The penalties will also be applicable to those who offer software or tools for hacking to any intruder.

The existing law offers punishment only for intruding into networks of governments, national defence or leading science sectors; or altering the functions of personal computer systems.

However, the amended law will be the first legal tool to curb increasing data theft from civil-use computers in China.

According to Zhou Guangquan, a member of the NPC’s law committee and a professor in criminal law at Tsinghua University, the proposed penalties also apply to Chinese hackers, who steal information from foreign computers.

The proposed draft states that either the crime or its consequence occurs in China, it shall be subject to Chinese law, reports the China Daily.

“Even if the crime has nothing to do with China, but the criminal is a Chinese citizen, it also falls under the law’s jurisdiction,” Zhou said.

Li Shishi, deputy director of the NPC law committee, said that the latest changes were made at the request of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS).

“The ministry said many unscrupulous people have been found hacking computers to steal account numbers and passwords, or to remotely control them,” he said.

“These actions are a big threat to online security, and we consider it necessary to define them as crimes,” he added.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/139/20081223/854/ttc-chinese-hackers-may-be-jailed-for-7y.html

News: Maharashtra Govt. and Live-Ins. Recognition in waiting?

Why the concept of Live-In came into existence after all? What was the basic reason is something less probed. With the advent of Nuclear families with Globalization in ‘90s somewhere youth imbibed a fear towards marital commitment. This actually led to rise and gradual social acceptance of live-in concept. ‘I will stay with you and both will see that are we compatible enough to live together till death…’

Somewhere even I am not comfortable with the idea of living in but still feel that Maharashtra Govt. has taken a positive step towards socializing the outcaste so that the oppressed may not suffer.

A and B lives together. B gets pregnant and A runs away. What will happen? B will have to live with stigma and child will suffer for something he had no role.

A and B lives together. A is already married but hides the fact. What will happen? B will have to live with the feeling of being cheated.

In both cases today law cannot punish A or sort out B’s woes. Reason: It’s not legal.

We cannot stop people living in together so that there are minimum woes. The advisable thing is that legalize the practice that has been widely adopted. Hadn’t we adopted the Abortion Of Unborn Babies to stop population explosion and teen-pregnancies. We should move ahead with people.

http://justada.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/10/live-in-and-live-out.htm

India’s Oil Secretary R.S. Pandey said on Thursday some domestic airlines, including Kingfisher, had defaulted on jet fuel payments.

“We are discussing with Oil PSUs to repay in a phased manner..we want to take a little more extended credit,” said Ravi Nedungadi, Chief Financial Officer of UB Group, which holds a controlling stake in the airline.

“We are discussing the timeline (for repayment), it would be inappropriate to reveal any more, but there is an understanding developing on both sides,” he added.

He added that getting funds from banks was becoming a major problem for the airline industry as a whole.

“Every company is caught in a bind because the banking sector is unable to lend even if they are willing to. They just don’t have the liquidity. What option do we have?,” he said

The real solution would be to bring ATF prices down, he said.

ATF, or aviation turbine fuel make up between 30 and 45 percent of an airline’s operating cost. In August, a kilo-litre of ATF cost 73,600 rupees in Mumbai, compared with 46,500 rupees equivalent in Singapore.

Its code sharing agreement with top private carrier Jet Airways will yield cost benefits in another month or two, Nedungadi said.

Kingfisher and Jet this week set up an alliance to cut costs through code sharing as well as sharing of ticketing, ground services, fuel management and crew training and utilisation.

Both airlines will save about 15 billion rupees annually, Kingfisher Chairman Vijay Mallya had said.

Kingfisher and Jet are also planning to return 14 narrow bodied leased aircraft in an attempt to rationalize its fleet, he said, adding that the exercise was not yet complete.

“The decision has not been finalised, the 14 aircraft we are planning to return is more of a target,” he said, adding that the carriers to be returned would be A-320s and Boeing-737s.

“The industry on the whole has to contract and become more efficient, but for that we have to tide through this current phase which is very challenging,” he added.

The alliance between Jet and Kingfisher would not result in a monopoly in the airline industry or hurt discount carriers, Nedungadi said.

“Low cost carriers are offering a completely different product. The problem is where you try to offer a full service product at the cost of a no-frills one,” he said.

Shares of Kingfisher Airlines were up 5.07 percent at 46.60 rupees in a flat Mumbai market.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/137/20081017/371/tbs-kingfisher-talking-to-oil-cos-for-ph.html

It’s been said that God first separated the salt water from the fresh, made dry land, planted a garden, made animals and fish… all before making a human. He made and provided what we’d need before we were born. These are best & more powerful when eaten raw. We’re such slow learners…

God left us a great clue as to what foods help what part of our body!
God’s Pharmacy! Amazing!
A sliced Carrot looks like the human eye. The pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye… and YES, science now shows carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes.
A Tomato has four chambers and is red. The heart has four chambers and is red. All of the research shows tomatoes are loaded with lycopine and are indeed pure heart and blood food.
Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart. Each grape looks like a blood cell and all of the research today shows grapes are also profound heart and blood vitalizing food.
A Walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles or folds on the nut are just like the neo-cortex. We now know walnuts help develop more than three (3) dozen neuron-transmitters for brain function.
Kidney Beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and yes, they look exactly like the human kidneys.
Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb and many more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are 23% sodium. If you don’t have enough sodium in your diet, the body pulls it from the bones, thus making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.
Avocadoes, Eggplant and Pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female – they look just like these organs. Today’s research shows that when a woman eats one avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight, and prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this? It takes exactly nine (9) months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (modern science has only studied and named about 141 of them).
Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow. Figs increase the mobility of male sperm and increase the numbers of Sperm as well to overcome male sterility.
Sweet Potatoes look like the pancreas and actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics.
Olives assist the health and function of the ovaries
Oranges, Grapefruits, and other Citrus fruits look just like the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts.
Onions look like the body’s cells. Today’s research shows onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells. They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes. A working companion, Garlic, also helps eliminate waste materials and dangerous free radicals from the body.

http://sumanpisces.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/10/excellent-observation.htm

He met her on a party. She was so outstanding, many guys chasing after her, while he so normal, nobody paid attention to him. At the end of the party, he invited her to have coffee with him, she was surprised, but due to being polite, she promised. They sat in a nice coffee shop, he was too nervous to say anything, she felt uncomfortable, she thought, please,
let me go home…. suddenly he asked the waiter. ‘would you please give me some salt? I’d like to put it in my coffee.’
Everybody stared at him, so strange! His face turned red, but still, he
put the salt in his coffee and drank it. She asked him curiously; why
you have this hobby? He replied: ‘when I was a little boy, I was living near the sea, I like playing in the sea, I could feel the taste of the sea, just like the taste of the salty coffee. Now every time I have the salty
coffee, I always think of my childhood, think of my hometown, I miss my hometown so much, I miss my parents who are still living there’. While saying that tears filled his eyes. She was deeply touched.
That’s his true feeling, from the bottom of his heart. A man who can
fill out his homesickness, he must be a man who loves home, cares about home, has responsibility of home. Then she also started to speak, spoke about her faraway hometown, her childhood, her family. That was a really nice talk, also a beautiful beginning of their story. They continued to date. She found that actually he was a man who meets all her demands; he had tolerance, was kind hearted, warm, careful. He was
such a good person but she almost missed him! Thanks to his salty
coffee! Then the story was just like every beautiful love story , the princess married to the prince, then they were living the happy life… And, every time she made coffee for him, she put some salt in the coffee e, as she knew that’s the way he liked it. After 40 years, he passed away, left her a letter which said: ‘My dearest, please forgive me, forgive my whole life lie. This was the only lie I said to you—the salty coffee. Remember the first time we dated? I was so nervous at that time, actually I wanted some sugar, but I said salt It was hard for me to change so I just went ahead.I never thought that could be the start of our communication! I tried to tell you the truth many times in my life, but I was too afraid to do that, as I have promised not to lie to you for anything.. Now I’m dying, I afraid of nothing so I tell you the truth: I don’t like the salty coffee, what a strange bad taste.. But I have had the salty coffee for my whole life! Since I knew you, I never feel sorry for anything I do for you. Having you with me is my biggest happiness for my whole life. If I can live for the second time, still want to know you
and have you for my whole life,even though I have to drink the salty coffee again’. Her tears made the letter totally wet.Someday, someone asked her: what’s the taste of salty coffee? It’s sweet. She replied.
Love is not 2 forget but 2 forgive, not 2 c but 2 understand, not 2 hear
but 2 listen, not 2 let go but 2 HOLD ON !!!!

http://sumanpisces.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/10/an-amazing-love-story.htm

*To prepare a three-dimensional atlas (with a high spatial and altitude resolution of 5-10m) of both near and far side of the moon.

* To conduct chemical and mineralogical mapping of the entire lunar surface for distribution of elements such as Magnesium, Aluminum, Silicon, Calcium, Iron and Titanium with a spatial resolution of about 25 km and high atomic number elements such as Radon, Uranium & Thorium with a spatial resolution of about 20 km.

It will take about 5½ days for Chandrayaan-1 to get to the Moon. Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft will be in a 100 km polar orbit around the Moon. Instruments of the European Space Agency and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of USA are to be flown as payloads.

It will be a proud moment for all Indian when Chandrayaan-1 is successfully launched. I work for ISRO and knowing the efforts that have been put into this project, there is not even a speck of doubt in my mind that it will be a grand success. Send in your wishes for Chandrayaan-1 to be a grand success. You can email your wishes to moon@isro.gov.in

http://indiaregion.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/10/wish-india-s-moon-mission-of-chandrayan-1-a-grand.htm

http://subbumani.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/05/what-it-means-to-live-in-a-city.htm

SCIENTIFIC EXPERTS from around the world are predicting that five years from now, all life on Earth could well come to an end. Some are saying it’ll be humans that would set it off. Others believe that a natural phenomenon will be the cause. And the religious folks are saying it’ll be God himself who would press the stop button. The following are some likely arguments as to why the world would end by the year 2012.

Reason one: Mayan calendarThe first to predict 2012 as the end of the world were the Mayans, a bloodthirsty race that were good at two things — building highly accurate astrological equipment out of stone and sacrificing virgins.

Thousands of years ago they managed to calculate the length of the lunar moon as 329.53020 days, only 34 seconds out. The Mayan calendar predicts that the earth will end on December 21, 2012. Given that they were pretty close to the mark with the lunar cycle, it’s likely they’ve got the end of the world right as well.
Reason two: Sun storms

Solar experts from around the world monitoring the sun have made a startling discovery. Our sun is in a bit of strife. The energy output of the sun is, like most things in nature, cyclic and it’s supposed to be in the middle of a period of relative stability. However, recent solar storms have been bombarding the earth with lot of radiation energy. It’s been knocking out power grids and destroying satellites. This activity is predicted to get worse and calculations suggest it’ll reach its deadly peak sometime in 2012.
Reason three: The atom smasher

Scientists in Europe have been building the world’s largest particle accelerator. Basically, its a 27 km tunnel designed to smash atoms together to find out what makes the universe tick. However, the mega-gadget has caused serious concern, with some scientists suggesting that it’s properly even a bad idea to turn it on in the first place. They’re predicting all manner of deadly results, including mini black holes. So when this machine is fired up for its first serious experiment in 2012, the world could be crushed into a super-dense blob the size of a basketball.

Reason four: The Bible says it

If having scientists warning us about the end of the world isn’t bad enough, religious folks are getting in on the act as well. Interpretations of the Christian Bible reveal that the date for Armageddon, the final battle between good an evil, has been set for 2012. The I Ching, also known as the Chinese Book of Changes, says the same thing, as do various sections of the Hindu teachings.

Reason five: Super volcano

Yellowstone National Park in United States is famous for its thermal springs and old faithful geyser. The reason for this is simple — it’s sitting on top of the world’s biggest volcano and geological experts are beginning to get nervous sweats. The Yellowstone volcano has a pattern of erupting every 650,000 years or so, and we’re many years overdue for an explosion that will fill the atmosphere with ash, blocking the sun and plunging the earth into a frozen winter that could last up to 15,000 years. The pressure under the Yellowstone is building steadily, and geologists have set 2012 as a likely date for the big bang.

Reason six: The physicists

This one’s case of bog — simple maths mathematics. Physicists at Berkely University have been crunching the numbers. They’ve determined that the earth is well overdue for a major catastrophic event. Even worse, they’re claiming that their calculations prove that we’re all going to die, very soon. They are also saying that their prediction comes with a certainty of 99 per cent; and 2012 just happens to be the best guess as to when it occurs.

Reason seven: Earth’s magnetic field

We all know the Earth is surrounded by a magnetic field that shields us from most of the sun’s radiation. What you might not know is that the magnetic poles we call North and South have a nasty habit of swapping places every 750,000 years or so — and right now we’re about 30,000 years overdue. Scientists have noted that the poles are drifting apart roughly 20-30 kms each year, much faster than ever before, which points to a pole-shift being right around the corner. While the pole shift is under way, the magnetic field is disrupted and will eventually disappear, sometimes for up to 100 years. The result is enough UV outdoors to crisp your skin in seconds, killing everything it touches.

http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=139440

With personal account deposit bank of $1500 billion in foreign reserve which have been misappropriated, an amount 13 times larger than the country’s foreign debt, one needs to rethink if India is a poor country?.DISHONEST INDUSTRIALISTS, scandalous politicians and corrupt IAS, IRS, IPS officers have deposited in foreign banks in their illegal personal accounts a sum of about $ 1500 billion, which have been misappropriated by them. This amount is about 13 times larger than the country’s foreign debt. With this amount 45 crore poor people can get Rs 1,00,000 each. This huge amount has been appropriated from the people of India by exploiting and betraying them.

Once this huge amount of black money and property comes back to India, the entire foreign debt can be repaid in 24 hours. After paying the entire foreign debt, we will have surplus amount, almost 12 times larger than the foreign debt. If this surplus amount is invested in earning interest, the amount of interest will be more than the annual budget of the Central government. So even if all the taxes are abolished, then also the Central government will be able to maintain the country very comfortably.

Some 80,000 people travel to Switzerland every year, of whom 25,000 travel very frequently. “Obviously, these people won’t be tourists. They must be travelling there for some other reason,” believes an official involved in tracking illegal money. And, clearly, he isn’t referring to the commerce ministry bureaucrats who’ve been flitting in and out of Geneva ever since the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations went into a tailspin!

Just read the following details and note how these dishonest industrialists, scandalous politicians, corrupt officers, cricketers, film actors, illegal sex trade and protected wildlife operators, to name just a few, sucked this country’s wealth and prosperity. This may be the picture of deposits in Swiss banks only. What about other international banks?

Black money in Swiss banks — Swiss Banking Association report, 2006 details bank deposits in the territory of Switzerland by nationals of following countries:

Top five
India—- $1456 billion
Russia—$ 470 billion
UK——-$390 billion
Ukraine- $100 billion
China—–$ 96 billion

Now do the maths – India with $1456 billion or $1.4 trillion has more money in Swiss banks than rest of the world combined. Public loot since 1947: Can we bring back our money? It is one of the biggest loots witnessed by mankind — the loot of the Aam Aadmi (common man) since 1947, by his brethren occupying public office. It has been orchestrated by politicians, bureaucrats and some businessmen. The list is almost all-encompassing. No wonder, everyone in India loots with impunity and without any fear.

What is even more depressing in that this ill-gotten wealth of ours has been stashed away abroad into secret bank accounts located in some of the world’s best known tax havens. And to that extent the Indian economy has been stripped of its wealth. Ordinary Indians may not be exactly aware of how such secret accounts operate and what are the rules and regulations that go on to govern such tax havens. However, one may well be aware of ’Swiss bank accounts,’ the shorthand for murky dealings, secrecy and of course pilferage from developing countries into rich developed ones.

In fact, some finance experts and economists believe tax havens to be a conspiracy of the western world against the poor countries. By allowing the proliferation of tax havens in the twentieth century, the western world explicitly encourages the movement of scarce capital from the developing countries to the rich.

In March 2005, the Tax Justice Network (TJN) published a research finding demonstrating that $11.5 trillion of personal wealth was held offshore by rich individuals across the globe. The findings estimated that a large proportion of this wealth was managed from some 70 tax havens.

Further, augmenting these studies of TJN, Raymond Baker — in his widely celebrated book titled ’Capitalism’s Achilles Heel: Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free Market System’ — estimates that at least $5 trillion have been shifted out of poorer countries to the West since the mid-1970.

It is further estimated by experts that one per cent of the world’s population holds more than 57 per cent of total global wealth, routing it invariably through these tax havens. How much of this is from India is anybody’s guess.

What is to be noted here is that most of the wealth of Indians parked in these tax havens is illegitimate money acquired through corrupt means. Naturally, the secrecy associated with the bank accounts in such places is central to the issue, not their low tax rates as the term ’tax havens’ suggests. Remember Bofors and how India could not trace the ultimate beneficiary of those transactions because of the secrecy associated with these bank accounts? IS THERE ANY ONE WHO WOULD SAVE INDIA ?God… No No No, even he can’t……….!!

http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=137213&catID=10&category=Reviews

“He was like a beast, and when I refused his advances, he slapped me and then forced me to have sex with him. I cried out throughout the night,” recalls 32-year-old Shwetha.

“The ordeal did not end there. It continued every night. I have lost interest in sex,” says Shwetha with tears in her eyes as she recounts her nightmare.

The housewife has been a victim of rape and the rapist is none other than her husband, a software engineer in a prestigious firm. But can the law prosecute him?

In India, it is a notion that once married, a woman does not have the right to refuse her husband the joy of sex. This allows husbands the unquestioned right to have sex with their wives when they want.

Take the case of 65-year-old Sunanda Dasgupta. “I have a 39-year-old son, a software engineer. Even now, I have to sleep with my husband at least four to five times every month. Since my sister visits our place almost every afternoon, we could not have sex. As a result, he forces me to have sex with him at night. Since I’m past 65, intercourse sometimes gives me acute pain. But I have to bear it silently,” says Sunanda. There are millions like Shweta and Sunanda. With no legal recourse, they suffer in silence.

“No one ever thinks of rape in the context of marriage,” says lawyer C Vishnu Priya.

“Women themselves find it difficult to believe that a husband can rape his wife. After all, how can a man be accused of rape if he is asserting his conjugal rights?” asks Vishnu Priya, who heads Shakti, a women’s organisation in Tuticorin.

According to the Supreme Court, rape is a crime against basic human rights. According to section 375 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), sexual intercourse by a man with his wife, not being under-15, is not rape. Rape is defined in the IPC, but marital rape is not. A separate law has to be enacted on marital rape and it should be punished under the IPC.

Vishnu Priya says: “In most of the divorce cases I have come across, men demand divorce on the grounds that women deny them sex. But is it enough to claim for a divorce? Women should also know their rights and legal institutions should help marital rape victims fight for their rights.”

Although India is trying hard to ratify the Act that makes domestic violence punishable by law, there is hope that with the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005, a woman can appeal against marital rape in the criminal courts. “She can also file a case asking for separation,” says Prasanta Das Sharma, a veteran lawyer who deals with marital rape. He says the latest country to see the light is Thailand.

“When a stranger rapes a woman, she has to live with a bitter memory. When her husband rapes her, she has to live with the perpetrator. Marital rape is extremely destructive because it betrays the fundamental basis of a marital relationship,” he says.

The Thai national assembly recently passed the nation’s first marital rape bill. Offenders now face up to 20 years in jail and a fine of 40,000 baht (about Rs 45,000) — the same penalty that exists for non-marital rape. The remarkable part of the Thai law is that marital rape by either spouse is recognised.

Das Sharma says Mexico’s Congress ratified a bill that makes domestic violence punishable by law. If convicted, marital rapists could be imprisoned for 16 years.

Referring to rape laws in other countries, Das Sharma says there is no such thing as marital rape in Pakistan. There was uproar in Pakistan last year when a section of the press reported the misery of two women.

One was forced to have sex with her husband who was also sexually abusing their daughter. He gave her a choice; either consent to have sex or allow her daughter to be raped. The second incident was more horrific. The wife was gang-raped by her husband and three of his friends, who locked themselves in a room with her, raped her, and mutilated her private parts with a knife.

When social activists took up the case with the police, they dismissed it as a case of gharailoo musla (domestic matter).

Even in Nepal, the Supreme Court has declared that husbands who force their wives to have sex can now be charged with rape. The ruling, which came into force last year, was the result of a petition filed in 2001 by the Forum for Women, Law and Development.

Taking a dig at the present judicial system, advocate Ajeetha Bakthavatchalam points out that there is no law that recognises marital rape as a cognizable offence in India, though the PWDV Act, 2005, talks about sexual abuse. “It’s basically a civil law.”

She is, however, optimistic that if a law is implemented, “the women who find it difficult to talk about the physical violence that takes place under the guise of conjugal relations in the marriage will raise their voices against this most heinous crime.”

Das Sharma agrees with Priya on the need for a separate law to try marital rape cases. But he says a mere amendment in the law will not ensure women get their due. The police and the judiciary must be sensitised to deal with such cases.

“I feel we need to wait for the next Parliament session to lobby for a bill on marital rape. And what we need is a more participatory process where groups working on the issue from all over the country are given a chance to make their submissions. And I hope the government will take all this effort seriously and will come up with a clear cut verdict on outraging the modesty of a woman,” he says.

http://forums.sulekha.com/forums/coffeehouse/ISNA-Bringing-Wife-Beating-Convention-to-Ohio-867223.htm#867225