Shilpa Shetty (centre) with husband Raj Kundra (left) and sister Shamita at the launch of her pub, The Royalty, in Mumbai on Saturday night.     PHOTO: PTI

Mumbai: Marathi poet Govind Vinayak Karandikar passed away here on Sunday following a brief illness. He was 92.
The famous Marathi poet, born on August 23, 1918, breathed his last at the Bhabha hospital here. Karandikar, who was also known as

London: Queen of Pop Madonna wants none other than the British Queen to collaborate with her on her new film.
The 51-year-old pop legend is scripting and directing W.E that examines the relationship between former British monarch King Edward VIII and American divorcee Wallis Simpson and is writing to the Queen asking for assistance, the Daily Telegraph reported.

London: Men, not ladies first! Yes, when it comes to writing names, most people are still sexist, says a new study.
Researchers in Britain have carried out the study and found that putting male names before female names in writing is a remnant of sexist thinking, the British Journal of Social Psychology reported.
“In the 16th century, naming men before women became the acceptable word-order to use because of the thinking that men were the worthier sex. This grammar has continued with “Mr and Mrs”, “his and hers” and the names of romantic couples like Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

London: After reports of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and First Lady Carla Bruni cheating on each other, she will be seen having an affair in a cheeky episode of The Simpsons.
While the 55-year-old French Premier was said to be romancing his 40-year-old ecology minister, his 43-year-old wife was said to be dating Benjamin Biolay, a mop-haired popstar six years junior to her.

London: It’s often said that one should never let the sun set on an argument. And, now a new study has claimed that kissing and making up with one’s partner before going to bed really does improve one’s mood the next day.
An international team, led by Harvard University, has located the precise area in the brain — the lateral prefrontal cortex — which leaves people seething when they wake up the following morning after an unresolved row.

Washington: Small domestic dogs probably originated in West Asia more than 12,000 years back, a new study has suggested.
Researchers in the US traced the evolutionary history of the IGF1 gene and found that the version of the gene that is a major determinant of small size probably originated as a result of the domestication of the West Asian grey wolf.

Los Angeles: The luxury furniture Michael Jackson commissioned before his death will go under the hammer in June in Las Vegas along with other personal items from the King of Pop, Julien’s Auctions announced Friday.
The 22 pieces of furniture Jackson ordered from Italy’s Colombostile Artisans to fill the home where he was to live during his This is It London concert series will be featured in the June 25 Music Icons auction at Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino.

New Delhi ,Paresh Maity’s journey as an artist has taken him places. A solo show, which celebrates the artist’s explorations into the world — and also the one into his self — opens at the Lalit Kala Akademi in New Delhi on Saturday.
Aptly titled “The World on a Canvas”, the show, organised by the Art Alive Gallery, will also see the launch of a book (by the same name) which strings together Maity’s works with his snapshots taken at different places in the world by the celebrated photographer Nemai Ghosh, who captured Satyajit Ray’s journey as a filmmaker through his lens, and text by Sharmila Tagore, actress and Censor Board chairperson.

NEW YORK ,Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, winner in 2009 of the Man Booker Prize in London, was honoured on Thursday night on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.
The novel, set in the age of King Henry VIII, won the National Book Critics Circle Prize for fiction. It’s a sympathetic narrative of royal adviser Thomas Cromwell.
Mantel was not in attendance at Thursday’s ceremony but issued a statement saying that she was working on a sequel and that the award is “the best possible encouragement.”
Others cited on Thursday included Richard Holmes’ highly regarded study of the crossed stars of science and poetry, The Age of Wonder, which received the general non-fiction award.
Blake Bailey’s Cheever: A Life, a thorough account of the late novelist John Cheever, won for biography, and longtime editor Diana Athill’s Somewhere Towards the End, an atheist’s spirited reflection on old age, was the winner for autobiography.
Rae Armantrout’s Versed was cited for poetry, while the prize for criticism went to Eula Biss’ essays on American life and culture, Notes from No Man’s Land.
Biss, noting that her book was a work of criticism released by a small publisher, Graywolf Press, said she didn’t worry too much about what she wrote because she assumed no one would read it. “You took away my comfort,” she joked. Honorary awards were given to Joyce Carol Oates for lifetime achievement.    —AP

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