Mumbai, Delhi put on high alert ahead of 26/11 anniversary !!

The Centre has put Mumbai and Delhi on high alert following "specific inputs" from a western intelligence agency of a terror attack in the two cities during the 26/11 anniversary.

In advisories to the Maharashtra and Delhi Police, the Union home ministry has asked them to step up vigilance in crowded public places as well as around important public buildings and sensitive installations.

Sources in the ministry said that the western agency informed New Delhi that Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba may launch spectacular strikes in crowded places in Mumbai, similar to the one carried out two years ago. Another intelligence input suggested that Kashmiri terror outfits may strike in three markets, including the popular underground Palika Bazar, in New Delhi, they added.

"The high alert, sounded in Delhi in the wake of specific inputs for Wednesday (November 17), continues," an official said, adding the level of deployment has also been increased in both Delhi and Mumbai in the past two days.

The Centre has also asked the two police forces to install CCTV cameras and other electronic gadgets in crowded places to monitor the movement of people, and metal detectors for a thorough check of people.

Read More:- Mumbai, Delhi put on high alert ahead of 26/11 anniversary

Anil Ambani profited the most from 2G scam !!

Many corporate houses booked windfall profits from the 2G spectrum scandal, it has now come to light.

The opposition continued to stall both houses of Parliament on Thursday, demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee investigation into the scandal, but elsewhere, questions were being asked about businessmen who made money from ousted telecom minister A Raja’s scandalous deals.

The CAG report tabled in Parliament earlier this week said Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group benefited the most from improper allocation of licences. The Hindu reported:

The CAG has found that Mr. Ambani’s companies were given undue advantage over other players in at least three ways: first, the fact that Swan Telecom (now Etisalat DB Telecom), one of the 2G beneficiaries, appeared to have been acting as a front company for ADAG’s Reliance Telecom was ignored by the Department of Telecom; second, it got the spectrum before others in the queue; and third, Reliance Communications was favoured in the spectrum allocation while getting access to a dual technology licence for offering both CDMA and GSM services…

The CAG also pointed out that the e-mail address of the corporate as well as registered office of Swan Telecom Pvt. Ltd was shown as hari.nair@relianceada.com, and the same e-mail ID was also given for the correspondence address and the authorised contact person of the applicant company.

Meanwhile, pressure is mounting on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to explain why he looked the other way when Raja was signing away the nation’s wealth for a pittance. BJP leader L K Advani said the Supreme Court had, for the first time, pointed fingers at a prime minister, and it was high time Singh made a statement.

On television, Subramaniam Swamy, president of the Janata Party, said Singh was not corrupt but weak. Swamy has filed a case in the Supreme Court against Raja’s deals. He spoke to reporters in front of the Supreme Court on Thursday, and asked why Singh had remained unresponsive to his plea for permission to proceed against Raja. He alleged the government was “embroidering the truth”.

Gopikrishnan, whose hard work as a reporter led to the unearthing of the scandal, believes telecom licences issued illegally will eventually be cancelled. Chandan Mitra, editor of The Pioneer, praised Gopikrishnan and revealed how he had grown into a reporter with a formidable reputation for digging out hidden information.

I don’t know how much pressure he came under and from which quarters. But I faced more pressure over these reports than anything else in my 27 years of journalism, of which nearly 20 have been spent in senior editorial positions. I am proud to have withstood them. But even more proud that I gave a dynamic young man from Kerala a break in the national media, a break he used to do the nation a sterling service. J Gopikrishnan has made history and The Pioneer basks in his achievement.

In an interview Mitra ran with his article, titled The Man Who Felled a King, Gopikrishnan reveals that a whistleblower within the telecom ministry helped him unravel the complexities of the scandal.

Read More: Anil Ambani profited the most from 2G scam

Astronomers find giant extragalactic planet !!

Astronomers have for the first time spotted a planet that originated outside the galaxy.

Till date, about 500 planets have been discovered. This is the first known planet to have been born elsewhere.

The gas planet, at least 25 percent heavier than Jupiter or 400 times heavier than Earth, orbits a star that started life in a dwarf galaxy, according to the journal Science Express.

Known as HIP 13044b, the hydrogen and helium planet sits in a solar system belonging to a group of stars called the Helmi stream, some 2,000 light years away from Earth, the Telegraph reports.

Between six and nine billion years ago, the Helmi merged with the Milky Way in an act of 'galactic cannibalism'. It is now in a southern constellation of the Milky Way called the Fornax or Furnace.

Because of the vast distance, astronomers at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in La Silla, Chile, could not detect the planet visibly, using the 2.2 metre-diameter telescope.

Instead, they inferred its existence from tiny telltale wobbles of the star.

These are caused by the gravitational tug of its large orbiting companion, which the astronomers detected with a high-resolution spectrograph attached to the telescope.

Rainer Klemen, of the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, said: 'This discovery is very exciting. For the first time, astronomers have detected a planetary system in a stellar stream of extragalactic origin.'

The planet is orbiting a star which is approaching the end of its life, having exhausted its hydrogen fuel and gone through a stage of massive expansion - called the red giant phase - in which it probably consumed the inner planets in its solar system.

Read More: Astronomers find giant extragalactic planet

TCS plans to recruit 50,000 Employees in 2011 !!

The country's largest IT services provider, Tata Consultancy Services, plans to recruit about 50,000 employees in 2011, the same figure as this year's, a top company official said today.

"This year we will add 50,000 people and next year we will add the same (number)," Tata Consultancy Services Managing Director and CEO N Chandrasekaran told reporters here. He said 30,000 of the 50,000 persons recruited were in the first quarter of this year.

Stating that there are good prospects in the overseas market, he said that TCS would recruit more number of candidates for overseas operations, but did not give exact numbers. "We plan to increase the number everywhere (in the world)," he said. Currently, TCS has a presence in the US, Latin America, China, the Middle East and European countries.

"In the first year of our operations in China we quickly recruited 1,000 candidates but it took us two years to add 200 more," Chandrasekaran said.

He said the company preferred to maintain the attrition rate at the industry lowest rate of 14 per cent. "Last two-three years it was 9-9.5 per cent. I would not like to see any kind of escalation (in 14 per cent..)", he said.

Chandrasekaran was here to announce the first batch of candidates for TCS Research Fellowship Programme launched by them to promote research.

He said TCS planned to fund about 200 doctoral candidates over five years to take up PhD programmes in academic institutions across India. However, he declined to comment on the funds they planned to spend for this programme.

On future plans, Chandrasekaran said they would soon make an official announcement of a new product in Small and Medium Enterprises. A similar launch was also planned in Business Process Outsourcing platform. Plans are also on to launch services in healthcare platform globally.

"We have launched the health care service in three top notch hospitals and they are already gone live. We want to launch it internationally...", he said.

Chandrasekaran termed the exchange rate as a major challenge and market volatility as a "big problem."

On the Rs 1,000 crore Passport Seva Project joint venture with External Affairs Ministry,he said it was doing very well. "It is being rolled out in phases and we will roll out in 77 sites. I hope in another 5-6 months we will cover pan India".

On implementation,TCS would offer end-to-end services, after which the Ministry expects issuing passports to be completed in three working days and passports under Tatkal scheme to be dispatched he same day.

TCS has about 1.77 lakh employees globally.

TCS plans to recruit 50,000 Employees in 2011

'Harry Potter' star gets new film look !!

Daniel Radcliffe will be saying goodbye to the Harry Potter franchise next summer when the second half of the two-part "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" hits theaters. But even though he's now richer than God (or at least Prince William and Prince Harry of the British royal family), he's already moved on to his first post-"Potter" role as the lead in the supernatural thriller "The Woman in Black." And because Hammer Films wants to capitalize on Potter mania since "Deathly Hallows Part 1" opens next Friday, they've released two production stills of Radcliffe from the "Woman in Black" shoot.

Based on Susan Hill's novel, "The Woman in Black" is about a young lawyer (Radcliffe) traveling to his deceased client's spooky old house in the countryside to put the man's affairs in order. From there, bad things start to happen to the lawyer, which may be linked to an unknown woman who dresses in black.

[Emma Watson 'Emotional' Over Being a Millionaire]

We don't see that mysterious woman in these shots, but we do see Radcliffe dressed in Victorian garb with a pensive, concerned look on his face. What's difficult with these sorts of on-the-set stills is that we never know how we're supposed to respond. As with this week's Entertainment Weekly photo of the upcoming Muppet movie, we take a gander at these "Woman in Black" shots and either say, "Well, that looks good" or "Well, that looks dumb." Then, we go back to our lives.

[Rewind: Shia LaBeouf Crowned Hollywood's New 'Bang For The Buck' King]

But with Radcliffe sporting a bit of stubble -- and perhaps more importantly, sans Potter glasses -- the filmmakers want to make sure we know that their star is all grown up and leaving Hogwarts behind. Duly noted. But probably nobody's happier about that development than Radcliffe himself, who will surely be anxious to prove he's not just an iconic boy wizard. After all, who would want to associate himself with Halloween Potter-themed public displays like this?

'Harry Potter' star gets new film look

India-US ties indispensable- Obama !!

An embattled US President Barack Obama sought to leave his domestic political woes behind and called on India to forge a new partnership with the United States, announcing that Washington would do its bit to help this by easing export controls across a range of high-tech sectors and offering the big win New Delhi was hoping for from his landmark visit.

Full of high praise for the energy of India's economic growth and the innovation of its entrepreneurs, Obama described the relationship between the two countries as a "defining and indispensable" partnership of the 21st century even as companies from the two countries signed business deals worth $10 billion on the sidelines of his visit.

The 20 deals include GE aircraft engines and gas turbines and Boeing 737s bought by SpiceJet. They are expected to support 54,000 jobs back home in the United States, American officials said. And Obama himself lost no opportunity in pointing out that thousands of jobs would be created for every billion dollar the US exported, an issue that cost his Democratic party badly in mid-term elections last week.

Separately, the White House also announced Obama would support India's membership of four global non-proliferation organisations, a move that is expected to reassure New Delhi—left out of these groups after the 1998 nuclear tests—that Washington is recognising its global clout.

At the same time, the President put the onus on India to play its strong part as well, asking New Delhi to boost the country's infrastructure and lift barriers in sectors such as agriculture, infrastructure, retail and telecommunications, as they made it difficult to do business with India.

He also sought to sidestep his pet criticism of outsourcing and the fear Indian companies held for Americans by saying they were "old stereotypes and old concerns" that ignored the modern reality.

"There are many Americans whose only experience of trade and globalisation is a shuttered factory. Or jobs being shipped overseas. And there still exists a caricature of India as a land of call centres and back offices that cost American jobs. That's a real perception," the President said.

"Here in India, there are many who see the arrival of American companies and products as a threat to shopkeepers and to India's ancient and proud culture.

But these old stereotypes, these old concerns, ignore today's reality."

"In 2010 trade between our countries is not just a one way street of American jobs and companies moving to India. It is a dynamic two-way relationship that is creating jobs, growth and higher living standards in both our countries. And that is the truth."

This, he said, had seen Americans having helped build India and Indians also having helped build America. "Today, your country is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. While there are many amazing success stories and rapidly expanding markets in Asia, the sheer size and pace of India's progress in just two decades is one of the most stunning achievements in human history. This is a fact," Obama said.

"You are now a nation of rapid growth, rising incomes and massive investments in infrastructure, energy and education. In the coming decades, you will be the world's most populous nation with the largest workforce and one of the largest economies in the world. Undoubtedly, that means the United States and India will engage in a healthy competition for markets and jobs and industries of the future. But it also offers the prospect of expanded commercial ties that strongly benefit both countries," he said.

"The United States sees Asia, and especially India, as a market of the future. We don't simply welcome your rise as a nation and a people. We ardently support it. We want to invest in it. And I am here because I believe in our interconnected world, increased commerce between the United States and India can be and will be a win-win proposition for both nations," Obama said to cheers from an audience that included captains of Indian and US industry such as GE chairman Jeffrey Immelt, Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani, PepsiCo chief Indra Nooyi, HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh and Mahindra & Mahindra managing director Anand Mahindra.

But Obama's 20 minute speech was not just all about hosannas for India. He said India and the US had barely scratched the surface of trade between the two countries. Less than 10% of Indian imports were from the United States and less than 2% of US exports were to India. This, he said, was less than US trade with the Netherlands, "a country with a smaller population than the city of Mumbai", which made India only the 12th largest trading partner of the US. "I have no doubt we can do better than that, much better. There is no reason this nation cannot be one of our top trading partners. And that's why we want to work together, with you, to remove the barriers, to increase trade and investment between our nations," Obama said.

Paying tribute to what he called the human spirit of people in Detroit as much as in Dharavi, Obama said he was confident that this spirit of optimism and determination would drive the future. "And that's why am thrilled to be in India and with you today. And that's why I am confident that we can and will forge new economic partnerships and deliver the jobs and broad-based growth our peoples so richly deserve. And I am absolutely sure that the relationship between India and the United States is going to be one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century."

Obama starts India trip with $10 billian biz deals !!

US President Barack Obama today began his 3-day visit to India with a surprise announcement of business deals worth USD 10 billion in aviation, power and other sectors that will create 50,000 jobs in the US, but he made a strong pitch for New Delhi reducing trade barriers.

Seeking to double bilateral trade and create employment in the two nations, he asked why India could not be the US'' top trading partner from the 12th position now.

Making the trip against the backdrop of strong electoral reverses on top of slow economic recovery, evidenced by the high unemployment rate, Obama appeared to strongly bat for American access to Indian market, saying US companies wanted to invest more in India.

In the surprise announcement, Obama said that moments before he arrived several landmark deals were sealed between the US and India, which included Boeing's cargo and commercial aircraft with low-cost airline Spicejet, besides advanced jet engines by General Electric.

He said Boeing was going to sell dozens of planes, while GE would give more than 100 electric engines among more than 20 deals worth USD 10 billion (nearly Rs 44,000 crore) and sealed before his arrival.

He, however, wanted India to cut barriers to both trade and investment in different sectors saying cooperation could not be a one-way street and effort should be made for creation of jobs in both the countries.

"Infrastructure, greater trade barriers and other issues still pose some serious challenges. Today, India is making major investments in its infrastructure and creating greater transparency to support growth and entrepreneurship.

"Going forward that commitment must be matched by a steady reduction in barriers to trade and foreign investments from agriculture to infrastructure, from retail to telecom, because in a global economy new growth and jobs flow to countries that lower barriers to trade and investment," Obama said in his address to the US India Business Council as he began his maiden visit to India.

Committing to enhancing American investment in India, the US President said the two countries had the potential to double bilateral trade in the next five years and such a situation would be a "win-win proposition for both the nations.".