Somdev loses to Del Potro in Dubai event

STAFF WRITER 20:14 HRS IST Dubai, Feb 27 (PTI) Somdev Devvarman of India bowed out of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championship losing to Argentina's Juan-Martin del Potro in straight sets, here today. The world No 7 defeated Devvarman 6-4 6-4 in over an hour to enter the quarter-final of the ATP 500 event.

Soha Ali Khan moves in with Kunal Kohli!

The long time lovebirds Soha Ali Khan and Kunal Kohli have finally decided to move in together. The couple began dating each other, after working together in 99. Soha reveals that she has sought permission from her actress mom Sharmila Tagore and would soon move in with her lover. She also revealed that the duo have bought an apartment at Khar, which is currently under renovation and that they will move there once all the work is completed. Looks like Soha is following her brother's footsteps in her relationship! ‹‹ Jacqueline to work with prabhu Hrithik roshan katrina kaif to recreate their kissing magic again ›› - See more at: http://www.galatta.com/hindi/news/soha-ali-khan-moves-in-with-kunal-kohli/67757/#sthash.iKv99qPH.dpuf

Varun Gandhi acquitted in a hate speech case

Bareilly (UP), Feb 27 (PTI) BJP MP Varun Gandhi was today acquitted by a local court in neighbouring Pilibhit district in connection with a hate speech case lodged against him during Lok Sabha elections in 2009. Varun has been aqcuitted by the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate Abdul Qayyum in a case of an alleged hate speech during an election rally at Dalchandra locality lodged against him at Kotwali police station in March 2009, prosecution sources said.

BlackBerry Z10 review: Good, but pricey proposition

NEW DELHI: BlackBerry has launched its first BB10-powered smartphone Z10 in India at a hefty price of Rs 43,490. It offers a refreshing new look at the smartphone interface, powerful integration between hardware and software and BlackBerry's famed corporate, data encryption and security features. BlackBerry Z10 is more than just another smartphone - it is widely deemed to be the manufacturer's last-ditch effort at salvaging its lost market share and reputation in recent years. But does BlackBerry Z10 hold its own against top-notch rivals like Apple iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy Note II, Nokia Lumia 920, HTC Butterfly and Sony Xperia Z and deserve such a high price tag? We played around with the handset and tried to find out. Read on. Hardware BlackBerry Z10 is the company's flagship smartphone and certainly looks the part. In terms of appearance, it looks quite similar to Apple iPhone 5 from the side and HTC One, what with its rounded edges and thin profile. We tried the elegant-looking black coloured model (the device is also available in white). Z10 has a 4.2-inch touchscreen that has the requisite sensors and the 2MP secondary camera on top and the BlackBerry logo at the bottom. The front has a big bezel on top as well as bottom of the touchscreen, which adds to its height a bit. Hardware keys in the phone include Power/Lock on top and volume rocker and the voice control on the right side and are extremely easy to access while holding the phone which fits the palm easily. The back cover has matte finish and feels good to the touch. The back is bare, except for the 8MP primary camera with LED flash and the company's logo, while the speaker grille is located at the bottom. The earphone jack is placed on top and microUSB and miniHDMI ports are on the left side. Under the hood BlackBerry Z10 packs a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, coupled with 2GB RAM, while the graphics are handled by the Adreno 225 GPU. Its screen has 1280x768p resolution and 356ppi pixel density, which is disappointing and way behind Android-powered competitors like Sony Xperia Z, HTC Butterfly and the number of phablets about to hit the market. Connectivity options in BlackBerry Z10 are Wi-Fi, 2G, 3G, 4G, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0 and microUSB 2.0. Powered by a 1,800mAh battery, the phone comes with 16GB onboard storage and supports microSD cards up to 64GB. Software We were truly excited about the software running on BlackBerry Z10 - and it did not disappoint us. The new OS brings a new twist to a tried-and-tested interface of BlackBerry phones and does a good job as there is only a small learning curve to acclimatise the user. So, instead of pressing the back button, like you would do on an Android or Windows Phone device, you put your finger on the glass below the screen and swipe upwards to do various tasks, such as turning on the screen, or going to the home screen. In BlackBerry 10, you get a home screen that doubles up as the app menu, task switcher and the all-new Hub. The OS is very responsive and has a few preloaded apps that are commonly used everyday such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, BBM, Camera, Maps, Box and Adobe Reader. Other apps bundled in Z10 are Compass, Calculator, Voice Control, NewsStand, Story Maker, Doc To Go and Remember, among others. We were a bit surprised that even though there is no native YouTube app for the platform, it was shown in the menu. When we tried it out, it just opened the mobile version of the website in the browser, which worked well but was still not quite like having the app there. The tight integration of the hardware and software ensured that the smartphone worked well and there was no lag at all in our day-to-day usage. BlackBerry Z10 is more than a piece of hardware - it has an operating system that offers various services that add value to the overall user experience. Some of the cool Z10 features by BlackBerry are Story Maker, Remember, Balance, Hub and voice control and we would like to take a moment to discuss them as they add to the overall experience tremendously. The Hub acts as the single point for you to check all your updates, like new Facebook notifications, tweets, emails, LinkedIn messages, SMSs etc. If you want to open it, you just have to keep swiping towards the left of the screen till you cross the first menu page and task switcher. It is very easy to navigate and gives you options like posting new messages, emails and social network updates, depending on the service you are working on in the Hub. BlackBerry Balance is a feature aimed at corporate users who want to keep their work and personal lives separate - on their phone. It allows users to store apps and data on two distinct profiles - Work and Personal. Users can easily switch between the two profiles and users who bring their device to office can easily format the Work profile when they switch jobs without having to change any setting in the personal one. Remember is a content aggregation app that can come in handy if you want to keep photos, videos and audio recording of any event sorted. For example, all the images and videos clicked at any particular concert can be put in a single folder. The folder can be tagged as well, so all the folders with a tag like 'Birthday' or 'Party' will come up when you search for it. Story Maker can be a fun app for users who take a lot of photos and want to make them special by converting them into a single video. You just select the photos you want to include and pick the audio clip you want to go with it and the app will automatically create a video with effects like cascading images etc. Voice control in BlackBerry Z10 is quite refined and performs quite well, though it cannot match the intuitiveness that Google Now or Apple Siri bring to the table. We didn't get to play much with it, but going by what we experienced, it should stand its ground well against others. It is quite adept at recognising the Indian accent and finding the requisite app or data over a reliable network. However, like its rivals, its performance also suffers when used in places with ambient noise. The browser in BlackBerry Z10 is quite fast and responsive and supports Abode Flash natively, so the whole world wide web in its true form is at your fingertips. The Maps app in BB Z10 needs to be improved, since we could not get the lock on specific places like monuments or generic sites like New Delhi or India. BlackBerry has spoken quite a bit about the innovations it has added in its keyboard, and it shows. The on-screen Qwerty keyboard is well laid out, with sufficient spaces between letters and has all the all functionalities of the native keyboard of Android, iOS and Windows Phone platforms. The best part about the keyboard is its word suggestion capability, which is very useful while sending text messages and emails. However, it was oddly absent while searching for Maps and sending Facebook messages. Nevertheless, we liked what we saw, especially the part when you just flick at a letter to select it. Multimedia The 8MP camera of BlackBerry Z10 was a big letdown for us and did worse than that of even mid-range smartphones available nowadays, and we are not even taking Nokia's Lumia series, iPhone 5 or Sony Xperia Z into consideration. The images in lowlight conditions were grainy and even in daylight, its photo quality could not measure up to that of rivals. The camera app in itself is quite basic and does not offer much to the user and video quality is also below par for a device priced as high as Rs 43,490. The video and music player apps of Z10 are also free of any bells and whistles and do the job, but just so. So you do not have too many functionalities like pulling lyrics for songs off the internet or changing the aspect ratio of the video. We were, however, quite happy with the audio output of the smartphone and were happy to listen to some peppy music on it, though songs with heavy bass did not play so well. Overall performance ​The all-new BlackBerry Z10 did quite well in our review, barring a few glitches like camera and Maps (which are actually quite important in today's smartphone race). The device performed without any lag and using the keyboard was a treat. The learning curve for the new operating system was very small and even new users are likely to become adept at it within a short period. The new interface is refreshing and brings subtle changes to the table, something that pleased us quite a lot, instead of posing a problem. Call quality was decent and transferring data was smooth and fast. Now the big question! Does it measure up to the rivals? Yes, in its own way, BlackBerry Z10 does give competition to rivals but in doing so, it caters to only a small category of buyers. The lack of apps on BB10 platform is an obvious gaping hole for the OS and even with 75,000 native apps (and over 9,000 made especially for India), it is likely to lose out to the large scale consumer market due to absence of popular apps like Instagram or the entire suite of Google services. BBM which had been losing its charm to cross-platform apps like WhatsApp and Viber has got bolstered with new features like BBM-to-BBM video calling which do bring something extra to the table. WhatsApp and Viber will be launched on the platform within the next few months, so buyers will not have the luxury of choice on the platform immediately. With Z10, the manufacturer will continue to win hearts in the corporate sector with its strong security suite as well as BlackBerry Balance. The Contacts app is also something for users to look forward to as it merges various profiles of your Facebook, LinkedIn, email and phonebook contacts intuitively. Moreover, it does not have the boring UI of Android and iOS or the much-too-flashy interface of WP8 platform, which may please many a buyers. Despite the advancements on the software front, Z10 does fall short of rivals when it comes to hardware. Its display quality is nowhere near the standards set by Apple's Retina or the full HD-capable Android devices. It has a strong connectivity suite, but shortage of apps will certainly irk buyers, something that the manufacturer knows very well too, and we hope is working on it. However, the OS does give provision for developers to port their Android apps to BB10 with ease. This creates the opportunity for the platform to get the requisite number of apps to get off the ground in the consumer market, though we can never be sure of how the user experience will be for such ported apps. The company has already said that 40% of the apps available on BB10 platform are Android ports, such as Skype, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and Angry Birds, among others. Other popular apps available on the platform are Jetpack Joyride, LinkedIn, Gaana, AccuWeather, Paper Camera, Zomato etc. However, some users may be discouraged from buying the phone rightaway due to the absence of the popular apps like WhatsApp, Instagram and Viber from the platform, at least for now. Is the sky-high price tag justified? Well, BlackBerry Z10 is likely to gain ground in the enterprise sector and may go on to become the favourite of BlackBerry fans and corporate users. However, for a regular consumer in a budget conscious market like India, Z10 is unlikely to hold much charm. While the men may buy it, the BlackBerry boys are likely to stay away given the hole it will burn in their pockets. Even with the revamped UI and tight integration of software and hardware, we find that the device is just too pricey. It could have been a better buy at a price band of Rs 35,000 to Rs 38,000, but does not seem to be the best device to go for at a price of Rs 43,490, especially when the poor camera quality is taken into account. We would certainly wait for a mid-range BB10-powered smartphone to hit the markets because the beauty truly lies in the software in this case, rather than the hardware. What's hot What's not Revamped interface High price tag Perfect harmony between hardware and software Lack of apps for BB10 platform Strong enterprise suite Poor camera quality New features like Hub, Story Maker, Balance etc Industrial looks Key specs Display: 4.2-inch capacitive touchscreen with resolution of 768 x 1280 pixels Dimensions: 5.12 x 2.58 x 0.35 inch, weighs 137.5 gm Operating system: Company's latest BlackBerry 10 OS Processor: Dual-core 1.5 GHz processor Camera: 8MP rear camera with auto-focus, LED flash and geo-tagging. Boasts of 2MP front-facing camera Connectivity: Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g/n, dual band) and Bluetooth (v4.0 with A2DP, LE) technology Colour options: Is available in two colours in India: Black and White Battery: 1,800 mAh

Sachin Tendulkar's return to form for India is a welcome sight

Good to see Sachin Tendulkar making Test runs again, in Chennai against Australia, wasn’t it? Masterful once more: Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar plays a shot Photo: GETTY IMAGES SCYLD BERRY India tour will test Clarke's resolve SCYLD BERRY A power shift in women's cricket SCYLD BERRY De Villiers continues to raise the bar SCYLD BERRY Can you name the best in Test, ODI and T20? SCYLD BERRY Indian umpires frankly 'abysmal' SCLD BERRY A memo to commentators SCYLD BERRY South Africa shake off choker tag SCYLD BERRY Cricket resumes undiminished SCYLD BERRY Nagpur is fantastic - if you can get in SCYLD BERRY Maidans yield hope for Test future SCYLD BERRY How Panesar makes a difference SCYLD BERRY First Test spun out by Indian media SCYLD BERRY Tendulkar is far from finished SCYLD BERRY One size fits all for Ayrtek, the helmet that inflates SCYLD BERRY Playing Bangladesh is batsman's dream SCYLD BERRY Tactical retirements not against game spirit SCYLD BERRY Naib a star of the World T20 SCYLD BERRY Rehman's nine-fer sole summer memory SCYLD BERRY Goodbye T20, hello 10-over cricket SCYLD BERRY Foreman forerunner for SA's multiracial team SCYLD BERRY Strauss one of England's very best SCYLD BERRY KP or not KP, that is the question... SCYLD BERRY England will still win the Ashes SCYLD BERRY Who is cricket's best coach? By Scyld Berry3:02PM GMT 27 Feb 2013Comment Around the world ‘government’ seems to have become another name for ‘kleptocracy’, and archbishops can no longer be trusted, but Tendulkar keeps on batting - in his 24th year of Test cricket - as a sign of enduring quality. In the four Tests against England before Christmas his hunger was evident but no footwork. In more than a year he had made one Test fifty. But from the first ball he faced in Chennai he was back to something close to his old self, placing his front foot across to a wide ball from James Pattinson and driving it square for four. Tendulkar steered his second ball to third man for four more, and glanced the fourth to the boundary again: 12 runs off four balls, as many as he got in whole Tests against England. Soon he was playing the ball back where it came from, or between the bowler and mid-on, without any gap between bat and pad. It was a crisis too, as India were 12 for two in reply to Australia’s 380 when Tendulkar went in. Related Articles India claim eight-wicket win over Australia 26 Feb 2013 Australia dig deep fighting a lost cause in India 25 Feb 2013 MS Dhoni double century puts India in control against Australia 24 Feb 2013 Clarke aids Australia recovery with century 22 Feb 2013 India tour will test Clarke's resolve 20 Feb 2013 Afghanistan asks for India's cricket advice 19 Feb 2013 He took the lead in turning the tide in his partnerships with Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli, and paved the way for MS Dhoni to run amok with the highest score by an Indian wicketkeeper, 224, which buried Australia. Tendulkar was bowled before he could reach his 101st international century by a fine offbreak, as good as the one with which Michael Vaughan surprised him a decade ago in a Trent Bridge Test. But his 81 had set his country on course and kept him in the side. By the end of this series he will have played 198 Tests. Just as he was the first to score 200 in a one-day international, Tendulkar will surely be first to play 200 Tests. India’s schedule after the Champions Trophy in June is not confirmed, but a two-Test series against Zimbabwe can be arranged if nothing else. In the field too Tendulkar contributed, which was seldom the case in the series against England. He once chased back from point towards the third man boundary and did a diving stop to save a run, rising rather flushed and pleased with this new antic in his 40th year. The proof that he was back came in his second innings. He drove the first two balls he received from Nathan Lyon, who had got him in his first innings, over long-on for six. For about half of the cricket followers in the world, certainly in India, Tendulkar has been a permanent fixture in the Indian Test side for half of their lives. His great contemporaries have passed on, like Brian Lara and Ricky Ponting. There might not even be great Test batsmen in future if everyone grows up playing 20-over cricket and trying a shot a ball. But for a while longer the Old Master can be admired.

27 FEB, 2013, 08.33PM IST, RACHITA PRASAD,ET BUREAU

MUMBAI: The power sector growth has slowed in the nine-month period ending December 2012 with several projects getting delayed, the annual economic survey has noted. Central-sector projects status report revealed that implementation of 45 out of 98 ongoing power projects and 21 coal projects out of 51 are behind schedule due to delays in land acquisition, municipal permission, supply of materials, award of work, operational issues, etc. Investment in the sector dried as environment continued to be challenging, according to the Economic Survey 2013. On the capacity addition front, India added 9,854 mw of new capacity in nine-month ended December, which amounts to around 55% of the annual capacity addition target of 17,956 mw. The capacity addition during the 12th Plan period is estimated at 88,537 mw. During the 11th Five Year Plan, nearly 55,000 MW of new generation capacity was created, yet there continued to be an overall energy deficit of 8.7% and peak shortage of 9%. The government feels energy availability does not match the need and the gap may widen as the economy moves to a higher growth trajectory and India's success in resolving energy bottlenecks remains one of the key challenges in achieving the projected growth outcomes. Import dependence in case of coal is projected to be about 22.4% by 2016-17 because resources currently allocated to energy supply are not sufficient for narrowing the gap between energy needs and energy availability. Coal and lignite will continue to dominate the energy scenario and by 2021-2 the share of these two fuel products will be about 66.8 % in total commercial energy produced and about 56.9% in total commercial energy supply by 2021-2. In terms of energy equivalent of all the primary energy sources in 2010-11, the share of coal and lignite, electricity (hydro and nuclear), and natural gas was 52%, 28%, and 11 % respectively. The Survey revealed that power generation growth slowed to 4.6% in April-December 2012 as against 9.3% reported in the same nine months a year ago, while production in almost all other core sector segments rose in the period. Electricity generation by power utilities during 2012-13 was targeted to go up by 6.05% to 930 billion units. In the nine-month period, the plant load factor of state-sector utilities remained lower than that of private- and central-sector utilities. Nevertheless it expected that four ultra mega power projects of 4,000 mw, except Tilaiya UMPP, will be commissioned during the 12th Plan. On the finance front, power accounts for 50% share in total credit flow to infrastructure sector. The rate of growth of this sector, after moderating to 13.94% in Q1FY13 improved to 21.58% in Q3. Nevertheless, foreign direct investment in the power sector slowed to $ 456 million in nin-months ended December from $1,436.75 million reported in the same period a year ago due to continued global risks and moderated business sentiment. As on 30 November 2012, electrification works in 1,06,116 un-electrified villages and intensive electrification in 2,73,328 partially electrified villages were completed and free electricity connections to 202.60 lakh BPL households have been released. Elasticity of energy use ( Kwh per rupee), defined as the amount of energy consumed for generating one unit of gross domestic production ( GDP), has remained less than one. In the thermal category, growth in generation from coal, lignite, and gas-based stations was 13.90% , 19.81%, and (-) 25.49 % respectively. The overall plant load factor (PLF), a measure of efficiency of thermal power stations, during April to December 2012 declined to 69.63 % against PLF of 71.94 % achieved during April to December2011.

20 killed at Sealdah market fire in Kolkata

At least 20 people were killed and 50 others sustained injury after a fire swept through a six-storey "illegal" godown-cum-office complex at Surya Sen market in Kolkata's Sealdah area in the wee hours on Wednesday. According to Kolkata police, the inferno was reported at around 3.50 am, following which 26 fire tenders rushed to the spot to fight the blaze for several hours. Although many people trapped in the building were rescued, the fire killed 20 lives, including a woman. About 50 injured people, many of them being critical, were taken to neighbouring NRS and Calcutta Medical College hospitals. The cause of the fire, however, was under investigation, Kolkata Joint Commissioner of Police (Headquarters) Javed Shamim said. West Bengal Fire Services minister Javed Khan visited the spot, starting the usual political blame-game. "This is an illegal building, which came up during the Left rule. They should explain and be held responsible." Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, later, floated a conspiracy theory. "Who knows that some people deliberately set the place on fire with an ulterior motive. We have ordered an inquiry. KMC, the fire department and the police will jointly conduct the inquiry and submit its report in three days. The probe will study all aspects," she said. Banerjee announced ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh for the dead and Rs 50,000 for the injured. Governor M K Narayanan, too, visited the spot. This is the third major incident of fire in city in recent years. The fire at AMRI Hospital in the city on December 9, 2011, which killed 93 patients. Earlier in 2010 Stephen Court fire in Kolkata killed 43 people.