On Saturday morning, Suman’s friends and hostel mates left for their classes, but he opted to stay back in his room, no. A-117 of Hall VIII. The students returned to the hostel around 11 am and found the door of Suman’s room locked from inside.

IIT-K registrar Sanjeev S Kashalkar said, “From the window of the room, the students saw Suman’s body suspended from the ceiling fan. He had used a bedsheet to hang himself. The students then broke into the room and rushed Suman to the health centre on the campus, but the doctors declared him dead on arrival.”

Born on June 14, 1985, Suman hails from Kovidala Palem village in Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh. He had passed his B.Tech exams in first class (Electronics and Communication Engineering) from Jawahar Lal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad in 2007.

According to the IIT-K staffers, Suman was a good student and had never required any counselling during his stay at the institute. As per Cumulative Performance Index (CPI), the internal grading system of IIT-K, Suman had secured 6.75 out of 10.

Deputy Director IIT-K, R K Thareja said, “Campus placements are still on and Suman had a few more months to find a job.” He did not fail to mention that IIT-K students have got a positive response from companies that have come for campus placement. “Though, at present, we do not have the names of the companies, which have interviewed him since December 1, 2008, he had around five more months to look for job,” added Thareja. (Agencies)

According to Dawn News, the Bush administration has asked Islamabad to put on trial the perpetrators of Mumbai terror attacks inside Pakistan instead of extraditing them to India, signifying a change in the US’ position which earlier sought extradition of Mumbai terror suspects to India.

The sources told Dawn that the US has made Pakistan acquainted of its willingness to initiate “prosecution with sufficient efforts to ensure conviction”.

However, last week, the US had asked Pakistan to extradite those responsible for the November 26 Mumbai terror attacks to India.

According to the report, the US changed its mind after it comprehended the difficulties the Pakistani government would face in extraditing key Lashkar-e-Toiba leaders to India, chiefly when the two sides are not bound to an extradition treaty.

Notably, the reports in Pakistani media came after Mukherjee told reporters that the US pressure on Pakistan to act against perpetrators had “not produced tangible returns”.

Mukherjee has ruled out the requirement of an extradition treaty for handing over the suspects as Pakistan is party to various international conventions and arrangements starting from SAARC to various international conventions against taking hostages, conventions against bombings.

Mukherjee also told media that India has been told that “there is some strong evidence available with FBI and they have shared it with Pakistan. We expect that Pakistan will act on them and hand over the perpetrators of terror attack in Mumbai to us.”

“BCCI has incurred a loss of Rs 120 crore due to the cancellation of the Pakistan tour, Champions League that was to be held in the month of December and the two one day matches against England due to the terror attacks,” a BCCI source said on Friday.

Last month’s terror attacks resulted in losses for the BCCI as the Englishmen returned home, though the team came back later for the Test series.

India were leading 5-0 in against the seven match one day series but the last two one dayers in Guwahati and Delhi could not be played.

The USD six million Champions League was scheduled to be played between December 3-10 in three centres Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore.

The Twenty20 Champions and the runner up of founder members India, Australia and South Africa along with the Twenty20 Champions team of England (Middlesex) and Pakistan (Sialkot) were to play in the league. The first edition of Champions League has been put off till October 2009.

According to Finance Committee Chairman Rajiv Shukla, the decisions taken taken by Finance Committee in its meeting today will have to ratified by the Working Committee which is to be held on Saturday.

“There were some internal discussions at the meeting including the financial losses due to cancellation of Pakistan tour, cancellation of India-England matches, allocation of money for other sports, annual contract of players and medical assistance to players,” Shukla said.

The finance committee of the Cricket Board had its first meeting on Friday after its formation at the BCCI’s AGM held in September 2008.

The BCCI source said that in a bid to compensate for the losses, the Board may ask New Zealand to accomodate an additional Test match during India’s tour in March-April this year.

Apart from that, the BCCI was exploring the possibility of arranging a short series to make up for its cancelled tour of Pakistan in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks.

“It makes me feel like a woman,” Jolie had said. “Her previous pregnancies ended with emergency caesarean sections. She’s been told that, at the least, she should not get pregnant for a year after her last delivery, and it would be safer if she did not get pregnant, ever,” a source told OK! magazine. However, the good news is Jolie is always open for adoption and reportedly on her way to Ethiopia to adopt yet another baby.

The 33-year-old actress is famous for adopting children from around the world. Her adoption spree has earned her family the nickname of ‘rainbow family’. Jolie adopted her first child Maddox from Combodia with her ex-husband Billy Bob Thornton. She adopted her daughter Zahara from Ethopia, Pax from Vietnam and she has three biological off-springs with her partner Brad Pitt—a daughter Shiloh and twins Knox and Vivienne.

Shah has also implicated other LeT members, and had broadly confirmed the confession made by the sole captured terrorist Ajmal Qasab to Indian investigators — that the 10 assailants trained in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and then went by boat from Karachi to Mumbai, the Wall Street Journal reported quoting a senior Pakistani security official.

The paper said Pakistan’s own investigation of terror attacks in Mumbai have begun to show substantive links between the LeT and 10 terrorists who took part in the Mumbai carnage. Pakistani security officials were quoted as saying that a top Lashkar commander, Zarar Shah, has admitted a role in the Mumbai attack during interrogation.

The paper quoted a person familiar with investigation as saying that Shah also admitted that the attackers spent at least a few weeks in Karachi, training in urban combat to hone skills they would use in their assault.

The disclosure, it said, could add new international pressure on Pakistan to accept that the attacks, which left 183 dead in India, originated within its borders and to prosecute or extradite the suspects.

That raises difficult and potentially destabilising issues for the country’s new civilian government, its military and the spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence — which is conducting interrogations of militants it once cultivated as partners, the Journal said. (Agencies)

Sources say the money was donations for the recent assembly elections. Party officials are still doing the tally.

“Reconciliation of accounts is being done as most of the leaders were busy campaigning for the last two months. We are looking into the matter and will then see what exactly has happened,” said Ramdass Aggarwal, treasurer, BJP.

But when it comes to donations for party funds, reconciliation of accounts may not be that easy. As party sources point out, most of the stolen money may not be recorded in its books.

The theft of unaccounted money from the party’s national office has clearly put the BJP on the defensive and the party will soon have to come out with a logical explanation as to what exactly happened. - PTI

A search on the Pirate Bay BitTorrent site, for example, returned two Windows 7 Build 7000 listings, both of which had been posted Friday.

As of Saturday afternoon, one torrent on Pirate Bay showed more than 1,800 “seeders” — the term for a computer that has a complete copy of the torrent file — and about 8,500 “leechers,” or computers that have downloaded only part of the complete torrent. The torrent is a disk image of the 32-bit version of Windows 7 Ultimate, Build 7000, according to users commenting on the site and elsewhere on the Internet.

Pirate Bay and other BitTorrent sites, including Mininova, listed the beta build as a 2.44GB download.

This is not the first time Windows 7 has escaped from Microsoft’s limited testing pool. Just hours after the company unveiled an earlier version at its Professional Developers Conference in late October, the alpha edition hit BitTorrent.

Users first reported the newest Windows 7 leak on Neowin.net’s forums Friday, with the opening message and screenshots coming from someone identified as “+fivestarVIP,” who said he was from Beijing.

Build 7000 is what Microsoft will issue next month as Windows 7 Beta, according to other reports by Windows bloggers who have copies. Paul Thurrott, for example, posted a review and screenshots of Build 7000 today on his “SuperSite for Windows” site, naming it as the beta build.

Although Microsoft has promised to open the beta to all users in early 2009, the company has been mum on an exact release date. Information published on its own Web site earlier this month, however, hinted that the beta will be available no later than Jan. 13.

Some commentators and bloggers have maintained that Microsoft may release the beta as early as Jan. 7, after CEO Steve Ballmer delivers a keynote that evening at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where he is expected to talk about Windows 7.

The successor to the perception- and problem-plagued Windows Vista will ship in late 2009 or early 2010, according to previous statements by Microsoft executives. (Agencies)

The Congress core group held confabulations today on government formation in the restive state. Sources have said that a coalition between the National Conference and the Congress was imminent. A decision to the effect will be taken by today evening.

Sonia Gandhi is slated to meet Omar Abdullah at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s residence.

Last night, the Congress president held inconclusive consultations with senior party leaders of Jammu and Kashmir on the prospects of forging a tie-up with National Conference.

Gandhi held discussions with PCC chief Saifuddin Soz and former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and sought their views on aligning with NC, which a majority in her party favours.

AICC general secretary in-charge of J&K Prithviraj Chavan and Congress president’s political secretary Ahmed Patel also attended the hour-long meeting.

Congress spokesman Manish Tiwari while replying to queries on whether Congress was thinking of any other party as well besides NC had remarked yesterday that since the situations in J&K were new, “all aspects were under consideration.”

Omar Abdullah told reporters on Monday, “We will talk about formation of a coalition and if we succeed in the talks, then probably within two or three days, the announcement of coalition will be possible”.

Reports say that a coalition arrangement between the Congress and the NC will prove beneficial to the former in next year’s Lok Sabha polls.

The J&K polls concluded with no party emerging as a clear winner. The National Conference with 28 seats emerged as the single largest party in the elections. The Congress won 17 of the 87 seats while the PDP got 21. The BJP fared quite well in Jammu with 11 seats.

The meeting took place in the backdrop of both the National Conference and PDP initially showing the inclination to form the government in the state and Congress having a rethink on whether it should support NC or PDP.

Congress and NC were part of an alliance in J&K in 1987.

Soparrkar has also choreographed Britney’s comeback ‘Womanizer’ video. The’Toxic’ star has been seeing Soparrkar and even flew to Jodhpur for a romantic three-day Christmas break with the dance instructor, a British newspaper has reported. “It’s early days but their romance is going from strength to strength,”‘The Mirror’reported.

” Britney and Sandip tried to keep their reunion in India hush-hush as they’re determined to have a relationship just like any other couple,” the newspaper said.” Sandip is very down to earth and keeps Britney grounded. He’s also quite spiritual and sensitive, which is a side of him she adores.”For Christmas, Sandip or Sandy as Britney calls him. Presented her with a traditional Indian sari. She wore it during a candlelit dinner, the source revealed.

“The pair were whispering and giggling all night. Sandy ordered local delicacies including chicken tikka and a cottage cheese curry. Britney was nicking the dough balls from his plate. It was really cute,” the source added.

The pop singer met Soparrkar at a party thrown by Madonna earlier this year. Britney will reportedly spend the New Year back in LA and Sandip may jet over to see in 2009 with her.

Britney is famous for dating badboys like ex-husband Kevin Federline, British photographer of Pakistani origin Adnan Ghalib and Irish playboy Colin Farrell. However, Sandip is known to have a clean image. (Agencies)

In his first public statement since the Mumbai terror attack, Kayani, the Chief of Army, which is believed to have huge influence over affairs of the state in Pakistan, backed moves for de-escalation of tensions with India.

A brief military statement was issued after Kayani met Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei, who was dispatched here by Beijing to help ease the Indo-Pak stand-off, at the Army Headquarters in Rawalpindi near here.

“The Chief of Army Staff highlighted the need to de-escalate and avoid conflict in the interest of peace and security in the region,” the statement said.

Pakistan’s civilian leadership also continued its ‘no war’ stance, with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani voicing opposition to any military action.

“We have never wanted war with anybody… We also want that our soil should not be used for terrorism,” Gilani said as international pressure mounted on the country to avoid confrontation with India in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks.

During a meeting with visiting Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister He Yafie, dispatched by Beijing to Islamabad to help reduce regional tensions, Gilani reiterated Pakistan’s “firm resolve for maintaining good relations with all its neighbours”.

Gilani said only “elements inimical to cordial Pakistan-India ties and terrorists had benefited from the situation that evolved” after the Mumbai incident. Pakistan desires the de-escalation of tensions and is hopeful its stance will be reciprocated by the Indian leadership, he added.

Stressing that there could be no parallel centres of power in the country, Gilani described Pakistan as a “responsible and peaceful” nuclear state and said it wanted good relations with its neighbours.

“We don’t want any parallel government in the country and don’t want the writ of the government be challenged,” he said at the campus of the National University of Science and Technology here, without elaborating who he was referring to.

The US and UK have pressed Pakistan to take concrete action against those responsible for the November 26 Mumbai terror attacks. New Delhi has asked China, Saudi Arabia and Iran to use their influence on Islamabad to rein in terrorists operating from Pakistan.

The statements by Pakistani military and civilian leadership came as an Army spokesman confirmed that the two countries had been in touch through the Director General of Military Operations and this apparently had helped lower the tensions.

The DGMOs usually make contact on Tuesday on a routine basis but they spoke to each other over the weekend in an “extraordinary move”, ‘The News’ daily quoted a top military official as saying.

“That was only possible with the consent of top military leaders of both the countries. Apparently, this helped lower the tension,” the official said.

The DGMOs made contact after Pakistani officials said thousands of troops had been moved from the militant-infested northwestern tribal areas to the Indian border and leave had been cancelled for soldiers. (Agencies)