Bangalore, May 22: Leading e-commerce platform Flipkart Thursday announced it was acquiring Myntra, a leading e-retailer for fashion and lifestyle products, for an undisclosed amount.

"As both the companies are privately held, they have decided not to disclose the deal value," a Flipkart spokesperson told IANS. The deal is estimated to be worth about $300 million (Rs.1,740 crore), according to sources involved in the deal. The deal is expected to bring into the country high quality and affordable lifestyle products to Indian customers from worldwide.

"As we believe the future of fashion in India is e-commerce, the deal will strengthen our positions in the fashion space though we will work as separate entities to grow as leaders in the Indian fashion and lifestyle industry," Flipkart co-founder Sanjay Bansal said on the occasion.

The city-based Myntra has over 650 partners marketing leading fashion and lifestyle brands across the country. Post-acquisition, Myntra co-founder Mukesh Bansal will join the Flipkart board of directors and its fashion business. "We are privileged to be associated with Flipkart, a powerful e-commerce brand, with an agenda to build the next-generation of retail in the Indian sub-continent," Bansal said.

As the largest e-commerce platform, Flipkart offers a whopping 15 million products across 70 categories and claims to have 18 million registered users, with around 3.5 million hits a day. "We have been able to ship about five million goods per month by hosting about 3,000 sellers on our e-platform run by about 10,000 people across the country," Myntra's other founder Ashutosh Lawania said.

After facing a series of delays, Rajinikanth's Kochadaiiyaan (Kochadaiyaan earlier) is finally before audience. The Tamil flick is releasing worldwide in record number of screens. While it is releasing in some foreign countries today (May 22), it is hitting screens in India tomorrow.

It has been four years since Rajinikanth's last movie Endhiran release and his fans have been badly waiting to see him on-screen. The day has finally come and the advance booking clearly tells that people are thronging into theatres.

Cast/Crew Kochadaiiyaan boosts of big names like Deepika Padukone and Jackie Shroff from Bollywood with senior actors like Nassar, Sarath Kumar and others in the supporting cast. Oscar winner AR Rahman has handled the music department and Rajeev Menon, the cinematography. Anthony is the editor of the film and KS Ravikumar has provided the story and screenplay for the directorial debut of Soundarya Ashwin.

Historical Subject Kochadaiiyaan has taken inspiration from Pandya King Kochadaiyaan Ranadheeran and comes with a fictional account on him. Rajinikanth has done the role of a father and a son. Jackie Shroff plays the role of a baddie with Deepika Padukone and Shobana romancing Rajinikanth in different times. Reviews: Fans of Rajinikanth are flooding with their reviews on Kochadaiiyaan. Here, we bring you what international audience are saying and also read some of their one-line reviews on the slideshow...

Ajith Kumar and Gautham Menon's film is progressing as per the director's plans without any hurdle. The team has just completed an action sequence and the output has made the team happy.

The action scenes have been choreographed by Australian Dan McArthur. The stunt director recently tweeted, "One more night of intense action tonight the mighty #Ajith fights on. Scenes are looking very cool. Great work team."

Sources have said that the action sequences have come out well and the entire team is happy about it. It was shot during nights in Chennai. This is the first schedule of the untitled movie and Ajith Kumar along with Anushka Shetty have been part of it. The film was formally kicked started on April 9 and the shooting begun on April 11.

In the mean time, Trisha Krishnan is expected to join the shoots. Her presence in the movie has not been confirmed yet. But there are strong rumours that she has been signed by Gautham Menon for the movie and her portions with the Thala and Anushka Shetty will be shoot soon.

Arun Vijay plays the role of a baddie in the film, which will be released for Diwali. It has Harris Jayaraj's music and Dan Macarthur's music.

The Sensex and the Nifty closed at another record high as buying in PSU banks, oil and gas, metals and infra stocks pushed the indices to a new record closing.

The Sensex ended the day higher by 243 points to close at a new record of 24363 points,  while the Nifty closed the day higher by 60 points at 7263 points - another record closing. But, the gain in select stocks was staggering and something that we have not seen in many trading sessions.

Bharat Heavy Electricals was the top gainer from the Nifty rallying a staggering 15 per cent, while other winners were Coal India with gains of 11 per cent, NTPC, Larsen and Toubro, BPCL and IDFC. Most of the winners were from the power and infra space.

IT stocks were badly hit in trade with Infosys falling a huge 5 per cent, while TCS also fell 5 per cent and HCL Tech lost 4 per cent.

But, mid cap stocks was where the real action was with Allahabad Bank gaining 10 per cent, Crompton 13 per cent, GMR Infra 15 per cent Gammon India locked at the circuit filter with a surge of 20 per cent, Power Finance 18 per cent.

PSU banking stocks had a phenomenal run in trade with stocks rising anywhere between 4-10 per cent on a huge buying interest. A small intra day correction was immediately bought into.

Apart from IT stocks which fell today, select stocks from the pharma sector also collapsed on worries that an appreciation in the rupee would impact profitability. Cipla, Sun Pharma and Dr Reddy's all declined in trade.

Meanwhile, markets across Asia ended the day with marginal losses, while most of Europe was trading in the red.

Kebab is a heavenly food for the non vegetarian foodies. The feeling of the soft meat melting in the mouth, giving out robust flavours, is simply divine and matchless. Kebab was a specialty of the royal kitchens of the Nawabs and the Nizams. It is an integral part of the Mughlai cuisine. Hence we are blessed with the different flavours of this divine food.

Kebabs are of many kinds. The soft and mushy Galawati kebab, Sheekh kebab, Shikampuri kebab, Shami kebab etc. are some of the most well known ones. Another delicious addition to this list is the Chapli kebab. The Chapli kebab hails from the Afghanistan region and has travelled over time to Pakistan and India. Chaprikh is a Pashto term which means flat.

Chapli is derived from Chaprikh since the kebabs are flat in shape. The best meat for this kebab is considered to be the lamb meat. However depending on the taste and preferences of the people it can be prepared with beef or mutton as well.

The use of pomegranate seeds is the key point in this kebab recipe which imparts a lovely flavour to the dish. So, learn to prepare Chapli kebabs at home by following the recipe given below.

Serves: 5 
Preparation time: 30 minutes 
Cooking time: 15 minutes 

Ingredients 

Meat mince (beef or mutton)- 500 gms

Whole wheat flour- 4tbsp

Egg- 1 (beaten)

Onion- 1 (finely chopped)

Ginger-garlic paste- 1tsp

Tomatoes- 2 (finely chopped)

Cumin powder- 1tsp

Coriander powder- 1tsp

Red chilli powder- 1tsp

Anardana (dry pomegranate seeds)- 1tsp

Garam masala powder- 1tsp

Salt- as per taste Baking powder- ½ tsp

Coriander leaves- 4tbsp Oil- 4tbsp (for frying)


Procedure 

1. Wash the mince properly with water before using.

2. Mix all the ingredients except the oil together in a bowl.

3. Refrigerate the mixture for exactly half an hour.

4. After half an hour, take out the mixture from the fridge and make small balls out of it.

5. Press the balls between your palms and make medium sized patties.

6. Heat oil in a pan and fry the kebabs in it on low flame till they are completely cooked and turn golden brown.

7. Once done, transfer the kebabs to a plate and serve. Delicious Chapli Kebabs are ready to be served. Enjoy these fried delights with naan and curd.