PayPal confirmed late last week that the Reserve Bank of India had given it the go ahead to restart bank withdrawals in the country for settlements for exports of goods and services.

However, the company’s Asia-Pacific boss Farhad Irani warned that personal payments remained switched off.

“As part of the changes, you will be required to fill out a new field entitled ‘Export Code’ when you request a withdrawal. This information is required under the current laws of India in order to identify the nature of cross-border merchant transactions.”

The RBI told PayPal to get its house in order by getting specific approvals to allow personal inward remittances to India, which Irani admitted the firm doesn’t currently have.

“Until we get these approvals, personal payments into India will remain suspended,” he said.

“We know the past few weeks have been difficult and I would like to assure you that we have been working tirelessly to resolve the situation and restore our service. PayPal’s highest priority is to always ensure we comply with all applicable regulations everywhere we do business around the world.”

Last month the online payment service suspended transactions in India and confirmed that the shutdown was because of questions over whether personal payments were remittances – payments from ex-pat Indian workers.

WASHINGTON: As the world celebrates International Day of non-violence, US President Barack Obama on Thursday said America has its “roots in the
India of Mahatma Gandhi.”
“His teachings and ideals, shared with Martin Luther King Jr. on his 1959 pilgrimage to India, transformed American society through our civil rights movement,” Obama said on the occasion of the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. Americans owe enormous gratitude to Gandhi, he said.

“The America of today has its roots in the India of Mahatma Gandhi and the nonviolent social action movement for Indian independence which he led,” Obama said in a statement.

On behalf of the American people, Obama said he wants to express appreciation for the life and lessons of Mahatma Gandhi on the anniversary of his birth. “This is an important moment to reflect on his message of non-violence, which continues to inspire people and political movements across the globe,” he said.

“We join the people of India in celebrating this great soul who lived a life dedicated to the cause of advancing justice, showing tolerance to all, and creating change through non-violent resistance,” Obama said.

As the world remembers the Mahatma on his birthday, Obama said: “We must renew our commitment to live his ideals and to celebrate the dignity of all human beings.

Last month Obama had said that if given a chance he would love to have dinner with Mahatma Gandhi.

Obama expressed his desire in response to a question from a student Lilly during his discussion with 9th graders at Wakefield High School in Arlington Virginia where he, accompanied with the Education Secretary, gave a national speech welcoming students back to school.

Obama called for students to take responsibility and to learn from their failures so that they succeed in the end. “Hi. I’m Lilly. And if you could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be,” Obama was asked by one of the students.

“Dinner with anyone dead or alive? Well, you know, dead or alive, that’s a pretty big list,” Obama responded amidst laughter. The next moment he was serious. “You know, I think that it might be Gandhi, who is a real hero of mine,”

Obama said. “Now, it would probably be a really small meal because he didn’t eat a lot,” he said amidst laughter. But Mahatma Gandhi is someone who has inspired people across the world for the past several generations, he said.

BANGALORE: India’s own Moon Impact Probe (MIP) on board the country’s maiden lunar craft had discovered water on the moon, a finding confirmed by
ISRO chief at a press conference Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman Madhavan Nair during a press conference in Bangalore. (AFP Photo)
aboard Chandrayaan-1, India’s top space scientist G Madhavan Nair said here on Friday. ( Watch Video )

India’s first lunar mission had made a “path-breaking and real discovery” by establishing the presence of water on the moon, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman Nair said.

While expressing pride in the achievement, Nair added: “But the water is not in the form of sea or lake or puddle or drops. It is embedded on the surface in minerals and rocks.”

Apart from India’s MIP, the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) of NASA on board Chandrayaan-1 confirmed the presence of water. The lunar mission had to be aborted Aug 30 after it lost radio contact with Earth.

According to Nair, the “quantity found is much larger than expected”.

On whether water can be extracted, Nair said: “Yes, we can. But one tonne of soil may yield half a litre.”

Nair said MIP picked up signals about the presence of water as it journeyed down to land on the moon surface.

“One of the main objectives of Chandrayaan-1 was to look for the presence of water. Our MIP confirmed it.”

He said they had indications of the finding “way back in June”, but waited all these days to make it public as they wanted the findings to come out in a scientific journal first.

“The volume of data collected from Chandrayaan-1 is phenomenal. It may take six months to three years to analyse it.”

BANGALORE: Describing as “path-breaking” the evidence of water on Moon by India’s Chandrayaan-1 mission, ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair on
Thursday said no lunar odyssey so far had given a “positive” conclusion
“There is confirmation of traces of water. It is a path-breaking event as far as Chandrayaan-1 mission is concerned. It is very very significant. So far, no mission has confirmed the presence of water positively,” he said.

One of the major instruments that gave the data was Moon Mineralogy Mapper of NASA, which was one of the payloads on board India’s maiden Moon mission supplemented by hyper-spectral imager and moon impact probe of Indian Space Research Organisation.

The data analysis was done by scientists of Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the US and Physical Research Laboratory and Space Application Centre, both headquartered in Ahmedabad, he said.

Nair said ISRO would make a formal announcement and disclose detailed analysis tomorrow following the publication of findings in a science journal and announcement by NASA scientists.

Chandrayaan-1, launched in October last year, ended prematurely last month ahead of its two-year life span but Nair has maintained that it had achieved 95 per cent of its objectives.

With a growing number of Indians residing outside India, today sending gifts to India on different occasions and festivals have become indispensable. When it comes to gifts all we are generally reminded of is a bunch of fresh flowers, cards or some accessories. These gifts are small but they have the magical power to bond with near and dear ones

who are far apart. With the world becoming more and more materialistic, people today prefer to be close to nature, meditation and spirituality. Nowadays one values spiritual things to a large extent. If you want your loved ones too to attain spiritual growth and divinity, you can send them spiritual gifts to India that they will adore.

Samif.com is a well known company for sending gifts to India. The website flaunts a huge array of colourful gifts meant for everyone. The company has recently introduced a new category of spiritual gifts especially designed and collected to appeal to those who want to attain new heights of spirituality and are involved in worship and meditation. There is a wide collection of spiritual gifts comprising of audio CDs of kirtans and bhajans, beautiful holy idols of Gods and Goddesses, sagun coins, Puja accessories pertaining to worship and rituals. The company has also introduced special holy pendants and special spiritual thalis to sent as gifts to India.

The company has taken an endevour to spread the message of peace, spirituality and divine truth through the introduction of these gifts. The gifts will be especially dedicated to the elders and respected members of the family in India.

In this respect, the CEO of the company of the company Mr.Ravi Patel recently went on air saying, ” Spiritual gifts instill a feeling of love, respect and purity in the mind of the sender as well as the receiver. Our section of spiritual gifts is specially meant to convey respect to elders in India and instill an essence of harmony and religiousness.

The gifts are designed in such a manner that they can be gifted on almost all occasion and festivities. They can be sent to loved ones in India as a gift conveying the message of good luck, well being, blessings and love. These gifts act as a guide as to how a person can get rid of stress and tensions of the mundane life and focus on his inner self and its purity. With these gifts that you send to your loved ones in India, you can be assured that they are on their way to realising their inner power. Creativity and religiousness have found vivid expressions in the spiritual gift collection unveiled by Samif.com

A 35-year-old man from Thiruvananthapuram has become the latest victim of swine flu in the country. This is the 11th swine flu death in India.
Earlier on Tuesday, swine flu claimed two lives. A 62-year-old woman, Saeeda, died at the Noor Hospital in Byculla, Mumbai, and a seven-year-old girl died in Vadodara.
Saeeda was from Mumbra, a suburb close to Thane. She had H1N1 with several other complications. This is the second swine flu death in Mumbai and the sixth in Maharashtra.

The Vadodara girl is the 10th victim of swine flu in the country. She was admitted to the SSG Hospital on August 4. She was shifted there from a private hospital where she had been examined the same day. The hospital advised her to go to a government hospital immediately.
The girl had severe respiratory problems and was put on ventilator. She had been in a critical condition for the last three days. It’s not clear how she got the virus. None of her family members is known to have visited any foreign country.
On Tuesday morning, 13-year-old Shruti Gawade, a student of Ahilyabai School in Pune, died due to swine flu. She was the eighth victim of the deadly flu in India.

She had developed acute respiratory distress syndrome. This is the fifth swine flu death in Pune. She was admitted with fever, cough and breathlessness. She tested positive for swine flu on August 8.

Shruti is also perhaps another case of late diagnosis. On August 1 Shruti Gawade was first admitted to Pune’s KEM hospital with swine flu like symptoms.

On August 8, she was transferred to Sassoon Hospital after testing positive for swine flu. She was put on ventilator intermittently.

Monday evening Shruti’s condition deteriorated. She developed acute respiratory distress syndrome and at 1:30 am on Tuesday she died of swine flu.

Following are the details about the three deaths on Monday but all had other health problems as well:

In Pune: Thirty five-year-old Sanjay Tilekar, a chemist, also suffering from acute respiratory distress syndrome.

In Pune: Thirty six-year-old Babasaheb Mane, an ayurvedic doctor, also suffering from severe broncho-pnemonia.

In Chennai: Four-year-old Sanjay Balkumar, also suffering from Asthma, was hospitalised for diarrhea.

“The Chinese authorities have accepted this position (that its firms were involved in the case),” an official said.

“The Indian government took up the matter with the Nigerian authorities and on further probe, it was found that the drugs had actually originated in China and not in India,” he added.

In June, Nigeria’s drug regulatory authority National Agency for Food and Drug Administration And Control (NAFDAC) had reported about the detention of a large consignment of fake anti-malarial generic pharmaceuticals labeled ‘Made in India’ which were actually produced in China.

Following the incident, India took up the issue with China fearing that this could damage the reputation of the 12-billion-dollar Indian pharmaceutical industry in the global market.

Though, China had assured of investigations in the matter, Indian authorities were not given any time frame.

India has asked its missions in the region to step up vigil for protecting the nation’s image and market.