Now, MPs can build railway stations where they want

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A Delhi Correspondent
Believe it or not, now your Member of Parliament can decide where to halt a particular train.
According to a privilege extended to lawmakers by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, MPs can now sponsor the construction of the railway stations from his/her annual budget of Rs 5 crore and etch his name for perpetuity on a steel or metal plaque.

The statistics and programme implementation ministry has included halt stations in the list of constructions allowed under the MP Local Area Development fund.

The modified guidelines say that funds from the MPLAD scheme can be used for constructing the halt stations 'to facilitate the local community for easy access to railways and boarding/de-boarding from the train'.


Cover of Adrian Levy's book The Meadow

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Vicky Nanjappa
According to its descriptor on amazon.com, The Meadow, by Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark,is a 'shocking story of a brutal kidnapping in Kashmir which marked the beginning of modern-day terrorism.
'In July 1995, 10 Western backpackers come to Kashmir in search of many things to take a trip of a lifetime. They have come in search of many things -- nirvana, exhilaration, a sense of self. But over the course of the next week, their holidays take a terrifying turn when they become entangled in a nail-biting hostage drama that will suck them into an alien world of jihad and Islamic fundamentalism. In the months that follow, their fates will become caught-up in a bloody struggle between India and Pakistan, fought out in the airless heights of Kashmir.'
In The Meadow Levy and Scott-Clark focus on the deadly Al Faran group which was responsible for the kidnappings of 1995, and also the reveal how the Indian government and the army allowed the Western hostages to die, all as part of the larger political game.
In an interview with Vicky Nanjappa, award-winning author Levy, who has written three other investigative books, takes us through The Meadow.
How has your book been received overseas?
The book has caused consternation and some pain in the United Kingdom and the United States as it delves into matters that are still raw and touches on a wider relationship (between the UK and India) that remains tense, in a familial sense.
The book is not yet out in India and so we await a response which I am certain will be as divided as is public and institutional opinion on Kashmir generally. However, the book is far more nuanced than some people evidently imagine, and contains a subtler and more balanced analysis than some people are giving us credit for.
For example, the director general of police in Srinagar, (Kuldeep) Khoda, described it recently as 'rubbish'. Given that he has not read it, nor studied the evidence, or been involved in the initial inquiry, I think it would be fair to say that this constitutes an uniformed response.


A worker cleans a parked car at the Maruti Suzuki's stockyard on the outskirts of Jammu October 30, 2010.

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Ever since Maruti landed on the India roads, way back in 1983, with the launch of Maruti800, India's first people's car, the country's largest carmaker has never failed its customers - be they budget buyers, or high-end auto freaks. Maruti India started year 2012 with a bang and launched 5 cars -- Maruti SX4 Celebration, Maruti Swift Alpha, new Maruti Swift Dzire, Maruti Swift Dzire Tour and Maruti Ertiga.
And the automaker is all set to launch five more cars.


Ramdev has drawn flak from politicians for his remarks against MPs
Onkar Singh in New Delhi
After Anna Hazare and his team, it is now the turn of yoga guru Ramdev to kick up a controversy by attacking MPs calling them "dacoits and murderers".

Addressing the media while launching his month-long yatra in Chhattisgarh's Durg on Tuesday, Ramdev had said, "They are those people who don't care, don't love the farmers, the labourers or the people of this country.

"They are friends and slaves of money. They are illiterate, dacoits and murderers. They are devils in the form of humans, who we have elected to those posts. They are not worth," he added.
Ramdev's utterances have upset parliamentarians cutting across party lines.

Questioning Ramdev's credentials Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, said, "What is he? Is he a sadhu? All that he knows is how to inhale and exhale. Let him do his job and sell what he calls medicines for diabetics."

"He is a mental case and frustrated," he added.
 
An Indian-origin family of four was found to be mysteriously dead at their home in Melbourne
 
Sydney, May 1 (ANI): An Indian-origin family of four members, including two adults and two children, have reportedly been found dead at their home in Melbourne.
Abhay Singh, a relative of the family said he was 'absolutely shattered' when he came to know Nilesh Sharma, 36, his wife Preetika, 32, five-year-old son Diveish, and three-year-old daughter Divya were dead.I was devastated. I fell into pieces. It's very sad," The Herald Sun quoted Singh, as saying.
Singh said he visited the family regularly and they never seemed to have any problems.
The report quoted Singh, as saying that he believed the family died from a leaking gas tank.
A Victoria Police spokeswoman said officers arrived at the house located at Glen Waverely around 10.50 a.m. local time and found the bodies inside.
"The homicide squad has been notified and are attending with the Monash Criminal Investigation Unit," the spokeswoman said.
"The circumstances of the death are under investigation and are yet to be established," she added. (ANI)

Why Megaupload.com CLOSED and Shutdown ? Mediafire.com is NEXT

 http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/7928/megauploadseized.png
As of January 19, 2012, the Megaupload website has been closed by the FBI, and seven people have been charged with "running an international criminal enterprise centered on copyright infringement on the Internet." Reportedly, Megaupload failed to comply with DMCA provisions.

Is Megaupload responsible for the copyrighted, user-generated content on its site? What about all the valuable, legal content that has now been lost? Are other "cyberlockers" next on the chopping block?

MegaUpload has been shut down by the US federal government. Remind us why we need stronger anti-piracy laws again...

File-sharing mecca MegaUpload.com is dead, shut down at the hands of the US federal government. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has arrested four people, and charged three others, in the anti-piracy sting. The forced closure of MegaUpload comes just one day after a mass online protest against two pieces of legislation that aim to increase the power of copyright holders to block access to websites that illegally distribute intellectual property, like music and movies.

Those arrested include MegaUpload founder Kim “Dotcom” Schmitz, along with three others related to the site. The group was apprehended in New Zealand, with the help of that country’s authorities. MegaUpload is officially a Hong Kong-based company, though according to the Justice Department, it also has servers in Ashburn, VA, Washington DC, the Netherlands and Canada. Schmidtz is a resident of both Hong Kong and New Zealand.

The indictment against MegaUpload, a site that allowed users to upload anything from a text file to a full feature film, then share a link to the file with others, says the site cost copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue by making their intellectual property free to download. It also says that MegaUpload (aka “the conspirators”) earned $175 million in profits from advertising and premium memberships. Schmitz alone earned $42 million in 2010 from the site, the indictment claims.

In a statement posted to MegaUpload, before its takedown, the company asserted that the majority of its content was legitimate, and the claims of lost revenue were “grotesquely overblown.”

“The fact is that the vast majority of Mega’s Internet traffic is legitimate, and we are here to stay. If the content industry would like to take advantage of our popularity, we are happy to enter into a dialogue. We have some good ideas. Please get in touch,” the company said.

MegaUpload boasted “more than 150 million registeredusers, 50 million daily visitors and accounting for four percent of the total traffic on the Internet,” according to the Justice Department, whose website was also unable to load, at the start of this writing. According to Twitter user AnonymousIRC, a highly-popular account related to the hacktivist group ‘Anonymous,’ the DoJ’s website appeared to have been “besieged by pirates.” It is unclear at this time whether Anonymous had anything to do with the outage, which has since been resolved.

UPDATE: It is now glaringly clear that Anonymous was behind the DDoS attack that took down Justice.gov, along with the websites of Universal Music, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the White House, the US Copyright Office and the FBI, among others. Needless to say, this isn’t going to go over well in Washington.

In addition to having been one of the most-widely-used file-sharing sites on the Web, MegaUpload is also unique because of its endorsements from artists like Kanye West, Will.i.am, and Alicia Keys. Kim Kardashian, who is not an artist, also endorsed the site. Renowned rapper, producer, and NYU professor Kaseem “Swizz Beatz” Dean is listed as MegaUpload’s CEO. (Not coincidentally, Beatz is also Alicia Keys’ husband.) Judging by his recent tweets, the last of which came five hours ago, Beatz still appears to be free, and apparently just ate some Chinese food.

Federal authorities say that the timing of MegaUpload’s takedown had nothing to do with Wednesday’s blackout protest against the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) and the “PROTECT IP Act” (PIPA). And that’s most certainly true; this kind of sting doesn’t just happen overnight. But that doesn’t mean the two will remain unrelated in the minds of the public.

This case clearly proves that our government already has the ability to shutdown a website, whose company is based in Hong Kong, and have its employees arrested by the police of another foreign country. That isn’t exactly a compelling argument for giving copyright holders and the federal government more power to combat piracy from “foreign rogue websites,” which is the primary aim of both SOPA and PIPA.

Of course, it appears as though MegaUpload isn’t actually considered a “foreign” rogue site, even though its base of operations is in China, due to the fact that it had servers housed in the US. SOPA and PIPA gives the power to block access to — but not entirely shut down — websites that operate exclusively outside the US. After this monstrous display of muscle flexing, however, we doubt many people will have sympathy for that distinction.

That said, combating the piracy of websites that operate outside the rule of US law really isn’t a matter of contention in the SOPA/PIPA debate. It’s all the “unintended consequences” and “collateral damage” that educated critics say the bills’ loose wording could lead to — things like the blockage of legitimate free speech, the squashing of online innovation, and the potential damage to the Internet’s infrastructure — that have the masses seething. The takedown of MegaUpload merely shows that our anti-piracy laws aren’t as weak as some would like us to believe.
Will mediafire.com be NEXT ? Verysad