New Delhi, Dec 2 (ANI): Re-polling at nine polling booths in three constituencies of Delhi Assembly began this morning.

The polling will be held till 5:00 p.m. in six booths in Malviya Nagar, two booths in Burari and in one booth in Matiala Assembly seats.

In Malviya Nagar, repolling is being held at booth numbers 59, 60, 62, 126, 127 while in Burari, repolling is taking place at booth numbers 14 and 72. Repolling is also being conducting on booth number numbers 168 in Matiala constituency.

The Election Commission had ordered repolling because the Electronic Voting Machines did not work properly in some of the polling booths. In other cases, polling was not held at the locations specified by the Commission.

Sixty-nine Assembly constituencies of Delhi went to polls on November 29. The counting of votes will take place on December 8.(ANI)

Brussels, Dec 2 (ANI): EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana has urged Pakistan to help Indian authorities investigate the terrorist attacks that killed 195 people in Mumbai.

Solana spoke to Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee following the devastating militant attacks in Mumbai, The News reports.

India on Monday formally accused "elements" in Pakistan of being behind the attacks.

In his conversation with Mukherjee, Solana reiterated his condolences to the Indian government, and "underlined the EU's readiness to cooperate with India to combat terrorism," his office said.

In his call to Qureshi, Solana "encouraged the Pakistani Government to pursue the fight against extremism and terrorism."

Without accusing Pakistan of involvement, he also urged Islamabad "to support the Indian authorities in the investigation on the terrorist attacks."

The European Union on Monday completed its coordinated action to evacuate injured European citizens from Mumbai.

EU Member States France and Sweden had joined forces to provide medical evacuation for citizens from Britain and Spain.

The final evacuation flights landed in London early Monday carrying three British and three Spanish citizens. (ANI)

Washington, December 2 (ANI): As Barack Obama moves closer to the January date when he will begin his term as the 44th U.S. President, new research suggests that people need not worry that the traditional ways of working at the White House will adversely influence his thoughts.

Published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the collaborative study has found that people are unlikely to be influenced by others when they are in a high power position.

The researchers behind the study say that powerful people tend to be comfortable relying on their own attitudes, insights, expressions, and intentions.

"Our research suggests that people may not need to worry too much about power corrupting Obama," said Joe Magee of New York University, a member of the research team.

"His newfound power might enable the change he desires rather than that power changing him instead. This is contrary to what most people think: that the longer he works in Washington the more he will be influenced by the same old ways of doing things," he added.

Lead researcher Adam Galinsky, the Morris and Alice Kaplan Professor of Ethics and Decision in Management at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said: "Our findings indicate that the powerful will generate creative ideas that are less influenced by others, be more likely to express attitudes that don't necessarily conform to prevailing peer pressure, and be more willing to counter with opposing views or statements in a discussion or argument."

The researchers carried out five experiments in order to determine whether the powerful are immune to influence in various situations, two of which were aimed at exploring the effect of power on creativity.

One experiment saw individuals participating in a marketing exercise and creating novel names for a number of different product types.

To give them some guidance in the task, they were shown examples of the kinds of names typically found for each product, but they were not allowed to copy any aspects of the examples provided.

The researchers point out that the problem for creativity is that examples typically place boundaries on imagination.

However, the results of the experiment showed that the high-power individuals had generated more novel responses that did not reflect attributes of the examples, suggesting that their creative thinking was less constrained than the thinking of low-power individuals.

The team examined susceptibility to conformity pressure from peers among participants with high or low power through another experiment, in which they were made to complete a task that most people disliked.

After completing the task, low-power and baseline participants' opinions of the task were influenced by a bogus feedback sheet displaying that ostensible previous participants had greatly enjoyed the task.

By comparison, high-power participants expressed dissatisfaction with the task, resisting the supposedly favourable opinions expressed by others.

The researchers deduced from that observation that high-power participants did not conform to what they believed others were thinking.

Another experiment had high-power individuals negotiate based on their deeply held values about cooperation and competition. Low-power individuals were found to be more likely to be influenced by the behaviour of their opponents.

The research also suggests that power, by leading people to express their underlying attitudes and thoughts uninfluenced by others, reveals rather than makes the person.

"Although power is often thought of as a pernicious force that corrupts people who possess it, it is the protection from situational influence that helps powerful individuals surmount social obstacles and express the seemingly unpopular ideas of today that transform into the ideals of tomorrow," Galinsky concluded. (ANI)

Chicago, Dec.1 (ANI): U.S. President-elect Barack Obama plans to announce Hillary Clinton, the New York senator and former rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, as the country's next Secretary of State at a press conference here on Monday.

A Fox News report said that Obama would also reveal his national security team and beyond, completing the nominations for a third of his Cabinet.

His selections include some of his most loyal campaign advisers and notably some who were not, including Democratic primary rival Clinton and President Bush's defense secretary, Robert Gates, staying in his current post.

Obama will also name Susan Rice as UN ambassador, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano as homeland security chief and Eric Holder as attorney general, Democratic officials told FOX News.

Last week, he named key members of his economic team, including Timothy Geithner, president of Federal Reserve Bank of New York, as treasury secretary. Obama is not yet ready to name his intelligence advisers, one Democratic official said.

To clear the way for his wife to take the job, former President Bill Clinton agreed to disclose the names of every contributor to his foundation since its inception in 1997. He'll also refuse donations from foreign governments to the Clinton Global Initiative, his annual charitable conference, and will cease holding CGI meetings overseas.

Bill Clinton's business deals and global charitable endeavors were expected to create problems for Hillary's nomination.

But in negotiations with the Obama transition team, the former president agreed to several measures designed to bring transparency to his post-presidential work, including:

-- to volunteer to step away from day-to-day management of the foundation while his wife is secretary of state.

-- to submit his speaking schedule to review by the State Department and White House counsel.

-- to submit any new sources of income to a similar ethical review.

"It's a big step," said Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who said he plans to vote to confirm Clinton.

Lugar said there would still be "legitimate questions" raised about the former president's extensive international involvement.

The Clinton pick was an extraordinary gesture of goodwill after a year in which the two rivals competed for the Democratic nomination in a long, bitter primary battle.

Advisers said Obama had for several months envisioned Clinton as his top diplomat, and he invited her to Chicago to discuss the job just a week after the November 4 election. The two met privately November 13 in Obama's downtown transition office.

Clinton was said to be interested and then to waver, concerned about relinquishing her Senate seat and the political independence it conferred. Those concerns were largely ameliorated after Obama assured her she would be able to choose a staff and have direct access to him, advisers said.

Remaining in the Senate also may not have been an attractive choice for Clinton. Despite her political celebrity, she is a relatively junior senator without prospects for a leadership position or committee chairmanship anytime soon.

Clinton, 61, a Chicago native and Yale Law School graduate, practiced law and served as the First Lady of Arkansas during her husband's 12 years as governor of the state, from 1979-81 and 1983-1992.

Clinton was the nation's First Lady from 1993 to 2001. The same year George W. Bush defeated Al Gore to succeed her husband in the White House, Clinton ran for the Senate as a New York Democrat. She won re-election in 2006 and was widely regarded as the favorite for her party's nomination for president in 2008.

In the Senate, Clinton served on the Armed Services Committee, the Committee on Environment and Public Works and the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. (ANI)