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Kolkata, Aug 22 : Sam Pitroda, a senior advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Thursday voiced concern over the quality of education in India.

"Leaving aside the top five percent universities, I feel the quality of education in India is pretty bad and I say it with a great deal of concern," Pitroda said here.

The advisor to the prime minister on public information infrastructure and innovations was speaking at the first convocation of Presidency University.

New Delhi, Aug 22 : Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani Thursday deposed before a special court here as a prosecution witness in the 2G spectrum allocation case and said he was not aware of any company named Swan Telecom.

"I'm not aware of any company called Swan Telecom," Ambani replied in the special court of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), presided over by Judge O. P. Saini, when asked by the prosecution if he knew this firm that was given telecom spectrum and licence in
2008.

London, Aug 22 : A new strain of bird flu that can infect and kill animals has been discovered in chickens in poultry markets in China, according to a new study.

Having studied samples from birds for the H7N9 virus, researchers at the University of Hong Kong said genetic tests suggested that the virus entered domestic ducks from wild birds and then infected chickens, which are probably the origin of infection in humans, says the study published Wednesday in the journal 'Nature', Xinhua reported.

Mumbai, Aug 22 : "Shuddh Desi Romance" promos and songs may be showing Parineeti Chopra as a chirpy young girl, but actually she plays a quiet and sensible girl in the movie, coming out Sep 6.

She said that in the promos, she can be seen as a "happyy" and "bubbly" girl, "but in the film I am playing a completely different person".

"I am a very sensible and sorted human being, probably more sorted than the other two (characters - played by Sushant Singh Rajput and Vaani Kapoor) with me. Very quiet, so you will see a new side of me," added the 24-year-old.

NMDC Power Ltd (NPL) has penned down an agreement with IL&FS Energy Development Co Ltd (IEDCL) to set up a 500MW thermal power plant in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh (UP).

NPL is a subsidiary of government-run iron ore miner National Mineral Development Corp (NMDC), while IEDCL is an auxiliary unit of IL&FS Ltd.

According to the terms of the signed memorandum of understanding (MoU), the thermal power plant would be set up at Gonda in UP, at an estimated cost of nearly Rs 3,000 crore.

The future of Tata Motors' Spanish bus-manufacturing subsidiary Hispano Carrocera is unclear as the euro zone country's challenging market conditions have forced the Indian automobile giant to mull various strategic options for the facility.

Cyrus Mistry, chairman of Tata Motors, on Wednesday told shareholders that the company was thinking over what to do with Hispano Carrocera. He said the drastic decline in demand in the European markets over the past few years had hit sales of vehicles very hard.