IPL 5: Gritty Rajasthan can script revival

Oil companies may hike petrol prices by Rs 3 per litre

New Delhi: State-owned oil firms are pushing for at least Rs 3 per litre hike in petrol price from April 1 to cover part of the spike in cost of raw material.
"We are losing Rs 6.43 per litre on petrol and after adding 20 per cent sales tax, the desired increase in rates in Delhi is Rs 7.72 per litre," a senior oil company official said.
"We understand that it will be difficult to raise rates by Rs 7.72 per litre in one go but a Rs 3 or even Rs 4 a litre increase is feasible," he said.

As per practice, oil companies are due to review fuel prices on Saturday. Indian Oil Corp (IOC), Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) use fortnightly average of benchmark oil price and exchange rate to fix the price to be paid to refineries on 1st and 16th of every month.
If the changes do not reflect in retail selling price, they become losses in the books of oil firms.
The international price of gasoline (against which domestic petrol prices are benchmarked) have risen from $109 a barrel at the time of last revision in December 2011 to $133-134 per barrel.
Oil firms had last revised dates on December 1 when rates were cut by Rs 0.78 per litre. Petrol at IOC pumps in Delhi is currently priced at Rs 65.64 per litre and the rates vary by a couple of paise at the pumps of BPCL and HPCL.
Petrol price was freed from government control in June 2010 but public sector companies continue to informally consult their parent Oil Ministry before taking a decision.
"We are holding consultations," the official said, dropping hints that oil firms have so far not received a go ahead from the government for raising prices.
Oil firms lost about Rs 4,500 crore this fiscal on selling petrol below cost. The government does not compensate them for this loss as petrol is a decontrolled commodity.

Source : http://ibnlive.in.com/news/oil-cos-may-hike-petrol-prices-by-rs-3-per-litre/244274-3.html

South Carolina Primary Results: Newt Gingrich Upsets Mitt Romney, Shakes Up GOP Race

Mitt Romney was likely never as much of a lock as the mainstream media seems to believe, but Saturday's South Carolina primary results still came as a surprise.

Newt Gingrich rose from the political ashes for the second time with two strong debate performances this week and pulled off an unlikely win in the Palmetto State.

With 40 percent of the vote to Mitt's 27, and nearly all precincts reporting, Newt won big and turned the fluid Republican presidential race on its head once again.


Only a week ago, Romney seemed likely to win all three of the initial contests, a scenario that would have put him on a relatively clear path to the nomination.

But with Thursday’s announcement that Rick Santorum actually won Iowa, followed by today's results, Romney is now a front-runner who has lost two of three.

The result marked a swift, extraordinary turnaround in Gingrich’s fortunes, after he finished well out of the top three in both Iowa and New Hampshire.

So maligned was his candidacy that Newt himself had conceded his campaign might be over for good by tonight if he failed to turn in a strong performance.

He did turn in such a performance, and as such, the quest to represent the GOP against President Barack Obama in November is quite far from over.

This marks the first time that three different Republican candidates have won the first trio of contests in what has been an unpredictable race from the start.

Since 1980, every South Carolina GOP primary winner has gone on to win the nomination, but whether Gingrich can continue that streak is far from certain.

Romney has by far the most formidable financial resources and organization, giving him a big edge Florida, which holds its primary January 31, and beyond.

Santorum finished third and Ron Paul fourth in South Carolina. The candidates square off in a debate once again Monday night in Tampa. Stay tuned ...

Read more celebrity gossip at: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/south-carolina-primary-results-newt-gingrich-upsets-mitt-romney/#ixzz1k9uW6gT4

Heidi Klum and Seal Divorce Reports Surface on Internet

The supermodel is said to be pursuing a divorce from the singer after six years of marriage citing "irreconcilable differences."

After six years of marriage, supermodel Heidi Klum and husband Seal headed for divorce court according to reports published Saturday.
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The host and executive producer of Lifetime's Project Runway is expected to file divorce papers in L.A. County Superior Court as a early as next week, citing "irreconcilable differences," according to TMZ.

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The pair, who have three biological children, Henry, 6, Johan, 5, and Lou, 2, as well as Klum's 7-year-old daughter from her previous marriage, Leni, whom Seal adopted in 2009, were married May 10, 2005.



On each wedding anniversary, they have renewed their vows in themed celebrations, including a masquerade ball, "white trash" and Hindu ceremonies.

Seal will be out of the country acting as a coach on the Australian version of NBC's The Voice (alongside Keith Urban, Joel Madden and Delta Goodman).


Klum recently launched a sneaker collection with New Balance exclusively for New Balance and a jewelry line, Wildlife by Heidi Klum, for QVC.

People magazine also published a report on the pair's rumored split.

THR reached out the the couple's representatives, but there is no official statement at this time.

Paterno In 'Serious' Condition

 

(Reuters) - The health of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, who was fired last November in the wake of a child sex abuse scandal involving an assistant coach, has deteriorated and his status is serious, a family spokesman said on Saturday.

"Over the last few days Joe Paterno has experienced further health complications. His doctors have now characterized his status as serious," a statement said.

The Paterno family said it would have no further comment on the situation and asked that their privacy be respected "during this difficult time."

Paterno, 85, disclosed on November 18 that he had treatable lung cancer. He has been in and out of the hospital since then for treatment with radiation and chemotherapy, and after he fell at home in December and broke his pelvis.

The winningest coach in major college football history, Paterno was head coach at Penn State for 46 years. University trustees ousted him for failing to tell police what had been passed on to him about the alleged sex abuse.

Longtime Paterno assistant Jerry Sandusky faces 52 counts of sexual abuse of boys over a period of 15 years, including some incidents at the football complex on campus. Disclosure of the charges against Sandusky shocked the university and led to one of the biggest scandals in college sports history.

A Penn State graduate assistant testified to a grand jury that he told Paterno in 2002 that he witnessed Sandusky assaulting a boy in the showers at the football building. Paterno said he passed the information on to his boss, then Athletic Director Tim Curley. But no one told police, and the abuse continued for years, according to prosecutors.

Trustees of the university fired Paterno on November 9 with four games remaining in the football season. His ouster sparked demonstrations by students who felt he was treated unfairly, and anger among some alumni. The two top officers of the university trustees stepped down this week.

University President Graham Spanier was fired along with Paterno, and Curley and a former finance official in the athletic department face charges of lying to a grand jury about the alleged abuse.

Sandusky is under house arrest awaiting trial on the abuse charges. He has pleaded not guilty.

Source: http://www.myvictoriaonline.com/pages/12061463.php?contentType=4&contentId=9819533

Spokesman: Joe Paterno in serious condition

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - Joe Paterno's doctors say the former Penn State coach's condition has become "serious" after he experienced complications from lung cancer in recent days.

The winningest major college football coach of all time, Paterno was diagnosed shortly after Penn State's Board of Trustees ousted him Nov. 9 in the aftermath of the child sex abuse charges against former assistant Jerry Sandusky. Paterno's been getting treatment since, and his health problems were worsened when he broke his pelvis — an injury that first cropped up when he was accidentally hit in preseason practice last year.

"Over the last few days Joe Paterno has experienced further health complications," family spokesman Dan McGinn said in a brief statement Saturday to The Associated Press. "His doctors have now characterized his status as serious.

"His family will have no comment on the situation and asks that their privacy be respected during this difficult time," he said.

Paterno's sons Scott and Jay both took to Twitter Saturday night to refute reports that their father had died.

Complete coverage: Penn State scandal

Wrote Jay Paterno: "I appreciate the support (and) prayers. Joe is continuing to fight."

The 85-year-old Paterno has been in the hospital since Jan. 13 for observation for what his family had called minor complications from his cancer treatments. Not long before that, he conducted his only interview since losing his job, with The Washington Post. Paterno was described as frail then and wearing a wig. The second half of the two-day interview was conducted by his bedside.

The final days of Paterno's Penn State career were easily the toughest in his 61 years with the university and 46 seasons as head football coach.

Sandusky, a longtime defensive coordinator who was on Paterno's staff in two national title seasons, was arrested Nov. 5 and ultimately charged with sexually abusing a total of 10 boys over 15 years. His arrest sparked outrage not just locally but across the nation and there were widespread calls for Paterno to quit.

Paterno announced late on Nov. 9 that he would retire at the end of the season but just hours later he received a call from board vice chairman John Surma, telling him he had been terminated as coach. By that point, a crowd of students and media were outside the Paterno home. When news spread that Paterno had been dumped, there was rioting in State College.

Police on Saturday night had barricaded off the block where Paterno lives, and a police car was stationed about 50 yards from his home. A light was on in the living room but there was no activity inside. No one was outside, other than reporters and photographers stationed there.

Trustees said this week they pushed Paterno out in part because he failed a moral responsibility to report an allegation made in 2002 against Sandusky to authorities outside the university. They also felt he had challenged their authority and that, as a practical matter, with all the media in town and attention to the Sandusky case, he could no longer run the team.

Paterno testified before the grand jury investigating Sandusky that he had relayed to his bosses an accusation that came from graduate assistant Mike McQueary, who said he saw Sandusky abusing a boy in the showers of the Penn State football building.

Paterno told the Post that he didn't know how to handle the charge, but a day after McQueary visited him, Paterno spoke to the athletic director and the administrator with oversight over the campus police.

Wick Sollers, Paterno's lawyer, called the board's comments this week self-serving and unsupported by the facts. Paterno fully reported what he knew to the people responsible for campus investigations, Sollers said.

"He did what he thought was right with the information he had at the time," Sollers said.

Sandusky says he is innocent and is out on bail, awaiting trial.

The back and forth between Paterno's representative and the board reflects a trend in recent weeks, during which Penn State alumni — and especially former players, including Hall of Fame running back Franco Harris — have questioned the trustees' actions and accused them of failing to give Paterno a chance to defend himself.

Three town halls, in Pittsburgh, suburban Philadelphia and New York City, seemed to do little to calm the situation and dozens of candidates have now expressed interest in running for the board, a volunteer position that typically attracts much less interest.

While everyone involved has said the focus should be on Sandusky's accusers and their ordeals, the abuse scandal for Paterno put a sour ending on a sterling career. Paterno won 409 games and took the Nittany Lions to 37 bowl games and those two national championships. More than 250 of the players he coached went on to the NFL.

With his thick glasses, rolled up khakis and white socks, Paterno was synonymous with Penn State and was seen in many ways as the archetypal football coach.

Google closing Picnik, along with a number of other services

Google's New Year clear out will involve shutting down a number of services, including the web-based photo-editing service Picnik. Google bought the company behind the popular website two years ago and said it will move some of its editing tools to Google+ in April as it continues its drive to push more users to the social networking site.

Google has announced it will be retiring the online photo-editing service Picnik, together with a number of other products that the web giant feels “replicate other features, haven’t achieved the promise we had hoped for or can’t be properly integrated into the overall Google experience.”

Services that are affected besides Picnik include:

- Google Message Continuity (GMC): support to be ended. “Current GMC customers will be able to use GMC for the duration of their contract.”

- Google Sky Map: to be open-sourced. Google will be “collaborating with Carnegie Mellon University in a partnership that will see further development of Sky Map as a series of student projects.”

- Needlebase: to be retired on June 1, 2012.

- Social Graph API: “The API isn’t experiencing the kind of adoption we’d like, and is being deprecated as of today.” To be fully retired on April 20, 2012.

- Urchin: “New Urchin Software licenses will no longer be available after March 2012.”

“Changing products that people love is hard….But we’re excited to focus on creating a beautifully simple, intuitive user experience across Google—an experience that will change the lives of millions of people,” Google’s vice president of product management Dave Girouard wrote on the company’s official blog explaining the decision.

Picnik, which was bought by Google two years ago, will be retired on April 19, however, Picnik announced on its homepage that some of its photo editing tools will be moved to Google+, the new social networking site which this week claimed to have 90 million users.

Until Picnik’s closure, users will have the chance to try its premium services for free, and anyone that’s already paid for them will receive a full refund.

Picnik is undoubtedly a very popular product, with an interface that makes photo editing a breeze. Anything from a simple crop to advanced special effects are offered, and the online tools will no doubt be missed by many.

It’s not clear yet how many of Picnik’s photo-editing tools will be pushed across to Google+, but what if you don’t want to open a Google+ account but would still like a quick and simple web-based solution when it comes to tweaking your pics?

Here are some suggestions that should help you out:

FotoFlexer – very similar to Picnik in look and feel; offers many effects, including distortions; ability to work with layers, too. One imagines this site is going to see a big increase in traffic once Picnik disappears from the scene.

Phixr – not such a clean interface; consider it as a simplified version of Picnik. Offers a few interesting options such as noise removal and ‘fun effects.’

befunky – another site which operates along the same lines as Picnik, though befunky feels a little clunkier to use. Still, it offers lots of editing options and may appeal to some, especially those who like to jazz up their images with stickers and such like.

iPiccy – nice, clean interface; lots of options for editing and adding effects. The site is currently in beta, but we can see this one becoming pretty popular with those who enjoy using Picnik.

pixlr – a more Photoshop-looking interface, with a comprehensive set of adjustment tools. Decent filter list. Much more powerful than Picnik, but may be daunting for some. Clean interface though and well worth a look.

Source : http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/google-closing-picnik-along-with-a-number-of-other-services/

Police info about threat not true, am very angry: Rushdie

New York: An 'angry' Salman Rushdie claims he has found out that the intelligence provided to him by Rajasthan police about threat to his life if he attended the Jaipur Literature Festival was concocted to prevent him from going to India.

Rushdie took to microblogging site Twitter to vent his anger and responded to reports in Indian media that said "Rajasthan police invented plot to keep away Rushdie."

Rushdie tweeted, "Rajasthan police invented plot to keep away Rushdie' I've investigated, & believe that I was indeed lied to. I am outraged and very angry."

Responding to a comment to his tweet, Rushdie said he does not know if the false intelligence information was given by Rajasthan police under instructions from someone.

"Don't know who gave orders. And yes I guess the same police who want to arrest (authors) Hari, Amitava, Jeet and Ruchir. Disgusting," he said responding to a comment on whether it is the same police who now want to arrest writers

for reading passages of his banned work 'The Satanic Verses' at the festival.

Rushdie also posted a link to a news report that said local intelligence officials in Rajasthan had "invented" information about the assassination plot against him to keep him from attending the literary event. His accompanying tweet read, "Here's the story. Astonishing."

The author had dropped plans to attend the literature festival saying he was informed by intelligence sources in Maharasthra and Rajasthan that paid hitmen from the Mumbai underworld will "eliminate" him if he came to India.

Rushdie had expressed doubts about the "accuracy" of the intelligence but said in a statement that it would be "irresponsible" on his part to still attend the festival and put the lives of other authors and participants in danger.

In protest, authors Amitava Kumar, Hari Kunzru, Ruchir Joshi and Jeet Thayil had read passages of 'The Satanic Verses', a controversial 1988 novel by Rushdie that is banned in India. Police are now demanding to see tapes of the

recordings of the authors reading from the banned book.

Source:http://ibnlive.in.com/news/police-info-about-threat-not-true-salman-rushdie/223069-2.html

Ex-Army chief General Shankar Roychowdhury backs General VK Singh in age row

New Delhi: In the government vs Army Chief row, former army chief General Shankar Roychowdhury has come out in support of General VK Singh becoming the first former Chief of Army Staff to do so. He said that Defence Minister AK Antony should have overruled his bureaucrats in the age row.

He feels that the government should have acted with more understanding on the VK Singh age controversy. Speaking on this week's 'Devil's Advocate' to Karan Thapar, he said Defence Minister should have ideally overruled his bureaucrats who were advising him on the matter.

"I wouldn't want to name names but certainly the government could have handled the case better with having regard and respect for a chief of a service. I think they should have shown more understanding rather than go by the pages of an order which directs that if you go by change of birth you should have out it in before completion of five years of service. They should have given it more consideration," he said.

When asked whether the government should be blamed for the controversy, he said, "I would not say that in respect of the Defence Minister because he is a very fine person. But certainly the Ministry of Defence which is the arm of the government which more or less controls the defence services. They have been guilty of not putting a broad approach to it."

Holding the civil servants responsible, he said, "This is a case where the minister also should have exercised his judgement and taken a decision on the case. Perhaps, he should have overruled the bureaucratic advice he was getting. That would have been better."

Source : http://ibnlive.in.com/news/exarmy-chief-backs-gen-singh-in-age-row/223064-3.html

Bipasha's moves at the 'Jodi Breakers' music launch

Do you have the moves like Bipasha?: Bipasha Basu showed off some sexy moves at the music launch of 'Jodi Breakers'. 

Bipasha Basu, Madhavan and other cast members at the music launch. 

Bipasha showed off her perfect body at the music launch. 

The music launch of 'Jodi Breakers'. 

Milind Soman at the music launch. 

Milind Soman and Mrinalini Sharma at the music launch. 

Here's the 'Jodi Breakers' ladies and gentlemen! 

Bipasha and Madhavan at the launch. 

Bipasha shows off some moves to co-star Madhavan. 

Lets go dancing! Bipasha and Madhavan. 

Dipannita Sharma performs at the launch. 

Bipasha Basu arrives at the launch. 

Dipannita Sharma at the music launch. 

Mrinalini Sharma at the launch. 

Omi Vaidya at the music launch. 

Other stars at the music launch. 


Source : http://ibnlive.in.com/photogallery/5682-0.html