She has won hearts with her acting stint in Bollywood and now actress Sunny Leone has taken up a new role in her career, by turning a writer.

Leone has written a book titled “Sweet Dreams”, which includes 12 short stories.

The “Mastizaade” actress says writing was not on her mind but she did have certain ideas, which went unrecorded.

“Writing wasn’t on my mind. I thought about different stories and ideas throughout the years but nothing really that I wrote down. This is the first time I have written something like this. When I was younger I had a diary, my mother read it, and that was the end of the diary,” Leone told PTI in an exclusive interview.

Set in an Indian milieu, her fictional stories of power and play treat women as sexual equals to men while also talking about the underlying romance.

The 34-year-old actress says when the publishing house, Juggernaut books, came to her with the idea of writing 12 short erotic stories, she took it up as a challenge and finished them in a span of three months.

“Juggernaut came to me and proposed the idea of 12 short stories in this genre. It was a personal challenge for me to able to do it. I took about three months to write those.

The story, ‘7 E’, was the most difficult because that was the first one,” she said.

“So it took me time to figure out the writing style…

Sometimes we had to get straight to the point because it is a short story. That was challenging because you don’t want to move forward so abruptly that a reader loses track,” Leone added.

The “Jism 2” star says the stories in “Sweet Dreams”, currently available exclusively on the Juggernaut app, are fictional and have “nothing that is derived from” her life.

Even though the stories talk about seduction, Leone ensured that she does not cross any line which would make the readers, specially women, feel uncomfortable.

“I wrote these stories, from what I thought a woman would like to read. For me it was important when someone is reading it, specially women, they should not cringe or say ‘it is too much for me to handle’. I wanted it to be in the slightly romantic zone.”

The stories will be released every night at 10 PM till May 3 and the “Ragini MMS 2” actress feels nervous as the journey has been “personal”.

“Now that it is going to release, I am very nervous.

Besides the fact that it is a great avenue to reach out to fans, it was a challenge to see if I can do it, because you have movies and songs coming one after another, but this was personal. I hope they enjoy it.PTI

Upping the ante on the Uttarakhand political crisis, Congress leaders have given notices for suspension of the question hour and adoption of a resolution condemning the imposition of President’s Rule there when the Budget Session resumes on Monday after the recess.

The notices given by Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad and Deputy Leader of Congress in the House, Anand Sharma, seek to corner the government on the issue accusing it of “destabilising” a democratically-elected government in Uttarakhand.

In his notice given under Rule 267, Sharma has also sought from Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari the passage of a resolution condemning the Modi government for “destabilistion” of the Uttarakhand government and imposition of President’s Rule in the state.

The resolution reads “this House deplores the destabilisation of the democratically elected government in Uttarakhand and disapproves the unjustified imposition of President’s Rule there under Article 356 of the Constitution.”

Ever since the dismissal of the Rawat government and clamping of central rule, Congress has mounted an offensive against the Narendra Modi dispensation.

The party had started ‘Loktantra Bachao, Uttarakhand Bachao’ (Save Democracy, Save Uttarakhand) campaign to mobilise public support against the Centre.

The Supreme Court yesterday stayed till April 27 the judgement of the state High Court quashing imposition of President’s rule, giving a new turn to the continuing political drama in the state by restoring central rule there.

Congress is trying to project the imposition of President’s Rule in Uttarakhand and earlier in another party- ruled state of Arunachal Pradesh as an “attack” on the federal structure and is hopeful that a large number of Opposition parties will back it in cornering the government on the issue.PTI

In the second drought fatality in a span of two days, an 11-year-old boy died while fetching water from a well in drought-hit Beed district of Marathwada today.

Sachin Gopinath Kedar of Veeda village in Kej teshil was fetching water from a well, half-a-kilometre from his home, when he slipped and fell to his death, a police official said.

On Tuesday, a 12-year-old girl died due to heat stroke in Beed district, while fetching water from an almost dry handpump.

Yogita Ashok Desai, a resident of Sabalkhed village in Beed, was dehydrated after she made five attempts to fill water from a hand pump when the day’s temperature was 44 degrees Celsius.

Due to water scarcity in Marathwada, each member of the family, especially children, are compelled to make multiple trips to water tanks and hand pumps in the sweltering heat.

Aurangabad Divisional Commissioner Umakant Dangat said only three per cent water is left in dams in the parched Marathwada region.

Eight of the region’s 11 major dams are at dead storage level implying water from these dams cannot flow out but has to be lifted.

This is a drastic decline in water storage as at this time last year, the level in Marathwada’s dams was much higher at 11 percent, Dangat said.

As many as 2,745 water tankers are being used in the region compared to 939 this time last year. The Aurangabad Collector has already announced a 20 per cent water cut to local breweries and a 10 per cent overall cut to local industry.