Style shower  Guwahati was witness to a unique event last Saturday that had the essence of monsoon, with beautiful babes and handsome hunks ‘bathing’ under ‘style shower’. The event was Geoshine Monsoon Diva & Glamour Man pageant, a first of its kind in the region, organized by the North East Beauty Forum at Shilpgram. Thirty young aspirants in their teens and early twenties — 15 boys and 15 girls — were specially groomed for the event by big time choreographer Kaushik Ghosh who flew down to Guwahati from Delhi. Eighteen-year-old Mridutrisna Choudhury was the chosen one for the Monsoon Diva title, followed by Ruplekha Konwar and Tanya Borbora as the first and second runners-up. In the Glamour Man segment, it was Chand Singh who had the last laugh to bag the top spot. Aayan Choudhary and Sahil Dutta were the first and second runners-up respectively. There were in all five subtitles in the event, judged by Assamese film celebrities Nishita Goswami and Dibyajyoti Das, top notch Delhi-based Assamese model Binita Bora and development consultant Amar Boruah. The subtitle winners were Tulsi Haloi (Avon Miss Lustrous Hair), Ruplekha Konwar (Avon Miss Beautiful Skin), Tina Phukan (Avon Simply Pretty), Bhaskar Jyoti Saikia (Srimaan Style Icon) and Raj Kashyap (Srimaan Mr Handsome).

Good gesture  India's leading industrial house Mahindra & Mahindra is looking at Assam as its next destination for investment. This was indicated at a function in Guwahati recently by Anand Mahindra, vice chairman & MD of the group. He was here to attend the staging of Rajkumar Hemendrajit, an Assamese play that had won two awards in the prestigious Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards (META) 2008, a national theatre competition instituted by the $6.7 billion Mahindra Group last year. Mahindra, for whom it was his first visit to Assam, said he would explore all the possibilities for investments in the region in the near future. He further said the Lifeline Express, a train with a super speciality hospital onboard, sponsored by M&M, would come to the state in December for a month-long sojourn that would benefit the needy patients. At a time when there has been a talk of attracting more investments to Assam to take the state on the road of progress, Mahindra’s words have surely come as a fresh whiff of air. Investment initiatives from such a big business firm are naturally welcome for a state like ours and the powers that be should grab the opportunity at the earliest, since such a move will only accelerate the industrial growth in Assam opening more avenues for employment.

Simanta / Mridumoloy