Madhuri Dixit’s comeback vehicle Aaja Nachle turned out to be quite a bit of disappointment.

A lightweight film with few rewarding surprises, there’s not much going for Aaja Nachle besides fine performances by Konkona Sen and Kunal Kapoor and an average performance by yesteryear Bollywood queen Madhuri Dixit (now living in the U.S.)

Most of all, for a movie that’s supposedly about dance we were not even treated to any great dance performances other than the garden-variety kind.

If shallow movies like Aaja Nachle, Laaga Chunari Mein Daag, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom and Ta Ra Rum Pum are the kind of films that one of Bollywood’s premier production houses Yash Raj Films can churn out, there’s not much to be said for India’s tinseltown.

Music is perhaps the sole saving grace of Aaja Nachle. We liked most of the songs, particularly the title song Aaja Nachle as well as O Re Piya and Ishq Hua.

Aaja Nachle’s photography is fairly decent and visually the movie is above average.

But Aaja Nachle’s Achilles heel is its fairly pedestrian story, which lacks depth and rich layers to offer much by way of entertainment.

There are too many gaps and jumps in the movie. For instance, Diya’s initial passion for dance or her bond with her dance teacher fail to adequately come through, partly because of the inadequacies of the script.

In several scenes, Madhuri’s face lacks the sparkle or vivacity that endeared this luminous beauty to millions of Indians in the 1980s and 1990s. Perhaps, some of the lost sparkle is because of the ravages of age.

After 11-long years in the U.S., a NRI divorcee and dance choreographer Diya (Madhiri Dixit) in New York City returns to her childhood town Shamili in India upon hearing that her old dance teacher (Darshan Zariwala) is on his deathbed.

By the time Diya reaches Shamili, the old geezer is no more and the town dance theater Ajanta is scheduled for demolition so that a shopping mall can be built there by a local businessman (Irrfan Khan).

So, now our New York babe Diya with a young daughter in tow makes it her mission to save the crumbling dance theatre by involving the local folks, many of whom are still hostile to her for eloping with a White boy and bringing shame to her parents many years earlier.

Two talented actors Akshaye Khanna and Irrfan Khan – both in Special Appearances in Aaja Nachle – do an adequate job.

It’s interesting to note that in Indian movies NRIs in the U.S. are always returning to India!

Remember, Shahrukh Khan went back to Kaveriamma’s village and got the poor folks electricity in Swades.

In June this year, Rajnikant went back to his state Tamil Nadu in South India and got rid of the corrupt politicians in Sivaji.

Now, Madhuri Dixit has gone back to her small town Shamili and given them a Laila Majnu dance program that they can all be proud of in Aaja Nachle.

Coming back to Aaja Nachle, all we can say is that given all its inadequacies the movie packs a low EQ (Entertainment Quotient) and is definitely not a must-watch film.

If you are a connoiseur of good movies and live in the New York or Los Angeles area, your time might be spent more fruitfully this weekend watching the French film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which got rave reviews in both the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) and New York Times today.

Amazon.com’s new e-book reader Kindle got the thumbs-down in a critical review from Wall Street Journal technology Guru Walter Mossberg today.

Mossberg writes that while he liked the shopping and downloading experience,

the Kindle device itself is just mediocre. While it has good readability, battery life and storage capacity, both its hardware design and its software user interface are marred by annoying flaws. It is bigger and clunkier to use than the Sony Reader, whose second version has just come out at $300.

….the device is poorly designed. It has huge buttons on both edges for turning pages forward or backward. They are way too easy to press accidentally, so my reading was constantly being interrupted by unwanted page turns. Plus, the buttons are confusing. One called “Back” doesn’t actually move to the previous page, but supposedly to the prior function. I never could predict what it would do.

Priced at $400, Kindle lets consumers

Dell plans to expand its manufacturing facility in Sriperumbudur (near the South Indian city of Chennai) to make notebook computers and servers in 2008,  according to Live Mint.

Dell currently makes desktop computers at the Sriperumbudur facility.

In the wake of accounting irregularities and a resurgent HP, some of the fizz has gone out of Dell lately.

Dell has a significant presence in India with over 10,000 employees involved in customer support and server and storage product development.

Following increasing incidents of terrorists strikes and bomb blasts in different corners of the country, India has set up a Multi-Agency Centre and Joint Task Force on Intelligence in its domestic spying agency, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) at Delhi.

Indian intelligence officials hope that setting up the Multi-Agency Centre and Joint Task Force on Intelligence at the IB will optimize intelligence flow and coordination between multifarious agencies at the Centre and in the States in the field of counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence.

India has a profusion of spying agencies like Research and Analysis Wing (external spy agency), IB and Defence Intelligence Agency that often work at cross-purposes and have a poor record of cooperation.

The plan is for the Multi-Agency Centre and Joint Task Force on Intelligence to be supported by Subsidiary Multi-Agency Centres at almost all State capitals.

Indian politicians say that steps have been taken to strengthen counter-intelligence apparatus in the Intelligence Bureau.

The States have been directed to take the following steps to revamp the Special Branches:

* by filling up of vacancies and posting of competent officers in Special Branches
* making mandatory tenure preferably of 5 years for personnel in Special Branches and linkage of this requirement with promotion
* using system of incentives/disincentives
* having dedicated staff for intelligence work right up to the police stations level and re-activating beat constable system
* making available modern equipment and gadgets for interception
* offering special training for personnel posted in Special Branches
* earmarking of up to 5% of their annual allocations under the Scheme for Modernisation of State Police Forces for strengthening of Special Branches.

Broadband Internet penetration is just not making headway in India.

According to the mandarins at the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, the country added a mere 20,000 new broadband subscribers in October 2007 taking the total broadband subscribers to 2.69 million.

The broadband picture in India looks even bleaker when you consider that the TRAI defines broadband as anything higher than a piffling 256Kbps download.

Broadband Subscriber Growth in India
(in millions)

Mar 06 | Oct 06 | Mar 07 | Oct 07

1.35       1.92      2.34      2.69

Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal has turned out to be a dud at the U.S. box office for the November 23-25 weekend.

At the box office, Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal brought in a pitiful $66,011 and came in at No-40.

Featuring John Abraham, Arshad Warsi and that non-actress Bipasha Basu, Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal is the story of a U.K. football club Southall United struggling to survive.

The folks behind Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal’s do not seem to have had much confidence as the movie was released in only 32 theaters in the U.S.

In contrast Om Shanti Om was released in 114 theaters in the U.S. and Saawariya in 85 theaters.

Om Shanti Om had a first weekend gross collection of $1.76 million while Saawariya brought in $542,192.

Well, John Abraham is no Shahrukh Khan, not even a poor man’s Shahrukh. As for Arshad Warsi, guess he’s lost without Sanjay Dutt.