Money matters

An all-star list of south Asian writers (including such names as Amitav Ghosh, Jhumpa Lahiri, Pankaj Mishra and Kamila Shamsie) recently assembled in New York to read from their works and consume copious quantities of wine and samosas at a fund-raising event for the South Asian Journalists Association?s new Reporting Fellowships programme. The programme aims to promote in-depth and follow-up reporting on major events relating to south Asia, to provide coverage and analysis, and to ensure that issues receive attention even after the 24-hour TV news crews have packed up and moved on to the next big thing. The first fellowships will be given to cover the aftermath of the tsunami, to see the conditions of the victims six to nine months after the disaster.

Copy cats beware

Speaking of disasters, consider the curious incident of 18-year-old Parvin Dhaliwal. The University of Arizona student recently achieved the dubious distinction of being the first person in the US to be convicted under state laws for illegally copying and selling music and movies on the Internet. While the rest of the world blissfully shares files on a wide range of P2P software and helps keep underworld bank accounts healthy by buying pirated DVDs, Dhaliwal got a three-month deferred jail sentence, three years of probation, 200 hours of community service, a $5,400-fine and orders to attend a copyright class at his university. The deepest cut, no doubt, must be that the pirated movies which sent him to court included complete turkeys like The Matrix Revolutions, The Cat in The Hat and Mona Lisa Smile. So as you hit the download button, remember: Big Brother is watching you.

India?s mothers are notorious control freaks, and Halle Berry is no different. She?s publicly discouraging her eight-year-old step-daughter India from pursuing an acting career. Why this much anxiety so early? Berry must have watched herself in Swordfish again.

She?s got the power

Here?s a new twist to girl power ? the Lucknow police are hunting ?the girl who makes your ears ring?, a beautiful young woman who strikes up conversations with men and then takes off on a scooter with their wallets and valuables ? after stunning them with a resounding slap. Rumour has it she?s a police officer?s daughter.

Loony toons

What?s up, Doc? Your time?s up, wabbit! Warner Brothers animators have decided it?s time to give the classic Looney Tunes cartoons a new look ? they?ve redesigned middle-aged immortal toons like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Wile E. Coyote for the new millennium. Loonatics, as the new series is called, features dark, angular space-age descendants of the Looney Toons as superhero action figures in the year 2772. While Y2Kids like the new characters (Buzz Bunny and co.), middle-aged people from the late teens onwards will probably miss the wise-cracking, old-school characters they?ve come to know and love. The animators, however, see it as paying homage to the Looney Toons legacy.

AWARD OF THE WEEK

To bad boy Shakti Kapoor, for showing us he?s the only real method actor in Bollywood. His glorious record of terrible behaviour all over the world over the years only shows his zeal to leave no stone unturned in research.