New York, April 25
Astronomers have discovered a new planet circling a dim red star around 20 light years away from our solar system, which could be a ‘super earth’ supporting life.

The planet is five times as massive as the earth and is in the constellation of Libra. The extra solar planet is orbiting one of the closest stellar neighbours, the red dwarf star Gliese 581.

The planet was spotted by Stiphane Udry of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland and his colleagues by detecting wobbles in the parent star, caused by the orbiting planet’s gravity.

The planet is much closer to its star than we are to the Sun orbiting at 1/14th of the Earth-Sun distance, the Nature magazine reports.

But because Gliese 581 is a red dwarf, which emits less light and heat than the Sun, the planet is in the so-called ‘habitable zone’ for its star.

The researchers’ calculations suggest that the planet’s average temperature is between 0 and 40 °C perfect for liquid water, and perhaps even life, to exist.

But this is a very crude temperature estimate, said Udry’s colleague Michel Mayor, principal investigator for HARPS (High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planetary Searcher), the instrument that made the observations in La Silla, Chile. — PTI

Strasbourg, April 25
President A.P.J Abdul Kalam has said India’s space programme has no military interest.

Replying to a question posed by a student of the Strasbourg-based International Space University (ISU), Kalam said, “Indian Space Programme has no military interest. It has been built to be locally relevant when globally challenged and its foundation is the quest of India and other space faring nations to use the collective wisdom of humanity to solve the socio-economic problems of our society”.

Commenting on space industrialisation, Kalam said, ”While space industrialisation and space exploration will expand initially using the current generation launch vehicles, the real value of space exploration for human advancement will occur only when mankind builds fully reusable space transportation systems with very high payload efficiencies.” On the geo-political conflict over outer space, he said, "We recognise the necessity for the world’s space community to avoid terrestrial geo-political conflict to be drawn into outer space, thus threatening the space assets belonging to all mankind. This leads on to the need for an International Space Force made up of all nations wishing to participate and contribute to protect world space assets in a manner which will enable peaceful exploitation of space on a global cooperative basis”.

Meanwhile, reminding students of the International Space University (ISU) that three of the astronauts who have taken on space missions have been of Indian origin, Kalam said the chances of Indian women landing on the moon or on Mars pretty soon were high.

Commenting on India’s success in tele-education, he said,”Encouraged by the success of the usage of satellite for sharing of knowledge within the country, we have started working on world knowledge platform. The Pan-African e-network programme, which is in an advanced stage of establishing the connectivity between India and African Union (53 nations) to provide tele-education, tele-medicine and e-governance services. Many such efforts are underway,” Kalam added. — ANI

Strasbourg, April 25
Presi dent A.P.J. Abdul Kalam said today that India and the European Union (EU) could join hands in promoting a doctrine of global cooperation built on a foundation of regional collaboration and core competencies of nations.

“We can bring together a doctrine of global cooperation built over the foundation of regional collaborations and core competencies of nations,” Kalam said while delivering the first ever address by an Indian head of state to European Parliament.

Calling for a joint effort to counter the root causes of ethnic and religious fundamentalism, he said: “Both India and the EU have witnessed and are witnessing the unsavoury acts of certain misguided sections of society.

World over, poverty, illiteracy, unemployment and deprivation are driving forward the forces of anger and violence. These forces link themselves to some earlier real or perceived historical enmities, tyrannies injustice, inequities, ethnic issues and religious fundamentalism flowing into an outburst of extremism worldwide,” Kalam said.

Commenting on energy independence, Kalam said: “Intensive cooperation between the EU and India is needed in this area. I would suggest the setting up of an Indo-EU renewable energy development programme.

The joint collaboration must take up advanced research and development in all forms of renewable energy leading to the availability of commercial class large scale power plants within the next decade,” he added.

Emphasising the need for the creation of a world knowledge platform, Kalam said: “With Indian experience of two successful international cooperative ventures from concept to realisation and marketing, I would suggest the evolution of a world knowledge platform for bringing together the core competence of multiple nations of the EU and India in science and technology leading to the development of unique systems for global applications.”

The world knowledge platform would enable joint design, development, cost-effective production and marketing of the knowledge products, systems and services in various domains based on the core competence of partner nations to international market, he added.

The Supreme Court (SC) has hinted it will also call heads of secret agencies to testify in the missing persons cases overruling their resistance to submit to the civilian judicial system.

Justice Javed Iqbal heads the three-member Bench hearing the cases of forced disappearances, most of which are believed to have been engineered by the security agencies. The defence has expressed apprehensions that some of them might have been handed over to the USA in return for bounty money. The government has so far failed to persuade the heads of these agencies to appear before the Supreme Court. Attorney-General Makhdoom Ali Khan has refused to appear before the court after he failed to ensure adequate response from the army on the subject.

Chief Justice Chaudhry had initiated proceedings for recovery of missing persons, which is cited as a major reason behind General Musharraf’s decision to remove him.

The court directed the defence and interior secretaries and the director-general of the Crisis Management Cell (CMC) to appear in court on April 27 after the deputy attorney-general told the court that the interior ministry had not given him details on the issue of the people reported missing by their relatives despite the SC’s orders.

Deputy Attorney-General (DAG) Raja Irshad also told the SC that he could not assist the court any more since CMC DG Brig Javed Iqbal Cheema had not fulfilled the assurance he had given to the SC.Cheema had said at the last hearing that he would submit a comprehensive statement on each complaint and petition on the missing people to the court.

The three-member SC bench is hearing petitions by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and the Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) former senator Farhatullah Babar, along with complaints by Amina Masood Janjua, Saqlain Mehdi and others whose relatives have disappeared.

London, April 25
Women account for nearly half of the millionaires in Britain, a study here said today.

Huge success in their careers or divorce courts has made them wealthy.

About 46 per cent of the country’s 376,000 millionaires are women, a survey by researcher Datamonitor stated.

The report, which labels women ‘the richer sex’, said the number is growing by almost 11 per cent every year.

Within a few years, they could overshadow their male counterparts.

The report said the rise is partly due to ‘a new generation’ of so-called kitchen table tycoons-female entrepreneurs-who are setting up hugely successful businesses.

In 1984, when official records were first collated, there were about 645,000 self-employed women. But the army of businesswomen has breached the million mark for the first time this year.

Women are now forming new businesses in all types of industries, offering everything from organic baby food to financial advice.

For the first time, they make up around one in four of Management Today magazine’s annual list of the top 100 entrepreneurs.

Nearly 4,000 women are now among the richest Britons, with liquid assets of more than 5 million pounds, Datamonitor said.

In total, there are nearly 35,000 with liquid assets of 1 million pounds or more. The larger figure for the number of female millionaires includes property assets, which are not classified as ‘liquid’.

The wealth gap between male and female millionaires is also narrowing. — PTI

Dhaka, April 25
The caretaker government in Bangladesh today took a u-turn by lifting all restrictions on country's top two leaders, Awami League's Sheikh Hasina and her arch rival Khaleda Zia.

In a dramatic development the caretaker administration, which has the support of the military, released a statement stating: “All restrictions on the two former Prime Ministers have been lifted.” The announcement is set to bring relief to both the leaders, as Zia is under a virtual house arrest and Hasina, is in London.

Hasina, who has been charged with murder, was debarred from boarding a flight to Dhaka last week in London.

This reversal of the Fakhruddin Ahmed- led caretaker administration comes hours after the USA and the UK voiced their concern over the status of democracy in the country and termed that democracy was under 'threat'.

However, the administration stated that the decision has been taken in view of reservation expressed by the country's media on the issue. — ANI