12 Years a Slave, Gravity nets maximum Oscars

NEW YORK, March 3: Harrowing historical drama 12 Years a Slave was crowned best picture Oscar, while 3D space thriller Gravity was the top prize winner at the 86th Academy Awards with seven.

True-life AIDS activist drama Dallas Buyers Club won three Oscars including best actor for Matthew McConaughey, while Australia's Cate Blanchett won best actress for Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine.

But 1970s crime caper American Hustle and Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street went home empty-handed from the Oscars, the climax of Hollywood's annual awards season.

12 Years a Slave won three Oscars overall: best picture, best adapted screenplay and best supporting actress for Kenya's Lupita Nyong'o for her searing turn as a brutalised slave.

"I dedicate this award to all the people who have endured slavery and the 21 million people who still suffer slavery today," its British director Steve McQueen said at the climax of the three-and-half-hour show.

Mexican Alfonso Cuaron won best director for Gravity, which took six other prizes: best visual effects, sound editing, sound mixing, cinematography, film editing and original score.

As widely expected, Jared Leto won the best supporting actor Oscar for his fearless portrayal of a transgender woman suffering from AIDS in Dallas Buyers Club.

The actor and rock musician used his acceptance speech to send a topical message to people in troubled Ukraine and anti-government protesters in Venezuela.

"To all the dreamers out there... in places like Ukraine and Venezuela, I want to say, we are here. And as you struggle to make your dreams happen, to live the impossible, we're thinking of you tonight," Leto said.

Dallas Buyers Club also won the make-up and hairstyling award.

A tearful Nyong'o -- who turned 31 on Saturday -- earned a standing ovation as she took the stage to accept her prize.

She paid tribute to her slave character Patsey, saying: "It doesn't escape me for one moment that so much joy in my life is thanks to so much pain in someone else's."

Disney's blockbuster musical hit Frozen won best animated feature -- the studio's first since the category was introduced in 2002 -- as well as best original song for Let It Go.

Italy's The Great Beauty won best foreign language movie, beating fellow nominees from Belgium, Cambodia, Denmark and Palestine.

Before the show, Hollywood's finest paraded on the red carpet, mercifully dry after storm clouds lifted.

Host Ellen DeGeneres opened with a monologue making fun of the storms that hit California on the eve of the Oscars.

"It's been a tough couple of days for us here. It has been raining," she said, addressing the global audience of hundreds of millions. "We're fine. Thank you for your prayers," she dead-panned.

In a generally well-received second outing as Oscars host, DeGeneres set Twitter ablaze when a "selfie" photo she took with stars including Brad Pitt, Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lawrence went viral.

By the end of the show, it had more than 2.1 million retweets, shattering the previous record for the most retweeted message.

This year's Oscars race was one of the most fiercely contested for decades, as a pack of outstanding films campaigned for the ballots of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science's 6,000 voting members.

The best picture race had been so close that the winner could have come down to only a few votes, under the Academy's preferential voting system.

Under the rules, voters ranked all nine nominated films: American Hustle, Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, Gravity, Her, Nebraska, Philomena, 12 Years a Slave and The Wolf of Wall Street.

Those with the least first-place votes were dropped, and their votes given to the next highest-ranked nominees. This continues until one movie had 50% plus one vote.

Sunday's star-studded Oscars broadcast featured performances by Irish rockers U2, playing their nominated song from Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom and by Idina Menzel, who sang the Oscar-winning Let It Go from Disney's Frozen.

It also celebrated the 75th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz with a reunion of Judy Garland's three children Liza Minnelli, Lorna Luft and Joey Luft, while Pink sang Over the Rainbow.

Jane Fonda: I have 'so little time left'

NEW YORK, Feb 26: Jane Fonda was among the guests at Kerry Washington's weekend baby shower. It was a moment, one of many lately, that brought tears to her eyes.

Fonda, 76, writes in a long and thoughtful website note, titled CRYING, that she has been contemplating her age, her mortality, her emotions.

She began to wonder why photos, events and stories of all kinds have been getting to her?

"How come pretty things, kind deeds, sad stories, acts of courage, good news, someone's flax of insight, all get me crying or, at least, tearing up? The Fondas have always been cryers. My father once said, 'Fondas cry at a good steak.' My son and daughter are the same," she writes.

"But I find my emotions are way more accessible than they were when I was younger and I've come to feel it has to do with age. I have become so wonderfully, terribly aware of time, of how little of it I have left; how much of it is behind me, and everything becomes so precious.

"With age, I am able to appreciate the beauty in small things more than when I was younger perhaps because I pay attention more. I feel myself becoming part of everything, as if I bleed into other people's joy and pain. Maybe, without my being conscious of it, there's the reality that in a few decades (if I'm lucky) I will be in the earth, fertilizing some of the very things I look at now and tear up over."

She notes here that she has specific wishes when it comes to her death. "I'm not going to be cremated, uses up too much energy and gives off too many toxins, nor do I want to be in a coffin. Just dump me in a hole and let me morph into whatever as quickly as possible."

She goes on to say "I ache for unwanted children in the world, for polar bears, and elephants, whales and Monarch butterflies, and dolphins, gorillas and chimpanzees. ... I've listed sad things but what startles me even more is how I get emotional about nice things, like Kerry Washington's belly and her mother's words of wisdom and Elizabeth Lesser telling me about the new book she's writing. Maybe because I'm older my heart is wider open, like a net that wants to catch all the things that matter. .... "

But, she adds, her eyes are wide open, too, "so wide open I have to only wear waterproof mascara from now on."

Corporate Social Responsibility rules soon, will include 10 major areas

NEW DELHI, Feb 22: The government has identified 10 major areas including education, gender equality, environment, national heritage and the Prime minister Relief fund where India Inc can spend to claim credit for the mandatory 2% Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) expenditure.

Under the new Companies Act, mid and large companies have to spend 2% of their three-year annual average net profit on CSR activities. The government expects a significant step up in spending on CSR projects by companies.

The activities which can be included by companies in their CSR policies include: eradicating hunger, poverty, malnutrition and promoting preventive healthcare, promoting sanitation and availability of safe drinking water, promoting education, promoting gender equality, ensuring environmental sustainability, protection of national heritage.

Those spending for the benefit of armed forces veterans, war widows and their dependents would be eligible to cover the expenses under CSR spending rules.

Under gender equality activities related to empowering women, setting up homes and hostels for women and orphans, setting up old age homes, day-care centres and similar facilities for senior citizens and projects on reducing inequalities faced by socially and economically backward groups have been included.

Spending on training to promote rural and nationally recognized para-olympic and Olympic sports would also qualify for credit under the CSR rules. Rural development projects and contributions or funds to technology incubators located within academic institutions and approved by the government would also be approved under this category.

Officials said they expect the rules to be notified soon, maybe within a few days, after the law ministry approves the list. The rules were finalized after the corporate affairs ministry examined over one lakh suggestions from various stakeholders. While the rules do not elaborate on the sub-categories under rural development projects, officials said they expect several projects to be covered under the category for CSR spending.

But a clause which allowed company boards to identify any activity for CSR spending has been questioned by the law ministry which has delayed the notification of the much awaited rules. "They (the law ministry) have some reservations. It is a purely legal issue. They don't have any questions about the substance of the clause," said an official. The law stipulates the Centre to define CSR activities and does not allow further delegation of these powers to a company board.

Corporate affairs minister Sachin Pilot had said last year that the essence of the bill is self-reporting and self-disclosures and there is no intention on the part of the government to create an inspector raj. "This is the company's money. They have full freedom to choose how they want to spend that money," Pilot had said.

Get out and play: Ruskin Bond tells children

NEW DELHI, Feb 17: Noted author Ruskin Bond reminds children that they should spend leisure time in parks and other outdoor spaces rather than in malls or playing video games so that they can bond with the beauty of nature.

"I always wanted to tell the children that they should spend more time in parks and grounds and try to blend with the beauty of nature. That will increase your creative level as a writer," Bond said.

The author, who is the guest of honour at the ongoing World New Delhi World Book Fair was participating in an Author's Corner session, where he interacted with children and adults.

The 80-year-old author, in his long journey that extends across six decades has given the readers over 500 short stories, nearly 50 children's books, a dozen or so novellas and 150 other books. Bond emphasised that a writer should be always interested in people.

"An authors work directly or indirectly connects with people and their milieu. So, it would be better, before penning down one register the idea through observing the people," he said. Bond, a past recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award, says earlier there were few writers, but nowadays "writers are sprouting from here and there."

"Actually it's a good sign that young and vibrant writers are coming to the fore and keeping the literature world alive," the Mussourie-based author said.

Bond, who made a niche market among children, says a remark made by a child once made him realise that his writing lacked in variety. "Once I met with a child and he asked me why is it that I always wrote about leopards? I then realised sometimes my stories lack variety," Bond said.

"During my childhood, I was a quiet bookworm. Initially I wanted to emulate my favourite authors. Then, I started to draw the picture in my style. Your writing should be always original," Bond told children. The author said he recently came to know that he had more than 10000 books. "The more you read the more your become strong with the language," he said.

Eight-year-old Salman fan gets standing ovation on The Ellen Show

NEW YORK: Cheers greeted Akshat Singh, all of eight, when he rode into The Ellen Show on a little bike and proceeded to perform a complex routine of headstands, cartwheels and Bollywood-style dance moves. By the time he finished stylishly doing the splits, the audience was on its feet clapping and cheering loudly.

Akshat, a resident of Kolkata and semi-finalist on India's Got Talent, flew to USA last week after being invited onto the show by host Ellen DeGeneres. The pint-sized Salman Khan fan was meant to dance to a hit song featuring his favourite star but could not get permission to use the track in time for his performance.

Nevertheless, Akshat was not lacking for praise from the enthralled onlookers and received a new bike with his name on it as a gift from Ellen.

He also got a round of laughs and applause when he said he danced three hours every day and ate the rest of the time, adding that if you don't put petrol into the car it wouldn't run.