Foot Ball World Cup

The FIFA World Cup, occasionally called the Football World Cup or Soccer World Cup, but usually referred to simply as the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The championship has been awarded every four years since the first tournament in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946 when it was not contested because of World War II.
The current format of the tournament involves 32 teams competing for the title at venues within the host nation(s) over a period of about a month – this phase is often called the World Cup Finals. A qualification phase, which currently takes place over the preceding three years, is used to determine which teams qualify for the tournament together with the host nation(s).

During the 18 tournaments that have been held, seven nations have won the title. Brazil have won the World Cup a record five times, and they are the only team to have played in every tournament. Italy, the current champions, have won four titles, and Germany are next with three titles. The other former champions are Uruguay, winners of the inaugural tournament, and Argentina, with two titles each, and England and France, with one title each.

The World Cup is the most widely-viewed sporting event in the world, where an estimated 715.1 million people watched the final match of the 2006 World Cup held in Germany.[1] The next World Cup will be held in South Africa, between 11 June and 11 July 2010, and the 2014 World Cup will be held in Brazil.

Prime Ministers Scholarship

Apply immediately for Prime Ministers Scholarship

IN ORDER to help the wards of ex-servicemen and widows of personnel, who died in harness, to pursue higher technical and professional education, the Union Government is launching a Prime Minister's Scholarship Scheme from the academic session 2006-07.

The total number of wards of ex-servicemen, widows receiving this scholarship at any point of time would be limited to four thousand. In addition, one thousand scholarships would be given for wards of paramilitary forces controlled by the Ministry of Home Affairs and others (e.g. Railways), which would be divided as 910 for Ministry of Home Affairs and 90 for Railways.

The scheme is open only for widows and unmarried wards of ex-servicemen, widows. The scholarship would be awarded for professional degree programme in engineering, medicine, dental, veterinary, MBA, MCA etc duly recognised by the respective government regulatory bodies.

The academic requirement to get scholarship is 60 per cent marks at the 10+2 level for the initial sanction. The scholarship would be given for two to five years.

The amount of scholarship would be Rs 1,250 per month for males and Rs 1,500 for females. The scholarship is admissible for two children only per family.

Completed applications are to be dispatched directly to Secretary, Kendriya Sainik Board, Wing-5, West Block-IV, RK Puram, New Delhi-110066 so as to reach by August 31, 2006.

Two stamped self-addressed envelopes of 27x12 cms are to be attached with each application so as to facilitate acknowledgement of receipt of the application form.

Attested photocopies of the supporting documents duly attested both by Secretary, Rajya/Zila Sainik Board or OIC Records.

Terrorism in India

Terrorism in India is primarily attributable to Islamic, Hindu, Sikh, Christian and Naxalite radical movements.

The regions with long term terrorist activities today are Jammu and Kashmir, Mumbai, Central India (Naxalism) and Seven Sister States (independence and autonomy movements). In the past, the Punjab insurgency led to militant activities in the Indian state of Punjab as well as the national capital Delhi.

As of 2006, at least 232 of the country’s 608 districts were afflicted, at differing intensities, by various insurgent and terrorist movements. [1] In August 2008, National Security Advisor M K Narayanan has said that there are as many as 800 terrorist cells operating in the country.

Mumbai has been the most preferred target for most terrorist organizations, primarily the separatist forces from Kashmir. Over the past few years a series of attacks including explosions in local trains in July 2006, to the most recent and unprecedented attacks of 26 November, 2008, where two of the prime hotels, a landmark train station and a jewish Chabad house, in south Mumbai, were attacked and sieged.

Terrorist attacks in Mumbai include:

12 March 1993 - Series of 13 bombs go off killing 257
6 December 2002 - Bomb goes off in a bus in Ghatkopar killing 2
27 January 2003 - Bomb goes off on a bicycle in Vile Parle killing 1
14 March 2003 - Bomb goes off in a train in Mulund killing 10
28 July 2003 - Bomb goes off in a bus in Ghatkopar killing 4
25 August 2003 - Two Bombs go off in cars near the Gateway of India and Zaveri Bazaar killing 50
11 July 2006 - Series of seven bombs go off in trains killing 209
26 November 2008 to 29 November 2008 - Coordinated series of attacks killing at least 172.