Three members of a family, including a married daughter, were hacked to death on the outskirts of Ranchi Sunday allegedly for practising black magic, police said.

Jhirghi Khakha, 63, was killed along with his wife Soma Khakha and 35-year-old married daughter Phulo by a group of villagers Sunday morning. “A group of villagers barged into Jhirghi’s house and dragged the family members to the fields, where they were hacked to death,” a police official told IANS.

The incident took place at Saugad Bustee under Tupudana police station, around 25 km from Ranchi.

The villagers alleged Jhirgi was an ‘ojha’ (exorcist). A girl who was under his treatment had died last month, inviting the wrath of her parents and relatives. They branded Jhirgi as a witch who practised black magic and caused the death of the girl.

To avenge the death of the girl, Jhirgi, his wife and daughter were beaten with sticks and rods and later hacked to death with axes.

Police have arrested three people in this connection.

Tennis legend Boris Becker is now sympathizing with the golf legend Tiger Woods over extra-martial affairs which would have done and subsequently faced a media storm over it too. Boris Becker says that he can understand what Tiger Woods must be going through now, because he himself had been in that situation once-upon-time, when he had fathered a love child, after a brief tryst.

“I experienced basically the same thing and can sympathize with him,” he told ARD television in an interview to be broadcast later Monday. “There are all these stories that keep emerging. Whether they are true or not doesn’t matter anymore. Every week there is a new woman,” Becker said, in excerpts from the interview published by the Bild newspaper.

The 42-year-old legend said that he hoped Tiger Woods could reconcile with his wife Elin Woods, who has reportedly hired a Hollywood divorce lawyer, but acknowledged that it would be “damn hard” because of the humongous number of his mistresses.

Becker said that he had met the 33-year-old Woods on a number of times, expressed surprise about the number of women with whom the golfer reportedly had extramarital affairs. He was amazed at the logistical angle of the affairs, that how in the world Woods managed to keep so many mistresses under wraps for so long.

Passenger demand in October rose 0.5% from a year ago, while air freight fell 0.5%, International Air Transport Association data showed on Monday.

“Passenger demand is now 6% better than the low point reached in March 2009, but 5% below the peak recorded in early 2008,” IATA said.

Air freight, a key barometer of the strength of world trade, tends to pick up early in the economic recovery cycle when businesses start to replenish their inventories.

IATA represents 230 airlines including British Airways, Qantas, United Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Emirates. It forecasts the sector will lose USD 11 billion on a net basis this year and USD 4 billion in 2010.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Johnson & Johnson said on Tuesday it plans to cut 6 percent to 7 percent of its workforce in a battle to prop up profits in the face of generic competition to its prescription drugs.

The company said the cuts will affect 7,000 to 8,000 jobs, and generate annualized cost savings of $1.4 billion to $1.7 billion in 2011, with $800 million to $900 million expected to be achieved in 2010.

J&J, which employs about 117,000 people worldwide, said it will take a charge of $1.1 billion to $1.3 billion against its fourth-quarter earnings, but did not change its 2009 earnings forecast excluding one-time items of $4.54 to $4.59 per share,

The cuts will mainly be achieved by reducing layers of management and simplifying business structures and processes, the company said in a statement.

J&J is more diversified than some of its rivals. William Weldon, the company’s chief executive officer, said the cuts are designed to ensure its broad-based operating model remains appropriately structured for long-term growth.

J&J joins the growing list of major pharmaceutical companies to slash jobs as big-selling drugs lose patent protection. J&J’s prescription drug sales fell more than 14 percent to $5.25 billion in the third quarter, hurt by generic competition to its epilepsy drug Topamax and schizophrenia drug Risperdal.

The company said the job cuts will form only one component of the savings and it will also seek savings at the operating level. The company has a global workforce of 117,000.

Drug companies are struggling to refill their pipelines with new drugs to offset sales lost to generic competition, and although they are acquiring products from biotechnology companies, the new products are not enough.

Pfizer Inc, Merck & Co and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co have all announced sweeping job cuts, as have British drugmakers GlaxoSmithKline Plc and AstraZeneca.

(Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf and Toni Clarke, editing by Dave Zimmerman and Maureen Bavdek)

Census bureau says 2020 count could include gays

SAN FRANCISCO — The U.S. Census Bureau is making an unprecedented effort to include same-sex couples in next year’s national population count, but legally married gay couples won’t show up as such in the official once-a-decade tally, bureau representatives said Thursday.

Statistical problems related to the development of the 2010 census form and the evolving legal state of same-sex relationships led Census officials to conclude that trying to include married gay couples in the overall snapshot of household marital status could yield an inaccurate number, said Gary Gates, a University of California, Los Angeles demographer who has been advising the bureau on gay issues.

Instead, same-sex married couples will be added into the category for unmarried partners, just as they were for the 2000 census. But in a marked policy departure, the agency plans to make the data on same-sex couples who described themselves as married available on a state-by-state basis.

By Lisa Leff, AP

Agro Tech Foods Ltd has informed BSE that Mr. Arun Bewoor has been appointed by the Board as the Director in the casual vacancy caused by the death of Mr. Satish Lal Tandon at its Meeting held on October 21, 2009.

Mr. Arun Bewoor has been inducted as a Non-Executive Independent Director and will also be member of the Audit, Investor Grievance and Remuneration & Nominations Committee