The moon mineralogy mapper (M3), a scientific instrument of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) onboard India's first lunar mission Chandrayaan-1, found iron-bearing minerals on the lunar surface, the US space agency said on Thursday.

"The mapper spectrometer has beamed images of the Orientale Basin region of the moon, indicating abundance of iron-bearing minerals such as pyroxene. Using different wavelengths of light, the instrument has also revealed for the first time changes in rock and mineral composition," M3 principal investigator Carle Pieters said in a statement hosted on NASA Website.

Data from the 7-kg mapper provides space scientists first opportunity to examine lunar mineralogy at high spatial and spectral resolution.

The Orientale Basin is located on the moon's western limb. M3 captured the data last week when Chandrayaan was orbiting the moon at an altitude of 100 km.

"The imaging spectrometer provides us with compositional information across the moon that we have never had access to before. Our ability to identify and map the composition of the surface in geologic context provides a new level of detail needed to explore and understand the earth's nearest celestial neighbour," affirmed Pieters, who teaches at Brown University in Rhode Island.

The mapper was selected as a mission of opportunity through the NASA discovery programme. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory designed and built the instrument at Pasadena in California.

"M3 will also help in characterising and mapping lunar minerals for knowing the moon's early geological evolution. Its compositional maps will improve our understanding of the early evolution of a differentiated planetary body and provide a high-resolution assessment of lunar resources," Chandrayaan project director M. Annadurai averred.

M3 is one of the 10 instruments onboard the unmanned Chandrayaan, conducting experiments while the spacecraft orbits over the moon next two years.

Five instruments were indigenously built by the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), while the remaining six payloads are of foreign origin, including three from the European Space Agency, two from NASA and one from Bulgaria.

Chandrayaan was launched on October 22 onboard the 316-tonne polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV-C11) from ISRO's Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota spaceport, about 80 km north of Chennai.

After traversing 3,84,000 km through the deep space for 18 days, the spacecraft entered the lunar orbit on November 8 and its moon impact probe was lowered on the moon's surface on November 14.

In a strange year for Parliament, Lok Sabha witnessed one of its strangest episodes. On Tuesday, the last day of the absurdly named "monsoon session", it passed eight bills in 17 minutes. The absurdity was highlighted by the fact that even as these bills were passed, for quite a while afterwards parliamentary reporters were scrambling to get clarity on the content of the bills passed. Or perhaps in a calendar year, in which only 46 sittings were held, it was our MPs' way of letting all know that lack of discussion shall not hold them from transacting brisk legislative business.

Common laws across the country, single-window approval system and reduction in indirect costs are among the various suggestions made by the Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Association of India (CREDAI) to facilitate affordable housing for end-users.

These suggestions come even as the Government, the Reserve Bank of India and commercial banks of both public and private genres have come out with a serious of fiscal and monetary measures to boost the housing sector.

T. Chitty Babu, Secretary of the Tamil Nadu unit of CREDAI, said common laws across the country would make the system transparent and encourage regional players to go national. ``Uniform development charges, infrastructure and impact fee and rationalization of stamp duty will accelerate development,'' he added. This would go a long way to encourage people to invest in any part of the country.

In an interaction with this correspondent, Mr. Babu said ``the need of the hour is for the Government to introduce the concept of a single-window system on the lines created for the IT (information technology) sector so that the approvals for the projects can be obtained within a maximum time frame of a month as against the current scenario of a year. This could easily ensure a saving of at least Rs.300 per square feet,'' he pointed out.

Reliance Petroleum on Thursday announced commissioning of its only-for-exports oil refinery in a Special Economic Zone at Jamnagar in GujaratThe commissioning of the 580,000 barrels per day (29 million tons a year) capacity refinery by RPL, a unit of Mukesh Ambani-run Reliance Industries, will make Jamnagar the biggest oil refining hub in the world.

"RPL commenced its crude processing (today). The secondary processing units are now under synchronization and commissioning," a company press statement said.

"The entire refinery complex is expected to attain full capacity shortly," it said but did not give a specific date.

The new unit has come up adjacent to Reliance's existing 660,000 bpd (33 million tons a year) mostly-for-exports refinery at Jamnagar.

"RPL refinery has been completed in 36 months from concept to commissioning, which is a new benchmark for building a grass-root refinery of this scale and complexity," the statement said.

Company's Chairman Mukesh Ambani said: "Commissioning this large and complex refinery in record time... yet again demonstrates the strength of our project management skills."

"We, at Reliance, continue to be committed to the long term potential of the refining sector. We will leverage our competitive advantages of scale, complexity and capability to process a wide range of crude oils and flexibility to produce high quality transportation fuels," he said.

RPL, in which the US energy major Chevron Corp hold five per cent stake, will produce petrol and diesel complaint to Euro-IV emission norms.

The staggered Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly elections concluded peacefully Wednesday with marginally high turnout despite Muslim separatists' boycott call.

The overall voting percentage in the state in the seven phases of voting was 63, poll officials calculated.

Of more than 4.8 million eligible voters, over three million voters cast their ballot, the officials said.

Despite sporadic incidents of violence during the more than one-month-long exercise, the conduct of polls was by and large peaceful in the troubled state, wrought by years of separatist violence since 1989.

The first phase held Nov 17 saw 64 percent of electorate exercising their franchise. The polling in 10 constituencies in the Muslim dominated Kashmir Valley, the Hindu majority Jammu region and the mainly Buddhist Ladakh proved a turning point for other parts of the region vying for peace and development.

The second round Nov 23 saw even a higher turnout. It was 65 percent in two constituencies of the Kashmir Valley and four in the Jammu region.

In a state that has so often resounded with cries of "freedom", the sentiment during the elections, analysts say, was one of longing for better quality of life.

"Issues of road connectivity, schools, water and electricity drew voters to the ballot box," said Bashir Manzar, editor of an English daily here.

The third phase recorded a voting of 62 percent in the five constituencies, which went to polls Nov 30. Fifty-five percent of the electorate voted Dec 7 in the fourth phase of the elections.

The fifth phase Dec 13, which saw some violence and the killing of an anti-poll protester, witnessed 59 percent of the electorate participating in the exercise.

The sixth and penultimate round of balloting Dec 17 ended peacefully with about 63 percent of the electorate turning out to vote.

And in the last phase of elections Wednesday, the people in Jammu and Kashmir again defied Muslim separatists' boycott call and turned out in large numbers even in Srinagar - the urban hub of the secessionist movement.

At least 52 percent voting was recorded in 21 constituencies that went to polls in the last crucial round of balloting.

The summer capital Srinagar recorded its highest voting percentage of 20 in the last 19 years, officials said.

"I am voting for the first time and my need is a government job. I have no other consideration and I hope my vote helps the candidate who gets me a job after winning the elections," said Showkat Ahmad, 18. He was standing in a queue outside the Dhobighat polling booth in Hazratbal, Srinagar.

The voting was overshadowed by heightened tension between India and Pakistan after last month's Mumbai attacks.

But that didn't deter people from expressing their longing for peace and confidence in democratic process, said Governor N.N. Vohra on the "successful" conclusion of the exercise.

In the border areas of the region as well, people came out in large numbers to vote for "peace" at the time of escalation of tension between two nuclear-armed neighbours.

"We do want strong action against terrorists, but that should not be at our cost," Ujjagar Singh, a resident of the border village of Satrian, told IANS.

The election results will be declared Dec 28. The main contest is between the National Conference, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Nokia Maps came under fire for showing Kashmir as part of Pakistan. The largest mobile handset manufacturer in the world that controls around half mobile handset market in the country was attacked for showing the disputed Kashmir region as Pakistani territory.

Nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) activists torched a large Nokia showroom in central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.

In Jabalpur a large number of BJP activists gathered in the city and burnt down the mobile handset shop.

Apple has announced that it has introduced a new range of iPods in India to coincide with the festive season. The new range varies from the 1GB iPod Shuffle starting at Rs2,300 to a 32GB iPod Touch at Rs21,100.

THe iPod Nano is now available in eight colours such as silver, purple, blue, green, orange, yellow, pink, and black, it also sports a curved aluminum enclosure.

It comes wit the option of an 8GB or 16GB flash drive and holds up to 2,000 or 4,000 songs in 128-Kbps AAC format.

When fully charged, music playback time is up to 24 hours and video playback time up to 4 hours

The second generation iPod Touch is smaller and lighter and features a thin contoured metal design, a 3.5-inch widescreen glass display, 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi wireless networking, integrated volume control buttons, built-in speaker and accelerometer and other advanced sensors.

It has options of 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB flash drive and can hold up to 1,750, 3,500, or 7,000 songs respectively in 128-Kbps AAC format and hold up to 10 hours, 20 hours, or 40 hours of video and when fully charged.

The Touch has a music playback time up to 36 hours and video playback up to 6 hours.

The 120GB iPod Classic, with up to 36 hours of audio playback time and a 2.5-inch color displaycan store up to 30,000 songs, 150 hours of video, 25000 photos, or any in combination.

It has a music playback time up to 36 hours when fully charged and video playback time of up to 6 hours.

Portable media player maker Cowon has announced the launch of its latest model Cowon S9 in the Indian market.

Initially, Cowon S9 was seen at the IFA in Berlin.

Coming with a stylish 3.3 inch AMOLED display, Cowon S9 comes with music, video, and photo playback plus lots of other exciting features that include 500Mhz Dual Core CPU, T-DMB TV, Bluetooth, FM tuner, voice/radio/line recording, a Flash player, and a text reader.

The device, which sports a 16:9-formatted OLED screen set at a 480×272-pixel resolution, has an impressive 40-hour music playback capacity on a single battery charge.

The S9 will be available in three different capacities including 4GB/8GB/16GB. A top-of-the line 32GB version too is on the anvil.

The PMP backs up AVI, WMV video formats, Xvid, SP/ASP, WMV9 SP/MP video codecs and MP3, WMA, FLAC, OGG, WAV, APE of audio formats and MPEG1 Layer 1/2/3, WMA, FLAC, OGG Vorbis, OGG FLAC audio codecs.

The price has not been announced till now.

German luxury car maker Audi on Monday announced a special offer for its customers -- zero per cent financing and an extended four years warranty for A6 range in India.

"We like to provide our customers with maximum benefits and ensure that they get the best value from us," Audi India Managing Director Benolt Tiers said.

A6 range includes four variants--2.8 FSI, 3.2 FSI quattro, 2.7 TDI and 3.0 TDI quattro.

Last week, Audi said it is reducing prices of its models following a revision of excise duty and central value added tax

Going against the principle of network neutrality , Google has approached key internet carriers with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own content, reports WSJ .

If successful, Google users will be able to access the company's services faster than those who haven't paid up, defying the content providers' stance that all users have a right to equal network access.

Cable and phone companies operating data pipelines are supposed to treat all traffic the same, but Google's new proposal (openedge) would force their servers to be placed directly within the service provider's network. This setup would accelerate the speed of Google's service for its users.

However, major cable operators have been reluctant to forge a deal because of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) guidelines on network neutrality, according to the same source.

ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS in several states have been announced. Very soon India will go in general elections to elect its 15th Lok Sabha. In the past several elections, voting percentage has been the concern of those who want India to become a better democracy.

Higher voting percentage will indicate greater participation of citizen in the democratic process and thus enhance the strength of democracy. Thus all of us, who feel strongly about democratic traditions, must come forward and ensure greater voter turnout.
One of the problems in the way of higher voter turnout is the problem of immigrant population.

A large number of people work for central and state governments, private sector and thus have to live away from their home town where they are enrolled as voters. Some of them even get enrolled as voters in the towns where they are working but they don’t vote because they don’t feel a sense of belonging as they cannot identify with the politics and problems of that place.

Often state and central government employees working for elections outside their state are unable to vote as their names are not listed in the voters’ list. By enabling such people to vote will hike the voting percentage and subsequently create larger participation of people in the political process.

I think for this we should use a new system of voting.

1. The system will use National Informatics Centers (NIC) as voting centers. NIC has its offices in every district of the country and it may be opened at every place which is not a district headquarters but has a good number of immigrant populations.
2. Every Person who wants to vote for her/his constituency back home will apply at NIC office in area she/he is living, with his electoral voter identity card (EPIC) and thus will be registered at the place. His/her name will be omitted from voter list to be used at election day of her/his poling booth back home.
3. As soon as final list of candidates of the particular constituency is prepared, it will be loaded on election commission website with a layout for voting.
4. Those who are registered at an NIC office will visit the same carrying their EPIC and directed to a computer where they can vote for their constituency. A copy of their EPIC and a photo taken by the web cam while using computer will be saved and loaded on the website.
5. The system will use a password created by voter to vote so as to prevent bogus voting.
6. Data of such votes will be available for the use of concerned election office back home for finalizing election results.
   Such voting can be done after list of candidates are loaded on website to the day of counting in the concerned constituency.
7. Even those who are living in their constituencies may be offered the facility of early and late voting. Such voting may be offered between the time of final list of candidates are prepared and day of counting, barring five days around the voting day. Such voting must be stopped two days ahead of voting day and those who had already voted will be marked in voter lists to be sent to polling booth and resumed once polling data of polling day reaches NIC offices.

Polling centers of such voting will be made at NIC office and an observer from election commission could always be there to check irregularities.

This System may have some problems but I am sure once officials and civil society starts looking into this system, we may get a wonderful system of electronic voting which will ensure greater participation and stringer democracy.

ON JUNE 1, 14th Lok Sabha completed its four years and now we enter into election years. At a time when several political parties are gearing up for new alliances and several politicians are changing loyalties to get through the hurdles of general elections scheduled for next year, think what we are doing. Here we stands for every one who is citizen of India.

A blog has been created for awareness about our voting rights, to generate a simple thought that voting is not only our right but to use it, to use it properly is our duty.

Have you ever thought how important your vote is even if you did not choose to cast it? Just look at a possible statistics of a certain constituency

Number of candidates: Five or eight or 11 or anything
Percentage of Voting: 45 per cent
Candidate A : 32 per cent
Candidate B : 26 per cent
Candidate C : 19 per cent
And so on

You might say what is new in it? It’s the usual affair with the same candidate. ’A’ will win as ’A’ has secured more votes. Yes, its usual thing and it is the picture of almost every constituency. Now let’s take a look at statistics

Percentage of votes secured by ’A’ is 32, but it is 32 per cent of only those who went to vote. That means 32 per cent of 45 per cent of total voters, which is equal to 14.4 per cent. Let’s have a look on votes of top three candidates again

Candidate ’A’ : 32per cent of 45per cent : 14.4per cent
Candidate ’B’ : 26per cent of 45 per cent : 11.7 per cent
Candidate ’C’ : 19 per cent of 45 per cent : 08.5 per cent

Now this is the real picture. Candidate with 14 per cent votes won the election by some what good margin by defeating those who got 11.7 per cent and 8.5 per cent and so on. Now you may blame Indian voting system, which gives chance for such faults.

is it not known to you? Don’t you know from the first day that these are rules of the game and you knew that a candidate ’F’ is or may be a good candidate, but you never choose to let him get your support in form of votes. May be remaining 85.6 per cent people knew that ’A’ is someone who is not to be trusted, but most of them choose to stay away saying politics is dirty.

Yes, politics is dirty. And it is dirty because we choose it to be dirty.
It’s dirty because we don’t have the heart to take the responsibility.

It’s dirty because we could not perform simplest task given to us and that too only for our well being.

Do you know where your votes go when you don’t cast? Let me tell you, with not casting votes, you passively (actually actively) support people, ideologies and works you don’t like.

It’s coming soon, the voting day is not far, one more chance to perform simplest task assigned to us is just one year ahead. Are you prepared to perform your duty? Are you prepared to do something for what you have been blaming others for years?