India News Briefly | DesPardes.com

APR 16 - IT giant Microsoft has set up 1,000 Internet kiosks in villages across the country to provide localized content and customized applications to the Indian rural hinterland. The company is targeting 50,000 kiosks in three years in every nook and corner of the country - 7,000, 20,000 and 23,000 kiosks in the first, second and third year respectively. The specially developed portal can also be accessed in the off-line mode and offers affordable services such as e-learning, web browsing, entertainment, job searches, matrimonial, astrology, agri-newspaper, insurance, online consultation, chatting, online telephony, email, typing, printing and designing and computer education. Microsoft plans to offer other services such as land records, birth and death certificates and health services.

More American students to head for India

APR 14 - There are around 70,000 Indian students studying in the US, while about 780 American students currently learning in India. To reverse this trend an American delegation is on a mission to India to study the educational system in the country. According to US Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, "America's assets are in the areas of creativity, problem-solving and innovation, while India has a large and strong technical capability. That's one of the pages we want to take from your book...the high quality technical base, strength of the skills...your talent pool. We have work to do on that across our country as well", she added.

Bismillah Khan 'never sought payment' for Darbhanga show

APR 13 - Shehnai maestro Ustad Bismillah Khan never sought payment for a performance at Darbhanga in Bihar, the place where he spent a lot of time during his childhood, an aide to the musician S. Javed Ahmed told IANS in Varanasi. A news report had suggested Khan's 'last wish' to play at Darbhanga was unlikely to be fulfilled following disagreement over the 'huge payment' being demanded for the performance.

John Abraham hospitalized after bike accident

APR 9 - Model turned actor John Abraham has been admitted to Leelavati Hospital in Mumbai on Saturday night following a motorbike accident in suburban Khar. After the actor met with an accident around midnight, he came to the hospital for an X-ray and was advised hospitalization. The condition of the actor is stable and is being monitored continuously, the doctors said. This is the second time in three months that the actor has been admitted to the same hospital. In December last year, Abraham had developed bronchitis while shooting for a film in Afghanistan and flew down to Mumbai mid-way to undergo treatment at the hospital.

"Advani-Jinnah Bhai Bhai,� says graffiti

APRIL 9: No protest, no demonstrations, No effigy-burnings... It is through posters, billboards and wall writings that senior BJP leader L K Advani's opponents, both within and outside the Sangh Parivar, are making public their resentment against him and his ongoing 'Bharat Suraksha Yatra' in the saffron stronghold of Gujarat.

The Viswa Hindu Prishad had voiced its opposition to the yatra questioning credibility of the former Deputy Prime Minister L.K Advani.

"Advani-Jinnah Bhai Bhai, Aa desh na dana khawa che to pachi gun shamate Jinnah no gava che (when you eat this country's food, why sing praise for the Pakistan founder)," was one of the graffiti that has come up on the walls of this textile town as the Advani juggernaut rolled down from Vadodara today on the third day of its 6,000 km journey criss-crossing 10 states over 35 days.

Even before the commencement of the yatra, walls of Rajkot were plastered with posters hailing party leader Sanjay Joshi, who was reinstated in BJP, apparently under pressure from the Sangh Parivar, following the clean chit given by the Madhya Pradesh Police in the sleaze CD scam.

Joshi was earlier Organization General Secretary of the party in the BJP apparently fell out with Advani in the wake of the Jinnah controversy.

In Vadodara too, where Advani arrived last night along with Chief Minister Narendra Modi, huge billboards and hoardings welcoming the reinstatement of Joshi to the party post greeted him enroute the public meeting in Jubilee Bagh.

It is not just the critics within the Parivar who are engaged in the poster campaign but also the Opposition Congress party, which put up hoardings across the state's business capital mocking the yatra. It alleged the BJP party cadres tore their posters.

"In a democracy, every citizen has a right to express his opinion but BJP is curbing this by such acts," said Vadodara Congress President Bhikha Rabari.

"The Modi Government seems to have zero tolerance for divergent views and wants to curtail them. BJP does not have any faith in democracy," he charged.

The BJP workers on their part accused the Opposition of smudging pro-yatra slogans on the city's walls. There were also reports of heated arguments and even fisticuffs between activists of the two parties at different places.

�I still remember Juhi Chawla asking for an autograph�

APRIL 6 - Pakistan's ex Junoon guitarist and songwriter Salman Ahmad is currently in Mumbai promoting his latest album �Infiniti�. The first single �Ghoom Tana� which features Shubha Mudgal and Nandita Das in the video is Salman�s tribute to India. �The song expresses the mystical bond I share with this country,� he says. �I would love one of my songs to feature in a Bollywood film preferably with Priety Zinta in it,� he added. He reminisces his first visit to India for the Zee Cine Awards where he had carried autograph books from his relatives back home who wanted autographs of their favorite stars. �I still remember Juhi Chawla asking for an autograph for her niece, saying she loves our music,� he laughs.

Mirwaiz wife dares to bare women issues

APR 1 - Sehba Umar Farooq, wife of All Parties Hurriyat Conference Kashmiri leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has joined up with a friend and their women�s magazine in English, She. The first issue of the magazine which comes out next week will deal with the problems of the Kashmiri working women, with interviews and comments and will examine dating and courtship in Kashmir with interviews with young Kashmiri women. Unwanted pregnancies and other problems arising out of young relationships will also be dealt with in the magazine which, Sehba hopes, will generate interest, and will eventually become a regular once-in-three-months publication.

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