His remarks came a day after a special Italian delegation to New Delhi failed to stave off the arrest of two Italian navy personnel on the security team of the ship, Enrica Lexie.

The delegation comprising the secretary of the justice department and heads of the legal departments of both the foreign and defence ministries had made many forceful arguments, but were countered by India.

The delegation had said Italian law provided for extra-territorial jurisdiction over their nationals, so the marines could stand trial under domestic laws. New Delhi, however, had insisted that the ship's crew would face trial in India.

The Italians had also interpreted provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to offer their own inquiry, since the ship was flying the Italian flag. But the Indian team had said the crime was against an Indian trawler, involving unarmed fishermen and not naval ships.

India had also rejected the pirate claim, pointing out that the Kollam coast in Kerala, where the fishermen - Valentine Jalastine, 45, and Ajeesh Binki, 25 - were shot on Wednesday, was not infested with pirates.

When the delegation had pushed for diplomatic immunity for the navy personnel, India countered, saying such a cover was "state specific". For example, a diplomat posted in one country cannot have immunity in another.

New Delhi had stressed friendly ties with Italy and told the delegation their arguments could be made before an Indian court.
 
With inputs from PTI

The airline is now left with only about 100 captains for its Airbus A320 fleet. It has already shut Kolkata operations after most of the ground staff quit.

The airline has defaulted on payments to oil companies and airports too.

KFA hasn't ever made profits since its inception in 2005, had a debt of Rs 7,057.08 crore as on March 31, 2011 and reported a loss of Rs 444 crore for the third quarter ending December.

The airline blamed the income tax department for the state of affairs.

It said in a statement that the prime reason for the current disruption was the "sudden attachment" of its bank accounts by the IT department.

What it did not say, however, was that the airline had failed to deposit with the income tax authorities the tax deducted from employees and vendors for close to two years, leaving the authorities with no other option.

Some analysts now believe that unless drastic steps — including immediate capital infusion —  are taken, India's most glamorous airline run the risk of being grounded.

"With endless reports of grounded jets, unpaid staff and a slew of flights being  cancelled, one has to question just how long Kingfisher can survive in its ever-shrinking  form," Saj Ahmad, a London-based aviation analyst, told HT.

But Mallya ruled out shutting down the airline, even temporarily. "We have discussed the situation threadbare with the banks. Shutting down is not in national interest. Why should we give up?"

Federer impressed on his first break point when his volley was returned by Del Potro with a lob before the former World number one clinched the game with a smash.

In the second set, a break in the sixth game proved sufficient for Federer to put his name on the winners' board for the second time after 2005.

The area is known as a stronghold of the North African branch of the al Qaeda movement.

On Wednesday, in the same district, a bomb targeting a police convoy exploded, but no casualities were reported.

"We conducted two different studies," Live Science quoted Justin Feeney, a doctoral student who participated on the research team.

"The first one examined the effects of job interview anxiety on job interview performance and we confirmed previous research that interview anxiety is a negative predictor of performance. Then what we looked at was whether gender influenced these findings. We found that even though women experienced more interview anxiety than men, it didn't affect their performance as much as it did for men."

"Women would do things like seek social support from loved ones, friends and colleagues about their anxiety and do practical things like practicing mock interviews with their friends. Men, on the other hand, reacted with more maladaptive coping strategies. They would pretend it was not happening, ignore it, watch TV and do things that relieved stress, but hindered performance later," he explained.

Oil marketing companies — Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum — are currently losing Rs 4 a litre on petrol, Rs 14 on diesel and Rs 390 on every cylinder of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

Global crude oil prices touched $120.7 per barrel on Monday — the highest since June last year because of geopolitical tensions over key producer Iran, which meets 12% of India's needs.

An informal government diktat to the oil companies to hold the prices till the elections in five states had so far prevented a hike despite global oil rates climbing for the past two months.

Senior Indian Oil officials said the company was going through the "most difficult phase" and anticipated heavy losses.

"There is no alternative but to increase the prices," a senior official said.

Del Potro, seeded third, mowed down a listless Tomas Berdych 6-3, 6-1 in just an hour and a quarter to hand the Czech a first defeat indoors this season.

Federer had his difficulties against Davydenko, a long-time rival on the tour.

"I've played him a lot, we are the same age," said the 30-year-old, world number three.

"He was in the top four or five for years and we played a lot of big matches. I'm happy to live up to expectations, he's playing fantastic again but not enough to beat me. We had a great match."

The Swiss stands 8-2 over del Potro, who missed 2010 due to wrist surgery but is back to 10th in the world rankings.

The powerful Argentine has lost just five games in his last two matches as his successful Rotterdam debut continues.

"I beat him in the Australian Open last month in my 1,000th match on tour," said 2005 Rotterdam winner Federer after disposing of the gritty Davydenko who saved 10 of the 13 break points he faced.

"It's nice to see him back. I'm sure it will be a good match, I had my first hit this week with him and he will also be my last match of the week. He's played a great tournament, but I hope I can win, let's see how it goes."

Federer was caught in the ninth game of the first set on a break as Davydenko moved into the lead, taking the opener after a long game in which Federer saved a set point before sending a forehand out.

The Swiss levelled after fighting back from a break down in the third game of the second, breaking Davydenko late in the set to level.

In the third, Federer battled to finally take victory with a break in the penultimate game followed by a winner down the line on match point.  

Earlier Saturday, Del Potro never let Berdych into their semifinal.

"I played almost perfect," said the Argentine. "I was focused all the time on trying to break and on hitting my forehand. I've been improving match by match, but I need to play better in the final if I'm going to win this tournament."

Del Potro picked up where he left off against Berdych, whom he beat in two previous matches in 2009 before his wrist injury problem surfaced.

related stories After iPad, Apple faces more trademark problemsApple to reveal iPad 3 in March11 best features of OS X Mountain Lion billion apps have been downloaded worldwide. Which is almost as amazing as the apps themselves. So we want to say thanks. Download the 25 billionth app, and you could win a US$10,000 App Store Gift Card. Just visit the App Store and download your best app yet."

But before you drift into day-dreams about what all you could buy with all that money, here's a wake-up call - Apple is only allowing 25 'entries' into its app contest per day.

So what are you waiting for, just check out our slideshow of the most awesome Apple Apps, and hit the download button. You might even turn out to be the lucky winner of $10, 000!

PHOTOS:  Top 25 Apple Apps
The much-awaited day has come almost a year after Apple hit the 10bn landmark, according to pcmag.com, "Assuming the 25 billionth app download hits in February, that means that Apple will have added a whopping 15 billion apps to its count between now and just over one year ago - Apple's 10 billionth app was downloaded in January of 2011, and it took the company until July of 2011 to ramp up to 15 billion app downloads."

"Apple revealed during its most recent earnings call that its App Store and iTunes Store together saw 140 million downloads on Christmas Day alone. Apple also announced that it had paid around $4 billion to app developers, reports Huffingtonpost.com.

And in case you're wondering about the state of Google' Android Market, it has seen a massive book in Apps download too, "It hit a mighty 3 billion app downloads in March of 2011 before quickly ballooning up to 6 billion app downloads in July. Google announced in December that the Android Market had exceeded a milestone of 10 billion app downloads, and that users were now downloading apps at a rate of 1 billion per month", reports pcmag.com.

(Hindustan Times is available on the iPad and iPhone. Know more about our app here)

]]> http://www.pixelassault.net/html/893.html/feed 0 http://www.pixelassault.net/html/907.html http://www.pixelassault.net/html/907.html#comments Tue, 21 Feb 2012 00:24:17 +0000 admin http://www.pixelassault.net/html/907.html Activists fear an all-out assault on Homs, with Syria's embattled regime building up troops around the flashpoint city and activating a security alert in Damascus after surprise protests.

The reported buildup comes as the top US military officer, general Martin Dempsey, warned any intervention in Syria would be "very difficult" and that it was "premature" to arm the unrest-swept country's opposition movement.

Activists and Syrian state media reported that at least 14 people were killed on Sunday, adding to the more than 6,000 people who have died in the Syrian government's 11-month crackdown on dissent. A Homs-based activist voiced fears of an imminent attack on Baba Amr, the main rebel stronghold in the central city, speaking of "unprecedented military reinforcements coming from Damascus."

US drones over Syria
US has deployed a large number of drones over Syria to monitor Syrian military attack on the opposition forces and civilians, NBC News has reported.

Quoting Pentagon officials, the TV channel said that the operation of unmanned aircraft was not a harbinger of a US military intervention in the Syria but to gather evidence that can be used to "make the case for a widespread international response."

]]> http://www.pixelassault.net/html/907.html/feed 0 http://www.pixelassault.net/html/898.html http://www.pixelassault.net/html/898.html#comments Tue, 21 Feb 2012 00:24:08 +0000 admin http://www.pixelassault.net/html/898.html Mutthida-e-Qaumi Movement (MQM), a key coalition partner in the PPP-led government, on Sunday lamented that women are "treated worse than animals" in Pakistan as the party held a massive rally in southern Sindh's provincial capital to highlight the need to empower them.

Thousands of women and girls in colourful dresses and waving the MQM flags thronged to the Bagh-e-Quaid Azam near the mausoleum of Pakistan's founding leader MA Jinnah.

Addressing the rally from London over phone, MQM chief Altaf Hussain, who has been in self exile in the UK, demanded more rights for Pakistani women.

"The world over women are considered equals in every sense. Unfortunately and sadly in Pakistan they continue to be treated worse than animals," Hussain said.

"Women in Pakistan are subjected to treatment meted out to second-or-third-class citizens. Worse, they are treated like animals. Crimes like honour killing, wani and marriage to the Quran are rampant under the veil of tradition," he lamented.

He mentioned honour killing, Karo Kari, acid crimes and domestic violence and even brought up topics like dowry and gender discrimination which are considered the social norm.

"The perpetrators of Karo Kari and acid crime should be hanged," Hussain said.

According to analysts, the rally in a country where women continue to be marginalised politically, was an attempt to attract women from the middle and lower classes in the country to the party fold.

He challenged the political and religious parties "to try to organize a rally of this magnitude".

"Those talking about revolution should come and see this revolution of women," he said at the rally with the theme, Empowerment to women -- a better Pakistan.

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