Indian PM Manmohan Singh to meet Barack Obama at ASEAN summit instead of G20

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may not meet US President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Cannes on November 3-4 as New Delhi wants the meeting pushed to the upcoming East Asia Summit in Bali later this month. It is now understood that the two leaders will not meet at Cannes as earlier desired by New Delhi after Obama snubbed Singh by refusing to give him an audience in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly last month. A meeting between the two leaders is crucial in arresting the drift in the Indo-US ties that has emerged over the past one year vis-a-vis the nuclear liability Bill and the defence contracts and investments.

In New Delhi wants the meeting to be held in Bali to stress the country's growing role in the South-East and East Asian region amid rising Chinese assertiveness. Besides meeting Obama, Singh is also likely to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao at Bali. Sources said India wanted meetings with the US and Chinese presidents on the same occasion. "If the PM met Hu without meeting Obama in Bali it would not have sent a proper message for India's growing role in South-East and East Asia," an official said. The PM will also be visiting Singapore on his way back from Bali to attend the India-ASEAN Summit. Earlier in July, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton had called for a more assertive role by India in the East Asian region. Clinton, during a visit to India for the second round of strategic dialogue, had said that as the world's leading democracies, the US and India have common interests and values in Asia, including safeguarding sea lanes and promoting democracy and human rights - issues where Washington and Beijing have differed.

As Per TRAI Mobile users can send 200 SMSes per day

Good News for Indians: New Delhi, Nov 1 (IANS) Mobile phone users will now be able to send upto 200 SMSes per day as the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Tuesday raised the earlier imposed cap of 100 messages following requests from telcos and consumers. 'The authority has received representations from some of the service providers and consumers to increase the limit of 100 SMS per day per SIM. The authority has considered these representations and decided to increase the limit,' TRAI said in a statement.

At an effort to curb unsolicited commercial calls and messages, the regulator had in September restricted service providers from providing any SMS package or tariff plan permitting sending more than 100 SMSes per day per SIM. However, it had relaxed this restriction for some categories of users such as dealers of telecom operators, e-ticketing service providers and social networking sites. Besides, this restriction was not applicable on festivals. Earlier this month, the regulator had also imposed a termination charge of 5 paise per SMS on operators from whose networks commercial messages originate to further curb pesky messages.

Should Sushil Kumar rejoice or worry?; Big Jackpot 5 crore

Indian Sushil Kumar from Bihar just won the Rs 5 crores jackpot (Rs. 50 Million) on the fifth season of Kaun Banega Crorepati. (For those who do not know KBC, this is the Indian version of Who wants to be a Millionaire) He will not receive the entire Rs. 5 crores, the tax department will eat up about one third of his jackpot leaving him with about Rs. 3.5 crores; that's still a sizeable amount. Let us see how it can help Mr. Sushil Kumar - a post graduate in philosophy and an IAS aspirant - in his life. He is currently a school teacher earning a meager Rs. 6000 per month. In an interview Sushil Kumar revealed that he has some obligations that need to met first before he invests the rest of his money.

His elder brother who wants to set up his own business A younger brother wanting to quit his 'piddly' Rs. 1500 per month job and also wants to start a new business. His parents will want a nice big house - befitting the 'crorepati' son's status Sushil Kumar himself plans to quit his job in order to concentrate on his IAS exam. Sadly, along with a big amount of money God does not gift one with 'financial wisdom' - not even the wisdom of knowing that he needs unbiased financial advice. I can see a tomorrow and, therefore, find it difficult to rejoice in his success. Why you ask? Here's why.

His small village there will be a lot of people chasing him — "investment consultants" There will be greedy hands pulling from all sides: Namely, LIC agents, mutual fund agents, bank managers, other life insurance companies, pension providers, brokerage houses and bankers. It would be really interesting to track his life over the next 10 years on a year to year basis to see how much this money is scaring him, helping him, torturing him and helping him to meet his goals.