India has 545 million working cell phones thanks to its booming emerging economy, a number expected to reach 1 billion by 2015, the UN University said Wednesday.

That number exceeds the number of people who have access to toilet or sanitation facilities – only about 366 million, or 31 percent of the 1-billion strong population.

India’s number of cell phone users soared in just 10 years, from 0.35 per 100 persons in 2000 to 45 per 100 persons this year.

Worldwide, an estimated 1.1 billion people of the world population of 6.7 billion people have no access to toilet facilities. The UN Millennium Development Goals call for access to toilets by all people by 2025,

The UN University, a Canada-based think tank, made a study on cell phone users in developing countries to demonstrate that some countries may lag behind in achieving the goal of providing toilets and sanitation for all the world population by 2025.

“It is a tragic irony to think that in India, a country now wealthy enough that roughly half of the people own phones, half cannot afford the basic necessity and dignity of a toilet,” said Zafar Adeel, a director at the UN University.

UN University said it would cost an estimated 358 billion dollars to build toilets for half the world population between now and 2015. Each toilet costs 300 dollars.

The World Health Organisation and the UN Children’s Fund said programmes to provide toilets have fallen behind schedule worldwide and the 2015 goal may not be reached.

Check out how Indian bikers cruise their roads.

A sizeable number of Americans believe that the next Bill Gates would come from India or China as the two Asian giants are fast marching ahead on the global platform, a new US survey has revealed.

“When asked where the next Bill Gates will come from, 40 per cent of Americans predicted either India or China,” said a national survey released by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) on the sidelines of the world’s largest consumer technology tradeshow at Las Vegas.

The vast majority of them, about 96 per cent, believe that innovation was critical to the future success of the US as a world economic leader but they were concerned that the rising federal deficit would jeopardise prosperity of future generations, the survey said.

The economic survey, conducted by Zogby International, found that 68 per cent of Americans think innovation was key to the future success of their place of employment, with 50 per cent maintaining that innovation was important for their job remaining in the US.

After the World Economic Forum reported that the US has lost its global competitiveness ranking while India, China and Brazil have gained, 74 per cent of Americans said it was unlikely the US would regain its status next year. But 44 per cent pointed to innovation was the most important factor in seeking US competitiveness, it said.

According to the survey, nearly 60 per cent Americans agreed that the rising national deficit would have a major impact on the prosperity of future generations. But when it comes to reducing the deficit, they were largely split on three issues: discontinuing corporate bailouts (23 per cent), reducing military spending (20 per cent), and relying on the free market to correct the imbalance (31 per cent).

Nearly 60 per cent of the respondents said that they were concerned that current path being taken by Congress would be detrimental to medical innovation. Tensions seemed to run high: nearly half of them said they were very concerned, the survey said.

The Zogby survey was conducted between November 20 and 23, with a sample size of 3,779 US adults over the age of 18.

India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) on Monday reaffirmed commitment to multilateralism and to increased participation of developing countries in the decision-making bodies of multilateral organisations and institutions.

The three nations also reiterated the need for the UN to be reformed so as to become more representative and reflective of the needs and priorities of developing countries. The reaffirmation was made at a meeting here among External Affairs Minister SM Krishna and his counterparts from Brazil and South Africa, Celso Amorim and Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, respectively.

Bearing in mind the importance that developing countries participate in the procedures and deliberations of the UNSC on a continuous and regular basis, ministers recalled the urgent need to expand its permanent and non-permanent categories, in order to increase participation of developing countries in both.

Such expansion would make the UN Security Council more broadly representative, efficient and transparent, would enhance its effectiveness and legitimacy.

Ministers acknowledged the progress in the inter-governmental negotiations on Security Council reform so far and stressed the urgent need to achieve concrete results at the 64th session of the General Assembly.

In this context, they committed to coordinate with each other and the broader UN membership for achieving genuine reform of the UNSC at the earliest.

Meanwhile, Amre Moussa, secretary general of the League of Arab States called on Krishna to discuss the current situation in the Middle East. Other members of the Indian delegation included Hardeep Puri, Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations and Asith Bhattacharjee, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs.

India’s national space agency said communications with the country’s only satellite orbiting the moon snapped Saturday and that its scientists were no longer controlling the spacecraft.

Radio contacts with Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft were abruptly lost at 0130 Saturday (2000 GMT Friday), the Indian Space Research Organization said.

The agency’s monitoring unit near the southern city of Bangalore is no longer receiving data from the spacecraft, spokesman S. Satish told The Associated Press by telephone from Bangalore.

The spacecraft had completed 312 days in orbit and orbited the moon more than 3,400 times.

“We are studying the telemetry data and trying to figure out what is the problem,” Satish said. The space agency had received a large volume of data from the spacecraft — which is slotted in an automatic orbit of the moon — and most of the scientific objectives of the mission had been met, he said.

The spacecraft had been controlled from a monitoring center at Byalalu, 18 miles (30 kilometers) southwest of Bangalore, sending it commands to change direction, speed and to focus the cameras. Satish said it was no longer receiving commands.

The launch of Chandrayaan-1 in October 2008 put India in an elite club of countries with moon missions. Other countries with similar satellites are the United States, Russia, the European Space Agency, Japan and China.

The US$80 million lunar spacecraft has had problems earlier too. In May, the satellite lost a critical instrument called the star sensor. Two months later, it overheated but scientists were able to salvage the craft and resume normal operations.

The spacecraft had completed around 95 per cent of the two-year mission’s objectives, Satish said Saturday.

Scientists say the Chandrayaan project will boost India’s capacity to build more efficient rockets and satellites, especially through miniaturization, and open research avenues for young Indian scientists.

India plans to follow the Chandrayaan, which means “moon craft” in Sanskrit, by landing a rover on the moon in 2011.