Singh is King

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh won a vote of confidence in the Lok Sabha with a comfortable margin belying predictions of a close contest on a day marred by unseemly scenes over allegations of bribery.

The Prime Minister's motion expressing confidence of the House in the Council of Ministers was carried with 275 votes in favour and 256 against.

In a House with an effective strength of 541, it was not immediately clear how many abstained. The results were announced after nearly an hour when officials corrected the initial figures which showed 253 votes in favour of the motion, 232 against and 2 abstentions in a total vote of 487.

In the din caused by BJP members demanding Prime Minister's resignation and shouting down his speech, Singh laid his reply to the debate on the table of the House.

As Opposition members pressed for a division, Speaker Somnath Chatterjee ordered voting by electronic voting machine.

Even before the final result was announced, ruling alliance members went to the Prime Minister and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi to greet them on the victory in the confidence motion, the first in over four years of this government.

The Prime Minister sought the confidence of the House after the Left parties, which provided outside support since May 2004, withdrew it on the issue of government operationalising the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal by approaching the IAEA.

The two-day debate on the motion was often acrimonious but it took an entirely different turn after BJP members shocked the House by producing bundles of currency notes alleging bribes by the Samajwadi Party to them to abstain from voting.

Four BJP members, including former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, were permitted to vote from the inner lobby of the House through slips on account of their ill-health.

Race

The director duo, Abbas-Mastan returns with yet another thriller, but this time around a flick that is sleek and high on style. After over 6 years of waiting, the duo finally does a film with Saif and is it worth all that much?
Well to take off, the film revolves around two brothers; Ranvir [Saif Ali Khan] and Rajeev [Akshaye Khanna] who own a huge stud farm in Durban, South Africa. They breed horses on their huge ranch house and are also the biggest bookies in the horse racing circuit. Ranvir, the elder of the two, is known to be a very shrewd man. He is very aggressive and is always on the move. Rajiv, on the other hand, is very laidback and is also a chronic alcoholic.

Sophia [Katrina Kaif] is Ranvir’s personal secretary. She adores her boss and loves him. Ranvir is totally unaware of her feeling and regards her adoration as her efficiency. Sonia [Bipasha Basu] is an upcoming Indian ramp model in Durban.

Sonia loves Ranvir, but through a twist of fate gets married to Rajiv. When she discovers that Rajiv is a chronic alcoholic, things begin to get worse.

Eventually, Ranvir and Sonia come very close to each other and an affair starts between the younger brother’s wife and the elder brother. When the younger brother starts suspecting his wife, all hell breaks loose.

A murder is committed, a contract killing is issued, double crossings become the order of the day… A sharp-tongued investigative officer R.D. [Anil Kapoor] starts an investigation with his brainless assistant Mini [Sameera Reddy].

Abbas- Mastan have proved it over the years that no one can beat them when it comes to the thriller genre. With films like Khiladi , Baazigar , Humraaz ; Race might just add to their list of hits. The film has several twists and turns that keep you saying ‘oh’ and reanalyzing everything so that bits and pieces of the story fill in to form the collage called Race.

But one little factor that has to be noted is that as the duo directors attempt to make things complicated and shock the audience , they just kind of lose out on the whole plot and this con man film at the end makes the viewer wonder when did certain characters team up to plot against the others.

The screenplay of the film by Shiraz Ahmed is good but at times is loose. The 1^st half of the film is quite a drag and the songs look really forced upon. Next time around, Abbas-Mastan should consider chopping some tracks. Maybe this time they couldn’t do so considering their producers are Music giants.

On the acting front, the film truly belongs to Saif. Saif looks stylish, smart and carries the adrenaline in the character perfectly. His dialogue delivery is just amazing and the action sequences considering he did them all by himself is just commendable. Watch out for Saif’s jump from a great height. It’s terrifically done courtesy Allan Amin.

With due credit to all the actors in the film, Race wouldn’t be all that racy if it wasn’t for Saif. Watch out the dialogue where he addresses his younger brother on the funda of winning-losing and on the outcome of betrayal where he blows up his jockey’s car.

Chaos theory

As i said before, went to watch Dasavatharam on first day.Was fortunate i should say. I was dumbstruck seeing the technical quality ,the screen play,kamal's getups ,the story and the list goes on.Wait wait this is not a review of the great movie but this is something related to the movie(spoiler:I have revealed the plot).After coming back from the movie I still did not understand what a butterfly was doing in the opening scenes of the movie.Well thats the central theme 'butterfly effect'.To tell in a single line the small variation in initial conditions of a dynamic event has a great impact in its eventful result.Is it confusing ? Well the theory says that a flap of a butterfly might well change the initial conditions for occurrence of a tornado by stopping it or changing the direction or even changing its speed.Still more confusing? Here we go again let us consider a ball set on top of a hill it might run down in any direction that depends on the initial conditions.So now in the movie Dasavatharam which is about chaos theory the events like the immersion of the 12 century idol can be taken as an initial condition for the occurrence of tsunami(chaos) and thus the plot.So in the movie thus from Govind's perspective the idol was just part of the chaos theory but from Aandal's perspective its GOD's will at which the events have happened.So next time when the butterfly flaps remember some thing might well be on its way.