Aligarh Muslim Univ. gets relief from Allahabad HC

 Allahabad High Court today dismissed a writ petition challenging the
decision to establish two new centers of Aligarh Muslim University at
Malaparam district of Kerala and Murshidabad district of West Bengal. The
division bench comprising of Chief Justice FI Rebello and Justice AP Sahi
held that there was nothing wrong in establishing the centers of University
when the same was duly approved by the President of India.

The writ petition was filed by ZK Faizan claiming that the University
administration intends to establish these centers only for generation of
revenue without any control over quality. The petitioner contended that the
courses were different not only in terms of fee structure but also in
respect to syllabus etc.

Senior counsels SMA Kazmi and Sunita Agrawal representing the university
argued that prior to issuance of order sanctioning the additional centers by
President of India thorough examination of reports related to the project
was made by the authorities and the same cannot be challenged merely on
someone’s apprehensions.

Dismissing the petition in view of due approval of President the bench
clarified that in case in future any corruption or malpractice comes to
light, a petition to challenge the same shall be maintainable.

India wealth to double in 5 yrs; may grow to $6.4 trillion

India's robust economic growth is likely to drive the country's fortune to a whopping $6.4 trillion in the next five years, reflecting a nearly two-fold jump from the country's current wealth, says a report. 

According to the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report published for the first time, the total wealth of India has trebled in a decade to $3.5 trillion. By 2015, the country's wealth could nearly double to $6.4 trillion. 

Besides, the global wealth, which stood at USD 195 trillion will rise by an impressive 61 per cent to $315 trillion by 2015, primarily driven by the robust economic expansion in the emerging markets. 

Interestingly, Asia Pacific boasts of more billionaires than Europe. There are over 1,000 billionaires globally, of which 500 are in North America, followed by 245 in Asia Pacific and 230 in Europe. 

Besides, the report said that there were 24 million high- net-worth individuals (HNIs), whose average wealth per adult stood in the range of $1-$50 million. China has over 800,000 HNIs, India has around 170,000 while rest of the Asia Pacific as over four million HNIs. 

Meanwhile, in terms of the countries generating maximum wealth, the US has emerged as the topper with the total of $54.6 trillion of household wealth followed by Japan at $21 trillion and China at $16.5 trillion. 

Notably, most parts of Asia Pacific - ranging from commodities-driven economies such as New Zealand and Australia to fast-growing emerging economies such as China, India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations - have recorded an exorbitant growth of 100 per cent to almost 400 per cent in average wealth per adult. 

This growth is much higher than the average global wealth per adult growth rate of 42 per cent. 

"The Report confirms that Asia Pacific countries, which now make up the bulk of the world's middle class of emerging consumers, are driving the growth of the world's wealth," Credit Suisse CEO (Asia Pacific) Osama Abbasi said. 

Also, the middle segment of the wealth, which is composed of one billion individuals whose average wealth per adult falls in the range of $10,000 to USD 1 million, is located in the fastest-growing economies of the world that hold one- sixth or $32 trillion of global wealth. 

In total, almost 60 per cent or 587 million individuals in the middle segment of the wealth pyramid are located in the Asia Pacific region. 

The report also pointed out that if historical-level growth trends continue, total household wealth in China could rise 111 per cent to $35 trillion by 2015, outstripping Japan to become the second highest in the world.

Another bagful of medals keeps India in second spot

India scooped up a bagful of three gold and as many silver and bronze medals to firmly remain in second spot behind leaders Australia in the Commonwealth Games on Thursday.

The three gold medals were garnered by the 25m and 10m men pistoliers with Gurpreet Singh being the common factor in both these pairs while Geeta grabbed the first gold in women's wrestling.

Gurpreet joined hands with Vijay Kumar to rake in the gold medal in the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol (pairs) event before combining well with Omkar Singh to clinch the 10m air pistol (pairs) title to become a double gold winner.

The shooting gold medals provided by the men's pistol wielders took the country's overall gold tally from the Dr Karni Singh range to 14, showing how much the marksmen and women have contributed in keeping India's flag flying high.

Grappler Geeta trounced her rival Emily Bensted of Australia in the 55 kg category final. She entered the gold medal round by defeating Lovina Odohi Edward of Nigeria, but her teammate - 63kg grappler Suman Kundu - lost in the semi-finals.

Men's double trap shooting ace Ronjon Sondhi got a silver medal along with the men's archery compound team and women's 48kg freestyle grappler Nirmala Devi.

The three bronze medals came in archery (women's team compound event), 77kg weightlifter Sudhir Kumar and Ashish Kumar, in men's gymnastics (floor exercise).

The day's haul of eight medals boosted India's overall tally to 14-11-8 and on course to their pre-Games target of achieving the runner-up spot behind overwhelming favourites Australia.

Australia were way ahead of the rest with 27-16-14 while England lagged behind in third place (8-15-10).

India struck gold early on the fourth day when marksmen Vijay Kumar and Gurpreet Singh clinched the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol (pairs) event before the men's and women's archery teams added to the medal tally with a silver and a bronze.

Kumar and Gurpreet together fired 1162 to bag the top prize in the pistol event ahead of Malaysia's Amir Hasan Hasli Izwan and Adzha Hafiz (1142) and Australian bronze medal winning duo of Bruce Quick and David Chapman (1125).

The Indian men's compound team lost to England by two points (229-231) in the gold medal-deciding match while the women defeated Malaysia by four points (223-219) in the corresponding event's bronze play-off tie. These were the first two medals for the country from the archery range.

The other two bronze medals were claimed by men's 77kg weightlifter Sudhir Kumar and gymnast Ashish Kumar, an unexpected one, in the floor exercise.

The Indian men's archery outfit gave a hard time to their English rivals before losing narrowly in the final.

The trio of Bheigyabati Chanu, Jhano Hansdah and Gagandeep won the bronze in the women's compound archery team event beating Malaysia 223-219 in a thrilling third place play-off tie that went to the wire.

Needing five points to clinch the bronze with one arrow left, Indians won the thrilling clash between the two Asian nations Hansdah showed nerves of steel to calmly fire an 8-pointer to haul in the country's first medal in the bow and arrow competition.

The Indians went out of contention for the gold by losing to Canada in the semi-finals while Malaysia failed to make the grade after losing to England in the other semi-final.

But world champion Tejaswini Sawant and Lajja Gauswami fell by the wayside in the 50m rifle 3 position singles.

"We are happy with our performance. All of us held our nerves in pressure situation to clinch the bronze," Chanu said after clinching the team bronze.

Indian challenge continued to remain strong in table tennis, tennis and badminton.

The women's team made it to the final of the table tennis championship by defeating England in the semi finals.

Men's tennis top seed Somdev Devvarman inched closer to a medal in the singles with a 6-3 6-4 win over sixth seed Rubin Statham of New Zealand.

Ace Indian shuttlers Chetan Anand and Saina Nehwal notched up contrasting wins as India thrashed Canada 3-0 to set up a semifinal clash with England in the mixed badminton team event.

Mixed doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and V Diju just took 19 minutes to make short work of NG Toby and Gao Grace 21-8 21-12 in the first match of the day to give India a 1-0 lead.

Saina then sealed the issue in India's favour with a 21-16 21-13 victory over her one-time doubles partner Anna Rice in the women's singles.

But glitches continued to dog the Games with the organisers confronted with the problem of several swimmers, mostly from the England contingent, complaining of pool-related sickness.

With reports emerging that the Games swimming pool may be contaminated, leading to an increase of athletes in the sick bay, the organisers were Thursday left to do some emergency fire-fighting at the customary morning press conference.

Commonwealth Games Federation chief Michael Fennell and Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi promised an inquiry and a solution by Thursday.

"We are ensuring that the water quality is tested. We don't have specific reports about illnes. We must find this out immediately. we have to deal with it. It needs some urgency," he said, while responding to a query whether they would postpone the day's finals.

US green card's now more of a tax sword for Indians

 Is the American dream losing its appeal? Though the US still continues to attract the best minds from the world over, including India, stringent tax laws are forcing many Indians to re-look at the decision to settle in a land that has for long been their dream destination . 

This is reflected by the increasing number of Indians wanting to give up their green cards or US citizenship after the country’s heavy budgetary deficit and a drive to trace unreported income through tighter tax laws and disclosure norms. 

Tax laws in the US empower the Internal Revenue Service, the apex body for US tax administration, to tax global incomes of those holding US citizenships or the green card. As a result, Indians who hold a US citizenship or green card, face the threat of being taxed in the US for income generated in India, even if the Indian business has no territorial nexus with the US. 

For example, many Indians in the US send money back home, which is invested in the stock market in India, where dividend and long-term capital gains are tax exempt. 

Nevertheless, they are liable to pay tax in the US for income generated in India. According to reports published internationally, over 500 US citizens had given up citizenship in the last quarter of 2009, to settle in convenient destinations. This figure was almost double the number of people who severed ties with the US in 2008. 

“It’s is true that several clients are giving up US citizenships,” said Sudhir Kapadia, a partner with consulting major Ernst & Young. “A major reason is the stringent tax laws. With rising budgetary deficits, their tax laws are increasingly becoming stringent. And more such laws are in the offing. From 2011, Inheritance Tax, at the rate of 20%, would be levied on heirs of US citizens. Many Indians are wary of such laws,” Mr Kapadia said. 

There is another side to this development. Even if a person is not residing in the US, he is liable to pay tax if he holds a green card or has citizenship. In other countries, for example India, a person is bound to pay tax in the country if he resides there for more than 182 days in a year. However, the number of days a taxpayer resides in the country is irrelevant for the purpose of taxation in the US. What matters is whether he holds US citizenship or a green card. 

Although these laws have been in force for some time, it was only two years back that the US government decided to strictly enforce them after the government detected unreported accounts of US citizens with the Swiss bank, UBS. Ever since, the US administration has initiated the project to collect as much data as possible about the global income of US citizens not reported to the Internal Revenue Service. 

“For many Indians who hold green card or have US citizenship, America has ceased to be attractive,” said Dilip Lakhani, a Mumbai-based senior chartered accountant, who advises green-card holders doing business in India. “Many do not know they have to pay tax in the US for their Indian income. If they continue ignoring the requirement, they may land up in jail in the US. My advise to them is to comply with the US laws.” Defaulters will be in jail for at least six months. 

A number of chartered accountants, who don’t want to be identified, said they have even advised their clients against going to the US for delivery of children. “These are from well-to-do clients for whom US tax laws would become a liability later in life. Most of them complied with the advice,” said a chartered accountant. Indians with green card or citizenship in US also find having to reporting foreign accounts with deposits of $10,000 or more 
highly irksome.

US, Japanese researchers win Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Richard F. Heck of the US and Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki of Japan have been awarded this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry, it was announced in Stockholm Wednesday.

The trio won for their work in the development of 'palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis', a chemical tool used for creating advanced chemicals, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

Among its uses are carbon-based molecules that are as complex as those created by nature.

Heck, who was born in 1931, is professor emeritus at the University of Delaware in the US.

Negishi, born 1935, is chemistry professor at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana in the US, while Suzuki, born 1930, is professor emeritus at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan.

The chemistry prize is the third Nobel prize to be announced this year.

Russian-born scientists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov Tuesday shared the physics prize.

On Monday, the medicine prize was awarded to British researcher Robert Edwards a pioneer of in-vitro fertilisation.

Playing with Firewalls

Few senior business executives would need to have taken one of the Millennium Trilogy of bestselling novels by Stieg Larsson with them on holiday this summer to become fully aware of the threat of cyber crime.According to the Security Tracking Study carried out by the Ponemon Institute in August this year, 83% of multinational companies believe they have been the target of a cyber attack over the past 12 months. The research noted a 20.6% rise in attacks in the past year alone. PricewaterhouseCoopers believes 92% of firms have experienced a malicious security breach at some time.Once something that only governments and the military had to worry about, cyber attacks are on the rise in the private sector thanks to the increased use of internet-enabled devices in the workplace that has left companies vulnerable to a new breed of cyber criminals.

According to Alastair MacWillson, managing director of Accenture's security practice, cyber security has become a growing area of concern for clients. "Some of it is driven by hype, but a lot of it is genuine," he says.A decade ago, many hackers were motivated by the notoriety they could gain from creating and launching a successful virus. But today's cyber criminals are better resourced, more sophisticated and are much more difficult to track down. Mr. MacWillson says: "The internet is a great place to connect crime: It is shared and integrated, offering anonymity and lack of traceability."Dr. Stefan Fafinski, a visiting fellow at Oxford University's Internet Institute, says: "There has been a marked rise in targeted attacks. We can speculate that the economic downturn is giving rise to alternative forms of acquisitive crime."

It is also making cyber criminality much easier. Zeus Trojan starter packs can be bought online for around $700, allowing the buyer to create their own malicious computer program, or malware, which they can unleash on the internet. Some hackers are doing so for kicks; others for monetary gain.Greg Day, director of security strategy atMcafee, says: "Cyber crime is organized, from groups with religious purposes, to those targeting specific things within an organization." This can include sensitive company information such as employee data, financial accounts and customer details.

One of the most recent and notorious targeted attacks was Operation Aurora, which affected the likes of Google, Adobe and Microsoft. The attack was believed to have originated in China and was aimed at obtaining intellectual property.

In July, a number of high street banks in the UK were struck by the Zeus Trojan virus, which cannot be detected by traditional firewalls and security software. In under a month, almost £700,000 was stolen from 3,000 online customer accounts. This attack stemmed from cyber gangs in Eastern Europe"Many organizations are w orried, not just because of financial loss, but breach of privacy, loss of intellectual property and reputation", says Mr. MacWillson.

Security experts say that different methods can be used to compromise companies depending on the motive of the attackers. Aurora, which took advantage of a vulnerability in Internet Explorer 6, was classed as an Advanced Persistent Threat – a hacking attack aimed at gaining continual information. They tend to lie dormant for a while, perhaps even months, before they surface. Attacks like Zeus, however, are deployed mainly for financial gain. They are designed to spread quickly and cause as much damage as possible.

One of the main reasons why businesses have become more vulnerable is the proliferation of new technologies and the growing dependence on IT. Businesses are moving away from the linear and static IT infrastructure and are becoming more flexible with different methods of computing.

"The distinction between business and home computing is becoming blurred, which is making businesses vulnerable," says Dr. Fafinski. Attackers are taking advantage of this, mainly through client-side software. He adds: "The vulnerabilities in applications greatly exceed those in Operating Systems and have been exploited in the past as a means of compromising access."

Applications like Adobe Flash, PDF or Internet Explorer are frequently targeted by attackers. According to the Symantec quarterly report for the Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the top web-based attack from April to June was related to malicious PDF activity, which accounted for 42% of total attacks.

Adobe is not alone, according to Mark Miller, director of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing. He says: "There are thousands of applications development companies who are in competitive markets with limited resources and significant competitive pressures. In order to make revenue in that kind of environment, products have to be released quickly with more features. Therefore security is not the number one issue as, traditionally, applications haven't been a route for attack."

As businesses continue to incorporate new technologies and increase productivity, the opportunities for threats increase. Platforms like social networks, cloud computing and smartphones have all caught the attention of attackers. Marcus Alldrick, senior manager for information risk and protection at Llyod's of London, says: "Combining social networking and social engineering is also a growing risk. An attack like Aurora can identify employees of a large corporation and then socially engineer information from them."

Smartphone Threat

Mr. Day says: "The smartphone threat will take off at some point when they become more web-enabled". Research by Gartner suggests that by 2013, mobile phones will overtake personal computers as the most common web access device worldwide. Over half of employees download applications without considering the security implications. Attacking smartphones will enable criminals to gain access to company emails and documents.A more imminent threat than smartphones is cloud computing. According to Mr. Gartner, 20% of businesses will not have their own IT infrastructure by 2012. Companies have become more comfortable with handing over their data to third parties. While some cloud providers offer very high levels of security, the lack of control over company data can be disconcerting and the current absence of standardized regulation has deterred many businesses.

The average cost of an attack is $3.6 million according to Ponemon. In 2008, the Congressional Research Service announced that the economic global impact of cyber attacks on businesses had grown to over $226 billion annually. The most devastating being attacks on critical infrastructure.

But the loss of intellectual property and reputation that can result from an attack may have a even more devastating impact than a short-term monetary loss. Paul Bantick, a liability underwriter at Lloyd's insurer Beazley, says: "The better you deal with the breach, the less the liability down the road."

The consequences of an attack can be difficult to predict and handling the situation can be troublesome. The U.S. has a more sophisticated legal framework in place to handle cases of data loss. But besides Germany and Spain, Europe is still "catching up" according to Mr. Bantick. "The biggest damage if you lose client data is PR damage," he says. This has given rise to service-based insurance coverage with large excess amount to spend on public relations.

Data protection has therefore become a business issue and not just a technology concern. Research carried out by Accenture showed that 73% of organizations believe they have adequate policies in place to protect sensitive information, yet more than half have lost sensitive data within the past two years. And for over half of this group, data loss is a recurring problem.

While some attacks are targeted, most of the time, it is just bad luck. Employee negligence is one of the most common causes of security breaches. Advanced Persistent Threats can, for example, easily be deployed through infected USB memory sticks.

The challenges facing companies are as much logistical as they are financial. It will take a large firm a long time to roll out security measures, patch vulnerabilities and lock down all devices used for work purposes. Data is being shared across many platforms without standardized rules and regulations and the inconsistencies in legislation are being exploited by cyber criminals.

And yet, according to Accenture, only around 8% of organizations have good security in place. Businesses need to update security software, encrypt data and be aware of data flow.

But nothing is risk-free. Dr. Fafinksi says: "The problem is that new vulnerabilities are being created all the time and there will always be a window of opportunity for cyber criminals."

UFO Over China Sets Another Mystery

UFOs have always been a fascination for millions of people all over the world and now, it appears to be a ‘boom time’ for UFOs in China. In the eight such incident since June this year, yet another UFO was spotted over the Baotou airport in China’s Inner Mongolia province, forcing the authorities to shut down operations for more than one hour.According to Shanxi News Net, it was near midnight on Sept. 22 as Gu and his friend were taking photos of the beautiful moonlight view of the ancient Pingyao City in north China’s Shanxi Province, when Gu noticed a bright spot in his photo. He first thought it was a star, but could not find a star in that position when he carefully looked back up into the sky. Enlarging the photo, Gu found the bright spot was a flat object with two flashlight-like beams behind it.The UFO over China was also previously seen at these same airports. However, the government of China attributes the UFO over China to military exercises.