Back to reality for Pamela Anderson as she joins Indian Big Brother

 

Two years after she moved into the Australian Big Brother house, Pamela Anderson has joined the cast of the Indian version of the reality TV show.

Dressed in a white sari, the 43-year-old actress surprised the celebrity housemates on Bigg Boss when she arrived unannounced last night.

The former Baywatch star will appear on the show for three days before leaving on Friday.

What am I doing? Pamela Anderson looked bewildered as she entered the Bigg Boss house last night

However, she may struggle to communicate with her housemates - because Bigg Boss rules state they must only speak in Hindi.

Before entering the house, Anderson claimed she wasn't a fan of reality shows - despite starring in her own show Pam: Girl On The Loose two years ago.

She said: 'I am not a fan of reality shows. I love traditional shows like Baywatch.

'I am very excited about the show. I will be just myself and have fun with the contestants in the house.

Making an entrance: Pamela was a vision in white as she suddenly appeared in the Bigg Boss garden

'I will miss my two kids when I will be locked in the house. I like doing household work. I do it at my place so I have no issues with it.

'It is my first visit to India so I hope I will be able to get some impressions of the country during my stay. I am very excited to be in India and to meet the Bigg Boss housemates.'

One of her tasks during the three day stay will be to teach her housemates how to purify water.

The current housemates are actors Ashmit Patel and Samir Soni, actresses Dolly Bindra, Veena Malik and Shweta Tiwari, male model Hrishant Goswami, singer Manoj Tiwari, soap star Sarah Khan, politican Seema Parihar and WWE wrestler Great Khali.

Meet and greet: Pamela gets acquainted with her new housemates... but is she speaking Hindi?

This year's fourth series of Bigg Boss is hosted by Bollywood superstar Salman Khan, who Anderson admitted she had no idea who he was, despite his huge fame in India.

She said: 'I have heard about Salman through media. I have seen a few Bollywood films, but I don't remember any of the actors by their name. Maybe, if I see him I will be able to recognise him.'

A spokesman for India's Colors TV network, which broadcasts Bigg Boss, enthused: 'With Pamela coming as a celebrity guest, the glamour quotient of the show has gone up several notches.'

Anderson is the second Western celebrity to appear on the show - late reality star Jade Goody also starred on the 2008 series, only to leave soon after entering the house after receiving her cancer diagnosis from doctors.

Chores: The actress was scantily clad in a sarong as she chipped in with some sweeping today

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1330403/Pamela-Anderson-Indian-Big-Brother.html#ixzz15YPGA8B9

Crackdown on reality TV, Bigg Boss and Rakhi ka Insaaf hit

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Crackdown-on-reality-TV-Bigg-Boss-and-Rakhi-ka-Insaaf-hit/H1-Article1-627494.aspx

Faced with mounting complaints from TV viewers and women outfits about objectionable contents, Government on Wednesday ordered channels airing TV shows Big Boss and Rakhi ka Insaaf to broadcast them only between 11 PM and 5 AM, virtually bracketing them as only for adult

viewing.

Both the shows are not for universal viewing and can be aired only in the scheduled time slot, I and B Ministry officials said.

I and B officials claimed this is the first time that the ministry has compulsorily changed time slots of popular TV shows.

While Big Boss is being aired on Colours, Rakhi ka Insaaf is aired on NDTV imagine.

The shows cannot also be repeated at any other time slot or shown on news programmes, they said.

The Ministry also banned Telegu SS Music channel for a period of seven days for allegedly showing nudity.

The decisions were taken at an inter-ministerial meeting represented at by additional secretaries from the Ministry of Home, Women and Child Development, External Affairs and Information and Broadcasting on Monday.

Numerous complaints have been made by viewers as well as the National Commission for Women and social activists who accused the channels of showing explicit content.

The decision would be effective with immediate effect that is from today, the officials said.

"We have not asked the producers of the show to modify content or have not done any sort of censoring, just shifted the time slots allotted to them," senior ministry officials said.

The meeting had been called after round-the-clock monitoring of the channels.

Rakhi ka Insaaf, compared by actor-dancer Rakhi Sawant, hit the spotlight after Laksham Prasad, a resident of Jhansi, committed suicide, which his family alleged, was following the humiliation meted out to him on the show.

His family said the youth was upset after Rakhi described him as "impotent" and had gone into depression and refused to eat anything for several days.

Complaints have also been received about the "abusive" language and intimate scenes on Big Boss, the officials said.

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Copper load of this! Company digging mine in Afghanistan unearths 2,600-year-old Buddhist monastery

 

A Chinese company digging an unexploited copper mine in Afghanistan has unearthed ancient statues of Buddha in a sprawling 2,600-year-old Buddhist monastery.

Archaeologists are rushing to salvage what they can from a major 7th century B.C. religious site along the famed Silk Road connecting Asia and the Middle East.

The ruins, including the monastery and domed shrines known as 'stupas,' will likely be largely destroyed once work at the mine begins.

The ruins were discovered as labourers excavated the site on behalf of the Chinese government-backed China Metallurgical Group Corp, which wants to develop the world's second largest copper mine, lying beneath the ruins.

Historic find: Ancient Buddha statues inside a temple in Mes Aynak, south of Kabul, Afghanistan. Chinese labourers digging a copper mine made the astonishing discovery

Hanging over the situation is the memory of the Buddhas of Bamiyan — statues towering up to 180 feet high in central Afghanistan that were dynamited to the ground in 2001 by the country's then-rulers, the Taliban, who considered them symbols of paganism.

No one wants to be blamed for similarly razing history at Mes Aynak, in the eastern province of Logar. MCC wanted to start building the mine by the end of 2011 but under an informal understanding with the Kabul government, it has given archaeologists three years for a salvage excavation.

Archaeologists working on the site since May say that won't be enough time for full preservation.

Ancient: An Afghan archaeologist stands next to the remains feet of the Buddha statues discovered in Mes Aynak. The ruins, including the monastery and domed shrines known as 'stupas,' will likely be largely destroyed once work at the mine begins

The monastery complex has been dug out, revealing hallways and rooms decorated with frescoes and filled with clay and stone statues of standing and reclining Buddhas, some as high as 10 feet.

An area that was once a courtyard is dotted with stupas standing four or 5ft high.

More than 150 statues have been found so far, though many remain in place. Large ones are too heavy to be moved, and the team lacks the chemicals needed to keep small ones from disintegrating when extracted.

'That site is so massive that it's easily a 10-year campaign of archaeology,' said Laura Tedesco, an archaeologist brought in by the US Embassy to work on sites in Afghanistan. 'Three years may be enough time just to document what's there.'

Dig: A wooden Buddha statue, estimated to be about 1,400 years old, is discovered during the excavation at the sprawling 2,600-year-old Buddhist monastery

Philippe Marquis, a French archaeologist advising the Afghans, said the salvage effort is piecemeal and 'minimal', held back by lack of funds and personnel.

The team hopes to lift some of the larger statues and shrines out before winter sets in this month, but they still haven't procured the crane and other equipment needed.

Around 15 Afghan archaeologists, three French advisers and a few dozen labourers are working within the 0.77-square-mile area - a far smaller team than the two dozen archaeologists and 100 labourers normally needed for a site of such size and richness.

'This is probably one of the most important points along the Silk Road,' said Marquis. 'What we have at this site, already in excavation, should be enough to fill the (Afghan) national museum.'

Deadline: Archaeologists digging at the site of the ancient ruins have three years to finish the excavations

Mes Aynak, 20 miles south of Kabul, lies in a province that is still considered a major transit route for insurgents coming from Pakistan.

In July, two US sailors were kidnapped and killed in Logar. Around 1,500 Afghan police guard the mine site and the road.

Mes Aynak's religious sites and copper deposits have been bound together for centuries — 'mes' means 'copper' in the local Dari language.

Throughout the site's history, artisanal miners have dug up copper to adorn statues and shrines.

Afghan archaeologists have known since the 1960s about the importance of Mes Aynak, but almost nothing had been excavated.

When the Chinese won the contract to exploit the mine in 2008, there was no discussion with Kabul about the ruins - only about money, security and building a railroad to transport the copper out of Logar's dusty hills.

But a small band of Afghan and French archaeologists raised a stir and put the antiquities on the agenda.

The mine could be a major boost for the Afghan economy. According to the Afghan Mining Ministry, it holds some 6 million tons of copper, worth tens of billions of dollars at today's prices. Developing the mine and related transport infrastructure will generate much needed jobs and economic activity.

Waheedullah Qaderi, a Mining Ministry official working on the antiquities issue, said MCC shares the government goal of protecting heritage while starting mining as soon as possible.

Related articles

• Chinese Copper Mine In Afghanistan Threatens Mes Aynak, 2,600-Year-Old Buddhist Monastery (huffingtonpost.com)
• Chinese mine in Afghanistan threatens ancient find (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Mums fear natural chldbirth (heraldsun.com.au)

Traumatic first births fuel rise in women opting for a Caesarean second time round

 

By Sophie Borland
Last updated at 4:16 PM on 15th November 2010

Some doctors speculate that tokophobia - a fear of childbirth - could be prompted by a more 'confessional culture' in the UK, with mothers sharing alarming stories of difficult births.

Expectant mothers are increasingly demanding a Caesarean for their second baby because their first birth was so traumatic, midwives warn.

In some maternity units the numbers of women wanting the procedure has doubled in the last year.

Midwives say that many were so traumatised by having their first child that they are putting off future plans to have more babies or even abandoning them altogether.

They also warn that birth is becoming far more stressful experience because maternity units are so overstretched.

Often women are left alone and scarred before and after the labour as midwives simply don't have the time to offer them the advice and reassurance they need.

The number of expectant mothers asking for a Caesarean at Liverpool Women's hospital, one of the largest female-only hospitals in Europe, has increased by 40 per cent in the last 12 months.

Other maternity units including those at Birmingham Women's Hospital, St Mary's in Manchester and Stepping Hill in Stockport report similar trends.

Meanwhile birth trauma clinics which support women after difficult labours say they have seen a doubling in patients in the last year.

Cathy Warwick, general secretary of the Royal College of Midwives, said that many maternity units were now so overstretched that labour was now a more stressful experience for women.

She added: "If a midwife is very busy then clearly she won't have the time between dealing with women in labour to give others the emotional support and reassurance she needs.It's certainly having an effect.'

She also said that doctors and midwives were now increasingly offering women Caesareans if they were fearful of giving birth.

In the past it was only carried out in an emergency or if the birth was likely to be complicated, such as the foetus being in the breech position.

She added: Professionals are increasingly aware of the option of advising women to have a Caesarean.

'In the past the usual approach would have been to talk through women about what went wrong the first time round and give them support so that they could try and have a normal birth the second time round.

'We'd try and avoid saying to them you're answer is a Caesarean as it can cause several complications such as post-partum haemorrhage.'

Midwives also say that increasing numbers of women are suffering from tokophobia, a fear of childbirth.

In some cases they are being put off by the experiences of friends whose labours lasted 18 hours.

Midwife Debbie Garrod, who runs a birth trauma support unit at Stepping Hill hospital said that she had seen 48 women so far this year, compared to just 21 in 2009.

Simon Mehigan, a consultant midwife Liverpool Women's hospital said: 'Tokophobia is a distressing psychological disorder that is growing at an alarming rate.'

Typically, this fear is a result of experiences during the first pregnancy or delivery and can often be traced back to a lack of information or explanation about what was happening, he added.

Dr Tracey Johnstone, a consultant in foetal maternal medicine at Birmingham Women's hospital, said: 'Women are more frightened of labour and delivery now.

'Among women there almost seems to be a competition about who has suffered the most during childbirth, talking about 18-hour labours and the like, and that scares other women before they have their babies.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1329684/More-mothers-asking-caesareans-big-rise-reported-traumatic-births.html#ixzz15NLAXirS

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USING smartphones while visiting the loo is causing a surge in PILES.

By KATE WIGHTON and EMMA SHRIMSLEY

Increasing numbers of us are so hooked on hi-tech gadgets such as iPhones and BlackBerries that we even use them to chat and play games while using the toilet.

And doctors say this has led to a sharp rise in cases of haemorrhoids, which are now being dubbed "BlackBerry Bottom".

A recent survey found more than eight in ten smartphone owners use their devices while on the throne. Piles cause swellings around the back passage and spending too long on the loo increases the risk.

Long arm of the sore ... Wii can cause painful lesions on hands

Kent GP Stephanie DeGiorgio warned: "Sitting on a cold, hard surface for a prolonged period can raise the chance of haemorrhoids, so you really should play Angry Birds somewhere more comfortable."

The poll found men were more likely to play games on the toilet, while women made the most calls there. Both sexes admitted checking Facebook, Twitter and emails. And almost all texted.

But our rears are not the only parts of our bodies threatened by new gizmos. Here, we reveal other areas at risk of hi-tech harm.

Head

US doctors recently identified "ringxiety" - where people imagine they hear their phone ringing. A study revealed that more than 60 per cent of mobile phone users suffer from "phantom ringing".

Ear

Researchers in India found that people who listen to music on insertable earphones have thousands of times more bacteria in their ears than other people.

Using earphones in our lugholes make them warmer and moister, so bugs can thrive.

Thumb

Repeated actions with your thumb and forefinger - such as dragging items on a laptop - can cause repetitive strain injury, experts warn. This causes pain in the fingers, thumb and joints, and experts recommend taking a break from gadgets every 30 minutes.

Skin

Your mobile can even bring you out in a rash. Mobile phone dermatitis is a skin disorder that, according to the British Association of Dermatologists, can be triggered by spending too long on the blower.

Hands

Overuse of gaming consoles, such as the Wii and Xbox, can lead to neutrophilic hidradenitis - painful red lesions on the hands.

It's also known as PlayStation Pimple.

The condition, reported in the British Journal of Dermatology, is said to be caused by excessive sweating from gripping handsets

Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/3219722/Smartphones-are-harming-your-body.html?CMP=EMCeb16#ixzz14tiPMFXl

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