A S Kashyap Delhi Metro services will be curtailed by only one hour on Diwali Thursday, with the last trains leaving various terminal stations at 10 p.m., it was announced Wednesday.
It was stated Tuesday that the last trains that day will depart from the terminal stations at 8 p.m., instead of the normal 11 p.m.
But this was extended Wednesday till 10 p.m “in view of the larger public interest”, an official statement said.
The Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry Wednesday launched the All-India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2014-15, an annual, web-based, pan-India exercise on the status of higher education in the country.
The annual survey collects data on several parameters, including student enrollment, examination results, education finance and infrastructure.
The data helps in making informed policy decisions and conducting research in education development.
A senior Railway Board official was arrested by the CBI Wednesday for allegedly receiving a bribe from a Mumbai-based tour operator in return for facilitating to run special trains and additional coaches for tourist purposes.
Ravi Mohan Sharma, a 1997 batch official of Indian Railway Traffic Service (IRTS), was caught by a team of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) while accepting the bribe of Rs.5 lakh at his Delhi residence.
Taking a strict action, AIBA has provisionally suspended India’s woman boxer Laishram Sarita Devi for refusing to accept the bronze medal at the Asian Games podium ceremony.
Protesting against a controversial verdict, Sarita in an unprecedented move, had refused to wear the medal around her neck as she broke down on the podium during the ceremony for the 57-60 kg category.
The mayor of the town of Vilvoorde in Belgium has ordered the closure of the local gurdwara for a month on the charge that it was harbouring illegal immigrants.
Belgian media on Tuesday charged that the Sikh temple “appears to operate as a magnet for Indians staying in Belgium illegally”.
The Flanders news and radio VRT website said that during a recent police raid 11 illegal immigrants were discovered in the cellars of an empty building in the neighbourhood of the gurdwara in Vilvoorde which lies outside Brussels.
A court here has sentenced a man to three years of rigorous imprisonment for cruelty to his wife.
“A person who marries a woman and brings her to his home, has a responsibility of not only keeping her happy but also to keep her safe from any danger inside and outside the house,” said Additional Sessions Judge Parveen Singh while sentencing Ashraf Ali Tuesday.
“The act of the convict (Ali) thus becomes more serious as the person who had the responsibility of providing safety to the deceased acted like a predator and inflicted cruelty on daily basis,” the court said.
Mexico was Wednesday bracing for a day of mass demonstrations by citizens outraged at the disappearance of 43 students almost a month ago.
Dissatisfied with the official investigation into the case, families of the missing students and others will later Wednesday gather in Mexico City and all across the country.
Protests were also planned as far away as London and the Bolivian capital of La Paz.
In Mexico City, demonstrators will march from the iconic Angel of Independence to the city’s main Zocolo Square.
The CPI-M Wednesday criticized the government decision to e-auction coal blocks and demanded that state-owned Coal India must be tasked to do all coal mining in the country.
After the Supreme Court quashed the allocation of 214 coal blocks, the government “seems to have decided to promulgate an ordinance empowering it to take back these blocks and reallocate them to private entities”, it said.
“This completely nullifies the coal nationalization act of 1973,” the Communist Party of India-Marxist said.
Pakistani and Iranian officials Wednesday agreed on intelligence cooperation at the border between the two neighbouring countries.
“The two sides agreed to boost intelligence cooperation with regard to border security,” said Khan Wasay, a spokesman for the Frontier Corps (FC).
“Cooperation between the two countries in battling terrorists is indispensable,” Dawn online quoted the spokesman as saying.
The meeting was held in Tehran between Inspector General, FC Balochistan, Maj. Gen. Ejaz Shahid and Iranian border force’s chief Gen. Qasim Razai.
The CBI Wednesday booked three directors of a private firm and officials of the Cabinet Secretariat as well as Special Frontier Force (SFF) for “repeatedly showing favours” in the purchase of high altitude tents.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has “registered FIR against three directors of Sai Baba Builders, consultants, unknown officials of Cabinet Secretariat and SFF for repeatedly showing favours in the supply of pre fabricated shelters for SFF at high altitude locations, causing undue gain to the supplier to the extent of Rs.22 crore”, a CBI official said.
Three people were injured Wednesday when a remote-controlled blast targeted a polio team in Pakistan’s Bajaur tribal region.
Official sources said that the polio team was targeted in Dabara area of Mamond tehsil, Dawn online reported.
On Tuesday, militants had threatened to target polio teams participating in the ongoing polio drive.
Pamphlets were distributed in different areas of Bajaur tribal region warning the tribesmen of dire consequences for continuing the anti-polio campaign.
IANS
The US is ready to cooperate with Cuba in the international fight against Ebola in West Africa, a spokesperson for the US State Department confirmed to Spanish news agency Efe.
“We welcome the opportunity to collaborate with Cuba to face this Ebola outbreak,” said the US official, who stressed the significant contribution made by Cuba in sending hundreds of doctors and health workers to Africa to battle the virus.
Former Cuban president Fidel Castro offered his country’s cooperation with Washington in combating the disease.
At least three civilians were killed and two others injured Wednesday in a roadside bombing in Yemen.
The early morning blast occurred near a military checkpoint in Shabwa province, an official told Xinhua.
No one has claimed responsibility for the bombing, but the official said suspected Al Qaeda militants were behind the attack.
Yemen has been gripped by a regional Al Qaeda insurgency since 2009.
Terrorist groups, mainly based in southern and eastern provinces, have launched frequent suicide attacks on army and security targets, leaving hundreds of people dead.
IANS
The peaceful transition, the first ever in the history of Afghanistan, to a unity government, led by President Ashraf Ghani and Dr. Abdullah Abdullah as CEO has, to great extent, given Afghanistan a sigh of relief, following the fiercely contested elections and respite to the major stakeholders in the region.
The confrontation, before the unity government was negotiated, had threatened to erode the cohesion, integrity and stability of Afghanistan and the region.
The devastating floods that hit Jammu and Kashmir last month have casted a shadow on Diwali celebrations.
Diwali, the festival of lights and sweets, was last year celebrated here with fervour. But this year the celebrations have seen a downfall as the leading sweet sellers and dry fruit sellers were inundated by the floods.Most of these shops have yet not resumed their businesses and those of few operational have not made any special sweets for occasion.
It was a pleasant Wednesday morning here with a minimum temperature of 18 degrees Celsius, normal for this time of the season. The Met office has forecast the sky will be clear in the day.
“The sky will be clear Wednesday and the day’s maximum temperature is likely to hover around 33 degrees Celsius,” said an official of the India Meteorological Department.
Humidity at 8.30 a.m. was 86 percent.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Diwali visit here Thursday to express solidarity with the flood affected people of Jammu and Kashmir will be packed with meetings, government sources said.
The prime minister is expected to land at the airport here around 1 p.m. Thursday. He will then go to the Raj Bhawan where he will meet members of flood-affected families, including women and children, from different parts of the Valley.
“He will chair a meeting to review the relief and rehabilitation operations by the state and the central government agencies,” a state government source told IANS.
A three-year-old girl child studying in a private school here was allegedly sexually abused Tuesday in her nursery class, police said Wednesday.
“We have registered a criminal case late Tuesday on a complaint by the victim’s father that his young daughter was sexually abused in the Orchid The International School premises,” Police Inspector T.C. Venkatesh told IANS.
The case was registered under sections 4 and 6 of the Pocso Act (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012) and section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against the unidentified suspect(s).
The Karnataka High Court Tuesday allowed the prosecution of BJP national vice president and former chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa and his kin in a case pertaining to the alleged encroachment of forest land in Shimoga district.
Setting aside the Shimoga sessions court order that dismissed the case in February for want of sanction from the state government, Justice Anand Byrareddy said the cases could be investigated, as Yeddyurappa was no longer holding a public office.
If the masses loved her in movies like “Highway” and “Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania”, Alia Bhatt has again won many a heart. Her latest short film “Going Home”, based on women’s safety, has gone viral on social networking site. The actress says the film is close to her.
The video was put on YouTube Oct 17 and it was accompanied by a post from its director Vikas Bahl that read: “I pledge to create a short film titled ‘Going Home’, in which we visualise a utopia for women, where, unlike today, mistrust and fear don’t dictate actions and decisions.”
The excitement of celebrating the festival of lights, which is on Thursday, is at its peak. TV actors too are excited about joining the revelries with their families.
Here’s what the actors have to say about their Diwali celebrations plans:
Adaa Khan: Diwali is not the same without family and friends. We have a family get together and we will burst crackers, have dinner together, gorge on sweets and play cards.
On the back foot on black money issue, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today hit back at Congress saying the party will be embarrassed once the names of people holding illicit foreign accounts are made public.
“The names (of black money account holders) will be public shortly… I can assure you there is no embarrassment I (BJP) will have when all the names are disclosed. There is some embarrassment the Congress party will have because of those names,” he said.
India favours democratisation and broad-basing of the global affairs of telecommunications and internet governance, Information Technology and Telecommunications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has said.
He was speaking Monday at the inaugural session of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Conference at Busan in South Korea, an official statement here said.
Bodies of a British couple were found in a hotel room early Tuesday, police said adding that preliminary inquiries suggest “a case of overdose of drugs”.
SSP Shalabh Mathur told media that “it appears the two were dead Monday night itself, as the food they had ordered had not been eaten”.
The British High Commission was informed Tuesday morning.
Police said the two was identified as James Oliver, 28, and Alexendra Nichola Gaskel, 24, from their passports.
On the occasion of “Dhanteras” a day considered auspicious for the sale and purchase of gold and other jewellery, people headed for jewellery stores in their vicinity to buy ornaments, as retailers attracted customers with discounts.
As per Hindu tradition, Dhanteras is considered highly auspicious for buying gold or silver. It is believed that any new venture undertaken on this day guarantees good results
Gold jewellery sales doubled in Rajkot as shoppers thronged markets ahead of Diwali.