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Miss Hawaii Pilialoha Gaison and Miss Nebraska Molly McGrath were the winners Friday in the second night of preliminary competition for the 2007 Miss America Pageant.
   The televised finals and crowning of Miss America will be Monday at the Aladdin Resort & Casino.
   Gaison, 23, of Kaneohe, won a $2,000 scholarship and the crowd’s cheers with a high-energy Tahitian dance in the talent competition. She is a business management major at Hawaii Pacific University, and wants to be an entrepreneur in the resort industry.
   McGrath, 23, is a graduate of New York University pursing her master’s degree in economics at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. Her walk across the stage in a pink ruffled bikini won her a $1,000 scholarship in the swimsuit contest.
   In preliminaries, the 52 women seeking the crown compete on three consecutive nights, their cumulative scores determining who makes the top 10 on Monday. The preliminary scores account for 30 percent of their totals.
   The shows also serve as a sort of dress rehearsal for the Monday pageant, which will be telecast by cable network Country Music Television starting at 8:00pm EST.
   Friday’s preliminary winners joined Miss Texas Shilah Phillips and Miss Oklahoma Lauren Nelson, who won in talent and swimsuit Thursday.
   The pageant’s Monday night time slot is a break from tradition. CMT took the pageant off Saturday night in search of a bigger audience.

A two-week long solo painting exhibition titled In Quest of Truth and Beauty by Samarjit Roy Choudhury will be held at the Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts at Dhanmondi.
   Samarjit is a well-known name in the world of art and being a veteran his artistic views of life are refreshingly free of dilemmas, conflicts and doses of depression, said an art critic.
   A total of 86 works will be on display. The works, done by water, oil, acrylic and pastel colour, capture the radiant loveliness of human life and nature. The show has been organised to mark the 70th birth anniversary of the artist.
   Norwegian ambassador in Bangladesh Ingebjorg Stofring will inaugurate the show at 5:00pm as chief guest while professor Anisuzzaman and renowned artist Qayyum Chowdhury will be present as special guests.
   Prior to the show, a briefing was held at the gallery on Saturday. Subir Chowdhury, Sarwar Jahan of Bengal Gallery and the artist spoke on the subject.
   The show will remain open for all till February 10 from 12:00pm to 8:00pm everyday.

Channel-i will air the second preamble programme on Southasian issues at 2:00pm today.
   The topic of the episode is Cricket in South Asia and national cricket coach of Bangladesh Dav Whatmore, social activist and avid cricket fan Shaheen Anam,cultural personality Lubna Marium and media executive, actor and cricket analyst Iresh Zaker will be present as discussants. The event will be moderated by Aly Zaker.
   Southasian, an organisation constituted of membership of cultural activists, media personalities and film-makers from all over Southasia.
   As a preamble to this programme, the channel will air a number of discussions on Southasia, in English, in the coming months.

Legendary Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan said in an interview broadcast on Saturday he considers his future daughter-in-law, leading actress Aishwarya Rai, ‘domesticated’ and a ‘simple girl’.
   Asked what it was that impressed him about Rai, Bachchan told the NDTV news channel: ‘I think she’s a lot simpler than what is made out of her. She’s a very simple girl, very traditional. She’s also very domesticated’.
   Former Miss World Rai, 33 and Bachchan’s son, Abhishek, 30, and also one of the country’s top stars, got engaged earlier this month, putting an end to feverish speculation about their hush-hush romance.
   TV channels and newspapers have said the marriage––Bollywood’s biggest for years––was likely to take place as early as next month, with some suggesting February 19 or March 7 as possible dates.
   Since the engagement was announced, India has been debating whether Aishwarya will have to give up her work and become a housewife.