The effects of the economic slow down due to the global financial crisis, has resulted in a five per cent fall in excise and customs collection during October. The decline in indirect tax collection comes at a time when the government is finding it hard to mobilize resources, while expenditure on subsidies and other welfare measures is going up.

The excise collection, decreased by 8.7 per cent to Rs 18,664 crore as against Rs 19,646 crore during the same period a year ago, while customs duty collections declined by 0.9 per cent to Rs 9,265 crore from Rs 9,353 crore in October 2007.

India’s largest private carr

Networked high-definition screens from Cisco Systems would be installed in the new Yankee Stadium in New York, which would be capable of showing live game play and later switch to giving exit directions and traffic information.

Ram Gopal Verma is all set to storm the theatre very soon with a big cast line up for his next venture, 'Rann'.After a few ups like ‘Sarkar and Sarkar Raj’ and a few downs like 'Aag', 'Darling' and 'Phoonk’ the ace director has bollywoods biggest stars Amitabh Bachchan... Paresh Rawal... Riteish Deshmukh... Mohnish Behl... Manisha Koirala... Rajat Kapoor... Sudeep... Gul Panag... Raima Sen and Rajpal Yadav by his side.

However the list is not over yet with rumors of Abhishek Bachchan, Himesh Reshammiya and even Mallika Sherwat being part of the gang.

The Oxford University has announced the opening of its controversial Biomedical Science building. The construction was stopped in July 2004 after animal rights protests aimed at contract workers on the site, but was resumed in November 2005 after the university obtained a court order limiting demonstrations to one day a week.

The First Mice for research, which will play a key part in biomedical research, have been delivered at the facility.

The latest news reports suggest that Eric Schmidt, Google Inc. chief executive officer won’t take a technology post in President-elect Barack Obama’s cabinet. In a TV interview conducted on Friday, Schmidt declined such a post.

During the campaign for the presidency, Obama said, “I would create a cabinet post similar to a chief technology officer to advice on tech issues.” Some watchers claimed to have seen Schmidt, a strong supporter of Obama, most likely with the motive to be tapped for that post.