You couldn't live without it at age 18. Now you're 28, the VP of a prestigious bank, engaged to be married next summer, and you've found the most incredible strapless wedding gown that shows off your flawless, tan shoulders and arms - and a glaring tattoo of barbed wire circling your upper left appendage. You're way past regret. What to do?

Here are four options for taking away your tattoo blues.

Make-up
Without question, make-up is the quickest, easiest and most painless way to eliminate your tattoo. This works best for those who don't have the time and/or money to permanently remove the tattoo and those who only want to "lose" the tattoo for their march down the aisle. An Internet search will identify several brands of tattoo cover make-up on the market. With some products, complete and natural-looking coverage is a multi-step process that requires primers, lotions and finishing powder. Be sure to choose the best color to match your skin tone.

Chemical Peel and Microdermabrasion
Though do-it-yourself chemical peel products are available, a dermatologist is the safer way to have your tattoo removed by chemical peel. Chemical peel progressively removes layers of skin and, eventually, the tattoo design. Microdermabrasion essentially "sands" the skin to remove the tattoo. This method can leave scars. Most tattoos are deep within the dermis, and in order for the tattoo to be removed, this skin and all the ink must be removed with it. Dermabrasion uses manual abrasion of the skin (with either fine grit surgical sandpaper or a tool) to remove the tattoo. Again, have a dermatologist perform this procedure.

Lasers and Intense Pulsed Light (IPL)
Lasers produce short pulses of intense light that pass harmlessly through the top layers of the skin and break up the tattoo pigment. The laser energy causes the tattoo pigment to fragment into smaller particles that are then removed by the body's immune system. The surrounding skin is not damaged. Depending on the extent of your tattoo, laser removal will take multiple sessions, is somewhat costly (in the thousands!) and involves mild discomfort. The number of treatments required depends on the size, color, location and age of the tattoo. Scarring, if any, is determined by the same factors. FYI - green and yellow inks are the most difficult to remove. Dark and red inks, along with purples and oranges resolve easier.

Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) is relatively new and costly, too. A gel is applied to the skin and then a wand is used to emit pulses of light onto the skin area being treated. This method is said to be less painful than laser therapy, and more effective, resulting in less total treatment sessions.

Excision
As you've already guessed, this method requires a topical anesthetic and literally cuts the tattoo out of your skin and the wound sutured. Excision is best suited to smaller tattoos. It will leave a small scar, and it's generally inexpensive in comparison to some of the other options. Bye-bye, butterfly.

No doubt, cover-up make-up is looking pretty good to you right now...

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About the Author: Susan Hawkins is a writer for My Wedding Favors at http://www.myweddingfavors.com. Visit their website for wedding gift ideas, wedding shower favors, bridesmaid gifts, more great articles and much more.

Microsoft is happy to announce that pre-orders for the highly-anticipated Xbox 360 exclusive Halo 3 have surpassed even the most optimistic expectations, setting records at almost every retailer.

Although it is still hard to believe that the launch of Halo 3 will shatter the record established by The Burning Crusade (World of Warcraft’s expansion, launched on January 17 this year) which has sold more than 2.4 million copies in the first 24 hours of availability, it’s clear that the Xbox 360 exclusive will be by far the most successful launch for the platform.

Today, Microsoft Corp. announced that preorders in North America for the highly anticipated title have exceeded the 1 million milestone. In addition, Microsoft unveiled the first details of upcoming promotions from leading consumer brands, including Mountain Dew, 7-Eleven, Pontiac, Comcast and Burger King Corp.

The popularity of the Halo franchise has also attracted major retailers worldwide, since the release of Halo 3 is similar to the release of Hollywood blockbuster (Microsoft’s PR machine worked pretty well this time…)

Best Buy, GameStop and a bunch of other major MS partners for the H3 launch have registered combined pre-orders that top 1 million units, which is certainly a premiere for the Xbox platform, and probably a record for other gaming platforms too.

Halo 3’s launch revolves around the number 3 and Microsoft thought this is a good occasion to triple its revenues by offering gamers three versions of the game.

The Legendary Edition ($129.99) will come out in limited supplies, being wrapped up in a highly collectible Spartan helmet case, along with two bonus disks full of supplemental content. The first disk will provide exclusive, behind-the-scenes footage and videos, including a high-definition “Making of ‘Halo 3’” documentary showcasing the Bungie team and its effort to create the most anticipated title in the industry’s history; numerous high-definition featurettes documenting the creative design processes involved in developing the game; and even a look at some early game concepts and their evolution through the game’s development. The disk will also include an audio-visual calibration tool, never before seen on a video game and custom designed by the “Halo 3” graphics and audio team to make the most of fans’ high-definition home theaters, for the ultimate “Halo 3” and Xbox 360 audio and video performance.

The second bonus disk, an exclusive to the Legendary Edition, will include completely remastered cinematic material from “Halo: Combat Evolved” and “Halo 2,” supplemented with developer commentaries, to provide a refresher course on the thrilling “Halo” story so far, and a featurette documenting a day in the life at Bungie. Exclusive content from the creative minds behind Machinima artists “Red vs. Blue” and “This Spartan Life” will also be included.

Finally, fans who purchase the Legendary Edition will receive an illuminating collection of original “Halo 3” storyboard art from artist Lee Wilson, depicting key moments and pivotal scenes from the epic cinematic production of “Halo.”

The Limited Edition ($69.99) will also include a bounty of extras. Within a sleek metal collector’s case, gamers will also receive the first bonus disk found in the Legendary Edition, as well as a special “Halo” fiction and art book. The piece is an elaborate guide to the species and factions that inhabit the worlds of the “Halo” universe, with never-before-seen art and story elements that expand and illustrate the depth and breadth of the “Halo” fiction.

And for those who crave nothing more than the highly anticipated third chapter to one of the greatest gaming trilogies, the Standard Edition ($59.99) will consist of the “Halo 3” game.

Since the Legendary Edition is so full of content, gamers have been drawn to it first, despite the hefty price. Microsoft reports that demand has been so strong for the LE of the game that it is expected to be sold out by the time the game launches on Sept. 25. Retailers have also noted that the presales for “Halo 3” are the fastest in video game history.

“What we’ve experienced is nothing short of phenomenal,” said Bob McKenzie, senior vice president of merchandising at GameStop Corp. “‘Halo 3’ has eclipsed many previous records and will prove to be one of the must-have items of 2007.”

“The excitement for ‘Halo 3’ is incredible,” said Jill Hamburger, vice president of movies and games at Best Buy. “From our preorders online and the buzz we’re hearing in our stores, we know this release is going to be one of the biggest entertainment events of the year. We’re thrilled to be able to bring it to our customers.”

Some of the world’s biggest consumer brands have also joined the Halo 3 boat, in order to boost sales for their own products using Masterchief’s appeal.

“This September, ‘Halo 3’ will push video game entertainment into the forefront of mainstream culture,” said Chris Di Cesare, director of creative marketing at Microsoft. “Teaming up with some of the world’s strongest and most recognizable brands is trailblazing new paths and cementing video games as big entertainment on par with major event films, and is a testament to the excitement and anticipation intrinsically linked to ‘Halo 3.’”

Mountain Dew will unveil the first beverage co-branded with a video game, Mountain Dew Game Fuel (available nationwide for a limited time starting Aug. 13, 2007), while 7-Eleven will unveil three “Halo 3”-branded collectible Slurpee cups. During the Halo 3 promotion with Mountain Dew Game Fuel and Doritos, 7-Eleven will have thousands of “Halo 3”-themed prizes, including, as grand prize, a chance to win a role as a voice actor in the upcoming Xbox 360 video game, “Halo Wars,” by Ensemble Studios.

Pontiac will host Pontiac Gamers Garage events in select locations, giving hard core fans the chance to play the single player campaign for the first time, even before the official September 27 launch. Other 1,000 lucky fans will get a free copy of the game (no mention as to what edition they’ll get…) and one lucky gamer will win a limited-edition “Halo 3” G6 GXP Street car.

Burger King will “Halo 3”-themed packaging, with exclusive content inside, starting September 23, while Comcast will host exclusive video content, including user-generated movies and machinima, on its Web sites http://gameinvasion.net and http://www.ziddio.com.

Other goodies include the chance to meet the members of the Linkin Park band, during exclusive Halo 3-themed VIP events.

NEWS FROM : www.efluxmedia.com

Harry Potter fans across the country enthusiastically snapped up copies of the final volume of the book, which broke all records to register a sale of over 1.7 lakh copies on the first day of its release.

''Never in the publishing history has India witnessed such a frenzied reaction to any book. We have already sold over 1.7 lakh copies today,'' said Himali Sodhi, Head of Marketing, Penguin, which is the distributor of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Potter fans, both young and old, queued up outside book stores since midnight to lay hands on the book, the seventh and last one in the series, to know the fate of boy wizard Harry and his deadly foe Voldemort.

''I was here at 6 in the morning and quickly read the last few pages. We have been receiving pre-orders as early as March this year,'' said Nitin Chatterjee, Store Manager, Oxford bookstore.

British author JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, published by Bloomsbury and brought to India by Penguin, is priced at Rs 975.

The customers, who have placed advance orders, get a discount varying from 5-25 per cent.

Internationally, the final Potter book has become on-line retailer Amazon's most pre-ordered product with almost 1.6 million copies bought globally ahead of the release.

The six books published thus far have sold 325 million copies worldwide and have been translated into 64 languages, while four films have grossed $3.5 billion worldwide.

Harry Potter fans living in Kabul were delighted to be able to get their hands on copies of the latest title Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the same day that the book hit shops elsewhere around the world.

Flights into Kabul are infrequent, but an international freight forwarding company, Paxton International, did Potter lovers a favour by shipping in dozens of copies from Dubai on an early morning flight.

source : NDTV INDIA

With the announcement this week that Mitsubishi are planning to show a laser projection TV at the 2008 consumer electronics show consumers are once again being tantalised with technology that promises superior pictures to Plasma and LCD.

Using a red, blue and green laser rather than white-light mercury lamps to generate images the advantages of laser technology are brighter and deeper images on larger, thinner, more lightweight screens.

At the beginning of the year Sony announced that they would be producing the first commercially available OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) TVs by the end of 2007, and Toshiba has announced that they will be producing their own OLED TVs by 2009.

The exiting potential of OLED includes a huge increase in the number of available colours over traditional LCD and Plasma TVs, with contrast ratios of 1,000,000:1 producing a vastly superior picture. Perhaps the most appealing feature of OLED screens however is their thickness, ranging from an incredibly waif-like 5mm upwards, and surely the next must have consumer electrical fashion accessory

Although the technology is experiencing teething troubles, SED (surface-conduction electron-emitter display) will provide a better picture than LCD or plasma TV, say Toshiba and its partner, Canon. Toshiba also claims they have managed to cut the manufacturing costs so that the TVs won't cost much more than similar-sized LCDs or plasmas.

SED technology works along the same lines as CRT except instead of one large electron gun firing at all the screen phosphors that light up to create the on screen image, SED has thousands of tiny electron guns known as "emitters" for each phosphor sub-pixel which enable a vastly superior picture.

All of the new technologies can be described as being 'just around the corner' but expect Plasma & LCD to be with us for a good few years yet. Prices for these existing technologies are set to continue dropping through 2007, and any new flat panel innovations are likely to come with significant price premiums.

There's never been anything like Harry Potter.

"I think of Rowling as being almost the Second Coming," says Scott Rice, professor of literature at San Jose State University. "Her books have reminded people of the pleasure of reading, gotten millions of kids all around the world to know the reward of reading. People need to be reminded there are rewards and benefits in reading that you don't get anywhere else."

Young wizard Potter is about to cast another spell. Legions of his fans are eagerly waiting for July 21, the day when "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the seventh and last book in J.K. Rowling's series, will be released.

What started in 1997 as a modest publication of a children's book in England has become a literary, financial and pop culture phenomenon.

It's a phenomenon fueled by fans such as Jonathan Weed of San Jose, who was 10 or 11 when he first read "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."

"I liked it right away," says Weed, now 19 and a student at Princeton University. "My mom got it for me on a Friday. By Saturday night I had finished and was ready to start reading it again."

Then in 1998, Weed's father picked up a copy of the second book, "Chamber of Secrets," in England before it was available in the United States.

That same year, Weed was one of the lucky few who went to Hicklebee's Books in San Jose to meet Rowling. He shared memories of that book signing for a story in the Mercury News in June.

In an e-mail, Weed wrote about meeting Rowling: "Before I left, I asked her to sign a Post-it note for me to give to a British girl at school, the only other person I knew who had read the Harry Potter book. The Hicklebee's staff said that this wasn't allowed, but Jo did it anyway. I gave the note to the girl later, and though she probably didn't keep it, I'm sure by now she wishes she had. "

The magic of numbers

In the mid-'90s, Rowling had been given an advance of about $2,250 by her publisher and a grant of about $12,000 from the Scottish Arts Council that helped her finish the first book in a planned seven-book series.

The book's premise didn't seem that promising: a young British boy is surprised to learn he is a wizard and that he is a key part of a major war between good and evil.

But it struck a chord. Nine years later, thanks to the Potter series, Rowling is a billionaire.

Try to quantify the impact of the Potter series, and the numbers become mind-boggling:

There are 121.5 million copies of Harry Potter books in the United States alone. Worldwide, it's 325 million copies in 65 languages in more than 200 territories.

Twelve million copies of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" at this moment are being delivered in sealed cases to bookstores around the United States, where they will be distributed starting at 12:01 a.m. July 21. Millions of other books are also on their way in Great Britain, and millions more will be distributed around the planet.

That many copies of a single book have never been published in such a short period of time. By July 22, "Deathly Hallows" will break the previous record for most books sold in 24 hours, a record set by Book 6 in the series, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." That book broke the previous record, set by Book 5, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," which broke the record set by Book 4, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire."

"Goblet of Fire" and the first three, "Sorcerer's Stone" (known as "Philosopher's Stone" in Britain), "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," and "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" changed the way the New York Times formed its bestseller lists. (The Times created a children's books list and put the Potter books on it.)

The reach of Harry Potter

Beyond the sales numbers, one also can argue that no other book has gotten more families to read together, or been more discussed in print, on the Internet, in bookstores and libraries, and around office water coolers.

Valerie Lewis of Hicklebee's was working for CBS in New York when she became one of the first major media journalists to bring attention to Rowling and Harry Potter. She remembers being happily surprised, as a bookseller, by the reaction to "Sorcerer's Stone."

"That families suddenly discovered that reading together made sense was probably the biggest shock of all to us."

"There's nothing I can think of that compares to reading aloud to children and having them read aloud to you," Lewis says. "What happens is you get to know them at a whole different level. The literary stuff, the academic stuff, is not as important as sitting around finding out what they think."

And at a time when children are bombarded with images from television, movies and video games, Lewis values the way literature gives children the experience of creating images themselves.

"Reading aloud, the kids experience forming their own images," Lewis explains. "They hear a sophisticated vocabulary . . . and there is an undercurrent that this is cool - they are doing it together, and it's just right."

Harry Potter found another welcoming fan base on the Internet. A Google search for "Harry Potter" brings up more than 6 million results.

Hundreds, maybe thousands, of Web sites are home to communities of people who have spent years thinking about, discussing and arguing about the series that began when "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was published in June 1997 in England.

"It's a very attractive world for children," Weed says of the Harry Potter books. "When I was in the sixth grade, a school fantasy is to be transplanted from where you are to a place where your job is to have fun and do magic all day - structured around the school year. It is sort of the alternate education fantasy."

The mystery of Book 7

Until July 21, the world waits and wonders how Rowling will wind up her seven-book story of "The Boy Who Lived."

Will Harry live or die? Will the evil dark wizard Voldemort be vanquished?

To San Jose State's Rice, the theme of good vs. evil in the Harry Potter story is a powerful, relevant one in today's world.

"There are Voldemorts out there in different sizes and shapes doing bad things to human beings," he says, "and we can look the other way or we can use our powers to intervene."

And, the book's other themes also are appealing, Rice says.

"Friendship is practically a sacrament. These people do things for their friends, including risk their lives in a very serious sense."

There's also Hogwarts - the school of wizardry in the books and among the finest facets of the books, Rice says.

"Hogwarts is a benevolent place. It's a school for wizards, but it's understood by the students that the teachers are trying to empower them and to give them more control over their lives," he says. "It's grinding work, some of the teachers are taskmasters, but it's understood that Hogwarts is a good place."

For fans, part of the fun has been the exciting anticipation of each new book in the series.

"Anandi," who posted on the Mercury News Harry Potter blog (http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei), speaks for many others: "Another Magical Person here, who came late to the Harry Potter party. I heard all the hype and thought the books couldn't possibly be that good. So I didn't read the first one until well after Book 4 was released. But it was great having several to read all at once, and it was painful waiting for the release of 5, 6 and now 7."

The fifth Harry Potter fantasy adventure, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, is far and away the best so far.

Trailer: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

The fifth Harry Potter fantasy adventure, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, is far and away the best so far.

In glorious contrast to the previous film, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - the one mis-step in the series - Phoenix is a breathlessly paced, dramatically rich, plot-driven thrill ride of spectacle and pathos.

Directed by David Yates, Phoenix completes Harry's transformation from nervous schoolboy to rebel leader, and sets the effects-crammed cinematic stage for the apocalyptic duel between good and evil that is to come.

Phoenix finds Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) at a critical point in his odyssey. His noseless nemesis Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) is back on the scene, preparing to raise an army so he can literally raise hell. Having murdered Harry's parents, Voldemort is keen to finish the job in as public and violent a fashion as possible.

And Harry is ready for him. No longer the timid, round-faced boy wizard from The Philosopher's Stone (2001) and Chamber of Secrets (2002), the rebellious spirit we saw emerge in the outstanding Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) is now in full flourish.

Harry won't be pushed around any more, not even by Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), his long-time enemy at the impressively located Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. In Phoenix, Harry stands up for himself, for others, repeatedly defies authority and talks back to teachers. He doesn't even seem to respect the school's dress code much any more.

This puts Harry in conflict with the story's other evil, Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton, in a scene-stealing turn), the new teacher at Hogwarts sent by the interfering bureaucrats at the Ministry of Magic. A lover of tea, pink dresses, meowing cats and firm discipline, her purpose is to usurp the authority of headmaster Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) by introducing ever stricter rules on the students.

Harry finds the road of the rebel tough going, though. His close encounters with Voldemort have made him susceptible to mind control, so as Harry trains his army, Severus Snape (Alan Rickman) trains Harry to deal with his inner demons, which he must learn to control lest his behaviour be driven by pure impulse, which can lead to the dark side of human nature.

If this sounds familiar, it should. The "battle of the self" has become the dramatic theme of choice for blockbuster franchises. We saw it in the early Superman films, it runs throughout the Lord of the Rings trilogy, it's the conceptual pivot of Star Wars (of course) and it even got a big spin in Spider-Man 3. Now, it seems, it's Harry's turn to get introspective. It's as though Harry Potter, Luke Skywalker, Frodo Baggins and Peter Parker are cousins. Or members of the same group therapy session.

Phoenix has a few light touches early on, but the humour that laced previous Potter films has been replaced with a darker, more brooding tone. Indeed, Phoenix is similar in feel to Star Wars Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith, which is appropriate as both are essentially about gear shifts of the soul.

One presumes that children who were about the same age as Radcliffe when the first film came out will be able to handle the effects-laden horror imagery served up in massive doses by Phoenix. That said, parents are advised to take the M rating seriously. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is definitely not a film for children or sensitive tweens. If you have doubts, please see it first or wait for the DVD. Some of the sequences are intense, even for grown-ups.

And - yes - somebody close to Harry does die, and Yates manages to stage the death in the middle of a swirling special effects set-piece with considerable dramatic force. Reminiscent of the killing of Michael Corleone's daughter at the end of Godfather III, it ranks as the most heart-stopping dramatic moment in the saga thus far.

Source : The Age

Students shy away from pursuing Science courses as they are afraid of narrowing their career options. DT finds out more about this trend from students, teachers and counsellors

RIGHT CHOICE - NOMORE: Science courses are not popular choices with the college goers any more (Agencies Photo)

Science courses are going abegging in many colleges, including the top ones who've resorted to a third and a fourth list to fill up the required number of seats.

Science courses are not popular choices with the college goers any more. The trend is partly due to the popular perception that a science degree will cut the students off from a career in business or commerce.

There are students who drop out after taking admission in these courses to pursue engineering after a year, when they make it to an engineering college. The strength is even lower for pure science courses.

However, what the students fail to realise is that while going for placements or pursuing an MBA programme, the course you have graduated in is of little relevance. Abhinav Dua, who has got through Chemistry (Hons) in Sri Venkateswara College is trying to change his options to include Mathematics in his graduation programme as he thinks it's a better option than Chemistry.

He says, "I aspire to do an MBA in finance. Having Maths as a subject would give me an edge as Maths, Commerce or Economics graduates are preferred for such courses. If I choose to study Chemistry, I think I'll be limiting my options and choices." And through his opinion, Abhinav is also voicing the concerns of hundreds like him who feel that taking up science limits their career prospects.

However, the truth is very different from these notions. Uttam Mukherjee got placed with a top consultancy after studying Chemistry (Hons) from St Stephen's. He plans to do an MBA later. He says, "I had to face a group discussion to qualify a round for my job at the consultancy. Once I cleared the group discussion I was treated like any other applicant and I fared well in the interview. I feel it's about proving oneself at the interview. Now, I shall have work experience and it'll be counted as a plus point when I want to do an MBA. Being a Science student doesn't limit your chances to be enrolled in an MBA program, there isn't any discrimination."

Teachers are aware of the current scene and are doing their best to counsel the students and tell them the facts about the scope of Science. They assert that doing a science course is certainly not the dead-end to a student's career.

Vibha Saxena, who works in the Chemistry Department of Venkateswara College says, "When parents and students come to meet teachers, they want to know about the scope of science courses. Along with the students, their parents also feel that options are limited, but that's not true. A person with Chemistry can enroll himself for an MBA or get a good job in another stream. It's the lack of information that makes the people feel this way."

Career counsellor Pervin Malhotra says, "Doing a pure science course doesn't limit options in a student's academic life. Whether it's law or management, everything is an open option for students. Nothing can stop them from taking up good jobs or a career in a different stream."

source : the times of india

Radcliffe briefly spoke to the crowd in Japanese Potter film clips

Actor Daniel Radcliffe was met by hundreds of fans as he attended the world premiere of the fifth Harry Potter film in Tokyo.

Japanese competition winners were among the first to see The Order of the Phoenix movie.

Radcliffe, 17, greeted the crowd in Japanese, saying "Nihon no minasan, Konnichiwa" (hello, people of Japan).

The UK premiere of the film will be held in London on 3 July, and it opens in cinemas on 11 July.

Radcliffe, accompanied by the film's producer David Heyman, was the only one of the film's main stars to make the journey to Tokyo.

He was introduced on to the red carpet amid plumes of smoke and pyrotechnics.

"It's wonderful to come over here and to say hello," said Radcliffe.

"I hope people will be impressed by the new characters, the new performances, and the big battle."

Potter fans gathered to show their appreciation

First kiss

In the movie, Harry experiences his first kiss, with schoolmate Cho Chang, played by actress Katie Leung. Radcliffe has admitted kissing on screen was nothing in comparison to stripping off on stage, as he did in the West End play Equus.

"Once you've been on stage naked in front of 1,000 people you really feel you can do almost anything without inhibition," he told the BBC News website.

"Kissing Katie was a very, very comfortable experience, especially when compared to being naked on stage and blinding horses."

The latest of the Potter film sequels is being released just weeks before the long-awaited seventh and final book is published, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

SOURCE : BBC NEWS

The three actors have starred in the films since 2001

Dark clouds are gathering over Hogwarts in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

The fifth film to be adapted from JK Rowling's books - released on 11 July - is the grittiest yet, as Harry battles with the angst and growing pains of teenage life.

And while the film echoes the growing age of the young cast, actors Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint will be wearing school uniforms for at least another two years.

Rowling brings the magical saga to an end in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, published on 21 July.

It will mark the finishing line for the trio, who have played Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley since 2001.

Radcliffe, 17, says he has no idea what to expect from the final book, but has pre-ordered a copy.

"We can sit here and talk about it but Jo is coming to come up with something far more interesting or exciting than anything we can predict and imagine," he says.

I hope Hermione doesn't die - I really didn't have that in my plan for what she would achieve Emma Watson

Rowling has already hinted that two main characters will die in final instalment, but has not revealed who.

Watson is tempted to take a sneaky peek to see if it is Hermione who meets a sticky end.

'Beautiful babies'

"I hope Hermione doesn't die - I really didn't have that in my plan for what she would achieve," she says.

"I want to see her putting her intellect and her very caring nature to some very worthy cause - going around the country protesting for the rights of house elves, or continuing with SPEW and generally making the world a better place. Being married to Ron and having beautiful babies."

Grint, 18, is more succinct: "If Ron had to die it wouldn't be so bad - it's the last one anyway."

The latest Harry Potter film is the fifth in the series, and sees the franchise's fourth director at the helm, with David Yates following in the footsteps of Christopher Columbus, Alfonso Cuaron and Mike Newell.

Daniel said he enjoyed portraying Harry's troubled teenage years

Yates, best known for TV dramas such as The Girl in the Cafe and State of Play, has combined aspects of previous films with his own take on Harry's character, explains Radcliffe.

"I think this is the film I'm most proud of and we had a great time working with David," he says.

"He has taken the charm of the films that Chris made, the visual flair of what Alfonso did, and the thoroughly British bombastic nature of the fourth film, and added his own sense of grit, and realism to it that perhaps wasn't there so much before."

Watson, 16, says it is the most "genuine" of all the films.

"The word I connect the most with David Yates is 'truth'," she adds.

"He always wanted to find truth in all the characters. We really relished that and it stopped us getting complacent."

Reflective

Radcliffe says one of his greatest challenges was tackling the more troubled and complex side of the teenage Harry.

"I talked to Jo (Rowling) about it, and she said if people say they don't understand why he is angry then they have not understood what he has been through in the last five years," he explains.

"He has a right to be angry. For me it was just as interesting to play the reflective side of the anger, where it comes from like the loneliness and feeling misunderstood, than the out-and-out shouting that people may have interpreted from the book."

It was Gary Oldman, who plays Harry's godfather Sirius Black, who inspired him.

"Me and Gary got to do some really emotional and heartfelt scenes together, which was great," Radcliffe says.

Hermione and Ron sign up for Dumbledore's Army

"I have been a fan of his for a long time, and I think anybody would be hard-pushed to name another actor whose body of work covers so many different areas. I think he is incredible."

On-screen kiss

The Order of the Phoenix also stars Oscar-nominated Imelda Staunton as Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher Dolores Umbridge, and Helena Bonham Carter as the demented Bellatrix Lastrange.

It also sees Radcliffe share his first on-screen kiss.

But kissing Katie Leung - who plays fellow Hogwarts pupil Cho Chang - was easy compared to stripping off on stage, as he did in the West End play Equus.

"Once you've been on stage naked in front of 1,000 people you really feel you can do almost anything without inhibition," he laughs.

"Being naked was possibly not as complicated as kissing - although belt buckles can give everybody a bit of trouble at times - but kissing Katie was a very, very comfortable experience, especially when compared to being naked on stage and blinding horses."

Leung, 19, who won the part of Harry's girlfriend after an open audition, says he was a "good kisser".

"I only watched the film yesterday and I thought I'd be cringing, but I'm very pleased with it. It's a very endearing and sweet scene," she says.

"I'm not sure how my mum and dad are going to react. Hopefully they will find it really sweet as well."

SOURCE : BBC NEWS

Wands at the ready: Harry leads his Dumbledore's Army cohorts

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which opens in cinemas in July, sees Harry's school friends taking a more central role in the battle against the evil Lord Voldemort.

Calling itself Dumbledore's Army, the group meets in secret to learn how to battle the Dark Arts.

Actors Bonnie Wright, 16, (Ginny Weasley), Matthew Lewis, 17, (Neville Longbottom), Katie Leung, 19, (Cho Chang) and newcomer Evanna Lynch, 15, (Luna Lovegood) are all members of the Army.

They talk to BBC News about being fans of the schoolboy wizard, and what it is like being part of the Potter phenomenon.

Bonnie: I am definitely as fanatical as many of the other fans out there. I really enjoy the books and I can't wait for the last one.

Evanna Lynch beat 15,000 hopefuls to land the part of Luna Lovegood

Evanna: When I was about eight I was stuck in a phase of reading Tintin books but my mum wanted me to read something else. She said "there is this great book called Harry Potter", but I said I didn't want to read about a boy with glasses - I just thought it sounded silly.

Then she read me a chapter and I took it from her, because I loved it - and Tintin took the bottom shelf.

Matthew: I've been acting since I was five, doing Heartbeat and that kind of thing, and when I got to the age of 11 I had already read the books - I was a massive fan.

I heard they were making a film and I just wanted to be in it in some way. Even just as an extra, it would have been perfect.

Bonnie: I heard they were auditioning, and I think it was more a case of "why not go for it?".

Matthew (r) is one of the original cast members

I always really enjoyed being in school plays, and the teamwork involved, but when I went I suppose I never really thought I'd get the role. After I got it there was a moment when I thought "can I do this?".

Evanna: I saw a poster advertising open auditions for Luna. Also I had sent tapes to the casting agent saying that I wanted to play her.

When they told me I had it, I couldn't believe it... I was waiting for her to call back and say: "I was only joking!"

I had to keep it quiet for a few days, but when I told my friends they were very, very excited.

Matthew: I took a day off school to go to the open audition in Leeds.

I was in there about two minutes and read a paragraph from the book. About two or three months later they asked me to come down to London for a recall for Neville Longbottom.

From getting to meet Chris Columbus [director of the first two films], to having a screen test, to actually getting the part happened in the space of about two or three days. To get that call was just great. I was jumping up and down on the sofa going crazy.

Harry has to deal with his emotions as well as evil wizards

Matthew: I love comedy, I love making people laugh - but what I really loved this year was tackling the emotional side of Neville.

That was a big challenge for me because Neville has always been a light-hearted, humorous character and I have never had to do anything as deep and emotional as that before.

Katie: Kissing Harry! I was so worried it was going to go wrong and that we would bang heads or something.

I think it was more awkward beforehand knowing it was going to come up, but we had a chat beforehand and had a laugh, asking each other if we'd brushed our teeth.

Bonnie Wright has starred in all of the Harry Potter films

Bonnie: It has definitely made me more confident. When I was younger - I started when I was nine - I was very timid and shy. We have all grown up in it together and are really comfortable with each other.

Matthew: Some of us shave now! We come in and the make-up ladies say 'I'm sick of shaving you, will you just do it before you come in?'.

Even if it's just a little bit of bum fluff they have to get rid of it.

Bonnie: Sometimes I get recognised and I don't think you can ever get used to that.

Katie Leung's character Cho is Harry Potter's girlfriend

It is always in places you don't expect. You can be on holiday and someone randomly comes up to you. It has made me aware of how big the audience is for Harry Potter.

Matthew: The things I have experienced and the places I have been are just incredible.

I have to spend a lot of time away from home, so I miss my friends a lot. I get quite homesick, but the pros just outweigh the cons.

When I go to parties back home, my friends say "guess what, he's in Harry Potter" because it's a great good way of getting in with girls.

It's a good way to start a conversation but I like to quickly get away from it. There's a little bit more to me than just Harry Potter.

Katie: I had a lot of positive feedback, fan-mail and stuff. I don't get recognised very often, if anything I'm just more confident now. I used to be really shy so it's a really good thing.

SOURCE : BBC NEWS

In April of 1987, a woman in Westchester County gave birth to a little girl. Among the traits she passed on to her baby were curly black hair and a wide, toothy smile, with an upper lip shaped like the double arches of a child's drawing of a bird in flight.
She also passed on a deadly disease that had been named only a few years earlier: AIDS. The mother, a prostitute, had probably contracted it from a dirty heroin needle. More than 4,000 Americans died of the disease that year. Within a few years, the annual death toll in the United States would quintuple.

This baby, sickly and premature, seemed to have no future.
April 2007
"Woot woot! I'm going to be twenty!" Lindsey Skellie wrote in an e-mail on the day before her birthday.
Despite all her doctors' dire predictions, Lindsey had not only lived through infancy and childhood; she was now about to leave her teens.
She was one of the lucky few. Since the beginning of the epidemic, the Centers for Disease Control estimates, 8,775 children who contracted HIV from their mothers have developed AIDS. Nearly 5,000 of these children have died. Thanks to treatments that have dramatically reduced the chances of a mother passing on HIV to her fetus, only about 145 children in the U.S. got HIV from their mothers in 2004.
Lindsey is among the first generation of "AIDS babies" to reach adulthood.

But her excitement about her birthday, like so many things in her life, was double-edged. A few days earlier, she had learned that she was probably going to be sent to a residential treatment facility -- not for the HIV, but for the eating disorder she has developed over the last year and a half.
After a lifetime of defying the grim odds of a virus she had no control over being born with, it is ironic, perhaps, that she is now battling an illness born of her own psyche.
If she doesn't get it under control, her doctors have told her, it will be the anorexia and bulimia, not AIDS, that kills her.
She celebrated her birthday at the Queensbury home of her sister, Courtney Smith, and Courtney's husband, Bob Smith. Because Courtney was 11 when her family brought Lindsey, who was almost 2, to Glens Falls, her relationship to her has often been as much maternal as sisterly.
Lindsey blew out the candles on the cake Courtney had baked. It was marble cake -- at Lindsey's request -- decorated with rainbow sprinkles and colorful paper umbrellas, special touches Courtney and Bob's 3-year-old daughter, Lela, had insisted on.

"I don't know how to cut a cake," Lindsey said, tentatively poking a knife into the rectangular cake pan. Her big, kohl-lined eyes darted up, looking for reassurance, and she smiled sheepishly. "I really don't think I'm doing this right."
"Just cut the cake!" Bob said, laughing.
Birthdays are a big deal to Lindsey, and to her sister, too. Courtney has always tried to make them as special as possible, she said, because she never knew how many she had left.
Lindsey ate a small square of cake, a diet soda and some spiedies Bob had grilled, also at Lindsey's request.
A little later, Courtney had to remind Lindsey several times to drink her Boost -- doctor's orders -- but Lindsey tried to get out of it.

"I had a doughnut for breakfast!" she whined. Finally, she relented, guzzling from the bottle with the wincing expression of a child forced to swallow cod liver oil.
Much about Lindsey is still childlike -- the soft, lilting register of her voice; her fondness for stuffed animals and pink, sparkly things; her tendency to pout at real or perceived slights. She has always had a coterie of people caring for her, in one way or another, and her combination of vulnerability and playfulness seems to invite people into her sphere.
Yet she is also remarkably spirited. Despite her hardships and physical frailty, she does not act like a victim; she is anything but meek. Her voice, though soft, is also throaty and her tone frequently sassy. And, she is the first to admit, she can be stubborn, especially about doing what she knows is good for her.
At a recent family therapy session, the therapist told Courtney not to allow Lindsey to go to the bathroom after she eats, so she can't make herself throw up.
"I don't want to be her warden," Courtney said. "I'm just really worried she's slowly killing herself."

A Glens Falls couple, Will and Kathy Skellie, adopted Lindsey after Kathy read an article about AIDS babies in a magazine, according to Courtney. Lindsey has a rocky relationship with her adoptive parents, who declined to be interviewed.
Courtney recalled that the family took precautions to make sure they didn't contract the virus, like wearing gloves when they changed Lindsey's diapers. "My grandfather said (to my parents), 'How could you jeopardize Courtney like that?'" she said. "AIDS was so new."
She also recalled Lindsey's frequent stays in the hospital when she was sick. Many times she appeared to be close to death, and the family steeled themselves for the worst.
"But she is so strong," Courtney said. "She kept fighting."
Every day of Lindsey's life she has had to take dozens of pills and other medications. Some nauseated her; others tasted bad. She would hide them in plants or in the radiator to avoid taking them. To this day, she said, she can't stand applesauce, which her parents used to help make the medicines more palatable when she was very young. They turned monthly visits to Albany Medical Center for treatments and check-ups of her viral load into family field trips.

Aside from her AIDS-related symptoms, which include fatigue and frequent bouts with pneumonia and other illnesses, Lindsey was born with a number of other physical challenges. She used to take steroids for her breathing problems, but she quit taking them a year and a half ago because they made her put on weight. Before she started purging, she weighed 260 pounds.
She was also born with mild cerebral palsy, which gives her an uneven, see-sawing gait. She didn't learn how to walk until she was 4 or 5, and still sometimes uses an electric wheelchair. Everyone at school knew who Lindsey was, she said, because she was "the black girl in the wheelchair."
Although she was a bright student, school was difficult for her, not only because she stood out but because she had to miss so many classes due to illnesses. She estimates that she probably has spent more of her life in hospitals and doctor's offices than in a classroom; many of her high school assignments were done over e-mail.
Lindsey learned quickly that her classmates would like her more if she put on a cheerful front, regardless of how she was feeling physically or emotionally. Only her closest friends knew that, starting at 13, she battled depression.
"If I got in a fight with my parents I would go to school just happy," she said, putting on a big, fake smile and a sing-song voice. "No one wants to be around someone who's a downer."
In adulthood, her demeanor is still usually upbeat. She is frequently smiling or giggling, even when what she is saying is dark or shocking.
She readlily admits to "masking," though, when it's pointed out. Then, her sunny smile fades. Sometimes, in unguarded moments, she bites her lower lip or chews her fingernails. She often sits with her hands tucked into her knees and her shoulders sloped in, as if she is trying to make herself smaller.
A few days before her birthday, while her best friend, Kealy Whiting, was visiting, she mentioned, nonchalantly, that she recently had to go to the emergency room because she hadn't eaten for 36 hours.
"Now I'm on Boost once a day -- well, it was supposed to be three times a day but I manipulated the doctor into changing it to one," she said, sounding at once triumphant and embarrassed by her deviousness.
A few touchstones, aside from her family and close friends, helped her get through her difficult childhood.
She has attended religious services at the Glens Falls Salvation Army since a friend brought her there in her teens. There, she has found acceptance and purpose.
She plays cornet in the band, helps serve meals at the Tuesday evening soup kitchen, and volunteers with the children's program. For the last few summers, she has worked as a counselor at the summer camp. She loves kids, especially her niece. Her energy for playing with Lela seems to never flag, nor does her patience.
One evening at Courtney's house, she hugged Lela close as she napped on her lap.
"I want a baby," she said, plaintively. But, although AZT therapy can now help prevent about 98 percent of maternal transmission of the virus to the fetus, she worries that even that small chance is too much to risk.
"It's just serious," she said. "It doesn't seem fair."
Still, she harbors no anger toward her own biological mother, who infected her.
"I just feel bad because she had to live with that the rest of her life," she said. Before her mother died from AIDS-related illnesses, when Lindsey was 8, she was able to have about three short visits with her. Her mother told her how pretty she was, and apologized repeatedly.
Every summer, from the first year it opened, Lindsey attended Double H Hole in the Woods camp.
It was such a relief, she said, to be around other children who understood what it was like to be sick and who weren't afraid of her illness.
Her pediatrician since she came to Glens Falls, Dr. Kathleen Braico, was (and still is) the medical director of the camp and is one of the most important influences in Lindsey's life.
"She has saved my life so many times," she said.
This time, though, Dr. Braico is trying to save Lindsey from herself.
Even if she succeeds at helping her control her eating disorder, though, she will only be her doctor for another two years. On Lindsey's 22nd birthday, a day she views with dread, she will have to switch to a doctor who treats adults.
"I'll just refuse to go to the doctor!" she said, in the teasingly rebellious voice of the teenager she no longer is.
Courtney said that Dr. Braico, who is both caring and a straight-talker, is one of the only people whose advice her sister will follow.
It pains Lindsey to feel that she is letting Dr. Braico
down and not fulfilling her potential.
After a recent appointment to check on her progress with the eating disorder, Dr. Braico explained that many AIDS babies were developmentally disabled.
"Why not me?" Lindsey asked.
"Because God was on your side, Lindsey," she said.
After a moment, she added, "But the IQ only takes you so far."

CONT.....

New Delhi: The five HIV positive children who were forced to stop their classes at a school in Pampady in Kerala due to objections from parents of other students, have been re-admitted them following public outcry.

The children, aged between five and 11, had to make do with private lessons at their charity home after the school turned them away.

"There were some opposition for these children from Asha Kiran to go to school,” says Father T C Yohanan Rampan of Asha Kiran Orphanage.

But now after a public outcry and a state government warning threatening to derecognise the school, the children have been allowed to return.

"They have started attending classes. There is no problem here,” says Principal, Mar Dionysius Lower Primary School, Elsamma Maani.

There was a similar case in Sangli in Maharashtra where 40 HIV positive students had been denied admission by four local schools. But after the local education officer intervened, 27 of them have been admitted.

"We were not aware of this ourselves. When we came to know of it we went to the NGO and they told us their problems. We have solved the problem together,” says Education Officer, Namdev Mali.

Meanwhile, the children are very happy to be back in school.

"I am really happy today, because this is my first day at school. They have treated us really well today. I hope they will take care of us in future as well,” says one of the students who was re-admitted.

SOURCE : Yahoo.News

Japanese high-tech giants Canon Inc and Toshiba Corp said that they have decided to postpone indefinitely the launch of a new type of flat television panel which is mired in legal wrangling.
SED television sets were due to be introduced in Japan in the fourth quarter of 2007. No new launch date was given. "Reasons for the postponement include prolonged litigation currently underway in the United States and efforts to establish mass-production technology aimed at realising further cost reductions," a Canon statement said. The delay forced Toshiba to put off the sales launch of the surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED) TVs as it had planned to source the screens from Canon. Austin, Texas-based Nano-Proprietary sued Canon for allegedly breaking its 1999 patent license agreement for key technology in the production of SED sets. The US firm argued that the agreement does not allow Toshiba access to its intellectual property so the venture cannot be transferred the license rights. Canon, which began research on SED in 1986, announced in January that it had agreed to buy Toshiba's 50 percent stake in their joint venture making SED TV panels in hopes of resolving the dispute. The technology, which uses electrons with a phosphor-coated screen, offers high efficiency for low power consumption, according to the high-tech giant. Canon is also developing organic electro-luminescence display screens, as is rival Sony Corp which aims to launch televisions using the technology later this year.

source : the times of india

Wind power


Wind power is the conversion of wind energy into more useful forms, usually electricity using wind turbines. At the end of 2006, worldwide capacity of wind-powered generators was 74,223 megawatts; although it currently produces less than 1% of world-wide electricity use, it accounts for approximately 20% of electricity use in Denmark, 9% in Spain, and 7% in Germany. Globally, wind power generation more than quadrupled between 2000 and 2006.
Most modern wind power is generated in the form of electricity by converting the rotation of turbine blades into electrical current by means of an electrical generator. In windmills (a much older technology) wind energy is used to turn mechanical machinery to do physical work, like crushing grain or pumping water.
Wind power is used in large scale wind farms for national electrical grids as well as in small individual turbines for providing electricity to rural residences or grid-isolated locations.
Wind energy is ample, renewable, widely distributed, clean, and reduces toxic atmospheric and greenhouse gas emissions if used to replace fossil-fuel-derived electricity. The intermittency of wind seldom creates problems when using wind power at low to moderate penetration levels

Providing Web Services: Moving Away From Place

During the early years of the Web, before content had semantic meaning, sites were developed as a collection of “pages.” Sites in the 1990s were usually either brochure-ware (static HTML pages with insipid content) or they were interactive in a flashy, animated, JavaScript kind of way. In that era, a common method of promoting sites was to market them as “places”—the Web as a virtual world complete with online shopping malls and portals.
In the late 90s and especially the first few years of the 21st century, the advent of XML technologies and Web services began to change how sites were designed. XML technologies enabled content to be shareable and transformable between different systems, and Web services provided hooks into the innards of sites. Instead of visual design being the interface to content, Web services have become programmatic interfaces to that same content. This is truly powerful. Anyone can build an interface to content on any domain if the developers there provide a Web services API.
Two great examples of the shift away from place to services on the Web are Amazon.com and eBay, both of which provide an immense amount of commercial data in the form of Web services, accessible to any developer who wants it. An interesting interface built using eBay’s Web services is Andale, a site that tracks sales and prices to give auction sellers a better idea of what items are hot and how much they’ve been selling for.

source : digital web magazine

Crawling robot reveals how fish evolved

The first animal to crawl onto land from the ocean probably looked a bit like today's salamander, and researchers have wondered how it was able to switch from swimming to walking. Now, European scientists have built a robot with a primitive electric nervous system that they say mimics that change in motion. The robot doesn't look much like a salamander it's nearly a yard long and made of nine bright yellow plastic segments each containing a battery and microcontroller but it does seem to move like one. The scientists chose the amphibious salamander as a model because the animal more closely resembles the first land-dwelling vertebrates. The point was to understand how a spinal cord developed to direct a swimming motion that could handle the different coordination needed between a body and its limbs for walking, according to the team led by Auke Jan Ijspeert of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale in Lausanne, Switzerland. So they first designed a basic nervous system modelled on that of the lamprey, a long, primitive eel-like fish. Then that design was modified to show how it could evolve into a nervous system that also could control walking. And to prove their point, they built the salamander robot which walks across floors, down the beach and even manages to swim in Lake Geneva. Its swimming motion uses undulations like the lamprey, while on land the robot uses a slow stepping gait with diagonally opposed limbs moving together while the body forms an S-shape. The work, the researchers reported on Friday in the journal Science, is "a demonstration of how robots can be used to test biological models, and in return, how biology can help in designing robot locomotion controllers." Studies of the robot show that our fishy ancestors likely used their primitive brains to make the evolutionary leap from water worlds to terra firma. The research was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the French Ministry for Research and Technology.

SOURCE : THE TIMES OF INDIA

With only the formalities to be completed for Vodafone to acquire a controlling stake in Hutch-Essar (HEL), India will soon become its third largest market with 24.4 million subscribers after Germany and the United States.
However, given the rate at which HEL’s subscriber base is growing it won’t be long before the Indian operations overtake these two countries to emerge as Vodafone’s top market. HEL is adding over a million new users to its base every month. Vodafone will now have a 22.1% marketshare of the 110 million-plus GSM space in India. More importantly, this corroborates with Vodafone’s strategy of being in the top three mobile operators wherever it operates. HEL is India’s fourth largest cellular operator and third largest GSM operator and is only 38,000 subscribers short of overtaking BSNL, the second largest GSM player. At present, the UK-based company has ownership interests in 27 countries across 5 continents. In addition, the group has partner networks in a further 33 countries. Germany is the largest market for Vodafone with 30.6 million subscribers (as of December 31, 2006) while US (where it has 44.4% stake in Verizon) is the second largest with 26.2 million users. Following the HEL deal, India has become the country with most potential for expansion for Vodafone with only 15% teledensity. Most countries where Vodafone operates currently are reaching saturation. Switzerland has 96% teledensity followed by Germany (80%), US (76%), France (78%), Turkey (67%) and Romania (70%). This acquisition is also important for Vodafone, considering that the 3G rollout in India is slated for early 2008. Having spent over $27 billion in buying 3G lincences in countries, and 40% of its capex over the last couple of years towards 3G roll-outs and networks, Vodafone is far ahead of all its rivals in this space. Vodafone is therefore sitting on a goldmine as its customers across the globe migrate to high-revenue 3G services like mobile TV, video and audio downloads. Hutch, which commands the highest ARPUs (average revenue per user) in India and also has the highest mix of corporate and high-end users, is best poised to tap the immense 3G potential that India offers. The potential subscriber base, combined with Vodafone’s expertise in this segment, may prove to be the answers to Vodafone’s woes in the developed markets. While ARPU figures for the last quarter are yet to be released, HEL was the only player in the GSM space to record an increase in its ARPUs in the previous quarter. Additionally, HEL also registered the highest growth in overall revenues amongst all GSM players during this period. This comes at a time when the average industry ARPU has witnessed a 3.21% decline as all other GSM players, including market leader Bharti Airtel, have registered a fall in their ARPUS. It must also be noted that Vodafone Group Plc’s acquisition of HEL, and in the process, sell-out its 10% stake in Bharti Airtel, is in line with its global exit strategy. Vodaone’s recent history reveals that the telecom behemoth has exited markets where it did not command a leadership position, and has shed stake in operators where all doors to pick up controlling stake remained closed. Consider this: In November 2006, Vodafone sold 25% in Swisscom (£1.8 billion) in Switzerland, a market with 96% saturation. In August 2006, Vodafone sold 25% stake in Belgium’s Proximus for Euro 2 billion. Earlier, in March 2006, citing “reduced prospects for superior long-term returns,” the company sold off its Japanese unit to Softbank for about $15.5 billion. Similarly, in October 2005, Vodafone sold its 100% interest in its Swedish unit to Telenor, the pan-Nordic telecommunications operator for $1.2 billion. At the same time, the company, in December 2006, strengthened its position in Egypt, where it increased its stake in Vodafone Egypt from 50.1% to 55% for an estimated £108m.
SOURCE : TMI INFOTECH