Shalini Sharma of Businessworld reports: "According to UGC sources, there were as many as 214 colleges waiting to get the deemed university status as on 31 December 2008. Some applications pending since 2000. While many apply for the status, only a handful with the right connections and money power manage to get it."

Can UGC sue the Buissinessworld for saying this?

Irrespective of the means used by institutes to get the deemed university status, if UGC were to grant the status only to a handful of institutes, what was the need for the Government to set up Yashpal committee to review UGC/AICTE?

Further, Shalini Sharma writes: "Since last year, there has been a mad rush of private colleges trying to get the status of deemed universities from the ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD). While in 2006 only 30 proposals were submitted for the purpose, the number rose to 56 in 2007 and shot up to 76 in 2008. Reason: the Yash Pal committee, set up by the Prime Minister, is likely to recommend an end to this system in its report, which will be submitted to the HRD ministry and to the Prime Minister’s Office in March" [2009].

However, the argument fails to explain why the number of proposals rose before March 2008, as the UGC/AICTE Review Committee was set up only on February 28, 2008 (check the "composition of  the UGC/AICTE Review Committee" on this page).

Total number of pages in The Hindu, dated February 27, 2009 = 28.

Contents of 28 pages (p):

The Hindu is a 'news paper', so you can expect the paper (literally) to be filled with news.

To find the number of pages in which news was reported, you got to add (all of) the following and deduct from 28.
Fridays Feature: 4 p

Engagements: 0.5 p

Other ads: 0.5 + 0.5 + 0.5 p

Classifieds: 1.5 p

Tenders: 2.5 p

Ad by BSNL: 1.25 p

Ad by Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation: 0.5 p

Ad by Department of Telecommunications: 1 p
Ad by Ministry of Civil Aviation: 1 p

Ad by Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport & Highways: 1 p

Ad by CDAC: 0.75 p

Ad by Goverment of Gujarat: 1 p

A guide to radio and television + crossword: 1 p
Weather report + clossing prices of shares and stocks: 0.5 p

"This day that age" (50 years old news), Sudoku, and so on: About 0.5 p?

The price tag of Hindu, dated Feb 27, 2009, is Rs.3.75. Of this, how much are we paying for reading news, and how much for ads?

Date and Time: February 23, 2009, 10.35 P.M., IST (GMT +0530h)

I just made a google news search for "Slumdog Millionaire". The result page is here:

(you can open the image in a new tab)

Oops, 34,569 pages! Remeber, I made this search with quotes. If I repeat the search without quotes, Google should throw

even more number of pages.

Now I made one more search (again in the news section); this time I searched for - boy fell to borewell + theni district -

and the result page is here:

(you can open the image in a new tab)

Surprise- the result page shows ONLY one page (and that page is this)!

The second search is without quotes (the search term is not stringent). Yet I got only one result!

Remember the live coverage of rescue of Prince and the gifts (to Prince) that followed the live coverage?

Where were the TV channels on Feb 23, 2009?

Of course, they were all busy with 24X7 coverage of Slumdog Millionaire.

Don't you think, the kid who fell into borewell on Feb 23, 2009, is indeed a "slumdog"?

BTW, you can sigh in relief, the boy was rescued.

"Arteries are vessels that take blood from the heart to other parts of the body. When they get blocked, the body does not receive adequate amount of blood, which can lead to heart attacks". This is what NDTV has to say about heart attack on this page.

Well, if a limb does not receive adequate amount of blood, will it lead to heart attack?

Here is the wikipedia page on heart attack.

Barkha Dutt may not agree, but it is official now. Indian television channels, need not necessarily NDTV (saving clause!), have indeed helped Mumbai terrorists. Just read point number 31 (on page 8) in the dossier.

BTW, you can download the scanned copy of dossier from the Hindu website.

According to this old joke (I read it somewhere), there are three kinds of people in the world- those who can count and those who can not!

Well, what about Mr. Karan Thapar? Does he know how to count?

The title bar of programme "War of Words", aired on December 22, 2008 by CNBC TV18, read- "Indo-Pak Relations: If there is a second terrorist attack?". The programme is hosted by none other than Mr. Karan Thapar. You can watch the video here.

Mr. Thapar asked a question to three panelists:

First, he asked Mr. Ravi Shankar Prasad, Bhartiya Janta Party spokesman and Rajya Sabha MP, India- "Now what? God forbid. If there is a second terrorist stirke, which no one can rule out?" (at 5.16 min in the video).

Next, he asked Mr. Najam Sethi, Editor-in-Chief, The Daily Times, Pakistan- "Najam Sethi, how worried are people in Pakistan by the possibility that there could be a second strike? After all no one can rule out" (at 5.48 min in the video). In is answer, Mr. Sethi referred to the so called second terrorist strike as "..... If there is yet another act of terrorism .....".

Finally, Mr. Thapar asked Mr. Kapil Sibal, Minister of Science and Technology, India- "The belief in Pakistan seems to be that there won't be a second terror strike ....." (at 7.15 min in the video). Mr. Sibal, who is an advocate, also referred to the so called second strike as- "If they think they can get away with another strike .....".

The title bar of CNBC TV18 and Mr. Thapar keep on asking- What if there is a second strike?

Well, which terrorist strike was the first one in India according to  Mr. Thapar? Was it Parliament attack?  Was it IISc shooting? Or was it Akshardham temple attack? You can find a list ot Terrorism in India since 2001  here.

It appears, Mr. Sibal can count. Even Mr. Sethi, who is from Pakistan, can count the number of terrorist strikes in India. But, Mr. Karan Thapar can't.