Real were three points ahead of Barca with a game in hand and Karim Benzema gave them the lead inside 23 seconds.

Goalkeeper Victor Valdes was at fault but his blushes were spared by Alexis Sanchez’s drilled equaliser.

Xavi’s deflected strike put Barca ahead before Cesc Fabregas completed the triumph with a diving header.

Moments before that, Cristiano Ronaldo missed a glorious opportunity to level the match when he nodded wide from an unmarked position.

Ronaldo endured a miserable evening, wasting another fine chance to make it 2-0 and producing a poor free-kick from just outside the penalty area at 1-1.

The result sees Pep Guardiola’s men go level on points with Jose Mourinho’s Real, but the Catalans have a superior goal difference.

Real still have a game in hand but pre-match talk of the tide turning at the summit of Spanish football appears misguided.

Barca are now unbeaten in six visits to the Santiago Bernabeu in all competitions and seven matches against Real.

Given Barca’s domination of all-comers in recent years – and with Real eyeing a first league title since 2008 – this was billed as the biggest Clasico in recent history.

It was a cold, wet night in the Spanish capital but more than 85,000 fans packed into the stadium and the players entered to a cauldron of noise.

Yet for all the pre-match hype and excitement, few could have predicted the start that was to follow.

With virtually the first touch of the match, goalkeeper Victor Valdes accidentally played a pass straight to Angel di Maria and he looked to feed Benzema in the box.

The ball was cleared to the edge of the area where Mesut Ozil produced a volley that was deflected into the path of Benzema, and he poked home from close range.

Barca looked utterly shell-shocked and Valdes sat on the floor grinning in total disbelief.

Real had won the last 72 league games in which they had taken the lead and, despite Lionel Messi forcing a fine save from Iker Casillas, the hosts were in total control.

Benzema went close with a header before Ronaldo was denied by Valdes from distance and then skewed horribly wide from the 18 yards.

That miss would prove costly as, six minutes later, Messi fed Sanchez and he slotted a brilliant finish beyond Casillas.

By half-time, Barca had established an element of control and, after Ronaldo’s free-kick was easily parried by Valdes, the visitors benefited from a huge slice of fortune.

A clearance fell to Xavi in a central position 20 yards out and his volley hit Marcelo, left Casillas wrong-footed and trickled in off the post.

Barca were now dominating the midfield battle and extended their advantage with an outstanding team goal.

Messi fed Dani Alves on the right and the Brazilian’s teasing cross was headed in at the back post by an on-rushing Fabregas.

Benzema and substitute Kaka went close late on while Andres Iniesta almost made it 4-1, but there was no coming back for Real and the celebrations were all Barca’s.

The odds were always against City after their defeat in Napoli – but they were offered brief hope of reaching the knockout phase as goals either side of the interval from David Silva and Yaya Toure put them in command against Bayern.

For a few tantalising moments City looked set to claim the precious qualifying place as Napoli struggled to break down Villarreal, but Etihad Stadium was plunged into eerie silence as news of the Italians’ goals in Spain filtered through.

And on a black night for Manchester, City must now take their place alongside neighbours United – who also went out after losing 2-1 away to Basel – in the Europa League after learning harsh lessons of life in the Champions League during their first campaign.

Roberto Mancini’s side have swept to the top of the Premier League, but even this expensive and richly talented side found the adjustment to Europe’s elite competition a tough one, paying a heavy price for losses away to Bayern and the ultimately decisive defeat in Naples.

City will now make the Premier League an even bigger priority, while regrouping and planning again for what they hope will be another tilt at the Champions League next season.

Their ambition of qualifying from the group stage was helped by Bayern coach Jupp Heynckes’ decision to relegate many of his key players to the bench, having already won the group. Goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, Philipp Lahm, Mario Gomez, Franck Ribery and Thomas Mueller all watched from the sidelines.

The change in personnel did not disrupt the discipline and organisation that is Bayern’s trademark, however, as City were frustrated in all their attempts to exert early superiority.

City felt they were victims of an injustice after 16 minutes when Silva’s free-kick floated straight in, but French official Stephane Lannoy adjudged that Joleon Lescott had fouled keeper Jorg Butt.

The breakthrough came six minutes before the interval, courtesy of another moment of instinctive skill from the magical Silva. Edin Dzeko’s touch sat up nicely for the Spaniard and he made a difficult opportunity look easy by firing a wonderful left-foot volley into the bottom corner of Butt’s goal.

City gained confidence from the strike and almost added a second immediately as Sergio Aguero cut through Bayern’s defence only to see Jerome Boateng clear off the line.

Silva then forced another save from Butt with Gareth Barry shooting over from the rebound as City ended the half in the ascendancy.

And that supremacy was confirmed six minutes after the resumption with their second goal. Dzeko was again involved, slipping a neat pass through to the foraging Toure, who poked a right-foot finish past Butt.

City’s fans were dreaming of achieving what had looked unlikely before kick-off and reaching the last 16, but the celebrations were snuffed out once Napoli took charge against Villarreal.

Having worked so hard to reach the Champions League, elimination will be a bitter blow for Mancini and City as they join neighbours United in Europe’s second-string competition.

The three-time European champions and reigning Premier League winners went behind to Marco Streller’s strike after poor defending and a goalkeeping error.

They lost captain Nemanja Vidic to a bad knee injury before hitting the bar.

Alexander Frei nodded a second before Phil Jones’s late header left United a goal short of the draw they needed.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s men, who have reached three of the past four Champions League finals, finished third in Group C as Benfica and Basel reached the knockout stage.

Ferguson and his players looked shell-shocked at the end and they will now have to make do with Europa League football.

Basel are into the last 16 for only the second time in their history, caretaker manager Heiko Vogel capping his short spell in charge with an historic triumph.

Questions will be asked of United goalkeeper David de Gea, who ought to have prevented Streller’s opener, while Vidic may have a serious knee problem.

United arrived at St Jakob Park knowing a point would be enough to send them through but – with defeat meaning certain elimination – Ferguson cautioned against the complacency that saw Basel almost snatch victory at Old Trafford in September.

They got off to a vibrant start, passing and moving with urgency to deny their opponents possession and threaten an early breakthrough. For the first nine minutes, Basel barely had a touch as an attack-mined United line-up rampaged forward.

However, the hosts managed to limit their opponents to only one sight of goal in the time, a harmless Park strike that sailed well over the bar, and United’s failure to capitalise on their dominance was punished with the first meaningful Basel attack.

A collision between Vidic and Chris Smalling allowed Xherdan Shaqiri to collect a cross on the left and, with Smalling in a daze on the floor, he produced a low centre.

Instead of gathering the ball, De Gea poked it away with his foot and Streller was able to place a powerful half-volley into the net.

United went into their shells and it was not until the 29th minute that they mustered a response – one from which they should have equalised.

Nani’s cross from the right teed Rooney up for a routine close-range finish, but he miscued a shot he would usually bury and Park could not convert the follow-up.

That seemed to inject life into United, and Rooney was denied by goalkeeper Yann Sommer from a Giggs reverse pass before seeing a penalty shout turned down.

Nani was causing no shortage of problems but Basel held firm, and United’s evening took a turn for the worse when Vidic twisted his right knee in a challenge with Streller.

He left the field on a stretcher in clear discomfort, but his team ploughed on and Rooney saw an angled strike sail narrowly wide at the start of the second half.

Basel continued to defend for their lives while occasionally threatening on the break.

The ever-dangerous Shaqiri curled a shot just wide and De Gea saved well from an Alexander Frei free-kick.

United responded with a Nani cross that Markus Steinhofer volleyed on to his own bar but then came the decisive blow, Frei ghosting in behind Smalling at the back post to head home Shaqiri’s cross.

Jones forced a header over the line after Danny Welbeck was denied from close range and fellow substitute Federico Macheda hit the woodwork, but it was too little, too late.

He was asked to lose his six-pack for the movie Dabangg. We sympathize with him and we can imagine the kind of pain that Sallu bhai had to go through! As if this wasn’t enough, to add insult to injury he was asked to go through this ordeal by none other than his own sibling! Dabangg producer Arbaaz Khan asked him to lose his macho image.

So we have the Bollywood macho dude Salman, playing a Bihari police officer in the film. The reason he was asked to lose his macho frame and get a little ‘unfit, so that he could get in the character of a pan-chewing Bihari cop.

He was put on a specialized diet so that his super abs is gone.

The actor, who never misses his exercise routine, mastered the game of table tennis in a day so as to stay fit atleast. He wouldn’t have like to go all flabby. We are with you all the way Salman; good decision!

As per a source, Salman will be acting opposite Kangana and in a somewhat shocking move, has not chosen Katrina Kaif. The source also reveals that the actor and the director were looking for a heroine, who could act very powerfully and look glamorous at the same time.

According to Mahesh Manjrekar, the film is going to be a hard hitting one with a dash of comedy. The movie should appeal to the masses. The movie is apparently a remake of a Marathi film, Shikshanacha Aaicha Gho that was directed by Manjrekar as well. No other information regarding the film was revealed.

Produced by Hari Om Productions and Cape of Good Hope Productions, Khatta Meetha is Akshay Kumar’s lowest budget movie so far and has already ensured the producers a substantial profit, thanks to a new strategy that was adopted keeping in mind the economic meltdown.

The film shot at a humble budget has already grossed net collections of Rs.230 million (Rs.23 crore) in its opening weekend in India.

Reveals a trade analyst, “The film is doing extremely well in single screen theatres. It had a great opening weekend. Akshay Kumar works his charm again. A relatively low production cost helped the makers successfully distribute the film and thereby maximize the revenues.”

Adds acclaimed trade analyst/critic Taran Adarsh, “The strategy of making a film in a moderate budget and selling it for reasonable prices ensures safety for not just the producer but also the distributors. Akshay and Ashtavinayak deserve kudos for keeping the industry’s well-being and health in mind by keeping the economics in check and also creating a tremendous buzz for the film.”

The Stan rapper admits he has no idea about navigating cyberspace – and he’d like to leave it that way.

He employs someone to keep his Twitter.com account updated and only checks out YouTube.com clips when friends email them to him. “If I learn how (to use a computer), I’m going to be on that b**ch all day looking at comments about me, and it’s going to drive me crazy,” the Daily Express quoted him as saying.

Let’s take a closer look at each of the six points–not necessarily in the order Jobs lists them–from the letter and dig deeper to see if the arguments and justifications actually hold water.

Full Web

Jobs states in his letter “Adobe has repeatedly said that Apple mobile devices cannot access “the full Web” because 75 percent of video on the Web is in Flash. What they don’t say is that almost all this video is also available in a more modern format, H.264, and viewable on iPhones, iPods and iPads.”

As a user of both the iPhone and iPad, I have to side with Jobs on this one. I won’t say that the lack of Flash is never an issue–I’d like to be able to track my Dominos Pizza order in real-time from the iPad–but it in the years I have been using the iPhone it has really never even occurred to me as an issue. Most of the sites that “rely” on Flash are really only using it to deliver ads that I don’t want to see anyway.

The reality, as Jobs points out, is that YouTube–the largest single purveyor of online video content–has an iPhone and iPad app to deliver video, and most major online outlets have adopted iPhone and iPad compatible video standards. For those that still depend on Flash, there are emerging Band-Aid solutions to deliver alternate streams to iPhones and iPads.

Reliability, Security, and Performance

Jobs says “Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash,” adding “We don’t want to reduce the reliability and security of our iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash.”

I am not sure about reliability or performance issues, but Symantec is not alone in citing security concerns with Adobe software. Microsoft has stepped up its game and offers a more formidable challenge for malware developers. Adobe products–especially Flash and Acrobat Reader–are ubiquitous on virtually every platform, and represent the low-hanging fruit for attackers to target.

However, the lack of true multitasking support on the iPhone and iPad provide the devices with protection against malware attacks. Adobe software may be the weakest link on other platforms, but probably wouldn’t fundamentally impair the security of the iPhone or iPad.

Battery Life

In the letter, Jobs explains that H.264 standard is the video codec of choice for the iPhone and iPad. The fact that H.264 decoding is built-in at the hardware level is one of the reasons that Apple embraces it. Jobs explains that decoding H.264 in software apparently consumes about twice as much battery power.

The letter says “Although Flash has recently added support for H.264, the video on almost all Flash websites currently requires an older generation decoder that is not implemented in mobile chips and must be run in software.”

Fair enough. I understand that Apple feels like any third-party software that cuts battery life in half will ultimately reflect poorly on the platform, or on Apple itself. However, I don’t really see the harm in allowing Flash as an option. Put the choice in the hands of the users and let them decide for themselves if cutting the battery life in half is a worthwhile tradeoff for using Flash.

There are currently only four other quasi obsolete Nokia phones that come preloaded with the full set of 360. The M1 and the H1 were based on the LiMo platform rather than any more common mobile environment.

Switching to Android platform makes more sense because it is much widely supported and benefits from regular updates and overwhelming support from thousands of developers worldwide.

Not surprisingly, there are more than 50,000 apps for Android significantly more than LiMo and second only to Apple’s iPhone. So what might have happened? Sales of the M1 and the H1 could have been disappointing.

Vodafone currently has five Android smartphones in its lineup and appears to be willing to embrace the platform by adopting it for its own brand phones.

The 845 is its most ambitious phone yet; the M1 and the H1 had Samsung’s name on them, not this one. Furthermore, with an initial launch in 12 Vodafone markets, the 845 could quickly become a very popular model.

The handset has a 3 inch touchscreen, a 3 megapixel camera, an FM radio, wi-fi and GPS.

Your jaw is unlikely to drop reading that spec, and indeed the phone is only set to run Android 1.6 rather than the latest version of Google’s OS.

However, the Optimus is more about simplicity, than it is cutting edge technology. LG has designed the G540 to be a user friendly introduction to the world of smartphones.

It comes with social networking built-in, for easy access to Twitter and Facebook, and the phone also boasts a number of integrated Google services.

The on-board camera can record video (but not in HD quality), and the phone also incorporates easy to use video editing software.

Expect the Optimus G540 to arrive at the weekend, although pricing details still haven’t been confirmed.