India knows whereabouts of Dawood in Pakistan says Home Minister

Home minister P Chidambaram on Friday said India knew where underworld don Dawood Ibrahim was but no one would allow it to go to the place and point out his house even as Pakistan consistently denied his presence in the country.

The home minister also said India was not surprised that the US had discovered Pakistani intelligence agency ISI's links with terror outfits, including the Haqqani network.

Asked about Dawood's presence in Karachi as claimed by the don's brother Anis Ibrahim in telephonic conversations with the media, Chidambaram said, "This is not new either. I think we know more than what Dawood Ibrahim's brother told you. We know where he is but surely no one is allowing, no one will allow me to go to the place and point out his house."

He said the matter was raised with Pakistan on several occasions. "We have raised it with Pakistan. I have raised it with my counterparts. They are in flat denial. They deny that Dawood Ibrahim is in Pakistan. What is there we can do from India except some day or the other that it will be exposed as a lie," the home minister said.

After escaping from India following the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, Dawood has been hiding in Pakistan under the ISI's protection. The US had in 2003 declared him a "global terrorist" due to his close links with the al-Qaida.

Asked about the latest American assessment that the ISI had links with Haqqani network in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, Chidambaram said, "We are not surprised that US lately discovered the ISI's link with a number of other terrorist groups. We always knew that the ISI has links with terrorist groups."

Relations between US and Pakistan have come under strain after the US military and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said the Haqqani network was closely linked to and sometimes acted as an agent of the ISI.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, publicly accused the ISI of colluding with the Haqqani network in the September 13 attack on the American embassy in Kabul.

Three out of 12 ,Indian-origin scientists in White House honors list

Three distinguished scientists of Indian-origin -- two inventors and a researcher -- figure in a celebrated White House honors list this year, broadly underscoring India's continued contribution to American advances. Two of them are IIT-ians, alumni of the academically elite Indian Institute of Technology.

New York University's Srinivasa SR Vardhan, Purdue University's Rakesh Agarwal and North Carolina State Univeristy's B Jayant Baliga are among the select dozen named by President Obama to receive the National Medal of Science, and for Technology and Innovation, the highest honor bestowed by the US government on scientists, engineers and inventors.

"Each of these extraordinary scientists, engineers, and inventors is guided by a passion for innovation, a fearlessness even as they explore the very frontiers of human knowledge, and a desire to make the world a better place," Obama said in a statement on Tuesday following the release of the honors list. "Their ingenuity inspires us all to reach higher and try harder, no matter how difficult the challenges we face." The recipients will receive their awards at a White House ceremony later this year.

Scientists and researchers of Indian-origin have occasionally featured before in the White House honors list, but this is the first time that three have been recognized in a single year in a list typically dominated by U.S-born and US-educated geeks. Among the rare awardees of Indian-origin are Calyampudi R Rao (Vardhan's mentor who was recognized in 2001 for mathematical and computer sciences) and Arun Netravali (2001 for technology).

Steve Jobs, Gordon Moore, David Packard and Dean Kamen are among legends who have won the technology medal, while several science medal recipients have gone on to win the Nobel Prize.

While there is criticism from some quarters that India often tends to "adopt" NRIs and PIOs who have long given up on their homeland, in this instance all three winners have strong roots and association with India.

Srinivasa SR Varadhan, an alumnus of Presidency College, Chennai and the Indian Statistical Institute, who is also a Padma Bhushan recipient, won the award for his work in probability theory, especially his work on large deviations from expected random behavior, which has revolutionized this field of study during the second half of the twentieth century and become a cornerstone of both pure and applied probability.

The mathematical insights he developed have been applied in diverse fields including quantum field theory, population dynamics, finance, econometrics, and traffic engineering, the White House said in its citation.

Rakesh Agarwal, an alumnus of IIT-Kanpur, was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation for "an extraordinary record of innovations in improving energy efficiency and reducing the cost of gas liquefaction and separation. These innovations have had significant positive impacts on electronic device manufacturing, liquefied gas production, and the supply of industrial gases for diverse industries," the citation said.

B Jayant Baliga, an alumnus of IIT-Chennai, won in the same category for development and commercialization of the Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor and other power semiconductor devices that are extensively used in transportation, lighting, medicine, defense, and renewable energy generation systems.

IMPORTANT NOTICE - New TRAI Regulations!

Due to the new TRAI regulations, mobile / telephone users registered in DND category may not get any SMS transaction alerts and promotional SMS/calls unless they register their preferred category of receiving these starting 27th September 2011.

You can activate partial DND to receive your transaction SMSs and alerts as follows:

Send "START 1" to 1909 to activate partial-DND, allowing you to receive SMS alerts from Banking and Financial Products companies


What will change?
Unless you activate partial DND, you may not receive any transactional SMSs and alerts.

You will receive promotional SMSs only between 9AM - 9PM. SMS alerts for any transactions conducted post 9PM will be sent out the next day.


You can also:

- Call 1909 (Toll Free) from your registered phone number and follow the IVR process, or

- Visit your telephone / mobile service provider’s website to register your preference.

Facebook tracks what you do online even when you're logged out

Canberra, Sept 26 (ANI): An Australian technologist has claimed that Facebook can track the web pages you visit, even when you are logged out of the social networking giant.

According to Wollongong-based Nik Cubrilovic, when the user is logged out of Facebook, rather than deleting its tracking cookies, the site merely modifies them, maintaining account information and other unique tokens that can be used to identify its users.

This simply means that any time you visit a web page with a Facebook button or widget, your browser is still sending personally identifiable information back to Facebook.

"Even if you are logged out, Facebook still knows and can track every page you visit," Cubrilovic wrote in a blog post.

"The only solution is to delete every Facebook cookie in your browser, or to use a separate browser for Facebook interactions," he added.

Cubrilovic said he tried to contact Facebook to inform it of his discovery but did not get a reply, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

He said there were significant risks to the privacy of users, particularly those using public terminals to access Facebook.

"Facebook are front-and-centre in the new privacy debate just as Microsoft were with security issues a decade ago," Cubrilovic said.

"The question is what it will take for Facebook to address privacy issues and to give their users the tools required to manage their privacy and to implement clear policies - not pages and pages of confusing legal documentation, and 'logout' not really meaning 'logout'," he added. (ANI)

INDIANs Beware !! No, Facebook Will Not Make You Pay to Get the New Profiles

A completely untrue rumor that Facebook will soon start charging users is making the rounds yet again.

Ever since Facebook introduced Timeline profiles, several Facebook status updates have been spreading on the world’s social network that claim Facebook users will have to pay for the new profile changes.

Here’s one of the messages currently spreading on Facebook:

“THIS IS OFFICIAL… IT WAS EVEN ON THE NEWS… FACEBOOK WILL START CHARGING DUE TO THE NEW PROFILE CHANGES… IF YOU COPY THIS ON YOUR WALL YOUR ICON WILL TURN BLUE AND FACEBOOK WILL BE FREE FOR YOU. PLEASE PASS THIS MESSAGE ON, IF NOT YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE DELETED IF YOU DO NOT PAY!!”

And here’s yet another:

“FACEBOOK JUST RELEASED THEIR PRICE GRID FOR MEMBERSHIP. $9.99 PER MONTH FOR GOLD MEMBER SERVICES, $6.99 PER MONTH FOR SILVER MEMBER SERVICES, $3.99 PER MONTH FOR BRONZE MEMBER SERVICES, FREE IF YOU COPY AND PASTE THIS MESSAGE BEFORE MIDNIGHT TONIGHT. WHEN YOU SIGN ON TOMORROW MORNING YOU WILL BE PROMPTED FOR PAYMENT INFO…IT IS OFFICIAL IT WAS EVEN ON THE NEWS. FACEBOOK WILL START CHARGING DUE TO THE NEW PROFILE CHANGES”

These rumors are simply untrue. “It’s free and always will be” is still in giant font on the Facebook homepage. Besides, Facebook is already making billions in revenue.

High Court Ordered to Ban Facebook in Pakistan by 6th October 2011

Facebook has finally met its fate in a judgment passed by Lahore high court. Justice Azmat Saeed ordered the Ministry of Telecom and Information Technology to block the social networking website, Facebook for maintaining content of religious discrimination. According to news published in Pakistan today, there was a petition demanding the ban on Facebook for holding notorious competition based on blasphemous caricatures on May 20, 2011. The court has ordered the government to disabled Facebook or ban Facebook and deliver a compliance report by October 6, 2011.

This is being rightfully done to a social networking site that supports religious discrimination. A Similar event took place an year back with consequences that followed to temporarily restrict access to Facebook in Pakistan. Either the mistake is somehow repeated or intentionally done because Facebook Platform Policies clearly state:

You will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.

Even if the Facebook administrators failed to see it the first time, how come they not notice it when the competition was intentionally held again after a period of one year? The administrators have the complete control to remove any controversial material being posted on their website to ensure quality as stated in Facebook terms:

* You will not use Facebook to do anything unlawful, misleading, malicious, or discriminatory.
* We respect other people’s rights, and expect you to do the same.
* You will not post content or take any action on Facebook that infringes or violates someone else’s rights or otherwise violates the law.
* We can remove any content or information you post on Facebook if we believe that it violates this Statement.

What sort of right do Facebook respect if it supports humiliation of a certain religion despite having complete authority to remove content based on controversy? This also provokes another question in reader’s mind, why is a social networking website being used as a tool to promote religious violence?

Sonia, Ratan Tata among world's 50 most influential people !!!

UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and industrialist Ratan Tata were among the world's 50 most influential people along with German chancellor Angela Merkel, who was ranked No 1, according to a survey by UK-based magazine NewStatesman.

The list, however, features a number of controversial figures including the chief of the Pakistan Army General Ashfaq, Pervez Kayani, the Republican Tea Party leader Michele Bachmann, described as "scarier than Sarah Palin" and al Qaeda's "spiritual leader" Anwar al-Awlaki.

Describing Gandhi as "Madam India", the survey included the Congress president in the list for the political power she wields as much as her capacity as the chairperson of the ruling United Progressive Alliance.
The survey included the Congress president as Madam India in the list for the political power she wields.

"Italian-born Sonia Gandhi is widely considered as one of the most powerful politicians in India, becoming the longest-serving president in the history of the Indian National Congress on being re-elected for the fourth time in September 2010," the magazine said highlighting the fact that she is daughter-in-law of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Tata, dubbed as "Metal Head", was hailed as a symbol of "India's emergence as an international powerhouse" and credited with giving Indian business a global reach with the acquisition of the British steel manufacturer Corus and the prestigious Jaguar Land Rover car by the Tata Group. His statement that his successor need not be an Indian is described as a "sign that his is a truly global business."

FB, Twitter may be used by Government for gauging public opinion !!!

With social networking sites Facebook or Twitter getting popular among masses, the Centre is creating a framework for "Citizen Engagement" to use social media for eliciting public views, an official said.

The Department of Information Technology, under the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, is creating a framework for "Citizen Engagement" to use social media for eliciting public views.

"Social media like Facebook, Twitter has become a very powerful media..but government has been unable to make use of it as we do not have any framework," Department of IT, Additional Secretary, Shankar Aggarwal told reporters here today on the sidelines of IT conclave 'E-Revolution'.

"Therefore government officials are not sure whether to make use of social media ... if yes then what should be the 'dos and don'ts' for the same," he said.

He stressed that for implementation of any scheme, programme or any project, the government must have consultation with the civil society in a meaningful manner.

He informed that the approval of various ministries like Home, Information and Broadcasting would be required for implementing the new framework.

In another move to bring transparency in government functioning, the Centre is creating a policy whereby all government data created with public money except sensitive data be put in public domain.

"With data in public domain, people for example can come to know about how much money was spent in NREGA scheme or how many students got scholarships," he said.

Public or civil societies can use this data for value addition, transparency and accountability, he informed.

He said the mandate has been given to the department of Science and Technology for putting data of all government departments in public domain.

On Electronic Services Delivery Bill, he said that this bill was expected to be tabled in next session of parliament for its approval.

Once this bill turns into Act, all the government departments in Centre and states would have to provide public services in electronic mode only, he said.

"It is whims and wishes of the department to deliver public services in electronic mode. If we make it mandatory then all government departments and services will be duty bound to provide services in e-mode in next 5 years," he said.

Pak used illegal means to get nukes - ISI

Pakistan, which used every "legal and illegal" means to go nuclear, shared its secret atomic technology and equipment with countries like Iran and Libya, says an ISI report, based on disgraced scientist A Q Khan's questioning, which was circulated among western intelligence agencies.

"It is most unfortunate that these things (transfer of nuclear technology) happened due to the peculiar nature of the circumstances and loose arrangements in those early days and because of the personal obligations of previous governments to these countries," says the undated ISI report obtained and released by the Fox News on Sunday.

The ISI report, Fox News said, was based on the questioning of A Q Khan and others by the Pakistani spy agency.

The report was circulated to western intelligence agencies after Pakistan refused to produce Khan for questioning, the news channel said.

However, the report has no reference to North Korea, which the western countries say was also a recipient of the clandestine nuclear technology from Pakistan.

In the report, the ISI also conceded that Pakistan used every legal and illegal means to obtain nuclear technology and establish the plant to make atomic weapons in the country.

"When the (atomic research) organisation was set up in mid 1976, a free hand was given to the project director to acquire each and everything through any means," it said.

"There was a direct and imminent threat to Pakistan's security and existence in the wake of the dismemberment of the country in 1971 and after the Indian nuclear test in 1974," it said.

Gen Ziaul Haq, the then Pakistan President, had openly proclaimed that "beg, borrow or steal" was the policy of the day in the light of the imposition of stringent embargoes and restrictions on any nuclear-related materials and equipment to Pakistan, the ISI said.

Pakistan, being an under-developed country with no industrial infrastructure, had to buy each and every bit of material and piece of equipment surreptitiously from abroad in the open market and had to establish a network of cover companies within the country and outside to by-pass embargoes and import all the necessary items, it said.

Such companies were operating in Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE, Singapore, UK, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland etc, the ISI report said.

Since no industrial infrastructure was available within the country, production drawing of all the components of the centrifuge machines were sent to England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Holland etc for the placing of orders for thousands of components and equipment required in order to expedite the work, which was a race against time, it said.

"Dubai, having no customs formalities or restrictions and no financial impediments, was made the main operating centre. All the foreign suppliers (Dutch, British, French, Turkish, Belgian, Swiss, German etc) were regularly coming to Dubai to discuss offers and orders.

"A company named Ben Belilah Enterprises (BBE), owned by an Arab police officer, was introduced by A Salam, a British national," it said.

"BBE had a Sri Lankan Manager named Farooq. Salam and Farooq, both being Tamils, were good friends. Due to the frequent meetings between our experts and the foreign suppliers, sets of almost all the drawings were kept in Dubai in a flat that had been rented especially for this purpose so they wouldn't have to be carried to and fro all the time," the report said.

INDIAN !!! Things to never do on Facebook

There is a set of guidelines to follow in a relationship, and then there is another set to be followed when exposing your personal life on a social-networking site. A breach of these could result in the shocking tragedy of Malini Murmu, the 23-year-old IIM student who committed suicide after reading her former boyfriend's tactless status update: "Feeling super cool today. Dumped my new ex-girlfriend. Happy Independence Day."

The onus of Malini's actions does not rest solely on her ex-boyfriend's keyboard happiness; there is more to the matter than meets the eye. However, this is an immense cause of concern about the far-reaching effects social-networking sites can have on people's lives. Especially since people tend to have more 'courageous' online personalities than offline ones.

Clinical psychologist Alina Philip says, "Much like the media, social networking sites reach everybody. Therefore, we need to follow ethics and be extremely sensitive to what goes up on them. "

Admit it
As much as social networks allow us to stay connected with people across the demographics, they are partly superficial.

And we get to be pretentious. Most status updates and pictures are to show how witty you are, how much fun and interesting your life is, how deep you are - basically a concentrated effort to dictate a perception of the unique snowflake that is you.

While there is nothing wrong in this, tread carefully when relationships with others are involved. Making and maintaining relationships need effort, time and direct communication - and all of it invested offline.

Clinical psychologist and psychotherapist Varkha Chulani, says, "There's a fine line between sharing of information and emotional exhibition." "Love you darling. Muah", "Thanks for last night", "We need to talk" and "I think your sister is fat" does not need to make it on the Wall. These conversations are best had person to person. And if this is not the kind of thing you would say to his/her face, it makes it all the more cowardly to say it online.

Like Philip says, "Would you go to the middle of Azad Maidan screaming that you have broken up? Then why publicise on Facebook? Your personal space is your personal space. Respect it. Do not make a mockery out of it. Maintain the sanity of your relationship."

This extends to changes in relationship messages. From Single to Taken to It's complicated, it's less of sharing of good news and more of hungering for attention. Wouldn't it be wiser to decide on the status of your relationship after you've finished fighting and decided mutually on it?

Also announcing the cementing of your relationship through status change can be awkward if you have not had 'the talk' offline first. Otherwise ABC is happily 'in a relationship' with XYZ, but XYZ hasn't really changed her status from Single.

Be a suit
Taking office gossip and team rivalry online will not reflect well on your resume. Even here, it is better if you solve your problems face-to-face rather than resort to vague sarcastic comments on their status messages and photos.

And no matter how bad your day has been, don't bitch about a client or boss on your blog and Twitter. You may have a friend who knows a friend, who knows the boss. Besides, your future employers could be online and they will think twice about hiring a person with no discretion.

Keep it positive
A rule of thumb is to announce only the positive - a new job, a celebration or new degree. Steer clear of washing dirty linen in public. Do not talk about your bad day at work or your unpleasant marriage. Remember: 500 friends of friends do not need to know.

Pictures have ceased to be snapshots for posterity and grown into frames of exhibitionism. And here you need to be more careful. What seemed funny when you were drunk and in college, will not be as ticklish when you land a job, or when you wake up sober. When the pictures are of somebody else, the responsibility is greater.

You do not know what could land a friend or colleague into trouble and it is best to avoid uploading any picture or video that brings even a shadow of doubt. Happy smiling family pictures may be boring, but they are less likely to land you in a lawsuit.

Pictures of you with your arm around a bikini-clad babe, or shirtless dude after a break-up point less to you being cool and more to you being lame. "This reflects that you are providing solace to yourself that you have a good life, while revealing emotional instability," says Chulani.