Martin Luther King: a brief note about great person

"I am not interested in power for power's sake, but I'm interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good." _Martin Luther King

Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the family's long tenure as pastors of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from 1914 to 1931; his father has served from then until the present, and from 1960 until his death Martin Luther acted as co-pastor. Martin Luther attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen; he received the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College, a distinguished Negro institution of Atlanta from which both his father and grandfather had graduated. After three years of theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he was elected president of a predominantly white senior class, he was awarded the B.D. in 1951. With a fellowship won at Crozer, he enrolled in graduate studies at Boston University, completing his residence for the doctorate in 1953 and receiving the degree in 1955. In Boston he met and married Coretta Scott, a young woman of uncommon intellectual and artistic attainments. Two sons and two daughters were born into the family.

In 1954, Martin Luther King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Always a strong worker for civil rights for members of his race, King was, by this time, a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the leading organization of its kind in the nation. He was ready, then, early in December, 1955, to accept the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration of contemporary times in the United States, the bus boycott described by Gunnar Jahn in his presentation speech in honor of the laureate. The boycott lasted 382 days. On December 21, 1956, after the Supreme Court of the United States had declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses, Negroes and whites rode the buses as equals. During these days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, he was subjected to personal abuse, but at the same time he emerged as a Negro leader of the first rank.

In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity; its operational techniques from Gandhi. In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. In these years, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience. and inspiring his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", a manifesto of the Negro revolution; he planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters; he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, "l Have a Dream", he conferred with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he was arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least four times; he was awarded five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure.

At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated.

Julia Roberts drapes sari for film

Hollywood actress Julia Roberts fell for the sari, bindi and payal (anklets) and happily dressed herself in the traditional Indian attire for a sequence in her latest outing Eat Pray Love, reveals the Pretty Woman's lesser known Indian co-star Russhita Singh. "I play Tulsi, an Indian girl, in Eat Pray Love that has Julia Roberts in the lead. We shot for a month in India last year. We actually mopped the floor and recited Sanskritshlokas together. In fact, I was impressed with Julia's skills to recite the Sanskrit shlokas with utmost precision," Russhita said in a statement.

"Julia was present for my on-screen wedding. While I was dressed like an Indian bride for the sequence, Julia gladly draped the six yards sari and accessorised herself with traditional Indian bindi and payal. She was familiar with every ritual of the Indian wedding that was being acted out. She was also familiar with the rationale behind the saat pheras and the significance behind wearing bangles," added the young actress.

Directed by Ryan Murphy, Eat Pray Loveis based on Pushcart prize-winning author Elizabeth Gilbert's spirituality-travel memoirs by the same name, and features Roberts as Gilbert who travels to Italy, India and Indonesia in search of peace.

Having released in the US Aug 13, Eat Pray Love is hitting Indian screens in October. It was shot in India at the Ashram Hari Mandir in Pataudi, Haryana, about 40 km from New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport.

Russhita says she enjoyed working on the movie.

"I love every bit of the part that I play in the film. I had to work hard because it was an unusual role. Sharing screen space with Julia was an experience in itself. I'm glad the film has shaped up well," she said.

Eat Pray Love also stars Richard Jenkins, Javier Bardem, Billy Crudup, James Franco, Leca Argentero and Viola Davis.

12 out of 20 engg grads job unfit: Study

NEW DELHI: Three out of every five students who graduate from the country's engineering institutes need to go through further training to be eligible for any job in the IT/ ITeS sector, says a study by a local talent assessment firm.

It said just one in every twenty of the country's engineering graduates is fit for a job in an IT product company while only one in five were fit enough to work with an IT services provider. The study by Gurgaon-based firm Aspiring Minds highlighted the need for improving training of students to make them employable.

The report tried to use actual candidate quality measurements and industry recruitment benchmarks to create a measure for employability, said Aspiring Minds co-founder Himanshu Aggarwal.

The employability study that covered over 40,000 engineering graduates and post graduates in Computer Applications, was based on the results of a standardised computer-based test called AMCAT taken by the engineering students across the country.

AMCAT covered various objective parameters for adjudging employability in the IT/ITeS sector including English communication besides quantitative, problemsolving and programming skills.

While employability of students for BPOs and technical support jobs ( TSJ) are relatively better 38.23% and 25.88% respectively, companies in the knowledge based segment or KPOs find only one in every ten technical graduates employable.

The report also highlighted that MCA students are relatively better placed among the engineering graduates for finding a job in IT sector as they possess superior computer programming skills.

Gmail allows phone calls from computers

Google Inc. Wednesday said its Gmail service will add a feature that allows users to call any phone directly from their computers.

“Starting today, you can call any phone right from Gmail,” Robin Schriebman, a software engineer at Google, wrote on the company’s blog.

“We’ve been testing this feature internally and have found it to be useful in a lot of situations, ranging from making a quick call to a restaurant, to placing a call when you’re in an area with bad reception,” Schriebman wrote.

Google will roll out the new feature to US-based Gmail users over the next few days and is working on making it available globally, Xinhua reported.

Users can call any phone in the US and Canada for free for at least the rest of the year, while Google also promised cheap international calls.

Calls to Britain, France, Germany, China, Japan and many other countries will be billed as low as two cents per minute, Google said.

Gmail already has a voice and video chat that allows users to talk to each other.

As Mother Teresa’s birth centenary Thursday draws near, commoners here still get tears in their eyes recalling the deeds and words of the Albania-born

As Mother Teresa’s birth centenary Thursday draws near, commoners here still get tears in their eyes recalling the deeds and words of the Albania-born nun who took Indian citizenship and became one of the world’s greatest symbols of love and compassion.

From homeless labourers to small-time shopkeepers, those who got to interact with the Mother still recall the Nobel Peace prize winner’s humility and supreme dedication to serve the poor, old, infirm and the dying.

M. Shahdani, 55, who resides close to Mother House – the global headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity founded by the Mother – recalls her ever smiling face.

“I first met her in 1974 here outside Mother House. She was indeed a noble and a polite lady. Whenever we used to meet we shared pleasantries. What I remember the most about Mother is her ever smiling face,” Shahdani said.

Born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Macedonia Aug 26, 1910, Mother Teresa left her parental home at 18, and joined the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns with missions in India.

She arrived in Kolkata in 1929. Years later, she took Indian citizenship and left the convent with the church’s nod to serve the poor and the ailing.

She set up Missionaries of Charity in 1950 at 14, Creek Lane, but shifted to the Mother House in 1953 as her order expanded.

To Shaukat Ali, 50, a homeless labourer living on a pavement near the building, the Mother was god. “There will be no one like Mother again. She was like god to us. We used to sit outside Mother House to catch a glimpse of her.”

The Mother often came to enquire about Shaukat’s health. “She used to give us bread to eat, sometimes cake. I was born on this footpath in front of Mother House and will die here. But the love, the affection we received from her, we will never forget.”

Shaukat’s eyes fill up with tears as he recalls Mother’s caring nature. “It was a winter day. I was sleeping on the footpath and shivering with cold. Mother came to me and gave me a blanket.”

She established her first home – “Nirmal Hriday” – for the dying destitute – near the famous Kali temple of Kalighat.

Bijoy Kumar Samaddar owns a shop along the walls of Nirmal Hriday. He claims Mother herself gave him permission to start the shop.

“Whenever she came to Nirmal Hriday, Mother would exchange pleasantries with me.” As the years passed on, Samaddar developed a “personal bond with the Mother”.

“One day when I was not keeping well, she came to my shop, and sat down on the table where I am sitting now, and enquired after my health,” said 80-year-old Samaddar.

“I once wrote a poem on her and gifted it to her. She smiled and told me it is the best gift she ever had,” he reminisced.

“The last time she visited Nirmal Hriday she was ill. She was about to board the car, she looked at me and smiled and told me to look after Nirmal Hriday. I smiled back and told her ‘we will wait for you, Mother’,” said Samaddar.

Mother was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 1979 and given India’s highest civilian honour, Bharat Ratna, in 1980 for her humanitarian work.

The Missionaries of Charity now comprises over 4,500 sisters and is active in 133 countries.

It runs homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis. It also conducts children’s and family counselling programmes and runs orphanages and schools.

Mother Teresa died here Sep 5, 1997, and was buried in the Mother House.

Telescope captures galactic super volcanic explosion

A spectacular “super volcano” that erupted trillions of miles away from earth has been clicked by a NASA telescope.

The staggering eruption was filmed by NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the National Science Foundation’s Very Large Array.

Astronomers said shock waves between a giant black hole and cooling gas, caused the mind boggling explosion, reports the Telegraph.

The explosion then blasted through the “massive” Messier 87 galaxy more than 50 million light years away. One light year is the equivalent of 5.9 trillion miles.

Researchers said the black hole powered the “galactic super-volcano” and prevented hundreds of millions of new stars from being formed.

They said that normally such stars would form in the galaxy when “superheated” gas cooled but this particular blast interrupted that process.

Nasa said the cosmic “eruption” was very similar to the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland, which shot plumes of ash and smoke into the atmosphere and caused chaos for world travel earlier this year.

“With Eyjafjallajokull, pockets of hot gas blasted through the surface of the lava, generating shock waves that can be seen passing through the grey smoke of the volcano,” a NASA spokesperson said.

Che Guevara Biography__( 1928 – 1967 )

Revolutionary leader. Born Ernesto Guevara de la Serna on June 14, 1928, in Rosario, Argentina. After completing his medical studies at the University of Buenos Aires, Guevara became political active first in his native Argentina and then in neighboring Bolivia and Guatemala. In 1954, he met Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro and his brother Raul while in Mexico.

Guevara became part of Fidel Castro's efforts to overthrow the Batista government in Cuba. He served as a military advisor to Castro and led guerrilla troops in battles against Batista forces. When Castro took power in 1959, Guevara became in charge of La Cabaña Fortress prison. It is estimated that between 156 and 550 people were executed on Guevara's extra-judicial orders during this time.

Later, he became president of the Cuban national bank and helped to shift the country's trade relations from the United States to the Soviet Union. Three years later, he was appointed minister of industry. Guevara left this post in 1965 to export the ideas of Cuba's revolution to other parts of the world. In 1966, he began to try to incite the people of Bolivia to rebel against their government, but had little success. With only a small guerrilla force to support his efforts, Guevara was captured and killed in La Higuera by the Bolivian army on October 9, 1967.

Since his death, Guevara has become a legendary political figure. His name is often equated with rebellion, revolution, and socialism. Others, however, still remember that he could be ruthless and ordered prisoners executed without trial in Cuba. Guevara's life continues to be a subject of great public interest and been explored and portrayed in numerous books and films, including The Motorcycle Diaries (2004).

CWG: Security nightmare, only 14-day dry run possible, say sources

New Delhi: The by-now daily financial scandals around the Commonwealth Games 2010 make those in charge of organizing them - both at home and at the Games' international headquarters - look like Frequent Fliers of a Corrupt Executive Class.

Equally damaging is the intransigent evidence - incomplete venues, those that are ready often flooded in the Delhi monsoon - of broad-based mismanagement.

The big question now is given that the venues aren't finished, how can security checks begin? A range of terrorist groups have warned foreign tourists and athletes not to attend the Delhi Games. Sources in the Ministry of Home Affairs- in charge of handling the security for the Games - tell NDTV that at least 90 days are needed to coordinate and test security gadgets and systems at stadia. Instead, a 14-day dry run will take place.

A company named Electronic Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) was hired to install security devices at the different venues, which includes the athletes' village. However, at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium, for example, which is the location of the Opening Ceremony, a wall around the stadium has yet to be completed. That means security cameras, sensors, and a required Intrusion Detection System have not been installed or tested yet. Metal detectors that spectators will walk through have not been set up yet.

So, an Australian company has been hired by the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) to review the security. The company will come to Delhi in first week of September to audit security systems. This is a private company that has been visiting every three months for security audits of Games' venues.

The Delhi Police has told the government and the Games' Organizing Committee that 7500 members will handle the security for the Games. But security experts say the Delhi Police is not trained in counter-terrorism.

MP salary hike: Another Rs. 10,000 in tax-free allowances

New Delhi: After a sustained campaign fronted by Lalu and Mulayam Yadav, the government has decided to give Members of Parliament another raise.

Last week, the government increased MPs' salaries from Rs. 16,000 to Rs. 50,000 a month . Their constituency and office allowances were doubled from Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 20,000. Now both those tax-free allowances have been raised to Rs.25,000 a month.
Most Opposition MPs had earlier united in the demand that their salaries go upto Rs. 80,001 a month- a rupee higher than what the Cabinet Secretary makes.
MPs say that they are among the lowest-paid public representatives in the world.

They get an allowance of Rs. 2000 a day when Parliament is in session

MPs' pay hike deadlock ends in Parliament

New Delhi: Congress party's chief trouble-shooter Pranab Mukherjee met Lalu Prasad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav on Saturday to break the deadlock over salary hike for MPs. NDTV sources say, they have reached an agreement.

But the Bill that seeks to increase the salaries of the MPs is unlikely to be introduced today.

On Friday, the Cabinet had approved a 300 per cent hike in the MP's salaries from 16,000 to 50,000 rupees. But the amount was promptly rejected by several parties mainly the Samajwadi party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal. They argued it should be, at least, 80,001 rupee more than the highest paid bureaucrat.

Their daily allowance of Rs. 1000 when Parliament is in session has been doubled. Their monthly constitution allowance has also doubled from Rs. 20,000 to Rs. 40,000

For their office expenses, they now get Rs. 40,000 - twice what they were entitled to so far.

More good news for them. Their conveyance allowance has gone from 1 lakh to 4 lakh.

Spouses are entitled to free train travel from their place of residence to Delhi. Spouses also get upto eight free plane tickets from their place of residence to Delhi.

Lalu Prasad Yadav had led the campaign for new salaries after the Cabinet indicated it wanted to defer a hike. Ministers who said the timing was not correct for higher salaries included Home Minister P Chidambaram and Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni.

They believe that the recent hike in petrol prices as well as the bevy of corruption allegations for the Commonwealth Games make it tough to justify a raise at this point. However, MPs pointed out that they are among the lowest-paid public representatives in the world.

MPs unhappy? Uproar in Lok Sabha over salary hike

Samajwadi Party (SP), Baujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) members on Friday forced adjournment of the Lok Sabha for an hour voicing dissatisfaction over the quantum of proposed salary hike for MPs.

The Lok Sabha was adjourned for an hour on Friday as SP, BSP and RJD members voiced dissatisfaction over the quantum of proposed salary hike for MPs.

Mulayam Singh Yadav (SP) and Lalu Prasad (RJD) were on their feet during Question Hour claiming that the government had insulted Parliament by rejecting the recommendation of its Committee to raise the basic salary to Rs. 80,001 per month.

The Cabinet, at a meeting, approved a proposal to raise the basic salary of MPs to Rs. 50,000 from present level of Rs. 16,000.

"The government decision is an insult of Parliament. The bill should be torn to pieces," Yadav said in the Lok Sabha.

SP members, led by Yadav, backed Prasad and trooped to the well demanding that the MPs' Salary Bill be taken back.

BSP members and a lone JD(U) member who was present were also seen on their feet supporting the issue.

Amidst the ruckus, the government got two bills passed - the medical council of India bill and the trade mark bill. BJP MPs, especially Uday Singh and Kirti Azad protested over the manner in which the government got the bills passed and RJD and Samajwadi Party MPs were upset over the quantum of the salary hike and refused to leave the House after it was adjourned.

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Commonwealth games England rules out terror threat to Delhi CWG

New Delhi: The Common wealth England (CGE) has ruled out the possibility of a terrorist attack during the Commonwealth games (CWG) event scheduled to be held from October 3 to October 14 in New Delhi.

The statement by the CGE comes a day after Australian sportswoman Dawn Fraser expressed fear over the possibility of a Munich-style terrorist attack.

The CGE has nevertheless warned of possible attacks on soft targets in India to scare away athletes before the commencement of the event.

According to a report published in The Daily Telegraph, CGE has written to England's 17 Commonwealth sports federations after receiving positive feedback about the Indian security plan from the Metropolitan Police Specialist Protection Group. The CGE is responsible for preparation and participation of England team in the event.

It has also advised its athletes not to venture out much during the Games.

On Thursday, swimming legend Dawn Fraser had called on athletes to boycott the Common wealth games in Delhi to avoid a Munich Olympic like terror attack.

"Surely there are other championships around the world that we could send our athletes to and I just think we should be looking at that. It's still not too late to pull out. Facilities with leaking roofs --you can't expect athletes to compete in that and the roof may fall in. If I had a son or a daughter, I'd be asking that son or daughter to have second thoughts about going to compete," Fraser said.

In response to Fraser's comments, Common wealth games Federation (CGF) chief Mike Fennell said that she was not sufficiently informed about the security preparations.

"I think this has been refuted by the Australian Common wealth games Association. We live in a world where we respect freedom of speech. But I don't think Miss Fraser knows what is happening in Delhi. She has not inspected it and I don't think she's informed sufficiently to make such a statement," Fennell said.

On Thursday, the CGF chief had expressed satisfaction over the preparation for the event, after inspecting venues.

Fennell finished his two-day inspection tour of the Games venues on Thursday and gave thumbs up to stadiums. But sounding a note of caution Fennell admitted that corruption allegations were a matter of concern and needs to be investigated. He said that the Government must investigate all corruption allegations and added that some work still needed to be done at the venues to make them fully ready for the Games.

Cabinet goes soft on Emaar deal probe

HYDERABAD: The state cabinet went easy on the Emaar-AP Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) housing project controversy on Thursday, with the chief minister asking his cabinet colleagues not to ‘publicly discuss’ the Emaar issue till the three-member internal committee of AIIC submitted its report.

The report is likely to be submitted to the government within a week. TOI had on Wednesday reported that the state government was not interested in delving deep into the issue and would settle for a probe by an internal committee instead of the CBI.

"The less talked about the issue, the better," the chief minister is believed to have told his colleagues admitting that the high command wanted to know about the scam and the potential damage it could do to the Congress in the state.

But on record, information minister Geetha Reddy said that the state government has instructed APIIC to constitute an ‘expert committee’ to probe irregularities committed by Emaar and its group companies. Addressing the media after the cabinet meeting, she said, chief minister K Rosaiah ordered APIIC to constitute an ‘experts committee’ to look into the matter. "Necessary action will be taken in accordance with the report," she said. The experts are internal officials of the corporation, not higher than the rank of general manager. "The internal panel is likely to look at the prices at which plots were registered and the market prices that prevailed at that time. If they find a dichotomy, Emaar MGF, the company that had been given the development rights might be asked to explain the difference and possibly even be asked to cough up the difference," an analyst said.

Meanwhile, in a bid to defuse the situation, Emaar group representatives have expressed a desire to meet the CM and talk to him, face to face. But the chief minister instead told them to interact with APIIC officials. Following Rosaiah’s diktat, Emaar officials met APIIC representatives but in the presence of ministers Geeta Reddy, Vatti Vasant Kumar and Botsa Satyanarayana.

Notwithstanding Rosaiah’s advice, the issue was raised by health minister D Nagendar and IT minister Komatireddy Venkat Reddy in the cabinet, who insisted that the government treat the matter with utmost seriousness as the high command was also asking about the facts. Both the ministers raised several doubts about the role of officials and the need for greater clarity on the issue as it had been widely reported in the media and allegations that government had been cheated of money.

US army cuts combat troop figure in Iraq

Baghdad: The US military command in Baghdad said on Friday that the number of forces still stationed in Iraq was 52,000, lower than the figure given on Thursday under the final pullout of combat troops.

On Thursday it was said that 56,000 soldiers were still deployed in Iraq. But the military command said that was based on data from August 17 and was already outdated.

Under the military drawdown plans, the US troop strength in Iraq is to be cut down to 50,000 by September 1, with their mission to be in supporting and training regular Iraqi forces but not having combat duties.

These US forces are to be withdrawn by the end of 2011. The US military command in Baghdad said the timetable would be strictly adhered to.

After the disclosure of the withdrawal of the last combat brigade from Iraq on Thursday, the US State Department said that it planned to double the number of private security contractors in Iraq to fill the void created by troop pullout.

Spokesman P. J. Crowley said more security personnel will be needed to protect diplomatic and civilian facilities and convoys as the State Department assumes the lead in Iraq from the US military.

"We will still have our own security needs to make sure our diplomats and development experts are well protected," Crowley said.

Salary hiked 3 times, MPs still unsatisfied

New Delhi: Lok Sabha was adjourned on Friday over the issue of salary given to members of Parliament despite the Cabinet's nod to a 300 per cent hike. Leaders of Opposition parties like Rashtriya Janata Dal(RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and Janata Dal-United chief Sharad yadav created ruckus in the House demanding higher pay for MPs.

The basic pay of MPs was on Friday hiked by more than three times from Rs 16,000 to Rs 50,000 by the government which also doubled several other emoluments for them.

Ending speculation about a delay in the pay hike of MPs due to differences among ministers on the issue, the Cabinet gave its nod to hiking the basic pay from Rs 16,000 to Rs 50,000 per month.

However, this is much less than the figure of Rs 80,001 recommended by the parliamentary committee which had said the MPs should get more than government secretaries as the former are above them in the hierarchy.

The government also increased office expenses of parliamentarians from Rs 20,000 to Rs 40,000 per month. The constituency allowance has also been doubled from Rs 20,000 to Rs 40,000 per month, government sources said.

The limit for interest-free loan for MPs for buying a personal vehicle has been hiked fourfold to Rs 4 lakh from the present Rs 1 lakh.

The government has also hiked road mileage rate for vehicles used by MPs from Rs 13 per km to Rs 16 per km. Spouse of a parliamentarian can now travel any number of times in first class or executive class, the sources said.

Pension benefits have also been increased from Rs 8,000 to Rs 20,000 per month.

Imran Khan Quits Twitter, Feels It’s Not Right For Him

Twitter is used among Bollywood actors as a medium to communicate with fans and also for promoting upcoming movies. However, many actors have reduced using Twitter including Imran Khan who quit Twitter on Wednesday.

Regarding registration into Twitter, Imran said, “I signed up because I saw it as a way to interact with my audience at a personal level. I’ve always looked for ways to do that, whether it was through online chats or live events.”

However, the actor seems to have felt that Twitter was not the correct medium for interacting with his fans.

One of the actor’s friends said regarding Imran stopping Tweeting, “While it allows a two-way communication with the fans, it also requires him to be constantly in touch with them. People tend to discuss everything and often ask a lot of personal questions. That also got to him beyond a point.”

Imran said, “I enjoyed having the chance to reach out to so many people out there and truly appreciate all the love and support I received all this while. I hope that this continues even though I won’t be tweeting any more. It has been a lot of fun and I’m thankful to everyone for all the good times. I think what it boils down to, is that I just don’t feel Twitter is right for me.”

Xbox Live on Windows Phone 7 Hands On: Mobile Levels Up

The first tease of Xbox Live on Windows Phone 7 piqued my interest, sure. But after I had a little hands-on time with some of the games planned for launch, Microsoft's officially got my undivided attention.

Microsoft's trotting out over 50 titles today, all of which and more will be available by the time Windows Phone 7 devices go on sale this holiday season. When I spoke with Kevin Unangst—the company's PC and mobile gaming big boss—he repeatedly mentioned that this list was just a taste. But even with more titles expected before launch, there's already a lot to like here: casual favorites like Bejeweled and Oregon Trail, Xbox exclusive fare from the Halo and Crackdown franchises, three games with "Zombie" in the name. Good times.

How's the interface? In a word: familiar. Once you tap on the Xbox Live tile, you're met with what Matt saw when he took an in-depth tour Windows Phone 7. There's your avatar waiting to greet you. There's the last achievement you unlocked, whether it was on your console or the phone. This is where you see game invites from friends, games you've downloaded. There's a Spotlight area that wasn't up and running yet on the handset I saw, but it serves the same purpose it does on your console. It's Xbox Live on your phone, as promised.

There are also some clever ways Microsoft has optimized the experience for mobile. Your 3D avatar will get dizzy and fall down if you shake the phone, and if you unlock an avatar item on Xbox Live anywhere it's usable on the phone. And your avatar can invade the rest of your phone, too, with Avatar Gadgets, which are simple productivity apps like a flashlight, coin toss, ruler, and leveler that your avatar interacts with on screen.

Every Xbox Live game on Windows Phone 7 has a 200 gamerscore, just like Xbox Live Arcade games, and will accrue to your overall gamerscore. That integrated experience is reflected in your Avatar as well: any customizations you make on the phone will be reflected immediately on the console, and vice versa.

There's going to be a healthy mix of paid and free games, although every download includes a free trial mode (like in Xbox Live Arcade). Unangst wouldn't comment on pricing beyond its being a tiered system. When you do buy a game, though, it won't be with Xbox Live points—it'll be cold hard cash through the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace or carrier billing.

Of course, none of this matters if the games suck. Which, happily, they most definitely don't.

The titles I saw and got a chance to play with weren't entirely finished, but they were in remarkably good shape given that we're still a few months away from release. My overall impression is that the graphics were uniformly sharp, the game play crisp, and the extras—specifically, the achievements—really do help make Xbox Live stand out as a mobile experience. It's far more iPhone than PSP, but there's no shame in that. As for specific quick impressions:

Crackdown 2: Project Sunburst

It's a tower defense game that takes place in the same world as Crackdown 2, which is good, but doesn't directly impact the console game, which is frustrating. Imagine playing a Fable 3 game on your phone that would let you earn Fable 3 gear on your Xbox 360. That's not an option—yet—on Crackdown 2 or any other of the announced launch games. Unangst does acknowledge that "the plumbing exists for us to build those kinds of experiences," and the sooner they can the better.

That being said, the coolest part of Project Sunburst is the ability to set up your defenses anywhere in the world. Like, the actual world, as shown on your phone by Bing Maps. Baddies walk up actual streets—in this case, surrounding a convention center in Cologne, Germany—as you battle them away. It's a straightforward tower defense game, but you get a bit more invested when it's your own neighborhood.

Bejeweled Live

Hey, it's Bejeweled! It's the same casual gamer crack that you'll see on any other platform, with a few adjustments that are being packaged as exclusive Xbox Live content—like the ability to match jewels in the air instead of waiting for them to land. It, along with many of the other games, took forever to load; that'll hopefully be resolved before launch.

Uno

Uno's popularity in the Xbox Live Arcade is easy enough to explain: it's turn-based multiplayer game that easy to understand and fun to play. The phone version is no different—in fact, it's practically identical; the development tools are the same for the console and the phone, meaning that a game produced for one can be easily duplicated on the other.

Max and the Magic Marker

I only got a quick look at MatMM, but it's a straighforward puzzle-scroller, wherein you draw with your marker to go over and around obstacles. More to the point: it's been a popular WiiWare game since its release in March. The move to Xbox Live is indicative of Microsoft's big tent strategy: complement exclusive franchises like Halo with proven winners from other platforms