National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) has announced that it is planning to diversify into cement manufacturing and considering a joint venture associate to build four units in different parts of the country.

NTPC produces around 95 million tons of fly ash from its various units annually.

Fly ash is an important raw material for cement business.

According to the sources, NTPC intends to become a 50,000 megawatt capacity conglomerate by fiscal 2012, with an investment of US$ 36 billion.

Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi asked Indian Information Technology (IT) to follow the foot steps of Nano and invest in the state. The state would extend all facilities and create industry friendly environment for the IT industry.

He was addressing the ICT event held in Bangalore. Modi asked for the need to come out of comfortable zone and engage in product manufacturing.

He also asked IT industry to reinvest in research and development activities to produce sustainable products. He said that services may offer low profit but product manufacturing can offer high earning.

Recent research showed that aggressive osteoporosis screening and treatment can reduce the rate of hip fractures. Richard Dell, M. D., of Kaiser Permanente Bellflower and colleagues claim that their strategy could cut U. S. hip fractures by 25% or more.

The profit of Vedanta Resources declined by 24.7 percent for the first half of this fiscal. Rising input cost and lower metal prices hit its margin. Its profit stood at $465 million before a year while now it stands at $350 million. It earning stands at $1.272 billion, registering a decline of 6.8 percent.
 
City analysts were shocked at the poor result. Morgan Stanley analysts, however, said that results are in line with earlier forecast following global financial crisis.

Shares of Vedanta fell as much as 12.4 per cent after posting profit decline of 24.7 percent.

Recent research showed a link between a gene linked to autism and a language disorder known as specific language impairment.

Research team led by Sonja C. Vernes, of the University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom, and colleagues studied children from 184 families with specific language impairment by testing for the association between language deficits and single-nucleotide polymorphisms in the CNTNAP2 gene. Screening for regions bound by the FOXP2 gene revealed this gene as a strong candidate for involvement in language problems.

Net direct tax collections rate for seven months of this financial year registering a growth of 29.52 per cent. It stood at Rs166,905 crore up to October 2008 as compared to Rs128,864 crore for the same period of last year. The country remained successful to increase tax collection, despite global slowdown.

Corporate tax increased to 33.49 per cent and stood at Rs105,174 crore as against Rs78,785 crore. Income tax growth rate too increased registering a growth of 23.14 per cent. Fringe benefit tax (FBT) increased by 47 per cent and dividend distribution tax grew above 48 per cent which indicates sound financial health of the  country despite global financial crisis.