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The Indian government has raised prices of petroleum products despite fears that it will worsen inflation and lead to popular protests. Petrol, diesel and cooking gas will be dearer from Wednesday midnight, federal oil Minister Murli Deora said.

India imports 75% of its oil, and spends billions of dollars subsiding fuel for its citizens. Petroleum Minister Murli Deora has announced that excise duty on HSD and petrol has been reduced by Re 1 (current rate Rs 14.35 for petrol - Rs 4.60 for diesel). Petrol prices have been hiked by Rs 5, diesel by Rs 3 and LPG price hiked by Rs 50 per cylinder.

Customs duty on crude has been reduced to nil from 5%. The duty cuts would amount to Rs 22,660 crore in revenue loss, the Revenue Secretary said. The price hike will be effective from midnight today.

The Petroleum secretary has said that the Finance Minister has agreed to duty changes to mitigate losses. The Revenue Secretary has said that Rs 65,000 crore of under-recoveries will be recovered from oil marketing companies or the OMCs and the public sector units or the PSUs. While Rs 94,600 crore of under-recoveries would be met by oil bonds and Rs 29,000 crore of losses remain unrecovered.

Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said that the government has made stipulation for oil bonds for OMCs. This is because the oil companies FY09 income loss will top up to Rs 2.45 lakh crores, he added. No increase in price of kerosene, however it is required to up diesel prices by Rs 31.58 per litre petrol by Rs 21.43 per litre, Deora said.

The oil PSUs and the government will soak up most of the under-recoveries. The Revenue desk says that Rs 21,010 crore of under-recoveries will be recovered via price hike. While the customs duty on other petroleum products will be down to 5% from 10%, the Revenue Secretary said. The Cabinet has decidedly approved the fuel price hike, said Murli Deora, Petroleum Minister.

In a broker poll behavior by CNBC-TV18, all respondents wait for a Rs 3-5 hike in petrol prices and Rs 2-3 hike in diesel prices. While 70% feel markets would react positively to the over Rs 5 hike in petrol prices. And 30% see neutral to negative collision in case of over Rs 5 hike in petrol.

Meanwhile Oil Minister, Murli Deora spoke saying that a roll back of the fuel price hike is not on the cards. He added that the price hike was inescapable. He also said that the he would ask for a SLR status for oil bonds but the RBI disagreed with the suggestion.

“Sex and the City” gross a lusty $5.5 million on Monday at the domestic box office, underscoring the well-paid weekday marketplace for female-skewing films and the pic’s unusually robust reach.Outside Memorial Day, the Monday sickening is the best for any non-holiday movie so far this year after “Iron Man’s” first Monday, in which it earn $6.9 million.”Sex and the City’s” four-day domestic cume was $62.5 million from 2,385 theaters through Monday, according to Rentrak. notch weekend haul for the Warner Bros. and New Line pic was $57 million — the sort of number generally reserved for male-driven event pics or children fare, not romantic comedies.”Sex and the City” even won the weekend crown over Paramount holdover “Indiana Jones and the realm of the Crystal Skull,” which earned $44.7 million from 4,264 in its second sesh. Boffo family cume is $219.2 million.

“Sex and the City” also deliver in its abroad bow with $37.5 million, but “Crystal Skull” won the weekend at the global box office, taking $71.5 million for an international cume of $266 million through Sunday.prosaic comedies don’t always travel so well offshore, although pics including “The Devil Wears Prada” have helped to reverse that trend.In the U.K., “Sex” took in a hearty $17.3 million from 460 location in its first five days, according to Rentrak. Released by Entertainment in the U.K., the film went into the weekend with $7.2 million banked after brisk trade on Wednesday and Thursday.Lousy weather over the weekend helped keep “Sex” biz upbeat as Brits sought indoor entertainment.As expected, gaggles of girls drove weekend ticket sales, but Brit bookers also report that the pic attracted couples on dates. “Men are being drag kicking and screaming to see it by their partners and actually finding they enjoy it,” said one exhib.

“Crystal Skull” dished a respectable 55% in its U.K. soph sesh to $10.9 million at 540 for a $54.5 million organization cume for Par. Despite the dropoff, the three-day weekend haul for “Skull” still outstripped “Sex,” which open to a boffo $10.1 million.In Italy, “Crystal Skull” held onto the top spot ahead of “Sex” in a holiday frame that also saw local Cannes prize winner “Gomorrah” and “Il divo” score generously.”Crystal Skull” dropped 30% in its second Italo weekend, which extended into Monday due to Italy’s state Day, pulling $4.7 million off 669 in the four-day frame for a $13 million running cume for Universal.”Sex” came in a solid second with $3.8 million from 533 via local distrib 01 Distribuzione.In Germany, the “Sex and the City” gals did all the thrashing as their movie debut kicked “Skull” out of the top spot. Film garner an imposing $7.5 million and benefited from the TV series’ huge popularity in Germany.”Crystal Skull” held firm in the top spot in France despite the arrival of “Sex.” “Skull” slipped a extremely respectable 39% in its next frame, moving the total to $24.3 million. But the “Sex” entry was not dull. Pic took $6.2 million on 550 in its first five days for city.

The United States should ban eight foodstuff dyes, used in products including General Mills Inc.’s Lucky Charms breakfast cereal, because of links to hyperactivity and other disruptive behavior in children, a health advocacy group said.The Center for Science in the community Interest said yesterday it petitioned the Food and Drug organization to outlaw coloring listed on ingredient labels under names such as Blue 2 and Red 40.Studies over three decades have shown that some children’s behaviors are worsened by the dyes, whose use has been rising, according to the center. The FDA says it hasn’t seen evidence the food coloring has cause harm. The dyes can copy the blush of fruits or vegetables and are often used in candy, soda, and snack foods intended at children.

“The sustained use of false food dyes is the secret shame of the food industry and the cops in Washington that are supposed to be protecting the public from unhealthy ingredients,” said Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the Washington-based center.The FDA said in a brochure posted on its website, dated November 2004, that there was no evidence linking food coloring to hyperactivity. The agency is unaware of any in order since then to change its position, said a spokeswoman in an e-mail.”Although this theory was popularized in the 1970s, well-controlled studies conducted since then have produced no proof that food additives cause hyperactivity or learning disabilities in children,” according to the agency’s brochure.

foodstuffs contain the dyes include Kraft Foods Inc.’s guacamole flavor dip, which gets its “greenish” color from Yellow 5, Yellow 6, and Blue 1 rather than from avocados, according to the center, which wants to ban each of those dyes. The “blue bits” in Aunt Jemima blueberry waffles, made by a company owned by Blackstone Group LP, are blue since of Red 40 and Blue 2, not blueberries, according to the middle.The group also wants the FDA to ban Green 3, Orange B, and Red 3. Many of the dyes are produced in China and India, according to the center.The center’s petition urges the FDA to require a warning label on foods with false dyes while it consider the ask for to forbid them.

Astronauts on the first spacewalk of the shuttle Discovery’s mission to the International Space Station freed a new Japanese-made laboratory from its jetty in the shuttle payload bay on Tuesday so that it could be detached.The two spacewalkers, Col. Michael E. Fossum of the Air Force Reserve and Col. Ronald J. Garan Jr. of the Air Force, moved quickly through events to free the laboratory, known as Kibo, Japanese for “hope.” Astronauts inside the station then used a mechanical arm to pluck the bus-size module out of the shuttle and attach it dexterously to the side of the station.Kibo is so large that it has to be taken up in three parts; the first, a small module filled with equipment, was delivered in March. The final part of the laboratory, an out-of-doors policy, will be delivered on a later undertaking. The astronauts also tested methods for onslaught a damaged part of the electrical system, a rotating joint that turn the solar arrays toward the Sun but that has been largely stilled since last year, when vibration in the joint and metal shavings were detected. NASA is still trying to determine the cause of the injure to the joint and how to repair it. While difficult onslaught methods with a scraper, wipes and grease, but, Colonel Fossum explored a spot of damage that turned out to be a depression in the “race ring” that the joint turns on. At a news talks after the spacewalk, Kirk Shireman, the head of the space posting syllabus, said that most of the station administration team had probable that damaged spot to be a divot as unrelated to a raised bump of “pancaked” shavings, and “of the two options, that’s the worst one,” since it wealth that the break to the ring “will most likely propagate” as the joint is operated.On Wednesday, the team will try to repair the station’s toilet, which has developed trouble with urine collection. Even if the spare part ship up from Earth does not work, Mr. Shireman said, there are enough supplies of option devices for collecting urine that the station crew will be able to stay on board the rank until the next supply vehicle arrives in September. Some of those alternatives, like the plastic “Apollo bags,” are not “particularly pleasurable,” he said, but will serve the purpose.Cmdr. Kenneth T. Ham of the Navy, who synchronized the spacewalk, said, “You guys did an awful lot of great work today, and it looked like you were having a lot of fun on the way.”Colonel Fossum respond, “Great labor, quarterback.”

Tatum O’Neal blame her dog’s death for her bad decision to buy Crack off a common street dealer.performer O’Neal has squarely blamed her arrest in New York on Sunday over the death of her dog, maintain the loss fueled her drug usage.The performer, who won an Oscar as a child and revealed a life of addiction and miserable family memories in her journal, “A Paper Life,” was arrested by police on Sunday night, after a narcotics team experiential her commerce with a known drug dealer three blocks from her home in New York.First, O’Neal state her drug purchase was “do research” for a big screen role, but she has now claim it was her dog’s death three weeks ago that “set her off.” She tells the New York Post, “There’s no plea for what I did. (But) I lost my Scottish terrier, Lena. That seemed to set me off.”She get old. She got cancer. She was the fabric of our family. We had to let her go to paradise. My daughter and I had to put her down. It was too horrible for words.”I couldn’t get out of it. I was going to my analyst. I was doing all I could do. I have the illness of alcoholism. It’s lifelong. I treat it every day by leaving in the direction of my 12-step agenda.”O’Neal credits the cops for her salvation, “I’m still sober! Just when I was about to change that and wreck my life, the cops came and saved me!”I was saved by the bell, by the guys in the Seventh Precinct.”O’Neal is facing one wrong accuse of criminal control of a controlled matter and will be in court on July 28.