The Taoiseach is defending the contact he made with an AIB official to inquire about transactions under investigation by the Mahon Tribunal.

Jim McNamara told the tribunal that Bertie Ahern contacted him this year to ask about particular lodgements being investigated by inquiry, told Jim McNamara to tribunal.

Mr. Ahern was marveling what conclusive evidence the bank had that three specific lodgements made in the 1990s were foreign exchange transactions.

Mr. McNamara accepted that it was a very unusual request from the Taoiseach.

Washington, Sep 23 : The arrest of 45 people, mostly Pakistanis, in an FBI sting operation in Maryland has stunned Pakistani-Americans as they fear that it would further strengthen the negative stereotyping of their community in this country.

"People are scared. It will have a very negative impact on the entire community," said Munir Ahmad, a member of the Maryland Muslim Council.

"Some of the suspects were known in the community and people have been dealing with them," he said.

"People say that they were licensed money dealers and apparently law-abiding citizens. We don’t know what happened," Ahmad added.

Islamabad, Sept 23 : Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf’s undertaking to the Supreme Court that if re-elected by the Parliament, he would step down as Army Chief before being sworn in on November 15, is a promise that rings hollow to some, and one that has been heard before.

According to an article in the Time magazine, some lawyers and analysts see the promise as an attempt to pre-empt an apex court decision declaring him ineligible to run for President.

Smoking leads to lung cancer and heart disease that might be cognizant to many people. But do you know it also causes grievous respiratory circumstance in which the airways get barred? So Smokers mind it.

To a higher degree 13 million Indians are dupes of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), where the patients’ airways are blocked.

While addressing presspersons on World COPD Day, B.V. Muralimohan, consultant pulmonologist of Narayana Hrudayalaya, commanded smoking was one of the main does for acquiring COPD.

Finally, non-bailable warrant (NBW) has been issued against Maharashtra Navnirman Sena Chief Raj Thackeray.  The Mumbai Police have said that he might be arrested soon.

The warrant was issued for a speech made by Raj in February where he had spoken against North Indians and had also targeted Amitabh Bachchan in that speech.

The Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh was under pressure to act against the MNS chief as major political leaders condemned the actions of MNS Chief.

A Congress delegation has met the Chief Minister to demand Raj Thackeray's arrest at the earliest. Three UPA Ministers have demanded action against Raj.

Dubai-based international air carrier Emirates today announced that it will add 31 weekly services to India. This will lead the number of weekly flights to 163 by February 2009.

The carrier will introduce seven additional flights with effect from October 26 between Delhi and Dubai, increasing the total weekly frequency in this route from 18 to 25 flights.

The Emirates will add seven additional flights per week to its current 28 flights per week from Mumbai.

Sri Lankan Army on Monday captured Vannerikulam town and encircled Nachchikudha, the main sea Tiger base, after fierce fighting which left 33 soldiers dead.

Another task force of the army got close to the biggest sea Tiger base in which 11 LTTE were killed, defense ministry said.

Apparently, stepping up their attack strategy to capture LTTE headquarters, government troops overnight and this morning launched a fierce offensive to capture the Vannerikulam town for which the Tigers had put up a stiff resistance.

The new offensive brought the army a step closer to capturing the militants' de facto capital of Kilinochchi in northern Sri Lanka, the military said.

Punj Lloyd, a leading engineering procurement & construction (EPC) and project management services company has informed that PT Punj Lloyd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the company in Indonesia has secured an order worth US$ 22.48 million.

The order was awarded by PT Shell Indonesia for Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) services contract of New Fuel Terminal at Pulau Laut, Kalimantan.

The stock of Punj Lloyd closed today at Rs 167 on BSE. It touched an intraday high and low of Rs 178 and Rs 160 respectively.

Hyderabad-based infrastructure firm, Lanco Infratech has informed that the Board of Directors of its subsidiary Lanco Hills Technology Park Pvt. Ltd (LHTPPL) has decided to de-merge LHTPPL into two entities, subject to statutory and various other approvals.

With the de-merger of LHTPPL, the SEZ business would be retained by the existing LHTPPL and the non-SEZ business would be de-merged into a separate company.

The de-merger would be effective from April 1, 2008.

Many stock analysts are bearish on the Lanco Infratech stock in the short-term. They expect that the stock’s medium-term downtrend will persist until the stock crosses its resistance of Rs 105 in the short-term.

The Future Group, whose flagship company Pantaloon Retail operates over 1000 stores nationwide, has entered into an agreement with UAE-based mobile retail company Axiom Telecom, to form 50:50 joint venture company christened ‘Future Axiom Telecom Ltd.’

According to the company, the newly formed JVC will retail and distribute mobile handsets and accessories and set up service centres in India. Further it would also take charge of the 500 stores and touch points in 58 cities, which are currently running under the brand name of Mobile Bazaar and Mport respectively.

Kolkata-based Tulsyan NEC Limited, a flagship company of the Tulsyan group, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Budhrani Group of companies to set up a steel making and rolling mill in Nigeria on a joint venture basis to manufacture long products.

According to the sources, the production capacity would be around 60,000 metric tonnes per annum and the turnover for this venture is expected to be around Rs 350 crore.

Both partners intend to pump investment worth Rs 68 crore for the plant.

Tulsyan shares touched a high of Rs 65 on the BSE after the news. But later the stock ended the day at Rs 62, down Rs 2 or 3% over the previous close.

Panoramic Universal, a Mumbai-based company having interests in hospitality and information technology, has informed that it has acquired 51% stake in Sri Vatsa Hotels for an undisclosed amount.

The company aims to construct a four star hotel with nearly 90 rooms in the said commercial complex through SVPHL or its subsidiary or by itself.

In a separate release, Panoramic Universal has also bought remaining 21.93 % shares of Hi-Flyers Travel Services, a travel agency catering to premium corporate and HNI clients like Sharekhan, Akruti Foundation, SSKI, Jain Irrigation, Supreme Industries, Borroughs India and several other Companies.

With the acquisition, Hi-Flyers Travel Services has become a wholly owned subsidiary of the company.

In a bid to access more refining capacity at a cheaper rates, Shree Renuka Sugars Ltd, India's biggest sugar refiner, has bought 87% stake in Gokak Sugars for Rs 69.3 crore, including debt of Rs 65 crore.

Karnataka-based Gokak Sugars has a capacity to crush 2,500 tonnes cane per day and has a 14 megawatt co-generation power plant. The company’s capacity is assumed to be equivalent to 7% of Shree Renuka's total crushing capacity.

According to official sources, the latest acquired mill is fully operational, and will add more income to Shree Renuka's business.

As per an estimate, the acquisition is expected to add Rs 12 crore in revenue annually.

Adhunik Power and Natural Resources Ltd (APNRL), a part of the Adhunik Metaliks group of companies, has signed a MoU with Bihar State Electricity Board (BSEB) for setting up a 1000 MW power plant in the state.

As per official sources, APNRL is setting up a 1000 MW thermal power plant based on coal as primary fuel, which is expected to be commissioned by June 2011.

The company plans to fulfill coal requirement for the power project through Ganeshpur, Jharkhand captive coal block of 65 MT, which has been allotted to the company.  

In the near future, the group plans to expand with similar projects in other states as well.

India's largest engineering and construction conglomerate, Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has decided to continue with the operations of its Mysore-based Medical Equipment & Systems (MED) business unit.

L&T’s MED has been providing a broad range of medical equipment which includes advanced ultrasound scanners and patient monitoring systems with a distribution network, which is spread throughout the country.

The company stated in an official release that, “In view of the overwhelming demand from our customers the L&T management has decided to retain the medical equipment business.”  

The decision takes into account the interest of all stockholders, including customers and distributors, the release added.

Sydney - Supported by Wall Street, the Australian stocks continued their climb in early trading session on Tuesday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 4.67% higher at 9265. US Fed Chief said in a statement that the US Economy will need stimulus and we may see recession for coming quarters. However, for first time in five month, US Financial Indicators were positive.

Nasdaq Composite Index closed 3.43 per cent higher at 1770. European Markets closed positive as well.

The ASX 200 added 58 points, or 1.3 per cent, to 4,213. The positive sentiment came after Monday's 4.3-per-cent increase on the bellwether index. (With Inputs from Agencies)

ASUS, the Chinese brand associated with mini notebooks in India, in association with Intel has launched world’s greenest, quietest and the most cost effective desktop PC in Indian market.

The Eee Box which measures merely 1L in size consumes 90% less electricity than normal desktop PCs and is one of the quietest desktop PC with only 26 decibels sound emission.

Further, the latest gizmo features a boot technology called Express Gate that enables users to easily access the Internet, manage pictures and communicate over IM/Skype.

This revolutionary product, priced at Rs 16, 490 (excluding taxes) is targeted at the Small and Medium Enterprise (SMEs) and the Home Users segments in India.

India’s leading IT brand Hewlett-Packard, commonly referred to as HP, has introduced its Accidental Damage Protection service under the HP Total Care programme in India.

The company stated in a release that newly introduced ‘HP’s Accidental Damage Protection’ is a service that ensures hardware replacement in the event of an accident.

Further, the service also helps avoid the unprecedented cost that one incurs on repairs or replacements caused by accidents that may occur during normal operation of mobile computing products.

Bharti Airtel, India’s biggest mobile phone company by customers,, has announced a strategic outsourcing agreement with IBM to further enhance its customer service experience for its top end Platinum customers through process and technology innovation.

Under the six-year contract, IBM's managed business services unit IBM Daksh will provide voice and back-office services including customer service, collections, and customer retention from its centers.

UK-based Creativity Software has informed that it has signed a partnership deal with Universal Software Corporation to supply the market in India with its location based solutions.

Through this partnership, Creativity Software will provide its location technology solutions while Universal Software will use its presence in the market to deliver tailored solutions to mobile operators and large enterprises in the country.

Creativity Software's location based solutions include Family and Friend Finder, Vehicle Tracking, Workforce Management and Travel and Social Networking Mobile Applications. Its customer list includes global brands such as Motorola, BP, America Movil, Samsung, Pearson, Walt Disney etc.

In the most recent of the newspaper endorsements of the presidential candidates, the Detroit Free press endorsed Democratic Barack Obama on Sunday, calling the Illinois senator, the stronger candidate.

Admitting that the country clearly needs some change, the Free Press - that endorsed McCain for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000 and this year - said that Obama is “not only proposing better ones but is also better suited to the job of getting them done.”

The newspaper also noted: “The McCain running against Obama in this general election has not been the same candidate; he has been nastier, less consistent and, since his acceptance speech at the GOP National Convention, frankly uninspiring.”

During an hour-long debate at WGVU-TV that aired live Sunday, on Public Broadcast Stations, Democratic US Senator Carl Levin and his Republican challenger, Jack Hoogendyk, reflected their sharp differences on most matters – the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, the Iraq war, taxes, global warming, federal earmarks and health insurance.

Democrat Levin, 74, is heavily favored to win another six-year term in the Senate; while Hoogendyk, 53, is a member of the Michigan House, although term limits will force him out at the end of the year.

The duo is scheduled to meet again Monday for a final debate before the Detroit Economic Club.

In a renewed effort to secure the basis of “democratic capitalism”, President Bush announced on Saturday his plans to host emergency summits of leaders from the world’s top economies to chart out a rejoinder to the financial crisis.

Though no date has been finalized for the gathering, a White House statement said it would be held in the US “soon after” the November 4 election.

At Camp David, Maryland, the President, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Union President Jose Manuel Barroso in attendance, said that the comprehensive objectives of the summits would aim at revamping the regulatory framework for global finance.

The 84-year-old former chairman and chief executive of Chevron, George Keller, died Friday in Palo Alto.

A spokeswoman for the New York Times, Diane McNulty, has confirmed the news of Keller’s death.

Keller’s daughter-in-law, Emma Gilbey Keller - wife of his son Bill who is executive editor of the Times - said he died from complications of orthopedic surgery.

Keller was one of the key players in the 1980s era of deregulation, globalization, and the emergence of junk bond financing, when it seemed like no company was immune from hostile takeovers.

Balaji Telefilms has received a notice for termination of sourcing content and telecasting of one of its highly popular weekly serials – ‘Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi’ (KSBKBT) – being aired on Star Plus. The notice comes from SGL Entertainment, a part of the Star Group.

Along with KSBKBT, Balaji is producing five other currently running programs for the Star Group. In addition, the company produces two programs for 9X, one for Zee TV, and is also producing two programs for NDTV Imagine, which will be launched in this quarter.

SGL opines that the termination of the highly rated serial is in breach of contractual obligations owed by the Star Group to the company. It added that it will pursue all legal remedies available to it regarding the issue.

SpiceJet, the low-cost carrier, which was practically without a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for more than three months, on Monday announced the appointment of Sanjay Aggarwal as its CEO with immediate effect.

A company statement said that Aggarwal, who had earlier worked with the US Airways, was SpiceJet’s Chief Operating Officer and Chief Strategy Officer, before the recent announcement came along.

The newly-announced CEO, Aggarwal, takes over the position from Siddhanth Sharma. On July 12, Sharma resigned from SpiceJet, and picked up a job with rival carrier, Indigo Airlines, at a time when SpiceJet was undergoing severe financial crisis, and was in dire need of cash infusion of Rs 3.45 billion from US investor Wilbur Ross.

Lil Wayne has been declared lyricist of the year by BET Hip- Hop Awards. Russell Simmons was declared as the Hip-hop Icon.

The rapper who belongs to New Orleans was nominated for 12 awards. He has also been honored with the title of MVP of the Year and the Alltel Wireless People's Champ at the ceremony hosted by T-Pain.

Lil told the crowd that he's expecting a bundle of joy any day now. "I got a son dropping any day. Pray for me," he said.

Paramount has delayed the release of yet another time. The first movie to be delayed for release was Harry Potter, thereafter it was The Road; this time it is The Soloist and Defiance.

No specified reasons have been given for the delay announced at the last moment. The release of Soloist has been delayed by about four months - from 21 November to 13 March. The release of soloist has been deferred to 31 Dec from 12 Dec.

The number of E. coli cases in Ontario has increased to 159. According to a health official, the number includes both confirmed and suspected cases of the infection.

"The latest is that we have 159 cases as of this morning. Of those, 26 are lab confirmed," said Dr. Catherine Whiting, medical officer of health at North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit.

The number of confirmed and suspected cases of E. coli poisoning linked to the Harvey's restaurant on Algonquin Avenue in North Bay, about 300 kilometres north of Toronto.  The last Thursday the count was 93 but it plummeted to  131 the next day.

According to University of BC epidemiologist, there is enough evidence to support heroin assisted addictions clinic in Vancouver

A study was conducted by NAOMI ( North American Opiate Medication Initiative, for three years on 251 addicts in Vancouver and Montreal. Most of these addicts were chronic and did not respond to other treatments.

"These people are out in the alleys, injecting heroin of unknown quality and quantity," said Dr. Martin Schechter, the study's principal investigator. "They're committing crimes, they're involved in sex work to pay for that, and they're certainly, in that situation, not going to get better."

The past few films directed by Madhur Bhandarkar have undoubtedly left their mark and opened a new era for Indian cinema.

The critically acclaimed and National Award winning director is all set to release his latest much talked about film with an exorbitant 700 prints in India and abroad.

In a very peaceful settlement between the star singer Madonna and her husband Guy Ritchie, the custody of the children was given to Madonna.

The Pop Diva's Daughter Lourdes (12) from a previous relationship with a fitness trainer, the couple's eight year old biological son Rocco and their adopted son David will stay with their mother but Ritchie will have 'Broad Access' to  his children Rocco and David.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service has announced that it has recalled 2,758 pounds of ground beef from Vermont Livestock, Slaughter and Processing Co., LLC, a Ferrisburg, Vt., firm, because it may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7.

Hollywood comic actor Denis Leary has stirred up quite a storm with his latest book, “Why We Suck: a Feel-Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid.” The book has even raised the hackles of his Hollywood colleagues, for a passage in his new book where he says the reason autism is on the rise in the U.S. is because there are “inattentive mothers and competitive dads” out there and autism diagnoses "help explain away the deficiencies of (parents') junior morons."

State officials say they've made an $8 million drug bust that involved a 17 year old girl and parents of three young children operating in Lancaster and York counties.

Attorney General Tom Corbett, after a 10-month investigation dubbed "Operation Dough Maker" announced multiple arrests including the couple and the teenager. The "dough" officials said, refers to the large amount of money changing hands for the drugs.

Corbett at a news conference today at the Manheim Township Police station said, "No community, large or small, is immune from drug abuse and drug trafficking.  Drug dealers will move anywhere there is a demand for their product."

The saying 'Old Is Gold” still holds ground even today, as one saw the launch of an album in which veteran singers Asha Bhonsle and Ghulam Ali came together.

The album promises 12 melodious power packed songs. The music for the album 'Generation’ has been given by Ghulam Ali and Son Aamir Ali.

Going down memory lane the accomplished gazal singer said "Earlier we had done the record in '84 and until now people look for it, good things never die”.

A British scientist has disclosed the secret to stay healthy and live longer.

Professor Gary Williamson, professor of 'functional foods' at Leeds University, has suggested that people should consume ‘lifespan essential’ foodstuffs on a regular basis to lead a long and healthy life.

Prof Gary has revealed 20 functional foods rich in naturally occurring chemicals, known as polyphenols, which have been associated to various health benefits, including protection against heart disease.

The 'Rock On’ team is again in the limelight for different reasons. A large scale concert has been organized by Arjun Rampal and Farhan Akhtar who starred together in the latest hit film 'Rock On’.

A moment of glory flew in the air for Royal Bengal Tigers, when in the Indian Cricket League match held at the Sardar Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad on Sunday; they defeated Mumbai Champs with 12 runs.

Skipper Craig McMillan from Bengal Tiger, won the toss and the team opted to bat first. Following this they had a great start as Hamish Marshall and Deep Dasgupta shared an 84-run partnership in 9.5 overs.

It was a proud moment for Mahesh Bhupathi and his Bahamian partner Mark Knowles, when they had a straight-set win over Swede-Zimbabwean pair of Jonas Bjorkman and Kevin Ullyett in Madrid, and thus made in the finals of ATP Madrid Masters.

It took little more than an hour for the fourth seeded Indo-Bahamian pair to beat the fifth seeded Swede-Zimbabwean pair by 6-2 6-4 to make it into the finals.

Now Bhupahti and Knowles will compted with seventh seeds Marcin Matkoswki and Mariusz Fyrstenberg of Poland.

India is all set to create history by launching its first unmanned moon mission on Monday, Chandrayaan-1, which had been making news from quite sometime now.

From past few days, the rehearsals for the launch of this mission had been ongoing at Sriharikota and finally the 49-hour countdown has initiated that will end in the launch on Wednesday.

With the aim to provide extraordinary experience to the customers of Airtel digital TV, its Direct To Home (DTH) TV service, Bharti Airtel gladly announced today that it has entered into an innovation and technology partnership with Infosys Technologies Limited (Infosys). Bharti Airtel is considered to be the India’s greatest integrated telecom services provider.

Recently, two ultra portable multimedia projectors dubbed as the Epson EB-1725 and EB-1735W were announced to be launched soon by Epson, which has been specially created for people who travel quite often or need mobile presentations.

The weight of these projectors, which provide about 2000:1 contrast, is 1.8 kgs.

The new projectors, which give the options of standard or widescreen presentations, have been equipped with 3,000 ANSI lumens of brightness.

With the aim to study the weakening solar wind that protects planets in the solar system from dangerous cosmic rays, the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (Ibex) was launched by Ibex.

The Ibex spacecraft will carry out very extremely high-altitude orbits above Earth over the next two years, in order to examine and capture first images of processes taking place at the interstellar boundary - the farthest reaches of the solar system.

Recently NASA experts told that outer space smells like fried Steak and like a hot metal and welding of a motorbike.

All these strange smells were reported after the astronauts came back from space walk.

Now, Steven Pearce of British fragrance firm Omega Ingredients, commissioned by NASA will reproduce these smells in the laboratory with the aim to help the astronauts to prepare for their missions. Hopefully, these smells would be created by the end of this year.

The Indian government can ease norms of foreign direct investment in the country. It is seriously discussing the matter to liberalize the rules for FDI. The Indian financial system is facing liquidity crunch following global financial crisis. It would soon take more steps to safe Indian interests from global slowdown.

The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) and the finance ministry are working on the idea to ease cap on FDI in single-brand retail. Thus, 100% foreign investments are possible in coming days. It is noted that Indian norms permits only 50 per cent FDI in single-brand retail. The proposed steps may lead to increase foreign funds inflow in India and ease liquidity crisis.

Trinamool Congress chief, Mamata Banerjee has demanded apology from TATA chief Ratan Tata. She criticized him for his derogatory remarks in his letter.

TATA has written an open letter to the people of the state describing circumstances that led to relocation of his dream car project from the state. The letter was published in all leading newspapers of Kolkata. He specifically mentioned the negative role of Trinamool in Singur pull out.

Many leading airlines are considering salary cuts of their employees to reduce operating cost. Earlier, they want to start a retrenchment drive to deal with the crisis in the aviation sector. But they seem to drop idea after stiff opposition from the political class of the country. Jet Airways has already taken back its sacked staff.

The Uttar Pradesh Government has revised sugar cane prices for the current season on Saturday. The farmers would now get Rs 15 more than the prices of last year. The State Advised Price (SAP) for common variety sugarcane would be Rs 140 a quintal after recent revision of prices. It was Rs 125 per quintal last year. SAP for rejected variety would be Rs 137.50 a quintal which earlier stood at Rs 122.50.

Lahore Badshahs won the first tie match in the Indian Cricket League (ICL) Twenty20 Championship by 31 runs. The team has already lost two consecutive matches to the Ahmedabad Rockets at the Sardar Vallabbhai Patel stadium.

Ahmedabad Rockets faced Badshahs in the absence of Inzamam Ul Haq and Azhar Mahmood. The team set a target of 136 for nine wickets in allotted 20 over.

IIM is not justifying with the economically weak but meritorious students. It is revealed by a penal constituted by the ministry of Human Development and Resources in its recent report. The penal raised fingers on the admission guide lines followed in various IIMs.

It has demanded some concessions for the meritorious students. IIMs should revise their policies regarding scholarships and fees structure for economically backward students.

The former chairman of Maruti Udyog Ltd, Mr. R C Bhargava said that norms should be revised for scholarships, fellowships, free ships and other forms of financial assistance given to students for admissions in top management institutes of the country.

Richard Kemper, a Hillsborough County middle school teacher was among 13 people who were arrested in an internet prostitution sting in Polk County.

The Polk County Sheriff's Office said the popular classified Web site Craigslist targeted men who used the site to look for sex. They were then lured to an undercover house in Winter Haven.

Kemper, 50, was arrested after he offered an undercover agent $ 150 for sex. A software developer, paint-store manager, citrus buyer and truck driver were others arrested.

 Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said, "Our message is pretty straightforward, if you want to engage in prostitution, stay out of our community."

The Supreme Court has given nod to the CBSE’s proposal to have multiple choice objective type tests in both the preliminary and final exams for filling up the 15% of the seats of various medical colleges in India that are open to applicants across the country irrespective of their domicile.

A bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justice P. Sathasivam permitted the CBSE to implement the new pattern after it confronted problems in the present system of tests.

Canada is set to be the first country to categorize BPA as risky, with the federal government adding it on the country’s list of toxic substances. This move will possibly lead to a ban on the sale of baby bottles which contain BPA and see reduced usage of BPA in canned infant formula.

The toxic classification, issued in the Canada Gazette, the official newspaper of the Government of Canada, makes Canada the first country to classify the organic compound used in many food and drink packaging applications, making plastic hard, as risky.

The Obama campaign said on Monday that the Democratic presidential candidate will take off two days from his campaign to go to Hawaii this week, to visit the ailing grandmother who helped raise him.

Obama is canceling events, scheduled for Thursday, in Madison, Wisconsin, and Des Moines, Iowa. Instead, he instead will go to an event in Indianapolis, Indiana, on Thursday, from where he will fly to Hawaii to see his grandmother. He will return to the campaign trail on Saturday.

Arvind Adiga, who recently won the prestigious Booker prize for his debut novel ‘The White Tiger’, is on a roll as he declared that his second novel is nearing completion.

But Adiga, who is 33 years old, didn’t disclose any further details about his upcoming book.

He said, “I like books that have ideas in them and that move and that entertain.”

‘The White Tiger’ is a supreme page turner, highly original in presenting ‘the dark side of India’.

The ‘Vote Early for Change’ rally in Fort Lauderdale on Monday saw Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton join forces, insisting on Floridians to use their swing state influence to bring back a Democrat in the White House.

With fists pumping and arms clasped around each other’s back, the two Senators looked like old friends. As thousands in the crowd cheered their appearance together, Obama vowed to tap Clinton’s passion for health-care reform in case he becomes the President.

The Chief Executive of Google Inc., Eric Schmidt will actively hit the campaign trail this week on behalf of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, after having kept a low partisan profile till now, in the 2008 election.

Making the announcement in Monday’s Wall Street Journal, Schmidt said his planned endorsement of the Illinois senator is a ‘natural evolution’ from his role as an informal adviser to the Obama campaign. He noted that he has been advising the campaign on technology and clean-energy issues for most of the summer.

It has been a splendid session for stocks thus far. Indian equities have moved up sharply due to continued buying action witnessed across board.

Both Sensex and Nifty have recorded thumping gains. Realty, consumer durables, IT, power and oil & gas gained a lot.

BSE Midcap and Smallcap gained 1.67% and 1.70% respectively.

Today, the 30-share index, BSE Sensex opened positively at 10,428.11, up 205.02 points, as against its previous closure in which it gained 247.74 points.

We are all aware of the unbelievable accomplishments of the legendary Kishore Kumar who became a household name in the 70's and 80's and even today.

Percept Picture, who is making a biographical film on Kishore Kumar, has offered the lead role to Aamir Khan.

Rudy Ray Moore, a raunchy 1970s comedian died Sunday evening at an Akron nursing home from complications of diabetes. He was eighty-one.

Moore, who featured as a fast talking pimp in a 1975 film called Dolemite, in later years also collaborated with 2 Live Crew, Big Daddy Kane and Snoop Dogg.  Featuring blunt sex routines onstage, his subject matter along with his style and swagger made him a cult figure in the world of hip-hop.  Yet, unlike his contemporaries - Eddie Murphy, Redd Foxx and Richard Pryor, he never quite managed to cross over to mainstream white audiences.

Brooke Burke who injured her foot on this season’s Dancing With The Stars was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre for X-rays and examination.

The Jury may have deliberated, but it seems it wasn’t enough as the Judge in Britney Spears’ driving-without-a-license trial has ordered the ‘hopelessly deadlocked’ jurors to keep deliberating.  The 10 – 2 stale mate saw the panel go home Monday night without having reached any verdict.

Spears, 26 involved in a hit and run last year that was caught on camera, reached a private settlement with the other car’s owner.  However, while the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office did not slap Spears with hit and run charges, they did charge her for driving-without-a-license charge.

The bane of Hollywood celebrities, fashion maven – Mr. Blackwell renowned for his annual ‘worst-dressed’ list, died on Monday aged eighty-six. Unwell since August, Richard Blackwell, born Richard Selzer was reportedly in a coma due to a fall in his Los Angeles home.  According to his publicist - Harlan Boll, the former actor and fashion designer died in hospital on Sunday afternoon in hospital from complications from an intestinal infection.

Kevin Cogill, 27 from Los Angeles charged with violating federal copyright law, has pleaded not guilty to placing nine tracks on the website - http://www.antiquiet.com, from rock band - Guns N' Roses upcoming and as yet, unreleased album called ‘Chinese Democracy’.

If, found guilty, Coghill released on bail, faces 3-years in federal prison and 5-years if it is found that he posted the songs on the Internet for commercial gain.

According to FBI, Cogill posted the 9-songs from the album 10-years in the making on his website in June, though they were removed later.

Latest sensation Shweta Kumar is having a wonderful 2008.
Shweta’s debut film ‘Karzzz’ is still rocking the movie theaters and it wouldn’t be wrong to say that Shweta has become a heartthrob amongst the younger generation.

Shweta, who was pretty much covered from head to toe in most part of ‘Karzzz’, said that she doesn’t have any problem about getting into different attire if the character demands.

According to a new research, there is a link between obesity and some kind of bacteria in human gut. As bacteria support digestion in human gut but some kind of bacteria can influence the obesity level. Person with obese bacteria might gain more weight.

Researchers found in their study that a molecule named as Gpr41, activated by two types of bacteria helps in slow down the movement of food through the gut. In this process human body absorb more nutrients or calories from food and gain weight.

The study was based on mice and it showed that those bred without Gpr41 were slimmer than others although they fed the same quantity of food. The study also points the way to a possible method of controlling weight, said the researchers.

After suspension of four priests of the famous Guruvayur temple, the assistant priests are on a go slow strike.

According to the sources, A devotee had bought ‘appam’ from the counter of the temple on Thursday and he found a cigarette butt in that ‘prasadam’. He reported to the temple management of finding the cigarette butt in ‘prasadam’. Following his complaint, the managing committee of the Guruvayur Devaswom suspended the four priests who were involved in the preparation of ‘appam’

According to a leading psychiatrist, 20th century is look like the ‘age of paranoia’. These days general public feels threatened. Paranoia is more common among them because of media and the threat of terrorism.  

Dr Daniel Freeman, from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, believes, one in four people regularly suffer irrational fears of being threatened or in danger. “These days, we daren't let our children play outside; we're suspicious of strangers; security cameras are everywhere. We seem to have entered an age of paranoia. And the indications are that things may only get worse,” he claims.

The fashion fads could not have asked for more. Fashion fever is in the air, as two mega fashion weeks concludes in Delhi, Mumbai is the next spot to check out for, as the Lakme Fashion Week (LFW) makes a mark this Monday.

The LFW will showcase 75 designers with their collections. The designers who have just got free from their shows in the capital are now gearing up for the same in Mumbai. While some designers are happy about their preoccupation others find it stressful.

After stealing the hearts of many through his flicks and action packed stunts, the Star Akshay Kumar’s ongoing movie fest will conclude in style. The Star Gold is going to telecast ‘Chandni Chowk to Bollywood – a Journey of a SuperStar’ on 26th October at 8pm which will be hosted by Sajid Khan.

The splitting up of the couple was in the air for quite some time though now the better half of Maria is claiming that everything is fine between the two. Actor Arshad Warsi who married the famous VJ Maria says he will settle up the issue nicely as soon as he gets free with the ongoing shooting for Vishal Bhardwaj's at Wai.

Media reports say that according to medical records released by the Obama-Biden campaign on Monday, the vice presidential candidate Senator Joe Biden is ‘in good health’, and there has been no repeat instance of aneurysm he suffered two decades back.

Biden’s medical records, released to some news organizations, detailed the treatment of two brain aneurysms in 1988 and other, mostly ‘minor’ medical problems.

Biden, 65, had emergency surgery for an aneurysm in an artery- a bulging of an artery due to a weakened area of the vessel wall - in his brain, but suffered no permanent damage as a result. He also had a second, smaller, unruptured aneurysm that was removed a few months later.

Addressing a rally in Colorado on Monday, Republican vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, said that Barack Obama if elected would not only raise their taxes, but he would also spend the money in a way that could hurt the economy.

Elaborating her point, the Alaska Governor said that government takes the people’s money and spreads it out “wherever politicians see fit”, which she argued is “not good for the economy.”

The government’s job is to collect taxpayer dollars and decide how to spend them. Obama has said he would cut taxes for people who make less than $250,000 a year.

The Santa Clara technology major, Sun Microsystems, said on Monday that it expects to report a net loss - of 25 to 35 cents a share - in its fiscal first quarter that ended September 28. The reason cited for the loss was the economic crunch that has hit some of its customers especially hard.

The company has recorded a hefty goodwill impairment charge and a restructuring charge amid a difficult economic environment. While the details will not be released until October 30, Sun predicts revenue between $2.95 billion to $3.05 billion, compared with $3.22 billion in the same quarter last year.

In an attempt to step up its anti-piracy efforts, Microsoft on Tuesday launched an anti-piracy campaign – ‘Global Anti-Piracy Day’ – which includes a series of education and enforcement actions in 49 countries in six continents.

According to the associate general counsel for worldwide anti-piracy and anti-counterfeiting at Microsoft, David Finn, the company is committed to working with others around the world to stay a step ahead of the piracy industry, and the campaign is a bid to combat counterfeit software.

Drug-maker Abbott Laboratories said on Monday that federal regulators have withheld approval of its experimental long-acting form of the painkiller Vicodin, and there are no indications about when the drug would be approved.

In a statement, the company said it will discuss the matter with the FDA, since it had predicted the approval of Vicodin C-R this quarter. In fact, Abbott stuck to its earlier company earnings forecasts for 2008 and 2009 in spite of the uncertain fate of the pill, which it had expected would generate eventual peak annual sales of $500 million.

Bangalore-based and India’s second largest public sector lender, Canara Bank, has reported a net profit of Rs 529 .43 crore for the second quarter ended September 2008, up 32 per cent over the same period, previous fiscal.

The improved net profit was largely contributed by operating income. Interest income surged 18 per cent (year-on-year) to Rs 4,109.20 crore.

The bank’s total income, however, grew by just 9.7 per cent to Rs 4447.97 crore from Rs 4,0546.60 crore during the same quarter last year. While, the operating profit for the quarter grew by 19 per cent to Rs 774 crore.

Recently, the bank has received RBI’s approval for opening more overseas branches in Johannesburg, Frankfurt, Muscat, Manama and Qatar.

Ahmedabad-based Sadbhav Engineering has informed that the company has secured a contract worth Rs 268.34 from Gujarat Industries Power Co. Ltd. (GIPCO).

Under the arrangement, the company would carry out the work of removal of Over Burdon (OB) for total 44.40 million CuM and lignite extraction of 4.68 million tons during a period of seven years.

The scope of work involves, hiring heavy earth moving equipments with operators, maintenance staff & facilities for excavation work at Mangrol Lignite Mines.

Sadbhav Engineering Limited undertakes infrastructure and engineering projects in India. It executes civil engineering construction projects primarily in the areas of roads, highways, irrigation, and mining operations.

Hindustan Construction Company (HCC), one of the leading construction and civil engineering firm, has received a Letter of Intent from Lanco Infratech Ltd.

Under the deal, HCC would execute Lot-II, which involves all civil works of twin Head Race Tunnels of 16.5 kms including adit-II at Kalej Khola and adit-III for Teesta -VI Hydroelectric Project, Sikkim.

The contract, which is valued at Rs 360.05 crore, is scheduled to be completed in 45 calendar months from the date of Letter of Intent.

Last week, the company secured two new contracts aggregating to Rs 1688.28 crore from Government of Andhra Pradesh, Irrigation and CAD Department.

Jaiprakash Associates, one of the leading provider of civil engineering and construction services in the country, has informed that its Board of Directors has decided to raise a sum of approximately Rs 1800 crore through a Rights Issue.

Through the right issue, the company intends to meet the company's requirements of funds for capex and other general corporate purposes, including investments, instead of issuing further warrants to the promoters on a preferential basis.

In a separate release, the company has announced its Q2 result. The Company has registered a net profit of Rs 203.13 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2008, which indicates a 96% growth over the corresponding period a year-ago.

Max Hypermarket India Pvt. Ltd, an outcome of a license agreement between the Dubai-based Landmark Group’s Max hypermarkets India and Spar International, is planning an investment worth Rs 100 crore in developing supermarkets and hypermarkets in three southern States and Maharashtra by the end of year 2009.

According to reliable sources, the fresh investment will be for developing another four hypermarkets and supermarkets. The company has already spendt Rs 100 crore in developing one hypermarket and two supermarkets in Bangalore.

Apart from developing stores in Maharashtra, Max Hypermarket also plans to open such retail stores in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.

UTStarcom has bagged an order worth Rs 300 crore from Public sector telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) to roll out the broadband network, which will support 1.1 million subscribers.

The latest contract is the second phase of a countrywide network launched by BSNL in December 2007. UTStarcom has already deployed a network that supports 1.3 million broadband subscribers during the first phase of this project.

Rushikulya Gramya Bank (RGB), a premier Regional Rural Bank (RRB) of Orissa operating in Ganjam and Gajapati districts, has joined hands with Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance, India’s leading private life insurance company to provide life insurance solutions through its branches.

Under the arrangement, Rushikulya Gramya Bank will offer insurance products through its distribution network of over 79 branches, spread over in two districts.

Judith Miller, who worked with New York Times and was ordered 85 days imprisonment for contempt of court, has joined Fox News Channel.

He had won a Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for Explanatory Reporting about terrorism. Miller is also attached with the Manhattan Institute.

She has been assigned the task of an analyst on security and international affairs in the Fox News. She would also write for FoxNews.com

Before this she worked as a reporter for New York Times for 25 years. She served 85 days of imprisonment in 2005 as she refused to reveal the name of a confidential source to federal grand jury investigating Plame’s unmasking as a CIA operative.

Rumors are afloat that slinky supermodel Gisele Bundchen is tying knot with American football star Tom Brady. The superstar and her hunky Patriots quarterback boyfriend are planning a wedding reception at Tavern on the Green in New York's Central Park.

Both the stars had highly publicized breakups with their former dates. The Brazilian beauty broke up with Leonardo DiCaprio whereas Brady broke up with actress Bridget Moynahan. Bridget was expecting at the time of breakup and Brady already had a one year old child from the relationship.

‘Family Guy’, an animated comedy by Fox compared McCain and Palin to Nazis. Brian, Stewie and Mort Goldman, the characters in the comedy are regress into the Nazi Germany. In their effort to blend, they wear uniforms of the Third Reich. One of these has a McCain/Palin button pinned to the lapel.

Ever since the show has been its telecast, Fox has received "a few" calls from disgruntled viewers and voters who objected to the portrayal of the two Republicans..

‘Family Guy’ has become infamous for the ridiculing Republican party. The show never misses an opportunity to degrade the Republicans.

Super Talent Technology Corporation, a top maker of Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, has made announcement about the launching of a new family of high performance, feature rich Luxio USB drives in capacities up to 64GB.
 
A 64GB Luxio drive can store up as many as 20,000 six megapixel photos or 16,000 MP3 songs.

Moreover, Luxio drives are housed in a sleek 21 x 76 x 10 mm UV coated ABS/PC case with chrome plated zinc trim. All models contain advanced AES-256 hardware encryption as a standard feature for quick, convenient data security.

Available in three different colors including black, silver and wood grain, Luxio drives are packaged in an stylish gift box and also include a custom made black leather carrying case.

Anne Pressly, a popular TV anchorwoman who also has a small had a role in Bush”W”, was found injured in her home.

Anne was in critical condition when she was found at 4.30 am on Monday.  Pressly’s mother discovered her in the horrific state. When Pressly did not answer her mother’s wake up call, she went to the anchorwoman’s house, much to her horror.

Little Rock police spokeswoman Sgt. Cassandra Davis said investigators are questioning Pressly's co-workers to come to a conclusion if she "has had any problems." He elaborated that since Pressly’s purse was missing, robbery could not be ruled out as the major motive. However, he refused to delve into the details of the matter.

It’s a big loss to the Tamil Film Industry, famous film maker CV Sridhar who was 73 years old died at Chennai Malar Hospital, where he was admitted last week on being fallen seriously ill. It was reported that the film maker suffered a stroke few years back.

Gillian Anderson and her boyfriend, Mark Griffiths have been blessed with a baby boy. Felix is the second child for Anderson, 40, with Griffiths, joining their 1-year-old son Oscar. Anderson also has a 13-year-old daughter, Piper, from a previous marriage.

As disclosed by Kelly Bush, Gillian’s representative. The baby has been christened Felix Griffiths. AT the time of birth, t he baby weighed 6lbs,15oz.

Anderson already has a 1-year-old son named Oscar.  She  has a 13-year-old daughter, Piper, from a previous marriage.

Anderson’s pregnancy was confirmed to E! in early June by her representative.

Nosheen Idrees, the 22 year old from Jhelum Pakistan, will be representing ‘Pakistan’ in the Miss Earth pageant.

A student of communications at the University of Sheffield, Miss Idrees was crowned the third runner up for the Miss Pakistan World pageant on the 23rd of May 2008.

Nosheen expects to bring back a title, which can place Pakistan as a country that has the most beautiful women all through the world.

Spice Mobiles has launched its latest slim and stylish musical handset, named Spice S-580 in the Indian market.

The unique feature of this candy bar phone is the Dazzle Ring-tone, which lets users to listen a fresh ring tone every time they receive a call. Using this feature, the handset shuffles and selects a ring tone from the list of 10 user-selected ring tones for every new call.

The young able director Rohit Shetty is all set for the release of his upcoming film "Golmaal returns," a comedy movie, the sequel to "Golmaal".

The film cast includes Ajay Devgan, Arshad Warsi, Shreyas Talpade, Tusshar Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor, Anjana Sukhani, Amrita Arora and Celina Jaitley.

The film revolves around the story of a housewife (played by Kareena Kapoor) who is addicted to soap opera serials.

SEBI would take strict actions against illegal overseas lending and borrowing of Indian securities by FIIs. The regulatory body said in a release that it would not allow the overseas lending and borrowing activity of FIIs as it is not in the favor of cash market in India. It would give a vigil watch to such activities and may take more measures to deal with the lending/borrowing by FIIs.

The security and exchange board of India already asked FIIs to provide details of sub accounts and securities held by them. The detail would be available on the website of SEBI.

A very astonishing piece of information has been put forward by the latest report of WWF that climate change is taking place at a much faster speed than thought by the scientific organizations. It is quite likely that if in case this is not treated on a global scale, then it will definitely have adverse effects on mankind.

The government is taking various steps to ease the liquidity situation in the country. Now, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cuts rapo rates after successive cuts in the cash reserve ratio (CRR). The apex bank slashed rapo rates by 100 basis points. This is the step against the tight monetary policy adopted by the central bank. It is the first ever reduction in the rapo rates after March 2004. Rapo rates now stands at 8 percent.

The banks also started to slash the interest rates for consumers after revision of rapo rates. The fifth-largest state-owned bank, Union Bank of India reduced interest rates on home loan by 50 basis points up to a loan Rs 30 lakh.

According to a new survey, 60% of British kids have seen disturbing images on the internet, which has actually raised concerns over the exposure of kids to the unsuitable material on net.

Keeping this thing in mind; the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) advices that new computers should be equipped with carry high-security “blocking” software; which could stop them from surfing through aggressive or vulgar material available over the vast world of Internet.
 

The system abroad the IBEX, which was launched yesterday to study and click images of the edge of the solar system, is being remotely tested by the NASA engineers. It is indeed good news for everyone at NASA, that the computer onboard the spacecraft that was released from a Pegasus rocket on Sunday, is already up and functioning efficiently with its batteries fully charged.

The increasing problems for the Indian Carriers due to rising expenses, especially the rise in aviation fuel recently initiated an unwanted episode of firing of employees.

Following this, the owner of Kingfisher, Vijay Mallya approached the Parliament and Naresh Goyal of Jet Airways knocked the door of finance minister P Chidambaram with the aim to get tax relief for airlines.

“Job cuts and layoffs coupled with high aviation turbine fuel (ATF) prices and larger taxes can affect in the number of flights which is likely to go down,” reported Mallya.

National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) said that global slowdown would affect Indian IT world in indirect manner. Indian information technology and business process outsourcing (BPO) companies are vulnerable to a short term impact of world financial crisis. The IT companies have started to slowdown their decision making activities. They are investing and spending very carefully. But Indian companies are still hiring the employees and confident to restore the normalcy very soon.

On Monday, Nvidia unveiled two motherboard graphics processors that included the desktop version of the integrated GPU in the latest Apple MacBooks.

The processors dubbed as the GeForce 9400 and 9300 are created for the Intel platform.

Nvidia explained, “The 16-core chips enable mainstream PC users to play the latest PC games and play high-definition Blu-ray video.”

It was also learnt that the 9400 is actually the desktop version of the 9400m.

Japanese drug major, Daiichi Sankyo has completely acquired 52.5 per cent equity stake in India's Ranbaxy Laboratories. The process is carried out through off-market and stock exchange transactions. Ranbaxy Laboratories is the largest pharmaceutical company of the country. It has become the subsidiary of Daiichi Sankyo after acquisition of majority shares. The deal worth Rs 19,850 crore was initiated in June this year. It would enable Daiichi to use the generic expertise of Raanbaxy.

The shares of major sugar companies witnessed a steep downfall on Bombay stock exchange on Monday trading. The shares of Bajaj Hindustan Ltd declined Rs 5.6 and closed at 53.50. The company is the biggest refiner by sale of the country. Balrampur Chini Mills Ltd. also saw share decline of 12% which is the lowest since December 2.

The shares downfall came after the decision of UP government to hike the cane prices in the state. UP government had hiked the state administered price (SAP) of sugarcane by Rs 15 per quintal for the new crushing season. UP is the largest sugar producing state of India and many leading cane companies are located in the state.

Bad news for all those who had been eagerly waiting to get their hands on the first Motorola Android-based phone, as its launch has been delayed. Reportedly, US markets would be deprived of Motorola’s Android-based phone at least till the second quarter of 2009. Europe’s wait will even continue for longer as there it will arrive in the Q3 of the next year. However, in a move to compensate, Motorola is going for a novelty twofer.

On Monday, the Indigo Airlines had to undergo some unnecessary tension, following a call from an anonymous person, who said that three persons traveling in its flight to Agartala from Kolkata are terrorists. Thus a security operation was initiated.

The police sources reveal, “The anonymous caller gave the names of the three alleged terrorists who were among the passengers on the flight which was supposed to leave at 6.30 am.”

National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) has decided to hike iron ore prices up to 40 per cent. NMDC is a leading state-run mining company in India. The revised prices would be implemented from Oct 1. The decision to hike ore prices is aimed to save the interests of buyers. It would insulate them from short-term market fluctuations. The steel prices may increase following the implementation of revised prices.

The chairman and Managing Director of NMDC, Rana Som said that the hike in prices is the need of the hour as production cost has increased manifolds. The public sector company can revise the ore prices as per the agreement with buyers.

Karvy Stock Broking Limited has maintained ‘buy’ rating on ICICI Bank stock with an intraday target of Rs 440.

According to Karvy, interested traders can purchase the stock between Rs 418-422 with a strict stop loss of Rs 400. If the stock market remains on positive track, the stock pricing becomes more attractive, and reach above Rs 405.
 

In the ongoing Indian Cricket League 20s Indian Championship, Chennai Superstars on Tuesday defeated Hyderabad Heroes by 18 runs at Sardar Patel Stadium. Chasing a victory target of 161 runs in the allotted 20 overs, Hero’s led by Chris Harris could score only 142 runs for the loss of 9 wickets.

Things are not right for the Badshaah, with the King Khan loosing on its best of buddies, one can wonder close knit ties are being broken down amidst ego, hatred and jealousy. With the breaking up with his one of the closest buddies, Salman, on Katrina’s birthday, Rani Mukherjee seems to be next on the list. The ‘Queen of Hearts’ have quitted from the SRK’s 'Temptations Reloaded' tour reportedly as the latter was not happy from the former’s appearance on the last episode of Salman’s ‘Dus Ka Dum’.

The upcoming animation film ‘Roadside Romeo’, a Jugal Hansraj’s venture is inspired from the stray dogs he encountered on Mumbai streets. It will be the first time that a mainstream three dimensional animation movie is made in Bollywood.

The movie which is due to hit the theatres this Friday is co-produced by Yash Raj Films (YRF) Studio and Hollywood studio Walt Disney Co while it has been visualized, executed and delivered by a 150-member team of Tata group's Tech arm Tata Elxsi.

After popular soap ‘Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki’, television bigwig Ekta Kapoor is ready to pull off air her hugely popular television soap ‘Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi’ very soon.

According to sources, Star TV has sent a notice to Balaji Telefilms, asking them to end the long running soap by November 10.

But, Balaji Telefilms has termed the termination as a breach of contract, and has taken legal action against Star Group.

Balaji’s argument is that the agreement does not permit the channel (Star) to stop a show ahead of time.

The sequel of Golmaal is around the corner and the audience who fell into laughter riots after seeing "Golmaal" could not have asked for more. The Golmaal is back with ‘Golmaal Returns’ the expectations from it too are sky high.

High Court gave its ruling where it cancelled the marriage of a 29 year old Sikh woman who was coerced to marry by her in-laws after the death of her husband. The jurisdiction was given pronounced by Justice Parker.  

The Sikh woman was kidnapped by the family of her husband when she went back to India to attend the funeral of her husband. Two and a half weeks after the demise of her husband, she was forced to marry her father-in-law’s nephew. Her husband was killed in a car accident in India where she went and was given sedative pills and injected with drug by her in laws as she refused to obey their demand to marry again.

Minister of Communications and Information-Technology, A Raja has indicated that the much waited auction of third generation (3G) spectrum could be delayed by 10-15 days.

The auction, which was initially planned to be held in December this year, has now been deferred to be conducted on January 2009.  

Speaking on this, Mr. Raja said, “We will try to complete it by December 31. However, because of Christmas and holidays, we could postpone it for another ten days. However the deadline is December 31, subject to a little changes.”

Heart throb of millions, the pop icon ‘Madonna’ decided not to bid adieu to Britain even when she has broken up with her husband, British Director, Guy Ritchie. Madonna who is presently 50 years old, married the director(40), in December 2000 at Skebi Castle in the Scottish highlands.

Madonna who was supposed to leave for New York with her kids as soon as she gets divorce from Ritchie, now changes her mind as the British director admitted that it was in best of interests for the kids to remain in Britain.

The Union Govt. will file an additional affidavit in connection with the Kandhamal violence. The Supreme Court has permitted center's plea in this regard. Meanwhile the court will hear today the petition demanding CBI probe into the rape and humiliation of a Christian Nun.

A bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, Justices P Sathasivam and P M Panchal adjourned the hearing for a day on 21st of October. The archbishop of Cuttack Raphel Cheenath has filed the petition seeking CBI enquiry and compensation of three crores for the damaged churches of Orissa. He filed the petition on 12th of this month.

Indian equities continued to trade in the negative terrain on fears over lower earnings.

The 30-share index BSE Sensex ended on a highly negative note yesterday with some major corporate houses declaring disappointing quarterly figures.

Asian markets weighed the depressing outlook. Realty, metal, IT, oil & gas and power stocks that had bounced back fairly strongly yesterday after recent huge losses, are back in the red again on account of heavy selling action.

BSE Midcap and Smallcap declined 2.02% and 1.59% respectively.

After getting an assurance from the PGI administration, the Association of Resident Doctors (ARD) had called off its indefinite strike on Monday evening.

With this, nearly 800 resident doctors have come back to their work.

Earlier, in the morning over 200 resident doctors assembled outside the director’s office. After two rounds of talks with the dean and sub-dean, consensus was reached at in the evening.

It's good news for people of Orissa. The state government will now force companies investing in the state to provide at least 90% of the jobs in their projects to the locals.

At least 18 people were killed and 27 seriously injured in a powerful bomb blast in Imphal, the capital of North-eastern state Manipur. The blast occurred near the Police Commandos' Complex late on Tuesday.

The death toll may rise further, according to police, as the conditions of the hospitalized persons are very serious. Body parts of the victims were found scattered out side the police barrack.

Imphal Superintendent of Police Radheshyam Singh told that eleven people died on the spot, while seven of the injured succumbed to their injuries in different hospital. The bomb was planted on a scooter he added.

The Vikhe Patil Memorial School, Pune showcased a series of traditional Indian Dances as part of the cultural programme organized in the honour of the Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden.

Her Royal Highness was enchanted by the dance and stated, "I always wanted to come to India and no where in the world have I received such a warm welcome".

Indiabulls Financial Services has registered a consolidated net profit of Rs135.7 crore for the second quarter ended September, a 21.4% growth over the corresponding period year ago.

The company had posted net profit of Rs 111.08 crore in quarter ended September 30, 2007.  

The total revenues rose to Rs 641.5 crore for the quarter under review, from Rs 350.5 crore in the same period last year.

While, total income for the quarter has increased to Rs 475.35 crore for the September quarter this fiscal against Rs 263.71 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal.

Shares of the company gained Rs 9, or 9%, to settle at Rs 107. The total volume of shares traded was 9,48,934 at the BSE. (Monday)

As always Reliance has made its mark. A record breaking 5,00,000 subscribers were roped in by Big TV DTH, a part of Reliance Communication in the first two months of its launch.

Country's largest mobile services provider, Bharti Airtel has informed that its arm Airtel Telemedia Services, has launched the ‘Zero Side Effects’ offer – a unique Diwali festive offer for its broadband and landline customers in South India.

The latest introduced scheme is a zero cost entry offer on two months’ advance rental, which were earlier paid by new customers at the time of connection.

The company stated in a release that, under the offer, the security deposit, registration, installation / activation charges have been waived off.

In addition, there will be no monthly rental on telephone instrument or either on modem provided by the company.

Sania Mirza, absent from the tennis courts for the last two months due to a wrist injury, was seen looking better, fitter and in high spirits.

To quote Sania "I am surprised how well the treatment has worked for me .I have been hitting the ball for over two weeks now and am feeling very good".

Sania Ranked 98 in the world, is at present in the capital getting her wrist treated.
 

Reliance Communications, part of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, has entered into a strategic alliance with five computer hardware suppliers, to offer free laptops with internet connectivity to customers.

The computer companies are Intel Corp, Acer, Asus, HCL Infosystems and Lenovo.

The company claims that, the latest introduced scheme will enable customers to get free laptops powered by Intel's 'Atom' with high-speed internet data card service of Reliance.

However, under the scheme, customer has to pay monthly installment of Rs 1,500 for two years duration.

Reliance Communication is Country 's leading wireless internet service provider with over 10 lakh customers and access to 20,000 towns and 4.5 lakh villages in the country.

In a surprise appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show”, Barack Obama showed Degeneres his dance moves, while taping it all on Tuesday in Miami, in front of a live audience. Right after the rally, with nearly 40 people behind him, Obama was ready to go via satellite.

The ‘ball’ set rolling when DeGeneres got right down to business, commenting on Obama’s dancing prowess, or lack of it, saying: “Your wife, Michelle, was on the show and she was talking some smack about your moves.”

Human resource services firm Manpower Inc. has acquired 100% stake in its Indian subsidiary - Manpower Services India Pvt. Ltd from ABC Consultants for an undisclosed amount.

With this acquisition, Manpower Inc. has bought back the 26% stake, making Manpower India a fully owned subsidiary of Manpower Inc.

According to market experts, the latest buyout will provide an accelerated boost to Manpower’s aggressive growth plan and strengthen its position in providing comprehensive and customized suite of global recruiting and staffing solutions to the Indian market.

Government has decided to restructure the equity capital of UCO Bank and Punjab & Sind Bank.

The Indian government holds the majority stake in both the Banks i.e. 74.98 percent stake in UCO Bank and 100 percent stake in Punjab & Sind Bank.

The total paid up capital of UCO Bank is approximately Rs. 800 crores out of which Rs. 250 crores will be converted into perpetual non-Convertible preference shares.

Walchandnagar Industries has informed that it has signed a License Agreement with Foster Wheeler North America Corp., a subsidiary of Foster Wheeler Global Power Group, for High Pressure Grate Fired Industrial Boilers.

Under the deal, Walchandnagar gets an exclusive license for the Indian Territory.

Foster Wheeler’s Global Power Group is a world leader in combustion and steam generation technology that designs, manufactures and erects steam generating and auxiliary equipment for power stations and industrial facilities. The company’s technology includes high capacity sub and super critical boilers, fluidized bed combustion boilers and grate fired industrial boilers.

Republican Rep. Robin Hayes, who is locked in a closely contested House race in North Carolina, has also been criticized after telling a crowd Saturday that “liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve and believe in God.”

At first, Hayes denied making the remarks, but he was forced to acknowledge them after an audiotape of the speech was produced. Clarifying his comment, Hayes said: “I actually was trying to work to keep the crowd as respectful as possible, so this is definitely not what I intended.”

Spice Mobiles has finally launched their latest surprise package, smart and slim musical handset christened ‘Spice S-580’ in the Indian market.

The latest handset comes fully loaded with MP3 player, FM recording, playback and supports expandable memory up to 2 GB.
With the help of FM recording feature, users can record their favorite songs from radio during listening, and set the saved track as their mobile ringtone.

Bangalore-based Royal Orchid Hotels Ltd (ROHL) has entered into an alliance with the Ramada brand, a part of Wyndham Group, to open ten Ramada brand hotels in India by 2011. The hotels will be managed by ROHL.

ROHL already has exclusive development rights for the Ramada brand to handle hotels across Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Under the arrangement, Wyndham, which has more than 6500 hotels across the globe, would offer its reservation, marketing and sales support to ROHL, for which it would charge a reasonable “small percentage” of room revenue.

In a separate release, ROHL has informed that it has launched the Ramada Bangalore, a four-star hotel or upper mid-scale hotel in the city.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Tuesday said that his Govt. is taking all possible steps for well being of displaced Tamils in the country. The primary responsibility of a Govt. is to look after all its citizens and I carry out this responsibility to the fullest.

He said that a wrong impression had been carried in Tamilnadu relating to this matter. This is far from the truth. They are our citizens and we take every measure to look after and provide for them.

Talking to media persons in his office the President maintained that - the friendly relations between Sri Lanka and India remained very strong and New Delhi had always helped us when necessary and supported us at every step.

Wipro has posted a 18.76 per cent rise in the net profit at Rs 978.20 crore for the second quarter ended September 30, 2008, as compared to Rs 898.30 crore in the same period of previous year.

The company’s net sales increased to Rs 6519.60 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2008, compared to Rs 5981.10 crore in the April-June quarter.

Pantaloon Retail India, a Future Group firm, has reported a 22 per cent rise in the net profit at Rs 36.18 crore for the second quarter ended September 30, 2008, as compared to Rs 29.69 crore in the same period of the previous year.

The company's net sales went up by 39 per cent at Rs 1,511.21 crore in the September quarter as compared to Rs 1,086.44 crore it posted in the corresponding quarter last year.

In the September quarter, the company had opened nearly 18 stores in the country.

Daniel Vettori led New Zealand defeated Bangladesh by three wickets to take a 1-0 lead in the two-Test series on Tuesday.

On the fifth and final day of the first Test, Kiwis needed 172 runs to win the match with eight wickets remaining.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has demanded for a central law to tackle religious conversions.

Addressing a press conference the RSS executive member Ram Madhav Said that the conversions should be debated at the national level especially the rampant inter-denominational conversions within the Christian community.

Now there are anti-conversion laws in various states but the authorities are not implementing it properly. Presently Orissa, MP, Himachal Pradesh have such laws.

At the same time RSS have demanded for the immediate arrests of culprits and conspirators behind the brutal killing of Swami Laxamananda Saraswati.

According to the US researchers, sun-damaged skin can be improved by laser treatment. In this treatment a topical solution increases the skin’s sensitivity to light, and can improve the sun burnt skin.

Researchers at the University Of Michigan Health System Department Of Dermatology said that the worst damaged skin may also respond very well in this treatment.

Patients who are taking beta-blockers before and at the time of undergoing non-cardiac surgery appears to have the highest risk of heart attack and death within a month of their surgery, a new research reveals.

“Prevention of these perioperative [around the time of surgery] cardiac complications continues to be the goal of intense research and investigations,” quote the author

A new survey reveals that the people of US become obsessed with their carbon footprints. Their extreme environmental awareness may create a generation of “carborexics”, warns Psychiatrists in US.

According to a new survey 7% of Americans qualify as ‘dark green’ and become hard core recyclers. The New York Times report describe their lifestyles that might considered as ‘carborexic’.

In a new development, in the Reliance Industries (RIL) versus Reliance Natural Resources Ltd (RNRL) case on sharing the natural gas from the KG basin fields, the division bench of the Bombay High Court has allowed the intervention of the government in the case.

The Bombay Stock Exchange has been falling drastically since the start of year 2008. The markets have slipped by  50% . The BSE Sensex closed at 10,169 on Tuesday after losing 513 points. Despite the situation, the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) has declared an investment of $2 billion (Rs 9,772 crore) in India, mainly in equities, over the next two months.

The Deputy Secretary General of the Norwegian Finance Ministry Thorvald Moe stated that India's weight age had been increased to 0.94% from the previous 0.2%. This welcome investment has come at a time when the Foreign Institutional Investors (FII) have taken away $11.2 billion from the Indian stocks since January.

With successful launch of its first maiden Moon Mission Chandrayaan-1, India has become one of only six countries in the world to have achieved this extraordinary space mission.

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) launched Chandrayaan-1 into the Earth's orbit at 6:30 am today through its warhorse rocket PSLV C-11.

Maruti Suzuki, the leading car maker in India has launched a new plant for manufacturing fuel efficient petrol engines. The company is all set to produce some 240,000 engines annually in the production unit. The Kb series 998cc A star engine has been designed to be environmentally friendly and fuel efficient with its light weight construction and innovative technologies to improve combustion and minimize friction.

With the republicans lagging behind the Democrats in fundraising, it took President George W. Bush to involve himself in the proceedings Tuesday night, to raise about $1 million for Senate Republicans.

The President spent about an hour at the National Republican Senatorial Committee fundraiser, held at the Sewall-Belmont House and Museum next to the capitol complex, for the aforesaid fundraising event.

Speaking at the Henderson Pavilion, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin appeared to have ‘switched gears’ so far as her attacks on the Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama, are concerned.

Commending the virtues of equal pay and opportunity for women, Palin framed her White House quest in terms of feminist values, and suggested that Obama is guilty of gender inequality.

Google Adsense publishers will be able to get more data about user activity as Google has integrated Google’s Website traffic metrics solution, Google Analytics with its product for online publishers.

The service will be available for limited accounts. Existing Publishers may see an invitation link on their Adsense Account Dashboard.

Google Adsense publishers have been asking for more details about user activity and clicks data from Google. The current development will help publishers to get more data and base their decisions on user behaviour.

Citing the ongoing financial crisis as the main reason, Samsung Electronics has withdrawn its $5.9 billion takeover bid to acquire US flash memory card maker SanDisk.

Samsung Electronics’ decision comes after months-long standoff with SanDisk, for which the South Korean company had offered $26 a share, later saying that it would offer a lower price than that.

In September, the SanDisk management had rejected the unsolicited offer as too low, deriding it as an opportunistic bid timed to take advantage of falling valuations amid an industry-wide downturn.

Relativity Media LLC, longtime financing partner of Rogue Pictures, is considering the purchase of the horror and thriller film label for as much as $150 million. Talks are on for Relativity to acquire Rogue’s brand, catalog and upcoming releases, clearly indicating Relativity’s intention of getting deeper into the film production business.

Republican vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, is in news again! – This time around for the Republican National Committee’s reportedly $150,000 spending on her spectacular new wardrobe and accessories!

According to a report by the Politico Web site, the reported amount has been spent not on the candidate alone, but her family as well, since early September. The RNC also spent 4,716 dollars on the Alaska Governor’s hair and makeup, while wooing “Joe Six-Pack” to vote for John McCain.

The global financial crisis is having adverse affects on all the industries. First it was the aviation industry which cut its employees, and recently it has been learnt that Yahoo has also taken a step to cut its workforce by 10%.

A new twist has been added to the cash-in-bag case. Now, advocate Anupam Gupta, who is also the senior standing counsel for the UT Administration, claimed that there were two more judges, who were present at the Sector 11 residence of Justice Nirmaljit Kaur where a packet containing Rs 15 lakh was delivered on 13th August. One of them was from Supreme Court while other was from High Court, added Gupta.

Gupta put light on the fact that during 14th to 16th August, when the FIR in the case was registered, the accused in the case, former Haryana additional advocate general Sanjeev Bansal was in constant touch with the same SC judge's son, through five calls and several SMSs.

In a step towards innovation, new variants of Scorpio and Bolero were announced by Mahindra, powered by micro-hybrid technology. The price of the models has been decided between Rs 6.5 lakh and Rs 6.97 lakh.

This technology has been developed by Mahindra in collaboration with Bosch. The good thing in these variants is that they provide an average fuel saving of about five percent, which could not be offered in the earlier variants.

The State owned Gas Authority of India Limited got 2nd place among global gas utilities in Asian region. The ranking is awarded in Platts Global Ranking of Energy Companies. The results of Platts Global Ranking were announced in Singapore on Monday.

Almost all energy industry categories such as Coal and Consumable Fuels, Diversified Utility, Electric utility, Exploration & Production, Gas utility, Independent Power Producer, Integrated Oil and Gas, Refining and Marketing and Storage and Transfer are considered to rank them performance wise.

The ranking by Platts is done on the basis of combination of asset worth, revenues, profits and return on invested capital. Total 250 ranks are awarded to companies for their performance in the respective field.

NMDC has increased iron ore prices by up to 40 per cent. The new ore prices would be effective from October this year. The move of NMDC would affect the steel companies such as Essar, JSW, Ispat and RINL.

However, SAIL and TATA steel would not largely be impacted by the decision of country’s largest iron ore company as these companies maintain their own mines. The steel industry has criticized the decision of NMDC. There is already a slump in the steel industry as the world is facing a stiff global financial crisis.

RINL Executive Dierctor (Commercial) C G Patil has condemned the recent hike. He said that the input prices have been increased and there is a slowdown in the steel industry. This would affect the profit margins of steel companies.

GE Transportation and Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) plan to jointly bag the 1,000 diesel locomotive tender issued by the Indian Railways.

GE Transportation is a unit of General Electric Company and a global diesel locomotive technology leader which is short listed by Indian railways to compete the tender. GE and BHEL and Indian Railways would form a joint venture for the entire process.

Indian Government is planning a long term policy for the assured supply of Uranium for the nuclear power plants in the country. The government is looking for deals with various countries including Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan for its current fuel requirements. It is noted that Indian nuclear power plants are facing acute shortage of nuclear fuel and working at their half capacity.

The net profit of Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) has increased by 18 per cent. Net profit for PSU steel major now stands at Rs 2,009.60 crore for July-September 2008-09 period.

It has registered highest-ever first-half (H1) net profit of Rs. 3,844.80 crore. It has grown by 19.2 percent over the previous year.

The company also posted a turnover at Rs. 13,544.24 crore which is highest ever turnover achieved by the PSU. The net worth of company is around Rs 27,000 crore as shown in the data up to September 30.

The net profit of auto major Hero Honda Motors Ltd has increased by 50 percent for the quarter ended 30 September. The net profit for the quarter stood at Rs 306.30 crore. Hero Honda, the largest two-wheeler manufacturer of the country, is celebrating 25 years of operation. It holds over 55% share of the country’s two-wheeler market

The Supreme Court, on Wednesday, rejected a plea for CBI probe into the rape of a nun in Kandhamal district of Orissa. At the same time the Court has asked the Nun to co-operate in Crime Branch enquiry.

A three judge bench headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan also asked the Orissa government to take generous view in re- building churches in the riot-hit Kandhamal.

The bench, consisting of Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice J.M. Panchal, rejected the plea for a CBI probe of Cuttack Archbishop Raphel Cheenath saying that the state police have already arrested nine accused.  

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party of Chhattisgarh has shown door to 18 of its 51 sitting MLAs. They were dropped from first list of candidates for coming assembly poll scheduled to be haled on next month.  A total of 58 names got a place in the list.  

Chief Minister Raman Singh has been shifted from Dungargaon to Rajnandgaon constituency. He is representing Dungargaon assembly segment in the present assembly. .

After releasing the lists party General Secretary Ananth Kumar said "We have decided not to field 18 of the sitting MLAs in Chhattisgarh. This decision has been taken as per the political and social realities. Out of this, three MLAs have lost their seats due to the delimitation process,"

After the judgment of Supreme court, the Archbishop's house in Bhuabneswar said that the Nun will cooperate with the Orissa police.

Father Joseph Kalathil, the Vicar General of the Archbishop's house said "We are a law abiding community. The nun will certainly cooperate with the crime branch of Orissa police's investigation."

At the same time he expected the state Govt. to respect the advice of the court to assist in re-building of churches.

The Apex court today rejected a plea seeing CBI probe into the much controversial Nun rape case. Arch Bishop of Cuttack has filed the petition on 12th of October.

So much is happening around Aamir Khan these days. The Crown Princess of Sweden- Victoria has invited him to dinner with her.

The 31-year-old princess of Sweden likes the work and contribution of Amir towards Indian cinema. It is reported that she has developed a special weakness after watching Amir's Tare Zameen Par, India's official entry to the Oscars this year. She will be

At the same time Aamir is all set to meet the princess. "It is a privilege to receive a special invitation like this." He said.
    

A House panel has advised the government to actuate a law to protect prime agricultural land. It said that the acquisition of these agricultural plots should be the last option.

The committee said that the law could be drafted on the lines of the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, after examining the Land Acquisition Bill, 2007.
According to the 2007 Bill, the company setting up a project has to acquire 70 per cent of the land while the rest is taken over by the government.

According to the panel, the entire land acquisition should be carried out either by the private firm that wants the land or by the government.

A recent study has said that suicide rates in the U.S. have shown an increase largely due to an increase in suicides among middle aged white men and women. This increase has come about after a decade long decrease in suicide rates.

The study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine said white people in the age group of 40 to 64 have "recently emerged as a new high-risk group for suicide." White women constituted the largest increase in suicides with a 4 % increase although white men still make up the largest number of people who kill themselves though there rate has increased by 3 %.

Jurors' failure to reach a verdict after 8-hours of deliberations, left the Judge in Britney Spears’ trial for driving without a valid California licence, no option but to declare it a mistrial.

Lindsay Lohan has been sued by the three men, whose SUV she drove chasing her personal assistant through Santa Monica streets, leading to her second 2007 DUI arrest.
 
Seeking unspecified damages, the plaintiffs i.e. Ronnie Blake, Jakon Sutter and Dante Nigro filing their case in Santa Monica’s Superior Court, say Lindsay Lohan’s angry and aggressive commandeering of their car caused them ‘surprise, shock, fear and panic at Lohan’s surprising and sudden act’.
 

Nick Hogan, 18 star of ‘Hogan Knows Best’ has been released from jail early, even though his reckless driving left his friend - former Marine John Graziano in need of life long medical care.

Though, Hogan’s act could have seen him facing five years of jail time, his sentence was reduced on the plea of the Graziano family for a lesser sentence.  Having served 166-days of an eight-month sentence, he was released three months early from Florida jail for good behaviour from Florida jail, into the capable custody of his sister, singer Brooke Hogan.

Hogan’s licence remains suspended for 3-years and he will also have to do 500-hours of community service.

Returning to the small screen after five years, Katie Holmes will be seen in tonight’s installment of Eli Stone, a legal drama about Eli Stone, an attorney with a brain aneurysm that gives him psychic visions.  She has also reunited with show co-creator and executive producer - Greg Berlanti, having worked with him on Dawson’s Creek.

Lindsey Evans, Miss Louisiana Teen USA 2008, has been stripped of her title for leaving a restaurant without paying her bill.

On the opening day (Oct 20) at the Gitanjali sponsored ‘Lakme Fashion Week’, Prachi Desai and Sameer Dattani added glamour to the attracting colors of the desert as Krishna Mehta unleashed her line of vibrantly hued Spring/Summer 2009 collection called ‘Sunrise in the Desert Sands’.

Showcasing a men’s and women’s pret line in lively colors including poster red, cobalt blue, yellow, green, shimmering orange and tones of violet added magic to the new collection.

Ixtapa, a Mexican restaurant has been identified as the source of E. coli infection that affected 17 people in Snohomish County.

According to health officials 13 out of the total 17 victims had eaten at Ixtapa. The owners have voluntarily closed the restaurant after the reports. Snohomish Health District officials said that they were co operating with them to resolve the problem.

The place is being sanitized. The health officials are pinning down the exact cause of the infection.

Health District spokeswoman Suzanne Pate said, "It's like looking for a needle in the haystack.”

Aircel, India’s fastest growing telecom service provider, announced that it has cut down ISD call rates for its pre-paid subscribers in Chennai and rest of Tamil Nadu circle.

According to the sources, the proposed scheme is meant for calls specifically made to Malaysia and Singapore.

Through this scheme, Aircel pre-paid subscriber can make ISD calls to Malaysia and Singapore at Rs 3 per minute by a recharge coupon worth Rs. 96.

While on the other hand, with a recharge coupon of Rs. 29, pre-paid customers can make calls to the same destinations at Rs. 3.5 per minute.

HerRoom.com, the leading online retailer of women's underwear, and Wacoal bras have extended their support to Susan G. Komen Foundation in their search for cures.

Obesity of mother directly affects the child. Previous studies have shown that an overweight mother has a higher chance of giving birth to a plump baby. Obesity increases the risk of many diseases.

The recent study found that slightly undernourished rat pups were healthier adults, while overfed babies were fatter.

A separate UNSW study showed that pups from obese mother rats fed more milk were almost twice as heavy as those born to lean mothers feeding normally.  
 

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the former Libyan intelligence agent, 56, is serving a life sentence with a minimum term of 27 years for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103. This plan crash took lives of 270 people, including all 259 passengers on board and 11 residents of Lockerbie, the Scottish town, where the plane crashed. He was convicted in 2001 since than he is fighting a legal battle to overturn the guilty verdict.

A woman chose to going to jail instead of paying $7.45 bill at Fort Pierce Waffle House restaurant. The 66 year old woman, Maryanne O'Neill, had coffee and a sandwich but refused to make payment for the bill.

When she was asked to pay the bill or bear the consequences of being jailed. She preferred to choose the latter.

Maryanne was charged of fraud and misdemeanor as she had obtained food or lodging with the intention of defrauding.

If Maryanne is convicted for the second degree misdemeanor, she could be imprisoned for 60 days and have to pay a fine of $500. 

Dr Geoffrey Hackett from the Good Hope Hospital in Birmingham said that erectile dysfunction is not taken seriously despite the fact that erectile dysfunction is the best predictor of cardiovascular risk in men.

ED gives a two to three year early warning of a heart attack. Erectile dysfunction is a symptom of vascular disease in the smaller arteries, doubles the risk of heart disease, a risk equivalent to being a moderate smoker or having an immediate family history of heart disease.

Children who undergo surgery before 3 years and are exposed to general anesthesia, have a double risk of behavioral or developmental problems than other children.

According to lead author Charles DiMaggio, an assistant professor of clinical epidemiology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons' Mailman School of Public Health in New York City,"There really is no hard evidence that there is any causal association between anesthesia and developmental outcomes in children, though research in rat models indicates that there may be some association between the types of anesthesia and neuronal [brain cell] level changes. The early concern is, could these data be extrapolated to humans?"

Nearly one fourth of the widely used new-generation biological drugs can cause serious side effects.  

Humiraand Remicade drugs for arthiritis; cancer drugs Rituxan and Erbitux, and the heart failure drug Natrecor were included in the list of these drugs.

The study has stunned the doctors who had been recommended these drugs considering them to be safer than other medicines.

The biological drugs are made from living material. They affect the body's disease-fighting immune system. Most of these drugs suppress the disease symptoms.

According to Dr Charles Bennett a Northwestern University drug safety expert, the mechanism of working can cause side effects.

A device has been invented by a German car-maker that will let the motorists to avoid red lights. The name of this gadget is Travolution and it informs the drivers to drive at a specific speed so that when they arrive at the traffic lights, it is green.

The formula behind this gadget is that once installed inside the car, it plots the position of the vehicle and the distance from the next set of traffic signals. Following this, the optimum speed is displayed by it on a screen.

It was a proud moment for World Champion Viswanathan Anand, when he again won against Russian Vladimir Kramnik in the sixth game with white pieces. Now Anand has widened his lead to a huge 3 points at the world championship match.

Anand, who took his tally to 4.5 points, is just two points away from launching himself as the all-time-great world champion. Earlier in 2001, he won the world championship and last year too he won the world championship match tournament. And this time too it seems that victory will be his.

As for Kramnik, he lost third and a fifth game earlier.

Overall, Anand displayed a good and flawless performance, playing with a balanced state of mind.

With the motive to provide a new flexible business model for entrepreneurs and professionals engaged in trade, professional services and technology-based enterprises, a new and revised Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) Bill, 2008, was introduced by the government on Tuesday. The LLP Bill of 2006 gets replaced by this new-much awaited draft legislation.

In the Income-Tax Act, the tax structure of the new form of business would be addressed separately. Prem Chand Gupta the minister for corporate affairs, took the initiative to introduce the bill.

Zaheer Kahn has been fined 80% of his match fee due to his unsporting conduct, against  following the dismissal of  Australian opener Matthew Hayden.  Zaheer pleaded guilty to a charge of conduct opposing to the spirit of the game.

Zaheer was fielding when Hayden was given out LBW to spinner Harbhajan Singh. Chris Broad, the referee of the match, revealed "Zaheer circled the batsman and shouted at him in an aggressive manner." As Hayden walked out of the ground, he complained about Zaheer's indecent behavior to the square-leg umpire Rudi Koertzen.

A new study is surely going to make men insecure, since this new study claims that women like spending time on computers than to spend times with their boy friends or partners.

The study brings to light that most of the women office workers spend almost three times as much time with their computers than their husbands or boyfriends. And they don't really mind it too. According to the Harris Interactive survey of 2,000 women; they in fact enjoy it.

There was only one in five women, who reported that they could spend more time with her mate. It seems that these girls were definitely using computers that run on older technology. But rest all said that they enjoy more time on their computers.

Finnish giant Nokia has made announcement about the launching of its latest sleek looking, compact dual slider N series phone, named ‘N85’ in the Indian market.

With an aim to provide ultimate gaming experience together with feature-rich experience, the newly launched handset comes with 15try-and-buy mobile N-Gage games plus a voucher for one full game license.

After playing a kindhearted teacher in blockbuster ‘Taare Zameen Par’, perfectionist Aamir Khan will be seen in a ‘killer’ look in his upcoming flick ‘Ghajini.’

Aamir sports a masculine bare-chested-look with stylish tattoos on it.

Aamir also said that it was his primary attempt at doing an out an out action role, so he had to work hard for this unique look.

The actor also shows off his eight-packs in the movie for which, he had to undergo extreme physical training and gymming for almost a year.

Recent study has shown a better way to diagnose tuberculosis (TB). Traditional methods to test TB sometimes result in showing wrong people in need of treatment of TB whereas people with TB infection are diagnosed healthy. Researchers claim that that new blood test will equip doctors to more accurately pinpoint patients likely to develop the symptoms of tuberculosis.

Traditional testing method involves injecting the subject with components of the TB bacterium; a resultant swelling of the skin can signal dormant tuberculosis.  

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a rise in food allergies in American children with four out of every 100 kids affected. The allergies which affect about 3 million children, doubles their risk of asthma and triples their risk of skin or respiratory allergies.

Amy Barnum, MSPH, CDC health statistician said, "It is a significant trend -- food allergies do appear to be continuously increasing over the decade. And if you look at hospital discharges with any diagnosis related to food allergy, there has been a significant increase."

The 30-share index Sensex, which had suffered a heavy loss earlier this morning, recovered over 200 points from today’s lows, touching a high of 9,968.12.

Metal, realty, banking, oil & gas stocks led the declining charts.

BSE Midcap and Smallcap index fell 2.52% and 2.26% respectively.

After opened the day negatively at 9,683.41, down 486.49 points, the Sensex crashed to 9681.28 following a massive sell-off in front line stocks.

At 10:59 a.m., Sensex stood at 9,926.09, down 243.81 points, after hitting a high of 9,928.11 and a low of 9,681.28.

The journal Politico, citing expenditures listed on the Republican National Committee’s monthly financial disclosure forms, reported that the RNC shelled out in excess of $150,000 for the clothing, makeup and accessories of GOP vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, and her family, in September.

Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism revealed that Republican presidential nominee John McCain is getting more negative media coverage than his Democratic rival, Barack Obama - more than half the stories on McCain have been negative, compared to slightly less than one-third for Obama.

Anil Kapoor’s loving daughter Sonam Kapoor walked the ramp on day 2 of the five-day Lakme Fashion Week in Mumbai, and impressed the viewers with her alluring beauty.

Sonam swept the cheering crowd’s heart away when she walked the ramp for designer Tarun Tahiliani’s Levis collection at the spring-summer edition on Tuesday.

Tahilani said, “I have designed some exclusive collections for Levis and it will be a great experience to have Sonam walking the ramp for us.”

“I really loved it, had a great time,” Saawariya girl said.

Talking on the corporate greed issue on the second day of a campaign swing through Colorado, Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden said Wednesday that if elected, he and Barack Obama will attack corporate greed, and go after executives who reward themselves at the expense of employees.

Biden said that it was unfair that employees of failed companies lose their pensions, while the corporate executives get paid millions of dollars.

At least 19 people, including 10 children, were killed in a fire cracker explosion in Bharatpur district of Rajasthan.

The explosion occurred at Deeg town, 30 Kms from the district headquarter of Bhratpur. Another 18 people were hurt in the explosion According to police sources. 14 of the injuries have been admitted in the hospital. The death toll could further rise as 10 people are feared buried under the damaged house.

The blast occurred before dawn in a house of a firecracker maker. It a caused a major fire in the locality. Subsequently the fire spread to near by areas and engulfed few houses.

People in that locality were busy in making firecrackers as the blast rocked the whole area. They do this illegally said a police officer.

According to an Ovum report entitled “Market Share: 2Q08 Asia-Pacific ON”, ZTE Corporation (“ZTE”), a global provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions, has recorded another sterling industry sales growth in the segment of Optical Networking (ON) during the second quarter.

The report shows that ZTE has the highest ON annual sales growth in Asia Pacific, with an 8% market share, the 4th highest in the region.

The full body of Central Election Commission (CEC) will visit Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh today to review the arrangements for assembly polls there. The The three-member Commission headed by Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami will review the things at Bhopal on 23rd and in Raypore on 24th.

 Voting for 230 member MP assembly will be held on November 25. The CEC has declared for a single day poll schedule in MP.

On the other hand the Naxal affected Chhatisgarh would have two-phased elections on November 14 and 20. Both the states are ruled by BJP.

Yuvraj Singh-is leading India Blue and S Badrinath is the captain of India Red.

India Blue is said to be the favourites to retain the trophy. It has presence of large number of star players including skipper Yuvraj Singh, Robin Uthapa, Irfan Pathan, Dinesh Karthik and Virat Kohli. This has given them advantage over other two teams.

The other team in the tournament is India green lead by Mohd. Kaif.

Yuvi as the fans call him is eyeing for a double century in the first match. ''My form has not been that good in recent times.Therefore, I am aiming to score a double hundred and bounce back into form,'' he said after the net practice session.

Vakrangee Softwares Ltd., a leading integrated document management and printing management solutions provider, has entered into an agreement with Mumbai-based Financial Information Network and Operations Ltd. (FINO), the Smart Card Solution Provider.

Under the arrangement, both partners will combine their complementary skills and expertise for execution of the Rashtriya Swathya Bima Yojana (RSBY) scheme announced by Government of India for the provision of Health Insurance cover to families below poverty line.

Reliance Communications and HTC Corporation entered into a strategic alliance to introduce the innovation-packed HTC Touch Diamond - CDMA (P3051) in the Indian market.

The recent declaration further strengthens the successful partnership between HTC and Reliance Communication to roll out superior and top-notch mobile handsets for India in the strong-growing CDMA market in India.

Under the alliance, the HTC Touch Diamond - CDMA (P3051) will be exclusively provided on Reliance Communications state-of-the-art wireless network spread across 15,000 towns and 4 lakh Indian villages.

MNS chief Raj Thackeray will appear in Mumbai's Wikroli court on Thursday. The Maharastra Govt. has filed another petition against Raj, seeking cancellation of his bail plea in a different case.

"The State government is seeking the legal opinion on the execution of the non-bailable warrant issued by Jamshedpur magistrate's court against Raj Thackeray and Police will follow all necessary legal procedures in the matter," Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister R R Patil said.

Geometric Limited, a leading provider of Engineering Services and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions and technologies, has entered into a reseller agreement with Autoline Design Software Limited (Autoline), a wholly owned subsidiary of Autoline Industries Limited.

Under this deal, AUTOLINE will distribute Geometric's desktop products like eDrawings Publishers, DFMPro and GeomCaliper.

The Supreme Court has rejected the plea of Vikas Yadav seeking hearing of his appeal by any high court other than that of Delhi. Vikas, sentenced to life imprisonment in Nitish Katara murder case, is the son of UP politician D P Yadav.

A bench comprising of Justice Dalveer Bhandari and Justice HS Bedi rejected his plea mentioning that it did not carry any merit.

Vikas Yadav along with his cousin Vishal were awarded life term sentence by a sessions court in New Delhi on May 30. They were accused of killing Nitish Katara near Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh in 2002.

Karur Vysya Bank has informed that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with leading credit rating agency, ICRA Limited.

Under the MoU, ICRA will assign ratings to the Bank's loans and its other exposures under the standardized approach of RBI's New Capital Adequacy Framework for Basel-II.

Karur Vysya Bank has to assign the new risk weights applicable to its borrowers under Basel-II. According to the lender, the risk weights would be linked to the various rating categories and would be as per RBI's Basel II guidelines.

Areva T&D India Limited, the Indian subsidiary of AREVA France SA, has bagged a contract worth 35 million euro from Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP)1, a flagship unit of the “Steel Authority of India Ltd” (SAIL), the largest steel manufacturer in India.

This contract includes a 132kV Gas insulated substation and Air insulated substations.

In addition, it also includes the complete revamping of the existing protection & control system and feeding the new sub stations through 132KV transmission cables.

It's really good news for people of Mangalore city. They will be getting 24 hour water supply facility in the coming days.

The project will be started on a pilot basis in selected wards of the Mangalore City Corporation (MCC). Later all the 60 wards of the corporation will be included under the project said Minister for Urban Development S. Suresh Kumar.

At present this 24/7 water supply is available in Gulbarga, Belgaum and Hubli city corporations. Eight wards in each of those corporations were provided 24/7 water supply on a pilot basis.

(PDL), India’s leading real estate company, has informed that it would build a five-star hotel comprising
152 rooms in Ahmedabad.

Parsvnath Hotels, a subsidiary of Parsvnath Developers, has undertaken construction of hotel at Vejalpur, Ahmedabad, which has received five-star category approval from the Ministry of Tourism. The project is located just 14 kms away from the airport and mere 9 kms away from the railway station.

India’s state-run power generator NTPC Ltd has revealed its plans to raise up to Rs 4,500 crore from domestic as well as international markets for meeting its expansion plans in the current financial year.

The company intends to raise up to $500 million from the global market by March, to support their expansion plan.

The company also plans to raise Rs 2,000 crore from the domestic market through private placement of bonds.

NTPC stock ended the day at Rs 144, down 5% compared to its previous close of Rs 152.

In a first of its kind, health insurer Aetna Inc. teaming up with Microsoft Corp. is offering clients medical record storage, allowing them to access the Internet-based vault, even if they change jobs or replace their health plan for another.  According to Wall Street Journal, beginning next month, all Aetna clients will be able to transfer information from their Aetna ‘personal health record’, an online repository of data, such as, claims, diagnoses, test results and prescriptions, to HealthVault.  Patients will be allowed to choose what they want to transfer between Aetna and Microsoft.

Mumbai-headquartered Tara Ultimo, a company manufacturing and retailing jewellery, plans to come up with 50 outlets across India in the next two years.

Recently, the company has launched its first store in Goa in tie-up with states’ major industrial group Alcon.

After successful launch of store in Goa, the company intends to launch similar stores in Mumbai and Chandigarh followed by Pune, Raipur, Mumbai (2nd store), Delhi and South Indian cities.

The 1,243-crore company after spreading its footprints in places like New York, Germany, Australia, Japan, China, UK and Los Angeles, has decided to strengthen its position in India's retail market.

A recent study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, reports that Campath, a Genzyme (GENZ) drug already approved for leukemia, could be one of the most effective treatments for multiple sclerosis, as it shows potential for reversing the disease.  Researchers found patients on Campath recovered lost motor functions somewhat and, seemed less disabled three years after trial participation.  The study results suggest that Campath allows damaged nerve tissue to repair.

ItzCash, the country’s first ever ‘Multi Purpose Prepaid Cash Card’ has informed that it has entered into a partnership with Thomas Cook, to facilitate online travel bookings.

The partnership is eyeing at an increase in online transactions at Thomas Cook and both partners has setup estimated target of 1.5 lakh transaction in rail booking, 0.5-lakh transactions for air booking for the next six months.

A study carried out by researchers from the Broad Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University have discovered 26-new genes that are linked to the development of lung cancer.

Looking at 188-patient donated samples of lung adenocarcinoma, a very common and deadly form of lung cancer, 623-different genes were studied as possible suspects, and then compared to genes in healthy tissue in patients.  The researchers found that a total of 26-genes were linked to this type of lung cancer that affects 40% of the 1-million lung cancer deaths each year.

Tata Teleservices, a part of the Tata Group of companies, has informed that it would launch its services in Jammu and Kashmir and the North Eastern region in next two month.

The proposed roll out of services would take its presence to 21 circles across the country. Presently, the company operates in more than 6600 towns across 19 circles.

Gold prices slumped sharply today to end the day with a loss of Rs 370 per 10 grams to Rs 12,155. The price of Gold in local markets dropped due to dramatic collapse in the international prices.

In the local market, standard gold (99.5 purity) ended at Rs 12,155 and pure gold (99.9 purity) also went down by Rs 355 per 10 grams to Rs 12,230 from Rs 12,585 yesterday.

Along with this, Silver also eased further on lack of industrial demand. Silver ready (.999 fineness) corrected by another Rs 70 per kilo to Rs 17,980 from Rs 18,050.

In what is a surprising finding, a new study on babies shows that those cute and cuddly bundles of joy, exhibit signs of jealousy even as young as three months old.

Prof. Maria Legerstee, Department of Psychology, York University and her team studied 50-babies aged 3-months and 6-months with their mothers on hand.  They found interacting with the babies that if the babies were not responded to, they looked sad and looked away.  However, when she took a drink and didn’t engage with them, they didn’t seem to mind, indicating that even babies can sense the reason behind uncommunicative behaviour.

Dr. Geoffrey Hackett, an urologist claims that erectile dysfunction is an early warning sign (two to three years) of an impending heart attack.

In a letter published in the online edition of British Medical Journal, Hackett writes that it is often ignored as doctors feel uncomfortable asking about it, thus treating it more like a ‘recreational or lifestyle issue’.  However, it is no longer acceptable to ignore the issue, and it is clinical negligence on the part of doctors to treat impotence as a socially embarrassing afflicition.

Banglore: A good news for the teaching staff, working with the higher education sector. The Department of Collegiate Education held an ‘Education Adalat’ to solve the problems of faculty regarding their promotions, placements, incentives and settlement of pensions etc.  

Arvind Limbavali, Higher Education Minister, inaugurated the Adalat in Banglore and he addressed the teaching staff “Now that a system has been put in place to solve your problems, I expect you to focus completely on improving your colleges, especially the standard of education.”

A new technique for cervical cancer has developed which can locate the cancer at early stage. Nandita de Souza and her team has developed this technique at the Institute of Cancer Research and London’s Royal Marsden Hospital. The new technique called as 'Diffusion weighted imaging'.

This technique allows the doctors to carry out precise surgery to remove the tumours. The team observed 59 women with cervical cancer aged between 24 and 83 over a period of 22 months and they found that 88% of cancer cases were detected by using the new technique as compare to 77% who were detected by using external scans.

Tata Consultancy Services recorded a net profit of Rs 1,271 crore. The company managed to register only 1.5 percent growth compared to the previous results. India’s largest IT services provider has branches in many countries. Non repayment by banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) clients in the US, would affect the growth of the company in the long run. Dollar depreciation against other currencies such as pound and Euro also hit the margin of the company.

The government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) have relaxed norms of external commercial borrowings (ECBs). Now companies can arrange foreign funds for their projects in quite easily. The companies can now use dollar borrowings for rupee expenditures.

Indian companies are facing difficult times in raising funds from the international markets due to hard rules. The interest rates are much lower overseas and help Indian companies to get funds at much lower cost. The banks are also hesitating for funding the companies due to global financial turmoil.

Pakistan demanded financial help from International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday. The amount is intended to use for repayments of loans and to deal with financial crisis. The country witnessed decline in foreign investment due to internal commotions and militant activities.

Moody’s Investors Service has given a negative outlook for Corus group. Corus is a UK subsidiary of India's largest steel producer, TATA Steel Limited. It has concluded that the demand of products of the company is decreasing significantly in Europe and the UK, and can further decrease in the coming months. This has resulted in decline in steel prices and reduced production volumes following world financial crisis.

The net profit of Anil Ambani group firm, Reliance Power stood at Rs 37 crore for the quarter ended September 30. The company registered a total income of Rs 56.96 for the second quarter. The company maintains cash and liquid balance of Rs 10,756 crore as per the filing of company report at the Bombay stock exchange.

In a move to accommodate Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s intentions of four more years in City Hall, the New York City Council is poised for a big vote Thursday on the term-limits bill.

The voting will have a direct effect on the future of Bloomberg, who is attempting to change city law, so that he can have the chance at a third term.

According to a poll by the Public Policy Institute of California, released Wednesday, though California voters remain closely divided on the question of gay marriage, a majority of them oppose a measure to ban it.

The October 22 poll shows that 52% of likely voters surveyed were opposed to Proposition 8, while 44% supported it, as against the September stats of 55% opposing and 41% favor it.

The Wachovia Corporation, devastated by its acquisition two years ago of Oakland’s Golden West Financial Corp., announced a $23.9 billion third-quarter loss on Wednesday. Wachovia, which is being taken over by Wells Fargo & Co. after nearly collapsing last month, has reported a host of troubles.

In an interview with evangelical leader, Dr. James Dobson, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin focused almost entirely on religion, saying that her “Christian faith” is her “foundation” and that, in regard to the outcome of the election, it is “all in God’s hands.”

When Palin was campaigning in Colorado on Monday, she talked by phone with Dobson for about 20 minutes. Dobson’s radio program ‘Focus on the Family’ aired the interview Wednesday.

Despite posting stronger than expected third-quarter earnings – with profits climbing 48% - Amazon.com’s shares slid nearly 13% in after-hours trading Wednesday, indicating that the online retailer cannot escape the weak economy.

Tom Szkutak, Chief Financial Officer, said on a conference call with analysts that the company experienced slower growth rates near the end of the third quarter, coinciding with the onset of recent turmoil in global financial markets.

Sarah Palin - the only member of the Democratic or Republican presidential tickets who has not discussed her health or allowed her medical records to become public - indicated Wednesday that she would release the records.

Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden released his records earlier this week. Barack Obama and John McCain released theirs earlier during the campaign. In all cases, the reports indicate that they are fit to serve.

Reliance Big Entertainment arm BIGFlix.com, India's largest Video on Demand and DVD Rental service, has entered into partnership with BookMyShow.com, India’s premier Entertainment ticketing website, to offer movie rental services at your doorstep. 

Under the arrangement, all bookmyshow.com users will offer a free BIGFlix.com membership, which will be valid for a period 14 days. The customer will be able to rent and watch unlimited movies of his choice from a catalogue of around 20,000 BIGFlix.com titles through the entire period of 14 days. 

Vadodara-headquartered Jyoti Limited has secured an order worth Rs 541 crore from Karnataka Neeravari Nigam Limited (KNNL) to supply 28 high-end metallic volute water pumps.

The company claims that the latest deal is one of the single largest electromechanical orders ever bagged by an Indian company. 

According to sources, the pumping stations will cater to farmers in northern and eastern Karnataka with a catchment area of about 1,07,000 hectares.

Real estate developer—CHD Developers has formally announced the launch of its much anticipated project, the Silver County, an integral part of CHD Developers’ Rs 1000 crore mega project, CHD City at Karnal.

According to the company, Silver County will feature 200 expandable stand-alone villas with excellent facilities and amazing conveniences to be constructed with an investment outlay of Rs 75 crore.
 

A health industry watchdog group said the number of serious drug reactions and deaths reported to the government shot up in the first three months of this year to set a new record. The Food and Drug Administration received nearly 21,000 reports of serious drug reactions, with 4,825 deaths and 21,000 injuries which occurred in the first three months of 2008 with drugs heparin and varenicline cited as the most dangerous said an analysis of federal data by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices.

Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), the largest life insurance company in India, has entered into an agreement with state-owned Corporation Bank to launch credit cards in the country.

LIC intends to launch the business through its wholly owned subsidiary, LIC Cards Services Limited, which will manage all aspects of its credit card venture. The company already has taken approval from Government of India to form a wholly owned company for this purpose.

SBI Life Insurance, the third largest private life insurance company in the country has launched its first group health insurance plan "Criti9" for State Bank Group customers, to provide a superior health insurance option.

The newly introduced policy will be available for State Bank Group account holders aged 18 to 55 years, with maximum cover ceasing age being 65.

Public sector equipment maker Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL) has secured a contract worth Rs 1474 from the government controlled power generation company NTPC. 

Under the deal, BHEL will set up two 660 MW steam turbine generators for NTPC's Barh thermal power project in Bihar. 

BHEL’s scope of work includes design, engineering, manufacture, supply, erection and commissioning.

This is company's first commercial order with supercritical parameters through the International Competitive Bidding. 

PBA Infrastructure Ltd (PBA) has informed that company’s Joint Venture christened "PBA-CONSITE" has received two orders worth Rs 44.99 crore from Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority.

Further PBA Infra stated that it has 60% share in these two awarded contract. 

The JV has secured first contract worth Rs 15.81 crore for construction of skywalk at Ulhasnagar (East), in which PBA Infra has 60% share, valued at Rs 9.49 crore. 

While, the second contract worth Rs 29.17 crore has bagged for construction of Skywalk at Ulhasnagar (West). PBA Infra 60% share valued at Rs 17.50 crore.

HDFC Bank, India’s second biggest lender by market value, has opened its first full-fledged overseas commercial branch at a new financial district in Bahrain. 

The bank stated that it has chosen Bahrain due to its excellent location, clean, open and transparent regulations, cost-effectiveness, and good bilateral relations between India and Bahrain. 

Cognizant technologies, a leading provider of global consulting, technology and business process services, has entered into a five-year agreement with UK-based AstraZeneca, a leading pharmaceutical major, to provide application maintenance services in the business-critical areas of research, clinical development, and sales and marketing.

Under the extended agreement, Cognizant will work with AstraZeneca's Global Shared Services organization and implement world class, end-to-end application maintenance services. 

Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries (RIL), the largest private oil refiner and retail giant in India has registered a 7.4 per cent growth in profit at Rs 4122 crore in the second quarter, as compared to Rs 3837 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2007.

While company's second quarter revenue rose 39.40% to Rs 44,938 crore in the three-month period ended September 30, against Rs 32,211 crore in the year-ago period. 

UTI Mutual Fund, the country's oldest fund, has launched its unique 'UTI Wealth Builder Fund-Series II', an open ended equity oriented scheme in the Indian market.

UTI claims that UTI Wealth Builder Fund-Series II is the first of its kind in the mutual fund industry to offer asset allocation which combines traditional as well as non- traditional asset class i.e. Equity and Gold. 

It might be quite interesting and surprising to know, but India’s space program actually commenced at a church located in Thumba, a small village known only for fishing and a bit far from Thiruvanathanapuram airport in Kerala. 

On Tuesday, a System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 was launched by Microsoft. Through the launch of this Virtual Machine Manager, Microsoft added another key component to its virtualization arsenal. 

All important virtualization management pieces of Microsoft's strategy can be handled by Virtual Machine Manager 2008, and it has been learnt that Microsoft has spent much of 2008 deciding as to how the software could manage both Hyper-V and VMware's ESX hypervisor, as well as physical servers, through a single interface. 

Chandrayaan-1 will be taken over by Peenya in Bangalore, for keeping an eye on its operations, after the launch at Sriharikota. 

For the next two years, the main centre to tracking and controlling Chandrayaan, would be the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (Istrac) at Peenya, where hectic activities have already begun. 

It is a known fact that corals are near extinction. But nature has its own way to keep life moving. In a last earnest effort of the staghorn corals to survive, it has been learnt that they have started cross-breeding with other related species of corals.  

Zoe Richards of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies informed, "This breaks all the traditional rules about what a species is."

In four matches conducted so far, Ahmedabad Rockets have won a single match against formidable Royal Bengal Tigers. However, on Wednesday at the ICL 20s Championship at the Sardar Patel Stadium, it was an emphatic win by the Ahmedabad Rockets over Bengal Tigers. 

The bowlers of the rockets team displayed a fine performance when they restricted Tigers batting to 131. The batting for Rockets was opened by Murray Goodwin and Ryan Campbell, who scored fours and sixes as the Tigers’ attack weakened under the assault and the Rockets speed away to 137 without loss in 12 overs. 

The pre-paid subscribers of Aircel in Chennai and rest of Tamil Nadu circle can be happy, since the company has slashed ISD call rates for them. 

The calls specifically made to Malaysia and Singapore will benefit from this scheme. A subscriber would be able to make ISD calls to Malaysia and Singapore at Rs 3 per minute, if he gets a recharge coupon worth Rs 96. If incase he gets coupon for Rs 29, the call would cost Rs. 3.5 per minute. 

This offer has been started off since there is vast numbers of Tamilians residing in Malaysia and Singapore. 

Keeping in mind the “cultural sensitivities” in India, the release of Fallout 3 has been cancelled by Microsoft India in the nation. 

It was earlier planned that on 28th October, the Bethesda RPG will be published on Xbox 360 by the platform holder. However now MS informs that game was cancelled from being launched since it could hurt Indian sensibilities. 

Many companies offers decent discounts and new products to cash on the festive season. After Sony, now it's Canon who has launched many new Digital products in the market .The products are better versions of existing models as well as new products from digital cameras,camcoders,printers,copiers and all-in-ones besides quite a few software applications. 

The company, for the first time, has launched cable ID printers and card printers and is very confident of their performance.

The critical situation of the financial market has started taking its toll on a lot of companies. The financial services company Bajaj Finserv has shown losses during the period July to September.

The Managing director of the company confirmed the slowdown and pressure on margin in his statement: "Yes, we are seeing a slowdown in the sector. Industry growth has slowed down".

The Singur land is up for takes after the withdrawal of Tata Motors. However, the State Commerce and Industry Secretary Sabyasachi Sen has urged the need to set up alternate industry in the land after acquiring it back from the Tata group. Mr. Sen also stated that if Tata's would like to set up any industry, they were welcome to do so. 

Also new investment for the 997 acres shall pour in only once the land is returned to the government. To quote Sen "So far no fresh proposal has come for the Singur land".

Bank of India has shown a 80 percent increase in net profit during the period July-September with both interest and Non-interest incomes going up. The bank has registered a profit of Rs 7.63 billion as against Rs 4.25 billion last year. Also the total income has shown a rise from Rs 36.03 billion last year to Rs 46.12 billion. While the net interest income rose to Rs 13.63 billion against Rs 9.86 billion a year back, whereby improving the net interest margin from 3.04 percent a year back to 3.2 percent now.

State Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that state health department has already taken several steps to control population.

He said that the health department has accorded top priority to population control for 2009-10. There has already been a decline in the population growth rate of Assam, and the next survey will make this clear.

He added that that the Janani Suraksha Yojana, which provides financial incentive of Rs 1,400 to a mother in the event of a delivery in a government hospital, would now offer another Rs 1,000 if the family concerned opted for family planning.

The riot-hit Kandhamal district of Orissa is slowly returning to normalcy. District authorities have lifted the prohibitory orders under Section 144 CrPc from entire district from today. But the night curfew in five worst affected police stations will continue. 

District collector of Kandhamal Dr. Krishan Kumar said, "The night curfew would be lifted at any time from these areas while reviewing the law and order situation. There is no news of any untoward incidents in last fortnight."

17 Bangladeshi fishermen were arrested near Orissa coast for illegally fishing in the Bay of Bengal.

They were arrested near Paradip Port of Orissa according to police. "They were fishing illegally in Indian waters some 35 nautical miles from the port. The coast guards caught them and handed over to police. "said a police officer of Paradip area.

This has become a regular problem in Orissa coast in which Bangla fishermen crossing international boundaries are forcibly fishing in Orissa coast. Even they have started to live in that area permanently. Population of these migrants could touch a figure of 30 thousand in Erasama and Rajanagar block of Jajgatsinghpur and Kendrapara district respectively.

After becoming the highest run getter in Test cricket, the Liitle Master Sachin Tendulkar has catapulted back among the top 20 Test batsmen in ICC test rating. 

Now he stands at number 19 in the ICC list. He was at 24th spot before the biginning of Mohali test; that was his lowest position in last 15 years. 

In the same match the 35-year-old Mumbai player became the highest scoring Test batsman in history of world cricket overtaking the record of 11,953 runs set by West Indies' Brian Lara.

The Maharaja of Indian cricket Sourav Ganguly, who hit a century in the first innings of the second Test has also improved his position. The ranking shows his position at 23rd. 

The Maharastra Nav Nirman Samiti general secretary Shirish Parkar was arrested on Wednesday night on charges of rioting. He was arrested by Kherwadi police. Parkar is the key aide of Raj Thackrey.

Police picked him from Thackeray's residence, Krishna Kunj, in Shivaji Park. DCP (Zone-3) confirmed his arrest. "Shirish Parkar has been arrested for rioting around the Bandra-Kurla Complex on Tuesday,'' he said. 

According to police Parkar was booked under Sections 143, 144, 145 and 141 of IPC, holding him responsible of rioting and unlawful assembly.

Whether u believe it or not, but it's true.

One of the groups of lawyers defending the MNS chief Raj Thackrey belongs to North India. He is the most common face in Raj's legal team.

Akhilesh Chaubey, the 32-year-old lawyer from Jaunpur in UP, is one of strongest North Indian supporter of Raj. Raj has declared war against the North Indians residing in Mumbai or coming into the business capital of India for other reasons. 

Chaubey is associated with Raj since 1987 when he was a Shivsena activist. At that time Raj was heading Bharati Vidyarthi Sena, student wing of Shivsena. 

The Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has wound up his Two day long Japan visit. 

Before flying to China he desribed his visit to the island nation as "very productive and fruitful".

This was his second visit to Japan in less than two years. "This in itself reflects the great importance that India attaches to its relationship with Japan," Dr. Singh said 

PM is scheduled to meet his Pakistani counterpart in Beijing.

In the concluding hours of his visit PM met with his Japanese counterpart Taro Aso on Wednesday.

Maharashtra Navnirman Sena leader, Raj Thackeray, was let off on interim bail on Wednesday, after spending a night at the Manpada police station, Thane.

On Tuesday MNS workers were at their boisterous best, destroying property, indulging in arson and wreaking havoc all over the state of Maharashtra. Things calmed down a little on Wednesday when the proceedings shifted to the Kalyan court, where Mr. Thackeray was produced in relation with a case registered at the Kalyan railway police station on October 19. The allegation against him was setting off attacks on North Indian students appearing for a Railway Recruitment Board examination. The court accepted his anticipatory bail application.

St Stephen’s College seems to have taken serious offense to Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s comment that during his year-long stay there, students who asked questions in class “were looked down upon”.

On Tuesday, while addressing students at a university in Srinagar, Rahul Gandhi said, “When I was studying at St Stephen’s College, asking a question was not (perceived to be) good in our class. You were looked down upon if you asked too many questions.”

This statement set off a chain reaction among the Stephanians.

The National Conference (NC) set the poll campaign rolling on Wednesday. It organized a rally at the sports stadium where around 3,000 people, mostly delegates, gathered to listen to Omar Abdullah who kicked off his party’s campaign.

“We realise that this time campaigning will not be easy. We have to tread a difficult path and we are ready for it. We deliberately chose the workers’ convention to kick-off our campaign. From tomorrow, we will have a full-fledged campaign in villages and other areas,” said the NC president. 

A federal health panel has suggested pneumonia vaccine for smokers due to high risk of the disease for them. The recommendations of the panel are likely to be accepted by the CDC.

The vaccination program would include smokers in the age group of 19 to 64.

Statistical data indicates that smokers are about four times more prone to pneumococcal disease than nonsmokers.

According to CDC spokesman Curtis Allen, nearly one-fifth of U.S. adults smoke cigarettes. Allen said.

After ‘Kyun Ho Gaya Na’ And ‘Nanhe Jaisalmer’, ace Bollywood director Samir Karnik is back to set box office afire with his latest his latest multi-starrer ‘Heroes.’

Salman Khan, who has played different roles in his flicks, would now be doing something, which he hasn’t done previously.

In Heroes, Sallu will be seen playing the role of a Sardarji for the first time.

According to medical experts black women die of breast cancer more often than white women. But the numbers in Chicago, are especially alarming.  According to the recent statistics by The Chicago Metropolitan Breast Cancer Task Force, African American women in Chicago are more than twice likely to die of breast cancer than the whites.

The breast cancer death rate of African – American women is 116 percent higher than whites, according to data released Wednesday by the Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Task Force.

Junk food and busy lifestyles are the main culprits behind obesity epidemic. Food should be eaten slowly but people don’t have time to sit down and have food properly.

A recent Japanese research has shown that this gulping of food leads to obesity. Researchers looked at the relationship between eating speed, feelings of "fullness" and being overweight.

Hiroyasu Iso and colleagues at Osaka University analyzed the data collected from 3,000 Japanese volunteers aged 30 to 69 about their eating habits.

Rejecting the plea of father, The Apex court of the country had advised the Nun to cooperate in CB probe. 

Meanwhile the State Govt. expressed its willingness to conduct test identification (TI) parade at any place on the choice of the Nun.

Spa is very beneficial for the aching muscles. Snake spa is the recent addition in the long list of various types of beauty and health spas available around the world.

Ada Barak's snake spa, in Talmei Elazar, northern Israel is offering a unique massage by snakes in just £40 ($70). Special snakes such as California and Florida king snakes, corn snakes and milk snakes are used for the massage. The size of the snakes used during the massage depends on the type of massage an individual needs, as the larger reptiles are used to alleviate “deeper muscle tensions” while the smaller ones give a lighter touch on delicate parts such as face.

For the convenience of the senior citizens, the General Insurance Council is working on portable medical insurance product for senior citizens. 

Once the scheme is finalized, insurance companies would file the draft scheme with Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority, as required by the File and Use procedure of Irda. 

This council consists of chairman cum managing directors or chief executive officers of general insurance firms.

Minister of state for finance Pawan Kumar Bansal said, “The General Insurance Council is in the process of developing a health insurance policy for senior citizens that would be standard across all insurers and therefore portable. The policy is to be finalised shortly.”

Recent research has shown that the new technique known as endocavitary MRI can analyze the extent of cervical cancer in a better way. This technique can locate previously undetectable early stage cervical cancers.

The new method equips doctors to carry out precise surgery to remove the tumours, rather than having to opt for a full hysterectomy.

The death toll in fire cracker explosion tragedy in Deeg of Bharatpur district has touched 29. It includes 11 children. Several other seriously injured persons have been hospitalized.

The explosion took place at Darukuta Mohalla in Deeg town in the house of two brothers, Sukha and Badle Jatav, while they were making crackers.

Bharatpur superintendent of police Rohit Mahajan said, "Preliminary investigations indicate that the blast might have been caused by a spark while crackers were being manufactured in the house."

It was a memorable moment for people of Garo hills in Meghalaya. After a gap of long 56 years they got chance to have a glimpse of their President.

President Pratibha Devisingh Patil visited the Garo hills yesterday and inaugurated the Baljek airport in Tura in Meghalaya. Baljek becomes the second airport in the hilly state.

The President congratulated the people of the state in a function organized at the newly inaugurated airport for focusing on building, critical infrastructure for development and said progress and prosperity cannot be realized without adequate infrastructure and a network of connectivity.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Thursday suspended her former Principal Revenue Secretary Balwinder Kumar for Rae Bareli land controversy.

Allegation against Kumar is that he allotted the land of 189 hectares for Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi's dream project the proposed rail coach factory without taking the approval of state cabinet.

Kumar declined to comment on the matter. Before his suspension he has already been shifted to member (judicial) of Board of Revenue.

There is no better platform for cosmetic products than to present it in style directly in forth of its target audience. ‘Sunsilk’, which is one of the most widely used hair care products in the nation among the women, exploited the fashion platform flaunting its new range ‘Sunsilk Style’ at the ongoing Lakme Fashion Week (LFW) at Mumbai.

The brand was launched with elegance as the Sunsilk’s Brand Ambassador, Priyanka Chopra herself endorsing a new hairdo walked the ramp. The stage was further set on fire with the new hairstyle being presented by actress Kangana Ranaut and model Mugdha Godse. While Priyanka wore a straight hairdo, Kangana was seen with curled locks and Mughda in a layered hairstyle.

According to a new study published in Human Reproduction, women who were severely depressed during early pregnancy were twice as likely to have a preterm delivery. The worse the depression the greater was the risk of giving birth prematurely, the leading cause of infant mortality.

In an attempt to market their brand, the companies have been using the concept of telemarketing since long so as to give information as well as to lure its prospective customers, but, anything in excess is bad. In a hearing where the High Court charged the private bank, ICICI for making unsolicited calls despite barring them to do so earlier said that the bank should now "face the music''.

The Court's Jurisdiction was given under a division bench of Justice Vikramjeet Sen and Justice S L Bhayana who denied of giving a stay to the proceedings under the petition filed by the bank that they were obeying the courts directive. The counsel of the bank claimed that the advocate, Nivedita Sharma who filed the complaint against them had no evidences to prove them guilty.

It is disappointing news for Surya’s fans who were eagerly waiting for his upcoming movie ‘Vaaranam Aayiram’. Gautham Vasudeva Menon’s film, which was due to hit the theatres this Diwali on October 27 has postponed its release to November 14.

The main reason for the postponement is being attributed to the slowdown encountered in selling of the distribution areas. In the smaller towns most of the good screens have been taken over by Aegan and Seval.

Finalization of the Telugu rights are yet to be done and the distributor has affirmed that the release of Menon’s mega movie will take place two weeks after the multi starrer Malayalam movie Twenty:20 hits the theatres. Even abroad, Aegan has already done its booking in theatres.

007 is back with its new flick, ‘Quantum of Solace’. Daniel Craig who is endorsing the character opines that this time around the action hero resorts to finish what was left as incomplete before.

Casino Royale, which was Bond’s last movie saw an emotional Daniel who is betrayed by his beloved, Vesper yet the mystery remains unsolved as the Bond is unable to reason out the factor that led to this consequence. Bond this time around along with M – finds about a threatening organization named ‘Quantum’.

A five-member team of Ministry of Health arrived in Assam’s Baksa region and started its investigation following administration of measles vaccines that is suspected to have resulted into death of four infants.

The State government, however, said no to the allegations that the infants’ deaths were caused because of botched vaccines.

The government declared ex-gratia of Rs 1 lakh to parent of each of the four babies, who died after receiving the vaccines in four different villages under Nimua Public Health Centre of the district.

Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma, State Health Minister, said that the government was sure that deaths had not been caused by measles vaccines given to them.

A fear that 50 students might be exposed to HIV, led health officials to test students at Normandy High School, in St Louis, Missouri. The scare began when the St. Louis County Health Department said last week that a positive HIV infected person told health officials that as many as 50 students might be infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

The pride of the nation, cricketer Sachin Tendulkar was rated among the top twenty test batsman by ICC, which released its latest rankings of players. Tendulkar overthrew Brian Lara’s record by scoring above his score of 11,953 runs.

In the test cricket being played in Mohali against the Aussies, Tendulkar plummeted to 24th position, his lowest in fifteen years but jumped to 19th rank during the second test match where he made 88 innings and 10 not out.

Player Gautam Gambhir score of 67 and 104 took him to the 29th position, up by 8 ranks. The captain of the team Mahendra Singh Dhoni got placed at 37th position moving seven ranks up. To be retired Sourav Ganguly scored his 100 moved to 23rd position while Virender Sehwag moved to tenth place.

The Apex Court of India on Thursday refused to entertain an application filed by the Ansal brothers seeking review of their bail cancellation in the Uphaar cinema tragedy case.

The Uphaar cinema tragedy in New Delhi had claimed 59 lives.

A Bench comprising of Justices B N Aggrawal and G S Singhvi said the Ansal brothers, cannot seek review of the apex court's order in the garb of modification application.

The Court directed the accused to file a review petition as that was the only remedy available to them under the law.