Monday, 25 February 2013

ipl squads.......


DELHI

        
MOHALI
        
David MillerGurkeerat Singh Mann
Luke PomersbachManan Vohra
Mandeep SinghPaul Valthaty
Shaun MarshSiddharth Chitnis
Sunny SinghAniket Choudhary
Bhargav BhattHarmeet Bansal
Manpreet GonyParvinder Awana
Piyush ChawlaPraveen Kumar
Ryan HarrisAzhar Mahmood
Bipul SharmaDavid Hussey
Dimitri MascarenhasRajagopal Sathish
Adam Gilchrist
Nitin Saini
KOLKATA
        
Debabrata DasEoin Morgan
Gautam GambhirManoj Tiwary
Brett LeeIqbal Abdulla
James PattinsonLakshmipathy Balaji
Pradeep SangwanSarabjit Ladda
Shami AhmedSunil Narine
Jacques KallisLaxmi Shukla
Rajat BhatiaRyan McLaren
Ryan ten DoeschateSachithra Senanayake
Shakib Al HasanYusuf Pathan
Brad HaddinBrendon McCullum
Manvinder Bisla
MUMBAI
        
Aiden BlizzardAmitoze Singh
Phillip HughesRicky Ponting
Rohit SharmaSachin Tendulkar
Suryakumar YadavAbu Nechim
Dhawal KulkarniHarbhajan Singh
Jalaj SaxenaLasith Malinga
Mitchell JohnsonMunaf Patel
Nathan Coulter-NilePawan Suyal
Pragyan OjhaRishi Dhawan
Yuzvendra ChahalDwayne Smith
Glenn MaxwellJacob Oram
James FranklinKieron Pollard
Aditya TareAmbati Rayudu
Dinesh Karthik
Sushant Marathe
PUNE
        
Anustup MajumdarDheeraj Jadhav
Harpreet Singh BhatiaManish Pandey
Marlon SamuelsMichael Clarke
Mithun ManhasRobin Uthappa
Ross TaylorTamim Iqbal
Tirumalasetti SumanUdit Birla
Ajantha MendisAlfonso Thomas
Ali MurtazaAshok Dinda
Bhuvneshwar KumarIshwar Pandey
Kane RichardsonKrishnakant Upadhyay
Murali KartikRahul Sharma
Shrikant WaghWayne Parnell
Abhishek NayarAngelo Mathews
Luke WrightMitchell Marsh
Parvez RasoolRaiphi Gomez
Steven SmithYuvraj Singh
Eklavya Dwivedi
Mahesh Rawat
JAIPUR
        

WTA ranking: Venus Williams makes top 20 return.......

Former world no.1 Venus Williams has returned to the top 20 in the latest WTA rankings published on Monday that sees her sister Serena stay on top ahead of Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova.

Venus, 32, climbed to 20th spot, despite not winning more points, as Germany's Julia Goerges dropped to 24th.

In other movements, former world no.1 Jelena Jankovic, of Serbia, rose three places to 21st after winning the Bogota Open on Sunday -- her first victory since 2010 and the 13th of her career.

In the top 10, Czech player Petra Kvitova jumped one place to seventh after her victory in Dubai against Italy's Sara Errani, who dropped to eighth.

Latest WTA world rankings:


1. Serena Williams (USA) 10.365 pts

2. Victoria Azarenka (BLR) 10.325

3. Maria Sharapova (RUS) 9715

4. Agnieszka Radwanska (POL) 7505

5. Li Na (CHN) 6130

6. Angelique Kerber (GER) 5400

7. Petra Kvitova (CZE) 4980 (+1)

8. Sara Errani (ITA) 4915 (-1)

9. Samantha Stosur (AUS) 3835

10. Caroline Wozniacki (DEN) 3570

11. Marion Bartoli (FRA) 3265

12. Nadia Petrova (RUS) 3050

13. Ana Ivanovic (SRB) 2836

14. Dominika Cibulkova (SVK) 2695 (+1)

15. Maria Kirilenko (RUS) 2671 (-1)

16. Roberta Vinci (ITA) 2665 (+1)

17. Sloane Stephens (USA) 2535 (-1)

18. Lucie Safarova (CZE) 2065

19. Ekaterina Makarova (RUS) 1950

20. Venus Williams (USA) 1810 (+1)

Alleged spy accused of sharing 'Iron Fist' info with Pakistan..........

Jodhpur: Barely two days after the conclusion of Indian Air Force's air exercise 'Iron Fist' in Pokhran, a suspected spy has been caught passing information of the war games to an ISI operative in Pakistan.

Sumer Khan (34), a computer expert, was taken into custody by army intelligence from his house in Pokhran on Sunday and was being grilled by security agencies, SP Jaisalmer Pankaj Kumar Chaudhary said on Monday.

Intelligence sources said that Mr Sumer was sharing information of the IAF's exercise with his maternal uncle in Rahim Yar Khan in Pakistan for the past few days. His uncle has been working for Inter-Services Intelligence for the last few years, they said.
Mr Sumer is currently under the custody of the Joint Interrogation Cell in Jaipur where the security agencies are questioning him.

The sources said he was caught after his calls to Pakistan were intercepted by the army intelligence and Intelligence Bureau.

They claimed that Mr Sumer had been working for his uncle for the past two years and had been sharing vital information related to all the exercises, which have taken place in the region in the past two years besides the various defence installations in the region.

Following interception of his calls to Pakistan, he was caught from his home in Pokhran on Sunday morning.

A 10th class passout, Mr Sumer is an expert in computers and would talk to his uncle over phone in code words.

He would frequently travel to Pakistan and is believed to have passed on maps and other documents pertaining to defence structure in the western sector. 

PSLV-C20 blasts off from Sriharikota.......

The 23rd Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) mission, the PSLV-C20, with the 409 kg Indo-French Joint Venture satellite Saral (Satellite with ARgos and ALtika) along with six auxiliary satellites, has blasted off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh at 6.01 pm.

The launch was delayed by five minutes from the actual launch time of 5.56 PM to avoid any debris in the flight path.

President Pranab Mukherjee witnessed the launch of 101th mission of ISRO.

It may be noted that the organisation had plans to launch Saral, in December 2012, which was then postponed to conduct some additional tests to address technical issues for ensuring reliability.

Saral is the first mission under Indian Mini Satellite (IMS) Bus series-2, configured for 400 KG class satellite with miniaturisation techniques.

The Saral mission, a joint venture of ISRO and French space agency Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), has two payloads- Payload Interface Module (PIM) containing ALtika and ARgos from CNES and Solid State C Band Transponder (SCBT) from VSSC, ISRO - to study the ocean from space using altimetry system and in promoting maximum use of the ARgos Data Collecting System.  

The six smaller payloads include two from Canada, two from Austria and one each from Denmark and UK.

Sapphire (148 Kg), a satellite built by MacDonald, Dettwiler and Association (MDA), Canada, is a space based optical sensor system aimed at an operationally acceptable space based surveillance to contribute to the US Space Surveillance Network (SSN).

NEOSSat (Near-Earth Object Surveillance Satellite) (74 kg) is built by Microsat Systems Canada Inc (MSCI). The Satellite has a space telescope dedicated for detecting and tracking asteroids and satellites in Geo-stationary orbit.  

NLS 8.1 (UniBRITE) (14 Kg) and NLS 8.2 (BRITE) (14 Kg) are two scientific satellites launched and operated by Austria. UniBRITE is built for the University of Vienna with a mission to photometrically measure low-level oscillations and temperature variations in stars brighter than visual magnitude with unprecedented precision and temporal coverage not achievable through terestrial based methods, BRITE is similar to the UniBRITE spacecraft, with the expectation of the optical flter within the payload, which is used to observe the blue region of the light spectrum.

NLS 8.3 (AAUSAT3) (3Kg) is the third student cubesat from Aalborg University in Denmark, which has device for feasibility study of receiving AIS signals from ships in arctic regions and a Phoenix GPS receiver from DLR, Germany.

The vehicle also carried STRaND-1, the first satellite in the series of Surrey Training, Research and Nanosatellite Development programme, built by SSTL (Surrey Training Technology Ltd), UK, to fly state-of-the art technologies and new developments in low Earth orbit.

This is the ninth mission of ISRO using PSLV Core Alone variant (without solid strap-on motors). There had been 21 continuously successful flights of PSLV, till September 2012, according to ISRO.

The Space Research Organisation has launched its 100th mission on September 9, 2012, launching PSLV-C21 taking a French satellite Spot-6 and a Japanese student satellite Proiteres into space from Sriharikota. The missions include 62 satellites, 37 launch vehicles and one space capsule recovery experiment.

PSLV-C20 launches 7 satellites....

Indo-French oceanographic study satellite 'SARAL' and six foreign mini and micro spacecrafts were succesfully launched on Monday by ISRO's PSLV-C20 rocket from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.

Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) workhorse Polar Satellite Launch 
Vehicle(PSLV) lifted off from the first launch pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre at around 6 pm at the end of the 59-hour countdown and placed in the orbit the satellites about 22 minutes later.
President Pranab Mukherjee witnessed the launch from the mission control centre in Sriharikota, about 110 km from Chennai.
The lift-off was rescheduled to 6.01 pm, a five-minute delay, to avoid probability of collision with space debris, a normal precautionary step in a launch mission, ISRO sources said.
The 410-kg SARAL with payloads - Argos and Altika - from French space agency CNES is meant for study of ocean parameters towards enhancing the understanding of the ocean state conditions.
Besides SARAL, two micro-satellites UniBRITE and BRITE from Austria, AAUSAT3 from Denmark and STRaND from United Kingdom as also one micro-satellite (NEOSSat) and one mini-satellite (SAPPHIRE) from Canada were launched by PSLV, which yet again proved its versatality recording its 22nd succesful flight in a row in its 23 missions of which the first one had failed.
SARAL was injected first into the space about 18 minutes after the lift-off followed by other satellites in the space of about four minutes.

PSLV: India's 101st space mission successful, President Pranab Mukherjee witnesses launch........


New Delhi:  In an important landmark for the Indian space program, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle or PSLV today placed the second Indo-French satellite 'SARAL' and six other co-passengers or small satellites from Canada, Austria, Denmark and the UK in orbit.
Here's a 10-point cheat-sheet on the launch:
  1. The PSLV-C20, which was earlier slated for blast-off at around 6 pm local time from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, was delayed by five minutes.
  2. President Pranab Mukherjee witnessed the launch, the first of the 10 planned events of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) this year. Mr Mukherjee is the second President after Dr APJ Abdul Kalam to witness a PSLV launch; Dr Kalam was present in Sriharikota during one such launch on May 5, 2005.
  3. It is the 23rd consecutive launch for the 44-metre-tall rocket; it sequentially dropped off the satellites in space in less than half an hour after the lift-off. Later this year, a similar rocket will ferry India's maiden mission to Mars, Mangalyaan.
    1. PSLV has an impeccable record of 21 consecutive successful flights. The successful launch takes ISRO's tally of launching foreign satellites to 35.
    2. The ISRO-built SARAL is a 410-kg satellite with payloads - Argos and Altika - from French space agency CNES for enhancing the understanding of the ocean state conditions.
    3. Altimetre (Altika) would help study the sea surface heights while Argos payload is a satellite-based data collection platform. The satellite will also be useful in tracking resident space objects, including space debris.
    4. ISRO started putting into space third-party satellites for a fee in 1999 on its PSLV-C2 rocket. Since then India has been successful in launching medium-weight satellites for overseas agencies.
    5. Initially, ISRO started carrying third-party satellites atop its rockets as co-passengers of its own remote sensing/earth observation satellites.
    6. Later in 2007, ISRO launched an Italian satellite Agile as a standalone luggage for a fee.
    7. India began its space journey in 1975 with the launch of Aryabhatta using a Russian rocket and till date, it has completed 100 missions.

another milestone by MSD....

attitude........

pslv c-20 successfully launched.......

PSLV launch: India's 101st space mission set for 6 pm lift-off............


New Delhi:  In an important landmark for the Indian space program, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle or PSLV will today place the second Indo-French satellite 'SARAL' and six other co-passengers or small satellites from Canada, Austria, Denmark and the UK in orbit.
Here's a 10-point cheat-sheet on the launch:
  1. The PSLV-C20 is slated for blast-off at around 6 pm local time from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.
  2. President Pranab Mukherjee is expected to be present at the first of the 10 planned events of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) this year. Mr Mukherjee will be the second President after Dr APJ Abdul Kalam to witness a PSLV launch; Dr Kalam was present in Sriharikota during one such launch on May 5, 2005.
  3. The 44-metre tall rocket, headed towards its 23rd consecutive launch, will sequentially drop off the satellites in space in less than half an hour after the lift-off. Later this year, a similar rocket will ferry India's maiden mission to Mars, Mangalyaan.
  4. PSLV has an impeccable record of 21 consecutive successful flights. The successful launch will take ISRO's tally of launching foreign satellites to 35.
  5. The ISRO-built SARAL is a 410-kg satellite with payloads - Argos and Altika - from French space agency CNES for enhancing the understanding of the ocean state conditions.
  6. Altimetre (Altika) would help study the sea surface heights while Argos payload is a satellite-based data collection platform. The satellite will also be useful in tracking resident space objects, including space debris.
  7. ISRO started putting into space third-party satellites for a fee in 1999 on its PSLV-C2 rocket. Since then India has been successful in launching medium-weight satellites for overseas agencies.
  8. Initially, ISRO started carrying third-party satellites atop its rockets as co-passengers of its own remote sensing/earth observation satellites.
  9. Later in 2007, ISRO launched an Italian satellite Agile as a standalone luggage for a fee.
  10. India began its space journey in 1975 with the launch of Aryabhatta using a Russian rocket and till date, it has completed 100 missions.

Earthquake shakes buildings in Tokyo........


Earthquake shakes buildings in Tokyo

Tokyo: A 5.7-magnitude earthquake hit Japan on Monday, setting buildings in the capital swaying but causing no risk of a tsunami, seismologists said.

National broadcaster NHK said there had been no abnormalities detected at nuclear power plants near the epicentre, which was north of Tokyo, where buildings rocked for upwards of half a minute.

The US Geological Survey said the quake had hit at 16:23 (0723 GMT), with its epicentre 57 kilometres (36 miles) north-northeast of Maebashi and around 143 kilometres north-northwest of Tokyo.


The agency said it had struck at a depth of nine kilometres.

The Japan Meteorological Agency had earlier put the magnitude at 6.2

Takayuki Fukuda, an official at the Nikko city fire department in Tochigi prefecture, near the epicentre, told AFP by telephone that the quake had rocked the city, a popular spot on the tourist trail.

"It shook vertically for about 10 seconds. Nothing fell from shelves and window glass was not shattered. There was no report of fire and we are preparing to patrol the city," he said.

He said there had been preliminary reports that a wall in the city had tumbled, injuring an unspecified number of people.

NHK said several bullet trains had been temporarily stopped, but service had resumed moments later.

Japan is regularly hit by powerful earthquakes and has largely adapted its infrastructure to tremors that can cause widespread damage in other, less developed countries.

However, a huge undersea quake with a magnitude of 9.0 in March 2011 sent a towering tsunami into the northeast of the country, devastating coastal communities and killing nearly 19,000 people.

It also sparked the world's worst atomic accident in a generation when waves knocked out the cooling systems at Fukushima nuclear plant.

That disaster, which is officially recorded as having claimed no lives, caused widespread mistrust of nuclear power generation in a country that had previously relied on the technology for around a third of its electricity needs.

Cuban President Raul Castro announces he will retire in 2018..........


HAVANA: Cuban President Raul Castro announced on Sunday he will step down from power after his second term ends in 2018, and the new parliament named a 52-year-old rising star to become his first vice president and most visible successor.
"This will be my last term," Castro, 81, said shortly after the National Assembly elected him to a second five-year tenure.
In a surprise move, the new parliament also named Miguel Diaz-Canel as first vice president, meaning he would take over if Castro cannot serve his full term.
Diaz-Canel is a member of the political bureau who rose through the Communist Party ranks in the provinces to become the most visible possible successor to Castro.
Raul Castro starts his second term immediately, leaving him free to retire in 2018, aged 86

Hyderabad blast could be a reaction to Afzal, Kasab executions: Shinde.............

Hyderabad blast could be a reaction to Afzal, Kasab executions: Shinde
Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde has said that the government was apprehending some trouble after the executions of Afzal Guru and Kasab

Crutches don’t slow down KStew at Oscars....

Crutches don’t slow down KStew …

Sunday, 24 February 2013

ISRO chief seeks divine help before PSLV launch............

TIRUPATI: Ahead of the launch of the Indo-French satellite 'SARAL' onboard Isro's workhorse rocket PSLV from Sriharikota, Isro chairman K Radhakrishnan today offered prayers at the hill shrine of Lord Venkateswara near here.

Radhakrishnan offered prayers this morning for the successful launch of PSLV-C20 tomorrow, temple sources said. An ardent devotee, Radhakrishnan visits the shrine to seek divine blessings ahead of every satellite launch and makes another trip after its success, the sources said. The chairman was accompanied by his wife Padmini.

Since the last two decades, heads of the space agency have made it a practice to visit the over 2000 year-old Tirumala hill temple to seek divine blessings before every satellite launch, the sources said.

The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV-C20 is scheduled for blast-off at 5.56 PM from the spaceport at Sriharikota, 110 km from Chennai, carrying 'SARAL', aimed at oceanographic studies,and six foreign mini and micro satellites.

PSLV to blast off today with 7 satellites...........

PSLV to blast off today with 7 satellites
CHENNAI: Indian Space Research Organisation chairman K Radhakrishnan on Sunday offered prayers at Lord Venkateswara temple in Tirupati for the successful launch of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C 20) scheduled to lift off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at 5.56pm on Monday. 

If things go as he'd like, the 23rd mission ofPSLV will blast off safely and put seven satellites in space. These include an Indo-French satellite, SARAL, and NEOSSAT from Canada which will detect and track either near-earth asteroids or satellites in the geostationary orbit. Scientists are stepping up efforts to detect such asteroids. The 229.7-tonne, 44.4-metre tall, four-stage rocket will carry a primary pay load of Indo-French satellite SARAL along with six commercial payloads from Austria, Britain, Canada and Denmark. The 59-hour countdown for the launch began on Saturday. 

Officials of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said that with fine weather, the vehicle would lift off on schedule. The mission will put the satellites in an orbit of 781km and will have a life of five years. 

With a lift-off mass of 407kg, SARAL is the 56th satellite to be launched by PSLV. The six commercial payloads from abroad have a combined lift-off mass of 259.5kg. 

The SARAL mission is a result of the common interest of ISRO and CNES, France, to study the ocean from space using altimetry system and Argos data collecting system. It will be useful for operational as well as research communities in fields like marine meteorology and sea state forecasting, operational oceanography, seasonal forecasting, climate monitoring, ocean, earth system and climate research, continental ice studies, protection of biodiversity, management and protection of marine eco system, environmental monitoring, improvement of maritime security, animal migration, locating buoys and fishing vessels, tracking animals, birds and seals. 

ISRO has launched four student satellites and 29 satellites for foreign countries. If successful, PSLV-C20 will be India's 39th satellite launch vehicle to lift off from Sriharikota. India has so far put in orbit 62 Indian satellites.

MULTICOLOUR PEN........


The color picker pen is a concept that would enable colors in the environment to be scanned and instantly used for drawing. 

The sensor detects the color and matches it to the color display, then the RGB cartridge located within the pen mixes the inks together to create the color that has been scanned.

MSD TO PEAKS.......


Some Records Today by MSD ♥

●► Maiden 200* Up For Our Champ in Tests ♥ !

●► MS Dhoni become 1st Indian Wicket Kepper to Score 4000+ Runs In Test Cricket.

●► MS Dhoni now has the highest score by an Indian Captain against Australia.

●► MS Dhoni becomes the first captain in Test history to score 200 Vs Australia, batting at No. 6.

MSD TO THE PEAKS..........


224 - the highest Test score by an Indian captain. 

SCIENCE ALERTS.......

This colourful ribbon eel is not like other eels: each one changes both its colour and its sex during its lifetime. They start out pitch black and male, and as they mature, become bright blue and yellow. Once they reach 1.3 m long and mostly yellow, these eels become females, and start laying their eggs