Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Sunday blamed the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre for lack of development in mineral-rich Jharkhand. BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is garlanded along with party president Rajnath Singh at the Vijay Sankalp rally in Ranchi. (PTI Photo) Addressing a rally in state capital Ranchi, the Gujarat chief minister highlighted Jharkhand’s unemployment problem and said the central government had done nothing...

South African all-rounder Jacques Kallis on Sunday surpassed Rahul Dravid as the third highest run-getter in Test cricket after a 115-run knock against India in his farewell match in Durban. Kallis, who would be retiring from Tests at the end of the match, now has 13,289 runs in the longest format. That tally is one run more than Dravid, who retired last year after playing 164 Tests. Kallis, who is playing in his 166th Test, is now third behind Sachin Tendulkar (15,921) and Ricky Ponting (13,378)...

I have had the good fortune of being in several projects in which Farooq Sheikh was involved, so in the early hours when I heard of his passing away my first reaction was of disbelief. How can a man so full of life be snatched away like this from amongst our midst? Steeped in Hindustani tehzeeb, an adaab and a smile from him was all it took to bewitch people. Everything about him suggested gentlemanliness and great upbringing. He came from a family of well-to-do zamindars of Amroli, but never...

2:50 pm Modi concludes his rally by ensuring that the BJP will usher in a better and brighter future for Jharkhand. And the people (Congress) who just believe in doing 'Aakashwani', will be of no use. 2:50 pm This is a historic rally. When I was watching it from the chopper, I could see a sea of humanity queued up for this rally. 2:48 pm The country need development, and not division. People need employment and not political chaos. The elders need support and not struggle. 2:47 pm The Congress...

BJP on Sunday criticised newly-appointed Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for forming a government with the support of the "corrupt" Congress party, claiming that the latter would abandon it sooner or later.  Arvind Kejriwal "It is really strange that Kejriwal has taken the support of the same Congress which he has been always been describing as a corrupt political party," BJP national vice president Prabhat Jha told PTI. Aam Aadmi Party convener Arvind Kejriwal was yesterday sworn-in...

In the old days, filmmakers flocked to Hollywood for its abundant sunshine, beautiful people and sandy beaches. But today a new filmmaking diaspora is spreading across the globe to places like Vancouver, London and Wellington, New Zealand. Fueled by politicians doling out generous tax breaks, filmmaking talent is migrating to where the money is. The result is an incentives arms race that pits California against governments around the world and allows powerful studios —with hundreds of millions...

Renee Zellweger, that you, girl? The 44-year-old actress went super casual while dining with her parents Emil and Kjellfrid Zellweger in Santa Monica, Calif., on Thursday (Dec. 26). (The half-up, half-down hairdo is an apparent fave, judging from the same hairstyle Zellweger wore back in November). Zellweger has remained relatively out of the spotlight since starring in 2010's "My Own Love Song," though fans of the actress have been putting up her name for bid ever since Helen Fielding released...

The 46-year-old actress sat down with Amy Kaufman from the Los Angeles Times to talk about her transition into motherhood and how it reflects on her career. "I think people like to say that I'm super picky because of how much I l-oo-ve my kids. But as an actor, I sort of pride myself on the fact that I've always been picky," Roberts explained to the paper. Roberts has been married to cinematographer Daniel Moder for 11 years, and the couple have three children together. At this point in her life,...

Enough is enough. The new year is fast approaching and we'd like to look at it as an opportunity for a fresh start. A clean slate. A chance to start anew without many of the repetitive, lazy, worn out tropes and trends that pop culture wielded at us in 2013. From twerking to tired storylines -- we're just over it. What hath "Marvel's The Avengers" wrought? Just a bunch of expensive and loud movies with shared universes that will keep multiplexes filled from now until forever. This past year...

Aamir Khan-starrer big-budget action thriller Dhoom: 3 has collected Rs 69.58 crore -- which includes earnings from Tamil and Telugu versions -- in two days of its release, an official statement said. Directed by Vijay Krishna Acharya, the third instalment of Yash Raj Films' popular Dhoom franchise came out on Friday (December 20, 2013) and opened to mixed reviews. But it seems the box office collection is satisfactory. On Friday, the well-packaged enrapturing drama clinched a total of Rs 36.22...

A crucial meeting of the Political Affairs Committee of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) began on Monday to discuss the results of the public referendum on whether or not to take Congress support in forming government in Delhi. According to reports, meeting is being attended by all top AAP leaders, including Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, Dr Kumar Viswas and all newly-elected MLA of the party. After the meeting, the AAP chief is likely to hold a press conference to announce his party's decision on...

Ballerina Mary Helen Bowers is about to give birth to her first child, and has been dancing through pregnancy with unbelievable agility and breathtaking grace. Bowers, the woman behind the Ballet Beautiful fitness company and the trainer who helps get Victoria's Secret models into runway form, has been documenting the stages of her pregnancy in a series of stunning photographs. She has been sharing these steps of her journey to motherhood on her Instagram account. "I've found the entire process...

Hormone-disrupting chemicals linked to cancer, infertility and a slew of other health problems have been found in water samples collected at and near hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," sites in Colorado, according to a new study published in the journal Endocrinology this week. Researchers say they found elevated levels of these chemicals -- known as endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) -- in surface water and groundwater samples collected in the state's Garfield County, a fracking hotspot...

 Undaunted hobbits trumped princess power at the multiplex. Per studio estimates Sunday, Warner Bros. "Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" was No. 1 at the weekend box office with $73.7 million, besting last weekend's No. 1 film, Disney's animated fable "Frozen." Melting down to the No. 2 position, "Frozen" earned $22.2 in its third weekend, bringing its impressive overall domestic ticket total to nearly $164.4 million. Despite its first place position, "Hobbit" fell short of topping its prequel's...

If you felt like Beyoncé's surprise album release was Christmas coming early, you're not alone. Celebrities have been expressing their excitement on Twitter and spreading the word about Queen Bey's latest triumph. As the West Coast was tucking into bed Thursday night, the singer rolled out one of the best-kept secrets in recent music history: The album she had spent the last year teasing was now available for purchase on iTunes. The self-titled set comes as a “visual album” featuring 14...

Tension prevailed at Andhra Pradesh state secretariat Friday as the employees of Seemandhra and Telangana nearly came to blows over the bill sent by the centre for formation of separate Telangana state. Employees of Seemandhra (Rayalaseema and coastal Andhra) took out a rally when officials were transporting the bill to the state assembly amid tight security. After the convoy of vehicles left for the assembly, Seemandhra employees intensified their protest. Raising slogans in support of the united...

The Aam Aadmi Party on Friday announced it will not form a government in Delhi and will reject the Lieutenant Governor's offer when party leaders meet him on Saturday. AAP leaders Manish Sisodia and Yogendra Yadav made the announcement after a party meeting. "We don't have majority (support) nor have we finished first," said Yadav. He said AAP founder leader Arvind Kejriwal would meet Jung Saturday in response to a formal invitation from the Lt. Governor regarding government formation in Delhi.  The...

If you've ever said to yourself, My underwear is just covering TOO MUCH of my junk -- well, you're in luck. Petit Q, a French brand, has released a line of underwear that is, honestly, barely there when it comes to covering your nether-regions. A line that seeks to "create a really sexy and edgy brand but still in a playful way," Petit Q is certainly playing up their appeal to the gay male consumer. Check out the sexy video of the above to check out all of the different styles -- would you...

'Kate had ‘Baby Boy Winslet’ on Saturday at an NHS Hospital,' the spokeswoman said. A source close to Kate added the couple are 'thrilled to bits.' The newborn is a third child for Kate, but a first for her husband. The baby joins Mia, 13, and Joe, nine, from Kate's first two marriages. Winslet met Rocknroll while holidaying at his uncle Richard Branson's privately owned Necker Island, where they wed in secret last December after a whirlwind romance. The 35-year-old works on the space-travel...

“The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” is quite possibly the least talked about sure-to-be-blockbuster movie of all time. I do wonder what life would be like in a world where director Peter Jackson had stuck to the original plan and only released two "Hobbit" movies instead of three. Would the reaction to the first movie, “An Unexpected Journey,” have been better? Would we all be more excited for “The Desolation of Smaug”? Would I have heard at least one person say the words, “I cannot wait to...

When her Las Vegas residency begins at the end of the month, Britney Spears should probably stay away from the roulette wheel, because numbers are not her friend at the moment. Spears’ new album Britney Jean arrived this week, moving only 107,000 copies for a fourth-place finish on the Billboard 200. It’s the weakest opening week in Spears’ career, both by hard sales numbers and chart position (previously, her slowest sales week was the opening frame of her debut …Baby One More Time, which tallied...

It's that time of year when the weather gets a bit cooler and you've got to pull out your winter gear--big coat, gloves, hat and scarf--there's nothing out of the ordinary about that. But one artist is raising eyebrows with his choice of 'scarves' that aren't wool or even silk, they're white women. Nate Hill, a New York-based performance artist, is grabbing a lot of attention with his latest work entitled "Trophy Scarves" in which the 36-year-old travels to the homes of different white women and...

Following her "stop acting like wh*res" Twitter rant, the Parks & Recreation star has penned an essay for Glamour detailing her frustrations with the "pornification of pop" these days, singling out the likes of Miley Cyrus and Nicki Minaj for saturating mainstream music with graphic sexual imagery. "This fall I was hanging out with my sisters, catching up on pop-culture stuff. We watched some music videos, looked at a few Instagram accounts, and checked out blogs. And amid the usual duck-lipped...

Jen Arnold, the star of TLC's "The Little Couple," has revealed she is battling a rare form of cancer. "I have recently been diagnosed with a rare type of cancer and am currently undergoing treatment, including surgery and chemotherapy," Arnold, 39, said in a statement emailed to The Huffington Post. "I am very fortunate as the prognosis is good. While there is never a good time to get news like this, getting it just as we are building our new family is tough in many ways. ... But being surrounded...

In fact, she’s sending out positive thoughts to those who’ve openly criticized her Sound of Music Live! performance. “Plain and simple: Mean people need Jesus,” she wrote on Twitter. “They will be in my prayers tonight…” She even cited a Bible verse for the naysayers to study -- Peter 2:1-25, to be exact, which reads: “So rid yourselves of all wickedness, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all slander.” Underwood very well may be directing those prayers to 55-year-old actress Kym Karath, who...

Miley Cyrus decked the halls in a scanty red Santa outfit at Friday's Jingle Ball concert in L.A., where she took the stage to perform a glittery rendition of "#Getitright." The 21-year-old singer couldn't make it through the performance without twerking all up on Santa and, of course, rubbing a dwarf's cone bra. She flounced through the number with a fluffy Chanel bag hanging from her shoulder and a microphone shaped like a candy cane. Watch the performance above, or just soak it in with these...

What is "attractiveness"? Artist Gracie Hagen devised one way of addressing the question. In an effort to explore distance between media-propagated imagery -- the ones that star photoshopped men and women with impossibly pristine bodies -- and the genuine reality of our own flesh, she embarked on a project titled "Illusions of the Body." Recruiting mostly women and a few men of various sizes and shapes, Hagen photographed her models in two separate poses. In the first frame, her subjects stand...

Beyonce posted a series of bikini shots from her recent holiday in Jamaica and brought some heat to this chilly December. The superstar songstress recently went away with her family for some R&R on the Caribbean island. She posted snapshots of the picturesque scenery, the local cuisine and their paddle-boarding adventures. She also posted photos of herself in some bikinis. In the photos, Beyonce can be seen wearing a purple printed bikini with high-waisted bottoms while lounging on the beach....

He was remembered as a freedom fighter, a political prisoner, a moral icon impervious to hate, and a reconciler of seemingly irreconcilable camps. He was recalled as the crucial figure in the struggle that ended apartheid in South Africa, and as the president who then put aside retribution in favor of building a lasting democracy. But as the world mourned the death of Nelson Mandela, who died at his home in Johannesburg on Thursday night, words of loss resonated less as historical underscoring...

After the Victoria’s Secret show last month, Jessica Hart was asked whether Taylor Swift had what it takes to be a VS model. The answer was an emphatic “no” in which she explained. “I think, you know what, god bless her heart. I think she’s great,” she said. “But, I don’t know, to me, she didn’t fit. I don’t know if I should say that. I think what you find is that for a lot of us, we’ve been working for 14, 15 years; what it takes to make it here comes from experience and confidence and knowing...

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, visiting China as a dispute over a new Chinese air defence zone rattles nerves around the region, said on Wednesday that relations between Washington and Beijing had to be based on trust. Beijing’s decision to declare an air defence identification zone in an area that includes disputed islands has triggered protests from the United States, Japan and South Korea and dominated Biden’s talks in Tokyo on Tuesday. The United States has made clear it will stand by treaty...

Up against the number one side in ODIs, South African coach Russell Domingo today said that facing India in the three-match one-day series starting here tomorrow will be a "tough assignment" for the Proteas. "It's a big gauge for us. Look, we've won five of our last eight one-dayers, so we're heading in right direction, there is no doubt about it. But we know that India are going to be a tough assignment for us," Domingo said. "They are coming off outstanding performances, albeit in India and...

The Indian rupee recovered from early losses and gained 31 paise to close at a one-month high of 62.05 against the US dollar today on fresh selling by exporters and banks, amid foreign capital inflows into local stocks. The Indian rupee opened lower at 62.40 per Us dollar against the previous close of 62.36 at the interbank foreign exchange market and dropped further to 62.55 on US dollar demand from banks and importers. It recovered to 62.04 per dollar before ending at 62.05, a gain of 31 paise...

Being Bollywood's 'Mr Perfectionist' comes with its own problems, as superstar Aamir Khan feels guilty for not being able to spend enough time with his family. The meticulous star, who prepares extensively before taking up any project and thus ends up doing only one film a year, says he found it difficult to juggle shooting for Dhoom 3, Peekay, and doing research for his TV show Satyamev Jayate 2. Aamir's son, Azad, turned a year-old recently. The actor said he would take his son along for shootings...

 A Delhi court Wednesday granted Gujarat Police a one-day transit remand of spiritual guru Asaram Bapu's son Narayan Sai, accused in a rape case in Surat. Metropolitan Magistrate Dheeraj Mor granted the transit remand for Narayan Sai and two other accused, Kaushal Thakur alias Hanuman and driver Ramesh Malhotra. Gujarat Police sought the transit remand, saying that Narayan Sai was required to be presented before a local court, which has issued a non-bailable warrant against him. Narayan...

One of the worst kept secrets in recent Hollywood memory was that Benedict Cumberbatch had been cast as Khan in J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek Into Darkness." Not only was Cumberbatch listed as Khan on the film's IMDb page before "Star Trek Into Darkness" was even released, but the notion that Khan was the "Star Trek" villain pre-dated the actor's involvement: Both Vulture and Latino Review reported that the famed "Star Trek" baddie was the sequel's antagonist back in December of 2011, a full 17 months...