Inflation climbs to 7.61%

Inflation rose to 42-month high of 7.61 per cent for the week ended April 26 as against 7.57 per cent in the previous week on account of rising food prices and some manufactured products.
The Wholesale Price Index-based inflation stood at 6.01 per cent in the corresponding week a year ago.
During the week, prices of tea jumped by 11 per cent, fruits and vegetables by one per cent, fish marine by two per cent, spices and cardamoms by three per cent.
However, prices of pulses declined by nearly one per cent among manufactured products, prices of mustard oil and imported edible oil went expensive by one per cent and four per cent respectively.
At the same time, cement, aluminium ingots and other aluminium materials hardened.
However, steel prices declined during the week.
Sensex Dips
Sensex closed below 17000 and Nifty below 5000 today. Sensex shut shop at 16737, down 343 points and Nifty at 4982, down 99 points from the previous close. The CNX Midcaps index was down 2.54% and BSE Smallcaps index was down 2.11%. There was selling pressure across oil and gas, banking, realty and capital goods stocks. Market breadth was negative with 213 advances against 1031 declines on the NSE

Rajasthan outplay Deccan

Rajasthan Royals rolled to the top of the table with an eight-wicket win over Deccan Chargers, who offered little resistance in a match that was effectively decided in the first innings. Deccan posted a below-par 140 and looked listless as Rajasthan's efficient batting chased the target with four overs to spare.
After their batsmen collapsed in spectacular fashion following Adam Gilchrist's dismissal, Deccan's fielders, perhaps hindered by the dust storm blowing across the stadium, failed to save runs and apply any pressure on Rajasthan. Deccan have now lost six matches out of eight and, with six games to play, their chances of making the semi-finals look dim.
A breezy 68 off only 37 deliveries by Yusuf Pathan saw Rajasthan Royals make short work of Deccan Chargers.
Yusuf was named man of the match.

Sensex south bound

Sensex is currently trading at 17,064, down 274 points from the previous close. Nifty is at 5072, down 63 points. CNX Midcap index is down 0.9% and BSE Smallcap index, down 0.7%. All sectoral indices are still trading low, with that of IT, banks and FMCG hit the most.

Supreme Court reinstate Dr Venugopal

The Supreme Court on Thursday quashed the AIIMS Amendment Act that led to the removal of noted cardiologist Dr Venugopal as AIIMS director, and ordered his immediate reinstatement. The verdict came after Dr Venugopal challenged his removal as AIIMS Director following an amendment moved by Union Health Minister Ambumani Ramadoss to fix 65 years as the upper age limit for the post.
It is belived that Ramadoss forced parliament to bring amendment in AIIMS Act to remove Dr. Venugopal. Dr Venugopal was removed from AIIMS in 2007. The AIIMS Amendment Act was passed by the Parliament in August 2007,

A security threat for India’s Internet users

Internet users now will have to be more watchful while carrying out their online financial transactions as Pharming, a new security threat used by hackers for making financial gains, is surfacing in the country.
“Pharming attack is a new security threat for the Internet users which is developing in the country and it is primarily launched by the hackers on the websites for getting financial gains,” Cyber Security Research Centre Associate Coordinator Divya Bansal said.
“Hackers redirect Internet traffic from one website to a different, identical-looking site in order to allure you to enter your user name and password on their fake site,” said Ms. Bansal.
Hackers try to acquire personal information in order to access the user’s bank account, steal the identity, or commit other kinds of fraud in his name. Banking and similar financial sites often become target of these attacks, she said.
Although there are few incidents of pharming happening in the country and they have not been largely reported, she said.
She further added that the problem could further deepen because of growing usage of Internet in India.India has about four million internet subscribers and 11 million users.Agreeing that it is a new security threat, Microsoft Corporation Director (Corporate Affairs) Deepak Maheshwari said, “this is just an extension of Phishing which also has a motive of making quick money.”

Indian-American DR to be honoured with 'Ellis Island Medal'

An Indian American doctor will be conferred with this year's Ellis Island Medal, one of America's most prestigious awards, for his contribution to strengthening of Indo-US relations and philanthropic work in both India and the US.
Sampat Shivangi will be presented with the honour at an award ceremony on May 10, at the historic Ellis Island in New York city.
The medal is given to American citizens for their outstanding contributions to their own ethnic groups, their ancestral countries and to the United States.
Past recipients of the medal, which is recognised by both US house of representative and the senate, include six former US presidents, nobel laureates and other leaders in the field of industry, education, arts, and Sports.
Shivangi was instrumental in obtaining a first ever large US congressional grant for the study of diabetes mellitus amongst Indian Americans, who have one of the highest incidence of the disease.
He served the American association of physicians of Indian origin as secretary, vice president and was the founding president of Aapi Mississippi.
He also worked as adviser to the US secretary of health and human services at NHSC and was the first Indian American member of the Mississippi state board of health.

Three women allege stripped by CPI-M cadre

Three women activists of Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Commitee on Tuesday claimed they were beaten up and stripped by CPI-M cadres in Nandigram for refusing to support the Marxists in the ensuing panchayat polls.
Malati Das, Krishna Das and Tulsi Das of Simulkundu village claimed that they have filed a complaint but the Nandigram police refused to comment.
When contacted, Superintendent of Police of East Midnapore S Panda told PTI that he had no information on the matter and that the Nandigram police station could only say anything.The women alleged that around 40-50 CPI-M cadres, led by Mamata Das, came to their houses on Monday and laid a seize.
"The CPI-M cadres told us that we should vote for their party in the panchayat polls. When we refused to oblige, they started beating us. They even snatched the voter's identity cards," they alleged.
"They then started stripping our clothes. We ran for around one km without any clothes to escape from their clutches," they claimed.

Forest fires hit Uttarakhand

Forest fires have hit the famous Jim Corbett and Rajaji National parks and several other areas of Uttarakhand where eight persons have been arrested on charges of igniting some of them. With fresh squalls hitting Uttarakhand since Sunday night, the forest department has warned that the fires would rage further.
The forest fires are striking terror in several areas of the Corbett and Rajaji national parks, known for their tiger and elephant population, the forest department here said, adding that several other parts of the State have also been affected. Though the forest department is claiming that it has controlled the fires in Corbett Park, reports said they were still raging.
However, no loss of life or wildlife has been reported in the fire, said A.R. Sinha, Chief Conservator and the nodal officer for the fire fighting operations. Altogether, nearly 1,426 hectares of forests have been affected by the fires which have now become an annual feature.

Cyclone toll could reach 13,000: Myanmar Minister

The death toll from a devastating cyclone that swept through Myanmar is 4,000 and could rise to 15,000, the country' foreign minister said on Monday.
State radio said the number of dead in the country's low-lying Irrawaddy River delta from Saturday's Cyclone Nargis had reached 3,939, and that almost 3,000 people in a single town there were unaccounted for.
Foreign diplomats said Foreign Minister Nyan Win acknowledged the possibility of 10,000 dead at a briefing given to them and representatives of UN and international aid agencies. On Sunday, the initial death toll was given as 351.
At the meeting, Myanmar officials appealed for international humanitarian assistance, including urgently needed roofing materials, plastic sheets and temporary tents, medicine, water purifying tablets, blankets and mosquito nets.
The diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was held behind closed doors, said the foreign minister acknowledged 59 deaths in the country's largest city of Yangon.
The government radio station in the capital, Naypyitaw, said 2,879 people were unaccounted for in Bogalay, a town in the Irrawaddy delta where the storm wreaked the most havoc.The storm left hundreds of thousands of people homeless and without clean drinking water said Richard Horsey, a Thailand-based spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Yangon was without electricity except where gas-fed generators were available. Many roads remained littered with debris.
The situation in the countryside remained unclear because of poor communications and roads left impassable by the storm.

Cruise ship Mona Lisa runs aground off Latvian Coast

The cruise ship Mona Lisa with 984 people on board ran aground early on Sunday in the Baltic Sea, off the northwest coast of Latvia, the coast guard said.
Coast guard spokeswoman Liene Ulbina said all the passengers were safe and they were not at immediate risk. Most are German, she said.
Air force and border guards were on standby, but there are no signs of damage to the Bahamas-registered vessel, which was stranded in the Irbe strait outside Riga, a Latvian Coast Guard Service statement said.
Ulbina said coast guard ships had arrived at the scene, but it remained unclear whether they would attempt to evacuate the passengers or try to pull the ship off the ground.
The coast guard said the crew had been inspecting the ship and had not found any signs of damage or oil tank leaks.

Over 350 dead as cyclone hits Myanmar

More than 350 people have died in Myanmar in a powerful cyclone that knocked out power in the impoverished country's commercial capital and destroyed thousands of homes, state-run media said on Sunday.
Military-run Myaddy television station said five regions had been declared disaster zones following Saturday's storm, which packed winds of up to 190 kilometres per hour.
It said at least 351 people were killed by Tropical Cyclone Nargis, including 162 who lived on Haing Gyi island off the country's southwest coast. Many of the others died in the low-lying Irrawaddy delta.
Seventy-five per cent of the buildings in the Irrawaddy's Labutta township had collapsed, it said.
"The Irrawaddy delta was hit extremely hard, not only because of the wind and rain but because of the storm surge," said Chris Kaye, the UN's acting humanitarian coordinator in Yangon.
The meteorological bureau had forecast the cyclone would cause tides to rise as much as 3.7 metres above normal levels, although no details of the actual rise were available on Sunday.

Bush remarks enrage political parties

All major political parties, including Congress, BJP and the Left, on Saturday lashed out at US President George W Bush for blaming growing demand in India for the spiraling global food prices as the opposition used the opportunity to attack the government.
Most parties said a major reason for spiralling global food prices was diversion of land producing food crops in the US to bio-fuel production, while Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh said Bush was "completely wrong" in his assessment.
"George Bush has never been known for his knowledge of economics. And he has just proved once again how comprehensively wrong he is. To say that the demand for food in India is causing increase in global good prices is completely wrong," Ramesh said.
Congress criticised the US President saying the analysis was "completely erroneous" as India was not a food importer but a food exporter.