Washington, Aug 5 (IANS) About half a dozen eminent global management gurus, including two professors from North America, head for New Delhi this week to debate the future of Indian management education at the Third Indian Management Conclave. Sharing their insights at the Aug 9-10 conclave with nearly 300 policy makers, academics and recruiters will be Cornell Dean Soumitra Dutta and Sauder School of Business, Canada Associate Dean Murali Chandrashekharan. They will be joined at the MBAUniverse.com organized conclave by international thought-leaders Elieen Peacock, Asia Head, AACSB, Singapore and Sharon Bamford, Chief Executive of Associations of MBAs (AMBA), UK. Dutta, who recently moved from Fontainebleau, the home of INSEAD's Europe campus to take over as Anne and Elmer Lindseth Dean and Professor of Management at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at America's Ivy League Cornell University, will deliver the keynote address. "Globally, MBA Education is at crossroads. The changes in business, society, technology...are calling for new models. In this evolution, India can play an important role by being both the 'creator' and the 'lab' for next-generation management ideas," he says. Indian Management Conclave, as knowledge creation and dissemination platform, can be a catalyst of this process." "Rapid changes in policy framework, student aspirations and employer needs calls for re-alignment by top B-schools, private and public Universities," says Amit Agnihotri, Chairman, MBAUniverse.com, India's leading management portal. "The conclave theme 'Survival of the Fittest: Lessons from the best' will focus on offering rare insights from stakeholders that the academics can use to offer quality management education."

Washington, Aug 5 (IANS) US President Barack Obama has paid tribute to American sportspersons participating in the London Olympics and Paralympics for their hard work and sacrifice. "We could not be prouder of the men and women representing our country in London, in both the Olympics and in the Paralympics," Xinhua quoted him as saying in a radio address Saturday. He said that he has watched the Olympic contests on swimming, women's soccer, and the women's gymnastics in which the US team recaptured the team gold. So far the US tops the chart with 24 gold medals, only one ahead of China. "It's not the medal count alone that inspires us -- most of our athletes won't claim a medal at all. It's the character of the men and women who compete for those medals. It's their hard work and sacrifice ... It's their dogged perseverance and unyielding determination, through disappointment and triumph alike," Obama said. The president praised the American Olympians for displaying the "American spirit", which means "if we work hard, we can achieve our dreams". Obama said he was "a little jealous" of his wife, First Lady Michelle, who led the American delegation to London for the Olympic opening ceremony July 27.

Washington, Aug 5 (IANS) Bollywood singer Shreya Ghoshal is joining an American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) sponsored nine-city spectacular musical programme combined with educational and networking opportunities across the United States. The programme has been organised with the objective of bringing continuing medical education (CME) and non-CME sponsored medical lectures, exhibits, gala dinner, community outreach talks and lively musical nite in each of the nine cities, AAPI said. The programme starts with the first performance on Sep 21 in Charlotte, North Carolina with the grand finale on Oct 7 in San Jose, California. Other performances will be in New York Sep 22; Columbus, Ohio Sep 23; Orlando, Florida Sep 28; Houston, Texas Sep 29; Atlanta, Georgia Sep 30; Washington DC Oct 5; and Dallas, Texas Oct 6. "It all began with the idea of strengthening the relationship between the AAPI chapters and national office," says Dr. Narendra Kumar, President of AAPI. The Ssminars and workshops will be led by accomplished faculty of leading cardiologists, cardiovascular surgeons and psychiatrists. Each of the nine medical educational programmes is expected to have an audience of 250-400 physicians, which will be followed by annual gala event and entertainment. The AAPI Charitable Foundation, which is committed to serve the poorest of the poor in remote areas of India and the US,currently oversees 17 clinics in as many states in India. Moving forward, the Foundation wants to "fulfil our organization's goal of supporting at least one clinic in each Indian State," said Foundation Nick Nipan Shroff.

Washington, Aug 4 (IANS) NASA has given three firms a total of $1.1 billion to build a new range of "space taxis" that will take astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), a media report said. The hi-tech spacecraft to be used to transport crew and supplies to the ISS will replace NASA's space shuttle which were decommissioned last year, the Daily Mail reported. The three firms are Sierra Nevada, Space X and Boeing, who will receive $212.5 million, $440 million, and $460 million, respectively. The new deals represent NASA's Commercial Crew Integrated Capability Programme, which aims to promote design and development of new private spacecraft to fill the gap left by the decommissioning of the space shuttles. Boeing and SpaceX are developing space capsules, and Sierra Nevada is developing a winged space plane called "Dream Chaser", designed to launch vertically but land horizontally on conventional runways.

Washington, Aug 4 (IANS) The US has been badly hit by mosquito-borne West Nile virus, with 241 cases of the disease, including four deaths, reported nationwide so far this year, CNN reported Saturday. Of the 42 states that have reported infections in people, birds or mosquitoes, three -- Texas, Mississippi and Oklahoma -- had as much as 80 percent of cases, health officials said. In the US, most infections occur between June and September, and peak in August, officials said. Symptoms include fever, headache, body aches, joint pains, vomiting, diarrhoea, or rashes. Less than one percent develop a serious neurologic illness such as encephalitis or meningitis -- inflammation of the brain or surrounding tissues. People over the age of 50 and those with cancer, diabetes and kidney disease or with organ transplants are at greater risk. CNN said there are no medications to treat West Nile virus or vaccines to prevent infection. People with milder illness typically recover on their own but those more seriously affected may need hospital care.

New York, Aug 4 (IANS) Singer Beyonce Knowles is being very guarded about her next album and she is holed up in a studio here to work on it. For her next album, Knowles is collaborating with Kanye West, as well as with her husband Jay-Z's producer Hit-Boy. The singer is taking no chances for the album, and does not want her material being leaked, reports thesun.co.uk. "She's spent thousands hiring out the whole studio. She's got security on the doors to ensure no one hears a whisper. She's being strict with proceedings too, putting in 14-hour days declaring nobody leaves until it's perfect," said a source.

New York, Aug 4 (IANS) Standard & Poor's Ratings Services has cut the ratings for 15 Italian banks, citing a potentially deeper and more prolonged recession in Italy than originally anticipated. The ratings firm said the downgrading reflected "our view of increased credit risk for the Italian economy and its banks", reported Xinhua. The agency revised the economic risk score for Italy, one of the main components of its Banking Industry Country Risk Assessment, to five from four. "With Italy facing a potentially deeper and more prolonged recession that we had originally anticipated, we are of the view that the vulnerability of Italian banks to the impact of rising loan losses has increased due to the combined effect of mounting problem assets and reduced coverage of loan loss reserves," S&P said in a statement. The firm now thought a severe recession likely would increase Italian banks' problem assets in 2012 and 2013 to levels higher than previously anticipated, and higher than other banks in Europe. Banks like Unione di Banche Italiane, Banca Popolare dell' Emilia Romagna and Banca Popolare di Vicenza saw their ratings downgraded.

San Juan, Aug 4 (IANS/EFE) Former Miss Universe Zuleyka Rivera has resumed her career as an actress in the Univision telenovela "Rosario" after a year off following the birth of the baby boy she had with NBA star JJ Barea. Rivera, 24, told EFE in an interview Friday from Miami, where the telenovela will be in production over the next eight months, that she is very happy to be acting again. "I feel super-happy and I thank God for the chance He is giving me. What I want is to keep growing as an actress and make more television series," the winner of the 2006 Miss Universe contest said. The Puerto Rican actress plays Sandra Diaz, a secretary who finds herself immersed in a love triangle when she begins an affair with attorney Esteban, played by Mexican actor Aaron Diaz. Rivera said that she will be some time without Barea, since the basketball player is now in New York on business and must then go to Minnesota to join the Timberwolves. "We'll always try to find time for the three of us to be together. We respect each other's careers and the mission we have," Rivera said. Before going to Miami to shoot "Rosario" she took part as an extra in the Hollywood movie "Runner, Runner", filmed in her native Puerto Rico and starring US actors Justin Timberlake and Ben Affleck. --IANS/EFE rd

Chicago, Aug 4 (IANS) A 25-year-old woman dentist from Mumbai, who was also a graduate student at the University of Missouri, was the lone passenger killed in a crash of a double-decker bus in Illinois. Aditi R. Avhad, was headed from Chicago to Columbia, Montana Thursday when the bus slammed into a highway overpass support pillar near Litchfield, about 55 miles northeast of St. Louis, Chicago Tribune reported. As many as half of the passengers were injured, the daily said citing State Police Capt. Scott Compton. Four to five of them were trapped and had to be extricated, including Avhad. Avhad, a dentist from Mumbai, was enrolled in the graduate programme at the University of Missouri's School of Medicine, according to the school. She was studying for a master's degree in health administration and hoped to get her degree next year, officials said. She was riding in the upper deck with her parents when the bus crashed, police said. Passengers said the impact sent them flying from their seats. The state police cited by the Tribune said preliminary reports showed at least 33 people were taken to area hospitals. Police believe the bus blew a tire but are still looking at circumstances of the accident. That investigation could take weeks, they said.

Washington, Aug 4 (IANS) Dr Mukesh Hariawala, an award winning Indian-American artificial heart surgeon, is set to introduce a unique low-cost "triple heart therapy" in India to help patients with diabetes who cannot afford expensive bypass operations. Harvard trained Boston based Hariawala will receive "India's Most Admired Surgeon 2012" award for pioneering work on angiogenesis or growth of new blood vessels to aid healing, at the Pharmaceutical Leadership Summit, organised by healthcare magazine Pharmaleaders, in Mumbai on Sep 21. "I am pleased that cutting edge Angiogenesis Therapy will help the non affording poor patients with heart disease in my motherland India and rest of the world, thus reducing the global economic burden of healthcare," Hariawala told IANS. "Hariawala is the first NRI Surgeon to be honoured with this prestigious award for pioneering work on Angiogenesis that will revolutionise treatment of heart disease globally and save millions of lives," said award committee chairman Satya Brahma, editor-in-chief of Pharmaleaders magazine. Hariawala, who has done pioneering work in Angiogenesis research at Harvard in Boston, said Triple Heart Therapy" involves spontaneous development of new blood vessels in the heart by laser stimulation and subsequent injection of patient's own stem cells harvested from bone marrow. This "would be the future treatment of heart disease which is expected to save millions of lives worldwide," said Hariawala calling "It a natural bypass to bypass surgery." "I want to see a vibrant and aggressive government policy where India's monetary resources are better utilised towards rural development and raising the standards of living for all Indians," he said. Hariawala, who holds a special honorary visiting cardiac surgeon appointment at Mumbai's Jaslok Hospital, also plans to bring to India next year the artificial Titanium Heart or Ventricular Assist Device (VAD) implant that can play the role of a supplementary heart. Powered by lithium ion battery, it can play the role of a bridge till a transplant heart is available as was in the case of former US Vice President Dick Cheney. Hariawala, who himself has not played any research role in development of this device and is only responsible for taking the technology to India, hopes to get regulatory approvals in India by 2013. The current FDA approved devices in US and Europe cost about $100,000, excluding expenses for surgery. The price point for India is not established but is expected to be high initially, he said. But competition is expected to reduce the price in the long term as six US companies currently manufacture the device. In India it will be offered not as a bridge to transplantation but a permanent solution also called "destination therapy," he said. (Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)