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Ayumi Hamasaki was still an infant when her father left the family in their home town of Fukuoka, and she was raised by her mother and grandmother. At age seven she began modeling to earn money for her family. At 14 the family moved to Tokyo so Ayumi could pursue an acting and modeling career.

She got small roles in several minor films and a little TV work, but she didn’t particularly like acting, and was considered too small to have much of a future in modeling, so she left both fields, and for good measure dropped out of high school. Her time was spent mostly shopping and partying, until one night a friend took her to a karaoke club, where she was persuaded to get up and sing.

The club was owned by a major record label, and a producer for that label happened to be in the club that night, heard her sing and offered her a contract. At first she turned him down, but he persisted, and the next year she agreed to at least take singing lessons. She didn’t like them either, and wound up missing most of them. The label then sent her to New York for lessons; this time she found that she enjoyed the experience and stayed there for three months.

When she returned to Japan, her producer – impressed by the contents of several letters she had written to him from New York – suggested that she begin writing her thoughts down as songs. She began recording in early 1998, but it wasn’t until the middle of 1999 that her album “Love-Destiny” zoomed to the #1 spot on the charts, and every one of her records has hit the top since that time.

He fame as a singer has carried over into other entertainment media, and she is also one of the top spokesmodels in Japan, making commercials for Honda cars, among others. Her success at both singing and commercials have combined to make her the highest-paid entertainer in Japan.

  

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Aneek Dhar, born in 1989, is an Indian singer who won the regional spin off singing competition, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Bangla, and won Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2007 at the Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2007 Grand Finale on 13th October 2007, attaining first place with 3,65,89,134 votes, a result that become controversial immediately after final when one mentor Ismail Darbar claimed that the results were rigged.

Winner of the Telegraph” award for talent in music. – Finalist of “Jatin-Lalit Talent Hunt” by the TV channel TARA-BANGLA – Stood 2nd in the singing competition titled “Star of Kolkata” by TAAZA-TV, Kolkata – Participated in the singing competition “Bhalobashi Tai Gai “by channel “Akaash Bangla” and “Eto Noyshudhagaan” by Tara Music Channel. – Finalist in the singing competition “Golden-Voice” by Zee Bangla and Prime Music Zee Bangla ” Sa-Re-Ga-Ma-Pa Champion 2007″

Though after some statements of controversy no firm proof was given by Ismail Darbar which set the situation down. Aneek was one of the most outstanding performer during the show and praised always by all judges.

Aneek resides in Lake Gardens suburb of south Kolkata and is a student of Nava Nalanda High School in Kolkata. During his free time, he plays Cricket and listens to music.

  

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King of steel Lakshmi N Mittal reigns as the richest Indian for the fourth year in a row with a wealth of $51 billion, although his crown is under threat from Mukesh Ambani whose net worth soared to $49 billion, according to Forbes’ India’s 40 Richest list for 2007.

But Mukesh’s position too is under threat from his younger brother Anil Ambani, who is closing on his heels with a wealth of $45 billion at the third spot, US-based Forbes magazine said.

Real estate tycoon Kushal Pal Singh of DLF elbowed Wipro’s Azim Premji from the fourth spot in the list, which for the first time features all billionaires.

“The four richest Indians are worth an astonishing USD 180 billion,” Forbes said, attributing the surge in wealth to a booming stock market.

The net worth of Mukesh Ambani has jumped from $30.5 billion to $49 billion, making him the year’s biggest gainer. Anil’s net worth increased to $45 billion from $30.2 billion.

The fourth richest Indian Kushal Pal Singh has a net worth of $35 billion and after the listing of his flagship DLF, he is now the world’s richest real estate developer, Forbes said.

“… thanks to the roaring Mumbai stock market, with the benchmark index gaining as much as 53 per cent in the past year and a strong rupee that appreciated 12 per cent, for the first time, all India rich-listers are billionaires,” the magazine said in a report.

The minimum wealth required to make it to the rich-list was $1.6 billion against $790 million last year.

“In aggregate, their wealth surged to $351 billion, a bit more than double of last year’s $170 billion, making India’s 40 by far the wealthiest such group in all of Asia,” the magazine added.

Forbes said 29 of the people who returned to the list were richer than last year, with the exception of Rahul Bajaj whose fortune was flat at $2.3 billion.

Newcomers to the list include “Gautam Adani, who built Mundra Port, Anand Jain, Mukesh Ambani’s school buddy and Gautum Thapar, whose Ballarpur Industries is India’s largest paper maker.”

Notable drop offs include Jet Airways founder Naresh Goyal and among those who failed to make the cut are Infosys’ Nandan Nilekani and Senapathy Gopalakrishnan, and investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala.

  

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Nicole Richie is the daughter of legendary pop icon Lionel Richie. She’s been best friends with socialite Paris Hilton since the age of two and they were classmates at the renowned private school Buckley. An aspiring actress, singer and dancer, Richie works with charities and hosts parties for various designers. She is known for her role in the reality show The Simple Life and her turbulent personal life.

Richie was a member of the rock band Darling in 2004, along with model Josie Maran and socialites Soleil and Sofia Alberti. Since 2005, Richie has been working on her debut album. A release date has not yet been announced.

Nicole Camille Escovedo was born in Berkeley, California, on September 21, 1981. Her biological parents were Peter Michael Escovedo, a member of Lionel Richie’s band and brother to ’80s pop percussionist Sheila E., and an anonymous backstage assistant.

At the age of 3, for financial reasons, Nicole moved in with her father’s bandmate Lionel and his then-wife Brenda Harvey-Richie. Six years later, Richie officially adopted Nicole.

There are plenty of privileges to being raised in affluent circles. Nicole’s formative years were spent at Los Angeles’ prestigious Buckley School, where she met and befriended Paris Hilton the heir to the Hilton empire.

But money is also often synonymous with the fast lane, and as a teenager Nicole began partying hard and experimenting with drugs and alcohol. Following her high school graduation in 2000, she decided to go to college.

She enrolled in the University of Arizona, the same school as pro basketball player Luke Walton and actress Heather Blair. Nicole dropped out after two years.

At this point, with the influences of her youth still fresh in her mind, Nicole decided to become a musician. She founded the rock band Darling with model Josie Maran and socialite sisters Soleil and Sofia Alberti.

On her own and on the loose, Nicole never broke out of the pattern of her teenage years. In February of 2003, the police pulled her over in Malibu. She was questioned and it was soon discovered she was driving with a suspended license. Upon searching her Mercedes-Benz, police found heroin in the car and Nicole was immediately arrested. She later plead guilty to all charges. Nicole was sentenced to probation and ordered to attend a drug rehabilitation program.

Nicole was first signed on to The Simple Life as a replacement for Paris’ sister Nicky, who was approached by FOX executives, but wasn’t interested in participating. The show aired in December of 2003 and was successful enough to justify a sequel series, which aired the following summer.

The fame that The Simple Life earned her allowed Nicole to branch out. She made appearances on such shows as Eve (starring rapper Eve), Punk’d, Rock Me Baby, and MADtv. She was cast alongside Julie Bowen in Kids In America, and is still working on breaking into the music industry.

  

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Tusshar Kapoor or (Tushar Kapoor), born on 20 November 1976 is an Indian actor. He is the son of Bollywood actor Jeetendra and brother of Ekta Kapoor. He studied at the University of Michigan.

He made his debut with Mujhe Kuch Kehna Hai opposite Kareena Kapoor in 2001 which was a box office hit and he received the Filmfare Best Debut Award.

The next two years was followed by a list of flops, apart from “Kucch To Hai” which won over many votes from young or teenage Asian viewers. He mainly starred in films produced or directed by his sister.

After two years hard work he had a critically acclaimed hit with “Khakee” starring with film legend Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgan and Aishwarya Rai. This was followed by another critically acclaimed performance in “Gayab”. In 2005, he delivered a hit with “Kyaa Kool Hai Hum”, then another hit in 2006 with “Golmaal”.

In 2007 he starred in “Kya Love Story Hai” and “Good Boy, Bad Boy” which did not do well at the box office. His third release was the huge multi-starrer “Shootout at Lokhandwala” which did well at the box office and won him acclaim for his performane as the real-life gangster Dilip Buwa.

  

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Vilasrao Dadoji Deshmukh (born May 26, 1945) is an Indian politician from the economically backward Marathwada region of the state of Maharashtra. He is the Chief Minister of Maharashtra (Term: October 2004 – October 2009). He is from the Congress party. He is the father of Bollywood actor Ritesh Deshmukh.

He graduated in Science (B.Sc) from M.E.S Abasaheb Garware College (Pune University), Arts ( B.A) and Law ( L.LB.) from the ILS Law College (Pune University) and started social activities in his early youth. He took a keen interest in drought relief work. He was elected as Director on Osmanabad District Central Cooperative Bank and also on Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank in 1979.his family members are;wife-Vaishalitai Deshmukh and three son i.e. Amit, Ritiesh & Dhiraj.

He has been a minister in various governments in Maharashtra from 1982 to 1995 holding portfolios of revenue, cooperation, agriculture, home, industries and education.

From April 1995 to October 17, 1999, when he was not in Government, he kept himself engaged in expansion of the Manjara Co-op.Sugar Mill. The Mill is computerised and well equipped with a wireless system. It established a world record in 1994-95 and in 1997-98 by crushing the highest quantity of sugarcane. It has won 34 awards on national and international level for excellence in production and management.

He became the Chief Minister of Maharashtra in 1999 but had to step down in January 2003 and make way for Sushilkumar Shinde, a prominent Dalit face of Congress, following factionalism in the state unit of the party.

  

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Ritesh Deshmukh was born 17th December 1978 in Latur City of Marathwada (Maharashtra). He is son of Shri Vilasrao Deshmukh, Chief Minister of Maharashtra. Ritesh had completed his schooling from G.D. Somaya High School and then turned to Kamala Raheja School of Architecture in Mumbai. After his graduation he starting working in New York and partly joined acting studies at the Lee Stratberg Theatre Institute. This young Actor apart having a good knowledge in Architect had made his own mark as one of the most dependable supporting actors in the Indian film Industry.

Through out his work in films like ‘Tujhe Meri Kasam’, ‘Masti’, ‘Kya Kool Hai Hum’, ‘Bluffmaster’ and ‘Malamaal Weekly’; he had proved his talent and hardwork, inspite having a better political relationship. Ritesh had made his debut from ‘Tujhe Meri Kasam’ in 2002 that proved out to be an average hit on the Box-office. He received his positive points after the comedy film ‘Masti’ in 2004, which turned his life and established him as a Real Bollywood Actor. He received Star Screen Best Comedian Award and Zee Cine Best Actor Award in a Comic Role for the film ‘Masti’ in 2005.

Ritesh face was then been noticed in a comic role category. Ritesh mainly started taken comic roles and avoided normal and optimistic ones. Ritesh had further super – duper hits from his latest movies like ‘Bluffmaster’, ‘Kya Kool Hai Hum’, ‘Malamaal Weekly’ and ‘Darna Zaroori Hai’ out of which Ritesh first time appeared in Ram Gopal Verma’s horror film ‘Darna Zaroori Hai’ and rest of the film were performed in the comic role. In 2006, he was awarded Stardust Best Supporting Actor Award for the film ‘Kya Kool Hai Hum’ and Zee Cine Best Actor Award in a Comic Role for the Film ‘Bluffmaster’.

  

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Milton Friedman was born in New York City on 31 July, 1912, the fourth child and only son of working class Jewish immigrants from a Hungarian community in what is now Ukraine. When he was a year old, the family moved to Rahway, New Jersey, where Friedman’s parents kept a dry-goods store. Although their financial position was precarious, and no member of the family had been to university before, it was decided early that Milton would attend college. He read voraciously, enjoyed school and showed a particular talent for mathematics. He earned a degree in mathematics from Rutgers University, graduating in 1932 during the very depths of the great Depression. Although scholarships covered his tuition costs, he worked throughout his student years to meet his living expenses.

After graduation, Friedman was interested in pursuing further studies in mathematics, but the dire state of the national economy inspired him to pursue economics instead, and he accepted a scholarship from the University of Chicago. While earning a master’s degree in a single year at the University, he met a fellow economics student, Rose Director. The two hoped to marry, but were long dissuaded by the financial difficulties of starting a family during the Depression. Friedman was awarded a year’s fellowship to continue postgraduate studies at Columbia University. After another year in Chicago as a research assistant in the economics department, he was then hired by the National Resources Committee in Washington to work on a large consumer budget survey.

In 1937, Friedman joined the research staff of the National Bureau of Economic Research in New York City. With a steady income finally assured, Milton Friedman and Rose Director were married in 1938. They have collaborated on many books and projects over the years. Friedman’s studies of income from independent professional practice served as his doctoral dissertation for Columbia University, but publication of his dissertation was delayed until after World War II. In 1940, Friedman accepted a job at the University of Wisconsin but was forced to resign within a year. Friedman had fallen into conflict with other members of the faculty over America’s entry into World War II, which Friedman favored and others opposed. During World War II, he worked in the Treasury Department, where he helped create the federal withholding tax system. Prior to that time, Americans had paid their taxes in a single lump sum each year. During the last years of the war, he suspended economic research and was employed as a mathematical statistician by a special projects group at Columbia University, concentrating on problems of weapons design, military tactics and metallurgical experiments.

After the war, Friedman’s dissertation was finally published, and he was awarded his Ph.D. from Columbia University. The resulting book, Incomes from Independent Professional Practice introduced the concepts of permanent and transitory income. This study of professional income, integrated with his prior work on consumer budgets, served as the basis of his landmark Theory of the Consumption Function. After one year at the University of Minnesota, Friedman accepted an appointment at the University of Chicago, where he taught for the next 30 years, while simultaneously maintaining a staff position with the Bureau of Economic Research.

At the Bureau, Friedman conducted a long-term study of the role of money in the business cycle. At the University, he established a “Workshop in Money and Banking,” which led a revival of interest in monetary studies in the United States. Friedman made a name as one of the University’s exponents of neo-classical economics, opposed to the Keynesian economics then in favor at most universities in Europe and America. Within the larger grouping of the Chicago School, Friedman and like-minded colleagues are regarded as monetarists. They see money supply as the major determinant in the business cycle and inflation and regard it as the most effective instrument of government economic policy. Rather than the fine-tuning of Keynesian fiscal policy, Friedman recommended that central banks such as the Federal Reserve adopt a general rule of controlling the money supply to suppress inflation and allow prices to find their natural level. Friedman long argued that most other forms of government intervention in the economy are not only counterproductive in economic terms, but are fundamentally contrary to the values of a free society.

In the early 1960s, Friedman’s ideas began to gain adherents beyond the fraternity of academic economists, largely through a series of persuasive books for the general reader, including Capitalism and Freedom (1962), written in collaboration with his wife, Rose D. Friedman. The following year saw the publication of his monumental Monetary History of the United States, written in collaboration with Anna J. Schwartz.

The success of his works with the general public brought him into a more prominent role in public policy debate. Friedman served as an informal economic adviser to the 1964 presidential campaign of Senator Barry Goldwater. Goldwater was defeated, but Friedman’s ideas were reaching a wider audience. From 1966 to 1983, he wrote a regular column for Newsweek magazine.

Friedman advised the successful presidential campaign of Richard Nixon in 1968. During the Nixon presidency, Friedman served on a committee to study the feasibility of returning to an all-volunteer armed force for the first time since before World War II; the recommendations of this committee led to the abolition of the military draft in 1973. Despite his interest in public policy, Friedman consistently refused appointments to full-time government positions, preferring to concentrate on his scientific work and to promote his public policy beliefs outside of government.

In 1975, Friedman made a controversial visit to Chile during the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet to give a series of lectures on economics. Other University of Chicago professors and graduates later served as advisers to the Chilean government. Although Friedman never advised the regime directly, he believed the adoption of free-market policies helped prepare the country for its eventual return to democratic rule. Friedman gave similar lectures in South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in the 1970s. He was later to travel as far as China to speak on his free market ideas.

Friedman’s earlier scientific work now received international recognition. He was awarded the 1976 Nobel Prize in Economics “for his achievements in the fields of consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy.” That year, he retired from the University of Chicago, although he retained the title of Paul Snowdon Russell Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University. From 1977 until his death he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.

In 1980, Milton Friedman’s ideas were featured in a 10-part public television series, Free to Choose. Friedman and his wife Rose published a popular companion volume to the series; it became the best-selling nonfiction book of the year. That same year, Friedman advised presidential candidate Ronald Reagan, whose views closely reflected Friedman’s laissez faire philosophy. In the first year of the Reagan administration, Friedman served as a member of the President’s Economic Policy Advisory Board.

The 1980s were a watershed decade for the acceptance of Friedman’s ideas. His views of monetary policy, taxation, privatization and deregulation informed the policy of governments around the globe, especially the administrations of Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom. His ideas were studied throughout the world, and played a major role in the transformation of China’s economy. At the same time, his libertarian views on social issues such as the decriminalization of drugs sometimes put him at odds with conservative admirers of his economic thinking. Many of his magazine essays decrying activist government were collected in the 1983 book, Bright Promises, Dismal Performance.

A second television series and accompanying book by the Friedmans, Tyranny of the Status Quo, appeared in 1984. In 1988 Friedman was awarded the National Medal of Science and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In that year of honors, Milton Friedman and his wife Rose published a joint memoir of their life together, Two Lucky People. In later years, the Friedmans made their home in San Francisco, where Milton Friedman died in 2006, at age 94.

  

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Leonardo was born in the small town of Vinci, in Tuscany, near Florence. He was the son of a wealthy Florentine notary and a peasant woman. In the mid-1460s the family settled in Florence, where Leonardo was given the best education that Florence, a major intellectual and artistic center of Italy, could offer. He rapidly advanced socially and intellectually. He was handsome, persuasive in conversation, and a fine musician and improviser. About 1466 he was apprenticed as a garzone (studio boy) to Andrea del Verrocchio, the leading Florentine painter and sculptor of his day. In Verrocchio’s workshop Leonardo was introduced to many activities, from the painting of altarpieces and panel pictures to the creation of large sculptural projects in marble and bronze. In 1472 he was entered in the painter’s guild of Florence, and in 1476 he was still considered Verrocchio’s assistant. In Verrocchio’s Baptism of Christ (1470?, Uffizi, Florence), the kneeling angel at the left of the painting is by Leonardo.

In 1478 Leonardo became an independent master. His first commission, to paint an altarpiece for the chapel of the Palazzo Vecchio, the Florentine town hall, was never executed. His first large painting, The Adoration of the Magi (begun 1481, Uffizi), left unfinished, was ordered in 1481 for the Monastery of San Donato a Scopeto, Florence. Other works ascribed to his youth are the so-called Benois Madonna (1478?, Hermitage, Saint Petersburg), the portrait Ginevra de’ Benci (1474?, National Gallery, Washington, D.C.), and the unfinished Saint Jerome (1481?, Pinacoteca, Vatican).

About 1482 Leonardo entered the service of the duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, having written the duke an astonishing letter in which he stated that he could build portable bridges; that he knew the techniques of constructing bombardments and of making cannons; that he could build ships as well as armored vehicles, catapults, and other war machines; and that he could execute sculpture in marble, bronze, and clay. He served as principal engineer in the duke’s numerous military enterprises and was active also as an architect. In addition, he assisted the Italian mathematician Luca Pacioli in the celebrated work Divina Proportione (1509).

Evidence indicates that Leonardo had apprentices and pupils in Milan, for whom he probably wrote the various texts later compiled as Treatise on Painting (1651; translated 1956). The most important of his own paintings during the early Milan period was The Virgin of the Rocks, two versions of which exist (1483-1485, Louvre, Paris; 1490s to 1506-1508, National Gallery, London); he worked on the compositions for a long time, as was his custom, seemingly unwilling to finish what he had begun. From 1495 to 1497 Leonardo labored on his masterpiece, The Last Supper, a mural in the refectory of the Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan. Unfortunately, his experimental use of oil on dry plaster (on what was the thin outer wall of a space designed for serving food) was technically unsound, and by 1500 its deterioration had begun. Since 1726 attempts have been made, unsuccessfully, to restore it; a concerted restoration and conservation program, making use of the latest technology, was begun in 1977 and is

reversing some of the damage. Although much of the original surface is gone, the majesty of the composition and the penetrating characterization of the figures give a fleeting vision of its vanished splendor.

During his long stay in Milan, Leonardo also produced other paintings and drawings (most of which have been lost), theater designs, architectural drawings, and models for the dome of Milan Cathedral. His largest commission was for a colossal bronze monument to Francesco Sforza, father of Ludovico, in the courtyard of Castello Sforzesco. In December 1499, however, the Sforza family was driven from Milan by French forces; Leonardo left the statue unfinished (it was destroyed by French archers, who used the terra cotta model as a target) and he returned to Florence in 1500.

In 1502 Leonardo entered the service of Cesare Borgia, duke of Romagna and son and chief general of Pope Alexander VI. In his capacity as the duke’s chief architect and engineer, Leonardo supervised work on the fortresses of the papal territories in central Italy. In 1503 he was a member of a commission of artists who were to decide on the proper location for the David (1501-1504, Accademia, Florence), the famous colossal marble statue by the Italian sculptor Michelangelo, and he also served as an engineer in the war against Pisa. Toward the end of the year Leonardo began to design a decoration for the great hall of the Palazzo Vecchio. The subject was the Battle of Anghiari, a Florentine victory in its war with Pisa. He made many drawings for the decoration and completed a full-size cartoon, or sketch, in 1505, but he never finished the wall painting. The cartoon itself was destroyed in the 17th century, and the composition survives only in copies, of which the most famous is the one by the Flemish pair

uring this second Florentine period, Leonardo painted several portraits, but the only one that survives is the famous Mona Lisa (1503-1506, Louvre). One of the most celebrated portraits ever painted, it is also known as La Gioconda, after the presumed name of the woman’s husband. Leonardo seems to have had a special affection for the picture, for he took it with him on all of his subsequent travels.

In 1506 Leonardo again went to Milan, at the summons of its French governor, Charles d’Amboise. The following year he was named court painter to King Louis XII of France, who was then residing in Milan. For the next six years Leonardo divided his time between Milan and Florence, where he often visited his half brothers and half sisters and looked after his inheritance. In Milan he continued his engineering projects and worked on an equestrian figure for a monument to Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, commander of the French forces in the city; although the project was not completed, drawings and studies have been preserved. From 1514 to 1516 Leonardo lived in Rome under the patronage of Pope Leo X. He was housed in the Palazzo Belvedere in the Vatican and seems to have been occupied principally with scientific experimentation. In 1516 he traveled to France to enter the service of King Francis I. He spent his last years at the Château de Cloux, near Amboise, where he died.

Although Leonardo produced a relatively small number of paintings, many of which remained unfinished, he was nevertheless an extraordinarily innovative and influential artist. During his early years, his style closely paralleled that of Verrocchio, but he gradually moved away from his teacher’s stiff, tight, and somewhat rigid treatment of figures to develop a more evocative and atmospheric handling of composition. The early painting The Adoration of the Magi introduced a new approach to composition, in which the main figures are grouped in the foreground, while the background consists of distant views of imaginary ruins and battle scenes.

Leonardo’s stylistic innovations are even more apparent in The Last Supper, in which he represented a traditional theme in an entirely new way. Instead of showing the 12 apostles as individual figures, he grouped them in dynamic compositional units of three, framing the figure of Christ, who is isolated in the center of the picture. Seated before a pale distant landscape seen through a rectangular opening in the wall, Christ—who is about to announce that one of those present will betray him—represents a calm nucleus while the others respond with animated gestures. In the monumentality of the scene and the weightiness of the figures, Leonardo reintroduced a style pioneered more than a generation earlier by Masaccio, the father of Florentine painting.

The Mona Lisa, Leonardo’s most famous work, is as well known for its mastery of technical innovations as for the mysteriousness of its legendary smiling subject. This work is a consummate example of two techniques—sfumato and chiaroscuro—of which Leonardo was one of the first great masters. Sfumato is characterized by subtle, almost infinitesimal transitions between color areas, creating a delicately atmospheric haze or smoky effect; it is especially evident in the delicate gauzy robes worn by the sitter and in her enigmatic smile. Chiaroscuro is the technique of modeling and defining forms through contrasts of light and shadow; the sensitive hands of the sitter are portrayed with a luminous modulation of light and shade, while color contrast is used only sparingly.

Leonardo was among the first to introduce atmospheric perspective into his landscape backgrounds, an especially notable characteristic of his paintings. The chief masters of the High Renaissance in Florence, including Raphael, Andrea del Sarto, and Fra Bartolommeo, all learned from Leonardo; he completely transformed the school of Milan; and at Parma, the artistic development of Correggio was given direction by Leonardo’s work.

Leonardo’s many extant drawings, which reveal his brilliant draftsmanship and his mastery of the anatomy of humans, animals, and plant life, may be found in the principal European collections. The largest group is at Windsor Castle in England. Probably his most famous drawing is the magnificent self-portrait in old age (1510?-1513?, Biblioteca Reale, Turin, Italy).

Because none of Leonardo’s sculptural projects was brought to completion, his approach to three-dimensional art can only be judged from his drawings. The same strictures apply to his architecture: None of his building projects was actually carried out as he devised them. In his architectural drawings, however, he demonstrates mastery in the use of massive forms, a clarity of expression, and especially a deep understanding of ancient Roman sources.

As a scientist Leonardo towered above all his contemporaries. His scientific theories, like his artistic innovations, were based on careful observation and precise documentation. He understood, better than anyone of his century or the next, the importance of precise scientific observation. Unfortunately, just as he frequently failed to bring to conclusion artistic projects, he never completed his planned treatises on a variety of scientific subjects. His theories are contained in numerous notebooks, most of which were written in mirror script. Because they were not easily decipherable, Leonardo’s findings were not disseminated in his own lifetime; had they been published, they would have revolutionized the science of the 16th century. Leonardo actually anticipated many discoveries of modern times. In anatomy he studied the circulation of the blood and the action of the eye. He made discoveries in meteorology and geology, learned the effect of the moon on the tides, foreshadowed modern conceptions of continent formation, and surmised the nature of fossil shells. He was among the originators of the science of hydraulics and probably devised the hydrometer; his scheme for the canalization of rivers still has practical value. He invented a large number of ingenious machines, many potentially useful, among them an underwater diving suit. His flying devices, although not practicable, embodied sound principles of aerodynamics.

  

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Paula Julie Abdul (born June 19, 1962) is an American multi-platinum selling Grammy Award-winning singer, dancer, television personality, jewelry designer, and Emmy Award-winning choreographer. The daughter of Harry and Lorraine Abdul knew early on that she wanted to dip her feet into dance. The youngest of two daughters, Paula’s love for dance originated from the film, Singing In The Rain, whose star, Gene Kelly, was her idol. A student at Van Nuys high school, Paula applied her choreography skills as head of the cheerleading squad. She graduated in 1980, and shimmied her way to Cal State-Northridge, as a TV and radio student. But as her heart was truly in dance, Paula took her LA Lakers Cheerleading gig as a full-time job, after dropping out of college.

Paula began to make inroads in pop music when she was hired as an assistant dance director on the Jacksons’ Victory tour, which led to a job choreographing Janet Jackson’s videos for Control. Abdul’s work on Jackson’s videos helped make the album a hit, making her a sought-after choreographer. After working on #The Tracy Ullman Show and videos for ZZ Top, Duran Duran, and the Pointer Sisters, Abdul began a recording career, releasing her debut album, Forever Your Girl, in 1988. The first two singles drawn from the record were moderate hits, but the release of “Straight Up” at the end of the year made her a superstar. Staying at the top of the charts for three weeks, “Straight Up” began a string of six number one singles (with “The Way That You Love Me” recharting at number three in 1989) that ran through the summer of 1991. While her second album, 1991’s Spellbound, wasn’t as successful, it still sold over three million copies and spent two weeks at number one. Abdul released her third album, Head Over Heels, in the summer of 1995.

Paula returned to acting with cameo appearances in Cybill, The Single Guy, Spin City, All That, The Wayans Bros., and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. She also starred in made-for-TV movies such as Touched by Evil and The Waiting Game, and appeared in Mr. Rock ‘n’ Roll: The Allan Freed Story. Moving from the realm of television to video, Paula starred in her own exercise videos, Get Up And Dance! and its follow-up, Paula Abdul: Cardio Dance. She is also currently keeping busy with her own dance education company, Co Dance, and as the sweetheart in the trio of American Idol judges.

  

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Harper Lee grew up in Alabama, the daughter of a lawyer. She was educated in the South, moved to New York in the 1950s, took a job as an airline reservations clerk, and wrote her first and only novel during that time.

Lee was only five years old in when, in April 1931 in the small Alabama town of Scottsboro, the first trials began with regard to the purported rapes of two white women by nine young black men. The defendants, who were nearly lynched before being brought to court, were not provided with the services of a lawyer until the first day of trial. Despite medical testimony that the women had not been raped, the all-white jury found the men guilty of the crime and sentenced all but the youngest, a twelve-year-old boy, to death. Six years of subsequent trials saw most of these convictions repealed and all but one of the men freed or paroled. The Scottsboro case left a deep impression on the young Lee, who would use it later as the rough basis for the events in To Kill a Mockingbird.

Lee studied first at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama (1944-45), and then pursued a law degree at the University of Alabama (1945-49), spending one year abroad at Oxford University, England. She worked as a reservation clerk for Eastern Airlines in New York City until the late 1950s, when she resolved to devote herself to writing. Lee lived a frugal lifestyle, traveling between her cold-water-only apartment in New York to her family home in Alabama to care for her ailing father. In addition, she worked in Holcombe, Kansas, as a research assistant for Truman Capote’s novel In Cold Blood in 1959. Ever since the first days of their childhood friendship, Capote and Lee remained close friends.

Lee published her first and only novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, in 1960 after a two-year period of revising and rewriting under the guidance of her editor, Tay Hohoff, of the J. B. Lippincott Company. To Kill a Mockingbird won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize despite mixed critical reviews. The novel was highly popular, selling more than fifteen million copies. Though in composing the novel she delved into her own experiences as a child in Monroeville, Lee intended that the book impart the sense of any small town in the Deep South, as well as the universal characteristics of human beings. The book was made into a successful movie in 1962, starring Gregory Peck as Atticus.

President Johnson named Lee to the National Council of Arts in June 1966, and since then she has received numerous honorary doctorates. She continues to live in New York and Monroeville but prefers a relatively private existence, granting few interviews and giving few speeches. She has published only a few short essays since her debut: “Love–In Other Words” in Vogue, 1961; “Christmas to Me” in McCall’s, 1961; and “When Children Discover America” in McCall’s, 1965.

“To Kill a Mockingbird,” published in 1960, won a Pulitzer Prize, and is still admired, widely-taught, and beloved. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) received several Academy Awards. Lee has insisted that the novel is a work of fiction, not autobiography.

She protects her privacy, speaks through her literary agent, McIntosh and Otis, does not appear on television and does not give interviews. She lives in Monroeville, Alabama and New York.

  

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United States Senator. Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4th, 1961. His father, Barack Obama Sr., was born and raised in a small village in Kenya, where he grew up herding goats with his own father, who was a domestic servant to the British. At the age of six, Obama moved with his family to Djakarta, Indonesia, after his mother remarried.

Barack’s mother, Ann Dunham, grew up in small-town Kansas. Her father worked on oil rigs during the Depression, and then signed up for World War II after Pearl Harbor, where he marched across Europe in Patton’s army. Her mother went to work on a bomber assembly line, and after the war, they studied on the G.I. Bill, bought a house through the Federal Housing Program, and moved west to Hawaii.

It was there, at the University of Hawaii, where Barack’s parents met. His mother was a student there, and his father had won a scholarship that allowed him to leave Kenya and pursue his dreams in America.

Barack’s father eventually returned to Kenya, and Barack grew up with his mother in Hawaii, and for a few years in Indonesia. Later, he moved to New York, where he graduated from Columbia University in 1983.

Remembering the values of empathy and service that his mother taught him, Barack put law school and corporate life on hold after college and moved to Chicago in 1985, where he became a community organizer with a church-based group seeking to improve living conditions in poor neighborhoods plagued with crime and high unemployment.

The group had some success, but Barack had come to realize that in order to truly improve the lives of people in that community and other communities, it would take not just a change at the local level, but a change in our laws and in our politics.

He went on to earn his law degree from Harvard in 1991, where he became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. Soon after, he returned to Chicago to practice as a civil rights lawyer and teach constitutional law. Finally, his advocacy work led him to run for the Illinois State Senate, where he served for eight years. In 2004, he became the third African American since Reconstruction to be elected to the U.S. Senate.

It has been the rich and varied experiences of Barack Obama’s life – growing up in different places with people who had differing ideas – that have animated his political journey. Amid the partisanship and bickering of today’s public debate, he still believes in the ability to unite people around a politics of purpose – a politics that puts solving the challenges of everyday Americans ahead of partisan calculation and political gain.

In the Illinois State Senate, this meant working with both Democrats and Republicans to help working families get ahead by creating programs like the state Earned Income Tax Credit, which in three years provided over $100 million in tax cuts to families across the state. He also pushed through an expansion of early childhood education, and after a number of inmates on death row were found innocent, Senator Obama worked with law enforcement officials to require the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in all capital cases.

In the U.S. Senate, he has focused on tackling the challenges of a globalized, 21st century world with fresh thinking and a politics that no longer settles for the lowest common denominator. His first law was passed with Republican Tom Coburn, a measure to rebuild trust in government by allowing every American to go online and see how and where every dime of their tax dollars is spent. He has also been the lead voice in championing ethics reform that would root out Jack Abramoff-style corruption in Congress.

As a member of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Senator Obama has fought to help Illinois veterans get the disability pay they were promised, while working to prepare the VA for the return of the thousands of veterans who will need care after Iraq and Afghanistan. Recognizing the terrorist threat posed by weapons of mass destruction, he traveled to Russia with Republican Dick Lugar to begin a new generation of non-proliferation efforts designed to find and secure deadly weapons around the world. And knowing the threat we face to our economy and our security from America’s addiction to oil, he’s working to bring auto companies, unions, farmers, businesses and politicians of both parties together to promote the greater use of alternative fuels and higher fuel standards in our cars.

Whether it’s the poverty exposed by Katrina, the genocide in Darfur, or the role of faith in our politics, Barack Obama continues to speak out on the issues that will define America in the 21st century. But above all his accomplishments and experiences, he is most proud and grateful for his family. His wife, Michelle, and his two daughters, Malia, 9, and Sasha, 6, live on Chicago’s South Side where they attend Trinity United Church of Christ.

Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, addressed the nation for the first time as President Elect. He became the nation’s first African American president when he is sworn into office on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009.

  

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Perizaad was born in a Zorashtrian family on October 23, 1973. Her family runs a poultry farm. Her name means ‘Fairy’s daughter’. Her family roots trace back to Iran.

True to the meaning of her name, Perizaad Zorabian does look like born of a beautiful, ethereal, effervescent fairy. She has the effervescence and energy of a teenager and a million-dollar smile that captivates.

Having studied in Auxilium Convent High School (Mumbai), Perizaad took the B.Com course in Bombay University. After her post-graduation, she secured admission in one of the Top 20 colleges in New York for her MBA studies.

Then there was no looking back for Perizaad who supported herself in the US by taking up a job at Hotel Lexington. At the same time she also enrolled into an acting school. When she came back to India she did not harbor any dreams of stepping under Bollywood’s arc lamps. So she began helping her father in his poultry farm business.

It was during this time, she met a model coordinator Mona Irani who offered her modeling assignments.

Her debut film Bollywood Calling has already won accolades and next in line is Viral Lakhia’s Namaste, though the role she might cherish most is that of Indira Gandhi that Perizaad plays in an international Chinese production called Bandung Sonata made by the Chinese Film Group Corporation.

Prior to her movie appearances, this Mumbai gal ruled the hearts of the television audience through brilliant performances in serials like ‘Hum Pardesi Ho Gaye’ as Maya. Besides, she also starred in exciting music videos with such greats like Asha Bhonsle, Lucky Ali, Aryans and others.

A rare combination of beauty and brains, Perizaad did MBA in marketing and Finance from New York before completing an acting course with the renowned Lee Strasberg School of Acting. To equip herself for the Bollywood Jhatkas, she did a stint with dancer Shiamak Davar too.

A trained ballet dancer for 12 years, she has done theatre too and is ever ready to try out new things in life, which explains her interest in dad’s poultry business before getting bitten by the acting bug.

Her first ad was for Clearsil, shot by Shekhar Kapoor after which she was off to New York to pursue her further studies. On her return, she did a series of ads for well-known brands like Fair & Lovely, Titan, Ponds, Tanishq, BPL, Closeup, etc.

A true homebody by nature, she loves spending time at home with family and close friends. Although she misses her ballet a lot due to her schedule, she does manage to do the annual show at the academy from where she has graduated.

She married Boman Rustom Irani (not to be confused with the actor Boman Irani) on December 7, 2006., who is a Board Director of Rustomjee Builders. She continues to accept offers and appears in movies.

  

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Society’s Face of the year – 1994 most successful super model and 6′0″ tall. Arjun Rampal was born on November 26th. He was discovered in a discotheque by ace designer Rohit Bal. His cute chiseled face makes him a great hit with women. Now Arjun concentrating more on movies.

Pyaar Ishq Aur Mohabbat was Arjun’s forgettable debut vehicle and his presence went noticed. Following up with Deewanapan, Moksh etc movies with opposite popular bollywood actresses Manisha Koirala and Diya Mirza and others.

Married to Miss India super model Mehr Jessia at the right time and marriage has had positive effect on his life.

He describes himself as Cool and casual. He wear clothes that are cool. He is not particular of brands but buy a lot of designer stuff. His suits and shirt are of Armani. He is having 80 pairs of sun glasses. He is very weight conscious and always into fitness. His hair cut changes from film to film according to the character he portray in films. He love his family very much they are always a priority for him. He is having a daughter also.

Arjun Rampal is struggling here to stay. Arjun Rampal will also feature in Subhash Ghai’s next romantic project opposite Kareena Kapoor.

  

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Vishal-Shekhar are a music directing duo (Vishal Dadlani and Shekhar Ravjiani) for Bollywood films. They have had a number of successes including Salaam Namaste and Dus and Bluffmaster.

The duo rose in prominence when they composed the score for the film Jhankaar Beats, which included the hit song tu aashiqui hai. Their efforts paid off when they won the Filmfare RD Burman Award for New Music Talent for Jhankaar Beats. The music for the film Musafir became very popular with youths. They combined techno music with Indian sounds. The score of the film included the music hits Saaqi and Door Se Paas. 2005 was a good year for the duo as they composed the scores for three hit films: Salaam Namaste and Dus and Bluffmaster.

They are now judges on the Zee TV show, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2007. They also directed the music of Tara Rum Pum, a hit.

Vishal Dadlani is also the vocalist of Mumbai-based electronic band Pentagram, and was a sometime-VJ at Channel V.

Shekhar is Gujarati and Vishal is Sindhi. Vishal is a vegeterian.Vishal-Shekhar were recently seen judging a popular music talent hunt show on Zee TV.

Shekhar is married and has a daughter named Bipasha. Vishal is still very much a part of the Indian rock band Pentagram. Shekhar is a trained classical singer and has a sound base of Indian music. Their music is thus a combination of Indian classical with western rock influence brought by Vishal.

  

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Madhavan was born in Jamshedpur, India, to a private-firm owner Ranganathan and bank worker Saroja. Devika Ranganathan, Madhavan’s sister, is a software engineer settled in the U.S. At the age of 18 his college entrusted him with the responsibility of representing India as a Cultural Ambassador to Canada.

A year later he and three others from his college were sent to Britain as army cadets and received training in the royal army, navy, and air force.

After attending a 10 day course on public speaking, he met Saritha, an Air Hostess and both got married 3 years later. Their first child, a son, Vedaant, was born in 2006.

Unlike other prominent actors in India, Madhavan began to act after marriage, at the age of twenty-nine, and his short career has seen performances in diverse roles. He has received several Filmfare Awards in various categories.

Madhavan’s first major film appearance was in 2000s romantic film, Alaipayuthey, in which he played a husband going through the trauma of marriage. In the 2002 blockbuster Kannathil Muthamittal, he portrayed a father of an orphaned child alongside Simran. He then played the role of an action hero, for the first time in the successful project, Run (2003) and, the year after, won critical acclaim as a henchman in Mani Ratnam’s film, Aayitha Ezhuthu, his role in which earning him a Indian National Film Award nomination. In 2007, Madhavan set up his own production company, Leukos Films, which will distribute several of his forthcoming films.

Madhavan has taken an activist role in supporting various political and social causes. He appeared in PETA advertising, campaigning against cruelty towards animals, and has promoted vegetarianism causes.

A vegetarian and animal lover, he owns two dogs, and a parrot. He is fluent in English, Hindi, and Tamil.

Before making his appearance on the tinsel screen, he was popular on the idiot box on Sony’s ‘Deal Ya No Deal’. He subsequently also appeared as the main character in a mobile game.

He made his debut with ‘Inferno’ in 1998, and since then acted in nearly 40 movies in English, Hindi, Tamil, and Kannad. He is popularly known as the ‘chocolate hero’.