Model-actress Cara Delevingne says she was devastated when she failed to land the lead role in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.

The 24-year-old model-and-actress thought she was the perfect match for the titular role – which went to Mia Wasikowska – in Tim Burton's movie in 2008 but was devastated when she found out that she hadn't made the cut, reported OK! magazine.

"I was disappointed I didn't get it. I was 16, that was one of my first big auditions and I was so sure it was right for me. I thought I was made for Alice but evidently I wasn't.

"It was a hard lesson but it sort of propelled me towards what I'm doing it now; it was the precursor motivation," Delevingne says.

CBSE has released the NEET 2017 admit card on the official website www.cbseneet.nic.in. Candidates willing to download NEET 2017 admit card have to visit the official website and fill the blank space with the asked information including registration number and date of birth. 

Earlier, it has informed that the CBSE NEET admit card 2017 will be released on April 22 at around 10.30AM on the official website but on the other hand it was informed by the candidates that the website is not opening and they are waiting to download NEET admit card.

Candidates are facing technical issue because of the heavy load on the website, so the candidates are advised to stay calm and try to visit the website after a interval of time.

CBSE has made an announcement that the NEET 2017 examination will take place on May 7 across 104 exam centres in the country.

Chief coach Roelant Oltmans feels the upcoming Sultan Azlan Shah Cup will give a clear picture of where the Indian hockey team stands after working rigorously on the physical and mental aspects.

With a fresh outlook, new tactics and youngsters in the fold, the team leaves for the prestigious tournament in Ipoh, Malaysia on Saturday night.

The tournament is the first major event in 2017’s international calendar for the senior men's team.

"While getting off to a good start is important, the most important thing for me is the finish in December when we really have to be good. This tournament will give us an indication on the things we expect and test ourselves to see if the progress I expect to see is really on, Oltmans said.

India will take on Australia, Great Britain, New Zealand, Japan and hosts Malaysia.

While India will be vying to improve their silver medal-finish in 2016, beating Australia will be on the players' minds as the team has been a nemesis for long.

"Yes, in a way Australia has been a tough team to beat.

Until last year they had a lot of senior players and were the most experienced team. In pressure situations, their past performances really helped them cope with that pressure and come up with good results," said captain cum goalkeeper PR Sreejesh.

He added, "But I think now, our team has experienced youngsters, who can turn the matches around. In tournaments like these its important to beat top teams like Australia so that you can develop your confidence."

While India will play with a mix of young and experienced players in the team, Australia, too, will come with a young squad.

"Australia come in as a new team, with new coaching staff a and mix of young and experienced players. We play them in the third match so we get to watch two of their matches before we play against them. That way we will get to make analyses of their game and make specific plans to play against them, stated Oltmans.

India had a 40-day long national camp where the team was put through a tough regime involving nearly five-six hours of intense training.

"We deliberately had a 40-day camp. Physically I wanted them to be at a good starting point so there was a lot of emphasis on that and I believe we have succeeded in achieving that level.

"With new players coming into the squad, the understanding between players had to grow. New style of play needed to be adapted to and the best place to get confirmations is in big tournaments and we go to Malaysia to test ourselves," concluded the 62-year-old Oltmans.

India begin their campaign against Great Britain on April 29.

Actor Sanjay Dutt's comeback film Bhoomi, directed by Omung Kumar, will release now on September 22.

The film was earlier scheduled to release on August 4. However, the makers have pushed back the release date to September 22.

The new release date was confirmed by producers Bhushan Kumar and Sandeep Singh in a joint statement.

"Sanjay has given his best performance till date and I am glad that we are increasing the anticipation for the audiences," director Omung Kumar said.

Sanjay along with the cast and crew of the film is currently shooting for the climax here. He earlier shot in Agra and Chambal.
"
"We are extremely happy to have our film finally releasing on September 22 this year. Sanjay and our entire team found it an apt decision to shift the release date by a month as this would give us enough time to promote the film," Bhushan said.

Bhoomi is an emotional and sensitive revenge drama that explores the relationship between a father and daughter. 

Scientists in the United States have created the most detailed digital map to track the changing racial diversity of every neighbourhood in the country.

Researchers from University of Cincinnati (UC) in the US applied NASA map making techniques to 20 years of data collected by the US Census Bureau to build one of the most detailed racial-diversity maps ever created.

They take advantage of NASA land-cover grids made up of 30-square-metre blocks. Using this grid system, they can more precisely group people where they actually live by recognising lakes, parks, factories and otherwise uninhabitable areas.

Researchers combined land-cover mapping techniques with cumbersome volumes of federal data collected every 10 years in the census.

The zoomable map shows at a glance how the racial composition of neighbourhoods changed between 1990 and 2010, researchers said.

"People do not realise that the US is a diverse country but at the same time is still very segregated," said Tomasz Stepinski, professor at UC.

"The maps can tell us much more about racial composition and can be used by everyone. They do not require expert knowledge to understand the result, so I think maps can be used by a broader community," said Anna Dmowska of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland.

"The maps allow users to create their own smaller study area and then glean data from it. In some cities, they tell the story of recent immigration in America," Stepinski said.

"For example, the maps demonstrate the influx of Asian immigrants in San Francisco over the last 20 years. Many of these newcomers are Southeast Asians who were drawn to the area by the Silicon Valley boom," he said.

"If you put the population geography together with an understanding of the social meaning of that road, you can tell a pretty powerful story about what segregation means," said Jeffrey Timberlake, an associate professor at UC.

The study was published in the journal PLOS One.

Tata Steel's former Managing Director JJ Irani on Friday said acquisition of Britain-based steel major Corus by the Indian steel producer was an "aspirational mistake".

On the recent spat between Ratan Tata and Cyrus Mistry, he said the former had never interfered in the board's decision. 

"Acquisition of Corus was a mistake. Not an intentional one but an aspirational mistake," Irani said at an interactive session on management organised by Calcutta Chamber of Commerce here.

Irani, who served as Managing Director of Tata Steel for almost a decade, said that the India steel producer acquired Corus (renamed as Tata Steel Europe) in 2007 when the global steel market was good but the subsequent downturn in global steel market turned the acquisition bad.

Irani said the Tata Steel management had cordial relations with the union in his tenure and with such cordial ties, the 78,000 odd strong workforces could be gradually reduced to 40,000.

"That decision to shed flab at that time has helped the company now to be one of the most profitable and efficient steel companies in India," he said.

Mentioning credibility as the single most important factor in management, Irani, described JRD Tata, who headed 50 companies, as master of management and as his icon. 

Asked about the row between Ratan Tata-Mistry that left to the latter's sacking, he said: "Ratan Tata had never interfered with the board decisions. Tata Sons' majority shareholder Tata Trust has lost the confidence on Mistry."

Irani, however, said the ongoing controversy in IT major Infosys unfolded that founding fathers like NR Narayanamurthy were interfering into the decisions of present board members.

"Interference, in my opinion, is not desirable," he added.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday said that for the first time there is popular support for economic reforms in India and the recent election outcomes are indicative of it.

"The significant part of our economy today is, that there is perhaps for the first time, a huge amount of popular support as far as economic reforms are concerned," Jaitley said here at a reception hosted in his honour by Indian Ambassador to the US Navtej Sarna.

Governments in the past even when they reformed they were in stages, always felt that there was a political cost involved, he said, adding that as a result after some reforms they would take a pause.

"Obviously, people across the world had legitimate grudge as to how long India would take to take some of the steps. I think that phase in now behind us, he told the audience comprising officials from the Trump administration, diplomats, corporate leaders, think-tank community and Indian-Americans.

He said repeated elections indicate that people have become more aspirational and highly supportive of reforms.

Jaitley said that in the last three years India has been able to grow in the range of seven to eight per cent, even as the world has experienced a slowdown. "That is the rate of growth that we have fairly maintained. Our all other economic parameters seems to be fairly well under control," he said.

"We have seen in the last few years, 7-8 per cent growth is the Indian normal now," he said. "We grew 7.2 per cent, followed by 7.9 per cent, followed by likely 7.1 and the next year it is expected to go up," he said, adding that this figure could go up depending on two circumstances.

First being that does growth return to the rest of the world. And second being the untested area, economists feel is the impact of the goods and services tax when implemented itself could result in significant growth jump, he noted.

Under the Modi government, he said, several changes have taken place. "India by far has become one of the more open economies of the world. Most of our sectors are open for international investment. And we have been attracting one of the largest investment that any country has been attracting in the world," he asserted.

Jaitley said it is combination of this investment which has coming into India, couples with higher public spending, even the private sector spending was a little low, that has kept the Indian growth process going.

"The environment for doing business has considerably eased. The image of India that processes are complicated, files were initiated by corruption, I think we have been successful in changing them significantly," he said.

Governments voluntarily have now taken steps to remove all hurdles that were available, decisions like allocations of resources and several others are determined by market mechanism, he said, adding that India has learned from its past experiences.

"This itself has helped in cleaning up the entire process. We have now undertaken a very ambitious reform of cleaning up the system of political funding in India, something which had been eluding Indian democracy for quite sometime," he said.

Jaitley said that over last several decades world's largest democracy did not have a transparent mechanism of political funding. This year in the budget the government has announced a detailed programme in that regard, he said.

"That is work in progress at the moment itself," he said.

Describing targeting of subsidies as one of the unsung reforms in India, he said its impact in India is huge.

"Every Indian today has a unique identity number, his biometric details are recorded. That has enabled the state to directly sent out benefits in the bank account itself via cash transfer. This has resulted in both targeting of the support system to the poor. And at the same time it has also resulted in substantial amount of savings. These savings have been ploughed back for the anti-poverty programs," he said.

One of the most significant reforms in recent years, considered to be one of the biggest taxation reforms in India is the goods and services tax, he told the audience.

There were multiple taxes at the center and multiple taxes at the States. India was not an economic entity. There was tax on tax, resulting in a cascading effect, he said.

"We have prescribed a single tax for the whole country and for each product there would be one single tax as far as the whole country is concerned," he said.

Noting that GST is likely to be rolled out by July 1, he said once rolled out, it will have significant advantage.

"It is an efficient tax system. It is a system which will ensure free flow of goods and services across the country and to the country s GDP, easen the system of doing business, it has a big IT support," he said.

On demonetisation, he said it has been the extremely difficult reform in India so far, for which the government had to take extraordinary steps.

"In a move which required a lot of determination on the part of the government, the prime minister on November 8 announced that high denomination currency ceased to be a legal tender and people per se were required to deposit in the banks, the anonymity around currency was lost and therefore large amount of disclosure have been made by people whose income profile do not tally with the amount that they have deposited, he said.

"This obviously has resulted in large digitisation as far as economy is concerned. So the number of banking transaction, the number of digitised transactions have increased significantly. And hopefully that is going to be the future as far the Indian economy is concerned," he added.

Police on Saturday arrested Pradeep Yadav, a Jharkhand Vikas Morcha-Prajatantrik (JVM-P) legislator, sitting on dharna for the past week protesting against an upcoming Adani power plant in the state.

Police reached the dharna site in Godda district around 4.30 a.m. on Saturday and arrested the legislator. 

An arrest warrant was issued last week against the legislator for allegedly inciting people against the Adani power plant.

"My agitation will continue even inside jail," Yadav told reporters.

Around 900 acres of land has been acquired in Godda district for the power plant. Adani is to set up a 1,600 MW power plant for electricity to be supplied to Bangladesh.

Some villagers are in favour of the plant while some are against it.

An Adani power plant supporter was thrashed by some unidentified persons in Jharkhand's Godda district on Friday, police said.

According to Police, people opposing the Adani power plant entered the house of Ranjan Mandal in Basantpur village of Godda district and thrashed him. 

Mandal had led a procession favouring the power plant. 

No arrests have been made in the case.

The opposition parties in the state have alleged that the land rate of Santhal Pargana region has been reduced to help Adani power.

The mobile subscriber base of seven telecom operators, including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone, increased by 5.68 million in March to reach 895.25 million, according to industry data.

The numbers include those of the latest entrant, Reliance Jio Infocomm as of December 2016. Excluding the data of the Mukesh Ambani-led firm, the total subscriber base at the end of March 2017 stood at 823.10 million.

"…the number of mobile phone subscribers showed an increase to 895.258 million in March 2017. The net increase in subscriber base is 5.68 million in the month of March," the Cellular Operators Association of India said in a statement.

Bharti Airtel led the subscriber growth, adding 3 million new mobile customers during March and taking the total base to 273.65 million subscribers. It had the highest market share at 33.25 per cent.

Vodafone followed in the tally with 209.06 million subscribers and Idea Cellular with 195.37 million subscribers.

Reliance Jio had 72.158 million subscribers.

"The growth in the subscriptions indicates that consumer base is expanding… The industry, however, is undergoing extreme financial stress and submits that requisite interventions (rpt) interventions are made at the policy regulatory front for a stable, facilitative long term ecosystem," COAI Director General Rajan S Mathews said.

Telenor, whose business has been acquired by Airtel, lost 1.13 million mobile customers.

West Bengal and Andaman and Nicobar added the maximum number of subscribers at 0.86 million million in March, while UP East circle had the highest number of subscribers at 75.10 million.

Two IPS officers were transferred and one RAS officer was put under Awaiting Posting Orders status in Rajasthan.

Akhilesh Kumar, who was posted as the SP in Sikar was shifted to Anti-Corruption Bureau as the SP, while DCP Jodhpur East Rathod Vinit Kumar was transferred to Sikar as the SP.

DCP (Headquarters and Traffic) Jodhpur Police Commissionerate Vikas Kumar will hold the additional charge of the DCP (West) Jodhpur till next orders.

RAS officer and Additional District Collector Sikar Narendra Kumar was removed from his post and put under the APO status.

The transfer orders were issued by the Department of Personnel of the state government last night.

Actress Priyanka Chopra, who has returned to India after wrapping up the shooting of the second season of popular American TV series Quantico, says there is nothing like coming back home.

"Wherever in the world I go.There is nothing like coming home. Thank you to everyone who gave me such a warm welcome as I landed in Mumbai," Priyanka posted on Twitter on Saturday morning. 

In Quantico, Priyanka plays the lead role of Alex Parrish, an FBI recruit, who after graduating from the FBI Academy, joins the agency and later becomes a prime suspect of a terrorist attack.

On film front, Priyanka is gearing up for the release of Baywatch, which marks her debut in Hollywood. 

The film, which also stars Dwayne The Rock Johnson and Zac Efron, Baywatch is adapted from the popular 1990's TV show of the same name. 

In Baywatch, Priyanka essays the negative character — Victoria Leeds. 

Homo floresiensis, a species of tiny human discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003, most likely evolved from an ancestor in Africa and not from Homo erectus – an ancestor to modern humans – as has been widely believed, a study says.

The researchers believe that their findings, published in the Journal of Human Evolution, should help put to rest a hotly contested debate about the origin of Homo floresiensis.

"We can be 99 per cent sure it's not related to Homo erectus and nearly 100 per cent chance it isn't a malformed Homo sapiens," said Mike Lee of Australia's Flinders University and the South Australian Museum.

Homo floresiensis, dubbed "the hobbits" due to their small stature, were most likely a sister species of Homo habilis — one of the earliest known species of human found in Africa 1.75 million years ago, the study said.

Data from the study concluded there was no evidence for the popular theory that Homo floresiensis evolved from the much larger Homo erectus, the only other early hominid known to have lived in the region with fossils discovered on the Indonesian mainland of Java.

"The analyses show that on the family tree, Homo floresiensis was likely a sister species of Homo habilis. It means these two shared a common ancestor," said study leader Debbie Argue of the Australian National University.

"It's possible that Homo floresiensis evolved in Africa and migrated, or the common ancestor moved from Africa then evolved into Homo floresiensis somewhere," Argue said.

Homo floresiensis is known to have lived on Flores until as recently as 54,000 years ago.

Where previous research had focused mostly on the skull and lower jaw, this study used 133 data points ranging across the skull, jaws, teeth, arms, legs and shoulders.

None of the data supported the theory that Homo floresiensis evolved from Homo erectus, Argue said.

"We looked at whether Homo floresiensis could be descended from Homo erectus," she said.

"We found that if you try and link them on the family tree, you get a very unsupported result. All the tests say it doesn't fit — it's just not a viable theory," Argue said.

This was supported by the fact that in many features, such as the structure of the jaw, Homo floresiensis was more primitive than Homo erectus, she added.

Classes in colleges across the Kashmir Valley remained suspended for the fifth day on the trot as a precautionary measure in the wake of protests by students earlier this week against alleged high-handedness of security forces.

Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir, Baseer Khan, had yesterday issued orders to suspend the teaching work for the fifth day at a meeting wherein he reviewed the functioning of educational institutions in the Valley.

During the meeting, Khan asked principals of various colleges to ensure peaceful atmosphere in their institutions and prevent entry of outsiders.

He directed them to adopt a proactive approach in dealing with any untoward incident on campuses and focus on ensuring peaceful atmosphere in their institutions.

The administration had on Monday issued orders for the closure of Kashmir University, all colleges and higher secondary schools on Tuesday after students protested the alleged highhandedness of security forces against students of Degree College, Pulwama, last week.

The suspension of classes in colleges was later extended by another day.

On Wednesday, Khan issued directions to suspend the teaching work in all colleges of Kashmir division for two more days, even as classes had resumed in Kashmir University and higher secondary schools that day.

Students of many of these institutions across the Valley had held protests on Monday. While scores of students were injured in security forces' action at Pulwama on the weekend, Monday's clashes also left several injured.

Former Manchester United, Lazio and Inter Milan midfielder Juan Sebastian Veron said on Friday he has accepted a position as coordinator of Argentina's national youth football teams.

The 42-year-old is said to have been handpicked by new Argentinian Football Association (AFA) president Claudio Tapia, who has identified a revamp of the country's youth system as a top priority, reports Xinhua news agency.

"There are some details that still need to be finalised, but I will be in charge of the national youth teams," Veron was quoted as saying by TyC Sports.

Veron said he invited his former Argentina national teammate Diego Milito to work alongside him in the role. "Diego Milito has presence and clear ideas," Veron, who was capped 73 times for Argentina, said. 

"Argentinian football could do with his input and his nomination is supported by all of the (AFA) directors."

Veron is currently the president of Argentinian top flight club Estudiantes and come out of retirement in February to represent the club in this year's Copa Libertadores.

At least 135 Afghan soldiers were killed and 60 injured in a deadly attack by Taliban militants on an Afghan army base in Balkh province, an official said on Saturday.

Ten Taliban militants were killed by the forces during Friday's attack on the 209 Shaheen Corps Headquarters, one of the largest military bases in Mazar-e-Sharif city, Tolo News quoted an official as saying on condition of anonymity as the government has not released the official figure.

The Taliban group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The official said the toll is expected to rise further as some of the injured are in critical condition.

Defence Ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri said Taliban militants wearing army uniforms stormed the compound during Friday prayers.

The militants entered the base in a military vehicle and began shooting at the soldiers as they prayed at a mosque in the base. The attackers used rocket-propelled grenades and rifles.

A spokesman said that 10 militants were killed by the forces.

Afghanistan CEO Abdullah Abdullah has condemned the "cowardly" attack".

"What Taliban did in Mazar today (Friday) was against all values," he said.

Former President Hamid Karzai tweeted: "I condemn in strongest terms the terrorist attack on our military base in Mazar-e-Sharif that killed and wounded many of our brave soldiers."

The NATO Resolute Support Mission also condemned the attack, calling it reprehensible.

General John Nicholson, Commander of NATO Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, said in a statement that the attack "shows the barbaric nature of the Taliban".

"All of us condemn such murderous and reprehensible actions."

The statement also reaffirmed the NATO's support to the Afghan forces.

"The Afghan National Defence and Security forces and the people of Afghanistan have my personal assurance that we will continue to stand with them. We support our valuable friends and partners in the fight against terrorism," it said.

The attack came just two days after Defence Minister Abdullah Habibi visited the base during a trip to Balkh.

It is the second major attack on an Afghan military installation in 2017.

The Taliban in March attacked Sardar Mohammad Daoud military hospital here killing at least 50 persons.

A Congress delegation met Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singh and demanded a CBI probe into the lynching of Pehlu Khan in Alwar district, allegedly by cow vigilantes.

The delegation, led by Rajasthan PCC chief Sachin Pilot, met the governor and handed over a memorandum.

"Pehlu Khan (55) was beaten to death on April 1 in Alwar by a mob of gau rakshaks and there should be a CBI probe into his death," the Congress leaders demanded.

While expressing concern over the deteriorating law and order situation in the state, Pilot said that criminals are roaming scot-free under the BJP rule and their confidence is high just because the government is negligent.

"The functioning of police and the statement of the state home minister present bad examples," he said.

The PCC chief also expressed surprise over the silence of Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje on the issue.

Rajasthan Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria had earlier said the people intercepted by cow vigilantes in Alwar did not have transit permit.

Others who were part of the delegation were Leader of Opposition in the state assembly Ramesh Dudy, former Union minister Jitendra Singh, AICC secretary Zubair Khan, senior PCC vice president Gopal Shekhawat, former state minister Amaaduddin Ahmed Khan and Alwar district Congress chief Tikaram, besides other party leaders from Alwar.
 

The recent development in the Sunil Grover-Kapil Sharma brawl is that Grover has refused to return to the Kapil Sharma Show.

After a number of tweets exchanged and clarifications made, it is now being said that Grover is all set to debut with his own show. Just like the Kapil Sharma Show, his show will also have celebrity guests.

The prime challenge for this new show would be to keep it different from Kapil’s show.

Reportedly Grover is not comfortable with the idea of his name in the title of the show.

Guests will consist of celebrities, musicians and comedians

If rumours are to be believed, then Ali Asgar, Chandan Prabhakar and Sugandha Mishra will also join Grover.

While Grover is in talks with Sony channel, he is also receiving offers from rival channels.

The show will premiere in June.