Days after being trolled for not wishing his daughter Aaradhya Bachchan on her birthday, Abhishek Bachchan has now called himself a ‘girl dad’
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan’s darling daughter Aaradhya Bachchan turned 13 earlier this month. Wishing her a happy birthday, her star mother recently shared a sweet glimpse into the teenager’s special day on social media. But what left netizens scratching their heads was why Aaradhya’s father Junior Bachchan didn’t share a birthday post for her like he does every year. Many trolled him for being ‘absent’ from her birthday party photo shared on Aishwarya’s Instagram handle, while others speculated that the divorce rumours were true. However, Abhishek rubbished these reports when he called himself a ‘girl dad’ recently on Amitabh Bachchan’s game show.
Abhishek Bachchan with wife Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and daughter Aaradhya Bachchan
This week, Abhishek joined Big B on an episode of Kaun Banega Crorepati 16 along with his director Shoojit Sircar to promote their recently released film I Want To Talk. When Big B asked what convinced him to say yes to the film, Abhishek revealed that in the movie, his character promises his daughter to ignore all his problems and live just for her. The actor explained, “Shweta (Bachchan) is your daughter. I am father to Aaradhya. Shoojit Sircar has two beautiful daughters, we are all girl dads, so we understand this emotion completely. This was enough for me to be convinced to do this film.”
Abhishek further shared that he is glad he got the opportunity to do such a film where the story is told from a father’s perspective. He believes that a mother’s bond with her children is spoken about, but nobody discusses what a father does. Abhishek explained, “It is mostly because fathers never make it obvious. They silently do what they have to.”
I Want To Talk follows the life of Arjun Sen, an NRI marketing professional and father who is diagnosed with last-stage cancer. In the first-day reviews shared on social media, fans have described this film as Abhishek’s ‘career-best performance’. Some have even gone as far as calling him a ‘better actor’ than his superstar father Big B. Have you seen it yet?
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Actor Cameron Monaghan casually confirmed that a sequel to Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is in development. During the Ocala Comic Con event, the voice and motion capture artist behind the protagonist Cal Kestis said, “We’re working on the third. We’re in the process of doing it right now.” The news comes as a surprise, considering the series director Stig Asmussen, who rebuilt and instilled faith in single-player Star Wars games, recently left EA/ Respawn Entertainment. However, he always expressed interest in furthering and concluding Cal’s arc through a trilogy, with discussions of a sequel dating back even before 2019’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was out.
Monaghan further added (via Saix_XIII), “That’s a big undertaking and there have been some conversations so far, but hopefully when all things are said and done, we’ll be able to go in and make something really cool for you guys again.” At the panel, he was joined by Star Wars Jedi: Survivor co-star Tina Ivlev, who played Cal’s teleporting romantic interest Merrin, nodding along and marking the first unofficially credible confirmation for the threequel. Before leaving, Asmussen claimed that he’d carved out the entire timeframe for Cal’s trilogy, adding that Star Wars Jedi 3 would likely be built on Unreal Engine 5. Now it seems as though the series will continue regardless of his presence, and might have to deal with some retooling to get some ‘proprietary’ development tools to work with the new engine.
Earlier this month, Respawn Entertainment dropped patch 7 for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, aimed at further optimisation on PC with native support for Nvidia’s DLSS upscaling technology. Both the PS5 and Xbox Series S/X versions also received performance improvements that target 60fps. At launch, the game opened to rave reviews praising its story, alongside robust gameplay and level design that borrowed from FromSoftware’s Souls games. However, it was also heavily criticised for its poor performance, with choppy framerates even in areas with minimal activity on screen. It’s been five months since release — April 28 — and the game appears to have significantly improved in that duration.
During EA’s Q1 2024 earning call, held in August, it was confirmed that Respawn Entertainment is in the early stages of making dedicated versions of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor for the last-gen PS4 and Xbox One. Similar to other major AAA publishers, the studio entirely skipped a launch on the older generation of consoles for ease in optimisation and to render high-quality visuals with the new hardware, albeit in this case, the team still hit some hurdles. For now, there is no release window for the new versions, but when it does drop, it should serve as an interesting testing parameter to see how much graphical fidelity was sacrificed to gain 30fps on last-gen consoles — running on a hard drive.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is out now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series S/X. EA hasn’t commented on a follow-up yet.
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In an old interaction, Aditya Roy Kapur shared his thoughts on maintaining personal boundaries and not engaging with social media chatter, following rumors about his breakup with actress Ananya Panday. The actors, who started dating in 2022, are said to have parted ways in May 2024. Despite the buzz, Aditya remains firm on keeping his personal life away from public scrutiny.
Speaking to Lifestyle Asia India, Aditya explained his preference for privacy, stating that he never felt the need to share personal details publicly.
Assembly Election Results
He mentioned that discussing private matters openly doesn’t appeal to him and expressed his desire to filter out unnecessary opinions. “I’ve always been private about my personal life. That’s just how I am. I don’t see the need for people to know everything about me,” he said. Aditya emphasized that he avoids giving attention to baseless comments or rumors, calling it a waste of time and energy. The actor further elaborated on how social media has created a platform where everyone feels compelled to share opinions, often without any relevance. “Why should I spend time thinking about unnecessary things? It doesn’t add value to my life. Today, people feel it’s almost like a sport to express their views, whether it matters or not,” he added. Aditya also acknowledged that his reserved approach might make him seem indifferent, especially since he isn’t very active online. He referenced his earlier appearance on Koffee With Karan, where he mentioned not paying much attention to what others say about him on social media. “I don’t think it’s worth getting into every comment. There will always be people who like you and those who don’t,” he remarked. While Aditya stays tight-lipped about his personal relationships, Ananya Panday had hinted at their romance during her Koffee With Karan appearance in 2023. However, neither of them officially confirmed the rumors. In the midst of their breakup speculations, Aditya was seen partying with Sara Ali Khan, his co-star in the upcoming movie Metro… In Dino, directed by Anurag Basu.
Aditya’s calm and pragmatic approach to handling public curiosity reflects his determination to stay focused on his work and not let rumors affect his peace of mind. As fans continue to speculate, the actor remains steadfast in maintaining his personal space.
Xiaomi 15 series is expected to launch in China tomorrow (Tuesday) as the company’s next-generation flagship phones, comprised of two models — Xiaomi 15 and Xiaomi 15 Pro. The smartphone lineup is confirmed to be the world’s first handsets powered by Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset. Ahead of their impending debut, a company official has confirmed several specifications of both devices, including the presence of a 5X telephoto camera and 6,100mAh battery on the Xiaomi 15 Pro.
Xiaomi 15 Series Specifications Confirmed
In multiple posts on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, Xiaomi highlighted that the Xiaomi 15 Pro will be equipped with a 6,100mAh battery with an energy density of 850Wh/L — a 38 percent improvement over the Xiaomi 14 Pro, which features a 4,880mAh battery capacity.
Additionally, the purported handset will be equipped with a 2K micro-curved screen which uses customised luminous M9 material, with 1.38mm bezels and a peak brightness of 3,200 nits. The light-emitting material is said to reduce overall power consumption by 10 percent. The Xiaomi 15 Pro model will also benefit from the 10X lossless zoom feature courtesy of the 5X periscope camera. The camera unit on both phones is again confirmed to carry the Leica branding, teasers suggest.
Both the Xiaomi 15 and Xiaomi 15 Pro will be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset paired with the company’s HyperCore technology. This combination is claimed to deliver a 45 percent performance improvement over its predecessor while also reducing power consumption by 52 percent. The company also teased the power figures while playing a large-scale turn-based 3D game for a period of 11 hours in 2K resolution. As per the official, the Xiaomi 15 series will be able to maintain a frame rate of 59.4 frames per second (fps) while maintaining a temperature of 42.1 degrees Celsius.
New Delhi: Rishab Shetty’s highly anticipated film ‘Kantara : Chapter 1’ has taken the Indian film industry by storm with its unique storytelling and gripping visuals. However, behind the breathtaking scenes lies a remarkable feat of production, the creation of the expansive sets for the Kadamba Empire in Kantara : Chapter 1.
According to a source close to the film’s production, the makers faced a major challenge when it came to finding a studio large enough to accommodate the massive sets required for the historical epic.
“The makers were unable to find a studio large enough to build the massive sets of the Kadamba Empire, leading them to construct one of India’s biggest studios in Kundapur for Kantara : Chapter 1,” revealed the insider.
Located in the coastal town of Kundapur, Karnataka, the sprawling studio set the stage for a stunning visual portrayal of the ancient empire. From intricate palace structures to vast landscapes, every corner of the set was designed with painstaking detail to immerse the audience in a world long gone.
The makers of Kantara : Chapter 1 recently unveiled yet another official poster from the film along with the release date of the much anticipated prequel.
Have A Look At The New Poster:
Kantara : Chapter 1 is a prequel to the 2022 blockbuster hit Kantara, directed and starring Rishab Shetty in pivotal role.
The folklore thriller is all set for its much anticipated prequel Kantara : Chapter 1 which is scheduled to release on October 2, 2025.
Amazon Greate Summer Sale brings some massive discounts and lucrative deals on various products. The sale has already begun for the members, and the sale will end on May 07, 2024. This also means that now is the perfect time to buy a new laptop, which you always looked for. The e-commerce giant offers great deals on popular laptop brands like Apple, Asus, Dell, Lenovo, and Samsung. So, if you are looking for the best laptop deals during Amazon Great Summer Sale 2024, you have come to the right place. In this article, we will be talking about the popular laptop deals that you can find right now. So, let’s begin.
Amazon Great Summer Sale 2024: Bank Offers and Discounts on Laptops
Amazon offers interesting offers and discounts on laptops during the Great Summer Sale 2024. Customers can get up to Rs 45,000 off on popular laptops during the sale period. Moreover, one can also get up to Rs 15,000 off on exchange for older devices along with up to 24 months of No-cost EMIs. Coming to bank offers, users can avail 10 percent discount up to Rs 3,000 on ICICI Bank, Bank of Baroda, and OneCard credit/debit cards and EMI transactions. Moreover, one can also get flat Rs 100 cashback on a minimum order of Rs 1,500 using Amazon Pay UPI.
New research on unique sandstone formations in the Colorado Rocky Mountains may confirm that Earth experienced a massive, planet-wide freeze known as “Snowball Earth.” About 700 million years ago, Earth’s surface was encased in ice, creating an extreme climate where early life not only survived but later evolved into complex multicellular organisms.
For decades, the Snowball Earth hypothesis was supported primarily by coastal sedimentary rocks and climate models. However, solid evidence of ice sheets reaching the planet’s equatorial interior has remained elusive—until now. The recent study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, identifies unusual sandstone deposits called Tava, found within the granite formations of Colorado’s Pikes Peak. These sandstones likely formed under the pressure of ice sheets, supporting the Snowball Earth theory with new geological evidence.
Tava sandstone formation linked to ancient ice pressures
Pikes Peak, a sacred site known to the Ute people as Tavá Kaa-vi, is the source of these Tava sandstone formations. Researchers discovered that the sandstones formed when sandy, water-saturated sediment was forced into weakened rock by the immense weight of ice sheets. The study’s lead authors, Christine Siddoway and Rebecca Flowers, used advanced radiometric dating to determine that Tava sandstones developed around 690 to 660 million years ago, aligning with the Cryogenian Period.
Using iron minerals found with the sandstone, Siddoway’s team employed uranium-lead dating to confirm the Tava sandstone’s origins within the Snowball Earth timeframe. The team suggests that the ice sheets covering the equatorial Laurentia landmass, now part of North America, created the pressures necessary to form these sandstone injectites.
Implications for understanding Earth’s climatic past
This discovery strengthens the Snowball Earth hypothesis while also shedding light on other geological phenomena, including “unconformities” where erosion has removed large portions of Earth’s rock record. The findings at Pikes Peak indicate that similar unconformities may predate Snowball Earth, suggesting complex erosion processes over millions of years. Scientists hope these insights will lead to a deeper understanding of Earth’s climate history and the processes that shaped our habitable planet.
Republican President-elect Donald Trump has said his election victory handed him an “unprecedented and powerful” mandate to govern.
He beat Democratic rival Kamala Harris in all seven closely watched swing states, giving him a decisive advantage overall.
Trump’s party has also won both chambers of Congress, giving the returning president considerable power to enact his agenda.
He has broadened his appeal across nearly all groups of voters since his 2020 defeat. And in doing so he pulled off a comeback unmatched by any previously defeated president in modern history.
But the data suggests it was a much closer contest than he and his allies are suggesting.
His communications director Steven Cheung has called it a “landslide” victory. Yet it emerged this week that his share of the vote has fallen below 50%, as counting continues.
“It feels grandiose to me that they’re calling it a landslide,” said Chris Jackson, senior vice-president in the US team of polling firm Ipsos.
The Trump language suggested overwhelming victories, Jackson said, when in fact it was a few hundred-thousand votes in key areas that propelled Trump back to the White House.
That is thanks to America’s electoral college system, which amplifies relatively slender victories in swing states.
Here are three ways to look at his win.
Most voters picked someone other than Trump
With 76.9 million votes and counting, Trump won what is known as the popular vote, according to the latest tally by the BBC’s US partner, CBS News.
That means he scored more votes than Harris (74.4 million), or any other candidate. No Republican has managed that feat since 2004.
But as vote-tallying continues in some parts of the US, he has now slipped a fraction of a percentage point below 50% in his vote share. He is not expected to make up the gap as counting goes on in places like Democratic-leaning California.
This was also the case in 2016, when Trump beat Hillary Clinton to the presidency despite losing the popular vote – having notched only 46% of the overall ballots cast.
In 2024, Trump’s win of both the popular vote and the presidency can be seen as an improvement on his last victory eight years ago.
But Trump cannot say that he won the outright majority of the presidential votes that were cast in the election overall.
To do so, he would need to have won more than 50%, as all victors have done for the last 20 years – other than Trump in 2016.
For this reason, his claim to have a historic mandate “may be overwrought”, suggested Chris Jackson of polling firm Ipsos, who said the language of Trump and his supporters was a tactic being used to “justify the sweeping actions they’re planning to take once they have control of the government”.
Electoral college system amplifies wins in key areas
On a different metric, Trump’s win over Harris in 2024 appears more comfortable. He won 312 votes in the US electoral college compared with Harris’s 226.
And this is the number that really matters. The US election is really 50 state-by-state races rather than a single national one.
The winner in any given state wins all of its electoral votes – for example, 19 in swing state Pennsylvania. Both candidates hoped to reach the magic number of 270 electoral votes to earn a majority in the college.
Trump’s 312 is better than Joe Biden’s 306 and beats both Republican wins by George W Bush. But it is well shy of the 365 achieved by Barack Obama in 2008 or the 332 Obama won getting re-elected, or the colossal 525 by Ronald Reagan in 1984.
And it is important to remember that the “winner takes all” mechanic of the electoral college means that relatively slender wins in some critical areas can be amplified into what looks like a much more resounding triumph.
Trump is ahead by just over 230,000 votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to the latest numbers from CBS. All three states were the focus of intensive campaigning by both parties ahead of the 5 November vote.
If just over 115,000 voters in that group had instead picked Harris, she would have won those Rust Belt swing states, giving her enough votes in the electoral college to win the presidency.
That might sound like a lot of people but the number is a drop in the ocean of the more-than-150 million votes that were cast nationwide.
In other swing states in the Sun Belt – namely Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina – the margins of victory for Trump were much more comfortable.
But when looking at the power wielded by the Republicans more broadly, their majority in the US House, the lower chamber of Congress, remains slender.
Second highest vote count – behind Biden in 2020
There is another measure with which to consider Trump’s win, which is to look at the number of votes he received, although this is a relatively crude measure.
The 76.9 million that he has amassed so far is the second-highest tally in American history.
It is important to remember that the US population, and therefore the electorate, is constantly growing. The more-than-150 million people who voted in the US this year is more than double the number of 74 million who went to the polls in 1964.
That makes comparisons through time tricky. But it was only four years ago that the record haul was achieved.
Biden won 81.3 million votes on his way to the White House in 2020 – a year of historic voter turnout when Trump was again on the ticket.
Although the Republicans made important breakthroughs in 2024, the Democrats also failed to connect with voters, said Jackson, who put the trend down to Americans’ wish to return to “2019 prices” after a years-long cost-of-living squeeze.
“The real story is Harris’s inability to mobilise people who voted for Biden in 2020,” he said.
North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of the presidential election in his twice weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.
Windows 11 has been updated with support for Copilot — Microsoft’s new AI-powered assistant — as part of the company’s latest operating system update. Aside from integrating a chatbot into Windows 11, Microsoft is also updating the MS Paint app with support for layers and graphics generation, while the built-in Snipping Tool for screenshots is getting AI-based features such as text extraction and redaction. Windows Backup will allow you to move information across computers when switching to a new Windows 11 PC.
Microsoft detailed the changes coming to Windows 11 in a blog post on Tuesday and revealed that the Copilot feature is finally making its way to the platform. Copilot will bring the company’s revamped Bing Chat to Windows 11, allowing you to perform various tasks such as taking a screenshot, toggling Bluetooth or Wi-Fi and other system controls, and generating a summary of a web page.
Copilot will also use generative AI responses to provide text and image responses based on your queries. After updating to the latest version of Windows with Copilot, you can press the Windows key and C or click on the Copilot icon on the Windows 11 taskbar to get started with the feature.
Microsoft is also updating the MS Paint app with some of the most notable upgrades it has received in nearly four decades. MS Paint will now let you work with multiple layers, just like Adobe Photoshop. You will also be able to easily remove the background from any picture using the built-in image editing tool, according to the company.
MS Paint is getting a new Cocreator mode that uses artificial intelligence Photo Credit: Microsoft
Meanwhile, a new Paint Cocreator preview will roll out to testers on the Windows Insider in the coming weeks, with support for entering a text prompt to create unique images, Microsoft says in the blog post. The blog post states “50 credits available for initial use of Paint Cocreator. One credit applied per use” — suggesting that the feature will not be free to use when it is rolled out.
The Snipping Tool — Microsoft’s built-in screenshot and markup tool for Windows 11 — is getting new AI-powered features too. After installing the latest Windows 11 update, you will be able to access two new features via the Snipping Tool — text recognition and redaction. While the former uses optical character recognition (OCR) to detect text, the latter will allow you to black out any text from a screenshot such as an email address or a phone number.
Finally, Microsoft is updating the Windows 11 File Explorer with an improved home interface with bigger thumbnails for favourites or recent files and documents. You will also be able to open RAR and 7-zip files natively, without the need for third part file compression apps.
According to the company, you can open the Windows 11 settings app and navigate to Windows Update, and then enable the option titled Get the latest updates as soon as they’re available. You will then need to wait for the update to roll out to your laptop or desktop computer.
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Touted as one of the highest-paid actors in Marathi cinema, Amruta Khanvilkar celebrates her birthday on November 23. After garnering a colossal amount of recognition for her stint in the iconic dance numbers ‘Aye Hip Hopper’ and ‘Wajale Ki Bara’, Amruta took over the screen space with her performances in movies like ‘Raazi’, ‘Malang’, and web series such as ‘Lootere’ and ‘36 Days’. On her special day, she speaks exclusively to mid-day.com about her recent health scare, career challenges, plans for the upcoming year, and more.
The past year was difficult for Amruta Khanvilkar
Amruta reveals that she and her mother both underwent surgeries which was extremely taxing yet humbling. “We came out of it like warriors and to see my mother in the ICU, stitches on her chest, it made me feel very vulnerable. It made me feel helpless, but at the same time, I was extremely grateful to God,” she says.
The actor believes the health scare also made her realise that she needs to slow down. “No matter how much I work, how much I’m busy, how much money anybody makes, I think it all is worthless if you’re near and dear ones have to go through something like this,” she adds.
Amruta Khanvilkar shares her birthday plans
The actor is currently working on a project, she can’t reveal and will celebrate her birthday on set. She also wants to gift herself a farmhouse with a pool. She’s also thankful about being able to buy a new house and will be moving in by the end of this year.
Going forward, she also intends to be calmer and peaceful mentally. “Sometimes old patterns bounce back and they are very dangerous, so I want to change that and I am working towards it.”
Amruta Khanvilkar manifests working with Bhansali, KJo
Despite her fame, Amruta maintains that the biggest challenge in her career has been about waiting for the right opportunity. She doesn’t believe in dream projects but in dream directors. “I would really want to work with Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Karan Johar. I would like to do an international film. There are a lot of these dreams that I feel will be fulfilled in the coming years,” she states.
