Month: January 2010

HCL Technologies bags $ 50 mn contract

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Mumbai, January 28: Rejoiced over grabbing significant business, Software company HCL Technologies revealed that company has bagged a contract worth around Rs 231 crore from UK-based defence equipment maker Meggitt for providing engineering services.

SD 50 million (around Rs 231 crore) global engineering transformation services agreement with the company’s engineering and R&D services (HCL ERS) division, HCL Technologies said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Carling Cup: Rooney stars as United down City to reach final

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Manchester, January 28: Wayne Rooney’s 91st-minute header secured a 3-1 victory for Manchester United over rivals City at Old Trafford and carried the holders through to a League Cup final meeting with Aston Villa.

The England forward struck with a close range header from a Ryan Giggs cross following a well-worked short corner and clinched a 4-3 aggregate semi-final victory, denying City what would have been a place in their first major final for 29 years.

Yousuf keen to stay on as captain

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Adelaide, January 28: Mohammad Yousuf wants to keep leading Pakistan despite speculation over his role. Yousuf’s position was placed in doubt when Ijaz Butt, the PCB chairman, said the captain would change after the tour of Australia, but has since back-tracked.

The tourists have only two games left in Perth to register a win on the trip, having lost the Test series 3-0 and being behind 3-0 in the one-day series. Despite the results and the controversy, Yousuf is determined to stay in charge.

Injured Sreesanth out of first Test

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Kolkata, January 28: A hamstring strain has ruled Sreesanth, the Indian fast bowler, out of the first Test against South Africa next week. Sreesanth, who is currently undergoing a rehabilitation program at the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore, was hopeful of returning for the second Test in Kolkata.

“I am recovering well and thought I would be fit enough for the full series against South Africa,”he told the Hindu. “But it seems to be taking a little more time and I should be good enough for the second Test and one dayers.”

Groin injury rules Jesse Ryder out of IPL

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Wellington, January 28: Jesse Ryder, the New Zealand batsman, has been ruled out of this season’s IPL as his recovery from a groin injury was taking longer than expected.

He has been troubled by it since last year’s IPL and aggravated the problem during the ICC Champions Trophy in September. Ryder has not played any international cricket since.

Team India heads home in batches

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Dhaka, January 28: The victorious Indian cricket team, which whitewashed Bangladesh 2-0 in the just-concluded Test series, today left for home in batches.

After the trio of Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan and Yuvraj Singh headed for Mumbai at midnight, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Ishant Sharma and Harbhajan Singh took an Air India flight to Delhi this morning.

Deceptive Harris springs a surprise

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Melbourne, January 28: Ryan Harris bustles into the crease and looks like he’s going to be a medium pacer, but at delivery everything changes and his speed shocks his team-mates. Pakistan’s batsmen also got a fright in Adelaide on Tuesday when Harris, playing his second ODI, was Man of the Match for his 5 for 43, which helped Australia wrap up the series two games early.

India gold hits near 3-month low as dollar weighs

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Mumbai, January 28: India gold futures edged lower on Thursday morning to hit a near three-month low, weighed by a stronger dollar overseas, dimming the yellow metal’s appeal as an alternative investment, analysts said.

The most-traded gold February contract on the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) was trading 0.31 percent lower at 16,390 rupees per 10 grams at 10:44 a.m., after hitting a low of 16,341 rupees, a level last seen on Nov. 3.

Senate to vote on Bernanke Thursday

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Washington, January 28: Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke’s nomination for a second term running the world’s most powerful central bank faces a decisive day in the Senate on Thursday when his confirmation vote looks set to go ahead.

Bernanke had been widely seen as getting the support he needs but a recent surge of public anger at big banks and the way U.S. regulators rescued them from the financial crisis has meant the vote could be a lot closer than expected.

Rapist’s family in Dubai says he molested his stepsister

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Abu Dhabi, January 28: The family of an Emirati rapist claims that their younger daughter was on a previously occasion molested by him and they had to lock their individual rooms every night in fear of what he might do next.

“Even though he is in detention now, we are still scared. I have been scared my entire life because of who he is and what he does,” one of his stepsisters told Gulf News on Wednesday.

“I am scared the families of the victims he tortured will retaliate or he might influence his friends to harm us.”

Rajdhanis get go-slow signal, run hours late

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New Delhi, January 28: Rail traffic, hit hard by the fog, just got worse.

All trains have been told to go slow, Even the Rajdhanis are running at a maximum pace of 60 km per hour and at 30 km per hour in stretches with poor visibility. The super-fast trains normally run at 110 km per hour.

Reason: The trains aren’t equipped with good enough technology to fight the blinding fog. “We would rather be safe than punctual,” said a source, requesting anonymity.

OU students defy JAC, threaten to foil IPL

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Hyderabad, January 28: In defiance of the stand taken by Telangana Joint Action Committee of politicians, the students of Osmania University have reiterated that they will stall the Indian Premier League-3 (IPL-3) until an announcement on separate Telangana is made.

The decision was taken by the students on a day when political JAC convener Kodandaram appealed to Union Home Minister P Chidambaram and the president of Hyderabad Cricket Association to reconsider the decision to shift the venue of the inaugural of IPL-3 from Hyderabad to Mumbai.

Cong RS tally set to dip, 24 members on way out

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New Delhi, January 28: Already a minority in the Rajya Sabha, the Congress’s tally will further slip in the Upper House this year, making the task of pushing any contentious legislation difficult.

Tenure of 65 Rajya Sabha MPs is ending this year between April and August. Of these, 24 (including Shivraj Patil who is now a governor) belong to the Congress. But the ruling party is in a position to win only 17 seats on the basis of its legislative strength in the states.

BJP’s Internet enthusiasm fizzles out

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New Delhi, January 28: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had vowed to use cyberspace to reach out to the youth, with even octogenarian leader L.K. Advani taking to blogging last year. But after its poll debacle, internet enthusiasm in “the party with a difference” seems to have withered out.

Advani – who was the party’s prime ministerial candidate – has been virtually absent from blogosphere since the BJP’s rout in the Lok Sabha elections last year. The 82-year-old’s new post on Jan 25 came after several months.

Indian journalists help Haiti quake victims

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Dubai, January 28: Indian journalists working in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have donated food, clothes and medicines worth thousands of dirhams for the earthquake victims in Haiti.

The Indian Media Forum (IMF), a grouping of Indian journalists, Wednesday handed over the relief items to the Dubai Red Crescent Authority for distribution.

Haiti had appealed to the international community for food, tents and medicines for its 1.5 million quake affected people. Thousands of people have died in the 7.0-magnitude quake Jan 12.

UK’s top lawyer had doubts on Iraq War legality

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London, January 28: The British government’s former top lawyer said on Wednesday he initially believed a second United Nations resolution was necessary to justify invading Iraq in 2003, but later changed his mind.

Three days before the March 20, 2003 invasion, Attorney General Peter Goldsmith told Parliament that the use of force was legal on the basis of resolutions previously passed by the United Nations.

Australian police held two in Indian murder case

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Sydney, January 28: Putting effort to curb the attcks over Indians in Australia , a man and his wife were arrested Thursday for the killing of 25-year-old Ranjodh Singh whose partially burnt body was found dumped near a road in Australia’s New South Wales late last year, police said.

Police said a 23-year-old man and his 20-year-old wife were arrested at two addresses in Sans Souci, in Sydney’s south, just after 11 a.m., Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Diarrhea vaccines could save 2 million lives

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London, January 28: Vaccines against rotavirus, which can kills babies and young children within days by causing severe diarrhea, could save 2 million children over the next decade, experts said Wednesday.

Two studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that vaccinating babies against rotavirus significantly cut deaths from diarrhea — by 61 percent in Africa and by 35 percent in Mexico.

Nuclear Security Summit to check n-terror threat: Obama

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Washington, January 28: Outlining his vision of a world without nuclear weapons, President Barack Obama says April’s Nuclear Security Summit, that would have India participating, would help ensure vulnerable nuclear materials never fall into the hands of terrorists.

Describing the threat of nuclear weapons as “perhaps the greatest danger to the American people”, he said Wednesday that he had embraced the vision of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan through a strategy that reverses the spread of these weapons and seeks aworld without them.

Palestinians say no peace deal sans prisoner release

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Ramallah, January 28: Hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday demanding that prisoners be freed from Israeli jails as part of any future peace deal.

In the West’s Bank political capital Ramallah, some 500 people gathered to protest, holding framed pictures of their imprisoned relatives.

“With our blood, with our souls, we sacrifice for you, prisoners,” the demonstrators chanted. “No peace without the release of prisoners.”

Fate of Zardari case in hand of Parliament

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Islamabad, January 27: The Pakistani government will be ready to go on with legal steps against President Asif Ali Zardari if Parliament decides to withdraw his immunity, the Prime Minister says.

“The government is working on the resumption of corruption cases in Swiss courts as per Supreme Court’s judgment, but the President enjoys the immunity under the Constitution and it will be intact until the Parliament wants it to remain there,” Yousuf Raza Gilani told Parliament on Wednesday, the Press TV correspondent reported.

Two arrested for Indian’s murder in Australia

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Sydney, January 28: A man and his wife were arrested Thursday for the killing of 25-year-old Ranjodh Singh whose partially burnt body was found dumped near a road in Australia’s New South Wales late last year, police said.

Police said a 23-year-old man and his 20-year-old wife were arrested at two addresses in Sans Souci, in Sydney’s south, just after 11 a.m., Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Singh’s body was found beside Wilga Road, Willbriggie, near Griffith, Dec 29. Barely four days after his murder, another Indian Nitin Garg was stabbed in Melbourne, causing an outcry in India.

‘US not objecting Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline deal’

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Islamabad, January 28: Pakistani Federal Minister for Petroleum Naveed Qamar has declared that the US has no objection to an agreement between Iran and Pakistan to build a natural gas pipeline.

The minister told reporters on Wednesday that a technical agreement between Iran and Pakistan would be signed before February 15 when a gas deal between the two countries would expire, Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported on Thursday.

“I had a meeting with officials of the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the US ambassador and they had no objection to the project,” Qamar said.

Afghan forces needs 5 years to take over security

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Kabul, January 28: Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai says Afghan forces need five years to take over the country’s security affairs.

“We will be trying our very best to be ready to defend the major part of our country from two to three years and when we reach the five-year end point, that’s when we would be leading,” Karzai said on Wednesday at a meeting with students in London ahead of a 60-nation conference on the war-torn country.

US favors return of ex-Ba’athists to power

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Baghdad, January 28: A senior Iraqi official has warned that Washington supports the return of former Ba’ath party members to power in a bid to bolster security arrangements with Israel.

Iraq’s Justice and Accountability CommissionHead, Ahmed Chalabi told Press TV that the US tries to involve Iraq in its political security order in the region through the return of Ba’athists to power.