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ICC Under-19 World Cup 2012: India beat New Zealand; reach final

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India relied on spinners Baba Aparajith and Harmeet Singh to pull off a thrilling 9-run victory over New Zealand and cruise into the final of the ICC U-19 Cricket World Cup on Thursday.

Meanwhile check out our live coverage of Ind vs NZ – 1st Test »
Also read: Why BCCI is angry with Sahara »

Defending a modest total of 209, Indian bowlers maintained their consistency throughout as they restricted New Zealand to 200 for nine in their 50 overs to set up a title clash against Australia on Sunday.

Govt serves ultimatum to Twitter to block offending webpages

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Government has given an ultimatum to social networking site Twitter to block nearly 30 of its webpages which continue to host morphed and inflammatory contents or face punitive action.

The move comes after Union Home Secretary R K Singh asked the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEIT) to serve the ultimatum on Twitter as it failed to comply with the government order to block 28 webpages in its site.

Singh told DEIT to take appropriate action if the offending webpages are not blocked immediately by Twitter.

Storing zettabytes of information on a few grams of DNA

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Archival storage of the world’s ever-increasing volume of information is reaching a point where it will require a breakthrough technology to meet the enormous need.

Although flash drives and external hard drives have become remarkably efficient and eminently affordable, the speed of vast data creation on a daily basis could make them impractical. What also makes them impractical over the long term is the sheer physical wear and tear.

Curiosity spots ‘UFO’ zooming across Mars’ horizon

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NASA’s Curiosity rover has captured a strange white light dancing across the horizon of Mars and four blobs hovering in the sky, which UFO hunters claim are alien ships monitoring humans’ baby steps into the universe.

While the images are certainly a curiosity, NASA and photography experts insist they are nothing more than blemishes on the images, picked up by the camera lens sitting on the rover at a distance of 350 million miles away.

Shrew like rat species lives off earthworms

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A new shrew like rat species, unearthed in a remote rainforest, cannot chew or gnaw but lives exclusively on earthworms.

The species Paucidentomys vermidax, found in the remote rainforest on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, has fang-like upper incisors which are useless for gnawing and no back teeth. It feeds on earthworms which it sucks out of the ground at the foot of the jungle with its long snout.

It shares something in common with insectivorous shrew rats from the Philippines but has completely dispensed with chewing molars, the journal Biology Letters reported.

Herbal tea could help combat breast cancer

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Scientists have discovered that extracts from a plant, found in arid regions of India and Pakistan can kill cancerous cells and produces no harmful side-effects associated with chemotherapy.

Tea from the plant known as virgin`s mantle is already drunk by women in rural Pakistan who have breast cancer, the Daily Mail reported.

Researchers from Aston University, Birmingham, and Russells Hall Hospital, Dudley, found that it contains potent anti-cancer agents that act singly or in combination against the proliferation of cancer cells.

Good dental hygiene lowers risk of dementia

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Brushing teeth and maintaining oral hygiene could help women keep their memory sharp and stave off dementia, a new study has claimed.

Researchers from the University of California found that those women who brushed their teeth less than once a day were up to 65 per cent more likely to develop dementia than those who brushed three times a day, the Daily Mail reported.

US hit by worst outbreak of deadly West Nile virus

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The United States has been hit hard by the largest ever outbreak of West Nile virus, spread mostly by mosquito bites, that has killed 47 people and infected an estimated 95,000 in 38 states.

The number of cases so far this year is the highest recorded through August since the disease was first detected in the United States in 1999, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

We are the favourites, challenges are not many: Wim Koevermans

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Despite entering the tournament as the lowest ranked team, national football coach Wim Koevermans preferred to dub India the “favourites” in the Nehru Cup, and is confident of the side retaining the title for the third straight time.

Defending champions India have won the tournament in 2007 and 2009, but the slide in FIFA rankings (168) recently is not something the team would have wanted to, going into the five-nation tournament.

Sports ministry denies recognition to Indian cricket board, Hockey India

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The union sports ministry has not accorded its annual recognition to 14 national sports federations (NSF), including the Indian cricket board and Hockey India.

Among the 51 recognised sports bodies, outfits for little-heard-of sports like atya-patya, ten-pin bowling, tug of war, shooting ball, jump rope, and tennikoit have been accorded recognition.

Laudably, among other sports federations that have been recognised are those for sports for the deaf, and the sports for mentally challenged.

FDI in multi-brand retail to harm Indian workers: Report

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FDI in multi-brand retail without adequate safeguards will lead to widespread displacement and poor treatment of Indian workers in logistics, agriculture and manufacturing, the government Wednesday cited a global report on Wal-Mart as having said.

Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jyotiraditya Scindia informed the Rajya Sabha in a written reply, that Switzerland-based UNI Global Union has presented a paper on ‘Wal-Mart’s Global Track Record and the implication for FDI in multi-brand retail’.

Bank staff on 2-day strike; services paralysed

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Services in the public sector banks were hit as staff and officers belonging to some unions on Wednesday went on a two-day strike protesting against reforms in the sector, outsourcing of non-core services to private sector and demanding pension revision among others.

Normal banking operations, including cash transactions, cheque clearances, foreign exchange dealings were affected.

Customers were depending more on the ATMs as the bank managements had made advanced arrangement for loading the machines with cash.

Pakistanis knows how to defend their country: Ashraf

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Pakistanis know how defend every inch of their country, said Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf as the nation was battered by a string of terror attacks with the latest assault taking place at a key Air force base.

Rejecting talk of despondency, Ashraf said Tuesday that being a brave and courageous nation, Pakistanis know how to defend every inch of their country and can even sacrifice their lives for this purpose, reported Associated Press of Pakistan.

China to formulate five-year anti-corruption plan

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China will implement a five-year plan to eliminate corruption after the upcoming national congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), a senior official said.

He Guoqiang, a CPC Central Committee member, expressed readiness to improve anti-corruption efforts, describing the improvements as a “dynamic and long-term strategic project”, reported Xinhua.

The 18th CPC National Congress will find new ways to prevent corruption both now and in the future, said He.

US asks Iran to protect women’s rights

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The United States has urged Iran to protect women rights as it expressed concern over news reports that 36 Iranian universities have banned women from 77 fields of study.

“This decision represents a significant regression for women in Iran, who have outnumbered men in universities for over a decade, and will further restrict the ability of Iranian women to find employment,” the State Department spokesperson, Victoria Nuland, said.

Gill to address Republican National Convention

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Republican party’s “young gun” Ranjit ‘Ricky’ Gill has become the third Indian-American after Governors Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley to get an invite to address the party’s National Convention, reflecting the growing influence of the community in mainstream US politics.

Endorsed by some of the top Republican leaders, including former Florida Governor Jebb Bush and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, 25-year-old Gill is the only Indian-American from the party to contest for a seat in the House of Representatives.

Tokyo police to set up spl rescue team for disaster mgt

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Tokyo police will set up a special team to be engaged in rescue operations in case of an inland earthquake hitting the metropolitan area or to be dispatched as an international emergency aid unit, police officials said on Wednesday.

The Special Rescue Team (SRT) will consist of 35 elite members who have been involved in rescue operations in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster in northeastern Japan or who specialize in using heavy machines.

Highly sexualised atmosphere in Oz military: Report

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Australian military forces have “highly sexualised behaviour” towards women, a damning enquiry into the treatment of women in military has concluded, but has recommended influx of more fairer sex in olive green to change attitudes.

“Sexual harassment and abuse exists today in the Australian Defence Forces (ADF). It ruins lives. It divides,” Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick told reporters, after making public her damning review.

BJP reaches out to TMC on coal block allocation

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Seeking to corner the government over the CAG report on coal block allocation, BJP is understood to have reached out to key UPA constituent Trinamool Congress.

Sources said BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain and Rajiv Pratap Rudy had a “chance meeting” with TMC leader Mamata Banerjee at the Delhi airport late last evening.

The two BJP leaders are understood to have sought TMC’s support against “corruption” in the UPA government and in cornering the government over the recent CAG reports.

Naxals using women, kids as shields : Govt

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Naxalites have adopted a new tactic of using women and children as human-shields during exchange of fire with security forces, the government on Wednesday said.

Among other new strategies, the rebels are “using terrorist tactics like kidnappings to get their cadres released and are attempting to link-up with North-East insurgent outfits for supply of arms and ammunition”, Minister of State for Home Affairs Jitendra Singh told Rajya Sabha in a written reply.

Working with govt to remove hateful content, say FB, Google

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Internet companies Google and Facebook today said they are working with Indian authorities to remove “inflammatory and hateful content” on their websites.

“We understand the gravity of the situation, strongly condemn acts of violence and continue to work closely with relevant authorities.

Content intended to incite violence, such as hate speech, is prohibited on Google products where we host content, including YouTube, Google+ and Blogger,” Google said in a statement.

‘Oceans could be the future of nuclear power’

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Oceans which are a rich source of uranium may soon hold the future of nuclear power as scientists are developing a cost-effective way to extract the precious metal from the waterbodies through special mats.

A team of researchers led by Dr Robin Rogers, from the University of Alabama are involved in making cheaper and efficient mats and compounds that latch onto uranium.

The standard extraction technique, developed in Japan, uses mats of braided plastic fibres embedded with compounds that capture uranium atoms.

MoEF forms panel to examine Western Ghats report

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Environment Ministry has constituted a high-level Working Group headed by eminent space scientist and Planning Commission member K Kasturirangan to examine the Western Ghats ecology expert panel report “in a holistic and multidisciplinary fashion”.

The nine-member Group will examine the Madhav Gadgil committee report released recently “in a holistic and multidisciplinary fashion keeping in view the comments received from the concerned state governments, central ministries, stakeholders”, the Ministry said.

No more films for Sonali after `Once Upon…`

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‘Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai 2’ may be Sonali Bendre`s last film, if she has her way.

“Yes, I am doing a film. It`s a role in `Once Upon A Time in Mumbaai 2` and I don`t know if I will ever do another film. But this role was very interesting and I said yes to it,” the 37-year-old said here on the sidelines of the India International Jewellery Week (IIJW).

The actress is making her comeback with the Ekta Kapoor production.

She says that the Balaji Telefilms team is like family to her and that`s the reason she agreed to do the movie.

Sacrificing sleep for extra study time is counterproductive

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Trying to master a new skill or new dance steps? Make sure you take good breaks while training because you`ll learn faster than if you push yourself non-stop, suggests a new study.

Psychology researchers Soren Ashley and Joel Pearson from the University of New South Wales found that adopting a “practice makes perfect” approach has limits: train too much and the law of diminishing returns cuts in to impede progress.