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Manila - The US will pay the Philippines 87 million pesos (USD 1.9 million) for damage caused by a US Navy minesweeper that ran aground on a protected coral reef last year, an official said today.

Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario told a legislative hearing that the US had agreed to pay the compensation.

The minesweeper USS Guardian ran aground in the Tubbataha National Marine Park in January last year and was removed two months later after being dismantled and lifted piece by piece by a crane to prevent more damage to the reef.

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday congratulated TV channels for showing dirty streets after Diwali celebrations, saying telecasting such visuals would create awareness among people about the importance of cleanliness.

The Prime Minister, who launched the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan on October 2, also congratulated the people who particpated in cleanliness drive after bursting fire crackers during Diwali.

"I saw several TV channels showing dirt left behind after crackers. I congratulate them for spreading awareness on importance of cleanliness," Modi wrote on micro-blogging website after news channels aired visuals of filthy condition on streets after Diwali celebreations.

New Delhi - IAF personnel and their families have been asked not to use Chinese 'Xiaomi Redmi 1s' phones on the grounds that data was allegedly transferred to their servers in China and it could be a security risk, a charge denied by the company.

"F-secure, a leading security solution company, recently carried out a test of Xiaomi Redmi 1s, the company's budget smartphone, and found that the phone was forwarding carrier name, phone number, IMEI (the device identifier) plus numbers from address book and text messages back to Beijing," says an advisory issued by the IAF to its personnel.

Beijing, Oct 24 : China has successfully launched its first test return orbiter for lunar mission, it has been reported.

It used an unmanned spacecraft to test technologies to be used in the Chang'e-5, a future probe that would conduct the country's first moon mission with a return to Earth.

The lunar orbiter was launched atop an advanced Long March-3C rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province.

The test spacecraft separated from its carrier rocket and entered the expected the orbit shortly after the liftoff, according to the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.

Washington, Oct 22 : A rapid-fire "storm" of high energy explosion from extremely magnetized neutron star, also called as a magnetar, detected by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope on Jan. 22, 2009 has now provided hints of Starquakes to the astronomers.

Astronomers analyzed the data and have discovered underlying signals related to seismic waves rippling throughout the magnetar.

Washington, Oct 22 : Microsoft has reportedly declared that Microsoft Lumia is the new brand name that will replace Nokia as the software maker.

The change followed a slow transition from Nokia. com over to Microsoft's new mobile site, and Nokia France will be the first country to use the new moniker "Microsoft Lumia" for its Facebook, Twitter, and other social media accounts, reported The Verge.

Other countries will undergo the same transition in the coming weeks.

The report said that Nokia is not going to go away fully with Microsoft scrapping the brand and will continue to exist as a separate company without its phones business.