British catalogue retailer Argos exits India

October 11th, 2009 LONDON - An Indian was among some 60 environmental campaigners who climbed on to the roof of the British parliament Sunday evening to urge rich nations to take the lead on climate change action. We are here on the roof because we want to tell British MPs that it is the rich countries who must lead by example and announce binding cuts on their carbon emissions, Brikesh Singh of Greenpeace India told IANS on mobile telephone.

August 25th, 2009 LONDON - Putting an obstacle in emergency exits can make people evacuate a building more quickly, according to a study. In the study, physicists timed a crowd of 50 women as they exited as fast as possible through a door, and then repeated the experiment with a 20-centimetre-wide pillar placed 65 centimetres in front of the exit to the left-hand side.

July 29th, 2009 LONDON - Britain's civil service union has opposed plans to outsource more than 100 finance and IT British Council jobs to India, fearing it could set a precedent in government departments, a newspaper reported Wednesday. The Times said 500 of the 1,300 jobs at the British Council, the quasi-government department that promotes British culture and language abroad, would have to go in the next 18 months to save 45 million pounds.

July 8th, 2009 LONDON - A mail order company has issued an apology to a shopper who ordered a pair of slippers, and was sent an explicit catalogue for sex aids and erotic clothing along. The apology came after the Advertising Standards Agency agreed with the customer's complaint, and said that the catalogue should not have been sent out.

June 25th, 2009 LONDON - An Indian-born member of the British House of Lords has told the historic chamber that growing Indian investments need not cause fears of an Indian Raj over Britain. Rather than causing a reversal of history, he told members, Indians could surely show Britain a way out of the current recession.

June 25th, 2009 LONDON - Former high street store Woolworths has made a comeback as an online retail company called Woolworths.co.uk. The brand was taken over by Shop Direct, the online and catalogue retailer owned by Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay, after the retailer collapsed leading to the shut down of 800 stores and a loss of 31,000 jobs.

June 25th, 2009 LONDON - Indian investments need not cause fears of an Indian Raj over Britain, the House of Lords has been told by an Indian-born member, but instead would surely show Britain a way out of the current recession. In the 17th century, Britain entered into trade with India in the name of the British East India Company, Lord Navneet Dholakia of the Liberal Democrat Party told the British upper house of parliament.

June 5th, 2009 LONDON - The ghost of a small child is believed to have been captured by CCTV cameras at a shopping centre in Chile, South America.he 36-second footage, which has surfaced on the Internet, shows the shadowy spirit gliding in between oblivious shoppers. The 2ft tall floating phantom figure appears in the bottom right of the screen after a male shopper exits a room to the top left, reports British tabloid The Sun.

May 21st, 2009 LONDON - A surrogate baby is born in India to a British couple every 48 hours, it was revealed yesterday. An investigation has exposed the full extent of India's surrogacy baby boom driven by demand from childless Westerners.

April 30th, 2009 LONDON - MPs have attacked the million-pound-a-year salary taken by the head of a British government company that fights poverty in India and other developing countries. The salary of CDC Group chief executive Richard Laing rose from 383,000 pounds in 2003 to 970,000 pounds in 2007, the British parliament's Public Accounts Committee found.

April 17th, 2009 CHANDIGARH - British Columbia will invest Rs.60 lakh in Chandigarh to set up an office of its in-market business investment and skills liaison representative, a senior official of the Canadian province said here. 'British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell chose the Baisakhi parade in Vancouver city to announce that his province will further encourage trade and investment from northern India,' Crystal Sawyer, manager-India operations for the British Columbia regional innovation chair of the Canada-India Business and Economic Development Centre (BEDC), told IANS.

April 1st, 2009 LONDON - The US military is planning to boost the number of satellites it routinely monitors for the risk of a smash-up with orbiting debris, like the recent collision between a US communications satellite and a defunct Russian probe. The US Air Force has catalogued more than 19,000 pieces of space debris larger than 10 centimetres across, General Robert Kehler, Commander of Air Force Space Command, told New Scientist.

March 21st, 2009 LONDON - Ten years after being found lying in the vaults of an English bank, a gem-encrusted gold finial plundered from Tipu Sultan's huge golden throne is being put up for sale in London. Auctioneers Bonhams, who describe the finial as 'one of the most important Tipu items ever to appear for sale', have valued it at around 800,000 pounds.

March 15th, 2009 LONDON - The Beatles are reportedly looking at releasing their back catalogue of music through their own website. The group's surviving bandmembers, Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, and the estates of the late John Lennon and George Harrison, were negotiating with Apple about an iTunes release.

February 9th, 2009 LONDON - Former cabinet ministers and other senior British MPs are to launch a new group aimed at developing economic partnership between India and Britain in the midst of a global economic downturn. The All Party Parliamentary Group on UK-India Trade & Investment Relations is being launched Wednesday to focus exclusively on the economic content of bilateral ties.