GLIMPSE OF ASSAM

Ajmal is Pakistani, admits Islamabad after media report Nirupama Subramanian But its National Security Adviser Durrani pays the price   Mahmud Ali Durrani ISLAMABAD : On a day of fast-moving events, Pakistan was forced to take the difficult step of formally acknowledging the Pakistani nationality of Mohammad Ajmal Amir, the lone surviving Mumbai attacker after a media report quoting an unnamed “top” official reported it earlier in the day. But in the process, the Prime Minister’s National Security Adviser Major-General (Retd.) Mahmud Ali Durrani, seen to have been the source of the report on Dawn News television, and in addition quoted by CNN-IBN on its website as confirming to it Ajmal’s nationality, lost his job. “Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani has sacked his Adviser on National Security Mr. Mahmud Ali Durrani for his irresponsible behaviour for not taking Prime Minister and other stakeholders into confidence and lack of coordination on matters of

Mike enthrals students from space Staff Reporter  GUWAHATI, Jan 7 — Edward Michael Finke, the NASA astronaut, who is popularly known as Mike Finke, today enthused the schoolchildren of the city’s Axam Jatiya Vidyalaya by talking to them from the International Space Station (ISS). The Space Station is rotating round the earth at a distance of 350km. This is for the first time in the country that school students talked to someone aboard the ISS. The International and Indian chapters of the Friends of Assam and Seven Sisters (FASS), in association with the NASA, coordinated the event. In the conversation that lasted for ten minutes since 1-31 pm, 14 students took part and Rector of the school Ranjit Narayan Deka initiated the conversation with a brief introduction of the school and himself.  Mike, 41, answered the questions of the Jatiya Vidyalaya students with warmth. He also answered a question in Assamese stating that he had a working knowledge of spoken Assamese. The questions of the