The pre-paid subscribers of Aircel in Chennai and rest of Tamil Nadu circle can be happy, since the company has slashed ISD call rates for them. 

The calls specifically made to Malaysia and Singapore will benefit from this scheme. A subscriber would be able to make ISD calls to Malaysia and Singapore at Rs 3 per minute, if he gets a recharge coupon worth Rs 96. If incase he gets coupon for Rs 29, the call would cost Rs. 3.5 per minute. 

This offer has been started off since there is vast numbers of Tamilians residing in Malaysia and Singapore. 

Washington - Most US stock indices closed higher Thursday, led by an increase in oil prices that helped energy firms, and overshadowing more depressing news from the US housing market.

The rally was part of another volatile trading day and followed significant stock losses earlier this week, fuelled by ongoing fears of a global recession. The Standard & Poor's 500 index hit its lowest level in more than five years Wednesday but rebounded more than 1 per cent on Thursday.

In four matches conducted so far, Ahmedabad Rockets have won a single match against formidable Royal Bengal Tigers. However, on Wednesday at the ICL 20s Championship at the Sardar Patel Stadium, it was an emphatic win by the Ahmedabad Rockets over Bengal Tigers. 

The bowlers of the rockets team displayed a fine performance when they restricted Tigers batting to 131. The batting for Rockets was opened by Murray Goodwin and Ryan Campbell, who scored fours and sixes as the Tigers’ attack weakened under the assault and the Rockets speed away to 137 without loss in 12 overs. 

It is a known fact that corals are near extinction. But nature has its own way to keep life moving. In a last earnest effort of the staghorn corals to survive, it has been learnt that they have started cross-breeding with other related species of corals.  

Zoe Richards of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies informed, "This breaks all the traditional rules about what a species is."

Chandrayaan-1 will be taken over by Peenya in Bangalore, for keeping an eye on its operations, after the launch at Sriharikota. 

For the next two years, the main centre to tracking and controlling Chandrayaan, would be the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (Istrac) at Peenya, where hectic activities have already begun. 

San Francisco - Microsoft issued a rare emergency patch on Thursday to fix a critical bug in its Windows operating system, which could be exploited by online criminals to take over individual and corporate computers.

It was the first time since April 2007 that the software giant has issued a patch outside its schedule of monthly updates.

Microsoft said the critical flaw affected computers running Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003, with less danger posed to computers running Windows Vista and Server 2008.