Minisha Lamba _ RURAL CONNECT

Minisha Lamba!

             She's been under the radar for more than a year, but Minisha Lamba is looking forward to making her big-screen return with the Shyam Benegal directorial Well Done Abba, her performance in which won her a special award at the Dubai Film Festival last year. "The film has been screened at three international film festivals so far and has been received well, but now we want it to be appreciated back home, from the people it's been made for, " says Minisha.

           It's been a while since any of her films have scored at the box office, her last hit being Bachna Ae Haseeno in 2008.Did she think taking a detour towards parallel cinema would change things for her? "I'm just looking at doing a good film, a film that touches people, a film with a soul that connects with a audience.  So, whether it's parallel cinema or rhombus cinema, it doesn't matter, " she maintains.

         Working on Well Done Abba was an eye-opening exp0erience, feels the actress. For one, she's playing a village girl for the first time, which is a far cry from the glam on-screen roles she's mainly done so far. "My character is not the stereotypical village girl I had in my head-she's quick-witted and her mind is as razor sharp as her tongue. she wants to study and doesn't want to get married to anyone chosen for her, " explains Minisha. Which, she admits, made it difficult for her to figure out how to approach the character. "I had to constantly go back to Shyam sir for guidance to figure out her psyche. I didn't want his vision to get warped along the way, " she confesses.

         

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Medicine - Mixed Bag For Generics

Health bill sweet pill for US drugmakers

 London:Global drugmakers face a hit to earnings from 2011, as they are forced to chip in to help pay for US health care reform, but will benefit in the long run as millions more Americans become customers for their medicines.

             The future promise lifted stocks in major drug companies on both sides of the Atlantic on Monday, after US lawmakers gave final approval to a sweeping health care overhaul at the weekend. Big Pharma will provide somewhat more in savings than the original $80 billion agreement under the latest version of health care reform but the bill  passed by the House of Representatives creates 32 million more customers for the industry's products.

               Crucially, the government will not impose drug price caps. "The amount they are paying, essentially in a tax, over a five to 10 year period is potentially more than offset by the increased volume that they have coming in, " said Ben Yeoh, an industry analyst at Atlantic Equities. "It looks neutral, within forecast error, " he said. "There's relief that something has got through that drugmakers can live with. "Morgan Stanley analysts said the reform package would depress earnings per share at European pharmaceutical companies by up to 2 to3% in 2011.

            But this would be counteracted by a sharp increase in the number of insured patients and enhanced revenues from the Medicare programme for the clderly, the brokerage said. Drugmakers were unlikely to revise longterm earnings outlooks on the back of the news, it added.

           Under the complex deal hammered out in Washington, the drugs industry will have to pay fees of $2.5 billion $3 billion from next year-rising to a peak of $4.2 billion in 2018-and provide discounts to help ensure Medicare coverage. "There's a sense that if no health reform had passed this time around, then everything would have got a really bg kicking in three or four years time because, inevitably, something had to give, : said Jack Scannell, an industry analyst at Sanford Bernstein.

              Lawmakers also rejected an initial plan to end Lucrative "pay-for-delay" settlements between brand-name and generic drugmakers-a win for both groups of manufacturers.

           the biotechnology industry, too, has reason to be thankful that the legislation was not worse. A big fear for biotech investors had been that government would give generic alternatives a fast route to the market. In fact, makers of biotech drugs like Amgen Inc and Roche Holding AG's Genentech unit will still have a 12-year period of exclusive sales before facing competition from generic revals.

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IPL CRICKET 2010 - Mumbai Indians Vs Kolkata Night Riders

IPL CRICKET 2010

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