NASA releases picture of Mercury's surface

WASHINGTON: NASA on Tuesday released the first picture taken of Mercury's surface by the US space agency's orbiting Messenger craft.

"Early this morning, at 5:20 am EDT (0920 GMT), Messenger captured this historic image of Mercury," NASA said.

"This image is the first ever obtained from a spacecraft in orbit about the solar system's innermost planet."

The spacecraft snapped 363 images over the next six hours, and more were expected to be released Wednesday in conjunction with an expert press conference to discuss the findings.

The upper part of the image shows an unusual, dark-rayed crater called Debussy, while the lower part reveals a portion of Mercury near its south pole that has never before been witnessed by spacecraft, NASA said.

NASA's Messenger craft -- which stands for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging -- became the first vehicle to orbit Mercury on March 17.

Messenger was launched more than six years ago, traveling through the inner solar system and embarking on flybys of Earth, Venus and Mercury.

The first NASA craft to study Mercury since the Mariner mission more than three decades ago, Messenger has already been able to return a partial map of the planet's crater-filled surface after just a handful of flybys.

WC costs 1.06 Crores(Highest) only in Chennai

CHENNAI: When the World Cup euphoria is over, and the Board of Cricket Control in India sits down to square away the accounts, they will have to set aside Rs 1.60 crore to Chennai police. That's the bill for all the anti-aircraft guns, crouching commandos, and hovering choppers deployed by the city police during Chennai matches. "We have prepared the bills to be sent to BCCI," a police officer said.

Following the terror threat, city police prepared a detailed bandobust scheme to give extensive security for the players during the matches. The players were escorted to the hotel from Chenani airport by armed policemen in a tourist bus. The security at the hotel was also tight. One whole floor was cordoned off by the police where the players were stayed. Players had the cautious eyes of cops watching over them even during net practice.

City police arrived at the figure of Rs 1.6 crore based on the number of policemen deployed inside and outside the stadium for player security. This included armed policemen escorting the players from the hotel to the stadium, as well as those who provided security in the hotel.

For the Indian Premier League (IPL) matches conducted in MAC Stadium in 2010, city police had collected Rs 1.06 crore from IPL office bearers. "This is routine for the city police. For the world cup, we will collect the money from BCCI," city police commissioner T Rajendran told TOI.

Five international cricket matches including the India - West Indies match was held in the MAC Stadium, apart from a practice match held prior to the world cup, which started on March 19, 2011. During the India - West Indies match, city police roped in coast guard and defence personnel for security. The defence personnel were armed with anti-aircraft guns and placed inside the stadium premises. "The sharp shooters were there to quickly bring down suspicious aircraft flying above," a police officer said.

Philippines detects radiation from Japan

MANILA (AFP) - Small amounts of radiation from Japan's damaged nuclear plant have been detected in the Philippines, the government said Tuesday, while emphasising the traces posed no danger to humans.

"We have detected the isotopes, but we would like to ask the public not to panic," Tina Cerbolis, a spokeswoman for the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute, told AFP.

"These are very tiny amounts in the air."

The institute released an advisory notice Tuesday saying the radiation was from Japan's nuclear power plant at Fukushima, which has been leaking since being damaged by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

"Environment radiation monitoring around the world, including (in) the Philippines has detected very tiny amounts of radioactive isotopes, which appeared to be coming from the Fukushima nuclear power plant and which pose no human health hazards," the advisory said.

China and South Korea, which are nearer to Japan, also reported on Tuesday that small amounts of radioactive iodine-131 had been detected in their territories, while similarly warning they were not harmful to humans.

The nearest major Philippine coastline to the stricken plant is about 2,500 kilometres (1,500 miles) to its southwest, with the Philippine capital Manila around 500 kilometres further.

Highly toxic plutonium is Seeping out from Japan's Nuclear Plants

OSAKA: Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Tuesday said his government is in a "state of maximum alert" over the crisis at the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, Jiji Press reported.

Kan told a lower house budget committee meeting that the situation "continues to be unpredictable" and that the government "will tackle the problem while in a state of maximum alert," Jiji reported.

Radiation worries have disrupted efforts to restart the cooling system of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which was battered by a huge earthquake and tsunami on March 11 that left more than 28,000 people dead or missing.

Highly toxic plutonium is seeping from the damaged nuclear power plant in Japan's tsunami disaster zone into the soil outside, officials said Tuesday, further complicating the delicate operation to stabilize the overheated facility.

Plutonium has been detected in small amounts at several spots outside the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant for the first time, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said. Safety officials said the amounts were not a risk to humans but support suspicions that dangerously radioactive water is leaking from damaged nuclear fuel rods — a worrying development in the race to bring the power plant under control.

``The situation is very grave,'' Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters Tuesday. ``We are doing our utmost efforts to contain the damage.'' A tsunami spawned by a magnitude-9.0 earthquake March 11 destroyed the power systems needed to cool the nuclear fuel rods in the complex, 140 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo. Since then, three of the complex's six reactors are believed to have partially melted down, and emergency crews have grappled with everything from malfunctioning pumps to dangerous spikes in radiation that have sent workers fleeing.

Radiation seeping from the plant has made its way into produce, raw milk and even tap water as far away as Tokyo, prompting some nations to halt imports from the region. Residents within a 12-mile (20-kilometer) radius of the plant have been urged to leave or stay indoors. The troubles have eclipsed Pennsylvania's 1979 crisis at Three Mile Island, when a partial meltdown raised fears of widespread radiation release. But it is still well short of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, which killed at least 31 people with radiation sickness, raised long-term cancer rates and spewed radiation across much of the northern hemisphere.

A series of missteps and accidents, meanwhile, have raised questions about the handling of the disaster, with the government revealing growing frustration with TEPCO. The Yomiuri daily newspaper reported that the government was considering temporarily nationalizing the troubled nuclear plant operator, but Edano and TEPCO officials denied holding any such discussions.

The nuclear crisis has complicated the government's ability to address the humanitarian situation facing hundreds of thousands left homeless by the twin disasters. The official number of dead surpassed 11,000 on Tuesday, police said, and the final figure is expected to top 18,000.

The urgent mission to stabilize the Fukushima plant has been fraught with setbacks. Workers succeeded last week in reconnecting some parts of the plant to the power grid. But as they pumped water into units to cool the reactors down, they discovered pools of contaminated water in numerous spots, including the basements of several buildings and in tunnels outside them. The contaminated water has been emitting radiation exposures more than four times the amount the government considers safe for workers and must be pumped out before electricity can be restored to the cooling system. That has left officials struggling with two crucial but sometimes-contradictory efforts: pumping in water to keep the fuel rods cool and pumping out — and then safely storing — contaminated water.

Nuclear safety official Hidehiko Nishiyama called it ``delicate work.'' He acknowledged that cooling the reactors took precedence over concerns about leakage. ``The removal of the contaminated water is the most urgent task now, and hopefully we can adjust the amount of cooling water going in,'' he said, adding that workers were building makeshift dikes with sandbags to keep contaminated water from seeping into the soil outside.

The discovery of plutonium, released from fuel rods only when temperatures are extremely high, confirms the severity of the damage, Nishiyama said. Of the five soil samples showing plutonium, two appeared to be coming from leaking reactors while the rest were likely the result of years of nuclear tests that left trace amounts of plutonium in many places around the world, TEPCO said.

Plutonium is a heavy element that doesn't readily combine with other elements, so it is less likely to spread than some of the lighter, more volatile radioactive materials detected around the site, such as the radioactive forms of cesium and iodine. ``The relative toxicity of plutonium is much higher than that of iodine or cesium but the chance of people getting a dose of it is much lower,'' says Robert Henkin, professor emeritus of radiology at Loyola University's Stritch School of Medicine.

``Plutonium just sits there and is a nasty actor.'' When plutonium decays, it emits what is known as an alpha particle, a relatively big particle that carries a lot of energy. When an alpha particle hits body tissue, it can damage the DNA of a cell and lead to a cancer-causing mutation. Plutonium also breaks down very slowly, so it remains dangerously radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years.

``If you inhale it, it's there and it stays there forever,'' said Alan Lockwood, a professor of Neurology and Nuclear Medicine at the University at Buffalo and a member of the board of directors of Physicians for Social Responsibility, an advocacy group.

New bat for Sachin

MOHALI: Sachin Tendulkar is known to prepare assiduously before any match. He never leaves anything to chance and covers all bases before getting into the thick of the battle. Now that India are just two wins away from one of his most cherished goals - the World Cup crown - the batting maestro must be preparing even harder.

On Sunday, one got a sneak peak into his plans for the semifinal against Pakistan, and possibly the final on April 2, when he brought to the ground a fresh supply of bats. Tendulkar is very fastidious about his willows and wants them to be in perfect shape so that he can heap maximum damage on the bowlers.

The gleaming new bats needed some breaking up so he, after doing a few knock-downs himself, asked the yoga trainer Manoj Kumar to give them some hits.

Thus, while Tendulkar played football with teammates, Kumar kept hitting balls with the bats for close to an hour.

Tendulkar came back to continue the routine himself before Suresh Raina and Virat Kohli also got a taste of the master's new weapons of mass destruction.

Will Tendulkar be employing one of these new bats in the semifinal against Pakistan? We will know shortly. Maybe, his 100th international century (he is just one short) will come through a brand new bat.

Few companies declared tomorrow as Holiday due to Indo-Pak Semi's

NEW DELHI: Work will take a backseat at India Inc when the cricketing world's arch-rivals India and Pakistan face-off in the World Cup semi-final at Mohali on Wednesday.

While some companies are considering half- or full-day leave for employees on the day of the match, others have installed TV screens across office premises or made arrangements for special screening of the match to ensure employees get the pulse of the cricketing ties between the two nations that have fought three wars since independence.

FMCG company Dabur India is weighing an "off" on Wednesday. "The only constraint is that it is yearend closing, so work pressure is quite high at the moment," said Dabur India executive director A Sudhakar.

The company had declared a holiday on the day of the T20 final between India and Pakistan in 2007.

Food and beverages major PepsiCo India may allow half-day leave for employees if it doesn't impact the organisation's functioning, said Samik Basu, vice-president (HR) and chief people officer for India Region.

Some firms are also looking into work-from-home facility for that day. "If employees want to work from home or leave early to be able to watch the match, we are open to that," said Ashish Kumar, chief HR officer at multiplex chain operator PVR Ltd , which is screening the match at some of its multiplexes. The firm is also considering an exclusive screening for its employees.

Employees of the Future Group's Big Bazaar, the country's largest hypermarket retail chain, will be free to watch the match on large screens installed in stores, said its president, Rajan Malhotra.

"The idea is to let employees enjoy the match while at work, because they tend to take leave during such crucial matches," said S Varadarajan, executive vice-president (HR) at BPO firm Quatrro.

The company has in-house contests surrounding the World Cup to give employees a sense of involvement in the sporting event. Salil Kapoor, COO of the country's largest DTH service company Dish TV, said, "We would have special screening of the match in high definition feed for our employees in office and have also tied up with some pubs and clubs with special discounts for our employees."

Tsunami warning again in Japan

OSAKA, Japan: A shallow 6.5 magnitude earthquake hit off the northeast coast of Japan on Monday, the US Geological Survey said.

The Japan Meteorological Agency issued a 50-centimetre (18 inch) tsunami warning for the Pacific coast of Miyagi prefecture, which was devastated by the huge earthquake and tsunami that hit on March 11.

Indo-pak Match tickets in Black

NEW DELHI: When all eyes are on the India-Pakistan semifinal clash, cricket fans at Mohali complain about the unavailability of tickets at the counters on Sunday.

The fans are angry and allege that the tickets are now being sold at a high price in the black market.

However, there have been numerous reports of a thriving black market in tickets with prices rocketing so that a 5,000-rupee ticket was being sold for as much as 25,000 rupees.

"For a match as big as this one, we cannot do anything about black market tickets," said PCA joint secretary GS Walia.

"As far as we are concerned, we only gave the tickets to those who stood in the queues and bought them. We cannot keep track if they sell these in (the) black (market)."

Salary hike for Wipro Employees

BANGALORE: IT major Wipro said that it has completed some organisational changes it had planned and has assured employees of its IT business salary hikes across the board.

"The operating plan for the businesses has been completed. Continuing our design principle on having a single axis, we took advice from an external strategy consulting firm to finalise how to goal service lines and business units. This is now ready and will be shared with the leadership teams by next week," TK Kurien, the new CEO, said.

"A cross-functional team is working on the data review and structure finalisation to migrate all our data to the new organisation structure by middle of April," he added.

He also said that he would update the employees on the timing for salary increase process for the IT business by the first week of April.

In a bid to catch up with peers and improve its topline growth which has been lagging peers, the company had announced during its third quarter results that it will align itself to create a "bolder, simpler and leaner" organisation.

Wipro discarded its joint CEO model and appointed Kurien as the sole CEO earlier this year.

A Short interview with the Living Legend Warren Buffett

BANGALORE: On the second day of his India trip on Wednesday, Warren Buffett was a busy man, having a brief chat with the Karnataka CM before a factory visit to the only Buffett investment in India, TaeguTec India, a high-end tooling company. After pounding the shop floor, addressing employees and planting a sapling, it was time for a meeting with city CEOs. Before leaving for Delhi, the 'Sage of Omaha' spoke exclusively to TOI. Excerpts.

Q. We noticed that when you were planting the tree, there was a different Warren Buffett, different from the persona of an investor or a philanthropist. You seemed to open up in a different way.

A. Well, I like to think that I open up even otherwise (laughs). But part of life is to plant trees that other people will sit under. Somebody planted a tree for me long ago in the form of an educational institution and I sat under that tree, metaphorically. The same happened in one area after another in my life.

Q. The chairman of Infosys, Narayana Murthy, talks of compassionate capitalism. Is philanthropy going to be the compassionate side of capitalism?

A. I think philanthropy should be part of humanity. I don't relate it to capitalism or to business. When you have everything that you possibly could need yourself and other people need what you have that is of no use to you and has enormous use to them, I think you need to do something about it.

Q. Philanthropy till now largely has been an individual effort. As it becomes bigger, it might become an institutional effort with its own systems, processes, checks and balances. Will it take away from the spontaneity of the individual effort that it is today?

A. No, I don't think so. What we are encouraging is more individual effort. We are not asking people to join us or to give to what we believe in. We are encouraging people to enjoy giving and do it their own way. They can do it when they want, with whom they want. Maybe they can learn from each other. I have learnt from other people I have met. It's not designed to centralize anything. It's designed to encourage people individually and in their families to do the things we found so enjoyable.

Q. In India, the greatest potential is in the infrastructure sector. Would you be looking at gas, power, steel, utilities in general for investment? You did say on Tuesday that you would look at making one big investment a year in India.

A. I would like to make a big one, but it will have to be in a field that I understand. A company in which I have a good feeling about where it will be in 5/10 years, competitively.

Q. From what we have read, gut instinct plays a large role in your investment decisions. Many investors like to kick the tiles, go to the shop floor to see if an investment makes sense. Are you that kind of an investor?

A. No, I look at the people who run it. I would not know what to do if tomorrow morning you make me in charge of a plant (laughs). But I do know who should be in charge of it.

Q. Your only investment in India so far is in Bangalore-based TaeguTec. Would you future investments here be in such specialist, high-end manufacturing companies?

A. These kind of companies will do very well. But there are a whole group of companies that will do well in India. So, I will not limit my interest to something like this.

All 6 reactors at Fukushima reconnected to power lines

TOKYO/FUKUSHIMA: Japanese workers struggling to avert a nuclear disaster on Tuesday succeeded in reconnecting all six reactors to power lines at the quake-hit Fukushima plant, marking a significant progress in the tedious task of bringing the radiation-leaking complex under control.

The development came as the tsunami-hit northeast was again jolted by a series of powerful quakes, including two measuring 6.6 on the Richter Scale.

In a major relief in their efforts, engineers working overtime at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant reconnected all six reactors to external power, the plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company said on Tuesday, according to Kyodo news agency.

The progress was made despite the efforts to restore power and cool down spent nuclear fuel pools being hampered by the detection of smoke at the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors.

However, TEPCO cautioned that a lot of work still needed to be done before electricity can actually be turned on at the plant.

The company said workers are checking all additional equipment for damage to make sure cooling systems can be safely operated.

Authorities earlier sought the help of the US military in tackling the "extremely tough" situation at the plant, close to which highly concentrated radioactivity was detected in iodine and cesium in seawater, sparking fears about food safety.

TEPCO said the seawater pollution in the region had expanded, but the country's nuclear safety agency said there were no immediate health threats.

The amount of radioactive iodine reached 80.3-fold of the standard level at the point 8 km south of the plant and 16.4-fold at the point 16 km south, Kyodo news agency reported.

The Fukushima prefectural government denied the possibility that seafood from the area was distributed to markets saying fishing had not been conducted near the nuclear plant, where emergency workers battled to avert a widespread disaster by trying to reconnect power lines and cool overheating reactors.

The critical restoration work at the plant was stalled on Monday after smoke rose from No. 2 and No. 3 reactors, fuelling fears of fresh radiation leaks from the area rocked by the March 11 quake of magnitude 9 and devastating tsunami that left over 22,000 people dead or unaccounted for in Japan's northeast.

Firefighters and the self-defense forces (SDF) on Tuesday also managed to throw in 18 tons of seawater into the nearly boiling storage pool that is holding spent nuclear fuel. The move succeeded in cooling the pool to 50 degrees Celsius, according to TEPCO.

The pool was throwing up steam possibly carrying radioactive elements into the air.

Tata Power to build India's first floating solar plant

MUMBAI: Tata Power on Tuesday said it will be building the country's first low-cost, high-efficiency floating solar plant in partnership with an Australian company which invented the technology.

Sunengy, the Australian company, and Tata Power will begin constructing a pilot plant that uses the Liquid Solar Array (LSA) technology from August this year, a press release issued here said.

LSA uses traditional concentrated photovoltaic technology but rather than mounting the cells on a frame, it is made to float on water, making it low-cost, cyclone-proof and less tedious as it does not involve any land acquisition, it added.

"It effectively turns a dam into a very large battery, offering free solar storage and opportunity for improved water resource management," the inventor of the technology and Sunengy's Executive Director aInd Chief Technology Officer, Phil Connor, said.

Tata Power's Executive Director, Banmali Agrawala, confirmed the tie-up for the "nascent technology" and said this is a part of the company's effort to invest in clean and eco-friendly technologies.

Rumors about Dr.Abdul Kalam's Death

NEW DELHI: Abdul Kalam, Abdul Kalam death, Abdul Kalam passed way and other similar key words were among the top 20 searches on Google Trends India on Tuesday after a false rumour that the former president had passed away.

Kalam was also one of the top Twitter trends, which made its way to other social networking services.

It was A P J Abdul Kalam's advisor, Dr Hafiz Saleh Muhammad Alladin, who died on Monday night at the age of 80. It seems that some people mistook the news for the former president's death.

Russia, China call for immediate ceasefire in Libya

BEIJING/MOSCOW: China and Russia have called for an immediate ceasefire in Libya expressing concern over civilian casualties in the military strikes by allied forces in areas controlled by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

"China noticed reports of civilian casualties from the multinational military action against Libya and is very concerned with this," Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a news briefing.

"We urge (the sides) to do everything to end the violence," Russia defence minister Anatoly Serdyukov told visiting US Defence Secretary Robert Gates after closed-door talks with him. He added that Moscow believed Libyan civilians had been killed in the Western air strikes.

Both the countries, along with India, Brazil, and South Africa, abstained from last week's UN Security Council vote approving international military involvement in Libya, which aims to protect civilians against Muammar Gaddafi's forces.

China is opposed to "abuse of force causing more civilian casualties".

According to reports from Libya at least 64 Libyans had been killed and 150 others wounded by the missiles and bombs fired by the foreign forces over the weekend.

The majority of Libya's civil airports and seaports were destroyed.

"The UN resolution on no-fly zone over Libya aimed to protect civilians. We oppose abuse of force causing more civilian casualties and more serious humanitarian disasters," said Jiang.

I-T dept issues Rs 616.53cr tax notice to Mahindra Satyam, freezes bank accounts

HYDERABAD: In a fresh twist to the Satyam scam, the Income Tax department on Tuesday froze the bank accounts of Mahindra Satyam after the latter failed to pay a tax of Rs 616.53 crore.

The department issued notice to Mahindra Satyam, the new brand identity of Satyam Computer Services Ltd, to pay Rs 616.53 crore in taxes, the company said in a stock exchange filing on Tuesday.

This demand for was raised on the basis of the income declared by the company during disgraced former chief Ramalinga Raju's time. The department refused to buy the line that Satyam had fictitious income and insisted it was real income.

Mahindra Satyam has now moved the Andhra Pradesh high court for a stay.

The company said the Central Board of Direct Taxes, under Section 119 of the Income Tax Act, 1961, rejected various petitions filed by the company seeking reliefs for reopening of past assessments for the Assessment Years 2003-04 to 2008-09; determining the actual income based on the findings of investigating agencies; and granting a stay on recovery proceedings for the said assessment years.

"Notice under Section 226(3) has been issued by the Additional Commissioner of Income Tax, Hyderabad, for recovery of Rs 616,53,92,660. The company filed a writ petition before the Hon'ble High Court of Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad, challenging the said impugned order and seeking stay of further proceedings," the company said in a statement.

Shares of Satyam were being quoted at Rs 66.45 on the BSE in early trade on Tuesday.

7 Biggest tech MNCs in India

1. GE
2. Nokia
3. Vodafone Essar
4. HP
5. Samsung
6. LG
7. IBM

(Source: Times Of India)

Doc who did Sadhick Batcha autopsy resigns

CHENNAI: Dr V Dekal, the forensic surgeon who conducted the postmortem on the body of Sadhick Batcha on Friday, has resigned from government service.

Sadhick Batcha, 39, a close aide of former telecom minister A Raja and a person the CBI considered a vital link in the 2G spectrum money trail, was found hanging at his Chennai residence last Thursday. ( Read: Sadiq Batcha was under pressure to turn approver, claims friend )

Dr Dekal, who heads the department of forensic sciences at the Madras Medical College, said he put in his papers on March 3, more than a fortnight before Batcha's suicide, to contest the Tamil Nadu assembly
elections.

"I am yet to make up my mind since the relieving order is yet to come. If it comes soon, I may contest as an independent," he said. Dr Dekal's father was a DMK member.

Dr Dekal had said that asphyxiation was the cause of Batcha's death, but did not elaborate on the details since he was awaiting results of laboratory tests on Batcha's visceral organs.

The immediate police reaction to the suicide had raised several,questions last Thursday. Though Batcha was declared 'brought dead' to Apollo Hospitals, Chennai at 1.20pm, the postmortem was not carried
out the same day.

The police said the process could not be initiated as by the time Batcha's wife came to sign the papers, it was too late. The body was taken to the Government Royapettah Hospital which does not have a forensic expert, and one had to be brought from the Madras Medical College the next day for the autopsy.

Six terrorists had slipped into Mumbai to strike during World Cup

MUMBAI: At a time when the intelligence agencies have warned the Maharashtra police about 17 tickets being bought by possible terror suspects for theWorld Cup final, the city cops are struggling to locate the six terror suspects who had reportedly sneaked into Mumbai in the last six months.

The World Cup final will be played at Wankhede stadium in Mumbai on April 2. Police sources say the plot is a joint operation between the Lashkar-e-Taiba(LeT) and the Jamaat-e-Ahle-Sunnat. Someone linked to this collaboration between the LeT and the Barelvi group has bought 17 tickets for the final, the sources said.

The search into locating the six terrorists has not yielded any result so far with the police saying they are clueless. The terrorists belong to the Bangladesh-based banned outfit, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami ( HuJI) and Pakistan's outlawed outfit, LeT. The city crime branch on September 11 issued sketches of two terror suspects-Kalimuddin Khan alias Rameshwar Pandit and Hafeez Sharif-both bomb makers. On December 23, 2010 the then crime branch chief Himanshu Roy released four new names. While Roy said four terrorists of the LeT have sneaked into the city, he released one mugshot of a terrorist, Waleed Jinnah. "There is specific information that LeT members, identified as Abdul Karim Moosa, Noor Elahi, Jinnah and Mahfooz Alam, have entered the city to cause major destruction and violence," Roy had said.

A senior police official said, "We are working on some intelligence alerts and trying to locate the terrorists. We are working closely with other agencies and coordinating with them." In September 2010, when additional commissioner of police (crime branch) Deven Bharati sent letters to his units, he wrote that the terrorists Kalimuddin Khan alias Rameshwar Pandit and Hafeez Sharif were last seen in Lalbaug, home to one of the city's most celebrated Ganpati pandals. However, the intelligence agencies, say policemen, lost track of them two terrorists after tracking their movements for close to a week from the point of their entry into India through the Bangladeshborder. 

IPL 4 schedule revised due to assembly elections

NEW DELHI: The Indian Premier League organisers were on Thursday forced to tweak the event's schedule this year because of the upcoming assembly elections in five states of the country.

The league organisers, in a statement, said they have made some changes in the 2011 IPL original schedule taking into account the assembly elections in the states of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Kerala and Puducherry.

Keeping in mind the revised schedule, the organisers have also extended the deadline for media accreditation and said new forms will soon be made available.

"The revised media accreditation form will be sent out to the media soon. The media persons who have already applied for accreditation, will be contacted separately by IPL's accreditation team," IPL chairman Chirayu Amin said in the statement.

"The deadline for submission has been extended by two days - 6:00 pm on Friday, 25 March 2011," it added.

Revised IPL 4 schedule:

April 8: 8pm - Chennai Super Kings vs Kolkata Knight Riders in Chennai.

April 9: 4pm - Deccan Chargers vs Rajasthan Royals in Hyderabad. 8pm - Kochi Tuskers Kerala vs Royal Challengers Bangalore in Kochi.

April 10: 4pm - Delhi Daredevils vs Mumbai Indians in Delhi. 8pm - Pune Warriors vs Kings XI Punjab in Navi Mumbai.

April 11: 8pm - Kolkata Knight Riders vs Deccan Chargers in Kolkata.

April 12: 4pm - Rajasthan Royals vs Delhi Daredevils in Jaipur. 8pm - Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Mumbai Indians in Bangalore.

April 13: 4pm - Kings XI Punjab vs Chennai Super Kings in Mohali. 8pm - Pune Warriors vs Kochi Tuskers Kerala in Navi Mumbai.

April 14: 8pm - Deccan Chargers vs Royal Challengers Bangalore in Hyderabad.

April 15: 4pm - Rajasthan Royals vs Kolkata Knight Riders in Jaipur. 8pm - Mumbai Indians vs Kochi Tuskers Kerala in Mumbai.

April 16: 4pm - Chennai Super Kings vs Royal Challengers Bangalore in Chennai. 8pm - Deccan Chargers vs Kings XI Punjab in Hyderabad.

April 17: 4pm - Pune Warriors vs Delhi Daredevils in Navi Mumbai. 8pm - Kolkata Knight Riders vs Rajasthan Royals in Kolkata.

April 18: 8pm - Kochi Tuskers Kerala vs Chennai Super Kings in Kochi.

April 19: 4pm - Delhi Daredevils vs Deccan Chargers in Delhi. 8pm - Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Rajasthan Royals in Bangalore.

April 20: 4pm - Mumbai Indians vs Pune Warriors in Mumbai. 8pm - Kolkata Knight Riders vs Kochi Tuskers Kerala in Kolkata.

April 21: 8pm - Kings XI Punjab vs Rajasthan Royals in Mohali.

April 22: 4pm - Kolkata Knight Riders vs Royal Challengers Bangalore in Kolkata. 8pm - Mumbai Indians vs Chennai Super Kings in Mumbai.

April 23: 8pm - Delhi Daredevils vs Kings XI Punjab in Delhi.

April 24: 4pm - Deccan Chargers vs Mumbai Indians in Hyderabad. 8pm - Rajasthan Royals vs Kochi Tuskers Kerala in Jaipur.

April 25: 8pm - Chennai Super Kings vs Pune Warriors in Chennai.

April 26: 8pm - Delhi Daredevils vs Royal Challengers Bangalore in Delhi.

April 27: 4pm - Pune Warriors vs Chennai Super Kings in Navi Mumbai. 8pm - Kochi Tuskers Kerala vs Deccan Chargers in Kochi.

April 28: 8pm - Delhi Daredevils vs Kolkata Knight Riders in Delhi.

April 29: 4pm - Rajasthan Royals vs Mumbai Indians in Jaipur. 8pm - Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Pune Warriors in Bangalore.

April 30: 4pm - Kochi Tuskers Kerala vs Delhi Daredevils in Kochi. 8pm - Kolkata Knight Riders vs Kings XI Punjab in Kolkata.

May 1: 4pm - Rajasthan Royals vs Pune Warriors in Jaipur. 8pm - Chennai Super Kings vs Deccan Chargers in Chennai.

May 2: 4pm - Mumbai Indians vs Kings XI Punjab in Mumbai. 8pm - Delhi Daredevils vs Kochi Tuskers Kerala in Delhi.

May 3: 8pm - Deccan Chargers vs Kolkata Knight Riders in Hyderabad.

May 4: 4pm - Chennai Super Kings vs Rajasthan Royals in Chennai. 8pm - Pune Warriors vs Mumbai Indians in Navi Mumbai.

May 5: 4pm - Kochi Tuskers Kerala vs Kolkata Knight Riders in Kochi. 8pm - Deccan Chargers vs Delhi Daredevils in Hyderabad.

May 6: 8pm - Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Kings XI Punjab in Bangalore.

May 7: 4pm - Kolkata Knight Riders vs Chennai Super Kings in Kolkata. 8pm - Mumbai Indians vs Delhi Daredevils in Mumbai.

May 8: 4pm - Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Kochi Tuskers Kerala in Bangalore. 8pm - Kings XI Punjab vs Pune Warriors in Mohali.

May 9: 8pm - Rajasthan Royals vs Chennai Super Kings in Jaipur.

May 10: 4pm - Deccan Chargers vs Pune Warriors in Hyderabad. 8pm - Kings XI Punjab vs Mumbai Indians in Mohali.

May 11: 8pm - Rajasthan Royals vs Royal Challengers Bangalore in Jaipur.

May 12: 8pm - Chennai Super Kings vs Delhi Daredevils in Chennai.

May 13: 8pm - Kochi Tuskers Kerala vs Kings XI Punjab in Indore.

May 14: 4pm - Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Kolkata Knight Riders in Bangalore. 8pm - Mumbai Indians vs Deccan Chargers in Mumbai.

May 15: 4pm - Kings XI Punjab vs Delhi Daredevils in Dharamsala. 8pm - Kochi Tuskers Kerala vs Rajasthan Royals in Indore.

May 16: 8pm - Pune Warriors vs Deccan Chargers in Navi Mumbai.

May 17: 8pm - Kings XI Punjab vs Royal Challengers Bangalore in Dharamsala.

May 18: 8pm - Chennai Super Kings vs Kochi Tuskers Kerala in Chennai.

May 19: 8pm - Pune Warriors vs Kolkata Knight Riders in Navi Mumbai.

May 20: 8pm - Mumbai Indians vs Rajasthan Royals in Mumbai.

May 21: 4pm - Kings XI Punjab vs Deccan Chargers in Dharamsala. 8pm - Delhi Daredevils vs Pune Warriors in Delhi.

May 22: 4pm - Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Chennai Super Kings in Bangalore. 8pm - Kolkata Knight Riders vs Mumbai Indians in Kolkata.

May 24: 8pm - Qualifier 1: First Placed Team vs Second Placed Team in Mumbai.

May 25: 8pm - Eliminator: Third Placed Team vs Fourth Placed Team in Mumbai.

May 27: 8pm - Qualifier 2: Winner of Eliminator vs Loser of Qualifier 1 in Chennai.

May 28: 8pm - Final: Winner of Qualifier 1 vs Winner of Qualifier 2 in Chennai.

Australia or Sri Lanka? Team India in catch-22 situation

NEW DELHI: Pakistan and South Africa's convincing wins over Australia and Bangladesh respectively have put India in a catch-22 situation ahead of their last league game against West Indies.

Simply put, a win over the Windies on Sunday will take India to the second spot in Group B, leaving them with the daunting task of having to face Australia in their quarterfinal match in Ahmedabad on March 24, a situation they would like to avoid.

If they lose on Sunday, they will have to face Sri Lanka instead. Which one will be an easier opponent in their quest for a semifinal slot? The Indians would probably have been happier meeting either New Zealand or Pakistan at home.

If India beat WI, they finish second and so face Australia who are third in Group A. If WI beat India for the second spot, they will face Group A runners-up Sri Lanka. West Indies also face a similar dilemma: Who will be easier quarterfinal opponents, Pakistan or Sri Lanka?

Sania-Vesnina win Indian Wells final

NEW DELHI: India's Sania Mirza and Elena Vesnina of Russia beat Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Meghann Shaughnessy of the US to win the Indian Wells WTA event on Saturday.

The Indo-Russian pair beat the American combine 6-0, 7-5 to win the $4.5-million event.

Sania and Vesnina had blasted past Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia and Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland 6-0, 6-4 in the semifinals late on Thursday.

How to save your phone's battery

BERLIN: Today's smartphones have a multiplicity of applications and functions running in the background, many of them unnoticed by the user.

That is, until they drain the phone's battery dry. At first, it's not so easy to tell why one's new top-level smartphone gives up the ghost after only two hours. But the fact of the matter is that, being online all the time has its price and some modern applications really do eat up battery time.

But, it doesn't take much to let the good times roll again. A few simple tricks can turn a smartphone back into a marathon runner. Indeed, there are a few apps out there to help extend a phone's life.

Screen illumination, satellite navigation systems like GPS (satnav) and data transfers via UMTS are among the most energy- intensive functions out there, says mobile expert and freelance author Daniel Lueders.

Thus, one easy way to conserve battery life is to change screen illumination settings to the lowest level, something done simply enough with most phones.

But that leaves accessing websites via UMTS and navigation programmes like Google Maps to eat up your battery life. One tip is to make sure that navigation software is turned off as soon as a destination's coordinates are found. Otherwise, the mapping software can continue to run in the background, leaving a smartphone drained after two hours, says Lueders.

If you're willing to only use a phone for calls, even if only for a short time, then deactivate your UMTS function. The same goes for wireless functions. "Otherwise the gadget is permanently looking for accessible networks," says Lutz Labs, an editor at German technology magazine c't.

Many smartphones that use the Android operating system include a page on their settings menu that shows which applications use the most energy. When underway, a good idea is just to switch to airplane mode, which turns off the satnav system, says Lueders. That's especially true when travelling on a stretch with a lot of tunnels, since the smartphone will burn up a lot of energy looking for a provider.

"You can quickly double or triple your battery life with these kinds of steps." Labs demonstrated how radically a smartphone's power consumption can vary. In airplane mode, a Motorola Milestone used 6.4 milliwatts. But, when uploading data via UMTS and taking a video, power consumption shot up to 3 watts - meaning power usage went up by a factor of 500.

Even a five-minute activation of the display can cut standby time in airplane mode by up to six hours. It also happens that smartphones sometimes give up the ghost after only a few hours when taken abroad. Most of the time, this is because the smartphone is looking for its usual provider in vain, says Lueders.

That problem is solved by turning off the automatic search function and setting up a connection manually. Another idea is to turn off the automatic downloading of emails and manually direct the smartphone to download them, also saving energy.

There is also a host of new, smaller apps designed to help save energy. The free app Juice Defender provides Android phones with automatic settings designed to extend battery life, says Labs. The software determines if one is home or in the office and then activates functions based upon one's location, turning off unneeded ones.

Two survivors found nine days after Japan quake

TOKYO: An 80-year-old woman and 16-year-old youth were found alive on Sunday under the rubble in the Japanese city of Ishinomaki in northeast Japan, nine days after the region was devastated by a massive earthquake and tsunami, NHK public TV said.

NHK quoted police in Miyagi prefecture as saying the two had responded to a call from a police rescue team. They were weak but conscious.

On Saturday, Kyodo news agency and the military reported the "miracle rescue" of a young man pulled from the rubble of his home, only to find out that he had been in an evacuation centre beforehand and just returned to his home.

Western warplanes, missiles hit Libyan targets

TRIPOLI: Western forces hit targets along the Libyan coast on Saturday, using strikes from air and sea to force Muammar Gaddafi's troops to cease fire and end attacks on civilians.

Libyan state television said 48 people had been killed and 150 wounded in the allied air strikes. It also said there had been a fresh wave of strikes on Tripoli early on Sunday.

There was no way to independently verify the claims. French planes fired the first shots in what is the biggest international military intervention in the Arab world since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, destroying tanks and armoured vehicles in the region of the rebels' eastern stronghold, Benghazi.

Hours later, US and British warships and submarines launched 110 Tomahawk missiles against air defences around the capital Tripoli and the western city of Misrata, which has been besieged by Gaddafi's forces, US military officials said.

They said US forces and planes were working with Britain, France, Canada and Italy in operation "Odyssey Dawn".

Gaddafi called it "colonial, crusader" aggression. "It is now necessary to open the stores and arm all the masses with all types of weapons to defend the independence, unity and honour of Libya," he said in an audio message broadcast on state television hours after the strikes began.

China and Russia, which abstained in the U.N. Security Council vote last week endorsing intervention, expressed regret at the military action. China's Foreign Ministry said it hoped the conflict would not lead to a greater loss of civilian life.

Explosions and heavy anti-aircraft fire rattled Tripoli in the early hours of Sunday. The shooting was followed by defiant shouts of "Allahu Akbar" that echoed around the city centre.

Libyan state television showed footage from an unidentified hospital of what it called victims of the "colonial enemy". Ten bodies were wrapped up in white and blue bed sheets, and several people were wounded, one of them badly, the television said.

Tripoli residents said they had heard an explosion near the eastern Tajoura district, while in Misrata they said strikes had targeted an airbase used by Gaddafi's forces.

A Reuters witness in the eastern rebel stronghold of Benghazi reported loud explosions and anti-aircraft fire, but it was unclear which side was shooting.

The intervention, after weeks of diplomatic wrangling, was welcomed in Benghazi with a mix of apprehension and relief.

"We think this will end Gaddafi's rule. Libyans will never forget France's stand with them. If it weren't for them, then Benghazi would have been overrun tonight," said Iyad Ali, 37.

"We salute France, Britain, the United States and the Arab countries for standing with Libya. But we think Gaddafi will take out his anger on civilians. So the West has to hit him hard," said civil servant Khalid al-Ghurfaly, 38.

GADDAFI SEEN LOSING GRIP ON LIBYA

The air strikes, launched from a flotilla of some 25 coalition ships, including three US submarines, in the Mediterranean, followed a meeting in Paris of Western and Arab leaders backing the intervention.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said participants had agreed to use "all necessary means, especially military" to enforce the Security Council resolution calling for an end to attacks on civilians.

"Colonel Gaddafi has made this happen," British Prime Minister David Cameron told reporters after the meeting. "We cannot allow the slaughter of civilians to continue."

Some analysts have questioned the strategy for the military intervention, fearing Western forces might be sucked into a long civil war despite a US insistence -- repeated on Saturday -- that it has no plans to send ground troops into Libya.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper suggested that outside powers hoped their intervention would be enough to turn the tide against Gaddafi and allow Libyans to force him out.

"It is our belief that if Mr. Gaddafi loses the capacity to enforce his will through vastly superior armed forces, he simply will not be able to sustain his grip on the country."

But analysts have questioned what Western powers will do if the Libyan leader digs in, especially since they do not believe they would be satisfied with a de facto partition which left rebels in the east and Gaddafi running a rump state in the west.

One participant at the Paris meeting said Clinton and others had stressed Libya should not be split in two. And on Friday, Obama specifically called on Gaddafi's forces to pull back from the western cities of Zawiyah and Misrata as well from the east.

"It's going to be far less straightforward if Gaddafi starts to move troops into the cities which is what he has been trying to do for the past 24 hours," said Marko Papic at the STRATFOR global intelligence group.

"Once he does that it becomes a little bit more of an urban combat environment and at that point it's going to be difficult to use air power from 15,000 feet to neutralize that."

The Libyan government has blamed rebels, who it says belong to al Qaeda, for breaking a ceasefire it announced on Friday.

In Tripoli, several thousand people gathered at the Bab al-Aziziyah palace, Gaddafi's compound bombed by US warplanes in 1986, to show their support.

"There are 5,000 tribesmen that are preparing to come here to fight with our leader. They better not try to attack our country," said farmer Mahmoud el-Mansouri.

"We will open up Libya's deserts and allow Africans to flood to Europe to blow themselves up as suicide bombers."

US SAYS NOT LEADING INTERVENTION

France and Britain have taken a lead role in pushing for international intervention in Libya and the United States -- after embarking on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- has been at pains to stress it is supporting, not leading, the operation.

In announcing the missile strikes, which came eight years to the day after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, Obama said the effort was intended to protect the Libyan people.

"Today I authorised the armed forces of the United States to begin a limited action in Libya in support of an international effort to protect Libyan civilians," Obama told reporters in Brasilia, where he had begun a five-day tour of Latin America.

He said US troops were acting in support of allies, who would lead the enforcement of a no-fly zone to stop Gaddafi's attacks on rebels. "As I said yesterday, we will not, I repeat, we will not deploy any US troops on the ground," Obama said.

But despite Washington's determination to stress its limited role, Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, director of the US military's Joint Staff, said the strikes were only a first phase.

Earlier on Saturday, hundreds of cars full of refugees fled Benghazi towards the Egyptian border after the city came under a bombardment overnight. One family of 13 women from a grandmother to small children, rested at a roadside hotel.

"I'm here because when the bombing started last night my children were vomiting from fear," said one of them, a doctor. "All I want to do is get my family to a safe place and then get back to Benghazi to help. My husband is still there."

Those who remained set up make-shift barricades on main streets, each manned by half a dozen rebels.

In the besieged western city of Misrata, residents said government forces shelled the rebel town again early on Saturday, while water supplies had been cut off for a third day.

WC 2011 Final Stage Match - India Hopes His Words

"Being human beings we are always supposed to commit mistakes. Hopefully, the interval between the two will be longer."

                                                   M.S. Dhoni (Indian Skipper)

Japan continues nuclear struggle, fixes key power cable

TOKYO: Exhausted engineers attached a power cable to the outside of Japan's tsunami-crippled nuclear plant on Saturday in a desperate attempt to get water pumps going that would cool down overheated fuel rods and prevent the deadly spread of radiation.

Hopes were dashed of miracle survivors when it turned out that a story was wrong that a young man had being pulled alive from the rubble eight days after the quake and tsunami ripped through northeast Japan, triggering the nuclear crisis.


(Read: Japan mulls Chernobyl-like burial) 

It said he had been in an evacuation centre and had just returned to his ruined home, where he lay down in a blanket.

Beleaguered Prime Minister Naoto Kan sounded out the opposition, which only hours before the quake struck had been trying to oust him from office, about establishing a government of national unity to deal with a crisis that has shattered Japan and sent a shock through global financial markets, with major economies joining forces to calm the Japanese yen.

It has also stirred unhappy memories of Japan's past nuclear nightmare -- the US atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Japan is the only country to have been hit by an atomic bomb.

Further cabling was under way before an attempt to restart water pumps needed to cool overheated nuclear fuel rods at the six-reactor Fukushima plant in northeastern Japan, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.

Officials expect to have power from outside drawn to No. 2 reactor first. Then they will test the pump and systems to see if they can be started.

Working inside a 20 km (12 miles) evacuation zone at Fukushima, nearly 300 engineers got a second diesel generator attached to No. 6 working just after 4am, the nuclear safety agency said. They then used that power to restart cooling pumps on No. 5. Reactor No. 6 is drawing power from a second diesel generator.

"TEPCO has connected the external transmission line with the receiving point of the plant and confirmed that electricity can be supplied," the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, said in a statement. Another 1,480 metres (5,000 feet) of cable are being laid before engineers try to crank up the coolers at reactor No.2, followed by numbers 1, 3 and 4 this weekend, company officials said.

"If they are successful in getting the cooling infrastructure up and running, that will be a significant step forward in establishing stability," said Eric Moore, a nuclear power expert at US-based FocalPoint Consulting Group.

If that fails, one option under consideration is to bury the sprawling 40-year-old plant in sand and concrete to prevent a catastrophic radiation release.

That method was used to seal huge leakages from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, the world's worst nuclear reactor disaster.

Underlining authorities' desperation, fire trucks sprayed water overnight in a crude tactic to cool reactor No.3, considered the most critical because of its use of mixed oxides, or mox, containing both uranium and highly toxic plutonium.

"I humbly apologise to the public for causing such trouble. Although it was due to natural disaster, I am extremely regretful," the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper quoted TEPCO CEO Masataka Shimizu as saying in a statement.

Japan has raised the severity rating of the nuclear crisis to level 5 from 4 on the seven-level INES international scale, putting it on a par with the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, although some experts say it is more serious.

Chernobyl, in Ukraine, was a 7 on that scale.

Humanitarian effort 

The operation to avert large-scale radiation has overshadowed the humanitarian aftermath of the 9.0-magnitude quake and 10-metre (33-foot) tsunami that struck on March 11.

Nearly 7,000 people have been confirmed killed in the double natural disaster, which turned whole towns into waterlogged and debris-shrouded wastelands.

Another 10,700 people are missing with many feared dead. Some 390,000 people, including many among Japan's ageing population, are homeless and battling near-freezing temperatures in shelters in northeastern coastal areas.

Food, water, medicine and heating fuel are in short supply and a Worm Moon, when the full moon is at its closest to Earth, may bring floods to devastated areas where the geography has changed.

"Everything is gone, including money," said Tsukasa Sato, a 74-year-old barber with a heart condition, as he warmed his hands in front of a stove at a shelter for the homeless.

Health officials and the U.N. atomic watchdog have said radiation levels in the capital Tokyo were not harmful. But the city has seen an exodus of tourists, expatriates and many Japanese, who fear a blast of radioactive material.

"I'm leaving because my parents are terrified. I personally think this will turn out to be the biggest paper tiger the world has ever seen," said Luke Ridley, 23, from London as he sat at Narita international airport using his laptop.

All Japanese prefectures have begun radiation monitoring. The highest reading outside Fukushima came from Mito to the south. That was 1,726 microsieverts per annum. By comparison, the global average from natural sources is 2,400.

Officials asked people in the 20 km "take cover" zone to follow some directives when going outside: Drive, don't walk. Wear a mask. Wear long sleeves. Don't go out in the rain.

Though there has been alarm around the world, experts have been warning there is little risk of radiation at dangerous levels spreading to other nations.

The U.S. government said "minuscule" amounts of radiation were detected in California consistent with a release from Japan's damaged facility, but there were no levels of concern.

Amid their distress, Japanese were proud of the 279 nuclear plant workers toiling in the wreckage, wearing masks, goggles and protective suits sealed by duct tape.

"My eyes well with tears at the thought of the work they are doing," Kazuya Aoki, a safety official at Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, told Reuters.

G7 intervention for yen 

The Group of Seven rich nations succeeded in calming global financial markets in rare concerted intervention to restrain a soaring yen.

The dollar surged to 81.98 yen on Friday after the G7 moved to pour billions into markets buying dollars, euros and pounds -- the first such joint intervention since the group came to the aid of the newly launched euro in 2000.

The dollar later dropped back to under 81 yen, but it was still far from the record low of 76.25 yen hit on Thursday.

"The only type of intervention that actually works is coordinated intervention, and it shows the solidarity of all central banks in terms of the severity of the situation in Japan," said Kathy Lien, director of currency research at GFT in New York.

Japan's Nikkei share index ended up 2.7 percent, recouping some of the week's stinging losses. It lost 10.2 percent for the week, wiping $350 billion off market capitalisation.

The plight of the homeless worsened following a cold snap that brought heavy snow to the worst-affected areas.

Nearly 290,000 households in the north were still without electricity, officials said, and the government said about 940,000 households lacked running water.

Aid groups say most victims are getting help, but there are pockets of acute suffering.

"We've seen children suffering with the cold, and lacking really basic items like food and clean water," Stephen McDonald of Save the Children said in a statement.

Radiation Plumes to reach California Today

AUnited Nations forecast of the possible movement of the radioactive plume coming from crippled Japanese reactors shows it churning across the Pacific, and touching the Aleutian Islands on Thursday before hitting Southern California late on Friday.

Health and nuclear experts emphasize that radiation in the plume will be diluted as it travels and, at worst, would have extremely minor health consequences in the United States, even if hints of it are ultimately detectable. In a similar way, radiation from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 spread around the globe and reached the West Coast of the United States in 10 days, its levels measurable but minuscule.

The projection, by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization , an arm of the UN in Vienna, gives no information about actual radiation levels but only shows how a radioactive plume would probably move and disperse. The forecast, calculated Tuesday, is based on patterns of Pacific winds at that time and the predicted path is likely to change as weather patterns shift.

The forecast shows radioactive plume will probably miss the agency's monitoring stations at Midway and in Hawaiian Islands but is likely to be detected in the Aleutians and at a monitoring station in Sacramento . The forecast assumes radioactivity in Japan is released continuously and forms a rising plume. It ends with the plume heading into Southern California and American Southwest, including Nevada, Utah and Arizona. The plume would have continued eastward if scientists had run the projection forward.

I didn't authorise anyone to purchase votes: PM Manmohan

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singhtoday appeared to raise doubts over the veracity of diplomatic correspondence cited by the Wikileaksand insisted that he had "not authorised anybody" to purchase votes nor was he involved in any such "transactions".

"I think, people who are affected by them (Wikileaks expose), they have already commented on them, casting serious doubts about the veracity of allegations made in these diplomatic despatches," Singh said here while commenting on the Wikileaks expose which alleged that MPs were purchased during the 2008 trust vote.

"I have no knowledge of any such purchases and I am absolutely categorical, I have not authorised anyone to purchase any votes. I am not aware of any acts of purchase of votes," he said while replying to questions at the India Today Summit.

"I am absolutely certain in asserting that I am not at all, I think, involved in any of these transactions," the Prime Minister insisted.

His response, however, did not categorically clarify whether or not the purchases took place at all during the Confidence Motion on July 22, 2008.

"As far as the events of the last few days (are concerned) and the so-called Wikileaks, I would not like to comment," Singh said about the Opposition onslaught on the government following the Wikileaks expose.

"I would not like to comment on what we are going to do right now or in days to come. These are the matters which are being discussed in Parliament. If I have anything to say, we would say in Parliament first," he said.

Pranab dares oppn to move court on 'cash-for-votes'

T20 Actions for the following years

NEW DELHI: After the World Cup, the subcontinent's cricket fans can continue to look forward to top-notch international cricket for the next five years. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh were to stage the World Twenty20 Championships in 2012 and 2014; now India has been listed to host the 2016 edition of the tournament.

"India will host the World T20 in March 2016," a top ICC official told TOI on Thursday. India's name figures as the host of the event in the ICC's tentative Future Tour Programme 2012-20.

Sources said the ICC has given a copy of the schedule to all the cricket boards. "This is what the ICC board members have tentatively decided. It will be exciting to host the event here in the sub-continent because of the marketing prospects," another ICC source said.

It is also learnt that ICC has short listed England to host the best-of-four Test playing nations' playoffs in June 2013 and 2017. The next 50-over World Cup will be co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand and sources say the 2019 edition will be held in England in July.

Bus Mishap in Maharashtra- 17 Killed

NAGPUR: Seventeen pilgrims were killed and 28 others injured when a bus carrying them fell off a bridge in Buldana district of Maharashtra today.

The mishap took place in the wee hours on the Nanganga bridge near Tandulwadi village in Malkapur town of the district, when the bus was on its way back from Shirdi and Shanishignapur, police said.

Most of the pilgrims were from Wardha district, police said.

Senior police officials from Buldana have rushed to the spot, they said adding further investigations are on.

Quake in Vanuatu near Sydney

SYDNEY: A strong 6.5 magnitude earthquake struck off the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu on Thursday, the US Geological Survey said, but no widespread tsunami warning was issued.

However, the Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a bulletin saying the shallow quake could have the potential to generate a local tsunami and urged local authorities to be vigilant.

"No destructive widespread tsunami threat exists based on historical earthquake and tsunami data," the centre said.

"However, earthquakes of this size sometimes generate local tsunamis that can be destructive along coasts located within a hundred kilometres of the earthquake epicentre."

The quake hit 77 kilometres (48 miles) northwest of the nation's capital Port Vila at 1:48pm (0248 GMT) at a depth of 26.6 kilometres, the USGS said. There were no immediate reports of damage.

"We felt the quake but it wasn't too strong, we are used to them," Cedric Kapen, duty manager at the Iririki Island Resort in Port Vila told AFP. "There was no damage here or danger to guests."

Vanuatu is on the Pacific "Ring of Fire," which on Friday saw a 9.0 magnitude quake and tsunami strike off the coast of Japan, causing massive devastation.

Australia (Aus) vs Canada (Can):Australia beat Canada by 7 wickets

Australia (Aus) vs Canada (Can):Australia beat Canada by 7 wickets

RADIATION IN TOKYO NOT A THREAT TO HUMAN HEALTH

TOKYO: Japan's nuclear crisis appeared to be spinning out of control on Wednesday after workers withdrew briefly from a stricken power plant because of surging radiation levels and a helicopter failed to drop water on the most troubled reactor.

In a sign of desperation, the police will try to cool spent nuclear fuel at one of the facility's reactors with water cannon, which is normally used to quell riots.

Early in the day another fire broke out at the earthquake-crippled facility, which has sent low levels of radiation wafting into Tokyo in the past 24 hours, triggering fear in the capital and international alarm.

Japan's government said radiation levels outside the plant's gates were stable but, in a sign of being overwhelmed, appealed to private companies to help deliver supplies to tens of thousands of people evacuated from around the complex.

"People would not be in immediate danger if they went outside with these levels. I want people to understand this," chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano told a televised news conference, referring to people living outside a 30 km (18 miles) exclusion zone. Some 140,000 people inside the zone have been told to stay indoors.

Workers were trying to clear debris to build a road so fire trucks could reach reactor No 4 at theDaiichi complex in Fukushima, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo. Flames were no longer visible at the building housing the reactor.

High radiation levels prevented a helicopter from flying to the site to drop water into the No. 3 reactor -- whose roof was damaged by an earlier explosion and where steam was seen rising earlier in the day -- to try to cool its fuel rods.

The plant operator described No 3 as the "priority". No more information was available, but that reactor is the only one at Daiichi which uses plutonium in its fuel mix.

According to US government research, plutonium is very toxic to humans and once absorbed in the bloodstream can linger for years in bone marrow or liver and can lead to cancer

The situation at No 4 reactor, where the fire broke out, was "not so good", the plant operator added, while water was being poured into reactors No 5 and 6, indicating the entire six-reactor facility was now at risk of overheating.

Nuclear experts said the solutions being proposed to quell radiation leaks at the complex were last-ditch efforts to stem what could well be remembered as one of the world's worst industrial disasters.

"This is a slow-moving nightmare," said Dr Thomas Neff, a physicist and uranium-industry analyst at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Japanese Emperor Akihito, delivering a rare video message to his people, said he was deeply worried by the country's nuclear crisis which was "unprecedented in scale".

"I hope from the bottom of my heart that the people will, hand in hand, treat each other with compassion and overcome these difficult times," the emperor said.

Panic over the economic impact of last Friday's massive earthquake and tsunami knocked $620 billion off Japan's stock market over the first two days of this week, but the Nikkei index rebounded on Wednesday to end up 5.68 percent.

Nevertheless, estimates of losses to Japanese output from damage to buildings, production and consumer activity ranged from between 10 and 16 trillion yen ($125-$200 billion), up to one-and-a-half times the economic losses from the devastating 1995 Kobe earthquake.

Damage to Japan's manufacturing base and infrastructure is also threatening significant disruption to the global supply chain, particularly in the technology and auto sectors.

Scores of flights to Japan have been halted or rerouted and air travellers are avoiding Tokyo for fear of radiation. On Wednesday, both France and Australia urged their nationals in Japan to leave the country as authorities grappled with the world's most serious nuclear accident since the Chernobyldisaster in Ukraine in 1986.

In a demonstration of the qualms about nuclear power that the crisis has triggered around the globe, China announced that it was suspending approvals for planned plants and would launch a comprehensive safety check of facilities.

China has about two dozen reactors under construction and plans to increase nuclear electricity generation about seven-fold over the next 10 years.

In Japan, the plight of hundreds of thousands left homeless by the earthquake and devastating tsunami that followed worsened overnight following a cold snap that brought snow to some of the worst-affected areas.

While the death toll stands at around 4,000, more than 7,000 are listed as missing and the figure is expected to rise.

At the Fukushima plant, authorities have spent days desperately trying to prevent water which is designed to cool the radioactive cores of the reactors from evaporating, which would lead to overheating and possibly a dangerous meltdown.

Until the heightened alarm about No.3 reactor, concern had centred on damage to a part of the No.4 reactor building where spent rods were being stored in pools of water, and also to part of the No 2 reactor that helps to cool and trap the majority of cesium, iodine and strontium in its water.

Japanese officials said they were talking to the US military about possible help at the plant.

Concern has mounted that the skeleton crews dealing with the crisis might not be big enough or were exhausted after working for days since the earthquake damaged the facility. Authorities withdrew 750 workers on Tuesday, leaving only 50.

All those remaining were pulled out for almost an hour on Wednesday because radiation levels were too high, but they were later allowed to return.

Arnie Gundersen, a 39-year veteran of the nuclear industry who worked on reactor designs similar to Daiichi plant, said 50 or so people could not babysit six nuclear plants.

"That evacuation (of 750 workers) is a sign they may be throwing in the towel," Gundersen said.

RADIATION IN TOKYO NOT A THREAT TO HUMAN HEALTH

In the first hint of international frustration at the pace of updates from Japan, Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he wanted more timely and detailed information.

"We do not have all the details of the information so what we can do is limited," Amano told a news conference in Vienna. "I am trying to further improve the communication."

Several experts said the Japanese authorities were underplaying the severity of the incident, particularly on a scale called INES used to rank nuclear incidents. The Japanese have so far rated the accident a four on a one-to-seven scale, but that rating was issued on Saturday and since then the situation has worsened dramatically.

France's nuclear safety authority ASN said on Tuesday it should be classed as a level-six incident.

Officials in Tokyo said radiation in the capital was 10 times normal at one point but not a threat to human health in the sprawling high-tech city of 13 million people.

Many Tokyo residents stayed indoors. Public transport and the streets were as deserted as they would be on a public holiday, and many shops and offices were closed.

Winds over the plant were forecast to blow from the northwest during Wednesday, which would take radiation towards the Pacific Ocean.

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?"

Japanese media have became more critical of Kan's handling of the disaster and criticised the government and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co for their failure to provide enough information on the incident.

"This government is useless," Masako Kitajima, a Tokyo office worker in her 50s, said as radiation levels ticked up in the city.

Kan himself lambasted the operator for taking so long to inform his office about one of the blasts on Tuesday. A Kyodo news agency reporter quoted the prime minister demanding the power company executives: "What the hell is going on?".

Nuclear radiation is an especially sensitive issue for Japanese following the country's worst human catastrophe -- the US atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The full extent of the destruction was slowly becoming clear as rescuers combed through the tsunami-torn region north of Tokyo where officials say at least 10,000 people were killed.

There have been hundreds of aftershocks and more than two dozen were greater than magnitude 6, the size of the earthquake that severely damaged Christchurch, New Zealand, last month.

About 850,000 households in the north were still without electricity in near-freezing weather, Tohuku Electric Power Co. said, and the government said at least 1.5 million households lack running water. Tens of thousands of people were missing.