11: 20 PM

Reese Witherspoon comes to present the Best Director Award. And guess who won the award ? It is Danny Boyle from Slumdog Millionaire. What a guy! In his speech he showed humility and apologized for not having given credit to his choreographer but gave his tribute to Mumbai and truly deservedly so.

Danny Boyle we love you.

11:27 PM

Halle Berry and Co comes on stage to present the Oscar for the Best Leading Lady. Anna Hathaway, Kate Winslet, Meryl Streep and Angelina Jolie

Kate cries while she gets praised.

Meryl Streep got nominated for the fifteenth time. And Angelina Jolie was a stunner …But the Oscar went to Kate Winslet…She recollects her shampoo bottle from her bathroom when she was eight years old. Madhavan just told me that her acting in “The Reader” was stupendous.

And now comes the next best category of awards

11:37 PM

Sir Ben Kingsley, Michael Douglas, Robert DeNeiro, Anthony Hopkins and Anthony Roda to award the best Actor’s award.

Richard Jenkins, Sean Penn, Frank Langella, Brad Pitt and Mickey Rourke gets nominated for the best actor’s award.

The Oscar Award for the Best Actor goes to Sean Penn. There was a standing ovation from the crowd. Sean Penn says “ You don’t know how difficult it is appreciate myself”. The words that followed after that was very impressive – a great speech. His humility was seen when he appreciated Mickey Rourke- the comeback kid.

11: 47 PM

Steven Spielberg comes on stage to present The Best Picture.

Frost/ Nixon, The Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and The Reader are the ones nominated in the Best Picture category.

And the Oscar Award for The Best Picture goes to Slumdog Millionaire. The Producer Christian Colson, along with the entourage reached the stage to collect the award.

What a moment for Slumdog Millionaire, Mumbai and India !

12:00 AM on 23rd Feb’09– Off to sleep. Good night, have to wake up early for office, tomorrow. Have a great week, everyone!

Jai Ho! Jai Ho!

Image Credit: MasterOrz

Popularity: 14%

10:42 PM

Eddie Murphy is on stage to present the Jean Hearscholt Humanitarian Award. And the award goes to legendary Jerry Lewis. Nostalgic, huh ?

10: 54 PM

AR Rahman wins two Oscars for India, two more to the Slumdog Millionaire kitty.

AR Rahman wins the best Original Score for Slumdog Millionaire. Proud of you, AR Rahman..What more – He gives a live performance from Slumdog Millionaire….O Saya and Jai Ho along with MIA.

This is probably the best night for A R Rahman.

He is also nominated for the best background score and he wins it hands down. The song is Jai Ho and the lyricist is Gulzar.

Arguably the best night for Slumdog Millionaire, AR Rahman and India.

11:05 PM

Guess what ? Freida Pinto, from Slumdog Millionaire is on stage with Liam Neeson for presenting the best Foreign Film. The Oscar goes to “Departures”

The Japanese director is Berry Berry Appy and Sankoos everyone. Did I say, Freida Pinto was lovely in that Blue dress.

I think this is the first time, an Indian has been called on stage to present an award. I may be wrong, though !

Popularity: 23%

Time is 9:46 PM

I am back to my seat and three guys come to announce the best live action award. The category doesn’t sound familiar, but sounds important. Whatever !

The Oscar award for the best live action short film goes to will tell you later.

By the way, did I tell you – Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire are tied at two awards each. Lets see who wins the battle of the Oscars. My heart goes for Slumdog Millionaire but my brain for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I hope my heart wins.

9:52 PM

Hugh Jackman is back and is busy talking of “Change That Has Come”…..He is talking of Mamma Miah and the musical. He is now singing, dancing live “Mariah….” from Mamma Miah…along with guess who – Beyonce Knowles!.

Oh My God!

This is the first time I am seeing him on stage and Hugh Jackman is phenomenal.

A Musical Oscars indeed. All the performers from Mamma Miah look so beautiful including Beyonce Knowles

Time is 9:59 – Time for a break and some grub – Salads, bread crumbs, light mayonnaise and lots of water. Not so spicy, right ? So uncommon for an Indian like me. Isn’t it ?..anyways, time to move on

Five actors including Cuba Gooding Jr. comes onto present the Best Supporting Actor.

The Oscar goes to the Late Heath Ledger for The Dark Night and the family (his mom,  dad and sister) came to receive the Oscars. All three of them spoke and accepts the award. An emotional moment, indeed. May his soul Rest In Peace

Who will win the Best Actor award ? – Mickey Rourke ? Wait for some more time and you will get to know that…

10:13 PM -

The best documentary award goes to James Marsh, Simon Chinn for Men On Wire. The winner shows some magic on stage. Very creative!

10:17 PM

The best Oscar for the small documentary short film goes to Megan Mylan for Smile Pinki – Another Indian film. Wow! This probably is the best year for Indian cinema at the Oscars for a long, long time to come. Hey, this is Icing On Cake!

Popularity: 24%

The Oscar fever has caught on and for the first time, I am blogging live watching the Oscars, from the comforts of my home. Nothing can beat this experience. Seeing it live, munching my favourite triscuit, watching my two kids screaming louder than the Oscar host and blogging as Slumdog Millionaire is about to win Oscars – At this point, I don’t know how many, though!

The expectations are high among Indians that music maestro AR Rahman, who has bagged three nominations for “Slumdog Millionaire”, will bring home the coveted trophy. What a moment that will be!

Other two Indian films vying for the glory are “Smile Pinki” and “The Final Inch”.

The time is 8.30 PM EST.

Ok, the Oscar Awards has begun and so is this live blogging.

The time is 8:33 PM

Singer, Dancer, Actor Hugh Jackman enters the show with startling display of his talent. He starts of with the song on Slumdog Millionaire, moves onto Benjamin Button – what a startling display, picks up Anne Hathaway for an impromptu dance. Jackman performs about the other movies – The Reader, The Wrestler and Nixon. What a Live Performance that was!

The time is 8:40 PM

Hugh Jackman introduces all the nominees including Mickey Rourke, the couple – Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie, the guy who played Nixon, Demi Moore.

The time is 8:45 PM

5 yesteryear Oscar actress winners including Whoopi Goldberg introduces Penelope Cruz, Marisa Tomei, Demi Moore et al.

Penelope Cruz wins Oscar for the best actress. She goes to the stage and thinks she would faint…but doesn’t. She gave an emotional speech saying it is art which unites the universe. You are too good and beautiful. Penelope – Congratulations !

The time is 8:54 PM

Some type pad clicks. Few sentences and sounds of a typewriter. I don’t know what is happening.

Enter Steve Martin and Tina Fei. They starts joking around, as usual and soon picks up the mike for announcing the best screenplay. Now I understand why there were those type sounds.

The best screenplay award goes to Dustin Lance Black for Milk. Dustin, on the stage, emotionally talks of “Hope” for Gays and Lesbians across America.

Next comes the award for the best adopted screenplay…and the award goes to Simon Beaufoy, the writer for Slumdog Millionaire.

Oscar # 1 for Slumdog Millionaire. Wondering why Vikas Swarup for Original Screenplay. But yes, he thanked Vikas Swarup and the other two musketeers and his love for India.

I am so excited now. My friend, Madhavan, who wrote Will Slumdog Millionaire Win the Oscar Awards, pings me on Gmail. We exchange congratulations for the first in the kitty and many to go.

The time is 9:03.

Enters Kungfu Panda and his star friends…I am talking of Jack Black and Jennifer Aniston. He is hilarious.

The best animated feature film goes to Wall-E. Oscar is taken by Andrew Stanton. He thanks everyone..nothing extraordinary of a speech. The show goes on

The best animated short film goes to La Maison En Petites. Kunio Kato collects the award and “Sanks” everyone!…Sankooo..meaning Thank You.

Time for a break!

Popularity: 27%

Whole world is reeling under economic crisis. Growth rate of countries is slowing down. While some sectors have lost heavily, other sectors have revised their targets. Amidst all this turmoil, there is one industry that is making profits and guess what this could be?

It’s the epicenter of the financial tsunami-It’s the banking industry… The very cause of the turmoil in the world is now making money in India.

Is it the strict regulation of RBI or the traditional way of running the business that has helped the banks to be in profit ? Or is it the foresight of Indian banking system that has ensured that domestic banks are not heavily exposed to the credit derivatives like US banks ? The fact is that the Indian banks have not incurred huge losses unlike their counterparts in the US and rest of the world.

Banks which faced pressure on their margins till a couple of months back are now on their way to making money. With the RBI’s initiative to increase liquidity in the system, banks got huge amounts at their disposal for lending. Even the money that was lying with RBI and yielded very little profit is now available for banks for lending at higher rates. Banks are lending at higher than PLR to corporates due to the changes in circumstances and all these are helping banks to boost their bottom line.

Quite a few factors have contributed to the profit margin of banks:

1. Reserve Bank of India has cut CRR by 3.5 % and brought it down to 5.5%
2. It has cut the repo rate by 1.5 % and got it to 7.5%
3. RBI cut the SLR by 1% and got it to 24%.
4. Banks used to lend to companies at below BPLR but now they are lending at higher than BPLR as the risk profile has increased due to the hit on the margins of the companies.
5. Banks used to shell higher deposit rates. But with the markets falling, people are finding deposits as a safe place to park their money and banks have cut down the deposit rate.

All these have increased the profit margin of the banks by 3%.

While all sectors of the economy are facing the heat of economic meltdown, it is surprising to see that our domestic banks are really making money.

Banking in India has been indeed a blessing in disguise. What do you think ?

Popularity: 16%