Jyoti, Canada, 8 Mar : Latest list of Forbes Asia of “48 Heroes of Philanthropy” contains only four Indians and all of them are women.
These philanthropic heroes are: Anu Aga (67, Director of Thermax; Thermax donates 1% of its profits to charity), Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (56, Chairman of Biocon; contributed $10 million to Bangalore Cancer Center, donates $2 million annually towards health insurance of villagers, committed $3 million to Hyderabad Business School); Kiran Nadar (58, wife of HCL Technologies cofounder Shiv Nadar; opened an Art Museum), and Rohini Nilekani (50, Infosys …

6 Mar ; James Cameron’s sci-fi blockbuster ‘Avatar’ and his ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow’s Iraq war drama ‘Hurt Locker’ will fight it out for top honours at this year’s Academy Awards after receiving 9 nominations each.
Both the films have been nominated in the ‘Best Picture’ category with Cameron and Bigelow being pitted against each other in the Best Director category.
Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Inglourious Basterds’ came second notching up 7 nominations including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Supporting Actor.
The ‘Best Film’ category has been expanded this time with 10 nominees, instead of …

5 Mar : The United States launched the latest in its family of high-tech meteorological satellites that watch storm development and weather conditions on Earth from high in space.

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-P (GOES-P) lifted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 2357 GMT yesterday on a Delta IV rocket which will carry the weather-watching satellite to its orbit around 35,406 kilometre above the Earth’s surface.
“GOES-P is on its way into orbit to begin a 10-year mission to keep a watchful eye on our world,” NASA said on Thursday on …

2 March : Religious statesman Rajan Zed has been nominated as Senior Fellow of “Foundation for Interreligious Diplomacy”, who will also act as Religious Advisor on Hindu issues to the Foundation.
Headquartered in New York (USA) and launched in 2000, this Foundation is developing a worldwide diplomatic network among diverse religious groups in order to build trustworthy relations that improve chances for peace.  The Foundation seeks ways for religious groups to collaborate in joint humanitarian service.
Dr. C. Randall Paul, President of the Foundation, speaking of this appointment, said that Zed would …

1 March : President Barack Obama is rethinking the US nuclear policy and is considering reducing the nation’s arsenal by thousands of weapons, according to senior aides in the White House.
The New York Times reported that Obama would set out his new policy in a document the Nuclear Posture Review.
The new strategy entails that the US develop no further nuclear weapons. Aides told the daily that Obama would be resolving these questions in the coming week.
“It will be clear in the document that there will be very dramatic reductions …