The legendary actor and super-star Shashiji’s birthday today who turned into 74 the Mahanayek Amitabh Bachchan, wished him good health and happiness.

So, finally a sigh of relief as beginning Sept 27, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has given cellphone users in the country freedom from the deluge of pesky calls and SMSes selling weight loss solutions to MBA programmes to travel packages to anything. With these, Trai has also imposed a 100 SMS per day limit on individual customers.

* To get started, subscribers need to register themselves with the National Customer Preference Registry, earlier known as ” National Do Not Call Registry”, by dialing a toll free number 1909.

* Subscribers can also send an SMS saying START DND to 1909 or log on to website ‘www.nccptrai.gov.in’ to register themselves and follow the instructions.

* As for those subscribers who are fine receiving all the commercial SMS alerts and calls they can SMS STOP DND to 1909.

* The service also has two options to choose from — ‘Fully Blocked’ or ‘Partially Blocked’ category. The first option puts a blanket ban on any commercial SMSes or calls. In the second, you can receive few SMSes like your important bank updates or traffic alerts, or the category you choose. The Partially Blocked category has identified eight options — banking and financial products, real estate, education, health, consumer goods, automobiles, communication and entertainment, tourism and leisure — for the users to choose from. If you register for the first option you will not receive any commercial communication.

* In case, you continue to receive spam, you can alert your telecom provider. According to the new regulations, telemarketers targetting registered users face penalties starting from Rs 25,000 for the first offense and rising up to Rs 2,50,000 for the sixth offense. Post that the telemarketer will be blacklisted from receiving telecom services for two years.

The search engine marks entering its teens by turning its home page into a birthday party scene.

Surrounded by multi-coloured balloons and streamers, its logo is adorned with party hats and sits behind a table heaped with wrapped presents and a large white birthday cake with 13 candles.

Although Google’s founders, Stanford University graduate students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, built their first search engine in 1996, it was not until 1998 that they formalised their work and created Google.

The company filed for incorporation on September 4, 1998, and the Google.com domain was registered on September 15. The search engine officially celebrates its birthday on September 27.

The pair came up with the name as a play on the word “googol”, the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros.

Main zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya–true to his popular song, Dev Anand, one of the most loveable romantic heroes of the 1950s and the 1960s, has refused to let age slow him down. He turned 88 Monday excited about new films and his birthday gift–an iPhone.

He has announced the sequel to his hit film “Hare Rama Hare Krishna” and is looking forward to the release of Chargesheet.

“I am having a meeting with Warner Brothers, my producers of Chargesheet, about the premiere on Monday morning. In the evening, my friends have planned a dinner. A lot of eminent people think my birthday is worth celebrating,” said Dev Anand, who has been part of the Hindi film industry for the past 65 years.

The Padma Bhushan awardee and Dadasaheb Phalke Award winner continues to be as charged up about his new film Chargesheet, which opens Friday, as he has been about all his other films.

Salman Khan’s Dabangg continues its winning spree. The National Award-winning film which boasted of the chartbuster Munni badnaam hui walked away with six awards, including best film album, at the Global Indian Music Awards (GIMA).

The event was held at the Kingdom of Dreams in Gurgaon on Thursday night.

Mamta Sharma won the best music debut for Munni badnaam. The best music director award went to Sajid-Wajid and Lalit Pandit for their compositions in the movie.

Dabangg also won the technical awards for best background score by Sandeep Shirodkar, best engineer-film album by Eric Pillai and best engineer-theatre mix for Leslie Fernandes.

Giving neck-to-neck fight was Milan Luthria’s Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai, which received four awards, including best film song for Pee loon, for which Mohit Chauhan was awarded in the playback singer-male category, and Irshad Kamil took home the best lyricist trophy.

The best music arranger and programmer award was given away to Sandeep Shirodkar for the same song. Sunidhi Chauhan walked away with the trophy of best playback singer female for Sheila ki jawani from Tees Maar Khan.

Oscar winner AR Rahman, who has composed for international films like Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours, was honoured with the title of Global Indian Musician.

Legendary composer Pyarelal of musical duo Lakshmikant-Pyarelal was conferred with outstanding contribution to pop music award, and the outstanding contribution to Indian classical music title was given to music maestro Balamurli Krishnan.

The show, hosted by actors Ranveer Singh and Neha Dhupia, saw a melange of high-octane performances by Sunidhi, Sonu Nigam, Kailash Kher, Shubha Mudgal, Usha Uthup, Midival Punditz, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy along with India’s Got Talent winner Shillong Chamber Choir.

Nokia has expanded its mobile portfolio in the country with the addition of Nokia 101 dual SIM music and Nokia 100 single SIM phones in India. The Nokia 101 is the company’s fifth dual SIM phone in the Indian market.

Nokia 100, a basic handset for calls and sending text messages, features a color display with a grid-based menu system and an FM radio.

Nokia 101 has dual SIM device, enabling users to connect to two different networks to receive calls and messages. It also has an FM radio, integrated MP3 player and supports 16 GB microSD memory cards.

Both the phones come with Nokia Life Tools and Nokia Money for instant access to locally-relevant information on healthcare, education, agriculture, and entertainment.

Nokia 101 will be available in the next few weeks for Rs 1699. The phone will come in Black and Red colors. Nokia 100 will be available starting October for Rs 1399.

Slamming the WikiLeaks report about her, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati on Tuesday alleged that its “owner” was either playing in the hands of her political opponents or had gone “mad”.

“I would request the government of his country to send him to a mental asylum and if
they have no place for him in his country we can put him in our Agra mental hospital”, Mayawati told reporters Lucknow.

Terming the allegations against her, her government, its officials and partymen as “baseless”, she said, “They are wrong, mischievous and derogatory and an effort to damage the image of the government and condemned them”.

Mayawati strongly condemned the cables and demanded that the WikiLeaks owner be sent to a mental asylum.

A WikiLeaks cable had said that Mayawati sent a private jet to Mumbai to get a pair of sandals for herself.

“When she needed new sandals, her private jet flew empty to Mumbai to retrieve her preferred brand,” a cable said describing her “eccentricities, whims and insecurities”.

US embassy cables from 2007 to 2009 released by the WikiLeaks website describe Mayawati as “a first-rate egomaniac” who “is obsessed with becoming prime minister”.

The cable also quoted Lucknow journalists claiming that she employs nine cooks (two to cook, the others to watch over them) and two food tasters.

“She fears assassination and demanded from the central government the highest level of protection available. In addition to this outsized security apparatus, she constructed a private road from her residence to her office, which is cleaned immediately after her multiple vehicle convoy reaches its destination,” said the cable.

Mayawati, however, said that these stories were just an effort to tarnish her and her party’s image considering that the Uttar Pradesh elections are near. “This is a conspiracy just before the elections,” Mayawati said.

Samsung has unveiled a new media player — Galaxy WiFi 3.6, during an event in Berlin, Germany.

As the name implies, the Samsung Galaxy WiFi 3.6 comprises a 3.6 inch TFT LCD capacitive touchscreen display featuring HVGA resolution. To keep things speedy enough, Samsung has added a 1 GHz processor in the personal media player as well.

What makes it really stand apart from the existing crowd is the inclusion of the latest version of the Google’s Android operating system, the Android Gingerbread v 2.3.

Other inclusions are also there that make this device a complete iPod killer or maybe more. Samsung has included a 2 megapixel camera on the back with an LED flash and a front facing VGA camera for video chat through VOIP.

The Samsung Galaxy WiFi 3.6 comes with 802.11n WiFi, accelerometer, compass, and a micro SD card slot which can take up to 32 GB cards on the top of internal memory of 8 GB or 16 GB, depending upon which version you are buying.

Samsung is looking forward to roll out the Galaxy WiFi 3.6 for sale in the UK in the month of October, with the 8 GB version priced at 149 Pounds or Rs 11,000 and the 16 GB version at 169 Pounds (Rs. 13,000) approximately. People from India can also make use of websites like ‘Shop Your Word’ and ‘20 North’ to import these devices as and when they are launched in October but obviously they will have to pay a premium for this.

Hours before Anna Hazare broke a 13-day hunger strike that shook the nation, all roads led to the Ramlila ground. And as he sipped coconut water, tens of thousands gave him a standing, boisterous ovation that would make any politician go green with envy. It was a mini India out there.

saffron robed swami. A tall Nihang Sikh in bright blue. Mahatma Gandhi lookalikes. Men with Rajasthani head gears. Retired employees. The jobless. Traders. Vendors. Bus drivers. Farmers.

Like in any movement, the middle class did dominate.

Kids were perched on parents’ shoulders. The young, clearly in majority, were the most vocal. There were housewives. And couples. There were plenty of people in their 50s and 60s. And women too were shouting slogans.

Ramlila ground was awash with Indian flags, “I Am Anna” caps and cheeks painted with the tricolour. There were matching T-shirts, all paying their own tribute, in Hindi and English, to the diminutive Hazare.

Tricolour bandanas spoke of “Chak De India”. There were hand drawn pictures of Anna made to look like Hindu gods Shiv and Hanuman. There were Bhagat Singh photos. And the evergreen Che Guevera T-shirts.

Placards — almost all hand-written — were aplenty. “Say No To Bribes” read one. “Congratulations! We have done it!” said another. “Victory for Anna, Victory for India!”

The Supreme Court today sought response from the Centre and Uttar Pradesh government on filmmaker Prakash Jha’s petition challenging the state government’s decision to ban screening of ‘Aarakshan’.

A bench of justices Mukundkam Sharma and A R Dave issued notice to the Centre and the state government asking them to file their response by Friday. The bench posted the matter for further hearing on August 19.

The court passed the orders on Jha’s petition, who approached it after screening of his film was banned by various state governments. Jha’s film ‘Aarakshan’ was banned by three states, UP, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh. The UP government had on August 10 banned the film for two months citing law and order problem.

However, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh had later lifted the ban. In his petition, Jha had asked whether the state governments can override the permission granted by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to exhibit a movie.

The petition contended the decision by the governments of UP, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh was due to political reasons and it violates the fundamental right to speech and expression.

The political thriller starring Amitabh Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan, Manoj Vajpai, Prateek Babbar and Deepika Padukone was released on August 12 in other parts of the country.

Jha has sought a stay on the orders passed by the UP government banning the release of the film on the grounds of likelihood of hurting the feelings of weaker sections that could lead to law and order problems.