Seth’s Suitable Girl in 2013

Indian poet and novelist Vikram Seth is writing a sequel to his acclaimed, monumental story A Suitable Boy, to be titled A Suitable Girl.

Penguin imprint Hamish Hamilton bought the English language rights to the new novel, excluding the US, from Seth’s agent David Godwin, and expects it to be published in 2013, 20 years after the original.

Asked why he was returning to his best-known work, 1,300 pages long, Seth replied: “I think it’s just that I suddenly got the idea not of taking up the story in 1952, where I had left it, but rather to take it up in the present...

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China puts off Internet filter, activists happy

China’s ambitions to strengthen control of the Internet with filtering software became a show of the limits of its power on Wednesday, as activists and industry groups welcomed AN abrupt delay of the contentious plan.

The surprise climbdown was reported late on Tuesday by Xinhua news agency, which said the ministry of industry and information technology would "delay the mandatory installation of the controversial ‘Green Dam-Youth Escort’ filtering software on new computers".

Officials said the software was intended to stamp out Internet pornography, and computer companies had originally been told that from Wednesday they had to bundle "Green Dam" with any personal computers heading to stores for sale in the country.

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Central Board of Secondary Education grading, ‘optional’ Class 10 exam from 2010

Union human resources development minister Kapil Sibal said Tuesday he plans to make the Class 10 board examination optional for students under the Central Board of Secondary Education from 2010, when the new grading system of assessment would also be introduced.

The minister said the proposal for a one-board-one-exam system across the country was not on HRD’s immediate agenda as a uniform exam might not be possible right away because of the differences in standards between the state boards.

"Unless the quality of education in state boards is improved, they cannot affiliate to a uniform system. The one-board-one-exam system needs to be evolved after a detailed consultation process," he said.

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Needle marks on Jacko body, pills in stomach

The autopsy details of pop star Michael Jackson give a horrifying picture of the singer at the time of his death — he was a virtual skeleton as he was barely eating and there were only pills in his stomach. He was bald, bruised and also had broken ribs and needle wounds.

His hips, thighs and shoulders were riddled with needle wounds believed to be the result of injections of narcotic painkillers, given three times a day for years.

And multiple surgery scars were said to be the legacy of at least 13 cosmetic operations. Experts found the distressing evidence of Jackson’s physical decline while investigating his startling death here last week, reported thesun.co.uk.

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Sea Link is India’s longest

Themain span of the cable stayed portion of the Bandra-Worli sea link measuring 500 metres is the largest in India superseding Vidyasagar Setu in Kolkata and shares the 20th spot with Thailand’s Kanchanaphisek Bridge among the bridges with the longest span in the world.

The Sutong Bridge over the Yangtze River in China, opened June last year, has the largest span of any cable-stayed bridge at 1,088 meters. Hong Kong’s Stone cutters Bridge has the second longest span at 1,018 metres and with 890 metre the Tatara Bridge in Japan is the third longest.

Main span is the distance between the suspension towers and is the most common way to rank cable stayed bridges

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Americans stun Spain and football world

When the final whistle blew and the United States had collected one of their greatest football victories, defeating Spain, the No. 1 team in the world, the American players ran and jumped into one another’s arms and waved towels. Some removed their jerseys in celebration, and though the temperature was near freezing in the Southern Hemisphere winter, no one seemed to notice as they basked in the warmth of a startling victory.

Wednesday’s 2-0 win in the semifinals of the Confederations Cup, built on goals by Jozy Altidore and Clint Dempsey and by a disciplined and impenetrable defence, halted Spain’s 35-game unbeaten streak and gave the European champions their first defeat since November 15, 2006.

Immediately, the victory took its place among other classic American football triumphs — victories in the World Cup over England in 1950, over Colombia in 1994, and over Portugal and Mexico in 2002 that were similarly stirring and unexpected.

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Poor monsoon will hit North-West India hard

There is bad news for North-West India: these states are likely to be the worst affected in this year’s monsoon, and are expected to get only 81 per cent of the average rainfall. The Indian Meteorological Department’s forecast released Wednesday says major states like Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and the western part of Uttar Pradesh will get “deficient rainfall”, which in turn might adversely affect agricultural activities.

The forecast was made public on Wednesday by the IMD, which also predicted a “below normal” monsoon in the country as a whole this year. In April, it had predicted a “near normal” monsoon.

IMD officials did not categorically accept the “El Nino” factor as a direct cause for lower rainfall levels, claiming that the correlation between the two was yet to be conclusively established.

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