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.

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.

good genes

UK scientists believe they have discovered why the spread of "good genes" throughout the population does not make everyone good-looking. If women select the most attractive men, the genes should quickly become commonplace, according to Darwin. But the new research suggests that genetic mutations routinely affect the DNA repair kit, resulting in greater variations as damage goes unrepaired.

Astra

The indigenously developed air-to-air missile Astra was testfired from the Interim Test Range (ITR).Developed by the Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL), Hyderabad, Astra is an advanced missile capable of engaging targets over 80 km away.

Satheeswaran

19-year-old polytechnic student in Coimbatore, who gained fame for performing a record number of push- ups with the palms facing upward, has killed himself because his feat wasn't good enough to take him to the Guinness Book of World Records.Satheeswaran, a resident of Pappanaicken Palayam area of Coimbatore, had made it to the Limca Book of Records for 141 non-stop backhand push-ups two years ago, left a suicide note.

Bill Gates

Harvard University has announced that Bill Gates will be the principal speaker at the commencement ceremony later this year - 30 years after starting an undergraduate degree that he never completed.Gates entered Harvard in 1973, but in 1975 left to concentrate his efforts on Microsoft, the fledgling company he had co-founded with Paul Allen. Steve Ballmer, now Microsoft's CEO, was a classmate of Gates and lived in the same Harvard residence

Harvard University

The Harvard University is in the spotlight with the release of the annual list of its most embarrassing graduates and students, which includes Kaavya Viswanathan, a student of Indian origin.Apart from Kaavya, who was caught for plagiarism, the list includes former Cardinal Bernard Law, accused of protecting child-molesting priests. Former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, now charged with corruption, and former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling, currently in jail, also find place on the embarrassing list

NASA

A new measurement of Mars' South Polar Region indicates that it contains enough frozen water to cover the whole planet in a liquid layer approximately 36 feet deep, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA. ( A new measurement of Mars' South Polar Region indicates that it contains enough frozen water to cover the whole planet in a liquid layer approximately 36 feet deep, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).A joint NASA-Italian Space Agency instrument, the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS), installed on the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft provided these data.A joint NASA-Italian Space Agency instrument, the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS), installed on the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft provided these data.

Naxalites

biggest ever strike by Maoists on security forces in Chhattisgarh, at least 55 police personnel were killed and 11 injured today when more than 300 heavily armed rebels stormed a police station in the Bastar region.The Naxalites, led by the military wing of the banned CPI-Maoist attacked Rani Bodli police outpost, 525 km from here, in the wee hours today, police sources told PTI on phone from Bijapur district.Sixteen Chhattisgarh Armed Force (CAF) jawans and 39 special police officers were killed, while four CAF jawans and seven officers were injured in the incident. Nine other policemen who were at the outpost escaped without any injuries.The Naxalites looted 48 weapons from the security forces, including rifles and a two-inch mortar

Taslima Nasreen

An Indian Muslim group has offered a 500,000 rupees ($11,319; BD4,267) bounty for the beheading of controversial Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen.The president of the All India Ibtehad Council said he had declared the reward for anyone who carried out the "qatal" or "extermination" of the "notorious woman".

mental disorder

Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss has said that nearly 75,000 people commit suicide in India every year for varied reasons, including mental disorder. Suicide in India is a major threat and nearly 75,000 people commit suicide every year. Poverty, debt, illiteracy and mental imbalance are the main reasons for this menace,” said the minister. “Seven to eight percent of the Indian population is facing some sort of mental problem, of which over 1.5 percent (15 million) needs special care

news

At the 57th Berlinale International Film Festival in Berlin, which concluded last week-end, two practically unknown Indian filmmakers were in the award-winning league.The more prestigious prize, for the Best Debutant Film at the festival, went to Rajnesh Domalpalli for his maiden feature film, Vanaja.Chennai-born Domalpalli is a B.Tech who graduated in 1984 from IIT, Powai; he worked in the US as a computer engineer. Vanaja, his thesis film for the course, was shot in Andhra Pradesh with a cast of raw first timers.The other award, a Special Mention by the Youth Jury, went to Tarsem Singh for The Fall, a co-production credited to India-UKUSA.Tarsem, also 45 years of age, is quite a man of parts: techno whiz, producer, director, writer, and actor

banks raise rates

Three state-run Indian banks have raised their lending rates as inflation pressures in the economy grow. Bank of Baroda, Bank of India and Punjab National Bank, all of which are state-run, have raised their prime rates by half a percentage point.Figures released on Thursday showed wholesale inflation rising to 6.73%.

Muhammad Yunus

Bangladeshi Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus has announced that he is forming his own political party.state of emergency is in place in Bangladesh and an interim government is in charge while fresh elections are organised. The state of emergency was triggered by weeks of violence ahead of the 22 January poll

pain monitor

Professor GC Ray at the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur has developed an anaesthesia and pain monitor to measure the level of consciousness and pain felt by patients on an operation bed.The equipment design began in 2001 and was successfully completed last year. The monitor is being tested for use at the Phoenix Hospital and at the Charnoc Hospital in Kolkata, supervised by team member Dr Das.

news

With the Middle East still a dream destination for many in Kerala, the state leads the rest of India in the number of passports issued.In the last fiscal, a record 616,906 passports were given out from three passport offices in the state, according to figures provided by the external affairs ministry.The Kozhikode office issued a record 272,804 passports followed by Kochi with 196,097 and Thiruvananthapuram with 148,005, says the data.Kerala today is the only state in the country to have four full-fledged passport offices, with the fourth one having opened in Malappuram district in north Kerala last year.

bad facts about india

47 percent of Indian children under the age of five are either malnourished or stunted.
The adult literacy rate is 61 percent (behind Rwanda and barely ahead of Sudan). Even this is probably overstated, as people are deemed literate who can do little more than sign their name.
Only 10 percent of the entire Indian labor force works in the formal economy; of these fewer than half are in the private sector.
The enrollment of six-to-15-year-olds in school has actually declined in the last year. About 40 million children who are supposed to be in school are not.
About a fifth of the population is chronically hungry; about half of the world's hungry live in India.
More than a quarter of the India population lives on less than a dollar a day.
India has more people with HIV than any other country

GDP Growth

Despite 3.3 per cent slump in agriculture growth, the country’s GDP growth is projected at 9.2 per cent during 2006-07, against 9 per cent in the previous year, thanks to robust performance in manufacturing and financial services.According to advance estimates of National Income 2006-07 released here today by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO), the growth in agriculture dipped to 2.7 per cent this fiscal after rising to 6 per cent in the previous year.The lacklustre performance in agriculture has forced the government to lower the estimates of wheat and rice production to 72.5 million tonnes against the initial estimates of 74 million tonnes.The manufacturing sector grew at 11.3 per cent against 9.1 per cent while construction took a breather to 9.4 per cent against 14.2 per cent last year.The financing, insurance, real estate and business services continued to perform well, logging in 11.1 per cent growth against 10.9 per cent.The 9.2 per cent GDP growth is projected on top of 9 per cent for 2005-06, taking the growth to over 9 per cent for the second year running.There was a marginal improvement in mining and quarry to 4.5 per cent from 3.6 per cent last year.

Instant Darjeeling tea

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur is about to reveal a secret method to brew instant Darjeeling tea, just like coffee.The IIT’s food and agriculture department is currently in business talks to transfer the secret recipe for instant soluble tea -- it won an Indian patent last year -- to two Bangalore-based tea companies, and one from Ooty.With this process, a kilogram of fresh tealeaves can yield 25 to 30 grams of soluble tea powder, and 230 grams black tea. The total cost for companies to produce the instant tea would be about Rs 1 lakh —- the cost of setting up a grinder, a temperature-controlled chamber and a refrigerated dryer.

minuscule motor

Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell first imagined an atom-size device dubbed Maxwell’s Demon in 1867. Scientists at the University of Edinburgh have made it a
reality. “We have a new motor mechanism for a nanomachine,” said David Leigh, a professor of chemistry at the University.A nanomachine is an incredibly tiny device whose parts consist of single molecules. Nature uses nanomachines for everything from photosynthesis to moving muscles in the body and transferring information through cells.As Maxwell had predicted long ago, it does not use energy other than light. “While light has previously been used to energise tiny particles directly, this is the first time that a system has been devised to trap molecules as they move in a certain direction under their natural motion,” said Leigh who reported the findings in the journal Nature. In an earlier study, he and his team showed that a nanomachine could move a drop up water uphill by using molecular force.