29th SEPTEMBER 2014

O. Panneerselvam will be the next Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. He is assuming the office for the second time under similar circumstances. In September 2001, AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa had to step down as her appointment as Chief Minister was quashed by the Supreme Court. Thirteen years later, the conviction of Ms. Jayalalithaa by a special court in Bangalore has elevated him again as Chief Minister.

Information Technology behemoth Microsoft’s chief executive officer Satya Nadella and five senior members of his team called on Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao at his camp office here on Sunday as part of his India tour.

Shiv Sena supporters have gone online to lambast the BJP for ‘breaking off’ the 25-year-old alliance. Over the past week, images and messages targeting the BJP have been doing the rounds on WhatsApp and Facebook. The BJP has been accused of striking a deal with the NCP.

In a bid to make technology affordable and accessible to visually-impaired persons, Sandeep Konam, a B. Tech. final-year ECE student at IIIT, Idupulapaya, and a group of IITians are engaged in not only developing a low-cost portable Braille printer that could cost as much as an average Android mobile but also in integrating graphics, tables and images in Indian languages.

Since 1984, 65 people had been killed and over 150 disabled in Budgam district in Jammu and Kashmir by an avoidable cause. The Tosamaidan firing range — a meadow nestled in the picturesque Pir Panjal mountain range — had become a death trap for cattle-grazing communities because of the unexploded shells and their residual material spread over the area. After nearly five decades, the people can heave a sigh of relief. They are set to get back the Tosamaidan for public use, after the State government decided not to extend the lease given to the Army after it expired on April 18.

U.S.-led warplanes kept up strikes on oil sites funding the Islamic State (IS) group on Sunday, as al-Qaeda’s Syria affiliate threatened reprisals after a key operative was reported killed. The United States, along with coalition partners Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, hit four modular refineries as well as an IS command and control post, all north of Raqqa in Syria, U.S. Central Command said.