Acid attack victim Laxmi will walk the ramp at the third edition of India Runway Week (IRW) in New Delhi on Friday.

Laxmi, who has been selected for the prestigious International Women of Courage Award, will walk as a showstopper on the first day for designer Dolly J.

The three-day fashion trade event, organised by Indian Federation For Fashion Development, is a platform created for budding designers. It will be held at Ocean Pearl, Chhattarpur.

Bollywood actors Randeep Hood and Ameesha Patel will be joined by "Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa" host and actor Manish Paul on stage when they will walk for designer Kirti Rathore on the same day.

The fashion extravaganza will feature 32 designers, who will present their Winter/Festive collection.

"I am so excited to see young and experienced designers showcasing their splendid collections in IRW," Kiran Kheva, fashion director, India Runway Week, said in a statement.

Avinash Pathania, director, Indian Federation for Fashion Development, said that they are providing the platform to "budding as well as established designers of tomorrow to showcase their talents".

Sheena Sabarwal did not have the faintest idea of what was in store for her when she agreed to drive her friend's gypsy in the Dakshin Dare 2014. But that did not stop her nor her partner — Poonam Das — from entering the less travelled path by any woman –rally racing.

Poonam Das from Kolkata and Sheena Sabarwal, a native of Pune, are not merely passionate drivers but have dared to enter an arena that has not been explored by many women. While Poonam was no stranger to rally driving, Sheena had never given the sport a shot. The two women were introduced by a common friend.

"I told my friend that I wanted to be part of the Dakshin Dare 2014 but I had no navigator," said Poonam. "Then, a friend of ours, Amol, had contacted me and said that he wanted somebody to drive his car for the rally. I said okay," added Sheena.

"I was aware of such sports, but had never actively taken part in such an event. So I said – why not? I will drive to where ever Poonam wanted me to," she added.

Unlike bike rallies, car rallies involve the two people – a navigator, who directs the driver in terms of time taken or time left to cover a particular distance, speed etc. as well as a driver. This is applicable to both TDS and extreme categories of rallying, unlike the extreme bike rallies, where the rider is on his own.

Poonam, incidentally, is also an expert at bike rally races. "I became inclined to rally racing because of the man my husband is. He loves rallies and also loves to drive. I figured if I wanted to spend more time with him I should tag along," Poonam commented. She had begun her journey in the area of rally racing on two wheels primarily due to her passion for bikes.

Poonam said that bike rallies are harder primarily because it is a solo affair. "When you are inside a car, it feels more secure. But when you are riding a bike, in case a part of your vehicle falls off, you have no scope of trying to fix it back again," she added.

This team is also the only all-girls team at the sixth edition of the Dakshin Dare.

The duo would be competing in then endurance category at the rally. The endurance or TDS category requires the participant to cover a particular distance in the most effective combination of Time, Distance and Speed.

When asked whether they hope to venture into the world of extreme rallying racing, Poonam said that she would do so within a year while Sheena laughed and said, "Yes. I am an 'extreme personality.' I can’t hold the speed."

BY: SUBHA SUNNY

At first I felt like a fish out of water. I had lived and studied on a university campus for five years before marriage, attending classes wearing T-shirts, shorts or pyjamas and even bathroom slippers. And here I was, in the Indian Army, among the best-dressed and finest ladies one can ever find.

The most important lesson I learnt was ‘humility’. Even on a bad day, if there is a social event you may have to attend by compulsion. Your humility is put to test when you have to put on a cheerful face at the party, even if you are frowning inside. There is no room for impatience or arrogance here.

Packing and unpacking household stuff during posting in and posting out, usually once every two years, can be really frustrating. We ‘live out of the box’. And when your husband is attending a course, it becomes all the more hectic, with frequent movement from one place to another. I have lived in three make-shift arrangements plus a modified field area (near a forest), the same year my daughter was born, since my husband was undergoing training at that time. All that travelling without getting rest post partum, cleaning up the ‘quarter’ which was teaming with insects and other creepy-crawlies, a baby in my hand but no help from a busy husband, and no other help around, was nerve-racking. It tested my physical and mental strength. But over the years, I have learned to cope.

There is such a time in every Army wife’s life when her husband is in field tenure, foreign posting or on exercise. You double up as both father and mother to your children. You have to manage everything on your own. Even if you want to crib eloquently about your problems to your faraway husband on the phone, you may not do it because you feel he shouldn’t be bogged down by your worries. He needs peace of mind to do his duties well, amid difficulties and danger. You know he is a soldier first and a husband only next. Then there is always the fear looming at the back of your mind over your husband’s safety. There is the inevitable long wait for his safe return, which is a test of patience.

There are so many of us ladies who have given the go-by to career opportunities for the sake of being with our husbands. Many of us are content teaching in schools nearby. The more enterprising ones amongst us might find a 9-to-5 job in the private sector locally. It may be less than satisfactory, and sometimes may not fetch enough money for even the monthly expeditions to the beauty parlour. You still may have to depend on your husband for pocket money. But at least you get to remain engaged for the day. I have met many highly qualified women who have left good jobs for the sake of being there for the husband and children.

We have learned to live in any kind of situation that life in the Army throws at us. For us, home is where the Army sends us. And behind every strong soldier, there is an even stronger braveheart — who is the Army wife.

Sheila Vogel-Coupe is 85-years-old and is Britain's oldest prostitute with a huge client list.

Vogel-Coupe wears a miniskirt, suspenders and patent heels and she charges 250 pounds an hour to her clients for the action, Metro.co.uk reported.

She revealed in the new Channel 4 documentary 'My Granny the Escort' that she will never stop doing it because she loves sex and finds it nice when people call her up just because her voice turns them on.

Vogel-Coupe entered the profession while she was struggling with loneliness following the death of her second husband, aeronautical engineer Noel Coupe, in 2004.

She also hit the headlines in 2010 for being the grandmother of controversial X Factor contestant Katie Waissel. And after Sheila's profession details got out Waissel's family did not take the news well.

In her appalling speech at a charitable event, Pamela Anderson revealed her horrifying history of sexual abuse at a tender age as well as in her early teens.

'I did not have an easy childhood. Despite loving parents, I was molested from age six by a female babysitter', Pamela Anderson said at the launch of The Pamela Anderson Foundation, at the Cannes Film Festival.

Pamela Anderson revealed that she was molested at the age of six by her babysitter, raped at the age of 12 and gang raped at the age of 12. 

"I went to a friend's boyfriend's house and his older brother decided to teach me backgammon which led into a back massage, which led into rape. My first heterosexual experience," she said. 

She later added that the man was 25 yeasr old while she was only 12.

Talking about the gang rape, the Playboy cover girl added that a school friend thought that it would be funny to gang-rape her with six friends.

'I wanted off this earth', said Pamela Anderson.

The Baywatch actress delivered her valiant speech in front of 200 guests.

The research by luxury underwear brand Bluebella has found that women splash out on new knickers and a range of beauty treatments before having sex with a new partner, the Daily Star reported.

And, the study found that women spend a whopping six hours planning their first night of passion with a new love.

A third admit to booking in for a facial to ensure an alluring afterglow, 32 percent opt for a flattering spray tan and 76 percent make sure their hair is professionally styled.

Almost two-thirds invest in a brand new lingerie set, while 31 percent will treat themselves to a new dress.

And more than one in three ladies claim they would never dress in underwear they'd worn with a previous lover.

Around a fifth of women go a step further, ensuring their bed linen is untainted by the memories of a former lover.

Waxing is another essential - with 53 percent booking into a salon for a session. The results come from a survey of 1,000 women by lingerie brand Bluebella.

Meanwhile, on the date itself 74 percent of women say they would avoid the bread basket and carb dishes at dinner on the big night, to ensure their tummy is as flat as possible.

It appears that once the female specie has decided tonight's the night they won't let anything stand in their way - and that includes monitoring their partners' alcohol intake, 19 percent of the women surveyed confessed.

An Israel-based medical device company has designed a new "internal bra" that could give their saggy breasts along lasting lift.

In Orbix Medical's OrbiShape Breast Supporting System a thin silicone sling is anchored to the woman's rib cage by titanium screws and surgical thread, the New York Daily News reported.

Orbix Medical CEO Yossi Mazel explained that the new system isn't an alternative to a breast lift, adding that it is done in conjunction with a breast lift or reduction.

He also revealed that the system helps reduce scarring after a lift or reduction as it supports the breasts' weight thereby reducing the pressure on the skin.

The little girl who lost her entire family in a building collapse in India last year has finally got some good news.

Sandhya Thakur, 7, was orphaned last April when a residential building collapsed in a suburb of Mumbai. On Saturday, after a series of legal obstacles to determine that she has no living relatives, police issued a no-objection certificate allowing Sandhya to be adopted by Veena Kadle, according to the Mumbai Mirror.

Kadle is the senior nurse at Sion Hospital who treated Sandhya's injuries for 23 days after the child was rescued from the building rubble.

"Over the three weeks, [Sandhya] grew extremely attached to me," Kadle told the Mumbai Mirror. "I started missing her immensely when she was discharged from the hospital and sent to an orphanage."

After a 10-month ordeal, authorities confirmed through DNA samples that Sandhya has no remaining family members and allowed the adoption.

This happy turn reminds us of another recent heartwarming adoption.

Last October, the photographer behind Humans of New York, Brandon Stanton, used Facebook to fund the adoption of a little boy.

Stanton helped raise more than $77,000 so a couple could afford the adoption of their son, Richard, from Ethiopia.

This didn't happen to Japjit Kaur. It happened to another woman: on a cold Delhi night four men raped her, beat her up and inserted an iron rod in her vagina. Kaur played the role of this rape victim. It's a role that haunts and hurts, she says.

Nirbhaya--a Play by Yael Farber, was conceived by the South African playwright and director in the wake of the gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old paramedic student, which had led to violent protests across India and made headlines across the world.

The play is graphic and shocking, sometimes even numbing. The statement it makes is brutal, just like the real-life incident it narrates. But then, this is not just another drama; the December 16 Delhi gang-rape was not just another incident.

Nirbhaya--a Play by Yael Farber kicks us in the guts. It is that honest.

The gang-rape victim's ordeal is recounted in unsparing detail but the actors use their roles to speak about the sexual violence they suffered themselves. One actor speaks about being gang-raped in Chicago; another actor talks of how her husband set her on fire and took their son away and two others recount being sexually abused as children.

In the course of an online interview to Hindustan Times, Japjit Kaur, who played Nirbhaya, said that this is the "most difficult role I have ever played".

As Nirbhaya, Japjit stands in one corner of the stage, leaning on a prop which symbolises the bus stop. She has been pushed to a corner but still she manages to remain standing -- she becomes a metaphor for courage (nirbhaya is Hindi for fearless), giving the other characters the push they need to break their silence.

"As Nirbhaya, I draw each woman back to their past as I hand them a piece of their history. They narrate their personal stories," Japjit says.

The role, she added, drained her physically and emotionally.

"During the the initial rehearsals, I remember I would stand in a corner leaning against a wall in Delhi while Yael Farber would work on each testimonial. That spot became Nirbhaya's corner, which materialised as the bus stop on stage. I would listen to everything very attentively but not speak for days during the rehearsals."

The long periods of standing took its toll on the actor, leading to pain in the stomach. "Once, I had such severe pain in my stomach for three days in a row that I could barely get up. Though I have come a long way since then, I'm still in the learning process of finding the right balance."

Voice modulation and singing are an integral part of Japjit's role as she did not have a lot of dialogues: "I have tried to portray as much as I could of the victim's private experience through song and music. Nirbhaya sang as there was nothing left to say, words were of no use."

Preparing for Nirbhaya's role, too, wasn't easy.

"When we had begun rehearsals, Yael tried out many exercises with us to evoke certain emotions. For example, one very simple but extremely effective exercise was, while I stood in the middle of the rest of the cast, they tried to push me down to the ground while I had to resist. Emotionally, this was very challenging but it gave me an insight into Nirbhaya's world that night," Japjit says.

Japjit was contacted by Yael through Meera Syal, a British actor and playwright. "Yael was looking for someone who could play the role of Nirbhaya from a position of truth and integrity. We will never know what she went through on that terrible night and we never pretend to understand her thoughts, or her." 

The enactment of the rape scene was true to life, too real at times. On being asked if the intent of staging the rape scene so graphically was to shock the audience, Japjit said, "My job is to stay truthful." 

She also recalled that that her parents could not face or speak to her for the "longest time" after they saw the play for the first time. 

"I can imagine how deeply the audience must've been affected. Playing this role has been an extremely painful experience for me. I have seen what it has done to my family, I cannot even begin to imagine what her parents and loved ones go through every single day." 

On being asked if she has developed a kinship with role as she has lived her character day after day, Japjit said, "I have lived a very small part of her life and unfortunately I will never know what she was like in person. Little that I know of her through the media and some research, all I can say is that I am in awe of her strength and courage. She was the rising new India, a sister, a daughter, a friend!" 

At times, Japjit admitted, she found herself wondering "what Nirbhaya would've been doing if she was still around today."

According to Jagpit, the play is an attempt to keep the protests against sexual violence going and to shatter the shame-based silence around such incidents. And she is playing her part in sending out the message.

"My job on stage is to stay truthful and to stay connected to the core message which is that enormous damage has been done to our society. Unfortunately, there is no accountability. It's time. The Delhi gang-rape is the reality," Japjit says. 

The play premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2013 and then travelled to the Women of the World festival in Southbank London. It was first staged in India over a year later. 

"We wanted to bring the play to Delhi because this is where it all happened. Delhi is where the streets rose in protest and demanded justice, demanded change. The wound is still fresh here; the response from the audience was incredible. Numerous people stepped forward and spoke of when they had been violated. They broke their silence. That is pretty much the message we're giving out," Japjit says.

Women's wing of the Communist Party of India in Kerala has sought an apology from Union minister Shashi Tharoor over some lines he wrote on women of the Nair community in his 1989 book, The Great Indian Novel.

Kerala Mahila Sangham said the Congress MP, seeking a reelection from Thiruvananthapuram, "defamed Nair women by depicting them as immoral.

Tharoor himself is from the Nair community which has dominance in his constituency.

These are the controversial lines from the novel: "In Kerala, the men of Nair community realise that their wives are free to receive them by seeing if another man's slippers aren't outside her door."

The lines appear on page 71 of the book. Tharoor attributes these lines to King Pandu, a character in the Mahabharata, who is speaking to his wife Kunthi.

Indira Raveendran, working president of Kerala Mahila Sangam, claimed Tharoor deliberately tried to defame Nair women by putting the statement into Pandu's mouth.

The Great Indian Novel is a satirical work of fiction written that makes fun of the political class in India. Tharoor mingles politics, mythology, culture and tradition in the novel.

Tharoor's major opponent in Thiruvananthapuram is CPI's Bennet P. Abraham, who is from the Nadar community, another prominent caste in the constituency.

The women's group's attack on Tharoor comes after the minister complained to the election commissioner against CPI leader V.S. Sunil Kumar, accusing him of defamation.

"V.S. Sunil Kumar directly accused me of murdering my wife (in a channel show). Such outrageous falsehood is both defamatory and a violation of section 1(2) of the model code of conduct. In this case, the individual and the channel are both culpable since the remark was made as a part of organised discussion that the channel made no effort to stop, criticise or edit out," Tharoor said in his complaint.

Thiruvananthapuram: A record number of 27 women candidates, including two each from mainstream parties like Congress, CPI(M) and BJP, are among 269 candidates contesting in the 20 Lok Sabha constituencies in Kerala going to polls on April 10.

Though majority of them are either independents or belonging to minor parties, it is the first time in the state’s poll history that the number of women candidates is crossing the mark of 20. Fifteen women candidates contested the previous Lok Sabha polls in 2009 and 2004. The number was 13 in 1999 and 10 each in 1998, 1996 and 1991 elections, election commission sources said. The number was the lowest in the 1952, 1957 and 1962 polls–only one woman candidate was in the fray during these years.

In the coming polls, Congress has fielded two women leaders Bindhu Krishna in Attingal and KA Sheeba in Alathur.The opposition LDF has opted for veteran leader and former minister PK Sreemathi in Kannur and PK Sainaba in Malappuram (both CPI(M). Senior BJP leaders Shobha Surendran and Girija Kumari are in the fray in Palakkad and Attingal respectively.

Journalist Anita Pratap and writer Sara Joseph, both representing Aam Aadmi Party are other prominent women candidates, seeking an entry into the lower House.

Pathanamthitta, where four women candidates are in the fray, has the highest participation of women. Wayanad, Malappuram, Ponnani, Palakkad, Chalakkudy and Ernakulam constituencies have one woman candidate each, while no women have figured in the candidate list of Kasaragod, Kozhikode, Kottayam and Kollam constituencies. Though women outnumber men on the electoral rolls in the state, women representation has been very low in Kerala in electoral politics.

Though the state is known for its remarkable track record on social development and literacy, many women leaders feel that they do not get their deserved share. Since 1952, Kerala has sent only seven women leaders to the Lok Sabha.

Susheela Gopalan, AK Premajam, Sathi Devi and CS Sujatha of CPI(M), Bhargavi Thankappan of CPI and Savithri Lakshman of Congress are among the prominent women who represented the state in Parliament. Out of the total electorate of 2,42,51,942 in the state, 1,25,70,439 are women.

WASHINGTON — Scarlett Johansson politely declined an invitation to speak to the 14,000 people gathering here Sunday for the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac, as the nation’s most powerful pro-Israel lobbying group is known.

She has to be in Paris to collect an honorary César film award, her publicist said, and then she is promoting two new movies, “Under the Skin” and “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.” Aipac’s members will have to settle for Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew as a Sunday headliner.

But the Hollywood actress will be at Aipac in spirit. After refusing to give up an endorsement deal with SodaStream, an Israeli company that has a factory in a Jewish settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Ms. Johansson has become a hero to pro-Israel activists — a living, breathing, deeply glamorous repudiation of the movement to boycott Israel.

In speeches by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials next week, Aipac plans to pound the drums about what it regards as the pernicious motives of the anti-Israel campaign, known formally as the boycott, divestment and sanctions, or B.D.S., movement.

The movement, which began in the Palestinian territories in 2005, demands that Israel end its 1967 occupation of the West Bank, give full rights and equality to Palestinian Arab citizens, and, most controversially, allow Palestinians to return to places from which they were displaced in 1948 after the founding of the state of Israel.

Aipac’s response is to push for expanded engagement with Israel, and to urge Congress to battle against Palestinian efforts to exclude Israel from international organizations. “Our message is one of inclusion,” said a senior Aipac official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, in keeping with the group’s practice.

At one level, giving the boycott movement such attention seems odd. While it has gained some traction in Europe, where a Dutch pension fund recently cut ties to Israeli banks that do business with Jewish settlements, it remains largely a non starter in the United States.

When the American Studies Association voted in December to boycott Israeli universities because of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, it was widely derided by other American scholarly groups.

IBM, Cisco and EMC are among American technology companies that have recently announced investments in Israel. The country attracted $10.5 billion in foreign direct investment in the first three quarters of 2013, compared with $9.5 billion for all of 2012.

But a recent warning by Secretary of State John Kerry, and Mr. Netanyahu’s indignant response, have made B.D.S. look like a more imminent threat than it is. Mr. Kerry, speaking at a security conference in Munich, said that if the latest round of peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians collapsed, Israel could face deepening isolation.

“For Israel, there’s an increasing delegitimization campaign that has been building up,” Mr. Kerry said. “People are very sensitive to it. There are talk of boycotts and other kinds of things.”

Mr. Kerry came under fierce fire from Israeli officials for his remarks. One said that Israel would never negotiate “with a gun at its head.” Mr. Netanyahu, while not criticizing Mr. Kerry directly, said, “Attempts to impose a boycott on the state of Israel are immoral and unjust.”

Omar Barghouti, a Palestinian human rights activist and a B.D.S. leader, wrote recently in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times that the Israeli government’s strident response “reveals its heightened anxiety at the movement’s recent spread into the mainstream.”

By all accounts, though, Mr. Kerry meant his warning in a descriptive rather than a prescriptive manner. He will have a chance to clear up any lingering confusion when he speaks to Aipac on Monday evening. Either way, it will keep B.D.S. on the group’s agenda.

There is another reason for Aipac to keep the boycott movement front and center: It is a reliable way to fire up its rank and file. And that could come in handy in a year when the group finds itself uncharacteristically on its heels on its biggest legislative priority, Iran.

Its campaign for new sanctions against Tehran has stalled in the Senate, where the Democratic leadership has so far acquiesced to intense pressure from the White House not to act while the United States and its partners are in delicate talks with Iran over its nuclear program.

Aipac insists it still favors the passage of a bill. In an Op-Ed article in The Times last week, the group’s two top officials, Michael Kassen and Lee Rosenberg, wrote that diplomacy, backed by further sanctions, was “the best chance to avoid military conflict with Iran.”

But the two men said they concurred with the decision of one of the bill’s co-sponsors, Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, to delay a vote. The Senate’s Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, cited that concession this week to avoid attaching Iran sanctions to another bill.

Compared with Aipac’s mixed signals on Iran, there is a bracing clarity in fighting the boycott movement. B.D.S. is about delegitimizing Israel, in the view of pro-Israel activists. It is not just anti-Israeli, they say, but antithetical to a peace treaty with the Palestinians.

They point, in particular, to the movement’s demand for a right of return for dispossessed Palestinians — which, if carried out, would effectively end the viability of a Jewish state, in the view of Middle East experts.

“It’s not a real threat to Israel, but it’s a threat to the peace process,” said Josh Block, a former Aipac spokesman who is now the chief executive of the Israel Project. “We live in a dangerous world, and if you ignore them and don’t call them out, you give them legitimacy.”

Mr. Block’s nonprofit group has turned Ms. Johansson into a poster girl for the pro-Israel movement. It started an online campaign, after she appeared in a commercial for SodaStream during the Super Bowl, to thank her for being “our Super Bowl M.V.P.” — complete with a sultry, retouched photograph of the actress, a peace tattoo stamped on her bare shoulder.

It is tough to see how either Mr. Kerry or Mr. Lew is going to be able to top that at the Aipac meeting next week.