SLUMDOG STAR KID GETS NEW HOME ..BUT WITH A RIDER

Mumbai: The makers of the hit movie Slumdog Millionaire have bought a new home for one of the two child stars discovered in Mumbai's slums.

Both children lost their homes last month when authorities demolished parts of their slum.
The purchase of a 250-square-foot (23-square-meter) one-bedroom apartment for the family of Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, 10, was completed Monday, said Nirja Mattoo, who helps oversee the Jai Ho trust set up by the filmmakers to help Azharuddin and his 9-year-old co-star Rubina Ali.
"They can move in," Mattoo told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
"I'm just waiting for their consent."

Ownership of the tiny apartment, which cost about 25 lakh Indian rupees ($50,000), will be transferred from the trust to Azharuddin when he turns 18, provided he completes school, Mattoo said.
"He has to complete an education. We are very clear about that," she said. She declined to say what would happen to the property if he does not finish school.
The apartment is located in Santa Cruz West, a suburb of Mumbai just north of the slum where the two children now live.
Mattoo said the trust is actively looking for a new home for Rubina.

The government has also started the process of giving both children apartments, and the family of Azharuddin, known as Azhar, hopes to get both, his mother said.
"After Azhar is grown up, he can stay in one," said Shameem Ismail. "Me and my husband can stay in the other. Both houses are small."
On Tuesday, Azhar's family toured the apartment the government has offered them in Malvani, on the northern outskirts of Mumbai. Ismail described the flat as "small but good."
"The only problem is it's far away from Azhar's school," she said. Azhar said he likes both houses.
"I'll take my friends to visit," he said, squatting with two friends in front of his shanty roasting jackfruit seeds in a fire built from old newspapers and sticks. The boys said they'd miss him.

PRABHAKARAN WAS TORTURED BEFORE BEING KILLED, SAYS REPORT

New Delhi: Tamil Tigers leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was tortured by the Sri Lankan military before being killed, a leading human rights body said in a report released on Wednesday.
The University Teachers for Human Rights (UTHR) quoted high-level military sources as saying that Prabhakaran was tortured in the presence of "a Tamil government politician and a general".

The torture, it said, took place probably at the headquarters of the army's 53 Division, which battled the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) before crushing it last month.

"Several army sources have said that Prabhakaran's (younger) 12-year-old son Balachandran was killed after capture. Our (sources) said that he was killed in front of his father," said UTHR, which has always been critical of excesses both by the military and the LTTE.

"These sources added that this information is correct unless officers at the highest level are fibbing to one another.

"Our sources in addition to several others have said that all the LTTE persons remaining in the NFZ (No Fire Zone) were massacred," it added in a 48-page report, an advance copy of which was made available to IANS.

Sri Lanka announced on May 18 that Prabhakaran, founder leader of the LTTE, was killed in a lonely coastal stretch in the northeastern district of Mullaitivu where the Tigers had massed their forces before going down.

His body was put on display, placed on a stretcher, the back of the head blown off.

Sri Lankan minister Vinayagamurthy Muralitharan alias Karuna, a former confidant of Prabhakaran, had said that the LTTE chief was shot dead with 18 of his guards.

Prabhakaran's death marked the end of the LTTE's dragging conflict that claimed 90,000 lives since 1983.

UTHR said: "Information seeping into the public domain from within the army points to capture or surrender, but the official responses dismissing this are a rehash of stories that public no longer finds credible. It is left to an impartial enquiry to answer this and related questions."

UTHR pointed out that the government was evasive about the fate of Prabhakaran's wife Mathivathani.

It quotes a brigadier as saying: "We had to look for Prabhakaran's body because the world was interested in seeing it. But the body of his wife is not of any importance to us."

The UTHR report said: "That would be the fate of the unknown hundreds of civilians and militants killed in those last days (of fighting)."

According to the report, among the LTTE leaders who surrendered to the army included Baby Subramaniam, a member of the group since 1976 and one of Prabhakaran's oldest associates.

Others reportedly now in government custody included former eastern province political leader Karikalan, former spokesman Yogaratnam Yogi, former head of the LTTE international secretariat Lawrence Thilakar, political advisor V. Balakumar, Jaffna leader Ilamparithi and Trincomalee political leader Elilan.

QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY confers HONORARY DOCTORATE ON KALAM

LONDON: Internationally-renowned space scientist and former President A P J Abdul Kalam was conferred with honorary Doctorate of Laws by Queen's University Belfast, a prominent varsity based in Northern Ireland.
Dr Kalam, who is popularly known as India's 'missile man', received the honour at a special ceremony last evening from Vice Chancellor of the University Professor Peter Gregson for "distinction in public service."

The ceremony was the latest development in QUB's growing connections with India, where the university has recently forged several dynamic academic partnerships.

Gregson said: "Through Dr Kalam's outstanding abilities as a world statesman, scientist, educator and visionary, he has inspired millions in his native India and around the world.

"It is a significant honour for Queen's to host this visit from the former leader of one of the world's most thriving and exciting countries. A number of distinguished Indian institutions hold a special place within the Queen's family of academic partners and Dr Kalam's visit is a tangible example of the educational, research, business and cultural links between India and Northern Ireland."

Queen's has produced the world's first low-cost technology to provide arsenic-free water to people in India and has been selected by the British Council to provide groundwater management training in regions polluted by arsenic.

As part of its Centenary celebrations last year, the university launched its Queen's-India Lecture Series. Lord Diljit Rana, India's Honorary Consul to Northern Ireland, and Northern Ireland's Minister for Employment and Learning, Sir Reg Empey were present on the occasion.

A former Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, Dr Kalam is also an award-winning aerospace engineer who played a leading role in many of India's most recent technological breakthroughs, including the landing of India's first unmanned lunar spacecraft in November last year.

In 2007, he was awarded the prestigious King Charles II medal of the Royal Society and in April this year he became the first Asian to receive the Hoover Medal, America's top engineering prize.

Sir Reg Empey, Minister for Employment and Learning, said: "The conferment of an honorary degree on Dr Abdul Kalam, a pre-eminent scientist and a widely respected former President, reflects the breadth and depth of the collaborations between Queen's University and India.

"My department strongly supports the collaborations being forged in seeking to further strengthen the vital bridge between India and Northern Ireland."

QUB's links with India include student exchanges between the School of English and Hyderabad University under the Prime Ministers Initiative and a research partnership with the National Institute of Immunology, Delhi which focuses on cancer biology and is supported by the Ministry of Biotechnology.

In 2008, QUB opened the East India Water Research Centre in partnership with Bengal Engineering and Science University and India's Institute of Environmental Management and Studies.