One of the wings on which Indian cricket took a concerted flight

The Hindu A MATCH-WINNING PERFORMANCE: The Sri Lankans could only watch in despair as Gautam Gambhir went about repairing the early damage of losing Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar. Photo: K.R. Deepak

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The Cup was won with Gambhir as an integral part of the triumph

There are many in this team who can thrill people. Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni...But Gautam Gambhir thrills them differently.

He loves a fight. He could have been a good boxer. He is mentally tuned to indulge in a combat at the shortest notice. So what if he is short in stature? “Height does not matter,” he asserts. His mantra is simple: “Adaptability and adjustment make you ready for any battle.” This is what he has been reminding himself from the time he slammed a century, as a 12-year-old, or maybe 13, in a local tournament.

Gambhir can be really explosive — the strokes from his bat matching his temper, hurting the bowler, embarrassing the fielders. They often watch in exasperation, as did the Sri Lankans the other night when the left-hander went about repairing the early damage of losing Sehwag and Tendulkar.

As the crowd roars and the bowlers wilt, he makes his moves. Not that he waits for such an opening. If the first ball he faces deserves punishment, it will be dealt with appropriately. “Learnt it from Viru (Sehwag),” he confessed once.

Gambhir grew in Sehwag's shadow, aping him, idolising him, and sometimes matching him, but always admiring his range of shots.

Blessed with talent, and a strong mind, why does he lose temper then? It is put on, to push himself, to set up a fight. Nothing can put him down; nothing. The state of the pitch and the character of the opposition do not matter to him.

Call it arrogance. Or confidence.

He remembers his strong points when the fight begins. Nothing has changed in his game. He wants to dominate, dictate, and, essentially, perform. He loves to create a situation and then tackle it like a champion. He has grown to back himself and has often succeeded.

Champions love to be part of a weak outfit and take on the formidable. Gambhir belongs to that league.

A difficult period

Imagine, he had chucked away his bat in 2007 on being ignored for the World Cup. It was a difficult period. He knew nothing other than cricket. And cricket suddenly appeared to be slipping from his grasp. Close to quitting, he reminded himself of the days when he pursued the dream of winning the World Cup for India.

So, he went back to local competitions, domestic circuit, and lit up the contests with his fireworks, sometimes verbal, but mostly cricketing.

Guiding him right through was Sehwag, one explosive batsman challenging the other. Sehwag would tease him, saying, “you can come in only if you displace me. Try!” And Gambhir tried, not to displace Sehwag, but take a leaf out of his philosophy. By fighting for his space in Indian cricket.

To get the best out of his bat, he needed to live with the willow. He did just that, backed by coach Sanjay Bhardwaj.

A few saw Gambhir toil in blistering heat, hone his skills, and prepare to conquer, which he did with a match-winning performance. He was denied a century by three runs — his own making — but then he had done his job.

He had dreamt of this occasion. He lost the man of the match award but won the match!

A man of few words

Gambhir, 29, is a man of few words. But he loves to speak through his cricket, his bat doing the talking. You may not need a stump mike to hear his outbursts against the opposition, especially Shahid Afridi, but you would have to strain your ears during one-on-one close conversations with him.

He can be polite to a fault but tough to argue with when he decides to take on the opponent to make a point.

He was learning to walk when India won the World Cup in 1983. On Saturday night, he was one of the wings on which Indian cricket took a concerted flight. The Cup was won with Gambhir as an integral part of the triumph.

A dream was realised at the Wankhede Stadium. And Gambhir, as is his wont, controlled his emotions. Fighters don't shed tears when they win. Gambhir,the street fighter, perhaps, has saved the tears of joy for another day.

40 killed, 100 injured in blasts at Sufi shrine in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Three powerful blasts ripped through a crowded Sufi shrine near Dera Ghazi Khan in Pakistan's Punjab province on Sunday, killing at least 40 people and injuring 100 others, a government official said.

The first blast occurred at the main entrance of the Sakhi Sarwar Darbar located about 30 kms from Dera Ghazi Khan. The two other blasts went off inside the shrine just as a rescue operation had been launched at the site, officials said.

"40 people were killed and 100 injured in the deadly attack," Express TV said.

About 20 of the injured are in a serious condition, Natiq Hayat, a doctor in charge of emergency rescue service in the area said.

The injured included elderly persons, women and childen, he told reporters.

About 60 of the injured had been taken to hospitals in Dera Ghazi Khan, Multan and other nearby cities, Hayat said. The remaining were being transported to hospitals, he said.

Officials said rescue operations had been affected as the shrine was located at a distance from the main cities.

TV news channels reported that a suspected suicide bomber was captured by rescue workers.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack. Taliban fighters who consider Sufi shrines as un-Islamic have targeted several of them in the past few years

Japanese nuclear crisis could go on for months, officials warn

Measures to stem leaks at Fukushima plant appeared to have failed, amid discovery of two bodies of men killed by tsunami

Policemen tear down debris in Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture. Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Getty Images

A senior Japanese official has warned that the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant could drag on for months, after another attempt to stem leaks of highly radioactive water appeared to end in failure. Goshi Hosono, an aide to the prime minister, Naoto Kan, said everything possible was being done to contain radiation leaks, which have contaminated the environment and food and water supplies, prompted mass evacuations and fomented fear as far away as Tokyo, 150 miles to the south. "We have not escaped from a crisis situation, but it is somewhat stabilised," Hosono said on television. Asked how long it would take to bring the plant's overheating reactors under control, he said. "I think several months would be one target." The admission that there is no end in sight to the world's worst nuclear power accident since Chernobyl came after the recovery of two bodies inside the Daiichi plant. The workers were killed when it was struck by the 11 March tsunami. They were found last Wednesday, but had to be decontaminated before they could be handed over to relatives after almost three weeks of exposure to radiation. The men, Kazhiko Kokubo, 24, and Yoshiki Terashima, 21, who were found in the basement of a reactor turbine building, died from multiple head injuries, reports said. Theirs were the first confirmed deaths at the Daiichi plant. "It pains us to have lost these two young workers, who were trying to protect the power plant during the earthquake and tsunami," said Tsunehisa Katsumata, the chairman of Tokyo Electric Power [Tepco]. The size of the task facing about 600 workers, troops and firefighters at the plant was underlined at the weekend with the discovery of a 20cm crack in a concrete pit connected to the No 2 reactor. The leak generated radiation levels of 1,000 millisieverts an hour in the air inside the reactor, while Tepco said it could also be behind the seepage of radioactive iodine into the sea, sending contamination levels soaring to 4,000 times the legal limit. Experts say that beyond the vicinity of the plant, there is minimal risk to human health in other parts of Japan or overseas. After failed attempts to seal the crack by pouring concrete into the pit, workers have fed it with a water-absorbent polymer, along with sawdust and shredded newspaper, before topping the mixture with more concrete. On Sunday evening, nuclear safety officials conceded that the polymer, which can expand to 50 times its normal size when combined with water, had made no impact on the water leakage, but added they would wait until Monday before deciding whether to abandon the approach. "We were hoping the polymers would function like diapers, but we have yet to see a visible effect," said Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for Japan's nuclear and industrial safety agency. He echoed the grim prognosis offered by Hosono. "It will take a few months until we finally get things under control and have a better idea about the future," Nishiyama said. "We'll face a crucial turning point within the next few months, but that is not the end of it." Highly radioactive water has flooded the basement of the No 2 reactor and a connecting underground trench. The water in the cracked pit is thought to have come from partially melted fuel rods in the reactor's core. In their battle to cool overheated reactors and prevent a dangerous meltdown of highly radioactive fuel rods, workers have doused reactors with huge quantities of seawater. The contaminated runoff, however, has prevented technicians and engineers from getting closer to the reactors to make proper repairs. Fresh water is being pumped into No 1, 2 and 3 reactors using external power, Nishiyama said, adding that the remaining three reactors were considered stable. More than 12,000 people are known to have died in the earthquake and tsunami, while 15,472 are missing, according topolice. More than 163,000 people are still living in evacuation shelter.

India fined for slow over-rate against Lanka

Mumbai: The India team has been fined for maintaining a slow over-rate during the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 final in Mumbai against Sri Lanka on Saturday.

Jeff Crowe of the Emirates Elite Panel of ICC Match Referees imposed the fines after Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s side was ruled to be one over short of its target at the end of the match when time allowances were taken into consideration.

In accordance with ICC Code of Conduct regulations governing minor over-rate offences, players are fined 10 per cent of their match fees for every over their side fails to bowl in the allotted time, with the captain fined double that amount.

As such, Dhoni was fined 20 per cent of his match fee while his players received 10-per-cent fines.

The penalty was accepted by India without contest so there was no need for a hearing

The partnerships that won the Cup

  Target of 275 in a World Cup final, it all seemed to be headed in Sri Lanka's direction. In all ODIs since 2000, a first-innings total of 270 or more had been a winning score 394 times, while only 100 times had it been chased down. Add to that the pressures of the occasion - only twice in nine previous finals had the team batting second won a World Cup final, plus no side had ever lost their first wicket without a run on the board - and there was no doubt about which team held the whip at that stage.

That's when India's middle order stepped up, with a couple of stunning partnerships that completely turned the run-chase around. Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir's 83-run partnership consumed only 15.3 overs and resurrected India's innings, while the Gambhir-MS Dhoni stand more or less sealed the deal, adding an outstanding 109 off 19.4 overs to ensure the highest sucessful run-chase in a World Cup final.

The highlight of both those partnerships was the manner in which the batsmen soaked up the pressure, kept the risks to a minimum, and yet scored their runs at an excellent rate. In the third-wicket stand, Gambhir and Kohli scored only 32 out of 83 runs in fours and yet scored at 5.35 runs per over. Gambhir and Dhoni were even better, scoring 32 out of 109 in fours, yet achieving a run-rate of 5.54.

Going into this innings, Dhoni's performances with the bat had been disappointing, but there were no half-measures about the way he batted on Saturday. He showed, once again, his ability to excel in a run-chase: in 81 innings when he has batted second, Dhoni averaged 50.92, with 19 fifties and two hundreds. Among batsmen who've scored at least 2500 runs batting second, only Michael Bevan has a higher average.

Of the 91 runs he scored, more than half - 48 - came in the region between point and mid-off, several of them through back-foot punches off the spinners. Muttiah Muralitharan went for 22 off 22 balls, while Suraj Randiv conceded 14 off 15, as Dhoni repeatedly made room and played against the spin, carving the ball through cover and extra cover.

The other key contribution came from Gambhir, who clearly relishes playing Sri Lanka. Four of his nine ODI hundreds have come against them, and he almost made it a fifth with a superbly paced 97. One of the key tasks he accomplished was playing out Muralitharan and Lasith Malinga: 42 out of the 122 balls he faced were from them, and though he scored only 28 from those deliveries, he did his job by playing out a fair number.

The key partnerships for India

For wkt	Runs	Balls	1s/2s	4s/6s
3rd	83	93	27/9	8/0
4th	109	118	49/ 11	8/ 0

Overall, there was little to choose between the Sri Lankan and Indian innings. India played seven fewer dots, but one of the impressive aspects of the Indian chase was the fact that they ran 24 twos, which shows the intent and aggression in the team during the chase.

The Sri Lankan and Indian innings

Team	Score	Dots	1s/2s	4s/6s
Sri Lanka	274 for 6	146	108/ 17	27/ 2
India	277 for 4	139	99/ 24	25/ 2

The win meant that, for the first time in a World Cup final, a centurion ended up in the losing team. Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards, Aravinda de Silva, Ricky Ponting and Adam Gilchrist had all scored hundreds in winning causes, but Mahela Jayawardene's sublime 103 not out wasn't enough to seal the win for Sri Lanka. None of that was Jayawardene's fault, though, as he crafted a magnificent knock, scoring at least a run a ball against each of the Indian bowlers. Zaheer Khan, so incisive in his opening spell, was taken apart by Jayawardene, who scored 23 from 14 balls off Zaheer.

The flawless manner in which Jayawardene batted made it look as if he was batting on another pitch. A comparison of his innings' stats with those of the other Sri Lankan batsmen illustrate the gulf: Jayawardene didn't score off less than 32% of the deliveries he faced; for the rest of his team, that percentage was more than 56.

This was also the first of Jayawardene's 14 ODI hundreds which ended in defeat. Considering how classy the knock was, it probably deserved a better result.

Jayawardene v the rest of the Sri Lankan batsmen

Player	Runs	Balls	Strike rate	Dot balls	Dot ball %
Mahela Jayawardene	103	88	117.04	28	31.82
Rest of SL team	159	214	74.30	120	56.07

What! Facebook to go out of business?

New York, Jan 9: Internet faux news site Weekly World News posted a story that horrified the Facebook users across the world. The story in the site revealed that the California based social networking website Facebook will shut down on Mar 15, 2011, because it has become too stressful to manage it for the founder Mark Zuckerberg.

UPDATE: Facebook not shutting down

The American supermarket tabloid Weekly World News claimed that, in a press conference Zuckerberg declared that he would shut down the Facebook by Mar 15 and added, “if users want to see their pictures again, I recommend to take them off the internet. They won’t be able to get them back once Facebook goes out of business.”


Zuckerberg, on Saturday, Jan 8, confirmed this is an hoax story. He said, “oh yea, use some common sense. Also, with a company estimated at being worth over $50 billion, why would anyone even think of suddenly shutting it down.” He added, “it would obviously make sense to sell it off rather than just kill it all together.”

In the year 2010 Facebook generated $2 billion dollars revenue, for the company.

Facebook has successfully raised $500 million in a recent round of funding from Goldman Sachs and Russia's Digital Sky Technologies (DST).

The phenomenal growth of Facebook worldwide has made Zuckerberg one of the world's youngest billionaires.

Facebook is not closing down on March 15

NEW DELHI: If you spend a better part of your life living out of Facebook, rejoice. Facebook won't be closing on March 15 after all. Surprised? Read on ...

More than one million people have already fallen for a hoax that claims that the popular social networking site will be shutting down on March 15.

According to IT security firm Sophos, a bogus news story published by the "Weekly World News", said Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had told reporters that "managing [Facebook] has ruined my life. I need to put an end to all the madness."
Some panic-stricken Facebook users and mischief-mongers spread the story far and wide across the internet in no time. Although Facebook debunked the hoax via its Twitter account late on Sunday, users still continue to pass the bogus messages onto their online friends.
The "Weekly World News" article went on to quote another company official, Avrat Humarthi, vice-president of technical affairs at Facebook, as saying "After March 15th the whole website shuts down. So if you ever want to see your pictures again, I recommend you take them off the internet. You won't be able to get them back once Facebook goes out of business."
Sophos said that many people would not believe the report, which comes from a newspaper that has previously reported George Clooney is running for president and that alien spacecrafts will visit earth in 2011. However, it only takes only a small number of people to think it might be possible to turn a joke of a news story into an internet hoax as has been proved many a times in the past few years.
"I certainly wouldn't disagree that users would be wise to have their own backup of their photographs, rather than rely on Facebook -- but it's nothing more than a scare to suggest to people that they have to do it before March15th because Facebook is going to close down," explained Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.
"There's an important lesson here -- don't believe everything you read on the internet, and think twice before you pass a story on to your friends."
Although a hoax is not as serious as malware worming its way between users and stealing information, it's still a nuisance, clogging up communications, increasing the overall level of spam and perhaps leading people to make decisions for the wrong reasons.

Two students held with Rs.1 crore heroin

Barnala (Punjab), April 3 (IANS) Two HaryanaPunjab town, police said Sunday. students in their early twenties have been arrested with contraband worth Rs.1 crore in this

The accused have been identified as final year BA student Mangal Singh, a resident of Cheeka village in Kaithal district of Haryana, and first year BA student Balkar Singh of Jind town. They were arrested late Saturday and nearly 500 grams of heroin were recovered from them.
'They wanted to earn quick money, that's why they entered this trade. They were working for another youth named Vicky, who is currently lodged in a Punjab jail in a murder case,' Senior Superintendent of Police Gurpreet Singh Toor said.
'They came in contact with Vicky while the latter was out on parole. They were going to hand over the contraband to another smuggler in Punjab and were promised huge money in lieu of it,' he added.

Sonia Gandhi joins celebrations on streets

New Delhi:  Congress President Sonia Gandhi tonight came out on the street of Delhi and joined thousands of ecstatic fans in celebrating India's World Cup cricket triumph.

As soon as the Sports Utility Vehicle carrying her stopped on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg near the busy ITO crossing at around 11pm, a beaming Gandhi came out of it, waved the national flag, shook hands with the fans, displayed Victory and thumbs-up signs, drawing lusty cheers from the crowd around.

She told the fans that the Indian cricket team has done the country really proud by winning the Cup.

The fans responded to her by singing "India.....India" and "Vande Mataram" in a rhythmic manner.

Guarded by Special Protection Group personnel, Gandhi was in the midst of the fans for about 20 minutes before she drove off towards the Delhi Gate.

As she interacted with the celebrating fans, the ITO intersection, one of the busiest areas in Delhi, was chocked with a massive traffic snarl as vehicles came to a grinding halt. But few seemed to mind that as a festive mood swept the whole area.

Saibaba's response to treatment is satisfactory: Doctors

Anantapur:  Sri Satya Saibaba, who was admitted to hospital on March 28 following lung and chest congestion, is on ventilator support for assisting respiration and his response to the treatment is satisfactory, doctors attending on him said today.

"Bhagawan Sri Satya Sai Baba was admitted to this hospital on March 28 and had implantation of pacemaker in the heart. He is on ventilator support for assisting the respiration. Dialysis is being done to assist his kidney function," said a media release issued by Dr A N Safaya, director of Sri Satya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences.

"The team of doctors attending on him is satisfied with the response to the treatment given. Constant watch is kept on his health condition by the medical team," the release said.

85-year-old Satya Saibaba was admitted to the super-speciality hospital at Prashantigram at Puttaparti near here following respiration-related problems.

Cellphone radiation may alter your brain

In a culture where people cradle their cellphones next to their heads with the same constancy and affection that toddlers hold their security blankets, it was unsettling last month when a study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association indicated that doing so could alter brain activity.

The report said it was unclear whether the changes in the brain -- an increase in glucose metabolism after using the phone for less than an hour -- had any negative health or behavioral effects. But it has many people wondering what they can do to protect themselves short of (gasp) using a landline.

"Cellphones are fantastic and have done much to increase productivity," said Dr. Nora Volkow, the lead investigator of the study and director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health. "I'd never tell people to stop using them entirely."

Yet, in light of her findings, she advises users to keep cellphones at a distance by putting them on speaker mode or using a wired headset whenever possible. The next best option is a wireless Bluetooth headset or earpiece, which emit radiation at far lower levels. If a headset isn't feasible, holding your phone just slightly away from your ear can make a big difference; the intensity of radiation diminishes sharply with distance. "Every millimeter counts," said Louis Slesin, editor of Microwave News, an online newsletter covering health and safety issues related to exposure to electromagnetic radiation.

So crushing your cellphone into your ear to hear better in a crowded bar is probably a bad idea. Go outside if you have to take or make a call. And you might not want to put your cellphone in your breast or pants pocket either, because that also puts it right up against your body. Carry it in a purse or briefcase or get a nonmetallic belt clip that orients it away from your body.

Some studies have suggested a link between cellphone use and cancer, lower bone density and infertility in men. But other studies show no effect at all. Given the mixed messages and continuing research, Robert Kenny, a Federal Communications Commission spokesman, said in an e-mail, "As always, we will continue to study this issue and coordinate with our federal partners."

The phone used in Dr. Volkow's study was a Samsung Knack, model SCH-U310, a flip phone that was in wide use when she began planning her experiments two and half years ago. But today's ubiquitous smartphones emit even more radiation as they transmit more, and more complex, data.

You can get an idea of the relative amounts of radiation various cellphone models emit by looking at their SAR, or Specific Absorption Rate. This number indicates how much radiation is absorbed by the body when using the handset at maximum power. A cellphone cannot be sold in the United States unless an F.C.C.-approved laboratory says its SAR is below 1.6 watts per kilogram. In Europe, the maximum is 2 watts per kilogram.

The SAR number is not displayed when you compare cellphones at your local wireless store, and trying to find it in the fine print of your user manual is an exercise in frustration. The F.C.C. maintains that SAR values "do not provide sufficient information" to reliably compare cellphone radiation emissions because certain phones might rarely operate at maximum power. Still, the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit organization, has a comprehensive list of the SAR values for most cellphones available from major carriers on its Web site. (For instance, the Apple iPhone 4 is listed at 1.17 watts per kilogram, the Motorola Droid at 1.5 and the LG Quantum at 0.35.)

But more important than looking for a low-SAR phone is how you use it. Many cellphones emit the most radiation when they initially establish contact with the cell tower, making their "digital handshake." To reduce exposure it's best to wait until after your call has been connected to put your cellphone next to your ear.

During the ensuing conversation, it's advisable to tilt the phone away from your ear when you are talking and only bring it in close to your ear when you are listening. That bit of teeter-totter works because the emission of radiation is "significantly less when a cellphone is receiving signals than when it is transmitting," said Lin Zhong, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rice University in Houston.

Moreover, your cellphone emits less when you are stationary because when you are moving rapidly -- say, in a car or train -- it must repeatedly issue little bursts of radiation to make digital handshakes with different towers as it moves in and out of range. (More cause to hang up when you buckle up.)

Want another reason to complain about your carrier's poor coverage? Any situation where your cellphone has a weak signal indicates it has to work harder and thus will emit more radiation. "Fewer bars means more radiation," said Om Gandhi, professor of electrical engineering at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Inside buildings and elevators, in rural areas, the Grand Canyon -- these are not good places to make a call if you're trying to reduce your exposure to radiation.

Of course, parents using their iPhones to pacify cranky kids might want to reconsider rattles. Children's developing brains and tissues are thought to be most vulnerable to cellphone radiation. Health authorities in Britain, France, Germany and Russia have all issued warnings against allowing small children to use cellphones for extended periods, if at all.

There are cellphone attachments that purport to shield users from radiation, and most are "hoaxes," said Mr. Gandhi. Beware of pendants that sellers claim snatch radiation from the air. Pong Research offers a cellphone case for iPhones and BlackBerrys that it says has been shown by an F.C.C.-approved testing lab to redirect radiation from the phone's antenna away from the head.

While the manufacturer says it reduces radiation more than 60 percent, some electrical engineering experts question whether the case may have the opposite effect at orientations where your head is in the way of the cell tower because your phone may have to increase its transmission strength somewhat to compensate for the redirected signal. The company disputes this. Nevertheless, the net effect of using the device throughout the course of the day may be a reduction in total exposure.

Texting, instead of talking, might be safer. "The whole trend toward texting instead of talking on cellphones is probably a good thing," said Mr. Slesin at Microwave News.

That is, if you don't rest your cellphone against your body while typing out your message.

Google brings high-speed broadband network to Kan.

After seeing Facebook pleas and flash mobs, and even cities temporarily renaming themselves "Google," the search engine giant said Wednesday it has chosen Kansas City, Kan., as the first place that will get its new ultra-fast broadband network.

Google announced that the city would be the inaugural site for its "Fiber for Communities" program, which it says will be capable of delivering Internet access more than 100 times faster than the home broadband connections provided by phone and cable companies across the U.S.

The company envisions systems that will let consumers to download a high-definition, full-length feature film in less than five minutes, allow rural health clinics to send 3-D medical images over the Internet and let students collaborate with classmates around the world while watching live 3-D video of a university lecture.

Google's service, which will provide Internet connections of 1 gigabit per second to as many as 500,000 people, will be offered in early 2012 while the company looks at other communities across the country.

More than 1,100 cities had made bids to become a test site for the company's fiber-optic network, trying to catch Google's attention and show their enthusiasm.

Milo Medin, Google's vice president for access services, said Kansas City, Kan., was selected in part because of its solid network infrastructure and because the program would have an impact on the community, one of the poorest in the state.

"We believe gigabit broadband can be leveraged for economic development and educational gain, both of which are vital in the global economy that we live in today,'" Medin said. "We want to be able to build strong relationships and partnerships with local government and communities so that we can work together to use technology in a new way to make a city a better place to live in, a better place to work in, a better place to learn in."

The company's deadline for city governments and citizens to express interest in attracting Google passed in March 2010. Many cities used stunts and gimmickry to get the company's attention and show interest in the experimental network.

Topeka informally renamed itself "Google, Kansas." Members of the group Think Big Topeka also organized a flash mob at a community meeting and a formation of fans spelling out "Google" on the ice during a RoadRunners hockey game. A group in Baltimore launched a website that used Google mapping to plot the location of more than 1,000 residents and give their reasons for wanting the service. Hundreds of groups on Facebook implored Google to come to their cities.

Joe Reardon, mayor and CEO of Kansas City and Wyandotte County, said the "1 gigabit fiber backbone straight through to businesses and homes" would mean business and educational opportunities for the area, and would help the community grow in unique ways.

"The unbelievable thing about this from a development perspective is that it knows no particular place or boundary" he said. "It could be deployed to anywhere the need and interest is."

Google's new fiber-optic network comes amid growing worry among policy makers and public interest groups in Washington that broadband connections in the U.S. are far slower and more expensive than those available in many European and Asian countries, and that too many Americans still have no broadband access at all.

President Barack Obama recently pledged to expand high-speed wireless Internet access to 98 percent of Americans. The Federal Communications Commission and the Commerce Department are searching for more wireless spectrum -- or airwaves -- to make that possible. The FCC is also seeking to tap the federal program that subsidizes phone service in rural and poor communities to pay for broadband access.

For its part, Google has said it's not interested in dominating or even grabbing a sizable chunk of the broadband market. Instead, it is dipping into its $35 billion bank account to build an ultra-fast Internet network in hopes of prodding telecommunications and cable providers to upgrade their services in communities across the country.

Google says it hopes phone and cable companies will learn lessons from the experimental network that will help them hurry the rollout of their own high-speed systems and bring faster connections to more Americans at a lower cost. It also hopes to provide a test-bed for online video and other advanced applications that require a lot of bandwidth.

If more data can be sent through Internet pipes at faster speeds, Google believes people will spend more time on the Internet -- an activity that typically enriches the company by bringing more traffic to its dominant search engine and producing more opportunities to show revenue-generating ads.

Unlike many of Google's Web-based applications such as email, calendars and document creation, Kansas City's Internet access using Google's pipes likely won't be free. On a question-and-answer page at its website, Google did not give specifics on its pricing plan, but said the company plans to offer the service "at a competitive price to what people are paying for Internet access today."

The Cloud that rains music

For years now, the most popular music system -- Apple's -- has worked like this. You buy song files from the iTunes store. They download to your computer. If you want to listen to them on the road, you connect your iPod or iPhone to that computer and copy the files to it.

Amazon, whose online music store competes with Apple's, has two problems with that arrangement. First, your music library is messily scattered. When you buy a new song at home, you can't listen to it at work, at least not without copying it manually. You might buy a song on your phone, but it won't be on your computer until you do a sync. And if your music library is big, you can fit only a portion of it onto your phone.

Second, Amazon wishes more people would buy music from its store instead of iTunes.

This week, the online retailer took the wraps off a slick suite of software and services that solves both problems, and offers some sweet incentives for you to consider it.

Amazon's big idea is that instead of sitting on your computer, your music collection will sit online ( or "in the cloud," as hipsters insist on saying). That way, you can listen to it from any computer -- at home, at work, at a friend's -- by logging into a special Web page called the Amazon Cloud Player.

You can also listen to anything in your music collection on an Android phone. No copying or syncing of music is ever required; all your songs are always available everywhere, and they don't hog any storage on the phone itself.

The Cloud Player is a simple, clean, polished music-playback page that looks vaguely like iTunes. It's dominated by a list of your songs, which you can sort and search. The album art shows up. You can drag songs into playlists. You can play back a song, album or playlist, complete with Shuffle and Repeat functions. You can download songs to your computer (they go directly into iTunes or Windows Media Player). Sound quality is excellent (the streaming is the full 256 kilobits a second of the original files, if you're into that sort of statistic).

There's a free Uploader app that lets you send your existing music files from your Mac or PC to that same online library, so those songs, too, are available from anywhere. The app is clever enough to preserve your songs and playlists the way you organized them in iTunes or Windows Media Player. (Just note that it recognizes only MP3 and AAC files -- not ring tones, audio books or WAV files. Copy-protected songs need not apply.)

The app for Android phones is similar. It offers two big buttons: one for listening to your online music collection, and another for playing the music files that are actually on the phone. There's no way to mix and match -- to create a playlist containing some songs from each source, for example.

Amazingly enough, all of this is absolutely free.

Well, sort of.

Songs are pretty big files. That, after all, is one huge advantage of Amazon's cloud idea: moving those hefty music files to the Internet frees up space on your computers and phones.

To get you started, Amazon offers everyone five gigabytes of free space online -- enough room for about 1,200 MP3 songs. You can buy more storage; it costs $1 a gigabyte a year. If you have a 50-gigabyte song collection, for example, you'll pay $50 a year. That can get awfully steep at the high end (like $1,000 for 1,000 gigabytes) -- high enough to make "pay $15 a month for unlimited music" sites like Rhapsody look awfully appealing.

The storage is good for more than music files, though. Part II of the Amazon announcement is the Cloud Drive, an online hard drive a lot like the Apple iDisk or Microsoft SkyDrive.

On this virtual drive, you can store anything at all: photos, Office documents -- anything you might like to back up or to retrieve later from any other computer. Even if you never use any of Amazon's music features, having this five-gigabyte drive online is a pleasant surprise, free to anyone who wants it. (You can view the photos and play the music you've stored there, but otherwise, it's just a place for parking files, not opening them.)

Amazon takes the sting out of its storage prices with some special offers. For example, if you buy an album from Amazon's music store, your Cloud Drive gets bumped up to 20 gigabytes for the year -- no charge.

The company's real genius, though, is this little gem: Any songs you buy from Amazon don't count against your storage limit. If you start with five gigabytes free and buy 20 songs from Amazon, you still have five gigabytes free.

Better yet, you can decide what you want to happen when you buy a song or an album: download it to your computer (the old way), or store it instantly in your Cloud Player (incredibly convenient).

In other words, if you like Amazon's online-storage concept, you might have a hard time coming up with reasons to shop Apple's store.

But that's "if." There is cause for pause. Nine causes, actually:

Cloud Player is available only in the United States.

There are plenty of similar systems from smaller companies. Rdio, Audio Galaxy, Spotify, Audio Box, GrooveShark -- all of these offer pieces of the Amazon concept for less money. Each has various drawbacks, though. And Amazon's size inspires a lot more confidence in its longevity.

Apple and Google are both reportedly working on similar services.

Amazon's MP3 store is nowhere near as rich or full-featured as Apple's. (Often, however, it's cheaper. You can find plenty of examples like Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream": $1.30 on iTunes, $1 on Amazon.)

It's great that songs you buy from Amazon don't count against your storage limit. Unfortunately, songs you've bought from Amazon before this week do.

There's no Cloud Player app for the iPhone, iPod or iPad -- only Android phones. Nobody's saying exactly why there's no Amazon music app for i-gadgets, but it might have something to do with that fact that Amazon's system competes directly with Apple's own store and software.

It's not exactly clear how private your music files are, or whether they're even yours. Amazon's license agreement says: "You give us the right to access, retain, use and disclose your account information and your files." And also: "We do not guarantee that your files will not be subject to misappropriation, loss or damage and we will not be liable if they are. You're responsible for maintaining appropriate security, protection and backup of your files." Yikes.

The Amazon Cloud Player is coming out at precisely the wrong time in the great timeline of cellphone computing. The age of the unlimited data plan is rapidly ending; AT&T eliminated its "all the Internet you want for $30" plan, and Verizon's similar plan will end shortly. Music files eat up your limited monthly data allotments quickly, so don't think that Amazon Cloud Player means you'll be listening to your tunes during daily hourlong hikes. Listening to your music collection on your phone is something you'll want to do primarily when you're in a Wi-Fi hot spot.

You'll have no music when you're in the subway, on a plane without Wi-Fi, or anywhere else there's no cell service or Internet hot spot. (Unless you download songs to your laptop or phone in advance -- but doesn't that defeat the whole purpose?)

Nonetheless, the Cloud Drive/Cloud Player is beautifully done, rock solid in operation and every bit as convenient as Amazon promises. A lot of people will find it a joy to use, a good value and -- just as Amazon hoped -- a compelling reason to shop from Amazon instead of iTunes.

Millionaire sentenced to 13 years in child-porn case

Cancun, Mexico:  A Mexican court sentenced Lebanese-born millionaire Jean Succar Kuri to 13 years in prison for producing child pornography and corrupting minors.

Succar Kuri, who also faces rape charges, has been behind bars in this Caribbean resort city since his extradition from the US in July 2006.

Besides jail time, the tourism magnate was ordered to pay 350,000 pesos ($29,000) in damages to each of seven victims, the judiciary said in a statement.

While hailing the verdict as "historic", an attorney for one of the victims complained that Succar Kuri's prison term amounts to less than two years for each minor he abused.

Xavier Olea said he and other lawyers representing victims will demand a minimum sentence of 60 years for Succar Kuri if he is convicted on three counts of rape in a trial that could start in May.

The child-porn case dates to 2003, when a group of minors in Cancun filed a criminal complaint against Succar Kuri.

An investigation by Quintana Roo state police uncovered videos and still photographs of sex acts involving Succar Kuri and girls as young as four, while state prosecutors later caught him on videotape confessing to one of his victims.

The businessman fled to the US, but was arrested in Arizona at the request of Mexican authorities.

One of those who did the most to publicise the crimes of Succar Kuri was journalist, author and women's rights activist Lydia Cacho, who suffered death threats and judicial persecution for exposing paedophile rings in Cancun.

Cacho welcomed the conviction of Succar Kuri as the fruit of efforts by society and a few "honest" public servants.

Millionaire sentenced to 13 years in child-porn case

Cancun, Mexico:  A Mexican court sentenced Lebanese-born millionaire Jean Succar Kuri to 13 years in prison for producing child pornography and corrupting minors.

Succar Kuri, who also faces rape charges, has been behind bars in this Caribbean resort city since his extradition from the US in July 2006.

Besides jail time, the tourism magnate was ordered to pay 350,000 pesos ($29,000) in damages to each of seven victims, the judiciary said in a statement.

While hailing the verdict as "historic", an attorney for one of the victims complained that Succar Kuri's prison term amounts to less than two years for each minor he abused.

Xavier Olea said he and other lawyers representing victims will demand a minimum sentence of 60 years for Succar Kuri if he is convicted on three counts of rape in a trial that could start in May.

The child-porn case dates to 2003, when a group of minors in Cancun filed a criminal complaint against Succar Kuri.

An investigation by Quintana Roo state police uncovered videos and still photographs of sex acts involving Succar Kuri and girls as young as four, while state prosecutors later caught him on videotape confessing to one of his victims.

The businessman fled to the US, but was arrested in Arizona at the request of Mexican authorities.

One of those who did the most to publicise the crimes of Succar Kuri was journalist, author and women's rights activist Lydia Cacho, who suffered death threats and judicial persecution for exposing paedophile rings in Cancun.

Cacho welcomed the conviction of Succar Kuri as the fruit of efforts by society and a few "honest" public servants.

14 held in Spain for offering to commit murders on Internet

Madrid:  Fourteen people have been arrested in Spain for using an Internet forum to offer their services to extort, attack and even commit murders, the police said.

The Internet forum with a Mexican domain and called "Asesinos a sueldo" (Murderers for hire), was reported in the summer of 2009 by a citizen in the northern Spanish city of Pamplona, according to police.

The police discovered comments posted in the forum that provided data about possible hit targets in Spain, including their cities of residence, physical build, sex and age, as well as the amount of money being offered to murder them, figures that ranged between 4,000 and 10,000 Euros.

Among those arrested is a woman from the southern city of Malaga who made contact with four assassins with the aim of having her husband killed.

Besides setting the price of the hit, she provided them with photographs, his license plate number, his work schedule and even the ideal place, date and time to carry out the murder.

However, just like the other cases being investigated, the murder never took place, since the alleged potential killer - who was arrested in the northern city of Orense - did not find in the proper location the weapon he had arranged for.

Another of the people arrested expressed on the forum his intention to kill his parents, while several more were hired to carry out assorted crimes in Palencia and Palma de Mallorca, and one even paid 4,000 Euros to have an acquaintance in Valencia intimidated.

After the authorities fully identified the users of the forum, they proceeded to arrest and charge them.

Death toll in Thai flood reaches 25

Bangkok:  Severe flooding in southern Thailand has left 25 dead and caused thousands to be evacuated, officials said today, after whole villages were engulfed by the rising waters.

Floods over a metre deep have washed across swathes of the south as unseasonably wet weather deluged the homes and businesses of around a million people in what should be one of the hottest months of the year.

Images in Thai media showed muddy waters reaching to the tops of palm trees, as deadly landslides destroyed homes and bridges and roads were washed away, leaving some areas cut off.

The death toll after 10 days of flooding includes five villagers killed by mudslides in Khao Phanom district, Krabi province, where troops were searching for victims in villages submerged by up to two metres of mud in some places.

Around 9,000 people have been evacuated from waterlogged areas, including nearly 1,000 holidaymakers stranded on islands in the Gulf of Thailand and Andaman Sea who were picked up by naval ships on Wednesday and yesterday.

Ferry and air services to the popular resort of Koh Samui have now resumed and the navy said its boats were no longer needed.

Bannasat Ruangjan, chairman of the tourism association of Koh Samui, who said 13,000 tourists were stranded on the island earlier in the week, said the situation had "returned to normal" and the floodwaters had receded.

But he said roads and water pipes were in need of repair in some places and 30 per cent of hotel bookings had been cancelled.

The Similan National Park, a popular coral reef diving destination, was not accepting tour boats due to "unfavourable weather conditions", according to the head of the reserve Sophon Pengprapan.

Thailand's army used its helicopters to air-drop aid into isolated areas today and rescue elderly people trapped by the floods.
Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban said the scale of the disaster had caught residents "off guard".

"I am very concerned about those people because many roads were washed away in the flood and a lot of farmland was submerged," he said.

All together 87 districts in eight southern provinces have been declared disaster zones.

Thailand's department of disaster prevention and mitigation said 181 people had been injured in the flooding.

Hundreds of properties, including homes, schools and temples, and more than 2,000 roads along with 222 bridges have been damaged.

Japan reactor leaking radioactive water into ocean

Tokyo:  Highly radioactive water is leaking directly into the sea from a damaged pit near a crippled reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, safety officials said Saturday, the latest setback in the increasingly messy bid to regain control of the reactors.

Although higher levels of radiation have been detected in the ocean waters near the plant, the breach discovered Saturday is the first identified direct leak of such high levels of radiation into the sea.

The leak, found at a maintenance pit near the plant's No. 2 reactor, is a fresh reminder of the dangerous consequences of the strategy to cool the reactors and spent fuel storage pools by pumping hundreds of tons of water a day into them. While much of that water has evaporated, a significant portion has also turned into runoff.

Three workers at the plant, operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company, have been injured by stepping into pools of contaminated water inside one reactor complex, while above-normal levels of radiation have been detected in seawater near the plant.

Workers are racing to drain the pools, though they have struggled to figure out how to store the irradiated water. On Saturday, contaminated water was transferred into a barge to free up space in other tanks on land. A second barge also arrived.

Some experts in the nuclear industry are now starting to question the so-called "feed-and-bleed" strategy of pumping the reactors with water, because so much contaminated water is injuring workers and escaping into the ocean.

While the company said it has not identified the original source of contaminated water, experts say it could be from excess runoff from the spent fuel pools or a broken pipe or valve connected to the reactor.

The leaks could also be evidence that the reactor pressure vessel, which holds the nuclear fuel rods, is unable to hold all of the water being poured into it, said Satoshi Sato, a consultant to the nuclear energy industry and a former engineer with General Electric.

"The more water they add, they more problems they are generating," Mr. Sato said. "It's just a matter of time before the leaks into the ocean grow."

Tetsuo Iguchi, a professor in the department of quantum engineering at Nagoya University, said that the leak discovered Saturday raised fears that the contaminated water may be seeping out through many more undiscovered sources. He said unless workers could quickly stop the leaking, Tokyo Electric could be forced to re-evaluate the feed-and-bleed strategy.

"It is crucial to keep cooling the fuel rods, but on the other hand, these leaks are dangerous," Mr. Iguchi said.
"They can't let the plant keep leaking high amounts of radiation for much longer," he said.

Plant workers discovered a crack about eight inches wide in the maintenance pit, which lies between the No. 2 Reactor and the sea and holds cables used to power seawater pumps, Japan's nuclear regulator said.

The air directly above the water leaking into the sea had a radiation reading of more than 1,000 millisieverts an hour, said Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director-general of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. Earlier Saturday, Mr. Nishiyama had said that above-normal levels of radioactive materials were detected about 25 miles south of the Fukushima plant, much further than had previously been reported.

The pit was filled with four to eight inches of contaminated water, said the operator of the plant, Tokyo Electric. Highly radioactive water has also been discovered in the reactor's turbine building in the past week.

Workers will try to patch up the crack with concrete, the company said.

Saturday's announcement of a leak came a day after the U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Reactor No. 2 at the Fukushima plant had suffered a 33 percent meltdown. He cautioned that the figures were "more of a calculation." Mr. Chu also said that roughly 70 percent of the core of Reactor No. 1 had suffered severe damage.

The crisis at the nuclear plant has overshadowed the recovery effort under way in Japan since the 9.0 magnitude quake and tsunami hit the northeastern coast on March 11. The country's National Police Agency said the official death toll from the disaster had surpassed 11,800, while more than 15,500 were listed as missing.

Earlier Saturday, Prime Minister Naoto Kan made his first visit to the region since last month's disaster, where he promised to do everything possible to help. His tour came a day after asking Japan to start focusing on the long hard task of rebuilding the tsunami-shattered prefectures.

"We'll be together with you to the very end," Mr. Kan said during a stop in Rikuzentakata, a town of about 20,000 people that was destroyed on March 11. "Everybody, try your best."

Dressed in a blue work jacket, Kan also visited with refugees stranded in an elementary school and then visited a sports complex about 20 miles south of the disabled nuclear plant. The training facility has been turned into a staging area for firefighters, Self-Defense Forces and workers from Tokyo Electric.

French rock group to play live on Twitter

In what it's calling a Twitter first, French radio station NRJ said on Thursday it plans to tweet a live private concert by pop rockers BB Brunes.

"It's never been done before on Twitter," Tony Onestas, who oversees online projects at NRJ, which claims more than 100,000 followers on the microblogging site, told AFP.

Fans will not only be able to watch Friday's gig being streamed in real time via Twitcam, but they will also have the chance to post their opinions and exchange views online even as the quartet performs.

"In terms of quality, we have a very good camera in place and a direct link the BB Brunes' sound engineer's panel," said Onestas, as fellow NRJ executives anticipated a near-television like experience for viewers.

"We are working so that, even if the final image is less than perfect, it's still right, because we don't want a product only for this who get high-speed downloads," Onestas added.

Chiranjeevi Fans Splitting Into 4 Groups

There was a time when megastar Chiranjeevi was the
emperor of Tollywood and true to his aura, he
commanded a mind blowing fan following.
However, the recent developments over the
years has began to cause cracks in the mega fans camps
and sources say it is now splitting into four different groups.

Those are Chiru fans, Ramcharan fans, Pawan
Kalyan fans, Allu Arjun fans. Apparently, Chiru’s
political debut many couldn’t digest it. They
supported only Pawan stating that he is straight
forward and gives value to fans. Another group
alleged that Allu Aravind is backstabbing
Chiranjeevi so the fans are going to Chiru.

Given the craze for the new star Allu Arjun, few from
Chiru and Pawan camps have moved to Allu Arjun’s camp.
Feeling the competition between Allu Arjun and Ramcharan
some fans have moved to Charan’s camp. In all this, some
issues have reportedly risen between the mega family
members and signals have come out. Earlier, there were
common fans but with all this, it may not be so in the days to come.

Puri Jagannath turns music director!

Tollywood’s one of the sensational directors Puri Jagannadh has tasted success as director, writer and producer. Puri Jagannath’s recent movies are turned out the average movies. Now he is entering into Bollywood to test his luck by directing a film titled "Budda" with Amithab Bachhan in the lead role. Presently he is busy with the shooting of this film in Mumbai.

Now director Puri Jagannath will be seen in a new role. As per the sources he is planning to compose music for his brother Sairam sankar’s film, which will be directed by his associate Gopi. This film is going to hit the floors soon.Puri Jagannath’s brother Sairam Shankar acted as hero in the movies like 143, Bumper Offer and he also acted in many film in support roles in the past.Puri Jagannath has great music sense and most of his movies are musical blockbusters too. So hope for the success to Puri Jagannth for his new role

Pawan Kalyan In Depression For His Son

Superstar Pawan Kalyan has always been a source of inspiration for many within the industry and outside as well. Few youngsters take him as the role model and praise him for his mindset. But right now, it is heard that the sensitive side of Pawan is being revealed and the father in him is getting exposed.

Sources reveal that Pawan is currently in a depression and the reason for that is his son Akira. Apparently, news is that Pawan’s wife Renu Desai left him and has gone to Pune. Though Pawan is trying real hard to get her back, he is not successful, as per sources. While that is one part, it is heard that Pawan is missing his son Akira.

Friends of Pawan reveal that his depression is not because of Renu but because of Akira staying far from him. While the causes for this trouble is yet to be known, nothing official has been stated regarding Pawan’s situation. For now, let us hope that wherever Akira is he gets back to his father.

Case Study: 'Shakti'- A Nightmare In Tollywood

Making a big film with big budget
and heavy star cast is one thing
and coming up with a sensible
product out of it is another thing.
The best example for that
is ‘Shakti’, the costliest film
ever made in the history of
Telugu cinema.

With names like Junior NTR,
Ileana, Aswini Dutt, Mani Sharma
in the helm and the story like
Parasakthi Peetham as the theme, one can expect no less than a bumper
blockbuster but then it turned out to be a colossal disaster. Here is a look
from the victims ie the audience.

Ranjit, a hardcore NTR fan lamented “I was 100% confident ‘Shakti’ will
beat the record of ‘Magadheera’ but within first ten minutes I knew the
film was gone.”

Mujeeb, a resident of Guntur said “It was disappointing to see the
warrior role of NTR. It was so stale and pale. According to me, Meher
Ramesh is the culprit, he made a mess.”

Anusha, who just finished college said “I wanted to start my
vacation with a wonderful film and I thought ‘Shakti’ was it, but
very disappointing. So much money and such a horrible
product, when will the directors learn to mature.”

Ratnakar who applied leave to office for watching the
first day first show said “The good side of the film is
Ileana. I can watch her for the entire two and half hours
if she is onscreen. Rest of the film never appealed to me.”

Ramana who is an avid cine buff said “I really doubt if the
budget touched Rs 50 crores, I could not see that kind of
graphics, such mesmerizing action sequences, it was just
like a regular commercial potboiler made with formula.”

Srujana revealed “Complicated storyline, confusing
direction, amateur narration, the film was a nightmare!!!”

Govind, a businessman said “They say that it is the
costliest film, why can’t they hire some Hollywood
technicians? Why can’t they improvise the script and
make it convincing? For instance, the costumes looked
so cheap in design and color. And what was NTR wearing
as a warrior, a baggy pant?”

Madhusudhan, a bank officer said “Divinity always appeals
to Telugu audience and what director Meher Ramesh has
chosen is actually a blockbuster material but he doesn’t
have the maturity to handle such intriguing subjects, he
can team up with Natti Kumar and do some potboiler masalas.”

A reporter said, “It’s not a social fantasy but sounded like
a psycho fantasy. Many films face troubles for not having
enough finance in hand. But this is reverse. It’s a over
budgeted failure”.

While the opinions were flowing in large numbers it was
obvious that ‘Shakti’ has upset many and angered a few
as they feel a good project was ruined
by the director.

My proudest moment, says world beater Sachin

Mumbai: Sachin Tendulkar said on Saturday's World Cup triumph was the proudest moment of his life as India beat Sri Lanka by six wickets to capture the "ultimate" prize after a gap of 28 years.

"I couldn't have asked for more," said Tendulkar, as his teammates carried him on their shoulders for a victory lap before adoring fans at the Wankhede Stadium.

"Winning the World Cup is the ultimate thing. It is the proudest moment of my life. It shows it is never too late," he said referring to India's only previous World Cup win in 1983.

"I thank my teammates who were fabulous. I could not really hold back my tears. These are happy tears so I don't mind crying."

Tendulkar made just 18 with the bat as he missed out on scoring his 100th international century.

Young star Virat Kohli said the victory was a fitting tribute to Tendulkar.

"This goes out to all the people of India. Tendulkar has carried the burden of the nation for 21 years. It was time we carried him."

Gautam Gambhir, who played a key role with the bat in making 97 off 122 balls, said the win was a gift to his great teammate from the entire squad.

"All credit for this win should go to Tendulkar. We were all playing for him, this trophy is for him."

Tendulkar, on his part, thanked each of his team-mates and the support staff including polar explorer Mike Horn.

"I would like to thank the support staff especially Mike Horn who joined us at the start of the tournament and was there for our last couple of games.

"He worked on the mental side and has helped us deal with the expectations and pressure.

"The team stuck together in the rough phases and proved people wrong who doubted our ability. Self-belief has been always there but in the last two years, we have been very consistent.

"It's been great honour to be part of this team. Thanks to (coach) Gary (Kirsten) and Paddy Upton (mental conditioning expert)."

China scores low in English test

Beijing:  Chinese have "poor" English skills despite huge efforts by the government in language training, according to a study.

China was ranked 29th in the English Proficiency Index, behind other Asian countries like Malaysia, Japan and South Korea, the Shanghai Daily reported.

Test-oriented, memorised learning habits did not give Chinese students the real language skills, education experts said.

The report was based on a free online English test, where two million adults from 44 countries where English is not the native language took part.

Afridi's speech won millions of hearts: Pak media

Islamabad:  Pakistan cricket team captain Shahid Afridi "was able to win millions of hearts across the border", a Pakistani daily said on Friday, adding that his post-match speech and press conference was graceful and full of sportsman's spirit. (Watch)

Pakistan was defeated on Wednesday by India in the World Cup semifinal match held in Mohali that was witnessed by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh. India will now play against Sri Lanka on Saturday.

An editorial in the Daily Times on Friday said: "Shahid Afridi, who rules the hearts of Pakistanis, was able to win millions of hearts across the border. His post-match speech and press conference was not just graceful and full of sportsman's spirit but his charm and wit bowled over many a heart.

"Afridi congratulated the Indian team and their nation. He did not need to do it but he also apologised to the Pakistani nation. I want to say sorry to my nation. We tried our level best but could not make it,' said Afridi," the article said.

It said that the match between India and Pakistan "lived up to the cricketing hype. It was a match full of twists and turns".

Noting that Pakistani "fielding was perhaps the worst", it said: "While dropping catches and misfielding is a norm for our team, dropping four catches of an ace batsman like Sachin Tendulkar perhaps cost us the match".

"As far as the batting goes, our top and middle order failed yet again. The Indian team certainly played better cricket and thus came out as the winners of this crucial match. Their bowling was tight and they fielded extremely well."

The editorial observed that winning or losing is part and parcel of any game.

"What mattered was the spirit in which it was played. It was heartening to see the camaraderie between the Indians and the Pakistanis - on the field by our players and off it between the spectators."

"Despite our disappointment with the end result, it was taken in good spirit on both sides."

It went on to say that now that the World Cup is over for Pakistan, "we must start the process of rebuilding our cricket team in preparation for the impending revival of international cricket on our soil".

"Manmohan Singh has given the go ahead for the Indian team to visit Pakistan for a cricket series. This would truly be a welcome initiative. Cricket is a passion that unites Pakistan. Let's bring it back to our soil!," it added.

Why SRK Missed The Final

Wondering why Shah Rukh Khan  and family aren't cheering for Team India, as promised? Here's why! We hear that SRK yesterday suffered a hairline toe fracture while shooting, which has stopped him from cheering for the Boys in Blue at Wankhede stadium.

Shah Rukh, who watched the semi-final with friends Farhan Akhtar, Karan Johar, Hrithik and Suzzanne Roshan at his home 'Mannat', had expressed a desire to catch the final match at the stadium with wife Gauri and kids Suhana and Aryan.

"We will win the final also. Inshallah! The kids want to go and see. So I have to go there and watch the finals," Shah Rukh had declared after India's win over Pakistan.

But alas, his dream remained a dream. Never mind, he can always cheer his heart out in the comfort of his home.

92-year-old woman to stand trial for murder in Australia

Melbourne:  A 92-year-old has become the oldest woman in Australia to stand trial for stabbing her 98-year-old husband to death, a report said on Sunday.

Clara Tang, who was married to Ching Yung Tang for the last 70 years allegedly killed him in their Sydney apartment in March last year, 'Sydney Morning Herald' reported.

The  elderly woman who pleaded not guilty on grounds of mental illness appeared in a local court last week and was ordered to stand trial in the Supreme Court on a date to be fixed.

According to documents provided by the police, the couple survived the Japanese invasion of  China and the Mao's Cultural Revolution before moving from Shanghai to Sydney 30 years ago.

Tang, who suffers from dementia, allegedly feared her husband was poisoning her food. According to the paper, when arrested Tang was almost totally soaked in blood. Her husband  had been stabbed twice in the stomach and his head was bludgeoned.

She was initially refused bail due to "the level of violence used and for the protection of the  community", but police relented with Tang put under strict supervision in a nursing home  ahead of her trial.