In today’s news to be filed under *facepalm*:
Tara Fitzgerald, a woman in Sacramento, California had a harrowing experience with a Dell service representative in India. She called up to get help with ( and I am not making this up):
Nude photos of herself that she could not find on her computer. She had taken the pictures for her boyfriend. The Dell service rep from amchi Mumbai , Riyaz Shaikh evidently downloaded the photos that soon made their way to the internets and a site called “bitchtara”. Shaikh then …

Raj Kumar Hirani is the bearer of a lost art, the art of story telling. The problem is sometimes, he overlaps his piece of art with another of his own, that is still fresh in your memory.
And I’ll try to keep the review clean of any spoilers.
3 idiots is a movie ‘loosely’ based on one of India’s ‘best-selling’ novels, “Five point Someone, what not to do at IIT“, by Chetan Bhagat. A book, that critics love to hate and take a jab at it’s ‘popularity’, while a particular section of …

An Indian origin couple has been sentenced in Australia on manslaughter charges in connection with the death of their baby girl.
Thomas Sam, 42, a college lecturer in homoeopathy and his wife Manju, 37, of Sydney were found guilty of the most serious case of manslaughter by criminal negligence leading to the death of their nine-month-old daughter Gloria in May 2002.(link)
The father a practicing homeopath chose to treat his daughter with homeopathic medicines for a simple case of eczema, that deteriorated into a serious skin disorder that led to the child’s …

Adam Mamawala is a 22 year old budding comedian from new Jersey. Having just finished college he plans to make his mark in the entertainment industry as a stand up comedian. We liked his youtube videos (Caution – audio may not be safe for work), and were of the opinion that he is going to be a big star. So we decided to shoot some quick questions to him, and his responses are below – unfiltered and unedited. It’s pretty impressive to see some insightful replies from a young …

Folks, this is it. Last ever episode of ER tonight.
Just wanted to share this little nugget of info with you :
Neela Rasgotra ( played by Parminder Nagra) has had liaisons on the job a total of 192 times . She is in second place behind Carter (Noah Wylie) who has done the deed a grand total of 255 times in the hospital including several episodes in a linen closet. Chee , chee! Desi girls nowadays I tell you !

A Senator from a state not exactly among the top when it comes to the number of H1B visa holders, is quickly becoming H1B holders enemy numero uno, Sen. Charles Grassley.
When Microsoft announced layoffs for the first time in it’s history, Grassley couldn’t resist chiming in with his expertise on H1B visas (or lack thereof) and demanded that they layoff H1B visa holders before US citizens. [Read Steve Ballmer's response to Grassley] (Sidhu via email)
Agreeing with Ballmer’s reasoning was CEO of the popular networking site for professionals, Reid Hoffman of …

Mumbai man allegedly cheats on his wife with other men and slaps her. The wife registers a police case against him and takes him to court – for being gay.
How sad is it that
a) someone can still be prosecuted for their sexual orientation and
b) the wife does not even see herself as a victim of physical abuse.
[TOI]

Hear that sound of girlish laughter? Its schadenfreude. In news that surprised no-one , Mike Myers swept the Razzies – thanks to the abomination that is “Love guru”. ( See previous Uberdesi coverage 1, 2, 3)
Myers added worst actor to the “Love Guru” worst picture and worst screenplay Razzies.
(link)
You know what they say about karma !

This is hilarious. [TOI]
Outraged at the auction of Gandhi’s personal effects in New York, the Indian government starts working on a plan to re-acquire them, by, you guessed it appointing an committee. Here’s the ironic part, the government could stumble over the very monster it created and nurtured – the Indian babudom a.k.a the bureaucracy, thanks to some obscure licensing laws that the babus kept adding over time.

Manoj Night Shyamalan is casting Dev Patel in his next film ” The Last Airbender” in  an exciting confluence of desi talent that happens too rarely in Hollywood ( link)
Full disclosure: I am an M.Night Fan – despite the train wreck that was “The Lady in the Water”. I actually liked “The Happening” and am looking forward “Airbender”.  The casting of this film was mired in controversy with allegations of “whitewashing” though the original animated series has of course, Asian-ish characters. ( see this discussion) . I don’t like the …

With the Bush era drawing to a close, the world may soon be bereft of bushisms (Bush misspeaks), in terms of entertainment. But do not despair, for the Times Of India Online is going nowhere and will continue to provide entertainment with their misworded headlines and articles, hereby christened TOIism.
Case in point: Bush holds a press conference in which he remarks (paraphrasing) “frozen credit markets are starting to thaw”, a reference to credit markets starting to open up, which is a positive for the global economy. Some genius at TOI, …

A call center worker in India gives a female customer in UK, the roadside romeo treatment – desi ishtyle. [BBC]
Text Message 1: “Hello, we spoke two hours ago regarding ur BT order. U must be thinking dat why I called u up second time without any reason of the call but to be honest I got attracted towards you and your wonderful voice. Can i be ur friend?”
Text Message 2: “As precious as u r to me, as precious only few can ever be, I know all friends r hard …

The Daily Beast blog by Tina Brown, former New Yorker journalist, published a list of top 10 “sex symbols for the thinking man” for 2008. I’m a man, so by default I think about sex which meant I could not resist peeking at this list. [Daily Beast blog] [via]
Her literary works and “hypnotic eyes” earn author Jhumpa Lahiri checks in at #8. Also in at #7 is rapper M.I.A. If this were strictly a desi list a.k.a “The Thinking Desi Man’s sex symbols” who else deserves to be on there?
My …

…. like this jealous Indian wife in Australia. [DNA]
An Indian-born Australian woman who allegedly set fire to her husband’s genitals suspecting his fidelity has appeared in a local court with fresh charges of murder slapped against her.
This is one of those stories that makes all men go “ouch!”.
Rajini Narayan, 44, who allegedly murdered her husband, in a bizarre manner by torching his genitals which set her Cleveland Avenue townhouse in Adelaides ablaze had later told her neighbours “it’s just a penis I wanted to burn I didn’t mean this to …

Jasbir Singh, a NRI gets married to Jasbit Kaur, a local from Punjab on December 30th. On the night of December 31st, she drugs him, robs him blind and absconds and the groom finds himself celebrating the new year recovering in a local hospital. A cautionary tale for all ye potential NRI grooms looking for life partners in the des. Just so the story is not a complete loss, here’s to hoping that the groom did fully utilize the wedding night. [TOI]

Handlebar moustaches, long a staple of Indian men are under threat ….. from clean shaven Bollywood and cricket heathen! [BBC]

Alistair Scrutton, a Reuters India journalist, takes a tour of the factory of death in Bhopal, 24 years after that tragic night and realizes nothing has changed. The factory is still standing, most of the toxic chemicals are still being stored there and are perhaps leaking into the environment causing major health issues for the locals even to this day, almost two and a half decades later.
This story is not only a scathing narrative of the “bureaucratic inertia, legal squabbling, and corporate wrangling” that personifies India, but also of the …

Arun Sarin, former CEO of Vodafone, is among the shortlisted candidates to replace outgoing Yahoo CEO, Jerry Yang. Besides, the obvious desi angle, another story of interest to follow here will be whether Arun Sarin will be for or against the takeover bid of Yahoo by software giants, Microsoft. [AFP]

“Smile Pinki” a short documentary based on Indian children born with cleft lips shot in the holy city of Varanasi has been shortlisted for this year’s upcoming Academy Awards. [via Freakonomics Blog]
A true but little known fact, John and Cindy McCain’s daughter, Bridget, who was adopted from Bangladesh was born with a cleft palate. [Newsweek]

While the Indian government and the world tried to understand what and how things went wrong, the scale of devastation can be seen here (Please understand that there are graphic images) .