Pakistani Taliban launches New Facebook Page To Recruit

ISLAMABAD: The banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan have created a Facebook page to recruit persons to write for a planned quarterly magazine and to work on tasks like video editing and translation.

The Umar Media TTP page, which has nearly 290 likes, has a message posted on November 22 seeking writers for "Ahyah-e-Khilafat", which is described as the "official quarterly magazine" of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.

"Dear brothers and sisters, 'Pen is mightier than the sword (sic)'. Now you have a chance to use this mighty weapon," the message says.

Prospective contributors can write on "on topic of your choice, or on jihadi current affairs, history, Islamic movements, plight of ummah, etc etc", the message adds.

An earlier message posted in October states that "Umar Media is proud to announce online jobs opportunities (sic)".

The job "description (sic) is video editing, translations, sharing, uploading, downloading and collection of required data".

The earlier message includes an email ID for contacting the Taliban and asks people to spread news about the Facebook page as the account may be deleted.

US-based private intelligence organization SITE too said the Pakistani Taliban use Facebook as "a recruitment centre".

In a statement, SITE said: "Through its official media arm, Umar Media, the TTP has taken to Facebook to recruit contributors for their media work and the group's forthcoming publication 'Ayah-E-Khilafat' (Sign of the Caliphate)."

The TTP, currently led by Hakimullah Mehsud, has been behind scores of bombings and suicide attacks, a majority of them against the security forces, that have killed thousands in the past five years.

In October, the TTP claimed responsibility for an attempt to assassinate teenage rights activist Malala Yousufzai, who is being treated in a British hospital after being shot in the head.

Source : TOI

IAF: LCA Tejas To Be Part Of 'Iron Feast' In 2013

The much-awaited indigenously developed Light Combat Aircraft Tejas will now be put to test in the forthcoming air exercise “Iron Feast”, to be held in February next year in Pokhran of Jaisalmer.

The much-awaited indigenously developed Light Combat Aircraft Tejas will now be put to test in the forthcoming air exercise “Iron Feast”, to be held in February next year in Pokhran of Jaisalmer.

The Tejas will display its capabilities in the exercise, where its lethality, endurance and precision will be tested, Air Marshal Anjan Kumar Gogoi, Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, South-Western Air command, said at a press conference here.

If the supersonic fighter is found performing successfully on every parameter in this exercise, its first squadron will be deployed in Bangalore, he said.

This will be the first demonstration of strength by Tejas after it recently completed weapon trials in preparation for its operational clearance and now planned to be finally cleared for operational service after this exercise.

'Good News' coming Soon for Arihant

The Indian Navy will have 'good news' to share on Arihant soon, Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral D.K. Joshi has said.

The Indian Navy will have 'good news' to share on Arihant soon, Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral D.K. Joshi has said. Currently undergoing crucial trials, the Navy Chief indicated that India's first nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine had completed a majority of its harbour acceptance trials (HATs) and would shortly enter a phase of sea trials, which he said were expected to last less than a year.

Admiral Joshi's predecessor had said in 2010 and last year that the Arihant would begin a deterrent patrol in 2012, though that had always seemed optimistic. Navy sources said, "The Arihant trials are swimming along well and is performing as expected. The Navy Chief is right when he says that harbour acceptance work-up is almost complete and we will soon be in a position to gauge its performance out at sea conducting all maneouvers expected of a submarine of this size." It is understood that a second hull has already been fabricated.

When asked if the nuclear reactor that powered the Arihant would be modified and improved for the second SSBN, the Navy Chief indicated that the performance of the powerplant was being assessed along with the performance on the Navy's leased Akula-II class nuclear attack submarine INS Chakra leased from Russia, and that plans would be drawn up on the configuration of the second boat's power source. Speaking of India's depleting conventional attack submarine assets, Admiral Joshi said, "They are not junk or obsolete.

They are highly capable, potent platforms, and also have a land-attack capability." Acknowledging that the delays in the Project 75 Scorpene build at Mazagon Dock had slowed plans, the Admiral said that things were finally on track, revealing that the Navy had asked MDL and its technology partners (DCNS and Navantia) to compress construction/delivery schedules as far as possible. Finally, the CNS said that the request for proposal (RFP) for the long-awaited follow-on Project 75 India submarine line—for six more conventional attack submarines—would be floated soon, given that all approvals had been accorded by the government.

Cisco Wants To Become No.1 IT Company

NEW YORK: Cisco Systems isn't content to be the world's largest maker of computer networking gear. It says it wants to become the "No. 1" supplier of information technology to big businesses by broadening its offerings of services and software.

But when Cisco says "No. 1 IT company," it doesn't mean that it's going to be the biggest-selling company. That goal is out of reach, as IBM's revenue is twice that of Cisco.

Rather, Cisco CEO John Chambers says he wants the company to loom largest in the minds of its customers and to be the one setting the pace in the industry. Being No. 1, he says, means having the best customer satisfaction and the best profit margins for products.

The strategy statement, articulated at a presentation for Wall Street analysts, follows some lean years that have seen Cisco retrench from even broader goals, which included trying to establish itself as a consumer brand and buying a maker of camcorders. The new direction will be supported by a global advertising campaign with the slogan "Tomorrow starts here." The ad campaign starts Monday.

"The play sounds a lot like the IBM story," Raymond James analyst Simon Leopold said. After the maker of mainframe computers struggled in the 1980s with the rise of cheap microprocessors and rapid changes in the industry, IBM successfully transformed itself into a company that combined consulting services, software and hardware.

For Cisco, the new playbook comes as Chambers, who is 63 and one of the longest-serving CEOs in Silicon Valley, is nearing retirement and looking to hand over to a successor in two to four years. There are two chief candidates, who appeared with Chambers on Friday: Rob Lloyd, the head of sales and product development, and Gary Moore, the chief operating officer.

"Both Rob and I are prepared to be the CEO," Moore said, adding that whoever wasn't chosen would accept the board's decision and remain with the company.

Chambers told analysts that Cisco pulls in about $6 billion from software per year and plans to double that in the next three to five years. That's not a figure the company usually breaks out, as most of its software is deeply integrated into hardware such as routers and switches, which shunt data through networks.

Analysts at the meeting were unsure how to incorporate the figure into their models, and the company didn't give a lot of specifics on how it hoped to achieve that.

Analysts also questioned how Cisco hopes to be the top player when it doesn't sell the massive storage arrays that big companies need for their data. Chambers said Cisco will keep partnering with companies that do sell storage products, including IBM and EMC Corp.

Apart from IBM, Cisco's chief competitors for the "No. 1 IT" throne are Microsoft, Oracle, SAG AG and Hewlett-Packard. Cisco partners closely with them, except for HP.

Chambers said the company is sticking to its forecast of growing sales by 5 percent to 7 percent per year and its earnings slightly faster, at 7 percent to 9 percent per year. Both figures represent pullbacks from the past two decades, when the San Jose, Calif., company often grew sales by more than 10 percent per year.

Cisco's stock fell 15 cents, or 0.7 percent, to close Friday at $19.33.

Source : TOI

FDI Vote Gives UPA The Reforms Edge..

NEW DELHI: Eventually, it turned out to be a stroll rather than the tough climb it was billed to be. The Congress humbled the opposition in the vote on allowing FDI in retail in the Rajya Sabha by a convincing margin of 21 votes: a scoreline which was facilitated by desertions from the opposition ranks and support from all but one of the Independents.

The victory — 123 votes for FDI to 102 against —is likely to be a spur for the government to seek the passage of more reforms legislations. "Certainly, we are going to bring in more legislation in the coming weeks in Parliament (financial bills) and we will be engaging all political parties on it," parliamentary affairs minister Kamal Nath told reporters after the Rajya Sabha vote.

SP, BSP bail out government again

The debate for FDI in retail in Rajya Sabha carried the trademark stamp of the Congress's fabled "management" skills. V Maitreyan of the AIADMK, who initiated the debate, called the 123-102 scoreline a victory of Kamal Nath, the parliamentary affairs minister, and the House, otherwise deeply divided, agreed.

The floor management saw three of the five TDP members abstaining, along with two belonging to the NDA — Shiv Sena's R K Dhoot and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha's Sanjeev Kumar. The Congress also got Upendra Kushwaha, a JD(U) rebel who risks losing his membership under the Anti-Defection Act, to vote for the government.

The Samajwadi Party and the BSP, bitter rivals in UP, were again united in bailing out the government, disregarding their anti-Congress posture. Fifteen members of the BSP, which is keen to avoid Lok Sabha polls, voted against the opposition, while those belonging to the SP, which would not wish Mayawati to be the government's principal rescuer, walked out in time to facilitate the government's task.

The Congress also bagged the support of all Independents in the House, excepting A V Swamy. Vijay Mallya, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Mukesh Ambani's aide Parimal Nathwani, Mohammad Adeeb, Ahmad Saeed Malihabadi and SP rebel Amar Singh all went the same way.

Such was the Congress's confidence that minister of state for parliamentary affairs Rajeev Shukla sought a recount when the electronic scoreboard showed that the government had eked out a narrow victory with 123-109 margin. The slim gap suggested that the government would have lost had the BSP not voted for it. The revised tally validated Shukla's confidence. "This shows that we would have won even without BSP's vote," a triumphant Shukla said, proclaiming the result as reflecting the yearning for stability and faster economic reforms.

The presence of Mallya, who NDA assumed would stay abroad, and the preference of Chandrasekhar, whom the BJP had banked upon, was a tribute to the painstaking work the Congress put in to escape what had threatened to be a big political embarrassment. There was a strong element of intrigue about the absence of three TDP members, with political circles wondering whether senior party leader Devender Goud and leader of the party in the House Y S Chowdary, along with Sudharani Gundu, acted without a wink from party leader N Chandrababu Naidu.

Congress sources denied, although not very convincingly, efforts made by Kamal Nath to play on the pro-reforms instincts of Naidu who has diverse business interests.

Stressing that more members had criticized FDI and, therefore, the outcome could not be called an endorsement of government's policy to let in foreign retailers, Maitreyan said, "It is not commerce minister Anand Sharma but parliamentary affairs minister Kamal Nath who has won. If the government wins it is going to be the victory of management and not the policy because the majority of speakers in the House have opposed the policy."

He also said the policy would be reversed after Congress's loss in the next Lok Sabha election. Former minister Ambika Soni rubbished the assertion. "Let the nine-member party first get the numbers to form the government," she said.

Nath had on Wednesday impressed upon Mayawati that government's defeat in Rajya Sabha would set in motion a trend leading to Lok Sabha elections at a time when the BSP is still trying to recover from the drubbing in the UP assembly polls.

Although BSP's switch to the government camp had settled the issue on Thursday itself, Congress left nothing to chance with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, according to Congress sources, himself working the phone.

NCP's Janardan Waghmare, who is bed-ridden because of a fractured bone and had been counted out, was brought in on a stretcher and voted for the government from the lobby. Another ailing member, Congress's N Janardhana Reddy, arrived on a wheel chair, helped by special arrangements put in place by Andhra Pradesh chief minister Kiran Reddy at Nath's behest.

Actrees Rekha, along with other Independent members, turned up to cast what leader of opposition Arun Jaitley had on Thursday called "thanksgiving vote".

In all, 10 members skipped the vote for various reasons. They include cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, JD(U)'s Vashista Narain Singh, BJD discard Pyari Mohan Mahapatra, Congress's ailing member Murli Deora and Lalhming Liana of Mizo National Front.

Earlier, while replying to the debate on FDI in multi-brand retail, commerce minister Sharma maintained that the move was essential for the country's growth and rejected the opposition's contention that it would hurt small retailers and farmers and harm the manufacturing sector.

Sharma accused the opposition of creating a scare over the issue and rejected Jaitley's contention that the measure would lead to India becoming a nation of sales boys and sales girls. "You have scared foreign investors who want to visit India," he said.

Source : TOI