Previously it was Orkut, which remained as the most popular site in India, but its now Facebook’s turn. With more number of features and sharing options than Orkut, it has attracted more number of users in less time. For the first time in July, 2011, facebook grabbed number one rank in social networking category with 20.9 million users, up 179 percent from the previous year.

The report also mentioned that there are more than 33 million Internet users in India, who visited social networking sites in the month of July, but among them most visited was Facebook making it as top one. With this, India now ranks as the seventh largest market worldwide for social networking after the US, China, Germany, Russia, Brazil and the UK. The report also mentioned that during last year growth of social networking audience is 43 percent which is triple the rate of total internet audience in India.

Followed by Facebook is Orkut ranked second with 19.9 million visitors, BharatStudent.com, Twitter, and Yahoo. Sites like Orkut, Twitter, and Yahoo used to be in the top places among the social networking sites before the advent of Facebook. But now it is ruling the networking world with a huge user base. By including more privacy options it is attracting more and more users every month/year.

Comscore, released data from the comScore Video Metrix service which showed 184 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in the month of October for an average of 21.1 hours per viewer. The total U.S. Internet audience viewed 42.6% billion videos which is recorded as an all time high.

When it comes to the Top 1- video content properties by unique users, iGoogle sites are ranked as top online video content property in October. Driven primarily by video viewing at Youtube.com, it secured 161 million unique viewers and reached a record high of 20.9 billion videos viewed.

Facebook ranked second with 59.8 million viewers followed by VEVO with 57 million, Microsoft sites with 49.1 million and Viacom Digital with 48.2 million. More than 42 billion videos were viewed during the month of October, with the average viewer watching a record 21.1 hours. Google Sites demonstrated the highest viewer engagement with 7.1 hours per viewer.

These reports are showing how a social networking site without any official videos but just get videos from the uploads done by the members of the site is giving huge competition to Google which has an official video uploading website You tube. Facebook has extensive following among the teens and since the video has been shared many times, and hence it takes very less time for the video or any other upload to get popular among people.

• Various estimates reports that the alcohol related problems cost American society and the U.S. economy billions of dollars each year.
• According to an estimate by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, alcohol addiction costed an estimated amount of $184.6 billion in 1998 to the U.S. economy. Researchers also found that the cost of alcoholism increased between 3 percent to 4 percent each year.
• The Marin Institute, an alcohol industry watchdog organization, estimated that the problems related to alcohol addiction costs American society more than $175 billion a year.
• The same research also reported that the alcohol is abused largely by the teens who are between 12 to 17 years. Researchers also noted that alcohol addiction is the reason for the cause of thousands of deaths each year.
• The different types of the costs caused by the alcohol addiction to the economy and the society include, medical costs, lost earnings related to alcohol related illnesses, lost earnings resulting from premature deaths and various costs arising from alcohol related traffic accidents and costs associated with criminal justice and litigation.
• The World Health Organization, in a report, in the year 2004, on the global impact of alcohol use, concluded that the alcohol addiction causes serious health problems like cancers, cirrhosis of the liver, cardiovascular disease and severe brain diseases.
• Along with these economic costs, alcohol addiction also causes social problems like damaging the family relationships, drunken driving and other criminal offenses.

The above are the various social and economic problems caused due to alcohol addiction.

69.7 million Americans aged 12 or older were current users of a tobacco product in 2009 according to the survey. 58.7 million persons were current cigarette smokers, 13.3 million smoked cigars, 8.6 million used smokeless tobacco and 2.1 million smoked tobacco in pipes. The rate of current use of any tobacco product among persons aged 12 or older remained steady from 2008 to 2009.

Adults aged 18 to 25 had the highest rate of current use of a tobacco products in 2009 and the 35.8 percent of adults used cigarettes, 11.4 percent used cigars, 6.1 percent used smokeless tobacco, and 1.7 percent used pipe tobacco.

Among persons aged 12 or older, males are higher than the females who used tobacco. Males also had higher rates of past month use than females of each specific tobacco product which includes cigarettes, cigars, smokeless tobacco and pipe tobacco. Among youths aged 12 to 17, the rate of current cigarette smoking in 2009 was slightly higher for males than for females.

In 2009, current cigarette smoking was more common among unemployed adults aged 18 or older than among adults who were working full time or part time. Among adults aged 18 or older, current cigarette use in 2009 was reported by 35.4 percent of those who had not completed high school, 30.0 percent of high school graduates who did not attend college, 25.4 percent of persons with some college, and 13.1 percent of college graduates.

Nobel prizes are the most prestigious international awards for intellectual performance. The awards are administered by the Nobel Foundation in Sweden. They have been awarded for great achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace since 1901. Later in 1968, achievements for economics were added in memory of Alfred Nobel, the founder of the Nobel Prize.

Nobel Prize in Physics
The Nobel Prize in physics is 2010 was awarded jointly to Andre Gelm and Konstantin Novoselov. The prize money was distributed between them equally. They were awarded for work on groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material ‘Graphene’.

Graphene is a form of carbon which is just one atom thick. It is an excellent conductor of heat and electricity. Andre Gelm and Konstantin Novoselov extracted thin layers of particles from graphite of a pencil making a new material called Graphene. They found the unique properties of Graphene. It can now be used for practical applications in the development of electronic devices.

Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Richard F. Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki were awarded jointly the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2010. The work for which they were awarded was ‘palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis’. Every organic synthesis laboratory and industrial processes across the world uses the Heck, Negishi and Suzuki reactions.

During the initial years, it was a challenge to combine carbon atoms together because carbon does not react with other similar atoms due to its structural configuration. Certain reactions were discovered by the scientists using Palladium as a catalyst so that carbon reacts more easily.

In 1968, a series of papers were published by Heck reporting the addition of methyl and phenylpalladium halides to olefins at room temperature. A further step allowed the unprecedented alkylation of an olefin. Later, in 1976 the palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling of organometallic species with organohalides was investigated by Negishi. This demonstrates the permission of highly selective reactions by organozinc compounds under mild conditions in the presence of a range of functional groups. In 1979, Suzuki demonstrated that organoboron compounds in the presence of a base could be cross coupled with vinyl and aryl halides using palladium as a catalyst.

Further modification and improvement was made in these reactions in subsequent years for use in synthesis of a wide range of complex natural products.

Nobel Prize in Medicine
The Nobel Prize in 2010 in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Robert G. Edwards for the development of in vitro fertilization. He was called the father of test tube baby. Since 1955, he had been working on the process of in vitro fertilization along with his colleague, Patrick Steptoe, and achieved it by 1968.

A human culture media was developed by Edwards to allow the fertilization and early embryo culture. His colleague worked on laprosopy for recovering oocytes from patients with tubal infertility. About four million babies were born by in vitro fertilization technique because of their huge efforts. Edwards was awarded the Albert Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award by the Lasker Foundation in 2001 for the development of in vitro fertilization.

Nobel Prize in Literature
In 2010, Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. He was awarded for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat. Through his work The Time of the Hero, he became popular in the world.

Some of his well-known works are Conversation in the Cathedral, The War of the End of the World, and The Feast of the Goat. He is the first South American winner of the prestigious 10 million kronor, or $1.5 million, Nobel Prize in literature since Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez won in 1982.

Nobel Peace Prize
Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 2010 for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China. Announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize for Liu created a huge angry response from China.

He was a literary critic in 1980s. He took part in the Tiananmen protests in 1989 for advocating the fundamental rights in China. He had been arrested several times since spending 20 months in detention after the 1989 protests. He was sentenced in 2009 in prison for 11 years for subversion of state power. There were people who received Nobel Prize who were under house arrest and prison before receiving it. However, Liu was the first one who was honored with Nobel Peace Prize while being in prison.

Nobel Prize in Economics
The Nobel Prize in economics in 2010 was awarded jointly to Peter A. Diamond, Dale T. Mortensen and Christopher A. Pissarides. They were awarded for their work on analysis of markets with search frictions.

Demand and supply are the two factors on which a market is based. There are situations in market where a lot of people are there who are looking for employment and companies having vacancies, but still the vacancies are not being filled. Also, we find many people who want to buy and sell a house at the same time, but still do not find a solution.

The work of the Nobel Prize Winners helped in providing better solutions in these areas. A theoretical framework was formulated by them for search markets. Peter Diamond focused on the analysis of foundations of search markets. The theory was expanded and applied to labor market by Dale Mortensen and Christopher Pissarides. This theory however can also be applicable to house, monitory theory and various areas of economics.

According to analysts’ report, the rising of the sales of luxurious cars can be caused by increasing the per capita income of people in India. According to Deccan Chronicle’s articles there were 1,629 units of the sales in the past year and in this year sales were 2,921 units from January to July and 2,718 units were sold by BMW in the seven-month period in this year and in the same period in the past year sales were 2,008 units. 1,535 units were sold by Audi, German firm, from January to July and in the last year sales were 981 units. The luxury car segment is driven by the development of population of upper and upper middle class with disposable incomes.

There are many new models, that will available in Indian market at the end of the year. So Indian customers have greater choice to choose from.

Indian automobile industry is the second largest tractor and two wheeler manufacturer in the world. The fifth-largest commercial vehicle manufacturer in the world is also one of the top automobile markets in Asia.

The Indian automobile industry is dominated by Hindustan Motors, Maruti Udyog, Fiat India Private Ltd, Tata Motors, Bajaj Motors, Hero Motors, Ashok Leyland, Mahindra & Mahindra and a few foreign companies like Toyota Kirloskar Motor Ltd., Skoda India Private Ltd., Honda Siel Cars India Ltd. Large number of multinational firms are planning to enter in the Indian markets, though many of them may be forming alliances with the Indian companies. The automobile companies are coming up with financial schemes such as easy EMI repayment systems to boost sales. There have been exhibitions like Auto expo at New Delhi to share the technological advancements in India.

Indian automobile industry is growing because of the following reasons:

• Rising per capita income
• Availability of varied models of vehicle meeting diverse needs and preferences
• Favorable government policies
• Increasing disposable incomes in rural agricultural sector
• Easy finance schemes
• Rising industrial and agricultural output etc.,

The major drawback of inhibition of growth of automobile industry is poor and inadequate infrastructure in addition to the poor road network system.

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Ford F-150

According to Edmunds.com report of best selling vehicles, consumers gravitated toward American trucks and Japanese sedans in 2010 and the sales of the hybrids fell in the same year. Americans purchased 272,282 hybrid vehicles last year, which is less than 6% when compared to 2009.

Two trucks were among the top three automobile sellers in 2010, the Ford F-150 recorded the most sold vehicle in 2010 and Ford sold 391,219 of the trucks, which is a 38% increase from recession depressed 2009. The second most sold vehicle in US is Chevrolet’s Silverado 1500 and the sales figure is 100,000 less than the trucks sold by Ford.

Toyota Camry

Toyota Camry is a sedan from the Japanese car maker Toyota Kirloskar, is in the third place among the top 10 list. The number of cars sold is 313,212, which is 6 percent less than 2009 because of the recalling issues. Besides the Camry, Honda’s Accord and Civic, Toyota’s Corolla and Nissan’s Altima are among the top 10 list and all these are Japan automakers. Together, the five Japanese sedans sold more than 1.3 million vehicles in 2010.

The above said Sedans may face problems in future with the domestic companies like Ford introducing Focus, Chevrolet has its new Cruze. New generation Elantra, by Hyundai is being awaited, as it is more fuel efficient with nice styling in this segment.

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But South and West has 25 and 30 percent of the share of the sales each. The largest part that is nearly 35 percent is held by North. There is a larger potential for industry growth.

It is said that Eastern auto show focused more on the local involvement and as it provides the exposure to local regions. The share of the West Bengal held only 4 percent of the national sales, though there industry grew by nearly 25 percent in previous year.

The auto show in Kolkata will continue till November 22 at Salt Lake Stadium, with around 20 auto exhibitors. There are major companies such as Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors, Hyundai, Toyota and etc.

It is seen like, the main responsibility of the auto show East is to encourage sales. Special things like bike racing and a 4X4 track have set up in order to attract the visitors.

This will be introduced by Bajaj, which is involving with two ventures such as Renault-Nissan. The proposed price of the car is Rs.1.5 lakh.

According to the Managing Director of the Bajaj, the low cost car would penetrate the auto market in India. Mileage of the car would be 30 km per liter.

Bajaj is handling it’s two wheeler market with it’s bikes such as Pulsar and Discover. Earlier they dealt with the Bajaj Chetak. In recent months, they performed well. This standard would be applied on the proposed small car. The company hopes, that the proposed car would lead the Indian auto market. The proposed car would be introduced by 2012 in Indian auto market.

Honda Jazz

The hatchback Jazz (Fit) and medium sedan Accord hybrid plug-in are the two more models that are developed by the company. The launch of the electric cars is based on the government policy that encourages the use of energy friendly vehicles.

The large market potential in China and the support incentives hindered by China’s policy had forced all the foreign makers for transferring the technology of electric cars to local partners. The China’s auto industry can be considered to become independent in applying this technology in the next 10 years. However, this policy is considered as contrary and detrimental to some foreign principles.

Toshiba Corporation is one of the Japan’s largest electronics manufacturer. Honda Motor Company has taken the cooperation of the Toshiba Corporation for supplying lithium-ion batteries in electric cars. After Toshiba became a sole-supplier of lithium-ion batteries to the electric scooter Honda, the partnership continued. Honda announced that the electric cars are prepared only if they provide the ability to roam up to 160km per hour every time the power battery is charged fully.

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Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt Leaf

The Chevrolet Volt is a new plug-in hybrid extended range electric car. It is considered as to be at 99 percent level of engineering calibration according to the General Motors. The power for the vehicle is drawn from lithium-ion batteries and a 1.4-liter engine. The vehicle has a sport mode and provides adjustment for pedal mapping. It is delicate and the vehicle’s default mode is normal. By selecting eco settings climate control can be done. This is one of the most interesting feature of the vehicle.

The vehicle can be able to drive for about 40 miles using the battery alone and without gasoline. The base price of the vehicle revealed by the General Motors is $41,000 before a $7,500 federal tax credit. The Chevrolet Volt has a back up power source and provides premium fuel. This gives the vehicle a range of more than 100 miles. The reputation of the General Motors is expected to be given by the Volt among environmentally conscious consumers. This is involved in demonstrating the capabilities of battery-powered vehicles.

The Chevrolet Volt could be connected to a standard 120-volt outlet for charging the 400-pound battery. The company has been offering eight years of warranty. Otherwise it may provide warranty for 100,000 miles three years longer than what is been offered for the gasoline engines. Certain other features of the Volt include a built-in navigation system and hands-free telephone capabilities.

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The vehicle was displayed at the China International Automobile Exhibition at Guangzhou. After starting the sale of the vehicle in the China, it is estimated that the vehicle is to be on sale in more than 170 countries worldwide including the U.S. with different brand names.

The features of the vehicle include a 1.5 liter four cylinder gasoline engine with dual injectors. Instead of a standard automatic transmission, continuously variable transmission has been used. MacPherson struts have been used for the front suspension and a torsion beam has been used for the rear suspension.

The vehicle is considered a major global car which is in the lineup. It is reported that the Nissan Sunny is related to the Nissan Versa. The growth of the vehicle can be mainly seen in Asia, South America and Central America.

A cumulative defence budget of USD 26.5 billion was observed in 2009. Joint ventures and technical collaborations were set up by Indian SMEs attracting the attention of foreign OEMs, Tier I and Tier II vendors. 44 percent of the respondents revealed that improvements had to be implemented in defence offset opportunities.

The report advised an improvement of information technology and automotive industries for design, development and manufacture in aerospace and defence sector. It also revealed the importance and need of domain knowledge development. Certain guidelines were given regarding licensing procedure and other complementary activities for the SMEs.

Companies having less than 25 workers had wages which are less than $50,000 a year. As they have higher premium costs they achieved benefits from the tax credit. The benefits under health overhaul law were also not expected. According to a report from consumer groups, Families, USA and Small Business Majority, health coverage was offered to only 46 percent of employers having three to nine workers. About 72% of small businesses having 10 to 24 employees offered with the health coverage for workers. More than 95 percent of companies of 50 or more workers offered coverage to their employees.

The tax credit help small businesses, which tend to lack the purchasing power of larger employers, maintain coverage by pooling risk. According to the federal government website HealthCare.gov., payment for the same insurance policy by small businesses was found to be 18% higher than that paid by larger firms. The tax credit was provided for companies on the cusp of dropping coverage for their workers.

The Census reported that there were 0.15 crore registered units and 2.46 crore un-registered units. Among the small business firms 28% constitute for the manufacturing sector and 72% constitute for service sector. It was reported that the small business units constituting Apparel include 14.03% of the firms, Food Products and Beverages include 13.53% of them and Maintenance of Personal and Household goods include 9.25% of them.

The Census reported there were about 7.3 million manufacturing enterprises and 18.8 million service enterprises of the total 26.1 million enterprises in 2006-07 in the MSME sector. The number of women enterprises with 2.1 million constitute for 8%. There were 14.2 million rural enterprises constituting 54.4%. It was reported that per unit fixed investment was Rs. 38.78 lakh and per unit gross output was Rs. 46.13 lakh.

Employment was provided for 5.97 persons by the MSME sector including 0.95 crore from registered units and 5.03 crore from un-registered units. The per unit employment was also found to increase from 4.48 in 2001-02 to 6.24 in 2006-07. There was a decrease in the closure of MSMEs from 39% in 2001-02 to 21.64% in 2006-07. It was also revealed that there had been an increase in per unit fixed investment to Rs.33.78 lakh from Rs.6.68 lakh, and per unit gross output from Rs.14.78 lakh to Rs.46.13 lakh.

It is like, more new and revamped models are being offerd to customers this season and also every company vying to keep up with the competion. There were recent launches of revamped models by different companies, like Ford Figo and Polo are the revamped models which was launched by Volkswagen, Alto K10 was launched by Maruti Suzuki.

I10 model of Hyundai, which will get new looks and it has 18 km per litre fuel efficiency. It can be important factor for customer to take the decision to purchase. Fuel consumption is cut by the ISG system of the model in heavy traffic and constant stop-start motoring and it cuts the emissions, up to 15 percent. They redesigned the exteriors of the car with head lamps and front grill. Company says that a new feature – 1.0 litre engine with a CO2 emission of 99 grams per kilometer, has been included.

Hyundai company make i10 model ready to display at the Upcoming Paris Auto Show in the month of October in 2010 and later it will introduced in India.

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According to a survey conducted by Neilsen and Webvisible, in last November, though searching for local product or service in Internet by various search engines like Yahoo, Google, Microsoft’s live search, is the No.1 priority for both consumers and small business owners, a huge segment of customer population, is missing out by the small businesses. It is because small businesses spent less than 10% of their marketing budgets on advertising in Internet. It is to be kept in mind that, 44% consumers turn to Internet when looking for local products and services.

According to other data, 40% of consumers say that problem finding a local business exists, as only 44% of the small businesses have their own websites. Small businesses are very reluctant to change their traditional way of running a business, as they found web marketing to be very expensive.

The survey states that, during the last 3 months, 60% of companies have maintained current levels of employee numbers, but 29% of companies had experienced a decrease in employee numbers in the same period. Just under a quarter (24%) of companies expect a further decrease in the next 3 months.

The Q2, 2010 survey shows for the next 3 months, 14% of companies indicated the introduction of short-time working (a decrease of 1% on Q1, 2010) and 7% implementing lay-offs (a decrease of 4% on Q1, 2010). With an increase in 3% from Q1, now 50% of small firms will implement a recruitment freeze in the next three months. And 24% of firms will not extend any current employment contracts; this figure remains unchanged since the end of 2009.

In regard to training, 37% of survey respondents indicated that in the next 3 months they will be training and improving the skil of the staff.

Small Firms Association’s director stated that many of the small businesses are reluctant to recruit mainly because of economic and financial uncertainty.

With three out of five companies are hoping employee numbers to stay at their current level and 19% of firms expecting to increase their employee numbers, and with regard to training, 37% of survey respondents indicated that in the next 3 months they will be training and improving the skill of the staff, 2011 looks much better than the current year.

According to the British officials, the wedding will be taken place at Westminster Abbey in London, one of the popular wedding venues.

In such wedding venue, William’ grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, and her mother both got married. Once again this venue has been picked as the ideal venue for royal wedding. Westminster Abbey is the special place in British history.

Westminster Abbey is the large, mainly Gothic church in Westminster, London. This is the traditional place of the coronation and burial site for English and later monarchs of the Commonwealth countries.

This Abbey was built at the start of the 11th century. This venue has space for 2000 guests to attend the ceremonies.

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