Ice Hotel in Sweden

Although ice hotels now exist in several cold countries, the Ice Hotel in Kiruna, Sweden is best known as the earliest. Since its creation in 1989, the hotel has featured in many television travel programmes, newspapers and magazines. With the exception of the beds, the entire hotel is made completely out of ice blocks - even the glasses in the bar are made of ice. The ice is made from water taken from the River Torne. The hotel features more than 60 rooms and suites, a bar, reception area and chapel. The hotel only exists between November and May.

Australia in India

World champions face off

The upcoming one-day series between India and Australia will see a face-off between two world champions. While Australia has been ruling the one-day circuit for over nine years now, India is the new Twenty20 world champions. Australia will also be looking to redeem themselves after their loss to India in the semi-final of the ICC World Twenty20. But they arrive here without their key fast bowler Shane Watson and middle-order batsman Michael Hussey. With Ricky Ponting and Nathan Bracken likely to miss out the first few matches, and India riding on the momentum of the win in South Africa, it can be expected that this series will be a closely-fought one.

The 36 Richest Indians in the World

Rank in world's richest
Name
Net worth in $ billion
Company

5
Lakshmi Mittal
32.0
Arcelor-Mittal

14
Mukesh Ambani
20.1
Reliance Industries

18
Anil Ambani
18.2
Reliance Communications

21
Azim Premji
17.1
Wipro

62
Kushal Pal Singh
10.0
DLF

69
Sunil Mittal & family
9.5
Bharti Telecom

86
Kumar Mangalam Birla
8.0
AV Birla Group

86
Shashi & Ravi Ruia
8.0
Essar Group

114
Ramesh Chandra
6.4
Unitech Group

137
Pallonji Mistry
5.6
Pallonjji-Mistry

210
Adi Godrej & family
4.1
Godrej Group

214
Shiv Nadar
4.0
HCL

230
Anil Agarwal
3.8
Vedanta

279
Dilip Shanghvi
3.1
Sun Pharmaceuticals

287
Indu Jain
3.0
Times Group

287
Cyrus Poonawalla
3.0
Serum Institute

349
Kalanidhi Maran
2.6
Sun TV

349
Grandhi Rao
2.6
GMR

390
Savitri Jindal & family
2.4
Jindal Steel

390
Tulsi Tanti
2.4
Suzlon

407
Subhash Chandra
2.3
Zee Group

432
Uday Kotak
2.2
Kotak Bank

458
Baba Kalyani
2.1
Bharat Forge

488
Malvinder & Shivinder Singh
2.0
Ranbaxy

557
NR Narayana Murthy
1.8
Infosys

618
Venugopal Dhoot
1.6
Videocon

618
Anurag Dikshit
1.6
PartyGaming

664
Jaiprakash Gaur
1.5
Jaiprakash Hydro-Power

664
Vijay Mallya
1.5
UB Group

717
Vikas Oberoi
1.4
Oberoi Constructions

754
Naresh Goyal
1.3
Jet Airways

754
Nandan Nilekani
1.3
Infosys

799
Senapathy Gopalakrishnan
1.2
Infosys

840
Rahul Bajaj
1.1
Bajaj Auto

840
Pradeep Jain
1.1
Times Group

840
Keshub Mahindra
1.1
Mahindra & Mahindra

INDIA--World Twenty20 Champions

Ten days earlier, India and Pakistan couldn't be separated in Durban. In front of a frenzied crowd at the Wanderers on Monday, they played out perhaps the best final ever seen in a major tournament. Once again, the ice-cool Misbah-ul-Haq threatened to drag Pakistan back from the brink, but the Indians just about held their nerve to clinch a five-run victory and the inaugural ICC World Twenty20.
The architects of the Indian triumph were the two left-armers, Rudra Pratap Singh and Irfan Pathan, both of whom scalped three wickets to scupper the chase. Singh struck in both his opening overs, having Mohammad Hafeez caught at slip and knocking Kamran Akmal's off stump out of the ground, but Imran Nazir played a blinder at the other end to keep his side ahead of the asking rate.

Two sixes and two fours came in Sreesanth's opening over, as Nazir cut and pulled with immense power. Sreesanth redeemed himself with a maiden to Younis Khan, but India still needed wickets as they sought to defend a middling total. The inspiration came from Robin Uthappa, whose unerring throw from mid-off to the keeper's end ended Nazir's blistering 14-ball 33.

Gambhir tried to break free of the shackles, and a massive six that thudded into the scoreboard at midwicket had the Indian fans dancing, but Gul's retribution was swift. An attempted flick-paddle went straight to Asif at short fine leg, and Gambhir's splendid innings was finally over.

Sharma had shone against South Africa in a crunch game, and he came to the fore again in the final two overs, taking Arafat for two fours before he lofted a slower ball from Tanvir in the direction of long-on. Hafeez got there, but could only tip the ball over the rope. On such incidents are matches between these two great rivals won and lost. On an enthralling afternoon at the Bullring though, there were no winners or losers, just a resounding success for a format that is undoubtedly here to stay.

Twenty 20- Fast and Furious

Thirty-two years ago, world cricket entered unknown territory when England hosted the first World Cup in 1975 - the form of the game was called limited-overs internationals, and only 18 such games had ever been played when England and India played the first match of the tournament. On Tuesday, it's time to set into motion another experiment as South Africa and West Indies kick off the World Twenty20 in a format which is only 16 matches old.Its really good improvement from 50 overs to 20 overs thats y its fast n furious .

Shortened attention spans, the plethora of entertainment options, and quite simply, the lack of time means everything has had to adapt, and over the next 14 days, we'll see just how successful that adaptation has been on the world stage. Early indications in the markets where the format has been tried in domestic tournaments - suggests nothing should stop it from being a rocking success: the weather in all venues is expected to be fair, the conditions should be excellent, and the domestic Twenty20 tournaments in South Africa have shown that the people have embraced it completely.


The hit-or-miss nature of the game suggests little time for strategy, but there'll be plenty of subplots which could be fascinating. It's still early summer in South Africa, and the nip in the air in the evening could offer the swing bowlers some reason to smile.

The cool conditions might not be to their liking, but in the domestic tournaments the slow bowlers haven't been carved about like you'd normally expect. Despite the absence of Muttiah Muralitharan, the spinners are still reasonably well represented - Daniel Vettori, Harbhajan Singh, Brad Hogg and Abdur Razzak are just some of the names who could push up their popularity ratings in this tournament.

The cricket will be the showcase, but there'll be much more than that on offer on the grounds. A live band practicing on the outfield suggested a loud opening is in store on Tuesday, while cheerleaders were doing their rehearsing act in preparation for all the fours and sixes which will be witnessed over the next couple of weeks.

See The Day And Night At The Same Time

THIS PHOTO IS ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL. BE SURE TO
READ THE TEXT BELOW TO HAVE A BETTER UNDERSTANDING
OF WHAT YOU ARE VIEWING. IT IS HISTORIC TOO AS THIS
IS THE LAST MISSION FOR COLUMBIA .

The photograph attached was taken by the crew on board the Columbia
during its last mission, on a cloudless day.
The picture is of Europe and Africa when the sun is setting.
Half of the picture is in night. The bright dots you see are the cities' lights.

The top part of Africa is the Sahara Desert .

Note that the lights are already on in Holland , Paris , and Barcelona ,
and that's it's still daylight in Dublin , London , Lisbon , and Madrid .

The sun is still shining on the Strait of Gibraltar . The Mediterranean Sea is
already in darkness.

In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean you can see the Azores Islands;
below them to the right are the Madeira Islands ; a bit below are the
Canary Islands; and further South, close to the farthest western point
of Africa , are the Cape Verde Islands.

Note that the Sahara is huge and can be seen clearly both during
day time and night time.To the left, on top, is Greenland , totally frozen .

England Wins Natwest Series

England won the deciding match in the NatWest Series at a chilly Lord's by seven wickets with more than 13 overs to spare. After the drama in the sixth ODI at The Oval, the game turned out to be an anticlimax as the weight of expectation once again got to India. Their batting, with the exception of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, was uninspiring and they lacked the firepower to trouble England's strong middle order.
Their total of 187 on a decent pitch was never enough, and it was only thanks to Dhoni's belligerent late onslaught that they mustered an even half-decent score. The ease with which Paul Collingwood and Kevin Pietersen, who added 114 for the fourth wicket, kept the scoreboard rattling along underlined the difference between the sides on the day.Rahul Dravid's decision to bat raised more than a few eyebrows, especially given the low cloud cover.

Between the 20th and 35th over there was only one boundary and England's change bowlers were able to operate largely unmolested as the innings hit the doldrums. Dimitri Mascarenhas proved almost impossible to get away, taking 3 for 23 in his ten overs from the Pavilion End.Of India's top eight, only Dravid failed to make a start and yet none of them were able to play the commanding innings that was called for. In the end Dhoni, who showed that he was able to do just that, was left with the tail for company. His exciting strokeplay hinted at what might have been but by then India needed fireworks from both ends.

Defending a low total, India's only chance was to bowl England out, and RP Singh gave them a great start by dismissing both openers in his first over, Luke Wright mistiming a pull and Prior steering a catch to Dhoni. At 11 for 2 England, briefly, were on the back foot.Pietersen and Ian Bell, who weathered the onslaught with few alarms then began to open up, but the real damage was done by their running between the wickets which was sharp and risk-free, sapping the fielders' resolve.

The end came quickly in a flurry of fours, and to the delight of those with more than an eye on England's football and rugby sides, Pietersen hit the winning run almost at the moment their games got underway.