Five crew members including Prabhat Goyal, the captain of the Japanese cargo vessel Stolt Valor, reached home after spending almost two months as hostages in a Somalian port.

The crew members arrived from Muscat around 5am at Mumbai international airport and were greeted by their relatives.

The vessel, which had 18 Indians on board, was hijacked in September off the Somalia coast.

After their release the crew members have been returning in batches.

Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh indicated that he is going to join BJP-led NDA very shortly.

"We are discussing with many parties, but there are only two alliances-one is NDA another is UPA," he said to reporters. But when asked about his talks with BJP, he indicated an alliance.

"There are many crossings in the way," he added.

Earlier BJP chief Rajnath Singh said that, the decision on the alliance with RLD will be announced soon. Sources in the RLD said the party wants to contest at least 10 seats in western Uttar Pradesh.

HCL Technologies Ltd, India's fifth largest IT company's mega-acquisition of UK-based SAP consulting company Axon Group, is nearly complete. HCL chief executive Vineet Nayar said "Axon investors by majority (99.9 per cent) accepted our cash offer of 650 pence ($9.78) per share. The deal will be finalised after the court approval Dec
15."

Meanwhile, the Delhi-based HCL informed the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) that a London court had also cleared the scheme of arrangement to implement the acquisition by its subsidiary HCL EAS Ltd.

While it has always been felt that IITians take more than they give to the society, a study carried out by PanIIT, an organisation of all the seven IITs in partnership with the India Brand Equity Fund, has highlighted the contribution made by IITians for economic value addition, job creation and managing huge budgets over the past 50 years in India and abroad. The study emphasised the economic impact created by them in terms of wealth creation and social transformation.

The TDSAT has directed sports broadcaster ESPN India to supply its signals to Sun Direct at half the cable rates specified by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

Headed by Justice Arun Kumar, the Telecom Disputes and Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) said, “The sports broadcaster will supply signals as per the directions to TRAI of its channels within one week from the date of the order passed on a la carte basis at 50 per cent of its declared Non-CAS cable rates."

Here’s something to wake you up. A new report of University of Queensland predicts that people are more likely to suffer heart failure in the winter season.

A team of researchers from the Departments of Clinical Pharmacology and Cardiology at the Royal Adelaide Hospital examined the seasonal differences in hospital admissions and deaths in 2961 patients with chronic heart failure in South Australia over the period July 1994 to June 2004.