Month: July 2009

CCTV to check attacks on Indians in Australia

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Melbourne, July 07: As Australia steps up efforts to tackle crime and check attacks on foreign students, particularly Indians, police in Victoria state have positioned a van mounted with closed circuit television (CCTV) in a Melbourne suburb that has witnessed several such incidents.

The number of crimes being committed against Indians in the last two months, mainly in the western suburbs, has alarmed the police and the federal government. At least 19 students have been assaulted in Australia since May 9.

Nimbalkar murder accused surrenders before UP court

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Mumbai, July 07: An accused in Congress leader Pawanraje Nimbalkar murder case surrendered before a UP court and the CBI will seek his custody soon to bring him to the city, officials said here.

MP Padamsinh Patil and five others have been arrested for the murder of Nimbalkar in 2006.

“Kailash Yadav, who allegedly arranged the killers for Nimbalkar’s muder, has surrendered today before a court in Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh,” Rishi Raj Singh, Joint Director CBI, said to a news agency.

At over Rs 3k crore, Budget makes cops happy

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New Delhi, July 07: Budget 2009-2010 has kept aside a substantial Rs 3,041 crore for the Delhi Police, of which Rs 22.61 crore has been specially earmarked for upgrading security for next year’s Commonwealth Games.

A senior officer said this was the first time that the Delhi Police has been handed a special package for the Games.

The present allocation — considerably more than the Rs 2,170 crore given last year — will be spent mainly on salaries, on modernising the force, buying traffic equipment and weapons and funding housing projects.

Only Anil Kapoor can repeat ‘Mr. India’: Shekhar Kapur

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New Delhi, July 07: Internationally acclaimed filmmaker Shekhar Kapur says if there is anyone who can reprise the protagonist’s role in the remake of his 1987 hit “Mr.India”, it is the original hero Anil Kapoor.

“Anil should definitely stay in the remake of ‘Mr.India’. He has become synonymous with ‘Mr.India’ and the project would be incomplete without him,” Kapur, who has been in discussions with Manmohan Shetty, Boney Kapoor and Anil for the film, told IANS.

Swine flu: Jalandhar couple, Delhi boy among new 9 cases

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Mumbai, July 07: A Jalandhar-based couple and a Delhi boy were among the nine new cases of swine flu reported in the country today, which took the total number of those affected with the virus to 145.

Out of the nine fresh cases, two each are from Delhi, Jalandhar and Mumbai while one each is from Kochi, Bangalore and Gurgaon.

A Health Ministry official said that the country has reported 145 positive cases of swine flu so far, out of which 103 patients have been discharged. Fourty-two patients remain admitted to various hospitals across the country.

I’d love to do another Hindi film: Denise Richard

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Mumbai, July 07: Denise Richards is going to watch more Hindi films, finds them more passionate than American romantic comedies and would love to do another Bollywood flick after her brief cameo in the big budget “Kambakkht Ishq”. The Hollywood star reveals all this and more in a conversation with co-star Akshay Kumar, who she admits she finds cute.

Excerpts from the conversation:

Akshay: We have Denise Richards here with me… So what do you think about being in the Indian film industry in Bollywood?

Fourteen arrested for inciting violence in Mysore

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Mysore, July 07: Fourteen people were arrested for allegedly inciting violence that broke out in various parts of the city over alleged desecration of a madrasa which left three dead and six others injured.

Police said the men owing allegiance to ‘Popular Front of India’ were taken into custody as they were emerging out from the Journalists’ Association Building here after addressing the media.

Some knives were recovered from the activists who were alleged to have been inciting the violence, they said.

Dehradun encounter: Murder case against cops registered

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Dehradun, July 07: A case of murder was registered against 6 cops who allegedly tortured and killed an MBA graduate from Ghaziabad in the Raipur police station on Monday night.

Dehradun SSP Amit Sinha, an accused was yesterday suspended by the Uttarakhand Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhariyal Nishank. Seven policemen including, Sub-Inspector G D Bhatt, involved in the encounter, have been sent to police lines.

The CM meanwhile said his government is ready for a CBI probe into the death of an MBA graduate from Ghaziabad in an alleged “fake encounter”.

CM hints at CBI probe as experts question encounter

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New Delhi, July 07: Three days since a youth from Ghaziabad was gunned down by the police in Dehradun, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhariyal Nishank on Monday said he is ready for a CBI probe even as experts questioned credibility of the ‘encounter’ claims.

Sensex records biggest fall of Budget day

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Mumbai, July 07: The BSE benchmark Sensex suffered the biggest fall on any Budget day and in the year too by plunging over 869 points on the Bombay Stock Exchange on concerns at the high fiscal deficit set by the Union Budget.

The Sensex, which started coming down soon after the announcement of budgetary proposals, dipped below 14,000-point level before closing 869.65 points down at 14,043.40, surpassing the hefty fall of 749 points on January 7.

Have taken risk to return to growth: Pranab

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New Delhi, July 07: Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Monday said that he has taken tremendous risk to return to higher growth rates by opting for higher deficit and hoped to achieve nine percent growth next fiscal.

“I have taken the tremendous risk to create the fiscal space of having higher deficit. I could have gone for the more conservative way of reducing the deficit and spent myself with six or less than that percentage of growth,” he said to a news channel soon after presenting the Union Budget in Parliament.

India’s first Rs one trillion budget

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New Delhi, July 07: For the first time since India gained freedom, its budget allocation reached a record Rs 1 trillion. This is the time in 62 years that India has presented such a huge amount on infrastructure, development, planning, education and various other things.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee created a record of sorts when he tabled the budget in parliament yesterday.

He said the total central government expenditure for the current fiscal year had been stepped up to Rs 10,20,800 crore. R K Shanmukhan Chetty presented India’s first budget with allocations of Rs 193 crore.

Saudi grants steel export licenses after ban lifted

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Dubai, July 07: Local steel manufacturers in Saudi Arabia have received licenses to export the metal after a ban was lifted this month, a Ministry of Trade and Industry spokesman said yesterday. But a ban on exporting scrap metals remained in place because the ministry believed local demand was still unfulfilled, the spokesman said. Saudi Arabia, the largest Arab economy, imposed a ban on steel exports last year to protect local consumers in the kingdom as domestic prices of the metal soared from $650 to $1,300 per ton in July last year, traders said.

Saudi slashes gasoline imports in July by 40%

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Singapore, July 07: Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, will slash gasoline imports by 40 percent in July as new domestic production capacity comes online, traders said yesterday. The world’s top oil exporter is expected to import around 34,100 barrels per day (bpd) of the motor fuel in July, because of the start-up of a gasoline production unit at its $10.3 billion Rabigh Refining and Petrochemical Co.

Flu virus scares off Haj pilgrims

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Jeddah, July 07: Haj agencies have registered a steep drop in pilgrims going to Saudi Arabia for Umrah (or the lesser pilgrimage) because of the H1N1 scare.

A religious authority in the UAE has also advised the elderly, pregnant women and asthmatics not to travel to Makkah for Umrah or the annual Haj following guidelines from Saudi Arabia.

“Families are dropping out, especially those with children and the elderly,” said Abdul Rashid of Al Hamar Haj services. “Compared to last year, the drop is 75 per cent this year,” he said.

Women’s role on the Internet

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Istanbul, July 07: Women in Turkey use the net more interactively than men, as the majority use Web sites for shopping and social utility networks, according to a survey carried out by the BBDO advertising agency.

The survey has attracted much attention from Web experts as its results, which were published in the daily Milliyet last week, have suggested that men design the Web for men, and that women, as consumers, use the services for stereotypical female interests such as shopping and gossip sites.

Teachers reject ‘spy cam’

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Kuwait, July 07: The Teachers’ Association with the Public Authority of Applied Education and Training (PAAET) has criticized the installation of a closed-circuit TV (CCTV) camera in the PAAET’s Faculty of Medical Sciences to monitor one of the professors while he delivered a lecture to students there.

Now people’s soul can rest in peace

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Hyderabad, July 07: With demand for land for graveyards increasing, especially in Greater Hyderabad, the Ranga Reddy district administration has allotted 80 acres in 14 mandals for Muslim burial grounds.

Land has been identified in Keesara, Hayathnagar, Saroornagar, Qutubullapur, Shamirpet, Rajendranagar, Ghatkesar, Shamshabad, Ibrahimpatnam and Medchal, Vikarabad, Basheerabad and Serilingampally mandals.

Chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, at a meeting with revenue officials on Saturday, had asked them to identify land for graveyards in Greater Hyderabad.

Yemeni executed for child’s rape, murder

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SANAA, July 07: A Yemeni man was executed by firing squad in a public square yesterday after being convicted of raping and murdering a boy last year. Yahia Al-Raghwa, 22, was found guilty of raping and murdering Hamdi Abdullah, 11, at his barber shop in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, last December. He was shot by a firing squad in a public square in the capital, in the presence of hundreds of people including the family of the victim.

AP sanctions land to its anti-terror force near Hyderabad

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Hyderabad, July 07: The Andhra Pradesh government sanctioned 60-90 acres land to the state’s elite anti-terror force Octopus (Organisation to Counter Terrorist Operations) for setting up its office.

Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, who held a high-level review meeting on Octopus here, agreed to allocate the land to the counter-terror organisation at Ibrahimpatnam.

He directed the police department to come up with a detailed action plan for fully operationalising and strengthening the anti-terror force by July 14.

First three years key to school success

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Washington, July 07: How children are faring before they turn four is a strong guide to early school success, according to a major study. It is more important than what happens to them in the year immediately before they start school.

The Federal Government has promised to provide 15 hours a week of free preschool for the nation’s four-year-olds. But the study indicates the importance of investment in the earlier years, too.

The Child Care Choices study is unique in Australia for having followed an initial group of children – more than 670 – from child care to school for six years.

Windows 7 on notebook computers

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Washington, July 07: The release of Windows 7 this October is likely to have the computer world abuzz. But will notebook users be feeling the joy, too?Every new operating system seems to render yesterday’s hot notebook computers virtually worthless for running the latest and greatest operating system, so notebook owners have a right to be skeptical. Microsoft claims that Windows 7, though, was built with notebooks in mind. Read on to find out what that means.

Q: Do I need to get the fastest notebook available to run Windows 7?

‘Rapists known to 96 per cent victims’

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New Delhi, July 07: Police records show a downward trend in the number of rape cases this year, but the alarming fact is that in 96 per cent of the cases, people known to the victim committed the crime. In 2009, the police registered around 226 cases of rape in the city.

Out of them, in only eight cases people not known to the victim were responsible for the crime. “In the first half of 2009, there has been a decline in the number of rape cases in the city.

156 dead in Xinjiang riots (China)

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China, July 07:: Riots and street battles killed at least 156 people in China’s western Xinjiang province and injured 828 others in the deadliest ethnic unrest to hit the region in decades. Officials said yesterday the death toll was expected to rise. Police sealed off streets in parts of the provincial capital, Urumqi, after discord between ethnic Muslim Uighur people and China’s Han majority erupted into violence. Witnesses reported a new, smaller protest yesterday in a second city, Kashgar.

Losing your mobile phones? Here are some solutions

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Washington, July 07: Global positioning system (GPS) technology has so far been limited to helping you locate yourself on a map or figure out the best route to your destination.

Last month, two out of 12 local companies made it to the semi-finals of the APAC 2009 Navteq Global LBS Challenge, a competition held by United States-based digital map provider Navteq, which aims to find more innovative uses for GPS.

If you are prone to losing your mobile phones or would like to share your location while broadcasting a live video web stream, these companies have something unique to offer you.