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The Hindu : y>Deal between VW and Porsche comes through

Volkswagen has agreed a deal with Porsche to buy a 42 per cent stake in the German sports car maker.

VW will initially pay up to 3.3 billion euros for the stake and a full merger between the two manufacturers is expected by the end of 2011.

VW’s CEO Martin Winterkorn has been named as head of Porsche’s holding company Porsche SE.

All this comes after VW put the squeeze on Porsche’s ambitious plans to take over VW. Winterkorn promised the independence of Porsche would remain and the new group could also take the Auto Union name.

Porsche will remain an independent company headquartered in Zuffenhausen.

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The Hindu :

Bounce Tennis Academy offers unique initiatives including doubles matches with parents

Photo: Murali Kumar K.Baseline Murugan believes with the right training any child can become a player

True Bounce Tennis Academy, founded seven years ago by P.Murugan, ex Tamil Nadu State-level tennis player, has come a long way from being a modest venture, with a single coach and a pair of hired courts. True Bounce, which began its career out of G.M Palaya’s Hacienda Club, now has courts of its own, in addition to the club’s two, 18 staff members, including eight coaches, and increasing student numbers.

Two years ago, True Bounce joined the league of tennis academies conducting tournaments, with its open competition series; at the moment internal tournaments are going on for singles and doubles in age groups, as well as doubles with a parent. This competition appears to have caught the fancy of the parents. Divya, one of the organising committee members says, “It’s a wonderful way for parents to have fun with their kids.” Pramod, another member of the committee adds, “It’s a way of raising awareness among the parents, so that they know how difficult on the one hand the game is, as well as how much fun it can be, if the conditions are right.”

What are the “right conditions”? Murugan points out that tennis must be learned from a trained coach, preferably one who plays or has played the game; sometimes children just go ahead and play, picking up elements of the game on their own, till someone spots their talent at a big match and offers to coach them. Then it becomes double work because the child first has to unlearn what was learnt and start afresh. Apart from appropriate training, the advantages of learning with a club, or an academy is that this ensures that students play with a variety of opponents and also that…More

The Hindu :

As The Bold and The Beautiful turns 21, two of its soap queens talk of how they have grown with their characters

BOLD, BEAUTIFUL AND LOVING IT Television’s reigning queens Jennifer Garies

Having recently won the International TV Audience Award in the Soap Opera Category at the 49th Monte-Carlo Television Festival, popular American daytime drama “The Bold and The Beautiful” has effortlessly proved that it is the most-watched television series in its genre. Receiving the Golden Nymph for the fourth consecutive year is no trifling glory, nor is receiving six nominations at the 36th Annual Daytime Entertainment Emmy Awards.The best thing ever

In a recent telephonic interview, Jennifer Gareis (who plays Donna Logan on the show) and Ashley Jones (who plays the benevolent Bridget, daughter of Eric Forrester and Brooke Logan), vouched that being a part of this show is by far the best thing that has happened to them.

Ashley says, “I can’t describe how much I enjoy being a part of the show. It is such a big part of my life and it’s one of those roles that when I’m an old woman I will look back and think that this is what changed the course of my life.”

“The Bold and The Beautiful” recently celebrated its 21st anniversary and Jennifer is exhilarated about this milestone. “Every anniversary is wonderful. I can’t believe I have been on the show for this long and been a part of a cast that has such longevity in the industry.”

Known mostly for its ultra modern approach to life, innumerable sub plots, gazillion love triangles — more like pentagons or hexagons, what with some of the characters having affairs with every other person on the show — an unbelievably large amount of incest, and of course the most delectable people that make up its cast, “The Bold and The Beautiful” has managed to garner the attention…More

The Hindu : y>What do you do when you are struck white, cold or motionless with fear, asks BINDU TOBBY

I uttered the first line of the sonnet, “All the worlds’ a stage…’ I stood there, my hands tied firmly behind my back, looking down at my red tie, white school uniform and shining black shoes. More than three hundred pairs of eyes that had come to see the prestigious inter school elocution competition were staring at me, and I just stood there like a frozen moment in time, gaping, helpless, stuck and motionless…

How come the thought of standing on a stage, in front of a microphone with hundreds of pairs of eyes watching you, jumping into a swimming pool, looking down from the 13th floor of your apartment, or even the sight of a garden lizard in your drawing room can send shivers down some of our spines?

And how come (very un-surprisingly) my three-year-old can run after that same lizard, sneakily snatch it and show it to (a screaming, scrambling) me like it was another one of his toys?Nothing to fear

Fear – that little goblin we have created in our own minds. What is so frighteningly fearful about fear that makes us fret fearfully about it?

Says Aditya James: “Fear takes many forms at different points of our life. When we are kids we are afraid of darkness, as we grow older there are bigger fears — of failure, health, future, children’s well being. The important thing to realise is that fear is but a passing phase. When your worst fear does come true the important thing is to stand there and take it down, bite into it and not run away, then it cant haunt you anymore!”

Anupama Joseph, studying in pre-med school in Ohio agrees partly on having to face your fear – “I am claustrophobic. Rooms filled way past capacity, elevators, even narrow-lane…More

The Hindu :

The Skeleton Woman works because of the lightness it allows itself, staying in a state of happy suspension

Photo: R. RavindranDUAL ROLES Prashant Praksash and Kalki Koechlin both wrote and acted

Amidst a very wide premise of probing the creative process, Prashant Praksash and Kalki Koechlin’s “The Skeleton Woman” directed by Nayantara Kotian, tells the tale of a writer trying to write a whole story.

Also performed by the two writers, the play borrows from an Inuit folktale, which traces the journey of man who finds the skeleton of woman in the sea, which then follows him around wherever he goes. The play also weaves in a whole other set of stalking demons —mostly the writer’s unfinished stories. One in particular, the story of a goose, keeps him engaged for long enough to finally complete it.

Prakash plays the almost-crazed writer, whose wife Koechlin keeps their more ‘real’ life steady, but also teeters on the fine line between a world her husband has created and the one that she must take care of. This world is made of everyday things, where the rent has to be paid and the house must be cleaned.

The play works because of the lightness it allows itself. It doesn’t make a point of being too heavy, and everything from the passing humour in their relationship, to the skeleton of a boat that is the constant motif of the sea, to the coloured paper props, “The Skeleton Woman” keeps itself in a state of happy suspension.Uncluttered

The performances were largely consistent, and both actors had seamless physical movement, perfected over shows. Except for being inaudible in a few places, it was neat and uncluttered. Prakash’s childlike excitement and fear over the imaginary world he created was particularly engaging. Koechlin’s oscillation between perseverance and anger was the highlight of her performance.

A memorable scene from the play was the one in which…More

The Hindu : y>An old word could die a silent death, or be replaced by a new one, or change its meaning. It is important to be in on the new meanings of old words

Photo: AFPGenerating an entire dictionary Of terms at Woodstock

I saw the uncut version of “Woodstock” recently, all 225 minutes of it. It was the day after the event’s 40th anniversary. Two young viewers were doubling up with laughter right through the movie. Maybe it was the slang that tickled them, the “cat” and “dig” and “freak” of the hippie era. Or maybe they were just tripping, man. Funny stuff might have been blowin’ in the wind, I don’t know.

Words and clothes get dated at about the same speed, but since I’m a writer and not a tailor my concern here is with the former. We’ll get to tailors too, in a moment. Meanwhile, do you remember the fashion, four decades ago, of changing “c” to “k”? Copywriters were fond of saying “kool” and “krazy” – and let’s not forget Kwality ice-cream. It was an age when streaking meant sprinting in the nude, and not what is done to your hair in a salon – we’ll get to salons, too, by and by. Words for “fashionable”, such as “mod” and “hep” and “with it”, have grown deeply unfashionable, but “cool” has had a new lease of life.

An old word could die a silent death, or be replaced by a new one, or change its meaning. It is important to be in on the new meanings of old words. Or else you might still be referring to your neighbours as a gay couple when all you want to say is that they’re high-spirited. When I filled in the blanks of my daily crossword with “twitter” as a synonym for “chirp”, I guessed that the puzzle-setter was about my age. Oh, but I…More

The Hindu : y>

Jaws of death Magalodon, one of the mighty denizens of the ancient seas

“Prehistoric Predator” transports viewers back in time to experience a world where monstrous beasts with foot-long claws, tusks and five ton bodies stomped, roared and fought across the planet. Life was tough for these creatures.

In the episode at 9 p.m. tonight, watch the Magalodon, one of the biggest predators to swim the oceans of the world. For 20 millon years, this shark with a seven foot jaws terrorised the creatures of seas across the planet.

Now, nearly two millon years after the giant monster disappeared from the face of the earth, scientists will rebuild this fantastic animal. Catch all the action only on Nat Geo at 9 p.m. tonight.

In “Ancient Megastructures”, tomorrow night at 9 p.m., Nat Geo takes you to St Paul’s Cathedral which rises from the ashes of the great fire that took place in 1666 only to become an iconic landmark of London

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The Hindu : y>Spark M300 to be launched in 2010

Unfazed by the bankruptcy of its parent unit in North America, GM India is pressing on with its plans to launch a new small car in January 2010 at the Auto Expo.

This will be the next-generation Spark which will sell alongside the current Spark (M200) in the Indian market. The M300 will initially come with only a 1.2-litre petrol engine for the Indian market. It’s essentially the same 1206cc motor currently used in the face-lifted Aveo in international markets. However, for India the engine capacity will be reduced to 1199cc by slightly reducing the bore (the stroke remains unchanged).

This 1.2 litre is from GM’s ‘Family B’ which is the company’s latest engine family. However, the M300’s trump card that is yet-to-be-seen is the 936cc three-cylinder diesel engine.

This three-cylinder diesel is essentially the 1.3-litre Multi-jet with one cylinder chopped off.

An engineering source informs that the entire block needed to be stiffened and counter-balancer shafts added to the crank to iron out the inherent imbalance of a three-cylinder motor.Expect this sub-1-litre diesel to produce 57bhp and 14.52kgm of torque, which should be sufficient for a car weighing under a tonne. The talking point of this compact diesel engine is its fuel efficiency.

But the diesel M300 is not expected before the end-2010 as the company’splant at Talegaon won’t be ready until then.

The pricing of the M300 will be the key to the car’s successand a high level of localisation will ensure that the M300 is competitively priced to take on rivals such as i10 and A-star.

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