WHO'S UP

Michelle Obama
The down-to-earth First Lady's sartorial choices are down to earth too. For her appearance on the Today Show, Michelle Obama sported a $34. 95 dress from H&M which she accessorised with a red belt and bright yellow heels. Fast fashion can be haute too.

Tihar Jail
Delhi's Tihar Jail has been bitten by the social networking bug. No, the jailbirds aren't going to start tweeting. It is the prison authorities who are joining Facebook and Twitter to keep the public posted on activities inside Tihar and improve transparency in day-to-day functioning.

Donald Trump
Donald Trump, who was once described as a "blowdried side of beef", has told CNN that he is serious about wanting to run for president: "I love this country. I hate what's happened to this country. We're a laughing stock throughout the world. "Trump that!

S Sreesanth
Things are looking up for Kerala speedster S Sreesanth. The temperamental 28-year-old made it to his second World Cup after the first choice, pacer Praveen Kumar, failed to recover from an elbow injury.

Wael Ghonim
Wael Ghonim, a 30-year-old Google executive, has become the face of the Egypt protests. The bashful activist invigorated the masses and struck a chord with many ordinary Egyptians touched by his sincerity and remorse at the deaths of demonstrators, but continued defiance against the regime.

WHO'S DOWN

Julian Assange
A tell-all book by a former WikiLeaks insider casts founder Julian Assange as an "emperor" who has become just the kind of public figure he is trying to expose. Daniel Domscheit-Berg, the former WikiLeaks spokesman who left the website after a bitter dispute with Assange, has written about his disillusionment with a leader he describes as delusional and power-crazed.

Sex strike
Politicans in Belgium are likely to get no action. With elections held 243 days ago and still no agreement on forming a government, an unlikely proposal has been made by a Socialist senator. Marleen Temmerman has proposed a sex strike. "I call on the spouses of all negotiators to withhold sex until a deal is reached, "she says. Temmerman was inspired partly by Lysistrata, the Greek play in which Arisophanes's heroine calls for women to abstain from sex to end the Peloponnesian war. In the play, the sex strike is successful.