Smoking hot Jordana Brewster sexed it up in a sexy bikini. What makes this great is that Jordana is normally pretty conservative and she doesn’t show it all off so when she strips down and shows off that amazing body it is a kind of a big deal and major event. She looks so good in a bikini she might be my new favorite hottie.
Sydney Barlette is an outgoing, smart and sexy coed at the University of Houston, working toward her degree in communications. And while Sydney always dreamed of posing for Playboy and admits that she doesn’t mind being naked, her post-graduation plan is to land a job working for a magazine or TV station. Head to the members area to see the hot and steamy out-takes from Sydney’s most recent Wet and Wild shoot for Playboy’s Special Editions! 
New Delhi, Apr 4 : The International Cricket Council on Monday confirmed that the World Cup trophy presented to India on Saturday night was indeed the real one and not the replica as was claimed in some "erroneous and mischiveous media reports".
"Contrary to some erroneous and mischievous media reports, the ICC can confirm that the trophy presented to India at Wankhede Stadium on Saturday was the original ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 trophy and the one that was always intended to be presented to the winner of the event," the ICC said through a written statement.
"There is no question that this was a replica. The trophy presented to India indeed carries the specific event logo of ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 and has always been the cup that the 14 teams were playing for.
"The trophy seized by Mumbai customs is the promotional, perpetual trophy which remains in the keeping of ICC at its headquarters in Dubai. It carries the generic ICC corporate logo rather than the logo specific to the 2011 event. That trophy will be reclaimed today and will travel back to Dubai with ICC staff as was always intended," the statement added.
The controversy about the replica of the trophy being handed to India arose after a report that quoted a BCCI source as saying that "the original is lying with the customs".
When contacted Customs sources, however, said the Cup was with them for non-payment of duty of 35 per cent of the original value.
"We will release it after payment of 35 per cent customs duty after its valuation," they told PTI.
The Cup, meanwhile, has been in the forefront of the celebrations by the entire Indian nation with players even posing with it along with President Pratibha Patil at the Raj Bhavan on Sunday.
The captain of the winning team, Mahendra Singh Dhoni has been photographed and caught on television cameras carrying the replica to the iconic Gateway of India opposite the team hotel on Sunday.
Man of the Tournament, Yuvraj Singh, has been kissing the replica repeatedly in delight.
(With PTI inputs)
All the eight members and the two special invitees of the board of governors, except for chairman K Ravi Kumar, attended the meeting held at higher technical education departments conference with top officials of the department.
Before the meeting, the board members called on the chief minister at his bungalow where they discussed the prerequisites for setting up of the institution.
Initially, classes for the students admitted to first year B Tech programme of NIT, Mizoram will be held at Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur in view of the fact that NIT, Mizoram campus will not be ready in time. MHRD has designated VNIT, Nagpur as a mentor institute for NIT, Mizoram for at least one year until NIT, Mizoram campus is constructed, sources said.
''Once the construction is completed, all the students allotted seats at NIT, Mizoram will move to NIT, Mizoram campus,'' they said. Mizoram is one of the ten states where the Ministry of Human Resources development, Government of India had decided to set up the NIT campuses.
''NIT, Mizoram is being established with the primary aim of catering to the needs of the state and contribute towards the development of India,'' officials said.
It is estimated that NIT, Mizoram will allow the intake of 30 seats in each branch in the initial years. Out of which, 50 per cent of the seats are reserved for the students of the state and the rest are reserved for the students across the country, admitted on the basis of merit.
For the construction of NIT, Mizoram campus, the Centre has decided to give an amount of Rs 250 crore for its infrastructure.
NIT, Mizoram students will be provided with excellent facilities in the VNIT campus like well-equipped library, hostel facilities, computer centre and health care, etc.
It is estimated that in the initial years, NIT, Mizoram will be offering undergraduate courses in three disciplines--B Tech: electrical and electronics engineering; computer science and engineering; and electronics and communication engineering.
''The institute will be inviting large number of esteemed organisations and provide the students with job opportunities before they graduate,'' officials said.
NIT Mizoram is under the purview of the Centre. The eight members and two special invitees of the board of governors were appointed by the HRD ministry.
The high incidence of illiteracy among the minor communities in southern districts of the state is attributed as the major cause of Mizoram’s inability to achieve the top rank.
Take the case of the Chakmas, inhabiting southernmost parts of the state bordering Bangladesh, who constitute over eight per cent of the states population have very low rate of literacy.
According to the 2001 Census, only 45.3 per cent of Chakmas were literate against commendable 95.6 per cent literacy rate among the majority Mizos.
Even though the statistics in the 2011 Census are yet to be released, sources said that the literacy rate among the Chakma community has not improved much from the 2001 Census.
Although the literacy rate of the Brus (also known as Reangs) is yet to be officially released, it is popularly believed that the Brus are far behind to Chakmas in terms of development and education.
The three districts of Lawngtlai, Lunglei and Mamit, which have substantial population of minorities like Chakmas and Brus, were the main target of the Rapid Action Total Literacy Campaign, launched by the state government last few years with an aim to become number one in literacy.
According to official figures made public during the launching of RATLC in Lunglei last year, there were 12,129 illiterate people in Lawngtlai district followed by 4,200 in Lunglei district and 2,845 in Mamit district.
Mizoram School Education Minister Lalsawta has stated that these three districts had scored very poor rate during the 2001 general census and are still behind other districts of the state regarding the literacy rate.
Although Mizoram has failed to top, Serchhip and Aizawl districts of the state have topped all other Indian districts with literacy rates of 98.76 per cent and 98.50 per cent respectively.
The budget of Mara Autonomous District Council for the year 2011-2012 passed today amounted to 65 crore 39 lakh 32 thousand rupees. Earlier, the CEM Mr. S. Khipo clarified some points raised by the members.
The budget of Lai Autonomous District Council for 2011-2012 amounting to 64 crore 72 lakh 96 thousand rupees was also passed today.
The budget was made up of 15 crore 40 lakh Plan and 48 crore 47 lakh 96 thousand Non-Plan fund.
The expected revenue receipt amounting to 85 lakh rupees was also included in the budget.
By Ravi Nessman
In a A security officer pulls at vegetables as he scuffles with a vegetable vendor at a market area in Imphal, in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur. While India tries to assume its place as a rising world power, it is vexed by the conflict in Manipur and the other seemingly endless chain of hidden wars that challenge its ability to fully govern its own country. (Pic Anupam Nath / AP)
Imphal, Apr 4 : In his years as a police officer in the badlands of Manipur, Khaidem Muhi had his weapon seized by insurgents so many times that he was banned from the force for 12 years.
Back on the job last month, the 50-year-old was guarding the home of a government official when a homemade grenade, tossed from a speeding motorcycle, killed him.
Muhi's family was devastated. Most others dismissed the attack — in daylight, on a heavily guarded house, just meters (yards) from a major security base — as typical in the toxic web of violence, extortion, government corruption and general lawlessness that plagues this state in India's rebellious northeast.
"In Manipur, being a police officer is too dangerous. Anything can happen at any time," Muhi's wife, Bimola Khaidem, said as she wiped away tears with her white woolen shawl.
While India tries to assume its place as a rising world power, it is vexed by the conflict in Manipur and the other seemingly endless chain of hidden wars that challenge its ability to fully govern itself.
From Kashmir in the north, where hundreds of thousands of troops face off against Muslim separatists, to the "red belt" sweeping through the east, where Maoist guerrillas are fighting to overthrow the state, wide swaths of India are under only the barest government control.
The South Asia Terrorism Portal, a private intelligence website which tracks insurgencies, lists more than 150 militant groups in the country, some little more than a few guys with guns, others running their own remote rump states.
Few places are more remote than the seven states of India's northeast, a region that often feels like an afterthought to the great idea of India that seeks to bring 1.2 billion people of different religions, cultures and languages into a cohesive, secular democracy.
The famed Indian railroad, the 108,000 kilometer (67,500 mile) skeleton that binds the nation together, does not reach Manipur. The state is geographically closer to Hong Kong than to Mumbai, and residents fear that their features — more Chinese than north Indian — make their loyalties suspect.
People here have resentments of their own against Indian authority, dating back six decades, to when Manipur was one of hundreds of princely states pressured — Manipuris say forced — to join newly independent India.
Photo shows a torn poster depicting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, right, and General-Secretary of the rebel National Socialist Council of Nagaland, Thuingaleng Muivah, on a wooden wall in Ukhrul, in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur.
Even as Manipuris stewed over the quashing of their aspirations, internal tensions boiled.
Naga tribes in the hills began agitating for their own nation, to be merged with the neighboring state of Nagaland. Another group, the Meitei, launched their own insurgency. Other tribes joined in, and the government gave security forces sweeping freedom to crack down.
After decades of warfare and thuggishness by all sides, conflict has become routine for the state's 2.2 million people.
"People don't know who to be afraid of," said Pradip Phanjoubam, editor of the Imphal Free Press. "The only difference is that the police are visible and the militants are invisible."
The state is regularly paralyzed by bandhs, or protest strikes. Shops in Imphal close at 6 p.m., and streets empty soon after nightfall.
"Because of the fear, we have developed a culture of going to bed early," said doctoral student Mrinalini Nameirakpam, 27.
Manipur University has become a battleground too. The previous head of the school was kidnapped, held for five days and shot in the leg. Two years ago a professor overseeing student elections seen as a competition between militant groups was shot and killed in daylight on campus. The dean of students came under threat for pushing ahead with a youth festival despite student calls for a strike.
The school's top officials now travel in armed convoys and their offices lay behind five layers of security guards. None answers cellphone calls from unfamiliar numbers, lest they be from militants making threats or ransom demands. More than one-third of the school's positions for professors are vacant.
The current head of the school, Nandakumar Sarma, insists that despite it all, his campus is peaceful and his students focused.
"If you go to the library you will see students studying," he said, before stopping himself with a chuckle. "But today is a bandh."
In his years as a police officer in the badlands of Manipur, Khaidem Muhi had his weapon seized by insurgents so many times that he was banned from the force for 12 years.
Back on the job last month, the 50-year-old was guarding the home of a government official when a homemade grenade, tossed from a speeding motorcycle, killed him.
Muhi's family was devastated. Most others dismissed the attack — in daylight, on a heavily guarded house, just meters (yards) from a major security base — as typical in the toxic web of violence, extortion, government corruption and general lawlessness that plagues this state in India's rebellious northeast.
"In Manipur, being a police officer is too dangerous. Anything can happen at any time," Muhi's wife, Bimola Khaidem, said as she wiped away tears with her white woolen shawl.
While India tries to assume its place as a rising world power, it is vexed by the conflict in Manipur and the other seemingly endless chain of hidden wars that challenge its ability to fully govern itself.
From Kashmir in the north, where hundreds of thousands of troops face off against Muslim separatists, to the "red belt" sweeping through the east, where Maoist guerrillas are fighting to overthrow the state, wide swaths of India are under only the barest government control.
The South Asia Terrorism Portal, a private intelligence website which tracks insurgencies, lists more than 150 militant groups in the country, some little more than a few guys with guns, others running their own remote rump states.
Bimola Khaidem, wife of police officer Khaidem Muhi who was killed by a homemade grenade hurled by a militant, cries at her home in Imphal, in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur. Khaidem was killed while guarding the home of a government official under threat from insurgents demanding a fatter cut of state development funds.
Few places are more remote than the seven states of India's northeast, a region that often feels like an afterthought to the great idea of India that seeks to bring 1.2 billion people of different religions, cultures and languages into a cohesive, secular democracy.
The famed Indian railroad, the 108,000 kilometer (67,500 mile) skeleton that binds the nation together, does not reach Manipur. The state is geographically closer to Hong Kong than to Mumbai, and residents fear that their features — more Chinese than north Indian — make their loyalties suspect.
People here have resentments of their own against Indian authority, dating back six decades, to when Manipur was one of hundreds of princely states pressured — Manipuris say forced — to join newly independent India.
Even as Manipuris stewed over the quashing of their aspirations, internal tensions boiled.
Naga tribes in the hills began agitating for their own nation, to be merged with the neighboring state of Nagaland. Another group, the Meitei, launched their own insurgency. Other tribes joined in, and the government gave security forces sweeping freedom to crack down.
After decades of warfare and thuggishness by all sides, conflict has become routine for the state's 2.2 million people.
"People don't know who to be afraid of," said Pradip Phanjoubam, editor of the Imphal Free Press. "The only difference is that the police are visible and the militants are invisible."
The state is regularly paralyzed by bandhs, or protest strikes. Shops in Imphal close at 6 p.m., and streets empty soon after nightfall.
"Because of the fear, we have developed a culture of going to bed early," said doctoral student Mrinalini Nameirakpam, 27.
Manipur University has become a battleground too. The previous head of the school was kidnapped, held for five days and shot in the leg. Two years ago a professor overseeing student elections seen as a competition between militant groups was shot and killed in daylight on campus. The dean of students came under threat for pushing ahead with a youth festival despite student calls for a strike.
The school's top officials now travel in armed convoys and their offices lay behind five layers of security guards. None answers cellphone calls from unfamiliar numbers, lest they be from militants making threats or ransom demands. More than one-third of the school's positions for professors are vacant.
The current head of the school, Nandakumar Sarma, insists that despite it all, his campus is peaceful and his students focused.
"If you go to the library you will see students studying," he said, before stopping himself with a chuckle. "But today is a bandh."
The insurgents, known collectively as the "underground" or "UG," used to be focused on their battles with India, demanding "taxes" from Manipuris to fund the fight. Now, the fundraising has become an end in itself, with militant threats, extortion rackets and kidnappings for ransom routine, according to residents.
In one region under de facto militant control, a construction worker said he tried to cash his paycheck and was turned away by a bank because he didn't have the required letter from the UG confirming he had paid the militants their share.
Another man said he was perplexed by a grenade attack on his house, only to find out later insurgents had been sending extortion demands by text message — a technology he had no clue how to use.
As the kleptocracy grew, so did the array of groups. Phanjoubam estimates there are more than 40, with new ones springing up every few weeks. One, the Kangleipak Communist Party, is estimated to have more than a dozen offshoots, each demanding a cut of government contracts.
It is these contracts where the real money is made, with so many fingers in the government till that the demands often exceed the entire value of the deal.
A construction contractor explained a recent shakedown on condition of anonymity for fear of militants, government officials and security forces.
When he was awarded a 320 million rupee ($7 million) contract, 12 percent was instantly deducted by government officials — 7 percent for themselves and 5 percent for the Meitei underground in Imphal.
A powerful Naga militant group sent a delegation to demand its 5 percent cut. Then smaller groups, with names like the Manipur National Revolutionary Front, the Volunteers of Innocent People and the Naga Liberation Army, picked at the remaining scraps, he said.
One demanded 3 million rupees ($67,000); he refused. A grenade was tossed at his house but failed to explode, he said. They called back, claimed the attack and eventually negotiated their cut down to 1 million rupees ($22,000). Another group got 1.5 million rupees ($33,000). Two others got 500,000 ($11,000) each.
"We have no choice. We have to fulfill their demands," the contractor said.
With only a fraction of the money to complete the project, he insists he doesn't cut corners, but pays his workers poor wages and buys the cheapest building materials he can find.
Security forces, in turn, are accused of carrying out their own terror with mass arrests, disappearances and staged killings, including the shooting of a pregnant woman and an unarmed ex-militant in Imphal's busy market in 2009.
They are even implicated in the insurgency itself, with rights activists and police officers accusing paramilitary troops of ferrying militants through checkpoints to carry out attacks.
One government engineer with oversight of contracts, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of all sides, said he once paid ransom for a kidnapped worker to a state Cabinet minister's brother in front of police headquarters. Another drop-off was made at the home of a state legislator, he said.
"Government employees and police are also part of the same milieu ... either collaborating or participating (in the insurgency)," acknowledged Manipur's top bureaucrat, Chief Secretary D.S. Poonia.
While there have been few extortion prosecutions because no one will testify, Poonia said the government had been working to weaken the militants.
The National Investigation Agency, formed to fight terror in the wake of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, has threatened charges against anyone aiding the militants. And government paychecks, which had been issued only after militant "taxes" were deducted, are now direct-deposited in full into workers' accounts, Poonia said.
In response, the militants have stepped up kidnappings for ransom to keep the cash flowing, Poonia said, while the government engineer said his employees can't inspect contractors' work sites for fear of being abducted.
In recent months the Indian government has tried pacification. It captured, released and began peace talks with rebel leaders from the state of Assam. It appealed for Indians abroad to fund private investments in the region, and it lifted a requirement that all foreign visitors to the area apply for hard-to-get permits.
Addressing Parliament in January, Home Affairs Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said security in the northeast showed "remarkable improvement."
Manipur, he said, was an exception.
Nevertheless, President Pratibha Patil traveled to Imphal recently to inaugurate an information technology park the state government heralded as the flowering of a new era. The barricades along her route, erected to hold back welcoming crowds, were empty; the militants had called a protest strike.
At the same moment, a crowd gathered outside a nearby hospital awaiting the release of Irom Sharmila, a 39-year-old woman on a decade-long hunger strike to protest the government's tough counterinsurgency laws.
Sharmila lives in police custody so she can be force fed through a nose tube, but by law must be released every year.
The frail woman, accompanied by dozens of supporters, walked slowly to a shrine in her honor and denounced all sides for Manipur's anarchy, calling politicians "cowards" and the militants "insincere."
Yet, she said, her protest will serve as "the foundation stone for peace and justice," and she insisted Manipur will get better.
"Hope is alive. I can't give up hope," she said.
The next day Sharmila was taken back into custody. Her fast continues.
Source: Associated Press
By Samudra Gupta Kashyap
The small community lives in Tinsukia district in Upper Assam, their roots in 19th century China, and whose ancestors were brought to Assam by British planters after tea had been discovered growing wild about 60 km east of here.
“My mother can describe vividly how the people of our community had suddenly become an enemy of India following the Chinese aggression,” says Tung, whose Hong Kong Restaurant in Tinsukia town, 10 km from here, has been the area’s most popular chow mein and momo joint for four decades.
But mother Lee Su Chen, 83, does not want to discuss those “dark days”. “All I can say is that we went through unbelievable difficulty. Today, I will describe it as a bad dream,” says Chen, who lost her daughter, then two years old, in a detention camp at Deoli in Rajasthan, where they were kept for three years.
Lee Su Chen proudly displays the voter slip she was given last week, proof that she is an Indian. She is Voter No 412 in Polling Station No 30. “I voted in 1957 and 1962, and then again since 1971,” she says proudly. The community is voting on Monday.
Over 400 Chinese-origin residents of Makum, Tinsukia, Digboi and other areas of this district had been arrested and sent to detention camps. From most families, one or two each were sent off to China. “We were lucky to have been able to come back from Deoli after three years,” Lee Su Chen says.
Her husband Wang Chuchin, who originally owned a large saw mill here, on return found most of its machinery gone. “He was a rich man and had bought a Rs 2-lakh share in a sugar mill in 1958. On return, he had to buy an old jeep to run the family,” said Tung.
In 1970 he set up the restaurant, which his son Tung has been managing after his death last year.
“Most of our people are still looking forward to either getting back their property confiscated in 1962 or getting some compensation. A recent bill in Parliament to amend the enemy property law has raised hope,” said Tung, whose son is doing an MBA in Guwahati.
As a few families returned to Makum several years after 1962, hundreds of “Assamese Chinese” are today spread across Assam and Meghalaya. “Very few of us can read or write Chinese. That way we are inseparable from the Assamese,” Tung said.
No political party has ever addressed their grievances. An Assamese novel by Sahitya Akademi award winner Rita Choudhury, which has described their plight, has now created a lot of awareness about the small community.
Michael Liong (48), who earns his living as a driver, was born in a detention camp at Nagaon, and has only heard the 1962 stories from his parents. So has Tajun Chong, a 1978-born “Chinese” who owns an ice-cream parlour. “I was very touched when I read about those dark days in Rita Choudhury’s novel,” said Chandana Gurung, 28, whose mother Sweety Wang (Lee Su Chen’s eldest daughter) is married to a Nepalese settler here.
