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Surgeon felicitated
HTC
(New Delhi)
NOTED SURGEON Dr Inderjit Singh Virdhi was felicitated by Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee on Guru Gobind Singh's birthday in recognition of his services in the field of heart surgery. He was honoured at a function organised at gurdwara Rakabganj
Sahib. Dr Virdhi, who claims he is the first Indian surgeon who has the right to practice in three continents, has performed more than 2,000 surgeries in Australia, New Zealand and England. He is at present working as a senior consultant and thoracic
surgeon in the Indraprastha Apollo hospital. Dr Virdhi recently came out with a handy manual that provided guidelines to patients undergoing heart surgery regarding pre and post-operative care.
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Sushila mourned
SENIOR CONGRESS leader and former executive councillor of the Delhi administration Jag Pravesh Chandra condoled the death of former Rehabilitation Minister Sushila Nayar, who expired on Friday. Mr Chandra in a Press release said that he had met Dr Nayar in
1970 at Sevagram, where he had gone to present his first book Teachings of Mahatma Gandhi to Gandhiji himself. Dr Nayar was the Rehabilitation Minister in the first Delhi Assembly in 1952.
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Vajpayee releases books on late Parliamentarian
PRIME MINISTER Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Friday released two commemorative books on the life and achievements of late Prakashvir Shastri, who was Member of Parliament for over 18 years. The books are compilations of the main speeches made by the late
Parliamentarian in the House, his activities, memoirs and photographs. The book release function was attended by Member of Parliament Dr L.M. Singhvi and former High Commissioner to United Kingdom Kamla Tyagi among others.
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Ex-Air Marshal dead
HTC
(New Delhi)
RETIRED AIR Marshal Prabhakar Shankar Dere, a veteran pilot and former chairman of the International Airports Authority of India, passed away in the Capital on Friday. Air Marshal Dere, who was commissioned by the IAF in 1950, had served in various
operational areas and took part in the 1962 and ’65 operations in the Ladakh and Punjab sectors. He retired from IAAI in 1986.
He is survived by his wife and two sons.
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Jobs for disabled
HTC, New Delhi
THE SUPREME Court on Friday asked an expert committee to revise within three months the list providing details of Government jobs earmarked for the disabled. Expressing distress over the Government's approach, a three-judge Bench said the Government was
still following the 1986 list which was subject to revision every three years. The Court was hearing a plea filed by a visually challenged person.
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Plea against NBA
HTC, New Delhi
FIVE LAWYERS on Friday filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking contempt proceedings against Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) activists Medha Patkar and Arundhati Roy for leading a dharna at the court. The petitioners alleged that the NBA activists had
raised slogans against the Supreme Court and its judges.
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Basmati patent
HTC, New Delhi
THE SUPREME Court on Friday sought a reply from the Solicitor General on a plea that the Centre had failed to take proper steps to protect the farmers' interests in the basmati rice patent case. However, the Government claimed that it had nullified four
claims of Ricetec Inc on basmati rice before the US Patents Organisation.
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68 ‘purified’
HTC, Gorakhpur
MEMBERS OF the Hindu Jagran Manch, Hindu Mahasabha and Arya Samaj on Friday organised "shuddhi" (purification) of 68 students who, they alleged, had been misguided by a Christian missionary school in Charpurwa village near here. BJP MP Yogi Adityanath was
also present during the "purification" ceremony.
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4 peacocks dead
PTI, Baroda
FOUR MORE carcasses of peacocks were recovered from the forest area of Jambughoda on Thursday, raising the number of deaths among these birds to 11 in the past one week.
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27 hurt in blast
PTI, Srinagar
TWENTY-SEVEN people, including four BSF men, were hurt in a powerful grenade explosion caused by militants in Srinagar on Friday evening.
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‘Priests abducted’
PTI, Ahmedabad
ALL-INDIA Christian Council member Samson Christian on Friday alleged that two Christian priests from Gujarat were abducted and beaten up on Thursday night by armed fundamentalists in Udaipur.
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Badrinath temple
HTC, Dehra Dun
ARMYMEN ARRESTED a man for trying to destroy the garbh grih (sanctum sanctorum) of the Badrinath temple in Gopeshwar on Thursday. The man had in his possession an axe, a knife and maps of sensitive border areas.
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Ravi Kant is new chairman of NRSC
HTC
(New Delhi)
RAVI KANT, Executive Director (Commercial Vehicle Business Unit), Telco, has been appointed as the new Chairman of National Readership Studies Council (NRSC). Among other members of the new governing council of NRSC include Rajan Kohli of The Hindustan
Times, Pradeep Guha of The Times of India, N. Murali of The Hindu and Aroon Purie of Living Media India Ltd and Gautam Rakshit of Advertising Avenues
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Pharma exports clock 28% growth
HTC
(New Delhi)
EXPORT OF drugs & pharmaceuticals, chemicals and related products have shown a record growth of 27.9 per cent at Rs 8,286 crore during the first six months of the current financial year. The export target for this sector during 2000-01 has been fixed at Rs
17,150 crore as against the actual achievement of Rs. 13,826 crore during the year 1999-2000.
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Cars hitting technohighway hi-tech devices
Reuters
(Los Angeles)
IN THE good old days, cars were just cars. But with the automotive technology industry expanding rapidly, that four wheel buggy in the garage may soon earn the title of "multimedia communications vehicle."
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FCC seeks airwaves for new wireless generations
Reuters
(Washington)
US REGULATORS said on Thursday they have proposed the government give up certain airwaves to make way for new generations of wireless devices that could some day lead to video on a wristwatch. US agencies are scrambling to find spectrum for companies to
develop so-called third generation (3G) and other advanced wireless devices -- already hitting the markets in Japan and Europe -- that can handle digital multimedia and allow high-speed Internet access.
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Sprint-Palm to provide handheld web access
Reuters
(New York)
DIGITAL MOBILE telephone service provider Sprint PCS Group said on Thursday it had teamed with Palm Inc. to provide wireless Internet access on Palm’s popular handheld computers. Kansas City, Mo.-based Sprint PCS said the alliance would market and sell
wireless services for handhelds using the Palm OS platform, a handheld operating system.
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Computer titans bet on home electronics
AFP
(San Francisco)
WITH SALES of computers dropping to new lows, the world’s largest computer companies are hoping smaller electronic devices will shore up sagging bottomlines. To bring home that point, Intel CEO Craig Barrett and Microsoft chairman Bill Gates are among the
keynote speakers at this weekend’s giant Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which starts on Saturday in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Group-buying website Mercata to close shop
Reuters
(Seattle)
MERCATA INC., an online retailer that promised lower prices through group buying, said on Thursday it is shutting down, one day after it scrapped plans for an initial public offering of stock. The Bellevue, Washington-based company, backed by Microsoft
Corp. co-founder Paul Allen, said it was unable to raise additional funding to stay in business, making it the "latest casualty in market rejection of e-commerce."
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3D animated feature film
HTC
(New Delhi)
CHENNAI-BASED Pentamedia Graphics Ltd has successfully produced another full length real-time 3D animated feature film "Pandavas -- The Five Warriors" using the latest technology.
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Wipro Net gets iso certification
PTI
(Bangalore)
WIPRO NET, a category 'a' national Internet service provider, has been awarded the iso 9002 certification for network management, service implementation and customer relationship management.
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CII, IOC to organize Petrotech 2001
HTC
(New Delhi)
THE CONFEDERATION of Indian Industry, in association with the Indian Oil Corporation, is organizing the 4th International Petroleum Conference & Exhibition - Petrotech 2001 between January 9 ad 12 in New Delhi. The theme of the event this time is
"Hydrocarbons - Knowledge Partnership for a Green Planet".
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ATR launches new site
HTC
(New Delhi)
THE FRENCH-Italian consortium ATR has launched a newly designed site accessible on www.atraircraft.com or www.atr.fr. At the home page, the viewer can choose between 4 main sections, the media centre and an ATR gallery.
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Infy to announce Q3 results on Jan 9
HTC
(New Delhi)
INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES will announce, on January 2, 2001, results for its third quarter ended December 31, 2000. Following the announcement, the comments of the company officials will be broadcast on the internet at 11.30 a.m. on the same day and can be
accessed at www.infy.com.
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Rough road ahead for Internet stocks?
Reuters
(New York, January 5)
INVESTORS WHO expect Internet stocks to post a comeback this year will be disappointed, a report by International Data Corp. said on Thursday.
"The genie is out of the bottle," said John Gantz, IDC's chief research officer.
"The criteria for investing and for taking companies public will revert to old criteria — operating histories, consecutive quarters of profit and long-term fundamentals — and it will be years before market euphoria sends Internet stocks soaring again," he
said in a statement. The year 2000 saw the bubble burst on the Internet gold rush. Stocks that had soared in 1999 and early 2000 plummeted to fresh year lows.
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Palm pilots now becoming robots
Reuters
(New York, January 5)
PALM PILOT application No. 413: sending it for coffee.
Ambitious owners of the personal organizer can now move beyond such passe uses as making phone calls, ordering movie tickets, or snapping photos. Their Palm can now be turned into a robot.
With a $300 kit available over the Web, everyday people can turn their Palm Pilots into the brains of a small, six-sided robot with three red wheels, equipped with infrared sensors and rechargeable batteries.
The device, developed at Carnegie Mellon University and licensed to a Boulder, Colo.-based robotics company called Acroname, has few, if any, practical uses today. But it could help inspire a new passion for robotics among the general public, its seller
said.
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China developing bilingual browser
PTI
(Beijing)
CHINA HOPES to break the tight grip of the two US-based Internet browser players - Microsoft and Netscape - with the development of its own bilingual browser, an official newspaper reported on Friday. "Our target is to grab back the browser market, which
is totally controlled by Microsoft and Netscape," a Chinese-Hong Kong joint venture company was quoted as saying by China Daily.
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Milosevic trial in Yugoslavia
AP
(Washington)
A TOP Yugoslav envoy said after a meeting with US secretary of state Madeleine Albright that his government may be willing to allow an international war crimes tribunal to try former president Slobodan Milosevic on Yugoslav territory. He noted that
tribunal investigators are already on the ground in Yugoslavia and said he hopes they will be able to open an office soon.
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US extends sanctions against Libya
AFP
(Washington)
US PRESIDENT Bill Clinton has informed the Congress of his decision to extend for a further six months US economic sanctions slapped on Libya some 15 years ago. Clinton stated on Thursday that despite Libya handing over for trial two suspects in the 1988
bombing of a Pan-Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, US concerns persist.
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350 kilo German woman gives birth
AFP
(Bremen)
A WOMAN weighing 350 kgs gave birth in Northern Germany in what medics here are describing as a medical feat. "It is without doubt the first time in medical history that a woman weighing so much has brought a child into the world", said Willibald
Schroeder, head doctor at the clinic where the child was born.
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World’s oldest person in Dagestan
AFP
(Moscow)
THE WORLD'S oldest person lives in a village in Dagestan and will celebrate his 135th birthday this year. Russian media said that Gayirkhan Iriskhanov has nine children, 40 grandchildren and 50 great-grandchildren. He never smoked a cigarette in his life,
has only drunk alcohol in moderation and his favourite dish is mutton.
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Nepal, Bhutan form joint panel on refugee crisis
AFP
(Kathmandu)
NEPAL AND Bhutan have set up a joint committee to resolve the decade-old refugee crisis and try to repatriate 100,000 Bhutanese living in camps in the Himalayan kingdom, officials said on Friday. The committee will be led by Nepal's home ministry under
secretary Usha Nepal and a director of Bhutan's home ministry, Sonam Tenzin, the state-run radio said.
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Maori objects to pop star’s tattoo
DPA
(Wellington)
A NEW Zealand Maori has criticised British pop star Robbie Williams' traditional tattoo, saying he "has my intellectual property on my shoulder," news reports said on Friday.
Pita Sharples, an academic and cultural leader, said: "That tattoo's particular to my tribe, and I'd like to know under what circumstances he got that to show to the world ... To polish up his act", according to a report carried in Wellington's
Dominion newspaper on Friday.
Maori tattooist Te Rangitu Netana, who put the design on Williams when he visited New Zealand last year, said it represented the story of the singer's life, spiritual beliefs and aspirations using Maori myths and symbolism. He said he had explained to
Williams the role of tribal tattoos and their importance in Maori culture. The report said the use of Maori symbols and song was controversial. Some Maoris called for their protection as tribal treasures and intellectual property.
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Doc denies Pope Parkinson’s quote
AP
(Rome)
THE SURGEON who performed Pope John Paul II's 1994 hip operation denied Thursday he had said the pontiff was suffering from Parkinson's disease. Gianfranco Fineschi said he was misquoted in an interview in the magazine Oggi.
"I was asked if the Holy Father had Parkinson's, to which I replied, ’I cannot exclude that he suffers from a Parkinson's-like illness, but it is not in my field,’" Fineschi said on Thursday. In Oggi, which came out on newsstands on Thursday,
Fineschi was quoted as giving this explanation for why the pope walks with a shuffling gait: "He does so for neurological reasons and not orthopedic."
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Drug blocks hair loss among sick
DPA
(Washington)
A MEDICAL remedy, formerly used only on animals, has been shown to slow hair loss in many chemotherapy patients and could be tested on cancer patients in a few years to see if it also alleviates such chemotherapy side effects as nausea and vomiting, an
article to be published in Friday's issue of the journal Science said.
The research team, headed by Stephen Davis at Glaxo Wellcome in North Carolina's Research Triangle Park, found that the substance, dubbed cdk2-blocker, stopped hair loss in 50 per cent of test patients and reduced hair loss in another 20 per cent. While
hair loss may seem trivial in comparison to the effects of cancer, it is a concern that looms large to cancer patients, the article said. The substance blocks the cyclin dependent kinase 2 enzyme, which plays a key role in cell division. Scientists hope
the blocker will hinder cell proliferation in cancers. Davis and his team concentrated on other effects of the blocker, such as its ability to protect healthy cells from attack from a variety of currently used commonly used chemotherapeutic agents.
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End of a Georgian era
DPA
(Washington)
THE US political magazine George is folding a year and a half after the death of its founder, John F. Kennedy jr, its publisher has announced. Hachette Filipacchi Magazines said on Thursday that the last issue will be printed in March because
prospects for the magazine in a weak advertising market look dim. "While I have been enthusiastic about George and remain so, the reality of today's magazine business is that we cannot make George work economically despite its stellar
editorial product," said Jack Kliger of Hachette Filipacchi.
The final issue will feature interviews that Kennedy, son of the assassinated US president, conducted while editor. The slick magazine combined politics and entertainment, and debuted in 1995. But its closure has been predicted since the death of its
founder.
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