Blogger’s Paradise

*ing: Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Sunil Shetty, Arbaaz Khan, Vivek Oberoi, Tusshar Kapoor, Dia Mirza, Neha Dhupia, Aarti Chabria, Rohit Roy, Shabbir Ahluwalia and Aditya Lakhia.

Storyline: Apoorva Lakhia has a fascination for making stylistic films. His latest flick Shootout At Lokhandwala is a gritty recreation of the real-life shooting encounter between cops and gangsters in Mumbai in 1991.

The film has a very raw and rugged look. At times it gets surreally dark and very violent. And after a while all the bloodshed and gore begin to get to you.

The film is not just about the shootout incident on the fateful summer day in Lokhandwala in 1991. It goes deep into the lives and minds of gangsters Maya Dolas, his sidekick Dilip Buwa and their three colleagues. It also focuses on the way cops function to nab the dreaded criminals, putting their own lives on the line.

One good thing about ‘Shootout’ is that it doesn’t take sides. It attempts to objectively present the facts of the incident, along with the events leading to it, from both the perspectives of cops and gangsters.

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Lots of chatter over the past few days about a possible acquisition of Feedburner by Google, starting with a “rumor” from Sam Sethi at Vecosys based on a “very trusted source” who said Google wanted in on the RSS ad market. Now multiple reports—TechCrunch, ClickZ—each quoting a single source say an agreement is in place. TechCrunch goes farther and pins a price tag of about $100 million, primarily cash upfront, on the deal, adding that the founders will be locked in for “a couple of years.”

A Feedburner exec told me the usual “no comment on rumors and speculation.” More as warranted.

The Government of India is planning to introduce free 2 mbps broadband for all residents of the Indian subcontinent by 2009. The expected service shall be launched by the government owned telecom operators BSNL and MTNL. Quoting from the article: ‘The government proposes to offer all citizens of India free, high-speed broadband connectivity by 2009, through the state-owned telecom service providers BSNL and MTNL. While consumers would cheer, the move holds the potential to kill the telecom business as we know it.

The India Times has an extensive editorial on the decision. It must be mentioned that the Indian government and its autonomous regulatory bodies are very proactive in holding the consumer interests above the operators’, managing to reduce the long distance and wireless tariffs by a up to factor of 20 in less than 7 years.