Link-up rumours part of our business: Bipasha Basu

After her break-up with long-time beau John Abraham, Bipasha Basu is now being linked to her Singularity co-star Josh Hartnett. But the dusky beauty is unperturbed and believes link-up rumours are a part of her profession."Link-up rumours don't bother me any more. At the end of the day, whatever two people have, it is for them to know. The world speculates and let them do that," Biphasha told IANS over phone from Murmansk, Russia.

"All these things are a part of our business and both Josh and I understand that. This discussion of link-ups will happen for ever. What is important is that the two people who are being spoken about should know what the truth is and what is not," added the actress who was recently seen in Dum Maaro Dum.

Bipasha, now 32, started her career as a ramp model and then dazzled on the silver screen with her debut with Ajnabee in 2001. She also featured in hits like Race, No Entry, Phir Hera Pheri, Omkara and Dhoom 2.

After her break-up with John with whom she worked in Jism, Madhoshi, and Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal, her growing friendship with Josh was talked about as a potential romance, but the actress maintains she only shares a working relationship with the American actor.

"It's been great working with Josh because he is immensely talented and he is always very kicked about the work he does. He is a very nice person to work with. We got along very well and we intent to keep in touch. I can easily say that because of this film Singularity , I met an interesting person," she explained.

Singularity, a period film, is being helmed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Roland Joffe. The film, which kicked off production in Queensland, later moved to India and was shot at places like Gwalior and Orchha in Madhya Pradesh.

After completing the shoot in Orchha, where the temperature was 40 degrees Celsius, Bipasha immediately flew down to Murmansk, where the temperature is -35 degrees Celsius, to shoot for Abbas-Mastan's Players.

The film also stars Abhishek Bachchan, Bobby Deol, Sonam Kapoor, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Omi Vaidya and Sikander Kher.
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The Hidden Brain by Shankar Vedantam Part 1

This book is subtitled: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wages Wars and Save Our Lives.

Unfortunately, the book's subtitle is far from describing its actual contents, which are more along the lines of "Why a Journalist Thinks Psychology Supports the Democratic Party."

That we have unconscious (or subconscious) minds that influence our behavior in ways we often don't recognize or acknowledge is nothing new. Freud wrote about it explicitly in modern times. Artists and marketers have long known how to push our internal buttons without us understanding how.

The first sections tell some interesting stories which help to make the author's case that we're far more influenced by our unconscious than we wish to believe. Again, nothing really new.

Then he moves into tests showing that North American preschoolers are unconsciously prejudiced against blacks and for whites, despite all efforts by parents and teachers to eliminate such bias. And the author makes the case that their hidden minds, despite everything adults tell them, pick up on the fact that in their communities white people are the majority.

This raises lots of questions. Is it true of black children growing up in black neighborhoods where nearly everybody they meet is black?

And how about some cross-cultural studies? The author comes from India which, as he knows better than he admits, has far more diversity and cultural, racial, ethnic, caste and religious divisions -- and corresponding bias -- than the United States.

And then he moves into really dangerous ground -- asserting that science shows that political conservatism is positively correlated with unconscious racial bias. And he goes into depth on this issue as it related to the presidential race of 2008.

He tries to be careful, but he doesn't consider all the factors. Perhaps he has his own unconscious biases?

For example, he claims that white male union members supported Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984 because of innate racism. After all, he was against their economic interests.

Therefore, he assumes that the class warfare rhetoric of the Democratic Party is correct. He does not consider that Americans may prefer -- for rational reasons -- free enterprise to socialism.

While spending many pages on the racism of white people toward Barack Obama, he takes only one long paragraph to dismiss the argument that black people showed more racial bias in 2008 than whites, because they voted overwhelmingly for Obama, while whites split their votes between Obama and McCain. If millions of whites hadn't been willing -- despite what the author claims is their manifest unconscious racism -- to vote for Obama, he would have lost. The truth is, they considered the issues, and some decided Obama was the better candidate, not because or in spite of being black, but because of his stands.
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