Oscar fame lost in sex trade

Preethi Mukerjee a.k.a Puja, one of the most highly paid sex workers in Kolkata's Sona kanchi was watching A R Rahman receiving the Oscar statuette. She knows how it feels because she also walked on the same stage to collect the Oscar with Zana Briski, director of the oscar winning documentary Born Into Brothels.

Preethi was one of the nine child artists involved in the documentary in 2004. She with the other children were taught photography to get a view of their world. The children's work was exhibited, and one boy was even sent to a photography conference in Amsterdam. The film won 20 international award excluding the Oscar and the directors flew the children to LA to collect the award.

Stay back and study in US - sounded like dream for the children but this is what they were offered and some did accepted but Preethi backed out. The children who accepted the offer are now studying in New York University and Preethi is in touch with them.


"At this age, I have a flat in Salt Lake, a laptop, expensive phones and lot of money. What do I lack?", says Preethi. She is in touch with director Zana brisky who was upset that preethi joined the trade like her mother. "But this trade has really paid off for me", she says.

Her mother Rakhi, who never wanted her daughter to join the trade, has a photograph of Preethi with the Oscar statuette stuck on a wall.

Gmail offline 0.2

Google has upgraded its offline Gmail to 0.2. With this comes the option of specifying size for synchronizing. Those who are having 0.1 version, will see a "0.2" near the sync icon. Just click on the icon to upgrade your offline gmail to version 0.2.

On the Offline settings page, you can see an option "Specify maximum attachment size". You can even set it to "no attachments" - helps if you are on a very slow connection and do not need attachments while offline. If you have any issues installing the 0.2 or upgrading from 0.1, post your question on Google Groups for Offline Gmail.

Any guesses on which features Google will add to Offline Gmail next?

At last, 3G is here

After a long wait, BSNL has launched the third generation mobile service in Chennai. On 22 February, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu , Mr M. Karunanidhi, launched the service with an inaugural call to the Union Minister for Communication and IT, Mr A. Raja. Chennai Telephones has installed 25 stations in the city for the initial launch and would add more soon.

The new service will offer data speed of 2 Mbps against 144 Kbps available now over the GPRS and EDGE enabled mobile networks. This makes possible video streaming applications such as Live TV, movie downloads, high speed data download on mobile phones. Callers can also see each other on their mobile phone screens using video call service.

Chennai Telephone has also announced the tariff plans for 3G service. New initiatives such as bringing down tariff to 40-50 paise a minute and mobile number portability are in the pipeline.

Are you ready to reap benefits from the next generation service?

AR Rahman wins Oscars

AR Rahman has won two Oscars for his work in Danny Boyle's Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire. Rahman took one Oscar for the best score and another for the lyrics of the song Jai Ho, along with Gulzaar. Rahman is among five Indians to win an Oscar. Gulzar and Resul Pookutty, picked up Oscars for original song and sound mixing. Rahman also gave a nice little speech at the oscars.



Earlier Oscar winners from India were costume designer Bhanu Athaiya for her work in Gandhi in 1983 and director Satyajit Ray, who won a lifetime achievement award in 1992.

British director Danny Boyle has won best director for Slumdog Millionaire and the film also took best picture. Altogether, it bagged eight awards.

Actor-director Aamir Khan said he was thrilled by India's successes at the Oscars. "It is great to see Indian talent being recognised internationally. We are no less than anybody else," Khan told TV channels.

Another film with an Indian connection, Smile Pinki won the best documentary short Oscar.

Isn't this something we have been waiting for a long time?