Genelia D'souza: Genelia D’Souza's new photoshoot

Genelia D'souza: Genelia D’Souza's new photoshoot

China Puts Best Face Forward With News Channel

SHANGHAI — The Xinhua News Agency, China’s dominant news service and the propaganda arm of the Communist Party, introduced a 24-hour English-language news channel and is preparing to open a prominent newsroom in Times Square, part of an expensive push to increase the reach and influence of the Chinese news media overseas.  
     The president of Xinhua, Li Congjun, said Thursday at a press conference in Beijing that CNC World, the agency’s new 24-hour news channel, was part of a government effort to "present an international vision with a Chinese perspective."

The announcement is the strongest sign yet that China intends to spend billions of dollars over the next few years to create a global media empire that can match the country’s rising economic and diplomatic power and more effectively project its views to an international audience.
Beijing officials have long complained that China is often portrayed unfavorably in the Western media and that what it considers biased news coverage has hurt the country’s interests abroad.
The new channel, which media experts say appears to be modeled on Al Jazeera, the Arabic news network, aims to provide comprehensive coverage of world affairs, while explaining matters of direct concern to the Chinese leadership in a perspective its producers consider appropriate.
Analysts say China’s global media expansion is striking because many Western media giants, faced with an advertising slump, have scaled back operations by closing bureaus and laying off employees.
“While our media empires are melting away like the Himalayan glaciers, China’s are expanding,” said Orville Schell, director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York and a former dean of the journalism school at the University of California, Berkeley. “They want to get every hallmark of the world of credible journalism they can, and being in New York City, in an iconic location, is part of that.”
On Thursday, an official with Xinhua, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press, said Xinhua was planning to build a newsroom at the top of a 44-story skyscraper in Times Square, giving it an address in the same neighborhood as Reuters, Conde Nast, News Corp and The New York Times.
Xinhua’s move is just one of several planned by Beijing. China Central Television, the country’s biggest state-run television broadcaster, has also been expanding overseas and offering broadcasts in English, Spanish, French, Arabic and other languages. And China has heavily financed a makeover of China Daily, its English-language daily newspaper, and introduced a new English edition of Global Times, which is controlled by People’s Daily, the leading Communist Party-run newspaper.
Whether state-run news services financed and controlled by Beijing can attract a big international audience or earn significant revenues overseas remains uncertain. Many media experts say Chinese news agencies, though improving, lack credible and objective reporting and are widely perceived to be propaganda vehicles for the Chinese government.
“We’ve criticized them a lot because they’re a propaganda tool,” said Clothilde Le Coz, the Washington director of Reporters Without Borders. “So the fact that they want to expand in the U.S., we’d like to see what that would look like.”
There have also been reports over the years that some of China’s state-run news agencies are closely tied to state intelligence agencies. Xinhua got its start in 1931 as the Red China News Agency, even before the Communist Party gained power in 1949.
Xinhua still functions as China’s official news bureau, releasing government reports and official statements for Politburo members, and setting the tone for China’s other heavily censored news publications, which are often instructed to republish Xinhua dispatches on major news events without alteration.
On Thursday, the agency said in announcing its new 24-hour English news channel that it hoped to offer a “better view of China to its international viewers.” And it will try to do that, it said, with English-language news, live Internet broadcasts, talk shows and in-depth reporting.
The agency already has more than 10,000 employees and 120 bureaus around the world, rivaling the reach, if not the quality, of Western news services like Reuters or Bloomberg. Xinhua has begun recruiting non-Chinese journalists from around the world to write for its news services.
Mr. Schell at the Asia Society says Beijing is serious about trying to present its news agencies as a credible alternative to global brands.
“Despite Herculean efforts, they don’t think they’re taken seriously; the agency is not on equal footing on credibility,” he said of Xinhua. “But we’re one step away from the next stage, when they pick up distressed properties in the global media world.” 

Source: Ntimes

Apple 'Stunned' To Find IPhones Show Too Many Bars

NEW YORK -- Apple Inc. said Friday that it was "stunned" to find that its iPhones have for years been using a "totally wrong" formula to determine how many bars of signal strength they are getting.

Apple said that's the reason behind widespread complaints from users that the latest model, iPhone 4, can show a sudden plunge in signal strength when they hold it in a way that covers a small black strip on one edge of the phone. Users online have jokingly called this the "death grip" for the phone.

That drop seems exaggerated because the phone can wrongly display four or five bars of signal strength when it shouldn't, Apple said.

"Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place," the company said in a letter to users.

Apple launched the iPhone 4 on June 24 in the U.S. and four other countries.

Some outside engineers and users have blamed the iPhone 4's apparent reception problems on the novel design that incorporates its antenna into the case. But the company said that any phone will show reduced reception if held in a way that covers the antenna, usually mounted at the rear and bottom of a phone. It maintains that iPhone 4's wireless performance is better than previous models. And it said the incorrect signal-strength formula existed in the original iPhone, launched in 2007.

Apple, which is based in Cupertino, Calif., said it will fix its signal strength formula to conform to other AT&T phones through a free software update for iPhone models 3G, 3Gs and 4 within a few weeks.

"We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see," Apple said.

Despite recurring complaints about dropped calls and slow data service, particularly in the U.S., the iPhone is a standout success, with each model selling faster than the previous one. Apple said it sold 1.7 million iPhone 4s in its first three days, essentially running out of stock.

AT&T Inc., the exclusive iPhone carrier in the U.S., has faced much of the users' blame for dropped calls and poor wireless performance. Apple apologized to customers Friday "for any anxiety we may have caused."

Source: Dlsreports

Haryana offers police officer's job to Saina

The Haryana government on Friday offered the job of a police officer to ace badminton player Saina Nehwal.

Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda made this offer in a letter to Saina. He said the state government wants her to join service as deputy superintendent of police (DSP).

Though Saina, ranked World No 3 in women's badminton, has lived and trained in Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh, her family originally hails from Haryana.

Hooda said Haryana had been rewarding outstanding sportspersons, who made a mark at national and international levels, and had appointed them directly at the level of DSP.

"In view of this, the state government was offering her to join the state police force as DSP," Hooda added.

Congratulating Saina for her exceptional success in international badminton events, Hooda said she had achieved a "marvellous feat" by winning the third super series title in a row and becoming the first ever Indian to win a super series tournament.

SOURCE: News24online

Uniform e-toll system on National Highways soon

The revenue a leakage is at least c 15 pc of the toll v collection, which w a comes to about t p Rs 300 crore a -- KAMAL NATH i

       INDIA will soon see a uniform electronic toll collection system on its national highways, increasing the revenue, curbing leakages and ensuring smooth travel across the country.
The system, which will use passive RFID (radio frequency identification) technology, is likely to be in place by May 2012. "Passive RFID will ensure that a person can travel from Kashmir to Kanyakumari without stopping anywhere. The revenue leakage at present is at least 15 percent of the toll collection, which comes to about Rs 300 crore," said Road and Transport Minister Kamal Nath.
RFID technology is a tracking system and has widespread applications across several industries like retail and logistics.
       The government had constituted a committee headed by Unique Identification Authority chairman Nandan Nilekani for this purpose.
      "The challenge was to have a technology which was modern, user-friendly and has inter national standards," said Nath.
      The RFID tag, will be stuck on the windscreen and cost about Rs 100, while the toll booth will have a tag reader, which is expected to cost about Rs 2 lakh.
A vehicle owner can `recharge' the account for the vehicle (the account number will be the RFID tag number), and when the vehicle passes through the lane of any toll plaza across the country, the appropriate toll will be debited from the account.
       India has about 71,000 km of national highways, but toll is collected on only 8,500 km.
The government plans to increase this to at least 30,000 km in the next five years. "We should be able to collect toll 30,000 km of national highways in five years," said the minister.
Talking about the multiple utility of the system, Nilekani said it will also act as a platform for vehicle identification and prove effective in tracking stolen vehicles IANS 
SOURCE: Expressbuzz 
 

Order on outside liquor inside clubs stayed

          THE Madras High Court on Friday stayed the operation of a circular dated March 23, 2010 of the Commissioner of Prohibition and Excise prohibiting consumption of liquor purchased outside in any club premises.
        Justice N Paul Vasantha tion for four weeks, while passing interim orders on a writ petition from K Manoharan of Saidapet, a member of Thyagaraya Nagar Social Club.
      According to the petitioner, it was the practice of the club members to bring liquor purchased from outside and consume it on the club premises. The club charged a corkage fee for this. How ever, the March 23 circular prohibited bringing inside the club premises liquor purchased from outside outlets.
The petitioner contended that the circular violated Article 14 of the Constitution as star hotels were excluded from its applicability. 
      There would not be any loss to the State exchequer as the members bought liquor only from Tasmac shops outside the premises, the petitioner pointed out. 

SOURCE: Expressbuzz 
 

TOYOTA TO RECALL LEXUS LS460 OVER ENGINE PROBLEM

TOYOTA Motor Corp is to recall its topof-the-range Lexus LS460 sedans on concerns about the vehicle’s engine stalling, a media report said on Thursday.
The Nikkei business daily reported that Toyota is considering recalling tens of thousands of the Lexus LS460 worldwide.’ The model’s engine reportedly stalls while the vehicle is running and in the worst-case scenario, might not restart, the daily said.
Toyota has received no reports of accidents related to the problem, the paper said. The automaker is in the process of investigating the cause of the problem.
It would be the latest in a series of quality problems for Toyota since last fall. The world’s biggest automaker has recalled more than 10 million vehicles worldwide over problems with accelerator pedals, floor mats and brakes, which put a dent into its reputation for quality and safety. 

SOURCE: Expressbuzz