Finally, the dimpled-beauty Preity Zinta has formally declared that her relationship with Bombay Dyeing scion Ness Wadia is no more.

Miss Zinta sent an e-mail to her IPL team ‘Kings XI Punjab’ that Ness is only her business partner, and they do not have any personal relationship.

A source in Cape Town said, “As there has been a lot of buzz about their personal equation, Preity being extremely professional, felt it was important to clear the air.”

Allahabad (Uttar Pradesh), Apr. 25 : Standing at the Anand Bhavan, the ancestral home of the Nehrus, one can''t help but feel a sense of nostalgia. Of an era gone by, an era when principled leaders set the agenda for freedom from colonial rule, an era when leaders were educated and had a vision.

Kathmandu - Nepal's largest mobile phone service provider Nepal Telecom Saturday announced plans to start services in the Mount Everest region enabling climbers to make phone calls from the top of the world's highest peak. The plans to install mobile phone service in the Everest region are to connect the last few isolated areas in Nepal with the rest of the country and the world.

Seoul - North Korea said Saturday it has started again to reprocess spent nuclear fuel rods to produce weapons-grade plutonium. "The reprocessing of spent fuel rods from the pilot atomic power plant began as declared in the Foreign Ministry statement dated April 14," the state-run Korean Central News Agency cited a Foreign Ministry spokesman, who referred to work at North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear facility.

Hong Kong - Unions in Hong Kong were calling Saturday for a minimum wage law to be drafted urgently after a survey found workers at fast-food outlet KFC earn as little as 2 US dollars an hour. Some KFC outlets in the wealthy city of 7 million pay just 16 Hong Kong dollars (2.06 US dollars) an hour while the average paid by the US chicken restaurant chain is 2.44 US dollars, the survey found.

Staff in McDonald's outlets are only slightly better paid with average pay rates of 2.61 US dollars an hour, the survey by Hong Kong unions found.

Colombo - A provincial poll in Sri Lanka's Western Province which consists of the capital Colombo and two adjoining districts opened Saturday, election officials said, despite a deteriorating humanitarian situation in the north of the country as government forces keep up their campaign to crush Tamil rebels. Some 3.8 million voters in the Colombo, Kalutara and Gampaha districts started are registered to vote in the elections which commenced at 7 am (0130 GMT) and is scheduled to end at 4 pm.