India third on global 'female smoking list'

Indian women are among the worst in the world when it comes to smoking. According to the latest Tobacco Atlas, the country ranks third in the top 20 female smoking populations across the globe. Only the US with 2.3 crore female smokers and China with 1.3 crore women smokers are worse off than India in this chart. However, as far as percentage of women smoking is concerned, it is below 20% for India.

After MSc at 12, child prodigy Tulsi completes his PhD in Physics at 21

A prodigy who had finished his bachelors' degree at 10 and masters at 12 amid media hype has now earned his doctorate in Physics from the Indian Institute of Science ( IISc) in Bangalore, spending around six years like anyone else.Avatar Tulsi, 21, once known as Tathagat, hoped to get his PhD four years ago and become the youngest professor at 17. But his moment came only on Tuesday.

Class X boards to become optional from next year

From the coming academic year (2010-11), the Class X board exams will become optional in all CBSE schools. The board will make a formal announcement to this effect probably by Friday, once the blueprint of the new system to replace the board exams is frozen.CBSE said board chairman Vineet Joshi will, on Thursday, hold the last presentation and consultation session in Madhya Pradesh on the changes being brought about before the draft is finalized and made public.

Mother Teresa's 99th birth anniversary

Today is Mother Teresa's 99th birth anniversary and Missionaries of Charity across the world are holding special prayers to mark the day. In Kolkata's Mother House, world headquarters of the Missionaries and Mother Teresa's home, special prayers were held early Wednesday morning. Born in Skopje in Albania in 1910, Mother Teresa came to Kolkata in 1929 and founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1950. She won the Nobel Peace prize in 1979. Six years after her death in 1997, Mother Teresa was beatified by the Vatican for her service to the poorest of the poor.

T-90 Bhishma tanks add protection & attack!

Making Indian Army strengthened a bit more, the new T-90 Bhishma tanks launched by the Minister of State for Defence MM Pallam Raju.

The tanks are built at Heavy Vehicles Factory, Avadi, in Chennai. Armed with new technologies in mobility, fighting capabilities, protection, safety and communication, T-90 Bhishma has the capability to fire guided missiles. It can also use conventional ammunition from the same gun barrel.

The tank has 125mm smooth bore gun with Elevation and Azimuth. A 12.7mm anti-craft machine gun is also added to it. Even a 7.62mm co-axial machine gun with high accuracy levels as well as automatic loader to ensure a high firing rate.

Stefania Fernandez wins Miss Universe for Venezuela the second year running

Venezuela made history at the Miss Universe 2009 pageant by winning the crown for the second year running.
Miss India, Ekta Chowdhury, exited the contest without making it to the top 15.
Eighteen-year-old Stefania Fernandez was crowned Miss Universe 2009 by incumbent crown holder and compatriot Dayana Mendoza, on Sunday night.
Ms. Fernandez became the sixth Miss Universe from a South American country, known for its obsession with beauty. Venezuela has won five Miss Universe titles, five Miss World and four Miss International crowns — more than any other country.

England beat Australia to regain Ashes

England regained the Ashes with a 197-run win over Australia in the fifth and final Test at the Oval on Sunday.

Victory, achieved with more than a day to spare, saw England take the five-match series 2-1. Australia, set what would have been a record fourth innings victory total of 546, were bowled out for 348 with Michael Hussey last man out for 121, when he was caught close in by Alastair Cook off spinner Graeme Swann. "It's a special moment. It hasn't sunk in yet. We had to dig in and fight," said England skipper Andrew Strauss.

Levi’s India to sell blue jeans on installment plan

What to speak of refrigerator, car and washing machine even here India’s middle class family have been lapping such type of price which allow them to purchasing goods in form of installment.
Levi’s Strauss &co. has been decided to after blue pair jeans. Under this sachem customer will be able to pay for Levi’s priced at Rs.1,599($33) and which above in three installment ,and it is free from any interest.

Maruti takes possession of land at Rohtak

Maruti takes possession of land at Rohtak

Maruti Suzuki, the country’s largest manufacturer of cars, today took formal possession of 700 acres of land allotted to it by the Haryana government for a major research and development hub at the Industrial Model Township here, 70 km from Delhi.

The centre is slated to become Suzuki’s largest R&D centre outside Japan. Of the allotted area, 100 acres will house the company’s auto parts suppliers, while the rest will house the R&D units and the test tracks.The first phase of the R&D centre will be completed in 2012 and the second phase in 2015. A company official said

Maruti paid around Rs 500 crore to purchase the land

ISRO, NASA team up to locate water-ice on Moon

The Moon’s relatively unexplored North Pole became the subject of a unique joint experiment by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in their quest for locating water-ice on the floor of its permanently shadowed craters.The Mini-SAR (Miniature Synthetic Aperture Radar) on board Chandrayaan-I and the Mini-RF (Miniature Radio Frequency) on the LRO, both developed by NASA, are designed specifically to detect water-ice on the Moon’s poles.
At 00.30 hours on Friday, the two spacecraft, travelling at 1.6 km per second, passed close enough to each other so that they could share information.

Antakshari on the move for Reliance users

Reliance Mobile is launching a unique Antakshari service on its R-World platform. This service will allow a subscriber to play Antakshari with a selected community or his friend on the move. Reliance is creating a special marketing portal where a subscriber will be able to throw a challenge to the other and a recipient will be able to respond.
The service will offer the subscriber three lifelines to continue the game. These lifelines are Library, 50/50 and Ask A Friend.
Krishna Durbha, Head - VAS, Reliance Communications said, “Antakshari is one of the oldest music based games that Indians have known and played for generations. We have conceptualized the same for our subscribers who can now play the Antakshari with any other Reliance subscriber in the country.”
Reliance will offer this unique service for a subscription charge of Rs 30/30 days with 30 minutes free usage. Subscribers will be allowed to add players to his list and send them songs of choice in their own voice to play antakshari. Users will also be allowed to block other users at any given point in time as well as decide whom they want to play with at a given point of time. Reliance Mobile is launching this service on both its GSM and CDMA networks.

Antakshari on the move for Reliance users

Reliance Mobile is launching a unique Antakshari service on its R-World platform. This service will allow a subscriber to play Antakshari with a selected community or his friend on the move. Reliance is creating a special marketing portal where a subscriber will be able to throw a challenge to the other and a recipient will be able to respond.
The service will offer the subscriber three lifelines to continue the game. These lifelines are Library, 50/50 and Ask A Friend.
Krishna Durbha, Head - VAS, Reliance Communications said, “Antakshari is one of the oldest music based games that Indians have known and played for generations. We have conceptualized the same for our subscribers who can now play the Antakshari with any other Reliance subscriber in the country.”
Reliance will offer this unique service for a subscription charge of Rs 30/30 days with 30 minutes free usage. Subscribers will be allowed to add players to his list and send them songs of choice in their own voice to play antakshari. Users will also be allowed to block other users at any given point in time as well as decide whom they want to play with at a given point of time. Reliance Mobile is launching this service on both its GSM and CDMA networks.

Sonia Gandhi,Kochhar in forbes Top 20 powerful women list

Congress President Sonia Gandhi and ICICI bank CEO and MD Chanda Kochhar ranked in top 20 of the world's 100 most powerful women list complied by Forbes.
women ranked according to Forbes;
Angela Merkel - 1
Indra Nooyi - 3
Sonia Gandhi - 13
Chanda Kocchar - 20
Hilary Clinton - 36
Queen Elizabeth - 42
Kiran Mazumdar-shah - 91

Bolt wins 200 in another record time at worlds

Usain Bolt extended his stunning domination in the sprints Thursday, adding the 200-meter gold to his tally at the world championships with
yet another world record.

Gritting his teeth and pointing to the clock as soon as the record flashed, Bolt is now 5-for-5 in major sprint events, winning gold each time with a world record.

His time of 19.19 slashed .11 seconds of the mark he set last year, four days after breaking his 100 record by the same margin.

BJP expels Jaswant Singh over Jinnah remarks

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday expelled senior leader Jaswant Singh from the primary membership of the party
BJP president Rajnath Singh told reporters here that the party's parliamentary board decided to expel the former external affairs minister from the primary membership of the party. BJP had on Tuesday dissociated itself from the book written by Jaswant Singh praising Mohammad Ali Jinnah, saying the "painful" part of history cannot be wished away for which the Pakistan founder was responsible.

BSNL employees go on two-day strike from today

The BSNL Union has decided to go on 48-hour long strike on August 19 and 20. The union is demanding acceptance of long-pending demands relating to promotion and wage revision.
Balbir Singh, circle secretary, Punjab, and Balwinder Singh, district secretary, Ludhiana, while addressing a press conference here today said, “The management is delaying the promotional policy and wage negotiations deliberately by violating the agreements made with the recognised union. The agreement for the promotional policy was reached upon eight months ago but not implemented so far. The wage revision for non-executives is due wef January 1, 2007 but management is not serious about implementing the same.”
They said group C and D employees of the union will take part in the strike. They said their other demands included pay fixation on promotion, annual increment @ 5% on basic pay be granted cumulatively for non-executives along with the revised pay scales wef January 1, 07 and merger of 50% IDA for pensioners.

Hamid Karzai's house attacked in Kabul

Terrorists launched rocket attacks on the house of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and the main police headquarters on Tuesday morning.
The first rocket caused some damage inside the heavily fortified palace compound in the city centre. The second hit the main police headquarters nearby, Reuters reported.

Usain Bolt breaks the 100 meter world record

Usain Bolt, the athlete who was quoted as saying "I want to become recognised as the greatest athlete in the history of athletics" is dutifully keeping his word.
This superb Jamaican sprinter is a sight to see, that is, if you can even catch him with your speed camera. Usain Bolt, or the "lightning bolt" as the media aptly calls him, stunned the world when he broke his own 100 meter record at the IAAF's World Championships in Berlin on Sunday, August 16.
Winning the 100m gold championship medal, (his first) in an astonishing world record time of 9.58 seconds, this lightning bolt is indeed an electrifying sight to behold. He is expected to win more medals and to break even more records. Bolt is competing next in the 200 meters on Tuesday, August 18.

ISRO Bhuvan needs major improvement site tests revealed

Bhuvan (meaning earth in Sanskrit) a web tool just like Goggle Earth was launched by Indian Space Research Organization last week. It Promises to give a gateway to explore and discover virtual earth in 3D space with specific emphasis on Indian region. Many people has given her a nick name as ‘Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Earth killer” people has commented that Bhuvan promises to show better 3-D satellite imagery of India in comparison to the US-based software giant plus a host of India-specific features like weather information and even administrative boundaries of all states and districts.
Bhuvan also provides tools for measuring, drawing, saving, printing and visualizing thematic information. The resolutions currently on offer are good enough to view a vehicle moving on a road quite clearly. The ISRO has revealed that the beta version is under testing on the site since yesterday and the fact revealed that it won’t pose a challenge to Google’s popular service anytime soon.

India completes design of Chandrayaan-2

India has completed the design of Chandrayaan-2, its next mission to the moon this time in collaboration with Russia that would have a lander and rover which can collect samples of the lunar soil and analyse them and send back the data.

"Right now, the design has been completed. We had a joint review with Russian scientists here," Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation, G Madhavan Nair, said.

According to the Bangalore-headquartered space agency, the Chandrayaan-2 mission would have an orbital flight vehicle constituting an Orbital Craft (OC) and a Lunar Craft (LC) that would carry a soft landing system up to Lunar Transfer Trajectory (LTT).

The target location for the lander-rover would be identified using data from instruments of Chandrayaan-1, India's own and first unmanned mission to the Moon launched on October 22 last year. While ISRO will be developing the orbiter, it will be Russia's job to make the lander and rover. Additional scientific payloads would be acquired from international scientific community.

"Next (now that design has been completed) we will go towards prototype building, which will be taken up next year," Nair, also secretary in the Department of Space, said.0 Nair said ISRO has learnt plenty of lessons from

Chandrayaan-1 mission, particularly on the thermal and redundancy management fronts and would seek to improve systems in Chandrayaan-2, slated towards the end of 2012.

Dravid returns, Sehwag to miss tri-series and Champions Trophy

Rahul Dravid is a prominent member of the Indian ODI squad for the tri-series in Sri Lanka and the ICC Champions Trophy. The national selection panel, which met here on Sunday, picked the same 15 for both the tournaments.
Dravid last figured in an ODI — against Australia at Nagpur — in October 2007. His return will add quality to the Indian top-order.

The squads (for Sri Lankan tri-series and the Champions Trophy): M.S. Dhoni (captain), Yuvraj Singh (vice-captain), Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, Suresh Raina, Yusuf Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Aashish Nehra, R.P. Singh, Ishant Sharma, Dinesh Karthik, Praveen Kumar, Amit Mishra and Abhishek Nayar.

Green Anthem by NDTV TOYOTA

The song has been penned down by the creative genius, Gulzar and composed by the famous trio, Shankar- Ehsaan- Loy.
NDTV-Toyota environment campaign will release its green anthem on Thursday.
Campaign ambassador Priyanka Chopra is urging people to do their bit to save the environment even if it is a tiny step.

“It is a happy song with a message. I hope people like it,” said Shankar

Delhi Metro: major accident averted

NEW DELHI: A major mishap was averted on Wednesday when the front bogie of a Delhi Metro running from Dwarka to Yamuna Bank derailed. Preliminary inquiries revealed that the incident occurred because of the train operator’s negligence. He has been suspended.
The mishap occurred at 3.20 p.m. when train no. 5015 starting from the down platform of Dwarka station and going towards Yamuna Bank, overshot the signal while changing tracks. Four wheels of the front bogie, D-313, burst through the point, derailed and travelled about 30 metres.
The train operator did not wait for the tracks to be ready before crossing over.

Bhat loses close contest, Kashyap has it easy

Aravind Bhat, who is anything but a tantrum-thrower, could be excused his rare venting of frustration when he flung his racquet wildly and uncharacteristically onto the side of the court at the end of his hour-long match on Tuesday. Playing his opener at the World Championships, Bhat had staved off three match points against ninth seed Yu Hsing Hsieh of Taipei, frittered one of his own on a risky net-dribble, and gone on to half-assuredly smash disastrously into the net to lose 21-14 19-21 24-22.



The 29-year-old had been brave to hold onto his lead in the second set after losing the first 14-21 from the disadvantageous side of the drift on court. When the Taipei shuttler racked up five straight points at 17-all in the second, Bhat had stepped up his own attack, and forced the matter into the decider. Drawing level at 20-20 after trailing 4-11, Bhat had a chance to seal the game at 22-21, but a tight net shot proved to be his undoing.

Tsunami warning that wasn't

The residents of Chennai had a sleepless Monday night. They were woken up by tremors caused by a powerful earthquake off the Andaman islands a little past midnight. Tremors lasting about 20 seconds were triggered by a powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake in the Indian Ocean about 270 kms north of Port Blair.
The tremors brought back memories of the 2004 tsunami.

New Vice-Chancellor of UPTU appointed

Former Deputy Director of IIT Kanpur Dr. Kripa Shankar was on Friday appointed the new Vice-Chancellor of Uttar Pradesh Technical University (UPTU), Lucknow for a tenure of three years.

Governor TV Rajeswar appointed Mr. Shankar, who will replace Prem Vrat whose term is expiring on July 31.

Prof Shanker is a scholar of repute and has won several awards during his student life as well as professional career. A gold medalist in mechanical engineering from the Benaras Hindu University, he is also the recipient of National Merit Scholarship and Government of India scholarship for studies abroad. In addition, he was awarded ISTE National Award for outstanding academics (2001) and distinguished alumnus award of BHU in 2007.

Typhoon forces evacuation of 1 million Chinese

TAIPEI, Taiwan: Typhoon Morakot churned toward China forcing the evacuation of nearly 1 million people Sunday, a day after lashing Taiwan with A hotel building leans before falling into a river after typhoon Morakot hit Taiwan. torrential rains that caused the worst flooding on the island in 50 years.

Twenty-nine people were missing in southern Taiwan, the Disaster Relief Centre said, and a woman was killed when her vehicle plunged into a ditch in Kaohsiung county in heavy rain Friday.

Morakot was centred 42 miles (70 km) off China's southeastern Fujian province Sunday morning. Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau said the storm had winds of up to 67 miles per hour (108 km per hour) and was headed northwest toward China at a speed of 7 mph (11 kph).

Australia crush England to level Ashes

Australia thrashed England by an innings and 80 runs as they won the fourth Test at Headingley on Sunday inside three days to level the series at 1-1 and revive their bid to retain the Ashes.

Death for all three accused in 2003 Mumbai blasts case

A special Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) court has awarded the death sentence to all three accused in the 2003 twin Mumbai blasts at Gateway of India and Zaveri Bazaar.

Mohammad Hanif Syed, his wife Fehmida and third conspirator Ashrat Ansari were convicted for planting the bombs on August 25, 2003 that left 54 dead and 244 injured.

This is for the first time that a married couple is being convicted by a POTA court for their involvement in carrying out blasts.

High chemical content in drinking water causing alarm in Surpur

GULBARGA: The results of the laboratory test of the drinking water samples taken from all the villages in Surpur Taluk (population 3.36 lakhs)in Gulbarga district has some shocking revelations. A large number of drinking water sources contain high levels of harmful arsenic, nitrate and fluoride content. While high arsenic content in the drinking water can cause skin disorders including skin cancers, the high presence of nitrate in the drinking water can cause cardiac diseases, blue baby syndrome among the children, kidney stone formation and diarrhoea, according to Dr K Vijaykumar, Professor in the Zoology Department in Gulbarga University.

First Swine flu victim in India

There are total 525 cases of Swine Flu in overall India.The number of cases in Maharastra is about 150 and in Pune its about 100.
And the First Victim, Reeda Sheikh,a 14 year old girl died in Pune's Jahangir Hospital on Monday 3rd August'2009.