Big score for Shikhar is just round the corner: Moody

B D Narayankar reports

Bangalore, May 3 (PTI) Sunrisers Hyderabad coach Tom Moody is hopeful that it's just a matter of time before we get a big knock from skipper Shikhar Dhawan.

"That big knock is just round the corner. He has got close on a couple of occasions where he has got good starts and he just has not capitalised on those good starts," he told reporters on the eve of the IPL match tomorrow.

Dhawan, along with a number of big Indian players, have not quite hit their straps, Moody added.

About local lad KL Rahul, Moody said he is an exciting young prospect.

"There is a reason that we have given him an opportunity at the top of the order and that's because we back him. We think he is a good enough player to bat No 3 or No 4. And he has shown throughout from the start of the tournament," he said.

Replying to a query, Moody said they wouldn't ask Aaron Finch and David Warner to open.

"We are pretty comfortable with the batting order as it stands, whether Warner goes No 3 or No 4," he said.

"Moving too many parts around in that top order creates uncertainty and also creates that inconsistency ... We also feel David (Warner) is probably more of an adaptable player, he has shown that, to bat at No 3 or No 4," Moody said.

Shikhar is at his very best at the top of the order and Finch is one of the in-form openers of the competition and want him to continue, Moody said.

Asked why big names have not performed, Moody said the conditions were tough in UAE - the wickets were slow. "I think the conditions were pretty tough, to be honest with you. The wickets were quite slow, so it restricted those free-flowing batsmen to particularly in those early overs to really capitalise," he said.

Moody said Brendon McCullum and Dwayne Smith standout
opening pair in the tournament so far.
     "Smith and McCullum ... They really have been the only
standout opening pair that have been able to grab the
tournament by the scruff of the neck in the first six overs,"
he said.
     The team is sitting sort of mid-range in the table
knowing that they have got everything to play for along with
many other teams, Modi said.
     There are only two teams - CSK and KXIP - that have
played to their potential and that’s reflected in the table.
     "There’s only two teams that have really played to their
potential and that’s reflected in the table," he said.
     Moody said there are big names in all eight franchises,
and to single out Hyderabad for not performing is incorrect
because they were on par with RCB points-wise.
     "I think there are big names in all eight franchises, so
to single us out is I think incorrect because the team we are
playing tomorrow have got equal names and I think that is the
beauty of the IPL this year and it is the beauty of the way
the auction was run this year with regard to challenging
franchises to pick strategically," he added.
     Asked about challenges on returning to India after
playing in UAE under different conditions, Moody said he did
not see it as such, instead he saw an opportunity for players
to show their skills and adapt.
     "I don't see it as a challenge. I think that it is more
of an opportunity for players to show their skills and adapt
and that’s what T20 cricket is about," he said.
     "What I will be asking our players is to adapt quickly to
what might well be a slightly quicker wicket here and maybe
conditions where the ball will swing around a little bit where
we didn't have those conditions in the UAE," he said.
     Moody also said it takes a couple of days just to get
adjusted with the travel workload. 

Focus is to win more away games, says Kohli

B D Naratankar writes

Bangalore, May 3 (PTI) Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Virat Kohli today said that his team is focussing on winning more away games in order to increase the chances of qualifying for the knockout stage in this edition of Indian Premier League.

"It is the away games we are focusing on more than how many to play here. We are quite familiar with what we need to do in Bangalore, but last year our drawback was we did not win away games and we could not qualify," he told reporters here on the eve of the match against Sunrisers Hyderabad tomorrow at Chinnaswamy stadium.

However, the team needs to play good cricket in the remaining games, Kohli said. Moreover, the team will take the Indian leg of the IPL fresh even if they would have won all the five games at UAE, he said.

"We take this as fresh start in the IPL regardless even if we had won five games out of five - still take this as fresh start," he said.

Replying to a query, Kohli said losing should hurt but not annoy, otherwise the team drifts away and the focus goes awry.

"Losing should hurt but it should not annoy you - to drift away from what you have to do on the field," he said.

It is the job of the coach and the captain to keep the team together and players should not panic, Kohli said.

"If you panic, then the guys are obviously scatter and not play together as an unit. I have gone through it before. The best way out of this is stay relaxed and focus on holding on to the momentum," he said.

Kohli said of all the defeats they faced, losing to Kolkota Knight Riders hurt them the most because they lost from a winning position.

"The one we lost to Kolkota hurt the most because the other two games we did not play good cricket. We did not deserve to win those, to be honest," he said.

Kohli said that RCB losing last three games in UAE which was a wake-up call for them to rectify their mistakes. "It is good we lost - it is like wake up call. It helped us rectify our mistakes," he added.

Kohli further said it is all about keeping calm in tournament such as the IPL. "When we start panicking, it doesn't help. It becomes difficult to bounce back," he said.

After Governor, KPCC chief asks CM to speed up drought relief

Bangalore, May 3 (PTI) In the wake of Governor H R Bhardwaj openly expressing displeasure over government's handling of drought situation, KPCC President G Parameshwara today asked Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to speed up relief work.

"Yesterday and day before Governor has reacted on drought situation and he has called for attention of the government on these issues. Chief Minister has already met him and explained him about the situation and informed him about the ground realities," Parameshwara told reporters here.

He, however, said "I urge the Chief Minister to take more proactive steps in facing drought situation, also issues relating to supply of drinking water and power supply in the state....I urge upon him to take up work in faster phase."

Reflecting a sense of unease with the government, Bhardwaj had yesterday said the Chief Minister must activate the administration to deal with the drought conditions looming large in the state.

The governor has in recent weeks been making critical remarks about the functioning of the government on several issues. During the meeting with Siddaramaiah on Thursday, he had reportedly expressed unhappiness over government spending huge sums to renovate the official residence of PWD Minister H C Mahadevappa, a close aide of the Chief Minister.

Big B honoured with International Screen Icon award at IFFM

Melbourne, May 3 (PTI) Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan has been honoured with the International Screen Icon award during the inaugural awards ceremony at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM).

At the glitzy inaugural awards ceremony which concluded last night, filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra`s hit film `Bhaag Milkh Bhaag`, a biopic on legendary athlete Milkha Singh, bagged three awards in the categories of best film, direction and actor awards.

Bachchan, 71, received the Special International Screen Icon Award on behalf of the Victorian government and the festival.

Minister of Arts Heidi Victoria announced the award and thanked Bachchan by calling him "a true legend of Bollywood".

Hundreds of Australian Indians, locals and high profile dignitaries attended the award function held at the historic Princess Theatre. The awards ceremony was also packed with high octane Bollywood music and dances.

Mehra took the best director and best film awards for `Bhaag Milkha Bhaag` while Farhan Akhtar and Irrfan Khan, who were not present at the ceremony, shared the `Best actor` award for `Bhaag Milkha Bhaag` and `Lunchbox` respectively.

After receiving the honour for `Bhaag Milkha Bhaag` from Sydney Pakistani Consul general, Mehra said that he was happy to bring the past of Milkha to the world today.

Kangana Ranaut was presented the best actress award by the former Victorian premier Ted Baillieu for her hit film `Queen`.
In the category of People`s choice award, `Dhoom 3` stood as the clear cut winner after being the highest grossing film at the Australian box office.

The award was collected by the action film`s director Vijay Krishna Acharya and Mindworks media CEO Hassan Waqas Rana.
Rana revealed that `Dhoom 1 collected over USD 15000 in Australia and `Dhoom 3` grossed over USD 1.7 million at the box office Down Under.

In the best Indie film award category, Ritesh Batra bagged the award for `The Lunchbox`.

Indian-Origin Scientist Researching on New Robotics Technology

London, May 3 (PTI)  An Indian-origin scientist in the UK has bagged a 1.07 million pounds funding grant to work on a pioneering technology of creating an ultra-flexible tactile skin for robotics and prosthetics.

Dr Ravinder Dahiya has got the grant from Britain's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to work on the technology that could enable a robot not only to carry a cup of tea to an elderly person but can also sense whether it is too hot to handle.

Mr Dahiya, who joined the University of Glasgow last year as a senior lecturer in electronic and nanoscale engineering, is one of the leading academics from 10 UK universities to have been awarded a total of 13 million pounds to maintain the UK's research leadership in three areas - Advanced Materials, Robotic and Autonomous Systems and Synthetic Biology.

Until now, no robotics scientist has been able to create ultra-flexible tactile skin. Either the sensor has been too big or the electronics not sufficiently flexible.

However, Mr Dahiya believes he is on the cusp of a breakthrough and that he has found a way of incorporating electronics and sensors on bendable silicon-based surfaces that will be 50 micrometres thick - thinner than the aluminium foil we use every day.

He will be working in collaboration with Professor Duncan Gregory, Chair in Inorganic Materials in the School of Chemistry, on the creation of silicon based nanostructures such as nanowires which are printed on bendable substrates in a manner that will eventually lead to flexible electronic or tactile skin with distributed sensors and electronics.

By developing a printing technique for high-mobility materials such as silicon, he will obtain high-performance electronics at a low cost base.

This research will also use the state-of-the- art nanofabrication tools in the James Watt Nanofabrication Centre at the University of Glasgow.

"Interfacing the multidisciplinary fields of robotics and nanotechnology, this research on ultra-flexible tactile skin will open up whole new areas within both robotics and nanotechnology," Mr Dahiya said.

"So far, robotics research has focused on using dexterous hands, but if the whole body of a robot is covered with skin, it will be able to carry out tasks like lifting an elderly person. In the nanotechnology field, it will be a new paradigm whereby nanoscale structures are used not for nanoscale electronics, but for macroscale bendable electronics system," he said.

"This research will also provide a much-needed electronics engineering perspective to the field of flexible electronics," he added.

His research is aligned with wider work on flexible electronics - the creation of bendable pieces of technology that will replace the flat screen computer or tablet.

In future, Mr Dahiya said, mobile phones will be more like a wristband, providing far more information than currently, such as carrying out health monitoring. 

India became 3rd-largest economy in 2011 from 10th in 2005

                                                                                                                                                    Washington, May 3 (PTI) In a matter of six years, India emerged as the world's third-largest economy in 2011 from being the 10th largest in 2005, moving ahead of Japan, while the US remained the largest economy closely followed by China, latest figures have revealed.

"The economies of Japan and the UK became smaller compared to the US, while Germany increased slightly, France and Italy remained the same," according to data released on Wednesday by the International Comparison Program (ICP), hosted by the Development Data Group at the World Bank Group.

"The relative rankings of the three Asian economies — China, India, and Indonesia — to the US doubled, while Brazil, Mexico and Russia increased by one-third or more," the report said. The world produced goods and services worth over $90 trillion in 2011 and that almost half of the total output came from low and middle-income countries, it said.

According to the major findings of the ICP, six of the world's 12 largest economies were in the middle-income category (based on the World Bank's definition).

When combined, the 12 largest economies accounted for two-thirds of the world economy and 59 per cent of the population, it said.

The purchasing power parities (PPPs)-based world GDP amounted to $90,647 billion, compared with $70,294 billion measured by exchange rates, it said, adding that the share of middle-income economies in global GDP is 48 per cent when using PPPs and 32 per cent when using exchange rates.

The six largest middle-income economies — China, India, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico — account for 32.3 per cent of world GDP, whereas the six largest high-income economies — US, Japan, Germany, France, UK and Italy — account for 32.9 per cent, the report said.

Asia and the Pacific, including China and India, account for 30 per cent of world GDP, Eurostat-OECD 54 per cent, Latin America 5.5 per cent (excluding Mexico, which participates in the OECD and Argentina, which did not participate in the ICP 2011), Africa and Western Asia about 4.5 per cent each.

"China and India make up two-thirds of the Asia and the Pacific economy, excluding Japan and South Korea, which are part of the OECD comparison. Russia accounts for more than 70 per cent of the CIS, and Brazil for 56 per cent of Latin America. South Africa, Egypt, and Nigeria account for about half of the African economy," said the report.

"At 27 per cent, China now has the largest share of the world's expenditure for investment (gross fixed capital formation) followed by the US at 13 per cent.

India, Japan and Indonesia follow with 7 per cent, 4 per cent, and 3 per cent, respectively," the report said.

China and India account for about 80 per cent of investment expenditure in the Asia and the Pacific region.

Russia accounts for 77 per cent of CIS, Brazil for 61 per cent of Latin America and Saudi Arabia 40 per cent of Western Asia, it said.

The report said low-income economies, as a share of world GDP, were more than two times larger based on PPPs than respective exchange rate shares in 2011.

Yet, these economies accounted for only 1.5 per cent of the global economy, but nearly 11 per cent of the world population.

Roughly 28 per cent of the world's population lives in economies with GDP per capita expenditure above the $13,460 world average and 72 per cent are below that average.

The approximate median yearly per capita expenditure for the world — at $10,057 — means that half of the global population has per capita expenditure above that amount and half below, it said.

The five economies with the highest GDP per capita are Qatar, Macao, Luxembourg, Kuwait and Brunei.

The first two economies have more than $1,00,000 per capita, the ICP report said.

Eleven economies have more than $50,000 per capita, while they collectively account for less than 0.6 per cent of the world's population. The US has the 12th-highest GDP per capita.

Eight economies - Malawi, Mozambique, Central African Republic, Niger, Burundi, Congo, Comoros and Liberia — have a GDP per capita of less than $1,000.

The five economies with highest actual individual consumption per capita are Bermuda, US, Cayman Islands, Hong Kong and Luxembourg.

The world average actual individual consumption per capita is approximately $8,647, it said. 

US appoints Indian-American Jawahar Kaliani to key Treasury Department post Read more at: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/34569838.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

Washington, May 3 (PTI)  An Indian-American has been appointed to a key post in the US Department of Treasury.

Jawahar Kaliani has been appointed as the Deputy Chief Information Officer for Application Services Delivery (ASD) at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Department of Treasury.

Taking over the job from tomorrow, Kaliani will lead the development and implementation of complex applications to deliver secure business solutions that meet organisational priorities and support the agency's mission of ensuring the safety and soundness of national banks and federal savings associations, a statement said.

"Jawahar's experience has prepared him exceptionally well to serve in this role," said OCC Chief Information Officer Edward Dorris.

"He is ideally suited to be part of the agency's senior information technology (IT) team to continue our efforts toward achieving best in class productivity, efficiency and quality for the OCC employees and supervised institutions that depend on us," Dorris said.

Kaliani joins the OCC from Amdocs Inc, where he served as vice president of Customer Operations Management and led the development, execution and delivery of large-scale services and business IT solutions supporting major telecommunications clients who managed more than USD 30 billion in annual billings.

He has 20 years of demonstrated experience delivering critical applications in a managed services environment, optimising efficiency and performance to meet the goals of industry leaders.

During his career, Kaliani established, coached and mentored high-performing, cross-functional teams of more than 700 employees.

Kaliani holds an executive MBA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a Bachelor of Engineering in IT and Electronics from Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI) in Mumbai and a Diploma of Engineering in IT and Electronics from BIT in Mumbai.