ROME, Italy — Call it “Divorce Italian Style” version 2.0.
In Pietro Germi’s Oscar-winning 1961 comedy of that name, the unfaithful protagonist, unable to divorce his smothering wife, plots to kill her. If it had been set in 2014, he could have just let her stumble upon his WhatsApp account.
The instant messaging service acquired by Facebook this year for $19 billion is cited in nearly half of all Italian divorce proceedings — more than any other source of information, whether amorous text messages or emails, late-night phone calls, handwritten notes, or even lipstick-stained collars — according to the Italian Association of Matrimonial Lawyers.
“No one is saying WhatsApp is the cause of the divorces,” says Gian Ettore Gassani, president of the Matrimonial Lawyers group. “The leading cause is infidelity, but WhatsApp is now the most common way for one partner to discover infidelity in the other.”
The WhatsApp program and other new forms of communication such as Facebook and Skype may enable illicit relationships because they make it easier to discreetly exchange messages and even risqué photos.
The most typical scenario, Gasani says, is an unfaithful partner leaving his or her mobile phone lying around while in the shower or out for a walk. A message arrives or the partner opens WhatsApp to snoop.
Men are more likely to be caught that way than women, although that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re unfaithful more often.
“Men are most likely to save messages or photos from lovers they can go back to,” Gassani says. “Women are more likely to take one look and then delete.”
Once caught, it’s not easy to divorce in Italy, thanks mostly to the influence of the Catholic Church.
When Germi made his film, divorce was completely illegal. That changed in 1970, despite a subsequent series of referenda that sought to repeal the country’s new law allowing divorce.
Even now, obtaining a divorce is a long and complicated process requiring a three-year separation that may include court-ordered couples therapy to foster reconciliation.
Although WhatsApp and other new technologies may be prompting more discoveries about infidelity in partners, they’re also playing into very old aspects of the Italian psyche.
“Italians love to receive and give attention,” says Laura Duranti, a Milan-based psychologist who specializes in the social impact of technology. “While the modern world and evolving social norms have acted to limit that in some ways, programs like WhatsApp can make it easier. It’s a modern technology tapping into some very old needs and desires.”
Some Italians say those caught out via WhatsApp are careless.
“No one should be looking at a partner’s phone or computer, it’s an invasion of privacy,” says Mario Lince, a 30-year-old pastry shop worker who’s engaged to be married. “It should be a question of trust.
“But just to be safe,” he adds, “everyone should use a secret password to block access.”
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Maria Teresa Benedetta agrees.
“I don’t think most couples want to know if a partner has been unfaithful,” the unattached 22-year-old university student says. “But if they find out of course there’s going to be trouble.”
Despite the impact of instant messaging and other new forms of communication, it could be much greater, says Gassani, the attorney. Many people use passwords and delete messages, and snooping on someone’s phone privately is usually difficult.
“If WhatsApp messages could be intercepted by wiretaps like phone calls,” he says, “the divorce rate in Italy might be 100 times higher.”
You know about cat people. And you know about dog people. (You know about dog people.)
But has it ever occurred to you that there are also cat countries and dog countries?
Well, there are. Whole countries. And thanks to data on pet ownership in 54 countries from market research firm Euromonitor, we now know which ones they are.
In brief, South America and much of Asia are all about dogs. Meanwhile, cats have captured the hearts of Western Europeans — except for those in Spain, Portugal and Ireland.
The Washington Post has a nice map that lays it all out.
“Some regions, like the Middle East and part of Africa, have an especially long-standing appreciation of cats,” Jared Koerten, a pet industry analyst at Euromonitor, told the Washington Post. “In Latin America it’s the complete opposite. Dogs are part of family life there.”
Here are some more site-specific stats: Cats outnumber dogs 3-to-1 in Switzerland, Austria and Turkey.
In India, pet dogs outnumber pet cats 10-to-1. Pet dogs also dominate in China, though to a lesser extent (2.5-to-1). And yes, even counting the ones dyed to look like pandas.
ndian actress Freida Pinto, who rose to fame with Oscar-winner ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, says the feminism advocates gender equality but is largely misconstrued as an anti-male concept. The 30-year-old actress says feminism is the need of the hour as gender bias is a sad reality today. “Feminism to me is equality. There is no man over woman and vice versa. Feminism is a very misconstrued and misunderstood topic.
“As soon as we say feminism, it does not mean all men should become subordinate and women should be the ones who rule the world. The only way we can have a progressive and successful country or world is when men and women treat each other as equals,” Freida told PTI. The young star says though men and women have different roles to play, they should complement each other rather than outdoing one another.
“There are certain roles that men play and others that women play. Our reproductive organs are different and clearly there is a reason why women carry the baby but that does not mean the man cannot help out with the caring of the child. “Father is as much a nurturer as the mother. I grew up with that equality so I can say people who understand feminism understand that men and women are equal but have different roles to play,” she said.
Voicing concern over increasing incidents of drunk driving, a Delhi court has said that this “menace” has been plaguing the national capital and the problem should be dealt with “sternly”.
“The menace of drunk driving has been plaguing the city for quite a long time. Despite every possible steps being taken by the state government as well as traffic regulating authorities, there are no signs of decrease in the incidents of drunk driving. This problem has to be dealt with sternly,” Additional Sessions Judge Sanjay Bansal said.
The court’s observations came while deciding the appeals of four persons, who were convicted and sentenced to varying jail terms of five and 10 days by a magistrate for driving their vehicles in a drunken state.
The court, however, reduced the jail terms of Tasleem Khan, Muntiaz Ahmed, Dinesh Singh and Arvind Kumar Verma to imprisonment till the rising of the court.
ASJ Bansal took the lenient view and reduced their jail term considering that they were first time offenders and they had already deposited the fine amount.
Tasleem and Muntiaz were sentenced to 10 days in jail by a magisterial court while Dinesh and Arvind were awarded five days imprisonment each.
The four men had pleaded guilty before the trial court. They were convicted for driving their vehicles under influence of liquor and the alcohol content found in their blood was more than the permissible limits.
The trial court had also imposed a fine of Rs 5,200, Rs 2,000, Rs 2,000 and Rs 500 on Tasleem, Muntiaz, Dinesh and Arvind respectively. It had also suspended Dinesh and Arvind’s driving licence for six months.
They had sought setting aside of the sentence given by the trial court on the ground that they had to support their families and it was their first conviction.
New Delhi: At least 71 pilots were grounded this year for various reasons, including being found tipsy, with about half of them belonging to no-frill carriers SpiceJet and IndiGo, Rajya Sabha was informed on Tuesday.
19 pilots of SpiceJet and 16 of IndiGo were grounded by aviation regulator DGCA on two counts — testing positive in pre-flight breathalyser tests and being responsible for some incidents involving flight operation.
The grounded pilot count for other airlines due to the same reasons was 11 each for Air India and Jet Airways, two each for Air India Charters and Alliance Air and one each for GoAir and JetLite.
Of the total 71 pilots grounded, a total of 24 were punished for being found positive for breathalyser tests, 39 for incidents and eight for lapsed pilot licence, according to the data given by Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju in reply to a written question.
http://youtu.be/W-qTTXTIfgY?list=UUxoQcj5v7JJ28ChDDw0-qdg
MUMBAI: Mumbai will soon see more number of taxis on the roads as the transport department has decide to allot 7,800 taxi permits on Saturday.
The lottery will be held in the presence of chief minister Devendra Fadnavis at 5 pm on Saturday. The lottery draw proceedings will be telecasted lives at all the RTOs in Mumbai.
The permits has been distributed across all the Regional Transport Offices in Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Transport Authority (MMRTA) region, which includes Thane and Navi Mumbai also.
One the important condition for those getting the permit is that that they will have to ply brand new taxis. Earlier, one could use a second-hand car for a new permit.
The conditions also include that the applicant should have no crime record for a year, and should be willing to install GPS/GPRS as and when asked by the transport department. The person should not have had a crime record too.
AL Quadros, general secretary of Mumbai Taximen’s union, “The new taxis are expected to hit the road by January 2015.”
Apart form 7,843 taxi permits that whose draw will be announced today, the transport department has also put on offer 7,500 odd permits to fleet taxi operators since January.
Quadros said, “We are going to oppose the allotment of taxis to fleet taxi operators. It should be given to residents of Mumbai only.”
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Burdwan: Five persons, including three Bangladeshi women, were arrested in West Bengal’s Burdwan district for alleged involvement in women trafficking.
Based on a tip off, the five were held when they were about to board a train to Mumbai near the Burdwan Railway Station last night, District Superintendent of Police SMH Mirza said here today.
While the three arrested Bangladeshi women were identified as Taslima Begum, Sahana Bibi and Urmi Bibi, the two local linkmen arrested were Banshidhar Sao and his son Sardapani Sao.
The five had been staying in a rented house at the JN Mitra lane of Burdwan town from where they were working out a plan for trafficking women, Mirza said.
The kingpin of the group was Taslima from whom a Bangladesh passport and pan card and voter identity card of Maharashtra were seized, he said.
The five will be produced in the court later in the day, the SP said.
Priyanka Chopra hit headlines a few days back when Mumbai police busted a sex racket in one of her Mumbai properties, which she had rented out to a spa. The actor who was in the Capital on Saturday, told us that she is trying to find out the truth, and will support the police in their investigation.
“I have a lot of properties, which I have given out on rent, and I don’t know what happens over there. I was completely unaware of this. I still don’t know what the truth is. The matter is under investigation. We are law abiding citizens, and it is unfortunate that something like this happened. We have sent a legal notice, if it is true, then we don’t want them in our property,” Priyanka says.
According to reports, police busted the racket being run under the garb of a spa in a building in Andheri owned by her, and that three women were rescued and the manager was arrested in the raid that was conducted early last month.
But that’s not all that the 32-year-old has been in news for. Recently, it was reported that she fainted on the sets of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s film while she was shooting a four-page monologue. While some reports blamed it on the work load, there were others which said that the harsh lights on the set were too much for the actor to take.
However, she says that the matter was not as big as it was made out to be. “I didn’t faint, I just swooned. Everyone panicked. I have fainted in the past too, as I do tend to overwork myself at times. However, this time I didn’t faint,” she says.
If paradoxes are par for the course in Bollywood, here’s a freshly baked one: Emran Hashmi’s Ungli is like the Aamir Khan-starrer Rang De Basanti, except that it so totally isn’t.
On a superficial level, the similarities between the two films are in your face: Like the 2006 starrer, Ungli too has a force of young vigilantes who set out to clean the system, and with it the country, of evil, corrupt and morally bankrupt people in positions of power. Like RDB, the foursome is woken out of their careless slumber after they lose a friend to the ways of the world. So, okay you know what happens next: the friends are sucked into a vortex of corruption, and they have to eventually tread on the wrong side of law to get their friend some semblance of justice.
Trouble is, Ungli has only this, and only this much, common with RDB. Everything else about this apology of a ‘coming-of-age celebration’ of India’s youngsters falls flat on its face, and it is definitely not going anywhere.
Let’s put it thus: Even if we were to ignore the acting skills (or the complete lack of it) of everybody who claims to be an actor in this film, there is just no way you could live peacefully with the cliched, irritating dialogues in the film. Ungli is a torture, to say the least, and you certainly deserve a better deal on how to spend your 90 minutes. Sample this Emraan Hashmi gem when he tries to cheer up a despondent and depressed Sanjay Dutt. “Ansuon se sirf whisky dilute hoti hai.” Got that! Want more?
The only thing funny in this film is, perhaps, Kangana Ranaut’s accent. It sure will make you giggle from time to time.
So here’s what Ungli is all about. For the first 20 minutes, you don’t get to hear anything other than that weird word: Ungli. It’s irritating, to put it mildly. Randeep Hooda, Neil Bhoopalam, Kangana Ranaut and Angad Bedi are a group of young vigilantes who have taken it upon themselves to rid the society of malevolent characters like a corrupt government officer, an overcharging autorickshaw driver, bribe-taking traffic constables and even a selfish politician. They kidnap these men to teach them a lesson in ways that would remind you a lot of Saw, with all the videotaping and ‘do that or we will kill you’ vibes (nothing that graphic and sinister though).
Their modus operandi? When they are done dealing with their victims, they send the videos of the entire punishment session to all the news channels with a personalised message.
Of course, the police goes berserk and the commissioner (nice to see Raza Murad after so long) assign the task to Sanjay Dutt who in turn takes help from Emraan Hashmi, another police office who is sort of a misfit in the ‘khakee wardi.’
Hashmi gains the trust of the vigilantes and is then faced with the inevitable choice: should he turn them in or continue with them in their noble task?
So, does Ungli have even one redeeming factor? Actually, it has one. The only way you can enjoy this mindless film is by looking at the fun side of the ‘witty punishments’ the vigilante foursome unleashes on its victims. Ah yes, even the dialogues: They are so miserable that you just cannot the miss their fun side.
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