John Caught on Wrong foot...

John Abraham seems to be running through a rough patch. The most recent mishap, and perhaps the most major of them all happened on Saturday when during shooting, John fractured his foot. It happened while shooting a day-long cricket match for David Dhawan’s Hook Ya Crook.

Says a close friend of John, “ The hard ball shot straight through the air and bang into John’s right foot and he heard a distinct crack. John knew something had gone awfully wrong in his foot.

But he continued shooting throughout the day because he didn’t want to disrupt David’s schedule which required special permission for outdoor shooting. ”

It was only after the day’s shooting that John, by then cringing in pain, he sat down to examine the damage.“The foot had swollen to twice its normal size.

It wasn’t just a pulled muscle or a torn ligament as John had hoped. It was a full-blown fracture. And by playing cricket on the injured foot John made it worse, ” says the friend.

After pack-up John walked to his car, drove off to the doctor who finally told John what he suspected the whole day. Verdict passed, John was rushed to the hospital in acute pain. Now his foot is in a cast for a month.

Fortunately for the actor there’s no shooting to be completed. The next one month is devoted to acting workshops for Abbas Tyrewala which John can somehow limp through. But all his friends and family agree the last week has been tough on John.

“He was down with a severe viral fever, followed by the whole unsavoury link-up with Katrina Kaif. Then John lost a favourite Uncle. And now his foot is fractured. Hopefully this is the climax of his crises, ” says the friend.

Says John, “I really wouldn’t like to talk about it. But yes, I’m in a lot of pain. Fortunately no film is going to get affected.” Bipasha Basu got to know about John’s injury on Sunday morning. John had sent her on an sms about his condition on Saturday night. But she had already gone to sleep. Now she’s expected to rush back as soon as possible. “It’s sad. But John was foolish to keep on playing when his foot was hurt instead of getting it checked. ”

Genelia And Her 1 Crore Denial

Sometimes, the news about an actresses’ refusal carries as much spice as her agreement on any issue does. Genelia is no exception to the rule.

Following her smashing success in Bollywood with ‘Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na’, buzz has it that the petite actress has demanded a salary of Rs 1 Crore for her films.

To put things in perspective, it must be realized that this is no big money to seek in an industry as big as Bollywood’s, where actresses are paid over even Rs 5 crores.

And Genelia, who made a forceful reentry in Bollywood with the Imran starrer, had anyway demanded upto Rs 70 lakhs for her other films, including the remake of ‘Santhosh Subramaniyam’, in Hindi.

But if it is true that producers have agreed to pay Genie, as she is fondly called, the Rs 1 crore remuneration, she would be the next South Indian actress after Nayantara and Anushka to charge the fee.

But any questions about this touchy issue was met with fierce denial by those on Genie’s camp, who said she has not been demanding more than she deserves. One only wonders who said she doesn't deserve the eight-digit salary.

Sonam At Koel Chat Show

Bollywood actress Sonam Kapoor would be available at Koel Puri’s chat show “Couch with Koel”. The show would be telecasted on June 6 at Headlines Today.According to the sources present at the chat show, Koel tried to bold Sonam with her queries for Cannes Film Festival, but Sonam was diplomatic.

When Koel asked her that she was reluctant to reply straight, Sonam said, “But I am always diplomatic, I have never been not diplomatic.” Koel further pressed on the Cannes issue and branding herself as the young face of L’Oreal, to which with irritation Sonam replied, “I say it as I see it!”

Govinda's Bollywood Innings

The 45-year-old actor has already had one release this year Chal Chala Chal with Rajpal Yadav. The film went unnoticed when it released in January this year. He has quite a few releases lined up this year but he isn’t the lead actor in any of them.

Ravi Chopra’s Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai is complete. It stars Tabu, Lara Dutta, Boman Irani, Rajpal Yadav and Ashish Chaudhary. The remake of My Cousin Vinny has decent chances of doing well because of the presence of Boman Irani and Tabu.

Govinda will get a chance to display his comic flair in the movie. Ravi says in defense of Govinda, “He is a fantastic and very talented actor. That's all I look for. He may not have a pull on the audiences like Shah Rukh Khan or Hrithik Roshan, but he is a good actor.

If the film is right for an actor of his talent, it would create magic. Hats off to him that he continues to work in movies, he has been around for so long."

Main Aur Mrs Khanna has Kareena Kapoor, Sohail and Salman Khan. Due to his friendship with Salman, he has bagged a small role in the film, which will release soon after the strike is called off. In Mani Ratnam’s Raavan, the focus is on Abhishek and Aishwarya. Govinda plays Hanuman and forms the supporting cast along with Manisha Koirala, Vikram and Nikhil Dwivedi. The film will release late this year or early next year.

In David Dhawan’s Do Knot Disturb, Govinda shares the screen with Riteish Deshmukh, Ranvir Shorey, Rajpal Yadav and hotties Sushmita Sen and Lara Dutta. The duo last collaborated on Partner. The shooting of the comedy is going on and it will release late 2009 or early 2010.

The only solo hero film that Govinda has is Jagmohan Mundhra’s Naughty@40, a remake of the Hollywood film The 40-year-old Virgin. Anupam Kher and Shakti Kapoor are also part of it. Jagmohan Mundhra hasn’t made a successful film in recent times. The film has been struck by the recession as filming has been stalled.

The limelight in Abbas Mustan’s production Life Partner, directed by Rumi Jaffrey, will be hogged by youngsters like Tushaar Kapoor, Prachi Desai and Genelia D’Souza, who have leading roles. In fact, Prachi and Tushaar are already talking about the film. Fardeen Khan and Akshaye Khanna also star in the movie.

Then there is Aaditya Dutt’s Chai Garam with Esha Deol, Celina Jaitley, Urvashi Sharma, Sunil Shetty, Javed Jaffrey, Rajpal Yadav, Ravi Kishen and Anupam Kher. Aaditya Dutt’s previous films like Aashiq Banaya Aapne and Good Luck have been non-starters. This comedy is under production.

Do Lucky, previously known as Run Bhola Run, stars Tushaar Kapoor, Celina Jaitley and Amisha Patel. It is directed by Neeraj Vora, who has made Phir Hera Pheri in the past. The film is in its postproduction stages.

Lastly, there is a sequel to Partner with Salman Khan, helmed by David Dhawan, but that will only go into production next year. Govinda had one awful release in 2008: Money Hain Toh Honey Hain. As is evident, in spite of an 8 film line up, Govinda doesn’t have any solo hero films (except Naughty @ 40) and he is either part of a multi-starrer or has a supporting role in a big banner film like Raavan in 2009.

Barring Raavan, none of the films are hugely anticipated. Though he continues to dance, romance and display his comic timing, that isn’t enough to attract the audiences to the theatre to watch the middle aged actor in action. No wonder then, his daughter Narmmadaa has decided to fill in his shoes as she is set to make her debut this year.

Bhaichung Bhutia Wins Show

After showing his legwork on the field, football star Bhaichung Bhutia has proved he can dance well too as he walked away with the winner's trophy after the grand finale of third season of Sony TV's reality show "Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa" here Sunday night.

Bhutia, who was one of the weaker contenders when the show began over three months back, beat model Gauhar Khan and actor Karan Grover to win the Rs.4 million prize money as well as the audience's adulation.

His victory has not only been backed by improved performance, but also by the SMS frenzy in his home state of Sikkim.

Several women from an organisation called Sahayta Club chipped in with Rs.30,000 to buy mobile cash cards so that they could facilitate 10,000 SMS votes for Bhutia last week.

Another campaign was undertaken by a social organisation called Citizens Forum that had set up a massive tent in Sikkim to conduct mass voting. Many booths were also set up in various localities in and around the state and neighbouring West Bengal hills to boost Bhutia's vote count.

Even the United Sikkim Sporting Soccer Club, whose chief patron is Bhutia, organised a mass voting at a discotheque in Gangtok. Bhutia was recently slapped with a show-cause notice by Mohun Bagan, the club for which he plays football, for missing their practice sessions.

But he went on to perfect his dance moves for "Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa". The special episode was a glitzy event with performances from the participants, choreographers as well as celebrity guests, actors Malaika Arora Khan and Mallika Sherawat. The show's judges - star choreographers Saroj Khan and Vaibhavi Merchant - as well as actress Juhi Chawla graced the event. A run-down of the journey of the three finalists too was showcased.

Mallika, Malaika to Sizzle

Glamorous Bollywood actresses Mallika Sherawat and Malaika Arora Khan are both set to groove to hit numbers on the grand finale of dance reality show "Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa".

While Malaika will be seen in a royal blue number in the show to be aired Sunday, Malaika will descend on the stage in a short ochre dress, said a statement from Sony Entertainment Television.

Asked to choose her favourite contender out of model Gauhar Khan, ace footballer Bhaichung Bhutia and TV actor Karan Grover, Mallika goes up to Karan, but hands over a bouquet of roses to Bhaichung. The grand finale will be aired on Sony at 8 p.m. Sunday.

A Bblow-by-Blow account

It's an unwritten code between a journalist and his/her subject. An off-the-record conversation between them shall always be honoured. But if one breaks the pact, the other is not obliged to abide by it either.

A few days back, HiTLIST featured the news of the SMS exchange between John Abraham-Katrina Kaif and how Salman Khan was furious at the discovery of it.

There has been a flurry of activity after that. Kat, who has been denying Salman's existence in her life for years, finally admitted they were together.

HitList puts together the entire series of events since the time Katrina was first contacted for her version from her constantly changing stances to Salman's threat to us on Saturday evening saying, "If anything more comes in your paper, there will be dire consequences to pay."

Day 1: Tuesday, 26th May - On Tuesday night, when contacted on the matter of John Abraham's number figuring on her phone bills, Katrina panics.

She swears she has no contact with John. She makes many calls to the reporter over a stretch of three hours and denies any contact with him. She tries everything from, "I will jump from my building" to "I will leave the country" to have the story dropped.

She pleads, "Write anything but not about the phone bills." When asked to explain her strong reaction, especially when she'd laughed off past link-ups with Akshay Kumar and Ranbir Kapoor, she turns her nose, "Never John; not in a hundred years." But she requests not to be quoted at all. After all the justifications, her focus shifts to uncovering the "source" who's given us the story.

Day 2: Wednesday, 27th May - The story appears in HiTLIST minus Kat's quotes, as she wanted to remain "unavailable for comment." There is an eerie silence from her end. Which is strange given that the previous night, she tried every trick in the book to wrangle out the name of the source.

She names everyone from John and his publicist (for the promotion of New York) to people close to Salman ("who hate me") to the guests at Karan Johar's party the previous night ("I heard everyone there was talking about it"). She even attempts to put Salman on the phone with us saying, "Tell him your source; he won't believe me."

Day 3: Thursday, 28th May - It is learnt that Katrina and John Abraham have given interviews to another city newspaper in which they've both spoken up. When asked about her changed stance from "I-don't-want-to-be-quoted" only a day earlier, she explains, "It was an off-the-record chat, which the reporter has used as an interview."

When informed they would do a follow-up to the story, she calls the reporter (from the other newspaper) to change her version. A channel she speaks to, also blames Shah Rukh Khan (remember his dushmani with Salman?) for "planting" the story.

Day 4: Friday, 29th May - Katrina's interview appears in the city newspaper. In a complete turnaround, Katrina admits there were text-messages exchanged between her and John but insists "they were old ones, not new." Also her disdain towards Abraham has magically turned into dearness as she says, "John is a sweetheart; we enjoyed each other's company."

John also admits to the text-message exchange but maintains, "They were work SMSes." Kat thanks the reporter for "representing" her properly. The actress then sends HiTLIST a text message explaining why she gave the interview: "I had to clarify as Salman was genuinely not happy about this making him look silly."

Day 5: Saturday, 30th May - In four days, Katrina changed her stance on her New York co-star from "John who?" to "My dear friend John." Fearing a rejoinder, she gets Salman Khan to call a HiTLIST reporter and threaten her, "I believe you are planning to carry something on Katrina on Monday? Tell your editor, if that happens, there will be dire consequences to pay."

L’Oreal Welcomes Freida Pinto

After Aishwarya Rai and Sonam Kapoor the other Indian beauty to join L’Oreal cosmetic giant is Slumdog Millionaire actress Freida Pinto and she is quite excited about it.

She says, “I am very moved to be joining the great L’Oreal Paris family and all these personalities: a family I am now proud to be a part of.”

Pinto is also the brand ambassador of Estee Lauder.

Inter-American Development Bank

The Inter-American Development Bank (preferred abbreviation IDB, although sometimes found as IADB), is an international organization established and headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, in 1959 to support Latin American and Caribbean economic and social development and regional integration by lending mainly to governments and government agencies, including State corporations. The current president of the Bank is Luis Alberto Moreno, a Colombian diplomat who was elected to succeed Enrique V. Iglesias on July 27, 2005. The IDB has four official languages: English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. Its official names in the other three languages are as follows: French: Banque interaméricaine de développement;Portuguese: Banco Interamericano de Desenvolvimento;Spanish: Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo. In all three of the other languages, the Bank uses the acronym "BID".

Intel 802.11 Draft-N§ products

Intel® 802.11 Draft-N§ WiFi Adapters provide up to 450 Mbps of bandwidth¹ for today's demanding applications such as streaming High-Definition (HD) videos or backing-up your digital media files. In addition, Intel's 802.11 Draft-N§ products are backwards compatible to today's installed base of legacy 802.11a/b/g networks enabling you to connect in more places.