of Eden" won the Golden Globe but failed to capture the Oscar. Steinbeck himself was fiercely political and published a long memo outlining a plan that he hoped would keep Eisenhower from a second term.

Every other election cycle, the award shows have "predicted" the party of the next president. Reagan won his second term the year that "Terms of Endearment" won both honors, and Bill Clinton won in 1996 when "Braveheart" and "Sense and Sensibility" split the statuettes.

This news, if you can call it that, comes amid signs that Hollywood isn't as Obama-mad as it used to be. Four years after the likes of Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney and Halle Berry effusively praised the "Yes We Can" candidate, the relationship appears to have cooled considerably.