A total solar eclipse began its flight on Wednesday across a narrow swathe of Asia, where hundreds of millions of people watched the skies darken despite thick summer clouds.

The longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century was visible along a roughly 250 km-wide (155 miles) corridor, according to the U.S. space agency NASA, as it travelled half the globe and passed through the world’s two most populous nations, India and China.

As dawn broke on Wednesday, the century’s longest total solar eclipse began with thousands of sky gazers craning their neck skywards to catch the glimpse of the rare celestial spectacle.

The sun rose eclipsed on Wednesday morning at 5:28 a.m. at a local sunrise point in the Arabian Sea close to the western coast of India near Surat in Gujarat.

In India, the totality phase will last for some 3 minutes 30 seconds and places like Surat in Gujarat, Indore and Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh and Patna and Taregna in Bihar will observe the total solar eclipse.

The total eclipse will be between 6:20 a.m. to 6:25 a.m. when sun will be completely obscured by the moon.

After giving the nod to prosecute CPM leader Pinarayi Vijayan, Kerala Governor R S Gavai received a death threat on Sunday night for his decision.

A caller  have threatened the governor’s life for giving the go-ahead to the CBI to prosecute politburo member and Kerala CPM secretary Vijayan in the multi-crore SNC Lavalin case.

The caller spoke in Malayalam, police said. A complaint was lodged with the Museum police station. Using details in the caller ID which recorded a 11-digit phone number, police said it found the call was made from a Gulf country. Security has been stepped up at the Raj Bhawan following the call.

Pinarayi Vijayan is accused of cheating the state exchequer of nearly Rs 374 crores in 1998 when he awarded a crucial contract to the Canadian company SNC-Lavalin.

AR Rahman has been conferred Hon D. Lit from Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). The University also awarded D. Lit to Gopichand Narang, a world famous Urdu language expert.

AR Rahman earlier this year won many hearts with his music in the Hollywood film on Indian theme Slumdog Millionaire.

The film has done business worth hundreds of millions of dollars and has won all the leading awards including several Oscars.

AR rahman won two Oscars for his music scores in the film. Since then he has been constantly in news for one thing or the other.

The University also conferred the Honorary degree to noted Urdu writer Professor Gopichand Narang, former President of Sahitya Academy.

AR Rahman was born actually as Dileep Kumar on the 6th of January in the year 1966 in Chennai. His father was a known musician but dies the day when the first film he had composed hit the theatres. AR was only 11 years at that time.

The Cape Town has been selected to host the opening match of tournament. News reports point out further that the final of the tournament would be hoisted in Wanderers in Johannesburg. The dates for the opening and the mach of tournament have been scheduled on April 18 and May 24, respectively.

The semi-finals of the tournament will be held on May 22 in Centurion.Wanderers, Johannesburg will host the second semifinal May 23 and also the final and the closing ceremony May 24.

A detailed schedule of the tournament stated that in total 59 matches would be played in eight cities. The venues will include Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, Pretoria, East London, Kimberly, Bloemfontein and Port Elizabeth.

Detailed schedule of  India Premier League 2009

Lok Sabha polls will be held in five phases from April 16 to May 13, the Election Commission announced on Monday.

Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami here today announced the Lok Sabha election dates. Lok Sabha polls from April 16 to May 13. Counting date is May 16.

5 phases in Lok Sabha polls.

In the first phase, 124 constituencies will go to polls on April 16. 141 constituencies will witness balloting in the second phase on April 23, 107 seats in third phase on April 30, 85 seats in fourth phase on May 7 and 86 constituencies in the last phase on May 13.

The counting of votes will take place on May 16 and the 15th Lok Sabha will be constituted by June two.

A Special CBI court today awarded death punishment to Moninder Singh Pander and Surinder Koli, convicted in infamous Nithari killings.

The CBI today sought death penalty for Nithari serial killings case convict Surinder Koli while leaving it to the court the quantum of punishment for businessman Moninder Singh Pandher in the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl.
The special CBI court had yesterday found the duo guilty on the charges of rape and murder in the gruesome killing of Rimpa Halder, first of the 19 Nithari victims.

Observing the case as rarest of rare crime, the CBI judge pronounced hang them until death.

The judgement has come as a major embarrassment for the CBI which had probed the case and had given a clean chit to
Pander. Of the 19 cases, the CBI has filed chargesheets in 16 cases against Koli.

During the half-hour long final arguments before the pronouncement of quantum of sentence by judge Rama Jain, agency’s counsel S P Ahluwalia termed the killings by Koli as “rarest of rare” and a fit case for capital punishment.

India’s Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza beat Israel’s Andy Ram and Nathalia Dechy of France to lift the Australian Open mixed doubles title here on Sunday. This was their second consecutive year in the finals, and followed a rather lacklustre year for Ms. Mirza. Their opponents were unseeded, and the match was won handily by the duo. This is the seventh Grand Slam title for Mahesh and the first for Sania. He lost the Men’s Doubles finals

Mirza, 22, had already achieved a series of firsts for Indian women tennis players, including the highest ranking of 18.

She became the first Indian female to capture any grand slam title when she partnered Russia’s Alisa Kleybanova to win the 2003 Wimbledon junior doubles then in 2005 she became the first Indian woman to win a WTA event when she won at Hyderabad.

She is enormously popular in India but has been dogged by controversy.

She almost quit the sport last year after being accused of showing disrespect to the Indian flag and facing mounting criticism from religious groups for playing in normal tennis attire.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was today discharged from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, where he underwent redo bypass heart surgery on January 24.

Singh’s illness came as his Congress party prepares its campaign for a month-long general election likely to begin in early April.

Doctors operated on the 76-year-old leader on Jan. 24 after they found blockages in his arteries during a health check up.

“It’s going to take him about two-three weeks to come to office and work. In fact in a week’s time he is going to start working from home,” federal Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss said.

“He was very cheerful, in fact he was walking.”
The Prime Minister left for home at 7 Race Course Road today at 0750 hrs.

Pre-discharge tests were conducted on the Prime Minister yesterday and his discharge today was certain.

At least 11 people, including three policemen, were injured in fresh violence in the city where protesters defied curfew at a few places as rest of the Jammu region observed a shutdown on Monday over the Amarnath land row.

Security forces fired in the air to scatter protesters who, defying curfew, took to the streets and fought pitched battles with police at Muthi on the outskirts of the city.

Eleven people, three of them policemen, were injured in the violence, official sources said adding the RAF personnel fired warning shots in the air after the baton-charge and teargassing proved ineffective.

Skirmishes also took place between protesters and police at Parade Ground in the heart of the city, the sources said.

For the past four days, Jammu has been seething with anger prompting authorities to clamp curfew in some parts of the winter capital. People have defied restrictions and fought it out with the police. Several, including cops, suffered wounds in the clashes.

Rumours are rife that one of the hottest couples in Bollywood, Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif, is heading for splitsville. The final blow to their relationship came in the form of the spat between Salman and Shah Rukh Khan on Katrina’s birthday.

After splitting from his former girlfriend Aishwarya Rai, Salman had finally cashed in all his emotions on Katrina, but he seems to have lost her too as she is quite upset with him. Industry sources said Katrina is no mood to forgive him for his behaviour with Shah Rukh on her birthday which attracted much media attention.

The sources said that after the incident Salman and Katrina are not on talking terms.

Katrina opined that Salman should have restrained himself as he was playing the host. “But certain things are not in anyone’s control and it is destined to happen,” Katrina said in an interview.

A close friend of Salman said: “He is good at heart. He took initiative for the party to please Katrina. But everything went wrong.”

Salman and Katrina’s relationship was already going through a rough patch. Katrina’s ambition is the reason for Salman’s anguish. The British-born actress has long stopped taking his advice regarding her professional life, which irked the actor.