RAKESH

Kolkata Knight Riders’ skipper Sourav Ganguly reacted after reports said Shah Rukh Khan was allegedly unhappy with the skipper over the composition of the team. ( Watch )

“It’s not true and I have nothing more to say,” said Kolkata skipper Sourav Ganguly.

Earlier, Sourav Ganguly spoke to Times Now and said, “I have seen the reports and I will clarify his stand in the controversy later.” Refusing to comment on the issue and not denying any such reports could hint at a possible rift between the two. However, owner Shah Rukh Khan has not reacted to reports over possible rift between the two.

Has the peace in the Kolkata Knight Riders’ camp been shattered? Are ‘Dada’ Sourav Ganguly and ‘Badshah’ Shah Rukh Khan not getting along with each other anymore? Yes, say insiders. The two power centres in the Kolkata team are not seeing eye to eye on many issues. The problem apparently started with the entertainment tax that Shah Rukh Khan is paying for the matches being played at the Eden Gardens.

The Bollywood star wanted Ganguly to speak to West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and try and get it abolished. The Kolkata captain, who is known to be close to the CM, has refused to oblige, at least till now.

Interestingly, it is learnt that Eden Gardens is the only stadium where an IPL team is paying entertainment tax. That is not all though. The bigger bone of contention is KKR’s sudden dip in form and its poor performance in the last few games, harming their semifinal chances. Shah Rukh, sources say, is not too happy with this change of fortunes although he hasn’t expressed his feelings openly. Ganguly, on the other hand, has not been too pleased with the team composition right from the beginning. The differences surfaced during the auction itself, with Sourav wanting more batsmen while the team management was more keen on bowlers.

The problems magnified when coach John Buchanan was given more powers than the captain himself. To add fuel to the fire, Shah Rukh announced that the coach will take all the decisions for the team next year onwards, upsetting Ganguly in the bargain.

Ganguly has apparently already begun showing his discontent: he preferred to go back home after the last match rather than stay back for a press conference to annouce Knight Riders’ tie-up with a website. Said an insider, who was present at the event, “Shah Rukh did pass some caustic remarks saying, ‘I thank all my teammates for being at the press conference but who can forget Dada who is missing from the event’.”

The duo also had a spat when Khan was keen that his team fielded first in the last game against Chennai; Ganguly, however, preferred to bat first. Eventually, the Knight Riders lost by 3 runs on Duckworth-Lewis following a rain interruption.

Koito Manufacturing Co, the maker of headlamps for Lexus-brand cars, is designing lights specifically for ultra-low cost cars as it tries to win more business from India’s Tata Motors and Nissan Motor Co.

“Koito the world’s biggest maker of headlamps, is in the final stages of creating a simpler light that uses half as many parts as its more expensive models,” said President Masahiro Ohtake in an interview with Bloomberg Television. Koito and other auto parts makers are reengineering products to supply cars that will cost almost half as much as Suzuki Motor Corp.’s Maruti 800, the cheapest car currently on the Indian market.

Tata Motors will sell its $2,500 Nano later this year while Nissan plans to produce a car with the same price by 2011 for India and other emerging markets. “Koito has no choice but to push into this low-cost market as all the carmakers get into the business,” said Kunihiro Matsumoto, a senior analyst at UBS Securities Japan Ltd. in Tokyo.

“Costs won’t bump up with Koito using existing technology and cheaper labor.” The company now supplies lights for Tata’s trucks. “A low-cost car requires a headlamp design all its own,” Ohtake said.

Cars at about $3,000 are “something that is being talked about on a global level and will become a big business.” Koito is 20% owned by Toyota Motor Corp. Koito gained 4.4% to 1,414 yen at the close of trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Tata unveiled the Nano in January and will begin selling the model later this year.

The company may export the car after three years, Ratan Tata, the automaker’s chairman, said in January. Nissan, France’s Renault SA and India’s Bajaj Auto said they will build a $2,500 car in India to go on sale in 2011.

 Petroleum Ministry is seeking a Rs 10 per litre increase in petrol and Rs 5 a litre hike in diesel prices along with cut in customs and excise duties to offset the impact of surge in crude oil prices that have touched 135 dollars per barrel.

“The situation is getting to be alarming. We need to stem the rot in the beginning,” Petroleum Secretary M S Srinivasan told reporters after a stock-taking meeting with the heads of oil PSUs.

Srinivasan however, said the cabinet scheduled for Friday will not consider raising fuel prices as the subject needed some more preparation and a note would be moved to the authorities in a day or two.

“We expect a decision in 3-4 days time”, he said, adding the Ministry was suggesting a combination of price hike and duty cut to lower the projected Rs 2,00,000 crore under-realisation on sale of petrol, diesel, LPG and kerosene.

“The price hike is inevitable,” he said but refused to say what quantum of hike the ministry was seeking.

Srinivasan said the Ministry was seeking a lowering of customs duty on crude from 5 per cent to zero and import duty on petrol and diesel from 7.5 per cent to 2.5 per cent. Besides, the Ministry was also seeking cut on excise duty on the two products.

Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said he had discussed the situation with the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday evening and will raise the issue again on Friday during the Cabinet meeting.

“We are trying to see that some action is taken immediately,” Deora said.

What’s the biggest hazard for the future? Global warming? Oil shortages?

A small, but growing number of people think that a looming shortage of drinking water constitutes a much larger crisis. Water consumption is doubling every twenty years, but the supply isn’t growing at the same rate, according to Kevin McGovern, chairman of venture firm McGovern Capital, quoting U.N. statistics.

“We have a crisis,” he said at the Foresight Nanotechnology Conference taking place in Burlingame, Calif. this week.

Many of the world’s health problems are already apparent. “About half of the world’s hospital beds in the world are occupied by people with water borne diseases,” he said. Three billion people in the world don’t have easy access to a toilet and thousands of kids die a day from water-related complications.

McGovern, of course, is not just a disinterested observer. As a nanotech investor, he is putting money into water purification ideas. One company, KX Industries, will soon show off a filtration system that can eliminate both dangerous chemicals and viruses. Better yet, the replaceable filter element will only cost a dollar or so, so people in India will be able to buy it.

Another company, Argonide, meanwhile, has come out with water filters made with electropositive alumina fibers. “The nano alumina particles act like a dirt magnet,” said president Fred Tepper. The filters also get rid of viruses.

MUMBAI: The mystery surrounding the selection process that the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) follow has been revealed for the batch of 2008. The 3.2 lakh students who will take the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) on Sunday can now have a fair idea of how their scores will be evaluated, something which has always been an IIT ‘trade secret’.

IIT-Roorkee, which is holding this year’s exam, and IIT-Bombay, which held the JEE last year, have told TOI how the ranks are given.

Clearly, a couple of marks here and there won’t get you past the IIT gates, but if you are among the students scoring in the top 80% of all three subjects-mathematics, physics or chemistry-you are in line for a JEE rank and have taken the first step towards admission.

The procedure to be followed will first eliminate the worst 20% of the candidates in each subject. With every wrong answer attracting negative marks, the lowest scores can be even below zero in the JEE.

After these students are eliminated, the IITs are left with three sets of students-the top performers in each of the three subjects. “Once we have the sets of the top performers in maths, physics and chemistry, we take those who have done the best in all three subjects and eliminate the others. This, however, is only Stage One,” said N Venkataramani, JEE chairman at IIT-Bombay.

This process was followed last year by IIT-Bombay and IIT-Roorkee has said it will stick to the same procedure for Sunday’s exam. All these students receive a rank from the IIT. For instance, last year around 1.42 lakh students were shortlisted in the first stage.

In the second stage, the aggregate marks of the students in all three subjects are considered and approximately 6,000 students-the actual number will be based on the seats available-will be selected for getting into the IITs.

For over a decade, the IITs used a statistical method to draw up the merit list. Scores in each subject were plotted on a graph and the curve looked like a bell, with average scores in the centre and exceptionally good and very low scores at the right and left ends respectively.

The IITs would then pick all the students on the extreme right of the bell and, depending on the seats available, decide a total cut-off mark after shortlisting the top 84% of the students in each subject. This process was discontinued from last year. The IITs, say sources, plan to review their short-listing process next year too.

Indian pacer Praveen Kumar has been accused of beating up a doctor in Meerut on Thursday night, according to reports by a private news channel.

The UP paceman landed up in police custody after a drunken brawl with the doctor. The doctor claimed that Praveen also abused him and was drunk at the time of the incident.

According to the reports, Praveen’s action might lead to stringent measures from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Praveen might be charged under clause 3 of misdemeanour by the BCCI.

Currently, Praveen Kumar is playing for the Indian Premier League (IPL) team Bangalore Royal Challengers.

In an irony of sorts, while the female foeticide has become a major cause for concern with a declining male-female ratio, there is a “great demand” to adopt girls. The woman and child development ministry treats the sex ratio, particularly in the 0-6 age group, as the basis to determine female foeticide. From 962 in 1981 to 945 in 1991, the 0-6 age group sex ratio is further down to 928 now at the national level with states like Punjab (793), Haryana (820), Madhya Pradesh (931), Delhi (865) and Rajasthan (909) faring poorly.

“It is a serious crisis of disappearing daughters in states like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and the traditionally notorious Haryana and Punjab. Even in south Delhi, inhabited by the most affluent sections, the problem is alarming while the dubious trend is catching up in north-eastern states,” Union minister of state for women and child development, Ms Renuka Chowdhary, observed. She even referred to Andhra Pradesh but the state minister for women and child welfare, Ms Nedurumalli Rajya Lakshmi, was quick to retort that sustained efforts by the state government have yielded positive results.

In fact, the current sex ratio in Hyderabad district is 1,014 girls for 1,000 boys in the 0-6 age group — up from 933 earlier, Ms Rajya Lakshmi revealed. A crackdown on pre-natal diagnostic centres helped arrest the dangerous trend of abortion of the girl child. At present, the state average is 978 girls for 1,000 boys in the 0-6 age group. A joint secretary in the women and child development department pointed out that about 70 to 80 per cent of children adopted in the country were girls. “In 2007 as many as 2,405 children were adopted and 2,409 in 2006. More than 70 per cent of the adopted children were girls,” the official said.

Kurnool students have bagged six of the top 10 places in the SSC public examinations this year. In the res-ults announced on Thursday, Gangula Charvitha, of Keshav Reddy English Medium High School, Nandyal, Kurnool, took the first rank with 591 marks out of 600. The second spot went to T. Ritesh Chandra of Sri Lamxi English Medium High School, Kurnool, who scored 587 marks.

In third spot was A. Vandana of Kakatiya High School, Nizamabad, with 586 marks, followed by Pyreddy Mary Arpitha of Keshav Reddy Talent School, Kurnool (586). In fifth was Masood Meena, who scored 586 marks, of Keshav Reddy Talent School, Kurnool, and in sixth was Garikapati Vrandha (585) of Bhashyam High School, SR Nagar, Hyderabad. Vinnakota Venkataratna Ushaswini (584) of Keshav Reddy Talent school, Kurnool, took the seventh rank and Adi Reddy Muralidhar Reddy (583) Keshav Reddy high school, Kurnool, placed eighth. M. Shravani (583) of Kakatiya High School, Nizamabad, and Ch Surya Kumar (582) of SSS Vidh English Medium School, Kadiam, East Godavari, rounded of the top ten for the examinations held in March.

A pass percentage of 75.47 was recorded in the examinations this year. A total of 7,22,137 successful candidates saw the pass percentage go up by 3.82 per cent from last year. As in the recent past, girls fared better than boys, even if only marginally this year, with an overall pass percentage of 75.84. The pass percentage for boys is 75.14 per cent. Of the 9,56,887 students who appeared as regular candidates for SSC exams, 3,78,129 boys and 3,44,008 girls passed the exams. As many as 4,55,660 candidates secured first class, while 1,80,314 candidates second class and 86,163 candidates third class.

The districts at the top and the bottom on the results chart are both in Telangana. Nizamabad led with a pass percentage of 89.01 per cent, while Adilabad recorded a poor 58.67 per cent. There were 3,08,566 private candidates, out of which 78,776 boys and 52,129 girls passed. In the special SSC test conducted for 892 candidates who missed the exams in March due to various reasons, 107 boys and 81 girls passed.

This year, 1,453 schools secured 100 per cent results, a significant increase from the 1,118 schools last year. Only eight schools had a zero per cent success rate, with none of the students passing, from the 24 schools of last year. “The advanced supplementary exams for candidates who failed would be held from June 11 to June 24 between 9.30 am and 12 noon. The due date for remittance of exam fee is June 5,” said Mr Damodara Rajanarasimha, minister for school education, who released the SSC results.

He said marksheets will be given to all candidates within 10 days to facilitate admission into first year Intermediate courses. “The nominal rolls of failed candidates will be dispatched to the concerned schools by June 25. The candidates failed in Special SSC exams are also eligible to write advanced supplementary exam,” the minister said. Candidates who want to get their answer papers re-evaluated should submit a DD (Rs 150 per subject) from SBH/SBI in favour of Secretary to the Commissioner for Government Examinations, AP, with the re-evaluation application from May 17 to June 6.

Police has found striking similarities between the improvised explosive devices used in the Jaipur serial blasts and the ones used in the twin blasts on August 25, 2007, in Hyderabad. Intelligence agencies said this indicated that terrorists who triggered the Jaipur and Hyderabad blasts learned their deadly tricks in the same camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Bangladesh and from the same trainers. Sources in the intelligence department told this correspondent that contrary to initial reports, RDX was not used in the Jaipur blasts.

Forensic tests revealed that only ammonium nitrate gel (also known as Neogel) was used in them. The same material was used for the twin blasts in the city. Neogel is freely available in local markets. “About 1.5 kg of Neogel with metal ball bearings was put in boat-shaped wooden cases in Jaipur and Hyderabad,” said the source. “In both cases, timers were used. The similarities in the signatures of the bombs are shocking.”

On August 25, 2007, two IEDs exploded at Lumbini Park Laserium and Gokul Chat Bhandar in the city while one unexploded bomb was recovered from Malakpet and defused. The Special Investigation Team and Counter Intelligence teams of the Hyderabad police reached Jaipur on Thursday to investigate the links between the two incidents. While two bombs were used in Hyderabad, eight bombs were used at six places in Jaipur while one bomb was defused.

“Our information is that the terror couriers behind both blasts got trained in the same camps in PoK and Bangladesh and this explains the similarities in the operations,” said the source. Bangladesh-based Harkat-Ul-Jehad-e-Islami (HuJI) is suspected to be behind both the blasts. “There are similarities in the bombs used in Jaipur and Hyderabad blasts,” said the city police commissioner, Mr B. Prasada Rao. “There are also slight differences.”

He added that city and Jaipur police were sharing information on the blasts. The special secretary (internal security) in the union ministry of home affairs, Mr M.L. Kumawat, an AP cadre IPS officer, is coordinating the probe into the Jaipur-Hyderabad blasts link from the Centre.

INDIA IS NOT POOR COUNTRY…..LOTS OF BLACK MONEY IS THERE IN INDIA.,,,

Dishonest industrialists, scandalous politicians and corrupt officers have deposited in their illegal personal accounts the huge sum of about US$ 1000 Billion which have been misappropriated by them creating scandals and by corruption. This amount is about 13 times larger than foreign debt. This amount is such a big amount that from it 45 crores of poor people can get Rs. 100000/- each. This huge amount has been collected really from the people of India by exploiting the people of India and by betraying people of India. So really this entire amount belongs to the people of India. So all such property kept in to Foreign Banks must be declared as National property and it should be brought back in India. And for keeping such property in foreign banks illegally, all dishonest industrialists and merchants, scandalous politicians and corrupt officers must be punished at least for 10 years imprisonment to capital punishment. The function of delcaring such property lying in to foreign banks illegally as the national property can be done in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha only by making law. Government will not do this such law until there is heavy pressure on the Government from every corner of the country to make such law because those who have collected such illegal money and kept into foreign banks are themselves sitting in the parliament and in the Government. However, any autocrate Government has to yield to the heavy pressure of public opinion. Azadi Bachao Andolan is actively endeavouring to create such heavy pressure of public opinion to make such law. Once general public can understand the necessity of such law the best opportunity to create heavy pressure on Government is always at the time of elections.

People should declare not to vote for any candidate who does not promise in writing to make such law if elected in the parliament. If atmosphere is created every political party and every candidate of every political party will have to promise to make such law. Once all the candidates committed to make such law are elected in the parliament, such law to bring back all foreign money by delcaring national property will become a reality.

Once such law is enacted and passed by the parliament, all such property kept illegally in foreign banks as personal and private property will become national property. As per the rules of foreign banks, they can not keep national property. They can keep only personal property. As soon as such illegal personal properties are declared as national properties, the foreign banks have no other way except to return it to the Government of India.

Once this huge amount of black illegal money and property comes back to India, entire foreign debt can be repaid immediately in 24 hours only. After paying entire foreign debt, we will have surplus amount almost 12 times larger than the foreign debts. If this surplus amount is invested in earning interest, the amount of interest will be more than the annual budget of the Central Government. So even though all the taxes are totally abolished, then also Central Government will be able to maintain their extravagant expenses and huge wasteges of money as being done since last 50 years.

But we do not want to continue the extravagant expenses and huge wasteges of the Government. We want to stop it. The above argument is just to give the idea how huge amount our dishonest leaders, politicians, cricketers, film makers, administrators and rich persons have looted our country and to what extent they have accumulated the wealth. In fact, due to such a huge malpractice and exploitation, our 45 crores of people are dying of starvation. In fact, all these wealth belongs to such poor people from whom the wealth has gone to dishonest upper class of the society i.e. politicians, bureaucrats, cricketers, film makers etc. So legally and morally, both the ways, this entire wealth belongs to the people of India and so it is a national property. So to get it back from foreign countries, foreign banks strong movement is essential.