According to Sophos that releases a spam report for every quarter, India led the pack for Q1 2012, followed by Italy, South Korea and the US. India also lead in Q4 2011.

Now India has solidified its position as the biggest global contributor to the junk e-mail problem. Most of the spammers probably don't promote Asian goods nor do they reside in Asia. Instead, they are simply relaying their messages through compromised Asian Zombie computers part of a botnet.

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Indian commentators criticised the TV special on Oprah Winfrey's trip to India in January, calling it myopic, unaware, ignorant and gauche, and 'snobbish and snooty.

Winfrey 58, drew particular criticism for remarks on the Indian tradition of eating with one's hands. A CNN-IBN news channel carried a blog that said "using one's hands to eat is a well-established tradition and a fact no Indians are ashamed of.

The programme was originally shown in the US in April but premiered in India just this month.

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The Pravasi Legal Aid Cell, a voluntary organisation of non-profit non-political organisations has been formed and has called upon the Indian embassy and consulate to take prompt and effective action to ensure legal protection and legal aid are available to needy NRIs in the country.

Called Pleace India, and registered with the Supreme Court of India the movement has asked that local legal advisors in Indian diplomatic quarters in Saudi be appointed to ensure suitable free legal aid to its citizens.

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The North American Punjabi Association (NAPA) has protested at the re-enforcement of a 45 year-old customs law that allows NRI women to carry gold jewellery worth Rs.20,000 and men Rs.10,000 free of duty. Otherwise 10 percent of the value is dutiable that will be considered an education tax.

NAPA president Satnam Singh Chahal called it ridiculous to apply this old stipulation when there is a several-fold increase in the price of the precious metal. Per this rule a woman can carry just 7.1 gm of gold jewellery and take just 3.5 gram into India. It is common knowledge that Indian women generally wear gold ornaments weighing not less than 40 grams.

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Some 550 representatives of sex workers from India and 41 other countries began their own seven-day meeting entitled 'Freedom Festival' in Kolkata, in protest at the US turning them down for visas to attend the international AIDS conference in the USA.

India's AIDS control programme has cut new HIV/AIDS infections by half in the last 10 years. One of its key strategies has been to scale up preventive education campaigns among high-risk groups.

Despite the significant drop in fresh cases, India still has the highest number of people living with HIV, with an estimated 2.4 million sufferers. Following India are South Africa and Nigeria.

25,000 people are expected to attend the US conference that runs till July 27.

Over 34 million people worldwide live with HIV and some 30 million have died from AIDS-related causes since the disease first emerged in the 1980s.

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