Toyota will kickstart its hybrid plans for India after years of speculation and backroom chat. The Prius is being seriously considered for an Indian launch and could hit showrooms as early as December 2009 or January 2010.

The news was confirmed by Chad Mullens and Jeffery L. Ross, member of the board at Toyota Motor Corporation. “The car is ready for launch in India and we are now looking at developing strategies to market the car,” he said. Toyota hasn’t taken a decision on the exact time, but is looking at doing a special preview of the car at the upcoming Auto Expo in January 2010.

Internationally, the Prius has been targeted at Hollywood actors, ecologically conscious individuals and opinion leaders, which has helped Toyota sell over 600,000 units of the hybrid car in less than a decade, while ramping up overall installed capacity to a similar number. “We might consider a strategy where the car might be sold by invitation,” Okamoto said. This might mean Toyota may also target Bollywood actors to spread the word, especially since the car will be priced between Rs 25 lakh and Rs 30 lakh.

So far, the only hybrid car to be sold in India has been the Honda Civic hybrid, that met with lukewarm success. Priced at over Rs 21 lakh when first launched in 2008, prices were slashed by Rs 8 lakh to attract more customers, for whom the regular Civic was available at Rs 12-13 lakh. The deterrent for Honda was the high level of import duty, pegged at around 110 per cent, as the Government of India doesn’t extend import duty benefits on alternative technology cars just yet.

While the Prius is sold in two versions — a luxury and a sport model — it is the former that is being considered for India. The Prius is powered by a combination of two powertrains — a petrol engine and an electric motor. The petrol engine is a 1.8-litre, four-cylinder mill with 98 bhp, while the electric motor, aided by a battery pack, takes the combined power to 134 bhp.

The advantage of the Prius hybrid is that it produces carbon dioxide emissions much lower than the required levels to meet the upcoming Bharat Stage-IV norms in April 2010, while reducing fuel efficiency at the same time. Toyota claims that its CO2 emissions are 43 per cent lower, while being about 20-30 per cent more fuel-efficient than a similar petrol-powered car.

Beer Myth 1: Beat the Beer Belly with Light Beer

OK, light beers have maybe 90-100 calories, regular beers generally have less than 200 calories. A beer lover would say the difference is comparable to the difference between McDonalds and a 5 star restaurant. A dietician would tell you the difference is negligible. So unless you are drinking 300 beers a week, I would drink the good stuff.

Beer Myth 2: The darker the beer, the more alcohol it contains

Not even close. Guinness is black, and has 4.2% alcohol. The color of a beer comes from the toasted malts, which has no effect on alcohol content. Ingredients like rice syrup, honey, and corn syrup add alcohol to beer, but do not influence the color.

Beer Myth 3: Beer is ruined if warmed and then refrigerated

This can be true, if you do it many, many times, and it will happen gradually. People think re-chilling beer will cause it to be “skunked”. Beer can be ruined by air, light and time. Temperature won’t ruin a beer unless it’s extreme. Get fresh beer and store it in dark place, and it will be fine.

Beer Myth 4: Imported beers have more alcohol than domestic beers

This comes from the way US beers reported their beers’ alcohol content. The rest of the world uses “Alcohol by Volume”, here is the US they used “Alcohol By Weight”. Since beer weighs less than water, US beers had smaller numbers, but not less alcohol.

Beer Myth 5: The Guinness they serve in Ireland is better

It seems widely accepted that beer in “the old country” is better than what they export to the rest of the world. The brewing process is cheap, so why would a brewery risk their reputation by brewing a different beer for export? It doesn’t make sense, and it’s not true. With few exceptions, the beer that is exported is the exact same beer that they serve in the bar across the street from the brewery. The difference is purely freshness. It takes two weeks for a keg of Guinness to get from Dublin to your favorite bar in the states. Some beers, like Fosters, is brewed in Canada under a license for sale in the US. But it is clearly stated on the bottle when this is the case.

Beer Myth 6: Beer shouldn’t be Bitter

The bitterness of a beer comes from the hops. Hops are in all beers to balance the sweet malts and to act as a preservative. Some beers have a lot of hops, like India Pale Ales (IPAs) and some beers have less hops, like Wheat Beers. Hops can give a beer complexity and add all sorts of flavors and aromas, like pine, citrus, and earthiness. Hops are why people say beer is an acquired taste, but they also make beer delicious.

Beer Myth 7: The best beers are in green bottles.

As it turns out, brown bottles protect the beer from the light much better than green bottles or clear bottles. This myth comes from when there was a shortage of brown glass in Europe after WWII. The European beers were bottled in green instead, so green bottles came to represent imports. This certainly isn’t the case anymore.

Beer Myth 8: The Thai beer Singha has formaldehyde in it

It seems widely believed that Singha is brewed with formaldehyde, as is Chang beer, San Miguel, Vietnamese 33, and Singapore’s Tiger Beer. The most believable explanation for this one is that Singha is much more bitter and contains more alcohol than most lagers. When American or British expatriots and soldiers were drinking beer in Thailand, they got drunk much more quickly then they were used to, and it was much more bitter flavor then they were used to. To explain this it was suggested that it contained formaldehyde. Crazy.

Beer Myth 9: Corona is Mexican Piss

In the 1980s there was a rumor that Mexican workers were peeing in the Corona tanks that were destined for the US. Certainly alarmingly disgusting… if true. As it turns out this myth was started as a result of Corona’s rising popularity in the US market, and who was jealous? Heineken. This was nothing more than a rumor started by a Heineken wholesaler in Reno. It all worked out, the guy from Heineken admitted his wrongdoing, and Corona continued it’s rise to popularity. But the rumor can still be heard today in bars across the country.

Beer Myth 10: Women don’t like beer

Thats crazy! My girl friend loves beer almost as much as I do. Women have brewed more beer than men in the History of Beer. Sister Doris in Bavaria brews Mallersdorf lager. Fortunately, this myth is far from true.

From childhood, most women dream of marrying a loving man who will treat them like a princess. As they get older, their attitude may change a little, but most women still harbor that desire to be a princess for a day. But at what age should a woman get married?

The recommended or ideal age differs across the world, and from person to person. The best age to marry is the time when a woman feels mature and prepared both physically and mentally, and feels responsible and ready enough for motherhood.

Research has shown that this seems to be happening at later ages over the course of time, and this is often attributed to the emancipation of women and increased personal power.

Sometimes the age of marriage depends on a national culture. Cultural traditions can be very important. Women in Finland will marry at as late an age as 28, while Indian women may marry as young as 19 years old.

Women in India are generally taught that it is their responsibility to have as many children as possible, caring less about the husband’s duties of managing money and acquiring a house. This is different from Finnish women, who are driven to provide income and housing for themselves first before having children.

The youngest age at which a woman marries appears to be in Nigeria, at 17 years old. The traditional custom is to marry the man their parents’ recommend and raise a family. Rarely do Nigerian women get the chance to marry out of love; instead their future spouses are arranged by their parents.

The latest age at which women seem to marry is 30 years of age, in Sweden and Denmark. Feminist ideals are popular there, so women concentrate on creating and providing for their own life before starting another. They get educated and have jobs, securing a way to provide for themselves and their future children before seeking a spouse.

Medically speaking, the optimal age for marriage and bearing children is 26 years of age. A woman is usually mentally and physically mature enough to bear the responsibility of birth and raising a child. This doesn’t mean you need to wait until that age, or that, if you’re older, marriage is out of the picture for you.

Above all, the right age to marry depends on your own personal experience. While research may point towards an ideal or optimal age, it can’t measure the most important part of a marriage – love.

Driving his dream Hummer landed Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh in trouble on Tuesday, when he was fined by Chandigarh Traffic Police for using the vehicle without a valid number plate.

Harbhajan had to pay a Rs 3,000 fine for the offence, according to reports.

Assistant Commissioner of Police (traffic), HS Doon, said that this episode would promote better traffic sense among the general public.

The off-spinner became the latest Indian cricketer to buy the American SUV after skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

Harbhajan imported the car from England, which costs about Rs 70 lakh in India. After paying the duty, the cost of the vehicle has come to Rs 1 crore.

While Dhoni’s Hummer is silver in colour, Harbhajan has opted for a “Black Beauty”.

Harbhajan is also looking forward to shifting to a new home.

The house is under construction in the New Baradari area of the city. The plot was given by the state government for his outstanding performance in the 2001 home series against Australia.

However, he has no plans to sell off his ancestral home where he was brought up.

“It has memories of my late father Sardev Singh,” he said.

A day after shutting all schools, colleges and multiplexes in Mumbai, the civic authorities changed tack on Thursday saying there was no need to panic over swine flu.

Nearly half of the 161 people who tested positive for the H1N1 virus in the city did not even need hospitalization. Just 27 remained in hospital, officials pointed out.

“We must remember that the H1N1 virus is here to stay and we have to live in symbiosis with it. We cannot stay locked up at home. People are concerned and want more information, but they are not worried,” said Dr Singh.Across the country too, public health experts scrambled to allay fears as the toll rose to 21, with a teacher in Bangalore and a woman and a man in Pune being the latest victims.

Tuberculosis kills more people every minute, so why don’t people wear masks to stop infection? That’s how the country’s leading epidemiologists and public health experts reacted to fears about the H1N1 virus. Most of the swine flu victims either had secondary complications or were admitted too late, said health ministry officials in Delhi.

H1N1 has caused 1,77,457 infections and 1,462 deaths in 175 countries. That’s about 8 deaths in every 1,000 infections, according to World Health Organisation data.

“It’s a new flu virus, like thousands of new flu viruses that have come and gone,” said Dr Bir Singh, professor, community medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). “The virus is mild, has caused far fewer deaths than other diseases such as tuberculosis. Spending public health budget on a flu virus and burdening the health infrastructure when there are so many other killer diseases around does not make sense.”

The virus is going to be around and cause more infections in the months to come. It’s time, the experts said, to learn to live with H1N1. “H2N2 and H3N2 were the common seasonal flu strains infecting humans and now there’s H1N1, which had been circulating in swine for three decades,” said eminent scientist Dr NK Ganguly, former director general Indian Council of Medical Research.

“It’s a flu virus, so people susceptible to seasonal flu are also susceptible to H1N1. The people dying are the same as those at risk from seasonal flu — infants, the elderly and people with existing diseases and compromised immunity,” said Ganguly.

“We must remember that the H1N1 virus is here to stay and we have to live in symbiosis with it. We cannot stay locked up at home. People are concerned and want more information, but they are not worried,” said Dr Singh.

In Mumbai, the health authorities are now trying to build “blanket immunity” in the community by giving Tamiflu to anyone who shows symptoms of H1N1.

“Even in UK, if a doctor sees that a patient has symptoms, he immediately puts him on Tamiflu. We can’t wait for the test report,” said Dr Jairaj Thanekar, Executive Health Officer of the civic body.

And it was not harmful to take the drug even if one tests negative for H1N1, claimed Sanjay Oak, director of medical education and KEM Hospital dean.

“Ten tablets of Tamiflu will not cause any harm,” he said.

The government declared a holiday on Friday for Mumbai and suburbs but home quarantine appeared to be the last thing on people’s mind as they prepared to enjoy the unexpected long weekend.

In Delhi, people accepted schools closing down without a murmur, but did not hesitate to visit multiplexes and malls with their friends and family.

And H1N1 is unlikely to affect the Maharashtra Assembly poll schedule as no political party had requested for postponement, said Chief Election Commissioner Navin Chawla.

“In fact, the matter did not come up for discussion… We’re keeping a close watch [on the pandemic],” said the chief election commissioner.