MUMBAI: The highly competitive Joint Entrance Exam will no longer be the only route to the much-coveted campus of the Indian Institute of Technology. In a watershed decision, the board of IIT directors has decided to permit National Institute of Technology (NIT) students to complete their final year in an IIT.

On January 7, the proposal will be placed before the meeting of the Standing Committee headed by HRD minister M M Pallam Raju. Once cleared, lateral entry into the IITs will alter the landscape of higher education and ensure that academic high-flyers get access to the best.

The move will work at two levels: one, it will utilize the IIT resources optimally;

ISLAMABAD: A Pakistan commission has submitted a report on probe into how Osama bin Laden lived in the country undetected for years until his killing by US special forces, but the report might never be revealed, officials have said. The judicial commission was appointed 18 months ago, to probe one of the most embarrassing episodes in Pakistani history, but its findings could remain classified. The Pakistani government set up the five-member panel after US Navy SEALs conducted a secret raid on a compound in the garrison city of Abbottabad on May 2, 2011, killing bin Laden without informing Islamabad until afterwards, the Daily Times reports. According to the report, the commission

Looks like it's another member of the SRK camp who is shifting gears. One of SRK's greatest loyalists Arjun Rampal, who he has worked with in Om Shanti Om, Don and Ra.One, we hear, isn't all buddy buddy with him anymore. Arjun still shares a great relationship with SRK's wife Gauri, but the latest Times of India reports is that Arjun's equation with Shah Rukh is nothing like it used to be, especially after Arjun gave SRK's Dubai tour a miss. And Arjun's new friendships may sour this one even more. He has been pursuing Salman Khan for some time, expressing his wish to be part of a reality show, ever since the release of Ek Tha Tiger. At that time he even tw

KOLKATA: It's not always that a member of the losing team runs away with the Man-of-the-Match award. Mahendra Singh Dhoni's heroic 113 made for a closer contest in Chennai, but it didn't win India the opening ODI against Pakistan.

In a cricket-crazy country where the individual is often saluted more than the game, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that cricket still is a team game where the sum of the whole matters more.

It's time Team India clicked as a whole, and the onus certainly will be on the star-studded batting line-up when the second ODI of the three-match series unfolds at the Eden Gardens on Thursday.

The 'bad

NEW DELHI: The 17-year-old girl from a south Delhi public school, who was allegedly sexually assaulted by two MNC employees, was driven to desperation and attempted suicide twice in October and November last year.

Her statement to the police reveals a sordid tale of exploitation by the two men who, she alleges, were working in tandem.

It was a Facebook friendship with Naveen Singh Khetwal, 24, that began in September 2011, which pulled her into the quagmire.

Naveen introduced her to his cousin, Rajesh, 24, and by December, Rajesh, too, had befriended her on the social networking site.

The case underlines the perils that social netwo

Amitabh Bachchan and Vidya Balan have been crowned the hottest vegetarians of 2012 by PETA.

The nominees were posted on the organisation's website, and Big B and Vidya won PETA India's annual Hottest Vegetarian Celebrity contest.

Bachchan has been named the Hottest Vegetarian Celebrity three times in the past and even won the crown in PETA Asia's equivalent contest last year.

Balan too has often credited her curves to her vegan diet. Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com

American-Statesman Staff Akins High School sophomore Marisol Castro Soto said she had fallen in with the wrong crowd. She and her friends would frequently skip school or show up to classes at their leisure. But when the 16-year-old was threatened with going before a judge because of her absences, Marisol knew it was time for a change. She volunteered for the Austin school district’s new truancy program, which uses GPS trackers to help prompt students to go to class more often. Students who miss more than 10 days of school lose credit for their courses, officials said. At that point, students and parents may be summoned to court for truancy and may face misdemeanor charges

SEOUL: LG Electronics started taking orders for organic light-emitting diode (OLED) televisions, hoping to take the initiative over its rival Samsung in the next-generation technology.

LG and Samsung showcased 55-inch OLED TVs a year ago but, priced five times higher than liquid-crystal display (LCD) equivalents, they have yet to reach store shelves.

The technology is considered the future of consumer electronics displays and promises to change the way people use TVs, computers, tablets and smartphones.

OLED is more energy efficient and offers higher contrast images than LCD. It is so thin that future mobile devices will be unbreakable and will be

India's top IT services exporters are expected to witness a slight dip in sales and revenue growth in the December 2012 quarter on a sequential basis due to seasonal weakness in business volumes and the possibility of sustained sluggishness in the performance of select players.

A relatively stronger rupee will also have a marginal impact on the numbers when companies report their results this quarter, starting with Infosys on January 11.

According to the estimates of ET Intelligence Group, aggregate revenues of TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL Technologies will increase 1.6% sequentially to Rs 40,562 crore in the December quarter, while net profit too will grow b

BANGALORE: The results season is likely to begin on a low note. When Infosys announces its results for the December quarter on January 11, it is quite likely that it will once again reduce its dollar revenue guidance for the year.

Brokerage firm Enam Securities says in a recent report that Infosys' December quarter is likely to be muted due to fewer new deals and the effects of Hurricane Sandy. "Hence, a downward revision in FY13 revenue growth guidance of 5 per cent is likely," it says.

A report by brokerage firm Asit C Mehta says, "The company stated that significant challenges emerged after October. We do not envision a material improvement

BANGALORE: Indian internet users can expect YouTube videos to load faster and Google to throw up search results quicker, thanks to the US-based company's data centre in Asia going operational this year.

Work on these centres - Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong - began in 2011. While the Singapore facility is expected to be completed in early 2013, the Taiwan one is scheduled to be up and running by the second half. Google, which is spending about $300 million (about Rs 1,600 crore now) on the centres, has not yet given a clear timeframe for completing the Hong Kong facility.

"Internet connectivity speed in India is not very high. These data centres will b

Celebrate new year with My Infoline. Happy New Year 2012            

LONDON: Wife of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Melinda, has said her children are banned from owning Apple products.

Melind Gates, a philanthropist and world health campaigner, said that their two daughters and son had asked for an iPod, but 'they get Windows technology'.

According to the Telegraph, she said that the wealth from our family came from Microsoft so there is no point in buying a competitor's products.

In 2009, before Microsoft had introduced Windows Phone in response to the success of the iPhone, Mrs Gates, 48, admitted that she had been tempted by Apple products herself.

According to the paper, despite the b

NEW DELHI: Faced with a growing number of financial frauds, the corporate affairs ministry is setting up a new intelligence unit that will delve into 'data mining' from all possible sources to detect any wrongdoings by the companies and their promoters at the earliest possible stage.

"In the ministry, we are setting up an intelligence unit. It is at a nascent stage. We would be putting technical people with lot of experience and expertise on the job and these would be the people who can mine the data," corporate affairs minister Sachin Pilot told PTI in an interview here.

"The idea is to have a set of people to do the data mining, collecti

VISAKHAPATNAM: Eight Indian crew members of a detained Iranian ship are learnt to have landed in troubled waters off the coast of Sri Lanka and are allegedly facing the wrath of their 16 fellow Iranian crew members for their refusal to sail back with the ship and the rest of the crew till their documents, which were seized by Sri Lankan authorities, were not returned.

The beleaguered Indian crew members, who are understood to have been trapped inside the ship MV Amina for the past two weeks in international waters close to Sri Lanka, includes Vizagite Nalla Anand, who is the third engineer on board the ship.

One of the Indian crew members, Bosun Jesuraj has been

NEW DELHI: Before dying in a Singapore hospital, Delhi's 23-year-old rape victim stirred a billion people with her tragic story. A billion, who had always taken it lying down, told the elected representatives, bureaucrats and police, that their level of tolerance has been breached and a period of accountability has just dawned on India.

While fighting for her life, the victim stirred the population to junk their "chalta hai" attitude and protested loudly against the traditional apathy of politicians, police and judiciary towards rape victims.

The anger and gut-wrenching emotions, which found a vent in the brazen violation of the girl's modesty

LONDON: Scientists are designing a new ambitious robotic humanoid helper with artificial muscles to help people with everyday tasks. Engineers at the University of Zurich's Artificial Intelligence Lab hope that 1.2 metre tall Roboy, designed to look like a child, will help the sick and elderly by acting as a mechanical helper. The research team is developing radical artificial 'tendons' to help the robot move, the 'Daily Mail' reported. They have already signed up 15 project partners and over 40 engineers, and hope to fund the project using a combination of commercial partners and crowd-funding. Researchers hope Roboy will become a blueprint for 'service robots

Salman Khan and Aishwarya Rai broke up 11 years ago, and today she is the bahurani of the Bachchan parivar, happily married with a baby girl. But from Salman's point of view, she was "the only one".

It shows up in his offscreen and onscreen photos: He looks most peaceful with Ash, with none of the brash, bluster and noise that you associate with him otherwise. That's what true love does to you: it creates blissful peace for you, even as it creates sleepless nights and agonising moments. Maybe it was not meant to be. The couple met on the sets of Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (poster above) in 1999 and their passionate affair lasted till 2001. Because he cheated

Anticipating protests following the death of the 23-year-old gang-rape victim, Delhi Police on Saturday stepped up security in the capital closing India Gate and Raisina Hill for the public besides 10 Metro stations.

A large number of police personnel were deployed at Rajpath, the
stretch connecting India Gate and Raisina Hill where largescale protests were witnessed last weekend, and roads leading to this was closed.

Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar on Friday night tweeted, "praying hard for the rape victim will ensure accused are given severest punishment and quickly Reqst ppl to stay calm and maintain peace."

A senior police

NEW DELHI: Samajwadi Party has asked the Centre to facilitate "Muslim quota", betraying concern that a strident party stamp on minority politics can neutralize its fledgling attempts to bait upper castes and OBCs with 'promotion quota'.

SP leader Ramgopal Yadav said, "We will pass a resolution in UP assembly to ask the Centre to amend the Constitution to allow reservation for Muslims in jobs and education." He said the Supreme Court has repeatedly struck down religion-based quota like in Andhra Pradesh. "It is best done by tweaking the Constitution," he told TOI.

Ostensibly to ensure an iron-clad quota law, Mulayam Singh Yad