Press Trust of India A total 482 bikers were issued challans and 269 vehicles impounded by the police during a special drive against traffic violators in Delhi.
From Saturday midnight till Sunday early morning, at least 900 two-wheelers were checked. Of these, 213 were issued challans on the spot and 269 vehicles impounded during the drive in the New Delhi district, police said.
“Pickets were put up at 52 points,” said a police officer.
The All England Open Badminton Championships will be the first Super Series tournament in 2015 instead of the Korea Open – giving the elite players a two-month break at the start of the year.
“We have reorganised the 2015 calendar. The Super Series will not start before the All-England Open in March. This has been done to create a possible break. The top-10 players that mandatorily have to play the Super Series events, we have given them a window to rejuvenate,” said Badminton World Federation (BWF) secretary general Thomas Lund here Sunday.
Blaming Palestine for the impasse over the peace talks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel may take “unilateral action” against the Palestinians.
His comments came after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed 15 international conventions that could pave the way for a renewed attempt to get UN statehood.
The BJP may land in trouble if it releases its election manifesto April 7 as it will be in violation of the model code of conduct, Election Commissioner H.S. Brahma said here Saturday.
“We will try to enforce the Representation of the People Act,” Brahma told reporters, making it clear that as the first phase of polls will be held April 7, a political party cannot announce anything related to elections 48 hours before the end of polling.
The election commissioner is heading a poll panel team on a two-day visit to Bihar to review preparations for the Lok Sabha election.
About 150 homeless inmates residing in a makeshift old age home in Delhi that caught fire, have been provided a temporary shelter while a search is on to locate the people who went missing, police said Saturday.
Ravi Kalra, director of NGO Earth Saviours Foundation that was running the home for over five years in south Delhi’s Vasant Kunj, told IANS some tents have been arranged as temporary shelter for the homeless.
“Now, these people have a temporary roof. Some residents arranged food and necessary materials. I am trying to provide them better arrangements,” said Kalra.
Sergio Perez put his Force India in fifth position in the Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying at the Bahrain International Circuit here Saturday.
Meanwhile his teammate Nico Hulkenberg could not make it into Q3 and had to settle for 12th place.
Mercedes locked the front row with Nico Rosberg taking pole position while Lewis Hamilton will start second in front of the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo.
Force India are fifth in the constructors’ standings with 19 points.
(IANS)
The Indian consulate in New York dismissed as “ridiculous” suggestions that there was any connection between the detention of a US police official in New Delhi and the earlier arrest of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade here.
In a statement, the consulate said the New York Police Department official was detained in New Delhi after his baggage was found to contain a few rounds of live ammunition when his baggage was screened prior to his taking a domestic flight.
At least 16 people were killed and 30 others injured when a truck plunged into a ravine in Pakistan’s northern Chakwal district Saturday, Geo News reported.
Police said the incident took place in Modren Killa area when a truck carrying the victim fell into the ravine.
The injured people have been shifted to a nearby hospital where several of them were in critical condition. Three children and four men were among the dead. Identities of the deceased were yet to be known.
(IANS)
The Congress and the AAP Saturday rapped on the Election Commission’s door against BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s close aide Amit Shah over his remark on the Muzaffarnagar riots. The Bharatiya Janata Party defended Shah, saying it saw “nothing wrong in his remark”.
Shah reportedly said in a recent election meeting in Muzaffarnagar that “this election is about voting out the government that protects and gives compensation to those who killed Jats. It is about badla (revenge) and protecting izzat (honour)”.
The Loksatta Party of bureaucrat-turned-politician Jayaprakash Narayan has decided to go alone in Andhra Pradesh with both the BJP and TDP not responding to its proposal for an alliance.
The party will contest 50-60 assembly seats and 5-6 Lok Sabha seats in Telangana and 100 assembly seats and 15-20 Lok Sabha seats in Seemandhra (Andhra Pradesh), announced Loksatta state president Katari Srinivasa Rao.
The party has already named candidates for 14 assembly seats in Telangana.
India took a 2-1 lead over South Korea in the Davis Cup Asia/Oceania second round at the Spo1 Tennis Courts here Saturday.
In the only match of Saturday, Rohan Bopanna and Saketh Myneni beat Hyung-Taik Lee and Yong-Kyu Lim 7-6(4), 5-7, 7-6(2), 6-3 in the doubles rubber. India is now only one win away for a place in the World Group Play-offs.
India’s most experienced player of the tie, Bopanna is the highest-ranked doubles player in either team at No.14 and teamed up with the 188th-ranked Myneni.
A pulse signal picked up by a Chinese patrol ship Saturday has not been confirmed as related to missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, according to China Maritime Search and Rescue Centre even as the search operation for the lost jet in the southern Indian Ocean made no headway by the end of the day.
A black box detector deployed by the Haixun 01 picked up the signal with a frequency of 37.5kHz per second at around 25 degrees south latitude and 101 degrees east longtitude in southern Indian Ocean waters Saturday afternoon, Xinhua reported.
The Indian space agency Saturday raised further the orbit of its second navigation satellite by around 4,200 km by firing the space craft’s onboard motor for around seven minutes, said a senior official.
“The satellite’s motor was fired for around seven minutes today (Saturday) evening. Post raising the satellite’s elliptical orbit is 292.7 x 24,830 km,” an official of the space agency told IANS preferring anonymity.
Another orbit raising activity is slated for Sunday evening.
Veteran actress Waheeda Rehman, who dominated Bollywood in the 1950s, says she never wore a sleeveless blouse, and so a bikini would be entirely out of the question.
The actress, who was signed by renowned filmmaker Guru Dutt for three years in the beginning of her career, recalled she incorporated a clause in the contract that she would have the final say on the costumes.
A series of geometrics and line patterns, guided by the urban metroscape, fetched Noida-based-artist Chetnaa Verma a prestigious art award here Saturday.
Verma won the Glenfiddich Emerging Artist of the Year, 2014 award beating four others who had made it to the final after being shortlisted from over 1,800 entrants.
Tauseef Khan of Delhi and Shrimanti Saha of Baroda took home the first and second runner-up awards.
Verma’s works were titled “Crossword of Diagonals” and “On Parallel Ground”.
She won Rs.100,000 in cash and three months’ residency in Scotland with a monthly stipend.
A state government does not have policing powers over the central government, Solicitor General Mohan Parasaran has said while giving his opinion on the decision of filing police complaints against Petroleum Minister M. Veerappa Moily on the gas pricing issue.
In an opinion given to the government, Parasaran said the “course of action” adopted by the erstwhile Arvind Kejriwal government in Delhi was against the federal structure of the country.
Parasaran told IANS Saturday that a state government does not have policing powers over the centre.
A French court has sought help from man’s best friend in a murder trial, media reported Friday.
A nine-year-old labrador named Tango has testified as a star witness in the murder case of its master, who was killed in a fight in the city of Tours in Central France, the Daily Express reported Friday.
Tango was called to the witness stand to identify the suspect.
It was summoned to bark at the alleged suspect waving a bat in the courtroom.
Also during preliminary hearing of the case, earlier this month, a second labrador called Norman was summoned for the same test.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi will become the next prime minister of India but cannot be compared to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, senior BJP leader L.K. Advani said Saturday.
“Modi will become the PM of the country… I would not compare him (Modi) to Vajpayee ji,” the former deputy prime minister said Saturday.
“Atalji was a class by himself. The main ideologue of the party was Deen Dayal Upadhyay and the person to implement it (ideology) in governance was Atalji,” said Advani.
Twenty five people were killed and 33 wounded in violence across Iraq, mainly in the western province of Anbar Saturday, police said.
In Anbar province, an Iraqi army troops clashed with militants linked to Daash militant group in al-Malahmah area near the town of Khaldiyah, some 80 km west of Iraq’s capital Baghdad, killing 11 militants and wounding 18, Xinhua reported citing a statement issued by the provincial joint command.
At least 23 people were killed in overnight tribal clashes in upper Egypt’s Aswan province, media reported Saturday.
The gunfight erupted Friday evening and renewed early Saturday morning between two big tribes in eastern Aswan, leaving 23 people dead and more than 30 injured, Xinhua reported citing the official MENA news agency. Several houses were also burnt down.
Egypt’s interim Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab and Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim are headed for Aswan to contain the situation.
Expressing concern over what it called “emergence of troubling new and potential barriers” to telecommunications trade in India and China, the US says it’s seeking “a level playing field” for US companies.
Among the issues highlighted by the US Trade Representative (USTR) in it annual review of telecommunications trade agreements released Friday were “ongoing restrictions on the provision of voice-over the Internet (VOIP) services in China and India”.
Also highlighted were:
The “regressive” RSS and the corporate houses have forged a “strange” alliance to project BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, CPI-M leader Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said Friday.
“We see a strange teaming up of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh – the most regressive organisation that does not believe in the country’s constitution – and the modern corporate houses. They are saying Narendra Modi is our candidate for the prime minister’s post,” said Bhattacharjee, the former chief minister of West Bengal.
Countering the BJP’s “Gujarat model of development”, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Saturday propounded the “Bengal model of development” asserting the western state lagged behind on several parameters.
Banerjee – also the Trinamool Congress supremo – expressed her displeasure over the comparison between Bengal and the Narendra Modi governed Gujarat.
She claimed her government has achieved a lot on the development front despite inheriting a debt burden of over Rs.two lakh crore from the erstwhile Left Front government.
Two men living in rented accommodation here were arrested for attacking six people from the northeast, police said Saturday.
They were identified as Vijay Kumar, a resident of 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, and Rambihari from village Sikanderpur Sahu in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras district.
A mob of 18-20 people had attacked six people from the northeast with hockey sticks and rods March 29.
The victims had said the mob shouted racial slogans and targeted people from the northeastern region after a Manipuri man had an altercation with another person.
Reigning All-England champion shuttler Shixian Wang ousted fellow Chinese and former World Champion Yihan Wang to enter the women’s singles final of the $250,000 India Open Super Series here Saturday.
Seeded second, Shixian battled Yihan all the way to the end of decider to just edge past 15-21, 21-7, 22-20 in 58 minutes in a battle of two former World No.1’s at the Siri Fort Sports Complex. With the win, the World No.3 has now bettered her career record to 4-9 against the Olympic silver medallist.