New Delhi: Sports Minister Jitendra Singh on Thursday said he has been forced to hang his head in shame due to the Indian Premier League (IPL) spot-fixing scandal, which is becoming bigger and murkier with each passing day, insisting that a deterrent law could have prevented the credibility crisis that cricket is facing right now. "It is very shameful. As a young person, as a sports fan, as the Sports ...

Damascus: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stressed Thursday his resolve to continue fighting "terrorism" in tandem with efforts for a political solution to the country's 26-month-old crisis, reported Xinhua citing state-run SANA news agency. Assad made the remarks while meeting with a Tunisian delegation, to whom he said his administration will keep fighting "terrorism" and "those who back it" in ...

New York: Google is digging deeper into its technology toolkit to turn its social networking service into a more formidable threat to Facebook, sprucing up its photo features at a time when sharing snapshots online and on mobile gadgets is growing more popular.Many of the 41 new features being added to Google Plus beginning Wednesday will draw upon the computing power, machine learning, algorithms, ...

Pune-based ElectraCard Services (ECS) said on Sunday that a data breach in a series of ATM fraud attacks in December last year appears to have happened outside of its "processing environment".Last week, US authorities had brought to light a $45-million global cyber heist involving ECS and another company, enStage Inc, which operates from Bangalore. The two firms had processed card payments for two ...

New Delhi, May 23 (IANS) The government's decision to allow quadricycles, a category of four-wheelers on Indian roads, is fraught with the danger of further deteriorating road safety and pollution, a global not-for-profit organisation said Thursday. "Disregarding the fact that India tops the world in fatalities in road accidents - with 144,000 in 2011 - he government's proposed move to consider quadricycles ...

New Delhi, May 23 (IANS) The Cabinet Thursday approved creation of 20,751 additional posts in the Income Tax department, at a cost of Rs.449.71 crore, to help it collect increased revenue and provide better services to tax payers, an official statement said. According to a statement, among the new posts, 1,349 are in the Indian Revenue Service (IRS) cadre and 19,402 in the non-IRS cadre. An additional ...

President Barack Obama is set to at least partially bring out into the open some of the U.S.-directed drone program, a key component of counterterrorism strategy, as he outlines the contours of the continuing threat to American security.On the eve of the president's speech at the National Defense University, the Obama administration revealed for the first time that a fourth American citizen had been ...

A spate of attacks by Islamic insurgents in Somalia's capital is forcing investors, businessmen and aid workers to have second thoughts about expanding operations in Mogadishu.African Union and Somali troops pushed al-Shabab insurgents out of the capital in August 2011, fostering a relatively secure peace that Mogadishu hasn't seen in years. Somalis living overseas are returning, bringing new foreign ...

The Congress will lose seats in the next Lok Sabha general election and the BJP will gain seats. That's a done matter. However, the real issue is how many seats the Congress will lose and how many the BJP will gain. If the Congress loses a huge amount of seats, then those may be shared by various Opposition parties. Some things that will keep the BJP back...1. Failure to back Modi: Most of the ...

​It is inconceivable for the Congress to get re-elected at the Centre in the 2014 general elections. Even if the NDA doesn’t come to power, it is likely that Parliament will be hung beyond repair and a Third Front dispensation will rule.Here’s a look at things that are sure to bring the Congress down…1. Scams: In 1989, Bofors was enough to bring down the Government from its ...

New Delhi, May 23 (IANS) The cabinet Thursday approved a special recruitment drive to fill up the backlog in vacancies reserved under the Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) quota, an official statement said. According to the statement, a total of 75,522 backlog vacancies were identified by end of March 2012. Of these, 44,427 were in the direct recruitment ...

New Delhi: The Delhi unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Thursday demanded that a first information report (FIR) be filed against Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit for allegedly misusing government funds for "political purpose". "A report by the Delhi Lokayukta (ombudsman) must me made the basis for lodging an FIR against Sheila Dikshit. There is a criminal case of breach of trust," BJP leader Vijender ...

The Obama administration says more doctors and hospitals are embracing technology as adoption of computerized medical records reaches a "tipping point" in America.A report Wednesday from Health and Human Services says more than 50 percent of doctors' offices and 4 in 5 hospitals have transitioned from paper to electronic records, thanks partly to more than $14 billion in government incentive payments.The ...

Reading, writing, arithmetic — and PE?The prestigious Institute of Medicine is recommending that schools provide opportunities for at least 60 minutes of physical activity each day for students and that PE become a core subject.The report, released Thursday, says only about half of the nation's youngsters are getting at least an hour of vigorous or moderate-intensity physical activity every ...

Reading, writing, arithmetic — and PE?The prestigious Institute of Medicine is recommending that schools provide opportunities for at least 60 minutes of physical activity each day for students and that PE become a core subject.The report, released Thursday, says only about half of the nation's youngsters are getting at least an hour of vigorous or moderate-intensity physical activity every ...

Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper's decision to block the execution of convicted killer Nathan Dunlap for as long as he is governor infuriated victims' relatives and drew quick criticism from Republicans ahead of the 2014 election.Hickenlooper on Wednesday granted an indefinite reprieve to Dunlap, who is on death row for the ambush slayings of four people — three teenagers and a 50-year-old ...

Shimla, May 23 (IANS) Himachal Pradesh has achieved 100 percent target of enrolment, retention and transition of students in Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), the central government's programme for achievement of universalisation of elementary education, an official said Thursday. "To ensure and monitor learning level of students studying in government schools, assessment tests would be conducted on regular ...

Chandigarh, May 22 (IANS) The Punjab government has initiated a probe into the distribution of text books containing allegedly vulgar and irrelevant content in government schools, a minister said Wednesday. Bathinda District Education Officer Surjit Singh Khuram was put under suspension for laxity in this connection. Punjab Education Minister S.S. Maluka inspected the books supplied to the schools ...