In the first phase, between 2010 and 2013, the government is also proposing to generate 200 mw of off-grid solar power and cover 7 million sq metres with solar collectors. The mission, if approved by the Cabinet, will entail three phases with the ambitious targets and financial mechanisms for the latter two phases being reviewed on the basis of performance in the first three-year phase. By the end of the final phase in 2022, the government hopes to produce 20,000 mw of grid-based solar power, 2,000 mw of off-grid solar power and cover 20 million sq metres with collectors.

Solar lighting systems would also be provided to 9,000 villages under existing schemes by providing soft loans which would be refinanced by the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Limited. Instead of the large direct subsidy to solar power producers suggested earlier, the government has decided to integrate solar power production and sale into existing power purchase mechanisms.

Aarti Chhabria has denied that she ever knew Headley or even Rahul Bhatt. She said that although she has been a member of Moksh gym for the last four and half years, where Headley is believed to have worked out and where Bhatt is an instructor, it did not mean she knew Headley. She said she has been “staying in Shyam Niwas in block 5A for the last 13 years and that she has been going to Moksh gym for last four and half years, but does not know Bhatt or Headley.

The six-star hotel will occupy the top 17 floors of Hong Kong’s tallest building, the 484-metre International Commerce Centre (ICC), the South China Morning Post reported.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus suggested the “social business” project to the company, which normally focusses on trendy, expensive sportswear for people who want to project a sporty image.

Snatches of cellphone conversations – some never heard before – between the gunmen and their controllers in Pakistan, as well as video footage of the police with Kasab was aired on Sunday in a preview of the documentary by narrator Fareed Zakaria in his programme on CNN. One of the tapes of Kasab’s interrogation points to how he got involved with the Lashkar terror group:

Kasab: He said, “These people make loads of money and so will you. (Inaudible) We’ll have money, we won’t be poor any more. Your brothers and sisters can get married. Look at these guys living the good life. You can be like them,” he said.
Unidentified Male: “Your dad said this?
Kasab: Yes. So, I said, “Fine, whatever.”
Unidentified Male: What does he do for a living?
Kasab: He used to sell yogurt and potato snacks in the street.
Unidentified Male: How much did they give you? Did they put it in your account?
Kasab: There is no account. They gave it to my dad.
Unidentified Male: How much did they give him?
Kasab: I don’t know. Maybe a few hundred thousand.

A conversation between another young terrorist with his handler was also aired on the show. Locked in a bathroom at Mumbai’s Trident Oberoi hotel, another Pakistani terrorist named Fahadullah knew the end was near. He was out of food, water, energy and ammunition, and could hear the steady stream of police gunshots getting closer. He and nine other terrorists were winding down from a gruesome, 36-hour killing spree through the city, and he was talking on the phone to a handler far away in Pakistan.

“You mustn’t let them arrest you, remember that,” the controller insisted. “Fahadullah, my brother, can’t you just get out there and fight?”
“I am out of grenades,” Fahadullah weakly offered.
“Be brave, brother. Don’t panic. For your mission to end successfully, you must be killed. God is waiting for you in heaven.”

The Gujarat government has directed hotels to take thumb impressions of all guests and keep a copy of their identity cards.

Security personnel have also been deployed to check vehicle movement in the city.

“We will tell the hotel people to take thumb impression of the customers. This is a new thing. The staff can come to the police station and we will tell them how to implement this. If they do not implement it, the department will take the required action,” said M.H Vasani, a police inspector.

“It has come to the attention of government of India that the embassy of the People’s Republic of China in New Delhi and the Chinese consulates in Mumbai and Kolkata are issuing visas on a separate piece of paper `stapled’ to the passport (rather than pasted as is the usual practice), to certain categories of Indian nationals on the basis of their domicile, ethnicity and/or place of issue of the passport. Such paper visas stapled to the passport are not considered valid for travel out of the country,’‘ said the advisory.

Despite official protests by India, China has continued to issue stapled visas for people with origin in Arunachal Pradesh and J&K. India had officially protested against the practice after news broke out that some Kashmiri businessmen and students were being given stapled visas.

“All Indian citizens intending to travel to the People’s Republic of China are advised that before making any travel arrangements they should first ascertain from the Chinese embassy or consulate, as the case may be, whether the visa being issued to them will be affixed to the passport or will be in the nature of a stapled paper visa, so that they are not inconvenienced or put to any financial loss later on this count,’‘ the advisory further said.

Owner of the yacht ‘‘ANDRANA’‘, Pignol and a US national Malcolm Russell Williamson who were on board, are being questioned by Customs and Immigration officials, the sources told PTI. Pignol said they had set sail from Oman and were on their way to Madagascar before they landed near Kochi due to rough seas and bad climatic conditions. The yacht was seized from near the Port administration building at nearby Wellington Island.

“We believe that India holds tremendous potential for the Michelin group in terms of establishing a world class manufacturing facility,” said Prashant Prabhu, president, Michelin Africa-India-Middle East.

The rise in demand for automobiles has prompted several Indian and foreign tire makers to invest in the country. These companies are betting not only on the increasing demand in the local market but also want to use the low-cost manufacturing base in India for exporting tires.

The information may not be easy to dismiss as Hersh points to the fear that extremists in Pakistan’s military establishment – even apart from the threat of a Taliban takeover – might grab control of some of the nuclear facilities in the country. He states in his article that Washington has been “negotiating highly sensitive understandings with the Pakistani military’‘ to prevent such a scenario. “These would allow specially trained American units to provide added security for the Pakistani arsenal in case of a crisis. At the same time, the Pakistani military would be given money to equip and train Pakistani soldiers and to improve their housing and facilities – goals that General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Pakistan Army chief, has long desired,’‘ he states, adding that the secrecy surrounding the understanding was because of growing antipathy for the US in Pakistan.

Hersh goes on to state that the ongoing consultation on nuclear security between Washington and Islamabad intensified after the announcement in March of President Obama’s “so-called Af-Pak policy’‘ which called upon the Pakistan Army to take more aggressive action against Taliban enclaves inside Pakistan. A Pakistan official close to President Asif Zardari with whom Hersh spoke is said to have reacted angrily to the US interest in Pakistan’s arsenal saying that even if there was a military coup, nobody would give up the control on nuclear weapons.

This official, according to Hersh, wondered why the US was not worried about India’s arsenal. “Because India is your friend, and the longtime policies of America and India converge. Between you and the Indians, you will `f…’ us in every way. The truth is that our weapons are less of a problem for the Obama Administration than finding a respectable way out of Afghanistan,’‘ the official said. Pakistan on Monday dismissed the report saying that it was “nothing more than a concoction to tarnish the image of Pakistan and create misgivings among its people’‘.

Kumar, currently president and managing partner of KaiZen Innovation, was nominated assistant secretary of commerce and director general of the United States and Foreign Commercial Service in the US Department of Commerce, the White House announced Thursday.

Beating a good 4,000 other competitors, Puru Pratap Singh’s doodle is based on the theme ‘My India – Full of Life’. Singh is a Class 4 student of Gurgaon, the commercial hub adjoining the national capital.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik had said in October that India was responsible for the rising wave of terrorism in Balochistan province. Gilani said Pakistan wanted good relations with all its neighbours and desired the resumption of the composite dialogue process with India, adding that dialogue was the only way forward.

He said no military operation is currently underway in Balochistan and that the ongoing operation in Southern Waziristan will soon end.

“He surrendered voluntarily before the Tihar Jail administration just before noon today (Tuesday),” a jail official told IANS.

The incident that took place in Vindhyachal area of Mirzapur district, 60 kms from here, triggered protests by locals yesterday, who staged demonstrations outside the school following which the management of the institution shut it down.

ASP Mirzapur Sripati Mishra said the principal of Pt. Ramchandra Mishra Inter College Sunil Kumar Dube allegedly beat up Class II student Ajay Majhi when he was going out of the school premises during lunch time on November five. The child suffered multiple fractures due to the beating and was sent home by college authorities. The child was then taken to Mirzapur district where he succumbed to injuries yesterday.

“He told me his family wont agree to our marriage as I’m from a schedule caste and if I’m pregnant, it will be easier to convince the family. He later told me he was engaged to another girl but if I could give Rs 10 lakh as dowry like the other girl, he would marry me,” said Priyanka.

Priyanka says she had complained to the local police 15 days before the wedding, but it was to no avail. She wanted the police to prevent the marriage. But we have no powers in this case, as there was no marriage. If it was a second marriage we could prevent it. Now she has filed a case of forced sex and cheating. We have registered a case,” said City Police Commissioner, Shankar Bidari.

The new Google Books settlement, following months of negotiations, restricts the venture to books with copyrights registered in the US, Canada, Britain and Australia.

Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani has said that Pakistan will not compromise on its nuclear program and that the country’s assets were safe under the Nuclear Command and Control Authority. Talking to reporters at the Multan airport he said there was no threat to the country’s nuclear program which was completely safe and secure.

‘We will not compromise on our nuclear program,’ Prime Minister Gilani categorically said. He was responding to reports in the Western media about threats of extremists taking over the country’s nuclear assets.

About US drone attacks on targets inside Pakistani territory Gilani said Pakistan was trying to convince the United States about their negative impact.

The broad story is known to every Tom, Dinesh, and Hamid in strategic circles — that sometime in the early 1980s, China provided Pakistan with nuclear know-how and materials to enable it to make the bomb, in part to weigh down India and in part out of gratitude to Islamabad for facilitating its opening to US. But astonishing details of the transaction, which China has blithely denied because it is in violation of its nuclear non-proliferation obligations, have been exposed courtesy A.Q.Khan, Pakistan’s Dr Strangelove, to spite the military which incarcerated him.

The 15-day course offered by the Suganthi Devadason Marine Research Institute (SDMRI), Tuticorin, affiliated to the Manonmaniam Sundaranar University inTamil Nadu, will focus on marine biodiversity assessment, underwater photography and monitoring of coral reefs and sea grass.

These proposals are the next step in building on the rapid progress the government has made in tightening up Britain’s border controls. Over the past three years the UK has seen the introduction of e-Borders to check individuals in and out of the country and the implementation of the points-based system which ensures that only those who benefit the economy can come here to work.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Gordon Brown had announced that doors will be shut to highly skilled non-EU doctors and engineers, and the government will consider denying visa to students seeking entry to short-term programmes. In order to bring together the essential changes that have already taken place, the government is proposing a new bill to bring forward a new legal framework to simplify and consolidate 40 years of immigration laws.

A tough new menu of conditions is proposed for those on immigration bail, including restrictions on residence, work or study, access to public funds, and reporting and electronic monitoring.

Ujjawal Choudhary, director Income Tax investigation, told IANS that Koda had told probe officials he wanted to rest and asked them to come in the afternoon.

The Peshawar blast destroyed the three-storey building of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency. The city has been frequently targeted by militants in recent weeks.

More than 100 people were killed in a blast at a market in Peshawar two weeks ago. At the time the blast took place, there was light traffic on the roads because it was early morning. Correspondents say that if the attacker struck half an hour later, the death toll would have been much higher because the area would have been far busier.

As a result of the blast, however, schools have now been closed for the day in Peshawar. “I was busy at work then suddenly I heard gunfire. I saw a vehicle moving towards the ISI building and then there was a huge blast. I was thrown to the ground,” news agency AFP quoted Azmat Ali, a 30-year-old mechanic as saying. “I don’t remember anything else, but there was dust everywhere,” he said.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani condemned the attack, saying his country’s resolve to deal with militancy would not be weakened. The last time an ISI building was targeted was in May, when 24 people were killed in a suicide attack in the eastern city of Lahore.

There are about 15,000 Punjabis, including Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims, in this city of 65,000. Gill will be the first Sikh mayor in California. “We have made history tonight, and everyone is part of that history,” said Gill as outgoing mayor Leslie McBride passed the gavel to him. “I am elated to be honoured with this position. We Punjabis have been here for more than a hundred years, and to be the mayor of this city is a privilege for the whole community,” Punjab-born Gill said. “I feel really great …I have spent all my life here and to represent Yuba City is a great honour,” said Gill, who came to the city in 1967 with his family as a two-year-old toddler.

His family is related to the city’s world-famous peach farmer Didar Singh Bains. “We came from Lakhsina village in Hoshiarpur district of Punjab when my uncle Bains sponsored us,” said Gill, who will now command the city’s $80-million budget.

“We have written a letter to SBI administration demanding consideration of locals on priority for 1100 clerical posts announced by them,” MNS general secretary Shirish Parkar said.

SBI is holding an entrance exam on Sunday in the city and the administration has assured the MNS to speak to the authorities in Delhi regarding their demand.

All the passengers, most of whom were sleeping at the time of the accident, had a miraculous escape. Relief and rescue teams were rushed to the scene of the accident and work on restoration of the railway traffic has started. The Central Railway was making arrangements to put the stranded passengers on a special train to their destinations.

The railways have also set up helpline numbers at Mumbai, Thane, Kalyan, Vasai, Gandhidham, Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodra and Bengaluru to provide information to people about their near and dear ones. “Twelve coaches of Gandhidham express were derailed when the train was approaching Bhiwandi in Thane district.” Central Railways PRO A K Jain told PTI. Another train was sent to the incident site and the passengers of Gandhidham Express were shifted into it, he said.

SMS and other value-added services form 10% of the Indian telecom industry’s annual Rs 1 lakh crore-plus revenues. The current regime followed by telecom operators is `bill and keep’. This means your operator keeps the entire amount that he bills you for the SMS and pays nothing to the network on which the SMS is sent. This is for two reasons. First, the proportion of traffic across networks is roughly equal, and second, the cost of termination is negligible.

Trai has so far refused to regulate SMS tariffs along with some other tariffs under what is known as forbearance. Forbearance is usually adopted by regulators when they believe that competitive markets are working and tariffs reflect true costs. As it turns out, the true cost of sending an SMS would never have come to light if new entrants had not been forced to sign interconnection agreements with existing operators at a price that is far higher than the actual cost.

He added the fact that the decree was adopted in the presence of Union Home Minister P Chidambaram showed that the Centre was engaging in appeasement of the minorities. “If anti-national fatwas are issued in the presence of the Union home minister then there is no future for this country. It looks like the Centre has a policy of appeasement of Muslims for votes,” he said in a statement.

Stating that such decrees created tensions between Hindus and Muslims, he asked Shiv Sainiks to put up “Vande Mataram” boards all over Maharashtra.

Passengers can send short text messages (SMS) to get the lowest fares available at a given time and sector on jetairways.com.

The virtual re-creation of the “Road to Santiago”, one of the most famous pilgrimage routes in Europe, is one of the features of the service, which also showcases the Alhambra in Granada, the Toledo Cathedral, the aqueduct in Segovia, the moNew Google service allows virtual pilgrimagesque in Cordoba and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.

The aspiring actress had complained to the police in 2004 and alleged that Bhandarkar and she “had sex 16 times between 1999 and 2004”.

“Madhur had promised to give me a lead role in his films. However, he didn’t offer me a lead role in any of his movies. At times when I refused, he raped me,” she said then.

Bhandarkar made three films in the five years that he knew Jain — “Chandni Bar”, “Satta” and “Aan” — and she complained that she had no role in any of them. “Bhandarkar’s forthcoming movie, ‘Page 3’, also does not feature me,” she had told reporters soon after filing her case.

Mark Hurd

The Palo Alto, Calif., company—the world’s largest tech company by revenue—also preannounced positive fiscal fourth quarter results. It posted an 11% jump in operating earnings and an 8% decline in revenue from a year ago, beating analyst estimates. In a sign the tech industry is leaving the recession behind, it also raised its revenue forecast for the fiscal year.

By buying 3Com, a onetime leading tech company that has fallen on tougher times this decade, H-P is aiming to goose its growth. The move also puts H-P more squarely on the turf of Cisco Systems Inc.

David Donatelli, H-P’s executive vice president in charge of the division that sells computers and networking gear to big customers, said 3Com has a better set of networking products for large corporate clients than H-P currently sells and a market share of more than 30% in the China networking market. With the deal, Mr. Donatelli said, “we get industry-leading products.”

He pointed out that companies from other foreign countries did not feel the need to carry their own workers to projects in India, which has a vast reservoir of skilled workmen and a long history of industry and entrepreneurship. “I have personal experience in working with many of India’s other major economic partners. I cannot recall their investments and projects requiring such large manpower support from home,” Jaishankar, who was earlier ambassador in Singapore, said. Indian companies sourcing equipment and services from China should advise and assist the sellers on reducing their dependence on Chinese workers and using more of Indian skill, he said.

The statement comes at a time when several Indian companies have joined the chorus along with their Chinese partners about increasing the issuance of visas for Chinese workers. But the Indian government remains miserly on this count because large inflow of foreign labor can thwart skill development and cause heart-burning among Indian workers. It is possible that business models of non-Chinese investors are “based more heavily on collaborating with local Indian capabilities,” he said while speaking at a seminar organized jointly by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the China Council for Promotion of International Trade.

Home minister P Chidambaram today said the train and passengers on board were safe and that the Centre has rushed a relief train to bring back the passengers. “The train is safe. All passengers are safe… good news is the train is safe,” he told reporters. “CRPF and state police have reached the spot and the area has been secured. There is no sign of any other adversary there,” Chidambaram said.

He also refuted reports that there was an exchange of fire between security forces and suspected Maoists. “There was firing and a civilian driver was injured but there was no injury to CRPF personnel and there was no exchange of fire,” Chidambaram said. He said the Centre has rushed a relief train to Orissa with doctors and relief supplies. The home minister said the train will bring back the passengers on the Rajdhani Express.

The government blamed militants seeking to avenge an army offensive against al-Qaeda and Taliban close to the Afghan border. The blast set scores of shops on fire, collapsed other buildings, including a mosque, and sent a cloud of gray smoke over the city. TV footage showed wounded people sitting amid the debris as people grabbed at the wreckage, trying to pull out survivors before carrying them down narrow alleys to hospital. One two-story building collapsed as firefighters doused it with water.

Clinton, on her first visit to Pakistan as secretary of state, was three hours’ drive away in the capital of Islamabad when the blast took place. Speaking to reporters on her plane, she praised the army’s anti-Taliban offensive in South Waziristan and promised a new era in relations between Pakistan and the United States.