Popular messaging app WhatsApp has now crossed 500 million users. The company which was bought by Facebook in February this year  - for a gigantic amount of $19 billion – has been steadily adding to its growing list of users.

Last year in August, WhatsApp had 200 million users while the number doubled to 430 million in January 2014. The instant messaging app had also revealed that it processes 50 billion messages on an average every day.

Jan Koum, co-founder of WhatsApp says in a post on company’s blog, “In the last few months, we’ve grown fastest in countries like Brazil, India, Mexico, and Russia, and our users are also sharing more than 700 million photos and 100 million videos every single day.”

The post further clarifies that these 500 million people are not only registered members but also active users. The new milestone for the messaging app explains why Mark Zuckerberg was interested in buying it.

As far as India is concerned, it remains one of the fastest growing markets for WhatsApp. WhatsApp’s Neeraj Arora told BGR India that it’s adding a whopping 4 million active users per month and the India user base is set to cross 50 million mark in May, constituting 10 percent of all users. Currently the report says the service has 48 million active users in the country.

The deal between WhatsApp and Facebook has come under scrutiny for privacy issues. One of the major reasons users are worried about this acquisition is they fear WhatsApp could lose its ad-free messaging service.

The recent WhatsApp outages have only fuelled the fear that it might not be ad-free service for longer. Jan Koum put to rest these fears by releasing an official statement that reads, “WhatsApp will remain autonomous and operate independently. You can continue to enjoy the service for a nominal fee. You can continue to use WhatsApp no matter where in the world you are, or what smartphone you’re using. And you can still count on absolutely no ads interrupting your communication.”

As expected by Mark Zuckerberg, the app seems to be well on track to achieve the billion users mark.

The going is great for Priyanka Chopra who is out with her third solo I Can't Make You Love Me, which made it to the No 3 spot on iTunes India in less than 24 hours. (Also read: Priyanka's latest single was launched in New York)

After the success of In My City featuring will.i.am and Exotic featuring Pitbull, Priyanka has nailed it with her third song I Can't Make You Love Me. It is a unique cover of the Bonnie Raitt's 1991 song that made it to Rolling Stone magazine's 500 greatest songs of all-time list.
"My cover of I Can't Make You Love Me is really different because the original is a ballad and we have used dance music for my version of the song. Watch out for the video," Priyanka, who launched the new track on April 22, said in a statement. (Also read: Priyanka found every scene of Mary Kom inspiring)

Her rendition of the song is already on its way to making waves on the international music scene.

Australian musician Iggy Azalea stopped by New York City radio station Hot 97 on Tuesday, April 22, and told a disturbing story that explains why she had stopped crowd surfing at her shows. Apparently, her fans think it's fair game to sexually assault the rapper and try to slip their fingers into her body during the concerts.

Alarming and unsettling as it is, Azalea, 23, talked about it with a straight face and an upfront attitude. "I will get lurk tweets for like a week before my show, like 'I'm about to go to the Iggy Azalea show and I'm going to finger her,' and I'll see it and be like, please don't!," she said. "That's a violation. I don't actually like that stuff."

"Like, they think I'm real slutty, like 'Oh, she got a song called 'Pu$$y,' I know what she wants. She wants these two fingers.' Why would I want a stranger to ever finger me?" Azalea said. "Buying my album for $12 doesn't mean you get to finger me when I come to your city."

Not only do men have issues with boundaries, but women do, too. "Girls think it's cool ... doesn't make it okay," she said.

As a precaution, she now wears three layers under her pants -- two pairs of underwear and skin-colored tights, as a "protective barrier."

Polling began Thursday morning for 12 Lok Sabha seats in the third phase of Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh to decide the political future of 188 candidates, including SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and Union Minister Salman Khurshid.

"The polling has started at 7 am and will continue till 6 pm. The polling has started on a peaceful note," Chief Electoral Officer Umesh Sinha said.

The 12 constituencies where polling is going on include: Hathras, Mathura, Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Firozabad, Mainpuri, Etah, Hardoi, Farukhabad, Etawah, Kannauj and Akbarpur.

The electoral fortunes of 188 candidates, including 20 women contestants, will be decided by 2.03 crore electorate. The EC has put up 21,990 polling centres and deployed 1.09 lakh employees for the voting exercise.

While maximum number of 28 candidates are in fray from Fatehpur Sikri, only nine candidates are contesting in Hathras.

The focus will on the Yadav family as the SP chief is fighting to retain his traditional Mainpuri seat while his daughter-in-law Dimple Yadav would be facing a challenge to retain Kannauj.

Mulayam's nephew and son of SP national general secretary Ram Gopal, Akshay Yadav is in the electoral fray for the first time from Firozabad.

Two more political families that of former Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh and BJP leader and former UP chief minister Kalyan Singh are also set to test their hold in their respective areas.

In the Mathura seat, Hema Malini banking on the 'Modi wave' is pitted against Jayant Chaudhary, grandson of Chaudhary Charan Singh and son of RLD chief Ajit Singh.

Once considered a key person in SP, Amar Singh has entered the electoral battle for the first time from Fatehpur. He is contesting on RLD ticket with the support of Congress.

Though Kalyan Singh is not in fray this time from Etah, his son Rajveer's future is at stake in the same seat. Last time Kalyan won from Etah seat as an independent candidate.

In Farukkhabad, Union Minister Khurshid is faced with the challenge of retaining his seat.

BJP and BSP are contesting on all 12 seats, whereas Congress has not fielded candidates against Mulayam and Dimple.

Michelle Keegan has had to apologise to fans for ignoring them when they came to meet her outside the 'Corrie' studios, claiming she was wearing stage makeup that would give away her 'Coronation Street' exit storyline.

It was announced in late 2013 that Michelle’s character Tina McIntyre was to leave the soap later this year in a dramatic “whodunnit?” storyline.

Her exit from the soap has been shrouded in secrecy ever since to avoid revealing which ‘Corrie’ resident is behind Tina’s murder.

When one fan tweeted on Tuesday that she was disappointed to have not been able to meet the actress after travelling down to see her, Michelle quickly apologised, claiming she wasn’t allowed to greet fans because of her stage makeup.

It was recently reported that following her last ever day of filming on Thursday, Michelle would be throwing a chav-themed party for the cast and crew of ‘Corrie’, as a tribute to her character, before she moves to the south to live with her fiancé Mark Wright.
The former 'TOWIE' star was on set with Michelle earlier this month, supporting her as she filmed what he tweeted were her “final scenes” as Tina McIntyre.

Michelle first joined the soap in 2008 as David Platt’s girlfriend. She’s since been involved in a number of dramatic and hard-hitting storylines including the death of her father, an on-off relationship with Chris Fountain’s character Tommy Duckworth and a surrogate pregnancy.

Her character Tina is currently embroiled in an affair with married Peter Barlow, and recently revealed that she thinks she might be pregnant with his baby.

Lady Gaga celebrated her 28th birthday with an energetic but short concert at the Roseland Ballroom in her first of seven concerts at the closing venue.

Gaga performed for an hour Friday night in front of a feverish crowd. She started with a slow version of "Born This Way" on piano, with the audience joining in. She followed that with the jams "Monster" and "Bad Romance." She danced and sang on the side of the stage in a red tight leotard.

"Thank you so much for spending my birthday with me," she yelled to the audience, which included her actor-boyfriend Taylor Kinney and Nate Ruess, lead singer for the band Fun.

Gaga was in top form as she sang nearly a dozen of her songs, including "Just Dance," an acoustic version of "Poker Face," and the recent hit "Applause." The concert's main surprise: It was too short. After she ended, fans waited for the pop star to hit the stage again. She never did.

She performed some tracks from her recent album, "ARTPOP," which has struggled to match the success of her other releases. But onstage, she showed no signs of slowing down.
Gaga closed with the new single, "G.U.Y.," now wearing an all-white ensemble (her sixth costume change for the night).

"Thanks for making this the best birthday ever," she said.

The New York-born singer will perform six more shows at the Roseland Ballroom, helping close the famed venue that opened eight decades ago. Performers in the past have included The Rolling Stones, Madonna and Beyonce, who famously performed four shows in 2011 when she was pregnant.

"How many New Yorkers are in here tonight?" Gaga asked early in the show. "Do you believe in love? Do you?"

The Grammy winner kept the concert tame compared to her showcase at the South by Southwest festival this month, which featured a performance artist vomiting paint on her. She thanked her fans a number of times in between songs.

"When I woke up this morning I was so happy," she said. "I couldn't wait to get here tonight. I have so many friends here ... so many fans I've grown up with for six whole years, seven whole years."

When a dog became stranded in a canal in Romania, some passersby jumped in to pull the soaking wet pup from the icy water. But it's what happens after the dog was freed that makes the recorded rescue so remarkable.

In a video, posted on YouTube this week, several men pull the dog to safety by the scruff of its neck -- something canine mothers often do to their pups to carry them. After the dog is freed, it appears to act as most humans would and shows its gratitude to the rescuers by showering them with nuzzles and licks.
Whether dogs are capable of showing emotions like humans has been a recurrent topic in scientific studies (though most pet owners would probably agree that dogs are capable of showing a wide range of emotions.)

In October, a professor of neuroeconomics published an editorial following two years of research on the human-canine connection with the conclusion: "Dogs are people, too." More recently, another study indicated that, within the brain, dogs process voices and emotions just like humans.

So while this rescued dog may just be excited to be back on dry land, we're inclined to believe it's grateful for the assist.

Jimmy Kimmel seems to think so. He tweeted this selfie — featuring Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton — to his 3.76 million followers on Saturday night:

Five and a half years after leaving Hugh Hefner and Playboy behind, Holly Madison finally ditched her bleach blonde hair for something a bit more appropriate for her newfound motherhood.
Trouble is, the former reality star can't seem to pick a color she likes and we aren't too thrilled with the newest results.

The former The Girls Next Door centerpiece debuted her ginger locks on March 13th on a red carpet in Las Vegas.
Unfortunately, she must have wanted something a bit more vibrant and darkened the color just before her most recent appearance celebrating a brand new cupcake ATM yesterday.
I'm not sure about you, but I much prefer the lighter version to the darker. It seems a lot more natural and is just prettier.

And from one ginger to another, Holly better make sure to have those hair appointments scheduled in advance. Red may be stunning, but it is a bitch to keep up with once you start washing it.

About five years ago, Lady Gaga burst into mega fame with the force of a shooting star (that insisted on wearing raw meat to red carpet events). But with her latest performance largely spotlighting vomit as performance art, it's all too easy to forget the moment when Gaga first rose into public consciousness, accessorized by Muppets and often compared to Madonna.

So, what happened? In just about five years, Gaga reached an unprecedented echelon of pop stardom, only to lose her mystery to such an extent that puke-for-attention seems almost standard. (She was puked on, it should be noted, by vomit painter Millie Brown.) In hopes of mapping the trajectory from fledgling stardom to bile desperation, we've tracked the rise and fall of Gaga's monstrous brand of celebrity.

Feb. 20, 2007 - Appearing in public for perhaps the last time as the human who once resembled Stefani Germanotta, Gaga attends the "Who's Next? Writers on the Rise" event in New York City.

May 19, 2008 - Gaga introduces her eclectic sartorial choices to the world at the NewNowNext Award, walking the carpet as a pirate from a future in which there is no cure for glaucoma.
Aug. 19, 2008 - Gaga releases "The Fame" and it eventually goes platinum, selling over 10 million digital singles and quickly making her what Rolling Stone would later call "the defining pop star of 2009." The Top-40 quickly becomes 20 percent just Gaga.

Jan. 20, 2009 - In an interview with The Guardian, Lady Gaga tells Laura Barton that she has "felt famous [her] whole life." Her confidence in place of feigned surprise over her success is refreshing.

May 11, 2009 - During a spot on "Ellen," Gaga begins her foray into absurd hats with "The Orbit," succeeds in confounding both Ellen and America.

Sept. 13, 2009 - One of Gaga's five generally outrageous outfits at the VMAs includes a red lace bridal headdress that is basically what would have happened if Carrie ever got married.