The next steps after NSG waiver in Vienna:
- The US Congress is likely to take up the 123 India-US bilateral civil nuclear cooperation pact when it convenes on Sep 8. The Congress has to approve the pact by an up and down vote before the Congressional session ends Sep 26.
- The Bush administration will ask Congress not to insist on the mandatory 30-day session period required to present a pact for its approval. As this will technically allow senators to move amendments, the Bush administration has to ensure that the Congress approves the text of the 123 pact without a re-look.
* The two countries are expected to formally sign the bilateral pact, likely when Manmohan Singh goes to Washington towards the end of September, the last step that will restore nuclear trade with the US after a gap of 34 years.
* India will sign similar pacts soon with nuclear suppliers like Russia, France and others in its quest for energy security in the coming decades.
It was not days old news when Google the internet giant announced to jump in the arena of information sharing based on the famed Wikipedia model (user generated information pool). Google has been the web pioneer (not the innovator), and Knol has added a new chapter in it's successful journey. Popularizing Knol will not be a tough job for Google, being the most used search engine, Knol search results in Google web search will expand its reach and will make people aware of the new unit of knowledge.
Official Google Blog: Knol is open to everyone
With just three weeks left for the Beijing Olympics, China has put Serbian coach Ratomir Dujkovic on the back seat in the Chinese Olympic football coaching staff.
Yin Tiesheng, former coach of Chinese league team Qingdao and men's under-20 national team in 2004, was appointed as the executive head coach of the Olympic team, Chinese Football Association vice chairman Xie Yalong told Xinhua.
Dujkovic, who has been running the under-23 Olympic team since late 2006, has been moved into an advising job, mainly responsible for analysing the opponents.
"The players are not content with the Dujkovic's training methods and strategies, and for the sake of the Olympics, we have to make some changes," said Xie.
"From now on, Yin will be in charge of the training and matches. Since Dujkovic has steered the team for about two years, he is still able to play his part in tactics."
Dujkovic took over as China's senior team coach in January, but the team was disbanded after being knocked out of the first qualifying round for the 2010 World Cup.
China is grouped with Brazil, New Zealand and Belgium in Group C at the Olympic Games in August.
The Beijing Olympic Games will be unlike any before. No previous Olympics have seen the world's fastest trio who are all close contenders for the men's 100 metres gold.
Among them, one is a second-time world record holder who failed to get even one major event title; one is triple World Champion who has never created a legally admitted world record; and one is concentrated more on the 200 metres but breezily lowered the 100m world record by 0.2 sec.
Top three of the only four who have ever finished 100 meters inside 9.80 secs, are to compete for the men's 100 meters.
American Tyson Gay, one of the most frightening sprinters, clocked a wind-aided 9.68 secs at the US Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon, last month, making him the world's fastest man under any conditions.
Gay's previous US national record in 9.77 secs is, nevertheless, the third best of all time, but seemed more or less unimpressive.
Gay snatched triple golds in the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships in 2007 in Osaka, Japan, which helped him join the prestigious peers of Carl Lewis, Michael Johnson and Maurice Greene, who won three gold medals at a single World Championships.
Jamaican Asafa Powell was frustrated by Gay in the Osaka meet and finished third in 9.96 secs. Major athletics events have proved to be not his game. After finishing fifth at the Athens Games, Powell set the world record twice, 9.77 secs in 2005 and 9.74 secs in 2007.
The 25-year-old Jamaican has run 36 sub-10 second races till now, a record only bettered by US sprinter Maurice Greene with 52 times in his career. Greene created a world record of 9.79 sec in 1999, beating Donovan Bailey's standing record of 9.84 secs, lowering it by the largest margin since the advent of electronic timing. The 33-year-old Greene announced his retirement earlier this year, allegedly due to his nagging injuries.
Powell, by all means, is one of the hardest to beat. He planned to be a mechanic before taking athletics as his career. The Jamaican is one of the only two men who ran under 9.80 seconds legally more than once. His fellow Jamaican Usain Bolt, three years his junior, is a distant second with two sub-9.80 performances.
Bolt is most likely to show up in the Beijing Olympic men's 200m final one day before his 22nd birthday. He stripped Powell of the men's 100m world record in 9.72 sec, May 31 in New York.
Bolt, sometimes viewed as too tall to sprint with his officially-announced height of 1.94m, started training in 100 meters in 2007 after he broke 36-year-old Jamaican national 200m record by 0.11 sec at 19.75 secs.
With the men's 100m world record in hand, Bolt also created the year's best of 200m in 19.67 seconds. He is the favourite who has been expected to break the men's 200m world record held for 12 years by Michael Johnson at 19.32 secs. But Bolt played down the possibility of creating a new 200m world record too soon. "Maybe next year," he said.
Powell said Bolt's record-breaking run in the 100 metres race took off the pressure. "Now I can be a lot more focused on what I need to achieve," Powell said, adding that running within 9.60 seconds in 100 metres was "definitely" going to happen.
"The real challenge is getting the (Olympic) gold medal," he said, calling the Olympics a battle of attrition. Top sprinters have to compete for the gold in four rounds in Olympics. "You just have to run one race for the world record so it's easier," Powell said.
All the top contenders have not won the Olympic men's 100 metres medals, except the 2004 Athens silver medallist Francis Obikwelu of Portugal who clocked 9.86 sec at the event four years ago.
Gay's hope for winning three Olympic golds faded after he was disqualified from the US men's 200m team due to cramp injuries in the US trials last month.
Legendary sprinter Carl Lewis was recently reluctant to predict who would win the men's 100 metres gold at the Beijing Olympics.
"It would not be fair to name one, that could bring too much pressure," said Lewis, who garnered nine Olympic golds and eight world championships during his career.
Canada's top diver Alexandre Despatie has been tipped as the biggest threat to the Chinese dream team at the Beijing Olympic Games.
Though the World Champion did not feature in Canada's Olympic diving trials in June due to injuries, he has qualified directly for the Beijing Games since the 23-year-old is the best in Canada.
"An Olympic gold medal is needed," as Despatie once said. In the 2004 Athens Olympics, he managed a silver in the men's 3 metres springboard and became the first Canadian diver to win an Olympic medal.
At the Beijing Olympics, Despatie, who's good in both springboard and platform, is no doubt the biggest hope for the Canadian team at the Water Cube.
Despatie visited the Water Cube during the FINA diving world cup in February, when his unsteady performance only awarded him a bronze in the 3m springboard synchro. "I can't remember the last time when the Chinese divers didn't win," said Despatie here.
In April, a foot injury forced the Canadian to rest for four to six weeks, which would affect his preparation for the Olympics.
However, he's still the biggest rival for the Chinese diving team.
The diving wunderkind started his career at five. And as early as 13, Despatie began to show his talents. He won the gold medal at the 1998 Commonwealth Games, making him the youngest gold medal winner ever in the history of the Games. The achievement earned Despatie a spot in the 2000 Guinness Book of World Records.
At age 15, Despatie made his Olympic debut in the 2000 Sydney Games. He was too young to compete against veteran Russian Dmitri Sautin and the Chinese divers, but still finished fourth in the 10m platform.
After two years hard training, in the 2003 Barcelona World Championships, the 18-year-old defeated Chinese favourites Tian Liang and Hu Jia to claim victory in the 10m platform. It also made him the first diving world champion in Canada's history.
In the 2005 Montreal World Championships, Despatie earned gold medals in both the 1m and 3m springboards, becoming the first diver in history to be world champion in all three diving events. His performance in 3m springboard earned the 20-year-old 813.60 points, the first to win over 800 points in the event.
Despatie was almost unseen in 2006 due to injuries, but he came back in the 2007 Melbourne World Championships and took two silvers in the 3m springboard and 3m springboard synchro.
Xinhua
The consecutive suicide attacks in Islamabad and on Indian embassy in Kabul clearly show how much SAARC countries are inflicted with terrorism. The countries in subcontinent have always been soft targets for terrorists. No stringent laws, poor condition of intelligence and lack of active joint mechanisms between nations in Indian subcontinent have been the favouring factors for rising incidents. Although India and Pakistan set up a joint mechanism on terrorism, and similarly Pakistan also has a Pakistan-Afghan Accord to Obliterate Terrorism, but there are no results. The individual mechanisms are of no help in war on terrorism, we clearly need a combined forum to talk and find solutions and SAARC is that forum. During the 12th and 13th SAARC summits, extreme emphasis was laid upon greater cooperation between the SAARC members to fight terrorism, but the countries need to come out with a suitable framework in upcoming summit at Kandy, Sri Lanka.
Al Jazeera on Kabul Blast:
At least 28 people have been killed and more than 100 others wounded in Afghanistan's capital Kabul after an attack on the Indian embassy, offficials say.
Abdullah Fahim, the spokesman for the Afghan public health ministry, said the explosion wounded 141 people in addition to the deaths.
The ministry collected information from the scene and several Kabul hospitals.
James Bays, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Afghanistan, said the blast on Monday may have been the work of a suicide bomber.
"This is the deadliest attack in Kabul for some months now," he said.
At least two of the dead were Indian paramilitary soldiers guarding the embassy, Indian foreign ministry officials said.
Bays said the road in the main centre of Kabul along which the interior ministry is situated should be one of the most secure roads in the city and "yet a suicide bomber managed to drive his four-wheel drive vehicle packed with explosives towards the gate of the embassy where he detonated his bomb".
He added: "It is a scene of utter devastation. The bomb has taken away the gate of the embassy, taken down trees, blown out windows and destroyed many cars which were parked outside the road ... pools of blood in the road and, of course, the most of awful thing it has done is kill alot of people ... Among the dead are a number of Indian staff working at the Indian embassy."
"Our information says two personnel of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police have been killed in the attack," a foreign ministry source said.
The blast, which was felt across much of Kabul, took place near a row of metal turnstiles outside the Indian embassy, where dozens of Afghan men line up every morning to apply for visas.
Show of support
Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, the Afghan foreign minister, visited the embassy soon after the attack to show support, Sultan Ahmad Baheen, his spokesman, said.
"The enemies of Afghanistan and India's relationship cannot hamper our relationship by conducting such attacks," Baheen said.
India has provided significant support to Afghanistan's efforts to restore order after the removal of the Taliban, which seized power in 1996 until they were pushed out.
Pranab Mukherjee, the Indian foreign minister, has called an emergency meeting of defence, foreign and home ministry officials to discuss the security situation, Indian officials said.
"There is no report of major damage to the embassy building but a watch tower has been destroyed as per our preliminary information."
The Indian embassy sits on a busy, tree-lined street in central Kabul near the interior ministry offices.
The ministry building is a large Soviet-built concrete complex.
Several nearby shops were damaged or destroyed in the blast.
The Associated Press news agency quoted witnesses as saying the bomb exploded during morning rush hour.
Monday's explosion was the deadliest attack in Kabul this year and the worst since a suicide bomber attacked an army bus last September, killing 30 people.
While Afghanistan has seen increasing violence in recent months, Kabul has been largely spared from random bomb attacks that Taliban fighters use in their fight against Afghan and international troops.
Canadian killed
In a separate incident on Monday, a Canadian soldier with Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) died in an explosion that hit a patrol in the country's south, a Canadian commander said.
Private Colin William Wilmot was taking part in a security patrol when an explosive device blew up near him, Brigadier-General Denis Thompson said in a statement.
Canada has deployed 2,500 soldiers in southern Afghanistan as part of the 40-nation Isaf, which numbers about 53,000 soldiers.
The latest death brings the Canadian death toll in Afghanistan since 2002 to 87 soldiers and one diplomat.
None of the greatest movements in world history has been successful without the participation of masses or its people. The similar dilemma lies with India while we search for the best way to eradicate illiteracy from this country. Why have all these big schemes and abhiyans like Sarv Sikhsa Abhiyan have failed to serve their purpose, although government might be thinking that it served it's purpose, few percent more children have been taught how to write or read. But the ground reality is still far from what we really want to achieve.
We lack the public participation, nobody thinks in broader prospective, we leave it for NGO's to think, and help the underprivileged, who cannot buy them education (in today's reality education is bought).
In the same pursuit Times of India, one of the prominent English dailies has launched "Teach India" campaign. I was reading today's newspaper when I saw the full page advertisement regarding the campaign. May be for TOI, it is a marketing campaign to enlarge their base but the motive is pious. The results will be good for society, TOI will also reap it's benefits but who cares until it helps create a social awareness.
It has always been believed that media plays a vital role in nation building, It is the medium, which reaches to masses, whatever it communicates is going to change the course of destiny. With the large circulation of Times of India, one can certainly believe that it will attract lots of attention and people will join and it will also provide platform to people who want to help the underprivileged but could not find a medium to do that.
India's corporate sector is nervous about spiralling inflation that hit a 14-year high of 11.42 percent in the week ended June 14, but feels there could be moderate recovery in the medium term, said a survey by an industry lobby.
The latest quarterly business confidence survey by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci), said 64 percent of the 413 companies questioned felt current economic conditions were the worst in the last six months.
In fact, 32 percent felt economic conditions would deteriorate further in the next six months.
The Expectations Index reflected some hope, with 37 percent of the respondents saying some recovery could take place in the medium term, particularly firm level performance.
At the same time, the survey's Current Conditions Index was at its lowest following moderation in economic growth, rise in inflation and increasing input costs.
"While the situation may improve somewhat in the near future, we will still fall short of the strong performance that was witnessed till about a year ago," the survey report said.
Any immediate hike in interest rates was bound to make the pressure insurmountable, it added.
"If the industry is saddled with further interest rate hikes then the present phase of 'nervous optimism' may not last long," the report warned.
Forty-four percent of companies said they were reeling under the impact of rising interest rates and input costs, forcing them to raise prices.
With the RBI further tightening its monetary policy, interest rates have started hardening, which was bound to impact the country's economic growth, they said. Rising crude oil and commodity prices globally have added to their anxiety.
The survey predicted that the manufacturing sector would continue to suffer through the year.