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        Self-exiled former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto will return home in October and contest national elections despite the threat of imprisonment, one of her political advisers said. Bhutto, who still leads the Pakistan People's Party from exile in London and the United Arab Emirates, fled the country to avoid corruption charges after her second government collapsed in 1996. 'She is going to return from London to Pakistan in October,' Bhutto's political adviser Wajid Shamsul Hasan told The Associated Press Friday. Hasan said Bhutto would wait until the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which begins in September, before making her return. Benazir Bhutto dares arrest.

        When NASA's newest Mars lander departs Earth this weekend, it will be carrying the words and art of visionaries from Voltaire to Carl Sagan. The 'Visions of Mars' mini-disk secured to the lander will be the first library on Mars - a gift from past and present dreamers to possible future settlers. 'I'm glad you're there and I wish I was with you,' Sagan said in a recording made for the mission before his death. An excerpt from his book 'Cosmos' is also on board. Other musings, in written and audio format, come from Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Percival Lowell and Kim Stanley Robinson. 'For any science fiction writer,' Robinson said Friday on the eve of launch, 'it's really a thrill. 'Green Mars,' the second novel in his classic trilogy, is on the disk. The Phoenix Mars Lander was scheduled to blast off before sunrise Saturday aboard an unmanned rocket. Its journey to Mars will take nearly 10 months and cover 679 million kilometres. Time capsule in alien planet Mars.

        The US State Department has a message for White House candidates wanting to expound on sensitive diplomatic issues: Shut up. Traditionally silent during presidential campaigns filled with divisive foreign policy debates, the department on Friday delivered a rebuke to would-be nominees of both parties whose recent comments have complicated US efforts to overcome deep suspicion about the war on terrorism in the Muslim world. 'Those who wish to hold office can speak for themselves and whoever is elected in 2008 and comes into office in 2009 will then be in a position to talk about what they intend or plan to do,' said deputy spokesman Tom Casey, a career foreign service officer. US foreign policy matters matter.

        Blaming the previous NDA government at the Centre for the multi-crore rupee land scam in the capital's slum clusters, Congress workers on Thursday staged a protest demanded a judicial probe into the matter. DPCC chief Ram Babu Sharma alleged that BJP leaders had colluded with the accused Ashok Malhotra in grabbing land meant for the poor. 'The allotment of plots to JJ Colony dwellers was done through the slums wing of the MCD in 2002 when all the key posts in the corporation were held by the BJP leaders,' Sharma said while demanding action against all government officials responsible for the scam. Probe demanded on the alleged BJP scam.

        The VHP on Thursday said it would launch a countrywide mobilisation to prevent 'Ram Sethu' in Rameswaram in Tamilnadu from being 'destroyed' to facilitate completion of the project. 'The 360-km (shipping canal) project involving Rs 2,700 crore can be completed even without causing harm to Ram Sethu (bridge believed to have been built by Lord Ram's 'Vanar Sena') which connects Rameswaram with Sri Lanka. But the government is out to destroy this structure which is a symbol of Hindu pride,' VHP President Ashok Singhal told a press conference at his house in Allahabad. Singhal, accompanied by the Jyotirpeeth Badrikashram pontiff Shankaracharya Vasudevananda Saraswati, said a decision was taken at a VHP meeting in New Delhi on 25-26 July that a 'strong public agitation will be organised to thwart the move and people would be mobilised at State and district-levels across the country'. T R Baalu seems to be unmoved.

        Under a landmark deal, the US has in effect committed itself to ensuring uninterrupted supplies of nuclear fuel to India even if it conducts an atomic test. The much talked-about 123 agreement for implementation of the nuclear deal reached between President George W Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh two years ago was simultaneously unveiled to the public in India and the US. While New Delhi retains the right to conduct nuclear tests, the US laws — the Atomic Energy Act and India-specific Hyde Act — will come into play, which means Washington will have the right to stop nuclear cooperation and recall fuel as well as technology supplied to India. However, a number of safeguards have been built into the 22-page agreement to deal with such a situation. No matter US is committed.

        With a Special Court finding 153 accused guilty in the 1998 serial blasts case, tight security arrangements will remain in place in and around Coimbatore city till the completion of the sentencing of the convicts. The court found 70 people, including S A Basha and Mohammed Ansari, the founder and general secretary respectively of the proscribed Al-Umma, and some hardcore members of the organisation guilty of hatching a conspiracy to trigger a series of explosions to eliminate BJP leader L K Advani during his visit here on 14 February, 1998. The sentencing of the convicts will begin from 6 August. Kerala-based PDP leader Abdul Nasser Madani was, however, acquitted of all five charges against him, including conspiracy, and released on bail on Wednesday. Justice delayed but not denied.

        Work is on in full swing to convert 3230 km of National Highway roads into four-lane at a cost of Rs 16,000 crore, Union Minister for Shipping, Road Transport and Highways T R Baalu said on Thursday. The four-lane roads would be converted into six-lane in the future, he said. The four-lane roads would be connected to the Chennai, Ennore and Tuticorin ports and it will help the country's economic growth, he said. A total of 1,45,350 persons have been appointed for the road works of which 16,150 persons would be posted as permanent employees in the National Highways Department after the works were completed, he said. He also said trees would be planted on the road sides. On the Sethusamudram project, he said six more ships would be used for dredging works. At present four ships are being used, he said, adding work would be completed in time. He is bent upon completing SSCP.

        A sex change operation was performed on a 24-year-old eunuch at the government hospital at Addukkumpari near Vellore, a first for the hospital, according to a senior doctor there. The eunuch, Simran, will be in post-operative care for a week and then sent home. Hailing from a poor family, Simran earns a living through dances during festivals. Simran has a sister, who is married. Simran presently stays with her parents, Dr Manivelu, the dean of the hospital said. Another eunuch, who was admitted to the hospital along with Simran, would be operated on 6 August, the Superintendent of the hospital, Dr Sivakumar said. A sex change is done depending on chromosomes whichever is in large number, it seems.

        Tata Consultancy Services on Friday said it has honoured 36 literary facilitators who won the Jamsetji Tata National Virtual Academy fellowship in the Mission 2007 Annual Convention. A press release said in Chennai Friday that these facilitators use TCS Adult Literacy Program (ALP) for spreading literacy in their respective villages. The ALP is available in eight languages and is running across India. In Tamilnadu, the ALP was running in 125 centres, the release said. TCS ALP is run with the Department of Continuing Education under respective District Collectors in the districts of Tiruchy, Erode, Tuticorin and Karur. The release said ALP was also successfully running in 36 jails in Tamilnadu as well as other States. TCS is doing service on the education front too.

        Accusing slackness on the DMK government's part in preventing Karnataka from going ahead with its move to construct a check dam across the Thenpennai at a cost of Rs 50 crore, AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa said it would create drinking water shortage in some northern districts of Tamilnadu. In a statement in Chennai on Thursday, she said Karnataka was planning to construct a check dam across the river at Mugalore near Hosur. Karnataka PWD Department officials had visited the proposed dam site on 31 July and had made preliminary survey, she said adding Karnataka government had sanctioned Rs 25 crore as the first instalment for the project. If the dam was constructed, it would affect the people of Krishnagiri, Dharmapuri and Tiruvannamalai districts, besides affecting the farmers in these districts, she said. Jaya damns dam issue.

        The Tamilnadu government is thinking of writing to the All India Council of Technical Education to withdraw the recognition awarded to 33 self-financing engineering colleges in the State for charging excess tuition fees. K Ganesan, secretary, Higher Education Department of the state, told presspersons on Thursday that preliminary inquiries with these colleges revealed that they had collected excess fees. 'We are going to provide these colleges one more chance to prove that they had not collected the excess fee. Some colleges had stated that the fee included charges for the lunch provided in the colleges and transport. We will look into all these aspects before writing to the council,' he said. The colleges included Andal Azhagar Engineering College, floated by actor-turned-politician Vijayakant. Education has become too commercial.

It's name change -M-The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) notified the change of name in the mobile joint venture Hutch Essar to Vodafone Essar following the change in ownership. Earlier Registrar of Companies had approved the change of name of cellular major Hutch Essar to Vodafone Essar following the British mobile major's acquisition of controlling stake in the JV in May. Vodafone Essar sources said the approval was granted to the company's application seeking the change of name due to the change in ownership. The approval from the RoC is given circle-wise. The FIPB also notified the foreign investment limit both direct and indirect in Vodafone Essar to 74 per cent. The FIPB notification marks the first formal step for Vodafone's entry into the Indian market. The company has already appointed a new board chaired by Ravi Ruia, Vice-Chairman of Essar Group and Arun Sarin, CEO, Vodafone Plc as the Vice-Chairman of the Indian mobile venture. Vodafone is now expected to phase out the Hutch brand over the next few months. The company has already started using the Vodafone Essar Ltd name in all its official communication with the telecom regulator and the Government authorities.

        India beat England by seven wickets in the second Test at Trent Bridge taking a lead of 1-0 in the three-match series. Pacer Zaheer Khan was adjudged Man of the Match for his nine-wicket haul. This is India's fifth Test victory in England.

        'Every win that we have, we can take heart from that,' skipper Dravid said after India's seven-wicket win at Trent Bridge on Tuesday.

        'We have played well abroad in the last four-five years. We have won everywhere we have toured, won series as well.

        'It's been an improvement, even though not probably as quickly as we would have liked and not as emphatically as we would have liked. But these are small steps along the way.

        'It's great especially for the younger players who haven't seen international success away from home. That's something that will spur them on and inspire them to do much better.' It was only India's fifth win in 47 Tests they had played in England.