'Being famous can shorten your life'

Being famous comes at a price! Having a glamorous career as a singer, actor or sports star may come at the cost of a shorter life, a new study has claimed.
Based on the premise that an obituary in the New York Times (NYT) usually implies success in one's career, Australian researchers Richard Epstein and Catherine Epstein analysed 1000 consecutive obituaries published in the NYT during 2009-2011 in terms of gender, age, occupation, and cause of death.
"A one-off retrospective analysis like this can't prove anything, but it raises some interesting questions," researchers at The Kinghorn Cancer Centre, St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, said.
They separated subjects into four broad occupational categories: performance or sport (including actors, singers, musicians, dancers, and sportsperson), non-performing creative m(including writers, composers and visual artists), business or military or political, and professional or academic o religious.
The gender distribution of NYT obituaries was found to be strongly skewed towards males over females (813 vs 186), according to the study published in the journal QJM. In terms of occupations, younger ages of death were apparent in performers or sportsperson (77.2) and creative workers (78.5), whereas older ages of death were seen in professionals or academics (81.7) and in business or military or political careers (83).
Moreover, although the life expectancy for a US citizen born today is about 76 years for males and 81 years for females, the average age of death for males was older (80.4), and females younger (78.8) than these averages.
This was associated with a higher proportion of females than males in performance or sports (38 per cent vs 18 per cent) and fewer in professional careers (12 per cent vs 27 per cent).
When the researchers looked at causes of death, they found that earlier deaths were associated with accidents, infections (including HIV) and certain cancers.

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Shakira asks NY judge to throw out ex's USD 250m suit

Pop star Shakira says her hips don't lie, but her ex-boyfriend does.
The singer and judge on The Voice is asking a New York judge to throw out a USD 250 million lawsuit filed by her ex, Antonio de La Rua.
De la Rua is the son of former Argentine President Fernando de la Rua. He dated Shakira for more than a decade before they split in 2011.
De la Rua has been saying he shaped the "Shakira brand".
The Daily News reports that Shakira said in court papers she does not owe her success to de la Rua. She says he was just one of her numerous advisers.

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Delhi: Class X girl gangraped in car, say police

A Class X student was allegedly kidnapped and gangraped by three men, including her father's cousin, in South Delhi's Sarojini Nagar area on Wednesday morning.
Police said the men kidnapped the girl from New Ashok Nagar, East Delhi, when she was on her way to school around 6.30 am.
A senior police officer said: "The trio drove to a secluded spot in South Delhi where the girl was raped inside the car. While one man stood guard outside the vehicle, the other two took turns to rape her on the rear seat. The girl said that she tried to resist, but the men overpowered her."
Her medical examination confirmed rape, police said.
"She said after raping her, the men took her towards Mayur Vihar Phase-3. She said they stopped the car there for a while and it was then that she escaped. She went home and told her mother about the assault," the officer said.
A case of kidnapping, gangrape, illegal-confinement, threatening and under Sections of Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences Act has been registered at New Ashok Nagar police station.
Students molest teacher, arrested
A school student and his friend, both said to be above the age of 18, were arrested and sent to judicial custody on Wednesday for allegedly molesting a teacher in a moving bus.
The incident took place in Rohini, Outer Delhi, on Monday evening when the 27-year old teacher was travelling in a DTC bus, police said.
"The woman was returning from Prashant Vihar when the boys started molesting her inside the bus. They also passed lewd comments at her," a police officer said.

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Gold loan companies feel the heat as prices continue to fall

As gold prices continue to fall, gold loan companies could find the going increasingly difficult. An analysis by The Indian Express shows that these companies have kept a very thin margin for themselves while giving the loans, far lower than the limit set by the Reserve Bank of India.
For the companies, the potential losses are on two fronts. Slim margins are getting wiped out, but the interest cost of loans they have taken from banks and non-banking financial companies remains high — even as the value of the gold held by them dips sharply.
The risks are real. Just six months ago when the price of spot gold had reached a lifetime high of Rs 3,159 per gram in November, the companies were offering loans with effective margins of 23% against the 40% mandated by RBI. That cushion had slipped to 5.6% by Wednesday. When offering the loans, the companies had expected the price to remain the same, or even rise.
The companies accept that the average turnover for the loans is about six months. With current gold prices at Rs 2,569.5 per gram at the MCX, an investor who had taken out a loan against gold in November 2012 now has attractive options at the end of six months. Since her gold was pledged at a higher price, the difference is enough to make good on the interest charges as well. Or she can forego the redemption, as the value of the loan she took out is higher than the price of the gold she mortgaged.
Companies like Manappuram Finance Ltd, one of the two largest operating in the field, are however, certain they are on safe ground, because of the Indian way of thinking.
"There is an emotional attachment to the collateral for the family members and this overrules all other factors and induces the borrower to close the loan and take back the jewellery. Since average life of the gold loan is less than six months maintaining an LTV of 60 per cent, the asset will be sufficient to recover the interest and principal," said I Unnikrishnan, executive director and deputy CEO of the company.

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Canadian authorities contact CBI on Air India ‘bribery’ case

While Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh categorically stated that no inquiry would be conducted on the basis of allegations published in Canada about bribes changing hands in an aborted $ 100-million Air India deal in 2007, the Central Bureau of Investigation is already conducting what is being described as a “discreet inquiry” in the case.
The Canadian authorities, through a diplomatic process, briefed the CBI about the allegations, probably even before they were published in The Globe and Mail. Following a personal interaction with Canadian officials, the CBI has been “actively” inquiring into the 2007 deal for purchase of facial recognition biometric systems from a Canadian firm named CryptoMetrics. A few days ago, the CBI asked Canadian authorities for a written statement of Indo-Canadian businessman Nazir Karigar, whom the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) is planning to prosecute under the newly-legislated Foreign Public Officials Act.
Heavy Industries Minister and former civil aviation minister Praful Patel was named by the newspaper as an intended beneficiary of a $ 250,000 bribe supposed to have been given by Karigar. Calling the allegations in the report “baseless and false”, Patel sent a letter to the Prime Minister requesting him to get all the documents related to the aborted contract examined by any agency and then convey the factual position to the authorities in Canada to avoid any “embarrassment to the Government of India or to me personally”.
According to the news report, Karigar used his acquaintance with former Mumbai police chief Hassan Gafoor, who was then with Air India, to push his case — a claim Gafoor has denied. 
The CBI has already inquired into the facts of the pitch made by CryptoMetrics for the sale of the systems to Air India and learnt that the deal fell through due to internal objections raised by officials in Air India and the Civil Aviation Ministry itself. The agency would only at a later stage decide whether the case was a fit one for registering either a Preliminary Enquiry (PE) or a Regular Case (RC) or whether it should be left unregistered.

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Gaza militant killed as new Palestinian mosque attacked

A Palestinian militant has been killed and two others wounded in an explosion in the Gaza Strip, medics say.

The Islamic Jihad militant group blamed an Israeli air strike for the death of Remah al-Hasani, a member of its military wing, the al-Quds Brigades.
But Israel's army denied any role in Wednesday's late-night incident.
On Tuesday evening, an Israeli air raid on Gaza killed a militant from the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) and wounded a father and his two sons.
The latest violence comes despite a ceasefire that came into force after a spasm of violence that followed a militant attack in Eilat on 18 August, which left eight Israelis dead.
 
Mosque attack
Meanwhile, settler violence in the West Bank has also increased in recent days.
Vandals sprayed graffiti on a mosque near Nablus, torched two Palestinian cars and uprooted olive trees in overnight attacks on Thursday that locals blamed on Jewish settlers.
The mosque in Yatma village, some 10km (six miles) south of Nablus, was spray-painted with the Hebrew words for "price tag" and "Migron" - a settlement outpost where Israeli troops demolished three homes on Monday.
Hardline settlers have adopted a so-called "price tag" policy under which they attack Palestinians and their property in retaliation for Israeli government measures to dismantle their illegal outposts.
It was the second time in three days that vandals had attacked a mosque and painted the word "Migron" on the walls, following an arson attack in the nearby village of Kasra.
And on Wednesday, settlers vandalised an Israeli army base in the first suspected case of "price tag" attacks against Israeli forces, said the army.
There are some 500,000 Jewish settlers living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Settlements are regarded as illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.
Tensions have been running high two weeks ahead of a planned appeal by the Palestinian leadership to the United Nations, calling for the acceptance of an independent Palestinian state within its 1967 borders in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
Israel is fiercely against the move.

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Congress gives stern warning to Jagan Reddy

Attacking rebel Congress MP Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, Union Minister and senior party leader from the state S Jaipal Reddy today said he was violating party discipline and termed his actions as "very undesirable".
Reddy said the Sakshi channel owned by Jagan, which telecast programmes attacking Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi was being "misused" to weaken the party.
"Everybody knows that the channel is owned by him (Jagan) and the channel is run for his own politics apparently. The channel is being misused to weaken the party. It is very undesirable," the minister said responding to questions about the programmes aired by the channel.
Reddy said while Jagan's father late Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S R Reddy was a "tremendously loyal Congressman", his young son, "otherwise dynamic, seems to be confused".

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No CM in India has ever been as repressive (as Omar):Mehbooba

New Delhi:

PDP president Mehbooba Mufti today said mainstream politicians had lost credibility in the eyes of the public in Kashmir. She also said transfer of power to a new alliance or removal of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah could not be the answer to the present unrest.
Speaking at the Idea Exchange programme of The Indian Express, Mehbooba said it was wrong to say that the crisis in Kashmir had developed in the last three months.
To a question on the handling of the situation by Omar Abdullah, she said he had mishandled every incident since he came to power.
“When Omar came, there was some hope, especially among the youth that maybe he is not like the traditional National Conference leaders. And Omar was also very fortunate that when he took over, the situation was much better and he had full support of the Central leadership, cutting across party lines. But unfortunately, may be because he had not spent too much time in the Valley, having been born, bred outside and having started his career being a minister in the NDA government, I think somewhere he couldn’t connect with the people.”

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Tatas form committee to select successor

Tatas form committee to select successor

The process to find a successor to Tata group chief Ratan Tata has gathered momentum with Tata Sons — the main holding company of the group — setting up a committee to identify a suitable person. Announcing that the committee “has commenced its work”, Tata Sons on Wednesday said the Board of Tata Sons, in accordance with its Articles of Association, has formed a selection committee, comprising five members including an external member, for eventually deciding on a suitable successor to Ratan Tata. Tata is due to retire at the end of December 2012.

With this announcement, the Tatas have made it clear that the succession issue is still open and the successor will be a person who will be acceptable to other senior leaders in the group. There was intense speculation in corporate circles that Noel Tata — who was recently appointed as the MD of Tata International and chairman of Tata Investment Corporation — was leading the race to step into the shoes of Ratan Tata.

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Mumbai airport choked, so no VIP planes: Patel

Alarm bells have begun to ring for Mumbai airport. While the Navi Mumbai airport project is caught in a web of stalled environmental clearances, the Civil Aviation Ministry is seriously considering banning any more turboprop jets in the private category at Mumbai to accommodate more commercial flights.

“There will soon have to be a general ban on additional flights for turboprop jets in the private category. What can I do? The airport is reaching saturation point. Mumbai desperately needs a second airport,” Patel told The Indian Express.

Turboprop jets in the private category — largely the Cessna and King Air series — are used mostly by corporate houses and there are roughly 30-40 movements of such aircraft in a day.

With top corporate leaders now using state-of-the-art executive jets, the turboprops are mostly meant for company executives and, at times, are even used by political parties. Given that they are slower on take-off, these aircraft tend to delay arrival and departure of commercial jets.

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PCAPA promises ‘justice’, names 9 CPM leaders as culprits

Kolkata In a counter to the CBI, the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) on Friday released the names of nine top CPM leaders of West Midnapore, including a Cabinet minister, Sushanta Ghosh, as the men responsible for the Jnaneswari train derailment. The PCAPA, like the CBI, announced Rs 1 lakh reward for anyone who could capture these nine leaders dead or alive and bring them before the committee.

The PCAPA announced the names and reward following the CBI’s move on Thursday to book its convenor Asit Mahato in the train crash case. The PCAPA also announced that it would boycott the CBI investigation into the Jnaneswari Express tragedy.

Manoj Mahato, a PCAPA leader, said, “We ourselves demanded a CBI probe thinking theirs would be a neutral investigation. But it seems that some of the officers recruited by the CPM are probing the matter. And that’s why they have framed our chief Asit Mahato.”

“We will bring the real culprits in front of the people and they will be punished in a Kangaroo Court. We know who has done this. There were nine people who committed the crime. They are Sushanta Ghosh, Lakshman Ghosh, Dahareswar Sen, Hiraralal Mahato, Annuj Pandey, Prasanto Das, Arjun Mahato, Dhruba Sannigrahi and Manik Mahato,” said Manoj Mahato.

The outfit promised a reward of Rs 1 lakh for anybody who could capture these nine men and bring them to PCAPA leaders. “If the CBI can announce reward on our leaders, we can also announce money for anybody who can give any information about these people. We will collect the total amount of Rs 9 lakh by begging,” Mahato said.

The PCAPA will observe ‘black day’ on June 23, 24 against the CBI move to ‘frame’ Asit Mahato, added Mahato.

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Let banks fix their savings rates: RBI

Hyderabad The Reserve Bank today said it wants the lenders to fix their individual rates for savings deposits, as part of the financial sector reforms.

“Deregulation of the interest rates, including savings rates, is an important way forward for financial sector reforms. The base rate system that will come in to effect from July 1 is also an important reform step,” the RBI Governor D Subbarao said here today.

Currently, banks can fix their own interest rate on savings deposits only above Rs 2 lakh. Up to Rs 2 lakh, the rate is fixed by the RBI, which at present is 3.5 per cent and is being calculated on a daily basis now from April 1. Once freed from RBI control, banks can fix their own individual rates for savings deposits as well.

He said the apex bank is in favour of deregulation of the interest rates for the agriculture sector, Exim and savings accounts and the concerns expressed by banks on the issue should be debated. He further said deregulation will also help encourage more financial inclusion.

Replying to a query on the concerns expressed by some banks that deregulation will push up costs, he said the issue has to be debated in a larger perspective. “The issue has to be debated and even RBI and other banks are to be educated on this,” Subbarao said.

Yesterday, deputy governor KC Chakrabarty had said, “the apex bank is in favour of deregulating all interest rates, including the savings rate. We have initiated a debate in the last policy...The deduction is very clear, clear in favour of deregulating all interest rates, including savings banks. But the decision will be taken after adequate debate on it,” Chakrabarty had said.

However, bankers feel that any such move will lead to wide variation in the market. Chakrabarty had said, “this is a highly competitive market. Prices do not vary much. But what will be the rate, what customers will get, will depend on market conditions.” On inflation, Subbarao said the RBI will review the inflation targets at its next policy meeting on July 27.

“Earlier, we expected the inflation rate to come down to 5.5 per cent by March, 2011. We had projected this number in our earlier meeting. We will revisit that number in the July policy meeting,” Subbarao told reporters here earlier in the day today. He, however, said despite higher inflation, the growth numbers are quite encouraging and investment is picking up.

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BJP compares Anderson with Q

Bhopal BY drawing parallels between Ottavio Quattrocchi and Warren Anderson and between the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and the Bhopal gas tragedy, the BJP on Friday launched a frontal attack on the Congress.

Exploiting the aftermath of the lower court’s verdict in the Bhopal gas tragedy case, the ruling party held a protest in the state capital and chalked out a programme to raise the issue from municipal wards in the state to both Houses of Parliament.

Leading the charge was the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj who blamed former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi for giving a ‘send-off’ to Warren Anderson saying no further proof was needed to establish this. She said Quattrocchi was also given a send-off in similar fashion.

Swaraj said the anti-Sikh riots were a result of revenge-driven massacre in the wake of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination in collusion with the government while the Bhopal gas leak was a result of criminal negligence for economic benefits.

Swaraj announced that she will move a motion in the Lok Sabha on the opening day on July 19 seeking revocation of the 1989 settlement which was based on the death toll of 3,000, and demand a fresh settlement to factor in subsequent deaths.

The motion will demand a respectable amount of compensation for each victim and a comprehensive system of treatment. Also, it will demand that absconding accused in the gas tragedy case be brought to stand trial.

The party will demand voting on the issue to expose where the Congress stands on the issue. If the motion sails through, it will benefit the survivors and if it fails, the BJP will continue to take to the streets on the issue, the party said. The motion will also be moved in the Rajya Sabha.

State BJP president Prabhat Jha said dharnas would be organised in each of the nagar panchayat wards on June 25 to time the protest with the anniversary of Emergency. In the towns, cadres will take out torch rallies on the same evening. The party will also submit a memorandum to the President on the issue.

In contrast to Swaraj’s speech, leaders from Madhya Pradesh were equally severe on Arjun Singh and Sonia Gandhi and their continued silence on the issue of Anderson’s escape.

Some speakers alleged that the Congress had always been soft on foreigners.

However, while BJP was holding its dharna at Polytechnic Square, a survivors’ organisation was holding a protest nearby alleging that the BJP had no moral right to speak on their behalf because it did not do what was expected of it all these years.

In New Delhi, in the backdrop of former Foreign Secretary M K Rasgotra’s revelations that Anderson was given a safe passage by the then Central government, BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said the Congress should now apologise to the nation as it could not any more beat around the bush on the issue.

She said it had become clear that the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had concurred with

the decision. Although he was out of Delhi, he was “briefed fully” about the decision much before Anderson left the country, she said. It has become clear that the US embassy in Delhi and Anderson dealt with high-level officials and leaders of the Congress, she claimed.

With Congress raising the issue of an MoU signed between the Narendra Modi government and Dow Chemicals to corner BJP, Sitharaman said Dow had a presence in several states including Uttar Pradesh and Congress-ruled Maharashtra. She said Gujarat was the only state which signed the MoU as per the Montreal Protocol, which lays down guidelines for controlling ozone layer depletion and maintaining other environmental norms.

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PM-Obama talks to focus on nuke liability bill, Pak, Afghan

The controversial nuclear liability bill, US arms supplies to Pakistan and situation in Afghanistan are expected to figure prominently at the meeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will have with President Barack Obama here.

Singh, who is here on a four-day visit to attend the April 12-13 Nuclear Security Summit, will hold talks with Obama at Blair House tonight, their second meeting in four months. They had last met here on November 24 during Singh's State Visit.

The Prime Minister is expected to inform Obama that the nuclear liability bill is going through democratic processes in India and he hopes it to be passed by Parliament at the earliest, sources said.

The Civil Nuclear Liability Bill, whose passage is crucial for implementation of the historic Indo-US nuclear deal, has got caught in a political quagmire with opposition parties strongly objecting to certain aspects of the proposed legislation.

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Presence of water in Moon path-breaking discovery: Nair

Describing the recent discovery of thick ice deposits on the Moon as path-breaking, former ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair said it opens up a vast avenue for human exploration.

"This is the first time NASA and ISRO have confirmed the availability of water on moon. Huge ice sheets were found in the polar regions of the moon. This is a path-breaking finding as it was earlier believed there was a vacuum in the moon," Nair, during whose tenure unmanned lunar mission Chandrayaan I was launched, said.

"The presence of water gives many ideas. Water can be split with sunlight to get oxygen and hydrogen. While oxygen can be used by human explorers, hydrogen can be used as fuel either to generate electricity or use as rocket fuel for the return journey or even attempt a Mars mission from the Moon," he said.

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FDA finds controversial diabetes drug a risk to heart; sold in India

Hundreds of people taking Avandia, a controversial diabetes medicine, needlessly suffer heart attacks and heart failure each month, according to confidential government reports that recommend the drug be removed from the market.

The reports, obtained by The New York Times, say that if every diabetic now taking Avandia were instead given a similar pill named Actos, about 500 heart attacks and 300 cases of heart failure would be averted every month because Avandia can hurt the heart. Avandia, intended to treat Type 2 diabetes, is known as rosiglitazone and was linked to 304 deaths during the third quarter of 2009.

“Rosiglitazone should be removed from the market,” one of the reports, written by Dr David Graham and Dr Kate Gelperin of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), concludes. Both authors recommended that Avandia be withdrawn.

Meanwhile, experts in India hope that the US report will prompt the Health Ministry to take some “definitive action”. The drug is being prescribed for lakhs of diabetics in India.

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