Deepika’s the perfect girlfriend

Deepika goes all out to plan a surprise party for boyfriend Ranbir and gifts him a sleek and expensive
Deepika Padukone proved to be the perfect girlfriend when she threw a surprise party for Ranbir. He is also the proud owner of a brand new laptop. We don’t know if money can buy love, but it sure can make a boyfriend happy! Deepika organised the party to bring in his birthday on Sunday when he came back from Bhopal. Deepika invited few, but very close friends to the surprise dinner.

Our source said, “Deepika took Ranbir to a suburban restaurant on Sunday night on the pretext of having dinner.

She had already called some of Ranbir’s very close friends, which included Rohit Dhawan and Ayan Mukherjee, the director of Wake Up Sid. Ranbir, who is normally not a party animal, was pleased to see them and a couple of his old school friends. They had dinner and brought in his birthday. Ranbir was extremely thrilled.”

Deepika’s present of a sleek and high-end laptop was thoughtful as she is aware of Ranbir being net-savvy. Ranbir loved the gift and was seen checking the features immediately. The source added, “On his birthday on Monday, Ranbir also saw the first trial of his film, Wake Up Sid with Deepika and his parents.”

Water find sparks a mad rush for lunar property

Want to buy land on the Moon? You think Bangalore's getting too congested? There's even an Indian who would like to sell 2,000 acres
at $4 an acre. He got it cheap, though on an average, lunar land costs $20 an acre. The discovery of water molecules on the Moon seems to have spurred a new interest in this property.

Bizarre? That's the kind of extra-terrestrial chat on the internet about buying land on the Moon, something US-headquartered Lunar Embassy claims it first initiated.

Whether that claim is true or not, the company has been selling and registering property on the Moon for the past 29 years. Its website tells you everything you need to know about the process, including why this venture is not a fraud.

It also claims it's the only company to possess a legal basis and copyright for the sale of lunar and other extra-terrestrial property in the solar system. The organisation claims it has over 3,470,072 members.

So, how did Lunar Embassy get the right to own, sell and register land on the Moon? A declaration of ownership was filed with the United Nations as well as the US and Russian governments 29 years ago by Dennis M Hope of the Lunar Embassy to ensure a legal basis for ownership of properties sold on the moon. No country has contested that claim or declaration.

Though the international Moon Treaty, finalised in 1979 and in force since 1984, forbids private ownership of extra-terrestrial real estate, as of January 1, 2008 only 13 states ratified the agreement and more importantly not a single country has legally contested Lunar Embassy's claims to ownership of Moon land. Thus, anyone who made the first claim before the UN becomes the first owner. Lunar Embassy says it made the first claim and so it is the rightful owner of lunar property.

There's another fact that Lunar Embassy is banking on. Although the Outer Space Treaty, which came into force in 1967 forbids countries from claiming celestial bodies, there apparently is no provision forbidding private individuals from doing so. In 1996, the company set up its website, the MoonShop, "the first Internet website ever to be selling properties on any extraterrestrial body".

Lunar land

Property -- Rate (in $)

Prime View Lunar Properties (1 acre), Deed with name printed -- 22.49

Prime View Lunar Properties (1 acre), Normal Deed -- 19.99

Register Your Name and Property in Lunar Embassy Registry Archive -- 15

Ethereal Net - Dial-Up Access Full Year Price -- 107

Extraterrestrial Domain Names -- 22

Lunar Explorer Virtual Moon Simulation and 1 Acre Lunar Land -- 49.95

Lunar Explorer Virtual Moon Simulation -- 29.95

Why crazy guys tend to be more creative

A new study seems to have established a link between psychosis and

Keri, a psychiatrist at Semmelweis University in Hungary,focused his research on neuregulin 1, a gene that normally plays a role in a variety of brain processes, including development and strengthening communication between neurons.

Writing about the study in the journal Psychological Science, he has revealed that a variant of this gene is associated with a greater risk of developing mental disorders, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

For the study, Keri and his colleagues recruited volunteers who considered themselves to be very creative and accomplished.

The participants underwent a battery of tests, including assessments for intelligence and creativity.

To measure the volunteers’ creativity, the researchers asked them to respond to a series of unusual questions, and scored them based on the originality and flexibility of their answers.

The subjects also completed a questionnaire regarding their lifetime creative achievements before the researchers took blood samples.

According to the researchers, their findings showed a clear link between neuregulin 1 and creativity, for volunteers with the specific variant of this gene were more likely to have higher scores on the creativity assessment, and also greater lifetime creative achievements, than volunteers with a different form of the gene.

Keri claims that his study has for the first time shown that a genetic variant associated with psychosis may have some beneficial functions.

He says: “Molecular factors that are loosely associated with severe mental disorders but are present in many healthy people may have an advantage enabling us to think more creatively.”

His findings also suggest that certain genetic variations, even though associated with adverse health problems, may survive evolutionary selection and remain in a population’s gene pool if they also have beneficial effects.

Don't exclude God, pope tells thousands of Czechs

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VICTOR L. SIMPSON The Associated Press BRNO,Czech Republic - Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday told tens of thousands of faithful that societies exclude God at their peril, pressing ahead with a pilgrimage to nudge the ex-communist Czech Republic back to its religious roots. "History has demonstrated the absurdities to which mandescends when he excludes God from the horizon of his choices and actions," Benedict said. Church organizers estimated that 120,000 people packed a field beside an airport in...

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Sunil Gavaskar: Happy birthday, Lata!

Sunil Gavaskar says, “All of us know that Lata didi is a cricket fan. In the same way cricketers adore Lata Mangeshkar.

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That is why when a major cricket tournament is happening here in South Africa I would like to wish her happy birthday. I have had many opportunities to meet her. I admire her so much that once I told her, ‘Lata didi, we as a batsman go through a bad patch. We get out on zero too. But in your case you are so perfect that you always score a century and double century in each and every song. You never face a bad patch like us. That is why we respect you so much’. And she was embarrassed to hear that.”

Sunil relates another anecdote. “In 1982, at the end of our Pakistan tour, our team manager Maharaja Fateh Singh Gaekwad decided to organise a thanksgiving party in Lahore. Maharaj and yours truly were there at the gate to welcome guests and dignitaries. When Lataji walked in, Maharaj introduced me to Lataji by saying, “Aayiye ... aayiye inko to aap jante hoge, ye hamare kaptan saab hai ... ’ To that Lataji replied in jest, ‘Nahi jee hum to sirf Imran Khan aur Zaheer Abbas ko jante hai ... ’ Then I was formally introduced to Lataji as the Indian team captain.

Then Maharaj turned to me and said, ‘I hope there is no need to introduce Malika-e-Tarannum Noorjahan to you’, that’s when I immediately retorted, ‘Nahi jee ... hum to sirf Lata Mangeshkar ko jante hai’,” recalls Sunil with a chuckle.

Commenting about his favourite songs, Sunil says, “Although all of Lataji’s songs are great, two of her songs are close to my heart. O sajana barkha bahar aayi ... from Parakh and Raina beeti jaye ... shyam na aaye ... from Amar Prem.”

Afghan government says 12 civilians killed by Taliban attack, roadside bomb

KABUL - Insurgents killed 12 Afghan civilians in the east and north — half in an ambush on a group of truck drivers and half when a van hit a roadside bomb, the government said Monday.

Afghanistan's civilian death toll has risen alongside that of U.S. and international forces this summer. A U.N. report issued Saturday said August was the deadliest month of the year for civilians as the Taliban stepped up a campaign of violence to discourage voting in the Aug. 20 election.

A total of 1,500 civilians died in Afghanistan from January through August, up from 1,145 for the same period of 2008, the U.N. report said.

On Sunday, Taliban militants ambushed a group of truck drivers in eastern Kunar province, killing six of the drivers and burning their vehicles, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. A seventh truck driver was kidnapped.

Also Sunday, a private van hit a roadside bomb in northern Faryab province, the ministry said in a separate statement. Six of those inside were killed and another seven injured, the statement said.

The planted bombs have become a major cause of deaths and injuries for both international troops and Afghan civilians. Some are remotely detonated, but many are simply placed on roads and triggered by a vehicle riding over the explosive.

The U.N. report said about three-quarters of the civilian deaths recorded this year were the work of militants. Coalition forces were responsible for the remaining deaths, most the result of airstrikes.

Somali militants execute 'spies'

Islamist groups often punish people in public - these men are being flogged Islamist militants in Somalia have executed two people they accused of spying for foreign organisations. Hundreds watched as a firing squad arranged by the al-Shabab group shot the pair in the capital, Mogadishu. Al-Shabab officials said the men had been found guilty of working for the US CIA and African Union peacekeepers. Analysts say the killings may have been in retaliation for a US raid earlier this month, in which an al-Qaeda suspect is said to have been killed. The US regards al-Shabab as a proxy for al-Qaeda in Somalia, and says the group threatens to destabilise the region. One witness to the execution told AP news agency that 10 al-Shabab fighters shot the pair in Mogadishu's main livestock market in front of hundreds of people. Al-Shabab's Sharia courts, usually held in the open, have in the past sentenced people to execution, amputations and public floggings. Humanitarian crisis Two weeks ago, US forces launched an attack from helicopters in southern Somalia, reportedly killing Kenyan-born Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan who was wanted by the US for attacks in Kenya. It was the first such US incursion into Somalia for years. Days after the raid, suicide bombers attacked an AU base in Mogadishu and killed at least 16 people. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility, saying the attack was in revenge for the US raid. Islamist rebels control much of central and southern Somalia, including parts of the capital city. Al-Shabab is attempting to impose an extreme brand of Islamic law on the areas it controls. Its fighters are battling troops loyal to the government - which controls little territory and is backed by the US, UN and peacekeepers from the AU. Other radical Islamists, who are allied to al-Shabab in some areas and fight them in other places, also vie for control of large parts of the country. The country has been wracked by conflict since 1991, when it last had an effective national government. Some three million people - half the population - need food aid, while hundreds of thousands of people have fled the country.