Joint Chief Electoral Officer Narayan Navti told reporters that the money being brought to Goa during election is not ruled out. Income Tax Department is thoroughly probing whether the seizure is related to poll, he said.The election machinery is on alert at State’s borders, railway stations and airport to ensure that money does not flow into the State, which can be used to influence voters.

The authorities are investigating the major haul involving one K Shivanna, hailing from Sawantwadi, who was carrying this cash. He was apprehended while landing in Goa.Navti said that there are no clues as to from where the cash had arrived.Election Commission has mentioned that an amount of more than Rs 2.5 lakh would be under scanner of Income Tax Department to avoid possibility of using money power.

Instructions have also been issued to the banks to monitor transactions above Rs 2.5 lakh.In yet another development, flying squad of Election Commission searched Aruna, wife of BJP’s St Andre candidate Vishnu Wagh. An anonymous caller had complained that Aruna, who is campaigning for her husband, was distributing money.

Navti said that there was no cash found with her except for Rs 1,000. Aruna was in the Agassaim area when she was searched.

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 A team from Chicago University’s Booth Business School conducted an experiment using BlackBerry devices to test the will power of 205 people between the ages of 18 and 85 in the German city of Wurtzburg.

Participants were asked seven times a day over the course of a week to identify desires they were experiencing and the strength of said desires.The team sifted through thousands of responses and came up with some telling results.

Though the need for sleep and leisure topped the list of “self-control failure rates”, checking in with social media, email and work came ahead of the urge to have a Camel Light, while sipping on that glass of 12-year single malt scotch.“Desires for media may be comparatively harder to resist because of their high availability and also because it feels like it does not ‘cost much’ to engage in these activities, even though one wants to resist,” the Discovery News quoted lead researcher Wilhelm Hofmann as telling the Guardian.“With cigarettes and alcohol there are more costs — long-term as well as monetary — and the opportunity may not always be the right one.

“So, even though giving in to media desires is certainly less consequential, the frequent use may still ‘steal’ a lot of people’s time,” Hofmann added.

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 The deal, which is expected to be formalised by the end of this week, will run for a period of five years until 2017 and will be in the range of Rs10 crore per year for all teams (men’s, women’s and junior boys and girls). That is a steep raise from the earlier deal, which was worth approximately Rs3 crore per year for all teams.

The representatives of Sahara and Hockey India are currently working on the nitty-gritty’s of the deal. Hockey India secretary general Narendra Batra confirmed the development. “We held discussions with Sahara officials on Monday. There has been a positive step forward and we are in the process of completing the paperwork. However, I can only go into the details once all the formalities are completed and the documentation is done,” Batra said.

Hockey India and Sahara were locked in a battle over the sponsorship amount for nearly six months. The previous contract expired on July 15, 2011, and had been temporarily extended for six months until a solution was reached. Hockey India had demanded Rs15 crore per year from Sahara if the deal had to be renewed. Sahara wasn’t ready to renew the deal under such demands, which they found too high.

“With the Olympic qualifiers round the corner, a decision was needed on this matter. Finally, both parties seem to have reached a common ground,” an official involved in getting the deal done said. “The renewed amount for the deal, which shall be for a period of five years, will be substantially more than what it was earlier.

The priority is to get the contract renewed before the qualifiers start.”

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the car is arriving at a time when Imran will be busy amidst the film’s several promotional activities. Since he is short on time, he will probably have no choice but to pick up the car in the middle of the day. And Bebo, by default, will be with him. “I will be taking the delivery of the car today and I am very excited to finally lay my hands on my own Ferrari,” says the Delhi Belly actor.

Earlier, Imran had planned to have the car delivered on February 14, after the release of Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu on February 10.“But since, the new schedule of his next film, Vishal Bhardwaj’s Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola starts on February 11 itself, it will leave him with no time. And he wants to focus all his attention on Vishal’s film once it starts rolling,” says a source close to the actor.

Imran, who interestingly is the youngest actor and only Khan to own a Ferrari in Bollywood, has already declared that it is his gift to himself after back-to-back successes like Delhi Belly and Mere Brother Ki Dulhan. Besides having a few hits, 2011 was also special for Imran as he got married to his childhood sweetheart, Avantika Malik, on January 10.

The actor’s dream vehicle — the latest model of the luxury Italian automobile brand is owned by the likes of singer-actor Justin Timberlake and Hollywood star Hugh Grant. It comes with a heavy price tag of approximately R4 crore. Besides Imran, Sanjay Dutt is also among the few in Bollywood to own a Ferrari.

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Of the total of 10,12,465 voters registered in Goa there are 5,06,605 female voters and 5,05,068 male voters. There is no single voter in the ‘other category.’

Interestingly there are just eight non-resident Indians registered on the voters list and as many as 784 service voters registered.North Goa with 5,72,246 voters has 2,86,146 male voters and 2,85,916 voters indicating that there are more male voters in North Goa, whereas it is in South Goa that the 2,20,689 female voters change the overall male female voters ratio since males constitute only 2,18,922 of the total 4,40,219 voters of South Goa district.

Canacona is the most populous constituency with 3,1771 voters Dabolim being the smallest with 19,385 voters.

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PANAJI:

The Trinamool, in its election manifesto released ahead of the March 3 Goa polls, states that they want to make the beach tourism state into a banking hub on the lines of Hong Kong.”Invite international banks and financial institutions to set up business in Goa (Hong Kong model),” the manifesto released by the Trinamool’s state president Wilfred de Souza says, underlining the party’s pitch to create a “financial district” in Goa, to facilitate the banking hub dream. De Souza said the creation of a financial district here and turning Goa into a banking paradise on the lines of Hong Kong was in sync with Banerjee’s economic policies.”It is in sync with Mamata Banerjee’s policies,” de Souza said.

Banerjee has in the recent past been in the news for opposing foreign investment in civil aviation and retail sector. Her opposition to Tata’s Nano manufacturing project in Singur, West Bengal over forcible acquisition of farmlands for industrial development, resulted in the manufacturing hub of India’s smallest car being shifted to Gujarat.

The Trinamool election manifesto also talks of establishing a stock exchange in Goa, which the party envisions as a financial services hub.

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Xiao Yao, a 29-year-old magazine editor in Xi’an, Shaanxi province, divorced her gay husband in 2008.“Most gay men’s wives I’ve known are silently suffering at the hands of husbands who could never love them, and like me, some even got abused by husbands who were also under great pressure,” she said.

Xiao now runs a website called “Homeland of gays’ wives”, which has 1,200 registered users and provides support and advice.Zhang said that getting their voice heard was the first step to raising public awareness.

However, some within the gay community think otherwise.Xiao Dong, a 36-year-old gay man, who heads a civil organization in HIV/AIDS prevention and control, said: “Zhang’s estimation is unsubstantiated and I even feel it’s pointless to research the issue.”

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A day after the traditional Maharashtrian wedding at Grand Hyatt, Ritesh Deshmukh and Genelia D’Souza got married again, this time at a church and according to Christian rites.

While Ritesh Deshmukh is the son of former Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and belongs to a Maharashtrian family, Genelia D’Souza was born into a Mangalorean Catholic family. That is why the wedding was also conducted in a Christian-style at a Church in suburban Bandra.

Genelia was dressed in a full-length white gown; Riteish Deshmukh was dapperly in a black suit.In a traditional Christian way, the couple, said ‘I do’ in front of the priest who pronounced them as man and wife.

Riteish Deshmukh and Genelia D’Souza are among the rare Bollywood celebs to have two weddings. We hope it makes their marital bond twice as strong.

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 Additional Civil Judge Praveen Singh also posed a query to the counsel appearing for petitioner Mufti Aijaz Arshad Qasmi, as to whether the blog service-providing companies can be made a party to the case for any content posted by the users on the blogs.

 The court, which will further hear the matter at 12:30 pm today, also asked Google Inc as to why it was not coming up “properly” with a reply and brushed aside its contention that it had received the copy of the judgement and other documents related to case only on last Friday.”Why are you (Google Inc) not coming properly with your reply?” the court said. “Don’t tell me you have been served only on Friday. After all this hullabaloo that has been created in the last few months you should have been prepared,” it stated.

 The court also asked the petitioner to supply the copies of all the documents relied upon, to all the opposite parties. The court had on December 20 last year, in a ex-parte order issued summons to 22 social networking websites asking them to remove “anti-religious” or “anti-social” content in the form of photographs, videos or text which might hurt religious sentiments.It had on December 24 set February 6 as deadline for the websites for the same.

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MGP President Deepak Dhavalikar said the party has conveyed its decision to withdraw supportto the ruling alliance in writing to governor K Sankarnarayanan, Assembly speaker Pratapsinh Rane and chief minister Digambar Kamat.

Party minister Ramakrishna Dhavalikar resigned from the Cabinet last week. MGP, Goa’s oldest regional outfit, currently has two MLAs in the 40-member AssemblyThe leaders of both parties later addressed a press conference here to announce the pre-poll alliance.”BJP will contest in 31 seats and MGP in 8. Both parties will support an independent candidate in Cumbharjua constituency,” BJP President Nitin Gadkari said.

Gadkari said MGP and BJP were “natural allies” and expressed confidence about the combine winning a majority.”Our sole aim is to provide good governance,” Gadkari said, adding a joint manifesto will be released soon.MGP will fight in eight seats – Thivim, Priol, Ponda, Madkai, Dabolim, Nuvem, Benaulim and Quepem. The alliance will support independent candidate Nirmala Sawant in Cumbharjua.

Gadkari said BJP leaders will meet in Delhi this evening to finalise candidates. MGP, on the other hand, has said their list would be out tomorrow.

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