Rahul most preferred face for CWG brand ambassador: Survey

The 2010 Common wealth Games will be the nineteenth Commonwealth Games, and the ninth to be held under that name. The Games are scheduled to be held in New Delhi, India between 3 October and 14 October 2010. The games will be the largest multi-sport event conducted to date in Delhi and India, which has previously hosted the Asian Games in 1951 and 1982. The opening ceremony is scheduled to take place at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, the main stadium, in Delhi. It will also be the first time the Commonwealth Games is held in India and the second time the event has been held in Asia (after 1998 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia).

He is considered to be the prime minister-in-waiting by many, but a recent survey among students has shown that Rahul Gandhi is also the face India would like to see as the brand ambassador for the Commonwealth Games. A whopping 72 per cent of those surveyed said they wanted the Gandhi scion to be the brand ambassador for the CWG. The survey was conducted by the Associated Chambers for Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) among 10,000 students in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Dehradun, Jaipur, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Kolkata and Bhubaneswar.

It revealed that Sachin Tendulkar (64 per cent) is the second choice of the nation for face of the Commonwealth Games 2010, followed by Amir Khan (56 per cent) and A R Rahman (42 per cent). The major options among the different categories included politicians, Bollywood stars, sportspersons and other public icons, who majorly influence the common man.

72 per cent of the respondents said Gandhi was the most honest, straightforward and trustworthy youth leader. The respondents said that the young Congress leader has instilled confidence in the youth and he is the motivational factor who can set standards for them.

Sachin Pilot, Minister of State for Communications and Infotech got 14 per cent, while Jyotiraditya Scindia, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry and Congress MP Jitin Prasada got six per cent votes each as the face of the Games. Among the sportspersons, iconic batsman Sachin Tendulkar (64 per cent) tops the list followed by Saina Nehwal (20 per cent), Viswanathan Anand (18 per cent) and Abhinav Bindra (six per cent).

The survey also highlighted the face for Commonwealth Games 2010 among the film industry. Actor Amir Khan -- the perfectionist -- came out on top with 56 per cent of the respondents voting for him as the first choice.

Actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan with 18 per cent, Shahrukh Khan with 12 per cent and Ranbir Kapoor with six per cent followed in the list. Other public figures included A R Rahman (42 per cent), Chetan Bhagat and singer Shaan.

The survey also highlighted the city which had the highest potential to organise the Commonwealth Games 2010 in India. Bangalore with 75 per cent first choice vote emerged as the most preferred city to organise the Games.

It was also felt that the involvement of Indian business houses jointly with the Games organisers would have made a difference. Sixty per cent of respondents voted for Tata followed by Reliance (18 per cent), Jindal Group (15 per cent) and DLF group (seven per cent).

Suresh Kumar Raina

Suresh Raina represents the new age Indian cricketer. An attacking left-hander who goes for the big shots with impunity and clears the field with a swashbuckling flourish when at the top of his game, Raina is also equally capable of attracting applause as an electric fielder in the circle. It has taken him five years to cement his place as an India regular, moving from a limited-overs specialist who played 98 ODIs to one who became the 12th Indian to make a Test century on debut. Raina made his Test debut in Sri Lanka as a replacement for injured team-mate Yuvraj Singh, who, like Raina, was a left-hander, a dasher, and in the early 2000s, India's most athletic fielder. With the Test spot finally earned and a growing ability to spend long hours at the crease and see a crisis through, Raina may think of 2009-10 as the season of his turnaround.

Raina's ability to split the field and discover gaps where fielders could not be placed earned him high praise when he first burst through to play for India in December 2006. The early years, however, were marked by a stack of attractive cameos in ODIs, but only a handful emphatic performances that changed the course of games. A string of 15 ODIs without a half-century found Raina being dropped from the national team, missing out on the 2007 World Cup and falling off the selectors' radar.

An 18-month gap from international cricket had Raina producing a mountain of runs in domestic cricket before he marked his return to the Indian team in the Asia Cup in June 2008 with two centuries and the second-highest aggregate in the tournament. The last three years have been Raina's most prolific, with three centuries and 12 of his 15 ODI fifties, and a growing stature in the line-up as one of India's responsible gen-next batsmen.

His tenacity at the worst of times is typical of someone who has spent his teenage years living away from home in the demanding world of the Uttar Pradesh sports hostel, where a lack of facilities or grooming produces cricketers who must match talent with determination. At the under-19 level, Raina was prodigious with his run-scoring and a string of double-hundreds took him to the Indian junior team and beyond it, to India colours. For a player of his ability, though, India must hope that Raina's best innings are still to be played
Suresh Kumar Raina

Born November 27, 1986, Muradnagar, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh

Current age 23 years 310 days

Major teams India, Chennai Super Kings, India Blue, India Under-19s, Indian Board President's XI, Rajasthan Cricket Association President's XI, Uttar Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh Under-16s

Also known as Sanu

Batting style Left-hand bat

Bowling style Right-arm offbreak

Ansari leaves for two-day visit to Belgium for ASEM meet

ice President Hamid Ansari today left for a two-day visit to Belgium for the 8th Asia-Europe Meeting where representatives of 48 countries spanning the two continents will deliberate on various issues, including financial governance and safety of sea lanes. Ansari is being accompanied by his wife Salma and senior officials from the Ministry of External Affairs.

The Vice President will address the first plenary session tomorrow when he is expected to highlight issues related to effective financial and economic governance. The leaders from the two continents will also review the progress on the declaration on sustainable development that was issued during the previous ASEM meeting held in Beijing in October 2008.

"In the third session they wish to concentrate on a number of global issues which will include the fight against terrorism and organised crime, elimination of acts of piracy at sea, reversal of the proliferation of WMD and delivery system," Latha Reddy, Secretary (East), Ministry of External Affairs had said on Friday while briefing on the visit. On the sidelines, Ansari will meet European Council President Herman Von Rompuy and Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme.

On what would be India''s reaction if Islamabad raised the Kashmir issue in the ASEM forum, Reddy had said, "we will cross the bridge when we come to it". Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had attended the ASEM summit in Beijing two years back.

Ansari is representing India at the summit as the Prime Minister has obligations in connection with the Commonwealth Games that begin today. Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi will also attend the summit but no bilateral meeting has been planned.

Govt to include nano technology in school syllabus: ‘Nano T10' conference opens

: Government will consider about the idea of including lessons on nano technology in school curriculum that is being revised in view of implementation of the equitable standard education in the State, Thangam Thennarasu, Minister for School Education said.
Delivering the presidential address at the inauguration ceremony of three-dayInternational Conference on ‘Novel Applications of Nano Technology' nick named ‘Nano T10' at Aruani Engineering College here on Thursday, Mr. Thennarasu said “some delegates suggested inclusion of nano technology in school curriculum, and I ask D. Arivuoli, Director, Centre for Crystal Growth, Anna University, to give suggestion in this regard and we are ready to consider it.”
He said that vision for nano technology can be found in ancient Tamil literature itself. “While Tirukural has brought down the size of verses from earlier forms of 10-15 lines into 2 lines by pruning unnecessary words, another poem lauded Tirukural as potent as seven oceans placed inside an atom by piercing it. They have imagined piercing an atom which is now measured to be 0.1 nano meter in size,” he said.
“Nano technology is applicable in myriad fields such as medicine, robotics, construction and automobile etc. Today it is difficult to find one field where nano technology is not applicable. There are apprehensions about nano technology which critics say would harm human body. Such apprehensions would not help development. Even when European rulers introduced train in India people expressed apprehensions,” he said.
“If academia, industry and government coordinate and reach at a tripartite agreement vis-a-vis nano technology we can do wonders,” he added. Later speaking to us he said “we are planning to include lessons on subjects like stock exchange, finance, Panchayat raj etc. in school curriculum. Now we would consider including nano technology in this series at higher secondary level.”
R. Lawrence, co-director, Division of Psychiatry Research, Zurich University, Switzerland, in his inaugural address said that drugs are available for Alzheimer's disease, an aging disorder, but they don't reach right area in the brain and hit right target molecule there.
Nano technology can help in developing a strategy to target the drug to hit the right molecule, he said.
K. Venkateshwara Rao, Head, Centre for Nano Technology, Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad, in his special address said “Everything can be made in some way better, stronger, cheaper, and easier if engineered and manufactured in nano scale. As the technology advances, by 2030 single electron is going to play the role of a transistor.
Then you can imagine how small the size of the computer is going to be. It is called nano computing or quantum computer. A 22-year-old boy got the professor post in IIT - Mumbai because of his research in quantum computing.”
E.V. Kamban, Managing Director of the college delivered the welcome address. Sidhartha Hazari, Tulane University, USA, Dr. Arivuoli of Anna University and G. Kameshwar, of Tata Consultancy Services spoke. Vice Chairman of the college E.V. Kumaran, Convenor, NanoT10, S. Ragupathy, were among the participants. Principal M. Arumugam delivered the vote of thanks.