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'I hope everyone sees a different side of me'

'I am a huge fan of Prabhas. It was a dream to work with him.'





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Who is Priyanka's best friend? She tells us

'My life hasn't changed much, in terms of how I travel and work since I got married. Nick and I are both work-oriented and have a lot of drive and ambition. But two countries are a part of it, so it takes a lot of flights, a lot of beating jet lag, forgetting to eat, not getting enough time to sleep...'




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Video: Deepika-Ranveer celebrate first anniversary

Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh celebrated their first wedding anniversary by offering prayers at the Venkateswara temple located at the hill town of Tirumala, near Tirupati.




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Akshay-Kareena have Good Newwz for you!

Karan Johar launched the trailer of his new production Good Newwz with the film's cast, Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Diljit Singh and Kiara Advani.





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Just what did Ajay Devgn tell Saif?

Ajay Devgn released the trailer of his latest home production, Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior, in Mumbai.





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Say Hello to Bollywood's Newest Star Kids!

It was a warm family affair, where Padmini Kolhapure and Ravi Kishan launched the careers of their respective children.








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SEE: Why Sridevi refused to work with Amitabh

'Sridevi was known as this elusive movie star, but there was a ticking brain there that I don't think she got enough credit for.'




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When Disha called Anil Kapoor CRAZY!

"After this film, Aditya (Roy Kapur) and Disha (Patani) are going to be major stars," Anil Kapoor assured at the trailer launch of his new film, Malang.






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PIX: Aamir-Kiran at Javed Akhtar's birthday bash

Javed Akhtar's 75th birthday celebrations started early with the unveiling of an exhibition of photographs from his life. His family also threw a retro-themed party for him at their home, and invited his friends over.




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See: Anupam Kher's AMAZING New York Encounters

Among Bollywood's most popular actors, Anupam Kher has fans all over the world. But he's one of the few celebs who reaches out to them, and posts interesting videos of his interactions with them.





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Video: Ayushmann is in the mood to party!

It's party time for Ayushmann Khurrana, at home and at work! A day after the actor celebrated his wife Tahira's birthday, he attended a 'success party' for his new trailer Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan.




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Sharvari watches Forgotten Army with Vicky-Katrina!

Quite a few film folk attended a special screening Kabir Khan's Web series The Forgotten Army: Azaadi Ke Liye, which starts streaming on Amazon Prime from January 24.







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Video: Shah Rukh, Gauri glam up for a party

Gauri Khan hosted a party at her store, Gauri Khan Designs, in Juhu, north west Mumbai, to celebrate her new show for Karan Johar's Dharmatic Entertainment.




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Video: Heard Karan Johar's Bhoot story?

Bhoot- The Haunted Ship stars Vicky Kaushal, and is inspired from a true incident in 2011, when a ship came out of nowhere and docked at Mumbai's Juhu beach for a few days. Director Bhanu Pratap Singh has created a fictional story around it.





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Video: Katrina watches Bhoot with Vicky Kaushal

When Vicky's latest film Bhoot Part One: The Haunted Ship had a special screening, Katrina made sure to attend.






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Video: Watch Shraddha celebrate her birthday

Shraddha Kapoor took some time off from the promotions of her upcoming film Baaghi 3 to celebrate her birthday with her fans and the media.






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Video: Hina Khan shows how to wear the mask correctly

Hina Khan's tutorial on how to wear the mask right in this video.




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Video: Wash your hands like Priyanka Chopra

After the Antakshri Challenge, Bollywood stars have taken up the Safe Hands Challenge, launched by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organisation.







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Leadership Lifelines: Prayer, Fasting, and Flexibility

How discipline and commitment prove essential in your leadership ministry.

Andy Stanley said, “Leadership is stewardship, and you are accountable,” while speaking to a group of leaders at Catalyst Atlanta in 2006. This quote absolutely resonated with me, because we can forget that as leaders we are responsible for our own leadership. Not only are we accountable to ourselves and those we lead, but most importantly we are accountable to the God that called us to lead.

Leadership in its most basic definition is the action or ability to lead a group or organization. Having been in leadership in education, business, the nonprofit sector, and ministry, I know all too well the truth of this statement. You are only a leader if someone is following you, so we need to give attention to how we lead, the impact of our leadership, and the health of our leadership.

Leading effectively requires discipline, and I have learned I am most effective when I discipline myself. As a leader, I have found three disciplines that help me lead well and avoid leadership pitfalls and burnout. I have used these in every area I have been called to lead. These lifelines have proven viable, having saved my life and the lives entrusted to me. Through the lifelines of prayer, fasting, and flexibility, my leadership has been enhanced in multiple ways. Albeit, prayer, fasting, and flexibility are disciplines, I consider them lifelines because of the life-giving power they have provided.

The lifeline of prayer

We know the power in prayer. We can perform a historical analysis of scripture and see many of the leaders God used were given to prayer. Prayer is what brings our will into alignment with God’s will. Whether God calls us to lead in church or the marketplace, our prayer lives are essential to our success as leaders. ...

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The False Dichotomy

When women (and artists and feelers) underestimate their leadership abilities

Yesterday, I think something snapped in me. I had heard a particular comment exactly the number of times my heart could take it, and I decided I’m done hearing it. For all our sakes.

I was listening to an intelligent, educated young woman—a leader in her congregation who has brought life into the world, knows how to tend it, and who also knows how to tend the life of the spirit in herself and others. She was describing a painful conversation she’d had with her senior pastor who said, “I need you to be more biblical. You’re often too emotional.”

Now, it should be said that we all can let our emotions run the show. There are times when we need to take a moment to discern how we’re handling our emotions, to decide when emotion is a sign of something significant to be heard and when it’s an overreaction in the moment which we need to set aside. Having said that, this kind of comment from a senior pastor can be incredibly destructive to the souls of women and to our recognition of what women bring as leaders.

Studies of fiber pathways in the brain show men naturally think in more centralized ways, whereas women often consider information across both rational and intuitive ways of thinking. Given the scientific evidence that the problem-solving tendency in men naturally favors logic, perception, and action, when emotional, subjective, relational information is communicated by women, it’s easy for men to say, “I’m rational. She’s emotional.” This thought process denies the possibility that the woman has anything reasonable or logical to contribute, undermining her argument or education. Consequently, in the frustration of those kinds of disparaging false ...

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Why I Chose Seminary

Equipping for the challenges and blessings of being called.

For many women leaders, we must be more highly educated than our male counterparts to receive the same acknowledgment of our calling and equipping. That has certainly been true in my experience.

I grew up in a liminal time in my home church. The conversation around women leaders was becoming more and more visible. Capable women were asking hard questions. Traditional pat answers were no longer sufficient. I was lucky to be born in that era because I grew up encouraged to be a leader and pastor by a man who had formerly said women couldn’t be called to preach. But a slow evolution in his beliefs started when I was born.

A granddaughter can change a lot.

I grew up thinking I could do anything until I reached young adulthood. Then the cuteness of having a thirteen-year-old girl read scripture or pray in church hit the asphalt of what do we really believe about women and their callings? It was a tumultuous time. My parents and grandfather shielded me so I only heard rumors of elders fighting or heated disagreements. Slowly, opportunity changed and grew scarcer.

My journey to seminary was perhaps not an extraordinary one for many female leaders. It isn’t surprising that most women pursue seminary for the same reasons men do—the education itself and increased opportunities. I craved education. Increasingly, I’d found the recommended women’s ministry books were light on the theology I found so fascinating.

I read on my own, making my own informal study plan, yet it wasn’t enough. For all that my informal reading was helpful to me, I found it often didn’t count as a female leader. Too often, it was labeled as experience, not knowledge (a difference I still haven’t parsed as being unequal), ...

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Should I Stay or Should I Go?

How to know whether to leave or stay in your ministry context.

“You’re called in until you’re called out.” I’ll never forget the words my mentor spoke over me when I found myself at a crossroads, wondering if I should stay or go in ministry.

My calling in had been clear: after four years of teaching high school English, I knew God was calling me out of the traditional classroom and into full-time outreach ministry. Sitting in the back of an auditorium one night, I felt the speaker’s words directed solely toward me. If you can’t imagine doing anything else with your life, maybe this is God’s way of directing you into full-time work ministry.

Two and a half years later, I stood at another crossroads: this time, I wondered whether I should return to the classroom, accept a ministry position close to home, or pursue another ministry position hundreds of miles away from home. Soon enough, I heard the words, clear as day: You’re free, my dear. You’re free! Free to follow my heart, I pursued the position eight hundred miles away from home and didn’t look back for another six years—until it really was time for me to go.

By that point, I clearly felt called out. Even though saying goodbye felt like a wrench to the heart, my time was over. Although the pain of leaving sometimes overwhelmed the joy of staying, a single choice to go remained. This time, God didn’t whisper words of clarity to me as much as God sat in silence beside me.

I’d been called out, just as I’d been called in.

Perhaps like me, you find yourself at a similar crossroads in ministry, wondering whether you should stay or go in your particular ministry context. You love the church, and you don’t have to think too far back to remember that ...

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Cultivate Your Calling in Each Stage of Life

Angie Ward discusses cultivating leadership amid ever-changing responsibilities.

Angie Ward, author of the recently published I Am a Leader, has 30 years of leadership experience in diverse roles in ministry. I was excited to talk with Angie about how our calling shifts through the various seasons of life.

How can a woman’s calling change over the course of her life?

Sometimes we think as young women that we have one calling, and that’s it. We just have to find it, and we put so much weight on that one thing. But for most people, it changes how it looks and how it’s lived out based on seasons of life and age. Our calling can also change because we change. Who we are, our gifts, our passions. And that’s okay.

For me, I started out in youth ministry, but then God expanded it. It didn’t shift entirely. It was still vocational/occupational ministry, but it went to more broad ministry—leadership and to leadership development. When I was 22, just out of college, I didn’t have the experience or the wisdom to train other leaders. I was just working with students who were sometimes only four years younger than me. The Holy Spirit moves and flows. Working with kids in children’s ministry at your church may make you aware of the needs of foster kids. It opens a door to a whole new thing.

How can we discover what our calling is today?

Cultivate an ear for the Holy Spirit—a heart and a mind that's receptive, that knows the Shepherd's voice, and a heart that's obedient and responsive to whatever it is during that season. A lot of times we get focused on the wrong question: What is it? We focus on trying to figure out the it. Instead, the real focus should be on cultivating our relationship with Jesus and walking with him. We want steps to cling to. If I ...

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When Your Calling Is Challenged

As hardships come, you have 1 of 3 options.

This was not how things were supposed to work out.

Every night for a year, my husband and I had prayed that God would direct us to the right place in his right timing. Based on our own prayers as well as confirmation from others, it seemed that the “right place” would be a church where Dave could serve as senior pastor, giving him more opportunities to exercise his gifts of preaching and shepherding. Now that we had two little boys, we also desired to be closer to family. We told God that we would go anywhere he led us (and we meant it!), but that we would love to end up somewhere in the southeastern United States, ideally within three hours of Dave’s parents.

We explored options around the country. We prayed, waited, and sought counsel from wise and mature believers. We continued to serve faithfully in our current ministries. We prayed and waited some more.

Twelve months later, our little family made the 1,200-mile journey from Minnesota to our new church in North Carolina—just two and a half hours from our sons’ beloved Nana and Papa—where Dave would serve as lead pastor. We felt God had clearly answered our earnest prayers, as evidenced by all sorts of confirmations that seemed like way more than coincidence. I mean, at the boarding gate for our flight home from our interview weekend, we discovered that our pilot “happened” to be a friend who first came up to Dave a year earlier and said he felt God was preparing my husband for a lead pastoral role!

We were over-the-moon excited. We felt we had come home, and we thought we’d be at that church and in that city for life.

Yet three years in, our dream situation had turned to a nightmare. Our church was slowly dying, our marriage ...

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The phenomenal rise of Jeff Bezos - a 'mysterious' corporate titan

For nearly two decades, Bezos was adamant that the company should largely stay out of the political limelight and not make a stir in local communities. It also had a bare-bones lobbying operation




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Martin Sorrell's exit from the Ad industry sets off questions about future

Sorrell's exit would have been a big deal at any point, but the manner of his departure has amplified the attention




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Structure evolution of electrochromic devices from 'face-to-face' to 'shoulder-by-shoulder'

J. Mater. Chem. C, 2020, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/D0TC01132K, Paper
Xiufeng Tang, Guoxin Chen, Zhixin Li, Hua Li, Zehui Zhang, Qinghao Zhang, Zhijun Ou, Yongxian Li, Chengjian Qi, Jianyi Luo
A traditional electrochromic device contains at least five functional layers, where the electrochromic film exactly faces the counter electrode with matching size and color. This face-to-face structure is cumbersome for...
The content of this RSS Feed (c) The Royal Society of Chemistry




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Quantitative Understanding of the Ultra-Sensitive and Selective Detection of Dopamine using Graphene Oxide/WS2 Quantum Dot Hybrid

J. Mater. Chem. C, 2020, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/D0TC01074J, Paper
Ruma Das, Abhilasha Bora, Pravat K. Giri
Herein, we report on the ultra-high sensitive and selective detection of dopamine (DA) at pico-molar level by a low cost sensing platform based on graphene oxide (GO) sheets anchored with...
The content of this RSS Feed (c) The Royal Society of Chemistry