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2012-01-25T13:52:00.001+05:30

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Mystery Light Show Dazzles Web

2009-12-10T11:54:00.000+05:30

We've heard of the Northern Lights. But we've never seen anything like this. The good people

of northern Norway were recently treated to quite a display. As you'll see in the video, a

town was lit up with what looks like a shooting blue star that burst into a giant white

spiral that then beams a ray of blue light from its center. It is beautiful and baffling.

And completely mysterious.

Those who missed the Arctic show headed to the Web, causing searches on "norway spiral" to

immediately surge into the stratosphere.

There has got to be a logical explanation: Residents hailing a masked superhero, perhaps? A

Spirograph Photoshopped into the sky? Imminent alien invasion? Well, the various independent

photos and videos coming in confirm it's not a fake. Scientists have said it's not the

Northern Lights, although it is in the north and it is a light. One Norwegian astronomer

quoted by the Daily Mail opined that at first he thought it was a "fireball meteor," but it

went on too long. The reason behind the show is probably man-made.

More than likely say experts, it was a Russian missile. While the Russian Defense Ministry

would not comment, the circumstantial evidence is mounting that this is what a spiraling

rocket jettisoning fuel looks like. And it sure is pretty.

Government agrees to form Telangana, KCR ends fast

2009-12-10T11:46:00.002+05:30

Bowing to mass pressure and fearing for the detereorating condition of Telangana Rashtra

Samiti (TRS) chief K. Chandrasekhara Rao, on a fast unto death, the central government late

Wednesday pledged to form a separate Telangana state carved out of 10 districts of Andhra

Pradesh.

Meeting the five-decade long demand of the region that includes Hyderabad, the Congress-led

United Progressive Alliance government said the process for formation of Telangana state

would be initiated soon.

Spotlight : Telangana on the boil

After several rounds of meetings of the top brass of the Congress in New Delhi, Home

Minister P. Chidambaram announced that a resolution would be moved in the state assembly.

'The process of forming the state of Telangana will be initiated. An appropriate resolution

will be moved in the state assembly,' said the statement read out by Chidambaram in New

Delhi.

The announcement, which came at the end of a day of hectic developments both in Hyderabad

and Delhi, was greeted with joyous scenes here and in nine other districts of Telangana.

The Telangana region has been on the boil as TRS chief's condition had turned critical

Wednesday, the 11th day of his fast unto death, and Hyderabad was turned into a fortress by

police fearing large-scale violence during the march to assembly planned by TRS and students

Thursday.

KCR, who had launched the fast in Khammam jail Nov 29 after his arrest near Karimnagar town,

broke the fast at Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) here, capping the 11-day long

agitation which saw students, lawyers, government employees, industrial workers and other

sections of people taking to the streets demanding a separate state.

Talking to reporters in the intensive care unit of NIMS, KCR broke down while paying

tributes to those who laid down their lives for the formation of Telangana.

At least 25 people either committed suicide or died of shock since KCR's arrest.

In 1969, during the agitation for a separate state, 369 people, most of them students had

laid down their lives.

KCR, as Chandrasekhar Rao is popularly known, thanked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, UPA

chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Leader of Opposition L.K. Advani and others who supported the

Telangana cause.

Outside NIMS, hundreds of TRS activists, students and Telangana sympathisers celebrated the

victory by bursting crackers and distributing sweets.

'It is a memorable moment for 3.5 crore people of Telangana. India achieved independence at

the stroke of midnight and separate Telangana state has also become a reality at midnight,'

said a beaming Manda Krishna Madiga, a backward class leader supporting the movement.

Chidambaram, in his statement, said: 'We have asked the chief minister (K. Rosaiah) to

withdraw the cases against leaders, students and others associated with the agitation. The

chief minister said he will take necessary action.'

'We are concerned about Chandrasekhara Rao's health and we request him to withdraw the fast.

We also request all others, especially students to withdraw the agitation,' he added.

TRS leaders expect Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Rosaiah, on his arrival here, would provide

details like when the resolution would be moved in the assembly.

KCR's son K. Tarakarama Rao said he hoped that the Congress would not only move the

resolution but take it to the logical conclusion.

'We hope to see a clear road map for formation of Telangana state,' he said.

Students of Osmania University, the nerve centre of the agitation, Kakatiya University in

Warangal and other groups fighting for separate state were jubilant.

Hundreds of students at Osmania University were seen dancing and raising slogans of 'Jai

Telangana' soon after Chidambaram announced in Delhi that a resolution would be moved in the

state assembly.

Firm Body, No Workout Required?

2009-12-10T11:44:00.002+05:30

Can you give your muscles a better workout simply by changing your shoes?

The athletic shoe giant Reebok claims you can. The new EasyTone walking shoe, a provocative

new marketing campaign says, leaves leg and buttock muscles better toned than regular

walking shoes.

Consumers are buying it — literally. Officials from Reebok, a unit of Adidas, say the

EasyTone is the company’s most successful new product in at least five years.

Other companies have marketed shoes that promise a physiological benefit. Masai Group

International, of Switzerland, sells the MBT, a “rocker” shoe with a curved sole, said to

ease arthritis and back pain. Shape-Ups from Skechers USA are designed to improve posture

and muscle tone and promote weight loss. The FitFlop brand has been engineered to increase

leg, calf and gluteal muscle activity, giving the wearer “a workout while you walk.”

While most athletic shoes offer support and cushioning, the new muscle-activating shoes are

engineered to create a sense of instability. Design elements like curved soles and Reebok’s

“balance pods” are said to force the wearer to engage stabilizing muscles further, resulting

in additional toning for calf, hamstring and gluteal muscles.

That sounds great, but do they really work? To support the claims, the shoemakers each offer

company-financed exercise studies suggesting that the shoes produce a higher level of muscle

engagement, at least in a controlled research setting.

But the studies don’t show whether more engagement leads to meaningful changes in muscle

tone or appearance over time. Nor is it clear whether the high level of engagement continues

once the walker becomes accustomed to the shoe.

Reebok’s EasyTone has made the biggest splash in the muscle-shoe market, especially with its

advertising. In one commercial, the camera drifts away from the woman’s face and zooms in on

her backside. Another advertisement claims that the leg and butt-toning effects of EasyTone

will “make your boobs jealous.”

The advertisements, aimed at younger women, have appeared in magazines and online, and a big

television campaign is under way: 3,000 commercial slots have been scheduled on network and

cable in November and December.

But the claim that the shoes offer muscle toning is backed by a single study involving just

five people, not published in a peer-reviewed academic journal. In that study, done at the

University of Delaware, five women walked on a treadmill for 500 steps wearing either the

EasyTone or another Reebok walking shoe, and while barefoot. Using sensors that measure

muscle activity, the researchers showed that wearing the EasyTone worked gluteal muscles an

average of 28 percent more than regular walking shoes. Hamstring and calf muscles worked 11

percent harder.

Reebok’s head of advanced innovation, Bill McInnis, said the size of the study was adequate

to determine the effect of the shoe and added that exercise studies of this nature commonly

used small numbers of participants.

The EasyTone is the brainchild of Mr. McInnis, a former NASA engineer, who said he was

interested in the stability balls used in gym workouts and wanted to translate the

technology to a shoe. In particular, he was intrigued by the Bosu ball, a small half-sphere

that exercisers stand on during workouts as a way to engage leg and core muscles better.

In designing the EasyTone, Mr. McInnis and his team sought to mimic that concept by adding

“balance pods” to the toe and heel of the shoe. As the person walks, the air pushes back and

forth between toe and heel, and the person sinks into the shoe. The effect is similar to

that of walking on a sandy beach — which requires more work, balance and muscle engagement

than walking on a flat surface.

John Lynch, head of United States brand marketing for Reebok, said the company’s market

research showed that four out of five women were especially interested in products that

toned their leg and gluteal muscles. Mr. Lynch added that retailers were reporting brisk

sales of the shoe; one Los Angeles sporting goods store reported that its Reebok sales more

than doubled in November.

Reebok says it has collected 15,000 hours’ worth of wear-test data from shoe users who say

they notice the difference. “They definitely feel something in their muscles after they’ve

walked in the product,” Mr. McInnis said.

One of them is Carol Vanner, 51, an executive assistant in Atlanta who had tried the

larger-soled FitFlop shoe and was skeptical she would notice much difference with the

EasyTone.

“I thought there was no way they would work, but I tried them and I felt like I had worked

out,” she said. “Do I look like I’m 20? No, but I feel like when I wear them for periods of

time that I have exercised and worked those muscles.”

Shay Gipson, 31, an apparel product manager in New York City, said she tried the shoes after

hearing a friend rave about them. She immediately felt the balancing effect, she said, and

she likes walking in the shoe.

“I can definitely feel the muscle groups in my legs working more than I would in regular

shoes,” she said. “I feel more toned.”

But it remains to be seen whether such effects will make a difference over time. In a July

2008 study of instability boards and balls, Canadian researchers found that among

experienced exercisers, moderate instability balls like the Bosu had little effect on muscle

activation.

The shoes are designed only for walking, and because of the instability design, wearers are

discouraged from running, jumping and engaging in other athletic activities while wearing

them. So the real effect may come from simple awareness that they are wearing a

muscle-activating shoe, causing them to walk more briskly and with purpose.

“I think buying them with this in mind is likely to increase mindfulness, which is good for

health,” said Ellen J. Langer, a Harvard psychologist who has studied the connections

between mindfulness, exercise and health. “It will probably result in even more walking,

with the implicit and explicit virtues endemic to exercise.”

Windows 7 Complaints Begin

2009-12-10T11:43:00.002+05:30

Users of the new operating system say the upgrading process is buggy. But once the kinks are

worked out, customers are liking Windows 7 a lot more than Vista

Microsoft launched Windows 7 in late October to much fanfare. But, just like with previous

Windows upgrades, complaints about bugs have already started rolling in.

A whopping 31% of clients have reported problems with upgrading to Windows 7, according to a

recent survey of more than 100,000 customers conducted by consumer helpdesk firm.

"Most of the problems that customers have with Windows 7 have to do with installation, or

application and data migration," said Vishal Dhar, co-founder of iYogi. "These are all

fixable problems, but they're annoyances and they're time consuming."

One common gripe, experienced by 9% of installers, is that the half-hour to an hour-long

upgrade process gets to the "62% completed" point and then freezes. It's a problem that

Microsoft is aware of, and can be fixed by rebooting the computer, going into advanced

settings, and typing in a code that instructs the computer to ignore plug-ins.

However, issues didn't stop with the upgrade process. Many users still experienced glitches

even after successfully installing Windows 7 on their machines.

Most common among those complaints was that basic "applet" programs, like Mail, Movie Maker

and Photo Gallery, were missing. That's because Windows 7 deletes those programs and makes

users download them from the Windows Live Essential Web site. IYogi said 26% of their

customers were confused about that extra step.

Others had problems getting their computers to work properly: Eight percent said their DVD

drives couldn't be found and 2% couldn't sync their iPhones with Windows 7.

One in seven users also complained that the sleek new "Aero" theme doesn't work. The Aero

theme enables users to see through a window to view the desktop or other programs that are

open behind it. According to iYogi, most of the 14% of users that have problems with Aero

don't have the graphics capabilities on their PCs to handle the program.

Other common complaints included an inability to view file extensions, too many "mini-dumps"

(memory images saved on the computer when it crashes), problems with the "Aero snap"

feature, changes to custom icons and problems with the new taskbar.

Microsoft (MSFT), which debuted Windows 7 on Oct. 22, did not return requests for comment.

Smoother sailing once it's debugged. Once the bugs from upgrading have been worked out,

users have had a relatively hassle-free experience. And those who bought a new computer with

Windows 7 preloaded have seen the fewest issues.

"Customers who finally get it up and running love Windows 7," said Dhar. "We haven't had a

lot of people calling for usability issues, because it's a much more intuitive interface

than Windows XP."

That's not to say that Windows 7 is perfect.

According to Zeus Kerravala, an analyst at Yankee Group, one of the biggest annoyances with

the new operating system is that the "ribbon menus" at the top of programs have been

redesigned and must be relearned. In previous Windows versions, the menus remained very

consistent (File, Edit, View, Insert, etc.), but in Windows 7, they can be wildly different

from application to application.

"It took me a long while to figure out how to print," said Kerravala. "Microsoft tried to

improve the user interface, but there's a learning curve because it's inconsistent."

Microsoft also did away with many favorite applications like Windows Movie Maker, which is

particularly surprising given the propensity of cell phone videos and Flip video camera

movies.

But all of the gripes about Windows 7 pale in comparison to the angry complaints about

Microsoft's previous Windows iteration, Windows Vista. That version was an outright disaster

after it was released in 2007. Vista was plagued by bugs, software incompatibilities,

sluggishness and annoying security alerts. The episode nearly destroyed the tech giant's

reputation with consumers.

"While there are a few bugs, I haven't seen or heard of any show-stoppers," said Laura

DiDio, principal analyst at ITIC. "In fact, just the opposite. Some Vista users can't wait

to upgrade. So far, this has been a home run for Microsoft."

The 7 foods experts won't eat

2009-12-10T11:41:00.001+05:30

How healthy (or not) certain foods are—for us, for the environment—is a hotly debated topic

among experts and consumers alike, and there are no easy answers. But when Prevention talked

to the people at the forefront of food safety and asked them one simple question—“What foods

do you avoid?”—we got some pretty interesting answers. Although these foods don’t

necessarily make up a "banned” list, as you head into the holidays—and all the grocery

shopping that comes with it—their answers are, well, food for thought:

20 ways to feed your family for $100 a week.

1. Canned Tomatoes

The expert: Fredrick vom Saal, PhD, an endocrinologist at the University of Missouri who

studies bisphenol-A

The problem: The resin linings of tin cans contain bisphenol-A, a synthetic estrogen that

has been linked to ailments ranging from reproductive problems to heart disease, diabetes,

and obesity. Unfortunately, acidity (a prominent characteristic of tomatoes) causes BPA to

leach into your food. Studies show that the BPA in most people's body exceeds the amount

that suppresses sperm production or causes chromosomal damage to the eggs of animals. "You

can get 50 mcg of BPA per liter out of a tomato can, and that's a level that is going to

impact people, particularly the young," says vom Saal. "I won't go near canned tomatoes."

The solution: Choose tomatoes in glass bottles (which do not need resin linings), such as

the brands Bionaturae and Coluccio. You can also get several types in Tetra Pak boxes, like

Trader Joe's and Pomi.

14 worst health mistakes even smart women make.

2. Corn-Fed Beef

The expert: Joel Salatin, co-owner of Polyface Farms and author of half a dozen books on

sustainable farming

The problem: Cattle evolved to eat grass, not grains. But farmers today feed their animals

corn and soybeans, which fatten up the animals faster for slaughter. More money for cattle

farmers (and lower prices at the grocery store) means a lot less nutrition for us. A recent

comprehensive study conducted by the USDA and researchers from Clemson University found that

compared with corn-fed beef, grass-fed beef is higher in beta-carotene, vitamin E, omega-3s,

conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), calcium, magnesium, and potassium; lower in inflammatory

omega-6s; and lower in saturated fats that have been linked to heart disease. "We need to

respect the fact that cows are herbivores, and that does not mean feeding them corn and

chicken manure," says Salatin.

The solution: Buy grass-fed beef, which can be found at specialty grocers, farmers' markets,

and nationally at Whole Foods. It's usually labeled because it demands a premium, but if you

don't see it, ask your butcher.

25 ridiculously healthy foods you should be eating now.

3. Microwave Popcorn

The expert: Olga Naidenko, PhD, a senior scientist for the Environmental Working Group,

The problem: Chemicals, including perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), in the lining of the bag,

are part of a class of compounds that may be linked to infertility in humans, according to a

recent study from UCLA. In animal testing, the chemicals cause liver, testicular, and

pancreatic cancer. Studies show that microwaving causes the chemicals to vaporize—and

migrate into your popcorn. "They stay in your body for years and accumulate there," says

Naidenko, which is why researchers worry that levels in humans could approach the amounts

causing cancers in laboratory animals. DuPont and other manufacturers have promised to phase

out PFOA by 2015 under a voluntary EPA plan, but millions of bags of popcorn will be sold

between now and then.

The solution: Pop natural kernels the old-fashioned way: in a skillet. For flavorings, you

can add real butter or dried seasonings, such as dillweed, vegetable flakes, or soup mix.

Your nutritional guide to grocery shopping.

4. Nonorganic Potatoes

The expert: Jeffrey Moyer, chair of the National Organic Standards Board

The problem: Root vegetables absorb herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides that wind up in

soil. In the case of potatoes—the nation's most popular vegetable—they're treated with

fungicides during the growing season, then sprayed with herbicides to kill off the fibrous

vines before harvesting. After they're dug up, the potatoes are treated yet again to prevent

them from sprouting. "Try this experiment: Buy a conventional potato in a store, and try to

get it to sprout. It won't," says Moyer, who is also farm director of the Rodale Institute

(also owned by Rodale Inc., the publisher of Prevention). "I've talked with potato growers

who say point-blank they would never eat the potatoes they sell. They have separate plots

where they grow potatoes for themselves without all the chemicals."

The solution: Buy organic potatoes. Washing isn't good enough if you're trying to remove

chemicals that have been absorbed into the flesh.

14 ways to make veggies less boring.

5. Farmed Salmon

The expert: David Carpenter, MD, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at

the University at Albany and publisher of a major study in the journal Science on

contamination in fish.

The problem: Nature didn't intend for salmon to be crammed into pens and fed soy, poultry

litter, and hydrolyzed chicken feathers. As a result, farmed salmon is lower in vitamin D

and higher in contaminants, including carcinogens, PCBs, brominated flame retardants, and

pesticides such as dioxin and DDT. According to Carpenter, the most contaminated fish come

from Northern Europe, which can be found on American menus. "You can only safely eat one of

these salmon dinners every 5 months without increasing your risk of cancer," says Carpenter,

whose 2004 fish contamination study got broad media attention. "It's that bad." Preliminary

science has also linked DDT to diabetes and obesity, but some nutritionists believe the

benefits of omega-3s outweigh the risks. There is also concern about the high level of

antibiotics and pesticides used to treat these fish. When you eat farmed salmon, you get

dosed with the same drugs and chemicals.

The solution: Switch to wild-caught Alaska salmon. If the package says fresh Atlantic, it's

farmed. There are no commercial fisheries left for wild Atlantic salmon.
Delicious and easy fish recipes

6. Milk Produced with Artificial Hormones

The expert: Rick North, project director of the Campaign for Safe Food at the Oregon

Physicians for Social Responsibility and former CEO of the Oregon division of the American

Cancer Society

The problem: Milk producers treat their dairy cattle with recombinant bovine growth hormone

(rBGH or rBST, as it is also known) to boost milk production. But rBGH also increases udder

infections and even pus in the milk. It also leads to higher levels of a hormone called

insulin-like growth factor in milk. In people, high levels of IGF-1 may contribute to

breast, prostate, and colon cancers. "When the government approved rBGH, it was thought that

IGF-1 from milk would be broken down in the human digestive tract," says North. As it turns

out, the casein in milk protects most of it, according to several independent studies.

"There's not 100% proof that this is increasing cancer in humans," admits North. "However,

it's banned in most industrialized countries."

The solution: Check labels for rBGH-free, rBST-free, produced without artificial hormones,

or organic milk. These phrases indicate rBGH-free products.
Don’t be fooled by these 11 health food imposters.

7. Conventional Apples

The expert: Mark Kastel, former executive for agribusiness and codirector of the Cornucopia

Institute, a farm-policy research group that supports organic foods

The problem: If fall fruits held a "most doused in pesticides contest," apples would win.

Why? They are individually grafted (descended from a single tree) so that each variety

maintains its distinctive flavor. As such, apples don't develop resistance to pests and are

sprayed frequently. The industry maintains that these residues are not harmful. But Kastel

counters that it's just common sense to minimize exposure by avoiding the most doused

produce, like apples. "Farm workers have higher rates of many cancers," he says. And

increasing numbers of studies are starting to link a higher body burden of pesticides (from

all sources) with Parkinson's disease.

The solution: Buy organic apples. If you can't afford organic, be sure to wash and peel them

first.

8 Signs You Might Be Boring Someone

2009-12-10T11:40:00.001+05:30

A recent Psychology Today article by Gretchen Rubin provides a list of clues that you might

be boring someone during a conversation. I’ve certainly been trapped in conversations with

people who didn’t understand how to pick up on subtle clues that their long narrative about

a weird dream they had or a particularly awesome golf game they played were boring the heck

out of me — and just the same, I’m sure I’ve been oblivious to those signs in others, as

well. Have you been on the giving or receiving end of any of these signs?

From PsychologyToday:

1. Repeated, perfunctory responses.
A person who repeats, “Oh really? Wow. Oh really? Interesting.” isn’t particularly

engaged.

2. Simple questions. People who are bored ask simple questions.
“When did you move?” “Where did you go?” People who are interested ask more complicated

questions that show curiosity, not mere politeness.

3. Interruption. Although it sounds rude, interruption is actually a good sign, I think.

It means a person is bursting to say something, and that shows interest. Similarly…

4. Request for clarification. A person who is sincerely interested in what you’re saying

will ask you to elaborate or to explain. “What does that term mean?” “When exactly did that

happen?” “Then what did he say?” are the kinds of questions that show that someone is trying

closely to follow what you’re saying.

5. Imbalance of talking time. I suspect that many people fondly suppose that they

usually do eighty percent of the talking because people find them fascinating. Sometimes,

it’s true, a discussion involves a huge download of information desired by the listener;

that’s a very satisfying kind of conversation. In general, though, people who are interested

in a subject have things to say themselves; they want to add their own opinions,

information, and experiences. If they aren’t doing that, they’re probably keeping quiet in

the hopes that the conversation will end faster. Or maybe you just aren’t letting them get a

word in — recently I was talking to someone who, though fascinating, didn’t want to let me

contribute to the conversation. I enjoyed it, but not as much as if I’d been able to talk,

too.

6. Abrupt changes in topic. If you’re talking to someone about, say, the life of Winston

Churchill (I have a tendency to dwell at length on this particular subject), and all of a

sudden the other person says, “So how are your kids?”, it’s a sign that he or she isn’t very

interested or perhaps not listening at all. When someone makes this kind of switch, I have

to fight the urge not to drag the topic back to what I want to talk about – but the fact

that someone has introduced a completely different subject is a sure sign that the subject

is not engaging.

7. Body position. People with a good connection generally turn to face each other. A

person who is partially turned away isn’t fully embracing the conversation. Along the same

lines, if you’re a speaker trying to figure out if an audience is interested in what you’re

saying:

8. Audience posture. Back in 1885, Sir Francis Galton wrote a paper called “The

Measurement of Fidget.” He determined that people slouch and lean when bored, so a speaker

can measure the boredom of an audience by seeing how far from vertically upright they are.

Also, attentive people fidget less; bored people fidget more. An audience that’s sitting

still and upright is interested, while an audience that’s horizontal and squirmy is bored.

The article goes on to list a number of topics which are almost universally boring — so if

you find yourself delving into one of these, be sure and gauge your listener for any of the

above signs of disengagement!

1. A dream.
2. The recent changes in your child’s nap schedule.
3. The route you took to get here.
4. An excellent meal you once had at a restaurant.
5. The latest additions to your wine cellar.
6. An account of your last golf game.
7. The plot of a play, or movie—in particular, the funny parts.

Learn more about Gretchen Rubin's adventures learning to be happier on her blog, The

Happiness Project.

WWII veteran had Hitler's art book on bookshelf

2009-12-10T11:39:00.002+05:30

After fighting his way across Europe during World War II, John Pistone was among the U.S.

soldiers who entered Adolf Hitler's home nestled in the Bavarian Alps as the war came to a

close.

Making his way through the Berghof, Hitler's home near Berchtesgaden, Germany, Pistone

noticed a table with shelves underneath. Exhilarated by the certainty of victory over the

Nazis, Pistone took an album filled with photographs of paintings as a souvenir.

"It was really a great feeling to be there and we knew, by that time, he was on his last

leg," Pistone told The Associated Press.

Sixty-four years after Pistone brought the album home to Ohio, the 87-year-old has learned

its full significance: It's part of a series compiled for Hitler featuring art he wanted for

his "Fuhrermuseum," a planned museum in Linz, Austria, Hitler's hometown.

Pistone's album is expected to be formally returned to Germany in a ceremony at the U.S.

State Department in January. Germany has 19 other albums discovered at the Berchtesgaden

complex that are part of a 31-album collection of works either destined for or being

considered for the Linz museum.

Pistone's 3-inch thick, 12-pound album's journey from obscurity began this fall when a

friend became curious about the book sitting on Pistone's bookshelf.

The friend discovered after some Internet searching that the Dallas-based Monuments Men

Foundation for the Preservation of Art was involved in 2007 in the restitution of two other

albums that were part of a series documenting art stolen by the Nazis from Jewish families.

Its founder, Robert Edsel, who while living in Italy for a time after selling his oil and

gas business became interested in what was done to protect art in World War II, traveled to

Ohio this fall to examine Pistone's album. Seeing it convinced him that Pistone had one of

the missing albums of the series on the planned museum.

Stamped on the album's spine is "Gemaldegalerie Linz" — Gemaldegalerie means picture gallery

in German — and the Roman numerals for 13. It still has a sticker from the book's binder in

Dresden.

Birgit Schwarz, a German art historian from Vienna who has written books about Hitler and

art, including a book called "Hitler's Museum" describing the albums in the series, is

convinced the album is authentic. She said she recognized paintings in the album along with

the volume number and title.

"It's absolutely clear!" she wrote in an enthusiastic e-mail to the AP after reviewing

scanned photographs of the album. "Hans Makart's 'Pest in Florenz' (Plague in Florence), for

example, the first picture of album XIII, Hitler got as a gift from Mussolini!"

Souvenir hunting was routine by soldiers during the war, and problems arise when people try

to sell rather than return culturally important items, said Thomas R. Kline, a

Washington-based lawyer who specializes in art restitution and works for the foundation.

"It's really important that as people go through their attics and they find the things that

grandpa brought home, people are aware that something as simple as a book of pictures could

have a cultural significance," Kline said.

Ambassador J. Christian Kennedy, special envoy for Holocaust issues at the State Department,

said the agency is happy to help return objects taken during the war. "This is all about

doing the right thing," Kennedy said.

Edsel started his foundation in 2007 to honor and continue the work of the original

Monuments Men, the roughly 345 men and women from 13 nations who helped Allied forces

protect cultural treasures during World War II. After the war, they began trying to find the

rightful owners of pieces of art looted by the Nazis, hundreds of thousands of which are

still missing.

"It's my desire to see the works of the Monuments Men completed," said Edsel, who wrote two

books detailing the group's work.

The discovery of albums could help. In Pistone's case, experts had the names of artwork

featured in his album but the photographs could help match them to the correct piece of art,

Edsel said.

"They are key documents from the crime scene," he said of the albums.

He said the art Hitler wanted for his museum was bought, stolen or confiscated. The 13th

album contains works by some of Hitler's favorite German painters, including a photo of

Adolf von Menzel's painting of Frederick the Great that hung in Hitler's office in Munich.

Edsel said his office gets about a call a day from someone curious about an item brought

home after the war.

"We're looking for people with goodwill who don't know what they have," Edsel said.

Pistone, album in hand, returned home after surviving the battlefields in Europe. He

finished college, got into the restaurant business and had five children. The album mostly

stayed up on a shelf at his home in Beachwood, Ohio, but he'd occasionally take it down and

let family members look through it.

Once he met Edsel and learned about the Monuments Men, he knew it should be returned to

Germany. "I just wanted to get it in the right hands," he said.

Before the book makes the trip overseas, it and one of two other albums the foundation

helped discover will go on display for about three months at the National World War II

Museum in New Orleans following the State Department ceremony, Edsel said.

Edsel said that of the two albums from 2007, one has already been donated to the U.S.

National Archives to join the other albums in that series used as evidence of Nazi looting

in the Nuremberg trials. He said that the second will go to the National Archives in the

next three years.

"When soldiers and their families realize what they have and come forward to return it,

there's never an issue. It's a happy moment and there's celebrations of one kind of

another," Kline said. "We owe a huge debt to this generation that saved the world from

Naziism."

Swine flu damage reaches deep into lungs: Study

2009-12-10T11:38:00.002+05:30

Swine flu damages the entire airway, from the trachea to deep in the lungs, just as the

viruses that caused the deadly 1918 and 1957 influenza pandemics did, but unlike seasonal

flu, a report has said.

Scientists from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and New York City's chief medical

examiner's office examined microscope slides of tissue from 34 people who died of pandemic

swine flu earlier this year.

They found "a spectrum of damage in both the upper and lower respiratory tracts," Jeffery

Taubenberger, one of the researchers on the study, said yesterday.

In all cases, the upper respiratory tract -- the trachea and bronchial tubes -- were

inflamed and sometimes severely damaged.

In 18 cases, or more than half, damage was seen lower down, in the finer branches of the

bronchial tubes, and in 25 cases, or nearly three-quarters of the study sample, the

researchers found damage to the small globular air sacs, or alveoli, of the lungs.

"This pattern of pathology in the airway tissues is similar to that reported in victims of

both the 1918 and 1957 influenza pandemics," said Taubenberger, a virus specialist at the

National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

But it differed from seasonal flu, which "causes most damage in the trachea and the

bronchial tree, not deep in the lungs," Taubenberger said.

IT industry, N-plants high on terrorists' list: Home Secy

2009-12-10T11:37:00.002+05:30

India's globally acclaimed software industry is high on the terrorists' target list and

sensitive installations like atomic plants and refineries located on the coastline are

vulnerable to terror attacks, Union Home Secretary G K Pillai said on Wednesday.

"We are world leaders in software. But software industry is high on the threat list," Pillai

said addressing a conference on 'Challenge of Terrorism to India's Infrastructure and

Economy' in New Delhi.

The Home Secretary said all software companies in India were now realising this fact and

they were taking their own measures to protect themselves.

"And the government is also in partnership with many of the companies making effort to

provide adequate security (to foil any attempt by the terrorists to target them)," he said.

Indian software exports have risen from Rs 28,350 crore in 2000-01 to an estimated Rs

216,300 crore in 2008-09.

The industry is expected to grow 16 per cent this fiscal and log revenues of USD 60 billion

despite the global slowdown.

Pillai said India's western coastline hosting several petroleum and nuclear installations

are vulnerable to terror strikes from the sea route.

"Petroleum and nuclear installations located on the western coast are highly vulnerable," he

said.

Is it a good time to buy your dream house?

2009-12-10T11:35:00.001+05:30

Everyone dreams of owning a home, a place which is your own and where you can be yourself.

Are you wondering whether this is the right time to buy your home? We get you some answers

on this here. Read on to find out more.

There are mixed views regarding the real estate sector. While some reports indicate an

increase in volumes and prices, some indicate a situation where the supply has far

outstripped the demand. As per a leading business daily, nearly 40 percent of the affordable

housing projects are left unsold.

Recap

FY09 proved to be a tough one for real estate sector with conditions not being conducive for

both buyers and sellers. Lower demand due to slowdown in the economy and deferment of

purchase plans by customers led to pricing pressures. Prices had declined in the range of 30

to 50% during FY09. This coupled with higher interest rates and lower disbursement of loans

by banks due to rising delinquencies further increased the problems. As we all know, the

real estate sector is sensitive to movements in interest rates. The demand is higher when

the interest rates are lower as the EMIs will be lower and vice-versa.

Recent scenario

An upside cycle, but not really at the crest itself. Until recently, the market observers

felt that the sector was a sinking ship but thanks to the support by the RBI, the housing

sector in India is experiencing an increase in demand (though not at its peak), as seen in

the last couple of quarters.

In fact, SBI, the largest player in the Indian banking space, has decided to extend its 8

percent home loan scheme till March 31, 2010, just a day before it was due to expire. Other

players in the space, particularly public sector players have followed suit with their own

share of attractive loan schemes.

Even private banks are focusing on the housing loan space due to low credit off take by

corporates. The developer is also targeting the housing sector with strong focus on

affordable segment as well as a gradual shift to ensure delivery and promotion of previously

launched projects at more attractive prices.

According to some developers, the buyers are back! The disbursal of home loans for new

registrations has seen a 20% surge this quarter against the previous quarter. According to

an IIFL report, in Mumbai, prices are up 25%-40% from the bottom in early 2009, while in

NCR, the corresponding figure is 15-20%.

As far as the pricing of property is concerned, sellers (builders) have a key role to play

here. During the downturn, property rates fell to the tune of 30-50% depending on the area

on account of twin factors - fall in demand and need for cash by builders. With the balance

sheet of real estate companies becoming stronger on account of restructuring, and money

increasingly becoming available through QIPs and even bank loans, builders will resist fall

in property rates.

In fact, in several areas, rates are inching upwards. For eg: In Mumbai, vacancy levels have

fallen to about 12% from 14% in 2QCY09, even though supply has shown a spurt. This has

reduced the overall available stock in the city. The rentals have become stable. If demand

continues, then we expect rentals to strengthen going forward.

India's GDP grew by an impressive 7.9% in the September quarter, the fastest in the last

one-and-a-half years. The economic activities like construction (6.5% YoY), real estate and

business services (each 7.7% YoY) also reported strong growth numbers during the 2QFY10.

This gives an indication of some pick up happening in across sectors.

Though the demand from commercial space is still cautious, the rentals of retail space have

stabilised in most of the country. As per Cushman & Wakefield retail report, mall vacancy

has shown a marginal increase from 17.3% in the second quarter (April to June) to 17.5% in

the third quarter (July to September). Further, as per the report, the retail sector is

expected to see a demand of around 43 mn sq ft, mostly concentrated in the tier I and II

cities. The demand for the hospitality sector is expected to be around 690,000 room nights

between 2009-2013. Also with IT sector seeing an improvement in the coming quarters, the

demand is expected to inch higher.

On the interest rate: With recession woes looking to end and strong growth witnessed across

sectors, the chances of the RBI raising interest rates in the future are higher. In fact a

whiff of something likely to happen on this front is already becoming apparent and perhaps

will kick in around March-April 2010. Further, with higher liquidity and poor monsoons,

inflation concerns are evident. So everything indicates that the interest rates could only

go up from here.

What should one do?

While this may sound as an apt opportunity for buyers to capitalise on the prevailing low

rates of interest by striking a deal, several considerations need to be made with regards to

money.

Being a long term investment, one must definitely check if he/she can afford the long term

loan repayments. Also, consideration to a stable job, provision for contingencies and

personal finances should be looked into before buying the dream house.

If one buys a 500 sq.ft flat in Navi Mumbai at a cost of Rs 3500 per sq ft, the total cost

would be Rs 1750, 000. At an 8.5% interest for 15 years, the interest rate would be Rs.

13,51,940. If the prices go up to Rs 5500, the cost jumps by 57% to Rs 27,50,000.

Thereby one pays the interest of 21,24,400. So if one has the fund resources to tap into and

feel they can avail the attractive interest rates at this point in time, then by all means

they should go for their dream home now, putting it off for later could mean parting with

more money.

US Air Force confirms 'Beast of Kandahar' drone

2009-12-09T11:18:00.002+05:30

The US Air Force on Tuesday confirmed for the first time that it is flying a stealth unmanned aircraft known as the "Beast of Kandahar," a drone spotted in photos and shrouded in secrecy.

The RQ-170 Sentinel is being developed by Lockheed Martin and is designed "to provide reconnaissance and surveillance support to forward deployed combat forces," the air force said in a brief statement.

The "RQ" prefix for the aircraft indicates an unarmed drone, unlike the "MQ" designation used for Predator and Reaper aircraft equipped with missiles and precision-guided bombs.

Aviation experts dubbed the drone the "Beast of Kandahar" after photographs emerged earlier this year showing the mysterious aircraft in southern Afghanistan in 2007.

The image suggested a drone with a radar-evading stealth-like design, resembling a smaller version of a B-2 bomber.

A blog in the French newspaper Liberation published another photo this week, feeding speculation among aviation watchers about the classified drone.

The air force said the aircraft came out of Lockheed Martin's "Skunk Works," also known as Advanced Development Programs, in California -- the home of sophisticated and often secret defense projects including the U-2 spy plane, the F-22 fighter jet and the F-117 Nighthawk.

The photo of the drone in Afghanistan has raised questions about why the United States would be operating a stealth unmanned aircraft in a country where insurgents have no radar systems, prompting speculation Washington was using the drones for possible spying missions in neighboring Iran or Pakistan.

The Sentinel was believed to have a flying wing design with no tail and with sensors built into the top side of each wing, according to published photos.

The RQ-170 is in line with Defense Secretary Robert Gates' request for more intelligence and surveillance resources and with the Air Force chief of staff's plans to expand the fleet of unmanned aircraft, the air force said.

The new drone is flown by the 30th Reconnaissance Squadron out of Tonopah Test Range in Nevada, which is under Air Combat Command's 432nd Wing at Creech Air Base, also in Nevada.

The United States has carried out an extensive bombing campaign against Al-Qaeda figures in Pakistan using the Predator and larger Reaper drones.

Robots or "unmanned systems" in the air and on the ground are now deployed by the thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan, spying from the sky for hours on end, searching for booby-traps and firing lethal missiles without putting US soldiers at risk.

I want to change the way politics works in UP: Rahul

2009-12-09T11:17:00.002+05:30

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi said on Tuesday that he wants to change the way politics works in Uttar Pradesh.

Speaking to the media a day after UP's Mayawati government had not given permission for his press conference, Rahul Gandhi said that the politics in the state has stuck in the past. He said that he wanted to change this situation and make it more forward looking.

Rahul said that his goal was not 2012 UP elections but much beyond. Rahul Gandhi also said that the youth in the state have given good response to his call to join the movement to promote democracy and improve the way politics is practiced in the country.

Rahul Gandhi refused to comment on the Liberhan panel report. However, he said that he respected veteran BJP leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee as a senior politician.

MPs suffer from Monday blues

2009-12-09T11:16:00.002+05:30

Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar had to suspend the Question Hour on November 30 when as many as 34 MPs were found to be absent when she called their names during Question Hour. It has now emerged that a record number of 216 MPs did not show up in the House on that particular day which was a Monday.

Most of the absentee MPs on November 30 argued "that they had not expected more than six or seven questions to be taken up during Question Hour, a reason they kept away from the proceedings". The Lok Sabha MPs' attendance record, however, shows that their attendance is generally low on Mondays, while it improves as the week progresses.

The only other Monday in the current session so far (November 23) which began on November 19 saw as many as 188 MPs, the session's third highest, being absent.

The MPs' attendance, now available online, shows that in the ongoing session, on December 3, 159 Lok Sabha MPs didn't sign the register (in other words, were absent) while 332 were present; on December 2, the corresponding figures were 169 and 322; on

December 1, 161 and 330; on November 30, 216 and 275; on November 26, 132 and 359; on November 25, 121 and 370; on November 24, 137 and 354; on November 23, 188 and 303; on November 20, 192 and 299; and on November 19, 175 and 316. Union ministers, Leaders of House, Leader of Opposition and Deputy Speaker do not sign the attendance register, so the numbers do not add up to 545.

If the average MPs' attendance in the House leaves much to be desired, there are, however, MPs who have a 100 per pent attendance in the House - in the ongoing as well as previous session. As many as 88 MPs, including Milind Deora, Sandeep Dikshit, Nirmal Khatri (all Congress); Shahnawaz Hussein, Anant Kumar Hegde, Yashodhara Raje Scindia (all BJP); Rajiv Ranjan Singh Lallan (JD-U); Jayant Chaudhary (RLD); and M B Rajesh (CPM), have reported 100 per cent attendance in the current session. In the previous Budget session (of the 15th Lok Sabha), there were 72 MPs who were present on all 26 days.

Vijaya Shanthi (TRS), Jaya Prada (SP), Anjan Kumar Yadav (Congress), Ravindra Kumar Pandey (BJP) and Kirti Azad (BJP), on the other hand, are among those having the poorest attendance record in the ongoing session. They have been present for just one day, while being absent on nine days, according to the records updated till December 3.

Dining Out: Top 5 restaurants in India

2009-12-09T11:15:00.002+05:30

The Miele Guide to Asia's finest restaurants is written by food experts who know and love the region (www.mieleguide.com).

This is a list of the top 5 restaurants in India, where the cuisine is as varied and rich as the nation's history. It is not endorsed by Reuters.

1. Bukhara, New Delhi

Bukhara is, without a doubt, the most famous restaurant in India, and it has been visited by an untold number of celebrities and heads of state. Until recently, London-based Restaurant magazine considered it Asia's very best restaurant. Set up in 1977, the restaurant serves food from the North West Frontier province, a region known for its rugged terrain and simple but delicious cuisine. The food is mostly grilled and cooked with minimal spices. You are expected to eat with your fingers, though you can always ask for cutlery, and the restaurant will provide you with a lovely red-and-white apron to ensure that you don't mess up your clothes. Die-hard Bukhara fans return time and again for the Bukhara dahl, lentils cooked lovingly with tomatoes, spices and butter, and sikandari raan, a whole leg of baby lamb that has been marinated for hours with spices such as cumin and cinnamon before being grilled in the tandoor to perfection.

ITC Maurya, New Delhi Diplomatic Enclave

Sardar Patel Marg

New Delhi

mwww.itcwelcomgroup.in/itcmaurya/

2. Indigo, Mumbai

A host of international celebrities, including Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, have walked through the doors of Indigo, making it one of the hottest restaurants in the city. Housed in a lovely colonial bungalow, the restaurant and bar are as chic as its clientele, and the food is excellent. Owned by renowned restaurateur-chef Rahul Akerkar, Indigo serves creative modern European cuisine infused with Indian influences. Dishes to try include the celebrated lobster risotto with black olive tapenade, fenugreek-spiced tuna loin with shiraz and clove reduction, and the juniper berry-cured tandoori chicken with burnt garlic oyster sauce. Dinner reservations are essential.

4 Mandlik Road, Colaba

Mumbai

www.foodindigo.com

3. Thai Pavilion, Mumbai

Its quietly plush and soothing decor topped by consistently impeccable service and food are all part of Thai Pavilion's draw. What this restaurant excels in are the staples like phad Thai, tom yum soup, raw papaya salad, and steamed fish. The pla rad prik (fish in chilli) is also a winner. Besides its list of classic Thai dishes, there is also a wide selection of vegetarian options to choose from. Reservations are recommended if you're angling for a table, but not necessary for the bar counter area.

Taj President Hotel

90 Cuffe Parade

mwww.tajhotels.com

4. Oh! Calcutta, Mumbai

With branches in Kolkata, New Delhi, Pune and Bangalore, Oh! Calcutta is all about reintroducing the nostalgic cuisine of Kolkata to diners. The Mumbai outlet is easy to spot, with an iconic hand-pulled rickshaw displayed outside the restaurant. Fresh seafood from Cochin and Mumbai, as well as river fish and crustaceans from Kolkata, are the main highlight here. Zoom in on the hilsa marinated in a robust mustard and green chilli paste then steamed in a banana leaf. Other stellar offerings include spiced crab cakes steamed in banana leaf, the coconut-based prawn malai curry, or any of the fried fish dishes.

Hotel Rosewood

Tulsiwadi Lane, Tardeo

mwww.speciality.co.in/calcutta.php

5. Swagath, New Delhi

Its decor and ambience are unremarkable, but Swagath dishes up some of the best seafood in the city. It's certainly worth braving the grungy Defence Colony Market area for a taste of its speciality squid in butter pepper garlic or fish marinated in Mangalorian spices and cooked in a tamarind chilli paste. The tender pesawari barrah kebabs (tandoor lamb chops), spicy South Indian Chettinad curries and deep fried pomfret are good too. There is a Chinese menu as well, with chicken, lamb, seafood and vegetable dishes, as well as fried rice and noodles. But it's the Indian cuisine you'll want to wait in line for.

Despite downturn, more Indians are wealthier now

2009-12-09T11:14:00.002+05:30

Despite the worst recession since World War II, affluent Indians have not only managed to survive but in fact grew wealthier than before.

More affluent Indians along with other Asians say they are wealthier now compared to six months ago. According to HSBC Affluent Asian Tracker survey, savvy wealthy Indian investors came through the financial turmoil at the end of 2009 relatively unscathed.

Leading Asia's affluent are 70% of mainland Chinese respondents who reported a rise in net worth compared to only 46% six months ago. Similarly, across Asia, the number of affluent respondents reporting an increase in wealth in the past six months nearly doubled. In India, 68 % have reported higher accumulation of wealth compared to 28% six months ago. In Taiwan 61% reported a similar trend against 33% six months ago. In Malaysia, 55% have seen their wealth multiplying in last six months.

Majority of respondents claimed they gained their wealth through their employment comprising 89% in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore and Japan, 88 % in Indonesia, 87% in Australia, 84% in Taiwan and 79% in India.

Sandy Flockhart, chief executive officer of HSBC Asia-Pacific, who has been appointed as chairman (personal & commercial banking) effective February 2010, said, "Asia's workforce is powering the region's affluent who are fast becoming savvy about growing and managing their newly-created wealth. Riding on Asia's recovery and improved market sentiment, the affluent in the region, most particularly in mainland China, are regaining their confidence as investors and are providing momentum towards a more robust wealth management market in Asia." The number of affluent Asians reporting a decline in net worth over the past six months decreased significantly compared to six months ago.

On planned changes in investment risk appetite over the next six months, the survey showed that 31% of affluent mainland Chinese are willing to accept greater risk followed by 30% in India and 28% in Malaysia.

Facebook, Twitter may swap revenues of job portals

2009-12-09T11:13:00.002+05:30

Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin are likely to eat into the revenues of job portals like Naukri.com and Monster India, as more and more recruiters are using them to lure prospective candidates.

With India Inc lifting recruitment freezes, social networking sites are becoming popular channels to reach fresh staff base specifically for the knowledge sector, a research analyst with Gartner, Diptarup Chakraborti said. "These sites will give competition to job portals. Many companies are using them to advertise positions," Chakraborti told FE.

BPO company 24/7 Customer said since June 2009, positions from all its centres are also advertised on Facebook and Twitter. "The response has been very good. We get good conversions from these sources- we rate the conversions at four, on a scale of five," said Vinod Mudakkayil, VP recruitment with 24/7.

Raffle winner sells $1.2 million home at a bargain

2009-12-09T11:12:00.002+05:30

A Colorado woman who won a $1.2 million home in Edgewater in a $50-a-ticket raffle in January has sold the property to a Severna Park church at a bargain-basement price.

"Hooray, finally!" said Karen McHale, 47, who lives in a home she built with her husband in the mountains west of Denver and never intended to move to the mid-Atlantic. "I tell you, that was a giant rock around my neck."

McHale said she bought two raffle tickets last year as a contribution to an Annapolis-based charity that was co-sponsoring the contest. The raffle venture came about when a mortgage broker teamed up with We Care and Friends, which helps at-risk youths, to sell his home.

A week after one of those tickets was chosen as the winner, McHale lost her job as a chemical engineer. Eager to sell the home before Dec. 31 to avoid paying about $300,000 in 2009 income taxes, she put it on the market in March for $799,000.

When no one bit, McHale dropped the price to $749,000 in May. A dozen prospective buyers asked after the property; no one submitted an offer.

McHale's husband, who works in construction, spent a week at the house in June, painting its 40 interior doors, hooking up a dishwasher and doing other last touches.

Two buyers made offers in September; both deals fell through.

Meanwhile, the six-bedroom, 4 1/2 -bath windfall, despite sitting empty, was accompanied by a hefty monthly bill: $600 to $800 in utilities and homeowner's insurance.

McHale finally sealed a $650,000 deal last month with Unity By the Bay, a church that has outgrown its quarters in a Severna Park strip mall. The church paid $450,000 in cash, McHale said, and she made a tax-deductible contribution of the additional $200,000 to stem the flow of her winnings to the IRS.

"We are all just so grateful to Karen McHale for her donation. The congregation is ecstatic," said board member Carol Kerr. "We have wanted to have our own building, but everything seemed so out of reach, pricewise, that we just haven't been able to make it happen."
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All in all, McHale said, she will pocket about $200,000 after paying state and federal tax bills.

"It's amazing how fast you can spend it," McHale said, "but we're done now. We're back to normal."

A chunk of the profit went toward the mortgage on the McHale family's Colorado home. They also spent some of the money on a greenhouse to grow vegetables in a part of the country where winter lasts much of the year and a new Dodge truck to replace one that was falling apart.

One son, a budding chef, got a set of knives; another got help with his August wedding and honeymoon to Italy. At a recent lunch to celebrate the sale of the 6,000-square-foot Maryland home, McHale passed out $50 bills to a couple of dozen family members and friends.

Her original windfall was accompanied by enough stress and tax-code headaches that McHale said she's done gambling on faraway real estate.

"The Elks [Lodge] was raffling off a pig recently, and I bought tickets for that because I wanted the meat," she said, laughing. "But I'm not buying raffle tickets for any more homes in strange states."

Cozy-crazy couple makes tight all right in the city's tiniest studio

2009-12-09T11:11:00.002+05:30

Read If they can make it there, they can make it anywhere.

Zaarath and Christopher Prokop -- and their two cats -- live in the smallest apartment in the city, a 175-square-foot "microstudio" in Morningside Heights the couple bought three months ago for $150,000.

At 14.9 feet long and 10 feet wide, it's about as narrow as a subway car and as claustrophobic as a jail cell. But to the Prokops, it's a castle.

"When you first see it, the first thing you say is, 'Holy crap, this place is small,' " said Zaarath, 37, an accountant for liquor company Remy Martin. "But when I saw it, all I could think of is, I can do something with this. This is perfect for us. We love it."
Zaarath and Christopher Prokop insist they're living the life in this micro studio, just 10 feet wide! The bathroom is even smaller, barely spanning three feet.
Angel Chevrestt
Zaarath and Christopher Prokop insist they're living the life in this micro studio, just 10 feet wide! The bathroom is even smaller, barely spanning three feet.

The co-op is on the 16th floor of a doorman building on 110th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue. But it's only accessible by a staircase on the 15th floor.

It has two small windows with views of upper Manhattan; hardwood floors; a tiny kitchen with a mini-fridge and hotplate; and a closet-sized bathroom with a shower, sink and toilet.

"I'm amazed we can fit two people and two cats in there," Zaarath said. "But it's harmonious at this point. I have friends who say they could never live with their husbands in a place this small. It's a good thing we like each other enough to live there."

The couple wakes up every morning in their queen-size bed, which takes up one-third of the living space.

They then walk five feet toward the tiny kitchen, where they pull out their workout clothes, which are folded neatly in two cabinets above the sink. A third cabinet holds several containers of espresso for their only kitchen appliance, a cappuccino maker.

They turn off their hotplate, and use the space on the counter as a feeding area for their cats, Esmeralda and Beauregard.

"We don't cook," Zaarath said, adding that their fridge never has any food in it. "So when you don't cook, you don't need plates or pots or pans. So we use that space for our clothes."

Once in their running attire, the two change the cat litter box (stored under the sink) and start their small Rumba vacuum -- which operates automatically while they're out, picking up cat hair.

They then jog to their jobs in Midtown, picking up along the way their work clothes, which are "strategically stashed at various dry cleaners."

Just in case the cleaners are closed, both have emergency clothes at their offices.

"I have a closet at my office," Zaarath said. "You don't want to be standing outside a closed cleaners at 8:45 in your workout pants thinking, 'Greeeeeat' . . . It's a great strategy. You always have fresh things to wear."

McDonald's sales take hit from US joblessness

2009-12-09T11:10:00.002+05:30

The supersized recession that was a boon for business last year caught up further with McDonald's Corp. in November, as high unemployment ate into sales.

While the world's largest burger chain is still faring better than its competitors, who've increasingly been pushing value menus and discounts of their own, the restaurant's fortunes likely won't improve unless the U.S. economy does.

"I think ultimately, we'll need job growth to get things turned around to get back in the positive territory," said Morningstar restaurant analyst R.J. Hottovy.

On Tuesday, McDonald's said sales at restaurants open at least a year fell 0.6 percent in the U.S. It was the second consecutive monthly decline for the measure, an important indicator of a restaurant chain's health, and a steeper fall than October's 0.1 percent.

November's overseas results were better but still mixed, helped by a softening dollar that translated foreign revenue into more dollars. Around the globe, sales in locations open at least a year rose 0.7 percent.

Because of its size and its ability to trounce competitors with its increasingly popular dollar menu, McDonald's was one of the early beneficiaries of the recession as diners traded down from pricier restaurants. In fact, last November, sales in locations open a year climbed 4.5 percent in the U.S. and 7.7 globally.

But earlier this fall, McDonald's cautioned it wasn't immune to the recession, either, and in October, the U.S. figure fell 0.1 percent.

Tuesday's results were only the fourth U.S. decrease in 6 1/2 years.

The results come as McDonald's also faces increased competition from rivals trumpeting their own deeply discounted menus. Among them: Taco Bell's value menu that begins with items for 79 cents, and Wendy's $2.99 combos. Burger King has also heavily pushed a $1 double cheeseburger that it touts as being a bigger and better value than McDonald's $1 McDouble.

"It appears that after nearly six years of consistent gains, further increases in U.S. comps will be more labored," Standard & Poor's restaurant analyst Mark Basham said in a research note.

That's because until the U.S. unemployment rate -- which was 10 percent in November -- recovers significantly, McDonald's customers are less likely to visit the chain -- picking up coffee and a McMuffin for breakfast, or dashing in for a Big Mac for lunch with co-workers.

In Europe, sales in locations open at least a year rose 2.5 percent, thanks to stronger business in the U.K. and France. But the figures were still short of forecasts and were the second-worst figures from the continent this year, said Janney Capital Markets analyst Mark Kalinowski.

"McDonald's did not provide much in the way of explanation for the lower-than-anticipated European (figure), suggesting to us that the region may remain under a cloud of uncertainty," Kalinowski told investors in a research note.

Sales in locations open for at least a year in the Middle East, Africa and Asia/Pacific dropped 1 percent. Last year, the figure rose 13.2 percent in the region.

Meanwhile, systemwide sales -- a figured based on results at company owned restaurants as well as those operated by franchise owners -- climbed 10.1 percent. Adjusting for currency fluctuations, systemwide sales were up 2.3 percent.

The company, based in Oak Brook, Ill., runs more than 32,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries.

Its shares fell $1.32, or 2.1 percent, to close at $60.61 Tuesday.

AP Retail Writer Michelle Chapman contributed to this report from New York.

Scientists say paper battery could be in the works

2009-12-09T11:08:00.001+05:30

Ordinary paper could one day be used as a lightweight battery to power the devices that are now enabling the printed word to be eclipsed by e-mail, e-books and online news.

Scientists at Stanford University in California reported on Monday they have successfully turned paper coated with ink made of silver and carbon nanomaterials into a "paper battery" that holds promise for new types of lightweight, high-performance energy storage.

The same feature that helps ink adhere to paper allows it to hold onto the single-walled carbon nanotubes and silver nanowire films. Earlier research found that silicon nanowires could be used to make batteries 10 times as powerful as lithium-ion batteries now used to power devices such as laplop computers.

"Taking advantage of the mature paper technology, low cost, light and high-performance energy-storage are realized by using conductive paper as current collectors and electrodes," the scientists said in research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This type of battery could be useful in powering electric or hybrid vehicles, would make electronics lighter weight and longer lasting, and might even lead someday to paper electronics, the scientists said. Battery weight and life have been an obstacle to commercial viability of electric-powered cars and trucks.

"Society really needs a low-cost, high-performance energy storage device, such as batteries and simple supercapacitors," Stanford assistant professor of materials science and engineering and paper co-author Yi Cui said.

Cui said in an e-mail that in addition to being useful for portable electronics and wearable electronics, "Our paper supercapacitors can be used for all kinds of applications that require instant high power."

"Since our paper batteries and supercapacitors can be very low cost, they are also good for grid-connected energy storage," he said.

Peidong Yang, professor of chemistry at the University of California-Berkeley, said the technology could be commercialized within a short time.

'18 Kids & Counting' Mom Michelle Duggar Hospitalized In Arkansas

2009-12-08T11:19:00.002+05:30

Michelle Duggar - matriarch of the Duggar family from TLC's "18 Kids and Counting" - was

hospitalized in Arkansas over the weekend, according to People.

The 42-year-old reality mom - who is pregnant with her 19th child - was reportedly rushed to

the E.R. due to a gallbladder problem.

"This weekend, Michelle Duggar was admitted to an Arkansas hospital due to gallbladder

issues," a rep for TLC told People. "The pain from a gallstone was generating some

contractions. Just to be safe, she was airlifted a Little Rock, Ark., hospital, so that in

the unlikely event that she had to be delivered early, she would be close to a NICU center."

Although Michelle remains hospitalized, the network spokesperson said both mom and baby are

doing fine.

"Though there were some fears that the baby was in trouble initially, it soon was discovered

to be solely the gallstone causing the discomfort. Michelle is resting comfortably, and the

baby is doing fine," the rep added. "Doctors want to observe Michelle in the hospital for

the next couple of days... but it would appear that the pain medication they have given her

for the gallstone has worked, and there is no need for immediate surgery. The hope is that

any necessary surgery can be delayed until after she delivers."

In September, Michelle and husband Jim Bob announced they were pregnant with their 19th

child.

"We are so thrilled," Michelle told People at the time. "We just couldn't believe it is

happening."

When the latest addition to the family does arrive, the Duggar's total tally isn't the only

thing that will be changing - so will the name of their show.

Access Hollywood previously confirmed TLC will change the name of the series to "19 Kids and

Counting," following the child's birth.

In October, Jim Bob and Michelle became grandparents for the first time when Joshua and Anna

Duggar welcomed daughter Mackynzie Renee Duggar.

Bollywood is beauty obsessed, says French actress

2009-12-08T11:18:00.002+05:30

French actress Fanny Valette says she has no problem doing an out-and-out Bollywood movie

but at the same time she is very critical about the concept of beauty in the industry.

"Certainly, I would like to do a Bollywood movie. Will love to do romantic movies. I have

also heard about 'Devdas', its lead actress Aishwarya Rai and the legendary actor Amitabh

Bachchan," Fanny told PTI.

However, she was extremely critical when asked about the size-zero fad and importance given

to it in Hindi films.

"Beauty is something that is very subjective. What makes an actor or actress really

beautiful is how he or she can touch your heart through their performance and express

themselves well," she said.

Actors who have impressed me in the past are only those who have acted very well, she said

adding if acting is not good, audience would eventually get bored.

"May be Indians would not share the same opinion, but I put a lot of importance to good

acting. Putting a lot of importance to physical beauty is a monstrous act. Beauty is

something very plastic. It is something that you get genetically from your parents," the

23-year-old actress said.

Fanny is part of the French delegation of actors who are currently here for the French Film

Festival.

Her movie 'Vertige' (Vertigo) was screened in the festival. She debuted with Gerard

Lauzier's 'Le Fils du Francais' at the age of 13. In the movie she shared the screen with

two great French actresses Josaine Balasko and Fanny Ardant.

‘Control Your Woman’ remote slammed!

2009-12-08T11:16:00.001+05:30

A remote control, which blasts out orders to women, has come under fire for its sexist

undertone.
The Control Your Woman remote can voice orders like “get me a beer.”

Moreover, it has functions that demand and control aspects like cleaning, spending and sex.

The 8-pound gadget is being sold by Debenhams as a novelty gift for Christmas.

David Philpot, a manager at the st Giles Trust Domestic abuse Programme, has slammed the

item after he saw it at his local Debenhams, in Ashford, Kent.

“It is totally inappropriate,” a news daily quoted him as saying.

Even though it has been removed from its online store after complaints, Debenhams said the

item would be available in markets nationwide.

ANI

Buzz up!
Post Comment | moderator Alert Moderator
Your comment(s) on this article
The simplest way to control women is with love...we dont need any gadgets..this things are

only for looser - Rehan - hyderabad
Correction, "below conversation"...lolz! - pranay - india
I am sure that this thing they are talking about is fake big time... and to add; all the

conversation above is Fukin hilarious.. ROFLMAO!!! - Pranay - india
Even though it is too late, there should be something to control women. The laws for women

and domestic voilence act in India are too horrible that the husband and even his relatives

could be in jail without any reasons. I hope to control women would be root of controlling

all humans. - VICTIM - kochi
it is inappropriately named as for women. it is more like to be used for servants or

subordinates - j v telang - mumbai
For Man who are so Happy for this.....would they be same happy if there is a thing which

says "control your man" is in the market...?? - sur - toronto
Ha ha Where can I get it in India? - Raghu - Mumbai
IT IS NOT APPROPRIATE. IT SEEMS LIKE A JOKE - GANGADHAR SAHU - NEW DELHI
This is in reference to Roxy's statement. What he/she has said is conventionally correct,

but modern technological development in the areas of embryonic cloning of organisms have

made possible reproduction by a woman solely depending upon her genetic materials with the

aid of technology, the same,however, cannot be said about men. - Priyam - Guwahati
i feel dis funny instrument is a like a fantasy for all dose men n hanpackd husbands who

can't even order a trained dog....... really its nothin more than a fantasy instrument n all

d men who buy dis r real losers.
Its a funny talking remote. Check out in Reviews and Online Stores. Not a Mind or Cortex

controller like in the film "Gamer".(Film not suitable for Women or Children). Anyway, This

is like spoiling the icon of nature.
It is clear that the product is meant for fun... However, some people tend to crib about

everything in life. - Bablu - Delhi
It is clear that the product is meant for fun... However, some people tend to crib about

everything in life. - Bablu - Delhi
It is clear that the product is meant for fun... However, some people tend to crib about

everything in life. - Bablu - Delhi
It is clear that the product is meant for fun... However, some people tend to crib about

everything in life.
It must be the realization of a dream - How do a man dare to "blast out" orders to his

woman? A remote is a safer idea..........
Hey! I think this is just a fanatsy. The best idea i e both partner should enjoy the fun

game. It looks funny anyway.
please dont make fun with all the readers. they are wiser enough. you cant cheat them. -

sumeet.
hey . dats gonna be dead sure dat if it is launched in india after some time its gonna

start becoming follower and will just receive commands instead of contolling women. No

remote can control indian women They have capability to modify any software be it of a human

or machine so BEWARE.........
Sorry Kenzie, U said that women can only reproduce,and can save the future.And men exist

for their mothers only.Ya!! it's 100% true.But can a Mother reproduce without a father???Is

it possible?I don't think so.I must say that for the existence of any living being both

father and mother is needed.Without them it's impossible.

Low-cost domestic carriers raise airfares on busy routes

2009-12-08T11:15:00.001+05:30

Crippled by financial setbacks and a dip in revenues, domestic air carriers have more than

doubled the fares on select metro routes ahead of a long festive season, as compared to the

fares four months ago. While a Delhi-Mumbai one-way ticket priced at the lowest fare cost

around Rs 2,300 in August this year, it has more than doubled to Rs 4,900 now, if booked 10

days in advance.

All the five low-cost carriers ï¿½ Go Air, Indigo, SpiceJet, JetLite (erstwhile Air Sahara),

Kingfisher Red (erstwhile Air Deccan) ï¿½ are charging upwards of Rs 4,500 one-way to

connect any two of the four major metro cities. Flyers will have to shell out around Rs

5,700 as one-way fare from Delhi to Bangalore, which used to cost around Rs 2,500 four

months ago. Similarly, the Delhi-Chennai one-way fare totals to around Rs 5,400 now as

compared to Rs 2,900 four months ago.

Aviation experts say that the recent hike could be explained by multiple factors which have

affected the airline industry. "Airlines have posted significant losses recently; now they

are trying to maximise the recoveries by hiking fares on metro routes that have high load

factors," said Kapil Arora, partner (advisory services), Ernst and Young Pvt Ltd. The

pricing that was adopted by domestic carriers till a few months ago, said Arora, was highly

irrational and was even below cost. "Airlines have started pricing rationally in select

sectors to bring closer the break-even point," he added. In the second quarter of 2009-10,

the balance sheet of all listed airlines was splattered with red. Vijay Mallya-promoted

Kingfisher Airlines posted a loss of Rs 419 crore, Jet Airways suffered a loss of Rs 409

crore and low-cost carrier SpiceJet incurred a loss of Rs 101 crore in Q2 2009-10.

Even though the domestic market remains highly price sensitive, aviation industry experts

rule out the possibility of the traffic taking a beating due to high fares in the coming

quarter. "With the macro economy picking up and GDP growth clocking 7.9 per cent, the demand

story is back. While the fares are on the higher side, they are not unreasonably high. The

traffic has risen steadily by 25-26 per cent in the last couple of months and is unlikely to

be impacted by the rise in fares," said SpiceJet COO Samyukta Sreedharan.

While fares have also been impacted with the airlines withdrawing most of the promotional

offers that were introduced a few months ago, aviation fuel price also had a role to play.

In the last six months, the aviation fuel prices have risen by around 12.5 per cent, forcing

all domestic carriers to raise the fuel surcharge by up to Rs 200.

"Airlines cannot absorb the rise in fuel prices any more and have been forced to pass on the

impact to the customer," said Arora.

Holiday Picks:Top 10 stupid gifts for the holidays

2009-12-08T11:14:00.001+05:30

In a recession year when most people are cutting back on holiday spending, how about

treating your loved one to some reindeer food safe for humans or a belching beer pager in

case they keep losing their beer?

Online retailer Stupid.com has released its third annual list of the stupidest gifts,

gadgets, presents and stocking stuffers that can be found around the globe for that relative

or friend who already has everything -- including a sense of humour.

"Nothing relieves the tension of a tough year better than a good laugh," said Stupid.com

President Jim Kalmenson, adding that 5,000 gag gifts were reviewed to come up with the final

10.

The previous lists have included Hillary Clinton nutcrackers, a Mother Teresa breath spray,

an underwear repair kit and mini-golf to play while on the toilet.

Here is the list of the top 10 stupidest gifts of 2009 from Los Angeles-based Stupid.com

(http://www.stupid.com/fun/). Reuters has not endorsed this list.

1. Swine Flu Recovery Kit

Whether you've got a sick friend or you're suffering, the Swine Flu Survival Kit has

everything you'll need to survive this nasty H1N1 including some pig-shaped soap, bacon

band-aids, bacon dental floss, and a sick bag.

2. Dog Poo Christmas Ornament

This charming tree decoration doesn't really smell at all, but it is about as vile as an

ornament can be.

3. Life Vest for Golf Balls

Now you can save your golf ball and maybe your game with the Golf Ball Life Vest. This tiny

orange flotation device is custom-made to fit over your golf ball and you need never dread

the water hazard again.

4. Freudian Slippers

Slide your feet into a pair of Freudian Slippers and watch your anxiety, paranoia and

obsession melt away. These plush and comfy slippers feature a stuffed Sigmund on the front.

5. Wall Street Finance Chimp

For the cost of a few bananas, get some advice from the Wall Street Financial Expert Chimp.

This play set features an executive monkey, chair, desk and computer displaying an important

deal.

6. Choke The Annoying Chicken

Anger management takes a new form with this brightly colored, super annoying squawker. Just

give it a choke and it dances and struts to the Chicken Dance, making it possibly the most

irritating toy ever.

7. Belching Beer Pager

You'll never lose another beer again no matter how much you drink! With a click of the

remote, your ice cold brewsky holder burps loudly and lights up as far as 60 feet away.

8. Talking Toilet Paper

The Talking Toilet Paper Dispenser allows you to record your own personal message that will

be played every time someone pulls paper off the roll.

9. Obama Dress Up Kit

Who really is President Barack Obama? Now you can decide by dressing him up in a variety of

magnetic outfits and props ranging from superhero, to beach dude or business executive.

10. Reindeer Food for Humans

This holiday season, when you're leaving cookies and milk out for Santa, why not throw in a

little Reindeer food as well? This bowl of yummy pellets is safe for human consumption.

Be a climate leader, it's time

2009-12-08T11:13:00.002+05:30

If you have an idea that can help save the world from global warming, here's your big

chance.

For the first time there is a nationwide hunt for young minds teeming with innovations that

can help fight climate change in unique, out-of-the- box ways. The hunt will, eventually,

unearth 50 sharpest young individuals from across the county and bring them to a platform

where their ideas/initiatives to battle climate change will be pitted against others' to

finally choose the country's first Brightest Young Climate Leader.

The Hindustan Times Brightest Young Climate Leader-2010 (BYCL) opens for applications on

Monday till the end of this month. "We are looking for extraordinary individuals who can

make a difference with their innovativeness," said Ishani Chattopadhyay, director of Arctic

Holdings, a carbon-management company, which is the organiser of the initiative.

"Those who have either started unique low-carbon processes, or have ideas that, with proper

guidance, can be developed into something big against Climate Change may apply." The

short-listed ones will come together at the BYCL Summit in Delhi in February, the country's

first such event bringing together all stakeholders - doers, thinkers, talkers, and even

mere listeners -of India's climate change.

"There are hundreds of ideas for energy conservation that do not see the light of day

because there is no one to guide, or even mentor. We will bridge that gap," Chattopadhyay

said. The shortlisted entries will be featured in Hindustan Times. The summit will also have

a pool of venture capitalists who will scan the entries looking for young talents to mentor

with funds.

There are broadly two categories of participation: Creator and Implementers. You can even

nominate someone you know in either of the two categories. There is also scope for those who

are neither. They can just participate in the summit as attendees.

"This time it's 50 from the entire country. Next year it will be 100 from each region. There

is a huge talent pool hidden in the small towns and rural India," she said.

Is it better to skip cancer test?

2009-12-08T11:12:00.001+05:30

Breast cancer screening has generated almost as much controversy over the past few weeks as

US President Barack Obama's Nobel for Peace.

The difference, of course, is that breast cancer screening guidelines have the potential to

touch millions at risk of the number one cancer for women. Obama's Nobel got us a cute

speech from the photogenic President.

Fuelling the cancer debate are the findings that low-dose radiation from annual mammography

screening can more than double the risk of breast cancer in women with genetic or familial

predisposition to the cancer. The study, presented at the annual conference of the

Radiological Society of North America in Chicago this week, suggests the use of alternative

screening methods such as ultrasound and MRI, which are currently being done together with

mammography to detect tumours and lesions in breast tissue.

The American Cancer Society recommends annual screening with mammography and MRI for women

at high risk from the age of 30 years and healthy women at the age of 40. Since India has no

country protocols, oncologists usually follow international - particularly US - guidelines.

The new study recommends that young women with a family history of breast cancer should

weigh the benefits of mammography against risks from low-dose radiation exposure to

understand the issue. These findings come from peer-reviewed data pooled from six earlier

studies that tracked 5,000 high-risk women in the US and Europe.

The study reports that women exposed to radiation before age 20 and women with five and more

exposures were 2.5 times more likely to develop breast cancer than women who are not exposed

at all. The study comes within weeks of the US Preventive Services Task Force that

recommended women begin screening at 50 years, and then every two years, finally stopping

entirely at the age of 75 years.

Oncologists say 50 years is too late. Experts worry that the conflicting messages will send

out the signal that screening can be delayed, when the reverse is true.

The fact is that breast cancer is the most common cancer among urban women and the

second-most common cancer after cervical in India. More than nine out of 10 women diagnosed

in the early stages survive, as opposed to one in five at a later stage.

If you are worried about radiation, get your doctor to do a physical exam and when in doubt,

get screened using an ultrasound or an MRI..

Miles for Nothing: How the Government Helped Frequent Fliers Make a Mint

2009-12-08T11:11:00.002+05:30

Enthusiasts of frequent-flier mileage have all kinds of crazy strategies for racking up

credits, but few have been as quick and easy as turning coins into miles.

At least several hundred mile-junkies discovered that a free shipping offer on presidential

and Native American $1 coins, sold at face value by the U.S. Mint, amounted to printing free

frequent-flier miles. Mileage lovers ordered more than $1 million in coins until the Mint

started identifying them and cutting them off.

Coin buyers charged the purchases, sold in boxes of 250 coins, to a credit card that offers

frequent-flier mile awards, then took the shipments straight to the bank. They then used the

coins they deposited to pay their credit-card bills. Their only cost: the car trip to make

the deposit.

Richard Baum, a software-company consultant who lives in New Jersey, ordered 15,000 coins.

"I never unrolled them," he says. "The UPS guy put them directly in my trunk."

Patricia Hansen, a San Diego retiree who loves to travel, ordered $10,000 in coins from the

Mint. "My husband took them to the bank," Ms. Hansen says, and she earned 10,000 miles

toward free or upgraded travel.

That's small change compared with what some mile collectors did. The coin program was a

popular play on FlyerTalk.com, an online community where frequent travelers and mileage

mavens share travel tips and profitable mileage plays. One FlyerTalker, identified by his

online moniker, Mr. Pickles, claims to have bought $800,000 in coins. He posted pictures of

the loot on FlyerTalk.

He says his largest single deposit was $70,000 in $1 coins. He used several banks and

numerous credit cards. He earned enough miles to put him over two million total at AMR

Corp.'s American Airlines, giving him lifetime platinum-elite status -- early availability

of upgrades for life and other perks on American and its partners around the world. He also

pumped miles into his account at UAL Corp.'s United Airlines and points into his Starwood

Preferred Guest program account.

A spokesman for the Mint says it has no record of anyone purchasing that many coins, but

orders could have been shipped to different names and addresses.

Another FlyerTalk member used the coin program to help earn a free two-week trip to Tahiti

that he took with his wife at the end of October. He worked hotel, airline and credit-card

programs carefully to pull together the rewards he wanted.

The allure of frequent-flier miles, which were introduced by American in 1981, was that they

offered something for nothing. The miles rewarded loyalty and proved to be an extremely

powerful marketing tool.

Now, airlines have turned miles into more than a competitive device; they have become a

currency that airlines can sell, usually at less than a penny a mile, to other merchants to

generate revenue. More miles are put into circulation by companies -- including credit-card

issuers, hotels, mortgage servicers, and florists -- than are given to travelers for

flights.

The mile is such a cherished commodity that airlines have even bolstered their balance

sheets by preselling billions of miles. Citigroup Inc., which gives away American AAdvantage

miles to credit-card customers, agreed to lend American $1 billion in September. The loan is

to be repaid between 2012 and 2016 -- not in cash but in miles.

Pushing miles into everyday commerce has created unique opportunities for mileage addicts.

For many, chasing miles is a way to vastly improve their travel. Accumulate enough miles to

land elite status, and you get early boarding, better seat selection, access to upgrades,

premium check-in and security lines, and sometimes use of fancy airport lounges on

international trips. It goes far beyond just tallying miles for free tickets.

Some fliers have been taking advantage of a free-shipping offer from the U.S. Mint to rack

up frequent-flier miles by buying dollar coins.

Landing those free tickets has gotten more expensive in recent years as airlines have pushed

the number of miles required for many trips higher and as they have added fees and

co-payments to some awards. Consumers are often frustrated as well by difficulty in getting

the trips they want on the dates they want since airlines restrict availability of award

seats. But the airline mile remains a potent perk that consumers chase around the world.

Even with all the offers that are available, the deal the Mint offers -- free miles without

spending any dollars -- is unique. The Mint says the dollar-coin free-shipping offer began

in June 2008. About $130 million in coins have been issued to 40,000 buyers, mostly coin

collectors, community banks and small businesses such as vending-machine companies and car

washes.

The Mint says it costs, on average, about $3 to ship each 250-coin box. So $10,000 in coins

would be 40 boxes, or $120 in shipping. As for credit-card costs to the government, a

Treasury Department agency handles all government credit-card transactions and negotiates

costs. No particular credit-card expense is charged to the Mint, a spokesman says.

In late August and September, officials noticed a sharp uptick in "large repetitive orders"

from a group of individuals, Mint spokesman Tom Jurkowsky says. At about the same time, the

Mint received reports from banks around the country that coins were being deposited that

were still in their U.S. Mint boxes, he says.

Officials found Internet chat rooms where the coins-for-miles scheme was detailed. Letters

were sent to customers asking whether their intended use complied with the program's

purpose. Customers who didn't respond were blocked from the program, Mr. Jurkowsky says.

Fewer than 400 buyers were blocked, he says.

"Is this illegal? No. Is it the right thing to do? No, it's not what the program is intended

to do," Mr. Jurkowsky says.

Dollar coins save the country money because they can last 30 years or more and can be

recycled, the Mint says. A paper dollar in circulation lasts only about 21 months, says the

U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The free-shipping program is meant to put more coins

into day-to-day use.

The Mint has added a warning to its Web site that credit-card companies could consider the

purchases cash-equivalent transactions not eligible for miles, and Mint officials plan to

contact credit-card issuers "to try to implement a solution," he says.

Mileage fanatics say merchants and hotel programs can be an excellent way to supplement

frequent-flier accounts.

Hyatt Hotels Corp. currently offers its Gold Passport program members a free night for every

two nights at one of the chain's properties through Jan. 31. The free nights come with no

blackout dates but have to be used by March 31. Charles Witt, a facilities planner in

Washington, D.C., stopped by a suburban Hyatt Place hotel on his way home from work several

times this fall, swiped his credit card to buy a $50 room and went home, never opening the

door to the hotel room.

For every $100 he spent, he got a free night at any Hyatt. He booked three free nights at

the Grand Hyatt in Tokyo over New Year's -- rooms that would have cost him $600 a night.

"Once you start on this road, it's very hard to get off," says Mr. Witt.

Hyatt says the promotion is meant to engender loyalty, and most customers use it more

traditionally, collecting free nights for regular stays. But the company welcomes people so

passionate about its hotels that they'll go to elaborate lengths to stay at Hyatt.

"We don't discourage that," says Jeff Zidell, vice president of Hyatt's Gold Passport

program. "There are those extremists in whatever business you're in who do what they can to

get the most out of it."

7 Red Flags for Home Buyers

2009-12-08T11:09:00.002+05:30

Before you bid on a home, check for potentially dicey, and pricey, problems.

In most states, home sellers must disclose any defect they know about that could affect how

desirable -- and marketable -- their home is before they sign a purchase contract. Even in

the six states that lack a "mandatory seller's property condition disclosure" (Alabama,

Arkansas, Kansas, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming), the state's licensing agency may

require real estate agents to tell buyers what they know. In all states, real estate agents

who belong to the National Association of Realtors are obligated by their code of ethics to

disclose any defects they know about.

But you may have fallen in love with a house, and spent hours preparing a purchase contract,

before the disclosures are made. You should always make your purchase contract contingent on

a professional home inspection ($300 to $350). Home inspectors could miss hidden problems,

however, such as a basement that floods during a downpour.

This list of red flags, recommended by Kathleen Kuhn, president of HouseMaster, a nationally

franchised home-inspection company, and Bill Richardson, president of the American Society

of Home Inspectors, can help you identify potentially pricey problems. You can use your

observations to winnow your choices or to factor in condition when you negotiate price with

the seller.

Poor water pressure. Aside from issues of comfort and convenience, low water flow may

indicate plumbing problems, such as corroded pipes that will need to be replaced down the

road. Tearing out old plumbing and replacing it with copper pipes can run $2,000 to $15,000

or more in a typical 1,500-square-foot home. A less costly alternative is cross-linked

polyethylene (PEX) piping, which unlike rigid copper piping, is flexible and easier to

install (approved for potable use in all U.S. model plumbing and mechanical codes, but may

not be approved in local building codes).

Among tests you can do: Run water in a bathroom sink and check for weak flow. Flush the

toilet while the water is running. Does the faucet flow drop off during the flush? In the

bathroom located farthest from the water heater, turn on the hot water. Is there an unduly

long delay before the water turns hot?

Ceiling stains. Something's leaking. If the stain appears beneath a bathroom, odds are the

shower is leaking. It may merely need recaulking or regrouting, but it could also require

ripping out tile and replacing the shower pan, a much more costly process (about $1,500).

Most roof leaks result from neglected flashing that seals "valleys" in the roof or around a

chimney or vents (cost to repair: $200 to $500). But roof leaks may also mean it's time to

replace shingles -- at $100 to $350 per 100 square feet for asphalt shingles and $210 to

$1,000 for wood shingles.

Troublesome doors. Are the doors hard to close? Do they swing open by themselves or fail to

open fully? If you have one bad door, it may simply have been installed incorrectly. But

more than one may indicate a serious structural issue, such as a foundation that has settled

or framing that is deteriorating. Fixing this problem can require structural and

geotechnical engineering reports and thousands of dollars in repairs.

Overloaded electrical outlets or lots of extension cords. Today's electrical demands may

exceed the capacity of homes built as little as a decade ago, says Kuhn. You'll spend $75 to

$250 to have an electrician add a 120-volt outlet to an existing circuit. Or, if the

electrical system is very outdated, it may require a new electric panel. A new, 100-amp

panel will cost $1,500 to $2,500.

Exterior features that slope toward the home. A porch, patio, driveway or grading that

slopes toward the home all but guarantees water in the basement. And that may lead to

structural decay, mold and insect infestation. In the basement, a musty smell may indicate

previous flooding or ongoing moisture problems. Check the walls for stains, dark or light,

which are tell-tale signs that water has penetrated the walls.

Solving the problem may be as simple and cheap as adding gutter extensions or regrading soil

away from the home, or it could require thousands of dollars to excavate and build drains.

Some homes may require exterior drains (one at the bottom of a sloped driveway, for example)

as well as buried drains.

Odors. Cigarette smoke and pet odors can be hard to get rid of. And if a home smells too

clean -- heavy with the scent of cleaning products (especially bleach) or plug-in

deodorizers -- the seller may be trying to cover up an odor, such as mold or urine. If so,

you need to inquire further, says Richardson, of the American Society of Home Inspectors.

Synthetic stucco siding. This must be installed precisely or else moisture will be trapped

behind it, resulting in mold and decay. In the worst case, the siding will have to be

replaced. For a medium-sized house (1,250 square feet of exterior surface area), replacing

vinyl siding can cost $2,500 to $8,750, while wood or fiber cement siding can cost $5,600 to

$10,000 or more. Especially in humid climates, you may want to pay for a special inspection.

HouseMaster charges $600 and up, depending on how much of the material has been used and the

size of the house.

If you find out before you close your purchase that the seller deliberately misrepresented

or failed to fully disclose the home's condition, you may have the right to rescind the

contract under state law. If it's a done deal, you'll probably have to sue the seller to

recoup your damages. In some states you can also seek repayment of your legal costs. Consult

with a lawyer who specializes in real estate fraud. If you have reason to believe that the

seller's agent was negligent, you can take it up with the local Board of Realtors

(www.nar.com, click on "local and state associations") and the state's licensing agency (to

find yours, visit the Web site of the Association of Real Estate License Law Officials).

Decade of 2000s was warmest ever, scientists say

2009-12-08T11:07:00.001+05:30

It dawned with the warmest winter on record in the United States. And when the sun sets this

New Year's Eve, the decade of the 2000s will end as the warmest ever on global temperature

charts.

Warmer still, scientists say, lies ahead.

Through 10 years of global boom and bust, of breakneck change around the planet, of

terrorism, war and division, all people everywhere under that warming sun faced one threat

together: the buildup of greenhouse gases, the rise in temperatures, the danger of a

shifting climate, of drought, weather extremes and encroaching seas, of untold damage to the

world humanity has created for itself over millennia.

As the decade neared its close, the U.N. gathered presidents and premiers of almost 100

nations for a "climate summit" to take united action, to sharply cut back the burning of

coal and other fossil fuels.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told them they had "a powerful opportunity to get on the right

side of history" at a year-ending climate conference in Copenhagen.

Once again, however, disunity might keep the world's nations on this side of making historic

decisions.

"Deep down, we know that you are not really listening," the Maldives' Mohamed Nasheed told

fellow presidents at September's summit.

Nasheed's tiny homeland, a sprinkling of low-lying islands in the Indian Ocean, will be one

of the earliest victims of seas rising from heat expansion and melting glaciers. On remote

islets of Papua New Guinea, on Pacific atolls, on bleak Arctic shores, other coastal peoples

in the 2000s were already making plans, packing up, seeking shelter.

The warming seas were growing more acid, too, from absorbing carbon dioxide, the biggest

greenhouse gas in an overloaded atmosphere. Together, warmer waters and acidity will kill

coral reefs and imperil other marine life — from plankton at the bottom of the food chain,

to starfish and crabs, mussels and sea urchins.

Over the decade's first nine years, global temperatures averaged 0.6 degrees Celsius (1.1

degrees F) higher than the 1951-1980 average, NASA reported. And temperatures rose faster in

the far north than anyplace else on Earth.

The decade's final three summers melted Arctic sea ice more than ever before in modern

times. Greenland's gargantuan ice cap was pouring 3 percent more meltwater into the sea each

year. Every summer's thaw reached deeper into the Arctic permafrost, threatening to unlock

vast amounts of methane, a global-warming gas.

Less ice meant less sunlight reflected, more heat absorbed by the Earth. More methane

escaping the tundra meant more warming, more thawing, more methane released.

At the bottom of the world, late in the decade, International Polar Year research found that

Antarctica, too, was warming. Floating ice shelves fringing its coast weakened, some

breaking away, allowing the glaciers behind them to push ice faster into the rising oceans.

On six continents the glaciers retreated through the 2000s, shrinking future water sources

for countless millions of Indians, Chinese, South Americans. The great lakes of Africa were

shrinking, too, from higher temperatures, evaporation and drought. Across the temperate

zones, flowers bloomed earlier, lakes froze later, bark beetles bored their destructive way

northward through warmer forests. In the Arctic, surprised Eskimos spotted the red breasts

of southern robins.

In the 2000s, all this was happening faster than anticipated, scientists said. So were other

things: By late in the decade, global emissions of carbon dioxide matched the worst case

among seven scenarios laid down in 2001 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,

the U.N. scientific network formed to peer into climate's future. Almost 29 billion tons of

the gas poured skyward annually — 23 percent higher than at the decade's start.

By year-end 2008, the 2000s already included eight of the 10 warmest years on record. By

2060, that trajectory could push temperatures a dangerous 4 degrees C (7 degrees F) or more

higher than preindustrial levels, British scientists said.

Early in the decade, the president of the United States, the biggest emitter, blamed

"incomplete" science for the U.S. stand against rolling back emissions, as other industrial

nations were trying to do. As the decade wore on and emissions grew, American reasoning

leaned more toward the economic.

By 2009, with a new president and Congress, Washington seemed ready to talk. But in the

front ranks of climate research — where they scale the glaciers, drill into ocean sediments,

monitor a changing Earth through a web of satellite eyes — scientists feared they were

running out of time.

Before the turn of the last century, with slide rule, pencil and months of tedious

calculation, Svante Arrhenius was the first to show that carbon dioxide would warm the

planet — in 3,000 years. The brilliant Swede hadn't foreseen the 20th-century explosion in

use of fossil fuels.

Today their supercomputers tell his scientific heirs a much more urgent story: To halt and

reverse that explosion of emissions, to head off a planetary climate crisis, the 10 years

that dawn this Jan. 1 will be the fateful years, the final chance, the last decade.

US Secret Service counts dozens of lapses since 1980: report

2009-12-08T11:06:00.002+05:30

The uninvited couple that sneaked into an exclusive state dinner at the White House joins a

lengthy list of similar security lapses, according to a 2003 Secret Service report revealed

Monday in the Washington Post.

The Secret Service -- the branch in charge of the president's security -- have mistakenly

seen at least 91 breaches of their checkpoints since 1980, said the daily, adding that the

report was used to train agents.

"This document reflects a proactive attempt to evaluate our security and obviously raises

the awareness of uniformed division officers and agents about their jobs," Secret Service

spokesman Edwin Donovan said, according to the Post.

"We have to be concerned about the threats to our protectees at all times, whether at the

White House or away from the White House."

In one of the more bizarre lapses at the president's heavily guarded mansion in Washington,

an October 1982 breach known as "The Family Outing" saw a family of four in a minivan pull

through the White House gates after honking their horn at agents.

They were stopped as they approached the West Wing entrance.

In a more serious example, the report highlights a 1994 incident where a man fired 29

semi-automatic rifle rounds at the White House from outside the perimeter fence before he

was confronted.

Secret Service director Mark Sullivan accepted responsibility for the gatecrashed state

dinner fiasco at a congressional hearing last week.

Socialites Tareq and Michaele Salahi got past several checkpoints and into the White House

where they shook hands with Obama and mingled with top-level officials at the November 24

dinner honoring visiting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Sullivan insisted security procedures were followed "without incident" for the other 1.2

million visitors to the White House in 2008, but acknowledged his service needed a "100

percent" security standard.

White House still lacks solid intel on bin Laden

2009-12-07T11:12:00.001+05:30

Osama bin Laden may be slipping back and forth from Pakistan to Afghanistan. Or the U.S.

might not have a clue, more than eight years after the al-Qaida leader masterminded the

terrorist attacks on America.

Given a chance Sunday to clear away some of the mystery surrounding the whereabouts of the

world's most wanted terrorist, Obama administration officials seemed to add to it with what

appeared to be conflicting assessments.

President Barack Obama's national security adviser, James Jones, said bin Laden, believed

hiding mainly in a rugged area of western Pakistan, may be periodically slipping back into

Afghanistan. But Obama's Pentagon chief, Robert Gates, said the U.S. has lacked good

intelligence on bin Laden for a long time — "I think it has been years" — and did not

confirm that he'd slipped into Afghanistan.

The failed hunt for bin Laden has been one of the signature frustrations of the global war

on terrorism that former President George W. Bush launched after the Sept. 11 attacks. The

main explanation given by both the Bush and Obama administrations for not getting bin Laden

is that they simply don't know where he is.

"If we did, we'd go get him," Gates said.

Jones, a retired Marine general, stressed the urgency of targeting bin Laden, and spoke of a

renewed campaign to capture or kill him. Bin Laden had been sheltered in Afghanistan by

Taliban allies while plotting the Sept. 11 attacks. When U.S. forces ousted the Taliban in

late 2001, bin Laden fled into Pakistan from his mountain redoubt.

Asked on CNN's "State of the Union" whether the administration has reliable intelligence on

bin Laden's whereabouts, Jones replied, "The best estimate is that he is somewhere in North

Waziristan, sometimes on the Pakistani side of the border, sometimes on the Afghan side of

the border." He did not comment on the intelligence behind that estimate, nor did he cite a

time period or describe more specifically bin Laden's apparent border crossings.

Gates told ABC's "This Week" that "we don't know for a fact where Osama bin Laden is,"

although he agreed that his likely location is North Waziristan.

That's part of the loosely governed Federally Administered Tribal Areas of northwest

Pakistan where the border with Afghanistan is largely unrecognized and unmarked. There is

little Pakistani government or military control in this remote region, and militants

affiliated with al-Qaida can move freely across the frontier into Afghanistan.

The U.S. has targeted North Waziristan and other areas on the Pakistan side of the border

with drone-launched missile strikes, killing substantial numbers of militants as well as

Pakistani civilians. The Pakistani army has undertaken an offensive against Taliban

militants in South Waziristan but it has not expanded the effort into North Waziristan.

Obama administration officials have often asserted, as did the Bush administration, that

they believe bin Laden is being sheltered on the Pakistani side of the border, along with

other senior al-Qaida leaders. But Jones broke new ground by saying publicly that the

al-Qaida chief may have slipped back into Afghanistan.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., made a somewhat similar, if less specific, remark Sunday about

bin Laden's movements. He told NBC's "Meet the Press" that knowledgeable people have told

him that bin Laden "moves back and forth."

McCain did not elaborate, except to say that although bin Laden is not currently able to

establish bases for training and equipping terrorists who would attack the United States, "I

think it's important to get him."

Two Afghan provinces in the country's northeast held particular attraction for bin Laden in

the 1990s: Kunar and Nuristan. The towering mountains there hid bin Laden training camps

that date back to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. A longtime bin Laden

ally, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, holds sway in the area. U.S. troops have targeted Hekmatyar's

security chief, Kashmir Khan, in Kunar.

During his years in Afghanistan as a guest of the Taliban, bin Laden operated mainly in the

southern region around Kandahar.

Gates said he does not blame a lack of Pakistani cooperation for the absence of intelligence

on bin Laden.

"No, I think it's because if, as we suspect, he is in North Waziristan, it is an area that

the Pakistani government has not had a presence in, in quite some time," Gates said, adding

that although the Pakistani government has its own priorities, any pressure it brings on the

Taliban is helpful because it is in league with al-Qaida.

During a visit to Pakistan in late October, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton caused

a stir by chiding Pakistani officials for failing to press the hunt for al-Qaida inside

their borders. She said she found it "hard to believe" that no one in Islamabad knows where

the al-Qaida leaders are hiding and couldn't get them "if they really wanted to."

Gates said he could not confirm recent news reports that bin Laden had been seen in

Afghanistan earlier this year. BBC News reported last week that a Taliban detainee in

Pakistan claimed to have met in January or February with an unidentified associate who said

he had seen bin Laden just days earlier in Afghanistan, possibly in Ghazni province.

A recent Senate report said bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the

mountains of Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan only three months after the attacks of Sept.

11, 2001, when American military leaders made the crucial decision not to pursue him with

massive force.

The report asserted that bin Laden's escape at his most vulnerable in December 2001 laid the

foundation for today's reinvigorated Afghan insurgency and inflamed the internal strife now

endangering Pakistan. Staff members for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Democratic

majority prepared the report at the request of the chairman, Sen. John Kerry of

Massachusetts.

Tommy Franks, the retired Army general who ran the initial war effort in Afghanistan and

chief of U.S. Central Command, wrote in his book, "American Soldier," in 2004 that he was

confident in late 2001 that al-Qaida could not escape the Afghan forces leading the battle

around Tora Bora, supported by heavy air strikes from American warplanes.

'Can't be Shanghai'

2009-12-07T11:10:00.002+05:30

The policy makers'dreams to make Mumbai another Shanghai may remain unfulfilled.

The present infrastructure and little attempt by the government to improve it, has drawn

criticism from Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), an international

non-profit organisation.

Mumbai among top 10 costliest global office markets

Navi Mumbai gets Best City award

Antony Wood, CTBUH's executive director, said that Indian cities were on the path to greater

urbanisation, and to cope up with this, critical decisions about infrastructure of cities

like Mumbai ought to have been taken some 30-40 years ago.

Asked if Mumbai has the potential to be the next Shanghai, Wood replied in the negative.

"With its present infrastructure and future plans, the city cannot become Shanghai as even

the Chinese city has its own problems," Wood said.

He insisted that high-rise buildings in India could be based on local conditions instead of

copying other countries, especially the western world. "The government has to make a policy

for tall structures. But with no facilities like fire-fighting, the authorities lack

confidence to define policy on such structures".

Drawing attention towards the large number of shanties in Mumbai, Wood said: "Almost 50 per

cent of the city's population lives in slums and there is no further work being done to

enhance public transport."

According to CTBUH, Mumbai is 25th tallest city - based on high-rises - in the world with

118 tall buildings measuring over 100m. Mumbai is the only Indian city that finds mention in

the list of high rises prepared by CTBUH. To focus on various infrastructure issues, the

Illinois-based CTBUH plans to hold a world conference - India Remaking Sustainable Cities in

the Vertical Age - in Mumbai between February 3 and 5, 2010.

The organisation has 3,87,584 members including architects, engineers, developers, building

owners and urban planners. The conference in Mumbai will see over 700 delegates and around

50 global speakers.

The copenhagen guide

2009-12-07T11:08:00.001+05:30

Starting tomorrow, representatives of 192 countries will meet in one of the most widely

anticipated international conferences in Copenhagen. Here, they will meet to try and hammer

out an agreement that, many hope, will save the planet from the fallouts of global warming

and climate change. With the world attention focused on Copenhagen, here is what you should

know.

Biggest climate show on earth to open in Copenhagen

Ready, steady in Copenhagen

Why we should be scared, very scared, of global warming?

Science says that the average temperature on earth has been rising rapidly. And it says this

is the result of growing concentrations of 'greenhouse gases' that are emitted whenever any

fuel is burnt to produce energy. Science also says that if something is not done immediately

to stop the increase in the concentrations of these gases, there will be catastrophic

consequences in the next few decades. Glaciers will melt, sea levels will rise, low-lying

areas will be submerged, crops will be damaged, extreme weather events like cyclones and

storms will become more frequent. In short, the world will become a difficult place to live

in and millions of people may lose their lives.

What's the solution?

Since the problem has been caused by excess GHGs, the solution is to reduce the emission of

GHGs.

Simple, isn't it?

Not quite. Industries have to operate, vehicles have to run and people have to use

appliances. Developing countries like India need more and more energy to power their

industries and increase other economic activities. Developed countries might not need to

increase their energy consumption now but their current consumption is already very high.

It's a vicious cycle. Development needs more industries and machines, but these lead to

increased emissions.

Is there a golden mean?

A middle path has to be found so that emissions can be reduced but not at the cost of

development. Excess consumption and wastage of energy has to be prevented. More efficient

technologies have to be found. If possible, ways have to be devised to absorb GHGs so that

they don't accumulate in the atmosphere. Nature offers such a solution in trees, which

absorb carbon dioxide and are therefore very good carbon sinks and are good for reducing GHG

concentrations.

So what will the Copenhagen meet do about the problem?

It is expected to come up with an agreement that will make it legally binding for rich and

developed countries to reduce their GHG emissions by specific amounts by a certain date,

possibly 2020. In fact, such an international agreement already exists. It is called the

Kyoto Protocol that makes it mandatory for a group of rich countries to reduce their

collective emissions by 5.2 per cent from their 1990 levels by 2012. The Copenhagen meet is

expected to fix bigger targets on these countries for a period beyond 2012 and till 2020.

Why should the rich pay more?

Well, it's only fair since they created the problem in the first place. More than 80 per

cent of the accumulated GHGs in atmosphere have been emitted by these countries since they

were the first ones to industrialise. They continue to emit more: a handful of about 30 rich

countries account for nearly half the global emissions. Their average per capita emission is

more than twice the world average and at least ten times more than that of India. A lot of

it results from wasteful and luxurious consumption of energy.

But that doesn't mean the rest can just sit back and do nothing, does it?

According to the Bali Action Plan, every country needs to take steps to reduce its energy

consumption. But unlike rich countries, they do not have to affix targets and the reduction

targets are not legally binding. This has been done so that the developing countries don't

find themselves constrained in their effort to increase economic activity and reduce

poverty. Development and poverty reduction have been recognised as the primary and

overriding concern for these countries and that includes India.

Does everyone agree on such an arrangement?

In principle, yes, but there are sharp differences over the details. Rich countries, for

example, want big, emerging economies like India and China to also take some sort of

targeted reductions in their rapidly growing emissions. Developing countries, on the other

hand, are demanding more ambitious emission cuts from the rich countries. They are also

asking for transfer of technology and money to cope with the effects of a problem that is

essentially the making of rich countries.

So will the Copenhagen meet result in a deal?

The chances of a comprehensive agreement in accordance with the Bali roadmap look remote.

But all the major emitters are expected to list their offers to reduce their emissions. A

political declaration is also likely to come out, stating the intent and commitment to quick

action.

India and climate change

The facts

* India is the fifth largest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind China, the United States,

the European Union and Russia.

* Its annual carbon dioxide emission is in the range of 1.2 to 1.4 billion tonnes. Its

annual greenhouse gas emission (CO2 plus five other gases, including methane) is in the

range of 1.6 to 1.8 billion tonnes.

* India's per capita emission is about 1.2 tonnes per year. That's about one fourth of the

global average, about one-tenth of the emissions of developed countries and about one-third

of China's.

* Between 1990 and 2004, India's carbon dioxide emissions grew by about 7 per cent a year on

an average.

India's traditional argument:

* Development and poverty reduction is its primary and over-riding priority even as it

shares responsibility for contributing to global efforts to contain temperature rise and

climate change. It is, therefore, in no position to cap or reduce its emissions, though it

is working towards slowing the growth of its emissions.

* Reducing greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation) is the sole responsibility of Annex-I

countries (developed nations), as the Kyoto Protocol says. India will take mitigation

efforts only if the developed world supports it with technology transfer and finance.

* India has already come up with a National Action Plan on Climate Change in line with its

responsibility under the Bali roadmap. Several other steps, including a new building code,

fuel efficiency standards and massive afforestation, have also been initiated. However,

these domestic actions are not open to international scrutiny.

* Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has given an assurance that even as its total emissions

grow, India will never allow its per capita emissions to rise above the average per capita

emissions of the developed world.

A shift?

In the run-up to the Copenhagen summit, however, India has displayed a lot of flexibility

and made a series of unilateral offers.

* 20-25 per cent cuts in carbon intensity by 2020 over 2005 levels: this was announced last

Thursday as a "non-binding" domestic target.

* India also agreed to tell the world about the amount of emission reductions that its

domestic actions were likely to lead to by a certain year. It was not prepared to do so

earlier. These numbers, however, cannot be treated as internationally binding targets.

* Two degree statement in Italy: At the Major Economies Forum earlier this year, India

signed on a declaration that called on all the signatories to work towards limiting the

global rise in temperatures to within 2 degrees centigrade from the pre-industrial levels.

This created a controversy because some interpreted the declaration as indirectly imposing

emission cuts on India. But the MEF declaration is not a legally binding document.

* India has also offered to report its emission status to the international community more

frequently than it is required to do under law. This will allow the world to track the

results of India's domestic actions.

The climate change dictionary

Adaptation: Refers to actions required to cope with the changes being brought about by

global warming. For example, introducing a new variety of crop that can withstand, or

probably give a better yield, in higher temperatures is an adaptation process. There are

huge costs involved.

Anthropogenic emissions: Emissions caused as a result of human activity.

Bali Action Plan: Adopted at the 13th meeting of the Conference of Parties (CoP) held at

Bali, Indonesia, in 2007, the plan spelt out four areas where accelerated action was

required to deal with climate change:

* Enhanced mitigation by rich countries. Developing countries to come up with NAMAs, or

nationally appropriate mitigation actions, that would be non-binding and without targets.

* Adaptation by developing and least developed countries (LDCs).

* Transfer of Technology from rich countries to developing nations and LDCs.

* A funding architecture to finance the costs of adaptation and mitigation. Funds to come

from the rich countries.

CoP: The Conference of Parties is an annual meet. The first such conference or CoP1 was held

in Berlin in 1995 - the Copenhagen meet is the 15th.

CDM: The Clean Development Mechanism offers an alternative way to rich countries to meet

their emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol. These countries are allowed to

fund clean projects in developing countries and the emissions savings accruing from these

projects can be counted towards their own target. For example, an industry in India can

decide to invest in highly efficient machinery that will help reduce its emissions below the

acceptable standard. The industry therefore can claim to have saved some emissions and earn

what is known as carbon credits. A country like Germany, for example, is then eligible to

make a monetary payment to the Indian industry to buy those carbon credits and count it as

its own emission reduction.

Carbon Sink/Carbon Sequestration: If accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the

problem, scientists are exploring ways to absorb the gas from the atmosphere and store it in

some place. It is an effort to emulate the natural process of photosynthesis in trees which

absorb CO2. The effort to create a man-made carbon sink, called carbon sequestration, has

not been very successful till now.

Carbon intensity or emission intensity: It is the carbon emissions of a country per unit of

its GDP. In mathematical terms, total carbon emissions in a year, divided by the country's

GDP is equal to the carbon intensity. It is generally measured in tonnes of CO2 emissions

per $1000 dollars of GDP.

Energy intensity: This is the energy consumption per unit of GDP, or in other words, the

energy that goes into producing one unit of GDP. It is generally measured in kg of oil

equivalent per dollar of GDP.

GHGs or greenhouse gases: The six gases blamed for causing global warming: carbon dioxide,

methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulphur hexafluoride. Of

these, the first two are known to be the biggest culprits.

Historical Responsibility: A term used to make the point that till now, almost all the

accumulated GHGs in the atmosphere are a result of emissions by rich, industrialised

countries over the last 150 years.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: A UN-instituted body set up in 1998 to study the

science behind climate change. Most of what we know about climate change is based on the

conclusions of IPCC reports. IPCC doesn't do any original research but comes out with

reports based on papers published on the subject by independent scientists after a careful

peer-review. It has so far come out with four reports, known as the Assessment Reports or

ARs. Its first report that came out in 1990 suggested that human activity was causing a

potentially dangerous change in global climate. The fourth assessment report was released in

2007. The next one is slated to be out in 2013.

Kyoto Protocol: Born at the UN climate meet in the Japanese city of Kyoto in 1997, it

introduced legally binding emission targets on rich countries. These countries legally

committed themselves to reduce their collective emissions by 5.2 per cent from the 1990

levels by 2012. The Kyoto Protocol came into operation in February 2005.

Mitigation: It refers to the reduction of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Per capita principle: Enshrined in the UNFCCC, it says that every person in the world should

have an equal carbon space in the atmosphere, meaning thereby that an equal per capita

emission in every country was the desired goal.

Technology Transfer: Developing countries have been asking rich nations to make available to

them the technologies that are more energy-efficient and therefore help in reducing

emissions. The rich countries are reluctant to pass on these technologies because of

intellectual property rights issues.

UNFCCC: The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change came about at the UN

Environment Conference, popularly known as the Earth Summit, at Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The

UNFCCC sought to reduce the rise in greenhouse gas emissions. Importantly, this Convention

enshrined the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, which stated that the

countries that have contributed the maximum to global emissions should also be the ones to

take the maximum responsibility for reducing the emissions.

Accordingly, this Convention divided countries in two broad groups - those named in Annex I

of the Convention and those who were not, referred to as non-Annex countries - based on

amount of their greenhouse gas emissions as well as the level of economic prosperity.

The countries included in Annex I were required to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions,

though no targets were fixed at this point. The targets came later through the Kyoto

Protocol. Most of the Annex I countries were also listed in Annex II, that made it

obligatory for them to assist the developing and least developed nations with financial

resources and technology to be able to cope with the effects of climate change and global

warming.

India to add 220 million to workforce by 2030: RBI

2009-12-07T11:07:00.002+05:30

India will add a whopping 220 million to its workforce by 2030, Reserve Bank of India (RBI)

Deputy Governor Subir Gokarn said Saturday.

'Their absorption into the job market will pose a daunting challenge to policy makers as

they try to align the forces of globalisation with the overarching objective of inclusive

growth,' Gokarn said while addressing a forum of chief executives from the Asia Pacific

region.

The 'ICC Regional CEO Forum' was organised by the International Chamber of Commerce.

The demographics in the South Asian and East Asian region will play out in such a manner

that China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Vietnam will create an overwhelmingly

large number of job seekers, Gokarn said.

'This, along with the likely shift from labour intensive activities to automation and

relocation of industries to low-wage destinations, would put a huge pressure on national

governments to raise their level of preparedness to meet the looming challenges,' he added.

The deputy governor said the government needed to act fast if it were to absorb this huge

number into the job market.

The government should ensure flexible labour markets, skill development and develop

infrastructure to facilitate the flow of investments, he said.

'India's record on the imperatives to deal with the inclusive growth in a globalising world

was mixed. Infrastructure has not kept pace with the requirements, skill generation has

lagged and safety nets have not been adequate,' Gokarn maintained.

Blast belly fat fast

2009-12-07T11:05:00.001+05:30

Whether you have a major paunch or just a tiny pooch and want to slim down, we have the

answers for you.

Looking for the simplest way to a flat belly? Go for this creative 20-minute fat-blasting

workout and you’ll begin to see a toned tummy in just three weeks and drop up to two inches

from your belly in just four weeks. These four crunch-free moves are the best way to hit all

your ab muscles, sculpting your belly into its best shape ever. Do them four times a week,

with a day of rest in between.

Work out

Straight-leg scissors: Lie on your back with arms by your sides, legs raised, and toes

pointing toward the sky. Flatten your lower back, engaging lower tummy muscles.

Inhale while lowering your right leg, so your toes are in line with your nose. Exhale,

switching your legs scissor-like, so your right leg lifts back up and your left comes down.

(Don’t touch the ground with your foot.) Do 3 sets of 8–10 reps.

Front plank with twist: Get on your knees and forearms with your elbows directly under your

shoulders, fingers interlaced. Stretch your legs long, and come up on your toes into plank

position. Exhale while twisting slightly to the left from your waist only. Inhale, returning

to the starting position, then repeat on the opposite side – that’s 1 rep. Do three sets of

10-12 reps.

Reverse curl plank on ball: Kneel in front of a stability ball, draping your abs and hips

over the ball. Place your hands on the ground in front of you, and walk them out until the

ball rolls beneath your shins; contract your lower abs and lift your hips slightly, then

slowly lower them down. Do three sets of 10-12 reps.

Straight-line side lifts: Lie on your left side with your legs straight and stacked on top

of one another and your feet flexed. Rest your head on your straight left arm. Inhale while

lifting both legs off the ground, then exhale while slowly lowering them until they’re about

1 inch off the ground. Do 10-12 reps, then switch sides and repeat to complete 1 set; do

three sets.

Major paunch: Do 3 sets of 15 bicycle crunches 2-3 times a week, plus 30-45 minutes’ worth

of run-walk intervals (2 minutes each) 4-5 times a week. You’ll notice big results in just 4

weeks.

Tiny pooch: Do 3 sets of 12-15 crunches on a stability ball 2-3 times a week to sculpt your

belly in 3 weeks.

Eat this

Major paunch: Cut or burn 500 calories and drink 2 cups of green tea daily: Green tea alone

helped exercisers drop ab fat in 12 weeks.

Tiny pooch: Eat snacks with belly-busting monounsaturated fatty acids daily: 23 almonds, 6

olives, or 2 squares dark chocolate. MUFAs can reduce ab fat in a month.

Fake it

Major paunch: Dress in a way that your belly flat is kept hidden. Go for lacy camisoles to

pull in and shape your middle, plus give your chest a lift.

Tiny pooch: Get a belt that’s at least 3 inches wide and made of a stiff material or

leather. A belt that won’t bend like a corset helps to hide your tummy.

Group contends popular Zhu Zhu Pets toys unsafe

2009-12-07T11:04:00.002+05:30

A consumer group contends one of the holiday season's must-have toys is unsafe.

But the maker of the robotic Zhu Zhu Pets hamsters defended its product Saturday against a

study by San Francisco-based GoodGuide that said higher-than-allowed levels of the chemical

antimony were found in the toy.

Good Guide named Zhu Zhu Pets hamsters one of the top-selling toys with low ratings after

finding antimony, which can cause health problems, on the hair and nose of one of the toy

hamsters, called Mr. Squiggles.

The group assigned the toy, aimed at 3- to 10-year-olds, a rating of 5.2 on a 10-point

scale.

But the toy's maker, St. Louis-based Cepia LLC, insisted in a statement that its product is

safe and has passed rigorous testing. The company said it was contacting GoodGuide to share

its testing data and determine how the report was founded.

"I have been in the toy industry for more than 35 years, and being a father of children

myself, I would never allow any substandard or unsafe product to hit the shelves," Russ

Hornsby, Cepia's CEO, said in the statement.

Zhu Zhu Pets, which retail for about $10, have become this season's toy craze, following in

the footsteps of Tickle Me Elmo and Cabbage Patch Kids. The items fetch $40 or more on

resale Web sites like eBay and Craigslist.

That's what brought it to GoodGuide's attention. GoodGuide CEO Dara O'Rourke told The

Associated Press on Saturday that his group bought three of each of the year's 30 hottest

toys and tested them multiple times.

Antimony was measured at 93 parts per million in the hamster's fur and at 106 parts per

million in its nose. Both readings exceed the allowable level of 60 parts per million, said

O'Rourke, an associate professor of environmental science at the University of California,

Berkeley.

O'Rourke said GoodGuide's test results, released Friday, also indicated the possibility that

some toys contained phthalates, chemicals that were subject to tougher standards in the

Consumer Protection Safety Improvement Act passed last year.

Do You Have Bad Breath? 3 Instant Cures!

2009-12-07T11:02:00.002+05:30

Mistletoe season has arrived, so it's absolutely crucial that your pout is smooch-worthy.

Your lips are buffed, glossed, and puckered, but what about your breath? One in four people

have bad breath, according to Colgate (and they should know, they make toothpaste). It's

caused by many various factors, from the foods we eat, to the drinks we consume, to our

daily hygiene and general health. It happens to the best of us, but there is no reason to

not take action. Dirty mouth? Let's clean it up.

John Frieda Shares His Two Most Important Ways to Get Perfect Hair!

Chew the right thing

Okay, the obvious choice when you are less-than-kissable is to brush your teeth and tongue.

(Yes, your tongue! It gets rid of odor-causing bacteria.) Mouthwash and sugar-free gum are

another quick fix. Or, if you're feeling organic, chew a couple fresh mint leaves.

Is Your Morning Coffee Making You Fat?

Stay hydrated

Classroom breath, office breath, church breath: whatever you call it, we've all experienced

that weird, stale breath that comes from not opening your mouth for a while. It's actually

caused by dehydration, so be sure to drink plenty of water throughout the day. Peppermint

tea spiked with anise or cinnamon is also recommended.

Want Kelly Ripa's Bod? Secrets From Her Trainers!

Gargle with hydrogen peroxide (yes, seriously)

We know this sounds awful, but gargling 50 percent hydrogen peroxide with 50 percent H20 for

5-30 seconds is an immediate and lasting cure for microbial bad breath. Also, almost every

household is guaranteed to have a bottle. If not, every drugstore will, and the plus side to

its medicinal taste is that it's super cheap--$1 for an 8-ounce bottle! (That's cheaper than

gum these days!)

These tips will seriously do the trick. When implemented into your daily routine, they may

even lessen that morning breath of yours!

Wolf recovery at crossroads in the Southwest

2009-12-07T11:00:00.002+05:30

A decade has passed since the federal government began returning endangered Mexican wolves

to their historic range in the Southwest. It hasn't worked out — for the wolves, for

ranchers, for conservationists or for federal biologists.

And that has resulted in frustration and resentment by many involved in the reintroduction

program along the Arizona-New Mexico border, a landscape of sprawling pine and spruce

forests, cold-water lakes and clear streams.

"I believe in being a good steward of the land and preserving it for generations to come,

but this is ridiculous," said Ed Wehrheim, who heads the county commission in Catron County,

in the heart of wolf country. "I've had ranchers' wives come to me just bawling because

everything they and their parents have worked for is going down the drain."

Four ranches have gone out of business since the wolf reintroduction began and another four

are expected to do the same before next summer, Wehrheim said.

The region has been hit by drought and cattle prices aren't what they used to be, but

Wehrheim said pressure from environmentalists and hundreds of livestock kills by Mexican

gray wolves over the past decade have only made things worse.

Environmentalists argue that grazing practices are part of the problem and the wolf

reintroduction program has failed because of mismanagement by the federal government.

In the middle stands Bud Fazio, coordinator of the Mexican gray wolf reintroduction program.

The program is at a crossroads and Fazio said he hopes to bring everyone back to the table

to find a way to move forward, quell concerns of critical environmentalists and gain the

confidence of wary ranchers.

"One thing about wolves is they bring out extreme emotions and feelings and attitudes, so it

is an extra challenge," he said. "There is some middle ground. There is some balance, but my

sense is that so far we haven't found that in the Southwest and we need to."

A subspecies of the gray wolf, the Mexican wolf was exterminated in the wild by the 1930s.

The government began reintroducing wolves in 1998 along the Arizona-New Mexico line, in a

territory of more than 4 million acres interspersed with forests, private land and towns.

There are about 50 wolves in the wild in Arizona and New Mexico, but that's half of what

biologists had hoped to have by now.

Federal, state and other officials involved in wolf recovery are scheduled to meet next week

in Albuquerque for the first of many "frank discussions" about the future of the program,

Fazio said.

Part of the reason for the talks is a recent settlement with environmentalists that called

for an end to a three-strikes rule that allowed wildlife managers to trap or shoot wolves

that had killed at least three head of livestock within a year.

The settlement also made clear that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has control over the

program, rather than a committee formed in 2003 to bring other agencies into the recovery

effort.

The original rule that established the reintroduction program still allows managers to

remove problem wolves, but Fazio said officials will now consider many factors — such as the

wolf's genetic value to the program and its reproductive success — before making decisions

on keeping an animal in the wild.

"Everything remains on the table in terms of an option for managing wolves and that does

include removal of live animals or lethal removal," Fazio said. "What is different is that a

whole suite of things, broader than before, will be taken into account."

Wehrheim and the New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association maintain the settlement changes

nothing because the wolf program had already started to leave wolves with more than three

strikes in the wild. They pointed to the Middle Fork pack, which was blamed for 10 livestock

kills in two months.

The pack includes four pups and two adults, both of which are missing their front left paws.

Federal biologists say the pack is now hunting elk and relying less on strategically placed

food caches.

Ranchers say that leaving the maimed wolves in the wild encourages them to go after easy

prey such as calves.

"It's a problem of the program, not a problem of the wolf," Catron County Manager Bill Aymar

said.

The Center for Biological Diversity also has been critical of the program, but the group

believes the wolves should be left in the wild and critical habitat declared for the species

to recover.

Wehrheim told New Mexico legislators in Santa Fe this week that ranchers in southwestern New

Mexico and southeastern Arizona can't afford to live with the wolves if the program remains

unchanged and the federal government's plan for compensating livestock losses goes unfunded.

"It's very, very serious for Catron County and all of the wolf recovery area," he said. "We

don't see any ranching existing with the wolf. We don't see any hunting existing with the

wolf. We're talking tens of millions of dollars of loss."

He gave the example of a third-generation ranch that harvested about 200 calves annually

before going out of business earlier this year. The operation was capable of bringing in

more than $1 million in tax and other revenues to the county.

Tod Stevenson, director of the New Mexico Game and Fish Department, testified that his

agency and the state want to make sure Catron County and its ranchers can survive on the

landscape.

"That's the best way that we can continue to manage wildlife, is to have them as partners

out there on the ground," he said. "It's critical that we come up with a balance to achieve

that."

10 Biggest Job Interview Blunders

2009-12-07T10:59:00.002+05:30

A few months ago I lost a middle-management job at a company where I worked for 14 years. I

received four promotions during that time, but it had been quite a while since I actually

interviewed for a new job.

I've gone on several interviews in the past few weeks, which I know I was lucky to get, but

they've all been dead-ends. A friend suggests that I hire a coach to help me polish my

interviewing skills and figure out what I'm doing wrong. Your thoughts? -Rusty

Dear Rusty: You aren't necessarily doing anything wrong. With unemployment now at 10.2%

nationally, and much higher in some states, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates

that there are 6.3 job hunters for every available job. That's three times the average that

prevails in a healthy economy, the BLS notes, so the numbers may simply be working against

you.

That you've gotten several interviews in the past few weeks is a good sign. And it's

certainly true that a competent coach could help you improve your interviewing technique.

But before you invest in a coach, see if you're making an easily avoidable mistake you could

clear up on your own.

"The competition is tough enough without giving potential employers reasons not to hire

you," says Tim Schoonover, chairman of outplacement and leadership-development firm OI

Partners.

Here are the most common errors career coaches at OI Partners see -- and how to fix them:

10. Over-Explaining Why You Lost Your Last Job

It's okay to mention that your last position was eliminated, but then move on to what you

can do for this employer.

9. Conveying That You're Not Over It

"During interviews, some people are acting wounded, angry or sad," Schoonover says. These

are normal emotions after a layoff but they don't belong in a job interview -- or you may

"seem unstable and communicate that you don't grasp the business reasons for layoffs," he

adds.

8. Lacking Humor, Warmth, or Personality

Many anxious job candidates are "one-dimensional during interviews, and are too focused on

getting their talking points across," notes Schoonover. "Don't forget to show qualities that

can be a real plus in the decision-making process, including humor in good taste, warmth,

and understanding." One thing interviewers want to know, of course, is how pleasant you

would be to have around the place every day.

7. Not Showing Enough Interest or Enthusiasm

After all, "companies are looking for people who are excited about working with them,"

Schoonover says.

6. Inadequate Research About a Potential Employer

It's essential to be up on the latest news, so be sure to Google the company before the

interview. Be prepared with well-informed, thoughtful questions about its products or

services and its future plans. Many applicants aren't bothering, Schoonover says, and it

shows.

5. Concentrating Too Much on What You Want

Focus more on what the interviewer is saying. Listening carefully is crucial in steering the

conversation toward how you would fit in and what you have to offer.

4. Trying to Be All Things to All People

"Devote most of your effort to talking about what you know you do well, and don't try to

stretch your actual qualifications too far," Schoonover advises. A good rule of thumb: Don't

apply for any job unless you have at least 75% of the stated qualifications.

3. "Winging" the Interview

Schoonover hears from many hiring managers that candidates often aren't ready to answer

difficult questions. So rehearse. "Prepare and practice a 90-second verbal resume, and some

answers to possible questions, so that you come across as succinct," he suggests.

2. Failing to Set Yourself Apart From Other Candidates

"You have to make the strongest possible case for why you are the best person for the job,"

Schoonover says. "Specifically address what impact you can have on sales, profits, costs, or

productivity within the next three to six months. Use quantifiable achievements from past

positions to back up your performance promise."

And the No. 1 mistake OI Partners' coaches see job hunters make:

1. Failing to Ask For the Job

"You have a much better chance of getting the job if you ask for it," says Schoonover.

"Close the interview by summing up what you can bring to the job, and ask for the

opportunity to deliver those results."

To Act Like the Rich, Be Frugal

2009-12-07T10:57:00.001+05:30

If you want to be rich, you need to stop acting like you have money in the bank and start

living beneath your means. That's the message in the most recent book from Thomas J.

Stanley, author of "The Millionaire Mind" and the "The Millionaire Next Door."

Bankrate asked Stanley to explain what's fueling America's hyper-consumptive ways and

unquenchable thirst for top-shelf brand vodka -- among other indulgences.

Q: In your book "Stop Acting Rich...and Start Living like a Real Millionaire," you say that

rich people don't necessarily act the way that the rest of us might think they do. In fact,

millionaires are more likely to be extremely frugal. Why is that?

A: There are many factors that explain frugality among the rich.

First, their parents tended to be not only frugal, but well-disciplined. Most millionaires

today came from middle-class backgrounds. Their parents were not wealthy, but somewhat

comfortable. Millionaires tell me that they never felt embarrassed by where they lived or

the type of home they had. To a considerable degree, it is the uniquely American upward

socioeconomic mobility that fuels much of the hyper-consuming engine of the market for

luxury goods, prestige products, upscale brands, expensive homes and so on.

Beyond income, one's vocation has much to do with accumulating wealth. Educators, engineers,

business owners and retail store managers have a tendency to live below their means and to

be quite efficient in transforming their income into wealth.

It is the home/neighborhood environment that most explains one's ability to accumulate

wealth. It may be useful for people to understand that there are 1,138,070 millionaire

households living in homes valued under $300,000. This is far more than the 403,211 who live

in homes valued at $1 million or more.

Q: You describe different levels of wealth in the book. There are the glittering rich, the

income (statement) affluent and the balance sheet affluent.

A: The glittering rich make up a small fraction of 1 percent of the household population.

They have a minimum annual household income of seven figures and a net worth of eight

figures and more. They are extremely wealthy people, and they spend accordingly.

But, as I said in "Stop Acting Rich," no matter what they spend their money on, it is just a

fraction of their overall net worth. In other words, even the glittering rich spend below

their means. There are no more than 80,000 glittering rich households in a nation of more

than 115,000,000 households.

The income statement affluent are those with high incomes and relatively low levels of net

worth. They are not very productive in transforming their incomes into wealth. Many of the

people in this category are highly compensated physicians, attorneys and executives. Many

are driven to hyper-consume by their need to display high social status.

Farmers are found in high concentrations among the segment I refer to as balance sheet

affluent. The balance sheet affluent are highly productive at transforming their income into

wealth.

Among the most productive of this group are educators, engineers, owners of small

businesses, and as mentioned, farmers.

Q: Who is buying most of the top-shelf brand vodkas, extravagant cars and homes and why?

A: The question of "who" really has two answers.

Status products and homes are more likely purchased by people who have higher incomes. Look

at three socioeconomic measures: net worth or wealth, household income and the market value

of a home. Which of these variables is best at predicting consumption of the items

mentioned? The value of a home ranks first, income ranks second and wealth ranks third.

Again, while it is true that the people at the upper level of these measures have a higher

propensity to consume prestige products, it is not necessarily the most significant market.

For example, most prestige makes of cars -- 86 percent -- are driven by nonmillionaires.

Yes, people with very high incomes, high levels of wealth are more likely to drive status

automobiles. But in sheer numbers, the largest consumer segment for pricey cars, vodkas and

homes is not the millionaire population, it is the aspirationals. These are people who think

they are acting rich via their adoption of prestige brands, but in most cases they are only

acting like each other.

Why do these people act this way? In large part, they are trying to imitate economically

successful people. They take their cues from Hollywood and the advertising industry. The

problem is that most aspirationals know few, if any, really wealthy to emulate.

Would they still continue to drive prestige makes of cars if they knew that the No. 1 make

of automobile among millionaires is the Toyota? Along these lines, would they still crave

living in a $1 million home when they find out that nearly three times more millionaires

live in homes valued at under $300,000 than live in those valued at $1 million or more?

Q: Should financial freedom be everyone's ultimate goal, and where does that leave the

people whose life goals are simply to have some of the trappings of wealth, such as the nice

house in the tony suburb and a European sports car?

A: America is often referred to as the land of the free. But most people in this country are

not really free. They are tied to debt and a treadmill existence in terms of earning a

living.

At this moment, our federal government has promised future social benefits in excess of $50

trillion. That figure is approximately the same amount of the total personal wealth held by

Americans.

In the future, it is very likely that the government will not be able to provide the

promised social benefits to our seniors. The typical household in the United States has a

net worth of just over $90,000. That is about the same annual cost of a decent quality

nursing home.

Also, if home equity and equity in motor vehicles is netted out of the $90,000, then the

typical household's net worth drops down to about $30,000. That is only about 60 percent of

the typical household's annual income. Therefore, it should be everyone's goal to provide

for their economic future by being fiscally responsible.

Otherwise, what will happen when millions of seniors are no longer able to work and have

little or no wealth accumulated? Many of them will become completely dependent upon their

adult children or become destitute. The money that they spent on the trappings of wealth

yesterday (the house in a tony suburb or a European sports car) will not pay for tomorrow's

food, clothing and shelter (possibly a nursing home).

Q: How do you recommend that people become prosperous if they would prefer to get off the

consumer treadmill?

A: The simplest way is to live below one's means.

The typical household should be able to put away 5 percent of their annual income while they

are in their 30s, 10 percent when they are in their 40s, and 20 percent when they are in

their 50s.

This is also related to satisfaction with life overall. There is a highly significant

correlation between satisfaction in life and living in a home and neighborhood which are

easily affordable.

What is a good rule if you are determined to become wealthy?

The market value of the home you purchase should be less than three times your household's

total annual realized income. Also, if you are not yet wealthy, but want to be someday,

never purchase a home that requires a mortgage that is more than twice your household's

annual realized income.

Q: Do you have a sense that American consumer values are shifting from aspirational luxury

purchases that seemed to be heavily marketed in the early 2000's asset bubble days to more

frugal ones?

A: No, I don't think that the values are shifting.

The only reason that people aren't spending as much as they did prior to the current

economic meltdown is that they don't have as much money to spend right now. We are a nation

of hyper-consumers. We encourage our children to major in consumption and minor in

frugality!

The smartest people in the world are in the marketing and advertising industries in this

country. How else can you explain that 300 different brands of vodka coexist in our domestic

market? In 2009, about 2.3 million American seniors will pass away. What did they do with

the more than $2 trillion in income that they earned in their lifetimes?

I estimate that only 2.3 percent will leave behind a gross estate (all assets included) of

$1 million or more. What did the other 97.7 percent of the decedents do with all of their

income? If they did not save their income, invest it or allocate it to things that

appreciate, where did the money go?

Beyond the basic necessities, an awful lot of it was spent on things, many things that now

reside in landfills and thrift shops. We are and will continue to be a culture of

hyper-consumption.

Afghan troop buildup is key to U.S. war strategy

2009-12-06T11:14:00.003+05:30

President Barack Obama has his troop surge. Afghanistan's beleaguered security forces have

theirs.

While the new U.S. war strategy was unveiled with worldwide fanfare, Afghan's defense force

has been quietly planning its own troop buildup to break the Taliban's tightening grip on

swathes of the nation. The Afghan surge is the one to watch because the success of Obama's

new war plan is inextricably hinged to Afghanistan's ability to recruit, train and retain

security forces that can eventually take the lead in defending the nation.

Afghan Defense Minister Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak told The Associated Press in an interview

Saturday that he's already assigned one brigade to a new three-brigade seventh corps of the

Afghan National Army. Corps 215 Maiwand is based in the Helmand capital of Lashkar Gah,

where most of the 30,000 U.S. reinforcements will be deployed.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says the Afghans have promised to send 5,000 members of

the new corps to partner with British troops in Helmand. Wardak insists that will be

achieved with ease. He said he's already begun staffing the command's second brigade.

Moreover, he said nearly 44 additional companies of Afghan soldiers are being added to

battalions in the south and east. Another Afghan commando battalion, which will graduate in

January, is also headed to Helmand â€” the scene of a major weekend offensive by 1,000

Marines and 150 Afghan soldiers.

"We are bringing the strength level of every unit in the south to 117 percent of its

authorized strength so there will be a significant increase in the number of troops," Wardak

said in his office at the Ministry of Defense.

Building up the Afghan army, plagued by inefficiency, a lack of trainers and corruption, is

a precursor to a U.S. troop pullout. While Obama set July 2011 as the date for the beginning

of a withdrawal, he said it would happen "taking into account conditions on the ground."

That caveat was what Afghan leaders needed to hear.

"It is in the speech," Wardak said. "I don't believe the international community will just

leave us like they did once before — after all these sacrifices. This enemy is not only

terrorizing Afghanistan, it is terrorizing the whole international community. The nature of

the threat is such that no one country will be able to deal with it."

Initially, the size of the Afghan army was scheduled to swell from 85,000 to 134,000 by

2013. That target now is expected to be reached earlier — by Oct. 31, 2011.

"We are increasing our level of recruitment and there are going to be improvements in

retention," he said. "We are going to go at a very fast speed."

However, even the defense minister acknowledges that 134,000 will not be enough. He agrees

with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, who has recommended a

240,000-member Afghan army.

Getting there will be a steep uphill battle, says retired. Marine Col. Jeff Haynes, who in

2008 headed a command that advised the Afghan National Army.

"The rapid expansion of the Afghan National Army will likely undermine the fragile success

that has been achieved to date," Haynes wrote in an essay on the Web site defpro.com. "It

will also set back, not hasten, its assumption of the lead role in defeating a resurgent

Taliban. Unfortunately, too many of the people who are developing Afghan security strategy

have never worked with the Afghan National Army and do not have a clear understanding of

their strengths and weaknesses.

"The reality is that ANA effectiveness is already suffering because of an inadequate number

of competent leaders and staff officers. ... Growing the army too fast will only exacerbate

this leadership deficit."

Candace Rondeaux, senior Afghan analyst for the International Crisis Group, said the army is

facing a a shortage of military trainers and is fighting endemic corruption. The question is

how many troops can the Afghan government sustain in an aid-dependent country where the

annual budget is under $10 billion.

"If the goal is to build a quality force of some 134,000 Afghan army soldiers by the end of

2011, then the addition of some 4,000 U.S. military trainers under the new troop levels will

certainly help," she told the Council on Foreign Relations Web site. "But when it comes to

expanding the Afghan National Army to 250,000 ... then stress on the system is inevitable

and may blunt the positive impact that extra U.S. troops will have in the long term."

Column: Even climate is about the money

2009-12-06T11:13:00.002+05:30

A lottery would not get many ticket sales if it disclosed the prize after the draw. With

this observation, a developing country delegate expressed frustration over the lack of a

climate finance mechanism. Why, he argued at climate negotiations earlier this year, would

poor countries undertake costly climate-related actions without guarantees that funds would

be available? As the Copenhagen meeting begins, it looks less like lottery and more like

poker.

Lotteries are games of pure chance. Poker is a game of part chance, part strategy. Climate

negotiations hinge on, among other things, creating a pool of finance to share the burden of

mitigating and adapting to climate change. The game is not one of a winner taking all by

sheer luck, but of who contributes how much to the common pot. No country is willing to act

first; doing so would be to fold. Countries are taking a chance on the level of aggregate

effort needed to avoid dangerous climate change, but their strategy is to avoid revealing

preferences.

Several countries have announced plans for emission cuts (Brazil, EU, Indonesia, Japan,

Russia, South Korea, the US) or carbon intensity reduction (China, India). These are,

however, opening gambits to guess how far others would go. For instance, China's offer of

40-45% reduction in carbon intensity by 2020 is a continuation of its already existing

policy, which began in 2006. If other countries had expected more, China was not going to

oblige. By 2020 the US aims to reduce emissions by 17% relative to 2005, which is way below

desired levels (using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 1990 baseline, this

means only 4% reduction). For rich countries as a whole, the IPCC recommends reductions of

25-40% by 2020; offers on the table amount to only a 12-19% cut. Further, many leaders have

suggested that Copenhagen will not deliver a legally binding treaty.

The absence of internationally enforceable mitigation commitments means that the burden on

climate finance will increase. Unilateral promises will depend on whether sufficient

financing is available to achieve the scale of actions needed. So, who will pay? The

Commonwealth Heads of Government backed a British-French proposal for a $10-billion fund to

help developing countries reduce emissions and adapt to a changing climate. This was one

more push to secure at least a political deal in Copenhagen.

But larger issues remain unresolved. The first is the scale of funding required. Estimates

for additional annual investments for climate mitigation in developing countries vary, but

they hover around $100 billion annually by 2020. A tiny fraction of that is spent at present

with even new funds failing to disburse significant amounts. Funding for adaptation shows

similar gaps, with only $1 billion being spent when the needs are perhaps 40 times more.

Many argue that significant increase in official development assistance (ODA) is difficult.

Therefore, a second issue is the funding mix. No doubt a large share of financing has to

come from private, market-based sources. But, as currently configured, carbon markets will

not generate funding to match the actions required. The incremental costs of moving up the

technology ladder—R&D, capital costs, intellectual property—imply public financing

support. It is unhelpful to pretend that market failures in cleaner energy technologies will

correct themselves without support.

Needed then are arrangements that generate win-win situations. These arrangements involve a

mix of political commitment, public finance and private investment. In October, delegations

meeting in New Delhi endorsed India's proposal for a network of technology research centres

across developed and developing countries. Again, the US and China announced several joint

initiatives during Obama's recent visit, on energy efficiency, research on cleaner coal

plants, electric vehicles, carbon capture & storage and renewable energy, among others.

Such bilateral initiatives, while important, are still small scale. Moreover, they must not

divert attention from multilateral arrangements. Otherwise, financing might indeed turn into

a lottery for a few countries while others are left without access to clean technologies.

That raises a third issue of 'additionality' of funding. This is jargon for climate funding

being over and above existing ODA allocations. Developing countries worry that climate

finance will simply substitute money intended for education, health and other development

needs. The EU has sought to delete references to additional funding from the Copenhagen

text.

There is a long history of unmet commitments that has resulted in an atmosphere of sheer

mistrust and bad faith between rich and poor countries. Despite its bilateral initiatives,

the US has yet to table any substantial offer regarding climate finance. President Obama

admitted at the G8 summit in July that the US had 'sometimes failed to meet its

responsibilities so let me make it clear those days are over'. Those days are not over yet;

the game of poker continues.

There is an alternative: a multilateral Low Carbon Technology and Finance Facility that uses

public finance to leverage private investment, underwrites project risks, covers

intellectual property fees, and offers rich and poor countries equal voice in governing

climate finance. Will negotiators at Copenhagen play this new game?

World's Most Expensive Pink Diamond

2009-12-06T11:12:00.002+05:30

A rare pink diamond sold for a record $10.8 million in a Hong Kong auction Tuesday night,

proving the market for high-end goods in Asia hasn't lost its luster.

Demand exceeded Christie's' expectations. Last week the auction house's department head for

jewels, Vickie Sek, predicted the rock would fetch $8 million.

"Vivid Pink," as it's called, is a glittering five-carat stone flanked by two white diamonds

and set in a ring by elite jeweler Graff, owned by U.K. billionaire Laurence Graff.

The glamorous diamond toured Singapore, Bangkok, Geneva and Taipei before returning to Hong

Kong, where collectors and connoisseurs vied for it at the Convention and Exhibition Center.

An anonymous Asian buyer placed the winning bid of $83.5 million Hong Kong dollars via

telephone through a Christie's representative, beating out Shanghai millionaire Liu Yiqian,

who ranks 196th on Forbes' list of the richest people in mainland China.

It was on the block alongside 250 other gemstones, jades and pieces of jewelry in every

color of the rainbow from the likes of Cartier and Van Cleef and Arpels.

Altogether, the jewelry sale's lots brought in more than $48 million.

The night's top sale and the most expensive jewel sold at auction in 2009, the brilliant

pink stone earned top marks from the Gemological Institute of America, which rates diamonds.

It also set a world record, earning $2.1 million per carat.

The gem is unique because of its particular hue--a rich bubblegum rather than a more common

lighter rose. It is also valuable because of its saturation, the depth the color extends

into the stone.

"Stones like this--they're not just jewelry, they're artwork," Alan Bronstein, a New

York-based trader and dealer of rare colored diamonds, said last week.

Colored diamonds mined naturally are often pockmarked with flecks of other hues, like

purple, orange or gray. But this one is blemish-free, boasting an even tone throughout. Only

one in 100,000 diamonds is as special.

Two weeks ago, in Geneva, Sotheby's sold a diamond of similar size and shape, but a lighter

shade, for $1.4 million.

"It is not even close to as rare," Bronstein said.

Until now, the highest price paid at auction for a pink diamond was $7.4 million; that was

in 1994 for a 19-carat, rectangular-cut stone auctioned in Geneva.

Even though the Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seoul and Sydney stock markets are recovering faster

than their American and European counterparts, and retail sales in China are climbing at the

breakneck pace of 15% each month, some experts still question whether Asian consumers and

collectors have the appetite--not to mention the cash--for such a pricey piece of bling.

"We could have sold it in New York, but it wouldn't have done that," said Simon Teakle of

Betteridge Jewelers in Greenwich, Conn., after the hammer went down. Teakle, who represents

Vivid Pink's American seller, added that it's crucial to gauge in which market a diamond

will attract the most attention.

"People are, in fact, still buying the big-ticket items," says Ashok Soman, managing editor

of Luxury Insider, a news portal about top-of-the-line goods in Asia.

During Tuesday's auction, which dragged on more than five hours, gentlemen in dark suits and

ladies in stylish heels sipped coffee and nibbled hors d'oeurves while poring over

inch-thick glossy catalogs of the items up for bid.

Breaking the sedate mood and the monotonous inflections of the auctioneer's Swiss accent, a

buzz of excitement rippled through the room at the end of sale, as the big-ticket items

pulled in the big bucks.

Larry Warsh, a longtime art collector and founder of Museums Magazines, called the massive

surge in Chinese demand for high-end collectible goods--not just Prada shoes or a Louis

Vuitton bag, but rarer, one-of-a-kind pieces like Vivid Pink--a "once-in-a-lifetime

phenomenon."

"If you're selling any asset today, you have to think of Asia," he said. "That's where the

action is, that's where the power is, that's where the wealth is."

Take, for example, Forbes' annual ranking of the richest people in China. In 2008, 24

billionaires made the list; in 2009, that number jumped to 79. The total net worth of

China's 400 richest surged 81%, while America's wealthiest lost 20% of their cumulative

total over the same period.

"The buying behavior of the Chinese has been very aggressive, and very supportive of the art

market," Andrew Foster, president of Christie's in Asia, said in a November interview. "I

think there's straightforward optimism about where this market is going."

Personal trainer 101

2009-12-06T11:10:00.001+05:30

What's your excuse for being a couch potato? Perhaps, you went to a gym and never lost

weight or you have no idea where, what, how and when to begin.

Whatever your reason, your ticket to becoming fit, and staying that way, is a personal

trainer. They aren't a luxury that only movie stars and sportspersons can afford anymore.

Working ways
A personal trainer's job is to motivate and train you to achieve your goal, whether it's

losing weight or building your muscles or strengthening a weak and injured part of your

body.

Even if you're motivated, a personal trainer will help you accomplish your goals faster and

more efficiently.

Signing up

Jeetendra Tiwari, a Mumbai-based personal trainer, tells us most people don't know how to

use equipment or where to start in a gym. A personal trainer can plan your workout. You can

injure yourself without proper knowledge of training equipment. "Once you hire a trainer,

you're forced to come to the gym," says trainer Nandan Vijay Thansekar from Mumbai.

A trainer can also help you with your diet.

Training wonders

Everyone can do with a personal trainer. Even when you have knowledge about fitness, a

personal trainer can make you push yourself harder and stick to your target. "If you have an

injury or a health problem like high blood pressure, it's imperative that you hire a

personal trainer," adds Tiwari.

Choose well

Make sure your trainer is certified and has enough time for you. "Ask for your trainer's

certificate. He shouldn't be training more than 6-7 people at a time," says Thansekar.

A trainer can cost you between Rs 3,000- 15,000 per month.

Also, confirm that your trainer has studied nutrition and diet.

Personal choices also matter. If you don't like training with a certain person, you'll give

up working out. Wait for 3-4 months to see results.

With the growing number of gym-related injuries, it's a smart move to get a personal

trainer. If nothing else, get one for a few months and then continue following his workout

routine by yourself.

Groom creates viral storm twittering from altar

2009-12-06T11:09:00.002+05:30

A Maryland groom has created an viral story storm after he interrupted his wedding last

month to update his Facebook and Twitter accounts from the altar.

Dana Hanna, who works for a pet website, also posted a short video of the ceremony on the

Internet. It showed him reaching into his pocket for his phone as the minister was about to

pronounce the couple husband and wife.

The video has had more than 350,000 views.

"Oh, Dana is updating his relationship status on Facebook," the minister said as the

audience at the wedding laughed.

After Hanna finished twittering he continued the ceremony.

"As I was saying, I now pronounce you husband and wife. It's now official on Facebook. It's

official in my book. Dana you may kiss your bride."

Hanna, who lists his profession on the networking site LinkedIn as chief architect at Next

Day Pets, described his reaction to the ceremony on his YouTube account the day after the

ceremony.

"I surprised not only my guests, but also Tracy (his wife) by pulling out my phone and

posting on Facebook and Twitter from the altar during our wedding," he said.

Though users have sent marriage proposals over the micro-blogging site Twitter, interrupting

a wedding ceremony to update social networking site Facebook and send out a Tweet on Twitter

about it appears to be a first.

"I had her phone ready in my pocket, so when she asked for it I could hand it to her. No one

knew about this except the minister and myself." he said on YouTube.

The Twitter post, which has garnered Hanna instant online fame, is still up on his account.

"Standing at the altar with @TracyPage where just a second ago, she became my wife! Gotta

go, time to kiss my bride. #weddingday 1:48 PM Nov 21st from Twittelator."

Yesterday, apparently overwhelmed by media attention, Hanna posted a new comment on his

Twitter account.

"To all the criticizers of my video out there questioning my sanity: You don't get it. I was

having fun at MY wedding! Loosen up, have fun!"

His new bride, apparently also surprised at the viral storm her husband launched, also

posted on her Twitter account.

"Can't sleep, very anxious about this new fame. What will become of it?" she asked.

The Anti-Gym Workout: Easy Ways to Burn Extra Calories Throughout the Day!

2009-12-06T11:07:00.001+05:30

Is staying fit on your list of important New Year's resolutions? Afraid to commit to working

out because you're always at work? It can be intimidating to start a routine, especially if

you're not regularly accustomed to getting up and going to the gym every morning. With

anything new that you start, it's important to pace yourself.

The best way to stay committed is to gradually build up a tolerance. You may not even

realize the amount of exercise opportunities that are presented to you daily that you lazily

overlook. Instead of thinking that the gym is the only way to whip weight-loss, start taking

a look at the easy exercises you could do, without even thinking about it. Here are a few

tips on how to start working in a work out into your everyday life, without ever going to

the gym:

Are You an Emotional Eater?

Take the stairs

Every day most of us are faced with some form of stairs vs. escalator/elevator challenge.

Instead of taking the easy way, start your day off with an old-fashioned stair-master, and

climb your way to your cubical. After a week of taking the stairs you'll forget the

electronic way even existed.

Pick up not delivery

Start walking to your favorite sushi spot instead of having it delivered. The walk will let

you take in some fresh air which is definitely good for the bod. It may even take less time.

Believe it or not, you know you need to get back to your desk in time to finish that project

your boss assigned you, so you'll power walk and burn more calories.

Face to face

Instead of emailing a co-worker on the opposite side of the office or different floor, take

a walk over and speak in person. This is another way to fit in a walk that will make a

difference.

Pump up the volume

Listen to your iPod while your washing the dishes or cooking dinner at home and shake your

stuff. Dancing while making dinner is a fun way to stay in shape. Remember to cook a healthy

dinner, staying away from fatty foods and desserts.

Is Your Hair Going Flat? How to Keep Those Curls Looking Great All Day Long!

Drink water

Take a break from your calorie-filled coffee. Staying hydrated during the day is essential

to having a healthy body. Drink at least two glasses of water during the day to keep you

feeling fresh.

If you live close enough, take your bike to work or to the store. Biking is fun and is

sometimes a lot easier that walking. You'll get to your destination quicker without having

to put any gas in your tank or pay a taxi fare. If you don't have a bike, pick up a pair of

rollerblades. Blades won't take up as much space and will burn twice the amount of calories

as biking.

Gifts Under $20 for Everyone on Your Lis

2009-12-06T11:05:00.001+05:30

Spread holiday cheer without breaking the bank with these budget-friendly finds
By CountryLiving.com
uncommongoods.com

Travel Organizer
Planning a trip becomes as fun as the trip itself with a mini file travel organizer for

tickets, receipts, and your passport. (uncommongoods.com, $13)

mybaggs.com

Luggage Tag
Avoid luggage switch-ups at the airport with bold and unique luggage tags. (mybaggs.com, $9)

More from CountryLiving.com:

70+ Easy Christmas Home-Decorating Ideas

How to Set a Gorgeous Holiday Table, Fast!

Yummy Christmas Cookies to Bake and Take this Weekend
Barnes and Noble

Parlor Games
Gather family members around the Christmas tree to play delightful games from a bygone era.

(barnesandnoble.com, $11)

maptote.com

Wine Map Tote
Wine-region totes are the best way to carry home bottles from the store - or a holiday

party! (maptote.com, $12)

Gianna Rose

Drawer Liners
Help her feel ladylike with beautifully packaged drawer liners that have a hint of

fragrance. (giannarose.com, $20)

MouCo Cheese Co.

Cheese Sampler
Cheese lovers can taste and savor three kinds of creamy Camembert and mildly flavored Blu.

(moucocheese.foodzie.com, $18.50)

Random House

Note Card Set
Bring back the art of the hand-written letter with retro-chic Americana note cards and

envelopes. (randomhouse.com, $17)

Petrossian, Inc.

Hot Chocolate Stick
For a rich, new way to make a cup of cocoa, stir a cube of Belgian chocolate into a cup of

hot milk or heavy cream. (petrossian.com, $18)

Patina Stores

Tile Coasters
Bright ceramic tiles make for unique coasters that you'll happily set out on the table.

(patinastores.com, $17)

Anthropologie

Flower Bookmark
Ornate metal bookmarks save your place with style. (anthropologie.com, $18)

Amazon.com

Provencal Labels
Neat freaks will love to organize craft and art supplies with cute, colorful labels.

(amazon.com, $11)

More from CountryLiving.com

Stocking Stuffers for $10 or Less!

Save Big With These DIY Food Gifts

India's drug industry is over Rs one lakh crore

2009-12-05T11:41:00.001+05:30

The Indian Pharmaceutical industry has become the third largest in the world in terms of

volume, valued at over Rs one lakh crore, the Parliament was informed today.

"The Indian pharmaceutical industry, now over one lakh crore (US $ 20 billion) industry, has

shown tremendous progress in terms of infrastructure development,technology base creation

and a wide range of products," Minister of State in the Chemicals and Fertilisers Ministry

Srikant Kumar Jena said in the Lok Sabha in reply to a written query.

The country now ranks third worldwide by volume and 14th by value thereby accounting for

around 10 per cent of the world's production by volume and 1.5 per cent by value, he added.

"Globally, it ranks fourth in terms of generic production and 17th in terms of export value

of bulk actives and dosage forms," Jena said.

Indian exports pharmaceuticals to more than 200 countries around the globe, including highly

regulated markets of USA, West Europe, Japan and Australia.

Indian talent helps Silicon Valley: US think tank

2009-12-05T11:40:00.004+05:30

Global technology and innovation hub Silicon Valley needs 'Indian talent and entrepreneurial

energy' to build powerful businesses, according to a economic and policy think tank in the

US.

In a report titled 'Global Reach: Emerging Ties Between the Bay Area and India', the Bay

Area Council Economic Institute said Silicon Valley success stories have always had an

Indian edge and the cooperation with Indian talent will continue 'to unleash powerful

businesses'.

TCS to create 25k jobs next fiscal

The institute is a public-private partnership of business, labour, government and higher

education that works to support the economic vitality and competitiveness of California and

the Bay Area.

According to the 300-page report, the research institutions and technology companies in

Silicon Valley and its risk-taking culture will work better when juxtaposed with Indian

talent and entrepreneurial energy.

However, the council warned that the present visa and immigration policies of the US

restricted access to global talent.

'US visa and immigration policy unnecessarily restricts access to global talent, fails to

compete aggressively for top foreign students and researchers, and discourages them from

staying to contribute to the economy,' said the report.

This leads students and recent immigrants to return home, especially at a juncture when

India is no more a destination for lower-end-work as against the innovation streams in the

Valley, it added.

The council also said the Bay Area was now working on plans to create stronger ties between

Silicon Valley and cities like Bangalore.

The India report is the second in a series that explores the Bay Area's ties with emerging

economic giants. The first one related to the region's strong links with China.

CCTVs set up to prevent suicides at Metro Railway

2009-12-05T11:40:00.002+05:30

With the city's Metro Railway emerging as a suicide point with nine deaths this year, the

authorities have set up CCTVs on platforms to keep an eye on passengers behaving

erratically.

A host of screens at the railway's security control room monitor platforms on the Metro

Railway while there are 20 hotlines to stations where quick response teams have been

stationed to respond to anyone attempting to take the fatal plunge.

"Each CCTV on the platforms monitor peoples movement. Cameras can even zoom in on the

passengers if they are seen to behave abnormally. If a passenger is spotted loitering about

for 15 to 20 minutes without boarding trains, RPF personnel are alerted," a senior Metro

official told PTI.

The authorities have video recordings of past suicides on the tracks which have been viewed

for tell-tale signs before a suicide. "We cannot read people's minds, but erratic behaviour

such as restlessness before the arrival of a train and hanging around on the stairs and

platforms can tip us off about a would be suicide," he said. There were, however, logistical

problems for the Quick Response Teams to respond in an emergency.

Education for all could cost Rs.171,000 crore

2009-12-05T11:39:00.002+05:30

A landmark act providing for free and compulsory education for children aged 6-14 could cost

Rs.171,000 crore anually to implement but the share of the centre and the states in this has

yet to be decided, the Rajya Sabha was informed Friday.

'There was a meeting of state education ministers here on August 31 where it was unanimously

felt that the scheme should be implemented. However, we have not yet taken a decision on the

financial allocation by the centre and the states. Once this is decided, we will go ahead

with the implementation,' Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil said during

question hour in the Rajya Sabha.

In this context, he noted that the allocation ratio for the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan for the

primary level was 60:40 between the centre states, with this becoming 50:50 by 2012.

Responding to a supplementary from Congress' Karan Singh on whether the architecture for

implementing the act was in place, Sibal said: 'We have set in motion the process by

establishing a committee to frame the architecture.'

Are You Unapproachable to Men?

2009-12-05T11:37:00.002+05:30

Dear What Men Want: Recently (4 months ago, to be exact) I moved to Manhattan after

graduating college and I have yet to score a date with any eligible bachelors in the city.

In fact, I don't even think I've given my number out once. My roommates, on the other hand,

both go on dates all the time, while I end up empty-handed weekend after weekend. I'm no

Gisele, but from what I've been told, this isn't a question of my attractiveness. My

roommates think I'm a little too picky in my choice of men (which I like to call "high

standards") and think I shut down men too fast, but even so, why are no decent men

approaching me when I'm out? Is it possible that I look intimidating to men, and if so, do

men only approach the easy-looking girls at bars? How can I change my attitude so that men

find me more approachable without throwing myself at them? Please help, WMW!

Sincerely,

Dating-Challenged

Dead Dating-Challenged: This is a simple case of needing to open your mind. I don't think

women realize just how hard it is for the average guy to walk up to a complete stranger and

try to strike up a conversation. It is exceedingly difficult to work up the courage to do

that and obviously we're not going to approach you if it seems like you might shut us down

if we don't fit every one of your personal standards.

How to Win His Parents Over This Holiday Season

If you are out and seem like you're not interested in anyone, guys can pick up on that from

across the room. If you're at a bar, you should be there to have fun. Go with the attitude

that you'll talk to anyone. If you look like you're fun and willing to have a good time,

you'll get approached. You don't have to act like you're easy or dress provocatively, but

don't look around the room picking out who you will talk to and who you won't. We can tell

when you feel like you're too good for the room.

When you do finally get approached, don't reject guys out of hand because they aren't

perfect. There's no harm in going on a few dates with people who aren't perfect. It's good

experience and will get you back into the swing of things. I'm not saying you should lead

anyone on, but having a few first dates that aren't with the man of your dreams won't hurt

anything.

5 Relationship Books That Will Change Your Life

Besides, when you get to know someone outside the confines of a bar or club you might

realize you actually like them more than you originally thought possible. Hey, maybe you'll

end up being great friends and he'll have a few buddies who are exactly what you're looking

for.

The real message here is don't judge people before you have even had a conversation with

them. If you aren't willing to put yourself out there guys will pick up on that immediately

and not waste their time.

The Biggest CEO Outrages Of 2009

2009-12-05T11:35:00.002+05:30

Almost a year ago, Bernard Madoff raised the bar for corporate malfeasance to an all-time

high when he was arrested on charges of orchestrating a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

Unsurprisingly, nobody managed to top Madoff's crimes in 2009, but 10 executives showed

enough greed, hubris and chutzpah to altogether give him a run for his (stolen) money. Here

are the biggest CEO outrages of the year (in honor of the holiday spirit, we're choosing

them now and letting off anyone caught red-handed in December 2009).

In November a federal court sentenced Robert Moran, a UBS private banking client who is also

the chief executive of Moran Yacht & Ship, to a two-month prison sentence for tax fraud.

Moran's case came out of a larger government investigation into wealthy Americans who have

used UBS to hide their money offshore and avoid U.S. taxes. Moran had pleaded guilty in

April to filing a false tax return, and had admitted to concealing more than $3 million in a

secret UBS account. He finishes at No. 10 on our list.

While Moran was busy rigging his yachts, David Rubin (No. 9) was busy rigging auctions,

according to the Department of Justice. In October prosecutors indicted Rubin, the chief

executive of CDR Financial Products, a municipal bond brokerage, on conspiracy and fraud

charges. According to the indictment, Rubin's firm rigged auctions that help determine which

banks get the lucrative business of assisting governments in raising money. The prosecutors

contend that participating banks kicked a portion of their profits back to Rubin, who denies

the allegations. Like everyone on this list who has been indicted but not yet found guilty,

he of course must be presumed innocent until proven guilty. But also like all the rest, he

has gotten himself into a heap of ugly trouble in any event.

R. Allen Stanford (No. 8), the cricket-loving Texan who was, according to Forbes, a

billionaire until this year, scored high in chutzpah in 2009. He and his co-defendants

allegedly sold $7 billion worth of certificates of deposit through his Stanford

International Bank and misappropriated most of the money, diverting more than $1.6 billion

in undisclosed loans to him personally. According to his indictment, he got by with a little

help from his friends--in particular the chief executive of the Financial Services

Regulatory Commission of the island nation Antigua and Barbuda, Leroy King. The Securities

and Exchange Commission claims that in return for $100,000 from Stanford, King kept Stanford

abreast of SEC inquiries into his dealings. Stanford has pleaded not guilty. If convicted,

he faces up to 250 years in jail.

Pity the mostly Asian investors who let Danny Pang (No. 7), the founder and former chief

executive of Private Equity Management Group, manage their money. In April the SEC accused

him of running a Ponzi scheme that defrauded his investors of hundreds of millions of

dollars. Pang died in September at age 42, before he could stand trial. A coroner's report

expected by January is expected to say whether he committed suicide.

In October the SEC charged Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the hedge fund Galleon Group, along

with executives from Intel, International Business Machines and McKinsey, with insider

trading. The government relied on wiretaps to show how Rajaratnam (No. 3) allegedly used

private information to help boost the returns at his $3.7 billion hedge fund. He allegedly

made more than $33 million in illicit profits; he strenuously denies the charges and is out

on bail awaiting trial.

Two businessmen displayed especially vivid imagination in their extremely dubious

activities. In Minnesota, Thomas Petters (No. 5) went on trial in October for allegedly

orchestrating a $3.5 billion fraud. Federal prosecutors accused him of promising rich

returns to investors who lent him money to buy flat-screen TVs and other excess goods from

troubled retailers for resale to companies like Sam's Club. The only problem: Petters had

allegedly cooked up fake purchase orders and invoices to hide the fact that those surplus

goods never existed. Prosecutors claim that he used new investor money to pay off old

debts--the old pyramid scheme technique--and used the profits to fund his extravagant

lifestyle. As we go to press the case is before the jury.

Thousands of miles away, B. Ramalinga Raju (No. 4) was living in his own fantasy world. The

founder of the Indian outsourcing company Satyam Computer Services, he confessed in January

to overstating Satyam's profits over several years and creating a fictitious cash balance of

more than $1 billion. He invented more than 10,000 fictitious employees to help him steal

money from the company, and he used his mother's name to buy land with the proceeds. He

confessed, but has yet to face charges in court.

The uproar over Wall Street bonuses this year earned two prominent executives places on our

list. Edward M. Liddy (No. 6), who began running America International Group last September,

faced a nationwide firestorm when it emerged that executives in his firm's financial

products division, who bore considerable responsibility for the insurance giant's near

collapse, were being rewarded for their disastrous results with $165 million in retention

bonuses. The retention packages had been put in place before Liddy joined the firm last year

and were tied to 2007 pay levels, so they weren't affected by the firm's more recent losses.

Liddy insisted that though the bonuses were "distasteful," AIG was legally obligated to

honor its employment contracts. Many across the nation disagreed--and took it personally,

since the company had received almost $200 billion in federal bailout funds courtesy of the

American taxpayer.

John Thain, then the chief executive of Merrill Lynch, pushed through $3.62 billion in

bonuses for his executives last December, rather than waiting until January as usual, just

as the company was being taken over by Bank of America. Then in January, Bank of America

revealed that Merrill had lost $15.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008. That bonus push

just made Thain's ill-starred captaincy of Merrill, which had begun with his million-dollar

renovation of his office a year before, look even worse than before. Less than a week later

Kenneth Lewis, the CEO of Bank of America, forced Thain out of his job.

And last but not least: the divine Lloyd Blankfein (No. 1), chairman and chief executive

officer of Goldman Sachs. Despite bearing scant resemblance to, say, Mother Theresa, the

Pope or the Dalai Lama, Blankfein told the Sunday Times of London in November that he was

just a banker doing "God's work." He later said he meant it as a joke, but he certainly pays

himself as if he were accomplishing something greater than human: In 2007 he made $73

million, according to Forbes, and only $25 million in 2008, as the economy tanked, but look

for a recovery in his compensation this year as Goldman Sachs has recovered far ahead of the

economy as a whole. In honor of the modesty of his pronouncement, we lift him to the

celestial height of No. 1 on our list of CEO outrages of 2009.

Smoking tobacco through waterpipe as harmful as puffing on cigarette

2009-12-05T11:34:00.002+05:30

A new study has shown that smoking tobacco through a waterpipe exposes the user to the same

toxicants - carbon monoxide and nicotine - as puffing on a cigarette, which could lead to

nicotine addiction and heart disease.

Buzz up!
The belief among some waterpipe users is that this method of smoking tobacco delivers less

tar and nicotine than regular cigarette smoking
and has fewer adverse health effects.

However, the new study led by a Virginia Commonwealth University researcher has challenged

this belief.

"The results are important because they provide concrete, scientific evidence that

contradicts the oft-repeated myth that waterpipe tobacco smoking does not involve users

inhaling the same harmful chemicals that cigarette smokers do," said principal investigator

Thomas Eissenberg, Ph.D., professor in the VCU Department of Psychology.

"We hope that these results will be used by physicians and public health officials to inform

waterpipe tobacco smokers that they risk tobacco-induced nicotine addiction and

cardiovascular disease," he added.

Eissenberg along with Alan Shihadeh, Sc.D., associate professor at the American University

of Beirut in Lebanon, compared the toxicant exposure associated with waterpipe smoking and

cigarette smoking among 31 participants between the ages of 18 and 50.

Each participant completed two 45-minute sessions, one in which they smoked tobacco using a

waterpipe and the other in which they smoked a single cigarette. The level of nicotine and

carbon monoxide in the participants' blood was measured, as was heart rate, puff number and

puff volume.

They found that on average, the levels of carbon monoxide to which participants were exposed

were higher when they were smoking a waterpipe than when they were smoking a cigarette.

Specifically, the peak waterpipe COHb level - amount of carbon monoxide found bound to red

blood cells - was three times that observed for cigarette.

However, they observed that the peak nicotine levels did not differ - but there was exposure

to nicotine through both methods of tobacco smoke.

Examining the number and volume of each puff showed that compared with smoking a cigarette,

waterpipe tobacco smoking involved inhalation of about 48 times more smoke.

The study has been published in the December issue of the American Journal of Preventive

Medicine.

Slim-Fast Launches Recall of 10 Million Cans

2009-12-05T11:33:00.002+05:30

The maker of Slim-Fast announced a recall of its canned, ready-to-drink products due to

possible bacterial contamination.

Unilever, the company which also makes products like Skippy peanut butter and Ragu pasta

sauce, said the weight-loss drink may be tainted by Bacillus cereus, which can cause

diarrhea, nausea and vomiting.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman Rita Chappelle said the recall affects 10

million cans distributed in the United States.

Unilever (UL) said it is still in the process of identifying and correcting the production

problem that led to the contamination. The FDA, which was notified by Unilever of the

possible contamination on Dec. 2, is currently investigating the company's production

facility in Covington, Tenn.

All Slim-Fast ready-to-drink products served in cans, regardless of flavor, best-by dates,

lot code or UPC number that are currently in retail distribution centers, on store shelves,

in warehouses or in consumer homes are being recalled, the company said Thursday.

The recall does not apply to other Slim-Fast branded products, such as powdered shakes, meal

bars or snack bars.

Englewood Cliffs, N.J.-based Unilever urges consumers who have purchased the possibly

hazardous products to discard them immediately and contact the company at 1-800-896-9479 for

a full refund.

'Sun-Maid Girl' Makeover Sparks Controversy

2009-12-05T11:31:00.002+05:30

In the annals of advertising imagery, few brand symbols are more iconic and recognizable

than the Sun-Maid raisin girl.

Nevertheless, Sun-Maid recently decided to join Betty Crocker, Aunt Jemima and Mrs.

Butterworth's in giving the female face of their product a substantial makeover from a

young, early 20th-century girl into a buxom, modern young woman, leading some to say that

the newly made-over raisin girl looks like a Barbie Doll in Amish attire.

Since 1915, the face of Sun-Maid has been Lorraine Collett Petersen, who, according to the

company's website , "was discovered drying her black hair curls in the sunny backyard of her

parents' home in Fresno, California." Petersen was then asked to pose for a watercolor

painting holding a basket of grapes while wearing a sunbonnet. In the years since, the

company has tweaked its trademark design occasionally to keep up with the times, but every

variation has always been based on the original pose by Petersen. The new computer-animated

version of the Sun-Maid girl currently featured in television advertisements is a departure

from the classic design that harkened back to a time when "life was much simpler, more

rural, a lot less hectic."

Naturally, the revamped look hasn't gone unnoticed, rankling both ends of the political

spectrum. The blog for conservative magazine The Weekly Standard noted that the new Sun-Maid

girl looks "as if Julia Roberts decided to don a red bonnet and start picking grapes," while

the feminist website Jezebel.com remarked that it looks as if she's had “some implants.”

Though the new look for the raisin girl has been garnering attention of late, the changes to

the 90-year-old icon were actually introduced three years ago. At the time, Sun-Maid

president Barry Kriebel said that the decision to make changes was inspired by the desire to

educate consumers about healthy living choices.

"This is as good a time as any to get on the wave of health and nutrition,'' he said.

Kriebel also noted that he felt the new look was a reasonable modernization, saying "You're

not going to see her dancing or kicking up her heels out in the vineyard, but have her do

what is appropriate for her to do, based on her history but also being a contemporary person

living in the 21st century.''

Additionally, there's been talk that the new Sun-Maid girl might be given a name and

featured in future advertisements doing some of the things modern women typically do, like

going to the gym, shopping at the market, and speaking multiple languages, particularly

languages native to countries where Sun-Maid, the world's largest producer and processor of

raisins and other dried fruits, sells raisins. However, the image on all Sun-Maid product

packaging will remain the same, as the new version will only be featured in product

advertisements.

Study Reveals the Angriest Americans

2009-12-05T11:30:00.002+05:30

Anger is more likely among the young, those with children at home, and the less educated, a

new study finds.

A national survey of 1,800 Americans aged 18 and older questioned participants on how and

when they feel angry in order to build "a broader social portrait of anger in the United

States," said study researcher Scott Schieman, now at the University of Toronto.

These angry emotions range from mild annoyance to yelling and feelings of outrage.

While anger is a normal human emotion, it could be detrimental if you hold on to it too

long. And those who express their anger might actually live longer than those who keep it

bottled in, one study found.

The results of the survey, conducted in 2005 and to be published next year, showed several

key connections to anger.

For one, people under 30 experienced anger of all forms or intensities more frequently than

did older adults. This was mainly due to the fact that young people are more likely to be

affected by three core stressors that can trigger angry feelings, Schieman said:

Time pressures had the strongest link to anger, especially low-grade versions termed

"feelings of annoyance," the study found.

Those who were under financial strain tended to report higher levels of anger, a connection

that could be particularly important in today's flagging economy, Schieman noted. The

financial influence tended to be stronger among women and younger adults.

Having children was also associated with angry feelings and behaviors, such as yelling,

particularly in women, the survey found.

"There's obviously a lot of joys and benefits that come with parenthood," but other aspects

of parenting, such as having to discipline a misbehaving child, can cause feelings of anger

and annoyance, Schieman said.

Those with fewer years of education were also more likely to report feelings of anger and

were less likely to respond proactively in a situation that made them angry (for example,

talking about what made them angry).

"It underscores the power of getting more education," Schieman said. Education has been

linked to feeling more self-control, which could be why those with more education tend to

manage their anger more proactively, he told LiveScience.

Schieman's findings will be detailed in a chapter of the forthcoming International Handbook

of Anger, to be released in January 2010.

LiveScience.com chronicles the daily advances and innovations made in science and

technology. We take on the misconceptions that often pop up around scientific discoveries

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register for RSS feeds and get cool gadgets at the LiveScience Store.

Tech Throwdown: Netbooks vs. Laptops

2009-12-05T11:27:00.001+05:30

If befuddled consumers can't decide between a netbook and a low-priced laptop this holiday

season, manufacturers certainly aren't helping matters.

When the season's top netbook, the 12-inch Acer Aspire Timeline, has dimensions, memory (3

gigabytes) and pricing (around $600) that's similar to a 14-inch Toshiba Satellite dual-core

laptop, it's little wonder that buyers are having an increasingly difficult time telling the

two apart. In fact, according to a NPD Group report issued earlier this year, almost 60% of

consumers who bought a netbook instead of a notebook thought they would have the same

capabilities. Roughly the same percentage was satisfied with its netbooks, compared to 70%

of those who planned on buying a netbook all along.

"The notion of the netbook was that it was small, cheap and light, but because of profit

margins, they started to creep into the 12-inch category without beefing up the internal

components," says Jeff Fox, technology editor at Consumer Reports.

Netbooks were once featherweight, Linux-equipped toys with puny Atom processors and sub-$300

price tags. Even as bigger manufacturers like Hewlett-Packard and Samsung Electronics

entered the market and Microsoft's Windows operating systems became prevalent, netbooks

still remained small, affordable and long on battery life.

Samsung's N120, for example, has Windows XP, but it's only 10 inches wide, costs as little

as $320 and maintains a charge for six hours. Toshiba's Satellite U505 is small and only has

1 gigabyte of memory, but its $400 price tag nets consumers Windows 7 and 9.5 hours of

battery time. Though the battery on Acer's Timeline holds a charge for 10 hours, and its

Pentium processor offers 3 gigabytes of memory, its size and $550 price tag delete its

benefits.

"You want a small netbook that's a little underpowered, which is the tradeoff for price and

size and weight," Fox says. "If you're getting up around $500, there's little value in

getting an oversized netbook if you're losing the advantages of a netbook. It's the worst of

both worlds."

Toshiba and others are increasingly blurring the lines. The manufacturer rolled out its

Pentium Core Duo-powered, nine-hour-battery-driven Satellite T115 laptop in October. At 11.6

inches and $449, the full-powered laptop makes its memory-deprived Mini netbook counterpart

seem less like a bargain and more like a redundancy.

H-P put a little more breathing room between its Mini 110 netbook (10 inches, $350) and its

newly released Pavilion DM3 laptop (13 inches, $549), but that $200 gap shrinks quickly when

the latter's battery life (an estimated 10 hours) and memory (4 gigabytes) dwarfs the

former's (7 hours, 1 gigabyte).

In the same vein, the $250 gap between the Acer Timeline and the 14-inch Sony VAIO shrinks

like a bad sweater when comparing the Acer's offerings to the VAIO's 4 gigabytes of memory,

Blu-ray drive and 250 megabytes of extra memory for games.

The netbook should supplement your laptop by making less important information easier to

transport. And your laptop should be a bit more functional than a smartphone.

"If you're shopping for a portable computer right now, the first question you need to answer

is 'is it your primary portable computer?'" Fox says. "I can't believe we're to the point

where there's a 'primary portable computer.'"

Netbooks

1. Acer Aspire Timeline
Price: $549.99

Screen size: 11.6 inches

Operating system: Windows 7

Specifications: Intel Pentium U4100 processor, 3 gigabytes of memory, 320-gigabyte hard

drive, HDMI and VGA outputs

Pros: Large display and keyboard; 9.75 hours of battery life almost unheard of for a

netbook; laptop-esque hard drive and memory capacity.

Cons: Expensive for a netbook, dim display and, at 3.2 pounds, relatively heavy.

2. Samsung N120

Price: $319-$438.99

Screen size: 10.1 inches

Operating system: Windows XP

Specifications: AtomN270 processor, 1-gigabyte memory, 160-gigabyte hard drive, VGA output.

Pros: 6 hours of battery life, a larger keyboard than most netbooks, a svelte 2.8 pounds,

2GB memory upgrade available, outperforms many newer Windows 7 models.

Cons: Dim display and, while faster than its smaller cohorts, still relatively slow. Samsung

hasn't updated to Windows 7 on any of its netbook platforms.

3. Toshiba Mini NB205

Price: $399.99

Screen size: 10.1 inches

Operating system: Windows 7

Specifications: AtomN270 processor, 1-gigabyte memory, 160-gigabyte hard drive, VGA output.

Pros: 9.5 hours of battery life and a larger keyboard, wrist area and touch pad than most

netbooks.

Cons: Dull colors, tiny punctuation keys for no apparent reason and, sadly, not much of an

upgrade from its cheaper Windows XP model.

Laptops

1. Toshiba Satellite U505

Price: $799.99

Screen size: 13.3 inches

Operating system: Windows 7

Specifications: Core 2 Duo P7450 processor, 4-gigabyte memory, 500-gigabyte hard drive, DVD

drive, microphone, Web cam, memory card reader, DVI/HDMI video outs.

Pros: High performance and lots of memory, 4.5 hours of battery life, large display for a

small book, has eSATA port and facial-recognition security. At 13.3 inches and 4.9 pounds,

it's roughly the size of a big netbook.

Cons: A moderately priced laptop but a costly netbook alternative. Cheaper models get

clunkier and strip away memory and functionality, though the recently released Satellite

T115 weighs 3.5 pounds, has an 11.6-inch screen and 9 hours of battery life, and starts at

$450 for a hard drive with half the capacity. The A505 is larger at 16 inches, but costs

nearly $150 less

2. Asus U50A

Price: $629.99

Screen size: 15.6 inches

Operating system: Windows 7

Specifications: Core 2 Duo T6600 processor, 4-gigabyte memory, 500-gigabyte hard drive, DVD

drive, microphone, Web cam, memory card reader, DVI/HDMI video outputs.

Pros: Good battery life for a laptop at 5.25 hours, relatively lightweight at 5.5 pounds and

a value at less than $650.

Cons: At 15.6 inches, there's a portability issue. Also, at 5.5 pounds, it's a lighter

laptop, but still roughly twice the weight of the average netbook.

3. Sony VAIO VPC

Price: $800

Screen size: 14 inches

Operating system: Windows 7

Specifications: Core 2 Duo T6600 processor, 4-gigabyte memory, 500-gigabyte hard drive,

Blu-ray reader, microphone, Web cam, firewire ports, memory card reader, DVI/HDMI video

outputs.

Pros: Good battery life at 5 hours, highly portable at 14 inches and 5.1 pounds and has

265MB of video memory for the "World of Warcraft" set.

Cons: Less expensive than similarly stacked laptops, but on the high-end even for a 14-inch

model.

All you wanted to know about hacking

2009-12-04T11:14:00.001+05:30

Interviewing computer security consultant Ankit Fadia, who at the age of 15 wrote his book

on 'Ethical Hacking'

When did you realise that you could hack?

I got interested in hacking at 12, but it took a while before I figured out how to do it. My

first hack was quite interesting. I defaced a magazine site and put my own profile, pictures

and e-mail id on it. But then I thought I might get into trouble, so I sent a mail to the

editor with the solution on how to prevent hacking the website. He got back to me with a job

offer but when he learnt that I was 13, he asked me to wait till I turned 18. I learnt my

lesson. I never did an illegal hack after that.

Is hacking cool because it allows entry into forbidden territory?

It is. It gives you the power to do something that most people can't do, that too in the

confines of your room. It gives a false sense of security.

What exactly is 'ethical hacking'?

You need to have the same knowledge as cyber criminals, but you put that knowledge to

positive use. You go to sites, find out their flaws and correct them. I coined the term when

I wrote my first book, Ethical Hacking, at 15.

You have worked with the FBI too. Isn't that a heady feeling?

I started working with them at 16, when a Pakistani group was planning to attack an Indian

site. I traced the chat transcript and the site was saved. Then, this was like a game for

me. But now I realise that there's a lot of responsibility involved in what I do.

Why did you take up the show, What The Hack?

Last year, I won the MTV Youth Icon award and was introduced to the programming head of the

channel. I asked him if they wanted to do a show on hacking. They agreed. There are lots of

channels which air tech shows that review technology and gadgets. But this show stands out

because we teach people cool things that they can do in the virtual world.

Give us some tips on how to become good hackers?

You have to know the programming well and also think like a criminal. You have to get into

the criminal's mind to become a security system expert.

Gays and transsexuals can't enter heaven - cardinal

2009-12-04T11:13:00.001+05:30

A Roman Catholic Cardinal told homosexuals and transsexuals on Wednesday they would never

get into heaven, prompting a rebuke from the Vatican itself.

"Transsexuals and homosexuals will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven, it's not me who says it

but St. Paul," said Mexican Cardinal Javier Barragan, a former Vatican official who recently

retired, referring to one of St. Paul's epistles.

Asked if people were born homosexual Barragan, whose comments were posted on a conservative

Catholic website called www.pontifex.roma, was quoted as saying:

"One is not born homosexual but they become that way. This is for various reasons:

education, for not having developed their identity during their adolescence, maybe they are

not guilty but by going against the dignity of the body they certainly will not enter the

Kingdom of Heaven."

"Everything that goes against nature and against the dignity of the body offends God," he

added.

Aurelio Mancuso, president of Italy's main gay rights group, Arcigay, said Barragan's

remarks were part of the Church's "ridiculous theories about sexuality and the dignity of

the person".

The Vatican distanced itself from the comments in a statement that was highly unusual

because it indirectly criticised a top Church official.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the website should not be considered an

authority on Catholic thinking "on complex and delicate issues such as homosexuality".

Lombardi quoted from the official Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, which says

homosexual acts are a "disorder" but acknowledges that many people have "innate homosexual

tendencies" and should be treated with respect and not be subject to discrimination.

The Catholic Church teaches that homosexual acts are sinful but homosexuality in itself is

not.

I've let my family down, says Tiger Woods

2009-12-04T11:12:00.003+05:30

Tiger Woods admitted he had let his family down on Wednesday when he spoke candidly for the

first time about last week's car crash and the subsequent speculation about his private

life.

"I have let my family down and I regret those transgressions with all of my heart. I have

not been true to my values and the behavior my family deserves," Woods said on his website

(www.tigerwoods.com)

"I am not without faults and I am far short of perfect.

"I am dealing with my behavior and personal failings behind closed doors with my family.

Those feelings should be shared by us alone."

The 33-year-old American pulled out of this week's Chevron World Challenge, which he has

hosted for nine years, because of injuries sustained after crashing his SUV outside his

Florida home in the early hours of Friday morning.

Top 10 cruel things women do to men revealed

2009-12-04T11:10:00.002+05:30

Despite being known as the fairer sex, women can be downright nasty and often do cruel

things to men.

Now, Fox News has compiled a list of top 10 cruel things that women do to men and how they

play with the guy's emotions or ego.

10. They don't pick up the phone

While men feel good as they manage to take the girls' phone number, the girls often give

them a fake number or don't pick up the call.

9. Use men for free drinks

Some women go out never planning to spend any of their own money on drinks at the bar or

club. Instead, they count on their feminine wiles to convince guys to shell out for their

libations. While some of them might begin to get to know him, the cruel and heartless ones

will take that drink, flirt a little and move on.

8. Use men as placeholders

If she is a decent person, she'll just get it over with and dump the boy, but if she's

cruel, she'll hold on to him for a while until somebody new comes along. These girls don't

like to be alone and without a relationship, so instead of putting you out of your misery

and ending it, she'll string you along until she meets someone to replace you.

7. Emotionally manipulate men

Men don't like to see women cry and some cruel women take advantage of the fact and use it

to get what they want. A few tears would make men do anything to get it to stop.

6. Use physical violence

While men hitting girls are often termed nasty, some cruel women feel it's perfectly

acceptable to hit their boyfriends, as he would never hit her back. This type of woman feels

like she can inflict any kind physical pain on him without fear of repercussion.

5. Criticize their men in public

Cruel women criticize and humiliate their men in public places. They often poke fun at her

man or even soundly debase him.

4. They don't disclose their relationship status

It's certainly not the worst thing a woman could do to a man, but it is annoying when she's

already in a relationship and lets you assume that she's available so that she can enjoy the

man's flirtation and flattery.

3. They withhold sex

This is a time-tested, and frequently used, cruel thing for women to do to men. For most

men, sex is as important as breathing, so withholding it in order to get something she wants

or simply to punish her man for his transgressions is a pretty awful thing to do, even if it

is effective.

2. They test their men

You're all ready to go for a night out with your friends, when your girlfriend calls and

asks you to change your plans to be with her instead. She doesn't have any particular

reason; she just wants to see you. She knows that you had plans to meet up with the guys,

but if you really loved her, you'd come over to her place instead. If her request comes with

an "if you really loved me," then it's a test. If you choose anything other than immediately

rushing to her side, you're going to fail. This kind of testing in a relationship is indeed

cruel and petty.

1. They flirt to inspire jealousy

Maybe she's feeling under-appreciated, maybe you've just had a big fight or maybe she just

enjoys the tortured look on your face. For whatever reason, girls who flirt obviously with

other guys in front of their boyfriends are immature and manipulative.

How To Survive A Demotion

2009-12-04T11:08:00.001+05:30

As companies struggle to cope with the recession by cutting and consolidating staff, many

workers are facing a plight that used to hit only underperformers and burnouts: They're

getting demoted.

Getting kicked down the career ladder stirs up a conflicting mess of emotions these days.

You feel humiliated and discouraged, but at the same time you feel lucky to have any job.

What's the best way to cope when it happens?

Career coaches and staffing experts suggest that, in this cold economic climate, you have to

grin and bear it. "At another time, you wouldn't take it. You would just move on," observes

Eileen Wolkstein, a New York career coach. "At this point, you have to be pragmatic. The

alternatives are bleaker."

Wolkstein is helping several clients cope with demotion right now. One was let go and later

returned to his old workplace as a contract employee. "I have people who have been out of

work for a while and then taken a job that they would never have done in the past, so it

amounts to a demotion," she reports.

Coping is tough, but career professionals agree that workers need to swallow their pride,

work hard and demonstrate a positive attitude. Stacey Jerrold, who used to head the human

resources department at the investment company ING Clarion and now works as a career coach

with a New York firm called the Five O'Clock Club, says an upbeat attitude and diligent work

habits are more important than ever right now. Figure out how to add value to your

organization, even from your rung lower down the ladder, she advises. Then when the outlook

starts to improve, you'll be able to sell yourself as the most deserving of promotion. If

you balk at your new-old responsibilities, the bosses will be more likely to show you the

door the next time the company cuts back.

Then there's the old job search rule that it's always easier to get a job when you have one.

Even if your demotion makes you miserable and you decide you can't bear to do it for long,

at least stay while you put out feelers.

A demotion can present unexpected networking and learning opportunities within an

organization. Ralph Maratta, who works at the Warren, N.J., headquarters of the Chubb Group

of Insurance Companies, was demoted from manager in the operations division to specialist

when the office cut a division. His pay remained steady, but his responsibilities diminished

and he suffered a bruised ego. However, he soon realized that as his job changed, he'd get

to meet a whole new group of Chubb executives. Also, he shifted his focus to social media, a

growth area. "Even if it looks like you're going backward from the outside, new

opportunities can present themselves, and growth can come from that," he says.

Although these days many demotions are the result of belt-tightening, some workers still get

booted downward for old-fashioned reasons like poor performance. Mary Anne Walsh, an

executive coach with the Five O'Clock Club, has a client in his late 50s who recently got

demoted from director of sales at a medical device company to sales manager, with a pay cut

of $20,000. At first, he was angry and depressed, but after Walsh encouraged him to take a

hard look at his recent performance, he realized he'd been feeling burned out, and showing

it. With coaching, he came to see that what he most liked to do was to work with younger

staff people, helping them develop their skills. He decided to look outside his company, and

now he's in the final round of interviews for a position at a business school.

Though her client is headed toward a happier career path, Walsh says, the transition from

humiliation to ambition wasn't easy. She impressed on him how much better it would be to

stick it out in his lower-level job than to bolt. "This is not the time to say, 'I'm out of

here,'" she says. "It's much better to suck it up and use your new job as an opportunity."

Top Ten Tips - HOW to tell He's Flirting with YOU

2009-12-04T11:03:00.002+05:30

1. The Eyebrow Lift
When a guy first sees a girl he's attracted to, chances his eyebrows will rise and fall. Quickly.
(You can slip the flip of an eyebrow back at him, if you're interested - it's a clear signal both ways.)

2. Gaining Your Attention
Exaggerated movements or gestures usually mean that he's trying to stand out from the crowd.
He may shift positions so that he is standing slightly apart from his friends or a group of people.

3. Slight Parting of the Lips
His lips may automatically part for a second when your eyes first meet.

4. His Nostrils Open Slightly - Face Widens
As his eyebrows raise and nostrils flare slightly so with the parted lips, he has an open, friendly expression on his face.

5. He Shifts to the Classic Male Courship Stance
The macho stance (cowboy style) - he'll probably lock his thumbs in his belt or belt loops, point his fingers downwards, spread his legs about shoulder distance apart and tilt his head to one side.

6. Touches His Own Face
He may rub his chin, brush his cheek with the back of his fingers or touch his ears.
(He may not realize this is a combination of nerves and unconscious preening behavior.)

7. Strokes His Shirt Front, Smoothes his Jeans
More unconscious preening - smoothing a shirt sleeve, tie, shirt pocket.
(The equivalent of the female lip lick.)

8. Fiddles with His Hair
He may smooth or tussle his hair involuntarily and more often than you might realize - again preening for you...

9. Eyebrows Arc While Talking
He may, accidentally, exhibit a slightly surprised expression with slightly raised eyebrows - which means he is interested in you.
(Forget the guy who looks at you with a smooth, relaxed brow and eyes - he thinks you're boring. You probably think he's boring so drop your eyebrows and more on.)

10. Sock Adjustment
If a guy pulls up or adjusts his socks in your presence, it's an almost 100 per cent sign he's interested and trying to look his best. The big preening signal...

The ten big mistakes

2009-12-03T15:37:00.001+05:30

The nub of a successful anti-terrorist operation lies in the initial hours of an attack when

a delay by the first responders could mean the difference between success and catastrophic

failure. In Mumbai on 26/11, most of the mistakes, it now transpires, took place in the

initial hours. The first responders were the Mumbai city police. Unable to distinguish a

fidayeen attack from an underworld shootout, hobbled by a lack of even basic firearms,

inadequate anti-terror forces and a clueless senior leadership, the men in khaki lost the

plot.

Mumbai police overlooked standard drills

A year after 26/11, has anything really changed?

The National Security Guard (NSG) commandos arrived in the city nearly seven hours after

they had been mobilised at their base in Manesar on the outskirts of Delhi. They had to play

a deadly game of cat and mouse against 10 hardened, motivated and well-trained terrorists

with enough ammunition to last days. During the three-day siege, nearly 900 hotel rooms

could not be entirely cleared of guests. When the dust had settled on one of India's longest

anti-terrorist operations, the mistakes were glaring.

09.30 p.m.

Inability to distinguish between terror attack and gang war

The confusion surrounding the attack gave enough time for the terrorists to wreak havoc

At 9.38 on Wednesday night, two Lashkar gunmen Abdul Rehman and Abu Umer tossed in grenades

and sprayed bullets from their assault rifles at the hapless diners in Leopold Cafe,

starting a 60-hour siege of Mumbai. For the next half-hour, the five fidayeen buddy pairs

ran through South Mumbai, wreaking havoc with guns and grenades. In the span of half an

hour, calls of attacks at multiple locations kept pouring into the police control room. The

initial assessment: it was an underworld attack. Two IEDs, which the terrorists planted in

taxis after boarding them soon after alighting from the rubber dinghy at Colaba, went off at

separate places in Vile Parle and Crawford Market an hour later. This further added to the

confusion. It took the police nearly three hours to decide that it was a terror attack.

These precious hours allowed the terrorists to achieve complete surprise and gain the

dominant ground at the Oberoi and Taj Mahal hotels, Nariman House, and take hostages.

10.00 p.m.

Mumbai Police outgunned

The Mumbai Police's obsolete weaponry was no match for the terrorists'automatic weapons

The Lashkar gunmen came armed with AK-47s, grenades and IEDs. Ranged against them was the

Mumbai Police constabulary who made a feeble attempt to respond with vintage weaponry. The

results were heartbreaking, and nowhere was this more evident than the platforms of the CST

station where Ajmal Amir Kasab and Abu Ismail strolled about firing at passengers. After the

gunfire started, many railway police personnel ran across to the railway police storeroom a

few blocks away to fetch their weapons. One of them who did try and fire at the fidayeen duo

found that his archaic .303 rifle jammed after firing a single round. In sheer frustration,

a policeman even flung a plastic chair at the terrorists. At other places like the Taj and

Oberoi, policemen found their 9 mm pistols were no match for the barrage from Kalashnikovs

and area denial weapons like Arges hand grenades. ATS chief Hemant Karkare lay dead an hour

later, let down by a bulletproof vest of dubious quality which the state Home Department had

purchased in circumstances that are yet to be explained. In the first three hours, 16 Mumbai

policemen, including eight officers, were killed.

10.30 p.m.

No planned or coordinated response from the Mumbai Police

With no rapid action plan, the police was in disorder and senior officers were out tackling

terrorists

When the police finally decided a terror attack was underway, they did not respond

effectively. Both Bhagwant D. More, joint commissioner (Administration) and K.L. Prasad,

joint commissioner (Law and Order), who should have been in charge of the control room were

out tackling the terror situation. Though police commissioner Hasan Gafoor was found parked

outside the Oberoi soon after the terror attacks began, he made no attempt to coordinate

with other officers, the Quick Reaction Team or even with the NSG who came in later. Gafoor

was, quite literally, caught napping. Instead, it was Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime)

Rakesh Maria who took command and state Chief Secretary Johny Joseph manned the control room

at Mantralaya and called in the local army unit and the Marine Commandos (Marcos). Maria was

handling the situation from the control room in the police commissioner's headquarters at

Crawford Market and state police chief A.N. Roy at the police headquarters near the Taj.

The initial lack of central coordination turned the operation into individual acts of

courage, whether it was rescuing hostages or attending to the injured. The stand-off could

have ended earlier had the police evacuated the guests at the Taj and Oberoi once the Marcos

had entered.

11.50 p.m.

Killing of the ATS leadership

The death of three senior ATS officials was a serious psychological blow to the Mumbai

Police

Soon after Kasab and Ismail fled the CST station and entered the nearby Cama Hospital and

took hostages, three senior ATS officials reached the spot from different directions-

Karkare, Additional Commissioner Ashok Kamte and senior inspector Vijay Salaskar. They were

responding to a police control alert which warned of terrorists at the hospital. Armed with

AK-47s and donning bulletproof jackets, the trio bundled into a police jeep with their

bodyguards and headed towards the terrorists who had, by then, fled the hospital. In

hindsight, the jeep ride proved to be a critical error of judgement.

When splitting up into small teams to pursue the two terrorists on foot would have been an

easier option, sitting in the vehicle made the policemen easy targets and restricted their

firing options. The jeep with the three senior police officers packed in the front seat was

ambushed by the two terrorists. A hail of bullets killed the leadership of the Maharashtra

ATS, which severely demoralised an already shaken police force and resigned it to waiting

for anti-terrorist forces.

12 midnight

Mumbai Police failed to engage the terrorists at the Taj Hotel

Apart from lack of arms, there were not enough policemen to keep the pressure up on

terrorists

For three crucial hours after the attack, all the four terrorists were holed up in the upper

floors of the Taj after killing over 20 persons in the lobby. The policemen who engaged them

for the first few hours were too few in number to prove effective to maintain 'contact' with

the terrorists. Contact is the military term which refers to the act of keeping the enemy

pinned down in a firefight; it puts the enemy on the defensive and prevents them from moving

or achieving their objectives. What the police lacked in firepower, they could have made up

in sheer numbers but sufficient policemen were not deployed in the hotel. Contact was broken

and the terrorists left to have a free run of the hotel as the police waited first for the

Marcos and later the NSG to arrive. It was at least three hours before the Marine Commandos

arrived and resumed the engagement with the terrorists at around 2.30 a.m. By then, the four

terrorists had valuable time to study the layout of the hotel; they were also being

constantly briefed by their handlers in Pakistan.

09.00 a.m.

The NSG arrived late

The bureaucratic hurdles that led to further delay of the NSG proved advantageous for the

terrorists

The NSG was alerted within two hours of the attacks but it took them nearly seven hours to

reach the besieged city. They were summoned by Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta who called NSG

chief J.K. Dutt at around 11.30 p.m. The commandos were first transported by road from their

base in Manesar, Haryana, nearly 28 km from Delhi airport because they did not have

dedicated airlift like helicopters with night-flying capability. At least an hour was spent

at the airport loading the aircraft and waiting for home minister Shivraj Patil who then

accompanied the Black Cats on their flight to Mumbai. When the NSG eventually arrived at

Sahar airport at 5 a.m., they were bundled into BEST buses and taken to the Mantralaya for a

briefing. It was nine in the morning by the time they reached the two hotels. The second

batch of commandos arrived, but was not briefed. All attention was focused on the Taj and

Oberoi hotels; nobody was aware of the hostage situation at Nariman House where Abu Akasha

and Abu Umar were holding Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife hostage, along with four

others.

09.00 a.m.

No detailed layouts or maps of the buildings under attack

Relying on hotel staff and locals delayed the rescue of hostages and prolonged operations

One of the precepts of a successful building intervention operation conducted by anti-terror

forces is a detailed knowledge of the layouts of the buildings to be assaulted. This is why

special forces often stock building plans of all vulnerable areas and buildings, and

sometimes even practice mock hostage rescue drills in them. In Mumbai, the terrorists had

the advantage of a detailed hostile reconnaissance conducted, as it is now suspected, by

David Headley and Tahawwur Rana.

Later, the 10 terrorists who had arrived at the three spots at least 12 hours before the

NSG, evidently had plenty of time to study the layouts of the buildings and site their

defences. These were crucial lapses which played a decisive part in prolonging the siege. At

all three locations-the Oberoi, Taj and Nariman House-NSG commandos went in blind without

having the building plans of the structures. Most of them were entering the hotels for the

first time. They either relied on their instincts or on locals or employees to find their

way around the darkened buildings. Not only did they have the challenging task of locating

and rescuing guests in over 1,000 hotel rooms at the Taj and Oberoi , but they had to

simultaneously fight the terrorists as well.

11.00 a.m.

No unified, consistent communication with the public

With no one-point source of information,everyone was out feeding the media, leading to

further chaos

Among the basic rules of media briefing in a crisis is a unified, consistent communication

from a single reliable point of contact. During the Kargil War, there were just two

spokespersons, one for the Foreign Ministry and another for the armed forces. In Mumbai, not

just there was no single spokesperson. The state government did not even set up a media

briefing room. Evidently, mirroring the chaos after the breakdown of command and control, a

sheer diversity of officials took over to brief the media. Everyone, from the NSG chief, the

GOC-in-C Maharashtra and Gujarat Area, the southern army commander and the western naval

command chief, were briefing the media or giving interviews during the conduct of

operations. Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh who returned to the city at 3 a.m.

on November 27 maintained a stoic silence.

12.00 midnight

Intercepts of conversations not given to the NSG

Not passing on the information delayed the conclusion of operation and saving of lives

What made the 26/11 strikes chillingly different from others were the sentient voices of

Pakistan-based handlers advising the terrorists on strategy, firing tactics, giving regular

news updates and pep talks. Many of these mobile phone conversations were quickly

intercepted by the ATS but were not passed on to the NSG commandos waiting outside the

buildings. In hindsight, these conversations could have helped pinpoint the location of

terrorists and save lives. In the case of Nariman House, intercepted conversations revealed

that Akasha and Umar were using the hostages as bargaining chips with the Israeli

Government. By the evening of November 27, the handler had instructed the terrorists to kill

them. This information was not passed on to the Black Cats who are trained to storm a

building when the death of the hostages is imminent. Nariman House was overrun only the next

morning when the hostages were already killed.

07.30 a.m.

No efforts made to block live telecast of the operation

Live telecast of the rescue operations by the media made it easier for terrorists to plan

their response

Technology was a double-edged sword during the operations. If it allowed anxious friends and

relatives to keep in touch with their besieged kin through cellphones, it also enabled the

terrorists to keep in touch with their handlers in Pakistan. Inadvertently helping these

handlers were the news TV cameras at various spots, broadcasting live footage of the

operations. One emotional MP, part of a parliamentary committee delegation of four MPs

staying at the Taj, went live on TV. After watching it, an LeT handler directed the

terrorists to go look for the lawmakers and take them hostage. Crucial information like the

arrival of the NSG was also broadcast, allowing terrorists to plan a response.

At the Oberoi, the NSG erected a 500-m cordon around the hotel allowing the Black Cats to

enter and carry out the operations in conditions of a near total blackout. At the Taj,

however, the media continued to show live footage even 48 hours after the attack began. The

media was directed to telecast a 'deferred' live programme after instructions from the

Information and Broadcasting Ministry on the afternoon of November 28.

Bhopal, 25 years on

2009-12-03T15:35:00.001+05:30

The cremator

The pyre used to burn day and night, says Shivcharan Dhaulpuria

Seventeen Ashoka trees stand tall in a small park on Chola Road. Had Shivcharan Dhaulpuria

not seen it himself, he would never have believed what the manicured grass hides.

Twenty-five years ago, where Dhaulpuria now stands, bodies were cremated in batches of 200

and more. "We did not have time for individual burials. Bodies came from hospitals in trucks

and we had to cremate them fast," says Dhaulpuria, whose family has been working at the

Chola cemetery near the Union Carbide factory for three generations.

Bhopal tragedy still affects our collective conscience: PM

25 years on, still waiting for Bhopal gas research

For the first few minutes on the night of the gas leak, Shivcharan, who had just gone to

bed, thought it was smoke from the hawan kund in the crematorium that was causing his eyes

and throat to burn.

"It was like someone had put chilies in my eyes. When we came out, everyone was running

towards the railway station. When I heard someone shout "tanki fuut gayi (the tank has

burst)", I decided to take my wife, children and parents to Sujalpur. I left them with my

relatives and came back to work as bodies had to be cremated. We had to cremate them quickly

and send the remains to be immersed in the Narmada," he says.

Bodies of over 3,000 victims, who died in the first 24 hours, were cremated at Chola

cemetery and the Badebaag Shamshaan Bhumi. The hospitals separated bodies of Hindu and

Muslim victims.

"Initially, the pyre used to burn day and night. There were so many bodies to be cremated.

No one had enough wood, coffins or kerosene," he says. By the fourth day, volunteers came to

cremate bodies and traders donated coffins. The forest department arranged for wood while

people donated kerosene.

Dhaulpuria, meanwhile, considered moving to a new city. "But I could not bring myself to do

it. My family has lived here for generations and cared for the departed. Tending to this

garden gives me peace. This is the final resting place of troubled souls and I will remain

here and watch over the place," he says.

In the intervening years, he says his parents died due to MIC poisoning while his wife

developed tuberculosis. "Both my children suffer from respiratory ailments. We received

compensation twice but that did not even cover even the basic medical care," he says.

In 1990, to mark the sixth anniversary of the tragedy, the state government set up Smriti

Udyan, a memorial to the thousands who had been cremated here. Twenty-five years later, the

memorial is a forgotten landmark in a city which now attracts 'gas tourists'. "The

government does not have time to care for the living. Who is going to remember the dead,"

asks Dhaulpuria.

The 'death doctor'

Dr D.K. Satpathy and his team conducted 750 autopsies in the first 24 hours

A month into retirement, Dr D.K. Satpathy does not know what to do with the 'papers'. They

cover a whole range: from the medico-legal notes he painstakingly took on the night of the

gas leak to chits he meticulously pasted on the forehead of each dead body for

identification.

Bright, cherry-red blood, that is the 60-year-old forensic expert's lasting memory of the

disaster. "In every body that we examined, we found that all organs were cherry red in

colour. At that time, we knew nothing about the nature of poisoning and this was our first

hint. It is typical of cyanide. When our Casualty Medical Officer contacted Union Carbide,

they said they didn't know the composition of, or antidote to, methyl isocyanate (MIC, the

gas released from the plant) poisoning," he says.

By December 5, doctors had started administering sodium thiosulphate (STS) to bring down the

level of MIC in victims. "The treatment was discontinued due to differences between doctors

after rumours circulated that STS was causing deaths," he says.

The Casualty Medical officer at the Gandhi Medical College (GMC) reported the first case at

12.45 a.m. on December 3, 1984. By the time Satpathy reached the hospital, 42 bodies were

kept near the emergency and over 200 bodies were lying in the mortuary. To maintain records,

it was decided that each corpse would be given a number and that it would be photographed.

"When I entered the hospital campus, everyone was retching, gasping and groaning. Our

biggest challenge was to identify bodies, number them, click pictures and swiftly conduct

post mortems," says Satpathy.

Four doctors and 13 final-year students from GMC worked round the clock for the next five

days. "We could not possibly conduct a post-mortem on each victim. So we decided to do

random autopsies while conducting detailed external examinations. We noted everything from

clothing, scars, even patterns of moustaches," he says. In the first 24 hours, 750 autopsies

were conducted.

Doctors assumed that the papers they were collecting would be useful in medical research. "I

was young and naive," says Satpathy.

In February 1984, forensic experts submitted a report that connected tank 610 to the deaths.

"We gave the report to the court and waited for the big day when responsibility would be

fixed. No judgment came," he says.

Through the next decade, Satpathy worked on developing a disaster management plan. "Our

biggest failure is that we still do not have a decent disaster management plan," he says.

His wife calls him a hoarder and Satpathy knows too that his papers are not of any relevance

to anyone anymore. "I know one day all these papers will end up in a museum," he says.

The voice

Through his Sambhavna Trust, Satinath Sarangi tells the world about Bhopal

Thirty-year-old Satinath Sarangi had just completed his Ph.D in metallurgy and was working

as a community activist in Piparia, about 150 km south of Bhopal, when he heard of the gas

leak. He reached Bhopal on the morning of December 3, hoping to help the victims for a

couple of weeks and go back to his life. "I did not realise it has been 25 years," says

Sarangi.

In all these years, Sarangi has used all his skill and resources to tell the world about

Bhopal.

In 1985, Sarangi started the Jan Swasth Kendra, a clinic from where he administered sodium

thiosulphate to the victims. But by then, the government had discontinued that line of

treatment and Sarangi was arrested. His clinic was shut down within 20 days of its opening.

"I stayed in jail for 18 days and by the time I came out, I was clear that this was a fight

I would take to its logical conclusion. I knew how to speak English and my family had

contacts. I wanted to use those privileges to help the victims," he says.

By 1986, Sarangi formed the Bhopal Group for Information and Action. "We started publishing

papers in English and Hindi on corporate crime. Our office was raided and all our documents

were taken," he says.

In 1989, Sarangi toured four countries, US, Netherlands, Ireland and Britain, campaigning

against the "inadequate" compensation of USD 470 million awarded by Union Carbide. "We took

along with us three victims because the world had to see for itself what was unfolding in

Bhopal. Information was the key. If justice is done in Bhopal, the whole world will be

safer," he says.

While in the UK, Sarangi met author Indra Sinha, who, at his own expense, placed a large

advertisement in The Guardian, appealing for help for the victims. The donations provided

the seed money Sarangi needed to set up the Sambhavna Trust in 1995. For the last 13 years,

Sarangi has been focusing on medical research and dissemination of information through the

Sambhavna Trust.

The officer

Former Bhopal SP Swaraj puri is pursuing a Ph.D in crisis management,"I want to be better

prepared"

When the police commissioner told Superintendent of Police Swaraj Puri to rush to the

railway station that night, he was expecting a stampede or a riot. When he reached the

Bhopal railway station, Puri couldn't understand why people were sleeping outside.

"I yelled at the inspector in-charge for allowing people to sleep there. He tugged at my

shirt and asked me to look closely and then it sank in. They were all bodies," says Swaraj

Puri, then SP who retired in 2008.

The first call to a police control room came around 12.20 a.m. It said two persons had died

and a large crowd was walking away from the Carbide factory. Against his driver's advice,

Puri decided to visit Ground Zero. "We were both nauseous and our eyes were bloodshot. I was

one of the first officers to reach the factory. From there, I went to the control room."

"From the first floor of the police control room near Union Carbide, the 'grey-green' cloud

of chemical was clearly visible," says Puri, who was one of the MIC poisoning victims whom

the Indian Council of Medical Research studied between 1985 and 1994.

Soon, the police officers in the control room were vomiting profusely. "I contacted the

doctors at GMC when I first heard of MIC," he says.

By the morning of December 3, the police had been briefed to block 'all entry points' to

avoid more casualties. The Chief Minister had called a high-level meeting, during which a

rumour spread that another tank had leaked from the factory. "It was a law and order problem

of unimaginable magnitude. The government was up against an unknown gas that was causing

mass casualties," he remembers.

Three days later, Warren Anderson, Chairman and CEO of Union Carbide, reached Bhopal in a

private jet. He was arrested immediately. "At the airport, we asked him to come out. We

shook hands, told him to sit in the jeep and later told him he was under arrest. He was

astonished. The American embassy was involved and the matter was discussed at a very high

level and I am not privy to the details. But yes, I do wish our government brings him back

and holds him accountable," he says.

Anderson was charged under six sections of the Indian Penal Code with culpable homicide,

causing death by negligence, negligent conduct with respect to poisonous substances and the

killing of livestock. He was released on a bail of Rs 25,000 and was allowed to fly back to

the US the following day.

At 63, Puri is now pursuing a Ph.D in crisis management from Delhi University. "I am so

disappointed by the turn of event that I know that Bhopal can happen again. I want to be

better prepared the next time," he says.

The fighter

Abul Jabbar is devoting all his time to ensure "the victim does not become a victim again"

Any quest for information on the gas tragedy usually starts from behind the Central Library

in Bhopal, where 'Jabbar Bhai', as Abul Jabbar Khan is fondly known here, runs the Bhopal

Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan (BGPMUS).

In 1984, Khan ran a lucrative tube-well boring business. His house was two kilometres from

the Carbide plant in Rajender Nagar. "After the gas leak that night, I dropped my mother

outside Bhopal and returned for my sister. By then, she was in Kasturba hospital. Then I

started transporting people to hospitals and in effect, I am still doing the same," says the

soft-spoken 52-year-old.

His mornings, over the last two decades, start the same way. People start queuing up to meet

him almost as if meeting Jabbar is a remedy in itself. Khan has moved several litigations,

helped thousands of Bhopalis, yet there is little known about him. "A tragedy of this scale

attracts tourists of various kinds. Journalists feast on anniversaries and activists make a

profession out of this misery. It is all part of such an event but the common man, the

victim and survivor, requires more than that," he says.

In 1988, Jabbar married a widow with two children. "The marriage did not work for various

reasons but my activism also had a role to play in it," he says. Bowing to family pressure,

Jabbar married again in 2002, he lives with his wife and three children in the same Rajender

Nagar house.

Till 1989, when the government finally distributed compensation, Jabbar regularly led

'morchas'. Today, he gets patients transported to hospitals, teaches women vocational

skills, and often ends up as the voice for those who cannot fight for their share of

compensation or pension. Over the years, the activist in Jabbar had very little time for his

business and the tube-well money gradually ran out. "I shut down the business as I could not

turn away from this (his activism). I may not have money but I cannot abandon the forsaken,"

says Jabbar.

Apart from those living in the gas-affected areas, not many have heard of Jabbar or his

work. He speaks little or no English, his Sangathan has no foreign affiliation and he is not

exactly 'media savvy'. All this has cost him dearly. "There are months when I cannot pay the

telephone or electricity bills. But we are not going to ask people for money. Since 1984,

the only thing we have been fighting for is dignity, in medical treatment, in life and in

death. We want employment, not charity. That is the only way to ensure that the victim

doesn't become a victim again. I cannot fight for these people for ever but I can teach them

how to fight by providing them employment, education and skills," he says.

He may not be a national hero, but Jabbar, who himself suffers from degenerating vision and

decreased lung capacity, personifies hope for those who have none.

Sex in the boardroom!

2009-12-03T15:34:00.002+05:30

“When a man talks dirty to a woman, its sexual harassment. When a woman talks dirty to a

man, it's $3.95 per
What's going on
What’s going on in that cubicle?

The famous Steven Wright quote seems to be quite paradoxical, especially in the light of a

recent Australian survey. According to the survey, it’s not only women who face sexual

harassment at work places; men also have to go through the unwanted office vixenry. Remember

Michael Douglas in Disclosure or Akshay Kumar in the desi version Aitraaz? The study also

states that many men are sexually harassed by women at work but are afraid to complain to

their bosses. And even if they complain about their bosses, they are more likely to be told

they are actually lucky to be ogled and hassled!

This couldn’t be closer to the truth, at least where India Inc is concerned. We spoke to a

cross-section of people on the issue and the reactions were, well, surprising, to say the

least! Read on...

What’s going on in that cubicle?

“Yes. I agree that sex has entered the boardroom big time. Males are actually facing sexual

pestering by female bosses and colleagues.” says ex. lieutenant Rita Gangwani, carefully

avoiding the words harassment and exploitation.

“Since time immemorial, man has been the ruler and female just a follower. But with changing

times, the new age women are getting much empowered. They are rubbing shoulders with men and

doing much better in most of the fields. So, such sexual advances can be about flaunting,

exercising power and not actually about sex, “she further exemplifies.

Supports producer of a leading sports channel, “Behind the scenes of every male life, there

are instances (though very few) when they come across such a boss. But, to be very honest,

if it exists then it’s a win-win situation for him.”

For most people, however, sexual harassment of a man by a woman is inane, to say the least.

“A hidden world of sexual harassment, with female managers exploiting their power over men

in the office, seems very unreal. See, especially in the desi context, sex is a very

hush-hush thing and not something easily available. So, in such situation even if a man gets

such a proposition, he can just not mind it. This stands true even if he doesn’t get any

materialistic favours from his female boss in return. Where is the issue?” questions COO of

a renowned Internet-solution company.

Pallavi Shekhar, sales manager, Idea Cellular Ltd, shares a similar opinion, “We all know

how grapevines work at workplace. She would gain instant fame in and out the office. Why

would a female herself opt for a situation in which everyone in the office and even in the

industry think of her as a bimbo? No matter how modern a woman is - image matters a lot.”

Can a female actually exploit a man?

Problem pill

2009-12-03T15:32:00.001+05:30

There was never a doubt that the i-pill and other emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs) would

prove to be immensely popular among women in India when they were introduced two years ago.

That's because India records 11 million abortions annually and a shocking 20,000 women die

because of abortion-related complications. What better way then to have a pill that promises

95 per cent success if a woman takes it within 12 hours of having unprotected sex? Known as

morning after pills-though a woman can take them even immediately after sexual

intercourse-their efficacy to prevent pregnancy drops to around 58 per cent if taken between

12 hours and 72 hours.

After that period, the manufacturers of these pills are explicit that it will not be able to

prevent pregnancy. They are also clear that these pills are an emergency contraceptive and,

more importantly, not a substitute for regular contraception that provides comprehensive

protection against an unwanted pregnancy.

Unfortunately, in India some of these messages don't seem to have gone out loud and clear,

causing rising concern among some citizen groups about such emergency contraceptive pills

being made freely available over-theounter (OTC). The controversy has taken on a moral shade

with some activists objecting to the advertisements showing young girls as the end-users

with a not so subtle implication that they had unprotected sex. Like N. Selvaraju, director,

drug control, Tamil Nadu, says, "We are not against women's rights, but this is a moral

concern. The advertising of this drug will mean that women will think, 'I can do anything

and there is an easy way not to get pregnant'. We can't allow such an attitude to grow."

The state drug control directorate even sent a notice to a popular Tamil magazine for

publishing advertisements of the i-pill. There are several such moral groups in India that

want to ban advertisements promoting the ECP and also its over-thecounter sale. Women's

right groups in Chennai along with the Tamil Nadu Government's Directorate of Drug Control

claim that the i-pill advertisement violates the Drug and Magical Remedies Act of 1954. That

saw the i-pill being prevented from being sold in Tamil Nadu despite being cleared by the

Drug Controller General of India (DCGI).

On the other hand, the medial community and some women's rights groups have welcomed the ECP

as a weapon of women empowerment. "Young girls didn't start having sex after the ECP was

introduced as statistics of the high rate of abortions in the past indicate. Thanks to the

ECP, there are ways to prevent unwanted pregnancies among a sexually active section of the

society. It is a boon for a rape victim," says Rajashree Gawde, who works with Stree, a

women's rights group in Pune. Gawde hopes ECP like the i-pill will continue to be available

over-the-counter rather than as prescription drugs.

"Going to a doctor to get a prescription means loss of precious time during an emergency and

negates the very purpose of the ECP," she reasons. The mounting pressure from panicking

parents of young girls, some activists, state governments and the Advertising Council of

India resulted in a review being undertaken by the DCGI. Much to the relief of the

proponents of the ECP, the DCGI, however, decided against changing the OTC nature of the

drug, saying it would defeat its purpose. Elsewhere, in Russia, the UK, the US, Canada and

many Asian countries, these pills are available OTC. It is banned in the Middle East and

parts of South America on religious grounds.

The controversy over the ECP, however, is unlikely to die down. While most doctors agree

that the ECP is a safe option even for long-term use, there is little research on its

misuse. Even though the pharmaceutical companies manufacturing these pills stress the word

emergency, many doctors say that young women, even married women, use them as regular

contraceptive pills. "I haven't really read up on the dos and don'ts of the drug. I have

used them more than a couple of times a month," says advertising copywriter Ragini

Ravichander from Bangalore. Literature provided by the pharmaceutical companies insists that

the ECP must not be used more than once in a cycle, but then not too many people seem to be

reading the fine print. Nausea or some bleeding are said to be among common short-term side

effects.

"The problem is not with the i-pill or any of the other ECPs in the market; the problem is

with the awareness. These pills should be sold with statutory warnings about what the i-pill

can do as well as what it cannot do. Just popping the pill won't help. And both men and

women need to realise the consequences," says Bangalore-based sociologist Ramani Rajaratnam.

Dr Rita Bali, head of obstetrics and gynaecology of Bali Clinics, says: "There are many

problems but ECP's benefits outnumber its disadvantages. Young women should be advised

against its indiscriminate use. The advertisers should stress the emergency nature of the

i-pill," Bali says.

With a combined annual sale of 8.2 million tablets, the pharma companies are splurging on

their advertising campaigns but not enough awareness is being created to prevent its misuse.

Thanks to the campaign, people are now acquainted with the fact that it provides freedom

against unwanted pregnancies, but there's no stress on the word emergency. Cipla's i-pill is

the largest selling brand in India while other brands include Unwanted-72 from Mankind

Pharma, EC2 by Zydus, Norlevo from Win Medicare and E-Pill by Panchsheel Organics.

The majority of the medical community has endorsed this form of emergency contraceptive as

an OTC though some doctors feel it might be better regulated as a prescription drug. It is a

move fraught with problems because in India even prescription drugs and drugs under Schedule

H are easily available over-the-counter. "Making it a prescription drug will only increase

fraud, time delays and definitely increase abortions in the country," says Hyderabad-based

Dr Rakesh Malhotra, who has endorsed the ECP as a safe option provided the pharma companies

are able to create awareness to prevent its misuse.

Gynaecologist Balakrishna Badigar says, "People need to understand that an i-pill cannot

replace regular contraceptives. Also, it is to be used only in an emergency and cannot

protect one from AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases."

There is an urgent need for publicising the dos and don'ts about such pills, their side

effects and possibly even a statutory warning. It could save a lot of concern and

complications that usually happen, well, the morning after.

Of runaway wives & harassed husbands

2009-12-03T15:31:00.001+05:30

There has been a spurt in cases of runaway wives who have slapped criminal cases against

their non-resident Indian (NRI) husbands.

And, often, the men can do little to gain custody of their children.

Though the police in countries such as the US, UK and Canada often press child abduction

charges in such cases, they cannot follow them up in India, as the country has not yet

ratified the 1980 Hague Convention.

"We hope it may be possible for India to ratify this in the near future," said a

spokesperson for the British High Commission in Delhi.

"Since India has not signed the Hague Convention, courts here have not really been enforcing

judgments of foreign courts," said senior advocate Pinky Anand, who represented complainant

V. Ravi Chandran, on whose petition the Supreme Court ordered the CBI to trace his son and

former wife in India.

The Hague Convention on the civil aspects of international child abduction is a multilateral

treaty that provides a speedy method to return a child taken from one member nation to

another.

The convention was drafted to "insure the prompt return of children who have been abducted

from their country of habitual residence or wrongfully retained in a contracting state not

their country of habitual residence". "India has been used as a haven or a refuge where you

could defeat the law. Moreover, dowry laws are peculiar to the Indian legal system," said

Anand. "Hopefully, this judgement would pave the way for foreign judgements to be enforced

in India."

The Canadian High Commission told HT that its "consular officers at the department of

foreign affairs and international trade and in India were currently managing 23 child

custody, child abduction and child welfare cases".

More than 60 such cases have been reported from the US - over a dozen of them in the last

three months alone. "Parental child abduction can cause immense distress to both the child

that has been taken and the family they leave behind," the British High Commission

spokesperson said. "The British government is limited in the assistance it can provide as

decisions concerning custody and country of abode need to be taken by the courts."

The British High Commission said it was aware of 11 cases in the past 12 months involving

British nationals where a parent had either abducted a minor son or daughter to India or

retained him or her after a holiday visit.

"Cases are sometimes filed to blackmail and extort money," said criminal lawyer Tarun

Goomber, citing the example of a man who could not come to India to meet his parents as

arrests warrants had been issued against him after his wife filed a case.

Boost Your Intelligence Before You Go To A Party

2009-12-03T15:29:00.002+05:30

The next time you head out for a party, do remember to brush up your general knowledge. For,

sounding smart is just as important as looking smart on the cocktail party circuit.

79 per cent people admit that they judge people they first meet based on how smart they

talk! 20 per cent brush up on current events and popular culture before hitting the holiday

party circuit.

With updated intellectual armour, you would feel more at ease, which in turn draws others to

you.

Some thank the Internet for the ramped up intellectual expectations. Previously, when

invited to a party, one was concerned about what to wear but now parties are much more than

just gossiping and drinking. Now there is a need to make yourself more knowledgeable and

smart. With updated intellectual armour, you would feel more at ease, which in turn draws

others to you.

There's nothing wrong in doing a little research to boost your social life. With the

Internet, we have an easy source of information and should definitely use it.

Visa games China plays - with Kashmiris

2009-12-03T15:27:00.002+05:30

The Chinese are playing mind games. And New Delhi isn't amused. After refusing to issue

stamped visas to residents of Jammu and Kashmir to make the point that the state was still a

"disputed" territory, Chinese authorities have issued such a visa to former Jammu University

vice chancellor Amitabh Mattoo.

Road project in Ladakh stops as China objects

Antony raises red flag over China-Pak military link

To most Kashmiris, China issues visas on a separate sheet of paper, which is stapled to

their passports. India refuses to recognise these as legitimate visas, and has stopped

several Kashmiris with such visas at the airport, preventing them from boarding their

flights. Professor Shakeel Ahmad Romshoo of Kashmir University was one of them. But Mattoo

had no such problems.

The Jawaharlal Nehru University professor said his visa was stamped on his passport issued

to him in Kashmir. He did go to Beijing. "I had to attend an international conference on

nuclear disarmament," he told Hindustan Times. What kind of visa then will Mirwaiz Omar

Farooq get? The separatist leader, who has recently been harping on a role for Beijing in

Kashmir, was invited by an NGO there to deliver a lecture. But Foreign minister SM Krishna

said the Mirwaiz could go only if he had a valid visa.

India's most wanted terrorist still a railway employee in Assam

2009-12-02T15:43:00.001+05:30

One of India's most wanted terrorists has played truant for close to three decades by not
attending office, although he continues to be a central government employee in Assam.
Self-styled commander-in-chief of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) Paresh
Baruah is an employee of the Northeast Frontier Railways.
Manmohan Singh gets US assurances on terrorism
'Terrorism a religion of devils': Shah Rukh Khan
He was 21 when he got a porter's job in 1978 under the sports quota (he was a footballer) at
the railways in the Tinsukia division in eastern Assam.
'We joined together as a porter at a monthly salary of Rs.370. Paresh Baruah was sincere in
his practice sessions (played football for the railways), but by January 1980 he simply
vanished not to be seen again,' Supriyo Choudhury, now promoted to a conductor in the
railways, told IANS.
Baruah, now 52, formed the ULFA in April 1979 along with five others, including self-styled
Chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa.
Both are now believed to be operating out of Bangladesh, although recent intelligence
reports indicate that Baruah might have sneaked into China for shelter.
But Baruah is still registered as an employee of the railways despite three decades of
absence from office.
'The name Paresh Baruah is significant and he is absent from duties for a very long period.
His salary slip shows zero, but he is still an employee according to the records,' Sanjoy
Mookerjee, deputy railway manager of the Tinsukia division, said.
'There is an enquiry on to find out if the Paresh Baruah who is in our rolls is the same
Paresh Baruah (meaning ULFA leader). That time when he joined there were no photographs and
so it is difficult to verify the records now.'
Hailing from Jeraigaon village in Tinsukia district, about 500 km east of Assam's main city
of Guwahati, the elusive Baruah is described as a 'violent man' with red corner notices
issued against him and the Interpol on the prowl. The maximum penalty he potentially faces
is the death sentence, according to the Assam police.

Rahul Gandhi is top newsmaker of the year

2009-12-02T15:40:00.001+05:30

'Oomph' factor does make the likes of Katrina Kaif and Rakhi Sawant popular in online media,
but they have been beaten by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi as the top newsmaker on the
popular search engine.
Rahul to come for recruitment drive
Rahul urges youth to embrace politics
According to Yahoo! India News, the leading online news website, Rahul emerged clear winner
in the newsmaker category, followed by cricketers and Bollywood stars.
"Some of the key stories for Rahul to be the top newsmaker for the year included pulling up
the sagging fortunes of the Congress party in Uttar Pradesh, tirelessly working towards
making the Congress a youth-oriented party and repudiate Manmohan Singh's offer to take a
seat in Cabinet amongst others," the company said in a statement.
Following Rahul Gandhi is Katrina Kaif who was in news constantly for her movies and private
life. Reality show star Rakhi Sawant managed a fifth spot after Lalit Modi, cricket's
billion-dollar man who changed the face of the game and A R Rahman, who made India proud by
winning Oscars this year.
Based on the number of clicks registered for a particular news item and time spent by users
on the news page of Yahoo! India, the website editorial team collated all the information to
come up with a list of top five newsmakers in 2009.
In the events category, among the most read on the website are Delhi High Court verdict on
gay rights, Mumbai sea-bridge and the swine flu attack, the company said.
In the farewells category, top picks include Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Rajasekhar
Reddy, Maharani Gayatri Devi, pop legend Michael Jackson, famous British reality show star
Jade Goody and umpire David Shepherd.

Least impact on Indian workers

2009-12-02T15:39:00.002+05:30

It's almost four days now after the Dubai crisis and fears have been raised about the job
situation of Indians in Dubai, who comprise more than 42% of the population of Dubai. Lakhs
of workers from India are employed in realty and other sectors in Dubai and other West Asian
cities.
With reports of the fate of thousands of westerners employed by companies in Dubai hanging
in balance, Indian employees seems to be not much impacted. Consulting firms in India also
don't expect major impact on jobs. HR consulting firms, with whom FE spoke, states they have
not received any query of candidates wanting to move out of Dubai. On the contrary, this
crisis will increase the demand for Indian expats there. ABC Consultant CEO Shiv Agrawal
said, "Dubai is completely dependent on expats, and with the real estate crashing western
expats (from the UK, Europe, the US) will be facing the heat now."
Salaries of the western expats are almost 50% more than Indian or Pakistani expat in Dubai
at the top level position. "This will however dip with the real estate crash and companies
will start letting go the western expats," Agrawal adds. Salaries are expected to remain
flat, but companies will also try to fill up vacancies by hiring candidates at slightly
lower package. A few jobs could be in trouble, but the overall scenario does not seem to be
much impacted, say experts. CHR Global HR Consultancy MD Tapash Sengupta said the top level
jobs will remain as it is. But, middle-level jobs will be slightly effected.

Delhi again among 10 most expensive office markets

2009-12-02T15:37:00.001+05:30

Delhi has again joined the list of 10 cities worldwide that command the highest rentals for
office space, says a report released Tuesday by global realty consultancy CB Richard Ellis.
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Mumbai dropped one place to the seventh position, the report titled 'The Semi-Annual Global
Office Rents' added.
'While Mumbai continues to remain in the top 10, Delhi has re-joined the top 10 ranking of
most expensive office markets after two years,' said Anshuman Magazine, chairman and
managing director, CB Richard Ellis South Asia.
'Although the rentals in the Delhi central business district have remained stable for the
past six months, it has moved up to the 10th position primarily due to other global cities
declining significantly in office rentals,' Magazine said.
Delhi moved up from 12th to 10th position, while London reclaimed its position as the
world's most expensive office market.
Tokyo's Inner Central, which was at the top spot in May slipped to the second place,
followed by that city's Outer Central market.
Hong Kong's central business district and Moscow are fourth and fifth respectively, said CB
Richard Ellis, which tracks office occupancy costs in about 180 cities around the globe.
'From the third quarter of 2009 onwards, we have seen corporates coming back into the market
and office space take-up has improved,' Magazine said.
'To reduce office occupancy costs further and facilitate more supply of office space, we
need to urgently improve our infrastructure and amenities. This would bring our world
rankings down further and make India more competitive,' he added.
The year-on-year change in prime office occupancy costs of the cities monitored reveal an
average drop of 7.7 percent worldwide over the 12-month period ending Sep 30, 2009.
Kiev led with the largest year-over-year decrease in office occupancy costs, falling 64.6
percent from year-ago levels.
'While there are signs that commercial real estate values are stabilising in some markets in
Asia and parts of London, underlying property fundamentals are still weak,' said CB Richard
Ellis global chief economist Raymond Torto.
Forty-one markets experienced positive growth, with Aberdeen and Rio de Janeiro growing more
than 10 percent.
For the Asia Pacific region, Singapore experienced the largest decreases (53.4
percent)followed by Ho Chi Minh City (45.4 percent) and as well Hong Kong (over 30 percent)
in the past year.