Cups of steaming cappuccino, people in jeans and experimental hairdos plonked on cushy beanbags, a couple of young Greeks and Germans chatting - that’s the daily meeting at Trine Animation and Gaming Studio, presided over by founder and Managing Director Sangam Gupta.The 22-year-old almost chokes when he hears the word ‘presided’.

“They’re all my friends. Jesus, I don’t preside over anything. We just have casual meetings in the evening to discuss the day’s progress.”

Gupta began his firm two years ago, but he had known he was headed in this direction ever since he was 13, hacking into Internet games so he wouldn’t have to spend all his pocket money.

A year later, the Delhi boy turned entrepreneur, with a website called planetcricket.net, which modified online games to make them snazzier.

His turning point came when someone from Electronic Arts, one of the world’s largest gaming companies, wrote to him about what a brilliant job he was doing.

“I had absolutely no background in gaming,” said Gupta. “My father owned theatres in UP and could never really figure out what I was up to in front of the computer all day.”

That one e-mail set his career path. After high school, he went to the US to study computer science and started working for a gaming company there.

It was on one of his vacations home that he realised how big gaming was getting in India - and that there was still no one creating full-fledged games in the country.

Trine Animation is now the only Indian company that creates XBox and PlayStation games in-house.
 
On the Streets of Mumbai
Gupta founded Trine Animation in April 2006, with Rs 8 crore invested by an equity firm, and five employees - all friends he made on the job in the US.

They began in a one-room office in Andheri, with packaging boxes for furniture. Today, Gupta has a plush set-up in Malad, spread across an entire floor. And 200 employees who spend the day creating content, writing scripts or illustrating for the online games he creates.

“I’m glad I decided to set up shop in Mumbai,” Gupta said. “It has the best atmosphere for a start-up, all the resources you need, and even the people within the industry are so helpful here.”

His is a typical success story of the nascent but fast-growing Indian game development industry, expected to grow tenfold to $425 million (Rs 1,700 crore) by 2010.

“Gaming has to succeed simply because it is one of the few industries that makes leisure a profession,” said Alok Kejriwal, founder of Games to Win, the gaming branch of online lottery company Contests to Win. “Virtually everyone’s a start-up, and everyone’s succeeding. It’s been a year since we began and we already have 150 employees.”

Gupta’s next venture is a game that is truly Indian in theme and characters. On the drawing board already, it’s called Streets of Mumbai and offers players a thrilling car race through Nariman Point, along Marine Drive and into the international airport.

“India creates mobile and flash games, but complex online games with detailed scripts are still not our forte. I want to break that barrier,” said Gupta. “India is far more talented and the manpower is much cheaper, so why not our resources to create games instead of doing it for other countries?”

If you study the $1 billion gaming markets in China or Korea, Gupta adds, the most popular games are the indigenous ones that have local characters and themes. “That is exactly what I want to achieve.”
 
Head-hunting, around the world
On Gupta’s payroll are Americans, Greeks, West Indians and Romanians - all people he gathered on work trips abroad and all known game creators in their own countries. But this field needs talent, not qualifications, he stresses.

Gupta found one of his best artists at Malad railway station. “He used to sit on the platform and draw brilliant portraits for Rs 10 each,” said Gupta. “I offered him a job and today he is one of my most important illustrators, earning about Rs 40,000 per month.”
 
Never a Sunday
While the thought of making your leisure your livelihood is appealing, it needs a lot of hard work. Gupta admits he has no social life.

His day begins at 10 am and ends at 3. It’s been this way ever since he set up his company. When everyone’s workday ends at 7 pm, it just gets more hectic for Gupta.

At 7 pm here, London starts their workday and it’s time to coordinate with his clients in the UK. At midnight, San Francisco, the biggest gaming hub in the world, wakes up. And the jetsetter, who is constantly flying off to either the US or Germany, usually ends up working weekends too.

“When I was 18 and studying in the US, my friends and I would always talk about turning 21 and finally being able to get into US nightclubs. Today, I’m 22 but I don’t go clubbing,” said Gupta, adding with a smile that it’s “worth the sacrifice” because he loves going to work every day.
 
Totting it up
So how did a 20-year-old raise Rs 8 crore?
“It wasn’t too difficult finding an investor because gaming is one of the hottest industries today and they knew that it wouldn’t backfire,” said Gupta. His age actually went for him - his ideas were fresh and original and he connected with the audience because he was virtually one of them.

When will his two-year-old company break even?
That’s a question that doesn’t worry Gupta too much. “We’re already doing better than we expected and we’ve surpassed our investors’ targets,” he said. The company is growing at an annual rate of 100 per cent and is expected to break even in 2009.
“By end-2010, the company will have a turnover of $30 million (Rs 120 crore),” declared Gupta.

Bangalore: Air India on Friday announced introduction of a new thrice weekly direct flight from Bangalore to Dubai and increased frequency of its flights between Bangalore and Male to daily from March 30.

As part of its summer schedule, Air India also announced reintroduction of daily flights between Bangalore and Kochi from March 30.

The new Air India flight IC 949 will leave Bangalore on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 3.20 pm to reach Dubai at 5.30 pm (local time), it said in a release here.

The incoming flight from Dubai will arrive Bangalore on the same days at 2.45 pm.

The Air India presently operates a direct flight to Sharjah in the UAE which leaves Bangalore at 8.15 pm on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays.

The existing five days a week flight to Male (Maldives) will be increased to daily it said adding flight IC 965 will leave Bangalore at 3.30 pm to reach Male at 5.00 pm. The incoming flight will arrive Bangalore at 2.15 pm.

The re-introduced flight IC 909 will leave Bangalore daily at 11.50 am and reach Kochi at 12.45 pm. The incoming flight from Kochi will reach Bangalore at 11.10 am, it said.

WASHINGTON: A film produced by an India-born doctor, which questions the conservative American mindset on stem cell research, is set to be premiered at the Cannes this year.

The film is based on the novel of Dr Shelley Chawla, who practices medicine in US. His book Hope… in vitro was released last year.

World premiere of HOPE, parts of which have been shot in New Delhi, is being sold at Cannes by Mumbai and London-based iDream Independent Pictures that produced and distributed Bollywood films such as Monsoon Wedding, Bend it like Beckham, Bollywood Hollywood, a release said in Washington.

The film will be up for at MIPTV Cannes in April 08 and the Cannes Film Market in May, it said.

A Kansas film director, Rich Ambler has directed this movie, which also stars Inder Mishra, an Indian actor who played a lawyer in A mighty heart.

Chawla’s script highlights the paradoxes of American conservatives who consider stem cell research as ”immoral”.

The film revolves around a powerful US Senator, who built his campaign career on a conservative platform. He is challenged for his tough stance against embryonic stem cell research.

The research controversy becomes a personal dilemma for him when a tragedy devastates his family. His son is paralyzed in an attempted murder. The senator is faced with a crucial choice: his family or his philosophical beliefs.

The author-cum-producer has tried bring his ten years as a neurologist the film, giving it medical authenticity as well as vivid emotional depth garnered from treating hundreds of chronically ill patients.

New Delhi: The government has decided to establish four new Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and six Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) campuses, Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh said Friday.The new IITs will come up in Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Punjab, while the IIMs will be set up in Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Haryana.

New Delhi: Losing a fifty-thousand-rupee-laptop is a reason to be worried, but it may not be so any longer.

Laptop locating software – a silent burglar alarm – can now be easily installed and a company like Unistall offers just such a service.

When a laptop that has the software disappears, Unistall’s servers pick up its distress signals the instant the thief tries to surf on the stolen laptop. The Internet Protocol address is quickly tracked and just as quickly, the cops can recover the laptop.

Locate Laptop’s Project Manager Manu Bharadwaj says that it took them 1.5 years to create the software.

Bharadwaj also adds that if the laptop is not traced, they would give 7.5 times the money spent.For some, though, the deterrent in using Unistall’s software would be that it costs Rs 3,000.

However, Unistall is not the only software available.

Softwares such as Locate PC and Snap Files, both of which are easily available on the Internet offer the same protection without charging a penny. They even work exactly like Unistall.

There is catch, however. No matter which of these softwares are used, if once someone formats the hard disk, none of them would be able to track the laptop.

Ukrainian veterinarian, Leonid Stadnik, 2.59 meter (8,5 feet) tall, the world’s tallest living man according to the Guinness Book of Records, rides a bicycle specially made for him, in the village of Podoliantsy, Ukraine’s northwestern Zhytomyr region, 212 kilometers (131.74 miles) west of the capital Kiev, Sunday, March 23, 2008. Stadnik’s growth spurt started at age 14 after a brain operation apparently stimulated his pituitary gland. Stadnik, 37, is still growing up

LOS ANGELES - The moon could become a final resting place for some of mankind thanks to a commercial service that hopes to send human ashes to the lunar surface on robotic landers, the company said on Thursday.

Celestis, Inc., a company that pioneered the sending of cremated remains into suborbital space on rockets, said it would start a service to the surface of the moon that could begin as early as next year.

The cost starts at $10,000 for a small quantity of ashes from one person.

Celestis president Charles Chafer said his company reached an agreement with Odyssey Moon Ltd. and Astrobotic Technology Inc., to attach capsules containing cremated remains onto robotic lunar landers.

Odyssey Moon and Astrobotic are among private enterprises seeking to land a robotic craft on the moon and conduct scientific experiments. The cremation capsules would remain on the moon with the lunar landers when the missions were complete.

Chafer said he expected about 1,000 capsules containing ashes to be launched on the first lunar mission, expected in late 2009 or early 2010, and about 5,000 on future flights.

“The moon is a special place,” Chafer said, adding a half dozen people had already signed up for the service.

“For many people, it would be a romantic notion to look up into the sky and see the moon and know that your mom or dad or loved one is up there memorialized.”

In the past 11 years, Celestis Inc., a unit of Houston-based Space Services Incorporated, has sent the ashes of hundreds of people from 14 nations into space, including U.S. astronaut Gordon Cooper and “Star Trek” actor James Doohan, who played chief engineer Scotty in the popular TV series.

CHENNAI, India - India opener Virender Sehwag hit his second career triple century in the first test against South Africa on Friday.

Sehwag finished unbeaten on 309 as India reached 468 for one in reply to South Africa’s first innings 540 all out at the close on the third day.

The 29-year-old, who also made 309 against Pakistan at Multan in 2004, became only the third player to achieve the feat of two triple 100s, matching Australian Don Bradman and West Indies batsman Brian Lara.

It was the fastest triple hundred in test cricket since the scorers began recording number of balls faced by a batsman.

Sehwag raced to 300 off 278 balls in the final session, surpassing Australian Matthew Hayden’s 362-ball effort when he scored a then world record 380 against Zimbabwe at Perth in 2003-4.

The Indian batsman lashed 42 fours and five sixes to race to his triple hundred, nudging paceman Makhaya Ntini for a single to squareleg.

Sehwag, who batted for eight hours to reach the milestone, lifted his arms triumphantly and embraced partner Rahul Dravid as the South African fielders applauded and the Indian players and the rest of the spectators gave him a standing ovation.

Mumbai, (IANS) This certainly isn’t cricket. Actress Celina Jaitley alleged that cricketers from across the border abused her after she performed at the Indian Cricket League (ICL) match between Pakistan and India.

On Sunday, Celina had finished her performance and was taking what she calls a “glory round” with her security personnel around the stadium, when she heard loud abuses in Hindi coming out of the players’ enclosure.

“At first I couldn’t believe where it was coming from. I still want to give them the benefit of doubt because it’s so hard to believe they could behave this way,” she said with a shudder, recalling that she wanted to rush back to her car and drive away from the nightmare.

“But I couldn’t because the security guys wouldn’t let me pass. So I was stuck listening to myself being described in the most colourful language,” Celina, who was seen in films like “No Entry” and “Shakalaka Boom Boom”, told IANS.

The ex-Miss India refuses to lay the blame on anyone for the abusive incident, but she does admit that she recognises the Pakistani players because she had participated in a TV interview with them for a sports channel.

She said: “But what hurts and offends me more is the fact that people from our own country have chosen to speak on behalf of those who abused me. As they say, I am ‘just another Bollywood actress’. Fine. Does that mean I don’t command even the respect that other woman get?”

All in all it hasn’t been a very pleasant Easter and Holi weekend for Celina.

“I attended my producer Kumar Mangatji’s Holi bash Saturday and then having ensured that I wasn’t required for shooting Sunday, I left for Delhi for the ICL, tired and irritable. I had no clue what was waiting for me. And to top it all, I had observed Lent this Easter and was very weak and depleted. This wasn’t what I expected.”

Celina is a child of a mixed marriage. Her father is a Punjabi and her mother is an Afghan.

New Delhi, (IANS) Sony Entertainment Television has denied that Bollywood actor Salman Khan has been roped in to host a reality show for the channel for a whopping Rs.890 million.

“We have no information regarding the show and we don’t know who has leaked this news,” a well-placed source in Sony TV told IANS.

Another source, however, indicated there is a possibility that Synergy Adlabs might be producing the show.

Siddhartha Basu, head of Synergy Adlabs, told IANS: “Till the shows are officially announced, we are not in a position to confirm what we are producing, for whom and with whom.”

According to media reports, Salman will be paid Rs.890 million for doing 104 episodes for the show.

Reports also say that Salman’s presence in the show is an answer to Star Plus’ game show “Kya Aap Paanchvi Paas Se Tez Hain?” where Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan will play a quizmaster.

When Mallika Sherawat is not busy chartering planes back from events in Bhopal, she’s busy shopping for jewellery. What’s new you’d ask, given diamonds are a girl’s best friend? Well, the thing is that the Jat seductress is not buying trinkets for herself, but for a beautiful little baby boy.

She’s bought a dazzling, blue sapphire for her close friend, Princess Myasa’s (the daughter of the King of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani) new born son, Mohammad. Mallika is expected to fly out to Qatar early April to visit the Princess and little Mohammad. Mallika had attended the Princess’ wedding on a special invitation from the King of Qatar in January last year. Well, Mallika is as dazzling as the baubles she gifts. And we just have to see whether she flies commercial or charters a jet yet again!

Kolkata, (IANS) Following the steps of Bollywood king Shah Rukh Khan, Tollywood superstar Mithun Chakraborty has bought the Kolkata Tigers team of the Indian Cricket League (ICL).

Mithun Da, as he is popularly called in West Bengal after he shifted to the Bengali film industry from Bollywood, told IANS: “Yes, I have bought the Kolkata Tigers of the ICL. Thursday everything will be formally announced after completing some legal formalities.

“I have always been a sports lover and had organised the Raj Kapoor Trophy in Chembur, Mumbai, for several years where big stars played. But it was not just passion that made me buy the team, there is business in it also.”

The king of disco dance said: “I am an entertainer and Twenty20 is a fantastic form of entertainment. There is craze and good business in it. So I decided to try my luck.”

Asked how much he spent on the team, Mithun said: “At present I cannot reveal the figure, but it is certainly a triple digit in crores (tens of millions).”

He said after completing the formalities he would go for an overhaul of the team and add to its sheen by giving it a logo along with a slogan and a theme song.

On whether he wanted to rename the side Bengal Tigers, he said: “I have strongly recommended it. Kolkata is the capital of Bengal, but my side will represent all the people of the state. I have fans in every corner of the state.”

Asked what made him go for a team in ICL and not Indian Premier League (IPL), Mithun said: “I woke up late. The realisation that I could even own a team and make it into a profitable business venture dawned late on me.

“There is no question of competing with Shah Rukh Khan. He is one of the finest gentlemen I have come across and he gives a lot of respect to his co-stars. Besides, you can’t compare our popularity. He is way above me.”

On whether his Bengal Tigers would imbibe his fighting spirit, the reigning hero of Tollywood said: “Undoubtedly so. Life has never been a bed of roses for me. I have fought for everything and my team will be a fighter too.”