Briefly World

Rs 35bn more for Pak Army to counter India

Islamabad: The Pakistan government on Friday allocated an additional amount of Rs 35 billion for the 2009-10 defence budget due to expenses on anti-militancy operations and the need to acquire modern equipment to counter a perceived threat from India,according to a Dawn News channel report. Following the additional allocation,Pakistans defence budget will increase to about Rs 378 billion.

Violence in Malaysia over use of Allah

Kuala Lumpur: Three churches were attacked in the Malaysian capital early on Friday escalating religious tensions over the use of word Allah by non-Muslims. As Muslims are angered over the decision of a court last week to let Christians use the word Allah while referring to God. A church in the suburbs was fire bombed around midnight and molotov cocktails were thrown into the compounds two other churches.

Christmas murder suspects held in Egypt

LUXOR: Police arrested on Friday three men suspected of carrying out a Christmas eve drive-by shooting in southern Egypt that killed six Christians,a security official said. Police discovered the car used in the attack and then surrounded farm fields where the suspects were believed to be hiding,the official added. Three gunmen opened fire on a crowd of worshippers leaving a church in the town of Naga Hamadi the day before Egypts orthodox Coptic Christians celebrate Christmas.

Avatar second highest grossing film ever after Titanic

Los Angeles: James Camerons 3-D epic Avatar has become the second highest grossing film of all time by raking in 1.14 billion at the global box office. Camerons next challenge is to beat the records set by his previous film,Titanic,which continues to rule the No 1 spot with 1.8 billion. Avatar8217;s domestic earning was 374.4 million through Wednesday and the foreign haul collected 760.9 million to beat the USD 1.1 billion scored by The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,the Variety reported online.

IITians win international NYC competition

New York: A three-member team of IIT students,called Greenext Technology Solutions,has won the NYC Next Idea 2009-2010 inaugural global plan competition here,New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced today. Judges from NYCs venture capital community awarded the team of Aashish Dattani,Vinayshankar Kulkarni and Sriram Kalyanaraman,of IIT-Chennai,20,000 for devising a new

system that allows utility companies and energy producers to store and distribute energy through remote sites across the five NYC boroughs safely and efficiently. The winning product,XEstor,serves as a common interface to store energy from any source across New York City into large battery storage sites.