ehow.com

Today’s site is a storehouse of ‘how-to’ guides for a range of things: From anchoring a TV and losing weight fast, to choosing a thoroughbred horse and submit missing CD information via iTunes. With a bunch of categories such as computers, home, business, food, pets, relationships, etc, this one is begging to be bookmarked because you never know which tip you will need. News Source : Samachar

New defence purchase policy soon

The government is set to revise the defence purchase policy unveiled two years ago, according to sources in the Defence Ministry.

The policy governs purchases worth over Rs. 40,000 crores being made by the armed forces every year. The altered policy is likely to be announced within the next couple of months after a few issues are sorted out.

Bowing to demands from Western arms suppliers, particularly aviation companies bidding for a $10 billion contract, the biggest change will be in the offset clause of the 2006 Defence Purchase Policy. The clause makes it mandatory for all foreign companies winning defence contracts to source 30 per cent of the value of the contract from India.

Cleared by the Department of Policy Promotion in the Ministry of Industry, the revised offset policy proposes to allow banking of offsets and include transfer of technology (ToT) in offsets.

Under banking, a company sourcing parts for the civilian sector from India can include this amount in its offset contribution for defence equipment.

In case of ToT, if a company says it has transferred technology, the Ministry will examine past precedents, set a value and include the amount in the offset obligation.

At present, only direct offsets are allowed which means there is no allowance either for ToT or banking. The system has so far worked well and is much less complicated. The first direct offset contract has already been signed with an Israeli company which has agreed to source components for radars to be supplied to the armed forces from two Indian companies. India will also soon sign a $1 billion contract for upgrading MiG-29s in which the company has agreed to meet offset obligations amounting to over $300 millions. Other impending contracts such as refuelling tankers for the Navy also has the direct offset obligation.

However, Western companies, especially from the aviation sector, were unhappy with the clause. This was particularly so because in the multi-billion contract for 126 fighter jets the offset percentage has been raised from the usual 30 per cent to 50 per cent.

In other words, business worth Rs. 21,000 crore of the estimated Rs. 42,000 crore contract must be generated in India. Officials are reconciled to bargaining on the value of the ToT after interacting with major aviation companies such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Rafael.

The other change in offset policy is to exempt software and services from licence requirements. But some issues remain to be resolved. Software service companies that will be exempted are not going to be listed on the MoD website.

News Source : Samachar

Bird flu spreads in West Bengal

Death in the backyard: A boy holds a dead chicken as an health official looks on at Majharipara village in West Bengal on Sunday.

Kolkata: The bird flu outbreak spread to yet another district in West Bengal even as culling operations continued for the fifth day on Sunday amid reports of fresh deaths of poultry birds in new areas.

“It has been confirmed that the disease has spread to one block in Bankura district and there have been reports of it affecting fresh areas in the worst-hit districts of Birbhum and Murshidabad districts,” Minister for Animal Resources Development Anisur Rahaman told The Hindu over telephone from Murshidabad district.

“While some of the affected areas have been brought under control bird flu has affected new areas,” he added.

In all 18 blocks besides a municipality area and a state-run poultry farm, have been affected by the disease in six districts.

Culling operations in the five districts of Birbhum, South Dinajpur, Burdwan, Nadia and Murshidabad are continuing in full swing, the Minister said. More than 55,000 chickens have been culled in South Dinajpur alone, district officials added.

The State Government has set a target of over four lakh poultry birds to be culled in the next few days. “To meet the target we have increased the number of culling teams from the 60 initially set up to nearly 200 and intend to double the figure in a day or two”, Mr. Rahaman said.

The State authorities have called for culling operations in areas reporting unusual mortality rates among birds without waiting for test results from the High Security Animal Diseases Laboratory, Bhopal, Mr. Rahaman said. There have been reports of deaths from South 24 Parganas and North Dinajpur districts.

A team of veterinary doctors is arriving from Assam and if required additional specialists will be brought in from elsewhere to assist the local health workers and those belonging to the Animal Resources Development department, the Minister said.

A dealer in poultry products allegedly committed suicide. His body was found in the English Bazar area of Malda in the morning amid suspicions that he took the extreme step fearing that the outbreak in adjoining South Dinajpur district would badly hit his business. Police were investigating.

Though the authorities have been urging people in the affected areas to hand over their poultry birds being reared in backyard farms for culling operations, many continue to be reluctant.

Four members of a culling team were allegedly assaulted by villagers after a culling operation in the Nalhati municipality area of Birbhum district on Saturday evening. They have been admitted to a local sub-divisional hospital.

News Source : Samachar

Malaysia may send foreign workers home

In a move which could affect Indians employed in Malaysia, the government here is likely to send home at least two lakh foreign workers by next year to promote job opportunities for locals.

It follows the government’s denial of reports earlier this month which had claimed that it had placed a freeze on recruitment of Indian workers. Malaysia, which relies heavily on labour from India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, has over 20 lakh foreign workers with approvals for two lakh arrivals this year. With immediate effect, the Home Ministry said it would not approve the work permit of any foreign worker who has been in the country for five years or longer. By reducing the number of foreign workers in many of the industries, employers will be forced to hire local workers at “reasonable” salaries. The government wants to reduce foreign workers to 18 lakh by next year and 15 lakh by 2015. “We are going to re-look at the policy of managing foreign workers,” Home Affairs Ministry Secretary General Raja Azhar Abdul Manap was quoted as saying. Meanwhile, assuaging the feelings of agitated ethnic Indians ahead of elections, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi on Sunday declared the Hindu festival of Thaipusam a national holiday. News Source : Samachar

Nevada goes to Hillary

Senator Hillary Clinton, bidding to become the first woman President of the US, consolidated her position by winning the hard-fought Nevada caucuses edging past her Democratic rival Barack Obama while John McCain beat Mike Huckabee in Republican primaries in South Carolina.

The victory marked the third-straight campaign win for New York Senator Clinton, the former first lady, after she claimed New Hampshire and Michigan primaries. The wife of former President Bill Clinton had made a remarkable comeback in the race for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination for the White House after losing out the opening Iowa caucuses to Obama, also attempting to script history by becoming the first black President. The Nevada battle saw a huge turnout of voters with state party officials saying over 1.7 lakh voters attended the caucuses. The Democrats will have their next battle next Saturday at the critical primaries of South Carolina, where Arizona Senator McCain emerged victorious over former Arkansas Governor Huckabee in Republican caucuses last night. Clinton got 51 per cent of the vote and Illinois Senator Obama 45 per cent, with over 90 per cent of Nevada precincts reporting, according to the state’s Democratic Party. Former vice-presidential nominee John Edwards had nearly 4 per cent. “This is one step on a long journey throughout the country as we put our cases forward and take that case to the people, and this was an especially wonderful day for me,” Clinton said after her victory. Obama’s campaign, however, asserted he had in fact won more delegates to the national convention that will choose the Democrats’ presidential candidate. Jeff Berman, the director of delegate distribution for Obama, was quoted as saying that Clinton was defeated by 13-12 on the delegate count. News Source : Samachar

UK wants more India cooperation on terrorism

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for greater cooperation with India on combatting terrorism as he began a visit to New Delhi on Sunday.

Brown wants India to become a member of an international body that counters terrorist financing -- the Financial Action Task Force -- and also wants to help it to acquire sophisticated equipment to detect people carrying weapons or explosives at ports and airports.

"There's got to be greater cooperation between the major countries and Britain in the fight against terrorism," he told the BBC in an interview on Sunday.

"I want not just China and Pakistan but also India to play their part in cooperating with us so we can root out those who are seeking to use terrorist finance," he said.

"That means India should join what's called the Financial Action Task Force -- it's not yet a member -- so it can play its part in working to deal with terrorist structures," Brown said.

He also called for a hearts and minds campaign to combat ‘extremist ideologies’.

Brown arrived in India from China where he focused on expanding trade and investment and on cooperation against climate change.

In India he will hold talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, meet business leaders and give a speech on Monday on reforming international institutions.

News Source : Samachar

A dash of this, a dash of that

There were the dream runners — over 21,000 of them — and there were those with dreams, a little more than 2,000 in numbers.

These were the participants of the 4.3-km senior citizens’ race and the 2.5-km wheelchair event at the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon on Sunday. Most of these were first-timers for whom training, rewards or recognition didn’t quite matter.

What mattered was being there, running and as one senior citizen put it, to ‘add spice to life’.

“I have not practised for the marathon,” said Amar Inamdar, a student of Agripada’s Society for Education of the Crippled.

“I do not know how many kilometres I will run, but I know that I want to participate,” said the 14-year-old, who has been afflicted with polio and has a speech defect.

Inamdar was dressed like a politician; he was among the 35 students to have come for the event sporting attires of various professions “to convey that they too can be integrated into mainstream society”, said their coordinator Manju Uttamchandani.

Next to Inamdar was 17-year-old Riddhi Gala on a wheelchair, who completed the 2.5-km race in 30 minutes. Wheelchair-bound since the age of seven, Gala, who has cerebral palsy, has reconciled herself to the fact that she needs a wheelchair for a lifetime. “The only thing I regret is being unable to rise when the national anthem is sung,” said Riddhi who blushed profusely after sighting actor John Abraham.

Angad Dugal, who too suffers from cerebral palsy, was aided by his family; his two sisters encouraged him to keep going while his mother trailed with his moulded chair so he could rest. “In life, one must forge ahead,” said the 21-year-old.

That is precisely what Ghatkopar resident Champaklal Upadhyaya exemplified in the senior citizens’ race as he ambled with the support of a walking stick and an escort. “I have undergone 14 operations since a 1974 accident,” said the 73-year-old, showing a scar on his stomach from where his skin was grafted on his feet. “I may be the last person in the race, but I will go on. I want to win by completing whatever I can of this marathon today. These little things add spice to life.”

That and the Bambaiyya spirit. “I am here to show my sense of belonging to Mumbai and to salute the city’s spirit,” said Seema Nerurkar. The 57-year-old homemaker panted and puffed as she tried to keep up with her husband Charuhas, 63, a retired Central Railways’ engineer.

Keeping their spirits high with his wit and renditions of old Hindi songs was a 70-year-old, dressed in a bright red T-shirt. “We are old and we are like gold,” hollered Nashik resident PM Ahuja, who won the Nashik run a week ago.

News Source : Samachar

Several feared killed in bus accident in Nasik

At least 25 people, including four children, are feared killed, and about 30 others injured, when a bus carrying devotees returning from the Saptshringi shrine in the district fell into a gorge near here on Sunday night.

Police said the luxury bus belonging to a private company was returning from the shrine in Nandurigaon when it fell into a gorge 75 km from here.

Police said the passengers were from Mumbai and its suburbs.

The accident occurred at around 2230 hours, they said. Some of the injured have been admitted to Vani Rural hospital, they said.

Ambulances have rushed to the spot.

News Source : Samachar

Apple iPod upgrade a nice Touch

In a review of Apple's iPhone, I wrote glowingly about a few features that had nothing to do with making a call.

I loved the simple Notes program used to jot reminders you could then e-mail to a friend or your office inbox. Another plus was the ease of e-mailing a photo, the best such application on any device I have used.

Well, now I can do those things, plus a few other tricks, on the iPod Touch thanks to a substantial software upgrade. The only feature I can't do on the Touch that I love on the iPhone is text messaging, and that's because the Touch doesn't include a phone. Otherwise, Apple's top-of-the-line iPod is now thisclose to being the iPhone.

The Touch, like the iPhone, always could connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi. So in a move Apple should have done when the Touch was introduced, but likely didn't because iPhone buyers might be annoyed at the similarities, it added every Internet function to the Touch that exists on the iPhone. The only things missing are the tools that require a cellular network.

Wi-Fi improvements

The updated Touch exemplifies two powerful trends sweeping the gadget landscape: the use of Wi-Fi and the growing collection of third-party applications for hand-held devices.

I have put several such applications on the Touch, in addition to the new goodies from Apple. They include solitaire (old habits), Google mobile and direct links to several news sites. I used a new feature called Web Clips to create icons for those applications so I can open them with the touch of a finger.

Other media-playing hand-helds with Wi-Fi include the redesigned Sony Mylo and the Ibiza, from a Chinese company called Haier. More are coming.

These devices have morphed beyond media playback. You can send e-mail, surf the Web and do practically anything you can on a computer.

Four of the Touch's five new applications—Mail, Maps, Stocks and Weather—work only when connected to the Internet. Also, improvements were made to existing Touch programs to take better advantage of Wi-Fi. For example, with Photos, I can e-mail a cute picture of the kids to my sister as easily from the Touch as on the iPhone.

The coolest feature is Maps and how it integrates with Contacts. Like most iPods before the Touch, a Contacts feature was included, but you couldn't do much beside looking up an address or phone number. Now when you click on an address in Contacts, up pops a map that offers turn-by-turn driving directions to the front door.

It is not based on GPS, so it works only when you are in a Wi-Fi range. Maps uses a Wi-Fi positioning system, developed by Boston-based Skyhook Wireless. In my tests, the program worked great and provided information on traffic patterns to estimate how long a trip may take.

Another upgrade was to the Calendar program, where you can add appointments directly. This improvement has nothing to do with Wi-Fi, but before the upgrade one had to make appointments on a computer and then sync to the Touch. No more.

Ante up for upgrade

I do have some issues with the Touch improvements, however.

Notably, it is the first iPod software upgrade one must pay for. It costs $20, and while I'd argue it's worth the cost, I'm puzzled by Apple's new approach. In a way, this is akin to the $200 price cut two months after launching the iPhone. Remember how that rankled the early buyers?

Imagine if you recently bought a $399 iPod Touch and now are asked to pony up another $20 for the really cool stuff. Would that annoy you?

Also, while I have not tested the iTunes movie-rental service—I would use it for plane trips—I wish Apple would launch a music rental plan. The Haier Ibiza uses Wi-Fi to connect to Rhapsody's ever-improving music service, where for a monthly fee I can listen to whatever I want without having to buy. It's a great way to discover music. (Find an Ibiza review at chicago tribune.com/eric.)

Short on storage

Finally, there were two items I didn't like about the Touch when it was released that are more apparent now.

First, storage. For music fans with a large digital library who also want to watch movies, 16 gigabytes is not enough space. Movies and TV shows take up much more room than music. I've had to keep music off the Touch in order to get videos on. I want a Touch with more storage.

Second, Wi-Fi is a huge power drain. You will need to charge your device after two to three hours of Web use. A better battery is needed.

Those issues aside, the Touch, while not a smart phone like the iPhone, is far more clever today than yesterday.

Let's call it the smart iPod.

News Source : Samachar

Swiss woman raped in Pushkar

Within days of a 40-year-old British journalist alleging she was raped by the owner of a guest house in Udaipur on December 23, a Swiss tourist has made a similar accusation: That she was sexually assaulted by a hotel-owner in Pushkar, Rajasthan.

The Swiss woman, in her late 20s, has said in her FIR filed with the Pushkar police that Nanu Rawat, the owner of Nanu Garden Restaurant and Hotel, raped her about a week ago in one of the rooms. She alleges that Rawat first tried to molest her while she was asleep, and then raped her even as her friend from Canada was sleeping in the same room.
The tourist, a singer by profession, had come to Pushkar about a month ago.

Ajmer SP Anand Srivastava said the woman came to his office and lodged a complaint that she was sexually assaulted by the owner of the hotel where she was staying a week back. Following her complaint, an FIR was lodged and investigations are on, a Pushkar police officer said.

News Source : Samachar

Another Indian student shot dead in US university.

Yet another Indian doctoral student has been shot dead - the third in a month - on a US university campus, raising questions about the safety of the American university environment.

The bullet-riddled body of 29-year old Abhijit Mahato was found inside his Anderson Street apartment in North Carolina's Duke University on Friday, nearly a month to the day after two other Indian Ph.D students were killed execution-style at Louisiana State University.

Police are still investigating the cause and motive for Mahato's killing, even as the December 17 LSU
murders are yet to be solved.

Mahato, originally from Kolkata and Tatanagar, India, was studying for an engineering doctorate degree focused on computational mechanics at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering, university officials said. He was in his second year.

Earlier, he had earned his mechanical engineering degree from Jadavpur University in 2001 and an M.Tech from the Indian Institute for Technology (IIT) in Kanpur in 2004.

Before coming to Duke, Mahato worked for two years for the GE Global Research Center in Bangalore, where he focused on finite element analysis, a computer-simulation technique used in engineering. The experience prepared him well for his graduate work, according to Mahato's adviser, engineering professor Tod Laursen.

"We were working together on an industry-funded research project and Abhijit's prior industry experience helped him develop close working relationships with our partner," Laursen said. "He understood their needs as a business and was a pleasure to work with."

Even as the incident sent shock waves among the huge Indian student community in the US – the biggest from any foreign country, Duke officials tried to reassure the students.

Some 80,000 students come to the US each year for studies and the total Indian student population in the US is said to be over 250,000 at any given time.

Duke is one of the biggest campuses in the US with one of the racially and ethnically diverse student population (from 117 countries) including a large contingent from India. The University's Pratt School of Engineering is particularly popular among Indian students.

On a newly constructed web page on the school site, Mahato described himself as the "the newest person to join DUKE Computational Mechanics Lab ((DCML)" and said he is "interested in nonlinear continuum mechanics problems and developing numerical methods for them...working on large deformation two body contact problems."

Larry Moneta, Duke's vice president for student affairs, said the university has begun reaching out to Mahato's friends and to his family in India, as well as to Indian and other international students on campus. It is offering counseling services and has begun considering appropriate ways of commemorating Mahato's life.

"This is a tragic circumstance, and we are doing everything possible to assist those who may be affected by it," Moneta said in a statement issued by the university.

In the engineering department, Laursen met with his lab team to talk about Mahato, whom he described as intellectually curious, kind and outgoing.

"He made friends very easily and always had a smile on his face," Laursen said. "Our research team was particularly close to Abhijit. He was very well read in both poetry and literature, and enjoyed conversation with others about what they were reading."

Mahato said on his webpage that his "upbringing was in Kolkata; the City of Joy, the city of intellectuals, and much much more."

News Source : Samachar