The 2011 Report—Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All—released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on November 2, 2011, notes that Norway, Australia and the Netherlands lead the world in the 2011 Human Development Index (HDI), while the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger and Burundi are at the bottom of the Human Development Report’s annual rankings of national achievement in health, education and income.

The United States, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Germany and Sweden round out the top 10 countries in the 2011 HDI, but when the Index is adjusted for internal inequalities in health, education and income, some of the wealthiest nations drop out of the HDI’s top 20: the United States falls from #4 to #23, the Republic of Korea from #15 to #32, and Israel from #17 to #25.

India is ranked 134, the same as in 2010. Gender Inequality Index ranks India at 129 and Inequality Adjusted HDI rank is 93.

About Aakash and Ubislate 7

The much awaited India’s ultra low cost Aakash tablet is finally here and is creating ripples all around. Datawind launched Ubislate7 in India, and the student version is named as the Aakash tablet. It offers a web delivery platform that enables quality and interactive knowledge over the internet.

The CEO of DataWind, Mr. Suneet Singh Tuli says ‘This is a made-in-India product. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to do this.’ He adds, ‘The final goal is to either provide the same features at a lower cost or provide better functionality and features at the same cost.’

The team of engineers at Datawind has come up with the upgraded version of the Aakash tablet. This upgraded version of Aakash is called Ubislate 7.

Ubislate 7 will be commercially available everywhere and to everyone. This next generation of Aakash is loaded with better features and specifications, and any person can buy it.

The Telecom and Education Minister, Kapil Sibbal, said at the launch of Aakash, “The rich have access to the digital world, the poor and ordinary have been excluded. Aakash will end that digital divide.”

There is definitely no other touch pad tablet or computing device anywhere near the price of Aakash tablet or Ubislate 7. It is a new generation device which comes with attractive features. This is the world’s cheapest tablet pc. This tab is made for the requirement of the users and especially for student needs.

Aakash Tablet’s Features

• Aakash tablet comes loaded with a lot of features and supports up to 150,000 apps.
• Aakash tablet comes at an unbeatable price of Rs. 2,999 only.
• Aakash tablet is perfect for anytime anywhere web access.
• The internet can be accessed at a monthly charge of Rs. 98 only. Fast web access is possible though Datawind’s patented acceleration technology.
• One can also connect to social networking sites like Facebook, twitter etc. through Aakash Tablet. It offers a lot of multimedia options with high definition quality videos.
• Watching movies and listening to songs also becomes easy through Aaksh Tablet. Not only can it be used to play games, Aakash Tablet can also be used to make notes and presentations.
• It has a full-sized USB port and Micro-SD slot which can be used to expand the memory up to 32 GB.

The official website of Aakash Tablet  is http://www.aakashtablet.com/

Mega zones to boost manufacturing

The Union government has planned to float seven mega zones to boost manufacturing. These will be: Ahmedabad-Dholera (Gujarat), Shendra-Bidkin (Maharashtra), Manesar-Bawal (Haryana), Khushkhera-Bhiwadi (Rajasthan), Dighi Port Area (Maharashtra), Dadri-Noida-Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh) and Pithampur-Dhar-Mhow (Madhya Pradesh).

Highest number of internet users

Mumbai has emerged as the city with the highest number of internet users in India. Mumbai is followed by Delhi, Kolkata Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore.

Lakhanpur-Jammu-Srinagar National Highway 44.

The Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has renamed the Lakhanpur-Jammu-Srinagar National Highway 1-A as the Lakhanpur-Jammu-Srinagar National Highway 44. It is the lone surface link between the Kashmir valley and rest of the country.

India retain SAFF football title

NEW DELHI — Defending champions India retained the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) title with a 4-0 win over Afghanistan in the final in New Delhi on Sunday.

The hosts were kept at bay for the first 45 minutes by a strong Afghan defence, but broke the deadlock late in the second half and went on to score a quartet of goals.

India finally hit the back of the net in the 71st minute when Sunil Chhetri converted a penalty after Jeje Lalpekhlua was brought down by Faisal Safa following a pass from the centre.

Afghanistan were reduced to 10 men as goalkeeper Hameedullah Yousufzai was sent off for arguing with the referee over awarding the penalty to India.

India seized the opportunity to score twice in as many minutes through Clifford Miranda and Jeje, before Sushil Singh netted the fourth goal in injury time.

It was India’s 11th win over Afghanistan in 14 meetings. The Afghans have a single win, while the other two games ended in a draw.

The other teams in the tournament, which is contested every two years between South Asian nations, were Nepal, Maldives, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Bhutan.

Ashwin bags Dilip Sardesai Award

Rewarding Ravichandran Ashwin for his stupendous show in the just-concluded Test series against the West Indies , the BCCI, on Monday, decided to bestow the Dilip Sardesai award on the off-spinner.

The 25-year-old, who was the man-of-the-series in the three-Test series with 22 wickets, will be presented the trophy at the BCCI Annual Awards Ceremony in Chennai on December 10.

ESS bags broadcast rights for Cricket Australia in Asia

ESPN Star Sports (ESS) has bagged the broadcast rights of all the domestic and home international matches of Cricket Australia (CA) until 2017.

The deal covers television, internet, mobile and radio distribution across Asia and the Indian subcontinent.

ESS currently has the broadcast rights for 27 test matches, 44 one day internationals and 12 Twenty20 (T20) matches under the Future Tours Programme (FTP).

The deal means that ESS will broadcast the 2013-2014 Ashes series, tours by South Africa, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, West Indies and New Zealand. ESS will also broadcast two India series during this period.

R.K. Tayagi has been appointed as the new Chairman of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL).

Sudhir Vasudeva is the new Chairman of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC).

The Columbian film ‘Porfirio’ directed by Alejandro Landes and produced by Franciso Aljure has bagged the coveted Golden Peacock Award for the Best Film at the 42nd International Film Festival of India 2011, while the Silver Peacock Award for the Best Director went to Asghar Farhadi for his film ‘Nader and Simin-A Seperation’. The Indian film ‘Adaminte Makan Abu’ won the Special Jury Award.

Director of the film Salim Ahamed received the award which consists of a Silver Peacock, Certificate and a Cash Prize of Rs. 15 Lakhs, in the presence of the Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Choudhury Mohan Jatua, the Chief Minister of Goa, Digambar Kamat and the famous actor Suriya best known for his roles in films like ‘Kaakha Kaakha’, ‘Vaaranam Aayiram’ who was the Chief Guest of the closing function held on Saturday.

The Best Actor award of Rs. 10 lakh went to the Israeli actor Sasson Gabay for his role in the film ‘Restoration’ whereas the Best Actress Award was won by Nadezhda Markina for her role in ‘Elena’. The above films were chosen by a five member Competition Jury comprising Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Laurence Kardish, Lee Yong Kwan, Tahmineh Milani and Dan Wolman.

The world’s cheapest tablet , and made in India as well, was launched on Wednesday. Priced at about Rs 2000, Aakash has been developed by the Indian Institute of Technology.

The low-cost tablet is primarily meant for educational purposes and features Android OS along with Wi-Fi connectivity. It features a 2GB Flash memory with 2GB Micro SD card that is expandable upto 32GB with two full USB ports, a miniSD card and a SIM card slot.

The device comes with a 2100mAh battery that will last upto two to three hours.The tablet has been developed as a part of the National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology that aims to link 25,000 colleges and 400 universities for an e-learning programme.

The device is expected to give some of the more costly tablet computers tough competition as it will also offer PDF reader, video conferencing functioning, sci-lab, media player, remote device management capability, multimedia input-output interface option and multiple content viewer.

Speaking at an award ceremony held in New Delhi by the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) last month, Communications and Information Technology minister Kapil Sibal had said that the tablet would help children go beyond the boundary of classroom and teachers to acquire knowledge through IT.

Three scientists won the Nobel Medicine Prize today for work on the immune system, but in a surprising twist the jury learned that one of the winners of the award that cannot be given posthumously had died just days before.

The winners were Bruce Beutler of the United States, Luxembourg-born Jules Hoffmann, who is a naturalised French citizen, and Ralph Steinman of Canada, who it was discovered Monday had died on September 30.

“This year’s Nobel laureates have revolutionised our understanding of the immune system by discovering key principles for its activation,” the jury said in a statement.

The three were lauded for their work on the body’s complex defence system in which signalling molecules unleash antibodies and killer cells to respond to invading microbes.

Understanding this throws open the door to new drugs and also tackling immune disorders, such as asthma, rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease, in which the body mysteriously attacks itself.

“Their work has opened up new avenues for the development of prevention and therapy against infections, cancer and inflammatory diseases,” the jury said.

Nobel laureate scientist dies days before award

Three scientists who unlocked secrets of the body’s immune system, opening doors to new vaccines and cancer treatments, won the 2011 Nobel prize for medicine yesterday.

American Bruce Beutler and French biologist Jules Hoffmann, who studied the first stages of immune responses to attack, share the $1.5 million (€1.1 million) award with Canadian-born Ralph Steinman, whose discovery of dendritic cells in the 1970s is key to understanding the body’s next line of defence against disease.

However, within minutes of the award being announced, a problem arose. It emerged that one of the three, Mr Steinman, had died of cancer just three days before he could be told of his award. A sufferer of pancreatic cancer, he used his own discoveries to extend his life.

Colleagues of Mr Steinman (68) at Rockefeller University in New York called it a “bittersweet” honour.

ICANN Allows New Domain Endings

The Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) finalized plans to let companies insert their own endings in domain names, allowing them to register domains like .brand instead of .com or .org.

Canon Inc., for example, will be applying for the domain ending .canon.

Applications may also be submitted for generic terms such as .sports, .travel, or .music. It costs $185,000 per application, and they may be submitted between 12 January 2012 and 12 April 2012.

The change has been called the most dramatic change in the Internet in four decades as it will give companies far more latitude in customizing their domains and will vastly open the possibilities of what can be typed into the domains, which has until now been constrained to 22 top-level endings and country-specific endings like .UK.

Speaking in Singapore at the event of the announcement, Rod Beckstrom, President and Chief Executive Officer of ICANN said, “ICANN has opened the Internet’s addressing system to the limitless possibilities of the human imagination. No one can predict where this historic decision will take us.”

In addition, the application process is specially designed to stave off cybersquatting, when people buy domain names in anticipation of selling them to brands in the future.

The approval should lead to crafty innovations in Internet marketing and branding, with companies putting forth creative domain names like iwant.beer and whatsfor.dinner.