“The most exciting findings are the layout of moat in front of the Mingde Gate to the royal capital and the highest building of Muqingge in the three-month long excavation on the ruins of Yuan Shangdu,” said Yang Xingyu, a senior archaeologist with the Inner Mongolia regional bureau of cultural relics.

The capital Shangdu was built in 1256 under the command of Kublai Khan, the first emperor of Yuan Dynasty, who was enthroned there four years later. It became a summer resort after the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) moved its capital to present-day Beijing in 1276, and was destroyed during a peasant war at the end of the dynasty.

Yang said that the excavation program, the largest of its kind on the ruins, is expected to take three years to unearth and restore some of the ancient structures in Shangdu in an area of 1,500 square meters.

“We found the royal mansion of Muqingge built on a drained lake is of Han nationality characters, since the Mongolian emperor mainly deployed Han workers to build Shangdu,” he said.

Italian traveler Marco Polo (1254-1324) once described the prosperity of Yuan Shangdu in his book, which aroused great interest from many overseas archaeologists, historians and travelers.

“The Italian traveler was probably received by the emperor Kublai Khan in Shangdu through the gate of Mingde, which could only be passed by royal members and dignities,” said the archaeologist. The ruins of Shangdu in the Zuolan Banner in north China’s Inner Mongolia have been overgrown.

The regional government has submitted an application for World Cultural Heritage status for the site to the state department for the preservation of cultural and historical relics and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The Web site of the World Heritage Site showed the historical remains at Yuan Shangdu has been part of China’s tentative list. “It is widely acknowledged in the archeological world that the building of the Yuan Dynasty capital in Beijing, known as Dadu, inherited that of Shangdu. The structures and many names of the landmarks are the same or similar,” said Yang.

Cricket provides a user-friendly, affordable flat-rate wireless service for approximately 4.3 million customers in 32 states. Following today’s announcement, route WATCH will continue providing Cricket with increased awareness into its long distance costs by analyzing nationwide daily call records in order to create a more efficient network. The route WATCH monitoring will include existing, recently launched and future Cricket markets across the country.

Brian Silvestri, President of Connectiv Solutions, said, “We’re delighted to broaden our relationship with Cricket and support their business operations as they grow their customer base and create the most efficient network possible. route WATCH’s ability to deliver actionable information with measurable results to reduce network expenses is clearly validated with this contract extension.’

Today, route WATCH is saving clients tens of millions of dollars in network operating expenses each year, keeping their long distance variable expenses flat while increasing customer growth into the double digits. route WATCH provides a competitive edge for many of the largest US wireless carriers, streamlining long distance variable analysis and addressing switch routing, network planning and financial auditing.

Hummm … now why would I over react to this! It’s just one of those commercials aired daily by a popular cellular network. Thousands or maybe tens of thousands are spent on advertisement by this and such companies in an effort to promote their brand and this is what we get .. a cheap *** ad which would definitely leave a viewer with a wtf expression on his face. I love those Airtel commericals though – professionally directed with a clear message and the 60 seconds seem well spent (The ads are normally for 60 seconds/ session if you’re wondering what the title was all about lol). Best are those cheesy one liners we get to hear;

For $10 a month users can get 100 MB of data usage. For $20 they can get 250 MB of data, and for $60 they get 600 MB. The most expensive pack costs $60 and provides 1GB of data usage. These buckets of data usage are available for 30 days before they expire. Users will be able to monitor their data usage when they connect to the wireless network, and they’ll be reminded to top up their account as they near their data limit.

And Users can add more data to their account as often as they’d like by using a credit card or a Virgin Mobile Top-Up card. Prepaid services for cell phones have long been popular in Europe and other parts of the world, but in the U.S. these services have traditionally served only niche markets. But now with the economy in a deep recession, prepaid is gaining steam in the U.S. And consumers of all stripes looking for good deals with no service contracts. Regional prepaid provider Cricket, which is a subsidiary or Leap Wireless, also offers a pay-as-you-go wireless broadband service.

Like the Virgin Mobile wireless broadband service, Cricket’s service also doesn’t require a contract. And users can get unlimited wireless broadband for $40 a month using the company’s 3G wireless network. The big nationwide wireless carriers, such as AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint Nextel, have traditionally gone after business users with their broadband wireless services. As a result, the pricing of their service is usually pretty high–around $60 to $65 a month for an unlimited plan that typically offers up to 5GB of data per month.

But the wireless data services offered with pay-as-you-go plans and no contract seem to be geared more toward consumers. “We have seen a big opportunity to provide this service to our consumer customers who can’t afford a similar service from Verizon and AT&T,” said Greg Lund, senior manager of corporate communications for Cricket Communications. “A lot of these customers were on dial-up, who want broadband service. And because they’re very mobile, the wireless broadband service is good fit for them.”

The new service offers the customary three hour film in a ’snacky’ one hour format with dialogues and narrations. “The audio films won’t have songs,” clarified Prabhu.  “Only parts of it (music) will be heard behind the narrative,” he said. To start off, the service is being launched with Bollywood classic Sholay, Bhandarkar’s last film Fashion, Premloka (Kannada), Dalpati (Tamil) and Gangleader (Telugu).

Speaking about the new content format, Bhandarkar said, “It’s a good innovation, besides, it’s also a good revenue generating stream for producers. But having said that, I think we should give this concept some time of around eight to nine months and see how it works.” Since the content depends on dialogues, the dialogue writing will also have to be more engaging from now on, he suggested.

“In today’s fast paced life, people want everything on the go, and it’s on mobile that such services can be offered. Audio Cinema is our initiative to give our movie crazy and busy nation another avenue to whet their apetite for their favourite movie dialogues on the go,” said Prabhu.

Prior to the launch of this new service, UTV claims to have conducted several tests to check the feasibility of the concept, “Besides the metros, we are also targeting Tier II and Tier III cities. Maybe it will make the consumers of the services to go ahead and buy the DVDs/CDs of the films – it’s just not about listening to films,” Prabhu added. However, the price for this service doesn’t come cheap. The call rates fall between the bracket of 2 Rs/min – 6 Rs/min which many feel are too steep.

Currently, the service is being offered on major telecom players like Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and Reliance. UTV plans to launch four movies a week, and a total of 208 movies in four languages in the next one year. Just like any multiplex trend, UTV plans to new release new film every week, “Among the bollywood films we are looking forward to take up films like Dev D and Wednesday,”

The largely agrarian community has braved sapping, mid-afternoon temperatures of more than 40°C to hear a populist message. As Mr Kumar strides toward the podium surrounded by an armed police escort, local activists chant “Zindabad Nitish Kumar, zindabad!” (“Long live Nitish Kumar, long live!”) The heat, as much as the atmosphere of sweating expectation, is intense.

Bihar, a state of 90m people, is old India. It is riven with complex social and religious divisions. Health indicators are poor, illiteracy widespread and masses of people live below the poverty line. Not long ago, members of the upper castes had private armies to terrorise their supposed inferiors. They and other criminals ran amok in an environment of lax security and law enforcement. No wonder that the state has hardly any large private investment to speak of other than a cement factory. Mr Kumar is not a rabble rouser. His party, the Janata Dal (United), has a manifesto of 100 promises. Promise number one is “revive growth momentum and create jobs”; promise number 100 is a short sentence on foreign policy.

In his address, the white kurta-clad leader chooses to talk about only five promises. His main message to the people of India’s poorest state is simply: support development and peace. He offers free bicycles for school girls. He proposes turning subsidies on food, fertiliser and fuel into direct cash payments to be spent as people choose. He promises to bring jobs to Bihar to end generations-old migration to the richer states of Punjab, Maharashtra and Assam in search of work.

Perhaps most remarkably of all, Mr Kumar speaks to Biharis as one people. He appeals to the crowd to find common purpose as Hindu, Muslims, Dalits (the group formerly known as “untouchables”) for progress. “Bihar’s biggest problem is governance,” says Mr Kumar. “Bihar has a history of abuse of governance – in fact, of completely absent governance from the cabinet to the panchayat [local level assembly].” The new India is vastly different to Bihar. It is almost another country. It resides in the modernising cities of Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Mumbai and New Delhi, not on the plains on either side of the river Ganges.

The new India belongs to a visionary breed of business people who see greater possibility for their companies within India and beyond than at any other time in this country’s history. Among them is Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Group. Not only has his conglomerate launched the Nano, the world’s cheapest car, it has set out on the most ambitious foreign expansion of an Indian company, snapping up big foreign companies, including car companies Land Rover and Jaguar and the Anglo-Dutch steel maker Corus.

Mr Tata’s modernising vision is shared by the likes of Nandan Nilekani and Narayanan Murthy, pioneers of the information technology outsourcing industry and co-founders of Infosys. Their experience of the call-centre revolution and the US market has inspired them to believe India capable of more widespread societal transformation. Much of that hope is based on a young population – more than 70 per cent of the country is below 35 years old – working in India’s favour.

These leading figures – and the pre-financial crisis valuations of some of their companies – have helped India project a bold and modern image to the world. The country’s old reputation of growth stuck at 3.5 per cent and an economy stifled by paper-shuffling bureaucrats has been overtaken by an exuberance.

This is perhaps best expressed by the Indian Premier League cricket championship. Here, carnival meets capitalism and Bollywood glitz. Teams are owned by business leaders including Mukhesh Ambani of Reliance Industries and Vijay Mallya, chairman of the UB group, and Bollywood stars, such as Shilpa Shetty and Juhi Chawla. The result is a six-week television spectacle of sporting prowess, consumerism and world-beating ambition.

Gallager says seeing a legislative ban on uranium mining to protect this environment is at the top of her firsts to-do, following the election. “Right now, if the price were to raise (on uranium), there’s no protection. However, there would be such a high consequence to take (in the environment) with some kind of leakage.

“I would also like to see an earlier integrated approach (in all schools) for those with learning disabilities. ”NDP Leader Darrell Dexter said one key driver for this province would be to ensure the agricultural industry is supported. “To help to sustain a positive economic, social and environmental force competing in the market. We want to work with farmers to promote agriculture and marketing plans, and move primary industries into focus.”

“Having strong rural communities has a lot to do with the quality of life for people,” added Dexter. “Plus, we want to make sure we are a society that looks after seniors.”

Also, with the economy under a great deal of stress, there’ll be tax rebates rewarded to businesses for investing in new technology, Dexter said. “Putting in place a setting for new technology and jobs. This is being targeted to create jobs in the province.”

However, the commitments made by the current government to create jobs will also have to be kept, Dexter noted. “Every government has to deal with the commitments made on their behave. However, the election is all about 10 years of a conservative government; which is largely out of touch with issues and concerns for Nova Scotia.”

Like its brand ambassador Dhoni, Aircel has lofty ambitions. “In the next 24-36 months, we are targeting a subscriber base of 50 million. In 4-5 years, that number should hit 100 million,” says Sandip Das, CEO of Malaysia-based Maxis Communications , which owns a 74% stake in Aircel, with Apollo Hospitals owning the rest.

On the face of it, there is no better wireless market to be in than India. The country has close to 400 million subscribers and brings in at least nine million new ones each month. With that comes the bigger challenge. There are at least eight operators in any cellular circle and with tariffs already hitting rock-bottom , the battle is intensely competitive.

It is not as if Aircel has not taken note of this rather difficult situation. “It is hard to be the seventh or the eight operator. We have conceded almost a decade,” says Das, quite candidly. It was way back in 1999 when Aircel commenced its operations with a foray into the Tamil Nadu circle. The company was then owned by maverick businessman C Sivasankaran, who in a couple of years would acquire RPG Cellular’s Chennai operations.

Maxis of Malaysia entered the picture in 2006, by buying out Aircel from Sivasankaran for $1.08 billion. At that point, Aircel, apart from Chennai and Tamil Nadu, had licenses to provide services in 12 out of a maximum of 23 cellular circles.

If Chennai and Tamil Nadu were high-quality operations, there was really nothing beyond that barring a small presence in a handful of circles like West Bengal , Orissa and the North-East . From that rather insignificant position, Aircel has grown to being present in 17 circles. When operations were launched in Mumbai in April, it completed its footprint across the four large metros. No small achievement this, given that a much older player like Idea Cellular operates only in Delhi and Mumbai out of the four.

The team at Aircel does not see too much merit in the theory that the Indian wireless market is saturated. “We think there’s room for a brand to come from behind ,” says Aircel’s Chief Operating Officer , Gurdeep Singh. “We are the second largest operator in J&K and have moved up the rankings in several places. We have tailor made products for all our markets,” he says. A case in point is a tariff plan for price-sensitive markets where the user pays Rs 1,000 and gets 1,000 free SMS’ , 1,000 minutes of free local calls as well as an equal number for STD calls.

That line of thinking seems to have worked. March 2009 has been the best ever for the GSM segment in terms of net additions, and the market grew by 10.84 million subscribers, with Aircel alone bringing in over a million subscribers. “We believe Aircel will be fairly successful, despite being a relatively late entrant in the metro, A and B circles. We estimate a 34.2% Compound Annual Growth Rate in subscribers for Aircel over the next three years,” says Subhabrata Majumder, Associate Director – Research at Macquarie Capital Securities.

Telecom is an investment-guzzling business with long payback periods, where the key is having quality infrastructure and figuring out innovative ways to manage costs. In terms of infrastructure , Aircel has 20,000 telecom towers — a combination of towers that are owned and shared — and is looking at making the best use of these assets.

“Out of this, around 12,000 are owned by us. Next year, we will own close to 25,000 towers,” says Das. Like most other operators , Aircel too is looking at making the best use of its tower assets. “Yes , we will use our tower business to bring in some cash into our business. It is useful to arbitrage value for reinvestment in capex for our network rollout,” is how he describes the plan for the tower business.

Out of Aircel’s $10 billion investment plan, it has already committed close to $6 billion. That has come from a combination of equity and debt. Aircel’s parent Maxis is the biggest operator in Malaysia apart from having a presence in Indonesia and India is its most sizeable investment to date. According to Das, most of Aircel’s mature businesses — circles where they have been around for a while — have broken even. “In 3-4 years, we will be EBITDA positive in our new circles,” he says.

In the midst of all this, the bane for the operators in India relates to falling levels of Average Revenue Per User (ARPU). Operators need to look for ways to maintain ARPUs, which have a bearing on margins. Maxis is a big player in the value-added services (VAS) and Aircel, over time, will launch these in the Indian market . “Aircel’s pricing philosophy is to maintain ARPU by giving more to subscribers rather than to drop ARPU. The company is targeting a sharp increase in its VAS share from 9% of ARPU to 15% by 2011,” says Majumder.

India has never really been the easiest market for the best of marketers, and telecom is certainly no exception to that. For Aircel, the strategy has been to stay away from the price war which seems to have worked pretty well so far. How the game will unfold for this Johnny-come-lately in the time to come will be worth watching.

On April 30, a Pune-based Su-30 MKI crashed over the Pokharan range in Rajasthan after carrying out a routine firing range, killing the co-pilot, Wing Commander P S Narah.After the incident, the IAF has kept its entire fleet of Sukhois on ground and is jointly investigating the cause behind the accident with Russian experts from the Sukhoi Corporation.India has sent two of its Su-30 MKIs to Russia where the airframe of the aircraft will be modified to accommodate world’s only supersonic cruise missile on the aircraft’s under-fuselage.

The supersonic cruise missile, BrahMos, is developed jointly by India and Russia.”The work is expected to be completed on the aircraft by early 2010 but we have not set any deadline yet for competing the programme,” an official said.The aerial version of the BrahMos will be nine metres long and once fitted, can auto-launch itself towards the target after being released from the aircraft by the pilot.

After being fitted on an aircraft, BrahMos will be the only cruise missile with the capability of being launched from land, sea and air.The missile has already been inducted by the Army and the Navy.With a range of 290 km, the missile has a capability of carrying 300 kg conventional warheads at a speed of around 2.8 Mach.