Month: November 2012

Born in a farmer’s family in a remote village, Kinjarapu Yerran Naidu went on to emerge as one of Andhra Pradesh’s tallest politicians. The 55-year-old, who died in a road accident in his native Srikakulam district early Friday, was the Telugu Desam Party’s (TDP) most familiar face in the national arena.

A four-time member of parliament and a member of Andhra Pradesh assembly as many times, he always remained loyal to the party which he joined at its inception.

After hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani refused Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s offer to take a helicopter ride to prove his claim of a road being constructed along the forest trek to the Amarnath shrine, the state government is now trying its best to disprove his charges and ensure he is not able to light protest fires to a “non-issue”.

The World Bank has announced an 18-month work plan to bolster reforms in Myanmar, which will focus on budget, regulatory and private sector.

The strategy, endorsed by the bank’s board of directors, will guide the World Bank’s work in the country for the next 18 months, focusing on accelerating poverty reduction by helping reform institutions to deliver better services, the Washington-based global development institution said in a statement Thursday.

Happy with her “successful life” and “achievements”, Tabu takes pride in saying that as a Bollywood actress she deftly balanced mainstream and art movies but admits “missing” being part of masala movies. She says that she would like to do a “comedy” and won’t mind teaming up with David Dhawan.

The actress, who will turn 41 next month, described her over two-decade journey in showbiz as satisfactory.

A bench of Delhi High Court today recused itself from hearing the bail plea of former Haryana Minister Gopal Kanda in the air hostess Geetika Sharma suicide case.

Without citing any reason, Justice P K Bhasin said, “list the matter before some other bench for Tuesday.”

Yesterday, Kanda had moved the high court against the September 20 order of the trial court which dismissed his bail plea on the ground that further probe was needed in view of a police report that the victim was pregnant in March this year.

Computational medicine, which is based on computer models and cutting edge software, is emerging as the hottest tool against unyielding cancers, cardiovascular conditions and a host of other diseases, says a study.

These digital tools are enabling researchers to build on experimental and clinical data that can unravel complex medical mysteries, according to a review study authored by four Johns Hopkins professors from its Institute for Computational Medicine.

Global sales of Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy Note 2 breached the 3-million mark since its debut in late September, topping the level at a faster pace than its predecessor, the company said Friday.

Samsung has shipped more than 3 million units of Galaxy Note 2, called phablet or a hybrid of smartphone and tablet PC, just 37 days after its debut, according to an e-mailed statement.

The sales growth was more than three times faster than its previous model Galaxy Note, of which sales breached the 3-million mark in three months after its launch, reported Xinhua.

(Pervez Bari): For the first time in the state under the Madhya Pradesh Special Courts Act-2011 enacted by the Bharatiya Janata Party, (BJP), ruled Madhya Pradesh Government to end corruption, a special court has ordered to confiscate assets of a corrupt public servant worth Rs.6.94 crore on Thursday.

Abu Hurairah (RadiyAllahu anhu) reported: The Prophet (Sallellahu alaihi wa sallam) said:
“He who has done a wrong affecting his brother’s honour or anything else, let him ask his forgiveness today before the time (i.e., the Day of Resurrection) when he will have neither a dinar nor a dirham. If he has done some good deeds, a portion equal to his wrong doings will be subtracted from them; but if he has no good deeds, he will be burdened with the evil deeds of the one he had wronged in the same proportion”. [Al-Bukhari].

Commentary:

China Nuclear Engineering Co. Ltd. (CNEC), the country’s leading nuclear project builder, is planning an initial public offering (IPO) to support its nuclear power projects.

The company plans to issue 525 million A-shares on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, raising 1.8 billion yuan ($286 million) to fund six projects, the ministry of environmental protection said in a statement Thursday.

The ministry has conducted environmental inspections of CNEC’s 10 subsidiaries and found no violations, reported Xinhua citing the statement.

We all come across various difficulties in our lives. However, not all of us handle them as effectively as we should. As strategies for getting through life’s problems are rarely formally learned, we are constrained to use trial and error, sometimes leading to suboptimal results.

An Australian lawmaker has tabled in parliament a petition seeking that the horrific violence that took place in November 1984 in India following the assassination of prime minister Indira Gandhi be recognised as genocide against the Sikh community.

At least 3,000 Sikhs were killed in three days in the Indian capital New Delhi following the killing of Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984 by her Sikh bodyguards.

‘Have patience! Good days are ahead and evil will be eliminated. Every section of population will get justice and democratic rights will be exercised by all.’ TDP supremo Mr. Chandrababu Naidu assured this while comforting the people who approached him with complaints at Mahboob Nagar on the 10th day of his visit.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will pay a four-day visit to Japan to discuss security cooperation in maritime and cyberspace with Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, Japan’s ministry of foreign affairs announced Friday.

Singh will arrive in Japan Nov 15, and the bilateral meeting is scheduled for Nov 16, said Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba.

The two leaders are expected to exchange their views on strengthening strategic ties between Japan and India in maritime security and their economic ties, reported Xinhua.

Indian American record-setting NASA astronaut Sunita Williams along with another cosmonaut today troubleshot an ammonia leak in the International Space Station’s cooling system, accomplishing the chief objective of their marathon six-hour excursion outside the orbiting lab.

Delhi High Court Judge P.K. Bhasin Friday recused himself from hearing the bail plea of former Haryana minister Gopal Goyal Kanda, accused of abetment in the suicide of former flight attendant Geetika Sharma.

Justice Bhasin recused himself without citing any reason and posted the matter for Nov 6 before another bench.

Kanda Thursday moved the court seeking bail, challenging the trial court order that dismissed his bail plea.

Geetika, 23, died on the night of Aug 4-5 at her house in Delhi’s Ashok Vihar area.

The sea level is rising faster than expected and may cross one metre mark by the end of this century — double that of the estimates made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007, says a study.

“What’s missing from the models used to forecast sea-level rise are critical feedbacks that speed everything up,” says Bill Hay, a geologist at the University of Colorado, US. The feedbacks include data on the Arctic Sea ice, the Greenland ice cap, soil moisture and groundwater mining.

Three days after Hurricane Sandy slammed into the US East Coast, hitting New Jersey and New York the hardest, millions of Americans are now confronted with gas shortages and an overwhelmed mass transit system.

With over six million homes still without power as far west as Wisconsin in the Midwest and as far south as the Carolinas, motorists in New Jersey, the hardest hit state, roamed for hours looking for a working petrol pump that still had petrol, the ABC reported.

The US death toll from Sandy tops 90 as swathes of the east coast battle to recover.

As choreographer-turned-director Farah Khan begins work on her dream project ‘Happy New Year’ she specifies that the leading lady has to be a good actress and an exceptional dancer.

Farah’s re-union with Shah Rukh Khan has put the long impending project back on track and the director is leaving no stone unturned to get the star cast right.

‘Happy New Year’ revolves around a bunch of male friends and how situation forces these friends to participate in a dance competition, but the only problem is that none of them are good dancers.

Sachin Tendulkar took a trip down memory lane and for a change, it was not cricket that he talked about.

The veteran batsman, instead, spoke of his gastronomic experiences while travelling with the team all over the country and the world in his over two-decade career.

And the interesting trivia included how he skipped lunch and polished off a large bowl of ice-cream before facing the pace attack from Pakistani trio of Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Shoaib Akhtar at the high voltage match between arch-rivals India and Pakistan in 2003 World Cup.

Filmmaker Anil Sharma, who is bringing back Ameesha Patel and Sunny Deol together for a movie after 2001 hit “Gadar: Ek Prem Katha”, says the new film, titled “Singh Sahab – The Great” will go on floors towards the end of this month.

“‘Singh Sahab – The Great’ will go on floors by November end and it’s a 50-day shoot till Jan 20. We are planning to shoot the film in Bhopal and Indore,” Sharma told IANS.

Sharma has maintained a low profile post “Veer”, but he is now ready to set the ball rolling with action-comedy “Singh Sahab – The Great”.

The UN headquarter complex in New York has “suffered significant damage in terms of flooding” from Hurricane Sandy, which hit the metropolitan area Monday, Xinhua reported a UN official as saying.

Speaking during a briefing Thursday at the UN General Assembly on the effects of the superstorm, described by experts as one of the largest ever that hit the US, Gregory B. Starr, the UN under-secretary-general for safety and security, said: “We have suffered significant damage in terms of flooding.”

“Flooding was at an historic level,” he added.

The headquarters of the United Nations overlooking New York’s East River suffered “unprecedented damage” from Superstorm Sandy, the UN management chief said on Thursday.

Yukio Takasu told the General Assembly at the end of its first session following the killer storm that the most serious damage was from flooding, which affected many basement offices and the cooling system in the main Secretariat building and caused a small fire.

After making allegations of fraud against Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi, Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy has now challenged Rahul to file a defamation suit against him.

Hours after Swamy made the allegations; Rahul’s office sent a letter to him threatening to pursue “all legal actions” against him. Swamy had targeted Rahul and Sonia Gandhi over acquisition of a company that published the now-defunct National Herald newspaper to which Congress gave a loan of over Rs 90 crore.

Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar will go on a three-day visit to Pakistan to participate in the conference of speakers of the SAARC region from Sunday.

She will be attending the meeting of the Association of Speakers of SAARC countries.

This will be her second visit to Pakistan this year. Earlier she had gone to the neighbouring country in February becoming the first Speaker from the country to lead a delegation to Pakistan. The delegation had visited Pakistan under bilateral exchange of parliamentary delegations.