London, August 19 : The BBC World Service Trust has launched a ringtone campaign to promote the use of condoms in India, where about 2.5 million people are living with HIV.

The central message of the "condom condom" campaign being run on radio, TV and the Internet is that “smart men use condoms”.

A scene in the TV ad, a mobile ringtone buzzes with a loud refrain "condom! condom!" during a wedding.

Though the man holding the mobile feels it embarrassing, those around him consider him to be a smart and responsible person.

London, August 19 : Scientists have successfully utilised a virus to created a tiny battery that can power miniature electronic devices used for controlled drug delivery, and tiny lab-on-a-chip applications.

Experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, say that their method to build microbatteries relies on a genetically-engineered virus called M13.

The scientists first made a template from polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), a commonly used silicon-based organic polymer.

London, Aug 19 : In a first of its kind, involving the religious practices of Shia Muslims, a case of flagellation was brought to trial in Britain against a devout Muslim.

According to the Times, during the traditional Ashura festival, celebrated by the Shias, Syed Mustafa Zaidi, 44 after flogging himself, forced two boys, aged 15 and 13, to join in the annual flogging ceremony that took place last January at a community mosque in Levenshulme, Manchester. The boys were left with bloody cuts across their backs.

London, August 19 : Scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California have produced a new detector sensitive even to low levels of gamma radiation.

US shipping ports receive about 6 million cargo containers each year. Officials would like to be able to check each one for smuggled nuclear material, but today’s detectors cannot process such numbers in a reasonable time.

These devices typically require an officer to search inside each container.

London, August 19 : Senior U. S. Senator John McCain has been accused of copying material, some from Wikipedia, for the speeches he made on the campaign trail.

A speech McCain made about Georgia on August 11 is also said to bear strong similarities to the country''s entry on Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia compiled by the public.

Congressional Quarterly alleged that two passages were almost identical to Wikipedia, and a third of the speech bore striking resemblances.

McCain has also been accused of exaggerating or concocting the prison story, which he periodically uses in his stump speeches.

London, Aug 19 : Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has barred mafia bosses from singing in prison, after they used songs to pass criminal messages to each other.

In addition to putting a ban on singing, the inmates have also been barred from socialising with fellow inmates, according to Justice minister Angelino Alfano.

In a bid to tighten the security visits from family, friends and lawyers have also been curtailed in the ten prisons that house 570 convicted dangerous mobsters