The Cotton Advisory Board (CAB) revised the production and demand estimate for the crop season 2008-09 in a meeting held in Mumbai on Friday, confirming the impact of global slowdown on cotton economy and impact of erratic rain and pest problem on the crop.

After the success of Jeevan Astha, a well-thought insurance scheme, the state run Insurance major Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) on Saturday launched yet another money back plan, Jeevan Varsha, a close ended guaranteed addition money back policy.

The plan, that offers survival benefits for every three years, is going to start from February 16 and close on March 31 with two policy terms of 9 years and 12 years. LIC Zonal Manager (East) R. R. Dash expects good response to the plan and said that LIC has set a target to earn Rs 1,500 crore premium from the new policy.

Government owned companies, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) and NTPC would jointly work for setting up nuclear power plants, in a bid to over come shortage of power, indispensable to propel economic and industrial growth of the country.

The MoU was signed by NPCIL Chairman and Managing Director, S. K. Jain and NTPC Chairman and Managing Director, R. S. Sharma in the presence of Union Minister of State for Power and Commerce Jairam Ramesh and Anil Kakodkar, the Atomic Energy Commission Chairman of country.

In the last five days in Modassa taluka of Sabarkantha region, the lethal hepatitis D virus has taken lives of 12 people and left 26 hospitalized.

According to officials, out of 26 admitted to various hospitals in the region, five been rushed to the civil hospital in Ahmedabad.

Dr. H F Patel, chief district health officer, on Friday, said, “A central team from the National Institute of Communicable Diseases and Director General of Health Services (NICD & DGHS) will arrive soon to take stock of the situation.”

The big news doing the rounds is that Bollywood’s hottest jodi Kareena kapoor and Saif Ali Khan have got another chance to act together.

Bebo and Chotte Nawab will be seen together in a sequel to ‘Race’.

According to grapevine, the directors Abbas-Mastan and the lead heroes are all very desperate to emerge with the second part of Race, which did well at the Box Office in 2007.

The sequel to the movie will be named as ‘Race 2’, and Tips will be producing it.

Yes, you heard it right!

State-run Kerala State Industrial Development Corp (KSIDC) is ready to set up a Life Science Park with high-tech facilities near Thiruvananthapuram.

According to KSIDC release, the project would come up under public-private partnership model.

The Rs 3 billion (Rs 300 crore) park will be spread over 260 acres at Thonnakkal, which is about 25 km from Thiruvananthapuram district.

The release said, “It will be a geographic cluster of industries in the field of biotechnology or nanotechnology, research institutions and sci-tech academia.”