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The US intelligence agency CIA claimed that Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden is suffering from a terminal kidney disease and on death bed. Two officials confirmed that he may live only for a few months only.

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf was the first person to claim that Laden suffered from kidney disease and was on dialysis.

One of the two CIA officials quoted the report that came out six-nine months ago saying, “Based on his current pharmaceutical intake we would expect that he has no more than 6-18 months to live and impending kidney failure.”

The intelligence agency confirmed the news by getting the names of some of the medications Bin Laden was taking.

“It’s trying to make a diagnosis from thousands of miles away with only fragments of the medical chart,” the Time magazine quoted Paul Pillar, the former top analyst and deputy director of the CIA’s counter-terrorism centre, as saying.

Frances Fragos Townsend, who was chief of the White House Homeland Security Council said, “I’ve read all the same conflicting reports that people have talked to you about. I never found one set of reporting more persuasive than another.”

Tags: Al Qaeda, CIA, Death Bed, Kidney Disease, Osama Bin Laden, Pervez Musharraf, US

The Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) is going to provide free local calls whereas STD calls can be as cheap as 15 paisa per minute if and only if the government allows unrestricted domestic internet telephony.

ISPAI claims that the telephone bills will be drastically trimmed all because of the ubiquitous internet. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India will decide on this matter within a couple of months.

The Internet Service Providers (ISPs) explained that the within the network of a particular ISP, local calls will be free and it will cost 10 paisa per minute for inter ISP network. The ISPAI also revealed that if one makes a call on a mobile or a fixed land line from an IP phone, the STD call rates can be offered at a mere 50 paisa per minute.

Moreover, ISD call rates can come down to 50 paisa per minute on the same IP network and 75 paisa on other IP networks. The ISPAI consists of members such as Net4, HCL, Sify, Tulip IT services among others.

Through the IP telephony, a call to foreign countries like America or Europe costs much cheaper at 95 paisa per minute.

Tags: Cheaper Calls, Free Local Calls, Internet, ISP, ISPAI, STD

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that India needs to tighten its monetary policy to maintain the economic stability amid surging fuel prices and souring inflation rate. The impact of the later is not so big but the need of the hour is to stress on monetary policies and plans to be able to feed their people properly.

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn at the release of a new IMF study said, “If food prices rise further and oil prices stay the same, some governments will no longer be able to feed their people and at the same time maintain stability in their economies.”

The latest IMF study says that the effect of price hike is most acute for import-dependent poor and middle-income countries confronted by balance of payments problems, higher inflation and worsening poverty.

Kahn said, “Some countries are at a tipping point.” Kahn said such countries needed help from the international community for good policy options.  “Their challenge is ours. It is to ensure adequate food supplies while preserving the poverty-reducing benefits derived in recent years from faster growth, low inflation, and better budget and balance of payments positions,” he added.

Kalpana Kochhar, senior advisor in the Asia Pacific Department of the fund said, “India is a large country and it has USD 312 billions in reserves. The fact that you had a near doubling of oil prices over a period of year is going to impact the current account and you are seeing it.”

“You would not have seen Indian highlighted…. The impacts are big but not so big. There are positive inflows and the results are still large,” she added.

IMF study revealed that India is also struggling with the global problem of inflation and fuel price hike but the effect of these problems can be reduced by only changing the monetary policies and strong economic plans.

Tags: Economic Stability, Fuel Prices, IMF, India, inflation rate, International Monetary Fund

HP PROCURVE Networking provided an easy solution to Small and Medium Businesses (SMB) connectivity as it launches two affordable Gigabit Ethernet switches for SMB. The new plug-and-play switches are easy to deploy, manage and maintain for SMB, which typically do not have a large or specialized IT staff.

Small and medium business needs an increased network performance for large file transfers and high bandwidth applications such as graphical data, video streams, large databases, network backup and data storage. These requirements will be met by the new launched standards-based ProCurve Switch 2510G series which comprises two fully-managed layer two switches offering Gigabit Ethernet connectivity.

The ProCurve Switch 2510G Series will be available from 1 July 2008 with a price tag of Rs 51,100.

The 2510G series is a cost-effective solution for SMBs whose existing networks are pushing the performance limits, and which are seeking an upgrade to Gigabit connectivity to improve efficiency.

“ProCurve offers a choice of secure and affordable plug-and-play enterprise-grade networking solutions for SMBs that will enable them to expand their networks as their needs grow, said Louis Au, HP Pro Curve vice president and general manager for Asia Pacific and Japan. “Our products are standards-based and engineered to the legendary HP quality.”

It is featured by 24- and 48-port 10/100/1000 switches, each with SFP (small form-factor pluggable transceiver designed for Gigabit and Fast Ethernet) slots for optional fiber uplinks

It ensures secure network access to protect business assets by utilizing 802.1X, Web Authentication and MAC Authentication method with secure traffic segregation and control of network traffic.

Choice of ProCurve management interface includes an intuitive Web user interface, full-featured console access with Command line interface, and a centralized management option using Pro Curve Manager.

Tags: 2510G, Ethernet Connectivity, Gigabit Solution Switches, HP, HP ProCurve, ProCurve

According to the foretold stories, earlier the Taj Mahal was build by the emperor “Shahanshah” for his beautiful wife “Mumtaj”, but with changing times, we see a change in that story as well. Bipasha Basu, the bong beauty of Bollywood, desires the reconstruction of her house, which she would address as her Taj mahal, as her birthday present for herself.

When enquired, as to why she wanted to reconstruct the house instead of buying a new land which is a lot easier as compared to the previous idea, an all excited Bips instantly replied that she had no problems with the place she was living in and that she just needed the place to become more suitable and comparative to her energy levels. With this she explained that the last time, her house was being built, she did not have much time to look into the construction personally due to her busy schedule, but this time round she plans to completely concentrate and give an ample time to her “Taj Mahal”.

The energetic lady shared that she was all game to travel to every corner of the world to buy the best color and material wood, tiles, upholstery. The furnishings etc for which she has already planned sometime off and informs that when she is traveling for her shopping fiesta, the construction would be looked after by her parents who live very near by to her place, which is called the Muktangana.

The Muktanagan situated on Sarojini Road in Khar, which was previously owned by Rakhi Gulzar, was sold by her on only one condition that its name would be retained even when she has left it, and Bips took over to the top floor of the building.

With energy bustling in her and excitement rushing in her mind about redressing her den, Bipasha Basu announced her deadline for the completion of everything would be January 7th, which is also supposed to be her birthday as she believes that if she does not keep a deadline, the work keeps on piling up and then there is no date of completion.

Wishing Bipasha Basu a happy living…

Tags: Bipasha, Bipasha Basu, Bips, Bollywood, Mumtaj, Shahanshah, Taj Mahal

Thanks to Rajshri production house and its mobile services, the masses have a new word to learn from the dictionary, Mobisode. As the first half of the word suggests, it is something related to the mobile. It exactly means any entertainment stuff being aired on the mobile.

Rajshri productions launched their first mobile show, Akbar Birbal remixed with collaboration with the leading telecoms service provider, Idea. The Bollywood style tale telling show based on the Mughal emperor Akbar and his advisor Birbal, has been launched in the sms, mms, audio and video formats on the Idea cellular services. The first of its kind has been directed by Siddhartha Anand and its cast comprises of Shehzad Khan as Akbar and Rajesh Jais as Birbal. The other cast also includes Priya Arora, Mohit Daga and Yug Italia. The exclusive programme comprises of ninety videos and audios of three minutes each.

The chief marketing officer of Idea Cellular Services, Mr. Pradeep Srivastava informed that the show available on the Idea Fresh WAP GPRS services and on voice portal will be available for three months. The clips of the show are also available on www.rajshri.com.

The media house has shown excitement while they wait for the audience response of this new style entertainment viewing and have declared if their show is a decent hit, then they are game to produce more such stuff for other service providers as well. The Barjatyas in the end, informed that after the expiry of the decided period of three months, the show would be made for television, video cd and FM radio as well.

Considering the fact that Idea cellular services is a part of the $28 billion Aditya Birla Group and have a 26 million customer ship in India, we wish the Barjatyas all the luck for their new venture…

Tags: Aditya Birla, Akbar, Birbal, Bollywood, Idea, Mobile, Mobile Show, Mobisode, Rajshri Productions, Telecom

Mahatma Gandhi, father of Indian nation is a global hero respected all over the world. A unique Gandhi fest will be organized in Nevada in America on July 26 to boast fire spinning, yoga shows and organic food demonstration.

Gandhi always stressed on truth and peace and helped India to become free from English rule following the same ideas. There is becoming a renewed interest world over in Mahatma Gandhi and his ideas. Gandhi fest, first of its kind eco-friendly festival celebrating Mahatma Gandhi’s life and message will be held on July 26.

Rajan Zed, acclaimed Indo-American leader, will be the keynote speaker of this fest which will continue till 2 am at River School Reno. Zed will talk about Gandhi’s life, philosophy, and experiments, and answer questions of the participants during this festival. Each festival participant will artistically contribute to a “Gandhi collage”, to be created on the occasion. A competition will be held to make Gandhi sketches.

According to Tom Stille and Doug Keeney, coordinators of this Gandhi Fest said that drummers, fire spinners, artists, healthy and organic food chefs, yoga teachers, DJs, and sustainable living advocates will join hands to celebrate peace, love, freedom, non-violence, self-power and conscious living as promoted by Gandhi.

The event will include folk dancing, musical performances, sustainable goods displays, nature tours, fire spinning, kite flying, yoga shows, organic food demonstrations, etc.

Gandhi Fest is expected to be an annual feature with this grand start.

Tags: America, Father of India, Gandhi, Gandhi Festival, Mahatma Gandhi

The global Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty have been awarded Britain’s Global Diversity award for 2008 for their contribution to the diversity agenda on Tuesday night at an event to be attended by British Foreign Minister David Miliband MP and Culture Minister Andy Burnham among others. Lewis Hamilton will also be honored by the award in the event which is hosted by the Next Steps Foundation.

Shilpa Shetty after being subjected to allege bullying and racism in the television reality show “Celebrity Big Brother” became famous in Britain last year and her treatment by some other participants in the popular show became the subject of a heated row in India. Shetty became world famous after she was universally praised by British commentators for showing restraint.

Vaz, who has been made British ambassador for the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue, said both Shetty and Hamilton “faced adversity in their careers but have dealt with it with grace and dignity”.

Hamilton was also subjected to racial abuse. On Feb 4 this year, he was racially abused by spectators during pre-season testing at the Circuit de Catalunya in Spain. The Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) warned the Spanish authorities about such behavior and announced it would launch a ‘Race Against Racism’ campaign.

The hosting organization, Next Step Foundation was established 10 years ago by MPs Bernie Grant and Keith Vaz to encourage diversity in both the public and private sectors.

Tags: Bollywod, Britain, Global Diversity Award, Shilpa, Shilpa Shetty

Sachin Tendulkar moves to second rank in the latest ICC ODI batsmen ranking list by stepping one move ahead while M S Dhoni is no on 4th place. Yuvraj Singh at rank 14 is another Indian batsman in top 20 ranks while Gautam Gambhir snatches 20th spot.

Tendulkar, who was suffering from groin injury for a long time, has scored 758 points after 792 points by South African captain Graeme Smith. 135 runs made by Dhoni in Asia cup scored 750 points and shares his place with Australians Ricky Ponting and Mike Hussey at number four.

In the ICC championship table, India remains at fourth, one point adrift of New Zealand (115). However, if India wins its next super four matches in the ongoing Asia Cup India can reach at position three.

Australia with 128 points at the top is giving neck to neck competition to South Africa with 127 points. Sri Lanka is at sixth spot followed by England at seven and West Indies at eighth position.

Tags: Cricket, Dhoni, Gambhir, Gautam Gambhir, Hussey, ICC, Mahender Singh Dhoni, MS Dhoni, Ponting, Sachin Tendulkar, Tendulkar

After the terrific incident of getting paralysis by Shinjini Sengupta followed by allegedly rebuked in a reality show, Union Minister for Woman and Child Development Renuka Chowdhury on Tuesday said that parents should be prevented from sending their children to reality shows.

She strongly believes that the reality shows were violating rights of children and they should be kept away from the shows.

Referring to Shinjini Sengupta, a teenage girl here who became partially paralyzed allegedly after being publicly humiliated at a reality show, the minister said despite knowing that the girl had a problem in her spinal chord, her parents had sent her to the show.

“The other day, I saw a tiny girl suggestively gyrating to a song whose meaning she obviously did not know. What do we say to parents sending their children to such shows?” Chowdhury said at a workshop on Amendment to the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986.

“My biggest challenge is not so much to educate men but women. They deserve kudos for keeping up the family life despite so much oppression at home.” she said while pointing towards lack of awareness in women.

Shinjini Sengupta, a 16-year-old teenage girl is attacked by paralysis after she was rebuked by the judges at a reality show on a Bengali television channel.

Serious questions are arising after the incident as whether the wanton use of children and teenagers in reality shows all in the name of talent hunt for that elusive element called fame is really worth it?

Tags: Children, Parents, Reality Show, Renuka Chuwdhury, Shinjini Sengupta