| Earthquake
rocks Andaman & Nicobar islands Chennai:
An earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale shook the Andaman and Nicobar
islands early on Tuesday morning. However, there were no reports of any loss to
life and property. According to the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), the
quake hit the island at 1:26 a.m. and was centered 260 km north of Port Blair
city. Tremors were also felt at several places in Chennai. Many parts of Orissa
including Bhubaneswar also felt mild tremor on Monday night. India
swine flu toll rises to 10 with two more deaths Top Pune:
A 62-year old Thane woman and a Vadodara girl succumbed to the deadly swine
flu virus on Tuesday taking the all-India swine flu death toll to ten. Shahida
Abdul Aziz from Pune was admitted to the Noor Hospital in Bhaikhala and A (H1N1)
virus was detected in her body only after her death. In Vadodara, the girl fell
prey to the flu, taking Gujarat's toll to two. Pune, so far, has recorded five
deaths. Earlier in the day, a 13-year-old schoolgirl died of swine flu at the
Sasoon General Hospital in Pune. According to Dr Pandurang Pawar, Medical Superintendent
of the Sassoon General Hospital, Shruti Gawade succumbed to the virus at around
1.30 a.m. on Tuesday. The girl had been kept on ventilator since August 7 when
she was brought here after being referred from a private hospital in critical
condition. Her death in the Sassoon General Hospital came barely hours after a
35-year-old chemist Sanjay Tilekar died here last night. On Monday, a 35-year-old
ayurvedic doctor and a four-year-old boy had also died of swine flu in Pune and
Chennai respectively. So far, a total of 333 people have been affected by the
virus in Maharashtra. In a bid to contain the deadly virus, the Government of
Maharashtra has ordered the closure of all educational institutions and shopping
malls for a week, while cinema theatres will remain closed for three days. Even
as the swine flu epidemic continues to spread havoc in the country, Union Health
Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad has insisted that the situation is still under control
and the toll is far less when compared with other affected countries. A high-level
meeting was called earlier on Monday to assess the situation that was attended
by the Heath Minister himself along with Cabinet Secretary KM Chandrasekhar, Health
Secretary Naresh Dayal, besides a team of medical experts. Nepal
Foreign Minister meets her Indian counterpart Top New
Delhi: Nepal Foreign Minister Sujata Koirala, who is on a five-day-visit to
India, met her Indian counterpart SM Krishna here on Tuesday. During her visit,
Koirala is scheduled to meet Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, Home Minister
P. Chidambaram, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and senior leaders of the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP). She is expected to hold a discussion with her Indian counterparts
on ways to prevent cross border terrorism, border encroachment, cooperation in
hydropower sector, boosting trade ties and review of 1950 Indo-Nepal Friendship
Treaty among others. Issues related to providing transit facilities to Nepali
goods and products from adjoining Indian ports and routes, the construction of
the Special Economic Zone in Birgunj and Indian assistance for Bagmati conservation
are among the major agendas. Nepal's Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal is also
scheduled to visit India this month. On Thursday, she will attend various events
in Delhi and will leave for Kathmandu on Friday afternoon. Big
B to be with ailing pal Amar Singh until recovery Top Mumbai:
Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan is currently in Singapore to stand by his
ailing pal Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh. Singh's both kidneys
had collapsed and he was admitted to a hospital in Singapore for a transplant.
Expressing his concern for the politician, Bachchan said that he's going to be
with Singh until he recovers completely. "Amar Singh ji has been a most sincere,
steadfast and incredibly caring friend," Bachchan said. "I consider him to be
a part of my family and I shall be with him till he has sufficiently recovered
to return back home. "It will be the least that I shall be able to do for him,"
he added. Pak
militants tried to capture country's nuke facilities thrice: Report Top Washington:
Home-grown Pakistani militants attacked the country's nuclear facilities at least
three times over the last two years, according to a leading security expert. The
incidents include an attack on a nuclear missile storage facility at Sargodha
on November 1, 2007, and a homicide bombing at the nuclear airbase at Kamra on
December 10, 2007, as tracked by Shaun Gregory, director of the Pakistan Security
Research Unit at the University of Bradford in the UK. Gregory also noted a much
more considerable raid by the Pakistani Taliban on August 20, 2008, when homicide
bombers blew up several entry points to a main armament complex at the country's
main nuclear facility, the Wah Cantonment Ordnance Complex, FOX News quoted a
paper, as saying. Pakistan insists that its nuclear weapons are secure and that
there is no chance of their falling into the hands of extremists or terrorists.
But these homegrown attacks have occurred even as Pakistan has taken steps to
safeguard its stockpile against potential strikes, Gregory writes in the July
issue of West Point's Combating Terrorism Center Sentinel. Gregory's paper, "The
Terrorist Threat to Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons," argues that Pakistan's nuclear
infrastructure is designed to ward off external attacks from countries like India
and the Unites States, and asks whether the geographic location of Pakistan's
principle nuclear weapons infrastructure which is mainly in areas dominated by
al Qaeda and the Taliban, making it more vulnerable to internal attacks. Perseid
meteor shower may yield 80 'space rocks' an hour Top Washington:
Reports indicate that the Perseid meteor shower, which will be visible on August
11 and 12, would yield more than 80 meteors an hour across the sky during the
best viewing time. Meteors are bits of dust or rock that collide with Earth's
atmosphere and heat up gas particles to produce a glowing trail. A handful of
meteors can be seen each hour on any clear night, but during a meteor shower dozens
may be visible. The Perseid shower occurs each year when the Earth passes through
a stream of debris shed by the comet Swift-Tuttle, which orbits the sun once every
130 years or so and last passed through the inner solar system in 1992. The meteors
generally get incinerated before they can strike the ground, creating the streaks
of superheated, glowing air we call 'shooting stars'. According to a report in
National Geographic News, this year, from any vantage point in the world, you
might see more than 80 meteors an hour streak across the sky during the best viewing
time, when the moon's glare will be weakest-late night on August 11and into the
wee hours of August 12, local cloud and lighting conditions permitting. The highest
concentration of Perseid meteors hitting Earth's atmosphere will occur during
the afternoon of August 12, when they'll be largely invisible. The Perseid sky
show is "always the best annual meteor shower," said Bill Cooke, the lead for
NASA's Meteoroid Environments Office in Alabama. "Visually, the best are the Geminids.
But December nights are cold, and people don't want to freeze their rears off,"
he added. The Perseid meteors will appear to originate in the northeastern sky,
near the constellation Perseus, and to shoot off in all directions, according
to Brian Skiff, an astronomer at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff. "Since the radiant
point is close to Perseus, it is common to see them streaking right along the
Milky Way, even as far away as Sagittarius," he said. "After midnight, Perseus
will have risen higher in the sky, and the meteors can be seen in just about any
direction," he added. |
