SIT announced Scholarship for Indian Students

 Southern Institute of Technology's (SIT) brand ambassador and former coach of Indian cricket team John Wright today announced 25 scholarships for aspiring Indian students to live, learn, work in New Zealand and excel in a field of their choice.

Having seen immense sporting and academic talent in the Indian sub-continent, SIT invites all outstanding students from India, Sri Lanka and Nepal to pursue studies abroad with study scholarships named after himself (John Wright Scholarship) ranging between NZ dollar 1400 to NZ dollar 18000 (Rs 60,000 to Rs 75,0000), he told a press conference here.

The scholarships give successful candidates an opportunity to pursue their sporting and academic dreams, he said.

The curriculum includes SIT's postgraduate diploma in business enterprise, nine graduate diplomas, 12 bachelor's degrees, and a host of two-year diploma programme, he said.

Scholarship recipients not only get the benefit of fee reductions, but also get the opportunity to play for Southland local teams in NZ, he said.

Android 3/4 in Smart Phones

Three out of every four smartphones sold in the third quarter featured Google Inc's Android mobile operating system, as the gap between Google and Apple Inc-based phones widened further, according to a new research report.

Shipments of Android-based smartphones made by Samsung, HTC and other vendors nearly doubled in the third quarter, reaching 136 million units, according to industry research firm IDC.

The strong sales boosted Android's share of the worldwide smartphone market to 75 percent, from 57.5 percent in the year-ago period.

Apple's share of the market increased to 14.9 percent during the third quarter, from 13.8 percent a year earlier. Apple's iPhone uses the company's iOS mobile software.

While Android pulled further ahead of Apple's iOS, its gains have come mainly at the expense of rival operating systems Blackberry and Symbian, with shipments of phones running those systems declining significantly.

IDC analyst Kevin Restivo cited Android's close "tie-ins" to Google's broad

array of online services, which include online search and maps, as an important asset that has helped Android grow.

"Google has a thriving, multi-faceted product portfolio. Many of its competitors, with weaker tie-ins to the mobile OS, do not," Restivo said in the IDC report, which was released on Thursday.

Google offers its Android operating system free to phone manufacturers, and primarily makes money from online advertising when consumers access its services on the devices.

Research in Motion's Blackberry operating system had 7.7 percent share in the third quarter, compared with 9.5 percent a year earlier.

Symbian, which had 14.6 percent share a year ago, had a 4.1 percent share in the third quarter. Smartphone maker Nokia still offers the Symbian software in some of its phones, but the company has largely shifted to Microsoft Corp's software.

Mobile versions of Microsoft's software accounted for 3.6 percent of the smartphone market in the third quarter.

But IDC said that the recent launch of the new Microsoft Phone 8 operating system could improve its position in the fast-growing market.

Race for White House

In a year when the White House is at stake, the battle for Congress is the undercard. But it matters, a lot. A President Mitt Romney would need Republicans to gain control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate to push through his promises of an across-the-board tax cut and the repeal of Obamacare. Right now, the odds are he won't manage it.

The House, re-elected in its entirety every two years, is not the problem. Even defiant party loyalists admit Democratic hopes of recapturing the 435-seat chamber, in which the Republicans emerged with a majority of 242 to 193 after the mid-term tsunami of 2010, have virtually evaporated.

Today, thanks to repeated rounds of gerrymandering that have made incumbents safer, and the shrinking of the political centre, less than a quarter of all House districts are in any sense competitive.

Analysts predict Democrats will make a net gain of a dozen seats at most, well short of the "Drive to 25" game plan of Nancy Pelosi, the Minority Leader. There are intriguing individual races, not least the one in Utah's fourth district, where Mia Love – Haitian-American, converted Mormon and mayor of the town of Saratoga Springs – seeks to become the first black Republican Congresswoman.

But the overall picture will almost certainly remain the same: a Republican majority of social and fiscal conservatives, in which moderates are all but extinct, led by a Speaker, John Boehner, with the thankless task of shepherding a rambunctious Tea Party contingent averse to compromise.

If Mr Obama is re-elected, he will therefore have to cope with divided government. Just how divided depends on what happens to the Senate, and there the prospects for Mr Romney's party are murkier.

In the outgoing 112th Congress, Democrats held a slender Senate edge, of 53 to 47. As usual, a third of the chamber's 100 seats are up for re-election in 2012 – and the starting arithmetic distinctly favoured Republicans, who were defending just 10 seats compared to their opponents' 23.

Four or five GOP pick-ups have been likely from the outset of the campaign. But a combination of unexpected Democratic strength in several toss-up contests, a couple of candidates' own goals in seats the Republicans would expect to win, and plain old bad luck, have made the push to the magic number of 51 seriously complicated.

Precisely how complicated hinges on the outcome of the presidential race. If Mr Obama gains a second term, Republicans need a net gain of four. But that figure drops to three should Mr Romney prevail. A 50-50 tie would suffice, given the decisive vote of vice-president Paul Ryan in his constitutional role as president of the Senate.

And Mr Romney's performance may affect the outcome not only directly, but indirectly too. The final outcome, according to analysts, depends on eight or nine especially close races – three (in Virginia, Nevada and Wisconsin) in states which will decide the battle for the White House. If Mr Romney does well in them, his "coattails" could haul the Republican Senate candidate to victory as well.

Right now the omens are mixed. In Virginia, the battle of two former governors, the Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican George Allen, is tilting towards the former. Mr Allen, who once held the seat and presidential aspirations of his own, wants to make amends for his blunder of 2006 when he was caught on camera at a rally using the racial slur "makaka".

In Wisconsin, the popular former Republican governor Tommy Thompson was clear favourite before an unexpectedly bruising primary battle depleted his resources. Right now his opponent, the Democratic Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, is ahead by a whisker. In Nevada, it is Republican Dean Heller who has a tiny advantage.

Elsewhere several Democrats are doing better than expected, among them the incumbents Bill Nelson in Florida and Sherrod Brown in Ohio, both states where the presidential race is neck-and-neck but where they have established near double-digit leads. And in Nebraska, scene of one of the most fascinating undercard contests, old Democratic lion Bob Kerrey, a presidential candidate in 1992, is fast catching up in his underdog fight to recapture the seat.

But the highest-profile race of all, fittingly, is in Massachusetts. The Republican Scott Brown's 2010 win in the seat held for nearly half a century by Ted Kennedy cost Democrats their filibuster-proof Senate majority of 60, and was portent of the Republican tidal wave that November.

Now Mr Brown is in the fight of his life against Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard professor and celebrated consumer champion, whom some suspect of presidential aspirations of her own should she win. Polls suggest she may.

Gaffes meanwhile on the abortion issue have damaged two other once-favoured Republicans. In Missouri, Todd Akin – he of the "legitimate rape" comment – is trailing the Democratic incumbent, Claire McCaskill. In Indiana, Richard Mourdock's comment that pregnancies arising from rape are "God's will" suddenly threatens to cost Republicans a seat they've held for 36 years.

God's will, of course, can also be sheer bad luck. Few expected Olympia Snowe, one of the few Republican Senate moderates, to resign her seat in Maine in disgust at a deadlocked, hyperpartisan Congress. She is likely to be replaced by Angus King, a former governor and nominal independent, who will probably side with the Democrats. If so, then Ms Snowe may have handed not only her seat, but the whole Senate, to the Democrats.

Just One Banana

While cutting his way through India, Alexander the Great paused to note that in India bananas were the fruit of the wise man. According to a new report commissioned by the UN Committee on World Food Security, Alexander was perceptive. For as the climate warms, rice and wheat will become scarce. In their stead, the scientists say, the smart money is on bananas.

It would be a shame to wave goodbye to bread and rice, but the 'nana and its near cousin the plantain, both actually perennial herbs, provide consolations. Cyrus Todiwala says their leaves are a fine thing to cook fish in. While the plant's flower is familiar in Vietnamese banana blossom salads. The plantain's centre is also, according to Levi Roots, pretty handy as a stuffing, or for deep frying. But Fanny Craddock suggests you roll them in nuts and jam, stand them in a pineapple ring and place a glacé cherry on the end – wisdom indeed.

India at 40th in WEF

New Delhi: India has slipped four places to 40th position, out of 62 leading financial systems and capital markets, because of poor enforcement of contracts and low levels of liberalisation, says a World Economic Forum (WEF) report.

According to the fifth edition of the World Economic Forum's Financial Development Report 2012, India has been ranked 40th in the 2012 Index -- four-spot decline from last year (36 rank).

The report highlighted a poor record in enforcing contracts, low levels of liberalisation, inadequate IT and communications infrastructure and general high costs of doing business.

"Weak results in the institutional and business environment pillars continue to be driven by an inability to enforce contracts, a low degree of financial sector liberalisation, inadequate infrastructure, and a high cost of doing business" were largely responsible for the decline in India's ranking in the Index, the report said.

India has been ranked 9th out of the 15 Asia Pacific economies that were surveyed in the report.

India's comparative strength in the area of non-banking financial services was recognised in the report. It was ranked quite high in non-banking financial services (9th), but in terms of banking financial services it was placed in the 45th position.

The index was topped by Hong Kong for the second consecutive year, followed by the US, the UK, Singapore, Australia, Canada. There was no change in the ranking of the first six places this year as against last year.

"Globally, the Report found that a general stagnation in financial development, posing serious challenges to a global economic recovery," WEF said.

The general stability of the Index is further highlighted by Singapore, Australia and Canada maintaining their positions at 4th, 5th and 6th place, respectively.

The Netherlands fell two spots from 7th to 9th because of weakness in equity market development and banking system efficiency, while, Sweden jumped into this year's top 10 because of an improvement in retail access to capital.

"The Financial Development Report shows that financial systems in advanced and emerging economies are stalling," said Giancarlo Bruno, Senior Director at the World Economic Forum.

"Macroeconomic uncertainty, as well as concerns related to regulation, contributes to inhibiting the financial industry from funding much-needed growth," Bruno added

Oil Ministry Postpones CAG

The Oil Ministry has postponed a kick-off meeting scheduled for CAG to begin audit of Reliance Industries' KG-D6 spending, even as it continues to withhold approvals to the company's investment proposals.

The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) had called an Entry Conference with RIL and the Oil Ministry on Tuesday to begin its second round of audit that is to cover RIL's spending on KG-D6 gas fields during 2008-09 to 2011-12.

But the ministry on October 29 wrote letters calling off the October 31 meeting, sources privy to the development said.

The meeting, they said, was called-off due to differences over the nature and scope of audit to be conducted by CAG. 

RIL has sought written assurance that CAG scrutiny would be an "audit of accounting books and records" as provided under the Production Sharing Contract (PSC) and that the company would not be "required to provide documents, information or any clarification of matters which go beyond scope of audit under Section 1.9 of the Accounting Procedure of the PSC."

Also, it wants the audit to be carried at its premises and audit report be submitted to the Oil Ministry, as provided under PSC, and not to the Parliament.

The Ministry, however, wants RIL to give CAG "unfettered access to account books" and pending that it has not approved the company's investment proposals including annual budget for past three years.

Sources said the kick-off meeting was postponed so as to resolve these differences.

The Ministry had on October 23 written to RIL saying CAG would not do a performance audit of the company and that "all the government nominees" on the KG-D6 block oversight panel have "already approved" to all the development proposals made by RIL.

Sources, however, said the resolution approving annual capital expenditure on the KG-D6 block for 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13 fiscal have not been signed yet.

While the Management Committee of KG-D6 block on August 7 approved annual plans pending for past three years, the resolution had not been signed. These capex included those on well interventions to reverse the trend of falling gas output.

Pending signing is the MC approved revised field development plan for MA oil and gas field in the same block. All these investments, RIL says, are necessary to reverse drop in output at the fields.

Also, at least three discoveries RIL has made in the block had not been declared commercial, a step necessary to begin production from them.

Sandy Strom Created Climate Change

WASHINGTON: Climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer stood along the Hudson River and watched his research come to life as Hurricane Sandyblew through New York.

Just eight months earlier, the Princeton University professor reported that what used to be once-in-a-century devastating floods in New York City would soon happen every three to 20 years. He blamed global warming for pushing up sea levels and changing hurricane patterns.

New York "is now highly vulnerable to extreme hurricane-surge flooding," he wrote.

For more than a dozen years, Oppenheimer and other climate scientists have been warning about the risk for big storms and serious flooding in New York. A 2000 federal report about global warming's effect on the United States warned specifically of that possibility.

Still, they say it's unfair to blame climate change for Sandy and the destruction it left behind. They cautioned that they cannot yet conclusively link a single storm to global warming, and any connection is not as clear and simple as environmental activists might contend.

"The ingredients of this storm seem a little bit cooked by climate change, but the overall storm is difficult to attribute to global warming," Canada's University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver said.

Some individual parts of Sandy and its wrath seem to be influenced by climate change, several climate scientists said.

First, there's sea level rise. Water levels around New York are a nearly a foot (0.3 meters) higher than they were 100 years ago, said Penn State University climate scientist Michael Mann.

Add to that the temperature of the Atlantic Ocean, which is about 2 degrees Fahrenheit (.8 degrees Celsius) warmer on average than a century ago, said Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University. Warm water fuels hurricanes.

And Sandy zipped north along a warmer-than-normal Gulf Stream that travels from the Caribbean to Ireland, said Jeff Masters, meteorology director for the private service Weather Underground.

Meteorologists are also noticing more hurricanes late in the season and even after the season. A 2008 study said the Atlantic hurricane season seems to be starting earlier and lasting longer but found no explicit link to global warming. Normally there are 11 named Atlantic storms. The past two years have seen 19 and 18 named storms. This year, with one month to go, there are 19.

After years of disagreement, climate scientists and hurricane experts have concluded that as the climate warms, there will be fewer total hurricanes. But those storms that do develop will be stronger and wetter.

Sandy took an unprecedented sharp left turn into New Jersey. Usually storms keep heading north and turn east harmlessly out to sea. But a strong ridge of high pressure centered over Greenland blocked Sandy from going north or east, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University, an expert in how a warming Arctic affects extreme weather patterns, said recent warming in the Arctic may have played a role in enlarging or prolonging that high pressure area. But she cautioned it's not clear whether the warming really had that influence on Sandy.

While components of Sandy seem connected to global warming, "mostly it's natural, I'd say it's 80, 90 percent natural," said Gerald North, a climate professor at Texas A&M University. "These things do happen, like the drought. It's a natural thing."

On Tuesday, both New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. Andrew Cuomo said they couldn't help but notice that extreme events like Sandy are causing them more and more trouble.

"What is clear is that the storms that we've experienced in the last year or so, around this country and around the world, are much more severe than before," Bloomberg said. "Whether that's global warming or what, I don't know. But we'll have to address those issues."