Maiden from Delhi bowls everyone overDelhi girl Gul Panag was crowned Miss India Universe 1999 at a function held at Poona Club grounds on Saturday evening. Yukta Mookhey was declared Miss India World and Shivangi Parikh stole the Miss India Asia Pacific title.The function was interspersed with live entertainment from some well-known artistes in the country. They comprised Varsha Usgaonkar who performed a lively lavani, Hariharan and Leslie Lewis of the Colonial Cousins fame, Hindi pop singer Shweta Shetty, international artistes like Diana King and Jai Uttal, Shankar Mahadevan of the `Breathless' fame, bhangra pop singer Mika and vocalist Ranjit Barot.The galaxy of judges included film celebrities Sridevi, Karisma Kapoor, Urmila Matondkar and Aishwarya Rai; former West Indies cricket captain Sir Vivian Richards, leading industrialist Anil Ambani, computer hotshot Sabeer Bhatia, tabla maestro Zakir Hussein and media personality Vir Sanghvi.About 7,000 Puneites were witness to the event. The winners of this contest will now gear up for international beauty pageants.ST employees threaten stirThe State Transport employees will go on an indefinite strike from March 10 in order to press for their demand of higher payscale.A decision to this effect was taken during the meeting of Maharashtra State Transport Kamgar Sanghatna held here on Sunday.It may be noted that the union has already rejected the government proposal to cut down on facilities provided to the ST employees giving reasons that the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation was running in huge losses.Addressing a press conference, the union office-bearers said the hike in payscale was pending eversince an agreement between the union and the government was signed in March 96. ``The pay scales have continued to remain the same and over 70,000 ST employees have been affected by no hike in their salaries and granting of promotions and other benefits,'' the office bearers said.Tribute to OshoNoted sitar player of the Itawa school of music, Ustad Shahid Parvez, offered his soul-stirring composition to Osho on the ninth anniversary of his Nirvana at the Osho Commune International. He was accompanied by Vijay Ghate on tabla, a statement issued by Swami Chaitanya Keerti stated today.Shahid began the recital with Raga Desh with slow Alaaps. He said that he got his idea from Osho's approach to meditation and the art of witnessing while watching the mind the witness starts seeing the gaps between two thoughts, while the musician sees the same gap between two notes as his music deepens.
