Women want more

The pillow talk of new millennium couples in the 2010 INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen-ORG MARG sex survey tells an unprecedented story of women's arousal being thwarted and of romance gone sour. Call it the Eat Pray Love moment in the life of the modern Indian woman. Just as the lead character, Elizabeth Gilbert (Julia Roberts in the film) was asked by her Balinese healer to "pray for sex", the survey finds Indian women meditating intently on the prayer beads of fulfilling and wholesome sex.

Shatter those stereotypes that tell you women are not as interested in sex as men are. Overturn the idea that women favour a romantic encounter - a walk in the rain, a bouquet of roses - while men prefer to fall into bed. Check out the intricacies of the new woman's erotic litany: sex is crucial, say 70 per cent of women. No wonder, they are eager to make their sexual lives more exciting, with new situations (67 per cent) and positions (20 per cent), new types of foreplay (24 per cent), and sex anytime, anywhere. Pleasure is paramount, their own and that of their partners' (57 per cent). But that quest for hardcore sexuality is squashing intimacy and romance faster than bedbugs.

There she is, fragrant on bath salts, waiting for him to look up and notice her in her lacy camisole. And there he is, sprawled on the bed, flipping channels languidly, spoilt for choice between cricket and pole dancing on the telly. He finally looks up, yawns and reaches out for her. She looks disgusted and hisses at him, "Undress yourself." And she is not alone. Between 2003, when INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen-ORG MARG sex survey first focused on "What Women Want" and now, the percentage of women not interested in "undressing" their partners as a preferred mode of foreplay has petered down from 16 per cent to 8 per cent.

Buried deep in this survey is another story: the growing happiness gap between men and women. While women show rising levels of dissatisfaction, men are full of buzz about their current sex life. Many more men than women are having weekly sex. They are more happy with foreplay than women. And more open about their own pleasures. Unlike women, an overwhelming percentage of men say their partners are "sensitive toward their sexual needs". While women don't seem to be too happy with the "sexual involvement of partners", men are.

Twice as many men have sexual fantasies and they are three times more likely to share those. Not just that. They are more contented with life in general than women - much more satisfied with their jobs and just as happy as women with their health, social, family and financial lives. About a 100 years back, Sigmund Freud had famously confessed that the one great question he could never answer was: "What does a woman want?" Today's Indian men do not seem interested in asking that question, as yet. "Women's sexuality is much more complex than men's ," says clinical psychologist therapist Shelja Sen of Delhi. "A lot of it is triggered by emotional, intellectual and relationship-based factors rather than the simple physical response required by a man. The brain is the crucial sexual organ in a woman."

That mind-body route to sexuality takes strange forms. Dr Neena Malhotra sees a host of patients walking through the doors of the infertility clinic at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, who have surprisingly low coital frequency. "They are not just weighed down by erratic work hours and stress, they also don't know that a fulfilling sex life needs a boost," she says. "They roam around the shopping malls, watch TV till midnight and then there is not much time for sex." The survey tells the same story. Between 2003 and 2010, there has been a 5 per cent drop among women having sex more than once a week.

Excitement about sex life has shrunk by 10 per cent among women, satisfaction after sex has come down by 11 per cent. Significantly, the focus on "own pleasure" is riding a steady upward curve. At the root of this pleasure quest could be the post-modern woman's desire to take charge of her own destiny. And, as matrimonial sites point out, it starts early. Courtships in arranged marriages these days find city girls asking some tough questions to their would-bes, as reported by a 2009 partner preference study by Bharat Matrimony: from "how close do you want to live to your parents?" to "do you expect me to stop working once we have children?" And, of course, the inevitable: "What's your idea of spending alone time?" "Compatibility is emerging as the primary evaluation criteria," says Murugavel Janakiraman, CEO, Bharat Matrimony. "This is one area where we see the most dramatic changes."

There is, obviously, a paradox at work. Those demands for companionate autonomy seem to take a serious beating once the mundaneness of everyday life kicks in (to 42 per cent men and women "quality time at home" constitutes a "perfect romantic day"). No wonder, the imagined world of romance leads to disenchantment and forced reconciliation of reality with fantasy.

To begin with, fewer women find their partners "romantic" than men (51:66 per cent). While 71 per cent of men share their sexual fantasies with partners, just 12 per cent women find men enthusiastic about theirs. To top it all, women don't seem to be "talking" to men to communicate their needs: those willing to discuss disappointing sex has dropped by 8 per cent between 2003 and 2010. But in a new turn, women seem keen to "tell" their partners that extra-marital liberties on their part would be promptly reciprocated.

"Why can't a woman be more like a man?" mused Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady. Today's Indian woman would have made him happy. Her new assertion for sexual fulfillment and dissatisfaction with the status quo tell the new story of femininity. As filmmaker Aparna Sen says: "I like today's woman. I like her spirit of independence, of her effort to control her own destiny. She might be confused and sometimes impatient with relationships, but she is brave." The plot and characters in the battle of the sexes are shifting. Let's wait for romance and enchantment to return to the bedroom.

 

Sexual fantasies: Their Secret Gardens

One night, after copious amounts of alcohol were raging through our bloodstreams, a group of us women decided to play a rather sacrilegious game of Scrabble which involved inventing new words. Midway, a 20-something friend placed four letters on the board that intrigued us-O-R-G-A. She grinned mischievously and said, "Orga. That's half an orgasm."

Analysing the results of the 2010 sex survey, one gets the feeling "orga" is a term many urban Indian women would identify with. Besides suggesting half an orgasm, it is the only word I can think could exemplify how underwhelmed most women seem to be about their sexual state of affairs.

Only 59 per cent of the 2,664 female respondents were satisfied with their sex lives, a depressing statistic since most women rated other aspects like family, social life, health and finances as far more fulfilling in comparison. The overall results form a tragic reply to the much-raised question of what Indian women expect from Indian men-next to nothing.

This, however, is not to suggest that women want nothing from men. Women invest vast amounts of time, money and energy in making themselves desirable to the opposite sex. We spend hours sampling products designed to enhance our beauty and improve our sexual prowess. Increasing financial security allows us this privilege. Yet, women's expectations from men remain understated. Countless magazines offer endless content on 10 ways to please a man, how to give him the perfect blowjob and sure shot ways to appease his appetite. While urban women may have finally formulated a vocabulary with which they can articulate their sexual desires, we are yet to discover a language through which we can communicate these to our male counterparts.

The media may advocate women's right to pleasure but our culture remains unaccommodating to women's sexual needs. The sex industry, to begin with, continues to cater almost exclusively to men. Women continue to be portrayed as objects whose only function is to titillate men and thereby encourage the sale of consumer goods. Think about it: Indian men have access to Playboy magazines and pop-culture icons like Savita Bhabhi alongside a repertoire of pornography. Men who cannot afford the immediacy of Internet porn are allowed to openly indulge in blue films at their local cinema halls. Women, however, must make do with re-runs of Sex and the City and cheap paperback romances. It is acceptable for men to celebrate their pre- and post-marital sexual exploits while women nurse them like dreaded secrets for fear of losing the "virgin" tag.

We live in a country where women are regularly accosted for wearing anything mildly revealing. Where walking unaccompanied at night is the setting for most rape scenes. It's hard to find a single woman who hasn't been violated by a family friend during her childhood and hasn't had to keep mum about it, who hasn't been harassed at her workplace. Who hasn't, after a particularly exploitative experience, been told that she deserved it because she "brought it upon herself" by being too liberal. If sex doesn't feature too prominently in women's list of priorities, it's perhaps because of the sinister subtext it embodies, one that is ever discussed.

The nature of the questions that the survey sought answers for indicates how little we make of women's sexual inclinations. Under the present circumstances, we're still stuck at the level of asking questions like "do women fantasise" and if they do, then "what forms the content of their fantasies", or "if women prefer foreplay before sex". When will we be able to move on to more daring questions that probe the depth of a woman's lust? Will we ever reach a stage where women will be encouraged to acknowledge and celebrate their libidos?

There's a line in Annie Hall, the classic 1977 Woody Allen film, spoken by a random woman in the course of a cocktail conversation. "I had an orgasm the other day," she says. "But my therapist told me it was the wrong kind." Her naïve confession probably held true for American women in the 20th century, an era mired in myths about the female orgasm. Most urban Indian women, unfortunately, still suffer from the same predicament - the inability to understand the machinery of lust, an ignorance of their own bodily needs. And they are not to blame. This isn't to suggest they are victims.

Pry in on a conversation among women in spaces that are traditionally feminine, like community kitchens or even the one boogey reserved for women on the Delhi metro. Behind closed doors and beyond the confines of coffee-table conversations, you will overhear them whispering about sexual urges they have repressed for years. This survey documents the responses of women on the verge of a sexual revolution. Women who are finally, en masse, voicing their discontent; their desperation for more fulfilling sexual relationships. Women who are no longer satisfied with multiple orgas. Women who want the real deal.

 

Health: Sex begins in the kitchen

Oil is Well

A diet rich in olive oil and almonds can enhance potency, drive and fertility. While green olives make men more virile, black ones increase a woman's sex drive.

Layers of Pleasure

They may smell bad, but onions can work magic in your sex life. Peel off the white layer, crush and fry in pure butter. This is an excellent aphrodisiac tonic if taken regularly with a spoon of honey on empty stomach.

O for orgasms

Oranges and lemons have anti-oxidant effects. They help protect the sex organs, keep them working smoothly, and enhance arousal, sensitivity as well as orgasms.

Tropical Delight

Bananas can ignite passion in the bedroom. How? They contain bromelain, an enzyme believed to stimulate the male libido. Rich in potassium and B vitamins (particularly riboflavin), they're good for testosterone production.

The Nuts and Bolts of Better Sex

Ignore peanuts at your peril. They have all the zinc you need to perk up your sex life. Low zinc levels can lead to poor libido in women and low sperm count in men. The mineral also builds sex hormones. Nuts are generally good for sexual wellness.

Beans There Do That

Good for sexual stimulation, soyabean products contain chemicals that resemble the female hormone oestrogen. They also help protect against prostate and other cancers by preventing tumour growth.

Dates are Dandy

Their frequent use is said to be a factor behind the abundant libido of Middle-Eastern men. Soak them in honey if you are looking for a libido booster. An excellent source of iron, it also strengthens the ovulation process in women.

 

10 Myths about women: Go figure

 

 * We desire bigger breasts

Nope. Bigger isn't always better. No woman wants to be spoken to with the eyes firmly focused below her face.

    * We dress up to impress men

We dress either for our own confidence levels or to upstage other women. Even lingerie is worn so we feel sexy.

    * We always want to share our feelings

Post-coital, men aren't the only ones who want to watch TV or sleep. We don't want to know you felt hurt when you were behaving like a buffoon and we called you on it. You did it. We told you off. Now get over it.

    * If we are high strung, it's obvious we are PMSing

If a woman is emotionally high strung, it's because it's incomprehensible to her as to why she can multitask and her man can either change the bulb or take a bath or order the groceries, but not all three. And definitely not together.

* We have a weaker libido than men

Men may have a stronger libido at 18 but as all women (at least the ones I know) have discovered, men seem to lose their "willingness to perform" by their mid-30s.

    * We are clingy and don't believe in space

We may want your full attention when you meet us but spending an entire day with you in our faces? No way. Also, our emails and our private conversations are not for your eyes and ears. We too need girls' night-outs.

    * Sex is about intimacy. Satisfaction is secondary.

Intimacy is all well and good, but if you want us to give, you've got to give some yourself. Also it would be nice if you educated yourself a bit on the female anatomy.

  * We want our men to be possessive

Boys, the wrestling pit is in the akhara, not the bar. We'd rather have a man who thumps his opponent with his wit.

    * We fantasise about our dream wedding from an early age

Only if it involves George Clooney or Brad Pitt. It's about the fantasy groom, not the fantasy wedding.

    * After 30, we are obsessed with our biological clocks

Modern science has ensured that women can have children even at the age of 42. The point is, will you have the energy to be fathers at a later age?

 

Private sector steers India's growth in 21st century

Some called it the "mixed economy", some called it the "mixed-up economy", some others termed it state capitalism and some even dubbed it a "bureaucratic socialist" economy.

For the first 50 years after Independence, the Indian economy has been described by many epithets. The bottom line was, of course, the fact that a large part of India's modern industrial and services economy was in the public, or state, sector.

While the agricultural economy was largely characterised by private ownership, manufacturing was predominantly in the public sector till the 1980s, and following the nationalisation of banks, the financial sector too was dominated by state-owned institutions.

All that began to change in the 1980s. The 1990s witnessed dramatic changes in policy and the unleashing of Indian enterprise.

However, it is only since 2000 that private Indian enterprise has come into its own.

As a recent report in Business Standard (June 26, 2010) showed, in the decade 2000-2010, the private corporate sector overtook the public sector both in terms of net sales and net profits. The private sector's share in the net sales of manufacturing and services sector output increased from 48.83 per cent in 2000-01 to 68.55 per cent in 2009-10, with the public sector's share consequently falling from 51.17 per cent to 31.45 per cent.

Similarly, the private sector's share of net profit in the non-agricultural economy increased from 39.17 per cent to 63.86 per cent for the same period, with a decline in public sector share from 60.83 per cent to 36.14 per cent.

In short, the past decade has seen India's "mixed economy" become an essentially private enterprise economy. Thousands of entrepreneurs, led by some inspiring leaders who have acquired a global footprint, are driving the growth process in India.

Several factors, both positive and negative, explain this phenomenon. On the positive side is the rise of Indian enterprise, especially in the energy, telecommunications, civil aviation, manufacturing, finance and banking and information technology sectors.

The sharp increase in foreign direct investment during this decade has also contributed to the increase in the share of the private sector in national income, sales and profits.

On the negative side, the inability of the public sector to generate internal resources for growth and the fiscal constraints on government that have contributed to a decline in public investment have contributed to a decline in the share of the public sector.

While the dynamism and the growth of private enterprise are cause for celebration, the sluggishness of public investment is a matter of concern. India needs more public investment, especially in social and economic infrastructure, to sustain upwards of 9 per cent national income growth and also to fuel private sector dynamism.

Most developed market economies also have a substantial public sector, especially in infrastructure, public services and defence. As a developing economy striving to industrialise and generate employment, India needs a balanced growth of both the private and public sectors.

Stocks Rally in Europe for First Time in Five Days

 

European stocks gained for the first time in five days as a rally by automakers outweighed a decline in retailer shares and the Group of 20 nations pledged to safeguard growth while cutting debt.

PSA Peugeot Citroen climbed 1.5 percent as La Lettre de L'Expansion reported that France's biggest carmaker has lifted its sales target for the DS3 model. Premier Oil Plc surged 7.1 percent after the explorer said a North Sea well encountered oil-bearing sandstones. Hennes & Mauritz AB fell 2.8 percent after Chief Executive Officer Karl-Johan Persson told La Tribune that Europe's second-largest clothing retailer isn't for sale.

The Stoxx Europe 600 Index rose 0.4 percent to 249.24 at 3:16 p.m. in London, having swung between gains and losses at least six times. The gauge fell 2.8 percent last week as disappointing U.S. housing data and a surge in the cost to protect from a Greek default reignited concern about the global recovery. The index is trading at 15 times reported earnings, near the lowest level since 2008, according to Bloomberg data.

"The market has declined a lot and valuations reflect a lot of the uncertainty," said Charles Dautresme, a strategist at Axa Investment Management in Paris, which oversees about $626 billion. "In the long term, we'll come out winning. We shouldn't be too negative."

National benchmark indexes rose in 10 of the 18 western European markets. France's CAC 40 advanced 0.3 percent and Germany's DAX increased 0.4 percent. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 slipped 0.2 percent.

Banking Oversight

Global efforts to tighten banking oversight have gained momentum, U.S. President Barack Obama said following the G-20 meeting this weekend. Group leaders agreed to pursue higher capital requirements for banks once their economic recoveries take root and endorsed targets to cut deficits at least by half by 2013 and stabilize their debt-to-output ratios by 2016.

Central banks and governments should consider withdrawing extraordinary measures to avoid skewing investment decisions and delaying companies' recording of losses, the Bank for International Settlements said.

"The time has come to ask when and how these powerful measures can be phased out," the Basel, Switzerland-based BIS said in its annual report published today. "The cumulating side effects themselves pose a danger that, at the very least, implies exiting sooner than may be comfortable for many."

Peugeot, Porsche

Peugeot rose 1.5 percent to 22.02 euros, leading a gauge of auto shares to the biggest gain among 19 industry groups in the Stoxx 600. The carmaker has lifted its 2010 sales target for the DS3 model to 70,000 from 45,000, La Lettre de L'Expansion reported, without citing anyone.

Preferred shares of Porsche SE, the maker of the 911 sports car, climbed 1.9 percent to 36.72 euros as the stock was upgraded to "buy" from "sell" at Bankhaus Metzler.

Premier Oil surged 7.1 percent to 1,266 pence, the most in more than a year. The U.K. explorer said the Catcher East sidetrack well in the U.K. Central North Sea encountered "excellent quality" oil-bearing sandstones.

H&M dropped 2.8 percent to 214.3 kronor. The Persson family, which holds 37 percent of the shares and 70 percent of the voting rights, considers H&M a "long-term investment," Persson, the grandchild of the Swedish founder, told La Tribune.

Standard Chartered Plc fell 3.2 percent to 1,687 pence as the British bank that earns most of its profit in Asia said the European sovereign-debt crisis caused a "softening" of first- half revenue.

Infineon, Vallourec

Infineon Technologies AG advanced 2.3 percent to 5.07 euros. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has agreed to help Russia's AFK Sistema negotiate with Infineon about purchasing a stake in the German semiconductor maker, Financial Times Deutschland reported. Infineon and Sistema are not in talks on a stake purchase, spokesmen at the two companies said.

Vallourec SA, which produces steel pipes for the oil and gas industry, rose 2.4 percent to 147.95 euros. The company has seen a rebound in volumes after a low point reached in the first quarter, Chairman Philippe Crouzet told La Tribune in an interview. Vallourec is benefiting from a recovery in the U.S., Brazil and Asia, while the economy in Europe is "less good," Crouzet told the newspaper.

Banco Popolare SC jumped 2.2 percent to 4.67 euros. The stock was rated "buy" at Societe Generale SA, which initiated coverage of Italy's fourth-biggest bank and set a price estimate of 5.90 euros.

"Banco Popolare is a restructuring story, with significant upside potential," Paris-based analyst Carlo Tommaselli wrote in a note today.

Bwin Interactive Entertainment AG climbed 2.3 percent to 36.71 euros. The Austrian online betting company denied a report that merger talks with PartyGaming Plc have collapsed.

"Bwin is currently holding talks with several potential partners in the online gaming sector on possible co-operation and/or acquisitions," the company said.

 

Consumer Spending in US Increased in May more than Forecast

 

 

Consumer spending in the U.S. rose 0.2 percent in May, more than forecast, a sign households are gaining confidence in the recovery and the job market. Personal income climbed 0.4 percent. Bloomberg's Betty Liu and Mike McKee report. (Source: Bloomberg)

Consumer spending in the U.S. rose in May more than forecast, a sign households are gaining confidence in the recovery and the job market.

Purchases rose 0.2 percent after little change the prior month, Commerce Department figures showed today. Incomes climbed 0.4 and the savings rate increased to the highest level in eight months.

Demand may accelerate as gains in payrolls, longer workweeks and rising pay give Americans the means to spend. Federal Reserve policy makers last week pledged to keep interest rates low to ensure households weather the fallout from the European debt crisis, unemployment hovering near a 26-year high and tight credit.

"The U.S. consumer remains resilient," said Sal Guatieri, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto, which correctly forecast the gain in spending. "As long as jobs are coming back people will continue to spend."

Stock-index futures dropped, erasing earlier gains. The contract on the Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 0.1 percent to 1,073.5 at 8:50 a.m. in New York. Treasury securities rose, pushing the yield on the benchmark 10-year note down to 3.06 percent from 3.11 percent late on June 25.

The median estimate of 61 economists surveyed by Bloomberg news called for a 0.1 percent gain in spending. Projections ranged from an increase of 0.3 percent to a 0.5 percent drop.

 

Survey Forecasts

The median estimate of economists surveyed called for a 0.5 percent advance in incomes. Wages and salaries in May rose 0.5 percent for a second month.

The savings rate increased to 4 percent last month, the highest level since September, to $454.3 billion.

"Americans will remain focused on paying down their debts and rebuilding their savings," said BMO's Guatieri.

The report showed inflation was stabilizing. The inflation gauge tied to spending patterns increased 1.9 percent from May 2009 after a 2 percent increase in the 12 months through April.

The Fed's preferred price measure, which excludes food and fuel, rose 0.2 percent in May from the prior month, exceeding the 0.1 percent median estimate of economists surveyed.

The Fed last week said the labor market is "improving gradually," changing April's assessment that it was "beginning to improve." Consumer spending still "remains constrained" by joblessness and "tight credit," it said.

 

Durable Goods

Adjusted for inflation, purchases rose 0.3 percent last month after little change in April. Price-adjusted spending on durable goods, including automobiles and appliances, increased 1.1 percent after a 0.5 percent drop. Demand for nondurable goods decreased 0.2 percent, the first decline this year, while spending on services increased 0.3 percent.

"Consumers are less cautious than they were previously," Robert Niblock, chief executive officer at Lowe's Cos., the second-largest home-improvement chain, said in a June 23 teleconference. "But they still know that we're still not out of the woods yet."

Confidence among U.S. consumers rose in June to the highest level since January 2008, indicating the decline in stock prices prompted by the European debt crisis has failed to weigh on sentiment, figures from Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan showed last week. The group's final sentiment index increased to 76 from 73.6 in May. The index has averaged 84.5 over the past decade.

Consumer spending grew at a 3 percent annual pace in the first three months of 2010, less than previously estimated, the Commerce Department said last week. The report showed the economy grew 2.7 percent in the first quarter.

Economists surveyed this month projected purchases will expand at a 3 percent rate in the April-to-June period and 2.6 percent in the second half of the year.

Courtesy : Bloomberg

Cheers! Red wine could help prevent some eye diseases

 

Here's another reason why red wine could be good for you - it contains an ingredient that has the potential to prevent some blinding diseases, according to a new study.

 

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that Resveratrol - found in red wine, grapes, blueberries, peanuts and other plants - could prevent and control angeogenesis (formation of damaging blood vessels) in mouse retina.

"A great deal of research has identified resveratrol as an anti-aging compound, and given our interest in age-related eye disease, we wanted to find out whether there was a link," says Washington University retina specialist Rajendra S Apte, the study's senior investigator.

"We have identified a novel pathway that could become a new target for therapies.

"And we believe the pathway may be involved both in age-related eye disease and in other diseases where angiogenesis plays a destructive role," Apte adds

Another advantage is that patients can consume Resveratrol orally and avoid eye injections, but they may need to take pills since it is required in high doses in humans, as compared to mice. The compound also is easily absorbed in the body.

Apte says that the compound may well be one day actively used to prevent cardiovascular disease and some types of cancer, too.

The findings are reported in the July issue of the American Journal of Pathology.

Michael Jackson's dad sues doctor over singer's death

 

The father of Michael Jackson filed a wrongful death lawsuit on Friday against Dr Conrad Murray, accusing the physician of giving the late pop star a powerful drug and being slow to call for medical help.

 

The lawsuit, which had been expected, was filed on the first anniversary of Jackson's death, just beating a one-year deadline for an action against the 'Thriller' singer's doctor.

Joseph Jackson, 80, alleges in the suit filed in federal court in Los Angeles that Murray was too slow to call emergency medical services for help, and he later made statements to authorities which turned out to be false, including that Murray was by Jackson's side monitoring his pulse.

The lawsuit states that after paramedics arrived at the Los Angeles mansion where Jackson suffered cardiac arrest, Murray failed to inform them the singer had been given the powerful anesthetic propofol, which he used as a sleep aid.

The suit claims that Murray later changed his story about what happened, and said that he only discovered Jackson was not breathing less than 20 minutes before paramedics were called.

"Defendant Murray's conduct of failing to call (emergency services), of leaving Michael Jackson's bedside, and conducting CPR on the bed instead of a hard surface was below the standard of medical care for physicians," the lawsuit states.

Authorities have ruled Jackson's death a homicide and said propofol was the key drug in Jackson's system that led to his death at age 50 on June 25, 2009, in Los Angeles.

Medical experts have said propofol should be administered in a hospital setting, and that it was highly unusual for Murray to give it to Jackson at his home.

In a statement, Murray's lawyer said, "We continue to maintain Dr Murray neither prescribed or administered anything that should have killed Michael Jackson...Dr Murray has not been found guilty of anything and we believe his innocence will be proven in a court of law."

Jackson's "polypharmacy"
But in his lawsuit, Joe Jackson contends Murray was "reckless" in administering a "polypharmacy" of different drugs to Jackson, "including propofol every night as a sleep aid."

It claims the singer was addicted to prescription drugs, and that Murray had a history of prescribing such drugs to Jackson dating to at least 2008.

California authorities have charged Murray with involuntary manslaughter in connection with Jackson's death and he faces up to four years in prison if convicted.

With that case ongoing, a state judge earlier this month allowed Murray to keep his California medical licence.

A civil lawsuit can run parallel to a criminal case, and its main purpose is to seek monetary damages.

The lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of Joe Jackson by attorney Brian Oxman, does not specify an amount of monetary damages that the pop star's father is seeking.

At the time of his death, Jackson was in the middle of rehearsals for a series of comeback concerts in London organized by AEG Live, a subsidiary of the Anschutz Company.

Joseph Jackson's lawsuit does not name AEG as a defendant, but the company has admitted hiring Murray to care for Jackson as he prepared for the concerts.

The lawsuit states that Joe Jackson "believes there are other parties responsible for Michael Jackson's death" and that he could amend his complaint to include those other parties.

The suit also named Joe Jackson's wife, Katherine Jackson, as a nominal party, but Adam Streisand, attorney for Katherine Jackson, said the move was highly unusual and unwelcome.

"The impression that Brian Oxman creates by doing this is that somehow Mrs Jackson...(is) a part of this action against Conrad Murray, and nothing could be further from the truth," Streisand said.

 

UK police probing alleged Google privacy breach

Britain has launched an investigation into whether Google invaded people's privacy and violated communication and privacy laws by 'mistakenly' gathering personal data over public wi-fi networks.

The Metropolitan Police has said it was probing into complaints that the search engine picked up people's online activities through unprotected home and business networks while photographing neighbourhoods for its 'street view' mapping feature.

"The matter is now under consideration. It is yet to be determined what, if any, offences may have allegedly occurred," a spokesman of Met Police said.

It is the latest in a string of controversies about Google's access to private data including e-mail addresses, passwords, bank account information and web browsing histories.

Last month, Google acknowledged it had mistakenly collected data from public wi-fi networks in more than 30 countries.

Police in Australia have also launched their own investigations into the matter.

Pakistan court orders ban on Google, Yahoo, Hotmail

A Pakistani court has reportedly ordered a ban on nine leading websites, including Google, Yahoo and Hotmail, for allegedly posting blasphemous material.

Media reports said the Bahawalpur bench of the Lahore high court on Tuesday directed the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to immediately block nine websites -- including Google, Yahoo, MSN, Hotmail, YouTube, Bing and Amazon -- for publishing and promoting sacrilegious and blasphemous material.

Justice Mazher Iqbal Sidhu issued the order while hearing a petition filed by a man named Muhammad Sidiq who claimed these websites were publishing sacrilegious material.

The judge also ordered the PTA chairman to appear in court on June 28 with relevant material.

Sidiq, in his petition, sought a ban on the websites for publishing blasphemous materials and twisting facts about the Quran.

Aslam Dhakkar, head of a local bar association, was quoted as saying that the court had given a historic decision.

He said the legal fraternity in Bahawalpur will observe a strike on Wednesday to protest the publication of blasphemous material by the websites.

However, officials of the PTA told PTI that they had received no instructions to block the websites.

They said they had only seen media reports about the court's order.

Wahaj-us-Siraj, a spokesman for the Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan, said his organisation had not received any directions from the PTA to block websites.

Pakistani authorities had blocked popular social networking website Facebook in May over a competition on blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Mohammed.

The access to the website was later restored on the orders of the court.

Pakistan Maintains Facebook Ban

 

The Pakistani government lifted a ban on video-sharing website YouTube after the company took down "blasphemous" footage but retained a temporary ban on social-networking site Facebook imposed earlier this week, the country's telecommunications regulator said Thursday.

But a YouTube spokeswoman said Thursday afternoon that the video site is still being blocked there.

Access to YouTube, which is owned by Google Inc., was cut earlier in the day but restored after the San Bruno, California, company had "taken off from their website highly offensive blasphemous footage," the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority said, without specifying what content sparked the ban.

Facebook remained blocked after the Lahore High Court ruled on Wednesday that authorities should shut the site down until May 31.

The High Court was ruling on a petition brought by the Lahore-based Islamic Lawyers Forum, which was protesting a Facebook page called "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!"

Facebook, based in Palo Alto, California, hadn't taken down the Facebook page as of late Thursday. On Wednesday, Facebook said the content didn't violate its terms but added that it understood it may not be legal in some countries, the Associated Press reported.

The creators of the page, which has more than 90,000 followers, say in a personal-data entry that the site isn't meant to be disrespectful to Muslims but is challenging extremists who have threatened violence against people because of their depiction of Muhammad. These include Dutch newspaper Jyllands-Posten and the U.S. animated television series "South Park."

Depictions of Muhammad are offensive to many Muslims, including moderate followers of the faith. Islam proscribes idolatry and traditionally Islamic art has been based on calligraphy and architecture, not portraiture. A rival Facebook group, "AGAINST 'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!'" had more than 100,000 followers late Thursday.

In Pakistan, public protests have broken out in recent days against the Facebook page. But many Pakistanis have questioned putting a blanket ban on Internet sites.

Other nations, including Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation, have tried and failed to block offensive pages on YouTube and Facebook in recent years as users can find ways around bans. Pakistan has implemented limited bans on Internet content in the past, including YouTube.

Jawaid Abdul Ghani, chairman of the Punjab Information Technology Board in Lahore and a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the Facebook ban could have been limited to specific pages.

"You can shut down bits and pieces, not entire highways," Mr. Ghani said.

Pakistan's government had ordered Internet providers to block the page earlier this week as protests mounted. But the lawyers' petition called for the entire Facebook site to be blocked in retaliation for allowing the post.

The dispute is the latest between non-Muslims who say depicting Islam's prophet is a matter of free speech, and critics who say it is unnecessary provocation.

The best-known incident was in 2005 when Jyllands-Posten published a cartoon of Muhammad wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with a burning fuse.

SAP agrees to buy Sybase for $5.8 billion

 

SAP AG said Wednesday it's agreed to buy Dublin, Calif.-based Sybase Inc. for roughly $5.8 billion, as the German software giant seeks to revamp its culture and compete more effectively with acquisitive rival Oracle Corp.

SAP said in a statement that it will make a tender offer for Sybase at $65 a share, a 44% premium over the shares' thee-month average price. Sybase shares have historically never traded above $55 a share on a split-adjusted basis, a mark they reached in 1994.

In after-hours trading, Sybase shares rose 15% to $64.65, while U.S.-traded shares of SAP fell nearly 1% to $44.50.

Shares of Sybase had surged earlier Wednesday, following a Bloomberg News report of the impending merger announcement.

SAP and Sybase said the deal will be made using SAP's cash on hand, and a 2.75 billion euro ($3.47 billion) loan facility. Sybase will operate as a standalone unit, and its management team will remain in place.

"This is huge," SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott said during a conference call, adding that the merger is "about accelerating growth for both businesses." With the acquisition, SAP is gaining mobile technology, and so-called "in-memory" database technology -- raising questions about how SAP will position it in relation to Oracle's database software.

While Sybase's board has approved the merger, and the companies expect the deal to close in July, analysts say competing bids for Sybase could yet emerge.

"There could be other bidders," said Cowen & Co. analyst Peter Goldmacher, though he added that Oracle is less likely to make an offer than others. "I always though H-P made sense" as a Sybase suitor, Goldmacher said, referring to Hewlett-Packard Co.

H-P recently bought Palm Inc., which has a mobile operating system that could be complementary to Sybase's mobile infrastructure, Goldmacher said.

McDermott had said in March that as SAP is looking to overhaul operations, it could seek to make significant acquisitions.

That was something of a departure for SAP, which had largely relied on internal growth, while rival Oracle has pursued a strategy of frequent, sizable acquisitions.

Altimeter Group analyst Ray Wang said SAP's purchase of Sybase "signals their seriousness to acquire key, innovative technologies."

Wang said that, in addition to mobile and database technology, SAP is also gaining "access to the financial services market in China," where Sybase has a significant presence.

Sybase has partnered with SAP in the past, to provide business software to mobile devices. That partnership was announced in March of last year.

"We wanted something much more serious," McDermott said.

SAP currently provides Oracle with a significant chunk of revenue, as it supports Oracle database software alongside its business software applications.

Longer-term, Wang said, that may be phased out, in favor of Sybase's technology -- which could lend SAP an extra edge in competition with Oracle.

"At some point, you need to put an end to that," Wang said.

However, McDermott cautioned that SAP's support for Oracle's database "should continue," adding, "We'll continue to support openness and choice."

Cowen's Goldmacher said SAP will likely have little choice but to continue supporting Oracle's database with its products. "Customers want Oracle," he said.

SAP surprised investors in February by announcing that former CEO Leo Apotheker was stepping aside after serving only seven months on the job.

SAP is now run by co-CEOs McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe, who have cited a need to change the company's culture and foster better execution.

The company has struggled to with its "Business ByDesign" product, an on-demand service aimed at mid-sized businesses that has experienced delays, for example.

SAP has also recently faced criticism of its decision in 2008, in the midst of a recession, to raise maintenance fees for customers.

SAP guns for Oracle with deal for database underdog

 

Business software firm SAP AG, which has derided Oracle Corp.'s acquisition strategy in the past, is now taking a page from its rival's success and gunning for it at the same time.

In its deal to pay $5.8 billion for Sybase Inc. /quotes/comstock/13*!sy/quotes/nls/sy  , an underdog in the database software market, SAP /quotes/comstock/13*!sap/quotes/nls/sap , the biggest player in business software applications, seems to be going after Oracle in its core market.

At the end of 2008, the most recent year data is available, Oracle /quotes/comstock/15*!orcl/quotes/nls/orcl was the Number One player with a 28.2% share of the $2.2 billion database software market, while Sybase had an 8.5% share, according to IDC.

Over the past several years, Oracle has grown beyond its core database business and expanded into software applications, SAP's domain, by making a series of what many analysts and even rivals believe are astute acquisitions.

SAP is touting the deal for Sybase as a corporate mobile applications play, but new licenses in Sybase's database business still grew slightly faster than in the mobile business in its last quarter. SAP also partners with Microsoft Corp. /quotes/comstock/15*!msft/quotes/nls/msft  and IBM Corp. /quotes/comstock/13*!ibm/quotes/nls/ibm , for database offerings to its corporate customers, so it is likely downplaying the fact that it is buying a company that also develops database software.

"I see this as a very risky move for SAP," said Bruce Richardson, chief strategy officer for Infor, a privately held business software applications developer based in Alpharetta, Georgia. "While it does give SAP some strength in financial services, the mobile market is very early in its evolution."

For its part, Oracle declined to comment. Richardson said SAP's move could fuel a bidding war for Sybase, or even for SAP itself.

But for now, it's pretty clear who is having the last laugh.

"I'm waiting for the juicy Larry quote," Richardson said, referring to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. "He's got to love having SAP show up at a gunfight with a squirt gun."

 

More financial frauds to emerge, says Deloitte

Consultancy firm Deloitte has said more than half of the business professionals covered in its new survey feel that more corporate financial statement frauds will be uncovered in 2010 and 2011 than the last three years.

According to the survey of around 2,100 business professionals, 56 per cent of the respondents think more financial statement frauds will be unearthed this year and in 2011 than the last three years combined.

"Almost half of those surveyed (46 per cent) point to the recession as the reason more financial statement fraud will be uncovered," the survey stated. Moreover, it is getting harder to assess financial statement fraud risks because of changes in the risk environment, it said.

"It is no great surprise that business professionals expect the greatest growth in financial statement fraud schemes... to be in the financial services industry," Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP Forensic Centre director Toby Bishop said.

"Because today's regulatory scrutiny of certain industries may result in additional enforcement measures, it would be prudent for companies to consider refreshing their fraud risk assessments and fraud risk mitigation activities," Bishop added.

About 25 per cent of the respondents in the Deloitte survey believed that the action most useful to their organisation for mitigating the risk of financial statement fraud would be training staff to recognise such manipulation.

The survey also found that more than one-third (38 per cent) of the respondents believe that in the current economic environment, revenue manipulation is the type of financial statement fraud which is of greatest concern.

Meanwhile, 18 per cent of the respondents cited 'big bath' write-offs and 14 per cent cited manipulation for debt covenant compliance purposes as the biggest threat.

Fifty per cent of the business professionals surveyed said the financial services industry would have the greatest percentage increase in financial statement fraud in 2010, compared to 2009

IMF pegs India's growth at 8%

The International Monetary Fund expects the Indian economy to grow by 8 per cent during 2010-11, though high inflation and rising fiscal deficit would continue to remain areas of concern.

"With India's long-term prospects remaining strong and private sector balance sheets sound, we expect growth to be back at potential in 2010-11 even if advance economies grow below trend," IMF said in its latest paper issued after consultation with Indian authorities.

The IMF, however, forecasts a moderately lower growth rate for the 2011-12 fiscal at 7.7 per cent.

For the current fiscal, the IMF said the economy would grow by 6.7 per cent, much lower than the 7.2 per cent projected by the Central Statistical Organisation.

The major areas of concern, according to IMF, are the rising inflation and high fiscal deficit.

"On the downside, the main risks are elevated inflation and financing constraints. . . arising from the fiscal deficit, which could stall the recovery," the paper said.

Wholesale price inflation was at 9.89 per cent in February, much higher than the Reserve Bank's March-end projection of 8.5 per cent.

Besides, IMF added, the other risks include asset price bubble and the possibility of a sudden stoppage of foreign capital inflows caused by turmoil in global financial markets.

In the Economic Survey, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee projected gross domestic product growth of up to 8.75 per cent next fiscal, driven mainly by robust domestic demand and recovery in the global economy.

 

UK jobless rate drops to 7.8%

The unemployment rate in the UK dropped to 7.8 per cent in the three months to January 2010, the first quarterly fall in nearly two years.

Indicating that the country's labour market is slowly stabilising, the jobless rate slipped 0.1 per cent to 7.8 per cent while the for the three months ended January, data from the UK Office for National Statistics showed.

"This was the first quarterly fall in the unemployment rate since the three months to May 2008.

"The number of unemployed people fell by 33,000 over the quarter to reach 2.45 million," the agency said.

Meanwhile, the count of people seeking jobless benefits between January and February, dropped the maximum since November 1997, it said.

The number of individuals claiming unemployment benefits declined by 32,300 to 1.59 million.

"This is the largest monthly fall in the claimant count since November 1997," the statement noted.

Battered by the financial turmoil, the UK had witnessed millions of job losses, as many companies resorted to layoffs to cut down costs.

"The number of people unemployed for more than 12 months increased by 61,000 over the quarter (November to January) to reach 687,000," it added. For the quarter under review, the count of employed people stood at 28.86 million.

Recession: Employees stick to stable jobs

With recession altering the way people view their careers, more employees are now preferring to stick to a single job, which offers security, amid a perceived dearth of job opportunities, says a global survey.

According to the biennial survey by professional services firm Towers Watson, recession has fundamentally altered the way US employees view their work and leaders today.

"As many as eight out of 10 respondents want to settle into a job, with roughly half saying they want to work for a single company their entire career and the rest wanting to work for no more than two to three companies," the survey said.

Employees also appear willing to sacrifice career advancement to maintain what job stability they have been able to hang on to through the recession. "This move toward workplace 'nesting' is no doubt influenced by a perceived dearth of job opportunities, coupled with US employees' lower appetite for the risks inherent in changing jobs," it added.

In a sign of employees' intense focus on job security, when respondents were asked about the factors most important in a preferred work situation, more chose a "secure and stable position" (86 per cent) than "substantially higher levels of compensation" (74 per cent). The survey included responses from more than 20,000 employees in 22 markets around the world to gauge their views on the changing nature of the employment deal.

Despite obstacles in career advancement and erosion of many of the benefits fundamental to the traditional and highly paternalistic deal, 81 per cent of respondents said they were not actively looking for other jobs, the survey added.

"The recession has clearly prompted many employees to rethink their priorities and focus on long-term commitment to their employer in return for some semblance of job security. Despite elimination of many programs, from bonuses to training, traditionally used as retention tools," Towers Watson Talent & Rewards business leader Laura Sejen said.

Besides, more than half (56 per cent) of the US workforce expects little change in the job market over the next year, and over a quarter (28 per cent) anticipate continued deterioration in the employment picture, it added.

Sugar made from solar energy !

In what could be claimed a major breakthrough, scientists have produced sugar from solar energy, using plant, bacterial, frog and fungal enzymes.

A team at Cincinnati University has focused its work on making an artificial photosynthetic material, which uses plant, frog, fungal enzymes and bacterial, trapped within a foam housing, to make sugar from sunlight and carbon dioxide.

According to the scientists, foam was chosen because it can effectively concentrate the reactants but allow very good light and air penetration.

The design was based on the foam nests of a semi-tropical frog called the Tungara frog, which creates very long-lived foams for its developing tadpoles.

"The advantage for our system compared to plants and algae is that all of the captured solar energy is converted to sugars, whereas these organisms must divert a great deal of energy to other functions to maintain life and reproduce.

"Our foam also uses no soil, so food production would not be interrupted, and it can be used in highly enriched carbon dioxide environments, like exhaust from coal-burning power plants, unlike many natural photosynthetic systems.

"In natural plant systems, too much carbon dioxide shuts down photosynthesis, but ours does not have this limitation due to the bacterial-based photo-capture strategy," Professor David Wendell, who led the team, said.

There are many benefits to being able to create a plant-like foam. "You can convert the sugars into many different things, including ethanol and other biofuels. And it removes carbon dioxide from the air, but maintains current arable land for food production," Wendell said.

Added team member Dean Montemagno: "This technology establishes an economical way of harnessing the physiology of living systems by creating a new generation of functional materials that intrinsically incorporates life processes into its structure.

"Specifically in this work it presents a new pathway of harvesting solar energy to produce either oil or food with efficiencies that exceed other biosolar production methods. More broadly it establishes a mechanism for incorporating the functionality found in living systems into systems that we engineer and build."

Highly Absorbing, Flexible Solar Cells With Silicon Wire Arrays Created

 

Using arrays of long, thin silicon wires embedded in a polymer substrate, a team of scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has created a new type of flexible solar cell that enhances the absorption of sunlight and efficiently converts its photons into electrons. The solar cell does all this using only a fraction of the expensive semiconductor materials required by conventional solar cells.

 

"These solar cells have, for the first time, surpassed the conventional light-trapping limit for absorbing materials," says Harry Atwater, Howard Hughes Professor, professor of applied physics and materials science, and director of Caltech's Resnick Institute, which focuses on sustainability research.

The light-trapping limit of a material refers to how much sunlight it is able to absorb. The silicon-wire arrays absorb up to 96 percent of incident sunlight at a single wavelength and 85 percent of total collectible sunlight. "We've surpassed previous optical microstructures developed to trap light," he says.

Atwater and his colleagues -- including Nathan Lewis, the George L. Argyros Professor and professor of chemistry at Caltech, and graduate student Michael Kelzenberg -- assessed the performance of these arrays in a paper appearing in the February 14 advance online edition of the journal Nature Materials.

Atwater notes that the solar cells' enhanced absorption is "useful absorption."

"Many materials can absorb light quite well but not generate electricity -- like, for instance, black paint," he explains. "What's most important in a solar cell is whether that absorption leads to the creation of charge carriers."

The silicon wire arrays created by Atwater and his colleagues are able to convert between 90 and 100 percent of the photons they absorb into electrons -- in technical terms, the wires have a near-perfect internal quantum efficiency. "High absorption plus good conversion makes for a high-quality solar cell," says Atwater. "It's an important advance."

The key to the success of these solar cells is their silicon wires, each of which, says Atwater, "is independently a high-efficiency, high-quality solar cell." When brought together in an array, however, they're even more effective, because they interact to increase the cell's ability to absorb light.

"Light comes into each wire, and a portion is absorbed and another portion scatters. The collective scattering interactions between the wires makes the array very absorbing," he says.

This effect occurs despite the sparseness of the wires in the array -- they cover only between 2 and 10 percent of the cell's surface area.

"When we first considered silicon wire-array solar cells, we assumed that sunlight would be wasted on the space between wires," explains Kelzenberg. "So our initial plan was to grow the wires as close together as possible. But when we started quantifying their absorption, we realized that more light could be absorbed than predicted by the wire-packing fraction alone. By developing light-trapping techniques for relatively sparse wire arrays, not only did we achieve suitable absorption, we also demonstrated effective optical concentration -- an exciting prospect for further enhancing the efficiency of silicon-wire-array solar cells."

Each wire measures between 30 and 100 microns in length and only 1 micron in diameter. "The entire thickness of the array is the length of the wire," notes Atwater. "But in terms of area or volume, just 2 percent of it is silicon, and 98 percent is polymer."

In other words, while these arrays have the thickness of a conventional crystalline solar cell, their volume is equivalent to that of a two-micron-thick film.

Since the silicon material is an expensive component of a conventional solar cell, a cell that requires just one-fiftieth of the amount of this semiconductor will be much cheaper to produce.

The composite nature of these solar cells, Atwater adds, means that they are also flexible. "Having these be complete flexible sheets of material ends up being important," he says, "because flexible thin films can be manufactured in a roll-to-roll process, an inherently lower-cost process than one that involves brittle wafers, like those used to make conventional solar cells."

Atwater, Lewis, and their colleagues had earlier demonstrated that it was possible to create these innovative solar cells. "They were visually striking," says Atwater. "But it wasn't until now that we could show that they are both highly efficient at carrier collection and highly absorbing."

The next steps, Atwater says, are to increase the operating voltage and the overall size of the solar cell. "The structures we've made are square centimeters in size," he explains. "We're now scaling up to make cells that will be hundreds of square centimeters -- the size of a normal cell."

Atwater says that the team is already "on its way" to showing that large-area cells work just as well as these smaller versions.

Their research was supported by BP and the Energy Frontier Research Center program of the Department of Energy, and made use of facilities supported by the Center for Science and Engineering of Materials, a National Science Foundation Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at Caltech. In addition, Boettcher received fellowship support from the Kavli Neuroscience Institute at Caltech.

Indian workforce is most mobile in world

Indian workfore is the 'most mobile' in the world followed by Mexio, China and Turkey, a survey by a leading human resource service provider said on Thursday.

India's mobility index is 140, the highet in the world, showing that Indians are most open about shifting their jobs in the next six months, the Ma Foi Ranstad Work Monitor, a quarterly review of "mental mobility status" of employees of their rediness to change jobs, by Ma Foi Randstad said.

The lowest mobility rates were accounted by Luxembourg, Italy and Hungary, the company said announcing the results in a release.

As part of the survey, the state of mind of about 3,000 workers was studied in 23 countries across five continents during January-February 2010, compared amongst countries and finally presented in the form of an index.

Some of the key insights of the survey were mobility index, factual job changes, trust in market conditions, fear of job loss, readiness of new job, satisfaction level and personal motivation.

Employees in Bangalore were the most mobile in India.

 

SBI gets Chinese Govt nod to lend in Yuan

India's largest lender, State Bank of India has received the permission from the Chinese Government to lend in the local currency -Yuan, a top official said on Thursday.

SBI is the first Indian bank to receive this permission from the Chinese authorities, who are traditionally conservative in allowing foreign banks to do business in the local currency.

SBI expects to start lending operations in Yuan from March 15, SBI Deputy General Manager, Overseas Expansion and Planning, Naresh Malhotra said.

"We have got the approval from the Chinese Government to lend in Yuan. With this, our Chinese operations are getting into a different level as we were dealing in mainly US Dollar so far," Malhotra said.

State Bank has one full fledged branch in Shanghai and a representative office in Tianjin. The bank is planning to open a branch in Guangzhou and upgrade the Tianjin repo office to a branch in due course, Malhotra said.

With a view to support its business growth in the region, SBI has so far invested around $45-million in China, he said.

The bank would mainly target the Indian firms, which have operations in China and were relying on Chinese banks to secure Yuan loans, Malhotra said.

"This is a big business opportunity for us as these Indian firms (who have operations in China) will now approach us to secure the necessary funds. This will certainly give a push to our business growth there," Malhotra said.

Presently, SBI has 142 oulets abroad, which include over 64 branches under five subsidiaries. These subsidiaries are Indonesia (6 branches), Mauritius (12 branches), Nepal (32 branches), California (7 branches) and Canada (7 branches).

SBI currently derives around 13-14 per cent of its total revenues from overseas operations and has targeted to take it to 20 per cent over the next few years, Malhotra said.

SBI Chairman O P Bhatt had said on Wednesday that the bank plans to launch a string of retail products in its Canada, UK branches, which, the lender has already experimented successfully in Singapore.

Earlier, Bhatt had said that the bank also have plans to change its UK centre as a major hub for its European business.

Lava Likely Made River-Like Channel on Mars

 

Flowing lava can carve or build paths very much like the riverbeds and canyons etched by water, and this probably explains at least one of the meandering channels on the surface of Mars. These results were presented on March 4, 2010 at the 41st Lunar and Planetary Science Conference by Jacob Bleacher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Whether channels on Mars were formed by water or by lava has been debated for years, and the outcome is thought to influence the likelihood of finding life there.

 

"To understand if life, as we know it, ever existed on Mars, we need to understand where water is or was," says Bleacher. Geologists think that the water currently on the surface of Mars is either held in the soil or takes the form of ice at the planet's north and south poles. But some researchers contend that water flowed or pooled on the surface sometime in the past; water in this form is thought to increase the chance of some form of past or present life.

One of the lines of support for the idea that water once flowed on Mars comes from images that reveal details resembling the erosion of soil by water: terracing of channel walls, formation of small islands in a channel, hanging channels that dead-end and braided channels that branch off and then reconnect to the main branch. "These are thought to be clear evidence of fluvial [water-based] erosion on Mars," Bleacher says.

Lava is generally not thought to be able to create such finely crafted features. Instead, "the common image is of the big, open channels in Hawaii," he explains.

Bleacher and his colleagues carried out a careful study of a single channel on the southwest flank of Mars' Ascraeus Mons volcano, one of the three clustered volcanoes collectively called the Tharsis Montes. To piece together images covering more than 270 kilometers (~168 miles) of this channel, the team relied on high-resolution pictures from three cameras -- the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS), the Context Imager (CTX) and the High/Super Resolution Stereo Color (HRSC) imager -- as well as earlier data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA). These data gave a much more detailed view of the surface than previously available.

Because the fluid that formed this and other Ascraeus Mons channels is long-gone, its identity has been hard to deduce, but the visual clues at the source of the channel seem to point to water. These clues include small islands, secondary channels that branch off and rejoin the main one and eroded bars on the insides of the curves of the channels.

But at the channel's other end, an area not clearly seen before, Bleacher and colleagues found a ridge that appears to have lava flows coming out of it. In some areas, "the channel is actually roofed over, as if it were a lava tube, and lined up along this, we see several rootless vents," or openings where lava is forced out of the tube and creates small structures, he explains. These types of features don't form in water-carved channels, he notes. Bleacher argues that having one end of the channel formed by water and the other end by lava is an "exotic" combination. More likely, he thinks, the entire channel was formed by lava.

To find out what kinds of features lava can produce, Bleacher, along with W. Brent Garry and Jim Zimbelman at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, examined the 51-kilometer (~32 mile) lava flow from the 1859 eruption of Mauna Loa on the Big Island of Hawaii. Their main focus was an island nearly a kilometer long in the middle of the channel; Bleacher says this is much larger than islands typically identified within lava flows. To survey the island, the team used differential GPS, which provides location information to within about 3 to 5 centimeters (1.1 to 1.9 inches), rather than the roughly 3 to 5 meters (9.8 to 16.4 feet) that a car's GPS can offer.

"We found terraced walls on the insides of these channels, channels that go out and just disappear, channels that cut back into the main one, and vertical walls 9 meters (~29 feet) high," Bleacher says. "So, right here, in something that we know was formed only by flowing lava, we found most of the features that were considered to be diagnostic of water-carved channels on Mars."

The new results make "a strong case that fluid lava can produce channels that look very much like water-generated features," says Zimbelman. "So, we should not jump to a water-related conclusion when we see such channels on other planets, particularly in volcanic terrain such as that around the Tharsis Montes volcanoes."

Further evidence that such features could be created by lava flows came from the examination of a detailed image of channels from the Mare Imbrium, a dark patch on the moon that is actually a large crater filled with ancient lava rock. In this image, too, the researchers found channels with terraced walls and branching secondary channels.

The conclusion that lava probably made the channel on Mars "not only has implications for the geological evolution of the Ascraeus Mons but also the whole Tharsis Bulge [volcanic region]," says Andy de Wet, a co-author at Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, Penn. "It may also have some implications for the supposed widespread involvement of water in the geological evolution of Mars."

Bleacher notes that the team's conclusions do not rule out the possibility of flowing water on Mars, nor of the existence of other channels carved by water. "But one thing I've learned is not to underestimate the way that liquid rock will flow," he says. "It really can produce a lot of things that we might not think it would."

NASA's Fermi Probes 'Dragons' of the Gamma-Ray Sky

 

One of the pleasures of perusing ancient maps is locating regions so poorly explored that mapmakers warned of dragons and sea monsters. Now, astronomers using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope find themselves in the same situation as cartographers of old. A new study of the ever-present fog of gamma rays from sources outside our galaxy shows that less than a third of the emission arises from what astronomers once considered the most likely suspects -- black-hole-powered jets from active galaxies.

 

"Active galaxies can explain less than 30 percent of the extragalactic gamma-ray background Fermi sees," said Marco Ajello, an astrophysicist at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC), jointly located at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University, Calif. "That leaves a lot of room for scientific discovery as we puzzle out what else may be responsible."

Ajello presented his findings at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society's High-Energy Astrophysics Division in Waikoloa, Hawaii.

The sky glows in gamma rays even far away from bright sources, such as pulsars and gas clouds within our own Milky Way galaxy or the most luminous active galaxies. According to the conventional explanation, this background glow represents the accumulated emission of a vast number of active galaxies that are simply too faint and too distant to be resolved as discrete gamma-ray sources.

"Thanks to Fermi, we now know for certain that this is not the case," Ajello said. A paper on the findings has been submitted to The Astrophysical Journal.

Active galaxies possess central black holes containing millions to billions of times the sun's mass. As matter falls toward the black hole, some of it becomes redirected into jets of particles traveling near the speed of light.

These particles can produce gamma rays in two different ways. When one strikes a photon of visible or infrared light, the photon can gain energy and become a gamma ray. If one of the jet's particles strikes the nucleus of a gas atom, the collision can briefly create a particle called a pion, which then rapidly decays into a pair of gamma rays.

Launched on June 11, 2008, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is continually mapping the gamma-ray sky. The mission is a partnership between astrophysics and particle physics, developed in collaboration with NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy and including important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the U.S.

The team analyzed data acquired by Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT) during the observatory's initial year in space. The first challenge was eliminating emissions from our own galaxy.

"The extragalactic background is very faint, and it's easily confused with the bright emission from the Milky Way," said Markus Ackermann, another member of the Fermi LAT team at KIPAC who led the measurement study. "We have done a very careful job in separating the two components to determine the background's absolute level."

Ajello and his colleagues then compared emissions from active galaxies that Fermi detected directly against the number needed to produce the observed extragalactic background. Between energies of 0.1 and 100 billion electron volts (GeV) -- or from about 100 million to 30 billion times the energy of visible light -- active galaxies turn out to be only minor players.

So, what else may contribute to the extragalactic gamma-ray background? "Particle acceleration occurring in normal star-forming galaxies is a strong contender," Ackermann explained. "So is particle acceleration during the final assembly of the large-scale structure we observe today, for example, where clusters of galaxies are merging together."

And there's always dark matter, the mysterious substance that neither produces nor obscures light but whose gravity corrals normal matter. "Dark matter may be a type of as-yet-unknown subatomic particle. If that's true, dark matter particles may interact with each other in a way that produces gamma rays," Ajello added.

Improved analysis and extra sky exposure will enable the Fermi team to address these potential contributions. For now, though, the best that can be said about the extragalactic gamma-ray background is: Here, there be dragons.

Carbon Emissions 'Outsourced' to Developing Countries

 

A new study by scientists at the Carnegie Institution finds that over a third of carbon dioxide emissions associated with consumption of goods and services in many developed countries are actually emitted outside their borders. Some countries, such as Switzerland, "outsource" over half of their carbon dioxide emissions, primarily to developing countries. The study finds that, per person, about 2.5 tons of carbon dioxide are consumed in the U.S. but produced somewhere else. For Europeans, the figure can exceed four tons per person. Most of these emissions are outsourced to developing countries, especially China.

 

"Instead of looking at carbon dioxide emissions only in terms of what is released inside our borders, we also looked at the amount of carbon dioxide released during the production of the things that we consume," says co-author Ken Caldeira, a researcher in the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology.

Caldeira and lead author Steven Davis, also at Carnegie, used published trade data from 2004 to create a global model of the flow of products across 57 industry sectors and 113 countries or regions. By allocating carbon emissions to particular products and sources, the researchers were able to calculate the net emissions "imported" or "exported" by specific countries.

"Just like the electricity that you use in your home probably causes CO₂ emissions at a coal-burning power plant somewhere else, we found that the products imported by the developed countries of western Europe, Japan, and the United States cause substantial emissions in other countries, especially China," says Davis. "On the flip side, nearly a quarter of the emissions produced in China are ultimately exported."

Over a third of the carbon dioxide emissions linked to good and services consumed in many European countries actually occurred elsewhere, the researchers found. In Switzerland and several other small countries, outsourced emissions exceeded the amount of carbon dioxide emitted within national borders.

The United States is both a major importer and a major exporter of emissions embodied in trade. The net result is that the U.S. outsources about 11% of total consumption-based emissions, primarily to the developing world.

The researchers point out that regional climate policy needs to take into account emissions embodied in trade, not just domestic emissions.

"Our analysis of the carbon dioxide emissions associated with consumption in each country just states the facts," says Caldeira. "This could be taken into consideration when developing emissions targets for these countries, but that's a decision for policy-makers. One implication of emissions outsourcing is that a lot of the consumer products that we think of as being relatively carbon-free may in fact be associated with significant carbon dioxide emissions."

"Where CO₂ emissions occur doesn't matter to the climate system," adds Davis. "Effective policy must have global scope. To the extent that constraints on developing countries' emissions are the major impediment to effective international climate policy, allocating responsibility for some portion of these emissions to final consumers elsewhere may represent an opportunity for compromise."

Women Who Drink Moderately Appear to Gain Less Weight Than Nondrinkers

 

Normal-weight women who drink a light to moderate amount of alcohol appear to gain less weight and have a lower risk of becoming overweight and obese than non-drinkers

 

More than half of American adults drink alcoholic beverages, according to background information in the article. Alcohol contains about 7 calories per gram (with approximately 28 grams per ounce) and alcohol drinking may possibly lead to weight gain through an imbalance of energy consumed and energy burned. However, research has not consistently provided evidence that consuming alcohol is a risk factor for obesity.

Lu Wang, M.D., Ph.D., of Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, and colleagues studied 19,220 U.S. women age 39 or older who had a body mass index (BMI) in the range classified as normal (18.5 to 25). On an initial questionnaire, participants reported how many alcoholic beverages they typically drank per day. A total of 7,346 (38.2 percent) reported drinking no alcohol; 6,312 (32.8 percent) drank less than 5 grams; 3,865 (20.1 percent) drank 5 to less than 15 grams; 1,129 (5.9 percent) drank 15 to less than 30 grams; and 568 (3 percent) drank 30 grams per day or more.

Over an average of 13 years of follow-up, women on average gained weight progressively. Women who did not drink alcohol at all gained the most weight, with weight gain decreasing as alcohol intake increased. A total of 7,942 (41.3 percent) women who initially had normal weight become overweight or obese (BMI of 25 or higher), including 732 (3.8 percent) who become obese (BMI of 30 or higher). Compared with women who did not drink at all, those who consumed some but less than 40 grams per day of alcohol were less likely to become overweight or obese. Women who drank 15 to less than 30 grams per day had the lowest risk, which was almost 30 percent lower than that of non-drinkers.

"An inverse association between alcohol intake and risk of becoming overweight or obese was noted for all four types of alcoholic beverages [red wine, white wine, beer and liquor], with the strongest association found for red wine and a weak yet significant association for white wine after multivariate adjustment," the authors write.

The authors caution that, given potential medical and psychosocial problems related to drinking alcohol, its beneficial and adverse effects for each individual must be considered before making any recommendation about its use. "Further investigations are warranted to elucidate the role of alcohol intake and alcohol metabolism in energy balance and to identify behavioral, physiological and genetic factors that may modify the alcohol effects," they conclude.

This study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md. These grants provided funding for study conduct and data collection.

 

Budget: Just who saves how much tax!

Which segment of Indian citizens has emerged the winner post-Budget 2010?

Reality television shows have become a big part and parcel of Indian television as well as Indian society. Shows where you get to answer questions and become an overnight crorepati (millionaire), there's even one where you just need to say 'deal' or no deal' and could walk away with Rs 50 lakh (Rs 5 million).

To be honest, at times these shows lose the 'real' effect and start looking 'surreal'. One such 'reality show' is the annual financial exercise of the government of India .The one chance for the finance minister to take centrestage: the Union Budget. Like all shows, the Budget too has winners and losers.

Of course, over the last 76 episodes of this show (76 Budgets have been presented since the first one was presented by Shamukham Chetty in 1947), the Budget has become a boring affair for many.

So, here we take a look at the numbers post-Budget 2010 and compare them with the tax laws prevailing in 2009-2010 to see which part of the Indian junta will laugh its way to the bank in 2010-11.

There have been countless discussions on how the Budget is pro-middle-middle class (the repetition of middle is intentional to define a new creed: the people in the Rs 4 lakh to Rs 8 lakh taxable income).

Let's look at actual numbers to see how much you and me stand to save post Budget 2010-11 vis-a-vis 2009-10.

A very simple way to do this is to compare the income tax payable by us for 2009-10 and for 2010-11.

 

Men
Income (Rs)	Tax Payable (Rs)		Saving
	Old Slab	New Slab	%
161,000	100	100	0.00%
250,000	9,000	9,000	0.00%
300,000	14,000	14,000	0.00%
400,000	34,000	24,000	29.41%
450,000	44,000	29,000	34.09%
500,000	54,000	34,000	37.04%
550,000	69,000	44,000	36.23%
600,000	84,000	54,000	35.71%
750,000	129,000	84,000	34.88%
800,000	144,000	94,000	34.72%
850,000	159,000	109,000	31.45%
900,000	174,000	124,000	28.74%
950,000	189,000	139,000	26.46%
1,000,000	204,000	154,000	24.51%
1,050,000	219,000	169,000	22.83%
1,100,000	234,000	184,000	21.37%
1,150,000	249,000	199,000	20.08%
1,200,000	264,000	214,000	18.94%
1,250,000	279,000	229,000	17.92%
1,300,000	294,000	244,000	17.01%
1,350,000	309,000	259,000	16.18%
1,400,000	324,000	274,000	15.43%
1,450,000	339,000	289,000	14.75%
1,500,000	354,000	304,000	14.12%

Women					Senior Citizens
Income (Rs)	Tax Payable (Rs)		Saving %		Income (Rs)	Tax Payable (Rs)		Saving
	Old Slab	New Slab				Old Slab	New Slab	%
191,000	100	100	0.00%		251,000	100	100	0.00%
250,000	6,000	6,000	0.00%		275,000	2,500	2,500	0.00%
300,000	11,000	11,000	0.00%		300,000	5,000	5,000	0.00%
400,000	31,000	21,000	32.26%		400,000	25,000	15,000	40.00%
450,000	41,000	26,000	36.59%		450,000	35,000	20,000	42.86%
500,000	51,000	31,000	39.22%		500,000	45,000	25,000	44.44%
550,000	66,000	41,000	37.88%		550,000	60,000	35,000	41.67%
600,000	81,000	51,000	37.04%		600,000	75,000	45,000	40.00%
750,000	126,000	81,000	35.71%		750,000	120,000	75,000	37.50%
800,000	141,000	91,000	35.46%		800,000	135,000	85,000	37.04%
850,000	156,000	106,000	32.05%		850,000	150,000	100,000	33.33%
900,000	171,000	121,000	29.24%		900,000	165,000	115,000	30.30%
950,000	186,000	136,000	26.88%		950,000	180,000	130,000	27.78%
1,000,000	201,000	151,000	24.88%		1,000,000	195,000	145,000	25.64%
1,050,000	216,000	166,000	23.15%		1,050,000	210,000	160,000	23.81%
1,100,000	231,000	181,000	21.65%		1,100,000	225,000	175,000	22.22%
1,150,000	246,000	196,000	20.33%		1,150,000	240,000	190,000	20.83%
1,200,000	261,000	211,000	19.16%		1,200,000	255,000	205,000	19.61%
1,250,000	276,000	226,000	18.12%		1,250,000	270,000	220,000	18.52%
1,300,000	291,000	241,000	17.18%		1,300,000	285,000	235,000	17.54%
1,350,000	306,000	256,000	16.34%		1,350,000	300,000	250,000	16.67%
1,400,000	321,000	271,000	15.58%		1,400,000	315,000	265,000	15.87%
1,450,000	336,000	286,000	14.88%		1,450,000	330,000	280,000	15.15%
1,500,000	351,000	301,000	14.25%		1,500,000	345,000	295,000	14.49%