Closing Guantanamo is emerging as a never-ending nightmare for President Barack Obama after he bowed to pressure and backed down from plans to try the accused 9/11 plotters in the heart of New York City.

One year after his landmark promise to shutter the controversial prison at the US naval base in Cuba, Obama has not only missed his self-imposed deadline, but his hands are ever-more tied by the political, legal and humanitarian headache he inherited from his predecessor, George W Bush. His special envoy to close the site, Dan Fried, has travelled around the world and found only a small handful of countries willing to take in detainees.

“Everything about Guantanamo is hard,” he acknowledged on Wednesday. Fried predicted the site would close during Obama’s first term, which ends in January 2013 — a far less ambitious deadline than the president’s vow to shutter the prison by January 22, 2010.

A Telugu television channel came out with a scoop on Saturday night, stating that the Centre had almost decided on bifurcation of the state and that it was seriously working out a formula on the state capital issue.

The channel, quoting sources in Delhi, came out with a theory that the Centre would propose making Hyderabad as a common capital for Andhra and Telangana regions for another 10 years till a new capital is created for the Andhra region. The proposal, according to the channel, is being made in view of the international recognition Hyderabad has got and politicians and businessmen in other two regions have a lot of stake in it.

The channel also says the Congress high command had a talk with Telangana Rashtra Samithi president K Chandrasekhara Rao and tried to convince him on the capital issue. On behalf of the high command, senior Congress MLA K Jana Reddy is negotiating with KCR, the channel said.

The Congress High Command is moving its cards carefully on the Telangana. When the Congress leader K Kesava Rao was invited to New Delhi for talks, there was a sense of jubilation that the High Command would agree for the separate Telangana state.

But the Telangana Congress leaders were suddenly taken aback when the Congress High Command conveyed that it wishes to give the Dy CM post along with the Home Ministry to Jana Reddy and another important portfolio to Damodar Reddy according to highly placed sources.

This sudden change of events has the required effect. Jana Reddy is said to be very elated at the offer. He knows that Rosaiah may not live long and if Rosaiah vacates the CM post then the Dy CM naturally becomes the Chief Minister. And with Home Ministry in his hands he can control the entire Andhra Pradesh.

Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in his second annual letter, has lauded the efforts of Congress MP Rahul Gandhi and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in the area of healthcare.

While the former Microsoft chairman spoke about his first year of working with the foundation in his first letter, he devoted his second letter to ‘innovation’ and how it impacts priorities of the foundation. Gates recently joined the micro-blogging site Twitter (and has nearly 340,000 followers), rejoined social networking site Facebook and also launched a website — thegatesnotes.com — on which he shares his thoughts.

In his second letter, Gates notes: “One particular highlight from the year came last summer, when I traveled to India to learn about innovative programmes they have recently added to their health system. The health statistics from northern India are terrible — nearly 10 per cent of children there die before the age of five.

In response, the Indian government is committed to increasing its focus and spending on health. On the trip, I got to talk to Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of Bihar, one of the poorest states in India, and hear about some great work he is doing to improve vaccination rates.

After Kavuri made the pungent remarks against the Telangana movement by claiming that the movement is run by Maoists and Anti Social elements it is the turn of another Congress leader, Anam Vivekananda Reddy to turn his guns on the Telangana movement.

Anam alleged that the Telangana JAC is dominated by two groups. One belonging to the TRS party members and another that of Maoists and their sympathizers. He claimed that if Telangana separates then the new state would be run over by Maoists it would become a virtual hell. He appealed to the Telangana people not to fall into the trap of the TRS party.

He also claimed that there are now very few Congress leaders in the Telangana JAC and even those few leaders would quit the JAC in few days.

Almost two months after its initial announcement, Samsung has finally bought its latest high-end phone, the S8300 Ultra Touch to India.

The S8300 happens to be the world's first AMOLED touch screen phone featuring an 8-megapixel camera. First seen just before the Mobile World Congress 2009 (MWC) back in February, we were unsure of the phone's arrival date in India. The phone features a large 7.2 cm, scratch resistant, AMOLED display and is just 12.7mm thin.

The phone features an 8 megapixel camera unit with dual power LED flash and smile shot mode. Other features include GPS navigation, geo-tagging via the GPS chip that allows you to tag photos with geographic information, 30fps VGA video recording and HSDPA 7.2 Mbps.

The Lok Sabha election campaigns all over India is a witness to no great political agendas rather it bears testimony to political parties and politicians trading charges against each other. This 'trade-charging' in Indian politics indicate a degenerating standard of political communications in India.

For last some days, India has been seeing a rising political temperature concerning Lok Sabha elections with arrest orders against Railway Minister Lalu Prasad for threatening BJP candidate Varun Gandhi, and an emotional Sikh journalist hurling a shoe at Home Minister P. Chidambaram at a Congress press conference. Lalu Prasad even threatened of running a roller over Varun Gandhi for his alleged communal speech.

LK Advani openly said Incumbent Prime minister Manmohan Singh is not a capable person for a PM's office. PM retaliated by putting the whole responsibility of demolishing Babri Masjid on Advani, an allegation so heartbreaking for the latter that he cried loudly in front of press persons at a press conference.

Telangana leaders allege "Phone Tapping"

The Telangana leaders have alleged that the police along with the some government are actively tapping their phone lines. Speaking to the media today, the senior Congress leader and MP, Madhu Yashki Goud has alleged that the police are tapping their lines to know about their plans.

Citing an example, he said that recently they planned a dharna at a place in Hyderabad. Bu the police reached the place before them. He said that this can happen only if the police are actively tapping their phone lines.

KCR To Be Made Central Cabinet Minister?

The Central UPA government is seriously considering to induct KCR into the Union ministry. According to the hints given by the UPA government, the induction of KCR into the ministry serves two purposes. KCR can be reigned in for the time being and temporarily keep him away from the Andhra Pradesh politics. Another advantage is that the peace can be restored in Andhra Pradesh for the time being and give more space for the CM Rosaiah to concentrate on the administrative affairs.

But some Congress leaders are apprehensive of inducting him in the Central cabinet. Already Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh had enough headaches regarding the Telangana issue.