Gali Nagaraja Every ninth person in the world is aged 60 and above and their numbers will increase to one in five by 2050, numbering two billion elderly, a UN agency has concluded.
Those over 100 years of age too will witness an exponential 10-time growth from 316,600 in 2011 to 3.2 million by 2050, the ‘Ageing in the Twenty-First Century : A Celebration and A Challenge’ report said.
The on-going violence against the Rohingya people is part of a very sinister and calculated national project towards ethnically cleansing through the state sponsored pogrom that has already resulted in the estimated deaths of tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims. Nearly a hundred thousand Rohingyas are internally displaced, who are also denied access to food and shelter.
The Myanmar government and the Rakhine state administration are guilty of practicing an apartheid policy towards the Rohingya people. They are also guilty of committing crimes against humanity.
Six people, five Germans and a Chinese national, died and 14 passengers were injured after a tourist bus collided with a truck and caught fire Monday near here, police said.
The bus was carrying a group of German tourists and was driving on a pivotal expressway linking Beijing with Shanghai when the accident happened at 8.30 a.m., reported Xinhua, quoting the police.
The tour group was organised by the Beijing-based China Youth Travel Service.
Witnesses said they saw a few people escape the flames.
A photo posted on the web showed the whole vehicle engulfed in flames.
All praise for Yuvraj Singh’s small but notable contributions in World Twenty20 campaign so far, skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni said the all-rounder, who returned to cricket after beating cancer, is an indispensable part of his T20 line-up.
Yuvraj, playing his first international event after recovering from a rare germ cell cancer, has been in decent form both with the bat and ball besides making his mark as an agile fielder.
Kingfisher Airlines faced fresh turbulence with about two dozen flights being cancelled following a strike by maintenance engineers, an airport official said Monday.
Aircraft maintenance engineers, whose aircraft airworthiness clearance is mandatory for any flight to take off, struck work suddenly Sunday night over non-payment of salaries and dues for almost six months.
A Kingfisher spokesperson confirmed the development and said: “They have been threatening, and even manhandling the employees who are reporting to work as usual.”
The Trinamool Congress rally here Monday was not just a dharna but a “protest” and aimed at giving voice to the ‘aam aadmi’, the party said.
“It is not a dharna, it is a protest rally. All our MPs will protest, but I have not brought anyone from Bengal,” Mamata Banerjee, Trinamool supremo and West Bengal chief minister, said.
The Trinamool Congress will never ally with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA or join any front that includes the Left, party general secretary Mukul Roy has said.
But the former railway minister did not rule out the possibility of reconciling with the Congress party if it decides to scrap foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail and the diesel price hike.
“If the Congress rolls back FDI in retail and the fuel price hike, then they can approach us,” Roy told IANS.
The Brazilian embassy in Islamabad is organising free of charge classes for Capoeira, a native Brazilian art form that combines music, wrestling, dance, rhythm, song and movement into a martial art.
The News International said the art form was practiced across Brazil and was recently spreading all over the world.
The art form “emphasises the struggle for freedom” and the need for community in taking an inclusive approach to building healthier, stronger ties between its practitioners and with the wider society at large.
The Telangana Joint Action Committee (JAC) late Sunday night called off the Telangana march.
Hundreds of protestors dispersed peacefully at midnight after JAC convenor M. Kodandaram announced that they were calling off the march.
Earlier, the JAC leaders had declared that they would not leave the Necklace Road on the banks of Hussain Sagar lake unless the central government announces a roadmap for the formation of separate Telangana state.
Though the police permission for the march ended 7 p.m. Sunday, the protestors refused to leave the place.
Iran has exported 15 million tonnes of iron ore worth over $600 million, despite Western sanctions against the country, a media report said Sunday.
China is a major buyer of Iran’s iron ore. Other countries include Pakistan, Austria, Jordan, the UAE, Indonesia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, India and Vietnam.
Iran has produced 23,218,093 tonnes of iron ore in the first 10 months of 2011, the ISNA news agency reported.
Rising cases of Hepatitis B infection in Bhutan has become a major health concern.
Last year alone, 744 Hepatitis B cases were reported, Jigme Dorji Wangchuk, a doctor at the National Referral Hospital here, said.
The higher rate of detection was due to the increasing number of testing centres. But Bhutan also has Hepatitis A and C, The Bhutanese daily quoted Wangchuk as saying.
Hepatitis B infection could lead to liver cirrhosis and cancer. The virus is spread through blood transfusion, unsafe sex or sharing of needles contaminated by the virus.
Pakistan has reduced the prices of petrol, diesel, kerosene oil and CNG (compressed natural gas) in a bid to boost the economy.
The maximum reduction was in petrol (by six rupees ($0.0632) per litre), followed by CNG (five rupees per kg), kerosene (40 paisa) and diesel (14 paisa), Geo TV reported.
The new prices will be effective from Oct 1. The government approved the new prices of the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) Sunday.
Petrol will now cost Rs.102.45 per litre, diesel Rs.113.16, kerosene Rs.101.23, light diesel Rs.96.22 per litre and CNG by about Rs.5 per kg.
With tension running high in Hyderabad in view of the Telangana march, Andhra Pradesh Police Sunday kept a vigil on the protestors from the skies.
Police chief Dinesh Reddy and other top officials were making an aerial survey of various parts of the city where protestors were fighting pitched battles with police.
Fitted with high resolution cameras, the chopper flew low over Osmania University which turned into a battle zone. The students raised slogans of “Police go back” as the helicopter made a sortie over the campus.
In an unprecedented development, Members of Parliament from the Telangana region belonging to the ruling Congress party sat in protest Sunday outside the camp office of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy.
Protesting the large-scale arrests of Telangana supporters coming to Hyderabad for participating in the Telangana march, a group of eight MPs marched to the chief minister’s camp office in the high-security Begumpet area.
The deaths of at least nine newborn children in a single day at a hospital in Pakistan has led to concerns over negligence and dearth of facilities in paediatrics centres in the country, media reports said Sunday.
The Chandka Medical College Hospital in Larkana in Sindh province confirmed Saturday the deaths of the nine newborn children in 12 hours at its paediatrics department, the Dawn newspaper reported.
Sindh Governor Ishratul Ebad Khan, Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah and Health Minister Sagheer Ahmed have ordered an inquiry into the incident.
His father David Dhawan is known for making comedies and he himself is making his debut with candyfloss romance, but Varun Dhwawan relates more with darker cinema and would love to be part of scripts like “Dev D” and “Shaitaan”.
The average age of newly-recruited Islamist militants in Russia’s volatile North Caucasus region is on a constant decrease, with more and more teenagers joining the terrorists, a presidential envoy said.
“These days, the insurgency is already drawing on 17 to 18-year-old boys, fresh out of school,” said Alexander Khloponin, the Kremlin’s envoy to the North Caucasus.
In 2008, the average age of militants killed in the North Caucasus stood between 19 and 23 years, according to official data.
Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan is under the weather as he has been “coughing my lungs and stomach away” and says that he is going through “pains with each expulsion”.
“An awful night, coughing my lungs and stomach away… stomach which has surgical left overs and still in process of repair. Pains with each expulsion.”
The US embassy here Sunday condoled the passing away of India’s first national security adviser Brajesh Mishra, describing him as “an extraordinary champion” of close India-US ties.
In a message issued here, the US embassy said it is “greatly saddened” by the passing of Mishra, and on behalf of the American people and the government, conveys its sincere condolences to his family.
“Ambassador Mishra was an extraordinary champion of closer India-US relations, and a friend to many Americans who share his vision of a US-India partnership,” the message said.
He always wanted to do “Jhalak Dikhla Jaa”, but filmmaker Karan Johar says that “India’s Got Talent” (IGT) is his window to the coutnry and that he has gained a lot by being part of the talent show.
Karan started his stint as a judge on small screen with the fifth season of “Jhalak Dikhla Jaa”, which is ending Sunday, and he is also on the judging panel of “India’s Got Talent” that went on air Sep 22.
The West Bengal chief minister might not find cartoons about her funny, but she is happy enough to mimic the prime minister. The widely telecast scenes of Mamata Banerjee imitating the genial Manmohan Singh have raised much debate and derision and have again put the spotlight on India’s smear politics.
From threats to slapping defamation cases to triggering sarcastic comments on whether the artist in her, which already paints and pens poems, is out to explore newer avenues – Banerjee’s act has led to varied reactions.
Longer sleep hours could prevent the onset of diabetes among teenagers, besides improving their insulin resistance, suggests a new study.
“High levels of insulin resistance can lead to the development of diabetes,” said Karen Matthews, who teaches psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh.
“We found that if teens that normally get six hours of sleep per night get one extra hour of sleep, they would improve insulin resistance by nine percent,” said Matthews, who led the study.
Violence erupted at the Osmania University campus here today after pro-Telangana students clashed with the police when they were prevented from taking out a rally to join the ‘Telangana March’.
Scores of slogan-shouting students broke the barricades on the campus and pelted stone at the police who retaliated by firing tear-gas shells while some students were also taken into preventive custody.
Kenya’s Edwin Kipyego clinched the elite men’s title in the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon while Ethiopia’s Yimer Wude won the women’s race here Sunday.
Kipyego, who won the Reading Half Marathon in April, completed the 21.097-km race in 1:00.55 hours to bag the $25,000 winner’s purse. However, he finished 25 seconds behind last year’s winner Lelisa Desisa of Ethiopia and 40 seconds behind another Ethiopian Deriba Merga, who set the course record in 2008.
Kipyego’s compatriots Leonard Langat and Silas Kipruto finished second and third, respectively.
Failure in a test cannot debar a person from a subsequent fresh selection process for deputation on a foreign mission, Delhi High Court has ruled while paving the way for an ITBP inspector’s consideration for a new assignment.
Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) Inspector Lalit Kumar had moved the court after he failed a test in firing conducted by the UN in July and the central government blacklisted him for five years.