Richest man in The World: Carlo Slim Helu

San Francisco - The Mexican telecom tycoon Carlo Slim Helu now holds the top position in the Forbes top Billionaire list. He has beaten Bill Gates and Warren Buffet this year and is now the wealthiest person in the whole world with an estimated property worth of $53.5 Billion. He is now the first person in the last 16 years to reach the top position outside the U.S.

Most probably, he is the first person of color from a developing country to win the top position. Carlos Slim Helu is now reported to be making $30 million a month. Perhaps Bill Gates is not so happy this morning as he was edged out by merely half a billion dollars. Helu’s $53.5 billion is closely followed by Gates’ $53 billion. Gates held the title 14 times in the last 15 years.

He purchased controlling interest in Telmax in 1990 with a group of investors. Then he went on to buy as many telecom companies as possible in Mexico and Latin America. He controls the companies Telmex, Telcel and America Movil and allegedly his three sons Carlos, Marco Antonio and Patrick Slim Domit head them on a day to day basis. Currently, he owns almost 90% of the Mexico’s telephone lines and almost 80% of its cellphone connections.

He also owns about 7% of the New York Times and he gave the Times companies a loan of $250 million. He is reported to be very happy with the stakes in those companies. But there have been some criticisms on his wealth also. His wealth has been amassed from a country where the average income per capita is less than $15,000 a year and 17% of the Mexican population lives in the poverty line.

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Movie Review: Amelia (2010)

Amelia: Is a boring bio-pic

Rating: 2 out of 5*

Starring: Hilary Swank, Richard Gere and Ewan McGregor

Director: Mira Nair

The film narrates the tale of Amelia Earhart (Hilary Swank) the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. The narrative of the film however toggles between Amelia Earhart’s (Swank) final flight, in which she and navigator Fred Noonan (Christopher Eccleston) attempted to circumnavigate the globe in 1937, and various events beginning in 1928, when she became the first woman to fly the Atlantic. Her fame grows, thanks to publisher G.P. Putnam (Richard Gere), who becomes first her publicist and then her husband — although Amelia affirms her autonomy by embarking on a lengthy affair with socialite and airline founder Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor). Triumphant landings and ticker-tape parades follow, as do product endorsements, White House dinners and a return to Putnam. Then, in her second attempt to fly round the world, Earhart misses a refueling rendezvous in the Pacific and disappears at age 39.

Director Mira Nair can’t seem to find the film’s emotional through-line, the central thread that holds it all together. The film sprawls, then, but with no surprises, no passion, and no foreseeable endpoint except the inevitable splashdown in the Pacific. And even this climactic sequence, which should be filled with white-knuckle moments, is drawn out and oddly emotionless. However, Amelia does not lack visual splendor. Stuart Dryburgh’s sumptuous cinematography drips with color and detail, the production design is elegant, and the costuming will have you pining for the days when everyone looked effortlessly dapper.

Hilary Swank bares an uncanny resemblance to Amelia Earhart, especially with the aid of a shaggy haircut and a buck-toothed dental prosthetic. Swank sinks into the character. Richard Gere is dreary and tame as George Putnam, the famed granddaddy of public relations, and his 1930s radio announcer accent is slightly ridiculous. Ewan McGregor is appropriately debonair, but he’s essentially stuck in the lifestyle of the rich and boring. And while Christopher Eccleston does get a bit more complexity to work with as Amelia’s functionally drunk navigator Fred Noonan, their relationship isn’t developed enough to make a difference.

While the sleek aircraft featured in the film are works of art in their own right, the film is a dried out drama that sucks all the joy out of flying and fails to give us any new insight about the life and times of Lady Lindy. Safe, predictable, and unwilling to take any risks, Amelia’s tone flatly contradicts the boundary-breaking life of the actual Amelia. In short,the film is a boring bio-pic that can be given a miss and watched on a DVD at home.

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After muddy road to Tuensang, a beacon of hope (Letter from Nagaland)

TUENSANG - There is no better symbol of Tuensang’s disconnect with the rest of Nagaland than the road between it and Mokokchung, the closest major town.

The road to this remote and backward town in eastern Nagaland snakes along sharp ridges of hills, is muddy and dusty, prone to landslides in the monsoon and is literally a pain in the neck to travel on.

Tuensang is in close proximity to the international border with Myanmar and has for long been plagued by the illegal drug trade. It was also a bastion of insurgency, but since a 1997 ceasefire it has enjoyed relative stability.

The people of Tuensang feel marginalised by the rest of Nagaland and since it is home to the minor tribes of Chang, Yimchunger, Sangtam, Phom, and Khaimanungan, there is a low rate of employment and education and a high rate of drug abuse and AIDS cases.

It is in such a bleak context that the couple Rev. Dr Chingmak Kejok and his wife Putholi founded an NGO called Eleutheros Christian Society (ECS). Since its founding in 1993, ECS has done some incredible work with drug addicts, AIDS patients, women, education and basic rights.

Rev. Chingmak got his spark when he lost family members to the drug menace just after he finished his studies in theology from Union Biblical Seminary, Pune. Though the problem of drug abuse was his initial area of concern, his vision was further fuelled to take on women’s empowerment and primary education.

Observing the dire economic situation of women, he hit upon the idea of micro-finance and soon formed Self Help Groups (SHG) where now the women collectively have their own loan corpus of more than Rs.1 crore (Rs 10 million).

When he noticed there was a staggering rate of dropouts among the schoolchildren in the Chang villages, he started implementing the concept of the Sochum. The idea for the Sochum is based on the ancient Naga practice of a Morung, which serves as a dormitory where young men are imparted life skills and civic responsibilities besides education.

The 42-year-old softspoken Rev. Chingmak maintains a clear vision and his life has a constant forward momentum. He wears his authority and position lightly and is easily accessible. His conversations are peppered with humorous jabs and anecdotes and he has a zen-like attitude in the face of the many inconveniences like bad phone connections and intermittent internet connectivity. He recounts stories of his earlier days when he had to travel to the bordering state of Assam just to receive and make important phone calls.

He is respected for his integrity, especially his financial transparency. When asked about his fundraising methods, he said, “If you are honest and open with money, it will somehow follow you. You don’t have to go after it, it will come after you.”

Putholi seems more practical and her penchant for detail grounds her husband’s vision well. They make a perfect and complementary team. Rev. Chingmak and his wife have made numerous sacrifices and once early on had to sell their wedding gifts just to survive.

The days of initial struggle have borne fruit with due recognition from the Nagaland government when it bestowed the Certificate of Award of the Governor’s Medal on the couple in 2003 and former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam visited ECS in recognition of its work.

Yes, it feels like a whole other country walking in the streets of Tuensang nestled in the hills. But there is a more vocal voice being raised from this part of Nagaland and it is no less in part due to trailblazers like Rev. Chingmak and Putholi.

Perhaps, with sons and daughters like them, the people of Tuensang are slowly gaining awareness of their rights and will have a better shot at the future.

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Mizoram sets Guinness dance record

Mizoram on Friday set a new Guinness record in bamboo dance locally called Cheraw. The record was set by 10,736 performers – half of them girls – who danced to traditional music for eight minutes.AFP Photo

The feat coincided with Chapchar Kut, the traditional harvest festival of the Mizos.

The record, according to Guinness World Records adjudicator Lucia Sinigagliesi, would go down as the ‘world’s largest bamboo dance’ performance. Though peculiar to Mizos, Cheraw was eligible for entry into the record book as similar dances are performed in Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries.

“This record has a chance of making it to the Guinness Book of World Records for 2011,” Sinigagliesi said.

The record-breaking event saw the performers from Aizawl and outskirts line up a 3 km stretch of a road besides a football field in the Assam Rifles complex. Only 2,518 performers could be accommodated in the field while the remaining 8,218 danced on the road.

To ensure that the dancers along the road performed to precision, 42 horns were set up at strategic points to air the tune.

“This is a great day for us. We have set a record for others to try and break,” said Mizoram Art and Culture Minister PC Zoram Sangliana.

This is the Northeast’s third musical record in five years. In 2006, over 5,000 drummers had assembled in Shillong to create a biggest mass drumming record. The following year, Meghalaya set another record -the largest guitar ensemble.

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