India and the US have signed an agreement on reprocessing of American nuclear spent fuel by India, marking the final steps in terms of implementation of the landmark civil nuclear deal between the two countries.

Upon entry into force, the arrangements and procedures will enable reprocessing by India of the US obligated nuclear material at a new national reprocessing facility to be established by India, dedicated to the reprocessing of safeguarded nuclear material under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.

The agreement in this regard was signed Friday by the US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns and Indian Ambassador to the US Meera Shankar, at the Foggy Bottom headquarters of the State Department.

"This arrangement, negotiated and concluded under President Obama, reflects the Administration's strong commitment to building successfully on the landmark US-India Civil Nuclear Cooperation Initiative and is a prerequisite for US nuclear fuel suppliers to conduct business with India," the State Department said in a statement.

It enables reprocessing by India of US-obligated nuclear material under IAEA safeguards and will facilitate participation by US firms in India's rapidly expanding civil nuclear energy sector.

"With this we have taken another significant step forward in the implementation of our bilateral agreement for cooperation in peaceful uses of nuclear energy," Shankar said in her remarks on the occasion.

The historic bilateral cooperation agreement for peaceful uses of nuclear energy, the 123 Agreement, that the two countries signed two years back provided for reprocessing of US obligated nuclear material in an Indian national facility under IAEA safeguards.

Shankar said India has an ambitious programme for development of civil nuclear energy to meet its growing energy needs.

The target is to increase our installed capacity more than seven fold to 35000 MW by the year 2022, and to 60,000 MW by 2032.

India has already designated two sites for nuclear power plants to be established in cooperation with the US and the companies of the two countries are now engaged in discussions.

The communications watchdog in Australia has given the green light for travellers to use their mobiles during flights.

The new ruling by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) will bring Australia into line with other countries that have allowed fliers to text, check email and use data during flights.

The ACMA consulted the move with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), which has raised no technical objections to the new arrangements.

The Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), which won all 11 seats it contested in the Telangana by-elections, made history with its massive victory margins.

Riding on the popular Telangana sentiment, the party not only retained all 10 seats it won in the 2009 elections but also wrested one from the Telugu Desam Party (TDP).

TRS had not fielded its candidate in Nizamabad Urban where BJP's A. Lakshminarayana once again defeated state Congress chief D. Srinivas.

Its candidates, who won last elections with a few hundreds votes, retained the seats by a bumper majority. The victory margin in most of the constituencies was anywhere between 60,000 to 95,000.

Political pundits say a candidate polling 70 to 85 percent of votes in assembly elections is unprecedented. The TRS performance reminds one of the massive victory of the Telangana Praja Samiti (TPS) in the 1971 Lok Sabha elections.

Fighting on the similar slogan, TPS had bagged 10 out of 14 seats it contested in Telangana. But even the TPS had polled 50 to 65 percent of votes.

The performance of TRS this time has been so strong that the ruling Congress finished a poor second while TDP candidates lost security deposit as they failed to get the minimum of one-sixth of the total votes polled in their respective constituencies.

TRS leader T. Harish Rao registered a record victory with a margin of 95,858 votes in Siddipet, polling 82 percent of votes. His nearest rival of the Congress could get only 12,921. Both Congress and TDP forfeited their deposits.

The second highest margin of victory for TRS was in Huzurabad where its former leader in assembly E. Rajender retained the seat with a majority of 79,227 votes. The margin was 78,047 in Manchiryal constituency.

Since ballot papers were used for Tuesday's polling in five constituencies, the results were announced after Friday midnight.

TRS chief K. Chandrasekhara Rao's son K. Tarakarama Rao, who won last election with a margin of 171 in Sircilla, this time defeated his rival by 67,997 votes.

In Warangal West, D. Vinaybhaskar was re-elected with a majority of 67,809 votes. Former minister and Congress leader Mohammed Ali Shabbir was defeated in Yellareddy by TRS candidate A. Ravinder Reddy by 37,535 votes.

TRS also retained Korutla seat with a victory margin of 56,525 votes.

The Congress could put up some face-saving performance only in Nizamabad where the BJP candidate's victory margin was only 11,981 votes. It also gave a good fight to TRS in Sirpur.

In its worst ever performance, TDP lost security deposits in all constituencies.

The by-elections were necessitated by the resignation of all 10 legislators of the TRS and one each of the BJP and the TDP on the issue of a separate Telangana state in February.

Now TRS again has 11 seats in their hands to resign again in upcoming future for Telangana state!!

The adult industry is tapping on to the iPhone 4's FaceTime video chat feature by offering iPorn- nude models for steamy sex talk with iPhone owners. Apple has tried its best to keep iPhones porn-free by blocking users from downloading adult apps.

"We''ve been working on it since the iPhone 4 was released. We just want to give customers what they want," spokesman for the adult production company, Pink Visual, as saying.

"Users are free to use the phone as they wish. The phones come equipped with Web browsers, too, and Apple cannot stop people from looking at adult sites," he added.

Though terror groups continue to strike in their country, a majority of Pakistanis still consider India as a major threat, view America as an enemy and are far less concerned about Taliban and al-Qaeda.

While Pakistanis express serious concerns about the US, they have also deep worries about neighbour and longtime rival India than extremist groups within Pakistan, according to the prestigious Pew Research Centre opinion poll carried out inside Pakistan.

"When asked which is the greatest threat to their country - India, the Taliban or al-Qaeda - slightly more than half of Pakistanis (53 per cent) choose India, compared with 23 per cent for Taliban and just 3 per cent for al-Qaeda," it said.

However, despite the deep-seated tensions between India and Pakistan, most Pakistanis want better ties with India. Roughly seven-in-ten (72 per cent ) said it is important for relations with India to improve and about three-quarters support increased trade with India and further talks between the two rivals, it said.

"We are, in fact, a partner. I think we're not surprised that people want to see fruits of this partnership; that's exactly what we're trying to do. It goes back to what the Secretary announced in Islamabad last week concrete projects that ¿ on energy, on health, on education that will create tangible results so the people of Pakistan can see it. And when they see it, then we would expect to see those poll numbers prospectively improve," State Department spokesman P J Crowley said.

"I think coming out of the trip last week, we felt a change in tone. But we understand that this is a long-term proposition which we take seriously and feel is vitally important to, over time, demonstrate to the people of Pakistan that the United States is genuinely interested in a different long-term relationship with the country," he said.

"We do think that over time, people will begin to understand and see that there's genuine and mutual respect and benefit for this relationship. And as people are able to see those benefits firsthand, then we would expect to see an improvement in not only the tone, but also the substance of our relationship. But we didn't expect this to change overnight," he said.

India's top shuttler and world number two Sania Nehwal is set to be honoured with the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award. Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna is India’s highest honour given for achievement in sports.

Speaking to a TV news channel on the announcement, Saina's coach, P Gopichand said, "Saina really deserves the award."

Just a week back Saina attained her career's best on the World Badminton Rankings. The 20-year-old Hyderabad girl claimed the second spot in rankings released on Jul 15, only kept away from the numero uno spot by China's Yihan Wang.

The Indian ace has been performing consistantly well. She won the Indonesian Open, Singapore Open and India Open Grand Prix back-to-back subsequently jumping the rankings from her earlier held number six to number three and the latest to world number two.

Saina has expressed happiness over the announcement and has attributed her success to her parents' support. She told CNN-IBN that now her focus would be to claim the top spot on the world rankings.

Tags: Saina Nehwal lists of awards, Saina Nehwal world ranking, Saina Nehwal highest honor,

Mr Nijboer said he developed the new brew to keep up with Scottish outfits that were also pushing the boundaries of beer's alcohol content.

"You don't drink it like beer, but like a cocktail - in a nice whisky or cognac glass." His previous record-holder, a beer called Oblix that was 90 proof (45 per cent alcohol by volume), was eclipsed by a Scottish beer that reached 55 per cent.

That beer, dubbed "The End of History," was announced last week by a small brewery called BrewDog. Only 12 bottles were made, each housed inside a stuffed dead animal and sold starting at £500 pounds each.

Tags: strongest beer in the world, various types of beer available, what is the alcohol quantity in beer,

Record-breaking Sri Lankan spinner Muttiah Muralitharan and retired Indian legend Anil Kumble plan to join hands to set up a spin academy for youngsters, the players were quoted as saying on Thursday.

Muralitharan, who quit Test cricket last week after a final match against India in Galle, said he had first discussed the academy with leg-spinner Kumble two years ago and was now likely to take it up.

"I would like to be a part of it," Muralitharan said. "I am not planning a career in coaching but if Anil starts his academy, I will be happy to go."

Muralitharan is the world's highest wicket-taker in both Tests (800) and one-day internationals (515).

"It is in the pipeline. But it is Anil's call because he is arranging things for setting up the academy in Bangalore," he added.

Kumble quit Test cricket last year with 619 wickets, the third highest after Muralitharan and Australian leg-spinner Shane Warne (708).

"I have been in touch with Muralitharan," said Kumble. "However after his retirement from Tests I have not been able to speak to him. At the moment he must be busy with all the felicitations and he truly deserves it.

"Once he is free and I have time on my hands, we will sit down and chalk out plans in detail," the leg-spinner was quoted as saying by the paper.

Tags: Top spin bowling school india, Spin bowling tips, spin bowling in cricket, how to do spin bowling in cricket, spin bowling coaching, spin bowling grip, spin bowling game, spin bowling deliveries, anil, kumble, academy, kumble anil academy plan

Personal details of 100m Facebook users have been collected and published on the net by a security consultant. Now there are available for download after they were leaked online.

Ron Bowles, an online security consultant, used a code to scan Facebook profiles, collected data not hidden by users’ privacy settings, and compiled a list, which is now available as a downloadable file, containing the URL of every “searchable” Facebook user’s profile, their name and unique ID, the BBC reported Thursday.

Bowles said he published the data to highlight privacy issues, but Facebook retorted by saying the information was already public.

”People who use Facebook own their information and have the right to share only what they want, with whom they want, and when they want,” the website said.

”In this case, information that people have agreed to make public was collected by a single researcher and already exists in Google, Bing, other search engines, as well as on Facebook.”

”No private data is available or has been compromised,” Facebook said.

The list has already been downloaded by over 1,000 people on Pirate Bay, the world’s biggest file-sharing website.

But internet watchdog Privacy International said Facebook had been given ample warning that something like this would happen.

”Facebook should have anticipated this attack and put measures in place to prevent it,” Simon Davies, an official of Privacy International, said.

”It is inconceivable that a firm with hundreds of engineers couldn’t have imagined a trawl of this magnitude and there’s an argument to be heard that Facebook have acted with negligence, he said.

Facebook hit 500 million users in June this year.

The phone, known as the VF 247, is targeted at India's huge rural mobile phone market. The solar powered device would be a boon to many users who face shortage of electricity in the villages of India. They will no longer be required to be near an electrical outlet to charge their phones.

The VF 247's launch comes almost a year after Samsung launched its first Solar powered phone in India the Guru 1107. According to Vodafone,  the VF 247 solar powered phone charges by itself, by exposure to ambient light. Sun Boost, the special inbuilt hardware and software, ensures that the phone charges also in a room, under normal daylight. This means one doesn't require exposure to direct sunlight. Normal ambient light should be enough to power this one. The phone requires eight hours of direct sunlight to be fully charged. Once charged, it will last for more than eight days and offer about four hours of talk time. As for the features, it boasts of an FM radio, color screen and a powerful torch light. More details are yet to be unveiled by Vodafone.

The phone is expected to be priced at around the Rs.1,500 mark and would be available across India starting next month.

Tags: Vodafone, solar, VF 247, ,Consumer Electronics,News, solar mobile, new solar mobile, solar mobile image, vodafone mobiles, First solar mobile in India

These are unseen photos of Sachin Tendulkar. We know sachin in play ground, but most of us are unaware of sachin out side play ground.

Sachin ready for Bungle Jump

Harbhajan Singh , Yuvraj Singh, Nehra, Sachin and Zaheer Khan posing for a ad.

Sachin with his wife Anjali

Sachin busy with charity work with children

Sachin celebrating 37 birthday with his Mumbai Indian Team members

Sachin's Family : Anjali(Wife), Arjun(Son), Sara(Daughter)

Sachin with "Nightingale of India" Lata Mangeshkar

Sachin and his wife in attending Special prayers

At least 20 people were confirmed dead when the Airbus 321, belonging to private airline Airblue, crashed in heavy rain while flying from the southern port city of Karachi. Five survivors were pulled from the wreckage and sent to nearby hospitals, said Imtiaz Elahi, chairman of the state-run Capital Development Authority, a municipal body.

Rescuers said they had to dig through the rubble with their bare hands, with fire and thick smoke hampering their work.The crash site, on a steep and heavily wooded hill, has no roads, limiting access to pedestrians and aircraft. "Dead bodies are lying all around and very few might have survived in the accident," Bin Yameen, a senior police official of Islamabad said. "Bodies are being lifted through helicopters." The plane lost contact with the control room of the Islamabad International Airport at 0443 GMT. It was carrying 146 passengers and six crew members. Bin Yameen said a woman was alive at the scene and crying for help.

"I could hear her cries from the woods. Rescue workers are trying to save her," he told Reuters from the scene of the crash. A thick blanket of cloud and smoke caused by fire could be seen rising from the crash site. A helicopter hovered overhead and flames licked at trees and what appeared to be wreckage from the plane. "We are removing wreckage with our hands. There is fire. There's smoke, which has made the rescue job very difficult," Bin Yameen said.Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani ordered authorities to control the fire immediately and rescue passengers.

Airblue began operations in 2004 with a fleet of Airbus A320 and A321 aircraft, the company said on its website (www.airblue.com). Spokesman Raheel Ahmed said this was the first crash for the airline.

Aviation industry sources in Europe said the aircraft was leased from International Lease Finance Corp, the leasing unit of US insurance giant AIG Los Angeles-based ILFC was not available for comment and there was no immediate confirmation of these details.The A321 is the largest of the A320 family of single-aisle jets produced by EADS subsidiary Airbus. This particular type of aircraft, which can seat up to 185 passengers, has been in service since 1994. Forty-five people were killed when a passenger plane belonging to Pakistan International Airlines crashed near the central city of Multan in 2006.

Healthy 'social connections' - with relatives, friends, neighbours or workmates - can improve our odds of survival by 50 per cent, the study found.

But being a hermit can be as unhealthy as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, being an alcoholic, doing no exercise - and can even be twice as bad for us as being obese.

Professor Julianne Holt-Lunstad, from the Department of Psychology at Brigham Young University, said: "The idea that a lack of social relationships is a risk factor for death is still not widely recognized by health organizations and the public."

"When someone is connected to a group and feels responsibility for other people, that sense of purpose and meaning translates to taking better care of themselves and taking fewer risks."

The Professor also said that modern conveniences and technology have lead some to think that good friendships aren't necessary - but that this was not the case.

He said: "This effect is not isolated to older adults. Relationships provide a level of protection across all ages.

Tags: how to live long life, 

B Ramalinga Raju, the founder of IT giant Satyam and the main accused for the IT fraud case, had applied in the High Court for bail over health reasons.

Raju also had pointed while proceeding his bail application on Tuesday, Jul 27 that all other five accused had been released on bail.

According to the channel, Andhra Pradesh High Court had granted bail to B Rama Raju, former Satyam managing director and brother of the main accused, and four others on Jul 20.

Claiming a Hepatitis-C affliction, Raju did not appeare before the special court constituted for the Satyam case. He had revealed the multi-crore accounting fraud at Satyam on Jan 7, 2009.

The Satyam fraud case hearing of charges against 10 Satyam personnel, accused of tampering accounts of the company, will start on Jul 29.

Analysis of 30 mobile handsets found that seven had high or warning levels of environmental bacteria. One contained such an intense concentration of bacteria, including faecal coliforms, that anyone using it could have faced a serious stomach upset.

Findings suggest millions of mobiles would exceed the recommended acceptable levels of bacteria. While not immediately harmful, elevated levels of bacteria indicate poor hygiene and can act as a breeding ground for more serious germs.

The tests showed how easily bacteria could linger on the surface of a phone, which could be passed on to other people if they held the handset to look at photos or other applications. They advises that phones can be cleaned with an alcohol wipe.

Tags: bacteria mobile phones, health  problems with mobile phone, dangers of mobile phone 

Targeting to check the double digit inflation, RBI hiked its short-term lending and borrowing rates by 0.25 per cent and 0.50 per cent respectively, a move that could put pressure on banks to make auto, home and commercial loans expensive.

As you look at the picture, what comes to your mind? Shock, disbelief, pain, anguish…and eventually you will be left behind with a disturbed mind stifled by numerous thoughts. I’m not denying that some of us will be left with a disdain for the man who captured this image on frame.

“The man adjusting his lens to take just the right frame of her suffering, might just as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene.”



Was Carter doing the right thing while he took that snap? Was he a brilliant photographer?

Nasa's Kepler space probe has found more than just 706 potential new planets — it may also have found five new solar systems.

Buried in the deluge of data sent back by the probe are clear signs that at least five of the 150,000-plus stars it has studied may have two or more planets in orbit around them. Some appear similar to Earth.

Up to 140 of the newly found planets are rocky and Earth-like containing both land and water, conditions which could allow simple lifeforms to develop.

Astronomers are keen to find out how common multi-planet systems are because these are thought most likely to create the stable conditions where earth-like life might have a chance to evolve.

These results emerged from the first six weeks of Kepler's mission. Over the four years of Kepler's mission many more such systems may emerge. The potential extrasolar systems were among 706 candidate planets found in Kepler's first six weeks of operation.

This alone suggests planets are common, although it is not just the number but also size distribution that is important. Nasa has selected 400 of Kepler's finds to follow up using ground-based instruments and Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes. The results are due by February

"The next step after Kepler will be to study the atmospheres of the planets and see if we can find any signs of life," said Dimitar Sasselov, professor of astronomy at Harvard University who is a member of the Kepler science team.

Tags: Are there any planets similar to earth, what are the planets similar to earth, NASA research on earth like planets

India has long been known for its Culture, Heritage, Diversity.. But oflate it has been highly influenced by the Western Culture.. and ours is vanishing..!!

People prefer Lenin to Khakhi..
Hip hop to Classical/carnatic..
Late night Parties..
Pubbing..etc

Guys in the West dont get me wrong..!!

India has to become a modernised version and so an extract is taken and i am No exception..!!

But this question has been lingering in my mind for a long time.. Is India Losing its Culture/Heritage/Values..??
So, do you Agree with me..?? or what do you say..??
This is open to all..!! 

Tags: India losing it's unique identity, Indian culture, India heritage culture

With more and more studios releasing films in 3D our fad towards this technology has been ignited exponentially. To play with this technology, now you can watch and share your videos on YouTube in 3D with this simple trick.

Just follow these simple steps to give your pre-uploaded videos on YouTube a 3D touch :-

    1 Sign in to your YouTube account and then navigate to My Videos for the list of all the videos uploaded by you.
    2 Pick a video you wish to give 3D effect and click on edit video.
    3 Now add “yt3d:enable=true” without the quotes in the tag field.
    4 Voila, next time when you will stream this video on YouTube you will see an option to play the video is 3D in the seek bar. Now all you need is a 3D  pair of glasses to sit back and enjoy.

The limitation of the above trick is that you can bring the effect only on the videos uploaded by you and not to any other public videos.

To see list of all the videos on YouTube having 3D effect Click Here

Not just the anti-collision devices, there seems to be a problem with the complete safety system of the Indian railways. Every time there is an accident, questions are being raised on the role of the driver. But Railway ministry figures reveal that human error has accounted for half of the train accidents in last 10 years and the railways have done precious little to reduce this over dependence on human judgement.

Tags: Indian Railways, train journey, safety, train accident, travel by train, indian railway issues, travel at your own risk

Samsung's flagship android phone the Galaxy S has been making waves over the past few weeks worldwide without doubt. Boasting of amazing specs and an equally gorgeous display, the device was every Android users' dream come true.

That said, there is always the obvious question. What next? How can Samsung better an already great device? Well, the answer might be in the form of the Galaxy Q - a new product that Samsung is apparently prepping.  But we have our doubts if the Galaxy Q can be considered an "upgrade" to the Galaxy S. Read on to find out why.




The Galaxy Q is believed to be a smaller version of the Galaxy S with a QWERTY keyboard. The device would be powered by the same 1GHz Hummingbird CPU and would pack in 16GB of memory. Most features would be similar to that of the Galaxy S. However, there are exceptions. The camera, a major disappointment for some in case of the Galaxy S (Thanks to the lack of flash) seems to have been rectified. The Galaxy Q would ship with an 8 megapixel camera and LED flash. If that wasnt all, the front camera too has been upgraded from a VGA one on the Galaxy S to a 1.3 megapixel one. The Galaxy Q is certainly not an upgrade to the Galaxy S (as mentioned earlier) - but more of an addition to Samsungs Galaxy portfolio.

Tags: Samsung Galaxy Q, new Samsung mobiles, new mobile models, cheap and best Samsung mobiles, best Samsung models

Flooding in central China feels the strength of the world's largest dam - Three Gorges. It is reported that it now to the limit - resets 70,000 cubic meters of water per second. This is a record. However, the water level every hour only grows. The consequences, according to the engineers, can be disastrous, especially considering that the flooding in the area have already left homeless tens of thousands of people and caused material damage to millions of yuan. Evacuate had about a million people.

World Largest Dams : Click on the image for larger view

Seamstresses in Peru decided to get to the Guinness World Record for the largest pair of jeans ever. The pair of jeans measures 141 feet tall and 98 feet wide and weighs in at 7.5 tons. The current record is held by the city of Medellin in Columbia. That pair was 114 feet tall and 82 feet wide. It sounds like they are just waiting for their record setting jeans to be accepted by Guinness. There wasn’t a Guinness representative present, but a notary who can send documentation to the group was. The pants will be recycled as backpacks for school children.