This is the story of a wonderful idea. Something that had never been done before, a moment of change that shaped the Internet we know today. This is the story of Flickr. And how Yahoo bought it and murdered it and screwed itself out of relevance along the way.

Do you remember Flickr’s tag line? It reads “almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world.” It was an epic humble brag, a momentously tongue in cheek understatement.

Because until three years ago, of course Flickr was the best photo sharing service in the world. Nothing else could touch it. If you cared about digital photography, or wanted to share photos with friends, you were on Flickr.

Yet today, that tagline simply sounds like delusional posturing. The photo service that was once poised to take on the the world has now become an afterthought. Want to share photos on the Web? That’s what Facebook is for. Want to look at the pictures your friends are snapping on the go? Fire up Instagram.

Even the notion of Flickr as an archive—as the place where you store all your photos as a backup—is becoming increasingly quaint as Dropbox, Microsoft, Google, Box.net, Amazon, Apple, and a host of others scramble to serve online gigs to our hungry desktops.

The site that once had the best social tools, the most vibrant userbase, and toppest-notch storage is rapidly passing into the irrelevance of abandonment. Its once bustling community now feels like an exurban neighborhood rocked by a housing crisis. Yards gone to seed. Rusting bikes in the front yard. Tattered flags. At address, after address, after address, no one is home.

It is a case study of what can go wrong when a nimble, innovative startup gets gobbled up by a behemoth that doesn’t share its values. What happened to Flickr? The same thing that happened to so many other nimble, innovative startups who sold out for dollars and bandwidth: Yahoo.

Here’s how it all went bad.
In the Beginning

Flickr famously began as a feature of another product. Husband-and-wife development team Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake had created a photo sharing feature for another product they were working on, Game Neverending. Butterfield and Fake were old-school Web types. The kind with low Metafilter user numbers and WELL accounts.

And because they knew the Web so fluently, they soon realized that their real product wasn’t the game: It was this secondary feature, the ability to share photos online. This was 2003, and photo sharing was still very much a novel problem for people. Flickr was born.

It was a hit. Bloggers especially loved it, as it solved an age-old photo hosting problem. (This was during the hoary old days of the Web when storage actually cost money.)

Two years later, in 2005, Butterfield and Fake sold their company to Yahoo, whose deep pockets promised great things for Flickr’s users. It upped the monthly storage limit to 100MB for free users, and removed it altogether for pro accounts, for example. Yahoo had bandwidth and engineering to burn. Things were going to be great; things are always going to be great the first time you embrace a new corporate mother.
When Startups Become Successes

Very few people manage to build successful startups. But when the one hits, it can change the status quo in an instant. Suddenly, those two elemental ingredients—people and code—become very valuable to the established companies that seem to reside on an untouchable corporate Mount Olympus. It would have to be an overwhelming compliment and sense of validation. How would you handle it? What if you made something beautiful and useful that changed the status quo? Would you sell it? Would you sell yourself?

That’s the choice successful startup founders are faced with. Build something good, and the buyout offers start rolling in. But while selling out in most other fields of creative endeavor is frowned upon, it’s a given on the Web.

Maybe it shouldn’t be. For every YouTube, there are horror stories of great people with great products, squandered in the yawning maws of uncaring corporate integration. Dodgeball gets lost in Mountain View. Beloved bookmarking services like Delicious become fields of information left fallow.

Some upstarts take an independent path. Consider Foursquare. Or Twitter. Or Facebook. Each spurned buyout offers, and none has ever been stronger. All managed to find a business model over time. Or even StumbleUpon, which only found its feet after its founder re-purchased his company from eBay and spun it off again as an indie.

It’s no secret that for many entrepreneurs, the exit is always the goal. It’s about the sellout before the first line of code is written. But for a select group, products are meant to be art. They are meant to literally change the world. And for those, selling out can be especially problematic.

Flickr falls into that camp.
Integration Is The Enemy of Innovation

“Yahoo was a good fit initially,” says Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake, who left the company in 2008. “We had offers from various companies, including Google, and I honestly think that Yahoo was a great steward. It was a great steward of the brand. It was allowed to flourish. In the subsequent two years after the acquisition, Flickr blossomed.”

Yet even early on, there were signs that the transplant—which had seemed so successful at first—was going to fail. That the DNA didn’t match. This was largely due to how this new appendage was grafted on by Yahoo’s CorpDev department.

When a new startup comes into an established company, the first wall it typically hits is CorpDev, or corporate development: the group within a business that manages change. CorpDev is usually charged with planning corporate strategy—where a business will grow or shrink, the markets it will enter or exit, and what kind of contracts and deals it may strike with other companies. It often oversees acquisitions. It plans them. Approves them. And then it sets the terms.

When a big company gobbles up a smaller one, often only a fraction of the money is handed over up front. The rest comes later, based on the acquisition hitting a series of deliverables down the road. It’s similar to how incentives are built into the contracts of professional athletes, except with engineering benchmarks instead of home runs.

Corpdev sets these milestones. They reflect the reason for the acquisition, and how the company—in Flickr’s case, Yahoo—can leverage them. They’re baked into the deal, and an acquisition integration team begins working immediately to make sure they are met. Typically, they’re very engineering-based, designed to integrate the smaller company’s product into the enormous corporate machine.

And because payment schedules are based on achieving those CorpDev terms, it means both companies have a vested (pun intended) interest in putting those milestones ahead of new features. They are a sledgehammer applied with great force to the feet of nimble development. Worse, they often completely ignore what made the smaller target valuable in the first place.

Take Upcoming, the calendaring site Yahoo bought not long after Flickr. It was a play to get local listings. Local data—especially in smaller cities or for smaller events—can be very hard to come by. Everyone ends up having the same stuff. But Upcoming’s data was user-generated. It was different. Unique. Valuable.

The milestones for that acquisition were all based around integrating that local event data into Yahoo. Yahoo didn’t care about Upcoming’s users—the community that created the data. Yahoo’s approach turned out to be completely backwards. The value of the the company was determined by the index itself, rather than how the index was built—which is to say, by the community.

It was a stunning failure in vision, and more or less the same thing happened at Flickr. All Yahoo cared about was the database its users had built and tagged. It didn’t care about the community that had created it or (more importantly) continuing to grow that community by introducing new features.

“We spent a lot of time in meetings with CorpDev just defending the product and justifying our decisions,” said a former Flickr team member.

And so when Flickr hit the ground at Yahoo it was crushed with engineering and service requirements it had to meet as per demands of the acquisition integration team. Those were a drain on resources, human and financial. Even though many of the resources came from Yahoo, they were debited against Flickr. This created an untenable cycle that actively hampered innovation.

“The money goes to the cash cows, not the cash calf,” explains one former Flickr team member. If Flickr couldn’t make bucks, it wouldn’t get bucks (or talent, or resources).

Because Flickr wasn’t as profitable as some of the other bigger properties, like Yahoo Mail or Yahoo Sports, it wasn’t given the resources that were dedicated to other products. That meant it had to spend its resources on integration, rather than innovation. Which made it harder to attract new users, which meant it couldn’t make as much money, which meant (full circle) it didn’t get more resources. And so it goes.

As a result of being resource-starved, Flickr quit planting the anchors it needed to climb ever higher. It missed the boat on local, on real time, on mobile, and even ultimately on social—the field it pioneered. And so, it never became the Flickr of video; YouTube snagged that ring. It never became the Flickr of people, which was of course Facebook. It remained the Flickr of photos. At least, until Instagram came along.

The Flickr team was forced to focus on integration, not innovation. This played out in two key areas.
Socially Awkward

Flickr’s best feature isn’t what you think. It’s not photo-sharing at all. Just as photo sharing was a feature hidden within a game, there was another feature hidden within photo-sharing that was even more powerful: social networking. Flickr was, nearly a decade ago, building what would become the Social Web.

The first point in Flickr’s two point mission statement is to help people make their photos available to the people who matter to them. Flickr had—and still has—excellent tools for this. Flickr was an early site that let you identify relationships with fine grained controls—a person could be marked as family but not a friend, for example—instead of a binary friend/not friend relationship. You can mark your photos “private” and allow no one else to see them at all, or identify just one or two trusted friends who may view them. Or you can just share with friends, or family. Those granular controls encouraged sharing, and commenting, and interaction. What we are describing here, of course, is social networking.

It’s hard to remember, but back in 2005, Yahoo seemed like it had its game on. After losing out on search dominance to Google, it snapped up a bunch of small-but-cool socially oriented companies like Flickr (social photos), Delicious (social bookmarking), and Upcoming (social calendaring). There was a real sense that Yahoo was doing the right thing. It was, to some extent, out in front of what would come to be widely known as Web 2.0: the participatory Internet.

But Yahoo’s social success in those years was almost accidental. It wasn’t (and isn’t) a company with vision. Its founders Jerry Yang and David Filo’s great contribution to the Internet? They built a directory of links and then sold ads on those pages.

It was a gateway, nothing more. This was hardly an innovative idea, or technically complicated to pull off. You don’t have to write algorithms to build a portal. Yahoo was little more than an electronic edition of Yellow Pages.

The founders’ influence on a company’s culture is enormous, and Yang and Filo cared about business, not products or innovation. They didn’t foster a culture of computer scientists, like Google’s founders did, or cultivate hackers like Facebook. They grew a business culture. For many years that worked quite well—until Google came along. Suddenly nobody needed directories anymore. Why browse a hierarchy when you can jump directly to what you’re looking for with a simple query?

Yahoo’s CEO Terry Semel had failed to buy Google in 2001, when he had the chance. Now Yahoo was so focused on winning search that it essentially surrendered social. In 2005, Flickr had far and away the best social connection and discovery tools on the Internet. Remember, back then Facebook was still very much a fledgling service, one that didn’t even let you upload pictures other than the one in your profile. Yahoo, meanwhile, had existing internal social products, like Address Book and Messenger. Social was clearly the future. What Yahoo wanted, however, wasn’t the future. It was to re-fight an old battle from the past. It was to beat Google.

“By the time we were looking at Flickr, Yahoo was getting the shit kicked out of it by Google. The race was on to find other areas of search where we could build a commanding lead,” says one high ranking Yahoo executive familiar with the deal.

Flickr offered a way to do that. Because Flickr photos were tagged and labeled and categorized so efficiently by users, they were highly searchable.

“That is the reason we bought Flickr—not the community. We didn’t give a shit about that. The theory behind buying Flickr was not to increase social connections, it was to monetize the image index. It was totally not about social communities or social networking. It was certainly nothing to do with the users.”

And that was the problem. At the time, the Web was rapidly becoming more social, and Flickr was at the forefront of that movement. It was all about groups and comments and identifying people as contacts, friends or family. To Yahoo, it was just a fucking database.

The first community problems became evident when Yahoo decided all existing Flickr users would need a Yahoo account to log in. That switchover occurred in 2007, and was part of the CorpDev integration process to establish a single sign on. Flickr set it to go live on the Ides of March.

From Yahoo’s perspective, there was no choice but to revamp the login. For one, Flickr had grown internationally, and it had to localize to comply with local laws. Yahoo already had tools to solve this, because it had already expanded into other countries. It offered a ready-made solution.

But moreover, Yahoo needed to leverage this thing that it had just bought. Yahoo wanted to make sure that every one of its registered users could instantly use Flickr without having to register for it separately. It wanted Flickr to work seamlessly with Yahoo Mail. It wanted its services to sing together in harmony, rather than in cacophonous isolation. The first step in that is to create a unified login. That’s great for Yahoo, but it didn’t do anything for Flickr, and it certainly didn’t do anything for Flickr’s (extremely vocal) users.

Yahoo’s RegID solution turned out to be a nightmare for the existing community. You could no longer use your existing Flickr login to get to your photos, you had to use a Yahoo one. If you did not already have a Yahoo account, you had to create one. And you did not even log in on Flickr’s home page, upon arriving, you were immediately kicked over to a Yahoo login screen.

Although Flickr grew tremendously with the huge influx of Yahoo users, the existing community of highly influential early adopters was infuriated. It was an inelegant transition, and seemed to ignore what the community wanted (namely, a way to log in without having to sign up for a Yahoo account). This was the opposite of what people had come to expect from Flickr. It was anti-social.

And it very much delivered a message, to both users and to the team at Flickr: You’re part of Yahoo now.

That message was also going out to Flickr’s team. Flickr prided itself on customer care, which it considered a core part of community building. But Yahoo wanted to manage all that itself with its existing departments. One of Yahoo’s goals was to move from a system of notice and takedown, to prescreening all the content members posted before it went up online. Flickr saw this as both a costly time-consuming task and one that could very well violate its members privacy, especially when talking about private photos. The Flickr team scheduled a meeting and headed down to corporate headquarters in Sunnyvale for an hour long presentation to make its case. Halfway through the meeting, the vice president who oversaw customer care for Yahoo looked at his watch, announced he had another meeting, and left. It was an open fuck you.

For Heather Champ, who was Flickr’s head of community at the time, the meeting was the beginning of the end. “I came out of that meeting knowing I couldn’t continue in my role. I didn’t want to stay and watch them dismantle everything we’d worked so hard to build.”

By mid-2008, a year after the RegID debacle, it was clear to most everyone that Facebook was the big up-and-coming social network. What had been a plaything for college kids and high schoolers was suddenly the network your mom, your dad, your gym coach, and everyone else you’d ever met was sending you friend requests from. Microsoft was pumping money into it, and it was fast approaching 100 million users.

Inside Yahoo, which itself had a massive user base and multiple social products, some were already warning that it was going to be bypassed in social just as it had been bypassed in search.

“I spent years at Yahoo trying to signal the alarm that Facebook was going to take over the adult market unless we stepped in and used our existing social networks to fight back,” laments one former Yahoo engineer who worked on products at both the parent company and Flickr. “Obviously this never went anywhere for a multitude of reasons.”

Yahoo had already tried to buy Facebook in 2006—for a billion goddamn dollars. And failed. Two years later Facebook was too big to buy. The only way to beat it was to come at it from another direction with a better product. Yahoo’s best hope for that was Flickr. But by then it was too late.

“Flickr wasn’t a startup anymore,” explains the engineer, “people didn’t really want to work that hard to turn the entire product around. Even if they had, Flickr [was] very techie hipster, many didn’t use or like Facebook and considered it bland, boring, evil, poorly designed, etc., and were certainly not ready to fast follow it. Emphasis was put more on how things looked, and felt, rather than on metrics and on what worked. The whole experience was very frustrating for me all around, as I slowly watched Flickr and Yahoo fade into irrelevance.”
The Unstoppable Force And His Immobile Object

There’s a difference between a missed opportunity and a complete fuck-up. When Yahoo failed to capitalize on Flickr’s social potential, that was a missed opportunity. But if you want to see where it completely fucked up, where it just butchered Flickr with dull knives and duller wit, turn on your phone and launch the Flickr app. Oh, what’s that, you don’t have one? Exactly.

Flickr had a robust mobile Web site way back in 2006—before the iPhone even shipped. You could use it with your piece of crap Symbian phone, or the dinky screen on your Sony Ericsson T68i. But it was basically just a browser. If you wanted to get a photo from your phone to your account, you had to email it.

And then in 2008, something happened that made the mobile Web a sideshow altogether: apps. The iPhone’s App Store ushered in a new era that changed the way we interacted. People didn’t want mobile web experiences that required them to skip from a camera app, to an editing app, back to the Web and possibly even over to email to upload and share an image. They wanted an app that did all those things. The Flickr team understood that. Unfortunately they couldn’t do anything about it.

“Flickr was not empowered to build its own iOS app—or any other mobile app for that matter,” laments one former Flickr executive. “You had this external team with strong opinions as to what the app should do.”

It was here that the missions of the two companies truly collided, according to insiders. The Flickr app was a top-down decision, driven by Yahoo Mobile and its leader, Marco Boerries. The team at Flickr was iced out.

Boerries had a grandiose vision for something called “Connected Life.” It was to be a socially seamless mobile experience that brought all your Yahoo services together in the palm of your hand, and connected them with the desktop. It was nothing short of what Apple and Google and Microsoft are all trying to do today with their cloud strategies.

Boerries was a maniac. He’d built a word processing program called StarWriter as a 16 year-old kid, grew it into the StarOffice suite and sold it to Sun for $74 million in 1999. By 2004, he was running around Silicon Valley giving a demo that was literally making people gasp in wonder.

He would walk into a room full of investors, pull out his crappy flip phone, and take a picture of the room. Then he’d pocket it, open his laptop and refresh the app running on his desktop. Suddenly, the visitors in the room would be confronted with their own skeptical faces. It was automatic. He then explained that he could do the same thing with any other type of data—emails, phone numbers, mp3s, whatever. Anything you did on the phone would be seamlessly reflected on the desktop, and vice versa. Basically, it was iCloud.

Yahoo bought his company in 2005 for something in the neighborhood of $16 million, largely to buy Boerries. A month later, it would buy Flickr.

Boerries was a genius, and, by all accounts, a nightmare to work with. One of the most frank depictions of this comes from Kellan Elliot-McCrea, Etsy’s CTO who, in a past life, was the chief architect of Flickr.

Jack Norman at the Institute for Wisconsin’s Future disclosed this revelation (Gosh, I love the Internet):

During a three-month period in 2012, Hendricks donated $500,000 to Walker’s campaign, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. She is the largest single donor to the governor’s anti-recall campaign, outspending even fellow billionaires Sheldon Adelson (Las Vegas casinos) and Richard DeVos (Amway).

Hendricks, whom Forbes magazine says is worth $2.8 billion, heads Beloit-based ABC Supply Company, which the magazine calls “the nation’s largest roofing, window and siding wholesale distributor” with annual sales approaching $5 billion.

ABC Supply may be a huge money-maker for Hendricks, but the Wisconsin corporate income tax returns she files claim the company makes not a penny in taxable profit.

ABC Supply paid exactly $0.00 in state corporate income tax in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008, according to the state Department of Revenue. Tax data for more recent years were not available when the information was requested from the department.

Hendricks helped make headlines last week when a video emerged of a conversation she had with Walker in Beloit. In the video, Hendricks asks Walker: “Any chance we’ll ever get to be a completely red state and work on these unions and be-come a right-to-work state? What can we do to help you?”

Walker replied: “Well, we’re going to start in a couple weeks with our budget adjustment bill. The first step is we’re going to deal with collection bargaining for all public employee unions, because you use divide and conquer.” [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]

Hendricks is well-known as a financial backer of conservative causes and candidates. Her political donations in Wisconsin date as far back as a $1,000 gift to then-Gov. Tommy G. Thompson in 1991, ac- cording to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

And she speaks out herself in favor of low taxes and less regulations. The opening sentence in an op-ed she wrote in 2010 for USA Today says: “Taxing job creators is a sure way to stop the engine of economic growth.”

Well, she’s found a way to get around paying any state income tax on her business. After all, state tax law is full of plenty of loopholes for her lawyers and accountants to work with. It’s not known which loop- holes ABC Supply used to avoid income taxes.

ABC Supply was founded in 1982 by Hendricks and her late husband, Kenneth Hendricks. She was a very active partner while he was alive and has been running the company since his death five years ago.

(My bold)

This is significant. While Walker claims he is not battling the middle class, he’s teamed up with a billionaire businesswoman who was afforded every Corporate loophole to avoid taxation while partnering with the Governor to eradicate union rights.

Important research at Tufts University in 2010 revealed that some of the most massive galaxies in the Universe may have formed billions of years earlier than the current models predicted. The identified galaxies were five to ten times more massive than our own Milky Way.
“We found a relatively large number of very massive, highly luminous galaxies that existed almost 12 billion years ago when the universe was still very young, about 1.5 billion years old. These results appear to disagree with the latest predictions from models of galaxy formation and evolution,” said Tufts astrophysicist Danilo Marchesini, lead author on the paper and assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the Tufts School of Arts and Sciences.

“Current understanding of the physical processes responsible in forming such massive galaxies has difficulty reproducing these observations.”

Collaborating with Marchesini were researchers from Yale University, Carnegie Observatories, Leiden University, Princeton University, the University of Kansas and the University of California-Santa Cruz.
Redshift refers to the phenomenon of a light wave stretching and moving toward longer wavelengths (the red end of the spectrum) as the emitting object travels away from an observer (Doppler Effect). This is similar to the pitch of a siren getting lower as the siren moves away.

The redshift of distant galaxies is due to the expansion of the universe. The larger the redshift, the more distant the galaxy is, or the farther back in time we are observing. The larger the redshift, the younger the universe in which the galaxy is observed.

By complementing existing data with deep images obtained through a new system of five customized near-infrared filters, the researchers were able to get a more complete view of the galaxy population at this early stage and more accurately characterize the sampled galaxies.

The researchers made another surprising discovery: More than 80 percent of these massive galaxies show very high infrared luminosities, which indicate that these galaxies are extremely active and most likely in a phase of intense growth. Massive galaxies in the local universe are instead quiescent and do not form stars at all.

The researchers noted that there are two likely causes of such luminosity: New stars may be forming in dust-enshrouded bursts at rates of a few thousand solar masses per year. This would be tens to several hundreds of times greater than the rates estimated by spectral energy distribution (SED) modeling. Alternatively, the high infrared luminosity could be due to highly-obscured active galactic nuclei (AGN) ferociously accreting matter onto rapidly growing super-massive black holes at the galaxies’ centers.

There might be an explanation that would at least partially reconcile observations with model-predicted densities. The redshifts of these massive galaxies, and hence their distances, were determined from the SED modeling and have not yet been confirmed spectroscopically. Redshift measurements from SED modeling are inherently less accurate than spectroscopy. Such “systemic uncertainties” in the determination of the distances of these galaxies might still allow for approximate agreement between observations and model predictions. But this is pure speculation, and highly doubtful.

If half of the massive galaxies are assumed to be slightly closer, at redshift z=2.6, when the universe was a bit older (2.5 billion years old) and very dusty (with dust absorbing much of the light emitted at ultra-violet and optical wavelengths), then the disagreement between observations and model predictions becomes only marginally significant.

However, the discovery of the existence of such massive, old and very dusty galaxies at redshift z=2.6 would itself be a notable discovery.

“Either way, it is clear that our understanding of how massive galaxies form is still far from satisfactory,” said Marchesini. “The existence of these galaxies so early in the history of the universe, as well as their properties, can provide very important clues on how galaxies formed and evolved shortly after the Big Bang.”

In prior findings, it appears that the early universe was a place of puzzling extremes and seeming contradictions. That’s the conclusion scientists are drawing from new infrared observations of a very distant, unusually bright and massive elliptical galaxy. This galaxy was spotted 10 billion light years away, and gives us a glimpse of what the Universe looked like when it was only about one-quarter of its current age.

Measurements show that the galaxy is as large and equally dense as elliptical galaxies that can be found much closer to us. Coupled with recent observations by a different research team – which found a very compact and extremely dense elliptical galaxy in the early Universe – the findings deepen the puzzle over how ‘fully grown’ galaxies can exist alongside seemingly ‘immature’ compact galaxies in the young universe.

‘What our observations show is that alongside these compact galaxies were other ellipticals that were anything up to 100 times less dense and between two and five times larger – essentially ‘fully grown’ — and much more like the ellipticals we see in the local universe around us,’ explains Michele Cappellari of Oxford University’s Department of Physics. ‘The mystery is how these two different extremes, ‘grown up’ and seemingly ‘immature’ ellipticals, co-existed so early on in the evolution of the Universe.’

Elliptical galaxies, which are regular in shape, can be over ten times as massive as spiral galaxies such as our own Milky Way and contain stars which formed over 10 billion years ago. One way of checking the density of such galaxies is to use the infrared spectrum they emit to measure the spread of the velocities of their stars, which has to balance the pull of gravity.

Measurements of a distant compact elliptical galaxy have shown that its stars were dispersing at a velocity of about 500 km per second, consistent with its size but unknown in local galaxies.

The new study, using the 8.3-m Japanese Subaru telescope in Hawaii, found a ‘fully grown’ elliptical with stars dispersing at a velocity of lower than 300 km per second, much more like similar galaxies close to us.

‘Our next step is to use the Subaru telescope to find the relative proportion of these two extremes, fully grown and compact ellipticals, and see how they fit in with the timeline of the evolution of the young Universe,’ Michele tells us. ‘Hopefully this will give us new insights into solving this cosmic puzzle.’

In earlier surveys, the Advanced camera for Survey (ACS) and the Infrared Camera for Multi-object Spectrometer (NICMOS), the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) have revealed the presence of estimated 10,000 fully formed galaxies in a patch of sky in the constellation, Formax – a region just below the constellation, Orion. According to the NASA, these fully formed galaxies emerged just 700 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was barely 5% of its current age.

Also, using ISAAC near- infrared instrument aboard ESO’s Very Large Telescope(VLT), and the phenomenon of gravitational lensing, a team of French and Swiss astronomers using Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory, have identified an extremely faint galaxy, Abell 1835 (image left).

According to interpretations, Abell 1835 must have formed just 460 million years after the universe was born, during the “Dark Age” when the first stars and galaxies were supposedly being born More recently, fully formed galaxies were discovered which are at a greater distance, over 13.1 billion light years (American Astronomical Society 2010), and which may have already been billions of years in age, over 13 billion years ago .

There are fully formed distant galaxies that must have already been billions of years old over 13 billion years ago; which would make them older than the Big Bang. Then there is the problem of the oldest globular clusters so far discovered, whose ages are in excess of 16 billion years. The Milky Way and other galaxies are also so old that they must have formed before the so called “Dark Ages” and thus almost immediately after the Big Bang, which is not consistent with theory.

Using the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) aboard NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers have detected about a dozen very red galaxies at a distance of 10 to12 billion light years from Earth (cfa Harvard 2005). According to the Big Bang model, these galaxies existed when the universe was only about 1/5 of its present age of 13.75 billion years.

The unpredicted existence of “red and dead” galaxies so early in the universe challenges Big Bang theories relating to galaxy formation (cfa Harvard 2005). Analysis show that galaxies exhibit a large range of properties. Young galaxies with and without lots of dust, and old galaxies with and without dust.There is as much variety in the so called “early universe” as we see around “today” in galaxies closer to Earth.

Moreover, Spitzer Space Telescope, which is sensitive to the light from older and redder stars, has also revealed evidence for mature stars in less massive galaxies at similar distances (Spitzer 2005), when the Universe was supposedly less than one billion years old.

It was a natural progression of the technology we had available. We figured out how to store music as small digital files that could be easily played, moved and copied. We connected everyone’s computers together in a giant network which made it extraordinarily easy to move data around. The files got small enough and the network got fast enough that even the least tech-savvy computer users among us had no trouble sharing a song or an entire album with a friend. But that someone optimized and anonymized that process is what would shake up an industry.

At this point things are a confusing mess with innovators fighting copyright holders and copyright holders trying to innovate in a way that will protect their bottom line. Television is particularly interesting right now as the networks and cable providers can’t seem to figure out what they want to do. Companies are tentatively embracing services like Hulu, Netflix and the iTunes Store as legitimate and affordable ways for consumers to watch movies and TV shows, but there is always a sword dangling above, waiting for a major network or movie studio to pull their license and leave paying customers without the content they paid to see. There are also strong signs of the desire of copyright holders to control the content they own.

Hulu was supposed to bring TV shows to everyone over the internet, but as they became more popular, they started restricting their service. Instead of being able to watch any show in the Hulu library, TV show episodes would rotate out. Other content was hidden behind the Hulu Plus paywall, reserved for paying customers. Hulu also started restricting which devices could access their content. One of the biggest shakeups was Hulu’s exit from Boxee which allowed people to use their computers as an entertainment system. Hulu similarly pulled the rug out from under Google TV in its infancy. Watching Hulu any way other than a traditional computer browser these days requires an app and a Hulu Plus subscription (as on the iPad) and some services like HBO GO don’t allow their content to be displayed on an external monitor. And again, this is why the CEO of Time Warner should know a thing or two about AirPlay. AirPlay is part of the iPhone, the iPad, iTunes, and after this summer, it will be part of the Mac operating system. When Mountain Lion becomes available for customers, they will be able to display their entire screen on a display connected to their AppleTV and suddenly any content that we can find on our computers can also be on our television. His words: “So the current Apple TV, the little thing, the hockey puck, really doesn’t do anything to help enable you to get Internet material on your TV.”

This is a twofold problem (at least.) If the content holders have no idea what technology consumers are using and what they want in a viewing experience, how can they make good decisions about how to provide and license their content and how can they do anything but respond to new and disruptive technology with lawsuits and awkward diatribes against piracy? I think we are past the point in our culture when we give people a pass for not understanding how technology works – not people who make a living from it and make legislative decisions about it. Part of the reason technology workers and enthusiasts are so put off by attempts to regulate (or not) technology is because these laws and restrictions are so obviously being created by people who don’t know the first thing about the technology they’re dealing with.

JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon announced the loss last Thursday, sparking stock losses and reminders of the 2008 financial crisis across Wall Street. In Obama’s interview, which will air this morning on ABC’s “The View,” the president referenced the federal bailout that resulted from that crisis and said a similar loss at a weaker bank may have caused yet another bailout, ABC News reports:

“JPMorgan is one of the best-managed banks there is. Jamie Dimon, the head of it, is one of the smartest bankers we got and they still lost $2 billion and counting,” the president said. “We don’t know all the details. It’s going to be investigated, but this is why we passed Wall Street reform.”

“This is the best, or one of the best-managed banks. You could have a bank that isn’t as strong, isn’t as profitable making those same bets and we might have had to step in,” Obama said. “That’s exactly why Wall Street reform’s so important.”

What Obama didn’t mention was how successful Dimon and JP Morgan were in watering down Wall Street reform. The bank has spent nearly $10 million since the beginning of 2011 on lobbying, focusing largely on the Volcker Rule, a regulation that would largely prohibit risky proprietary trading at federally-insured banks. The trade that caused JP Morgan’s losses would likely still have been legal under the Volcker Rule, but only because of a loophole that JP Morgan lobbied for.

Obama is right that JP Morgan’s situation demonstrates the need for Wall Street reform. But it also makes clear that the new rules need to be strong and immune from Wall Street’s lobbying influence if we don’t want a repeat of the 2008 crisis.

Well, now the joke’s on us. Prior to opening in North America, Battleship has made ducats a-go-go worldwide because — as Michael Bay’s robots-in-disguise trilogy taught us — we as a species are genetically predisposed toward ogling chunks of computer-generated alloy making noises similar to Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music. (It’s the siren song of SKRONK-SKRONK-PHWEESH.)

Battleship’s newfound loot guarantees that some Snidely Whiplash lookalike in Hollywood is itching to fast-track a sequel. But what will Battleship 2 look like? Given that A.) nobody on the planet asked for a Battleship movie; and B.) Paramount Pictures is using the last uncurled finger on its magic monkey’s paw to make Transformers 4 for 2014, it is my sincere belief that Battleship 2 will have nothing to do with battleships.

Let’s discuss the plot of director Peter Berg’s Battleship (trailer here) for a moment. There’s a yawning narrative gulf between Battleship the board game and Battleship the movie. Nothing about the former suggests the latter, save for the shared loose theme of naval combat (and some peg-shaped alien missiles).

As I noted back in 2010, board game movies must plot that which is essentially plotless. Using the Milton-Bradley source material alone, Battleship’s screenwriters at best could’ve penned a period war movie with the maritime historical credibility of Baywatch Nights.

The scriptwriters also could’ve cobbled together decades worth of Battleship commercial ephemera. For example, we could’ve learned how quickly that wife divorced her husband (in the above 1968 box art) and what grandpa had for breakfast (in the TV spot at left). The film would be not unlike that GEICO caveman sitcom or an opera starring Domino’s Pizza Noid or a sonnet about the Michelin Man.

Battleship isn’t exactly novel for being a movie based on a tabletop game (see: 1985′s Clue and 2000′s Dungeons and Dragons). No, Battleship is kind of exemplary for possessing source material that in no way necessitates what happens onscreen. The bare minimum the filmmakers needed were battleships, and the noun “battleship” alone does not have a plot (non-etymologically speaking).

No, the movie Battleship relies on the audience’s collective memory of playing a game of Battleship, most likely during elementary school recess, when the only two non-picked-over options are Battleship and half a deck of urine-stained Uno cards.

And like a male anglerfish fusing to the much larger female anglerfish’s body and becoming a living testicle, this meager nostalgia has affixed itself to the present, populist, SKRONK-SKRONK-PHWEESH edifice of the Transformers movies. If Battleship came out in the 1980s, it might have a theme song by Menudo. That’s what happened to Rubik’s Cube, after all.

Think of Battleship as a tiny human pilot inside a 50-foot-tall Michael Bay golem made of box office receipts. You could switch out that pilot and nobody would notice, but people are reassured if they know who that pilot is.

Similarly, you could toss any number of communal experiences in the framework of Battleship (the movie) and come out with a narrative that’s 99% similar. I’m guessing the only reason Battleship (the game) was selected as blockbuster bait was to sell the inevitable Battleship Monopoly. (“Liam Neeson’s Flinty Gaze” = Marvin Gardens?)

With this mind, it’s abundantly clear Battleship 2 has zip need for the game Battleship. In fact, I’ve discovered an assortment of common objects on my kitchen table that will fuel the next three sequels. Mustache-twirling studio executives, please email me my requisite 46% of the domestic gross or risk legal action. Thank you.

Battleship 2: Plastic Hanger

Everybody uses coat hangers. But what if aliens didn’t use coat hangers? What if aliens had grenades that looked like coat hangers? And these grenades exploded? This could be a potent Invasion of the Bodysnatchers-meets-S.W.A.T.-style hybrid.

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Battleship 2: Val-Pak

Everybody receives junk mail. What if aliens could infiltrate by shapeshifting into junk mail? And this junk mail exploded? TWIST: The aliens are also copies of PARADE magazine. Marilyn vos Savant is an alien. Howard Huge is her trusted lieutenant. DOUBLE TWIST: I accidentally threw away my PARADE magazine yesterday.

Battleship 2: Pieces of Wax From A Yankee Candle

Everybody has seen random pieces of wax. What if these random pieces of wax were a code? A code from another planet? A code to make an explosive? From a planet that once exploded? And what if this planet smelled like Baltic Pine? Guest-starring Foxy Brown.

This is in addition to the I-T department’s Rs 1,067-crore tax demand notice for non-payment of TDS dues in the last four financial years in a similar case.

Bharti Airtel had approached the Delhi High Court challenging these notices and has been granted a stay in the matter. The telecom operator has recently made an interim payment of Rs 236.9 crore in this regard.

An Airtel spokesperson said in a statement to PTI that “this pertains to a matter where the I-T department is trying to treat inter-connect charges being paid by domestic telecom operators to international operators, as fee for technical services and recover withholding tax on that basis.

“The matter is sub-judice and the demand on the company stands stayed. The pre-deposit amount has been paid in compliance of the court order granting stay.”

According to sources in the I-T department, fresh notices were issued to the firm in order to obtain financial documents and revenue collection figures of overseas roaming operations during those financial years and a tax demand will be raised after scrutinising this data.

The Income Tax department, earlier this year, had asked the company to pay a total tax of Rs 1,067.24 crore under Section 201 (consequences of failure to deduct or pay taxes) along with Section 195 (any person responsible for paying to a non-resident) of the I-T Act.

The tax demands raised for the four financial years were- 2007-08 (Rs 202.07 crore), 2008-09 (Rs 329.913), 2009-10 (Rs 313.577 crore) and 2010-11 (Rs 221.681 crore) on payments made by the company to “non-resident mobile service providers”.

The I-T department had held that such payments are in nature of fee for technical services and are subjected to TDS deductions as per section 195 of the I-T Act.

The department, in its notice, had also said that for payments of such taxes, the location of the company’s property or place of conducting the operations is not “relevant”.

Bharti Airtel offers a variety of telecom services both in India as well abroad.

The company claims to have a subscriber base of over 230 million across 19 countries.

“It has been decided that all petrol pumps of public sector oil marketing companies in the country shall observe one day protest closure in the first instance from midnight of April 22-23 till the midnight of April 23-24,” Federation of All India Petroleum Traders (FAIPT) General Secretary Ajay Bansal said here.

Further, FAIPT, which claims to represent dealers of over 40,000 petrol pumps in the country, will go on an indefinite strike from midnight of April 29-30, if their demands are not met.

He said the oil ministry has not implemented recommendation of its own committee that was constituted to go into the issue of commission paid to dealers.

The committee headed by Joint Secretary (Marketing) in Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas had recommended a dealer commission of 0.39 paise per litre on petrol and 0.17 paise a litre on diesel. But the ministry gave only 0.27 paise for petrol and 0.15 paise for diesel.

“Our demand for 5% commission on the invoice value of petroleum products has been turned down by the committee without any proper reason,” he said.

Earlier on Monday, India reported annual wholesale price index (WPI) inflation for March at 6.89%, mainly driven by higher food prices, exceeding forecasts.

“While inflation has moderated, risks to inflation are still on the upside,” the RBI said in a report.

“Monetary policy would … need to support growth without risking external balance or inflation by excessively fuelling demand,” the report said.

The RBI has left interest rates on hold after raising them 13 times between March 2010 and October 2011. It disappointed many investors a month ago when it left rates unchanged, accompanied by strong anti-inflationary comments.

On Monday, the central bank said inflationary drivers remain, with inflation “likely to remain sticky at about current levels” in the fiscal year that started this month.

“Price pressures persist with considerable suppressed inflation in oil, electricity, coal and fertilisers, (and) the incomplete pass through of rupee depreciation,” it said.

The government heavily subsidises fuel and fertilisers, and is expected eventually to free up fuel prices in order to ease its fiscal burden, which would add to inflation.

Most analysts polled by Reuters last week expected the RBI to begin its easing cycle on Tuesday with a 25 basis point cut in the policy repo rate to 8.25%, while a minority expected it to bring down the cash reserve ratio for banks by 25 basis points to 4.50%.

An RBI survey of economists forecast the Indian economy to grow at 7.2% in the fiscal year that began on April 1, little changed from the 7.3% forecast in the last survey three months ago.

Growth in Asia’s third-largest economy slowed to 6.1% in the three months to December, the weakest in nearly three years. The government has forecast growth in the fiscal year that ended on March 31 to dip below 7% for the first time in three years.

“I acknowledge the acts, but not criminal guilt and I claim self-defence,” he told the court on the first day of his 10-week trial.

The judge then entered the plea as “not guilty.”

His plea came after prosecutor Inga Bejer Engh spent over an hour reading the charges against him, including “acts of terror,” and listing each of his 77 victims and and how they died.

Breivik, 33, has described his actions as “cruel but necessary” and claims he acted alone and in self-defence against those he considered to be “state traitors” for opening Norway up to multiculturalism and allowing the “Muslim invasion” of Europe.

On July 22, Breivik killed eight people when he set off a bomb in a van parked at the foot of government buildings in Oslo housing the offices of labour prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, who was not present at the time.

He then travelled to Utoeya island outside Oslo where, dressed as a police officer, he spent more than an hour methodically shooting at hundreds of people attending a Labour Party youth summer camp.

The shooting spree left 69 people dead, most of them teenagers trapped on the small heart-shaped island surrounded by icy waters, and is the deadliest massacre ever committed by a sole gunman.

The state government was directed to inform the court by April 27 its stand on bringing back Reddy to his post.The petitioner alleged that in order to whittle down the ongoing probe into the liquor scandal, the government had deliberately transferred Reddy, the Investigating Officer(IO) who had taken on the liquor mafia in the state. The state government is under pressure from various political quarters to somehow dilute the ongoing investigation, the application alleged.

The petitioner expressed apprehension that the change of the IO might result in benefiting such people who have gothigh political links and who are involved in the scandal neck-deep. The Chief Justice initially expressed his reluctanceto interfere with the Government’s executive powers as regards to the transfer of officers.

However, he later said the Government would have been better advised if it had not given room for any suspicions about its intention in transferring Reddy. The Chief Justice asked the Government to reconsiderthe move in view of the issues raised by the petitioner and criticism in public over the transfer issue. He directed the Government to express its view on the question of bringing back Reddy to take up further investigation into the matter. The case was posted to April 27 for further hearing.

Zabihullah Mujahid provided Reuters with a rare insight into how the group plans strategic high-profile attacks designed to deal a psychological blow to US-led Nato forces and their allies in the Afghan security forces.

In the latest, a 30-member suicide squad was dispatched to launch simultaneous assaults on parliament, Nato bases and Western embassies after two months of painstaking discussions on tactics.

“Our military experts sketched maps of the targets and also created a mock-up of them where fighters carried out practice before carrying out the large-scale operations in four provinces,” Mujahid said in a phone interview.

“The fighters also learned how to enter their targets and hold them.”

His account could not be independently verified.

Heavy street fighting between militants and security forces in the centre of the Afghan capital ended on Monday after 18 hours of gunfire, rocket attacks and explosions that bore strong similarities with an operation last year.

In both assaults, insurgents occupied high-rise construction sites to use as firebases after smuggling weapons into central Kabul past police checkpoints.

The battles that broke out at midday on Sunday gripped the city’s central districts into the evening and through the night, with blasts and gunfire lighting up alleys and streets before Afghan special forces soldiers backed by Nato helicopter gunships killed the insurgents.

Mujahid said the insurgents, who were mostly all killed by security forces, had been selected from among the estimated 50,000 fighters battling Nato and Afghan troops and given special training.

“Ordinary fighters can’t obviously carry out these important missions,” he said. “The fighters who were assigned for this mission received special training on how to use heavy machine guns, suicide bomb vests and other tactics.”

Mujahid said heavy machine guns, rocket grenades and ammunition had been put in place well before the assault with inside help from Afghan security forces, but did not elaborate.

A witness to the attack in Kabul’s diplomatic quarter saw insurgents in a dark blue Prado SUV opening fire on a policeman before entering a building that he had been guarding.

“One Taliban opened fire toward a security guard from a window of the vehicle and another went to a security checkpoint and wounded the man inside, occupying his position,” said Ahmad Zeya Azami, 29, a car mechanic, who worked next door.

“Five Taliban ran into the building.”

Azami said one insurgent targeted the multi-storey Kabul Star Hotel with a rocket-propelled grenade, while another opened fire on the nearby diplomatic quarter.

“I closed our shop and escaped from the area without any wounds. But now everybody is living in fear and losing hope about the future,” he said.

Ahmad Farhad, 19, another shopkeeper, said the insurgents had appeared calm and very well prepared.

“One went to the police checkpoint and others went into the building in an organized way, like they had seen the area before,” Farhad said. “All were wearing traditional clothes, black or grey, and all looked to be aged about 30.”

Farhad said the men had been armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles, and some had carried bags as they climbed out of a black four-wheel-drive.

Afghan and US officials have blamed the attacks on the al-Qaida-linked Haqqani network, based along the porous Afghan-Pakistan mountain border.

Mujahid denied any involvement by the insurgent group, one of the most feared in Afghanistan. The United States has long pressed Pakistan to go after the Haqqani network, which analysts say Islamabad regards as a strategic asset.

Any Haqqani role in the weekend assault would likely further strain relations between Washington and Islamabad.

“The attacks were very successful for us and were a remarkable achievement, dealing a psychological and political blow to foreigners and the government,” Mujahid said.

“Although the Haqqanis are part of the Taliban, we did not ask for any help, guidance or support. This is a baseless plot from the West, who wants to show that we are separate.”

On Centre-state issues, the three chief ministers are likely to find common grounds with Bihar’s Nitish Kumar, West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee and Punjab’s Parkash Singh Badal. These CMs launched a blistering attack on the Congress-led UPA government at a meeting on internal security, accusing the Centre of meddling in states’ affairs by seeking to arm the National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) with police powers and proposing intrusive changes in the Border Security Force Act.

Ironically, the attack came on a day when both PM Manmohan Singh and home minister P Chidambaram sought to avoid stepping on corns by emphasizing and accepting the need for the Centre to work with the states. But the diplomatic approach did not prevent non-UPA CMs from hitting out at the Centre.

The three CMs were not together for long, but the deliberate media exposure of the interaction at Tamil Nadu House pointed to a political subtext beyond a meeting of minds on opposing the Centre over initiatives seen to be an intrusion on state turf.

Sources said while the discussions on Monday centred on the need to prevent the Centre from pushing through proposals giving intelligence outfits nationwide search and seizure powers and oppose “misuse” of central agencies, the likelihood of cooperation for the forthcoming presidential election is on the cards.

The leaders agreed to continue their cooperation on federal issues and this could grow into a shared strategy on a presidential nominee although much will depend on Congress’s choice for Rashtrapati Bhawan. Congress is aware that it will need the support of parties like the SP, BSP and Trinamool and could opt for a nominee who is hard to oppose.

Opposing UPA over federal issues provides a ground for regional parties like Naveen Patnaik’s BJD to interact with BJP while state satraps like Jayalalithaa, Mamata Banerjee and Nitish Kumar are in touch over the past few months, beginning with the chorus against the Lokpal bill’s lokayukta provisions during last year’s winter session of Parliament.

The Tamil Nadu CM enjoys a good equation with Modi and Jayalalithaa’s recent meeting with leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley is also seen in the context of an anti-Congress grouping. Patnaik was careful in maintaining his meeting was in the nature of a courtesy call and Modi offered no comment, but AIADMK sources said the Centre’s “attack on federalism” was discussed.

Earlier in the day, Modi delivered a hard-hitting speech at the conference on internal security, saying the NCTC controversy was part of a “series of unsavuory episodes” and the Centre was “meddling with subjects under the state list”.

Jayalalithaa went a step further to say that states were “glorified municipal corporations” in the Centre’s view. The tough talk saw Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot criticize the opposition CMs for trying to gain “cheap popularity” during a serious discussion on internal security. The Congress spokesperson dismissed questions on a “fourth front” as a mirage.

The three CMs received support from their counterparts from Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar. Jayalalithaa warned against an “emerging pattern” wherein the state’s powers were “abrogated” by the Centre through passage of bills and accused it of showing “scant respect” for state governments. She added that the lack of consultation with states and failure to take states in to confidence was a “cogent commentary” on the system of governance in the Centre.

Modi took exception to the Centre’s claim that 97% of intelligence had been generated by the Multi-Agency Centre and only 3% had been contributed by states, sarcastically asking whether the responsibility for the inputs would be accepted in a similar proportion. He ran down central inputs that sent state agencies on wild goose chases.

In his address, Patnaik sought urgent consultations between the Centre and the states over issues like the NCTC, saying any delay would affect handling of law and order. He referred to the ongoing hostage crisis in the state saying that the delay in discussing NCTC had been dangerous.

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston studied a total of 21 healthy participants in a controlled environment for six weeks. They regulated their diets activities, hours of sleep and sleep disruptions.

The researchers let the subjects sleep 10 hours per night at the beginning and the end of the study. However, in between they made their subjects sleep at all different times of day and night and made sure that they just got five and a half hours of sleep in each 24-hour period.

They found that sleep restriction along with sleep disruption resulted in decreased resting metabolic rate and higher glucose concentrations in the blood after eating due to poor insulin secretion by the pancreas. These symptoms can lead to weight gain and a risk of diabetes, according to researchers.

The study indicates how people working in shifts could face higher risk of obesity.

“We think these results support the findings from studies showing that, in people with a pre-diabetic condition, shift workers who stay awake at night are much more likely to progress to full-on diabetes than day workers,” neuroscientist and lead study author Orfeu M. Buxton said in a statement.

The study was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

US-listed iGATE, which had acquired Phaneesh Murthy-led Patni Computers in 2011, has announced plans to delist the company at the time of its acquisition. The American company holds a 81% stake in Patni and it will now have to spend about Rs 1,394.82 crore to complete the delisting offer.

The figure is much higher than what was estimated by the company when it made an offer for Patni’s 26,823,624 shares in March. iGate had set a floor price of Rs356.74 in its reverse book building process and indicated that it was ready to pay a maximum price of Rs430-450 per share.

Analysts say the de-listing of the shares of favorable for small investors who can benefit from the delisting price, which is expected to be close to previous open offer price of about Rs. 500. Patni will be de-listed from the domestic stock exchanges by mid-2012 and iGATE will have full ownership of the firm.

The American Depository Receipts (ADRs) of Patni will also be de-listed from the New York Stock Exchange. iGate said in a statement that it will beginning the process of de-listing through its subsidiaries, Asia iGate Solutions and iGate Global Solutions Ltd.

Experts say that the update leaves Google + looking much more like its larger rival Facebook. Google unveiled a refresh of Google+, which boasts 170 million members but is much behind Facebook, which is the world’s largest social networking site with close to 800 million active users from around the world and with an aim to touch one billion user mark soon.

Google, which is already the world’s biggest online search company, is increasingly focusing on the social networking space. The Google + social networking initiative from the company, is becoming a fundamental part of the company’s strategy, after it created a lot of buzz on the internet.

The new Google + will feature icons the left side of the main screen allowing users to drag apps up or down to create their preferred order. They can also show or hide apps by moving them over to “More” tab.

The company has also upgraded the popular Hangouts feature that allows users to come together though video conferencing. The site will now have a dedicated Hangouts page that will feature an updated list of invitations from the people in a user’s circles and access to all public and On Air hangout. The page will also allow users to watch a live broadcast and a rotating billboard of popular hangouts, pro tips and other items.

Google senior vice president Vic Gundotra wrote in a company blog post said, “Simply put, we’re hoping to make sharing more awesome by making it more evocative. You know that feeling you get when a piece of art takes your breath away, or when a friend stops by with unexpected gifts? We want sharing to feel like that, every single time.”

The service allows developers to let users spend money inside of apps, which may have been downloaded for free or for some price. The service will add a new way for developers on the platform to generate revenues by selling in-app features and attributes to the users.

The new service could bring Amazon in the direct line of fire from an aggressive patent-holding firm named Lodsys. Lodsys, a company based in Texas that claims of owning a number of patented technologies, claims that it owns patents on the method used to offer features within an app.

Lodsys had sued several large and small developers claiming damages for patent infringement. It had sent letter to iOS developers threatening them with legal actions if they did not enter into deals with the company.

Even as Google, Apple, and Microsoft have obtained licenses from the company for using the technology but Lodsys claim that these licenses do not cover app developers and they are required to obtain licenses separately.

Apple’s legal department had written a letter to Lodsys and its CEO Mark Small saying its existing license for patents covering in-app purchases indeed covers all iOS app makers. The letter also indicated that Apple is entitled to share the technology with third party developers, as it already has and it s ready to defend its license rights.

The study demonstrates for the first time that engineering stem cells to form immune cells that target HIV is effective in suppressing the virus in living tissues in an animal model, said lead scientist Scott G Kitchen.

He added: “We believe that this study lays the groundwork for the potential use of this type of an approach in combating HIV infection in infected individuals, in hopes of eradicating the virus from the body.”

In their previous research, the scientists took CD8 cytotoxic T lymphocytes — the “killer” T cells that help fight infection — from an HIV-infected individual and identified the molecule known as the T cell receptor, which guides T cell in recognising and killing HIV-infected cells.

In their latest research, the scientists at California University similarly engineered human blood stem cells and found that they can form mature T cells that can attack HIV in tissues where the virus resides and replicates.

They did so by using a surrogate model, the humanised mouse, in which HIV infection closely resembles the disease and its progression in humans.

In a series of tests on the mice’s peripheral blood, plasma and organs conducted two weeks and six weeks after introducing the engineered cells, the scientists found that the number of CD4 “helper” T cells — which become depleted as a result of HIV infection — increased, while levels of HIV in the blood decreased.

CD4 cells are white blood cells that are an important component of immune system, helping to fight off infections.

These results indicated that the engineered cells were capable of developing and migrating to the organs to fight infection there, the PLoS Pathogens journal reported.

“We believe that this is the first step in developing a more aggressive approach in correcting the defects in the human T cell responses that allow HIV to persist in infected people,” Mr. Kitchen said.

Keywords: HIV-AIDS, stem cells research

Sources quoted Yang as saying the issue was with the Chinese judicial authorities, but that the government had conveyed to them the concerns of the Indian government. He said the Chinese foreign ministry “would play a positive role” to help resolve the issue, Yang told Krishna.

Krishna met Chinese Yang in Moscow on the sidelines of the trilateral meeting of foreign ministers of India, Russia and China. It was the third meeting of foreign ministers this year. It signifies the intensive high-level interaction that characterizes India-China ties and the importance that both sides place on the relationship.

The hour-long meeting focused on several bilateral and multilateral issues. Official sources said, the ministers stressed the importance of an early meeting of an India-China Maritime Dialogue, which was decided during the last round of special representative talks in New Delhi.

India and China have also decided to start dialogues on Central Asia, West Asia and Africa. The ministers said it would be finalized soon. They also agreed to resume the India-China dialogue on Disarmament and Non Proliferation. This decision is interesting in the light of the North Korean test on Friday and Pakistan’s continued building of its nuclear arsenal.

In a follow-up of Hu Jintao’s discussions in New Delhi last month, Yang told Krishna that Beijing would encourage their companies to invest infrastructure projects in India.

Late last month, the traders, Shyamsundar Agarwal and Deepak Raheja, who are in the centre of the dispute in Yiwu, were evicted from the hotel they were staying in because they had run out of money. After they were `kidnapped’ by Chinese suppliers in Yiwu last December for over two weeks, the traders had been supported by the Indian Consulate in Shanghai. They duo has asked the MEA to support them while they are stuck in China.

Their plight came to light only when an Indian diplomat, who had gone to secure their release, fainted after being disallowed from leaving by Chinese negotiators.

However, Gujarat government said that the chargesheet in the case has already been filed and the offence is made out.

“The offence is made out,” senior advocate Ravi Shankar Prasad told a bench comprising justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Prakash Desai.

Prasad gave the response when the bench said, “you must have read the FIR in the case and the FIR itself was a violation of human rights.”

“We are thoroughly dissatisfied in the manner the FIR was lodged and the allegations contained in the FIR. The FIR is in violation of human rights,” the bench observed.

The bench was hearing a petition by Setalvad against the May 27 last year order of the Gujarat high court, which had refused to quash the FIR registered against her at a police station in Panchmahal district of the state on exhumation of the bodies from a graveyard near River Panam.

Gujarat government submitted that initially Setalvad was not an accused in the case but during the investigation, her alleged role was found and there are independent witnesses to support the allegations against her.

The court agreed to hear the case but said, “it is a malafide case.”

“Today we ask you (state) to stop further investigation in the case,” the bench said.

At this point, Prasad said that the charge sheet has been filed in the case and investigation was carried when she was not an accused.

However, the bench said, “Whatever position stands today shall remain” and posted the matter for July 18.

Prasad also told the bench that in the Gujarat high court there was no plea for quashing the case against Setalvad.

During the last hearing, the bench had said that it was a “spurious” case to victimise Setalvad and this type of case does no credit to the Gujarat state in any way.

Besides this case, the Gujarat government has also lodged criminal proceedings against her in other riot-related cases.

Earlier, the bench had said that it was not correct on the part of the Gujarat government to go ahead with the case.

The state, in its affidavit, had said its probe against Setalvad in the case had showed that she actually planned and executed the digging of the graves without any permission in 2006.

The state had claimed that during the probe into the case, it has emerged that “Teesta Setalvad, the petitioner herein, was the main accused, who actually planned and executed this operation of digging of graves near Pandarwada through her staff.”

The government had said the other accused have claimed innocence and had blamed Setalvad for instigating them to carry out the exhumation, which is a penal offence.

It was alleged that in 2002, about 28 unidentified bodies of the riot victims from Pandarwada and surrounding villages in Khanpur taluka were buried in the graveyard.

The high court had declined to scrap the FIR, but had quashed the summons, which had said she is absconding.

In its May 27, 2011 order, the high court had observed that by showing Setalvad as an absconding accused in the charge sheet filed in April, “a glaring mistake has been committed by the investigating officer”.

The FIR had alleged that Setalvad, who had earlier secured anticipatory bail from a local court in Panchmahal district, was the prime conspirator behind the incident.

The state government, in its affidavit, had named five accused Rais Khan Pathan, Gulam Kharadi, Sikander Abbas, Qutub Shah Diwan, Jabir Mohammed who in their respective statement blamed Setalvad for instigating them.

A bench of Justices G S Singhvi and K S Radhakrishnan, which had on April 4 dismissed petitions by telecom companies seeking review of the judgment cancelling 122 licences linked to irregular allocation of 2G spectrum, agreed to hear the Centre’s petition for reconsideration of the judgement and limited it to the auction of annulled licences.

Additional solicitor general Indira Jaising clarified: “We do not seek to question the cancellation and as per the judgment we have a window till June 2 to rework the policy. The government wants to ensure the court that it is not questioning the operative part of the judgement.”

However, she said the government was concerned by the general guidelines that auction alone should be the method for allocation of natural resources and sought time for elaborate arguments on it.

The bench said it could understand that the primary anxiety of the Centre was possible applicability of auction principle for mining leases. Jaising asked: “That is one but what about other natural resources, for example water?”

When she sought time for presenting elaborate arguments by the Centre, the bench posted the review petition for hearing on May 1. However, the court was reluctant to add telecom companies as interveners in the Union Government’s review petition and issued notices to petitioners – NGO ‘Centre for Public Interest Litigation’ and Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy.

The June 2 deadline referred to by Jaising related to the apex court’s February 2 directive, saying cancellation of telecom licences would come to effect after four months. The court had directed the government to consider TRAI recommendations and “take appropriate decision within the next one month and fresh licenses be granted by auction”.

Jaisingh said the government was in the process of formulating the modalities for implementation of the judgment, but it wanted to express its reservations on the auction route suggested for allocation of every natural resource.

The first ground in the review petition said: “The finding of the judgment that the state is duty bound to conduct a public auction whenever it distributes natural resources is directly contrary to various legislations including the Mines and Mineral (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957, which grants a preferential right to persons who apply first or prior in point of time for a mining lease.”

It also said that the 2G judgment “failed to consider that the policy of grant of mining rights on a principle of first come first served had been in place since the enactment of the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulations) Act, 1957.”

“It is respectfully submitted that if the 2G judgement is correct, a necessary consequence would be that the grant of mining rights under the Mines and Mineral Act, which was enacted as far back as 1957, after due deliberations in parliament qua a most valuable natural resource, would be liable to be held illegal,” it added.

“The more one’s partner was likely to fall asleep after sex, the stronger the desire for bonding,” explains Daniel Kruger, research fellow at the University of Michigan, and lead author of the study.

The study, published in December in the Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology, examined 456 participants, who completed anonymous online surveys assessing experiences and desires with one’s partner after sex. Participants then indicated “who falls asleep after sex?” and “who falls asleep first when going to bed not after sex?”

Participants whose partners nodded off immediately after sex had stronger desires for post-coital cuddling and chatting.

The study also looked at who were more likely – men or women – to fall asleep first. Despite the common stereotype, the researchers did not find it more common for men to fall asleep first after sex. Women, however, were more likely to fall asleep first when sex hadn’t taken place.

“Perhaps men stay awake longer as an artifact of mate guarding – making sure the woman doesn’t leave them for another partner,” says Hughes. “Men may also stay awake longer in an attempt to entice their partner into having sex.”

Post-sex etiquette

1. When the climax is reached and ended, do not rush to do anything but stay close to your partner.
2. You can softly mention how much you enjoyed what was done, and how good you now feel. Even if it’s necessary, wait a few moments before leaving the bed for the bathroom.
3. Maintain body contact.
4. Enjoy more intimacy by embracing your partner and give (and receive) more mutual caresses.
5. Don’t immediately check your mobile phone for messages or missed calls.

It sounds frightening — and there is no question it invokes a serious warning — but even those who carried out the research urge people not to overreact.

“Our take home message is don’t panic. Don’t stop going to the dentist,” said the lead author of the study Dr. Elizabeth Claus, a neurological surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and the Yale School of Public Health.

But people “should have a conversation with their dentist” about the need to use X-rays as little as possible to keep teeth healthy, Claus says. That’s a conclusion few would dispute, with or without the new study.

The tumor studied is meningioma, a type that is usually not malignant, meaning it can grow but not spread. To be sure, it can cause severe problems in some patients. But people with meningiomas often live long, healthy lives with no treatment, dying of some other cause. Doctors diagnose about 5,000 cases a year in the United States, about three times as often in women as in men.

Significantly, the study is the weakest type of epidemiology, a so-called “case control” study. The researchers interviewed 1,433 people diagnosed with meningioma and compared them with 1,350 people with no such diagnosis. The two groups were matched for age, gender, race, income and places of residence. In a tiny portion of the cases the researchers actually looked at dental records. But, most often, they asked the study subjects – whose average age was 57 — to recall their history of dental X-rays going back to childhood.

The tremors, measuring 4.9 on the Richter scale with Haryana’s Bahadurgarh as epicentre, were felt across Delhi and its adjoining satellite towns of Ghaziabad and Noida in Uttar Pradesh at a 1:11pm, the MeT office said.

However, according to the US Geological Survey, the strength of the earthquake was measured 5.2 on the Richter scale.

The quake took place 9km below the surface. The tremors were felt for less than ten seconds.

“The intensity was 4.9 and the epicentre was Bahadurgarh, Delhi-Haryana Border,” a senior MeT official said.

There were no immediate reports of any casualty. The fire brigade and police said they have not received any immediate calls of casualty or damage.

According to the Seismic Zone Mapping done by the Geological Survey of India (GSI), Delhi is among 30 cities in the country falling in zone IV, which is defined as a severe intensity seismic zone.

This is the third tremor in Delhi, which is among the 30 cities which fall in the high risk seismic zone, since September last year.

Tremors were felt in the capital on September 18 last year following an earthquake with an intensity of 6.8 on the Richter scale having its epicentre near Sikkim-Nepal border.

On September eight last year, an earthquake of 4.2 on Richter Scale with Haryana’s Sonepat as epicentre, had rocked the capital.

Striegal and her colleagues analysed both men and women who participated in health risk self-assessment screening.

Just over 21,700 men and 24,600 women participated in the screening and the researchers analysed differences within that group for obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, depression and impairment in work productivity.

The researchers found that out of the 46,351 people questioned, 1,630 men and 2,754 women reported binge eating, which they defined as experiencing at last one binge episode in the past month.

The study has been recently published in the International Journal of Eating. (ANI)

There is also no word yet on Squadron Leader D.S. Tomar who piloted the ill-fated plane.

“The major portion of the wreckage is still stuck in nearly 10 feet of snow of the glacier. The search parties are trying it hard to dig the wreckage but they haven’t been successful,” Deputy Superintendent of Police Khajana Ram told IANS over phone.

“As the portion of the glacier which contains the debris is caving in, it’s proving even more difficult to reach it,” he said.

The search teams Friday identified more parts of the combat jet on the Gangstang glacier in the Chokhang hills. It’s one of the prominent glaciers in the area.

Another official said as the glacier is not solid enough due to high temperature in the past few months, the chances of debris sinking further into the glacier can’t be ruled out. “So rescue workers are taking more precautions.”

The fighter jet crashed Oct 18 in the Himalayan terrain at elevations ranging from 15,000 to 20,000 feet above sea level. It was on a night flying training mission and had taken off from Adampur near Jalandhar in Punjab.

“Over 55 personnel, including expert mountaineers from the IAF, the Indian Army and some local mountaineers are involved in day-and-night combing operations,” an IAF official involved in the search told IANS, requesting anonymity.

“They are fighting against all odds ranging from hostile weather to steep gradients,” he added.

The task force commander, Group Capt P.K. Sharma, had said earlier that the crash site was identified by aerial search and imageries received from the remotely piloted aircraft and other aircraft which conducted the photo reconnaissance of the area.

The day’s minimum temperature was recorded a notch below average at 15.3 degrees Celsius, an official of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.

The humidity levels wavered between a high of 86 and a low of 31 percent.

According to IMD, Monday is likely to witness similar weather and the maximum and minimum temperatures are expected to hover around 31 and 16 degrees Celsius.

Saturday’s maximum and minimum temperatures settled at 30.2 and 15.2 degrees Celsius, respectively — both a notch below average.

Bedi admits he charged the NGOs business class airfare while travelling in the lower class, saying the excess money went into her own NGO.

Abhyas Mandal demanded she return the excess amount she had charged while attending their golden jubilee celebrations on May 13, 2009.

Bedi, one of the invitees, had submitted a travel agent bill for Rs.38,871 air fare (Delhi-Indore-Delhi) which they had paid.

“On Oct 27, we have got a mail from Bedi, asking our view on the issue saying that she had travelled in economy class but charged the fare of business class. After a meeting Sunday, we mailed her saying that we need the difference back,” NGO president Shivaji Mohite told IANS.

“Our NGO does not take government or foreign aid and runs on contributions of Rs.20 to Rs.50, so we could not tell her to keep this amount for her own NGO,” he said.

“It is also unfortunate that there was no transparency from her and she had not even told us that she would travel in different class and not the business class for that we had paid her,” Shivaji added.

Half a point behind the leaders at 1.5 points were International Masters Tania Sachdev (Del) and Eesha Karavade (Mahaashtra), WGM Swathi Ghate (LIC), Woman FIDE Master Saranya J. (Tamil Nadu), A.G. Nimmy (Kerala) and Pratyusha Bodda (Andhra Pradesh).

The interesting top board game between Swathi and Tania was a marathon affair and was the last to conclude. Swathi held the upper hand for most part of the Ruy Lopez game, but had to be satisfied with a draw in the end. Moving into the sixth hour of play, the rook and pawn end game lasted 74 moves, displayed the keen fighting spirit among the top women players.

In other boards, experience and ELO rating prevailed, as Mary Ann Gomes scored over Chandika Divyasree, Nisha Mohota defeated Aarthie Ramaswamy and Meenakshi Subburaman put it across Sai Meera.

Defending champion and WGM Soumya Swaminathan bounced right back after the first round loss to beat WGM Kiran Manisha Mohanty of Orissa.

Nine more rounds are to be played in this Swiss tournament the winner of which will qualify for the World Cup.

Results (second round): Swathi Ghate (LIC) 1.5 drew Tania Sachdev (Del) 1.5, A G Nimmy (Ker) 1.5 drew Eesha Karavade (Mah) 1.5, Mary Ann Gomes (AAI) 2 bt C Divyasree (AP) 1, Aarthie Ramaswamy (AI) 1 lost to Nisha Mohota (PSPB) 2, Sai Meera (IB) 1 lost to S Meenakshi (IA) 2, Bhakti Kulkarni (Goa) 2 bt R Bharathi (TN) 1, Padmini Rout (Ori) 1 drew Pratyusha Bodda (AP) 1.5, A Akshaya (TN) 0.5 lost to J Saranya (TN) 1.5, Soumya Swaminathan (PSPB) 1 bt Kiran Manisha Mohanty (Ori) 0.5, Bayashree Thipsay (AICF) 0.5 drew Swati Mohota (WB) 0.5, P V Nandhidhaa (TN) lost to Shweta Gole (Mah) 1, M Mahalakshmi (TN) 1 bt P Michelle Catherina (TN), C Sahajasri (AP) 1 bt P Bala Kannamma (TN), S Harini (TN) 1 bt Madhurima Shekhar (Del), Supriya Joshi (Mah) lost to Pon N Krithika (TN) 1.

He was reacting to Team Anna member Arvind Kejriwal threatening to launch a campaign against the Congress unless the Lokpal bill is passed in the parliament’s winter session beginning mid-November.

“Arvind Kejriwal should believe in the Indian constitution and democratic system of the country as standing committee of parliament is discussing the proposed Lokpal bill,” said Singh on the sidelines of a programme in Kolkata.

Kejriwal had Saturday accused the government of launching a smear campaign against its members and trying to create a rift and warned that Team Anna would launch a campaign against the ruling Congress unless the bill for an ombudsman was passed.

“He should know that a standing committee of parliament is discussing the bill. Whatever they (Team Anna) say is not correct. They should respect parliament,” said Singh.

Vaishnavi has the public relations mandate for the entire Tata Group, while Neucom Consulting managed the account of Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries.

Radia, had been embroiled in the 2G controversy, after some tapes were leaked in which she was found lobbying for Raja and her close camaraderie with some important personalities in journalism, business and the government came out in the open.

Although there was no charge against her relating to the 2G scam, she was named as a witness by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

In a statement on the closure of her two PR outfits Radia said: “To give precedence to my personal priorities of family and health, I have decided against renewing any client mandates and to exit the business of communications consultancy.”

Reacting to Radia’s statement, the Tata Group said it had appointed Rediffusion, led by Arun Nanda, to manage its public relations and public affairs from November 1, 2011.

The websites of Vaishnavi and Neucom Consulting were also taken down.

An employee of Vaishnavi Communications said she had no idea of the closure. Some others said that a few senior executives of the two PR agencies could get inducted into the Tata Group and Reliance Industries.

On July 18, a tripartite agreement was signed between the GJM and the state and central governments for setting up a new autonomous, elected GTA, a hill council armed with more powers than its predecessor Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC) formed in the late 1980s. The AVP had opposed the agreement.

An expert committee was set up under the agreement to survey the Gorkha-dominated parts of Siliguri, Terai (plains of Darjeeling) and Dooars (foothills of the eastern Himalayas) and examine if areas from these places could be brought under the GTA. The committee is expected to give its report in six months.

GJM general secretary Roshan Giri said: “After holding a series of meeting with the AVP leadership it has been decided that the name of the GTA be changed to GATA so that the moujas of Terai and Dooars can be included and there is a representation of adivasis.”

“We just want changing of the name from GTA to GATA and other things of the agreement will remain the same,” Giri told IANS by phone.

The AVP, since the signing of the tripartite agreement and formation of the area demarcation committee, had declared that it won’t allow any area of Terai and Dooars to be included under the jurisdiction of the GTA.

During Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s visit to North Bengal the AVP leadership demanded the formation of an adivasi territorial administration (ATA) on the lines of the GTA for the welfare of the tribals. The demand was rejected by Banerjee.

“We had placed the demand of formation of ATA but the demand was rejected. We discussed the matter with GJM leadership and they agreed to change the name of GTA to GATA. We are happy about it,” said John Barla, president, AVP.

“We have decided to give the nod regarding the inclusion of areas of Terai and Dooars under the proposed GATA. The AVP will also have representation in the GATA. We will place this demand before Mamata Banerjee very soon,” Barla told IANS.

“Registered medical practitioners (RMPs) of homoeopathy, ayurveda and allopathy issuing advertisements and promising assured treatment of various ailments, including sexual ailments, are in for trouble, as the Punjab government has decided to tighten the noose on them,” a spokesman quoting Medical Education and Research Minister Arunesh Shakir said Sunday.

Shakir issued directions to initiate action against all those doctors who were advertising through various media, including print, broadcast and outdoor media, for treatment of various ailments.

He also issued directions to start a campaign to stop advertisements by RMPs as these were in violation of the guidelines of the Medical Council of India.

The minister said that it was unfortunate that some medical practitioners dealing in homoeopathy, ayurveda and allopathy were giving advertisements and putting up hoardings offering total rejuvenation in cases of sexual problems and assuring the birth of male child.

Punjab has one of the worst sex ratio among all states in the country at 893 females per 1,000 males.

“It is unethical as well as illegal for a doctor to advertise and any doctor issuing advertisements would be issued show cause notice by the affiliating body and proceedings would be launched for the cancellation of his licence,” said the minister.

“Consumption pattern of milk, meat and poultry and vegetables is changing as compared to previous years,” Thomas told IANS.

The food minister clarified his Oct 28 statement that “people’s changing food habits were contributing to food inflation” meant that consumption patterns of items like “milk, meat and poultry and vegetables” were changing.

“Production of these items needs to be increased,” said Thomas.

He said that there is no inflation in foodgrain like wheat and rice, which were staple food items. Sugar too is under control since last year owing to improved production, said Thomas.

Food inflation touched 11.43 percent Thursday, raising concerns in the government. Food inflation was 7.5 percent in 2006-07 and had increased to 14 percent in 2010-11.

A concerned United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi discussed the issue with Thomas Saturday.

Stating that fluctuation in high prices of essential items was a concern, the food minister expressed hope it will stabilise soon.

Thomas had earlier said that hike in the minimum support prices (MSPs) over the past many years also contributed to food inflation.

But this, he said, was unavoidable as the farmers have to be given better prices for their produce.

“MSP hikes impact the market prices of foodgrains,” said Thomas.

The government recently hiked MSP for the rabi 2011-12 crop to expand the area under cultivation.

The minister also pointed out that subsidised foodgrain was being provided to poor people through the public distribution system.

“Advani arrived here by a special aircraft from Kochi along with the party’s national leaders M. Venkaiah Naidu, Ravi Shankar Prasad and H.N. Ananth Kumar while his vehicle is on way to Mangalore from north Kerala,” a party spokesman told IANS here.

Though Advani will go to Mangalore Monday morning to resume his pan-Indian Jan Chetna Yatra through the coastal districts of the state over the next two days before crossing into Goa, the BJP’s state unit took out rallies in various cities to drum-up support to the party’s crusade against corruption and for good governance.

“All cabinet ministers of the state, including Chief Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda, party’s state unit office-bearers and national leaders will participate in the public rally-cum-meeting at the National College grounds in Bangalore late Sunday,” the spokesman said.

“There are no differences either in the government or the ruling party over the war against corruption,” he added.

With the BJP’s first chief minister in south India, B.S. Yeddyurappa, and the ruling party’s other tainted lawmakers Katta Subramanya Naidu, S.N. Krishnaiah Shetty and Y. Sampangi in the central jail on the city’s outskirts for their alleged involvement in graft cases and land scams, the party’s leaders have resolved to expose the multi-crore scams of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) central government and in the Congress-ruled states.

Another former BJP minister, G. Janardhan Reddy, is also cooling heels in the Chanchalguda jail in Hyderabad since Sep 5 for his alleged involvement in the multi-crore mining scam in the state and neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.

Meanwhile, elaborate security arrangements were made for the public meeting in Bangalore to maintain law and order.

“We have deployed about 1,500 personnel, including senior officials, at the venue to supervise the security measures and ensure peaceful conduct of the public rally,” Bangalore police commissioner Jyothi Prakash Mirji told reporters.

A dozen closed circuit television cameras (CCTVs) have been installed across the sprawling grounds and vehicular traffic restricted to prevent grid lock.

In a related development, the opposition Congress took out a huge procession in the city and held a protest meeting against Advani’s yatra with about 1,000 party cadres and supporters sporting black badges.

“The BJP and Advani have no moral right to go on a nationwide yatra against corruption when its state leaders and lawmakers are steeped in corruption and half-a-dozen of them are behind bars,” state Congress president G. Parameshwara said.

According to local officials, it may have been swept out to sea by the March 11 tsunami, the Japan Times reports.

The bag contained nothing that would help to identify the owner, the officials said.

The cash will go to the person who found it if the owner doesn”t come forward, the officials added. (ANI)

Two soldiers were killed and three others injured when a roadside bomb struck their patrolling vehicle in Abu Ghraib area, 20 km west of capital Baghdad, Xinhua quoted a police source as saying.

The blast destroyed one of the patrolling vehicles, the source added.

In another incident, two policemen and two civilians were wounded when a booby-trapped car went off near a police patrol in central city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, the source said.

In Diyala province, two people were killed and a woman was injured after gunmen opened fire on a house in Bani Sa’ad town, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad.

Team Anna members Sunday came here to meet activist Anna Hazare, a day after holding a core committee meeting in Ghaziabad.

In the wake of graft allegations against some members, the group also decided to draft a code of conduct for its core committee members and anybody violating it would be removed from the committee.

They also said that its members will jointly campaign in the five states that go to the polls in 2012 for a strong Lokpal institution.

“We are all united. We will wait till the winter session of parliament to see if the Lokpal bill is enacted. Otherwise, we will as a team tour the five states going to polls next year to campaign against the Congress,” Team Anna member Arvind Kejriwal told reporters here. He was flanked by members Prashant Bhushan and Kiran Bedi.

They alleged that Congress was trying to divide the team members through its smear campaign against members of the core committee of India Against Corruption.

“Some leaders of the Congress are trying to divide the team. Some are trying to discredit us. This is a 20-crore people’s agitation. If we give up the movement now, people will stop trusting us. Till the time a Lokpal institution is in place, we will continue our movement. We are all united,” Kejriwal said in the presence of Anna Hazare.

“Congress is running scared after its Hisar poll defeat. But we are not against any political party or grouping. Since Congress is in power at the centre, it should fulfill its commitment to the nation to have a corruption-free government and enact the Jan Lokpal bill,” he said.

Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi also dismissed allegations of misuse of funds by them, saying all the IAC accounts were specially audited for six months and the accounts will be put up on the movement’s website on Nov 1.

“If you still have doubts over the accounts, you can order an investigation through any government agency,” Kejriwal said.

More than 300 Kenyans went missing and 1,074 were killed from 2006 to 2008, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a new report. The group said 754 of the dead were killed by the Sabaot Land Defense Force, a militia that raped and mutilated its victims.

But almost two-thirds of those who disappeared were last seen in the custody of government forces, who launched a crackdown on the militia in March 2008, Human Rights Watch said. Nearly 4,000 people were arrested in the operation. In many villages, every male over the age of ten was rounded up, it said.

Government spokesman Alfred Mutua said the report, entitled “Hold Your Heart,” was a distraction. “We are not answering questions on it,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow.”

Among the thousands caught up in the sweep was Patrick Kipteyo Sewui, an assistant chief taken from his home by soldiers in front of his wife Phylis and their six children. She told The Associated Press that when she delivered some papers to the Chepkube military base the day after he was arrested, she saw her husband lying on the ground.

“Three soldiers were standing around him and his clothes were bloody. He had been beaten badly. When I saw him (the soldiers) chased me away. When I went home I was crying,” she said.

She never saw her husband again. She also has no government death certificate, which she needs to access her husband’s land and bank accounts. Paying school fees for the children has been a struggle.

“He was a good man. He worked hard, he cared for his family,” she said, trying not to cry as she spoke about her childhood sweetheart. “When I had our first child, he had a party … People would come to them with their problems and he would invite them inside the house to take tea.”

“I have been crying for so long,” she said sadly.

No one has been held responsible for the tortures and killings that occurred in the custody of Kenyan military forces, said Human Rights Watch, and only four people from the militia have been prosecuted for manslaughter.

Many cases collapsed when victims were too afraid to testify because the government did not offer them witness protection, said Job Bwonya, who runs Western Kenya Human Rights Watch, which is not affiliated to the international body.

The International Criminal Court should investigate, activists say, since the Kenyan government has failed to hold serious investigations, prosecute anyone for the military killings, or exhume the mass graves that residents say litter the forest around their home.

“There are human remains all over the mountain,” said Human Rights Watch researcher Ben Rawlence, showing a photo of a human jawbone and part of a skull lying in a field.

The report was released shortly after the International Criminal Court began hearings on Kenya’s postelection violence to try to pressure authorities to take action three years after the killings, Rawlence said. Complaints have also recently been filed with the U.N. and East African Court of Justice.

The militia was used in the run-up to the bloody 2007 elections to intimidate political opponents and extort money to support local candidates for the Orange Democratic Movement, the rights group said.

The court is currently holding hearings concerning six prominent Kenyans accused of orchestrating violence that killed 1,333 Kenyans following the disputed December election result. But its investigations are limited to violence that occurred after the elections. Including the violence that occurred before, in Mt. Elgon, would nearly double the death toll.

“This was distinctly political violence and it should have been included within the current ICC investigation,” Rawlence said.

An international group of online hackers is warning a Mexican drug cartel to release one of its members, kidnapped from a street protest, or it will publish the identities and addresses of the syndicate’s associates, from corrupt police to taxi drivers, as well as reveal the syndicates’ businesses.

The vow is a bizarre cyber twist to Mexico’s ongoing drug war, as a group that has no guns is squaring off against the Zetas, a cartel blamed for thousands of deaths as well as introducing beheadings and other frightening brutality.

“You made a huge mistake by taking one of us. Release him,” says a masked man in a video posted online on behalf of the group, Anonymous.

“We cannot defend ourselves with a weapon … but we can do this with their cars, homes, bars, brothels and everything else in their possession,” says the man, who is wearing a suit and tie.

“It won’t be difficult; we all know who they are and where they are located,” says the man, who underlines the group’s international ties by speaking Spanish with the accent of a Spaniard while using Mexican slang.

He also implies that the group will expose mainstream journalists who are somehow in cahoots with the Zetas by writing negative articles about the military, the country’s biggest fist in the drug war.

“We demand his release,” says the Anonymous spokesman, who is wearing a mask like the one worn by the shadowy revolutionary character in the movie V for Vendetta, which came out in 2006. “If anything happens to him, you sons of (expletive) will always remember this upcoming November 5.”

The person reportedly kidnapped is not named, and the video does not share information about the kidnapping other than that it occurred in the Mexican state of Veracruz during a street protest.

Anonymous draws its roots from an online forum dedicated to bringing sensitive government documents and other material to light.

If Anonymous can make good on its threats to publish names, it will “most certainly” lead to more deaths and could leave bloggers and others open to reprisal attacks by the cartel, contends Stratfor, an Austin-based global intelligence company.

“In this viral world on the Internet, it shows how much damage could be done with just one statement on the Web,” said Fred Burton of Stratfor, which published a report Friday that probes the implications of the cartel drawing the activists’ ire.

Mike Vigil, the retired head of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, said the Zetas must take Anonymous seriously.

“It is a gutsy move,” Vigil said. “By publishing the names, they identify them to rivals, and trust me, they will go after them.”

Tracking 18 different Android phones shipped in the U.S. through the middle of 2010, the Understatement’s Michael Degusta found that most have not received major OS upgrades or even minor support patches, even though they’re still under contract.

Pointing to one example, Degusta said that the Samsung Behold II on T-Mobile was supposed to be upgraded to Eclair, aka Android 2.1. But by the time the phone hit the market, it was already two versions behind, and then Samsung never bothered to upgrade it.

As another example, the Motorola Devour on Verizon was already one version behind on the OS when it debuted in early 2010. Less than a year later, it was three major versions behind.

Breaking down his study, Degusta uncovered several specific items:

7 of the 18 Android phones tracked never ran a current version of the operating system.
12 of 18 only ran a current version of the OS for a matter of weeks or less.
10 of 18 were at least two major versions behind within their two-year contract.
11 of 18 stopped getting any support updates less than a year after release.
13 of 18 stopped getting support updates before sales were halted or shortly thereafter.
15 of the 18 don’t run Gingerbread, which shipped in December 2010.
With the debut of Ice Cream Sandwich, every device tracked will be another major version behind.
At least 16 of 18 will almost certainly never get Ice Cream Sandwich.

Beyond not receving a recent version of the Android OS, many phones are also missing out on support updates, especially those that have been discontinued. That leaves such phones vulnerable if a security or privacy issue hits an older version of Android, contends Degusta.

In comparison, Apple has a strong history of supporting the last several models of its iPhones through iOS upgrades and updates, the study noted.

But therein lies the rub.

As both phone maker and OS supplier, Apple controls the entire process and can roll out major iOS releases or smaller security updates that most iPhone owners can quickly install.

Android is more a case of too many cooks in the kitchen. As Degusta notes, “a big part of the problem is that Android has to go from Google to the phone manufacturers to the carriers to the devices, whereas iOS just goes from Apple directly to devices.”

To try to remedy the problem, Google announced an effort this past May to create guidelines on how quickly Android devices would get updated. Dubbed the Android Update Alliance by some, this effort was presumably supposed to lead Google to work with the device makers and carriers to keep Android phones better updated.

But like Degusta, tech blogger site Android and Me found in August that only a small number of Android phones were running the latest version of the operating system, showing that Google still has its work cut out for it.

Google did not immediately respond to CNET’s request for comment.

Anyone with a young child, niece or nephew will know the ease with which they take to devices like smartphones and tablets. Within minutes they seem to have the hang of it, swiping, pinching, and possibly even purchasing a few things they shouldn’t be.

A recent study by Common Sense Media looked at the use of mobile devices by children in the US,  as well as other screen media in the home. It found that many children now spend more than triple the amount of time engaged with screen media than they do with books. Although the use of mobile devices is increasing among children, it’s the television that still dominates the lives of many.

According to the results of the study, 53 percent of all children have access to a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet computer, with 20 percent of all parents having downloaded apps specifically for their children to use.

Apparently 10 percent of 0- to 1-year-olds have used a mobile device, though beyond dribbling over it and sitting on it, it’s not certain what benefit they actually get from it.

In a typical day, the results found that 11 percent of all 0- to 8-year-olds use a mobile device, spending an average of 43 minutes doing so.

Computers are also widely used, with 22 percent of 5- to 8-year-olds using one at least once a day, and 46 percent at least once a week.

The study also found that:

- there exists a significant digital divide. Although 72 percent of 0- to 8-year-olds have a computer at home, access to it ranges from 48 percent among those from low-income families (under $30,000 a year) to 91 percent among higher-income families (over $75,000 a year).

- an “app gap” has also developed. Only 14 percent of lower-income parents have ever downloaded apps for their children to use, compared to 47 percent of higher-income parents. Thirty-eight percent of lower-income parents say they don’t even know what an app is, compared to just 3 percent of higher-income parents.

- In a typical day, the study found, 47 percent of babies aged between 0 and 1 watch television or DVDs, and of those, an average of almost two hours (1hr 54mins) is spent doing so.

- Almost one in three (30 percent) of children aged between 0 and 2 has a television in their bedroom.

- Children aged between 0 and 8 spend an average of 1hr 44mins a day watching television or DVDs, compared to only 29 minutes reading books or having stories read to them.

The purpose of Common Sense Media’s study is to provide those concerned with promoting healthy child development – such as educators, pediatricians and public health advocates – with reliable information about media use among children.

Almost 1,400 parents with children aged between 0 and 8 were questioned in the study.

“It’s pretty dirty, and we’re all freezing cold,” said Alec Courtney, who says he runs a shoe-shine stand at the city’s Zuccotti Park to make money. “We just try to huddle together.”

Courtney, a resident of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, says he’s been camping at the park for the past 20 days and plans to stay there — despite the inclement weather — to support “the cause.”

The group has rallied against what it describes as corporate greed while asserting that the nation’s wealthiest 1% hold inordinate sway over the remaining 99% of the population.

A day earlier, up to 40 firefighters removed the group’s propane tanks and six generators, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. That left the demonstrators to battle the cold weather seeping through their tents, blankets and sleeping bags.

“These are fire hazards (and) against the law,” Bloomberg said during his weekly WOR-AM radio show Friday. “Our first concern is safety.”

Demonstrators described the removal as an attempt to restrict Internet use and make their lives more difficult as a cold front moved into the region.

Early cold blast hits Northeast

The early season snowstorm was the result of unseasonably cold air mixing with a storm system on the East Coast. Forecasters predicted power outages and downed trees in some areas.

Zuccotti Park — the Occupy Wall Street movement’s original home base in the city’s financial district — appeared soaked and windswept by late Saturday afternoon, as protesters battled the elements and huddled inside tents to keep warm and dry.

Despite such challenges and recent crackdowns against demonstrators nationwide, the loosely defined “Occupy” movement does not appear to be losing steam.

Police fired pepper spray and used pepper-ball guns against demonstrators in Denver, Colorado, on Saturday.

Protesters there tried to occupy the Colorado Capitol, which is not allowed, and officers pushed them back, police spokesman Matt Murray said.

At that point, officers moved toward an encampment to remove tents that had been set up illegally, he said. One officer was knocked off his motorcycle and injured, while two others were kicked in the head during the ensuing melee, according to Murray. Seven people were arrested.

Murray said police are telling protesters they can stay, but their tents have to go.

“All we’re trying to do is have a peaceful protest and they (the police) are attacking us,” protester Sean Drigger told CNN affiliate KUSA.

In Seattle, protesters marched through the city and set up camp at Seattle Central Community College, what they described as their new base.

In Nashville, Tennessee, authorities arrested more than two dozen protesters overnight Saturday, after they again defied a curfew imposed by the state’s governor.

Twenty-six people received citations for trespassing, while two others were cited for public intoxication, according to Tennessee public safety spokeswoman Dalya Qualls.

One other person was handed a citation for criminal impersonation of a law enforcement officer, she said.

On Thursday, Oakland, California, Mayor Jean Quan apologized for authorities’ confrontations with demonstrators, who were tear-gassed. The clashes led to the hospitalization of an Iraq war veteran.

Marine veteran Scott Olsen suffered a skull fracture Tuesday night after allegedly being struck by a tear gas canister in Oakland, according to witnesses.

Olsen has become an icon of the “Occupy” movement, which remains active from coast to coast.

Metallica’s show in Gurgaon, scheduled for Friday evening, was cancelled by the organisers at the last minute even as hundreds of fans had already arrived at the Leisure Valley park venue in Sector 29.

“The show was canceled with no prior information to the ticket buyers or the district administration – which could have caused law and order problem. While permission to organize the show was obtained, no information was given to the administration to cancel the show,” a spokesman of the Gurgaon district administration said.

“The organizers had given a bank guarantee of Rs.1 crore to the administration which was of Indian Bank branch at Bangalore. Deputy Commissioner P.C. Meena has sent a fax message to the bank not to allow any payment to the organizers from that account until clearance is given by Gurgaon administration,” the spokesman said.

Four people, including a top official of the event management company, DNA Entertainment Networks, were Saturday sent to six days’ police custody after being arrested early Saturday on charges of cheating and breach of trust.

Over 25,000 fans had gathered at the venue to watch the concert, the opener for the ‘F1 Rocks’ series of performances for the Formula-1 race event at Greater Noida.

Upset over the cancellation, the fans had vandalised the stage and broke down barricades. Technical equipment, too, was destroyed as they threw chairs at the LED wall.

Police registered a case against DNA Entertainment Networks on the complaint of Gurgaon-resident Chanderpal Yadav, who had paid Rs.1 lakh for 10 tickets.

Rajesh Kumar, the general manager of DNA Networks, was arrested along with team members Umesh Chinara, Ashok Singh and Savio Faleiro, Gurgaon Sector 29 Station House Officer Jagdish Prasad had told IANS.

They were arrested under Section 406 (breach of trust) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code, Prasad said.

The four were presented in the court of magistrate Ashok Mann Saturday evening. Police had demanded 15 days’ custody for them, but the court agreed for six days’ remand.

The four-member American band, among the most famous heavy metal bands in the world, was to Friday stage its first performance in India.

“Under a central government scheme, programmes have started in Chamba town to train new artisans and upgrade the skills of others,” Himachal Handicraft and Handloom Corp managing director Lalit Mohan told IANS.

He said the special training is being given in the art of embroidery on the Chamba rumal (handkerchief) and Chamba school of miniature paintings, metal artefacts and leather products, mainly Chamba chappals (slippers).

The art of embroidery on the Chamba rumal originated and flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries where the Chamba school of miniature paintings got royal patronage.

Mohan said the handloom corporation is also implementing three major projects sanctioned by the government of India.

These are Kullu handloom cluster, Gohar (Mandi) handloom cluster and Rekong Peo handloom cluster.

The hill state is also known for hand-knitted woollens like shawls, stoles, mufflers, socks, gloves, pullovers, caps and carpets, Kangra paintings and jewellery items.

The Kullu and Kinnauri shawls, with intricate borders in bright colours, are made on traditional looms by tribals and are sold all over India and abroad.

“We are also extending pre-loom, loom and post-loom facilities to the weavers through 15 production centres,” he added.

The demand for handicrafts and artefacts of the hill state is quite high among foreigners.

The handloom corporation is operating 15 sales outlets, including one each in Bangalore and Delhi.

One can also place orders for the products through e-shopping.

The state government has got the Chamba handkerchief, the Kullu and Kinnauri shawls and Kangra tea registered under the Geographical Indications (GI) of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999, by the Chennai-based Geographical Indications Registry.

The GI registration is a community patent in which instead of an individual, the entire community of artisans, producers and other stakeholders of a particular area are benefited.

The income of the handloom corporation has increased from Rs.2.73 crore to Rs.6.53 crore by holding exhibitions during the past three years.

It recently participated in exhibitions in Birmingham in Britain and in Budapest in Hungary.

“We did it,” Vettel screamed on the team radio as he took the victory lap after Indian cricket star Sachin Tendulkar waved the chequered flag.

McLaren-Mercedes’ Jenson Button finished second followed by Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.

Force India’ Adrian Sutil was ninth while the only Indian driver in the race, Narain Karthikeyan, finished 17th for Hispania.

Modi is likely to visit China Nov 8, reliable sources told IANS. The visit has been cleared by the external affairs ministry.

Modi is expected to make a pitch for greater Chinese investment in Gujarat and showcase his state as a hub for foreign investment. In particular, Modi is likely to discuss the prospects of Huawei, China’s biggest telecom company which has a considerable presence in India, investing in Gujarat.

China has been impressed by the economic transformation of Gujarat in the last decade and the massive foreign investment it has attracted in different sectors. When China’s Vice Minister Ai Ping visited Gujarat last week, he had lauded Gujaratis’ contribution to business development in different countries, including China. He had also extended an invitation to Modi to visit China.

Modi is expected to seek Chinese assistance to develop a “Gautam Buddha circuit”, that includes constructing a temple where Buddha’s relics would be preserved, to attract tourists to the state.

Modi’s visit will take place soon after Nur Bekri, chairman of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China, visits New Delhi and Mumbai next week to explore investment opportunities.

The visit by regional leaders has become a trend of sorts lately, with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar going to China in June. Kumar’s visit was focused on cooperation in the field of infrastructure, agriculture and rural development.

Despite differences over a host of issues, economic ties between India and China have been showing a steady upswing.

The two countries recently held their maiden strategic economic dialogue to exchange their experiences in macro-economic management and to address issues like the growing trade imbalance in favour of Beijing.

Bilateral trade is already touching $60 billion, with both sides confident of scaling it up to $100 billion.

As a part of the ‘Save Pen’s Bank’ movement, depositors, employees and account holders of the bank from Pen town of the district started the 72-hour march to Mumbai. The movement was supported by the All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) and the Maharashtra State Bank Employees Federation.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in September last year imposed stringent restrictions and passed an order for the closure of 18 branches of the Pen Bank. Despite this the bank was said to have released loans for over Rs.500 crore to non-existing account holders without verification of documents.

The RBI, in October last year, imposed a penalty of Rs.1 lakh as the bank failed to satisfactorily respond to a show cause notice.

“The 72-hour march will culminate at Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan’s residence where a delegation of bank representatives will meet and apprise him of the situation,” said Vishwas Utagi, general secretary of AIBEA.

“Several employees have lost their jobs and thousands of depositors and account holders have lost their money due to many scams by the bank’s chairman and directors,” he added.

In November last year, bank chairman Shishir Dharkar, his wife and six others were arrested in connection with another scam related to gold export worth Rs.480 crore.

Kolkata-born IITian and Harvard Business School graduate Rajat Gupta, 62, was one of the most respected business executives with a resume to envy and connections in high places – until the other Indian, Ferozepur-born Preet Bharara, pointed an accusing finger at him.

Gupta, former head of prestigious consultancy McKinsey & Co and director of Goldman Sachs and Proctor & Gamble, was among the invitees at President Barack Obama’s the state dinner for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the White House.

Bharara, a high-profile lawyer handpicked by Obama in 2009 as US attorney for the Southern District of New York to clean up Wall Street, has a string of other successes too besides sending former hedge fund tycoon Raj Rajaratnam to prison for 11 years.

Of the 51 who have pleaded guilty or have been convicted for swapping illegal tips were two of Rajaratnam’s Wharton School Indian American classmates, McKinsey’s Anil Kumar and Intel’s Rajiv Goel, on whose testimony the prosecution’s case mainly rested.

As late as two weeks before Rajaratnam was sentenced, he was still being asked by the government to turn on Gupta, the jailed Galleon hedge Fund founder claimed in an interview with Newsweek.

“They wanted me to plea-bargain. They want to get Rajat. I am not going to do what people did to me. Rajat has four daughters,” he said referring to Gupta as a “first-class guy.”

“The enforcer of Wall Street” as the Fortune magazine called him, also bagged the convictions of Times Square bomber Faisel Shahzad and multiple corrupt New York politicians to accused arms trafficker Victor Bout.

But by all accounts prosecuting Gupta for allegedly providing insider tips to his Sri Lankan Tamil friend would be a new “challenge”, as the New York Times put it, to a high stakes “gamble” and “a game of poker” as the Wall Street Journal saw it.

“Wiretaps of Rajaratnam played a key role in his own conviction, but whether they will be admissible in court against Gupta will be a key point that could tip the balance of the case,” the Times said.

Even if prosecutors can use some of the wiretaps, proving that Gupta received some type of benefit will be crucial to the case “because without it there is no tipper liability for insider trading,”

“If Rajat Gupta Is An Inside Trader Maybe You Are, Too,” said the prestigious Time magazine wondering “What did Gupta gain from this? Nothing. Nothing but grief, anyway.”

“As Gupta’s lawyer Gary Naftalis points out, “he did not trade in any securities, did not tip Rajaratnam so he could trade, and did not share in any profits as part of any quid pro quo.”

This issue figured at a meeting between Sindh Minister for Education Pir Mazhar-ul-Haq and a joint delegation of the World Bank and the European Union (EU), Dawn News reported.

The issues concerning closure of schools and long absence of teachers were raised by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and EU officials.

The minister informed them that more funds were required to repair and renovate a large number of schools, which had been damaged in the recent floods.

He said that the Sindh government had already made a number of schools functional by appointing many new teachers.

He said he has directed the education department to introduce an effective school monitoring system so that stern action could be taken against the truant teachers.

He informed the delegation about steps taken to increase enrollment of children in government schools. The education department has also been directed to take strict action against ghost teachers and halt the funding of closed schools.

The cornerstone of the new big-ticket Indian music is its global face.

This month drew two of the biggest names of international music – Lady Gaga and Metallica – to India while Oct 31-Nov 15 is crowded with several international names who will perform at the Delhi International Arts Festival.

The festival is hosting nearly 2,000 performers. The Jazz ensemble Paul Beaudry and Pathways will perform in Delhi Nov 1.

“India is a big English speaking market. If a recording label has to push the envelope in this market, it has to bring more artists (musicians) to perform in India,” Sony Music India marketing director Sanujeet Bhujabal told IANS.

He said “several global venues and property with performance space have come up for the Formula One races”.

“India also has the IPL (Indian Premier League) which is also likely to draw a lot of international stars to India in the future,” the official said.

He said “English music contributes to nearly seven percent of the music business globally”.

Universal Music India, Lady Gaga’s recording label, said the “exploding entertainment economy of India is drawing top billboard musicians to India – and selling out concerts”.

“I think India is kind of a strong country globally. It cannot be ignored any more. It has a huge economy and the consumption of music has increased,” Universal Music-India vice president Sunil D’sa said.

It has created more awareness about India and its culture abroad and opened up two-way exchanges, he said.

The government in the last few years has become more proactive in using culture as a people-to-people contact between nations for better bilateral ties. There has also been an increase in government-sponsored international music festivals in India.

A public-private partnership policy to promote culture in the country has seen the government lend its name to several institutions to present international stars in India, a source in the culture ministry said.

The internationalisation of music has also been prompted by a change in the format of consumption pattern.

Sunil D’sa said: “Music has moved to digital platforms. It is on mobile phone caller tunes, ring tones, iPhones and iPads.

“Universal Music has set up a separate cell for digital music to cash in on the space,” he added.

Universal Music has also made inroads into the regional market in Maharashtra, Punjab and Bengal to promote local talent, he said.

Young fans in India now keep in touch with their favourite musicians on Facebook, Twitter and a number of other social networking websites – some promoted by the recording labels and musicians themselves.

“The size of the youth population is spurring the growth of music industry and related entertainment,” D’Sa said.

On Friday, a foyer at Hotel Taj Mansingh in the capital bustled with fans and media, who were waiting for a brush with pop icon Lady Gaga, in India to perform at a Formula 1 (F-1) after-party.

The musician met some fans, the winners of a Meet Lady Gaga contest sponsored by a leading media house – and was “amazed by India and its people”. The tickets for Lady Gaga’s debut concert Sunday priced Rs.40,000 have been sold out.

Her new album, “Born This Way”, has connected to India with two Bollywood remixes of her tracks.

Sony Music this month launched famous jazz ensemble Spyro Gyra’s new fusion album featuring a Hindi track.

The band said the album was its gateway to Indian and Hindi music – and new segments of audience.

Bhujabal said: “Indian listeners will also look for richer music on digital platforms when Sony Music and Universal Music Worldwide launch Vevo, a premium online music video platform, a year later.”

According to industry insiders the three-day F-1 race which began Friday had pulled several invisible walls down in the entertainment scene because of its youth appeal.

“The race is known for their after-parties where music is central to entertainment. An after-party for the F-1 is hosting Lady Gaga and several international DJs,” a Delhi-based event manager said.

Liquor companies have added glamour to live music-related entertainment in the last decade by sponsoring several annual rock concerts and international performers in India.

“7aam Arivu” has dared to tread on a different path by talking about rejuvenating the “past glory” by reactivating DNA of one’s forefathers. It also talks about bio-war waged by a neighbouring country.

The movie begins with a well-made documentary on Pallava prince, Bodhi Dharman (Suriya), who lived in 500 BC. He travelled to China and took shelter in a hamlet. His excellence in medical science and martial arts save the villagers from various dangers and they fall at his feet and become his students. He teaches them Tamil medicine and martial arts. After his demise, his teachings spread all over China and its people adore him as Tao.

Cut to the present, Aravindh (Suriya), a circus artiste meets Suba Sreenivasan (Shruti Haasan), who visits the arena in search of a monkey for her research work. Aravindh, who instantly falls for Suba, volunteers to help her. Slowly they come close to each other and Aravindh’s love for Suba gets thickened.

Meanwhile, Operation Red, a conspiracy against India, is planted in China. It is a cruel bio-war that could cause the loss of millions of lives.

Dong Lee (Johnny Tri Nguyen), a martial arts and hypnotist expert, is deputed for the job. The one man army lands in India to spread a decease that doesn’t have any vaccine or medicine. He has another important job on hand. He has to kill Suba, whose research on Bodhi Dharman could spoil their plans.

Aravindh gets a shock when he learns that Suba’s closeness towards him is not out of love and neither is she looking for a monkey – she actually wants to do experiments on him!

Dejected Arvindh is not ready to hear Suba’s side of story — Suba’s research revealed that Bodhi Dharman was Aravindh’s forefather and that their DNAs match. She wants to activate Bodhi’s DNA in Aravindh to recreate powers of the Pallava prince. If she could successfully make Aravindh inherit those powers, he would be able to thwart Operation Red.

Whether she is able to convince him forms the rest of the story.

No doubt Murugadoss has brought in a different theme to the cliché ridden Tamil cinema. He has done it with proper homework. He has executed the narrative well — be it depiction of olden days or martial arts.

The concept of activating forefather’s DNA in one’s body is interesting. He has given us a visual treat with the help of cinematographer Ravi K. Chandran and art director Rajeevan.

Peter Hein has added value with his awesome stunt choreography – the climax fight is outstanding.

The problem with the movie is the flat narrative, which lacks curiosity element. Murugadoss’ hard work gets diluted since he reveals everything in the first hour.

The rest of the movie, quite predictable scene by scene, mars the impact of the film.

But Murugadoss chose a right actor in Johnny Tri (Vietnamese actor well-versed in martial arts) to don the role. Johnny makes an astonishing impact with his body language and powerful eyes.

But Murugadoss has relied too much on his hypnotist skills that it looks like a comedy after a point. Villain’s effort to kill Suba and Aravindh in a busy Chennai street falls flat because of the unconvincing hypnotist angle.

The politically inclined dialogues do not fit into the narrative though they trigger applauds from the audiences. Linking the just concluded war in Sri Lanka and the “conspiracy” by China defies all reasoning and ends up being rhetoric.

Murugadoss, who has given some lovely song sequences in “Ghajini”, has gone wrong in placing songs here – songs serve as brief intervals. Harris Jeyaraj’s songs resemble some old hits. His background score is impressive in many places including the climax.

Surya’s commitment and hard work is visible in each and every frame. His portrayal of Bodhi Dharman is quite credible while his performance in the climax is outstanding.

Good looking Shruti gets a heavy role and manages to pass muster.

“7aam Arivu” is the case of good story marred by flat narrative.

“This is the first object of this kind we have ever seen,” said Stephane Erard of the Paris Observatory. “For virtually the first time, we have found a witness to the formation of the planets.”

Three studies published in the journal Science reported the outcome of an encounter last year of the asteroid, 21 Lutetia, with Europe’s comet-chasing probe, Rosetta, the Telegraph reported.

The probe turned an array of cameras, thermal and spectroscopic sensors on the 121 km long, 101 km tall and 75 km wide Lutetia as it raced through the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

It has a complex surface, ridden with craters, including one that measures 55 kms across, where the asteroid was hit by smaller objects as well as shafts, crests and escarpments and smooth, younger-looking plains.

Lutetia’s high density, at 3,400 kilos per cubic metre, its large size and its ancient surface make it unlike any other asteroid probed so far, the studies said.

Erard, the study co-author, said it was likely to be a planetesimal, a bit of the material that clumped together to make the planets at the birth of the Solar System nearly four billion years ago.

“We believe that Lutetia is not debris resulting from a collision. Instead, it’s probably one of the holdouts of the (Solar System’s) primitive population,” added Erard.

Planetesimals are defined as rocks that, after clumping together grains of cosmic dust, become big enough to generate a gravitational field of their own. This attracts other bodies, eventually forming proto-planets, or the planetary embryoes.

A decade-long study involving patients with the genetic disorder Lynch syndrome found that those who took aspirin regularly displayed 50 per cent fewer incidences of hereditary cancer.

Lynch syndrome is a mutation that affects genes responsible for repairing damage in the DNA, with roughly half of sufferers going on to develop cancer in the bowel or womb.

The main risk is bowel cancer, as 90 per cent of men with the faulty gene will suffer from the disease by the time they reach 70.

Published in The Lancet, the new findings suggest regular aspirin could cause polyps – thought to be precursors to cancer – to destruct before they become cancerous.

Professor Patrick Morrison from Queen’s University in Belfast, one of the institutions involved in the research, described the study as “a huge breakthrough in terms of cancer prevention”.

He added: “Not only does it show we can reduce cancer rates and ultimately deaths, it opens up other avenues for further cancer prevention research.

Gupta, 62, a former director of Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Procter & Gamble and former global head of the McKinsey & Co consultancy, is the most prominent executive to face insider-trading charges since Rajaratnam was arrested in October 2009.

At the start of his court appearance on five counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy, the Manhattan federal courtroom was silent but for the sound of Gupta slowly leafing through a copy of the 21-page indictment. It was his first opportunity since he surrendered to FBI agents on Wednesday morning to read the allegations against him.

His defense lawyer entered a plea of not guilty on charges tied to what prosecutors say were Gupta’s leaks of Goldman and Procter & Gamble secrets to Rajaratnam in 2008 and 2009. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff set a trial date of April 9, 2012 as Gupta sat calmly with his arms folded.

Earlier, another judge granted Gupta’s release on $10 million bail, secured by his home in Westport, Connecticut, with travel restrictions. Moments before U.S. Magistrate Judge Kevin Nathaniel Fox walked into the courtroom, a lawyer handed Gupta a salmon-colored designer tie that he knotted swiftly in the collar of his blue dress shirt.

Two weeks ago, Galleon Group founder Rajaratnam, 54, was sentenced to 11 years in prison — the longest sentence ever in an insider-trading case — for his conviction in May on 14 criminal counts. The Galleon case caught many of the fund manager’s associates on secretly recorded phone calls.

Gupta’s lawyer, Gary Naftalis, said in a statement that there were legitimate reasons for communications between his client and Rajaratnam, including a $10 million investment that Gupta had in a fund managed by the Galleon founder. Gupta lost the entire amount, Naftalis said.

“We are confident that these accusations — which are based entirely on circumstantial evidence — cannot withstand scrutiny and that Mr. Gupta will be completely exonerated of any wrongdoing,” Naftalis said.

He said Gupta did not trade in any stocks and did not tip Rajaratnam so he could trade.

Galleon Group case graphic: http://r.reuters.com/jyk48r

Manhattan U.S Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement that Gupta betrayed the trust he had with top companies.

“As alleged, he broke that trust and instead became the illegal eyes and ears in the boardroom for his friend and business associate, Raj Rajaratnam, who reaped enormous profits from Mr. Gupta’s breach of duty,” Bharara said.

Some legal experts said that unlike in the case of overwhelming phone-tap evidence against Rajaratnam, prosecutors might have a tougher time convincing a jury of Gupta’s guilt.

“How credible is the evidence that he actually disclosed information he knew to be confidential to Rajaratnam? Is this going to be triple hearsay?” asked Michael Kendall, head of the white-collar group of McDermott Will & Emery and a former federal prosecutor. “If there’s no financial benefit, that makes it easy to offer up an alternative explanation.”

Gupta also faces civil charges brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC said Rajaratnam’s funds made more than $23 million on Gupta’s information.

The criminal charges carry a maximum prison sentence of 25 years.

MCKINSEY’S GLOBAL HEAD

Gupta was global head of McKinsey for nine years until he retired in 2007. He won a seat on the board of powerful Wall Street bank Goldman in 2006 and left in May 2010, seven months after Rajaratnam’s arrest. He was also a director at P&G and American Airlines Corp.

Goldman Sachs spokesman Stephen Cohen declined to comment on Wednesday. Representatives from P&G, American Airlines and McKinsey also declined comment.

Gupta was born in India and made his name in the U.S. corporate world after graduating with an MBA from Harvard Business School. Rajaratnam was born in Sri Lanka and became a billionaire through his New York hedge fund business.

The SEC said Gupta had business dealings with Rajaratnam and “stood to benefit from his relations” with him; Gupta was an investor in Galleon entities that “traded — and handsomely profited — based on Gupta’s illegal tips.”

The government contends that Gupta provided Rajaratnam with advance knowledge of Warren Buffett’s $5 billion investment in Goldman at the height of the 2008 financial crisis, as well as information about Goldman’s surprise fourth-quarter loss in 2008 and its first as a public company, and P&G quarterly earnings in late January 2009.

The accusations were revealed before and during Rajaratnam’s trial. Prosecutors previously described Gupta as an unindicted co-conspirator, but had not lodged formal charges.

Goldman Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein testified at the trial as a prosecution witness about Gupta’s conduct on the bank’s board. Prosecutors also played secretly recorded telephone conversations to the jury in which Rajaratnam told Galleon employees about information he received from Gupta.

Wednesday’s indictment said that on Oct. 23, 2008 Gupta called Rajaratnam 23 seconds after disconnecting from a Goldman board call and spoke to Rajaratnam for 13 minutes, disclosing negative interim earnings results.

In one recording played at the trial, Rajaratnam was on a call with David Lau, chief of Galleon’s Singapore branch, on Oct. 24, 2008. They discussed a tip he got from a board member that Goldman was on its way to a surprise fourth-quarter loss, its first as a public company.

“I just heard from somebody who’s on the board of Goldman Sachs , they are gonna lose $2 per share,” Rajaratnam was heard saying. “So what he (the board member) was telling me was that, uh, Goldman, the quarter’s pretty bad.”

The case is USA v Rajat K. Gupta, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 11-907.

(Reporting by Grant McCool, Basil Katz, Alison Frankel and Jonathan Stempel, editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Lisa Von Ahn, Dave Zimmerman, Robert MacMillan and Bernard Orr)

India’s IT sector, which feeds off increased outsourcing by companies looking to cut costs, is expected to face pricing pressure and a decline in new orders as Europe struggles with a debt crisis and the United States battles an economic slowdown.

Infosys and its local rivals also face stiff competition from global players including IBM and Accenture for large outsourcing deals from global corporations.

(Reporting by Melanie Lee; Editing by Fayen Wong)

The results and a higher 2011 profit forecast sent Boeing shares 5 percent higher. The stock also gained on news of the first commercial flight of Boeing ‘s high-profile, carbon-composite Dreamliner.

The profit beat from the world’s largest aerospace and defence Company was the latest in a string of recent upbeat reports from other top manufacturers like Caterpillar Inc, United Technologies Corp and Honeywell International Inc.

“I think we’re completely headed in the right direction and this is another piece of the puzzle to indicate we are,” said Andrew Bodner, president of Double Diamond Investment Group.

“If you look at corporate earnings, that’s been one of the strong points of pulling us out of any recession,” he said.

Boeing shares, a Dow Component, closed 4.5 percent higher at $66.56 on the New York Stock Exchange .

(For a graphic on Boeing ‘s earnings, see http://link.reuters.com/net64s)

DREAMLINER

Boeing ‘s earnings were reported on the day of the first commercial flight for Boeing ‘s long-delayed 787 Dreamliner, a lightweight, carbon composite widebody. The plane-maker recently made its first delivery of the 787 and the 747-8 Freighter — both years behind schedule.

Boeing said on Wednesday it would calculate the profitability of the 787 program based on 1,100 planes. This was the first indication from Boeing as to when the plane-maker expected that program to turn a profit.

Chief Executive Jim McNerney previously said he expected the program to be profitable from “day one” based on the company’s usual accounting practices.

In other Boeing commercial programs, the initial accounting block is much smaller. For the 767, 777 and 757 programs, the block was closer to 400 planes.

But early demand for those planes was much weaker than for the record-setting 787, which had more than 800 orders years before its first delivery. So Boeing spread its 787 investment over the larger accounting block.

“They’re going to be profitable from day one with very small margins,” said Alex Hamilton, managing director of EarlyBirdCapital. “It’s a little bit of a break from historical precedent, and that’s a luxury they were given with such a large backlog.”

Now analysts want to know if Boeing can ramp up its production rate for the plane to 10 per month by the end of 2013, as promised. The current rate is two per month.

Boeing also said on Wednesday it expected a delay in the first delivery of a slightly bigger version of the Dreamliner, the 787-9, which was previously scheduled for delivery to Air New Zealand in late 2013.

In a regulatory filing, Boeing said, “With successful completion of the 787-9 critical design review we have assessed the schedule and first delivery is now expected in early 2014, although we continue to look for opportunities to regain schedule.”

EARNINGS BEAT

Boeing , which competes with EADS unit Airbus , said third-quarter profit rose to $1.1 billion, or $1.46 per share, from $837 million, or $1.12 per share, a year earlier.

The average Wall Street earnings forecast was $1.10 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

For the full year, Boeing raised its earnings per share guidance to a range of $4.30 to $4.40, “reflecting strong core performance.” Its previous forecast was $3.90 to $4.10.

The company, however, narrowed its 2011 revenue forecast to between $68 billion and $70 billion, from $68 billion to $71 billion previously.

“This was a good operating performance at both ( Boeing Commercial Airplanes) and defence,” aerospace analyst Robert Stallard of RBC Capital Markets said in a research note.

“We think airline demand and the backlog remains robust, and Boeing ‘s cash position should start to improve as 787 and 747-8 inventory starts to ship,” he said. “We think these two drivers will overwhelm other issues going forward — if Boeing can execute.”

Boeing , which splits its business between defense and commercial airplanes, said third-quarter revenue increased 4 percent from a year earlier to $17.7 billion, while its order backlog grew to $332 billion from $323 billion at the beginning of the quarter.

Revenue for Boeing ‘s commercial airplanes division increased by 9 percent to $9.5 billion on increased deliveries of its airplanes.

Boeing delivered 127 commercial airplanes in the third quarter, including 100 of its best-selling 737 narrowbodies and 21 widebody 777s. The number of deliveries was up slightly from the 124 reported for the year-ago quarter.

Boeing gets paid for its airplanes at delivery. Its commercial airplane delivery guidance for 2011 is now about 480, down from previous guidance of 485 to 495.

Revenue for Boeing ‘s defense, space and security business was $8.2 billion in the quarter, steady from a year ago. The company also reported 10 percent operating margins for the division, an improvement over 8.4 percent a year earlier.

Despite military budget constraints, Boeing noted strength in programs such as tanker and Growler.

Matt Collins, an industrials analyst at Edward Jones, noted “impressive profitability” for Boeing ‘s defense business. But he warned of challenges ahead.

“Budget constraints mean Boeing can’t count on revenue growth here so they’ll have to handle costs well for the business to contribute to earnings growth,” Collins said.

(Reporting by Kyle Peterson; Editing by Matthew Lewis, John Wallace, Phil Berlowitz)

“I think that’s going to be inevitable. We are prepared for some pressure on the cost of saving bank funding,” Pratip Chaudhuri told television channel CNBC-TV18 in an interview.

The RBI on Tuesday deregulated the savings deposit rate, the last administered bank rate in India. Within hours, YES Bank increased the rate it offers on such deposits by 200 basis points to 6 percent from the earlier mandated 4 percent.

The deregulation of the rate is expected to spark off competition among banks to garner low-cost deposits. New banks, like YES Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank are expected to be more aggressive in mopping up such deposits.

Savings bank deposits comprise about 34 percent of SBI’s total deposit base, Chaudhuri said. Of the bank’s total savings deposits, 30 percent have a balance of more than 100,000 rupees.

The RBI, while deregulating the rate on Tuesday, did not put a floor on the savings rate or restrict the number of times banks may change the rate. It does require that each bank offer a uniform interest rate on savings deposits up to 100,000 rupees.

Chaudhuri, however, said SBI would not take the first call among the larger banks on raising the savings bank rate.

“We will have to see how other banks play it out and then we will take appropriate policy action,” he said.

He said the increase in the savings bank rate would not be uniform — for higher value accounts it may be 100 basis points, but for lower value deposits it may be 50 basis points or less.

At 2.15 p.m., shares in SBI were up 2.1 percent at 1,906.10 rupees in a firm Mumbai market.

(Reporting by Subhadip Sircar; Editing by Rajesh Pandathil)

Ericsson is to receive 1.05 billion euros in cash for its 50 percent share of the venture, which was set up in 2001. It initially thrived with an array of camera and music phones, but later lost out in the smartphone race.

The charismatic and popular Lula left power with a record 80 per cent approval rating after two consecutive terms from January 2003 to December 2010. Brazil’s constitution prohibits a third consecutive term. The former copper factory worker’s social programs helped lift 29 million Brazilians out of poverty, and his foreign policy turned Brazil into a global power player.

The Syrian-Lebanese Hospital, which specializes in cancer treatment, treated Lula’s former vice-president, Jose Alencar, who died in March following cancer in his abdominal area. President Dilma Rousseff was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer in 2009, before she was elected to Brazil’s top office, and was treated in September of that year at the hospital. Doctors say she is currently cancer-free.

The explosion, which occurred as the convoy was passing the American University, sparked a fireball and littered the street with shrapnel. Heavy black smoke poured from burning wreckage at the site.

The armored personnel carrier, known as a Rhino was sandwiched between of a convoy of mine-resistant military vehicles traveling on a four-lane highway frequently used by NATO forces in a southwestern section of the city.

NATO said 13 service members were killed, but a US official confirmed they were all Americans. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The Afghan ministry of interior said three Afghan civilians and one policeman also died in the attack. Eight other Afghans, including two children and four other civilians, were wounded, said Kabir Amiri, head of Kabul hospitals.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the Kabul attack, as well as for another suicide bombing outside a government intelligence office in the northwest province of Kunar.

The attack occurred near the entrance of the American University and the nearby landmark Darulaman Palace, the bombed-out seat of former Afghan kings.

NATO and Afghan forces sealed off the area as fire trucks and ambulances rushed in. An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw two NATO helicopters landing to airlift casualties, while coalition troops using loudspeakers ordered bystanders to evacuate the area.

It was the deadliest single attack against the US-led coalition since the Taliban shot down a NATO helicopter on Aug. 6 in an eastern Afghan province, killing 30 US troops, most elite Navy SEALs, and eight Afghans.

In other violence, a man wearing an Afghan military uniform opened fire on a joint NATO-Afghan base, killing three NATO service members in Uruzgan province, an area in the restive south that is traditionally viewed as the Taliban’s stronghold.

Afghan defense ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi said officials were investigating whether the shooter, who was killed in the incident, was a member of the Afghan army or a militant wearing an army uniform.

The amount of water entering the palace grounds was small, but the breach was symbolically significant as Bangkok enters a crucial period when high tides to the south are pushing back at runoff from the north that has breached the city’s outer defences and is now flooding some outlying districts.

“The crisis we’re facing today is the most critical natural disaster that ever happened in Thai history,” PM Yingluck Shinawatra said.

Chinatown, not far from the palace, was flooded, and concerns grew that floodwaters could reach the commercial center of the city, with its banks and shopping malls and five-star hotels, scene of the “red shirt” protests early last year that were Thailand’s most recent crisis. The commercial center was quiet on Friday as Bangkok residents continued to flee by the thousands after the government warned that there was little more that it could do to stop deluge.

“What we’re doing today is resisting the force of nature ,” the prime minister had said on Thursday. “We cannot resist all of it.” A huge mass of flood water has coursed down over recent weeks from the north, following an unusually heavy monsoon season , taking a steep economic toll as it inundated cities and industrial estates. Several feet of stagnant water continue to paralyse the ancient capital of Ayutthaya, to the north of Bangkok. With bad news continuing , and the prospects for recovery becoming an increasingly steep challenge, the Bank of Thailand cut its economic growth forecast for 2011 to 2.6% from 4.1%.

“The widespread flood, now affecting not only agricultural production but also manufacturing activity, is likely to weigh on the fourth quarter’s growth substantially ,” the central bank said. Floodwater breached the defences of the domestic airport , Don Muang, earlier this week. Airport director, Kanpat Mangkalasiri, said that 90% of the airport was now flooded. The main international airport, Suvarnabhumi , continued to function normally.

©2011 The New York Times News Service

“Through intermediaries , we have informal contact with Saif,” Luis Moreno-Ocampo said in a statement. “The office of the prosecutor has made it clear that if he surrenders to the ICC, he has the right to be heard in court, he is innocent until proven guilty,” Moreno-Ocampo said. “The judges will decide.”

But Moreno-Ocampo said his office learned through informal channels that a group of mercenaries were offering to move Saif to an African state not party to the ICC’s founding document , the Rome Statute.

“The office of the prosecutor is exploring the possibility to intercept any plane within the airspace of a state party in order to make an arrest,” he said.

Saif, 39, and Gaddafi’s security chief and brother-inlaw Abdullah al-Senussi , 62, are the most wanted fugitives from the slain despot’s ousted circle.

They are wanted by the ICC on charges of crimes against humanity.

Superintendent of Police Kime Aya said the casulties occurred when villagers, who had set out to hunt, were crossing the bridge at around 5:30pm.

The entire bridge collapsed with all those on it falling into the river, he said.

He said two persons managed to swim to safety but around 50 others were feared dead.

The swift current in the river was hindering rescue operations, Aya said.

The I-T department, where Kejriwal worked, has turned down his application, insisting he first clear the Rs 9.27 lakh he owes the department. “I have decided to pay the dues claimed by the I-T department. I will take a loan from a friend to pay the amount,” Kejriwal said.

While the issue had remained on the backburner for quite some time – with Kejriwal treating his association with the government to be over – the I-T department suddenly slapped a notice on him on August 6, asking him to pay up for his VRS application to be accepted.

The notice came just days before Gandhian Anna Hazare went on his hunger strike.

DNA Entertainment Networks, the event management company organising the concert, had on Friday cancelled the event at the last moment. Over 25,000 fans had gathered at the Leisure Valley Park here in Sector 29 to watch the concert, the opener for the ‘F1 Rocks’ series of performances for the Formula-1 race event at Greater Noida.

Upset over the cancellation, the fans had vandalised the stage and broke down barricades. Technical equipment, too, were destroyed as they threw chairs at the LED wall.

Police registered a case against DNA Entertainment Networks on the complaint of Gurgaon-resident Chanderpal Yadav, who had paid Rs 1 lakh for 10 tickets.

Rajesh Kumar, the general manager of DNA Networks, was arrested along with team members Umesh Chinara, Ashok Singh and Savio Faleiro, Gurgaon Sector 29 Station House Officer Jagdish Prasad said.

They were arrested under Section 406 (breach of trust) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code, Prasad said.

The four were presented in the court of magistrate Ashok Mann Saturday evening. Police had demanded 15 days’ custody for them, but the court agreed for six days’ remand.

Deputy Commissioner Police (east) Maheshwar Dayal said: “Some more arrests may be possible.”

“The tickets for the show were priced at Rs.10,000 (first class), Rs.2,750 and Rs.1,750. The fans had come from many cities and also countries like Bangladesh, China, Nepal, Indonesia and Singapore.

“Although there was no sitting arrangement at the venue, people were charged for first, second and third class, out of an estimated 30,000 tickets sold. More than 8,000 tickets were sold for the first class itself, which means they cheated fans of more than Rs.8 crore,” Dayal added.

Meanwhile, the district administration has begun the process to blacklist the company.

Deputy Commissioner-cum-District Magistrate P C Meena said: “We have served notice to DNA Entertainment to provide us a detailed payment refund plan in three days. We have also seized Rs 1 crore, the corporate guarantee money deposited by the company.”

The four-member American band, among the most famous heavy metal bands in the world, was to Friday stage its first ever performance in India.

Metallica is slated to perform in Bangalore on Sunday.

But medicine moves slowly. With the loss of Steve Jobs and, just weeks before him, Nobel Prize recipient Ralph Steinman, we’re struck again by the fact that pancreatic cancers are a horribly tough nut to crack.

As with everything he did, Steve Jobs surpassed expectations and forged new territory in surviving his disease, described as a rare form of neuroendocrine tumor on his pancreas, for more than five years. But his was an exceptional case.

The five-year survival rate for the more common form of pancreatic cancer is less than 4 percent, according to the American Cancer Society. That’s because there’s no way (yet) to detect it early: It creeps up quietly, not causing noticeable symptoms until the tumor on the pancreas has grown too large to be surgically removed or the cancer has spread to other parts of the body, typically the liver.

An estimated 44,030 people will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the U.S. in 2011; 37,660 of them will die from the disease, according to the National Cancer Institute.

Despite some recent developments in detecting and treating pancreatic cancer, the numbers haven’t budged in years. As the CDC reported in 2010, between 1999 and 2007, the death rate “decreased by 9.6 percent for lung cancer, 23.9 percent for prostate cancer, 15.2 percent for breast cancer, and 19.6 percent for colon cancer. The death rate for pancreatic cancer did not change significantly during this period.”

As I wrote when Pausch died, pancreatic cancer research doesn’t attract the attention that many of us think it should. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t scientists out there working hard to crack this nut and others working to raise awareness and provide support for those affected by this disease. But finding ways to detect pancreatic cancer early enough to make a difference, to effectively treat it, to improve survival rates — or even to prevent it — will require the kind of tenacity and visionary thinking that Steve Jobs brought to the table.

The Magistrate pronounced the order on a petition filed by the CCB seeking police custody of the three to elicit information from them pertaining to the case that was registered on September 18 on a complaint lodged by P. Karunanithi of Pollampalayam in Erode district.

The charge against Mr. Nehru and the other accused is that they had not only threatened Karunanithi to hand over his 9.33 acres of land at Kottapattu in the city but also forcibly took possession of it in 2008. The case was registered under various IPC sections including 147 (rioting), 341 (wrongful restraint), 365 (kidnap), 506 (ii) (criminal intimidation), 420 (cheating), 387 (putting person in fear of death or of grievous hurt in order to commit extortion), 307 (attempt to murder) read with 120 B (criminal conspiracy). The Magistrate ordered the CCB to produce Mr. Nehru and the other two accused before the same court on Tuesday.

In the evening, in quick succession, she had meetings with Home Minister P. Chidambaram — whose resignation the Opposition has demanded, and shortly thereafter, with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Interestingly — as sources in the party pointed out — Ms. Gandhi held the first meeting only after Mr. Mukherjee’s plane from the United States touched down at Palam. He drove straight to North Block to confer with his officials, who were asked to prepare a note on the background to the Finance Ministry document.

It was accessed from the PMO through an RTI application filed by the BJP’s RTI unit.

While a final resolution of the current crisis will, the sources said, have to await the return of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from the U.S. late on Tuesday evening, Ms. Gandhi’s conversations with the two Ministers were the first serious step taken to sort out a problem that had plunged the already embattled government into yet another crisis.

Both Ministers have said, separately, they will speak publicly only after Dr. Singh is back.

‘Valued colleague’

Mr. Mukherjee, the sources said, may address the press on Wednesday or Thursday and, if possible, with Mr. Chidambaram to demonstrate solidarity. Indeed, he told journalists shortly before he met Ms. Gandhi that Mr. Chidambaram was “a valued colleague” and a “pillar of strength for the party and government.”

Meanwhile, even as unconfirmed reports suggested that the Home Minister had offered his resignation to Ms. Gandhi, the sources pointed out that Tuesday’s hearing on the petition filed by Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy in the Supreme Court, seeking a CBI investigation into Mr. Chidambaram’s role in the 2G case — when he was the Finance Minister — would be crucial. In case, the court accepted Dr. Swamy’s plea, Mr. Chidambaram’s continuance in the Cabinet could become untenable, they said.

However, sources close to Mr. Mukherjee said that since the 2G matter was in court, the PMO should not have released any documents relating to it to a RTI applicant.

But when Law Minister Salman Khurshid was asked whether the government was bound to provide documents on a matter in court to an RTI applicant, he said that while legally when a matter was sub judice, nothing should be done to prejudice the case, the question whether to have a “firewall” or not for RTI could be examined.

Minister of State in the PMO V. Narayanswamy was more direct: regardless of whether a document could influence a case, no official could block its release, if it was sought through RTI.

The BlackBerry Torch 9860 runs on the new BlackBerry 7 operating system, which features the next generation BlackBerry browser, voice-activated searches and has the ability to manage personal content separately from corporate content, as well as additional personal and productivity applications out-of-the-box.

But has Blackberry pulled off a gamechanger in its latest phone?

According to Wollongong-based Nik Cubrilovic, when the user is logged out of Facebook, rather than deleting its tracking cookies, the site merely modifies them, maintaining account information and other unique tokens that can be used to identify its users.

This simply means that any time you visit a web page with a Facebook button or widget, your browser is still sending personally identifiable information back to Facebook.

“Even if you are logged out, Facebook still knows and can track every page you visit,” Cubrilovic wrote in a blog post.

“The only solution is to delete every Facebook cookie in your browser, or to use a separate browser for Facebook interactions,” he added.

Cubrilovic said he tried to contact Facebook to inform it of his discovery but did not get a reply, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

He said there were significant risks to the privacy of users, particularly those using public terminals to access Facebook.

“Facebook are front-and-centre in the new privacy debate just as Microsoft were with security issues a decade ago,” Cubrilovic said.

“The question is what it will take for Facebook to address privacy issues and to give their users the tools required to manage their privacy and to implement clear policies – not pages and pages of confusing legal documentation, and ‘logout’ not really meaning ‘logout’,” he added. (ANI)

1.    It is not an essential commodity: You cannot eat gold. If prices go beyond a point, people will just not consume it! It is not air or water.

2.    Remember in the year 2008 gold lost MORE THAN 30% of value — clearly the hedge theory goes. A hedge asset SHOULD move in the other direction, not in sympathy.

3.    In the 1980s gold lost about 65% of its value in about 2 years time! Remember both these events happened against a not very strong currency — the US dollar!!

4.    When fear subsides, and things return to normal, the law of demand and supply will apply to all assets — including gold.

5.    The Chicago Mercantile Exchange has a very high margin now for gold — and CME is a good reader of volatility. Expect volatility, margin calls, and sales by the lenders — all these do not sound good.

6.    No income generating capability: If you go wrong in a portfolio of good shares (i.e. prices have fallen!) at least you are sure of getting a 2% to 4%p.a. return in dividends. This is not great, but will FORCE lenders / investors to discount the cashflow and arrive at a new price. If the company does well, dividends will increase, forcing the value to go up. Sadly in case of gold, I have to hope that there is a GREATER FOOL THEORY and I will be able to find him, so that I can sell. This is not easy.

The author P V Subramanyam is a Chartered Accountant by qualification and a financial trainer by profession. Writing being a passion he also regularly pens his thought in his blog Subramoney.com

The Beechcraft plane had completed a flight around Mount Everest when it lost contact with the Tribhuvan International Airport tower at 7.31 a.m. It crashed four minutes later at Kotdanda in Lalitpur district, around 15 km south of the airport.

The others killed were six Nepalis, including three crew members; two Americans and a Japanese.

According to a statement issued by the Indian Embassy here, the Indians were: Pankaj Mehta and his wife Chhaya Mehta, M. Maruthachalam, M. Manimaran, A.K. Krisunan, V.M. Kanakasabesan, T. Dhanasekaran, Kattoor Mahalingam, Meenakshi Sundaram, and K. Thyagarajan.

While Pankaj Mehta was with the UNICEF here, the other eight men were from Tiruchi in Tamil Nadu. They came here on Saturday evening and checked into the Grand Hotel.

Hotel manager Phurba Sherpa told The Hindu, “All the eight persons were part of the Tiruchirapalli Centre Builders Association. They first communicated with us on August 21 and booked rooms for three nights and four days. They checked into the hotel on Saturday at 5 p.m., and were scheduled to check out on September 27. They left for their mountain flight this morning at 5.45 a.m.”

The Indian Embassy said it was “providing all assistance for the prompt evacuation of the remains of the Indian nationals killed in the accident.”

The helpline numbers at the embassy are: 00-977-1-4423702 (direct); 00-977-1-4410900 (Extension 4109); 00-977-1-4414990 (Extension 4109); and 00-977-1-4411699 (Extension 4109).

Aviation experts said the crash was a typical case of Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT). One of them, Hemant Arjyal, said: “The clouds this morning were rather low but not moisture-laden. It appears that the aircraft took the visual approach and the pilot got ‘in and out’ of the cloud. The plane seems to have been too close to the hill and touched it.”

Another expert, Kunda Dixit, told The Hindu: “This plane was coming back after not being able to see the Mount Everest. The south approach to the runaway was open. There were two other Everest flights ahead of this one. To give them more space, the pilot went too far to the east. The clouds were low because of all-night rain. The pilot must have assumed it was just a cloud, but there was a mountain hidden. 95 per cent of Nepal’s aviation crashes are CFIT, and they occur in the monsoon when clouds cover the mountains. If you are slightly off course, you hit the mountain. The real tragedy is we have not learnt the lessons from past crashes with better pilot training, and better equipment.”

The black box of the aircraft has been found, and an official three-member committee, led by a former Director-General of the Civil Aviation Authority Nepal has been set up to investigate the cause of the crash.

Afghanistan veteran Flight Lieutenant Jon Egging’s Hawk jet crashed on Saturday in a field near Bournemouth airport after taking part in the Bournemouth Air Festival in Dorset.

The 33-year-old Egging, known to colleagues as “Eggman” , was pronounced dead at the scene after he made a dramatic attempt to steer the falling plane away from nearby houses.

The nine-plane stunt team had finished a display over the seafront in Bournemouth and was returning to the airport when the accident took place.

Chief inspector Steve White of Dorset Police said the aircraft had come to a rest on the banks of the River Stour. “The pilot, who had been thrown from the aircraft , was pronounced dead at the scene,” he said.

The Red Arrows are famous for their airborne stunts, red, white and blue vapor trails, dramatic flypasts and trademark diamond formation . Formed in 1965, they have flown more than 4,000 displays in 53 countries. Their red single-engine jet trainers are a familiar sight at air shows and military events.

The pilots are drawn from front-line RAF squadrons, and return to active duty after three years with the Arrows . In 2009, Flight Lt Kirsty Moore became the first female member of the team.

The nine-pilot team last had an accident in 2010, when two jets crashed in training in Crete. Neither pilot was seriously injured.

Other flight demonstration teams, including the United States Air Force’s Thunderbirds and the US Navy’s Blue Angels, have had deaths in training and during displays, although they are relatively rare. In 2007, Blue Angels pilot Lt Cmdr Kevin Davis died at an air show in South Carolina when he briefly lost control of his F/A 18 Hornet jet.

Lawyer for Nafissatou Diallo, Kenneth Thompson, said that he received a twoparagraph letter from Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance’s office saying the prosecutors would “like to invite” the maid for a meeting to explain “to her what I anticipate will occur in court on the following day” . Thompson said the letter is an indication that prosecutors would seek to have a judge “dismiss all or some charges” at court hearing in the case on Tuesday.

The United States, the European Union and Arab nations want to set up an international inquiry into atrocities by Syrian government forces.

“Tonight, the momentum against the Gaddafi regime has reached a tipping point. Tripoli is slipping from the grasp of a tyrant,” US president Barack Obama said in a statement issued from his holiday in Martha’s Vineyard. “He needs to relinquish power once and for all,” Obama said.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country spearheaded support for the uprising and was the first to recognize their interim administration , condemned Gaddafi’s “irresponsible and desperate calls for the combat to continue” .

ItalianPMSilvioBerlusconi , who signed a 2008 friendship treaty that made the former colonial power Libya’s top trading partner, urged Gaddafi to “put an end to every pointless resistance and to save, in this way, his people from further suffering.”

British PM David Cameron also said that “Gaddafi must stop fighting, without conditions, and clearly show that he has given up any claim to control Libya” .

Nato, whose aerial bombing played a key role in weakening Gaddafi’s military infrastructure , urged him to step aside and give his country a chance to rebuild. It is “time to create a new Libya – a state based on freedom, not fear; democracy, not dictatorship” , Atlantic alliance head Anders Fogh Rasmussen said.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, an old Gaddafi ally, was a lone voice of foreign support for the crumbling regime, accusing the West of “destroying Tripoli with their bombs” .

China was more measured than Western powers in its reaction and promised to cooperate with whatever government would take over.

Russia’s response was equally cautious, urging any future political dialogue in Libya to take place without foreign interference.

Longtime ally Serbia stressed the situation was still developing and voiced hope its close relationship with Libya would continue.

South Africa denied rumours that it might be a place of exile for a defeated Gaddafi or help him to flee and called for the rapid establishment of “a truly representative and people-centred dispensation” in Libya.

In a case that has stunned a placid suburban New Jersey community, a slick young Pakistani-American man allegedly plotted with his Indian girlfriend to kill his Pakistani wife. They pulled off the hit alright , but police was ripped open the case in no time.

Everything about the case stank from the time Kashif Pervaiz , 26, reported to the police about how his wife Naazish Noorani, was gunned down by three armed men as they were strolling with their three-year old son in the suburb of Boonton after a family Iftar dinner last Tuesday. He said the men, one black, one white and one unknown, had called them terrorists before shooting at them. He took bullets in his shoulders and leg, while Naazish , 26, was shot through the heart and died almost instantly . The child was unhurt.

But his story and the sequence of events kept changing all the time, leading police to rule out a race and ethnicity angle in an area that is a multicultural haven and hasn’t had a homicide in 10 years; especially after Naazish’s family updated them about their troubled marriage. In an email to her brother, Naazish had forewarned him about her possible death saying her husband could kill her. ‘I dont no wht to do. Cant talk to him cuz he abuse me than … he doesnt wanna live with me … i dont no kids get scared of him sometimes … im so tired of this … i dont no Im scared … someday u will find me dead because its cuz of kaski … he wants to kill me’ , the email read. Police also found that Kashif had lied to his wife’s family about studying at Harvard and had been two-timing her. He also had a sugar daddy in Manhattan from whom he hoped to inherit millions.

Indeed, Kashif did go to Boston frequently; that’s where he hooked up with Antoinette Stephen, an Indian immigrant from Kerala who lived next door to an apartment he had rented. Naazish visited Boston on weekends and seemed to have been aware of his relationship with Stephen, who Pervaiz called “Soni” . Police say Pervaiz and Stephen plotted Naazish’s murder – and they left a trail of text messages detailing their plans. They kept exchanging messages up to four hours before the murder.

Security forces opened fire in Homs, killing at least one person, a witness said. Crowds there and in several other cities were angered by Assad’s remarks on TV and taunted him with warnings that his regime would be the next to unravel, as Muammar Gaddafi’s 42-year rule was crumbling under a rebel advance in Libya. Human rights groups say more than 2,000 people have been killed in the government’s crackdown on a five-month-old uprising. The regime has unleashed tanks and snipers in an attempt to stamp out the revolt.

In a now-familiar refrain, Assad promised reforms – including parliamentary elections by Feb – but insisted unrest was being driven by armed gangs & Islamic militants , not reform seekers.

Scorecard | Match in Pics

England captain Andrew Strauss, then, pulled off a masterstroke. With the new ball just four overs away, and Tendulkar on 91, he tossed the old one to Tim Bresnan; Tendulkar would have expected Kevin Pietersen, who had bowled the previous over to be given one more over. His eyes lit up; his adrenaline shot up. The moment had arrived.

He lunged forward for the drive, missed the line and promptly turned away in his inimitable bluff; but the roar that followed told him that umpire Rod Tucker had not fallen for it: it must have sounded to him like the roll of thunder, like a furious storm in the deepest of oceans. He looked back sharply, first in shock at the celebrating England players and then in dismay at the skies; finally, he tucked his bat under the arm and blowing hot air walked away ever so slowly.

The Oval that had plunged into silence quickly gathered its wits and rose to salute the luckless little master; but the mood suddenly changed: victory was in the air again and the festivities resumed with even more vigour.

About an hour later, the 0-4 whitewash was done and dusted. Suresh Raina, who looked like he was in a trance, was rapped in front of the stumps; but he was even more zapped because umpire Taufel had not heard or noticed the edge. A second duck completed his miserable tour, at least in Tests.

The rest of the tail too folded up quickly to give England a heady innings and 8-run victory. Graeme Swann, as expected, was the destructor in chief, taking six for 106. His bowling was, however, much more telling as the track seemed to have eased up, especially when the wickets dried up.

Earlier, there was a buzz in the air, the kind that Tendulkar used to elicit in his hey days. The queues had fallen in place at least two hours before play and, for the first time, there were many more Indian faces in the crowd.

But it wasn’t just about Tendulkar’s impending century of centuries; England could sense a victory too, a clean sweep as well. It was almost like the first day of a much-awaited Test series, or the last day of the World Cup.

Resuming at 129 for three, with the ball breaking and turning sharply, it was always going to be a race between the historic hundred and a momentous victory. But all fears were dispelled quickly as Amit Mishra batted like an accomplished batsman; indeed, he set the tone with his cuts, drives and even lofted shots.

He not only flummoxed England’s bowlers but also took away the pressure from Tendulkar; he played like it was a first day wicket at the Kotla. It almost looked like there was no pace in the track, and the zip had also gone away for the spinner.

Tendulkar and Mishra waded through the first session without any mishaps, not losing a single wicket for an entire session just the only time in this series. But it wasn’t all quiet or incident-free; just as lunch beckoned, Tendulkar became edgy. Fortunately for him, though, he enjoyed the luck of a dying man.

First, an inside edge came too quickly for Cook at forward short-leg; Prior, then, couldn’t hold on to an outside edge. In between, he missed a sweep and offered no stroke to another delivery. Replays showed that Tendulkar was ‘out’ on both occasions.

The collapse, however, was triggered by Mishra’s dismissal; playing for turn, like he had done for most of the day, he was beaten by a straighter one by Swann to be bowled comprehensively. His 84 was, however, the lone hope for India as Tendulkar erred on the side of caution.

Some fairytales end in tears; this one went wrong from the first day itself. It will not be a bed of roses, at least not for some time.

The students are expected to gain an insight into how Anna turned the corruption issue into a brand and an exciting marketing strategy, too. They will be addressed by professor Harsh Vardhan Verma, a faculty member for marketing at FMS.

With the aim of coming up with a case study of ‘Brand Anna’ and presenting a paper later, Verma started his study of the brand in the form of two blogs – ‘Brand Anna: Lessons in Branding’ and ‘Anna direction and youth directionless’.

“What has this simple man, who otherwise may fail to attract attention on the street, appropriated? If Anna has caught the imagination of people, which is visible wherever he goes, what is it? Anna’s brilliance lies in his ability to sense the void (latent need: freedom from corruption) and respond to that by creating a product accordingly (Lokpal). Some needs are so obvious (patent but relegated to dormancy) that they escape attention. Anna has lent voice to a murmur which political establishment knowingly ignored. He converted that into a war cry. Anna brand stands for a ‘promise’ (India liberated from corruption) which connects people,” said Verma.

Verma will be addressing two sets of students in the class on Tuesday, one which is supporting Anna’s Jan Lokpal and the other which is against it. Both the groups are equally excited about the lesson.

“I am not a follower of Anna, but as a student of marketing, I do wish to understand the phenomenon. The entire nation is wearing the Gandhi topi which is exciting for the market.How he managed to turn the issue of corruption into a brand is of particular interest to us?” said Amol Endait, a final-year student. Anand Singh, another final-year student, said, “Professor Verma will discuss why the movement became so successful. We will also discuss how the political class should learn a lesson or two and how Anna is standing up for an issue that resonates with the people.”

“The response is unprecedented. It has caused massive damage to the party. It will have to pay a heavy price in the forthcoming polls in some states. In the last three days, many senior Congress leaders called on Rahul to press for his intervention. We expect him to step in soon,” a senior Congress minister in Maharashtra said on Monday.

On April 5, Hazare called off his fast following intervention by Congress president Sonia Gandhi. “Sonia Gandhi had written a letter to Hazare and assured him that a joint committee, including his nominees, will be set up. Now, since Sonia is away for medical treatment, Rahul should take the initiative and resolve the dispute,” he said.

Some senior Congress leaders also plan to seek President Pratibha Patil’s intervention. “We plan to meet her and we feel that she should appeal to Hazare to call off his agitation,” they said.

Although they made it plain that they don’t agree with Team Anna’s demand that Jan Lokpal Bill should be the sole reference point for the creation of an anti-corruption watchdog and insisted that Parliament would only discuss the legislation approved by the Standing Committee, the re-think on including the PM in Lokpal is a significant concession as well as a tactical move to break the logjam.

In another significant move, the government has fast-tracked the process to draft a Grievance Redressal Bill which will deal with corruption faced by the common man it getting licences and other clearances, as well benefits under government schemes. The draft of the proposed law is expected to be put up for public discussion by this weekend.

Besides mollifying the anti-corruption sentiment that has being powering the Anna campaign, the move to bring the PM within Lokpal is also aimed to help end Congress’s isolation in Parliament. The BJP, Left and other parties like the DMK are opposed to keeping the PM outside the Lokpal’s purview.

However, while these concessions may potentially narrow the divergence between the two sides, there was still no indication of the activists accepting this as a basis to end their agitation. Manmohan Singh had argued for keeping his office within Lokpal’s ambit but was overruled by a majority in the Cabinet who felt that such a move could tie a prime minister in knots and paralyze the government with motivated complaints.

On Monday, however, the tune was different. Sources indicated that PM’s inclusion could be unconditional, reflecting a drastic re-think forced by Anna Hazare’s huge mass mobilization. Spurred by swelling crowds, Team Anna continued with its pressure tactic, denying that they were negotiating with the government through negotiators. It said it would settle for none other than an empowered representative of the PM. Rahul Gandhi or Maharashtra CM Prithviraj Chavan as negotiators.

Law minister Salman Khurshid said that the Grievance Redressal Bill was part of a bouquet of new laws that the government aims to bring – on judicial accountability, whistleblowers, Lokpal and a legislation to strengthen the CVC. This, he said, was a multi-pronged anti-corruption strategy envisaged by government.

The chairman of the Standing Committee, Abhishek Singhvi, however, said that a solution is possible if the civil society agreed to defer its activism for a while. Asserting that the committee can come up with a constructive solution, Singhvi said, “If the Standing Committee strains its every sinew to fast-track its proceedings, look at the huge amount of diverse inputs, and hold intense deliberations, it can submit a report as early as eight weeks from now.”

PM sent out a conciliatory signal on Monday, his second since Saturday. Speaking at the Golden Jubilee event of Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, Singh said: “We are open to a reasoned debate on all these issues. We have made it clear that all concerned individuals should convey their concern on different aspects of the bill to their representatives in Parliament and to the standing committeea¦the standing committee has the power to propose any amendment.”

Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh said that his ministry would put the draft of the grievance redressal legislation on the ministry’s website by the weekend. If the timeline is significant and betrays the government’s anxiety to counter the perception of it being soft on corruption, so is the choice of Jairam to craft the legislation.

Team Anna group had demanded that Ramesh should be put on the ministerial panel that negotiated the draft of the Lokpal bill. Although the government did not agree, Anna aide Prashant Bhushan told TOI that Ramesh would be acceptable to them as interlocutor.

However, chances of a fresh dialogue between the two sides are still not looking bright. Team Anna stuck to their August 30 deadline for the passage of the Jan Lokpal Bill, rejecting the government’s stand that parliamentary process be allowed to play out. Kiran Bedi chided the government, saying it “took MPs just five minutes to clear the bill to raise their salaries, but it’s finding it difficult to pass the Jan Lokpal Bill in five to six days.”

The government does not seem inclined to make any further concessions on the sticking points: essentially, inclusion of higher judiciary and civil society’s insistence on including the entire central government officialdom. Unlike in the case of judiciary, government has no philosophical opposition to putting the lower bureaucracy within the scope of Lokpal, but is deterred by the daunting logistical constraints.

Sources in the government also pointed out that Centre can’t direct states on what kind of Lokayuktas they should have as the Constitution prohibits New Delhi from legislating on state matters.

TIMES APPEAL

Last Thursday, The Times of India offered three solutions (while acknowledging the legal/constitutional roadblocks to each one of them) to break the logjam: (1) A referendum; (2) An MP introduces Team Anna’s draft as a private member’s Bill, and Parliament debates both the government and the Jan Lokpal versions; (3) The issue be referred to an eminent persons’ committee. We would not be so immodest or foolish to believe that a better solution does not lie outside of the three proposed by TOI. But there can be no second opinion on the need to find common ground. Both the government and Team Anna claim to be doing what they’re doing “for the people”. If that be so, neither side should allow ego to come in the way of a solution that best tackles the curse of corruption and serves the cause of India and its people. This is a moment in our history that calls for humility and guts, not hubris or bravado.

“All democratic governments have a responsibility to allow peaceful protest and freedom of dissent, even as they work to maintain public safety,” State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said, amid a minor kerfuffle in India’s Congress party circles over remarks on the Hazare movement attributed to Washington.

A Congress party spokesman on Tuesday implied the US was going beyond routine expressions of support and interfering with India’s internal affairs. “How can we take orders from the United States?” party official Rashid Alvi was quoted as saying, “We don’t want any outside interference.”

Alvi’s gripe arose from Nuland’s remarks last week to the effect that the US supported the right of peaceful, non- violent protest around the world. “That said, India is a democracy, and we count on India to exercise appropriate democratic restraint in the way it deals with peaceful protest,” she added. Nuland suggested that some Indian news outlets had gone overboard on reporting the remarks out of context.

On Wednesday, she repeated the remarks, stressing even more that “India is a country that has a strong and long-established democratic tradition” and “It’s a country that people look to for these issues, and it has a long tradition of nonviolent protest.”

“It’s widely admired for these things and open debate, and that’s the standard that we all have come to expect from India,” she added.

The Obama administration has been pilloried for its weak support to the Arab spring movement even as it seeks to address the growing domestic economic unrest and inequity.

As a matter of policy, Washington is extremely circumspect in addressing internal developments in India, deferring frequently to the country’s flourishing democracy and strong institutions.

The UFO was seen over the runway at Chongqing Municipality’s Jiangbei International Airport, following which flights were disrupted, Shanghai Daily reported.

Air traffic was restricted for about an hour from 12.30 pm. The restriction was lifted after the UFO left, the news daily said.

Authorities in Chongqing have not offered an explanation for the unusual phenomenon.

Airport officials, however, were of the opinion that it could be a sky lantern or a large balloon. A sky lantern is used by Chinese when they pray for good luck.

Israel said the assailants infiltrated from the Hamas-run Gaza Strip via Egypt’s Sinai desert, despite stepped up efforts by Egyptian security forces in recent days to rein in Palestinian and Islamist radicals.

“This was a grave incident in which Israelis and Israeli sovereignty were harmed. Israel will respond accordingly,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. He was due to speak further on the most deadly attack in Israel since 2008 in a televised address at 7:30 pm (1630 GMT).

Concern was high in the Gaza Strip that Israel would launch retaliatory attacks. Egyptian security sources said it was unlikely the gunmen had come from Egyptian territory where border patrols had not detected any “suspicious movements”.

Israel’s military said the attacks on Highway 12 began when “terrorists shot at a bus on its way to (the city of) Eilat and then fired an anti-tank rocket at another vehicle. At the same time, a military patrol hit an explosive device”.

“I saw two men in fatigues shooting at me,” the bus driver, Benny Bilbaski, told Israel Radio. “I saw that there were wounded on the bus but I continued to drive on, looking straight not looking right or left. Once I got a kilometre past the area and I was out of range we took care of the wounded.”

The Magen David Adom ambulance service said seven people were killed along the road, just metres from the border with Egypt. The military put the number of wounded at around 25.

Israeli special forces were called in and engaged the gunmen as police and the military closed roads around Eilat, a popular Red Sea resort. The military said between two and four gunmen were killed. Israeli media reports said up to seven were killed.

“It was a grave terrorist incident that took place in several locations,” said Defence Minister Ehud Barak. “It reflects the weakening of Egypt’s hold in the Sinai and the broadening of activities by terror elements.”

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Netanyahu, said Israel “has specific and precise information that these terrorists who targeted Israelis today came out of the Gaza Strip”.

A senior Israeli official said the gunmen, unable to cross into Israel through the heavily patrolled border with the Gaza Strip, had gone into the Sinai and then infiltrated from there into southern Israel.

Hamas in Gaza denied responsibility and said it would fight back if it came under Israeli attack. “We will not stand handcuffed and we will spearhead resistance to the occupation,” said senior official Salah Al-Bardaweel.

Israeli officials have voiced concern that militant groups in the Sinai have been making use of a security vacuum left by the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in February.

The Israeli shekelfell against the dollar and stocks dipped on Thursday. The violence appeared to take some domestic political pressure off Netanyahu: leaders of escalating protests against high living costs called off weekend demonstrations after news of the Israeli casualties broke.

Egypt, which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, recently stepped up security activity in the Sinai.

On Tuesday, Egyptian security sources said an army crackdown on armed groups in the northern Sinai had netted four Islamist militants as they prepared to blow up a gas pipeline.

Israel is building a fence along its 180-km-long frontier with Egypt, but very few sections have been completed.

An employment tribunal heard that solicitor Amardeep, 33, hailed from the higher caste of Jat, whereas her husband Vijay Begraj, 32, the practice manager, belonged to the former ‘untouchables’ or Dalits, reports the Daily Mail.

Amardeep told the tribunal that a senior colleague warned her against marrying Begraj on the grounds that people of his caste were ‘different creatures’ and that his position firm was ‘compromised’.

The couple met when both worked at Coventry-based solicitors Heer Manak and began dating four years later.

Begraj, who worked for the firm for seven years, was sacked last year. His wife resigned in January.

Police said they had arrested a 38-year-old man on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications after arriving at a south London police station on Thursday morning by appointment.

Desborough joined the News of the World in 2005 as a showbusiness and news reporter and was promoted to become US editor, based in Los Angeles, in 2009. He worked for the News of the World up until it closed last month.

The Guardian newspaper’s website said the allegations were believed to relate to events before Desborough was sent to the United States.

US agencies are investigating whether the News of the World’s phone-hacking activities extended to the United States. So far, they have not found evidence that they did.

The arrest is the 13th this year in an inquiry that has rocked the News of the World’s parent company, Murdoch’s News Corp, and has had far-reaching implications for the British establishment.

A spokeswoman for News International, News Corp’s British newspaper arm, said the company was cooperating fully with police and could not comment further because of the police investigation.

Former News of the World editor and Murdoch favourite Rebekah Brooks and Britain’s top two policemen have resigned over the allegations, while Murdoch and his son James have been quizzed in parliament.

James Murdoch, who runs News Corp’s non-US operations, may be recalled to face further questions after two senior former News International executives called his evidence into question.

A letter published this week suggested that many senior figures at the News of the World were aware of phone hacking, undermining the media company’s defence that the practice was the work of a rogue reporter.

“The troubling connection remains between Pakistan’s military and terrorist groups like the Haqqani network and Lashkar-e-Taiba who are killing Indians, Afghans and Pakistanis,” McCain, the Republican presidential candidate in the 2008 race, told reporters here.

He was sharing his impressions of his visit to Pakistan last week where he met Pakistani leaders, including President Asif Ali Zardari.

Alluding to the ongoing debate in the US about a rethink among the powers-that-be in Washington about its ties with Islamabad, McCain said: “This is a time for intensive reflection about our relations with Pakistan. The US must develop a realistic relationship with Pakistan.”

McCain, the influential US senator from Arizona who is currently on a visit to India, hoped that Pakistan will emerge “a successful democratic nation” and underlined the need for strengthening democratic civilian rule in that country.

The senator also emphasised that the US had resolved not to let the Taliban return to Afghanistan and was trying to help develop a secure nation that “will not be a base for terrorists”.

McCain met National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon in the morning and discussed a swathe of issues relating to the burgeoning India-US strategic partnership.

“The US has a critical stake in India’s success,” McCain said. He expressed confidence that the India-US relationship “can be and should be the indispensable partnership of the 21st century”.

Kan, who took office in June 2010 as Japan’s fifth premier in as many years, has signalled that he will step down once parliament enacts key legislation, including a bill to allow the government to borrow more to fund this year’s budget.

Parliament is expected to pass the pending bills next week and a ruling Democratic Party of Japan leadership election could be held as early as Aug. 28, unless renewed bickering with the opposition causes delays.

The next prime minister must balance the need to fix Japan’s tattered finances while rebuilding from the triple disasters of the March earthquake and tsunami and the nuclear crisis that ensued.

But Kan and his four predecessors have all struggled to achieve much in the face of a divided parliament, where the opposition controls the upper house.

Forty-two percent of the 32 market participants surveyed by Reuters said Noda was their preferred candidate.

“Basically, Noda, who has raised the idea of a grand coalition between the ruling and opposition parties is the most suitable,” said Hideyuki Ishiguro, an investment strategist at Okasan Securities. “If a ”grand coalition is formed, Japan’s ability to implement policies would be greatly improved.”

Graphic on Reuters PM survey, click http:link.reuters.comcyg33sGraphic on Japan voter support, click http:r.reuters.commyv63g

ANOTHER REVOLVING DOOR LEADER?The 54-year-old Noda, who wants to rein in a public debt already twice the size of the $5 trillion economy, has said he favours tax hikes to help pay for rebuilding from the massive March tsunami that devastated the country’s northeast — Japan’s biggest reconstruction project since right after World War Two.

He is also an advocate of a government plan to double the 5 percent sales tax by the middle of the decade to help fund the rising social security costs of Japan’s fast-ageing society.

Ex-transport minister Sumio Mabuchi, who has said his top priority would be pulling Japa’s economy out of deflation and is opposed to near-term tax hikes, was a distant second with 15 percent.

But even though Noda tops the list, many market players think tax hikes should wait if the economy is weak.

More than one-third of respondents said the next premier’s top priority should be ensuring that the economy does not fall back into recession, including additional stimulus steps if needed and postponing tax hikes to pay for rebuilding.

Twenty-seven percent said the next leader should focus on deregulation and other steps such as free trade deals to promote economic growth, while an almost equal percentage said restraining debt should be the No.1 goal.

Other likely candidates, including former environment minister Sakihito Ozawa and Mabuchi, are opposed to early tax hikes for reconstruction.

The two topped the lists of possible successors seen as most likely to cause Japanese government bond yields to rise on concerns about ballooning debt. No respondent said Noda”s election would cause such worries.

A whopping 75 percent of respondents, however, expect the next leader to last at most until the next scheduled leadership race in September 2012, with just two forecasting a four-year term.

Almost half of participants said they wanted Japan’s next leader to be decisive and able to push through policies in the face of opposition, while 27 percent said an ability to get along with ruling party and opposition rivals was most important.

Vice Consul of the US Consulate Maureen Chao made the remark at a function Friday at SRM University, around 40 km from here.

The US Consulate has also termed her comment as inappropriate.

However, students and officials of the university maintain there was nothing racial about the US official’s remark.

In a statement put up on its website, the US Consulate said: “Yesterday (Friday) at a Study Abroad Orientation Program at SRM University, Vice Consul Maureen Chao gave a speech describing positive memories from her own study abroad experiences in India 23 years ago.”

“During the speech, Ms. Chao made an inappropriate comment. Ms. Chao deeply regrets if her unfortunate remarks offended anyone, as that was certainly not her intent.”

Chao, while narrating her experience in India in 1989 when she came to the country on a semester programme, spoke about her 72-hour train journey from New Delhi to Orissa.

She had the audience in splits while recalling her experience in exchanging her lower berth in the train compartment for an upper berth with a fellow passenger.

Chao said when she came out of the train after the journey, her skin got dusty and dirty and, after a pause, added that “I became dirty and dark, like a Tamilian”, landing herself into an avoidable controversy.

While non-Tamil students at the SRM University applauded her remarks, many others were upset.

“As Secretary Clinton recently noted, the US-India partnership is based on our shared values of democracy, liberty, and respect for religious and cultural diversity. The US Consulate in Chennai and the US Mission in India are committed to upholding these shared values,” said the consulate statement.

Officials and students at SRM University, however, are blaming the media for making a mountain out of a mole hill.

“The US official was narrating her own travel experience. After 72 hours of journey, she said, she was dark like a Tamilian. I am also a Tamilian and I am dark, it is a fact of life. The remark was meant to be jovial,” M. Ponnavaikko, vice chancellor of SRM University, told IANS.

“Everybody at the auditorium felt that it was meant to be a jovial comment. It is a normal student behaviour to applaud if one group is commented upon,” T.V. Gopal, dean, International Relations, told IANS.

“The US official meant that remark as a joke and not to be taken seriously and be hurt. However, as a diplomat it was inappropriate on her part to make such a remark,” a Tamilian student told IANS, preferring anonymity.

Another engineering student, declining to be named, told IANS: “I am also a Tamilian. It was a jovial comment and not to be taken seriously. It is wrong on the part of the media to give racial colour to such remarks and blow it up.”

“Certainly there is nothing racial about the official’s comment. Students did hoot when she made that remark. But that is normal student behaviour,” a student from north India told IANS, on condition of anonymity.

According to the sources, the US government has widened the scope of probe to see whether they can establish a broader pattern of more recent misconduct at the company’s operations in the US.

British police overseeing the probe told the Federal Bureau of Investigation that none of the phone numbers of 9/11 victims could be cited as evidence found till date.

London’s Scotland Yard has also failed to find any evidence after examining voluminous phone records of allegedly phone-hacking victims.

A Scotland Yard spokesperson declined to comment on the ongoing probe into the scandal.

The New York Police Department has told the FBI that it has no evidence to prove that such violations actually occurred.

The FBI crime office also arrived at same conclusion, the Wall Street Journal reports.

US Attorney General Eric Holder plans to call on 9/11 victims’ families to discuss their concerns about the issue.

A British newspaper, Daily Mirror had earlier alleged that News Corp. journalists had attempted to hack the phones of 9/11 victims.

Classified intelligence reports have revealed that al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen has been making efforts to acquire large quantities of castor beans, which are required to produce ricin, a white, powdery toxin that is so deadly that just a speck can kill if it is inhaled or reaches the bloodstream.

The New York Times quoted intelligence officials, as saying that they have collected evidence that Qaeda operatives are trying to move castor beans and processing agents to a hideaway in Shabwa Province, in one of Yemen’s rugged tribal areas controlled by insurgents.

The officials say the evidence points to efforts to secretly concoct batches of the poison, pack them around small explosives, and then try to explode them in contained spaces, like a shopping mall, an airport or a subway station.

President Obama and his top national security aides were first briefed on the threat last year and have received periodic updates since then, top aides said.

Senior American officials say there is no indication that a ricin attack is imminent, and some experts say the al-Qaeda affiliate is still struggling with how to deploy ricin as an effective weapon.

According to figures submitted in Parliament by the minister for overseas Indian affairs, Vyalar Ravi, 160 Indians were either killed or injured in attacks abroad. This is a massive 78% jump from 2009.

“Indian nationals abroad are warned by post to maintain caution and be vigilant in their general activities to avoid untoward incidents. Consulate offcials are sent to the place of incident to liaise with local authorities, the Indian community, and render all possible assistance,” Ravi told Parliament last week.

Indians in Australia have faced the worst attacks which have jumped up significantly since 2009. In 2008 11 Indians were either killed or injured. This jumped up almost five fold to 52 Indians the next year and now a record 103 attacks in 2010.

“The issue of attacks on Indians in Australia has been taken up at the highest level by the Government of India. At the ministerial level as well as through the High Commission and its consulates in Australia. It has been conveyed to the Australian government that it was their responsibility to ensure the well being and security of all Indians in Australia,” Ravi said.

The external affairs ministry has also stepped in and asked the “Indian high commissioner and consul general in Australia to remain in regular touch with the Australian authorities to protect Indians.

Philippines is also a major worry for the New Delhi as statistics show 27 Indians were either killed or injured in 2008; 31 in 2009, and 30 in 2010.

This has been vindicated by two recent attacks on the security forces that appear to have rudely awakened the authorities to the new Taliban tactic.

Thursday’s attack on a security checkpost in Peshawar by women suicide bombers was the second such attack in less than two months. The previous attack was in Bajaur on June 26.

The Bajaur attack too targeted a checkpost. The bombing by the husband-wife duo left 46 people dead and over 80 injured.

The involvement of women suicide bombers has posed a major security challenge in Pakistan with the Eid shopping in full swing. As shopping is primarily done by women, security agencies are yet to devise ways to identify burqa-clad bombers in the crowd, said a report in Daily Times on Friday.

A senior police official overseeing the security measures in Lahore for Ramazan, said the government should get a decree from ulema to ask women to remove their burqas as a security measure before entering shopping malls meant for them, he said requesting anonymity.

He said it was required because there are few women police officers available, particularly during Eid when shopping malls are thronged by women, the Daily Times report said.

Traditionally, security forces in Pakistan are reluctant to search women due to cultural sensitivities, which may have helped the Taliban to use them in their operations.

The Peshawar attackers seem to have had no hurdle in getting close to the target, although a police cordon was put in place after another blast same day near the checkpost claimed the lives of five policemen.

In Bajaur, the attackers managed to get pass the security because of one them was a woman.

Another police official contended that Peshawar attack presented a new challenge for the security forces as male officers doesn’t search women.

“The attack does pose serious problems for security personnel, who will have to find ingenious ways to avert such bombings. We need to improve intelligence and gadgetry,” he said on condition of anonymity.

Let’s not get too gleeful: firstly, we’re not yet a superpower, and England remains a dream for many Indians. Secondly, it isn’t as if riots are alien to India; most of us know that it wouldn’t take much to spark one. (Perhaps every society has chaos lurking just beneath its surface, and civility has a tenuous hold.) Thirdly, England have comprehensively slaughtered us in the current Test series, so any Schadenfreude sounds suspiciously like sour grapes. And fourthly, let’s not forget how dysfunctional our own politics is at the moment.

The UPA-2 government is paralysed; various scams have caused such a loss of credibility that even when an experienced and wise voice like finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s said India was unlikely to be scathed by the turmoil in the global financial markets, many did not pay him much attention. Of course he’s right. But who believes the government right now?

So let’s not get carried away smirking at the Brits.

You could argue that India’s problems are a passing phase and that our politics are a self-regulating ecosystem; it’s precisely when things look most chaotic and confusing that a fresh solution emerges. What is undeniable, though, is the eclipse of the West.

Sure, the US will remain at the top for decades to come, but what about the Europeans? The double-dip recession, of which signs are loud and clear, will possibly and irretrievably ruin Europe.

The US may lose a generation, and though its decline has begun no one expects it to become a basket-case soon because one, it is still the world’s economic, political and military superpower; two, at US $14 trillion its economy simply dwarfs those next in line; three, it remains the technological and scientific innovator for the world; four, it is demographically in far better shape than Europe; and five, its world-view is optimistic, unlike that of the cranky Europeans.

England’s riots showed how deep the malaise is in Europe. It is difficult to argue with British Prime Minister David Cameron’s assertion that the rioting was the handiwork of criminals. But he (and the rest of his political class) tried to pre-empt any talk of deeper causes. In which case, Cameron and the other European leaders had better brace themselves for more riots in the years to come. Their countries have no money and they have no jobs. They have no society and they are squeezing out the middle class.

The West began unthreading its social fabric long ago by corporatising the basic social unit, the family. At a panel discussion in Mumbai this week, British writer Patrick French suggested that while in India, your family would tell you to not go out and riot or loot (and you would heed them), in England that very social pressure no longer existed.

Perhaps the conservatives are correct in saying that their society’s welfare systems have spoilt them; perhaps the Left is correct in saying that slashing social spending is tearing up families and breeding violence.

Whatever the truth may be (and it’s probably a bit of both) the fact is, there are only so many CCTVs you can put up in your cities, or only so many jails you can build. And for either of these things, you need money; which the Europeans have run out of.

Perhaps the real measure of who’s headed where is the middle class. Even in America, the worry is about the middle class getting squeezed out, and this will be in evidence during their next presidential elections, when Barack Obama will portray the Republicans as pro-rich and they will portray him as pro-poor.

The middle class, which by most economic measures has been shrinking (in their share of the national wealth, in the types of jobs that have been lost, etc), will get left out of the debate. At least, however, it is not as bad as it is in England, which is going from being a nation of shop-keepers to a nation of shop-sweepers.

In India the opposite holds true. At the Patrick French panel discussion, participants moaned on about how India’s middle class has grown, how it dominates the politics, the industry, the bureaucracy, and the media, etc. Even those Indians who fear the middle class admit that it is growing. That it is a good thing can be gauged by the fact that the other major middle class that is growing is China’s.

There’s your barometer. Keep this in mind when you watch a very middle-class ritual on TV tomorrow, the Independence Day function, or a very middle-class hero named Anna Hazare the day after, as he begins his hunger fast. And contrast all this with the violence you saw in Britain. But go easy on the Schadenfreude.

The writer is the Editor-in-Chief, DNA, based in Mumbai

He was 79. He is survived by his wife Neela Devi, son Aditya Raj and daughter Kanchan Desai.

According to the sources, he was on dialysis for the last few years and was undergoing the procedure at least thrice a week. He was yesterday admitted to the ICU of the hospital.

The actor, who made his debut in Bollywood in 1953, when the film ‘Jeevan Jyoti’ was released, carved out a niche for himself with the superhit Junglee in 1961.

His new image took ground and his subsequent films were all in this genre later.

Kapoor, hailed as ‘Elvis Presley of India’, joined the silver screen at a time when his elder brother Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand and Dilip Kumar were the reigning trio.

Kapoor was suffering from chronic renal failure, family sources said.

The funeral will take place tomorrow morning, they said.

Born Shamsher Raj Kapoor on October 21, 1931, Kapoor was the second son of veteran theatre and film actor Prithviraj Kapoor.

Despite his family background, Shammi’s entry into Bollywood was initially not successful even though he worked with major heroines like Madhubala in ‘Rail ka Dibba’, Suraiya in ‘Shama Parwana’ and Nalini Jaywant in ‘Hum Sab Chor Hai’.

His initial movies flopped at the Box Office. He reinvented himself with ‘Tumsa Nahi Dekha’ cutting his hair in the famous duck-tail style of the 50s and never looked back since then.

With the success of Junglee in 1961, an entire decade reeled under its colourful impact.

Shammi heralded the swinging 60s and a large part of his appeal was primarily due to the immensely catchy and upbeat numbers like ‘Suku Suku’, ‘O Haseena Zulfo Wali’, ‘Aaj Kal Tere Mere Pyar Ke Charche’, ‘Aaja Aaja Main Hoon Pyar Tera’ where he was at his boisterous best.

Even though success came with light weight tales like ‘Kashmir Ki Kali’, ‘Rajkumar’, ‘Jaanwar’ and ‘An Evening in Paris’, his performances in flicks like ‘Junglee’, ‘Badtameez’, ‘Bluff Master’, ‘Pagla Kahin Ka’, ‘Teesri Manzil’, ‘Brahmachari’ silenced his critics.

‘Andaz’, which released in 1971, was his last movie as a leading man but his character roles in ‘Vidhata’, ‘Hero’ and ‘Prem Rog’ were well received.

Shammi was a computer aficionado and his last years

“I know that our troops will continue the hard work of transitioning to a stronger Afghan government and ensuring that Afghanistan is not a safe haven for terrorists.

“We will press on and we will succeed,” Obama said his remarks to the White House correspondents on Monday.

There is no one who embodies the qualities that I mentioned more than the men and women of the United States armed forces, and this weekend we lost 30 of them when their helicopter crashed during a mission in Afghanistan, he said.

“And their loss is a stark reminder of the risks that our men and women in uniform take every single day on behalf of their country. Day after day, night after night, they carry out missions like this in the face of enemy fire and grave danger.

And in this mission, as in so many others, they were also joined by Afghan troops, seven of whom lost their lives as well,” he said.

Obama said now is the time to reflect on those US soldiers lost and the sacrifices of all who serve, as well as their families.

“These men and women put their lives on the line for the values that bind us together as a nation.

They come from different places, and their backgrounds and beliefs reflect the rich diversity of America,” he said.

Rioting and looting has spread across London, with unrest flaring up in the central city of Birmingham, the western city of Bristol and the northwestern city of Liverpool.

The third cricket Test between India and England is scheduled to be held at Edgbaston, Birmingham, from August 10.

On the third night of riots in London, gangs of masked youth last night looted shops, attacked police officers and set fire to vehicles and garbage dumps in raging violence, sparked by the killing of a youth in police shooting in Tottenham, reminding many of racial unrest in the 1980s.

Clashes in Hackney – one of the five boroughs in which the 2012 Olympics will be held – between police and groups of youths were shown live through helicopter cameras, besides at least one car set on fire on the third night of violence.

Over 200 people have been arrested till last night as the police continued to grapple with trouble spreading to newer areas. Much investment has been made in recent years in Hackney in view of the 2012 Olympics.

Prime Minister David Cameron is returning early from holiday to discuss the unrest, which appeared to be led by youths alienated by years of underemployment which left them feeling marginalized even before the economic downturn.

Scotland Yard has deployed an extra 1,700 officers to deal with the unrest in the capital.

Violence started on Saturday in Tottenham district when a peaceful protest over the police shooting of Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old local man, turned violent. Trouble has since spread to areas of London, such as Islington, Enfield, Walthamstow, Oxford Circus and now Hackney.

Attackers smashed shops and looted property in the city of Birmingham in central England, police said, in the first sign of the riots spreading beyond the capital.

The two teams, who are scheduled to play the third Test in Birmingham beginning on Wednesday, were confined to their hotel rooms.

A few England players expressed their concern over the situation.

Star batsman Kevin Pietersen made his frustration clear. “They have just locked our hotel in Birmingham Riots just started here. Insane!” he wrote on Twitter

England all-rounder Tim Bresnan also voiced his concerns on Twitter. “Just seen rioters in Birmingham fleeing down the main street followed by load of police in full get up. What’s going on?”

All-rounder Stuart Broad added on his Twitter page, “Police vans all around Birmingham where we are right now.”

The violence erupted late on Saturday in London’s northern Tottenham district when a peaceful protest over the police shooting of a suspect two days earlier turned violent.

By Monday, the violence had spread to parts of the south of the city, including Clapham Junction, one of London’s busiest railway junctions, Woolwich in the capital’s southeast and the Ealing area of west London.

Neighbourhoods across the capital faced a massive clean-up of smashed glass, bricks, bottles and gutted buildings as police reinforcements reclaimed the streets from the youths who had coordinated the looting via mobile phones and social media.

The rioting — the worst in Britain for decades — spread to districts across London, and what police called copycat violence broke out in Bristol in the southwest, Birmingham in the Midlands and the northwest port of Liverpool.

Late on Monday, as the violence died down, cars piled high with goods drove at high speed through London streets. Witnesses were told of numerous cases of car theft by groups of looters.

In the poor eastern district of Woolwich, passersby felt the crunch of broken glass underfoot and saw shattered shop fronts and streets strewn with stolen goods, tailors” dummies and other debris.

Police said they had arrested 334 people in London and about 100 in Birmingham.

At one point, the London fire brigade said it was running out of vehicles to tackle fires started by the rioters and police said they had called in 1,700 reinforcements to help London police cope with fast-moving groups of looters.

Cameron broke off his holiday in Italy on Monday to fly home. He was due to chair a meeting of Cobra, the government”s crisis committee, at 9 a.m. (0800 GMT) to work out a strategy to prevent more violence and consider why the riots broke out and spread so fast, taking the authorities by surprise.

Cuts in services
Some commentators have blamed the rioting partly on cuts in social services being imposed as a result of the government”s tough austerity policies to reduce a large budget deficit. Economic growth is sluggish.

Many looters were from areas of high unemployment and said they felt alienated from society.

“We ain”t got no jobs, no money … We heard that other people were getting things for free, so why not us?” asked E.Nan, a young man in a baseball cap surrounded by other youths in Hackney, a multi-ethnic area in east London and one of the worst affected areas.

Hooded youths in Hackney pushed burning rubbish bins down a street towards police on Monday, laughing as they ran back when police charged them. Others smashed their way into a shop and ran off clutching bottles of whisky and beer.

Reuters witnesses saw similar scenes in Woolwich, Clapham in the south and Ealing in the west. In Ealing, one resident told Reuters about 150 hooded youths had walked down his road smashing car windows in a display of “mindless vandalism”.

“It”s very sad to see … But kids have got no work, no future and the cuts have made it worse. These kids are from another generation to us and they just don”t care,” said Hackney electrician Anthony Burns, 39. “You watch. It”s only just begun.”

Government officials branded the rioters criminals and said the violence would have no effect on prepI likarations for the 2012 London Olympic Games — though television images of blazing buildings and rioting were likely to dent the capital”s image.

“It was needless, opportunistic theft and violence, nothing more, nothing less. It is completely unacceptable,” said Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.

Cameron has resisted calls to slow the rate at which he is cutting the budget deficit in order to lessen the impact on youth services and other facilities. He was likely to come under new pressure to do more for poor districts of the capital.

The first riots broke out on Saturday in London”s northern Tottenham district, when a peaceful protest over the police shooting of a suspect two days earlier was followed by outbreaks of looting.

Further disturbances followed on Sunday, and on Monday, emboldened by the inability of the police to concentrate their forces in every trouble spot, looting spread rapidly.

Citing spies operating among Gaddafi’s ranks, Mohammed Zawawi, a spokesperson for revolutionary militia groups, told AFP that Khamis was confirmed to be among the dead.

“Overnight there was a aircraft attack by NATO on the Gaddafi operations room in Zliten and there are around 32 Gaddafi troops killed. One of them is Khamis,” said Zawawi, a spokesperson for the United Revolutionary Forces.

Khamis, who has long led pro-government militia fighters, was said to be commanding the battle for Zliten — a Gaddafi bastion that has halted the rebel advance on Tripoli.

The strike appears to have come just hours after Tripoli took journalists on an escorted tour of the centre of Zliten, an effort to rubbish rebel claims the town was under attack.

Fighters from the rebel enclave of Misrata, 60 kilometres to the east, announced this week they had made progress in Zliten, a strategic coastal town on the road to Tripoli.

But authorities in Tripoli quickly denied that claim, saying they controlled the entire town.

On Thursday an AFP journalist saw the town centre was in the hands of regime forces, although intensive artillery fire was heard in the distance.

Residents said the frontline is located at a distance of 10 to 15 kilometres east of the city centre while rebel official said they control three neighbourhoods in the town’s east.

The Japanese cabinet approved the sales despite uncertainty over Tokyo’s own use of the atomic technology.

Prior to the March 11 devastating earthquake and tsunami that triggered a nuclear crisis in the country, Japan had been actively promoting exports of nuclear technology and had struck an accord last year to build nuclear plants in Vietnam.

India has also been in talks with Japan for importing Japanese nuclear power plants to feed its ever mushrooming energy needs. Japan has also signed energy cooperation pacts with Russia, South Korea and Jordan.

In an official statement the Japanese government said, “in case other countries wish to utilise our nuclear power technology, we shall provide it by ensuring that its safety is of the highest global standards.”

Without naming any country, the statement said, “a number of countries continue to express interest in Japan’s nuclear power technology.”

The statement said Japanese parliament would ratify nuclear accords with Jordan, Vietnam, Russia and South Korea.

The parliament is currently debating the pact.

The 55-year-old representative, who is officially known as the volunteer coordinator of the Tibetan Refugee Welfare Office (TRWO) in Kathmandu, was arrested for urging Nepal’s government to address the rights of all refugees uniformly in the new constitution and resume issuing identity cards to Tibetan refugees in Nepal.

Sources said he was likely to be released after interrogation and being made to sign a warning bond.

Thiley, the first Nepali to assume the position, was appointed only last month.

The arrest comes amidst growing complaints by the Buddhist community in Nepal that they are being increasingly hounded.

Monasteries have faced media propaganda that they harbour weapons and were fomenting anti-China activities while Buddhist monks and Tibetans are arrested routinely when any official Chinese delegation visits Kathmandu with Beijing tightening screws on Nepal to stop any activity that is linked to the Dalai Lama.

Despite the high risk of being arrested, Thiley’s office had on Friday held a sombre press conference in a Kathmandu hotel to urge the government to address the rights of all refugees in the new constitution, scheduled to be unveiled by August 31.

The move came close on the heels of police arresting several people, regarded as Tibetans, for obtaining fake Nepali passports.

The TRWO, earlier known as the office of exiled Tibetan leader Dalai Lama in Nepal, was shut down by the government in 2005 under pressure by the Chinese government, which said that Tibet being a part of Nepal, such an office should not be allowed to function.

The appeal came after police arrested eight people in three separate cases for trying to obtain fake Nepali passports or seeking to travel abroad on the basis of fake documents.

Thiley said the eight people, described by the media as Tibetans, were not Tibetans. He said his office had verified their backgrounds with the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala, the Tibetan Reception Centre (TRC) in Kathmandu that facilitates the travel of Tibetan refugees to India and elsewhere, and the Tibetan refugee camp in Boudha.

None of them were found to have been registered as bona fide Tibetan refugees. Also, the documents two of them were carrying, said to be issued by the TRC, were fake, Thiley said.

The incidents, he said, tarnished the image of Tibetans living in exile in Nepal and other countries.

The community is now asking Nepal’s communist government to resume issuing identity cards to Tibetan refugees living in Nepal.

In 1998, Nepal last issued the IDs, stopping the distribution subsequently under Beijing’s instructions. China refuses to accept the existence of Tibetan refugees, saying they are illegal immigrants who should be punished strictly as per the law of the land.

There are over 20,000 Tibetan refugees living in Nepal and the halt in the issuance of IDs has left hundreds in the lurch.

Hospitals could refuse to register the birth of children, banks refuse to let them open accounts and government schools refuse to admit refugee children. In addition, the government doesn’t allow them to work or run businesses, creating unemployment and waste of human resource.

Human rights activists have condemned Nepal’s double standards towards refugees. While it allowed Bhutanese refugees to be resettled in western countries, it has blocked the US bid to offer Tibetan refugees a new life in American cities after China opposed the move.

Though Thiley said his organisation was a non-political body concerned only with protecting the human rights of Tibetan refugees and that it was not against any person, society or state, Beijing regards it as a political entity and has been pressuring Nepal to close it down.

In 2009, Congress passed with fanfare the five-year aid plan intended to prove Washington’s long-term commitment to Pakistan’s weak civilian government.

Both countries touted the package as a way to reset relations long centred on military ties.

But two years later only $500 million has been spent as the programme has run into bureaucratic delays, disagreements over priorities and fears about corruption.

Now the remainder of the funding is under scrutiny in the Republican-led House where two panels have approved broad cuts in foreign aid and stringent conditions on assistance to a number of countries, including Pakistan, the Washington Post reported.

Although the Obama administration is fighting the cuts, US officials say they expect lawmakers to shrink the aid package while requiring greater evidence that Pakistan is fighting terrorism and that the funding is reaping benefits.

The debate over civilian aid has transformed it from a potential tool for healing the deep rift between the United States and Pakistan to yet another flash point in a relationship that has reached new lows in the three months since US Navy SEALs killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.

“Terrorists had devised a perfume bottle like bombs as gifts to target ministers and key political figures in the month of Ramazan,” The Dawn quoted Malik, as saying in his report.

He reportedly prepared the report after his ministry received information from the spy agencies.

The report was sent to President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, DG ISI Shuja Pasha, DG MI and to all four provincial chief ministers along with 21 other key figures.

Last week Pakistan ordered hundreds of extra paramilitary policemen onto the streets of the Arabian Sea port to try to quell the violence.

Political and ethnic violence in Karachi is blamed on supporters of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), based among the Urdu-speaking majority, and the rival Awami National Party (ANP), which represents based migrant Pashtuns from the northwest.

“At least 11 people were killed and 15 others were wounded since last night,” home ministry official Sharafuddin Memon said, but declined to comment whether they were ethnically-motivated killings.

Local police officials confirmed the death toll but did not give details.

The MQM last month quit the coalitions led by the main ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) that govern the country and the southern province of Sindh, of which Karachi is the capital. The ANP remains part of both coalitions.

The previous wave of violence erupted after provincial minister Zulfiqar Mirza, from the PPP, criticised the MQM and its exiled leader Altaf Hussain.

Mirza later apologised for remarks that he said were his “personal opinion” and from London, Hussain asked his supporters to “end their peaceful protest and go back to their homes”.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says 490 people were killed in targeted killings in Karachi in the first half of the year, compared to 748 for the whole of 2010, which was the worst since 1995.

Four blasts rocked the hotel were international media were based and a fifth was heard slightly further off.

Human rights are a sensitive subject in China, which complains that Western countries are unfairly critical and points to its success in lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in the last three decades. The new plan also comes after a widespread crackdown on dissidents, lawyers and other activists earlier this year.

The 2012-2015 blueprint is second of its kind and has the “aim of expanding democracy, enhancing rule of law, improving people’s livelihood and safeguarding human rights”, said Wang Chen, director of State Council Information Office.

“Pakistan is an important country in South Asia. The stability and development of Pakistan is closely connected with the peace and stability of South Asia,” foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.

“China has always provided assistance to Pakistan, helping it improve people’s livelihood and realise the sustainable development of its economy and society. China will continue to do so in the future.”

US President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, William Daley, announced in a television interview on Sunday that the United States had decided to withhold almost a third of its annual $2.7 billion security assistance to Islamabad.

The move has plunged relations between Islamabad and Washington — already rocky after US commandos killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in May on Pakistani soil — to a new low.

But it was welcomed by India, which has long accused Pakistan of providing shelter to militant groups and has pushed the global community — the United States in particular — to censure Islamabad.

China, however, is one of Pakistan’s closest allies and is also its main arms supplier — a situation that India has also expressed concern about.

In comments that were ridiculed all over the media, Malik told reporters during an interaction in Quetta yesterday that more people had been killed by those who wanted to get rid of their wives, girlfriends and boyfriends than those responsible for “target killings” in Karachi.

He was responding to a question on the killing of more than 150 people in recent clashes in the port city.

“According to my personal experience in Karachi, if, let’s say, it is said that 100 people have died in target killings, when I did the investigation, I found that there were only 30 target killings,” Malik said.

“Seventy % were those people who wanted to be rid of their wives and girlfriends or girlfriends who wanted to be rid of their boyfriends. All the figures are with me, they killed them,” he added.

The Interior Minister’s comments invited ridicule of TV talk show hosts and users of popular micro-blogging website Twitter, who posted the video footage in which Malik was seen making the remarks.

Dunya News channel, in a report posted on its website, said: “However, one fails to understand if the Interior Minister knows this much, what is stopping him from taking meaningful action”.

Among the victims of the attack in Kandahar city was Hekmatullah Hekmat, head of the clerical council for the province, and a young child, the interior ministry said. At least 15 people were wounded, including a parliamentarian, Bismillah Afghanmal.

The Kandahar provincial government said all other high-ranking officials at the ceremony were safe and had been taken to a secure location.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which added weight to assertions that the slaying of president Hamid Karzai’s younger brother would further destabilize a violent region of Afghanistan.

The Sarra Jamai mosque in the southwest of the city had been filled with relatives and friends of Ahmed Wali Karzai, who was killed earlier this week. They were offering their condolences to the family of the provincial leader.

Officials believe the bomber got the explosives past security by hiding them in his turban.

Kandahar Governor Tooryalai Wesa, who was attending the memorial, said he saw the man’s turban explode. Provincial intelligence chief Gen. Mohammad Naeem Momin said authorities drew the came conclusion after examining the bomber’s remains.

The attacker approached Hekmat after mourners ended a prayer, the governor said.

“There was a prayer going on and after that prayer the man came close to the director of the religious council and exploded,” Wesa said. “It looks like he was targeting the director.”

Wali Karzai was shot at close range by a confidant on Tuesday, leaving President Karzai without a powerful ally in Kandahar province, a former Taliban stronghold and the site of recent military offensives by the U.S.-led military coalition.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the killing, which has threatened to create a power vacuum in the south.

Wali Karzai was regarded as the most powerful man in southern Afghanistan. He was head of the provincial council, the influential Populzai tribe, and the Afghan president’s confidant and emissary.

Beyond his more official roles, Wali Karzai was also known as a master operator who played Kandahar’s hard-line tribal and political factions against one another to retain ultimate control over the restive province.

Even the international alliance begrudgingly accepted Wali Karzai’s sweeping influence in southern Afghanistan, despite their strong suspicions that he was involved in opium trafficking, smuggling and other criminal enterprises.

The mosque bombing was the second attack in Kandahar city on Thursday. Earlier in the morning, a bomb exploded near a police vehicle in the city, killing one civilian, said provincial police Chief Abdul Raziq.

As the conflict intensifies in the south and southeast of Afghanistan, the United Nations said Thursday that civilian deaths jumped 15 percent in the first half of 2011. The U.N. blamed a rise in insurgent roadside bombings and suicide attacks for the increase.

The U.N. said 1,462 Afghan civilians lost their lives _ many in the crossfire of battle between Taliban insurgents and Afghan, U.S. and NATO forces. During the first half of last year, 1,271 Afghan civilians were killed.

But many of the most contentious incidents continue to be international military strikes in which residents routinely claim civilians are killed.

In the latest such dispute Thursday, government officials in eastern Afghanistan accused NATO troops of killing six civilians in an overnight raid, and more than 1,000 people poured into the streets of Khost province in anger.

The military alliance said the joint patrol with Afghan forces in Khost province killed six fighters from a militant group allied with the Taliban known as the Haqqani network and injured one civilian.

“I don’t have any indication that we killed civilians,” Capt. Justin Brockhoff told The Associated Press.

But the reports stirred up anger in Khost and hundreds of people marched on the capital, shouting, “Death to America! Death to the government!” Men in the crowd carried the bodies of the dead on their shoulders.

The raid took place in the village of Toora Worai in an area known as Matoon, about four miles (seven kilometers) from the provincial capital of Khost city.

“The coalition last night ran an operation in that village and unfortunately they were acting on an incorrect report that there was a meeting of Haqqani network commanders going on,” said Mubarez Zadran, a spokesman for the provincial government. “The operation left six civilians dead.”

Khost provincial council member, Gul Mohammad Zazi, said international troops stormed into the village around midnight and fired into the windows of houses. Zazi said the dead were not connected to the insurgency.

Brockhoff said that NATO and Afghan forces were going after a Haqqani leader who was responsible for attacks and weapons trafficking in the area.

“As the security force was clearing a compound in the area, multiple insurgents armed with AK-47 rifles and pistols, opened fire on the force,” Brockhoff said. Among those killed in the firefight was a woman who was armed with a pistol and fired on the troops, he added.

He said the international troops administered first aid to the female civilian who was wounded and transported her to a medical facility.

Asif Khan, a resident of Toora Worai who lives next to some of those who were killed said all of the dead were civilians. A spokesman for local schools, Sayed Musa Majro, said the dead included a teacher and two students.

Meanwhile, NATO said one of its service members was killed Wednesday in an attack in eastern Afghanistan. The coalition did not provide further details or the nationality of the service member.

In a White House statement hours after the triple blasts that killed more than 20 people, Obama recalled his trip to Mumbai last November when, he said, “I saw firsthand the strength and resilience of the Indian people, and I have no doubt that the India will overcome these deplorable terrorist attacks.”

“I strongly condemn the outrageous attacks in Mumbai, and my thoughts and prayers are with the wounded and those who have lost loved ones. The US government continues to monitor the situation, including the safety and security of our citizens,” Obama said.

The Obama statement comes even as the Ahmed Shuja Pasha, chief of Pakistan’s spy agency ISI, alleged to have masterminded the last major terrorist attack on Mumbai on 26/11 and informally regarded by the US government as a terrorism sponsor, arrived in Washington DC for talks. The Pakistani military and intelligence establishment is now accused of murdering its own citizens in addition to backing terrorist groups and their attacks on India and Afghanistan, depredations which US administrations are only now starting to recognize.

At a State Department briefing, the finger of suspicion – from the US media – went straightaway went towards Pakistan with one journalist asking “given the allegations of Pakistani involvement in the Mumbai attacks of 2008, do you have any reason to suspect that there may be Pakistani official or unofficial involvement in these bombings?”

“It’s far too early to speculate. The Indian government will no doubt begin an investigation of the incident, and we’ll wait for their results,” spokesman Mark Toner responded cautiously, adding, “we stand ready to cooperate with them.”

Toner said he was not aware of any connection or warning in the attack linking it to secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s scheduled visit to India next week and saw no change in her schedule. Clinton is slated to visit New Delhi and Chennai; Mumbai is not on her schedule.

There was outrage also on the Hill, where there is growing disquiet about Pakistan’s reluctance to act against terrorist networks it has fostered for long. Some lawmakers are implying that as long as Pakistan refuses to crack down on and prosecute terrorist outfits it is supporting, it will always come under suspicion for terror attacks regardless of direct involvement.

The assembly vote, by acclamation, followed the African country’s achievement of independence on Saturday, breaking away from Sudan.

The media mogul discussed this possibility when he met his “inner circle” Wednesday, the Daily Express reported Thursday.

Sources said Murdoch was “locked in a series of meetings” to specifically consider the option, following the closure of the 168-year-old News of the World.

They said Murdoch was concerned to protect the reputation of the parent News Corporation from further damage after the value of its shares went down.

While one said “Murdoch has the ruthlessness to amputate the arm that is threatening the rest of News Corporation,” another said a sale was now a “live possibility”.

Murdoch’s American newspaper The Wall Street Journal also reported he was now examining selling News International.

“News Corp has informally explored whether there were any potential buyers for its UK newspaper unit,” it said.

Selling News International could fetch about 300 million pounds (around $484 million).

In comments that were ridiculed all over the media, Malik told reporters during an interaction in Quetta yesterday that more people had been killed by those who wanted to get rid of their wives, girlfriends and boyfriends than those responsible for “target killings” in Karachi.

He was responding to a question on the killing of more than 150 people in recent clashes in the port city.

“According to my personal experience in Karachi, if, let’s say, it is said that 100 people have died in target killings, when I did the investigation, I found that there were only 30 target killings,” Malik said.

“Seventy % were those people who wanted to be rid of their wives and girlfriends or girlfriends who wanted to be rid of their boyfriends. All the figures are with me, they killed them,” he added.

The Interior Minister’s comments invited ridicule of TV talk show hosts and users of popular micro-blogging website Twitter, who posted the video footage in which Malik was seen making the remarks.

Dunya News channel, in a report posted on its website, said: “However, one fails to understand if the Interior Minister knows this much, what is stopping him from taking meaningful action”.

A spokeswoman for Murdoch’s New York-based News Corp. said that the pair were in the process of confirming their attendance on Tuesday.

“The intention is to go,” Miranda Higham said.

Hours earlier, the Murdochs refused to appear at the hearing before the culture, media and sport committee, which is probing allegations of phone hacking and bribery by employees of their newspapers.

The snub set up a confrontation between two of Britain’s most powerful men and a Parliament once seen as easily bent to their will.

Britain’s legislature had already forced the Murdochs to abandon their ambitions of purchasing highly profitable British Sky Broadcasting network on Wednesday after lawmakers from all parties united to demand that News Corp. withdraw its bid.

Witnesses are regularly called to appear before parliamentary committees, which quiz everyone from business leaders to prime ministers on a wide range of issues.

Defiance of a parliamentary summons is illegal, and can in theory be punished with a fine or jail time. In practice, such measures have been all but unknown in modern times; the House of Commons last punished a non-member in 1957.

Rebekah Brooks, the British chief executive of the Murdochs’ British arm, News International, has already said she would appear before the committee Tuesday.

James Murdoch, the chief of his father’s European and Asian operations, said he was not available Tuesday but offered to appear on Aug. 10 or 11, without explaining his inability to attend earlier. Rupert Murdoch said he would not appear at all, offering instead to speak before a separate inquiry initiated by Prime Minister David Cameron and led by a judge. He said he was willing to discuss alternative ways of providing evidence to parliament.

John Whittingdale, who earlier said that the wait was “unjustifiable,” welcomed the change of course.

“It will be the first time that Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch, and indeed, Rebekah Brooks will have answered questions about this,” he told Sky News television. “They will be appearing before a parliamentary committee so I would hope they would take it seriously and they will give us the answers that not just we want to hear but I think an awful lot of people will want to hear.”

Meanwhile, the criminal investigation into the Murdoch empire widenened as the former deputy editor of the News of the World was arrested by detectives probing phone hacking at the defunct tabloid.

The Metropolitan Police said Neil Wallis, deputy editor under Andy Coulson from 2003 to 2007, was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications.

Police have so far arrested seven people for questioning in their investigation of phone hacking and two others in a separate investigation of alleged bribery of police officers. No one has been charged.

Coulson, Cameron’s communications director from 2007 until January this year, was arrested on July 8.

Brooks was editor of News of the World in 2002 at the time of the most damaging allegation so far, that the paper hacked into the phone of teenage murder victim Milly Dowler in 2002 and may have impeded a police investigation into the 13-year-old’s disappearance. Brooks has said she was unaware of any phone hacking at the time.

Murdoch’s hope of making BSkyB a wholly owned part of his News Corp. empire collapsed on Wednesday in the face of what Cameron called a “firestorm” that has engulfed media, police and politicians.

Cameron has appointed a judge for a wide-ranging inquiry into the News of the World scandal and wider issues of media regulation, the relationship between politicians and media and the possibility that illegal practices are more widely employed in the industry.

“We’re looking into allegations raised by the letter by Peter King yesterday,” said an FBI source, asking not to be identified.

King, a Republican US congressman from New York, called for the investigation after Britain’s The Daily Mirror newspaper on Monday first reported the possible hacking.

News Corp declined to comment on the FBI probe. The Daily Mirror reported that News of the World journalists offered to pay a New York police officer to retrieve the private phone records of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. The Daily Mirror, citing an unidentified source, said journalists wanted the phone numbers of the dead as well as details of the calls they made and received in the days leading to the attacks.

News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch last week shut down the News of the World, Britain’s top-selling Sunday tabloid, on a growing firestorm over allegations grew that its journalists had illegally accessed voicemails of thousands of people, from child murder victims to the families of Britain’s war dead.

The Daily Mirror reported that the New York police officer, who now works as a private investigator, said at the time that he would turn down the request because of “how bad it would look,” the newspaper’s source was quoted as saying.

The huge explosion that ripped through the narrow Khau Galli at Opera House has left the diamond community unnerved and singed in more ways than one. Unbelievable as it may seem to the uninitiated, many merchants carry their diamonds on their person—and the blast led to their losing stones worth crores of rupees. “Most of us carry diamonds in our pockets,” says Bharat V Shah, secretary of the Mumbai Diamond Merchants’ Association. “This is how we trade, sometimes under the peepal tree, sometimes at the tea stall. Many people would have lost their diamonds.”

A diamond merchant discloses that many people even conceal the stones in their closed fists throughout the trading hours till 7.30 pm and then transfer them to their pockets when they go to snack. “A rough estimate shows that diamonds worth Rs 25 crore flew into the air at the time of the blast,” says Sanjay Shah, another merchant. “Some people were in their shops counting their diamonds. Now they are not being allowed in. We are sure the monetary loss will mount further as we get a clearer picture.” (There are sceptics who say that diamond merchants might be tempted to claim a higher-than-actual loss.)

On Thursday came the aftermath of the great diamond rain. Many workers, who knew that at least a few precious gems would be scattered in nooks and crevices, came to hunt for them. They fear that security and forensics personnel might pocket the diamonds lying around.

However, Shah says the monetary losses are not even a concern right now. “We have lost our people,” he says emotionally. Where is the security? We need much better security.”

Not everyone who was affected by the blast was from Mumbai. A large number of diamond brokers spend the working week in the city and return home to Bhavnagar and Surat on the weekend. While the latter trade in all kinds of polished diamonds, a section of brokers from Amreli specialises in small diamond pieces—called diamond dust—and those from Botat deal only in single cut diamonds.

Close to a hundred of the Gujarati merchants were injured in the blast and rushed to hospital on Wednesday. “Many were discharged after being administered first-aid, but those who were bleeding and were critical were admitted,” says Sanjay Shah, lamenting the death of a few known traders like Tushar Shah. The market did not work on Thursday and will remain shut on Friday too.

“The Secretary General (Ban) condemns the attacks that have killed and injured many in Mumbai,” said a statement from his office.

“No cause or grievance can justify indiscriminate violence against civilians. The Secretary General expresses his solidarity with the Government and people of India, and extends his sincere condolences to the families of the victims,” it added.

The UN Security Council also “condemned in the strongest terms” the bombings.

They expressed their deep sympathy and sincere condolences to the victims of these “heinous acts” and to their families, and to the people and Government of India.

“The members of the Security Council reaffirmed that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security, and that any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation,” a statement read by Peter Wittig, Germany’s ambassador to the UN and current council president, said.

Terror struck Mumbai on Wednesday evening when three near simultaneous blasts ripped through crowded areas in the city. At least 21 people were killed and 141 injured.

Islamabad:At least 15 people were killed and more than 20 injured on Wednesday morning in a suicide blast in Kohat’s busy Teerah market in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, state-run PTV reported.

The suicide bomber blew himself up in a barber’s shop located near a bus stand. The death toll could rise further, the report said.

The District Police Officer (DPO) Kohat, Dilawar Bangash, confirmed the death of 15 people in the blast. “We can confirm the exact death toll after the completion of rescue operation which is still being carried out,” he said.

Security officials had received terror threats on the eve of Muharram, first month of Islamic calendar and revered by the Shia community in particular.

These days the entire happily wed gang of heroines are under the scanner. Following actor Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan’s pregnancy, every other married heroine is said to be in the family way, including Shilpa Shetty and Lara Dutta. The latest actor rumoured to be preggers is actor Kalki Koechlin.

Though the promotions for her films are on in full swing, Kalki has been taking it easy due to her health. But her sporadic appearances at the promotions have added grist to the rumour mills. Tongues are wagging about the actor being pregnant.

Says a source, “While her co-stars in the upcoming movie — Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar, Katrina Kaif — embarked on a road trip, Kalki was there only on Day 1 and that too, to see them off. In fact, she was puking that day, which may have sparked off the rumours of her being pregnant. Anyway, this is not the first time since her marriage to director Anurag Kashyap that there is a buzz about Kalki being preggers.”

Sources close to the actor have refuted any such development. “Kalki is not pregnant. She is unwell due to acute stomach infection. It is monsoon and people tend to take ill. At present, Kalki is just a few films old and is an ambitious actor. So like her counterparts, she will first want to focus on career before planning for a baby,” said the source.

Seems like this is one issue that will require a really convincing reply. So, what’s the truth Kalki?!

The IM, acting in consort and at the behest of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), is the likely suspect with its network of sleeper cells and sympathizers. Once again, as has been the case often in the past, a terrorist attack has happened on 13th.

Sustained questioning of arrested IM members, including those who willingly collaborated after being held, has failed to resolve the enigma of the dates even though they add up to compelling evidence.

Consider these events:

* May 13, 2008: Terror hit Jaipur with six serial blasts rocking crowded areas, killing nearly 50.

*July 26, 2008: Ahmedabad hit by a series of 21 blasts that killed 57.

*September 13, 2008: A series of six synchronized blasts in Delhi killed around 30.

*November 26, 2008: 10 LeT terrorists killed almost 187 in the worst ever attack on Mumbai over three days.

*February 13, 2010: A terrorist attack at the German Bakery in Pune left 17 dead.

The dates cannot be a coincidence, and are a strong indicator that IM, whose leaders continue to plan and train in Pakistan, might be the hand behind the mayhem.

Indian agencies have been aware of the importance of these dates, although nobody has yet been able to crack the reason why 13 and 26 are the chosen days. In their investigations over the years, agencies have questioned many IM operatives who have been arrested.

The planning and execution of the blasts also bears the signature of the LeT backed group even though no email claiming responsibility has been reported as yet. The blasts were high intensity and the crowded locale of a neighbourhood like Zaveri Bazaar points to the IM.

Aware of the dates, agencies have stepped up vigilance and paid greater attention to terrorist chatter intercepts around these two days. Despite that, sources said, there was no inkling of any impending terror attack.

This year, there is an added ironic twist to these dates: Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers are expected to sit down for important talks on July 26. There was also buzz on the internet — subsequently found to be incorrect — that Ajmal Kasab’s, birthday is on July 13.

Intelligence agencies say IM is part of LeT’s so-called “Karachi Project”, which uses fugitive Indian jihadis and run by former Pakistan armymen to keep up the terror pressure on India. This not only keeps India off balance, it also increases the deniability factor for Pakistan because IM operatives by and large are in India. The project, revealed by David Headley to the FBI interrogators, has also been linked to Huji in the past. Headley, for instance, was in close touch with Ilyas Kashmiri of Huji. Headley also said IM leaders, Riaz and Iqbal Bhatkal, were living under the protection of the LeT in Karachi.

All metropolitan cities across the country and coastal areas were immediately put on high alert after the serial blasts. The home ministry asked states to deploy additional security personnel at all crowded public places and directed immigration authorities to step up security checks.

Union home minister P Chidambaram, who held an emergency meeting to take stock of the situation immediately after the blasts, said the Mumbai serial blasts were a “coordinated attack by terrorists”.

Chidambaram said the explosions occurred within minutes of each other from 6.45pm and from this it can be inferred it is a “coordinated attack” by terrorists. Stating about post-blast action, the home minister said the National Security Guard (NSG) hub in Mumbai has been put on standby and that the elite force’s ‘post-blast’ team has also been sent to the financial capital of the country. The Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) team from both New Delhi and Hyderabad has been sent to Mumbai, he added.

Prime Minister Manmohan, who was also monitoring the developments related to the three explosions, spoke to Chidambaram as also Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan.

The Centre did alert the state government about a possible terror attack if a senior central official is to be believed. But an IPS officer said, “The Centre has been issuing alerts to the state home department, but most of them are general in nature. Of course, inputs from the Centre are taken seriously and stringent measures adopted accordingly.”

The central official said a general alert was issued to most “sensitive” states after some Indian Mujahideen (IM) members were questioned a few months ago, but it appears that corrective measures were not taken. But the IPS officer claimed that the state home department did take necessary precautions in view of the threat of terror attacks.

The IPS officer admitted that security should have been further stepped up across the city in view of the fifth anniversary of the 11/7 serial blasts. “A special drive should have been launched across Mumbai to track suspicious activities,” he said, adding that the nature of Wednesday’s explosions suggested that the attacks were carried out by home-grown terrorists with help from the IM.

The IPS officer said every terror strike was followed by a blame game between the state and central intelligence agencies. “After terrorists attacked Mumbai on November 26, 2008, the state witnessed a similar blame game. Reports from the central intelligence agencies are not specific, they are general. But the state agencies do their bit by focusing on the inputs and taking corrective measures,” he added.

While Kamat is out, senior minister Veerappa Moily — unhappy at being blamed for the government’s reverses in the Supreme Court in 2G, Salwa Judum and black money cases — took charge of corporate affairs on Wednesday, and said he had no grouse with the PM and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi over being moved from the law ministry.

His remarks about “vested interests”, Moily clarified, were intended as a warning to his successor in the law ministry Salman Khurshid about resistance to reform. The minister said he is looking forward to working on the companies bill, corporate social responsibility issues and measures to protect small investors. It is understood that a word of “advice” to end speculation on his being miffed helped.

Sources said the PM’s post-reshuffle remarks that he hoped there will be no rejig till the 2014 election were meant to convey a business-like message to his ministerial team. After speculation about ministerial changes engaged attention, the PM wants ministers to work diligently and improve Congress’s comeback prospects.

The PM met Orissa leader Srikant Jena who has argued that denying him Cabinet status gives BJD leader Naveen Patnaik an opportunity to run down the Congress. The meeting indicates the PM may see some merit in Jena’s case, and is expected to pave the way for his taking charge of statistics and programme implementation as minister of state with independent charge.

A meeting of the full council of ministers — as opposed to the usual Cabinet — has been called on Thursday. The PM is expected to outline a mission message.

Congress too made it clear that the PM knows best with regard to ministerial appointments. “These things should not have happened,” said Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi.

It is clear the government is not inclined to cater to hurt egos. Sources said the reshuffle had been finalized after elaborate consultations between the PM and the Congress president, and the possibility of a review was negligible.

Gurudas Kamat’s precipitous exit from the government has caused some bewilderment as many feel the Mumbai north-west MP had committed hara kiri as he had allowed himself to be driven by his long-running rivalry with fellow city politician Murli Deora.

While Deora has quit as corporate affairs minister, his son Milind has been inducted as a minister of state. Kamat is believed to be resentful about the drinking water and sanitation portfolio offered to him despite being made minister of state with independent charge.

Kumar will be sworn in as the CVC on Thursday, almost four months after PJ Thomas’s appointment was quashed by the Supreme Court because of a pending chargesheet against him. The President will administer the oath of office to the 62-year-old IAS officer at Rashtrapati Bhavan at 11 am, officials said.

“Corruption is a very major challenge,” Kumar said on Wednesday, discussing the challenges of heading the country’s anti-corruption watchdog at a time when a spirited debate over several scandals and the efficacies of the present anti-corruption mechanisms has gripped the nation.

Kumar, a Haryana cadre IAS officer who was set to complete his mandated two-year term as defence secretary on July 31, was unanimously chosen as the next CVC by a panel comprising Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, home minister P Chidambaram and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj. He will have a tenure of little over three years.

Meanwhile, PJ Thomas on Wednesday moved the Delhi High Court demanding a stay on the appointment of Kumar. Through his writ petition, Thomas sought a direction to the President not to issue the warrant of appointment to Kumar since she was yet to decide on Thomas’s representation to her against the judgment of the apex court.

Government sources said that Rashtrapati Bhavan had referred Thomas’s petition within days to the Department of Personnel and Training for appropriate action.

In his representation to the President on March 16, Thomas had requested her to refer the decision of the apex court to a constitution bench, arguing the SC bench had no jurisdiction to cancel his appointment as only a five-judge bench could have adjudicated the case. The President cancelled Thomas’s appointment as CVC on March 15, 11 days after the apex court order.

“The warrant of appointment of Thomas was cancelled only on the basis of the said judgment. When the legality and the validity of the judgment itself is disputed, it is our humble view that only after reaching conclusion on the legality and validity of the judgment, the respondent (President) should go ahead with the appointment of new CVC,” the petition argued, urging the HC to intervene.

The petition cites Article 145 (3) of the Constitution, saying issues connected with the interpretation of the Constitution have to be decided by a minimum five-judge bench and therefore assails the SC three-judge bench verdict.

The SC had quashed the appointment of Thomas as CVC as a chargesheet was pending against him in the palmolein corruption case in Kerala. Thomas was appointed as CVC in September 2010.

Forensic experts of Maharashtra and from Central Forensic Laboratory Delhi have reached here and were working to locate the vital clues of these blasts when the downpour started.

“It may not have much effect but some evidence may be washed away,” a police officer said.

Anti-Terror Squad of Mumbai police armed with sophisticated gadgets and sniffer dogs swamped the area and sleuths were trying to ensure that no damage be done to forensic evidence including blood and explosive samples.

This was announced by the Union home ministry on Tuesday, the day NDMA began its groundwork for the drill at the Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS) at Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu. The two-day drill – which is the second such exercise — will conclude on Wednesday.

The first mock drill was conducted at Tarapur in Maharashtra on June 10-11 in the wake of the recent disasters in Japan. At present, the country has 18 nuclear facilities in six different states. NDMA will conduct such an exercise one-by-one at all the facilities.

Besides officials of the nuclear facilities, personnel of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), police, Civil Defence and Home Guards will take part in the drill.

“In the event of potential radiological consequences in the public domain, the authorities at the level of district, state and Centre are to play a vital role in its mitigation mechanism and therefore, there is a need to review off-site emergency plan”, the home ministry said in a statement.

Among those who had a reason to celebrate included V Kishore Chand Deo, Beni Prasad Verma, Dinesh Trivedi and Jairam Ramesh, who have been elevated to the Cabinet rank. Trivedi, in a crisp white dhoti-kurta, and minister of state Bhanwar Jitendra Singh, in his red and yellow turban, were dressed for the occasion.

A beaming Jayanthi Natarajan and Paban Singh Ghatowar were sworn in as minister of state with independent charge. While four ministers took their oath in Hindi, a majority chose to take their oath in the name of God. Minister of state Charan Das Mahant went a step further to express his gratitude in being given MoS rank by touching the feet of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after being sworn in.

Ministers Gurudas Kamat and Srikumar Jena were conspicuous by their absence at the ceremony, making obvious their unhappiness in the apparent short shrift that had been given to them. Kamat, the erstwhile MoS in home affairs and IT & communications, was named MoS (independent charge) drinking water and sanitation. Later in the evening, he resigned in protest against his new portfolio.

Former law minister Veerappa Moily, who has been given corporate affairs, was a subdued version of his usual ebullient self. Those present at the ceremony included vice president Hamid Ansari and Opposition leader Sushma Swaraj. The four key ministers — Pranab Mukherjee, P Chidambaram, S M Krishna and AK Antony — were also present.

All the five MoS are first-timers. These include Sudip Bandopadhyay, Charan Das Mahant, Bhanwar Jitendra Singh, Rajiv Shukla and Milind Deora. Deora was accompanied by his entire family, including father Murli Deora, who had resigned in the run up to the reshuffle.

The day was also marked by an unprecedented breach in protocol. The Prime Minister’s Office released the list of Cabinet ministers on Tuesday morning as a break in protocol. Usually, the list is issued by the Rashtrapati Bhawan. President’s Office sources said the list had been cleared by the President, and it was only an effort towards transparency.

When asked if women were responsible for female foeticide, Verma told TOI, “Women are completely responsible. If she believes people and kills a girl baby, isse bada murder kya ho sakta hai?” (what can be a bigger crime that that?)

Verma said that women had to be made aware through public discourse and seminars but did not seem to think there was anything wrong in laying the responsibility of sex selective births squarely at the door of the woman.

Activists have expressed concern over this simplistic and irresponsible statement. Left leader and Rajya Sabha member Brinda Karat said that such statements diverted attention from the non-implementation of the pre-natal determination test (PNDT) Act. “Such statements are damaging to the campaign for preventing sex selection. There is total lack of appreciation of societal pressures on a woman,” she said. Karat added that the PNDT Act clearly laid out that medical professionals and societal pressure on a woman were responsible for the declining sex ratio.

Centre for Social Research’s Ranjana Kumari said it was “unfortunate” that a political leader had made such comments. “Women do not have control over their own bodies and these decisions are made for them. They are at risk of losing their status within the family and often their marriage if they do not comply. This just shows lack of understanding of how our society works,” she said.

Even those candidates, who give the main exam in English, can now choose English, Hindi or any other Indian language for the interview, opted by them for the compulsory Indian language paper in the written part of the test, UPSC said in an affidavit.

It was submitted in response to a PIL filed by an IAS aspirant, challenging the existing rule that requires a candidate to give the interview in English if he had appeared for the examination in that language.

Adding to the intrigue, Scotland Yard released an unusual statement accusing unidentified individuals of trying to sabotage its sprawling investigation. The police — themselves accused of accepting bribes from Murdoch’s journalists — said somebody was deliberately planting distracting information in the press.

No one, it seems, had been safe from the prying eyes of corrupt journalists. Police officers betrayed members of the royal family to the News of The World, according to several reports. Other papers said Brown had his bank account broken into by a con man acting for Murdoch’s Sunday Times.

The reports couldn’t be confirmed, but they added to a sense of disbelief that has spread across Britain. “The events of last week shocked the nation,” Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt told lawmakers Monday. He said Britain’s proud press tradition had been “shaken by the revelation of what we now know to have happened at the News of The World.”

The British press has been furiously reporting allegations that journalists at the News of the World tabloid may have hacked into phones of young murder victims, families of dead servicemen and terrorism victims. The widening scandal has prompted Murdoch’s News Corp. to close the tabloid and withdraw its promise to spin off Sky News — a move that forced Hunt to refer its bid for British Sky Broadcasting to competition authorities. The decision will delay the bid, although it was not immediately clear whether Murdoch hoped to buy time with the ploy in the hope the scandal would die down, or whether it was an implicit acknowledgement that the bid was dead.

A failure to clinch the $19 billion takeover would represent a huge setback for Murdoch, but even as the mogul was in London to try to contain the damage, as allegations against his empire rushed in. Media reported that Brown was one of thousands targeted by News International, saying that his personal details — including his bank account and his son’s medical records — had been targeted by people working for titles including the Sun and the Sunday Times.

Jaycee Dugard, who was 11 when she was seized and kept in a back yard compound by Phillip and Nancy Garrido in 1991, described how she gave birth to two daughters of her own, and how that helped her survive. Giving birth, alone in a backyard and aged 14, was the most painful experience of her life, she said, describing her thoughts about when she first saw her baby daughter.

“She was beautiful. I felt like I wasn’t alone anymore. (I) had somebody else who was mine…and I know I could never let anything happen to her. I didn’t know how I was going to do that, but I did,” she told ABC news.

Phillip Garrido was given a prison sentence of 431 years in June, while his wife was jailed for 36 years to life, after the pair agreed a plea bargain over the crimes which shocked America and the world. Dugard, whose book about her ordeal “A Stolen Life” is published this week, said the process of recounting her ordeal in full, harrowing detail has helped liberate her mentally.

“Why not look at it? You know, stare it down until it can’t scare you anymore. I didn’t want there to be any more secrets…I hadn’t done anything wrong. It wasn’t something I did that caused this to happen. And I feel that by putting it all out there, it’s very freeing,” she added.

She describes the moment she was kidnapped, while walking to school from her home in South Lake Tahoe, California on June 10, 1991 as “like the most horrible moment of your life times ten”. Describing how she coped with the repeated rapes to which she was subjected, she said: “There’s a switch that I had to shut off. I mean, I can’t imagine being beaten to death. And you can’t imagine being kidnapped and raped. So, it’s just, you just do what you have to do to survive.”

She recalled her rescue in August 2009, she said,”The light came back … it was very dark for so long … but that light finally came back on,” she said.

The Obama administration, however, asserted that there was no change in its civilian aid to Pakistan.

“With regard to US military assistance to Pakistan, in certain categories, those categories where we need our trainers to be in-country in order to deliver and train on the assistance, we obviously can’t do that in an environment where Pakistan has asked our trainers to go,” State Department spokesperson, Victoria Nuland, told reporters at her daily news conference.

“Then in other military categories, we have had a slowing and a pause in some categories while we work through some of these issues where we have been concerned,” she said in response to questions about US suspending some categories of military aid to Pakistan.

Contradicting Pakistani Army’s statement that it was not notified about suspension of aid, Nuland said the Administration has been in constant contact with Islamabad about these issues throughout.

“The Special US Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Mark Grossman, and the Pakistani Ambassador to US, Husain Haqqani, were on the phone even this morning, and those conversations will continue,” she said.

Refraining from elaborating on what steps US wants Pakistan to take before the suspension of aid could be lifted, the spokesperson said the US has been looking to improve its cooperation with Pakistan in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency.

CIA officials recruited a senior local doctor to organise the campaign after it tracked down a bin Laden courier to what turned out to be the al-Qaida fugitive’s compound in the town of Abbottabad, the British newspaper said.

Before launching the high-risk operation against bin Laden, US officials wanted to test DNA samples from people living at the compound with a sample that they had from his sister.

Doctor Shakil Afridi, who has since been arrested by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, launched the programme in Abbottabad’s poorest area to make it appear more credible.

The project then moved swiftly to the Bilal Town suburb, where bin Laden was residing.

“The whole thing was totally irregular,” a Pakistani official told the newspaper. “Bilal Town is a well-to-do area. Why would you choose that place to give free vaccines?”

A nurse managed to gain access to the compound but Pakistani sources claim she failed to obtain any DNA samples, the Guardian reported.

Bin Laden was killed on May 2 in a raid that soured US-Pakistan relations.

The Pakistani military on Monday insisted it was capable of fighting Islamic militants without US assistance, hitting back after Washington said it would suspend $800 million worth of security aid.

The court decision Monday follows a lawsuit by Libyan citizens and Egyptian lawyers who said the stations owned by the regime of Muammar Gaddafi incite against the rebels fighting to topple the leader, in power for 42 years.

The stations are off the air until they can find another satellite to beam them.

Libya’s rebels have launched their homegrown satellite TV station in May to counter the regime’s powerful media machine, which depicts the opposition as terrorists and drums up patriotic fervor by beaming images of burning buildings hit by Nato airstrikes.

About 60 children between ages 8 and 12 were on the vehicle that crashed, and the death toll may rise as more bodies are feared trapped inside the sunken vehicle, police official Iftekhar Hasan said.

Rescuers recovered 40 bodies from the wreckage in Chittagong district, 216 kilometers (136 miles) southeast of the capital, Dhaka. Hasan could not immediately say how many survived.

After the students watched the tournament, a cargo truck was hired to return them home, he said.

“According to several witnesses the boys were singing and dancing on board the truck,” said the official. “The truck skidded off the muddy road and turned (over) as it plunged into the canal.”

In Bangladesh, it’s usual to hire cargo trucks for a quick ride to carry large groups during festivals or celebrations.

Local journalist Mohammad Palash, who visited the site of the accident, said rescuers sent the bodies to hospitals.

“This move would have no significant affect on Pakistan’s anti-terror efforts. We will continue our operations against militants,” Pakistan’s military spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas said. He said the military had received no formal notification of any aid cut but pointed out that army chief General Ashfaq Kayani had declared that cash reimbursements to the military should be redirected to the government.

He said two anti-Taliban military operations in Mohmand and Kurram tribal regions, run without any external support, would continue. “The al-Qaida and other military groups operating in Pakistan are not only a threat to us but to others (as well).

White House chief of staff Bill Daley admitted on Sunday that the relationship between the two countries was experiencing difficulties and that some of the aid flow would now be stopped.

“It’s a complicated relationship in a difficult, complicated part of the world.” The $800 million in military aid and equipment is almost one-third of the total US aid of over $2 billion. The New York Times said some of the curtailed aid is equipment that the US wants to send but Pakistan now refuses to accept.

The dead also include many children, drowned when a riverboat filled with families cruising the Volga river sank over the weekend.

Tragically, minutes before the boat went down, the crew had separated many of the children on board from their parents, moving them into an interior play area, apparently part of the normal routine of the cruise. But on this day it had terrifying consequences in what the authorities are calling the worst river transport disaster in Russia in recent history and one of the most dismal losses of life among children in this country since terrorists seized a school in a southern region seven years ago.

The authorities now say as many as 197 people were on board when the boat sank on Sunday, including at least 59 children. In the chaotic hours, about 80 people were rescued from the water, most of them adults. Accounts provided to Russian media by survivors and rescue officials painted a picture of tragedy that struck in a manner that disproportionately saved adults on the decks, but left little chance of escape for children in the enclosed play area. On Monday, the first divers to examine the wreck at the bottom of the river said more than 100 bodies were inside, a rescue official told Russian news agencies. By midday Monday, the authorities said 12 bodies had been brought to the surface.

Russian authorities also suggested a cause of the accident. The investigative committee, which is examining possible criminal misconduct, said the 56-year-old riverboat had mechanical troubles in one of two diesel engines. Survivors said the boat was listing even at port, which experts said was possibly because a sewage tank was overfull.

The authorities also revealed that more people than first reported were on the boat, as the passenger manifest had been filled out haphazardly.

On Sunday, the second day of the cruise, the children were gathered after lunch in an indoor play room for games with baby sitters working for the tour company. The fate of the baby sitters is still unclear, though it is likely they also went down with the ship.

That’s the latest twist in the showdown between Ahmadinejad and Iran’s ruling clerics. Ahmadinejad — reviled by the opposition as a figurehead of hard-line rule — is now temporarily in the reformists’ corner by opposing plans to segregate male and
female students at Iranian universities. “It is necessary to swiftly prevent these backward, shallow-minded actions,” Ahmadinejad wrote in an order addressed to members of his Cabinet.

It also nudged the political dramas further into territory that’s surprising even by Iran’s roughneck standards, where potshots and bitter quarrels are common fare in parliament and elsewhere. This time, the battle is Ahmadinejad versus the theocracy that once backed him.

Murdoch’s UK subsidiary, News International, handed over the 2007 emails to police last week. The key question now is whether Les Hinton, one of Murdoch’s closest colleagues for 50 years, was aware of the emails in 2007, as a section of British media suspect he was. If that’s borne out, then Australia-born American media magnate would have been sure to know also.

It also emerged on Monday that the tabloid purchased royal family members’ personal contact details from a police officer deployed for their protection. In effect, Queen Elizabeth’s security was allegedly compromised. This is a serious offence under the UK law and anyone who knew about this and took no action is liable to prosecution and if found guilty likely to be imprisoned. This is apart from the serious criminality of tapping phones.

The tabloid hacked cell phones of a number of celebrities, including film stars, politicians and sports figures. The emails revealed the extent of hacking and also that the tabloid’s operatives reportedly deleted messages from a 13-year-old murder victim’s phone giving her parents false hope that she was still alive.

This particularly fuelled outrage and led to advertizers withdrawing ads forcing the 168-year-old tabloid’s closure.

News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch’s son, James, too, is in danger of facing charges in the UK and the US under prevention of corruption laws. James Murdoch is News International’s executive chairman and Star TV head in Asia and is said to have authorized at least one settlement running into hundreds of thousands of pounds to a victim of phone interception in exchange for signing a gagging agreement.

Murdoch Sr is currently in London on a damage-control exercise. He is also attempting to hold on to his UK chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, even as British prime minister David Cameron also called for her resignation. Opposition leader Ed Miliband described News International’s inaction as a “cover up on a massive scale”. He also demanded that New International’s multi-billion bid to wholly own BSkyB, Britain’s leading DTH operator, from its current holding of 39%, be halted. He found support from the ruling coalition when deputy PM and Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg urged Murdoch to withdraw his proposal.

Even Cameron of the pro-Murdoch Conservative party was forced on to the defensive, as UK government referred Murdoch’s request to the independent regulator Ofcom for an opinion on whether News International can be a “fit and proper” 100% owner of BSkyB, with no time limit for a response. PM is somewhat embroiled in the scandal as he employed editor of the paper under whose watch many of wrongdoings occurred.

Mubarak loyalists mounted on camels and horses lunged into crowds of protesters on Feb. 2, a decisive moment in the 18-day revolution against his rule.

Among those sent for trial were Fathi Sorour, former speaker in the lower house of parliament, and Safwat Sherif, former head of parliament’s upper house.

“The (accused) are referred to criminal court on charges of inciting the killing of protesters in the camel event,” said Mohamed al-Sabrout, head of Egypt’s Judicial Investigation Commission.

The referrals come a day before thousands of Egyptians are expected to take to the streets for the biggest demonstrations in weeks against the ruling military council’s handling of the country since Mubarak’s overthrow.

Rights activists say the interim government is being too slow to punish officials blamed for the killing of hundreds of protesters during the uprising and say the police are still too unaccountable.

Those sent for trial on Thursday also include Egyptian businessman Ibrahim Kamel, a leading member of the former ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) and a former board member of real estate firm Egyptian Resorts .

Another senior NDP figure, Cleopatra Ceramics chairman Mohamed Abou El Enein, was also sent to court.

Though much of this work remains secret, the large number of drones at recent exhibitions underlines not only China’s determination to catch up in that sector – by building equivalents to the leading US combat and surveillance models, the Predator and the Global Hawk – but also that its desire to sell this technology abroad, a media report has said.

“No country has ramped up its research in recent years faster than China. It displayed a drone model for the first time at the Zhuhai air show five years ago, but now every major manufacturer for the Chinese military has a research center devoted to drones,” the Washington Post recently said quoting Chinese analysts.

Not only the Chinese are trying to make state of the art armed drones, they are also eyeing the international market. “The United States doesn’t export many attack drones, so we’re taking advantage of that hole in the market,” said
Zhang Qiaoliang, a representative of the Chengdu Aircraft Design and Research Institute, which manufactures many of the most advanced military aircraft for the People’s Liberation Army.

“The main reason is the amazing demand in the market for drones after 9/11.”
According to the daily, Pakistan has said it plans to obtain armed drones from China, which has already sold the nation one for surveillance.

As per Aviation Industry Corp of China, it has begun offering international customers a combat and surveillance drone comparable to the Predator called the Yilong, or “pterodactyl” in English.

Zhang, of the Chengdu Aircraft Design and Research Institute, said the company anticipates sales in Pakistan, the Middle East and Africa.

Pakistan is in the process of building two new plutonium production reactors and a new reprocessing facility to fabricate more nuclear weapons fuel, wrote nuclear experts Hans M Kristensen and Robert S Norris in the latest issue of Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

In their paper ‘Pakistan’s nuclear forces, 2011′, the authors estimate that if Pakistan’s expansion continues, its nuclear weapons stockpile could reach 150-200.

“Despite its political instability, Pakistan continues to steadily expand its nuclear capabilities and competencies; in fact, it has the world’s fastest-growing nuclear stockpile,” they wrote.

“We estimate that Pakistan has a nuclear weapons stockpile of 90-110 nuclear warheads, an increase from the estimated 70-90 warheads in 2009,” the paper said.

“It is also developing new delivery systems. Enhancements to Pakistan’s nuclear forces include a new nuclear capable medium-range ballistic missile, the development of two new nuclear-capable short-range ballistic missiles, and the development of two new nuclear-capable cruise missiles,” they wrote.

“With four new delivery systems and two plutonium production reactors under development, however, the rate of Pakistan’s stockpile growth may even increase over the next 10 years,” they warned.