Meteor strike in Russia hurts almost 1,000

MOSCOW: A plunging meteor which exploded with a blinding flash above central Russia , set off a shockwave that shattered windows and hurt almost 1,000 people in an event unprecedented in modern times.

Experts insisted the meteor's fiery entry into the atmosphere on Friday was not linked to the asteroid 2012 DA 14, which later passed about 17,200 miles (27,700 kilometres) above the Earth without incident in an unusually close approach.

But the extraordinary event brought morning traffic to a sudden halt in the Urals city of Chelyabinsk as shocked drivers stopped to watch the falling meteor partially burning up in the lower atmosphere and light up the sky.

The fall of such a large meteor estimated as weighing dozens of tonnes was extremely rare, while the number of casualties as a consequence of its burning up around a heavily-inhabited area was unprecedented.

Chelyabinsk regional governor Mikhail Yurevich, quoted by the RIA Novosti news agency, said 950 people were injured, with two-thirds of the injuries light wounds from glass shards and other materials blown out by the shockwave.

Windows were shattered by the shockwave across the city's region with the ministry saying almost 300 buildings were damaged including schools, hospitals, a zinc factory and even an ice hockey stadium.

"At 9:20 am (0320 GMT), an object was observed above Chelyabinsk which flew by at great speed and left a trail behind. Within two minutes there were two bangs," regional emergencies official Yuri Burenko said in a statement.

The office of the local governor said that a meteorite had fallen into a lake outside the town of Chebarkul in the Chelyabinsk region and television images pointed to a six-metre (20-foot) hole in the frozen lake's ice.

However it has yet to be finally confirmed if meteorite fragments made contact with the Earth and there were no reports that any locals had been hurt directly by a falling piece of meteorite.

Schools were closed for the day and theatre shows cancelled across the region after the shock wave blew out windows amid temperatures as low as minus 18 degrees Celsius (zero degrees Fahrenheit).

"Thank God that nothing fell onto inhabited areas," President Vladimir Putin said in a meeting with Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov, ordering him to look into how to warn citizens about such events.

'A large object weighing tonnes'

The Russian Academy of Sciences said in a statement that it estimated the body to be several metres long and weighing several dozen tonnes. "It burned up at a height of 30-50 kilometres... but pieces could have fallen to Earth as meteorites."

The meteor explosion appears to be one of the most stunning cosmic events above Russia since the 1908 Tunguska Event, when a massive blast most scientists blame on an asteroid or a comet impact ripped through Siberia.

"I am scratching my head to think of anything in recorded history when that number of people have been indirectly injured by an object like this... it's very, very rare to have human casualties," Robert Massey, deputy executive secretary of Britain's Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), told AFP.

But he stressed that he saw "absolutely no connection" between the Chelyabinsk event and asteroid 2012 DA 14.

Live images from a telescope at the Gingin Observatory in western Australia showed the asteroid looking like a white streak.

The time of closest approach was about 2:25 pm EST (1925 GMT), said the US space agency NASA, which had called the event "the closest-ever predicted approach to Earth for an object this large."

NASA estimates an asteroid such as 2012 DA 14 flies close to Earth every 40 years on average, but only hits our planet once every 1,200 years.

Paul Chodas, a research scientist in the Near Earth Object Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, called the meteor-asteroid combination an "incredible coincidence."

Chodas said it was "virtually impossible" to spot objects such as the meteor that struck Russia, which he called a "tiny asteroid", ahead of time against a daytime sky.

With the meteor quickly a leading trend on Twitter, locals posted amateur footage on YouTube showing men swearing in surprise and fright, and others grinding their cars to a halt.

"First I thought it was a plane falling, but there was no sound from the engine... after a moment a powerful explosion went off," witness Denis Laskov told state television.

The Chelyabinsk region is Russia's industrial heartland, filled with smoke-chugging factories and other huge facilities that include a nuclear power plant and the massive Mayak atomic waste storage and treatment centre.

A spokesman for Rosatom, the Russian nuclear energy state corporation, said that its operations remained unaffected.

The emergencies ministry said radiation levels in the region also did not change and that 20,000 rescue workers had been dispatched to help the injured and locate those requiring help.

- AFP/ck

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Vintage steam engine back on Shimla-Kalka heritage track

SHIMLA: The British era steam engine, KC-520, chugged on the Shimla-Kalka heritage track on Friday, after a gap of four years. The only narrow gauge steam engine, which dates back to 1903, KC-520 towed four chartered coaches, carrying around 25 passengers, mainly foreigners, successfully between Shimla and Kathlighat.

Railway officials at the Shimla railway station cordoned off the track when the engine set off on its journey around 11.40am. A member of the group from UK travelling in one of the coaches, Viam, told TOI, "It is wonderful to travel in the steam engine. It is certainly a momentous journey and weaving a magnificent image of steam spewing up while traversing through the verdant vales."

Sources said the steam engine was plying following a chartered booking by the UK group. The engine was sent to Amritsar in 2008 for repair works and brought back to Shimla on November 20. It ran a successful trial run on December 5, 2012. Information procured from the Baba Bhalku rail museum in Shimla reveals that the steam engine has been declared a heritage property by UNESCO and that it is the only one being run on the Kalka-Shimla narrow gauge. Technically, the engine's specialty is that it runs on a gradient of 1 in 33 around 3%, which is quite steep and a very difficult gradient compared to other hill tracks like that of Darjeeling.

This steam engine has been quite a hit with tourists, especially foreigners. This particular engine was run for the first time in 1905 and as compared to the diesel locos it requires repeated refilling of water. Before December 2012 it was last run on trial basis in November 2008 from Summer Hill to Shimla and thereafter taken to Amritsar. This engine was brought out of retirement from Saharanpur.

As per records, the KC-520 engine is said to be built by North British Locomotive Company for Rs 30,000 and was put out of service in 1971 after the advent of diesel locomotives. The KC-520 was again put into use in 2001 for small trips between Shimla and Kathlighat for foreign tourists, as well as high end tourists, besides persons of corporate sector and at a cost of around Rs 1.08 lakh for a short trip for 25 people, it became a popular attraction.

Aaron Kelly, a British tourist who travelled on the train, said: "The journey on this narrow-gauge rail line is always exhilarating, especially when a steam locomotive is used to draw the coaches."

Another tourist, Daniel Hall said travelling on a wheeled vehicle consisting of a coal-propelled engine "reminds me of the Raj heritage".

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Severe Weather More Likely Thanks to Climate Change

Jane J. Lee

BOSTON—Wildfires. Droughts. Super storms.

As opposed to representing the unfortunate severe weather headlines of the last year, scientists said Friday that climate change has increased the likelihood of such events moving forward.

And though the misery is shared from one U.S. coast to another, scientists speaking at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Boston said, the type of extreme event may vary significantly from region to region. (Related: "6 Ways Climate Change Will Affect You.")

Heat waves have become more frequent across the United States, with western regions setting records for the number of such events in the 2000s, said Donald Wuebbles, a geoscientist with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

But the Midwest and Northeast have experienced a 45 percent and 74 percent increase, respectively, in the heaviest rainfalls those regions have seen since 1950.

The extreme drought that plagued Texas in 2011 has spread to New Mexico, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and northern Mexico, said John Nielsen-Gammon, Texas State's climatologist at Texas A&M University in College Station.

"The science is clear and convincing that climate change is happening and it's happening rapidly. There's no debate within the science community ... about the changes occurring in the Earth's climate and the fact that these changes are occurring in response to human activities," said Wuebbles.

In 2011 and 2012, major droughts, heat waves, severe storms, tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, and wildfires caused about $60 billion in damages each year, for a total of about $120 billion.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climactic Data Center, these were some of the costliest weather events in the country's history, said Wuebbles.

President Obama argued in his State of the Union address this week that the time is ripe to address climate change, saying he would skirt Congress to make such changes, if necessary.

His proposals included a system similar to the cap-and-trade proposal killed in Congress during his first term, new regulations for coal-burning power plants, and a promise to promote energy efficiency and R&D efforts into cleaner technologies. (Related: "Obama Pledges U.S. Action on Climate, With or Without Congress.")

The researchers said they are glad to see that addressing climate change is on the President's agenda. But they stressed that they wanted the public to have access to accurate, scientifically sound information, not just simplified talking points.

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Carnival Cruise Ship Hit With First Lawsuit

The first lawsuit against Carnival Cruise Lines has been filed and it is expected to be the beginning of a wave of lawsuits against the ship's owners.

Cassie Terry, 25, of Brazoria County, Texas, filed a lawsuit today in Miami federal court, calling the disabled Triumph cruise ship "a floating hell."

"Plaintiff was forced to endure unbearable and horrendous odors on the filthy and disabled vessel, and wade through human feces in order to reach food lines where the wait was counted in hours, only to receive rations of spoiled food," according to the lawsuit, obtained by ABCNews.com. "Plaintiff was forced to subsist for days in a floating toilet, a floating Petri dish, a floating hell."

Click Here for Photos of the Stranded Ship at Sea

The filing also said that during the "horrifying and excruciating tow back to the United States," the ship tilted several times "causing human waste to spill out of non-functioning toilets, flood across the vessel's floors and halls, and drip down the vessel's walls."

Terry's attorney Brent Allison told ABCNews.com that Terry knew she wanted to sue before she even got off the boat. When she was able to reach her husband, she told her husband and he contacted the attorneys.

Allison said Terry is thankful to be home with her husband, but is not feeling well and is going to a doctor.

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"She's nauseated and actually has a fever," Allison said.

Terry is suing for breach of maritime contract, negligence, negligent misrepresentation and fraud as a result of the "unseaworthy, unsafe, unsanitary, and generally despicable conditions" on the crippled cruise ship.

"Plaintiff feared for her life and safety, under constant threat of contracting serious illness by the raw sewage filling the vessel, and suffering actual or some bodily injury," the lawsuit says.

Despite having their feet back on solid ground and making their way home, many passengers from the cruise ship are still fuming over their five days of squalor on the stricken ship and the cruise ship company is likely to be hit with a wave of lawsuits.

"I think people are going to file suits and rightly so," maritime trial attorney John Hickey told ABCNews.com. "I think, frankly, that the conduct of Carnival has been outrageous from the get-go."

Hickey, a Miami-based attorney, said his firm has already received "quite a few" inquiries from passengers who just got off the ship early this morning.

"What you have here is a) negligence on the part of Carnival and b) you have them, the passengers, being exposed to the risk of actual physical injury," Hickey said.

The attorney said that whether passengers can recover monetary compensation will depend on maritime law and the 15-pages of legal "gobbledygook," as Hickey described it, that passengers signed before boarding, but "nobody really agrees to."

One of the ticket conditions is that class action lawsuits are not allowed, but Hickey said there is a possibility that could be voided when all the conditions of the situation are taken into account.

One of the passengers already thinking about legal action is Tammy Hilley, a mother of two, who was on a girl's getaway with her two friends when a fire in the ship's engine room disabled the vessel's propulsion system and knocked out most of its power.

"I think that's a direction that our families will talk about, consider and see what's right for us," Hilley told "Good Morning America" when asked if she would be seeking legal action.

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Researchers collaborate on system to extend battery lifespan in devices

SINGAPORE: Researchers from Singapore and the US are collaborating to come up with a system that can extend the lifespan of batteries in devices such as laptops and smartphones.

The Institute of Microelectronics (IME) and Stanford University will work to advance innovations in nano-electromechanical systems (NEMS).

NEMS technology is known for its higher energy efficiency.

The system has the ability to stamp out leakage currents that occur during passive standby mode in electronic devices.

Leakage current is one of the leading sources of power consumption in digital systems, using traditional semiconductor switches.

By replacing these traditional switches with NEMS switches, the total power consumption of a digital block can be reduced by up to 10 times.

Dr Lee Jae Wung, the IME Scientist leading the project, said: "One of the challenges in building a reliable NEMS switch is in achieving Thin Film Encapsulation to protect the switch structure and the contact materials from degradation and oxidation by providing proper vacuum condition and/or filling inert gas inside the cavity. IME's capabilities in back end of line compatible materials and processes are expected to contribute strongly in this area."

"NEMS relay has proven to be an effective complement to conventional Si CMOS technology for reducing power consumption. The collaboration with IME will advance this device technology to a manufacturing process that is suitable for co-integration with Si CMOS in practical applications," said Professor Philip Wong, Willard R. and Inez Kerr Professor in the School of Engineering at Stanford University.

The Institute of Microelectronics (IME) is a research institute of the Science and Engineering Research Council of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR).

- CNA/ck

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They should answer if they can run a government, says Bengal governor

KOLKATA: Under pressure from an angry police force and a stung city, chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday reacted in haste and shunted police commissioner R K Pachnanda, making him the scapegoat for the political bungling over sub-inspector Tapas Chowdhury's death.

Surajit Kar Purakayastha was named the new police chief.

Pachnanda's removal triggered a stinging reaction from governor M K Narayanan, who said if the top cop's transfer had something to do with what happened in the last few days, "clearly, there is something that is wrong and we will have to look into it".

Asked if he would intervene, the governor said: "That you leave to me. We are a democracy, we have a government that was elected with a massive mandate. I presume they should answer whether they are capable of running a government or not. The governor cannot answer that, he can only act."

The abrupt transfer triggered severe resentment among police officers as well. Although it was Firhad Hakim - a powerful minister in Mamata's cabinet - who prevented the police from taking action in the case, Pachnanda was made the fall guy to save the image of the government, and Mamata herself.

In fact, it was Narayanan's tough talking earlier in the day that had forced Mamata to act. During a visit to the slain officer's residence in Thakurpukur, Narayanan said, "Law and order in the state needs to be restored immediately... No one has any business shielding the accused. Those named in the FIR should be arrested." It was a clear hint at Hakim's clean chit to aide Md Iqbal, whose bodyguard Suvan is suspected to be the shooter. Hakim had publicly said on Wednesday there was no need for further arrests. Narayanan minced no words. "Whoever has said so should not have made the remark," he said.

Hakim has got away clean - so far - in spite of accompanying Iqbal to the trouble spot just after the cop's murder. He had blatantly tried to pass the blame on Congress and even briefed the CM that way. Hakim was so brazen that leader of the opposition Surjya Kanta Mishra remarked that "the urban development minister is behaving like the home minister and the home minister (Mamata) acting like the tourism minister". Mamata was in Tekkhali the day of the murder and spent the next day in Digha.

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Why We Walk … and Run … And Walk Again to Get Where We're Going

You have to get to a bus stop to catch the once-an-hour express ... or to a restaurant to meet a friend ... or to a doctor's office. You've got maybe a half a mile to cover and you're worried you'll be late. You run, then you stop and walk, then run some more.

But wait. Wouldn't it be better to run the whole way?

Not necessarily.

A new study by an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Ohio State University tests the theory that people subconsciously mix walking and running so they get where they need to. The idea is that "people move in a manner that minimizes energy consumption," said the professor, Manoj Srinivasan.

Srinivasan asked 36 subjects to cover 400 feet (122 meters), a bit more than the length of a football field. He gave them a time to arrive at the finish line and a stopwatch. If the deadline was supertight, they ran. If they had two minutes, they walked. And if the deadline was neither too short nor too far off, they toggled between walking and running.

The takeaway: Humans successfully make the walk-run adjustment as they go along, based on their sense of how far they have to go. "It's not like they decide beforehand," Srinivasan said. (Get tips, gear recommendations, and more in our Running Guide.)

The Best Technique for "the Twilight Zone"

"The mixture of walking and running is good when you have an intermediate amount of time," he explained. "I like to call it 'the Twilight Zone,' where you have neither infinite time nor do you have to be there now."

That ability to shift modes served ancient humans well. "It's basically an evolutionary argument," Srinivasan said. A prehistoric human seeking food would want to move in a way that conserves some energy so that if food is hard to find, the hunter won't run out of gas—and will still be able to rev it up to escape predators.

The study, published on January 30 in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, doesn't answer that question of how we make such adjustments.

Runners: Take a Break if You Need It

The mix of walking and running is also something that nonelite marathoners are familiar with. Covering 26.2 miles might take less of a toll if the runner stops running from time to time, walks a bit, then resumes a jogging pace. "You use less energy overall and also give yourself a bit of a break," Srinivasan noted. (Watch: An elite marathoner on her passion for running.)

One take-home lesson is: Runners, don't push it all the time. A walk-run mix will minimize the energy you expend.

Lesson two: If you're a parent walking with your kid, and the kid lags behind, then runs to catch up, then lags again, the child isn't necessarily trying to annoy you. Rather, the child is perhaps exhibiting an innate ability to do the walk-run transition.

Potential lesson three: The knowledge that humans naturally move in a manner that minimizes energy consumption might be helpful in designing artificial limbs that feel more natural and will help the user reduce energy consumption.

The big question for Manoj Srinivasan: Now that he has his walk-run theory, does he consciously switch between running and walking when he's trying to get somewhere? "I must admit, no," he said. "When I want to get somewhere, I just let the body do its thing." But if he's in a rush, he'll make a mad dash.

"Talk to you tomorrow," he signed off in an email to National Geographic News. "Running to get to teaching now!"

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Obama urges a move away from narrow focus on politics of austerity

Just about every argument in Washington since the 2010 midterm elections, which returned control of the House to Republicans, has centered on reducing the federal deficit. On Tuesday night, President Obama leaned into his second term by declaring that a single-minded focus on deficit reduction would jeopardize the nation’s future. And he sounded an urgent call to rebuild.

Reelected by an ascendent coalition, the president spoke from a position of strength in his fourth State of the Union address. The economy is improving. The Republican Party is in disarray. The time has come, Obama indicated, to pivot away from the politics of austerity.

“Most of us agree that a plan to reduce the deficit must be part of the agenda,” he said. “But let’s be clear: Deficit reduction alone is not an economic plan. A growing economy that creates good middle-class jobs — that must be the North Star that guides our efforts.”

The president rejected the fiscal brinkmanship that defined the past two years. Instead, he framed future fiscal debates as opportunities to shape a “smarter government” — one with new investments in science and innovation, with a rising minimum wage, with tax reform that eliminates loopholes and deductions for what the president labeled “the well-off and well-connected.”

Second-term presidents have a narrow window of time to enact significant change before they become lame ducks, and Obama, while echoing campaign themes of reinforcing the middle class, made an urgent case for a more pragmatic version of populism, one that emphasizes economic prosperity as the cornerstone of a fair society.

Over and over, he noted that the time to rebuild is now.

The “Fix-It-First” program that Obama outlined to put people to work on “urgent repairs,” such as structurally deficient bridges, bore echoes of President Bill Clinton’s call in his 1999 State of the Union address to “save Social Security first.” Clinton’s was an effective line, one that stopped — at least until President George W. Bush took office two years later — a Republican drive to use the budget surplus to cut taxes.

Although Obama’s speech lacked the conciliatory notes of some of his earlier State of the Union addresses, he did make overtures to Republicans and cited Mitt Romney, his presidential challenger, by name.

He combined tough talk about securing the border, which brought Republicans to their feet, with a pledge to entertain reasonable reforms to Medicare, the federal entitlement program that fellow Democrats are fighting to protect.

“Those of us who care deeply about programs like Medicare must embrace the need for modest reforms,” he said.

Obama also pledged to cut U.S. dependence on energy imports by expanding oil and gas development. And he singled out one area where he and Romney found agreement in last year’s campaign: linking increases in the minimum wage to the cost of living.

Obama set a bipartisan tone at the start of his speech, quoting from President John F. Kennedy’s address to Congress 51 years earlier when he said, “The Constitution makes us not rivals for power, but partners for progress.”

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Papal 'cohabitation' poses unique Vatican challenge

VATICAN CITY: The Roman Catholic Church faces a unique challenge starting next month when a living former pope begins a "cohabitation" with his successor, both residing in the world's tiniest sovereign state, Vatican City.

The Vatican insists that the German pope, who stunned the world by announcing that he will retire on February 28, wants to keep a low profile in retirement.

"He will live at the Vatican in total discretion," Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said Wednesday. "His presence will in no way be an impediment, interference or a problem."

Nevertheless, Lombardi said the octogenarian's presence would be felt and "appreciated", and did not rule out an advisory role for the future pensioner, whose title has yet to be determined but may be Bishop of Rome Emeritus.

"If his successor wants advice from him he will be totally free to provide it... (but) this would in no way be required" of the former pope, Lombardi said.

Others in the Vatican are more nervous about the unprecedented situation.

Rino Fisichella, head of the Vatican department for the new evangelisation, said the former pope may eventually have to live elsewhere.

The Vatican on Wednesday denied an Internet rumour that the pope would take up permanent residence in the Abbey of Monte Cassino -- a famous monastery that was destroyed in World War II and rebuilt.

The cerebral former theology professor, who will turn 86 in April, is a prolific writer. He is currently completing a work on faith that started out as an encyclical but will have to be published as a book given Benedict's imminent abdication.

He is also expected to spend more time with his beloved cats and playing Beethoven and Mozart compositions on his piano.

An early signal of Benedict's intention to go quietly is his plan to leave the Vatican the day he steps aside, slipping away to the summer papal residence of Castel Gondolfo outside Rome.

The Vatican has been unable to say how long he will stay there, but has stressed he will not have any role in the Conclave of Cardinals that is to elect his successor in the third week of March -- in time for Easter at the end of the month.

His absence will allow workers to prepare the papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace for the new pontiff -- and complete renovations of the living quarters for the soon-to-be ex-pope in a former nunnery at the Vatican.

Benedict's choice not to return to his native Bavaria should surprise no one given that he has now lived in Rome for nearly four decades.

The little-known Mater Ecclesiae convent where he will reside was established by the pope's predecessor John Paul II to house cloistered nuns.

Their departure last November, two years earlier than expected, raised few eyebrows at the time but is now cited as one of a series of clues that presaged the pope's shock announcement, according to astute Vatican watchers.

The disused convent is an oasis of calm with its own gardens producing rare roses -- one of them named after John Paul II -- as well as vegetables and citrus fruit.

The peppers, tomatoes, courgettes and cabbages grown in the vegetable garden traditionally supply the papal kitchen.

Spread over three floors, the modern complex has 12 monastic cells upstairs, while the ground floor houses a kitchen, living room, library and chapel.

The cells are sparsely furnished: the only decorations to be seen are wooden crosses and a few paintings depicting scenes from religious life, according to the Vatican.

In retirement, Benedict is to revert to his birth name Joseph Ratzinger -- but canon law experts are looking into whether he can reclaim his status as a cardinal, or whether the new pope can make him a cardinal once again.

Asked if the pope would receive a pension, Lombardi hesitated but said the pope would not go hungry.

"We will ensure he can live a dignified existence," Lombardi said.

Some traditions usually observed at the death of a pope will be observed, notably the destruction of the Fisherman's Ring used to place the papal seal on official Church documents.

"It's an unprecedented situation, we'll see how it goes," Lombardi said.

-AFP/gn

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Hyderabad is the world’s second most affordable office market: Survey

BANGALORE: Hyderabad is the world's second most affordable office market after Surabaya in Indonesia, according to a survey, while Chennai and Pune are at fifth and sixth positions, reinforcing India's reputation as among the cheapest destinations for foreign firms to set up operations.

"Tier II cities in China and India continue to dominate the list of top-10 most affordable markets globally," said a survey by consultancy firm DTZ, which measured occupancy costs per workstation in 126 business districts across 49 countries in 2012.

"2012 has seen office space absorption rates across Indian cities drop by a fifth. We expect the office space absorption to be stable in the current year, driven by signs of overall improvement in global and domestic economies. Rentals are also expected to appreciate across the country," said Rohit Kumar, head of research at DTZ India.

According to the survey, it costs companies between $2,620 (about Rs 1.41 lakh) and $9,810 (Rs 5.27 lakh) per annum per employee in the top six Indian cities to set up operations, compared with $23,500 (Rs 12.63 lakh) per workstation in London West End.

China's Chongqing and Nanjing, followed by Cancun in Mexico, also figure among the ten most affordable markets. As per the report, a majority of markets in North Asia and India saw a 2-10 per cent rise in occupancy costs. This has forced occupiers in many markets to increasingly consider secondary space, particularly where prime space is limited to cut cost.

The total commercial office space absorption for the quarter ended December 2012 was 6.8 million sq ft, a decrease of 19 per cent compared with the previous year. Vacancies across cities are expected to rise in 2013, except Bangalore, a recent report by DTZ India said.

"Companies continue to consolidate and relocate to less premium locations. Many firms are now looking to cut real estate costs, which comprises 22-27 per cent of the total operational expenditure, the second biggest component after human resource," said Sridhar Raghavendra, founder of FM Zone India, a real estate and facility management firm.

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