HYDERABAD: A dazed child with blood pouring down her forehead and a 60-year-old man shrieking with pain summed up the scene in the city hospitals as hundred of injured people poured in with torn limbs, shrapnel wounds and blood-spattered bodies soon after the twin blasts in Dilsukhnagar on Thursday evening.

In all, at least 70 people were rushed to various hospitals in the city after the blasts. With patients pouring into the Emergencies all evening and worried relatives and friends moving from place to place in search of their dear ones, the hospitals were a scene of chaos. Eyewitnesses said that cries for help echoed in the air and doctors and nurses were constantly occupied

HYDERABAD: It proved to a lull before a terrifying storm. Seventeen months after the last deadly bomb blast at the Delhi high court, two powerful bombs fastened to parked bicycles ripped through Hyderabad's bustling Dilsukhnagar area on Thursday, killing at least 13 persons and injuring 84 others. While no individual or group has claimed responsibility so far, intelligence officers insist that the deadly operation bears the stamp of Lashkar proxy, Indian Mujahideen.

Thursday's bombs triggered back-to-back explosions near popular movie theatres, blowing bodies into the air, flattening shops and houses and triggering panic among scores of injured people who were seen scu

AMRITSAR: British Prime Minister David Cameron says a giant diamond his country forced India to hand over in the colonial era that was set in a royal crown will not be returned.

Speaking on the third and final day of a visit to India aimed at drumming up trade and investment, Cameron ruled out handing back the 105-carat Kohinoor diamond, now on display in the Tower of London. The diamond had been set in the crown of the current Queen Elizabeth's late mother.

One of the world's largest diamonds, some Indians - including Mahatma Gandhi's grandson - have demanded its return to atone for Britain's colonial past.

"I don't think

Amritsar: British colonial era saw many atrocities committed on Indians. British Prime Minister David Cameron has offered indirect apology for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919 but he refuses to go further. He is in no mood to consider returning our Koh-i-Noor snatched away in 1850. This diamond was set in the late Queen Elizabeth I’s crown and now it is on display in the Tower of London.  Koh-i-Noor is one of the world’s largest diamonds. Some Indians – including independence leader Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson – have demanded its return to atone for Britain’s colonial past. “I don’t think that’s the right approach,” Came

NEW DELHI India will launch its first space mission to Mars this year, President PranabMukherjee said on Thursday.

"Several space missions are planned for 2013, including India's first mission to Mars and the launch of our first navigational satellite," Mukherjee said in his maiden address to the joint sitting of Parliament at the start of the Budget session.

The Indian Space Research Organisation will also put in orbit the first of its seven satellites of the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS). The system is India's version of the Global Positioning System.

The Mars Orbiter mission, scheduled for launch in Octob

NASA Sees Monster Sunspot Growing Fast, Solar Storms Possible   A colossal sunspot on the surface of the sun is large enough to swallow six Earths whole, and could trigger solar flares this week, NASA scientists say. The giant sunspot was captured on camera by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory as it swelled to enormous proportions over the 48 hours spanning Tuesday and Wednesday (Feb. 19 and 20). SDO is one of several spacecraft that constantly monitor the sun's space weather environment. "It has grown to over six Earth diameters across, but its full extent is hard to judge since the spot lies on a sphere, not a flat disk," wrote NASA spokeswoman Karen Fox, of

Britain and India are near to sign a contract for setting up a joint task force to tackle all kind of cyber crimes in order to secure mobile phone data and personal banking details of about millions of Britons, much of which is stored on Indian servers. IBN reports that agreement is first of its kind expected to be proceed during an upcoming meeting between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and British Prime Minister David Cameron , in New Delhi, one of the highlights of Cameron’s three-day trade and investment trip to India. The office of PM Cameron told media that  “The two leaders are expected to agree a substantia

NEW DELHI: Government is likely to turn down the request of family of Afzal Guru, who was hanged and buried in Tihar jail, for handing over his body.
A senior home ministry official said a final decision in this regard will be taken soon and the Jammu and Kashmir government will be informed about it.

The state government had forwarded a letter sent by Tabassum, wife of Parliament attack convict Afzal, to Deputy Commissioner of Baramulla in North Kashmir demanding handing over of his body.

The home ministry official said Afzal was buried inside Tihar Jail complex in line with the prison manual and the government has no plans to hand over the body consid

Budget to be most austere in years (Reuters) - Finance Minister P. Chidambaram is planning to cut the public spending target for fiscal 2013/14 by up to 10 percent from this year's original target, in what would be the most austere budget unveiled in recent history as he tries to avert a sovereign credit downgrade. Chidambaram has already slashed actual public expenditure in the current fiscal year that ends in March by some 9 percent from the original target. So the plan for 2013/14 would in effect keep a lid on spending, limiting it to a similar rupee level or slightly higher. Final figures have not yet been worked out. But several officials involved in preparations for the bu

David Cameron begins India visit, chopper deal in focus... Mumbai: British Prime Minister David Cameron arrived here on Monday morning on a three-day India visit during which will he meet captains of industry and hold talks with top leaders who are likely to seek more information on the VVIP helicopters scam involving an Anglo-Italian firm.

Cameron is likely to be pressed for more information on the Rs 3,600 crore helicopter scam involving AgustaWestland during his meetings with the leadership tomorrow. The helicopters, three of which have already been delivered, were manufactured in southwest England.
    The visit also comes in the w

Uninor shuts shop, 18 lakh Mumbai users stranded MUMBAI: Andheri resident Neeraj Khambalkar and friends spent most of Sunday trying to get a cell phone connection, after wireless carrier Uninor abruptly pulled the plug on its services in the Mumbai Circle from Saturday midnight.

Khambalkar and his friends, who had to give up their plans for a Sunday outing, were among the thousands of Mumbaikars trying frantically to secure new mobile connections from other operators.

The shutdown follows a Supreme Court order on Friday that all operators who did not win spectrum in the previous auctions close down services immediately.

According to sources, Uni

Govt to scrap Rs 3,546 crore Finmeccanica chopper deal NEW DELHI: The Rs 3,546 crore deal for 12 AgustaWestland AW-101 helicopters is going to be scrapped. The defence ministry (MoD) on Friday initiated action for cancellation of the contract inked in February 2010. It issued a formal show-cause notice to the UK-based subsidiary of Finmeccanica to explain within a week why the contract should not be cancelled.

The Times of India had reported on Thursday that the government was fast veering around to cancelling the VVIP helicopter deal after it first put on hold all further payments to AgustaWestland since the deal was fast emerging as a test-case for defence minister AK Anto

The slowdown in hiring by IT companies is expected to keep entry-level salaries stagnant over the next couple of years.

Hiring is slowing down largely because IT companies have nearly 30% of their employees on the bench (those without projects to work on), and the global demand for IT is not expected to rise significantly in the near future. It is also slowing down thanks to initiatives by IT companies to automate more of their processes.

Lakshmi Narayanan, vice-chairman of Cognizant, noted that salary levels of engineering graduates had been almost flat in the last three to four years. "In the future, there could even be downward pressure as many companies

NEW DELHI: The Union home ministry is learnt to have recommended rejection of mercy petitions in five more cases as it seeks to speedily dispose of all the cases of death row convicts pending with it.

Seeking to have a swift closure on the cases of those who have filed mercy pleas against capital punishment awarded to them, the ministry has sent all the pending files to President Pranab Mukherjee for a final call.

Sources said that seven cases involving the fate of nine people have been sent to the President, with the ministry recommending rejection of the mercy pleas in five cases. It has and left the two remaining ones open for commutation of death sentence to

DALLAS: American Airlines and US Airways say they're merging in a deal they value at USD 11 billion, creating the world's biggest airline.

The combined carrier will be called American Airlines but run by US Airways CEO Doug Parker.

The airlines announced their deal today. It reduces the number of major US airlines to four.

LONDAON: In a pioneering treatment , UK doctors have given a new lease of life to a baby suffering from a fatal heart condition by 'freezing' his body for four days.

Edward Ives was born with a condition called supra ventricular tachycardia (SVT), which causes the heart to race dangerously fast with just a 5% chance of survival.

The baby survived, thanks to the 'miraculous' treatment at University College London Hospital, in which doctors dropped his core temperature by almost 4°C, The Telegraph reported.

Edward's heart was pumping at over 300 beats per minute at the time of his birth last August, double the normal rate of

New Delhi: At a time when the Kashmir Valley has once again become volatile after the hanging of Afzal Guru in Tihar prison on February 9, majority of the people in the hitherto called 'paradise' believe the government's decision has paralysed the normal life for the fifth consecutive day despite some relaxation in the curfew on Wednesday. There seems to be two Kashmir: The one that is shown by media, and the other that Kashimiri people in the valley experience. We know of a Kashmir that is called the 'Paradise on Earth', but here is a Kashmiri who thinks the otherwise. "My country is called the Paradise by the world but nobody knows the hell we live with,"

NEW DELHI: AgustaWestland, the British helicopter manufacturer, took cover behind India's software exports to route funds it allegedly paid as kickbacks in the Rs, 3,546 croreVVIP chopper deal.

The British company, a subsidiary of Italian defence and aerospace firm Finmeccanica, routed up to 20 million euro (around Rs 144 crore) in the deal signed in 2010 via Tunisia. The remittances were shown as payments for software developed in India, perhaps because the company reckoned that transfers would not attract suspicion, given the large volume of exports. Software exports are expected to cross $75 billion this year.

The payments started sometime in 2007, or ear

Washington: The State of the Union Address by Barack Obama could have serious implications for Indian economy in the coming future. The annual speech laid down the agenda of the Barack Obama’s administration for the next year. Determined to bring a struggling economy back on its feet, Obama hinted at a series of economic reforms that might repercussions in India. In his annual State of the Union address, President Barack Obama stressed on the need to develop jobs within American shores. He advised tax cuts for US companies doing business in America and employing workforce from US. President Obama laid down the framework to build an economy 'that is built to last'. He focu

Here's one for the archives as Sridevi and her older daughter Jhanvi stop to pose for the shutterbugs. While the daughter rocks her leather look, the mother could have opted for something more shapely.