KAMAL GETUP - OMG

Actor Full Name: Kamal Hassan

Family: Srinivasan Iyer-Father, Rajalakshmi-Mother, Charu and Chandra- two brothers, Shruti and Akshara-his daughters

Date of birth: November 7th, 1954

Born and Brought up in:  Paramakkudi of Ramanathapuram District

First Film: Kalathoor Kannamma in Tamil

Lanuguages acted in:  Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi

Special Talent: Classical Dance

Awards

Padmashree, Kalaimamani Awards and states awards from Tamil Nadu government.  National award for best actor for Mundram Pirai (1963), Nayakan 1988 and Indian 1996.

Based in the south Indian film industry Kamal Haasan is a highly acclaimed and highly versatile Indian film actor. He a was born to Rajalakshmi and Srinivasan as their fourth and youngest child. Kamal’s  all three sibling has the suffix Haasan as a sign of his friendship to one Mr. Haasan.     

He entered the film world as a child actor at the tender age of 6 in the film Kalathur Kannamma and has been associated with the film world since then.  Kamal Haasan learnt the fine arts in his early years instead of school work.

When he was a teenager, he started working as an assistant choreographer in movies and it was during this time that his long and fruitful association with notable Tamil film director, K. Balachander began.

Kamal’s acting career spreads over four decades.  Kamal is known in the Indian film industry for his talent and versatility he has capably played a diversity of characters in his films. Kamal has appeared in movies made in six languages, including the four major South Indian languages – Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. Kamal other forays were into the North Indian movie indusrty via Hindi and Bengali films. He is also an actor, director, producer, screenplay writter, lyricst, comedian, dancer, singer. Kamal acted in commercialised films for a major portion of his career, but then moved away from the purely commercial ventures. Kamal is also a trained playback singer and sometimes pens the lyrics for the soundtracks of some of his recent films. He is also an able performer of the Bharatanatyam dance form. Kamal had assisted in choreography early in his career and he is easily the greatest actor Tamil cinema has ever produced.He is a three-time winner of the National Film Award for Best Actor for the films Nayagan, Moondram Pirai, and Indian. Kamal also won the national award for Best Child Actor for his performance in Kalathoor Kannamma. Kamal has also received the best actor award at the Asian Film festivals held in 1983 and 1985 for Saagara Sangamam and Swathi Muthyam respectively. Six of Kamal movies have been sent as India’s official entry to the Oscars- The only actor to achieve this feat in the sub-continent. He has won the Filmfare awards 18 times. Kamal was awarded the fourth highest recognition given to Indian civilians – the Padmashri in 1990. Kamal was conferred an honorary doctorate by Sathyabama Deemed University, Chennai in 2005.

He has won a total of 171 awards which is more than any other actor in the world living or dead. Kamal was named as kalaignani meaning – an idiol of art, by M. Karunanidhi for his classical work towards tamil cinema.

In Kamal upcoming film Dasavatharam, he is playing 10 different roles, an act which is the second of its kind in the world, after the Tamil movie Dambachari (1936). Kamal  was married to Vani Ganapathy and later married Sarika with whom he has two daughters (Shruthi and Akshara).

Uttarakhand floods: 1000 stranded pilgrims spotted

 

 

Dehradun: As weather continues to play a spoil sport in flood-hit Uttarakhand, rescue agencies, including the Army and the ITBP, Saturday morning resumed the evacuation process of stranded people from flood-hit areas of the hill state.

Security forces today rescued 17 foreign tourists from Dharasu and sighted 1000 pilgrims stuck between Kedarnath and Gaurikund even as bad weather hampered chopper operations at some places.


Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, meanwhile, arrived here to review ongoing rescue efforts in consultation with Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna.

Briefing the media, Shinde said, “Despite bad weather Army, NDRF, ITBP are conducting rescue operations,” adding that “the operations are on a war footing.”

Giving details of the rescue operations, the Home Minister said that the identification of dead bodies has begun and DNA tests of bodies which are hard to identify will be undertaken.

“About 200 people are stuck in Jangalchetti, our priority right now is to provide them food somehow,” Shinde added.

An eight-member team of experts is also being sent to Kedarnath shrine today to take a count of bodies lying in the temple area, Disaster Management authorities here said.

Photos of the bodies strewn all over the area will be taken and put on the state government's official website, they said.

Chopper operations were hampered here early this morning with overcast conditions delaying the programme of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who was to undertake an aerial survey of the affected areas in Rudraprayag, Chamoli and Uttarkashi districts.

About 1000 more pilgrims stranded in Rambara and Junglechatti areas en route to Kedarnath shrine in Rudraprayag district were sighted by security forces.

These people seem to have taken refuge in the gorges and ravines in these areas when the massive deluge occurred nearly a week ago.

Hungry for days, many of those sighted are ill and in need of immediate medical care, official sources said, adding the sick and ailing among them are being evacuated on a priority basis.

Apart from the 40 choppers in operation, the Rajasthan government has also given two choppers and 30 buses for evacuation of pilgrims.

The Gujarat government has also put into operation two chartered planes 747 Boeings (Jet Airways) with a capacity of 140 persons each to ferry pilgrims from the state stuck in high altitude areas to Ahmedabad.

A control room for pilgrims from Gujarat has been set up at Shantikunj Haridwar.

As the terrible magnitude of nature's fury continued to unfold and survivors spoke of untold miseries, the death toll was expected to rise with Uttarakhand Principal Secretary Rakesh Sharma saying casualty figures can be "shockingly high".

Death toll over 550

Nearly 600 people have been killed in the Uttarakhand flood devastation, Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna yesterday said.

"(A total of) 556 bodies have been recovered and there are reports more could be buried under the debris," the chief minister said. "This kind of disaster has never happened in the Himalayan history."

He said it would "take a long time to rebuild Uttarakhand" and that no pilgrimage to Kedarnath would be possible for at least the next two years.

Debabrat Patra, ActionAid India's regional manager for Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, said the situation in the hill state was "catastrophic".

"Our partners in the region have reported that nearly 5,000 people are still missing in Kedarnath, presumed dead," he said, in a grim forecast of what could turn out to be one of India's worst natural disasters.

Uttarakhand saw over 60 hours of continuous and heavy rains coupled with few incidents of cloudbursts at various locations June 14 to 17, which led to the flooding of the state's main rivers: Alaknanda and Bhagirathi.  

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Power of Mobile Phone

Sand Animation

Big freeze in Europe

Big freeze in Europe shows no signs of letting up as Venice's famous waterways ice over

The big freeze shows no sign of letting up in Europe as Venice's famed waterways fell victim to sub zero temperatures this morning. Water buses were stranded in some of the Italian city's canals after they froze solid in temperatures as low as -10C. More than 60,000 homes were left without power in Milan and officials declared a gas supply emergency as the cold temperatures saw pipes burst.

Chilly attraction: A small passenger boat makes its way through ice on a Venice canal as temperatures dropped to -10C

Big freeze: A water bus makes slow progress of the ice-choked canals in the picturesque Italian city

No go for gondolas: A view of the frozen north lagoon in Venice

Ice breaker: Another boat struggles along a lagoon in Venice. In nearby Milan, more than 60,000 homes were left without power and officials declared a gas supply emergency

A woman strolls down the street in the center of Skopje, capital of The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

Winter wonderland: The frozen canals of Amsterdam became a giant playground as residents cycle, skate and walk along the ice

Making use: People skate across frozen canals in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, which have been closed to commercial shipping

Team effort: Dutch volunteers clear of the snow from the ice floor of the frozen river the Luts in Balk, north Netherlands

Seemply freezing: Two meerkats at London Zoo get to grips with the snowy conditions

Bath time: Two Ukrainian men take a dip in an ice hole in the Dnipro river in Kiev
Countries across Europe have been battling a severe cold snap for the last two weeks, with schools closed, public transport ground to a halt and snow melt threatening flooding to built up areas.
Another four people were killed by floods in southern Bulgaria, with 10 people still missing authorities said today, after a dam collapsed. Temperatures have plummeted as low as -36C in Ukraine, the hardest-hit country, with hundreds of people - many homeless - reported to have died across Europe. Last night, the Serbian government declared a state of emergency, after intense snowfall. Emergency officials said 70,000 people were cut off. Schools will also be closed in the Italian capital of Rome on Tuesday, as Italy copes with unusually heavy snow for the Mediterranean country.

Rescue: A man is evacuated in Biser, southern Bulgaria, after a dam wall broke and flooded the town

Iced in: People walk along the promenade on Lake Geneva, Switzerland, as a 4x4 stands completely covered by ice

Slippy: A woman walks on the frozen waterside of the boardwalk of the Lake Geneva, in Gland, Switzerland

Mush! A competitor speeds through the snow with his Siberian huskies during a dog race in Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany

Snow covered alpine houses on the mayen Lafet, 1,855 metres above sea level in the canton of Grisons, eastern Switzerland So far, ten deaths have been linked to winter weather, including two people who were crushed under a collapsed roof south of Rome, and a 91-year-old woman in the northeast port of Trieste who was knocked down by strong winds.

One for the album: A tourist takes a picture of the Bartholdi fountain in Lyon, eastern France

In Bosnia, hundreds of villages were stuck behind snowed-in roads and avalanches and authorities were using helicopters to evacuate the sick and deliver food. Authorities said they have had no contact for 72 hours with about 120 people in the central village of Zijemlja, where residents have no electricity or phone lines. In Poland, the Interior Ministry reported Monday that nine people died of hypothermia over the past 24 hours. Two elderly people were found frozen in Serbia and Bosnia, and Croatia reported four snow-related deaths. Ukraine's Emergency Situation Ministry said today the country's death toll now stands at 135, including many homeless people. Some 2,000 have been hospitalized for frostbite or hypothermia, it said. In the Netherlands, however, Europe's deep freeze means the country's almost mythical 'Eleven Cities Tour' ice skating marathon could be staged later this month for the first time in 15 years.

A rare visit from Mr frosty: Two women walk past a snowman in Algiers, Algeria. Meteorology reports suggest that the last time Algiers saw this amount of snow was at least seven years ago in 2005

Thick ice covers of the anchor of a ferry ship making her way among ice-floes floating in River Danube in Budapest, Hungary

Unseasonably cold: Even Algeria, in north Africa, has borne the brunt of the freezing weather with rare snowfall

A man walks past snow-covered trees on top of the 1,493-meter-high Feldberg mountain in the southern German Black Forest region. The race, held along a 125-mile network of canals connecting 11 towns and cities in Friesland province, would cause a national frenzy, drawing thousands of participants and more than a million spectators. It was last held in 1997. Treacherous conditions threatened Britain's return to work today as the weekend snow that blanketed the country turned to ice, striking at transport on road, rail and in the air. While thousands ventured outside to enjoy the snow at the weekend, the onset of the working week is likely to bring widespread disruption with problems reported on the roads, railways, at airports and even on the ground as people struggle with icy pavements. On the roads the RAC today said it had had the busiest February weekend in its history, with 41 per cent more calls than usual, while the worst overnight problems saw a 25-mile long stretch of the A1 closed after a series of accidents that included four jack-knifed lorries. The A27 is also partly closed this afternoon after a serious crash involving three vehicles.



Cut off: An isolated village is surrounded by heavy snowfall in Bosnia and Herzegovinia. Hundreds of people have been killed as temperatures plummeted as low as -36C in Eastern Europe

Icicles hang from a roof in Hochfilzen, in the Austrian province of Tyrol

Monument: York Minister surrounded by snow. Britain has also been hit by snow as flights were cancelled at Heathrow and roads were blocked
In the air, Heathrow airport passengers were enraged that just three inches of snow led the third busiest airport in the world to cancel half of its flights over the weekend. However, the airport issued a statement this afternoon which read: 'We're operating a normal schedule today. Please continue to check your flight status with your airline.' A Downing Street spokesman said the return to normal service was a victory for the airport's snow plan following major disruption in December 2010, when the Spanish-owned airport authority BAA was heavily criticised by an inquiry for its ‘low state of preparedness’ as thousands of passengers were stranded. David Cameron's office said the decision to cut large numbers of flights over the weekend had prevented the lengthy queues seen last winter.