Aamir Khan edits Sushant Singh Rajput, Anushka Sharma and Sanjay Dutt’s roles in PK?

Aamir Khan has been known to take over a film’s post production work once the shooting is done, but we never thought that will happen with Rajkumar Hirani’s PK. However, our deepest fears seem to be the deepest concerns of the other actors in the film as well. Yes you heard it right! Rumours suggest that Sushant Singh Rajput, Anushka Sharma and others are concerned that their roles may get reduced in proportion once Aamir starts giving in his input for the film.

However, our sources maintain that whatever Aamir will do will be for the betterment of the film. But that unfortunately might not go down well with the other actors. Sushant and Anushka may not be able to voice out their angst if such a situation happens as they are way newer in the film industry than Aamir. And the only person who could stand and face Aamir, Sanjay Dutt, is not coming out from behind the bars anytime soon.

We all know that Aamir has asked the makers of PK to rework their promotional strategies because the buzz around the film has reduced drastically from the first poster launch to the trailer launch. Now we also hear that Aamir has asked Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Raju Hirani to not show the edited film to anyone in the film industry, not even to the other co-actors in the film. And this won’t be the first time. Aamir had received a lot of flak from the film industry for over taking the directorial reigns from Amole Gupte in Taare Zameen Par. Also he was ridiculed a lot for trying to scissor out roles of co-stars in his last release Dhoom:3.

Speaking to a leading daily a team member denies this fact stating, “Aamir’s vision and objectivity has always worked for his films. Sometimes it’s inevitable to keep or chop a scene. We’re certain there is no agenda.” Wethinks Aamir is quite capable of interfering in the editing process of the film, but will that not hamper the director’s vision? And that too when the director is Rajkumar Hirani? We wonder what will happen next.

Scammers now using Green Dot MoneyPak cards and PAY POWER RELOADIT PAK , MY VANILLA or ONE VANILLA.

Scams of all kinds have historically involved the victim wiring cash to a stranger, but now that many consumers have gotten wise to this fact, scammers have found a new way for them to pay them.

They're called Green Dot MoneyPak cards and PAY POWER RELOADIT PAK , MY VANILLA or ONE VANILLA. They're reloadable debit cards, available everywhere, and you can use them to pay your phone, cable, or credit card bill. They're typically for people who don't have, or want, bank accounts.

Scammers like them because they're more convenient than a money wire, but just as untraceable.

"My fear was that I was going to lose my job, and my home, and my car," Dean DeVirgilio said.

Even with his autism, DeVirgilio still tends to all his own affairs. Recently, he got a call from a debt collector who claimed DeVirgilio owed $1,300 on an old payday loan. The caller said, "pay it, or else."

"Threatened to send the sheriff to my workplace, send a warrant for my arrest, and have me in jail for three years for fraud," DeVirgilio said.

Federal law prohibits debt collectors from using intimidation, threats and harassment, and no one can be jailed over a debt. DeVirgilio should have realized then he was dealing with a scam artist and the debt wasn't real. Instead, he sent the scammer the money.

"I feel I'm never going to get that all back, that's hurting me right now financially," DeVirgilio said.

How the phone caller demanded payment is a growing trend. Dean was instructed to go to Walmart, load a Green Dot MoneyPak card with the cash, then scratch off the back and call with the number.

"I read off the number, he wrote the number down, and he collected that payment. 'And you had nothing left on the card after that?' Nothing left on the card after that," DeVirgilio said.

Green Dot MoneyPak cards are not linked to bank accounts - the money is on the card. Anyone you share your card number with, has instant access to your cash and can siphon the card dry.

"He stole every cent of my money," DeVirgilio said.

The Green Dot website warns customers about possible scams and reminds them to never give their card number to people they don't know. DeVirgilio hopes others will learn from his mistake.

"Do not give those people the number off the card," DeVirgilio said.

Even though Green Dot Money Pak cards are available in 50,000 locations, and scammers could send their victims anyplace, they tend to push them to Walmart. They want you to go to a place you know and trust so you feel comfortable buying the card.

Green Dot MoneyPak cards serve a purpose for some people. The cards aren't the problem, so remember if you use them, never share your number with a stranger.

Pakistani police officer kills man suspected of blasphemy.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani police say an axe-wielding officer killed a Shia man in police custody, claiming he had committed blasphemy by insulting companions of the Prophet Muhammad. 

Officer Mukhtar Ahmed says the incident took place at a police station in the city of Gujrat in eastern Punjab province on early Thursday. 

Ahmed says the killer, officer Sarfraz Naveed, was questioning Syed Tufail Hyder who was detained on Wednesday following a street fight. 

Ahmed says Naveed killed Hyder with an axe, gave himself up and said he did it because Hyder allegedly repeatedly insulted companions of the Prophet during questioning. 

Thursday's incident came days after a Muslim mob killed a Christian couple and burned their bodies in a brick kiln where the man and his wife worked, claiming they had allegedly desecrated the Quran.

After attack, Wagah ceremony may go ‘live’.

AMRITSAR: The popular beating retreat ceremony held daily on the Indo-Pak border may be telecast live in the future. 

After a suicide bomber killed more than 60 people at Wagah in Pakistan on Sunday, the BSF is contemplating introducing several security measures such as reducing the number of visitors at Attari. BSF inspector general Ashok Kumar said various suggestions, including the live telecast of the synchronised drill and online registration of visitors, were being considered.



"It can also be telecast online since the majority of people these days are tech savvy," Kumar said. He refused to give a deadline for implementing the new plans. 

The suicide bomb blast has added to worries about the safety of the ceremony held by the BSF at Attari, Hussaniwala and Sadqi border posts in Punjab. 

Kumar said the BSF had already put in place a heightened security system and some more measures were being contemplated. Expressing concern over the growing rush of tourists at Attari, he said if the number of visitors increased, the existing system would weaken and possibilities of human error would increase. 

Unauthorized parking in the area is a major concern for the border force. "Even on the Pakistan side, the blast occurred near the parking slot," he said. "We don't have a regulated parking provision. It's an unauthorised parking space where anybody can come and it's a threat to the security."

Pakistani rangers (wearing black uniforms) and Border Security Force jawans lower their national flags during a daily parade at the Wagah border. 
Kumar said the BSF had the provision for parking around 60 vehicles in two VIP slots, but more than 1,000 other vehicles needed to be regulated by some authorized contractor on a daily basis. "We've taken up this issue with the district administration and they've promised to take some steps," he said. Around 15,000 people visit Attari daily to watch the hugely popular beating retreat ceremony. 

The BSF has also suggested an upgrade in facilities at Attari, including the setting up of a fire station. He said similar measures were being taken at Hussaniwali and Sadqi posts also. 

Narendra Modi among world's most powerful, Vladimir Putin tops Forbes list.

INDIAN Prime Minister Narendra Modi today made his debut among the world's most powerful people, ranked 15th on the Forbes list topped by Russian President Vladimir Putin who pipped his US counterpart Barack Obama for a second year in a row. 

The list of 72 most powerful people in the world also included the names of Reliance IndustriesBSE -0.98 % Chairman Mukesh Ambani at 36th, ArcelorMittal Chairman and CEO Lakshmi Mittal at 57th and Microsoft's Indian-born CEO Satya Nadella at 64th. 

On Modi, Forbes said "India's newest rock star doesn't hail from Bollywood. He is the newly elected Prime Minister who sailed into office in May with a landslide victory, ushering the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) into power after decades of control by the Gandhi dynasty." 

Forbes described him as a "Hindu nationalist" and refereed to the 2002 Gujarat riots when he was the state's Chief Minister. 

"Modi is credited with massive reconstruction projects in his home state of Gujarat. His administration promises to bring economic rejuvenation to other beleaguered parts of India. The world is as impressed as the citizens of India: So far he's toured the US and China and met with his Southeast Asian neighbours," the magazine said. 

This year there are 12 newcomers on the list, including Modi and Egypt President Abdel el-Sisi. 

Alibiba founder and China's richest man -- Jack Ma also makes a first appearance on the list after his record-breaking USD 25 billion initial public offering in September, as does terror group Islamic State's chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. 

A notable omission from the list is Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi, who was the highest ranked Indian last year at 21. 

The next Indian after Modi on the list is Ambani at 36th. Forbes said Ambani has business ventures in petrochemicals, manufacturing, OIL and GAS production, and now wireless sectors, "the sum of which have landed him as the richest person in India for eight years running." 

It noted Reliance's USD 655 million acquisition of media outfit Network18. 

In October, Modi inaugurated Ambani's Reliance Foundation's new hospital in Mumbai, "ending rumours about Ambani's waning clout in New Delhi," it said. 

This is the second year in a row that Putin carries the crown. Obama had previously been on the top of the list for every year with the exception of 2010, when Hu Jintao, the former political and military leader of China, was ranked 1. 

The top five remain the same as 2013 --- Chinese President Xi Jinping ranked third, Pope Francis at No. 4 and the world's most powerful woman German Chancellor Angela Merkel ranked fifth. 

Fed chief Janet Yellen moves into into sixth position, followed by Bill Gates and European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi. 

UK Prime Minister David Cameron slides up to number 10. The most powerful people in business are Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin, both ranked nine. 

The Forbes list of the 'World's 72 Most Powerful People' who "rule the world" features 17 heads of state who run nations with a combined GDP of about USD 48 trillion. 

It has 39 CEOs and chairs who control over USD 3.6 trillion in annual revenues. Among the corporate honchos are 14 founders, including the newcomer billionaires to the list, ALIBABA'SMa and Tencent's Ma Huateng. 

Putin tops the list, pipping US President Obama. Forbes said after a year when Putin annexed Crimea, staged a proxy war in the Ukraine and inked a deal to build a more than USD 70 billion gas pipeline with China, its choice of him as the most powerful person "simply seems prescient." 

"Russia looks more and more like an energy-rich, nuclear-tipped rogue state with an undisputed, unpredictable and unaccountable head unconstrained by world opinion in pursuit of its goals," it said. 

"Heading into the second half of his second term, Obama seems stymied both by the West African Ebola breakout and a blood-thirsty militia named ISIS, which threaten to undo all the gains of a 9-year war in Iraq that cost the lives of 4,500 Americans," Forbes said. 

It said at home, Obama had to address the racially charged images of unrest in Ferguson, Missouri which mocked his 2008 message of "Change." 

"On the plus side, unemployment is at its lowest level since the Great Recession and the MARKETS continue test new highs. One word sums up his second place finish: caution. He has the power but has been too cautious to fully exercise it," it said. 

Forbes said for the first time, two women, Merkel and Yellen, reach the top 10. 

This year there are nine women on the list, representing 12 per cent of the world's most powerful --- in stark contrast to being 50 per cent of the world's population. 

While the same number as last year, the inaugural list from 2009 included only three women leaders. 

Alexey Miller, CEO of Russian gas giant Gazprom, makes a return appearance after dropping of the list in years past. 

The list also includes French President Francois Hollande (17), Iran's Grand Ayatollah Ali Hoseini-Khamenei (19), Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (22), Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu (26), Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein (27), UN Secretray Geberal Ban Ki-moon (40), forner US President Bill Clinton (44), North Lorean leader Kim Jong-un (49) and Japanese leader Shinzo Abe (63). 

New Apple-focused malware uses Macs to infect iPhones.

A new kind of malicious software strikes at Mac OS X and iPhone users in China, according to a just-released security report.

Apple's phones and tablets are under attack in China from a new kind of malware that uses Macs to get at devices that run on iOS, Apple's mobile operating system. 

Apple users in China have an active, new threat to contend with that attacks iPhones and iPads through Apple's Mac OS X operating system, a US security firm reported.

Palo Alto Networks called the malicious software "WireLurker" because it waits for a device running Apple's iOS mobile operating system to connect via USB to a Mac laptop or desktop. The software -- hidden in apps downloaded from China's third-party Mac OS X app stores -- adds malicious code to legitimate iOS apps. The malware attack is limited to China.

The threat is new to Apple, though this sort of attack has been around since about 2003, said Ryan Olson, intelligence director at Unit 42, Palo Alto Networks' threat research team.

"For the general user, it's not something you need to light your hair on fire about," Olson said. Still, "the tech that we're seeing here brings Mac and iOS much closer" to the threats facing Windows andAndroid pairings. Unlike most iOS threats, WireLurker is not restricted to iPhones and iPads that have been jailbroken, a user-initiated state that allows any app to be installed -- against Apple's wishes.

Apple did not return a request for comment.

Olson said he doesn't know how many people have been affected.

How soggy french fries help Twitter make money.

Twitter is trying to diversify its revenue sources beyond advertising, and one way is to license its data to businesses that might find it useful -- like deep-fryer makers.

Adam Bain, Twitter's president of global revenue, discusses how the company MAKES MONEY at Web Summit in Dublin.

DUBLIN, Ireland -- Four years ago, Twitter STARTED MAKING MONEY the way many Internet companies with free services do, by selling advertising. Now it's got a new revenue stream: soggy french fries.

Advertising remains at the center of the social network's business, based on people SHARING terse, 140-character messages. But Adam Bain, Twitter's president of global revenue, described two new businesses launched this year in a talk here at the Web Summit tech conference. One of them is e-commerce, and the other is selling access to Twitter's data to companies that think that data will help them with their own business.

That second category is where the soggy fries come in. Bain was surprised when a maker of $50,000 industrial deep-fryers wanted to license Twitter's data. It turns out that tweets about soggy fries could reveal where the company's customers weren't maintaining the fryers properly, Bain said. And not only that -- the company could show the tweets to those customers as "social proof" that there's a problem that needs to be fixed.

Bain cited other examples of the business: hedge funds are guiding trading based on Twitter sentiment analysis, and health companies are seeing if they can track disease spread across borders. Twitter hopes to find more data-licensing customers through a partnership with IBM, a former Twitter patent foe, whose consultants now are able to encourage their clients to use the service.

MAKING MONEY has been a big issue for Twitter, and critics have jabbed the company for taking too long to convert its popularity into money. The ad business helped, but going public one year ago only increased the scrutiny.

There's been progress, though. Twitter last month reported its second straight quarter of profit -- $7 million excluding items like stock-based compensation. And Twitter's user base grew to 284 million.

As is fashionable in tech circles these days, Twitter aspires to change the world, not merely achievefinancial success.

"We think of revenue like oxygen. It's necessary for life but it's not the reason to live," Bain said, quotingTwitter Chief Executive Dick Costolo. "Amazing companies build products to change and touch the world. That's been the story line for Twitter. We hope to touch every single person on the planet, and revenue is a byproduct of it."

Even if MAKING MONEY is secondary, it's Bain's job. "One thing I'm most excited about is the revenue diversification," he said.

Twitter ads

The data licensing business is real, but the advertising business has been around longer.

There, Twitter offers "promoted tweets" folded into the stream of tweets that Twitter users see.

"We could have brought banners or a disruptive ad experience," but chose to use promoted tweets that fit natively in the Twitter world instead, Bain said. "Ads look, act and feel just like regular content. You can retweet it, you can favorite it. That yields amazing advantages. Consumers that retweet ads with reckless abandon are passing messages virally on behalf of those advertisers." That means more impact for advertisers, but in a method that "respects the users in a pretty important way."

Twitter deliberately set up its auction process for placement of promoted tweets to encourage a good fit with Twitter itself. Winning that auction isn't just a matter of paying more than other bidders, Bain said.

"It's also the engagement rate around the ad. There's a FINANCIAL incentive for the advertiser to provide good content," Bain said. "There's an economic advantage on Twitter ads for advertisers to be good, not just to be loud."

E-commerce, too

Twitter's e-commerce revenue is the least mature of the three sources, Bain said, calling it just an "incubator" project now.

"There's a big distance between discovering a product and making a purchase," he said, referring to all the steps that separate interest in a product from looking it up online, finding a place to buy it, and closing the transaction. "We decided to shrink that distance."

E-commerce is a potentially large revenue stream, even if Twitter is only taking a small fraction of transaction prices in fees. Analyst firm Emarketer estimates that in 2014, businesses worldwide will sell consumers $1.47 trillion worth of goods and services, a 20 percent increase over 2013.

Twitter launched a "buy now" button test in June, and it's got a partnership with payment transaction processor Stripe. Now it's experimenting with pricing and the best ways to work with its users' emotions.

"With one click you can purchase a product right from the platform," Bain said. "The best thing about Twitter is that it's a live in-the-moment platform. We think there's a huge opportunity for live commerce right now."