Kirthana Dewi

By : Kirthana Dewi With a budget of $155 million, India is set to make the longest poem ever written into its most expensive film ever. The figure may seem paltry by Hollywood standards, but it is new territory in India, where costs for its highest-budget movies barely skim $25 million. Based on the Sanskrit epic the "Mahabharata," "Randamoozham" has surpassed previous record-breaking budgets like that of the upcoming Tamil-language sci-fi thriller " 2.0 ," which cost $62 million to make and stars 65-year-old action superstar  Rajinikanth . It has even beat the combined $65 million budget of the two-part blockbuster epic " Baahubali ." The film will be financed by B.R. Shetty, an entrepreneur based in the United Arab Emirates, who has high hopes for the film. "The 'Mahabharata' is an epic of all epics," Shetty said in a statement. "I believe that this film will not only set global benchmarks, but a

By : Kirthana Dewi  Aspen, Colorado:  Go to Cloud Nine around 3:30 p.m.," a friendly local said. "That place really goes off." He wasn't kidding. On a recent March afternoon, music was pumping on Cloud Nine's deck while partiers in T-shirts danced, hooted and sprayed Veuve Clicquot into the sun. "One more!" they shouted at the DJ. Last call in the middle of the day? Well, people had to go home -- by ski or snowboard. A ski-patrol hut turned restaurant, the Cloud Nine Alpine Bistro sits mid-mountain at Aspen Highlands, one of the four resorts that make up  Aspen Snowmass  in Colorado. It's become a must on the party circuit, and boldfaced names have been known to drop by. But don't worry, there's plenty to do in Aspen if you don't feel like (or can't afford) guzzling bubbly at 11,000 feet. A testimony to the Colorado town's sporty ethos is its hosting of the  2017 alpine skiing World Cup finals  from March 15-

By: Kirthana Dewi It's getting harder to remember what a slow news day looked like. But 87 years ago, on 18 April 1930, the BBC's news announcer had nothing to communicate. "There is no news," was the script of the 20:45 news bulletin, before piano music was played for the rest of the 15-minute segment. The wireless service then returned to broadcasting from the Queen's Hall in Langham Place, London, where the Wagner opera Parsifal was being performed. How different 18 April 2017 has looked. It has been packed with news. As people up and down the UK went back to their jobs following the Easter long weekend, speculation built around an announcement that the Prime Minister, Theresa May, would be making just after 11:00. The press and broadcasters, unusually, had been kept in the dark about the subject - so there was plenty of speculation all over Twitter and other social networks. Image copyright @ROB_SCAR Image caption BBC producer Rob Jones remembe

By : Kirthana Dewi  With a little more than 1,000 days to go until the 2020 Tokyo Olympics begin, preparation - even at this stage - is key. Such is the case with American swimmer Dana Vollmer, who claimed her seventh Olympic medal in Rio last year. But she has had to adapt her preparation for Tokyo to cater for, in her words, the "bowling ball" in her stomach. In her first race since Rio on Thursday, Vollmer was six months pregnant. The first obstacle was finding a swimming costume that worked for her - up from the size 26 she wore in Rio to a size 32 at Thursday's race in Mesa, Arizona. "It kind of holds everything in," she said, in an interview on the Team USA website. "We had to go up a few sizes to hold the belly." Vollmer raced with her doctor's permission, and has amended her training programme while pregnant by doing more strength training. In an interview before the race  with ESPN , she said training was a welcome distr

Pope Francis delivered the traditional Easter Sunday Mass sermon in Rome on Sunday with a call for an end to the "horror and death" in Syria and prayed for Jesus to help world leaders end the arms trade. "In the complex and often dramatic situations of today's world, may the Risen Lord guide the steps of all those who work for justice and peace," he told a crowd of around 60,000 people gathered in a flower-filled St. Peter's Square. "May he grant the leaders of nations the courage they need to prevent the spread of conflicts and to put a halt to the arms trade." The "Urbi et Orbi" message "to the city and the world" was delivered from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica amid tight security with people trying to enter the square having to pass through several checkpoints. Addressing the civil war in Syria, the Pope said a prayer for humanitarian workers there. "Especially in these days, m

Research by Public Health England and the Department of Health, commissioned the University of Sheffield, was carried out to estimate the number of children living with adults who are seriously dependent on alcohol. The data also suggests there are 600,000 dependent drinkers who would benefit from treatment, yet only just over 100,000 are currently receiving help. Overall, around 1.5 million adults in England and Wales are thought to have some form of alcohol dependence, and there are 2.5 million children living with an adult drinking at what is considered 'risky' levels. A separate report from the Department for Work and Pensions says it will increase grants and introduce mentors for people in alcohol recovery to help them get back into work. Liver specialist Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, chairman of the Alcohol Health Alliance UK, said: "We welcome the Government's recognition that cheap alcohol is damaging some of the most vulnerable groups in societ

We are probably well aware of the controversy surrounding the Pepsi ad starring Kendall Jenner that was released on Tuesday (March 4). In it, Kendall plays a model, presumably herself, who joins a protest happening in the street near her photo shoot, then gives a police officer a can of Pepsi and apparently creates peace and unity between the police and the crowd. The ad, called “Jump In,” drew criticism for being tone-deaf and tasteless, especially given the current political climate. Pepsi quickly pulled it and released a statement saying, “Clearly, we missed the mark, and we apologize. We did not intend to make light of any serious issue." They  also  apologized to Kendall, but we can’t be so quick as to think Kendall wasn’t aware of the ad’s plotline and its possible ramifications. How do we know? She had talked to WWD about the ad prior to its release. At the time, she noted that she “had never been to Bangkok,” where the clip was filmed, “so it was interesti