Poonam Pandey: Butt of jokes on Twitter

A day after Shah Rukh Khan’s Kolkata Knight Riders won the IPL finale against Chennai Super Kings May 27, Poonam Pandey fulfilled her strip promise and was soon trending worldwide on Twitter. Today, the world is at peace but the starlet is still at number four in India trends.

The micro-blogging website is abuzz with jokes on the Kingfisher model: Angry Bombay Girl (@shadymumbai): Dear Poonam Pandey …so Much Hype and Thats all what u show ??? Even Tushaar Kapoor showed more Skin Than That in His Beach Picture.

Rofl Indian (@Roflindian): Dear Poonam Pandey, my worry is not that you’re making a total cheapo of yourself, but that you’re making a total Orkut of Twitter.

Rajneesh Kapoor (@MrMrRajneesh): If Viswannathan Anand wins the World Championship, Poonam Pandey promises to show the Mating Positions.

Doctor at large (@doctoratlarge): Just when you thought nothing could be cheaper than the Indian rupee, Poonam Pandey proves you wrong.

Comedy Central India (@ComedyCentralIn): Each time you read a Poonam Pandey tweet, you kill a few brain cells.

Faking News (@fakingnews): Dear Poonam Pandey, petrol ke daam badhe hain, kapdo ke nahi!

The Weird King (@rixabh): You can’t be more jobless than Poonam Pandey.

Ankit Jain (@indiantweeter): Poonam Pandey is doing what our ancestors did , when they lived in Jungle

Angry Bombay Girl (@shadymumbai): Difference between Poonam Pandey and Sunny Leone … Same Difference between Dollar and Rupee 1:56 #justsaying

Advani, Sushma give Mumbai BJP rally a miss

BJP rallies held after meetings of its national executive are intended to beam a unity message and rally the cadre. But such is the party’s factional dynamics that the absence of senior leaders L K Advani and Sushma Swaraj at Friday’s rally spurred talk of a deliberate snub.

Swaraj and Advani skipping the show led to speculation that they had kept away due to their unhappiness over BJP chief Nitin Gadkari being given a second consecutive term and the party’s capitulation to Gujarat CM Narendra Modi. BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad denied the duo was sulking and said they had conveyed their inability to attend. “There is nothing to be read. They are busy with 8pre-8determined programmes,” he said.

Senior party sources also insisted that the absence of Advani and Swaraj was not a deliberate act and should not be read in the context of their alleged differences with Gadkari and Modi.

Yet, the absence ensured that the meeting that began amid controversy with Modi forcing BJP and RSS to bend to his will, ended on a similar note. Asked if the presence of all top leaders would have served the party’s purpose better, Prasad said there would be other occasions where the brass would be seen together on stage.

With Gadkari making peace with Modi, the equations in BJP have altered a bit. Swaraj and Advani have been critical of some of Gadkari’s decisions like one to induct former BSP leader Babu Singh Kushwaha, an accused in the UP rural health mission scam, into the BJP ahead of the state poll.

Party leaders said Advani had gone to meet an ailing relative when the executive ratified the decision to give Gadkari a second term. However, Advani is party to a decision of the office-bearers to adopt a resolution to the same effect earlier in Delhi.

“Advani’s schedule was fixed earlier so he won’t be there and Swaraj has to attend a programme in Ghaziabad tomorrow morning,” party spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said.

Former Maharashtra deputy CM Gopinath Munde, who has been at odds with Gadkari, said that he along with other leaders supported the resolution seeking to give a consecutive three-year term to the BJP president. Speaking on the political resolution, Swaraj underlined the need for greater coordination between the parliamentary wing and the organizational wing of the party for launching a decisive battle ahead.

Petrol price hike fails to lift rupee, diesel eyed

The rupee fell to a fresh record low on Thursday as a sharp increase in petrol prices failed to lift investor sentiment even as it fuelled expectations New Delhi might soon take the more politically fraught step of raising diesel prices.

India’s hefty subsidy bill for diesel, kerosene and LPG is a budget-buster that forces heavy government borrowing and weighs on investor sentiment. High global energy prices and a declining rupee, meanwhile, exacerbate the current account deficit in a country that imports 80 per cent of its oil.

Oil companies lose about 14 rupees ($0.25) per litre on diesel, which is much more widely used than petrol, and a weakened government has been unable to push through a price rise or allow full market pricing in the face of political opposition, including from within the ruling coalition.

“Petrol is a low-hanging fruit, as the challenges will come when the government would be deciding on diesel, liquefied petroleum gas, and kerosene, because this is where the subsidies are larger,” said Shubhada Rao, chief economist at Yes Bank in Mumbai. “Signal wise, it is a step in the right direction.”

A panel of ministers is due to meet on Friday to discuss diesel, LPG and kerosene prices, according to unconfirmed reports, although full deregulation is not expected.

“We think the government’s ability to implement this price hike could raise market expectations about price hikes in other more critical fuels. While diesel prices in particular would need immediate attention, significant price increases are unlikely, in our view,” Goldman Sachs wrote on Thursday.

The country’s three big state oil retailers said late on Wednesday they would raise the price of petrol by about 11.5 per cent.

The rupee hit an all-time low of 56.40 to the dollar on Thursday, continuing a slide that has seen it lose 13.8 per cent from a February peak as global risk aversion hits India especially hard due to its twin deficits and sluggish policymaking, all of which has scared off investors.

While the Reserve Bank of India has taken administrative measures and sold dollars in recent weeks to defend the currency, it has refrained from taking bolder steps and appears resigned that more aggressive intervention in the market could prove futile.

“Since the US dollar is gaining strength against the major counterparts like euro, we can see rupee weakening further. We expect a 1-3 months range of 54-57 with overall weakening bias in rupee,” Abhishek Goenka, CEO of India Forex Advisors, wrote in a note on Thursday.

Economists have been downgrading their growth forecasts for Asia’s third-largest economy. Standard Chartered now expects India to report annual growth in the March quarter slowed to 6 per cent, from 6.1 per cent in the previous quarter and below earlier expectations of an improvement to 6.5 or 7 per cent.

Facebook raises IPO price band to $34-$38 a share

Facebook has raised the price band for its initial public offering to $34-$38 a share from the previous range of $28 to $35.

Facebook, already planning the largest-ever Internet-company IPO, would raise as much as $12.8 billion and seek a valuation of as high as $104.2 billion, based on the upper end of the new range.

Chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg, in a roadshow to pitch the IPO to investors, may be winning over skeptics who initially balked at buying the shares, said Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, “Raising the range would be the best signal of what the underwriters are hearing from their institutional buyers who have seen the roadshow,” Gordon said. “Despite the doubts, the buyers like what they’re hearing.”

At the upper end of the new range, Facebook would be valued at 26 times trailing 12-month sales, more than double Google’s valuation when the search-engine operator went public in 2004. The company was already in a position to surpass United Parcel Service Inc. as the most valuable company in history to go public in the US, based on market capitalization, data compiled by Bloomberg and Dealogic show.

Facebook plans to stop taking orders on Tuesday for its initial public offering, two days ahead of schedule, a person with knowledge of the transaction said. The offering of 337.4 million shares is oversubscribed, according to people with knowledge of the matter, who declined to say by how much orders exceeded the amount of stock being offered.

“They’re swamped with the orders that are in,” said Jon Merriman, chief executive officer at investment firmMerriman Holdings Inc. in San Francisco. “They just need time to determine the price. They can send the message – the books are closing, send in your orders now.”

Some institutional investors had balked at buying into Menlo Park, California-based Facebook over concern about the site’s growth prospects, people with knowledge of the matter said last week. In a Bloomberg Global Poll of more than 1,250 investors, analysts and traders, 79 per cent said Facebook doesn’t deserve such a high valuation.

“Facebook’s pricing seems to be quite expensive,” said Yves Maillot, head of investments at Robeco Gestions SA in Paris, who helps oversee $6.8-billion assets. The IPO is also pressing ahead in a “very difficult environment for the US equity market.”

IPL 5: Chennai Super Kings beat Rajasthan Royals by 4 wickets

Chennai Super Kings have perfected the habit of making even the most regulation run chase appear formidable, and still finding a way of getting out of jail. Even by those standards, the two-time defending champions made a complete meal of a most modest total of 126 for six posted by Rajasthan Royals, and looked set to play themselves out of contention for the knockout stages of IPL V until, dramatically, Albie Morkel and S Anirudha got them out of jail on a tense, low-scoring but action-packed Thursday night.

Playing his first game of the season, Anirudha turned out to be the unlikely hero, smiting Shane Watson and Shaun Tait, until then the two most impressive Royals bowlers, for massive sixes to play an equal partner in an astonishing stand of 43 off just 12 deliveries that propelled the Super Kings to a four-wicket victory.

Having needed 47 off the last four overs after having dawdled during the middle part of their reply, the Super Kings eventually won with 11 deliveries to spare in a sensational turn of events that catapulted Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s men to fourth in the standings.

On a stop-start day when rain interrupted the Royals’ innings thrice, the Super Kings seemed headed for a comfortable victory with Suresh Raina blazing away, but once the left-hander was well caught by Ajinkya Rahane attempting one big hit too many, the innings went into an inexorable tailspin. The experienced trio of Michael Hussey, Dwayne Bravo and Dhoni struggled to get the ball off the square as the Royals medium-pacers made capital of the swing and seam on offer, imposing a stranglehold that appeared decisive.

It was Morkel’s arrival, with 47 needed off 24 deliveries, that turned the course of the match. The South African left-hander exploded in a flurry of boundaries, then watched from the non-striker’s end as Anirudha smashed Watson and Tait around. Victory came courtesy five wides from Tait in an anti-climactic end to a contest that ended well past midnight and had the capacity crowd on the edge of their seats.

The Royals looked set for a hiding to nothing after being stuck in by Dhoni, deprived of momentum all the way through. Ben Hilfenhaus bowled an exceptional spell, sending down four overs on the trot with the new ball for incredible figures of 2 for 8, while the rest complemented him beautifully, R Ashwin’s sensational catch running in from third man and diving forward to snaffle Watson typifying the resolve and grim determination of the holders.

Only when Stuart Binny laid into Bravo did the Royals obtain any impetus, but the Super Kings pulled things back beautifully. Strangely, Dhoni didn’t requisition Ashwin’s off-spin till the 17th over and asked the profligate Bravo to bowl the final over when Morkel had one up his sleeve. On another day, these might have been crucial errors, but with Morkel and Anirudha in awesome boundary-clearing mode, the champions lived to fight another day.

Sensex down 84 points in early trade

The BSE benchmark Sensex declined by over 84 points in early trade Friday on sustained selling by funds and retailers, triggered by disappointing corporate earnings amid a weak trend on Asian bourses.

The 30-share barometer, which has lost almost 168 points in the last two trading days, moved down further by 84.35 points, or 0.49 %, to 17,066.84.

Similarly, the broad-based National Stock Exchange Nifty index declined by 24.75 points, or 0.48 %, to 5,163.65.

Auto, realty and banking sectors were major losers, dragging the Sensex down.

Brokers said fresh selling by funds and retailers as sentiment remained bearish on disappointing Q4 earnings, a weakening rupee and subdued trend on the Asian bourses.

In the Asia region, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell by 0.48 %, while Japan’s financial markets remained closed today for a public holiday.

The US Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 0.47 % lower in yesterday’s trade on weak economic data.

Chitrangada Singh unveils her first Vogue cover

Bollywood actress, Chitrangada Singh and Priya Tanna, Editor, Vogue India launched the latest issue of Vogue India at the Crossword store at Kemps Corner in Mumbai on Monday. In a tête-à-tête with Priya Tanna, the sensual Chitrangada Singh candidly spoke about her feelings on being the May 2012 Vogue cover girl. She also revealed some interesting things about herself, her interests and what makes Chitrangada the woman she is today.

Sharing her thoughts on the issue, Priya Tanna, Editor, Vogue India commented, “Chitrangada is a woman of many faces, each one equally enigmatic and beguiling. She struck us with her earthy sensuality when she first appeared on the screen, and when you least expected it, she blazed across Bollywood in an avatar of high octane glamour. This dichotomy makes her as intriguing as interesting and an exciting choice for a Vogue cover girl.”

Commenting on being Vogue cover girl for the May 2012 issue, Chitrangada Singh said, “Vogue is the most iconic name in the history of fashion so to be on the cover of Vogue will without doubt be one of the most memorable things for me. As it’s my first Vogue cover, it makes it special in so many ways. Everyone worked so excitedly throughout the shoot. Suresh Natarajan our photographer I think is simply amazing. Shaan who has done my make-up and hair has worked with me for many years and has done a wonderful job. Anaita Shroff Adajania, Fashion Director of Vogue India is the styling diva, she has done effortlessly chic styling. And of course Priya Tanna, thanks for giving me something which will be a very special memory!”

Reminiscing her first shot ever with Sudhir Mishra (Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, 2003), a scene with no dialogue, a girl just waiting for her lover to come and meet her, Chitrangada said, “I was like, ‘What do you want me to do?’ It is so much about getting the character’s emotions and energy right, and putting it all together with perfect timing…”