Syndrome X
Studies show that Indians are genetically predisposed to physiological symptoms collectively called Syndrome X. This makes them highly susceptible to heart disease. Fortunately, technology can help detect coronary artery disease at an early stage.

Peace By Piece
Having failed to make headway with the cease-fire, the Centre is now trying to talk peace on Kashmir, internally through its negotiator K.C. Pant and externally with Pakistan's Chief Executive General Pervez Musharraf. But will anything come out of this?

Good Monsoon
So What?
The traditional link between the monsoon and the economy weakens.

Slippery Deal
The ONGC subsidiary's whopping Rs 8,136 crore investment was signed in indecent haste.

EYECATCHERS

The Jaws of Acting

Kumar in All the Best

You'd be wrong if you thought marriage would have tamed this actor who has in the past leaped off a building and stood facilely on a high-flying plane. But stunt junkie Akshay Kumar has added to his portfolio of exploits. Shooting a song sequence inside an oceanarium for Gaurang Mehta's All the Best in Cape Town, South Africa, the Khiladi star swam with half a dozen, mean 7-ft sharks. "It was scary ... but then it's force of habit for me now," he says. Er, need wife Twinkle's response.

Plans of a Singer

Kamal Haasan's Abhay, the one with the fleshy promos, has not yet been released so you wouldn't know what upcoming singer Nandini Srikar sounded like. But there's another way. Los Angeles-based music composer Mahmood Khan's new album Panah has the 32-year-old Pune-based artist singing love songs decked with a bounty of synthetic sounds. A thin, peppy voice which, unlike others, does not appear a caricature of Lata Mangeshkar. More playback offers are coming fast but Srikar, a compulsive non-planner, says she will take "one day at a time". She shouldn't... she's not Lata.

Sisterly Concern

HOME RUN: Naghma (left); Jyothika

Who cares about a surly, out-of-form cricketer? Or a middle-aged actor partial to electric yellow shirts? Not Naghma. After aborted friendships with Saurav Ganguly and earlier, Sarat Kumar, the chubby actress is now planning a film-packed life-she is in Citizen with Ajit Kumar, and later in a home production with sister Jyothika (also a Mumbai-rejected Chennai success). Jyothika, who dotes on her elder sister, says shooting will begin soon. Nothing like a comeback to be back in the news.

Dubbed a Hit

Aarati Agrawal, 17, is one in 700. When director Joy Augustine, famous for his mawkish Tere Mere Sapne, needed an unseen face for his new film Pagalpan, he screened hundreds of aspirants and on seeing Agrawal, concluded that "innocence is hard to find". The US-born Agrawal plays a Catholic girl who is brought up by five brothers and later, as the plot inevitably thickens, falls in love with a Hindu boy (debutant Karan Nath). "Mumbai was tough, a culture shock," admits Agrawal who knows little Hindi. "But I'm driven. I want to be a star". She could be... as long as her New Jersey drawl continues to be dubbed.

Compiled by Anshul Avijit

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