The United Nations announced that population of the world would hit 7 billion on Monday, October 31 but the birth place of world’s 7 billionth baby was not known.

A baby born at 7:20 am in Mal, 20 km from Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh is reported to be the world’s 7 billionth baby. An NGO is planning to announce this news at international level.

Uttar Pradesh is India’s most populous state and it is estimated that 11 children are born every minute.

A baby girl named Nargis born to Ajay and Vineeta has been named the symbolic 7 billionth baby.

In the meantime, Philippines also has welcomed the world’s symbolic 7 billionth baby. A child was delivered just before midnight on Sunday and top United Nations Officials have met the baby and parents. A small cake was presented for the child. Parents has also been gifted a scholarship grant for the child’s study and a livelihood package by the local benefactors.

India is not supposed to be very happy with this news because it will become world’s most populous country by 2025 if birth rate will continue be the same.

Currently India and China are known to be the world’s most populous country but China has started controlling its population but India’s is unable to control it.

A study has been done about sex ratio in India and China and it was found that there is a huge gap between number of male and females in these countries.

Now a days parent comes to know easily through ultra sound that if they have male child in mother’s womb or female and mostly people prefers to keep male child and abort the female child.

In India also mostly people likes to keep boys. Even in China parent are allowed to give birth to one baby so they generally use sex-detection device to know if they will have baby boy or baby girl. Most of the parents in China prefer to keep baby boy. It is resulting huge gap between sex ratio.

Research revealed that in most of the countries a good sex ratio is found such as 106 males and 104 females but in Asian countries gap is quite big. A researcher says, “Postnatal discrimination – expressed through excess deaths among female infants and young girls – has not entirely disappeared from several countries and reflects the relative neglect of female children”.

It is also reported that if the gap will be continued then after 10 years Indian and Chinese man will face problem of finding a female to marry and most of the males will be bachelor.

India will launch Akash tablet computing device by November end. It will be World’s cheapest tablet computer and it is priced at Rs.2,276.
Suneet Singh Tuli, chief executive of Data Wind which is manufacturing the tablet said, “We plan to launch the commercial variant of the device somewhere in late-November.”

Akash tablet will be given to student on a reasonable price but its commercial price would be higher but details are not known yet.

“It would be a bit higher, but very competitive to anything that is available around the world,” Tuli said.

Data Wind is expecting a customer base of around 1,00,000 customers per month who will buy tablet on some higher price.

“I am hoping for nearly 1,00,000 customers per month for my tab which may be priced around Rs 2,500-3,000.”

Tuli also said that they will increase company’s manufacturing facilities.

“We have to eventually increase the capacity to 1,00,000 units in the coming time to meet the demand.”

Akash tablet manufacturing company will also need to develop a new facility for fulfilling costumers demand.

“Our basic plan is to provide the ‘tab’ to the Indian market first, but the demand is so high that we need to develop a new facility altogether and we are scouting for a location.”

Akash tablet computer will also be sold to other countries. Kapil Sibal also talked about the possibility of its export. Tuli said, “No doubt it’s a great product. But our first priority is to provide it in India and then the rest of the world.”

Company also talked about the possibility of a new tablet which will cost only $10 and will be made with the help of local components.
“We need to have more local components. And with the production expansion that we plan, we believe that Indian component manufacturers would soon see the opportunity, thus reducing our prices.”

Currently Akash tablet has been made with using around 35 per cent component from South Korea, 25 per cent from China, 16 from the US, 16 from India and rest from around the world.

While talking to press, company’s official said that base version of the tablet for students will come in partnership with telecommunication service provider Aircel.

“We have tied-up with Aircel for the product. They will provide the network to access the 3G-internet service.”

An old age home is ready for gay men in the Gujarat state of India and it is a kind of first centre in Asia.

This old age home has been built in Hanmenteshwar village which is located on the banks of Narmada river and was inaugurated yesterday.

It has been named after late American writer Janet who gave lots of donation to complete the project.

The main architect behind this project is Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil and he said, “I decided to name it after Janet as she had contributed a lot in its set up. She was like any other ordinary person… and that added more beauty to the project, which was initiated in 2009.”

Janet’s sister Carlafine flew down from US with her husband to inaugurate the centre built for gay.

Architect Gohil belongs to a royal family and is the only person in modern India who has revealed about himself in the public as a gay.

“The home can accommodate 50 elderly homosexuals,” said Gohil.

Gohil has founded Lakshya Trust, a community-based organisation which gives support and also promotes HIV/AIDS prevention among gay men. Old age home project was also developed under the Lakshya Trust.

Gohil believes that this project will help and allow people to understand that people from different sexual orientation can live peacefully.

He said that a priest who lives near the centre attended the inauguration ceremony along with his family which seems a good sign and it is a start of changing mindsets. He was happy to see changes coming in the society.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressed the 15th National Integration Council (NIC) meeting in Delhi today. He talked about terrorism and naxalism which are the two main challenges faced by people and polity of country.

Dr. Singh said: “The problems of terrorism and Left Wing Extremism constitute two major challenges that our society and polity face today. The terrorist attack in Delhi last Wednesday is a stark reminder to us that there can be no let up in our vigilance.”

He further said: “Time and again our nation has been subjected to terrorist violence. Terrorists seek to justify such violence based on misplaced sense of ideology. The institutions and instruments of our democratic polity allow sufficient opportunity for articulating differing points of view without recourse to violence.”

“No civilized society can tolerate or endorse loss of innocent lives in the pursuit of any ideology. This council must unequivocally send out a message that pursuit of violence cannot be justified under any circumstance and reaffirm our collective resolve to fight the menace of terrorism in all its manifestations with all the means at our disposal,” Dr. Singh said.

Emphasizing on the need of strengthening and upgrading the India’s intelligence gathering apparatus, Dr Singh said, “The terrorist attack in Delhi last Wednesday is a stark reminder to us that there can be no let up in our vigilance. We must strengthen our investigative agencies and upgrade our intelligence gathering apparatus.”

Prime minister is addressing this issue three days after the blast done outside the Delhi High Court which killed 13 people and around 91 are injured. So far NIA is not able to find the actual accused of the blast and four emails have received which are claiming the responsibility of the blast.

According to an official spokesman, the agenda for today’s NIC meeting included “measures to curb communalism and communal violence and approach to the Communal Violence Bill”.

He also talked about other subjects such as sensitive land acquisition issue, terrorism, naxalism, economy and inflation.

Before delivering his speech PM Manmohan Singh inspected guard of honour of Indian troops.
Schoolchildren were also present there wearing raincoats and were listening PM’s speech

Find here few stills of India’s Independence Day celebration.

Since this report has been published by WHO, It is being researched if they have used India’s suicide capital of Puducherry as a model for mapping India’s depression rate.

The National Crime Records Bureau has compiled statistics which indicates that Puducherry, Union territory has the highest suicide rate in India at 47.2% as against the national average of 10.2%.

Psychiatrist Dr Harish Shetty said, “India is too diverse to arrive at such a statistic using Puducherry as the yardstick.”

On Monday, Bangalore-based National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (Nimhans) are against the report given by WHO. They called it as, “highly inflated figures”.

The Union health ministry too is not agreed with their figures. Jagdish Kaur from the ministry of health has been quoted as saying, “It’s a scientific data presented as a statistical data, and it is misinterpreted, because that is only Puducherry data and not pan India.”

Dr Jitendra Nagpal of Delhi-based Vimhans, however, has different views. He asked, “We usually look at isolated cases of depression. But what about patients with multiple sclerosis, stroke, Parkinson’s disease, heart diseases who are depressed because of their condition.”

There are medical books which indicate that 2% of the new mothers suffer from the post-partum depression. “But in various hospitals, doctors will now tell you that over 20% new mothers are affected,” said Dr Nagpal.

Dr Shetty said, “We have to take the WHO report as a wake-up call for the state to focus our energy on mental health.”

US car-maker Ford has planned to do its second investment in India. They announced on Thursday that Rs.4,000 crore will be invested to set up another ford manufacturing facility in India with an initial installed capacity of 2.4 lakh units annually.

Presently, this company is in India through wholly-owned subsidiary Ford India and setting its second facility in the large space of 460-acre located at Sanand, Gujarat state of India.

There will be an engine plant with an installed capacity of 2.7 lakh units annually. Their investment will provide job to around 5,000 people in Gujarat.

Ford India said in a statement, “Ford will invest approximately Rs. 4,000 crore (approximately $1 billion) in the two facilities, which include stamping, body, paint and assembly operations for vehicle manufacturing, as well as machining and assembly operations for engine manufacturing.”

They further said that the vehicle assembly unit and the engine plant will have initial production capacities of 2.4 lakh units and 2.7 lakh units, respectively.

The statement said, they will start construction of both plants later this year and it is scheduled to be operationalised in 2014.

Ford President and CEO (Asia Pacific and Africa) Joe Hinrichs said, “We are delighted to announce that Ford’s newest vehicle manufacturing site will be here in Gujarat.

“Ford has very aggressive expansion plans in India and in Asia Pacific and Africa, and these two new plants will be important in realising our growth strategy here in one of the most dynamic regions in the world.”

They also explained why they selected Gujarat. Due to its pro-business environment, infrastructure, access to ports in North Western India and skilled workforce.

The company said that now Ford’s total investment in the country will increase to about $2 billion

In Chennai, company has its manufacturing and engine facility. More than 10,000 people are employed in India across in its manufacturing, global business services and IT operations.

Hinrichs said, “This is an investment in the future of Ford globally. These new state-of-the-art facilities will help us reach the goal of increasing worldwide sales by nearly 50 per cent by mid-decade to about 8 million vehicles per year.”

By the middle of this decade, they have planned to introduce over 50 new vehicles and powertrains to the Asia Pacific and African region. Over the next ten years, it is expected that 60-70 percent of Ford’s growth will come from this region.

India had a nuclear deal with South Korea on Monday. Both the country signed a civil nuclear agreement. Due to this agreement, North-east country has got an entry into India’s nuclear energy sector. It is the ninth country with whom India has done nuclear deal. Indian President Pratibha Patil and South Korean President Lee Myung Bak signed this deal in Seoul.

South Korean President termed this deal as “historic” and it would act as “a milestone, demonstrating that our two countries have now truly become strategic partners.”

Negotiation was done three times for this agreement and last one was done in December. As far as India is concerned, this deal carried the least amount of historical nuclear “baggage”. Officials who were involved in the negotiations for this agreement described them as “clear, pragmatic and smooth”. This deal was always supposed to be an easier sell than the deal between India and Japan.

It was South Korea’s ambitions to enter the Indian energy market. Now due to this agreement South Korea will be able to export its nuclear energy technology to India.

For India, this deal has done on right time because it was struggling to keep up its energy supply to fulfil the increased demand.

Analysts said that this is very good deal and both the country will be benefited because India wanted to increase its nuclear energy market and Korea was looking for exporting its technology.

Rajiv Biswas of IHS Global Insight said, “South Korea has a lot of technology in energy infrastructure which they can help India with.”

He added, “It also recognises India as a key future market. This is a very big opportunity for them to expand into the emerging economies.

All in all, it is a very positive deal for both the nations.”

The head of erstwhile royal family is renounced any personal claim to billions of dollars’ worth of ancient treasure found in a Vishnu’s temple in the kingdom his ancestors once ruled.

K.K. Venugopal, a lawyer who is representing the erstwhile rulers of the Travancore princely in Kerala said,”The royal family is not claiming anything. No part belongs to the family.”

This statement was made in the Supreme Court in New Delhi, which is putting efforts to establish ownership of the wealth recovered at the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in the state capital Thiruvananthapuram.

Venugopal said the head of the Travancore family, believed the treasure “should be used judiciously for religious and social purposes” such as building schools and hospitals. He added, “The artifacts may be kept in a museum independent of the temple.”

The temple is dedicated to god Vishnu and was built hundreds of years ago by the king of Travancore. Devotees donations have been kept in the temple’s vaults since that time.

So far discovered wealth have been estimated at between 500 billion and one trillion rupees ($11-22 billion).

This temple has become India’s richest temple.