The making of India's biggest airport

Away from some of the more visible projects in Delhi, one of the biggest construction efforts in the country is about four months away from completion. Over 20,000 workers are working round the clock everyday—among them 100 foreign nationals working in the planning and construction effort—to give wings to one of India's most ambitious projects: Delhi's new airport terminal, T3, that will cater to both international and domestic flights.

Work is on at a frantic pace to meet the March 2010 deadline. About 82 per cent work is over and its developers—the GMR group and Fraport (Frankfurt Airport)—are confident the airport will be ready in the next four months and ready to handle 27 million passengers a year.

With 78 aerobridges, of which 71 are already installed, the new terminal will be one of the few in the world to service all aircraft through aerobridges. Changi airport in Singapore has 64 aerobridges. The terminal building covers an area of about 5 million square feet—just the area of its roof accounts for 20 acres. While the developers have to get the terminal ready by March 2010, it may get operational only by July after all the certifications are in place.

With its scale and size, the new terminal is set to change the traveller's perception. For instance, the forecourt where vehicles line up to drop passengers, will have 10 lanes with dedicated lanes for buses and cabs.

Once inside the departure hall, there will be six check-in islands with 168 check-in counters. This will be an integrated terminal for both domestic and international flights, which will make it easier for transit passengers. However, the plan is to allow only those domestic airlines which fly international to start operations from here. This could put the low cost carriers at a slight disadvantage as they will be located at the recently operationalised Terminal 1D.

So, the check-in area will be common and then the terminal divides itself into two wings. Both sides have a boarding pier each which extends to 1.2 km from one end to the other with 48 boarding gates. Most of these have already been constructed. Given the long distances, some 90 travelators have been installed which includes the longest in Asia measuring 118 m.

Such is the magnitude of the exercise that the developers could not find a supplier who would meet their demand for granite. Ultimately, a vendor was located in Bahrain from where the granite needed for the flooring is being imported. The glass curtains that have to be fixed at a particular angle too had to be brought from China.

Already, delegations from the Beijing airport, Changi airport and Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, among others, have visited the construction site. What has come in for particular praise is the open space called the 'canyon' where a glass roof allows the entire arrival area to be lit up. Bridges, just above the arrival area, meant for departure passengers have glass corridors that permits arrival and departure passengers to see each other.

The one advantage of having boarding piers as wings of what is roughly like a large 'H' like structure means the duty-free shopping hall in the centre is not cluttered because of rush at boarding gates. Besides this, a multi-level car parking facility for 4,300 cars is well on course to be ready by next year.

Recently, Delhi overtook Mumbai as the city handling maximum air passengers with a figure slightly less than 24 million for 2008-09. This terminal will be able to handle 27 million next year and capacity would be enhanced to 34 million by 2012. This compares with some of the best—Changi handles 22 million passengers, Heathrow about 25 million and the new Beijing airport about 45 million. And going by the understanding reached with the government, it should reach 100 million by 2026—the last phase of this construction effort.

The developers claim this will be the sixth largest terminal in the world when it opens, but what is more important is that standards are already being rated. The Airport Council International, Geneva, is said to have been rating the under construction terminal every quarter. Its marking is 4.2 while the quality standard set by the government requires a minimum of 3.5.

While these cannot be made official until the end of the financial year, Delhi, apparently, has already climbed to the 24th position going by its scores. Judgment, however, will have to be reserved till it gets functional. Once the new terminal opens, the plan is to keep the current international terminal (T2) as a buffer, which can be used to step up capacity during special occasions like the Commonwealth Games—like Beijing airport has a buffer that was shut after the Olympics

Mukesh Ambani tops Forbes' India rich list

 Singapore, Nov 19 (ANI): The head of Reliance Industries, Mukesh Ambani, is once again the wealthiest person in India. His net worth is put at 32 billion dollars, an increase of 54 percent from nearly 21 billion dollars last year, according to the latest Forbes' India Rich List.

Trailing behind him are Lakshmi Mittal with a net worth of 30 billion dollars, up 46 percent from 20.5 billion dollars, and Mukesh's estranged brother, Anil, whose net worth of 17.5 billion dollars, 40 percent, higher than before, put him in the third place.

A rebounding stock market that gained two-thirds in the past year and an economy growing at 6% have boosted the net worth of India's richest people, according to the Forbes' India.

The combined net worth of India's 100 richest people is 276 billion dollars, almost a quarter of the country's GDP.

Last year, there were only 27 billionaires on the India Rich List. This year, the number has almost doubled to 52 - two short of what India had at the peak of the stock market boom in 2007.

Naazneen Karmali, India Editor of Forbes Asia and Mumbai bureau manager for Forbes magazine, said, "Happy days are definitely back again for India's richest. This year's list shows yet again that when conditions in the financial markets and the economy are right, India has the scale and resources to produce billionaires faster than most of the countries on earth."

Indrajit Gupta, Editor of Forbes India, said, "The substantial jump in net worth is clear evidence that entrepreneurial capitalism is alive and kicking in India. What's more, the growth in wealth creation has been broad-based. Entrepreneurs from a wide variety of sectors comprise the list."

Sunil Mittal has moved down from Number 4 to Number 8 and Azim Premji has moved up to Number 4 position. The Ruia brothers with a net worth of 13.6 billion dollars have made it to number 5 this year.

The richest newcomers are two brothers from Torrent Power-Sudhir and Samir Mehta, ranked 23 at 2.02 billion dollars.

The Forbes India cover story highlights how 2009 has been a turnaround year for the rich in India. The list is an indicator of how India's billionaires have done better than their counterparts in other parts of the world.

The three richest Indians are worth 79.5 billion dollars. It takes 24 Chinese billionaires to be worth 80 billion dollars.

The top 10 richest in India are:

1. Mukesh Ambani: 32 billion dollars

2. Lakshmi Mittal: 30 billion dollars

3. Anil Ambani: 17.5 billion dollars

4. Azim Premji: 14.9 billion dollars

5. Shashi and Ravi Ruia: 13.6 billion dollars

6. KP Singh: 13.5 billion dollars

7. Savitri Jindal: 12 billion dollars

8. Sunil Mittal: 8.2 billion dollars

9. Kumar Birla: 7.8 billion dollars

10. Gautam Adani: 6.4 billion dollars (ANI)

Bad bosses good for economy, says Scott Adams

NEW DELHI: For someone who built his reputation lampooning corner rooms and their occupants, Scott Adams has had a change of heart. The creator 

7 types of recession-era employees Dealing with office politics Possible cuts in salary slip What not to say at job interview!

of Dilbert, the cartoon strip that adds a comic element to 2,000 solemn newspapers across 70 countries, including ET, has discovered merit in evil bosses. Call it the effect of recession, but Adams is convinced that difficult bosses can be good, as they help spawn entrepreneurs.


“The worse bosses are, the better it is for the economy. In the old days people were born entrepreneurs, but today people are forced into entrepreneurship whether they like it or not,” he told ET in an interview.


His comments may pertain to the US and how the worst economic situation since the GreatDepression has affected that country, but California resident Adams could well be looking at India and Indians from the same entrepreneurial prism going forward.


And future Dilbert strips could see India and Indians depicted differently. Adams says that Indians have moved far ahead of the image of the smart, yet inexperienced office intern Asok, who is one of Dilbert’s colleagues.


n IITan by qualification, Asok has been bestowed with psychic powers but continues to work for someone. But this might change soon. “He’s the most confident person with the least power. Maybe, I’ll have him strike out and be an entrepreneur some day.”

Adams, 52, started his career in 1979 with Crocker National Bank (later acquired by Wells Fargo) and then at Pacific Bell where he began working on his cartoon strip.

For the past 20 years Adams’ cartoons have ridiculed corporate workplaces and the ‘Cubicle life’ and everything around it, from management fads to consultants to evil bosses. But he says the central character of Dilbert borrows a bit from his own personality.

“I certainly have shared some of his traits. I’m socially awkward and had trouble getting dates when I was his age, and a bit nerdy, so there’s a lot of me in him. But I am more of Dogbert, the side of me that has a running conversation in my head saying inappropriate things. I use Dogbert as the character who says out loud the things I’m thinking.”

But if there’s one thing that makes Adams uniquely qualified to talk about entrepreneurship is his shot at running real businesses. First there was Scott Adams Foods, which developed the Dilberito, a vegetarian burrito that was sold online and through convenience stores in the US until four years ago when Adams sold it off.

The restaurant business was next. Adams partnered with restaurater Stacey Belkins to open two Stacey’s Cafe outlets in his home town. One of them had to be closed down, and the  employees were asked to go.

Adams says he was shocked to find some of them stealing equipment, even as he was doling out severance pay cheques. “I had dipped into my pockets to give them a nice severance. So, as I was telling people and there were tears and people hugging, some of them slipped into the back and cleaned out the electronics from the storage room. They were actually robbing me.”

Could that explain his charitable view of bad bosses?

“Trouble is that in order to be a good boss you got to be kind of a jerk, you got to be selfish and be willing to hurt other people to advance your own cause. I’m not like that. People try and take advantage of me pretty easily,” says Adams, who has for years entertained millions every morning with his wit on  employer-employee relationships. Asked about the impact of the US recession on Dilbert, Adams has his own, and distinctive, take.

“There are two things going on in the US right now. If you don’t have a job, and that’s a lot of people, then things are pretty bad obviously. But those people who have kept their  jobs, what they’re finding is that the price of stuff is lower. When you order something that used to take a lot of weeks to be built and get shipped to you, you’re getting it in a month.. In a weird way, there are a lot of people who are moving into houses they couldn’t have afforded before the crash.”

From a Dilbert point of view, the US recession has done some good. “There’s a period when everything is great and it’s an employees market and they ask for more money or they’re going somewhere else. But right now we’re in a period where obviously you want to keep your employer happy because finding another job is going to be hard,” says Adams. And this new insight has a source. Adams, who is building a new ‘green’ home in Pleasanton, California, is seeing attitudes change first-hand.

“You’ve never seen such good cooperation from all the sub-contractors. Everybody shows to work because there isn’t that much work to have. It turned out to be the very best time to build a house because everybody’s so eager to work. It’s strange because usually the upside is not very obvious. I’m sure during the Great Depression there
probably wasn’t anybody who was better off.”

10 ways to cut risk of cancer

Washington, Nov 15 (ANI): Only a few everyday choices about diet, exercise and tobacco use can dramatically reduce a person's risk of cancer, according to a Special Report on Cancer Prevention.

The Special Report examines the science and latest findings on 10 approaches that can make a real difference in preventing cancer.
Here are some highlights from the list:
1. Don't smoke: Quitting smoking reduces the risk of lung and other cancers, regardless of the number of years of smoking.
2. Eat fruits and vegetables: The American Cancer Society recommends eating at least five servings of fruits and vegetables daily because they are loaded with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and other substances that lower the risk of cancer.
3. Limit fat in the diet: Current guidelines recommend keeping fat intake between 20 and 30 percent of total daily calories, with most fats coming from sources of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, such as fish, nuts and vegetable oils.
4. Maintain a healthy weight: Being overweight or obese can increase the risk of postmenopausal breast cancer as well as cancers of the colon, endometrium, esophagus and kidney. There's evidence that obesity increases the risk of cancers of the prostate, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, stomach, ovary and cervix.
5. Be physically active: From 45 to 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity a day, on most days of the week, is considered optimal to reduce the risk of breast and colorectal cancers.
6. Curb alcohol consumption: Women should limit themselves to no more than one alcoholic beverage a day. Men should have no more than two.
7. Limit exposure to radiation: Ultraviolet (UV) radiation, which comes from the sun, sunlamps or commercial tanning beds, is the primary cause of skin cancer, the most common of all cancers.
8. Protect against infection: Infections caused by viruses are recognized as risk factors for several types of cancer.
9. Consider chemoprevention: Chemoprevention is the use of natural or synthetic compounds to reduce the risk of cancer or its recurrence. Tamoxifen, prescribed to prevent breast cancer in high-risk women, is the best known chemoprevention agent.
10. Get recommended screening exams: Pap tests, mammograms, colonoscopies and other routine screenings cannot prevent cancer. But screenings can help find cancers early, when treatment is most likely to be successful.
The study has been published in the November issue of Mayo Clinic Women's HealthSource. (ANI)

World's healthiest meal?

India, Nov. 13 - Have you tried the world's healthiest meal yet? According to Gurpareet Singh Bain, 32, a chef, nutritional therapist and TV presenter based in London, his signature meal - chicken and blueberry curry with goji berry pilau rice - is the world's healthiest. Not just that, he claims it can even fight diseases like cancer.

"This is not just the world's healthiest curry, but most importantly, it's also the world's healthiest meal," says Bain, who basis his claim on the meal's Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC) count. "The meal has 25,000 ORAC units. The spices used are rich in antiviral and anti-bacterial properties," he says. Compare this count to the United States Department of Agriculture's recommended intake - 3,000 to 6,000 ORAC units per day.

The chicken-and-blueberry curry is already being talked about in the British press. Bain insists that the ingredients in his curry have been tested under laboratory conditions and shown to "disrupt the multiplication of cancer cells". Therefore, he adds, "a meal high in these ingredients can help in keeping cancer at bay."

However, no independent studies have been carried out on the curry yet to test these claims. To taste Bain's creation, you'll have to head to London. The dish is priced at £2.50 per person, or Rs 200 approximately.

Cyclone Phyan threatens India's west coast

Mumbai, Nov 11 (IANS) The cyclone over the Arabian Sea Wednesday was 'likely to intensify further' and cross the Indian coast between north Maharashtra and south Gujarat in the early hours of Thursday, says the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

Now named Phyan, the cyclone was about 250 km directly west of Goa at 2.30 a.m. Thursday, the IMD said on its website, even as it it issued an 'orange' alert. That is one step below the red alert put out for a really severe cyclone.

At that hour, Phyan was 420 km south-southwest of Mumbai and 670 km south-southwest of Surat in south Gujarat.

'The system is likely to intensify further and move north-northeastwards and cross south Gujarat and north Maharashtra coast between Mahuva and Dahanu by early hours of Nov 12,' the website reported.

Fishermen have already been asked not to go out to sea, and oil rigs in Bombay High were battening down, according to local media reports.

The IMD expects that maximum sustained surface wind speed under the influence of Cyclone Phyan will be 70-80 kmph around 11.30 p.m. Wednesday, gusting up to 90 kmph.

The weatherman said Wednesday morning that the cyclone will lead to 'rainfall at most places with heavy to very heavy falls at a few places and isolated extremely heavy fall (over or equal to 25 cm) over Konkan and Goa and Madhya Maharashtra during next 36 hours'.

'Rainfall at many places with heavy to very heavy falls at isolated places is likely over coastal Karnataka during next 24 hours. Rainfall at most places with heavy to very heavy falls at a few places and isolated extremely heavy falls (over or equal to 25 cm) is likely to commence over south Gujarat from today (Wednesday) afternoon.

'Squally winds with speed reaching 55-65 kmph gusting to 75 kmph are likely along and off Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra coasts during next 36 hours. Sea condition will be very rough over along and off Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra coasts. Squally wind speed reaching 55-65 gusting to 75 kmph is likely to commence along and off south Gujarat coast from today afternoon.'

10 failed doomsday prophecies

Washington, November 9 (ANI): Scientists have listed ten failed doomsday prophecies, which undermines the seriousness of the 2012 end of the world prediction by the ancient Mayans.

According to National geographic News, the first failed domsday prophecy was when some ancient Romans saw the A.D. 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius as a sign of a coming apocalypse, which never came.

Then, there is the case of many Christian Europeans entering the year 1666 with trepidation, as the Bible describes 666 as the ominous Number of the Beast.

A prolonged plague that had wiped out much of London's populace in 1665 didn't help assuage fears, and when the Great Fire of London occurred, many believed their time had come.

The appearance of Halley's comet in 1910 stirred apocalyptic hysteria among Europeans and Americans, many of whom believed that the comet's tail contained a gas "that would impregnate the atmosphere and possibly snuff out all life on the planet," according to French astronomer Camille Flammarion, as quoted in the book Apocalypses.

Since its founding in the 1870s, the Jehovah's Witnesses, a Christian offshoot, had prophesied that the world would end in 1914.

Though nothing of the sort happened in 1914, ever since then, the religion's followers have been predicting that the world will end "shortly."

Author Richard Noone predicted that on May 5, 2000, the planets would perfectly align and end life as we know it by sending melting ice barreling toward Earth's Equator.

Television evangelist Pat Robertson preached that sometime in the 1980s, Jesus would return to Earth, after the biblical doomsday event known as the Rapture.

Doom and gloom can also spark scientific innovation, as occurred in 1774 in Friesland, Germany. A vicar hoping to boost his congregation circulated a "little book of doom" that said the solar system would be demolished during an upcoming conjunction.

The extremely bright comet Hale-Bopp, discovered in 1995, last buzzed Earth in March 1997, when out of frenzy, thirty-nine people, part of a religious group called Heaven's Gate, committed suicide, believing that a UFO riding the comet's wake would rescue them from a doomed Earth.

Then, there was the case of the Y2K bug at the end of the 20th century. It was predicted that a bug caused by a calculation error would cripple computers and other machines and lead to mass chaos, none of which actually happened.

When the Large Hadron Collider fired up in September 2009, some critics speculated that the world's biggest atom smasher could spawn a black hole that would devour Earth, which was proven to be incorrect when the machine was actually started. (ANI)

Acer goes 3-D

3D Laptop

Close on the heels of the first Android laptop, Acer has announced a full-size laptop that displays 3-D content. Just put on a pair of those strange wraparound glasses, a pair of which is packed with the computer.

It is a novelty, and one that we expect will run out of gas sooner or later. But innovation is the name of the game here, and the $780 Acer 5738DG hits that mark with its TriDef 3D package, which includes the specially coated 15-inch screen and software. The TriDef app also enables 2-D to 3-D conversion in games and applications supporting DirectX 9 and above. And, yes, it comes with Windows 7.

The thinnest one

Sony claims its latest VAIO X is the world's lightest and thinnest laptop. At 655 gm and just about a half-inch thin, it is anyway setting a new benchmark in notebook technology. Despite its slender looks, the durable carbon fiber body ensures the X Series absorbs the bumps and knocks of daily use and travel.

For reinforced durability, the X features a solid state drive with no moving parts, seamless aluminium keyboard panel for structural rigidity and an 11.1" scratch-resistant widescreen display.

It has a multi-touch pad which can help zoom in and out, flip through pictures, rotate items and scroll vertically and horizontally without even touching a mouse. The X series is loaded with Windows 7 but comes at a fat price of Rs 64,990 plus.

Perfect photo scanner

Epson's latest Perfection V600 Photo Scanner has been designed for the demanding photo enthusiasts. It features a class-leading optical resolution of 6400 x 9600 dpi that provides unbeatable image quality as well as Epson's proprietary Digital ICE (Image Correction Engine) Technology that uses both hardware and software processes to remove dust and scratch marks from film and photo scans. Equipped with ReadyScan LED Technology, the scanner's LED lamp requires no warm up time. The V600 is priced at an affordable Rs 16,999 for the features it sports.

Light without power

Appliance maker Jaipan has something for power-cut hit rural, and urban, India - a bulb with a power backup. Jaipan's Magic Bulb can illuminate without power for about five hours using backup power saved in its battery. The bulb consumes only 1.6 watt and gives out illumination of 9 watt. The Magic Bulb is priced Rs 350.

What happens to your email account after you die?

Melbourne, Nov 4 (ANI): Saving that parting e-mail from your first love in your inbox? Well, chances are, after you pass away, your spouse and the entire family will know about the long held secret.

This is because web email services like Hotmail and Gmail do not let users specify what should happen to their messages when they die.
In fact, email services owned by Internet giants like Google and Microsoft have a policy of keeping your data after you die and letting your next of kin or the executor of your estate access it. These services can hold tens of thousands of messages.
Accounts with Google's Gmail can hold up to 7GB - or roughly 70,000 emails with a small to medium picture attached to each and they archive the messages you've written as well as received.
When it comes to deleting the data, Microsoft's Hotmail will remove an account if it is inactive for 270 days, while Gmail leaves the responsibility to the next of kin.
Of the top three providers, only Yahoo! refuses to supply emails to anyone after the user has died. The user's next of kin can ask for the account to be closed, but cannot gain access to it.
A Yahoo! spokesperson said the only exception to this rule would be if the user specified otherwise in their will.
Meanwhile, social-networking site Facebook has recently publicised a feature called memorialisation that lets the family of deceased users keep their profile page online as a virtual tribute.
MySpace, on the other hand, says it addresses the issue of family access to sensitive data on a "case by case basis".
A spokesperson for MySpace could not rule out letting a user's next of kin log into their profile - potentially giving them access to private messages. (ANI)

It was one of my best knocks: Tendulkar

Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Ave	BF	SR	100	50	4s	6s	Ct	St
Tests	159	261	27	12773	248*	54.58			42	53		51	102	0
ODIs	435	424	39	17168	186*	44.59	20005	85.81	45	91	1870	181	132	0

Hyderabad, Nov 5 (IANS) Batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar rated his 175 against Australia here Thursday as one of the best knocks of his career.

Tendulkar scored 175 off 141 ball, enroute to his record 17,168 runs, but couldn't prevent India from losing the fifth ODI to Australia by three runs.

'I thought we started off really well then lost wickets. Suresh (Raina) and I had a good partnership but in the end, it was disappointing. The pressure to keep scoring runs was there and we took it very close. But I feel it was one of my best knocks,' said Tendulkar, who was adjudged as the Man of the Match.

The batting maestro praised Raina for playing a strokefilled run-a-ball that got India close while chasing 351 to win.

On his personal milestone of crossing 17,000 runs, Tendulkar said: 'I care about playing for India, it's a passion and I have been absoloutely honoured to play for India so long.'

India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni said that the match was lost due to mental calculation.

'They got off to a good start and we never got into a postion to contain them. It was up to us to chase it. We got a good start and we came in the end due to Tendulkar and Raina. We lost it in our mental calculation, not because of our talent. It was one of the good ODI tracks we have seen in India, you have to be smart. Hopefully we will be up for the next two games,' he said.

Australian captain Ricky Ponting also applauded Tendulkar for playing one of the best knocks in his 20-year-old career.

'It was one of the amazing games and certainly one of the best innings ever from Sachin. Sachin didn't play many bad shots today! It's really unbelievable how we have played, considering all the injuries,' he said.

The new size zero - Sony's ultra slim 'Vaio X' notebook

Your laptop has got even lighter and slimmer - precisely 655 gms in weight and half an inch in thickness. Sony has launched its latest series of ultra slim laptops (11.2 inches in size) called the 'Vaio X'. With this release, the company has surged ahead in the race to the world's lightest notebook, ahead of Apple's MacBook Air and Dell Adamo.

Check out what Sony's new Vaio X notebook has to offer -

• The model comes in two styles - one with a smooth glossy finish and the other being a matt metal look
• It supports different battery variants (if not the standard one, the weight could increase to 755 gms)

• 
  
  The battery is said to last 'a working day' or 16 hours
  
• 
  
  11.1 inch LCD display having a resolution of 1366x768 pixels and is LED backlit
  
• 
  
  Despite its smaller size, the keys in the keyboard are quite well-spaced
  
• 
  
  Integrated with mobile broadband (UMTS) - no external broadband cable required
  
• 
  
  Besides two USB ports, it also has a VGA port, Ethernet socket and SD/ Memory Stick reader
  
• 
  
  It has an in-built Motion-Eye webcam
  
• This notebook comes with 'Windows 7' pre-installed
  

Sony plans to make a big impact with this miniature series, having romped in the original size-zero, Bollywood actress Kareena Kapoor as its brand ambassador. The celeb couple, Saif and Kareena, aren't new to laptops, with Saif having previously endorsed the Chinese brand 'Lenovo', which later saw a rise in its India sales.

Sony has set aside Rs 15 crores for its marketing in India, possibly the reason for the laptop being priced at Rs 65,000. Despite being pricey, the laptop is expected to do well, purely for its chic design and being the world's lightest notebook.

Next on the line is the touch-screen VAIO.

Cloud Computing: The power of one

In their quest to find answers, experts have demonstrated that the future of medical discoveries, environmental challenges, energy deficit, all lie in collaborating through Cloud Computing.

With Cloud Computing, users have been able to access data, share expertise and high-end infrastructure from around the world, and vice-versa. The resources are shared through a public platform like the internet. Several companies like Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, etc have invested heavily as they reach out to users.

Cloud Computing companies have customers of three kinds -

• Infrastructure-as-a-service: Option of renting and utilizing computing power and storage capacity of vendor's quality.
• Software-as-a-Service (SaaS): Vendors license particular services to subscribers on-demand and once the contract expires, the services are disabled.
• Platform-as-a-Service: Here a developer is given the opportunity to utilize various web-tools to build and host applications.

The Cloud (other computers in the network) does have its pros and cons in this formative stage. Its advantages include,

• Better performance by PCs in the cloud network, as fewer processing will be loading in each individual PC, the rest on the Cloud.
• No more spending on computer upgrades, instead services of another high-power PC can be made use of.
• 
  
  Lesser hardware and software required, so costs of maintenance are tremendously lowered.
  
• 
  
  Permanence of data, as all information stays in the cloud, even if you experience a hard-disk crash.
  
• 
  
  Sync with experts worldwide on multiple projects and avail optimum results through the Cloud.
  
• 
  
  Work from any PC and on the move, with the availability of internet access.
  

Cloud Computing also has some drawbacks like,

• The over-dependence on the providers.
  
  
  
  
  
• The reliability of the vendors.
  
  
  
  
  
• Protection laws in different countries vary. For eg, according to EU data protection regulation, personal information cannot be transferred outside the European Economic Area.
  
  
  
  
  
• Threat of unauthorized access to confidential data.
  
  
  
  
  
• Requires internet throughout and near-impossible to work with dial-up connections.

The concept isn't entirely new and is evolving even today. In the recent past, several variations have been introduced through 'Grid' and 'Utility Computing'.

- Grid Computing is a virtual super-computer formed by a cluster of computers in concert, each performing complex tasks.

- Utility Computing is a format in which subscribers are charged based on their usage, similar to the way in electricity is charged.

As new developments take place with increasing frequency, your world is on the brink of transition.

FACTBOX - Largest U.S. bankruptcies

       CIT Group Inc, a major lender to small and mid-sized U.S. businesses, on Sunday filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The company had assets of $71 billion and total debt of $65 billion as of June 30, according to its petition filed in the U.S. bankruptcy court for the Southern District of New York.

The following is a list of large U.S. bankruptcies since 1980, according to court records and the website BankruptcyData.com:

COMPANY/YEAR TOTAL ASSETS

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc (2008) $639,000,000,000 *

WorldCom Inc (2002) 103,914,000,000

General Motors Corp (2009) 91,047,000,000

CIT Group Inc (2009) 71,019,000,000

Enron Corp (2001) 65,503,000,000

Conseco Inc (2002) 61,392,000,000

Chrysler LLC (2009) 39,300,000,000

Pacific Gas and Electric Co (2001) 36,152,000,000

Texaco Inc (1987) 34,940,000,000

Financial Corp of America (1988) 33,864,000,000

Refco Inc (2005) 33,333,000,000

Washington Mutual Inc (2008) 32,900,000,000 *

IndyMac Bancorp Inc (2008) 32,734,000,000

Global Crossing Ltd (2002) 30,185,000,000

Bank of New England Corp (1991) 29,773,000,000

General Growth Properties Inc (2009) 29,560,000,000

* - from court documents

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel and Anupreeta Das)

Sachin Tendulkar 47 short of 17,000-run milestone

Mohali, Nov 1 (IANS) Sachin Tendulkar, who is two weeks short of completing his two decades in international cricket, will be chasing the personal milestone of 17,000 ODI runs when he pads up in the fourth One-Day International against Australia here Monday.

The batting maestro is 47 short of achieving the feat. The batting friendly track at the Punjab Cricket Association (PCA) Stadium here might turn out to be the lucky strip for Tendulkar, who has not been in best of form in the series so far, having scored 50 runs in the three matches.

It would be Tendulkar's second ODI outing here.

The PCA Stadium occupies a special place in Tendulkar's heart since it is the same venue where in October last year against Australia, he surpassed West Indian Brian Lara as the highest Test run scorer and also became the first cricketer to score 12,000 Test runs. Only a small crowd had turned up to witness that slice of history.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had also felicitated Tendulkar.

BCCI secretary N.Srinivasan said that no celebration has been planned this time around but for sure a sell-out crowd will be cheering for Tendulkar.

Tributes have started pouring in from teammates and opposition captain Ricky Ponting.

Yuvraj Singh called him the 'Grand Pa' of Indian cricket. 'He has been playing for the last 20 years and it is interesting to see that the hunger is still there in him. Playing with him has been a great learning experience.'

Ponting said Tendulkar is an ideal role model for young cricketers.

'The way Sachin has carried himself for the last 20 years has been exceptional. He is an ideal role model for youngsters,' he said.

Three out of 11 oil tanks still ablaze at IOC depot in Jaipur

Jaipur, Nov. 1 (ANI): Indian Oil Corporation on Sunday confirmed that three out of 11 petrol tanks are still blazing at the Sitapura oil storage depot near Jaipur, while the rest are spewing smoke.

"A factory adjacent to IOC factory caught fire; some bitumen fell on the top floor and it caught fire due to high temperature. After that police and fire fighting personnel had come to the site the fire is not now controlled. The digging of the trench is almost complete. Fire is still raging in three tanks. There are total 11 tanks in which 8 tanks it is mostly smoke," Kuldeep Ranka, Collector of Jaipur.

Earlier in the day, two more bodies were spotted at the burning Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) fuel depot near Jaipur, pushing the toll to ten.

"The unidentified charred bodies were noticed in the wee hours of the day near one of the blazing tanks, but was not possible to reach there because of the heat," said Inspector General of Police, B.L.Soni.

So far, nearly five lakh residents in the radius of five-kilometer area around the fire spot have been moved to safer locations after it was declared "danger zone".

Among those who were evacuated were all the patients, doctors and staff of a government hospital and engineering and medical students of 10 hostels.

According to IOC sources, a total loss of 300 crores has been estimated.

The IOC also said that it would take al least 15-18 months to rebuild the facility in Jaipur.

Earlier Petroleum Minister, Murli Deora had ordered a probe to ascertain the cause of fire. (ANI)