Obviously, that isn’t supposed to be in interrogative. But generous US senators would loath to say that, out of profound regard for their ‘most trusted’ friend. So what if the billions of dollars poured in the name of rehabilitation and reconstruction are siphoned off to destabilize Afghanistan and India and fund radical insurgent groups. ‘Big Brother is watching you’? Well, this big brother, namely US, just loves to be fooled and stupidly blind-folded. That perhaps explains the obstinacy on the part of Messrs. Obama and co. to ask their cronies in Pakistan to stop this nuisance.

The latest revelation of 90000 secret documents by WikiLeaks has conclusively proved the complicity of Pakistan’s ISI with Taliban beyond reasonable doubt. For Pakistan, it may be a little difficult to skirt this question this time, something they had been doing for the past decades. Former ISI Chief, Hamid Gul has dismissed these revelations as a work of fiction by intelligence agencies. Now those who never had any illusions about ISI’s counterfeit, might wonder what explains Gul’s temerity? Well, he is merely voicing the half-hearted justifications of his friends, conscientious Americans, who are keen on appeasing Pakistan at their own peril. Come on, Uncle Sam! Go ahead. We know those who govern you are spineless as to wage a proxy war, kill millions of innocent civilians and lay the foundations of a terrorist state in Pakistan. With any respect that is due to you, Mr. Obama, we pity your folly!

Popularity: 1% [?]

Giving a major blow to the NATO and its supporters, close to 92,000 documents detailing the war incidents of Afghan invasion have been leaked to general public. The leaked documents that can be easily accessed as excel sheets have been published by Wikileaks and are expected to raise serious issues on the credibility of the entire Afghan mission in days to come.

After the Docs were made available to the Public, many human right groups have raised questions over the killings of the civilians. The Leaked war documents report more than 144 incidents of innocent Civilians being killed by Coalition forces. After taking over the command of coalition forces in Afghanistan, US general stanley McChrystal assured the "protection of Civilian population as his top Priority". Human right groups however have always argued that the number of civilians killed by NATO is vastly outnumbered by the number killed by Taliban. And these recent leaks are only expected to further justify the allegations.

The leaked files are also expected to authenticate the role of Pakistan’s Intelligence in supporting the Afghan insurgency, which definitely wouldn’t come in has a surprise. Pakistan has been a frontline ally of United States in its WAR against terror, but it’s inside support for Taliban as always been questioned, especially the Loyalty of its Intelligence to the extremists.

The publishing of the Documents by Wikileaks has been criticized by many, terming it has an irresponsible act. But Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has backed the move and reported that the documents show evidence of War Time Crime. The leaks for now certainly seem to be capable of giving sleepless nights to many officials, but to what extent will they be considered on the Tables of Diplomacy only time will tell.

Popularity: 1% [?]

The former president Bill Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea Clinton, is all set to marry Marc Mezvinsky, 32, of Jewish faith. Chelsea has been dating the childhood friend for five years. The wedding is to be held on July 31^st at Astor Estate, a century old, Beaux Arts pavilion in New York. Marc is a businessman who works at the hedge fund G3 Capital. Earlier he was an investment banker at Goldman Sachs. Marc is son ex-congressman Edward Mezvinsky and ex-congresswoman Marjorie Margolies. Edward is Southern Baptist.

Oprah Winfrey, Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg and Barack Obama are likely to provide star power to the wedding. The wedding plans are being kept a secret from the media. The President is not likely to attend the wedding. The wedding list reportedly has just people who have direct relationship with Chelsea. Both the former president, Bill Clinton, and current Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, have been keeping a low profile of late. Such secrecy has been held on the place of marriage that two Norwegian journalists were arrested for taking pictures of the Astor State. The editor has agreed to pay the necessary fine but has maintained that police overboard and that they did not know that it was forbidden to take pictures.

Popularity: 6% [?]

The first government official website for “Taj Mahal” has been launched on Thursday, Jul 22 by Uttar Pradesh’s director general of tourism and secretary tourism Ananeesh Kumar Awasthi. The aim behind this website is to provide all the information on Taj Mahal and to answer queries and questions of the tourists.

The website has a very interesting and animated background; website also shows three different views of Taj Mahal. The website is in English only; Hindi and Urdu versions of the website are in progress.

The Taj Mahal which is considered as one of the wonders of the world is so beautiful and costly tombs in the world. All Indians are proud to have Taj Mahal in India. Go check out the official website for Taj Mahal!

We would love to know your thoughts on this issue, so please share your thoughts!

Popularity: 1% [?]

If the drama that had started last year was looking for a brilliant denouement, there would not have been one more fitting. In one of most important rulings in international law and one that is likely to set precedence in the future, the International Court of Justice has recognized Kosovo’s unilateral declaration for independence back in 2009.

Kosovo’s president, Fatmir Sejdiu hailed the verdict saying, “Today’s opinion of the court ultimately removes all the dilemmas that the countries that have not yet recognised the Republic of Kosovo might have had until now.”

This comes as a huge setback for the parent nation Serbia, which had already denounced this secession as a ‘flagrant violation of international law’ and was expecting a verdict in its favour. However, though the verdict is not legally binding, it is certain to add currency to Kosovo’s endless pleas for international recognition, given that around 120 UN member nations are yet to take cognizance of it.

However, it’s unlikely that Serbia is going to cave in soon. A unanimous parliamentary resolution opposing Kosovo’s independence has already been passed in Serbian parliament. Meanwhile, one of the key members of the Security Council, Russia, a traditional ally of Serbia, is seriously opposed to Kosovo’s independence as it fears this might spiral a series of secessionist movements in Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia and Trans-Dniester in Moldova. With other EU members like Romania, Spain, Greece and countries like China opposed to Kosovo’s independence, there’s more drama to unfold and Kosovo is unlikely to settle so soon.

Popularity: 2% [?]

4chan was featured in the ‘good morning America’ today. No, 4chan is not Jackie Chan’s brother. 4chan.org is an online English image-board website where you find pictures in their infamous billboard /b/. This anonymous community has often shaken the internet foundations having also been blamed of coordinated attacks on other websites and mass memes. The Guardian has termed 4chan as ‘Lunatic, juvenile… brilliant, ridiculous and alarming."

The question which arose in the morning show was if 4chan was family friendly. The website is known to host adult content, but mainly it started as a manga/anime discussion forum by a 15 year old new york kid Christopher Poole also known as Moot. If you don’t know what a manga is you should Google ‘one piece’, ‘Naruto’ or ‘bleach’. This website has pioneered many memes in internet like lolcats and rickrolling!

Now as an off joke in the show the website promises to go family friendly removing all pornographic content and gore from its bill boards. I guess the publicity stunt was a mass success as it raised visitors to the site by 12% yesterday proving once again how effectively they are running the internet memes. Moot was dubbed “the most influential web entrepreneur you’ve never heard of" by The Observer, hats off to this kid.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Twitter, they say, was and still is a revolution. Millions flocked to it. This time there were politicians, sports stars, journalists, actors, businessmen and countless other celebrities interacting with public, 140 words at a time. Add one more to the ever growing list of tweeple. A car- AJ, a future model of Ford Fiesta.

The software of the car combines real time situations- say traffic congestion and weather forecasts and then processes the data entry to post a corresponding tweet. This application which can synchronise the information on the car with internet is known as “Auto”matic blog. To post the tweets, a high speed internet access and a dell computer running on Windows 7 interface was used.

As impeccable as it sounds, this development is much more than car tweeting information. Seen in a broader perspective, it is about how anything mobile can be made to go digital. Meanwhile, as far as number of followers is concerned, AJ is set to give Lady Gaga a run for her money.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Pune: In a landmark decision of its kind, the Apex Court upheld Mumbai High Court’s order, ordering a daughter-in-law to pay rent to her mother-in-law for illegally occupying the house. The order was passed by the SC on Monday, 19^th July 2010.

The Supreme Court comprising of a bench of Justice Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma has upheld the order of the Mumbai High Court, where a woman was asked to pay the dues to her Mother-in-law, who happens to be the owner of the property. This property was illegally possessed by the daughter-in-law by approaching the court with unclean hands in a divorce case filed by the woman Manisha (name changed) against her husband Deepak (name changed) who is based out of Pune currently.

The High Court bench comprising of Justice D.B. Bhosale, had directed the petitioner Manisha to pay rent for a period of 12 months at Rs. 5,000/- per month for the period in which she and her parents had illegally occupied the flat. The High Court also noted the fact that the Domestic Violence Act was being severely misused by women to grab property of husbands and in-laws.

“I have lost precious five years of my youth and my career because of this litigation. At the end, even if I won the case, I will never get these peak years back. Who is responsible for my lost years? Who is going to take the onus of returning the lost happiness of my parents at their old age? However, I am extremely thankful to my counsel Mrs. Seema Dhavale for helping me to get justice” Deepak signs off.

Says Atit Rajpara, member of Save Indian Family Foundation, a men’s rights organization, “This order by the Apex Court comes to rescue for those countless men who are not only facing rampant domestic violence from their wives but are also unable to get any respite due to hostile social situation pit against men. As per National Crime Records Bureau, in the last 12 years i.e. 1996 – 2008, 170,000 husbands have committed suicide directly due to Domestic Violence. Yet, there is no law in India to protect men from Domestic Violence.”

Popularity: 3% [?]

Staying in tune with the latest global trends, China jumps headlong into the coveted category of the largest oil spills in the world. It’s not enough that BP turned half the Gulf of Mexico into the Dead Sea. An explosion in the pipeline belonging to China National Petrol Corp, the leading oil producer of Asia, sends tons of slicks into sea off the north eastern coast.

Being the country’s largest reported spill covering an area of 165 square miles and spreading fast, it still falls short of the massive 2700 square mile BP spill. The government has unleashed all efforts to prevent the oil spreading into international waters having used up over 25 tons of oil eating bacteria and oil skimming boats doing round trips. Sources say over 500 tons of oil has been recovered but it is still unclear how much more remains. Despite relentless efforts by the locals and government alike the situation could worsen due to incoming heavy rains forcing the boats back to the port.

China recently entered the Giant Robot Statue race with their 10 meter long transformer optimus prime made out of scrap. But before they pull it down due to probable lead poisoning they’d better focus on cleaning up their messy oil which is in fact giving the yellow sea its names worth. The next time petrol prizes start hiking, our opposition leaders might finally have a valid point to shout about.

Popularity: 2% [?]

China’s largest reported oil spill has magnified in its dimensions, almost doubled to 165 square miles. The oil spillage seems to pose a serious threat to the marine life. The beaches along the Yellow sea are to be vacated to clean up the oil spill. A pipeline owned by China National Petroleum Corp. exploded last week leading to the menace of oil spillage which even sparked off fire at the coast. This hampered the shipment of oil from China’s strategic oil reserves to rest of the country. Besides it has given a red alert to the environmentalists against the mammoth pollution following it.

China has set up the cleanup operation to clean the greasy brown plume floating off the shores of Dalian. The remnant sludge needs to be disposed off to prevent polluting the international waters as well which might spring up a dispute in future.

Popularity: 2% [?]