Showing posts with label Latest News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Latest News. Show all posts

Global warming danger threat increased

Thursday, February 26, 2009

The Earth won’t have to warm up as much as had been thought to cause serious consequences of global warming, including more extreme weather and increasing threats to plants and animals, says an international team of climate experts.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated that the risk of increased severe weather would rise with a global average temperature increase of between 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit and 3.6 degrees above 1990 levels. The National Climatic Data Center currently reports that global temperatures have risen 0.22 degree since 1990.

Now, researchers report that “increases in drought, heat waves and floods are projected in many regions and would have adverse impacts, including increased water stress, wildfire frequency and flood risks starting at less than (1.8 degrees) of additional warming above 1990 levels.”

Indeed, “it is now more likely than not that human activity has contributed to observed increases in heat waves, intense precipitation events, and the intensity of tropical cyclones,” concluded the researchers led by Joel B. Smith of Stratus Consulting Inc., in Boulder, Colo.

Other researchers, they noted, have suggested that “the likelihood of the 2003 heat wave in Europe, which led to the death of tens of thousands of people, was substantially increased by increased greenhouse gas concentrations.”

The new report, in this week’s online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, comes just a week after Christopher Field of the Carnegie Institution for Science told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that humans are now adding carbon to the atmosphere even faster than in the 1990s.

Carbon dioxide and other gases added to the air by industrial and other activities have been blamed for rising temperatures, increasing worries about possible major changes in weather and climate. Carbon emissions have been growing at 3.5 percent per year since 2000, up sharply from the 0.9 percent per year in the 1990s, Field said.

The new study found evidence of greater vulnerability to climate change for specific populations, such as the poor and elderly, in not only developing but also developed countries. “For example, events such as Hurricane Katrina and the 2003 European heat wave have shown that the capacity to adapt to climate-related extreme events is lower than expected and, as a result, their consequences and associated vulnerabilities are higher than previously thought,” the scientists report.

Co-authors of the report include Stephen H. Schnieder of Stanford University, Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University and researchers in India, Germany, Canada, Zimbabwe, Australia, Bangladesh, Cuba and Belgium.

Windows Mobile 7 to launch in 2010

Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer said the U.S. software giant would release the next generation of Windows Mobile in 2010.
Ballmer also said the company wouldn't ship the next generation of Microsoft
Office until 2010, PC Magazine reported Thursday.
The release of Windows Mobile 7, however, is "somewhat of a surprise," PC Magazine said. The company released its Windows Mobile 6.5 earlier this month.
"We've made a nice release announcement last week of Windows Mobile 6.5," Ballmer said in a transcript of a company meeting released by Microsoft. "We're getting more and more synergy with Windows, so the
browser
improvements, et cetera., should be quite rapid," he said.
Ballmer also said Microsoft had no plans to move into the mobile phone hardware business.
"People ask me, will you build your own phone? (That is) not our strategy," Ballmer said.
"It's our strategy to sell software that we can use and support across a wide range of device manufacturers to encourage choice, choice in devices, choice in the operators," he said.

Gigabyte launches GA-EGA5M-UD2H Motherboard with Ultra Durable 3 Technology in India

Experience the true HD entertainment in remarkable energy efficient form with the latest Gigabyte motherboard called the GA-EG45M-UD2H. Available in the Indian market, the motherboard is powered by the Intel G45 Express chipset and features the Ultra Durable 3 Technology with 2 ounces of copper for both the power and ground layers. Boasting to offer lower system temperatures, the peripheral ensures an incomparable high-definition video and audio performance for the latest high-definition digital multimedia systems. In addition to Intel multi-core processors up to FSB 1600MHz, the GA-EG45M-UD2H motherboard is compatible with high speed DDR2 1066 memory, claiming to be the valuable product for Microsoft Windows Vista Premium. It also features an array of connectivity options such as D-sub and DVI along with HDMI support.

The GA-EG45M-UD2H offers unprecedented picture clarity and smooth video playback through the supported Intel Clear Video technology. It is complaint with up to 1080p HD content playback and HDCP for Blu-Ray HD content.

Additionally, it works effectively with a host of audio technologies from the powerful Dolby Home Theater for an exceptional surround sound performance. It includes Dolby Pro Logic IIx, Dolby Headphone and Sound Space Expander along with Natural Bass enhancement for the richest sound quality.

Based on a 4 phase power design, it comes bundled with Japanese Solid Capacitors for maximum upgradeability and durability.

It also packs in an integrated High-Definition 7.1 + 2 channel Realtek ALC889A sound chip with 106dB Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) that considerably lessens noise while signal transmission. Compliant with Dynamic Energy Saver Advanced (DES), the latest motherboard from Gigabyte boasts of better energy saving capabilities and enhanced system performance. It supports hardware-based Dynamic 4-Gear switching and VRD 11.1.

Lastly, the GA-EG45M-UD2H incorporates two physical BIOS ROMs to automatically recover BIOS data when main BIOS has crashed or failed. Priced at Rs. 9,900, the Gigabyte GA-EG45M-UD2H motherboard can be purchased from Avnet (India), Ingram Micro and Redington across India.

Google: You Can See Paradise By The Dashboard Light

Green for go, yellow for slow down, red for stop: Google's new Dashboard feature lets users check the status of a range of Google Apps services. The new Dashboard service comes on the heels of Google's recent Gmail outage , and is part of Google's Premier Apps service. The Apps Status Dashboard is in a table format and features a green check mark for no reported issues, a yellow wrench icon for a service disruption, a red "x" mark that indicates a service outage and a blue icon that provides available information. In addition to Gmail, the Dashboard indicates the status of other Google Apps services such as Google Calendar, Talk, Docs List, Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations, and Google Video for Business. Administrators for organizations such as schools can check Google Apps performance from the administrative control panel as well. Google's mea culpa fix follows Tuesday's two-and-a-half hour outage that primarily affected subscribers of Google's Premier Edition, which is aimed at businesses and provides Google Apps, including Gmail, for $50 per user account annually. The glitch was traced to a problem with routine maintenance performed in one of the company's European data centers. A Google spokesperson said the problem was out of the ordinary, since there is usually no disruption to the service because accounts are served out of another data center. To smooth ruffled feathers, Google offered affected customers its apologies and a 15-day credit.

Acer Smartphone Coming in Mid February

Acer is announcing its smartphone on February 16, 2009, at the Mobile World Congress, Barcelona. It's officially confirmed now. The company has sent out invites to journalists attending the upcoming Mobile World Congress at Barcelona, and the invite contains this sweet little tag at the end which says "Smartphones Launch!"While the rumour of a possible smartphone from the Taiwanese giant was making the rounds since last year, it is only now that the same has been substantiated. With archrival ASUS being an established player in the mobile phones segment, Acer does have a huge task up front. However, if the phone turns out to be something very revolutionary, there is no reason why it cannot go on to become an established player in this segment.As usual, for details we will need to wait, till the 16th, and there seems to be no signs of any spyshots or leaked images with this one - unfortunately!

Virgin Mobile launched Slider vGlide

Virgin Mobile has launched its slider handset, vGlide targeted at the Indian youth. This new handset comes with a 65k color, 1.8-inch large screen and includes FM radio, speaker phone and games among other features. The vGlide comes in a paprika red color and boasts of a soft-touch finish. The phone also comes with lifetime validity and a starter user kit worth Rs. 499. It offers prepaid connection, lifetime incoming validity, 499 free local minutes and 499 free local SMSes valid for 60 days. The phone's other features include access to Vbytes - Virgin Mobile's data portal- from where one can download wallpapers, ringtones, games, Tring Tunes (Virgin Mobile's ringback tones) at a daily access charge of just Rs. 5. A travel charger and stereo headset also accompany the phone. This stylish handset can be yours for Rs. 2,399.

Nano to burn roads before April-end

In select markets Nano can be expected to be seen on the road before the end of April but for the larger part of the country it will be towards mid-May or the second-half of May. Finally the much anticipated launch is going to happen on 23rd of March but over and above it is understood that the Nano will get consumers only by the end of April or maybe May. Vendors gave a sense that they have been supplying components to Tata Motors in small chunks, in fact they been gradually scaling it up and now from the month of April they will be supplying components for about 4,000-5,000 Nano per month. The initial numbers as Tata Motors said that the first chunk or some Nano will be based at the dealership level from the first week of April and the bookings will start from the second week of April which essentially means that people will have to wait for to get their hands on Nano. So the initial numbers are going to grow because the vendors are gradually supplying them the components because there is not enough manufacturing scaling up that has been done. There are certain dealerships who have some good relationships with the existing customers, those customers may get some preference over the totally new customers and that set of customers may be able to book the car earlier than the rest. This is been manufactured at Pune and Pantnagar. Sanand of course will take time at least by the end of this year or early next year only will they start manufacturing there. So till then there will be small amount of manufacturing that will be done out of these two plant. However it has to be seen what sort of response will be getting from consumers and how big will be the craze for Nano and how much will actually start selling. In select markets the car can be expected to be seen on the road before end of April but for the larger part of the country it will be towards mid-May or second-half of May. That is when one can expect to see the Nano in almost every corner of the country. Dealers say the booking amount initially could be anywhere between Rs 50,000-75,000.

Google says Gmail crash a self-mistake

Even as the world moaned Gmail’s failure on Tuesday, Internet giant Google admitted it had crashed its own data centres causing unavailability of the email service for close to four hours in India alone. But industry experts are not buying this excuse. Google said that during a routine maintenance of one of its European data centres, they had directed the traffic to other servers. However, they were simultaneously trying a new code that “tries to keep data geographically close to its owner causing another data centre in Europe to become overloaded. This caused cascading problems from one data centre to another”, said Gmail site reliability manager Acacio Cruz on early Wednesday morning. In short, Google crashed its own servers, unintentionally of course. However, analysts say Google may be covering up its failure by terming it a “self-mistake”. One indication of this is that since Google had put in place the ‘Captcha’ system, distorted letters that can only be recognised by humans to rectify the error, this would have been done only in the case of a botneck attack. An attack where thousands of zombie PCs controlled by group of mischief-makers were asked to access Gmail simultaneously, resulting in a crash of Gmail’s data centres. “If it was a maintenance issue, they would know where the traffic load came from causing the crash. Why would they put in place Captcha if the problem was at their end,” said a Delhi-based analyst who did not want to be quoted. If it was really a code testing failure, they should have had the same side effects during their lab tests. Also, the response time to the problem should not have been four hours if it was an in-house cause, said the analyst.

IIM Ahmedabad campus placements from today

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

The top IIMs, IIM-A, IIM-B and IIM-C usually give each other a gap of two-three days on final placements to allow recruiters to criss-cross the country to visit these campuses


New Delhi : The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) will launch its final on-campus job placements on Wednesday. “Day Zero begins tomorrow,” said Vivek Jain, student placement cell member at IIM-A. He declined to give a closing date for the placements.

Business schools across the country have braced for a tough placement season that could take weeks to close instead of days as experienced in earlier years. Recruiters have predicted that a significant number of students will be without jobs at the end of the placement season. IIM Calcutta (IIM-C) launched its Day Zero on Saturday last week, while IIM Bangalore (IIM-B) is planning a Day Zero launch on Friday this week. The top IIMs, IIM-A, IIM-B and IIM-C or A, B and C as they are called, usually give each other a gap of two-three days on final placements to allow recruiters to criss-cross the country to visit these campuses.

The three IIMs, tense over the process, have brought forward their dates on final recruitment with IIM-C holding the process in two phases, one before and one after exams. Last year, final recruitment began on 4 March, with IIM-B taking the lead.

NDTV exposes Modasa syringe racket, case filed

As Modasa battles to tame the deadly Hepatitis-B outbreak in Gujarat, NDTV exposes the deadly syringe racket where used syringes are first hoarded and then sold. It's believed this was the reason the disease spread so quickly in the district.Saijuddin, a syringe dealer in Modasa, buys thousands of used syringes from private clinics and hospitals everyday and sells them to regular buyers from Ahmedabad and Himmatnagar. Unabashed, after he was caught on camera by NDTV, he explained how he did it."I buy it from several people and then sell it to merchants in bulk coming from Ahmedabad and Himmatnagar. I don't know their names," said Saijuddin.The NDTV team found four large warehouses in and around Modasa where used syringes are stacked in gunny bags, ready for sale.The state Health Department, which has so far denied the existence of any such organised racket, finally swung into action after NDTV informed Health Minister Jay Narayan Vyas about what it had found.Twelve teams of the department carried out simultaneous raids across Gujarat and confiscated lakhs of used syringes - cleaned and repackaged.On Wednesday, they registered four cases and booked the kingpin, Saijuddin.'These syringes should have been destroyed after use, but actually these have been resold in the market after just cleaning and packing," said Rajneeth Kumar, Collector, Modasa.The hub of recycling disposable syringes has been operational in Modasa for years. After the NDTV expose, actions have been just initiated by the Collectorate and Health Department as NDTV informed state Health Minister Jay Narayan Vyas about the racket.

VHP wants India to ban American products over H1B visa issue

The VHP on Wednesday asked the Indian Government to ban all American products unless the Barack Obama administration amends its decision on H1B visa curbs. He said the decision meant that lakhs of Indian students studying in various US universities would not get employment there. ''About one million Indians will be made jobless by a single decision of Obama,'' he told reporters here. Replying to a query, Togadia accused the Indian government of having failed to ''handle'' Pakistan on the Mumbai terror strikes. ''We should have at least snapped all ties with Pakistan,'' he said. On the Ram temple issue, he said VHP expected that the BJP would probably include it in its manifesto. ''But they have not declared their manifesto. So let us wait.'' He said no madrassas should be allowed to function in the country ''if they did not stop preaching jihad.''

200 lawyers arrested in Tamil Nadu

Chennai : Over 200 lawyers were arrested in Tamil Nadu yesterday and the state assembly witnessed chaotic scenes, with opposition members being evicted, over the clashes between advocates and policemen here a day earlier.

Law Minister S Durai Murugan read out a statement under Rule 110 of the assembly that prohibits debate, blaming both the lawyers and policemen for the “unfortunate turn of events”.
Murugan appealed for calm and said the police were forced to use batons yesterday, leading to bleeding injuries to over 25 lawyers who took part in the violent protests that led to the burning of a police post.
The incident was a fallout of what had happened in the premises of the Madras High Court Tuesday when some lawyers hurled rotten eggs at Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy for his opposition to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka.
Legislators of the AIADMK, Communist Party of India, PMK and MDMK were evicted from the house following their slogan shouting and insistence on a debate. “The denial of a debate on a serious law and order issue was a shameful chapter in the annals of democracy. Further, the incidents have shown that the constitution has failed in the state,” AIADMK floor leader and former chief minister O Panneerselvam told reporters after being evicted with the rest of the opposition legislators.

While over 150 lawyers were arrested for defying prohibitory orders while taking out a procession to the secretariat, one kilometre away from the seat of the government, 50 others were held across the state for Thursday’s clashes and causing public disturbance.
Cases have been filed agains the lawyers under 307 Indian Penal Code, which among other charges includes attempt to murder.

Lawyers, however, continued to boycott courts all over Tamil Nadu protesting police action against their colleagues.

Police said lawyers set fire to government property, including public transport vehicles, and staged sit-in protests. Over 150 police personnel were injured in Thursday’s clashes. Pitched battles between lawyers and police personnel were witnessed in the court premises for several hours on Thursday.

Police officials contended that a section of lawyers demanding the arrest of the Janata Party president pelted stones at policemen - a charge denied by Madras High Court Advocates Association president S Prabhakaran.

Speaking in the assembly, the law minister admitted that Judge Arumugha Perumal Adityan and several lawyers and policemen were injured in the clashes.

A three-member division bench of the Madras High Court, headed by acting Chief Justice S Mukhopadhyay, has ordered a probe into the clashes by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
Chief Minister M Karunanidhi has also offered to meet Mukhopadhyay to discuss the issue and defuse the situation.

“Your cooperation is very essential for me and for this government... Though I am in hospital I will come and see you in an ambulance,” Karunanidhi wrote in a letter to Mukhopadhyay. The letter was released to the media.

The Madras High Court has also posted an advance bail petition filed by movie director Seeman to February 26 for allegedly exhorting people to resort to armed rebellion in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry in support of a separate homeland for Tamils in Sri Lanka.

Deadly Turkish plane crash probed

Investigations are continuing into what caused a Turkish Airlines plane to crash at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, killing nine people and injuring 84.
The plane, en route from Istanbul with 127 passengers and seven crew, crashed short of the runway on Wednesday. Three of those killed were members of the crew. Dutch officials said most of the passengers on board were Turkish.
Relatives of some of those killed have arrived in Amsterdam on a special Turkish Airlines flight from Turkey. Officials told reporters on Wednesday that they did not yet know what had caused the plane to crash on landing. The flight data and voice recorders from the aircraft have been found and are being sent for expert analysis. The Boeing 737-800 aircraft came down at 1031 local time (0931 GMT), several hundred yards (metres) short of the runway, about three hours after it left Istanbul's Ataturk Airport.

It broke into three pieces on impact but most of those on board survived, although many were hurt.
In a news conference on Wednesday, a Dutch health official said six of those injured were in a critical condition. She said another 25 passengers were severely wounded and 24 more had suffered light injuries. They were being treated at 11 hospitals in the area.

The Turkish transport ministry said the flight carried 78 Turkish nationals and 56 people of other nationalities. Candan Karlitekin, head of Turkish Airlines' board of directors, told reporters in Turkey that records showed the plane had been properly maintained. Turkish Transport Minister Binali Yildirim said it had been "a miracle" that there were not more casualties, AP reports.

"The fact that the plane landed on a soft surface and that there was no fire helped keep the number of fatalities low," he said. 'Suddenly descended' One passenger aboard the plane, Kerem Uzel, told Turkish news channel NTV that the plane's landing had been announced when they were at an altitude of 600m (2,000ft).
"We suddenly descended a great distance as if the plane fell into turbulence. The plane's tail hit the ground... It slid from the side of the motorway into the field."

Witnesses on the ground described seeing the plane appear to glide through the air, having lost all propulsion, before hitting the ground and breaking into three pieces. Some passengers were able to begin climbing out of the plane before rescue workers arrived on the scene. All flights were suspended for a time, but the airport re-opened later in the day. The last crash involving a Turkish Airlines plane was in 2003, when at least 65 people died in an accident in eastern Turkey. Schiphol airport has six runways and one major passenger terminal. In 2007, it handled 47 million passengers, ranking fifth in Europe.

Top 10 Amazing Facts About Dreams

This afternoon I had a (very rare) nap. During that nap I had a lucid dream (most of which I no longer remember). As I was waking up, I was thinking about my dream and thought that it would be a great idea to write a list about dreams for the site. So, here are the top 10 amazing facts about dreams.

10. Blind People Dream

People who become blind after birth can see images in their dreams. People who are born blind do not see any images, but have dreams equally vivid involving their other senses of sound, smell, touch and emotion. It is hard for a seeing person to imagine, but the body’s need for sleep is so strong that it is able to handle virtually all physical situations to make it happen.

9. You Forget 90% of your Dreams

Within 5 minutes of waking, half of your dream if forgotten. Within 10, 90% is gone. The famous poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, woke one morning having had a fantastic dream (likely opium induced) - he put pen to paper and began to describe his “vision in a dream” in what has become one of English’s most famous poems: Kubla Khan. Part way through (54 lines in fact) he was interrupted by a “Person from Porlock“. Coleridge returned to his poem but could not remember the rest of his dream. The poem was never completed.

8. Everybody Dreams

Every human being dreams (except in cases of extreme psychological disorder) but men and women have different dreams and different physical reactions. Men tend to dream more about other men, while women tend to dream equally about men and women. In addition, both men and women experience sexually related physical reactions to their dreams regardless of whether the dream is sexual in nature; males experience erections and females experience increased vaginal blood flow.

7. Dreams Prevent Psychosis

In a recent sleep study, students who were awakened at the beginning of each dream, but still allowed their 8 hours of sleep, all experienced difficulty in concentration, irritability, hallucinations, and signs of psychosis after only 3 days. When finally allowed their REM sleep the student’s brains made up for lost time by greatly increasing the percentage of sleep spent in the REM stage.

6. We Only Dream of What We Know

Our dreams are frequently full of strangers who play out certain parts - did you know that your mind is not inventing those faces - they are real faces of real people that you have seen during your life but may not know or remember? The evil killer in your latest dream may be the guy who pumped petrol in to your Dad’s car when you were just a little kid. We have all seen hundreds of thousands of faces through our lives, so we have an endless supply of characters for our brain to utilize during our dreams.

5. Not Everyone Dreams in Color

A full 12% of sighted people dream exclusively in black and white. The remaining number dream in full color. People also tend to have common themes in dreams, which are situations relating to school, being chased, running slowly/in place, sexual experiences, falling, arriving too late, a person now alive being dead, teeth falling out, flying, failing an examination, or a car accident. It is unknown whether the impact of a dream relating to violence or death is more emotionally charged for a person who dreams in color than one who dreams in black and white.


4. Dreams are not about what they are about
If you dream about some particular subject it is not often that the dream is about that. Dreams speak in a deeply symbolic language. The unconscious mind tries to compare your dream to something else, which is similar. Its like writing a poem and saying that a group of ants were like machines that never stop. But you would never compare something to itself, for example: “That beautiful sunset was like a beautiful sunset”. So whatever symbol your dream picks on it is most unlikely to be a symbol for itself.
3. Quitters have more vivid dreams

People who have smoked cigarettes for a long time who stop, have reported much more vivid dreams than they would normally experience. Additionally, according to the Journal of Abnormal Psychology: “Among 293 smokers abstinent for between 1 and 4 weeks, 33% reported having at least 1 dream about smoking. In most dreams, subjects caught themselves smoking and felt strong negative emotions, such as panic and guilt. Dreams about smoking were the result of tobacco withdrawal, as 97% of subjects did not have them while smoking, and their occurrence was significantly related to the duration of abstinence. They were rated as more vivid than the usual dreams and were as common as most major tobacco withdrawal symptoms.”

2. External Stimuli Invade our Dreams

This is called Dream Incorporation and it is the experience that most of us have had where a sound from reality is heard in our dream and incorporated in some way. A similar (though less external) example would be when you are physically thirsty and your mind incorporates that feeling in to your dream. My own experience of this includes repeatedly drinking a large glass of water in the dream which satisfies me, only to find the thirst returning shortly after - this thirst… drink… thirst… loop often recurs until I wake up and have a real drink. The famous painting above (Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening) by Salvador Dali, depicts this concept.

1. You are paralyzed while you sleep

Believe it or not, your body is virtually paralyzed during your sleep - most likely to prevent your body from acting out aspects of your dreams. According to the Wikipedia article on dreaming, “Glands begin to secrete a hormone that helps induce sleep and neurons send signals to the spinal cord which cause the body to relax and later become essentially paralyzed.”

Bonus: Extra Facts
1. When you are snoring, you are not dreaming.
2. Toddlers do not dream about themselves until around the age of
3. From the same age, children typically have many more nightmares than adults do until age 7 or 8.3. If you are awakened out of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, you are more likely to remember your dream in a more vivid way than you would if you woke from a full night sleep.

First T20, India vs New Zealand: Statistical highlights

Following are the statistical highlights of the first Twenty20 International match between India and New Zealand on Wednesday.

  • New Zealand's seven-wicket triumph is their second in as many matches against India.
  • They had won the first game against India at Johannesburg on September 16 by ten runs.
  • New Zealand's aforesaid win is their second best in terms of wickets - their best being by 9 wickets against Kenya at Durban on September 12, 2007.
  • Brendon McCullum has extended his record for the highest run-aggregate in Twenty20 Internationals - 513 in 20 games at an average of 30.17, including three fifties.
  • Martin Guptill (41), playing in his only second game, has posted his best ever score. In his only previous game against Australia, he had made a second-ball duck at Sydney on Feb.15, 2009.
  • The match has produced 24 sixes, a record in Twenty20 Internationals, bettering the 20 recorded between India (10) and Australia (10) at Durban on September 22, 2007.
  • Brendon McCullum, with three sixes in his innings, became the first batsman ever to register 20 sixes. He has now a tally of 22 in Twenty20 Internationals.
  • McCullum became the first New Zealander to hit a fifty against India - 56 not out off 49 balls. He surpassed his own record for the highest individual innings against India, bettering his 45 off 31 balls at Johannesburg on September 16, 2007.
  • McCullum and Taylor produced 50 runs - Nsew Zealand's highest for the third wicket against India, eclipsing the 17 by the same pair at Johannesburg on September 16, 2007.
  • The fourth wicket unbroken partnership of 60 runs between McCullum and Oram is a record for New Zealand, surpassing the 58 between Brendon McCullum and Grant Elliott against Australia at SCG on February 15, 2009.
  • India (162/8) registered their lowest score in a Twenty20I against New Zealand.
  • Thirteen sixes in an innings is a record for India in Twenty20 Internationals.
  • India's tally of 13 sixes is the second best in the history of Twenty20 Internationals, next only to Australia's tally of 14 sixes during their innings of 221 for five against England at Sydney on January 9, 2007.
  • Suresh Raina registered his career-best score in Twenty20 Internationals - his maiden fifty.
    Raina's 61 not out off 43 balls is the highest ever score by an Indian against New Zealand, surpassing Gautam Gambhir's 51 off 33 balls at Johannesburg on September 16,2007.
  • Raina's five sixes in an innings is an Indian record against New Zealand, bettering Virender Sehwag's tally of four sixes in Wednesday's game.
  • Suresh Raina and Harbhajan Singh were involved in a 61-run eighth wicket stand, a new record in Twenty20 Internationals, eclipsing the 59 between Yusuf Pathan and Irfan Pathan against Sri Lanka at Colombo, RPS on Feb.10, 2009.
  • Harbhajan Singh (21) has recorded his career-best score, surpassing his 7 against New Zealand at Johannesburg on September 16, 2007.

IIM Ahmedabad campus placements from today

The top IIMs, IIM-A, IIM-B and IIM-C usually give each other a gap of two-three days on final placements to allow recruiters to criss-cross the country to visit these campuses.


The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) will launch its final on-campus job placements on Wednesday. “Day Zero begins tomorrow,” said Vivek Jain, student placement cell member at IIM-A. He declined to give a closing date for the placements.


Business schools across the country have braced for a tough placement season that could take weeks to close instead of days as experienced in earlier years. Recruiters have predicted that a significant number of students will be without jobs at the end of the placement season. IIM Calcutta (IIM-C) launched its Day Zero on Saturday last week, while IIM Bangalore (IIM-B) is planning a Day Zero launch on Friday this week. The top IIMs, IIM-A, IIM-B and IIM-C or A, B and C as they are called, usually give each other a gap of two-three days on final placements to allow recruiters to criss-cross the country to visit these campuses.


The three IIMs, tense over the process, have brought forward their dates on final recruitment with IIM-C holding the process in two phases, one before and one after exams. Last year, final recruitment began on 4 March, with IIM-B taking the lead.

26/11 chargesheet filed; Kasab, Lakhvi named

Three months after the unprecedented terror attack in Mumbai, a voluminous chargesheet was filed on Wednesday naming 38 people including Pakistani nationals Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab and suspected mastermind Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi for crimes ranging from murder to waging war against the country. Indian nationals Fahim Ansari and Sabbauddin Ahmed, arrested in the case for allegedly carrying out a recee of the targets for the attacks, have been named in the chargesheet. They were produced in the court on Wednesday, PTI reported. Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, the suspected mastermind of the 26/11 carnage and believed to be hiding in Pakistan, and Lashkar-e-Toiba operative Yosuf Muzzamil are mentioned in the chargesheet as wanted accused in the case. The 11,500-page chargesheet was filed in the Esplanade court but Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist, was not produced before the court owing to security reasons, PTI report says. Special public prosecutor Ujwal Nikam filed the chargesheet before the metropolitan magistrate M J Mirza. Nikam told reporters, “38 people have been named in the chargesheet. We want the trial to end in three-six months. We will give the copy of chargesheet to Kasab.” According to TV reports, Nikam refused to reveal how many of them are Pakistanis. He said the court has fixed March 9 as the date of next hearing. Kasab and other accused have been booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code. They have also been charged with waging war against the country and offences under the Customs Act, Explosives Act and other Acts, PTI says.

Gmail is back after One Hour Server Collapse

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Breaking News! The Gmail is back. Don't be surprised if you don't know what happened this afternoon (IST). The Gmail service went down for over an hour at around 4 PM (IST) today, causing panic among millions of Gmail users across the globe, mostly in Europe, Asia and India.
Very few people in the United States may have witnessed the outage, as they were still at sleep. The Gmail service resumed after an hour or so. People against started accessing their emails at 5.15 PM.
The Google did not confirm anything. There could be an outage or a simple mail server breakdown, which should be highly unlikely. Internet users confirmed that there was no prior notice from Google regarding the mail outage or serve breakdown. Other services such as Orkut, Blogger etc. were working perfect when the Gmail was down. Interesting tho!
Internet users across the world went berserk after the collapse of Gmail and they flooded the Twitter with messages and complaints. They even vowed to switch over the email service permanently.

BSNL launches 'India Golden Fifty' Plan

After launching the 3G services in Chennai and planning extend it to 700 cities in India, the BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd) has introduced a new scheme called 'India Golden Fifty' to bring more cheer to its customers and at the same time, giving sleepless nights to the private operators.
The 'India Golden Fifty' plan offers STD calls across India at just 50 paisa per minute. The scheme will available from March 1 onwards. While all local and STD calls will have a flat rate of 50 paisa per minute, calls to BSNL networks will be charged at 20 paisa per minute (for local) and 30 paisa per minute (for STD).
The monthly rental of 'India Golden Fifty' plan will be Rs 375 inclusive of taxes. The new scheme is expected to receive overwhelming response from the customers across the country.

Pakistan’s 30 plus two questions for India

Following are the thirty plus two questions asked of the Indian Government by Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik in connection with the November 26, 2008 terror attacks on Mumbai that claimed 179 lives and maimed over 300.

Material / evidence required from the government of India:
1. Authenticated copy of confessional statement of Ajmal Qasab recorded by the judicial authorities
2. National Identity Card number of Ajmal and other documentation/ diaries recovered from his possession.
3. Cell phone numbers used by Ajmal in the past, if disclosed during interrogation.
4. Detailed description and further particulars / maximum information of reportedly killed terrorists deposed by Ajmal during interrogation with Indian Police.
5. The digital note books/ diaries recovered from killed terrorists.
6. Authenticated copies of seizure memos of all the articles recovered from or belonging to accused terrorists along with their photographs.
7. Authentic forensic analysis reports of mobile / satellite phones and or any other evidence establishing connectivity and communication of the terrorists with militants based abroad along with identifying particulars.
8. Logs of cell phone interceptions.
9. transcripts of conversation amongst the terrorists during the terror activity from 26 to 28 Nov as well as with their handlers.
10. Cell-phone numbers targeted for transcripts immediately after the terror strike.
11. Intercepted voice recording identified by Ajmal Qasab as of Abu Hamza and Kahfa etc for voice analysis, as well as further details about alleged handlers ‘Abu Hamza’ and ‘Kahfa’.
12. Thuraya telephone forensic analysis including:
a) Numbers in stored memory.
b) Called numbers /log
c) SMS messages
d) Any other information
13. Forensic analysis of cell phones, recovered from the possession of accused including: . Dialled numbers
b. Missed and received calls.
c. Last location
d. Photographs / movies
e. Audio recording
f. IMEI no. and SIM IMSI no
g. Screen shots etc
14. Fingerprints of all the ten accused for comparison with available database.
15. Fingerprints lifted from recovered weapons, personal articles and navigation devices etc. of the accused required for comparison.
16. Clear photographs of the accused for identification and matching with the national database.
17. DNA profiles of all the terrorists arrested / killed.
18. Post mortem reports of all the killed terrorists.
19. Forensic analysis and photograph of engravings on Yamaha engine including the tampering of letters on the engine. Two letters are missing. Complete engine number must be provided.
20. Photographs of engravings on pistols /SMGs recovered from the accused for identification.
21. Confirmation as to whether the pistols used by the terrorists were 9 mm! The picture of pistol shows a TT 7.62 MM (30 Bore) and CAL-30 is clearly visible.
22. Headers of the email received from deccanmujahideen@gmail.com claiming responsibility and clarification as to which specific media received the same.
23. Complete and date wise CCTV footage of all the incidents.
24. GPS data regarding travelling log, location to check log and coordinates, etc. for identifying the launching area. This is important because certain ambiguities have been noticed in the information already provided. For instance, if the terrorists started in a small boat from Karachi at approximately 0800 hours on 22nd Nov, then how come MOB waypoint is showing the boat’s position near Keti Bandar nearly one hour before this time? Out of 17 waypoints, only three have date stamps and remaining is without the same, creating doubt whether these points are authentic or created through GPS.
25. GPS operation is dependent on internal or external batteries, thus following points need elaboration: . If internal batteries were used, a large cache of batteries were required to keep them operative for more than six days.
b. If external batteries were used on boat then picture / evidence of the same should have been included in the list of items recovered from ‘Kuber’.
c. Picture labelled ‘Thuraya satellite phone found in Kuber’ is of GPS of Garmin Company as GPS navigation buttons, waypoint names on screen and company name are clearly visible.
26. Photograph identified by Ajmal as Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi.
27. Relevant information pertaining to tailor / company marks, brand names as well as dry cleaning or laundry stamps on clothes seized.
28. Google earth does not carry details of security systems, various entries exit points, inner details. Such like information requires extensive physical reconnaissance and establishment of control centre within targets. Further details are required.
29. Why did the terrorists not come to the notice of Gujrat and Maharashtra Governments after having travelled by sea in their territory including reported refuelling enroute? Besides, how did they manage to evade so many coastal radars?
30. Details of interrogation reports of Mukhtar Ahmed (Counter-insurgency Officer) and Tausif Rehman, both Indian nationals, arrested after Mumbai attacks on charge of providing SIMs to the terrorists.
Annexure-B

Additional Information Required.

The eye witness account of Jugdev, the only survivor boarding the vehicle of ATS Chief Mr Hemant Karkare, accompanied by two other senior police officers in the same vehicle namely Mr Salasker and Mr Kamteis required to be examined by investigators in Pakistan. It is necessary as Mr Karkare was investigating the cases against militants in mass scale killings of Muslims in India including Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit, reportedly involved in Samjhota Express incident.

Linkages between diamond merchant firm Surat, Gujrat and some Hindus in Pakistan need to be clarified as the diamond merchant was alleged to sponsor Malegoen blasts through Col Purohit.