Elizabeth Sholtys, 23, first came to Pune in 2001 to complete her high school studies. During that time she volunteered at a home for street children in Mumbai. Moved by her experience with the homeless children, Sholtys later returned to the country to establish the AIC.

Due to her efforts, nine children have been given a second chance in life. Basraj, 15, Akash, 14, Geeta, 10, Sonal, 8, Santosh, 10, Jyoti, 10, Sanjay, 12, Kajal, 8, and Tushar, 7, were once wandering the streets of Pune without a home to call their own. They now study in Pune’s private English school and live in a three-bedroom flat with Sholtys and other volunteers who take care of them.

A native of Ithaca, N.Y., Sholtys graduated from Emory University in Atlanta. in May with a degree in anthropology and a minor in sociology. She managed to get a graduate degree by completing her course work online.

“I had spoken with the college administration and my professors beforehand and they were very supportive, even though it was unconventional,” she said of how she managed to complete college in four years while spending most of the time in India. “I would work on my papers and send them through e-mails. Although it did become difficult sometimes as there was no access to a library.”

While at Emory, Sholtys read about Paul Farmer, a leading physician and global health activist. Fortified by Farmer’s dedication to serve the poor, Sholtys was determined to do the same even though she was in the middle of her college education. As Pune is renowned for its learning institutes, Sholtys found it the ideal place to raise the children.

Completely immersed in taking care of the children, she had no time for socializing while studying at Emory, but Sholtys is far from complaining.

“Since most of the time I am here, I don’t get to see my friends and family. I e-mail them a lot and sometimes they come to visit me here,” she said. “I don’t feel like I have missed the college experience. I never liked the partying and drinking scenes.”

Sholtys has formed an organized network of branches across the world including Japan, Canada, Britain and Austria. The board consists of seven young group directors, with Sholtys being the oldest. She knew most of them from college in Pune.

“They are my close friends and were with me in college. They understood the problems in an Indian context,” she said.

The branch in Japan is headed by Asami Matsumoto, 22, who met Sholtys through a mutual friend. Matsumoto further came in contact with other volunteers in Japan through an Internet blog. In a phone interview, Matsumoto said she admired Sholtys as an individual who is strong-willed and can put an idea into action. Matsumoto, with the support of a dozen volunteers in Tokyo, raised 800,000 yen last year by organizing talk show events and concerts.

Committing her life to the children has been a demanding but fulfilling experience for Sholtys.

“Many of them did not know ABC and so to try to get them through private schools was difficult,” she said. “Because we can’t put a 14-year-old in kindergarten, we had to prepare them with the basics. We had to very rapidly prepare them. Today we make them watch documentaries, BBC; they do science experiments and read bedtime stories. In less than two years, they have come really far.”

Even though there are millions of children on the streets of India, Sholtys believes in taking good care of a few.

As she herself puts it: “It is the matter of quality over quantity. And because it’s like a small family we can access the need of every child on a daily basis. It is much more personalized.”

She wants to take a maximum of 15 children under her wing.

Sholtys has also provided educational and medical support to 11 young girls living in the slums nearby through her outreach program.

What concerns Sholtys about the big nongovernmental organizations working in India are their ulterior motives, and their failure to set higher goals for the children in their care.

“I have lots of issues with converting of children to Christianity on the pretext of giving them meals. I am against strict rules and discipline,” she said.

To really help the children, she feels that charity workers like herself have to invest themselves entirely in their work.

“Why can’t we set higher educational standards and give them a voice so they can go on to do great things?” she said. “They know how it is like living on streets, so they can bring changes to society.”

Sholtys’ efforts to provide the children with a stable environment and good facilities have faced more than a few roadblocks.

“Our budget is approximately 24,000 dollars every year,” she said. “This summer we are opening a computer center and health education and resource center so the expense will be much more.”

Rapid development in Pune is pushing land prices up even as she searches for a new house for the children.

“We are looking for some place where children can play and we don’t have to think of the rent. Everyday I am looking at different properties,” she said.

When asked about her own career plans, she promptly replies, “This is a 20-hour job in itself. I am lucky if I can manage a few winks at night.”(Taken from-Sheena Sanam / Yomiuri Shimbun New Delhi Bureau)

Filming of the Movie

Spider-Man 3 has the second largest budget of all time, $258 million. You can get a whole lot of visual effects with that kind of money. It is reported that $58 million was spent on visual effects in Spider-Man 2 so it is probably even more this time around.
There are 10 companies credited for various parts of visual effects work on SM3, they are: Tweak Films, SPI, Furious FX, Pixel Liberation Front, GKR, New Deal Studios, Evil Eyes Pictures, Digital Dream, CafeFX, and Halon. Over a thousand people worked on the visual effects, sound, and art.

Stunts and Live Action Filming

A lot of the live action scenes were shot on Euclid Avenue in Cleveland. The mayor even re-paved some roads for smoothness that was needed for filming. Cleveland Convention Center was used as a auto shop for working on over 60 cars in the movie and also housed wardrobe, offices, and the art department.Ground up corn was used for Sandman shots such as the Armored Car scene. Some stunts required days of rigging work and hundreds of thousands of dollars just to pull them off.Most of the movies action scenes and Spider-Man scenes were done by taking some live action shots and then blending those shots with CG characters and effects. All visual effects shots were pre-visualized with drawings and those pre-vis drawings were carefully followed.

had to scan the character into the computer, take motion capture tests to get down facial expressions, and take images of the way there skin reacts to light. They did all of this by putting the actors into the costumes and getting images of thousands of different lighting situations with a special light rig. Then the CGI characters were then melded with the real life shots or made by comparing the shots with CG lighting. For creating the characters heads, they would take 360-degree HDR images of the environment and then use a software algorithm to blend together images to get the right look. Another thing they wanted to do was make the muscles and the way the CG characters move as realistic as possible. So special tools and proprietary scripts were written specifically for Spider-Man 3 that shows muscle detail like no other movie has done before.

Whenever live shots were done with wires, the crew followed pre-vis drawings and used a laptop to composite effects so they could see if they had takes that would work. Director Sam Raimi said “ Anything that’s dangerous or that wouldn’t look physically sound we go with the CG character.”

Hardware and Software Info

• Was shot with Panaflex Cameras by Panavision in 35mm format
• Hardware used for creating visual effects: Mostly Linux machines and some Windows
• Stereoscopic lighting done with Maya, Renderman, Shake, and Inferno
• Most of the rendering was done with Maya and Renderman
• Scott Stodyk (main editor) used a mini skyscraper section at 1/16^th of scale instead of using CGI so that damage to the building would be more realistic and to save money.
• Visual effects budget was most likely over $60 million

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The Burj Dubai is expected to be finished by the end of 2008 and its planned final height has been kept secret. The state-owned development company Emaar Properties, one of the main builders in rapidly developing Dubai, said only that the tower would stop somewhere above 2,275 feet.

When completed, the skyscraper will feature more than 160 floors, 56 elevators, luxury apartments, boutiques, swimming pools, spas, exclusive corporate suites, Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani’s first hotel, and a 124th floor observation platform.

After North American and Asian cities marked their 20th century economic booms with skyscrapers, the Gulf grew eager to show off its success with ever taller buildings. In Dubai, long an oil-rich Gulf symbol of rapid economic growth, the building reflects the city’s hunger for global prestige.

“It’s a symbol of Dubai as a city of the world,” said Greg Sang, the project director for Emaar Properties.

Mohammed Ali Alabbar, chairman of Emaar, said it will be an architectural and engineering masterpiece of concrete, steel and glass. Dubai has “resisted the usual and has inspired to build a global icon,” he said.

“It’s a human achievement without equal.”(taken from -CNN)

You’ve got to love what you hate

Japan is a country of juxtapositions: East meets West, ancient tradition versus modern technology. I love the technology — the keitai. I hate the lack of house insulation, taking my damn shoes off every time I enter somewhere, or wearing toilet shoes

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While on the subject, I love the heated toilet seats, hate the Japanese-style squatters, though you do get used to them. Japanese people can be very friendly, super helpful, but then extremely reserved, refraining from expressing their opinions because one should be able to know how they feel through mental telepathy! Right?

My verdict — You’ve got to love Japan, even the things you hate, and learn to accept them, except, of course, for natto. What you hate, as well as what you love, is what makes it Japan.

Nicolette Mostert

Cuteness not a good attribute

As a Canadian woman living and working in Japan, life is great. It’s safe, financially rewarding and culturally enriching. But one thing that frustrates me is that the life of Japanese women differs so much from that of men.

Certainly there are gender roles in Canada, but they do not dictate social roles as much as they do here. Of course, Japanese traditions are at the heart of these unbalanced gender relations. But nowadays it seems traditions have transformed into Japan’s obsession with cute things.

To be called cute is a high compliment. Cute is cute because it’s nice to look at, harmless and on a deeper level, subordinate. Japan’s love for cute things has been internalized by women and demonstrated in their looks and actions. Because of this, life for women here is full of day-to-day and lifelong compromises.

This is not a criticism of Japanese women, but of Japanese society. Is “cute” all women can and are expected to be in Japan? More importantly, is that all they want to be? Unfortunately, I think the answer to these questions is yes and no, respectively.

Lindsay Hunt

Kobe

Iwata, Shizuoka Prefecture

3 G’s make life safe, orderly

In Japan, the three G’s — gaman, ganbaru and giri (patience, persistence and obligation) — undoubtedly exert a strong influence on society and affect the behavior of virtually all Japanese. The fact that there is no precise or adequate translation for these words indicates that these concepts don’t exist in the same way in other countries. Among non-Japanese they arouse strong reactions varying from admiration and approval to scorn and condemnation.

These three words work as powerful means of external control and also demand great self-control by every individual. This means that self-expression and personal freedom are seriously curtailed, which to outsiders in particular can seem an unacceptable price to pay. It also can lead to excessive conformity, lack of free thinking and even impinge on the development of a personality

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The positive side, however, is the safe, orderly and harmonious face of Japan. About 127 million people live in close proximity to each other. Without such control, life could be chaotic. Instead, it is predictable and secure. In general, people can be relied upon to be honest, courteous and considerate to others. These qualities are not always present to such a degree in other countries, including those in the West, and it is for that reason that I like and respect Japan.

Brenda Bolton

Gifu(Taken from The Youmiuri Daily)

“Toxic” trainwreck Britney Spears’ crazy really has hit the fan. TMZ has learned that the pop tartlet recently called up “OK!” magazine’s main number and asked for “OK!” Editor-in-Chief Sara Ivens. Miraculously, the mag’s receptionist believed it really was Brit-Brit, and she was patched through to Ivens.

It seems Brit wanted to talk biz and negotiate a tell-all interview with the magazine, and not surprisingly, Ivens agreed. Miss Brit-Brit is expected to dish on her beloved babies; her mama drama, the Fed-Ex, and more. The Britabulous issue is expected to hit stands next week, y’all.(taken from-IN THE ZONE)

Guinness World Records’ Chief Operating Officer, Alistair Richards, pays a rare visit to Japan and meets TV’s most prolific live host, Mino Monta.

Norio Minorikawa, better known to millions of Japanese TV viewers as Mino Monta, received his official Guinness World Records certificate today for the Most hours on live TV in one week. In a ceremony held at the studios of TBS in Tokyo, GWR’s Chief Operating Officer, Alistair Richards, handed over the framed diploma to recognize Mino Monta’s gruelling schedule of live television broadcasting.

In a single week, the tireless host clocks up an incredible 21 hours and 42 minutes of live TV – a feat more than worthy of a Guinness World Record.

“Not only does he host the Japanese equivalent of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?,” says Alistair Richards, “Nino manages to fit in 11 live shows into his busy week, including his own daily afternoon show Omoikkiri TV ­ in which he issues his fans with advice on lifestyle, health and other matters – and Amazing Animals on Sunday nights.”

Mino Monta, a much-loved face on Japanese television, has had the honour of congratulating more Millionaire winners than any other host: the Japanese show (titled, literally, Quiz $ Millionaire) has had a record 20 contestants answer the final question correctly and bag the prize of 10,000,000 Yen (not a million dollars, sadly: closer to $86,000!).

Congratulations Mino!(taken-Guinness world record)

phot0-jone giles/Ap

MUMBAI, India (AP) — Indian actress Shilpa Shetty will be giving Britain and Germany a taste of Bollywood when she takes a new musical stage show there later this year.

Strangely enough that’s also the plot of “Miss Bollywood.”

“It is the story of a girl who gives the world a taste of India through her Bollywood songs and dances,” Shetty told the Times of India newspaper in an interview published Friday.

The musical will open in London’s West End, and will be followed with some 60 performances in Germany.

Shetty, a well known actress in India who made international headlines after winning the British reality show “Celebrity Big Brother” amid allegations of racism against her, denied that the musical was about her life.

.Shetty plays the lead in the musical and rehearsals have recently begun, she said. Taken by japantimes/AP

“Nobody ever talks about the iceberg’s side of the tragic saga—how it formed millions of years ago, eventually became a glacier, then calved off  the Arctic ice shelf and floated away into the Atlantic Ocean toward its rendezvous with death,” said Cameron, adding that the three hour hour film will begin with the evaporation of liquid water, transition to snow falling and freezing, and include the most expensive gradual ice cap formation sequence ever filmed. “It’s a nature vs. man struggle on an epic scale. The world needs to hear this story.”from-The onion