Best of Booker Award

Salman Rushdie's novel “Midnight's Children” wins Best of Booker Awardmarking the 40th anniversary of the prestigious literary award.The novel convincingly beat five other shortlisted works from the competition's 40-year-old history, including works by Pat Barker, Peter Carey and Nadine Gordimer.Readers from across the poles poured in their votes via internet and sms, casting a total of 36 percent votes of Sir Rushdie alone, thus enabling him to win by majority.37 percent of the online votes were sent from UK whereas 27 percent of the online voting was contributed by the voters from North America. The voting lines were closed at the midday on 8th July with 7801 votes sent from throughout the world.Maximum voters were young readers falling between the age group of 25-34 years.Midnight Children, published in 1981, won Rushdie literary fame for the first time. It brought him home the 1981 Booker prize and The James Tait Black Memorial prize for the same year. Previously also, it was awarded the 'Booker of the Bookers' prize in 1993, to celebrate the Bookers prize 25th anniversary.

Chandrayaan-I

India's maiden moon mission Chandrayaan-I has reached a major milestone as scientists completed the integration of all instruments onto the spacecraft and are aiming to launch it by September 19..Space scientists at ISRO last week completed the integration of the 11 instruments, six indigenous and five under international cooperation, onto the spacecraft which is no bigger than a typical office cubicle.Chandrayaan-i will be launched atop a polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV), India`s workhorse rocket with a streak of nine consecutive flawless missions.The spacecraft will also carry near infrared and x-ray spectrometers and a laser altimeter to determine the altitude of the lunar craft for spatial coverage of various instruments. These payloads will help researchers ascertain the composition and topography of the lunar surface.The probe will relay video imagery, altitude information and spectral data back to earth through the Chandrayaan mothership, which will be in a lunar orbit 100 km away.The mineral composition will be determined by the hyperspectral imaging spectrometer operating in 400-900 nanometer band with a spectral resolution of 15 nm and spatial resolution of 80 metres with a swath of 20 km.The deliveries of Chandrayaan 1`s five other international instruments began last August, when NASA`s moon mineralogy mapper was flown to India from the jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena, California.Nicknamed m3, the 15-pound imaging spectrometer will map the moon`s natural resources through visible and near-infrared wavelengths at higher resolutions than any instrument before.

Civil service exam 2008

The Union Public Service Commission has notified a total of 671 vacancies for civil services examinations this year from past years.During the past few years, the total annual intake was around 500 with an average of 65 IAS posts up for grabs. The other vacancies were for Indian Police Service, Indian Foreign Service and a range of Group A and Group B jobs.But this time around, a total of 110 IAS jobs are available in civil services exam 2008. the total IAS vacancies for 2009 and 2010 are likely to be higher at 120 and 130 respectively.Over 3 lakh candidates apply for preliminary tests.

Google in india

The Google operations in Gurgaon, Bangalore, Mumbai and Hyderabad put together, make for the highest number of Googlers outside the United States. India has also emerged as the highest growth market for Google in terms of advertising revenues..The Google team in India is also concentrating on developing non-Hindi and non-English capabilities for mobile device users.The idea is to make social networking and search friendly for the disparate Indian user profile by providing more Indic content.Given the burgeoning size of the mobile users in India, Google is investing huge resources into the next leg of its research and development, focused at the Indian market.

Cat Result

The results of one of the toughest and most competitive management exams in the country, CAT, were released.This year, MBA aspirants scored the most in the Data Interpretation (DI) section. The cut-off for DI is expected to be around 40. The scores for Quantitative Analysis (QA) and language section have taken a fall this year.The number of CAT takers in 2007 has risen to 2 lakh as against 1.5 lakh last year.

India needs 203 bn dollar by 2012 for healthcare

Access to quality healthcare in India is gradually diminishing, and to solve the crisis the sector would need an investment of about $202.75 billion over the next five years, says an industry body.India's healthcare situation requires a much faster growth rate as it would require about 2.2 million beds and the investment needed for that is almost $77.9 billion, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) said in a presentation to the government.FICCI has suggested a five-pronged PPP (public-private-partnership) model to bridge this huge deficit.

India most expensive equity market in Asia-Pacific

India is the the most expensive equity market in Asia-Pacific region for 2007, excluding Japan, though the country can give the second-highest returns to investors after Indonesia, says a study by the global brokerage firm Citigroup.According to a new report from Citigroup, India is the overall most expensive market in the region for 2007 after considering various metrics such as price-to-earnings ratio,book value, dividend yield, cash flow, return on equity and enterprise value.Citigroup has termed India more expensive than China, Hong Kong, Philippines and Australia, while it has named Thailand, Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia and Malaysia as the cheapest.

Unique bone marrow transplant in Chennai

A hospital has scripted medical history by successfully conducting a unrelated bone marrow transplant in an eight-year-old Ugandan boy using the cord blood cells from an American donor, at a fraction of what the procedure would internationally.Howard Kafeero from Uganda suffered from Fanconi anaemia (FA), a genetic disease that could have been fatal. Seven months ago, he was brought to the Apollo Specialty Hospital here.The doctors successfully networked an unrelated but compatible American donor whose cord blood matched Howard's needs and carried out the bone marrow transplant that saved the boy's life. Doctors say that Howard is now almost 100 percent normal.

Hatshepsut’s mummy

Egyptologists at the University of Manchester have carried out a DNA test on the mummy discovered by an Egyptian archaeological team earlier, and confirmed that it did belong to Queen Hatshepsut, Egypt’s greatest female pharaoh.An archaeological team led by Zahi Hawass, Egypt's Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, recently located her mummy in Luxor’s Valley of the Kings, following a one-year study.They used CT scans to link distinct physical traits of Queen Hatshepsut to that of her ancestors, and narrow the search for the Pharaoh to the couple of female mummies in the KV60 tomb.

First step to register pregnancy

The Union Health Ministry and Women and Child Development Ministry will start registering pregnancies in 10 blocks shortly.The project — a first of its type which received flak from many women’s organisations — will be used to prepare a database of pregnancies and keep a track on the number of pregnancies that ultimately result in childbirth.The government expects that by October 2007, the pilot project will be implemented in 10 blocks with a high child malnutrition rate and skewed sex ratio. The WCD ministry will also implement a new scheme for girl children in these 10 blocks. Under the scheme, the girl child will get over Rs 7,000 and an insurance cover of Rs one lakh immediately after birth.Thereafter, the government will pay for her immunisation charges and education expenses till she clears her class X examinations. And after she is 18 years old, the government will give another small amount to make her financially stable.

First proof of water found on planet outside Earth’s solar system

At about 370.3 trillion miles from the Earth, the best evidence to date has been found concerning the existence of water on an extrasolar planet, or a planet circling a star other than our Sun. And, the abundance of water on such planets is key to finding alien life.Astronomers using an infrared camera onboard NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have identified clear signs of water on a planet that is 63 light-years (about 370.3 trillion miles) from the Earth. HD 189733b is a planet classified as a gas giant, sometimes also called a Hot Jupiter because of its similarity with the planet Jupiter.Hot Jupiters are also similar to Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, which also reside in our own Solar System. They are a class of extrasolar planets (exoplanets) whose mass is equal to or more than Jupiter.However, Hot Jupiters are normally within 0.05 astronomical units (AU, or about 4.6 million miles) of their parent star, unlike Jupiter, which is about 5 AU (or about 464.8 million miles) from the Sun.

India, Brazil sign seven pacts

India and Brazil invigorated their bourgeoning strategic and economic ties by signing seven pacts in areas ranging from space, trade and energy to academic exchanges.The pacts were signed in the presence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at the stately Hyderabad House here.The two leaders held talks on a wide spectrum of bilateral, regional and global issues including quadrupling their bilateral trade to $10 billion by 2010, civilian nuclear energy cooperation, promotion of bio-fuels, UN reforms and cooperation in multilateral forums like the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

India, Ethiopia sign five pacts

India and Ethiopia, Africa's second largest country signed five pacts to intensify their relations as Addis Ababa came out strongly in support of India's bid for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council.The agreements were signed in the presence of External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who is currently on a four-day visit to Ethiopia, and his Ethiopian counterpart Seyoum Mesfin.Three agreements were signed on bilateral investment protection, establishment of a joint ministerial committee and foreign office consultations between the two countries.Two more pacts were signed in the area of science and technology and education, said an external affairs ministry statement here.The minister will launch pilot projects of India's dream project in Africa - the Pan-African e-network being built with Indian funds and technical assistance - that will bring benefits of tele-education and tele-medicine to the entire African continent.

Mexican Slim beats Gates in rich ranks

Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim is the world's richest man, worth an estimated $67.8 billion, after overtaking Microsoft Corp founder Bill Gates, according to a respected tracker of Mexican financial wealth.A 27 per cent surge in the share price of America Movil, Latin America's largest cell phone operator controlled by Slim, from March to June made him close to $8.6 billion wealthier than Gates, said Eduardo Garcia in Sentido Comun, the online financial publication he founded.Garcia estimated that Gates was worth $59.2 billion.Forbes magazine reported in April that Slim had overtaken billionaire investor Warren Buffett for the No 2 spot in the world's richest stakes but was still behind Gates.Mexico has a huge rich-poor divide, with a tiny elite holding most of the country's wealth and around half the population living on less than $5 a day.Forbes bumped up Slim because gains from his holding company Carso and fixed-line telecom Telmex added to the Mexican's fortune while shares of Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway fell in the same period.

terrorism course

Scottish university's pioneering new terrorism course went live this week -- via Internet. The Certificate in Terrorism Studies from the University of St Andrews is the first transnational e-learning course offering an understanding of the latest terrorist thinking.According to reports, some 140 people have already signed up for this web-based course. Participants include police, military, coastguard and aviation officials from Britain, Australia, Canada, Scandinavia and Thailand, among other countries.

All Efforts On To Acquire Gandhi Letter

The Indian government has launched all out efforts to acquire a rare letter Mahatma Gandhi wrote 19 days before his 1948 assassination which is up for auction in London next week.In the Jan 11, 1948 letter written for the 'Harijan' newspaper, which he edited, Gandhi makes an emotive appeal for tolerance towards Muslims.'My view remains unalterable especially at this critical juncture in our history. It is wrong to ruffle Muslim or any other person's feeling when there is no question of ethics,' Gandhi wrote, just 19 days before Nathuram Godse shot him dead.The rare letter is part of a collection titled 'the Albin Schram Collection of Autograph Letters', a personal collection by Albin Schram, a Switzerland-based collector. It also includes some of the greatest letters written by legends like Napoleon, Winston Churchill, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde.

Memorial to come up for 1857 martyrs

The Haryana government announced that a memorial would be set up at Ambala in memory of those who sacrificed their lives in the country's first war of independence in 1857.He was addressing a public meeting organised to observe the martyrdom day of Ch Udmi Ram Nambardar of village Liwaspur, who was crushed to death along with his wife and 22 others of the village, as the villagers had killed some British soldiers who were going to join troops at Ambala from Delhi in 1857.

Red Fort is World Heritage site

The Red Fort, the imposing 17th century Mughal architectural marvel in the capital, was Thursday declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco - a rare honour expected to attract more tourists to the fortress from where the Indian tricolour is unfurled on Independence Day.The honour to the Red Fort, located in old Delhi, makes it the third for the Indian capital - after Qutub Minar, the 239 ft-high sandstone minaret completed in the 13th century, and the 16th century Humayun Tomb.The planning of the palace is based on Islamic prototypes, but each pavilion reveals architectural elements typical of Mughal buildings, reflecting a fusion of Persian, Timurid and Hindu traditions, Unesco underlined.

Millionaire club expands to 1,00,000

India has added over 17,000-dollar-millionaires in 2006, recording the highest growth in high net worth individuals (HNIs) after Singapore. At the end of the year, the number of millionaires in India rose to 1,00,000 from 83,000 in the previous year.This comes in the back of a record 8.8% real growth in gross domestic product, second only to China. Also, there has been a sharp increase in the asset values with the Sensex being among the best performing in emerging markets. According to the 11th annual world wealth report brought out by Capgemini and Merrill Lynch, Singapore, India, Indonesia and Russia witnessed the highest growth in HNI populations

Internet Protocol Television

Shakti Extratainment, the first Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) channel
one of the very first from India, will be launched here at a cultural ‘Bani Festival’ to be inaugurated July 4. People can choose what to view and when, rather than rely on a channel’s programming schedules, using superior technology that offers higher than DVD quality resolution, with encryption to protect content providers and artists against piracy.The programmes are in five broad categories — Classic Shakti (classical music, dance and culture), Kala Shakti (popular entertainment including films and serials), Gyan Shakti (educational shows), Atma Shakti (devotional, philosophical/spiritual) and Jan Shakti (community centric).