Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is trying hard to acquire Imperial Energy for $2.1 billion in the stipulated period. However, there are fewer chances to complete the process in time as 90 per cent of the investors are unlikely to tender their shares within the required time limit.  

London, December 10 : Facebook has emerged as the clear winner when it comes to Google UK's most searched term of 2008.

The social networking site beat BBC to the top spot followed by the popular video sharing You Tube.

eBay, the online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell goods and services worldwide, grabbed the fourth place.

Wrapping up the top five terms surfed on the world's most popular search engine was the ever-increasing hunt for games, reports the Sun.

Interestingly, Matt Brittin, Google UK director, revealed that the economic slump and companies' employee lay-offs had led millions of surfers searching for "jobs" in the top 10 list.

Low tariff air carrier, Jet Airways has agreed to pay 3% commission on airfares to travel agents. Earlier, air carriers had stopped to pay 5 per cent commission to travel agents from November 1. The decision has come after agents have stopped to sell air tickets of Jet Airways (India) Ltd. Other air lines including Kingfisher Airlines Ltd and state-run National Aviation Co. of India Ltd (Nacil) are expected to follow the suit in a couple of days.

Washington, Dec 10 : A new research has revealed that cross-gender bullying - specifically, unpopular boys harassing popular girls - is more common in later elementary school grades than previously thought.

Philip C. Rodkin, a professor of child development at the U. of I.'s College of Education, said that his research means educators should take reports of harassment from popular girls seriously.

He said that while most bullies are boys, their victims, counter to popular conception, are not just other boys.

"We found that a lot of male bullies between fourth and sixth grade are bullying girls - more than people would have anticipated - and a substantial amount of that boy-girl, cross-gender bullying goes unreported," he said.

The Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is all set to allow exchange trading in corporate bonds. The step is aimed to help infrastructure to raise low-cost funds which would have long repayment period. It would help to bring transparency in the corporate bond market and attract investors to invest in long-term bonds.

Washington, Dec 10 : Want to improve your shopping experience? Well, then here's presenting a system that offers advice on what to buy based on the product barcode and the current weblog buzz around the product.

Takahiron Kawamura and colleagues at Toshiba''s Corporate Research and Development Center, in Japan, have developed WOM (word-of-mouth) Scouter to allow shoppers to get the latest reviews for a product they are looking to buy simply while they are in store.

The process involves taking a photo of the item''s barcode with a cell phone camera.

The WOM Scouter then looks up the item''s meta data via the internet and gathers information from blogs and websites that review the product.