Gopal re-elected president of The Hindu Employees Union

The members of the "The Hindu Employees' Union re-elected the present office bearers with a huge margin of votes.

E. Gopal has been re-elected president of ‘The Hindu Office and National Press Employees' Union in the elections held here on April 8. Mr Gopal defeated its former employee and ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazagam's (DMK's) former Chennai Municipal Corporation Councilor T Sadasivam with the margin of 361 votes.

M. Kamalanathan was re-elected general secretary, while G. Kumar and P.R. Perumal were elected vice-presidents.

S. Martin Thomas will be joint secretary and P. Jayarathinam, treasurer. This is the second consecutive victory for this team of office-bearers. They were first elected in June 2008.

On Monday, the newly elected office-bearers called on the Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, N. Ram, and other directors of Kasturi and Sons Ltd.

Mr. Gopal polled 650 votes, while the rival candidate, T. Sadasivam, obtained 289 votes.

For the post of general secretary, Mr. Kamalanathan received 659 votes to prevail over E. Sathyanarayanan, who polled 279 votes.

Mr Gopal and his team contested as non-political candidates.

Mr E. Gopal, is a retired editorial staff of The Hindu, as a Chief Sub Editor after serving 28 years.

Facebook founder wins Winklevoss case

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg won the latest legal battle against his former Harvard classmates who accused him of having stolen their idea for Facebook, a multimillion-dollar feud made famous on the silver screen, "The Social Network."

On April 12, a U.S. appeals court ruled that Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss must accept a settlement with Facebook that had been valued at $65 million. The twins argued that deal was unfair because Facebook hid information from them at the time.

The twins, who studied at Harvard at the same time as Mr Zuckerberg, were denied the right to challenge an earlier settlement over Facebook's origins.

As depicted on screen in The Social Network last year, the Winklevoss twins claimed that Mr Zuckerberg stole the idea for the social networking site from them.

In 2008 the brothers agreed to settle for £12.2 million and a partial ownership of the company.

They then returned to the courts, claiming that Facebook had been incorrectly valued and so their stock was not worth as much.

The twins, along with Divya Narendra, started a company called ConnectU while at Harvard. They say that Zuckerberg stole their idea. Facebook denies these claims.

The three had agreed to a settlement that had been valued at $65 million. But they argue that based on an internal valuation that Facebook did not disclose, they should have received more Facebook shares as part of the deal.

Facebook took in $1.2 billion of revenue in 2010's first nine months, according to documents that Goldman Sachs provided to clients to entice investors in a special fund set up to invest in the giant social networking firm.

The company was valued at $50 billion as part of that transaction.

A lower court had granted Facebook's request to enforce the settlement with the Winklevoss twins and Narendra. The 9th Circuit agreed on Monday.

Facebook deputy general counsel Colin Stretch said the company appreciated the court's careful consideration of the case, and was "pleased" it ruled in their favor.

‘Coke-leak’ now: Century-old secret is out

A website now seems to have leaked the top secret recipe of one of the world's most popular beverages, Coca Cola. The formula is kept locked in a steel vault for over a century in Atlanta city and guarded 24-hours a day.

Coca Cola's secret ingredient -- Merchandise 7X --was created by pharmacist John Pemberton in 1886. Its recipe reportedly contains the exact measures of all the different oils needed for that taste. Despite making up only one percent of the drink's total formula, Merchandise 7X gives the popular soft drink its unique taste, the Daily Telegraph reported.

The radio program This American Life claiming that they have stumbled upon the original recipe, presented the complete list of ingredients.

The radio show said it chanced upon an article on the history of Coca-Cola in an old copy of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution published on Feb 8, 1979 that contained a photo of the hand-written copy of John Pemberton’s original recipe, jotted down by a friend in a recipe book. This book, which is now in a bank vault, was tracked by the producers of This American Life and contains the recipe to make the Merchandise 7X flavoring that gives Coke its legendary taste. thisamericanlife.org website has published the story.

To confirm their prized catch, the radio show got several experts and common people to taste-test the original formula, which came out to be quite close to the real thing.

The ‘secret’ recipe is as follows:

Fluid extract of Coca: 3 drams USP
Citric acid: 3 oz
Caffeine: 1 oz
Sugar: 30 (unclear quantity)
Water: 2.5 gal
Lime juice: 2 pints, 1 quart
Vanilla: 1 oz
Caramel: 1.5 oz or more for color

The secret 7X flavor (use 2 oz of flavor to 5 gals syrup):
Alcohol: 8 oz
Orange oil: 20 drops
Lemon oil: 30 drops
Nutmeg oil: 10 drops
Coriander: 5 drops
Neroli: 10 drops
Cinnamon: 10 drops

Coca-Cola, the most popular carbonated soft drink sold in the stores, restaurants, and vending machines of more than 200 countries, is produced by The Coca Cola Company of Atalanta, Georgia. A registered trademark in the United States since March 27, 1944, originally it was intended as a patent medicine when it was invented in the late 19th century by John Pemberton.

Coca-Cola was bought out by businessman Asa Griggs Candler, whose marketing tactics led Coke to its dominance of the world soft-drink market throughout the 20th century.The company produces concentrate, which is then sold to licensed Coca-Cola bottlers throughout the world. The bottlers, who hold territorially exclusive contracts with the company, produce finished product in cans and bottles from the concentrate in combination with filtered water and sweeteners. The bottlers then sell, distribute and merchandise Coca-Cola to retail stores and vending machines.

The Coca-Cola Company has, on occasion, introduced other cola drinks under the Coke brand name. The most common of these is Diet Coke, with others including Caffeine-Free Coca-Cola, Diet Coke Caffeine-Free, Coca-Cola Cherry, Coca-Cola Zero, Coca-Cola Vanilla, and special editions with lemon, lime or coffee.

In response to consumer insistence on a more natural product, the company is in the process of phasing out E211, or sodium benzoate, the controversial additive used in Diet Coke and linked to DNA damage in yeast cells and hyperactivity in children. The company has stated that it plans to remove E211 from its other products, including Sprite and Oasis, as soon as a satisfactory alternative is found

India strongly protests the killing of fisherman

CHENNAI: India has strongly protested the killing allegedly by Sri Lankan Navy personnel, of a fisherman from Tamil Nadu on Wednesday night close to the international maritime boundary. Sri Lankan High Commissioner Prasad Kariyawasam wasx summoned on Thursday by the Indian Government and strongly conveyed such incidents have no "justification" and asked Colombo to "exercise maximum restraint and avoid use of force."

Sri Lankan Navy, however, denied that its personnel had fired at Indian fishermen. "No such incident had been reported," Lankan Navy spokesperson Athula Senarth said. High Commissioner Kariyawasam added that the (Sri Lankan) Navy is under strict orders never to fire at fishermen even if they cross international boundary line towards Sri Lanka. He said an inquiry would be conducted.

External affairs minister S M Krishna has sought a detailed report from the Indian High Commissioner in Colombo.

The Chief Minister M Karunanidhi also protested and wrote a letter to the Prime Minister urging him to intervene against what he called the "atrocities of the Lankan Navy". The issue dominated with heated debates in the state assembly.

The Sri Lankan Navy had apparently opened fire on a group of TN fishermen off the Jegadapatnam coast in Pudukottai, killing 25-year-old Veerapandian.

Veerapandian, a native of Chinnakudi village near Tarangampadi in Nagapattinam district had gone fishing with three others -- C Baskaran (52), M Meyyappan alias Manivannan (26) and M Manikandan (25) -- in a mechanized boat on Wednesday morning, according to A Jambunathan, assistant director in the state fisheries department. They were preparing to return when they were intercepted by a Sri Lankan navy vessel late in the evening. The Navy personnel ordered the fishermen to jump into the sea. Meyyappan and Manikandan jumped into the sea immediately. Pandian waited to remove his clothes and was fired upon by the navy personnel. He was hit on the chest and collapsed in the boat. The fishermen claimed that they were on the Indian side of the International Maritime Border Line.

The incident led to tension in fishing hamlets in Jegathapattinam. Protests subsided only after district collector A Suganthi and other senior officials assured the protestors that their demand for compensation and a government job for the dead person s kin would be met.

All political parties condemned the incident when it was raised in the state assembly. D Jayakumar (AIADMK) slammed the DMK for the "continued killing" of fishermen from the state by Sri Lankan Navy and asked "whether the state government will just stop with writing letters to Centre or would take any action."

V Sivapunniyam (CPI) criticised the Centre for its "inaction" to protect Tamil Nadu fishermen. Ravikumar (VCK) demanded scrapping the Katchatheevu agreement. C Gnandesikan of the Congress wanted illuminated buoys to be deployed on the international maritime boundary line to help fishermen stay within Indian waters whereas PMK's Velmurugan wanted murder cases registered against Sri Lankan naval personnel.

Replying to the calling attention motion moved by various parties, deputy chief minister M K Stalin said that despite the state government's repeated demands to the Centre to end attacks on fishermen "which were duly conveyed by the Centre to Sri Lankan government" such incidents have continued. He said the state government has sanctioned Rs 5 lakh for the family of Veerapandian and a government job for his kin.

Several fishermen from the state have been allegedly killed by Sri Lankan navy personnel in the past. Sri Lankan navy had been patrolling the Palk Straits to prevent movement of LTTE cadres across the international boundary. Fishermen complain that the Lankan navy continued to harass them even after the defeat of the LTTE. Recently, they had pleaded with the two governments to let them cross the international boundary and fish.

The Centre has been maintaining that the firing incidents had come down since the October 2008 bilateral understanding between the two countries but cautioned Tamil Nadu fishermen not to cross India's maritime boundary, especially in those areas designated as "sensitive" by Sri Lanka.

Facebook is not closing down on March 15

CHENNAI, January 13: Here’s good news for Facebook fans. Rejoice Facebook won't be closing on March 15. The need to say this is there was rumor in the media that it is closing down.

More than one million people have already fallen for a hoax that claimed that the popular social networking site will be shutting down on March 15. A bogus news story published last week by the "Weekly World News", said Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had told reporters that "managing [Facebook] has ruined my life. I need to put an end to all the madness."

Some panic-stricken Facebook users and mischief-mongers did the rest: they spread the story far and wide across the internet in no time. Although Facebook debunked the hoax via its Twitter account late on Sunday, the bogus messages are doing their round as worried Facebook users pass the message onto their online friends.

The "Weekly World News" article also said quoting a company official, Avrat Humarthi, vice-president of technical affairs at Facebook, as saying "After March 15th the whole website shuts down. So if you ever want to see your pictures again, I recommend you take them off the internet. You won't be able to get them back once Facebook goes out of business."

Sophos said that many people would not believe the report, which comes from a newspaper that has previously reported George Clooney is running for president and that alien spacecrafts will visit earth in 2011. However, it only takes only a small number of people to think it might be possible to turn a joke of a news story into an internet hoax as has been proved many a times in the past few years.

"I certainly wouldn't disagree that users would be wise to have their own backup of their photographs, rather than rely on Facebook -- but it's nothing more than a scare to suggest to people that they have to do it before March15th because Facebook is going to close down," explained Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

"There's an important lesson here -- don't believe everything you read on the internet, and think twice before you pass a story on to your friends."

Although a hoax is not as serious as malware worming its way between users and stealing information, it's still a nuisance, clogging up communications, increasing the overall level of spam and perhaps leading people to make decisions for the wrong reasons.

A number of Facebook users had earlier last week reported fallen prey to another viral scam -- My 1st St@atus -- which was designed to earn revenue for its perpetrators. Messages claiming to share the users' first ever Facebook status updates were being posted on users' walls by a rogue application.

Typical posts read -- "My 1st St@tus was: '[random message]'. This was posted on [random date]. Find your 1st St@tus @ [LINK]". When users clicked on this link, which appeared to have been posted by a Facebook friend, they were taken to a rogue Facebook application.

This application would then ask users to give it permission to access their profile. This would give the rogue application the ability to post the same message from the affected account to all in the friends' list. Users were also taken to a webpage which contained a survey.

Those behind such scams make commission from the number of people completing this survey and in some cases, Facebook users might also be asked for their mobile phone numbers in order to sign them up for an expensive, premium-rate service.

"Sadly, many people are all too quick to give permission to rogue applications like this, giving the bad guys free reign of their Facebook account," said Cluley.

"If users allow these applications to access their profiles, they may well find that the application has posted a message on their Facebook page, which is visible to all of their online friends, helping to spread the scam further. I deliberately infected a test account with this application, and it didn't even get my first status or the date correct! Unfortunately, by the time users realised this, they might have already helped the scammers by spreading the message across their network," he added.

Facebook users who have been affected should delete references to this scam from their wall, to avoid sharing it further with their online friends.

Kollyhood’s costliest ever divorce settled

Actor Prabhu Deva’s divorce case in the Chennai Family court found a quick settlement, ending one of the film stars’ court battle soon. Without drawing a long bow or row, he has entered into a divorce settlement with his wife of 15 years Ramlath alias Latha. It is reported to be the costliest ever divorce in the Tamil film industry.

Prabhu Deva has agreed to give his estranged wife his bungalow in Anna Nagar, a seaside villa at Injambakkam on ECR, three flats, another property in Hyderabad, and two cars besides one time payment of 10 lakh in alimony. He would also bear their sons' educational and medical expenses. In return, Latha has agreed to relinquish all her rights and claims over the actor and his other properties and has agreed to withdraw all the cases she filed against him.

A joint affidavit, signed by the couple, and submitted in the I additional family court’s presiding officer Pandurangan, they said that all efforts taken by mediators and elders in their families failed to find a solution and they have agreed for divorce by mutual consent. The settlement, which will be formalised by a court decree after a period of six months, has brought to an end a rather complicated court battle involving film stars.

It all started when Latha filed a petition in the family court seeking restitution of conjugal rights with Prabhu Deva. She alleged that the actor-director had a relationship with another actress and that he was neglecting his family and did not provide even the minimum financial assistance to family members.

In a second petition, she wanted the court to restrain Prabhu Deva and actor Nayanthara from giving joint interviews to any magazine and to restrain them from formalising their marriage.

As per the terms of the settlement, Prabhu Deva agreed to give his wife the custody of their children, aged about eight and three, but ensured unfettered visiting rights. He shall be responsible for their education and medical expenses, and he has given his beach property at Injambakkam here to the children.

He also agreed to forego two cars — Toyota Innova and Mahindra Logan — to Latha and allowed her to retain their upmarket Anna Nagar house. She will also get two flats in Ranga Reddy district in Andhra Pradesh.

Noting that they had serious differences of opinion and misunderstanding, Prabhu Deva and Latha, in their joint petition, said it had become "very difficult, rather impossible for them to live together or to lead a normal life".

Disclosing that they were living separately for more than two years, they said Prabhu Deva had agreed to the divorce terms "out of his own will".

Prabhu Deva and Ramlath were married on September 8, 1995 and had three sons. One of their sons passed away due to cancer.

There are rumours that Prabhu Deva and Nayantara are likely to tie the knot soon.

Sachin says no to Rs. 20 crore liquor brand endorsement

True to his promise and character, Indian cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar has refused a mega offer that came his way to endorse a popular liquor brand, that would have fetched him Rs. 20 crore. Experts in the business say it would have been the highest-ever deal for an Indian sportsperson had it been clinched.

The Maharashtra government immediately has commended master blaster Sachin Tendulkar for his turning down the Rs 20-crore offer to endorse a top liquor brand. In a letter to the batsman, Minister of Social Justice Department Shivajirao Moghe lauded Sachin for the decision.

“We appreciate Sachin for helping us indirectly in the de-addiction campaign run by the government and also setting up an example for others,” Moghe said, adding that by rejecting the amount Sachin showed that he is a responsible citizen.

“I hope other famous personalities follow Sachin’s footsteps,” the minister said. “We want to keep youth away from liquor and cigarettes and are are drafting a policy for this,” Moghe said.

A spokesperson from World Sports Group (WSG) -- who look after his endorsements -- confirmed the offer but said they cannot give details of the deal offered. "He did get an offer but we are not in a position to name the company or give details of the offer," said the WSG spokesperson.

It is learnt that the offer, a one-year contract, was much higher than what Mahendra Singh Dhoni recently signed for a three-year deal with Vijay Mallya's UB Group, which is worth Rs 26 crores. Tendulkar was offered as much as Rs 20 crore annually.

A former colleague who is also close to Tendulkar said the maestro is living up to the promise he made to his father Ramesh Tendulkar many years ago. "His father had advised him against endorsing alcohol-related or tobacco products soon after he had made the Indian Test team. Anyway, money can never lure Tendulkar and this offer is a classic example of how he believes in his principles and values his cricket," said the player who once led India to a famous win under Tendulkar's guidance.

It is also said that the UB Group had approached Tendulkar with the deal before signing Dhoni but the former turned down. Then Dhoni was signed in. Besides Dhoni, the UB Group has also signed up four other players for promotion of their brand McDowells.