Press Trust of India Despite facing flak from the opposition Left Front and the BJP for scrapping the mandatory online admission procedure in West Bengal, Education Minister Partha Chatterjee Monday said an online system will come into effect only after creating the necessary infrastructure.
“We will first develop infrastructure in all colleges for online admissions, then launch the service,” Chatterjee told reporters here.
The death of at least 10 panthers in Kumbhalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary over last six months has again raised the problem of scarce water in Rajasthan’s wildlife parks and sanctuaries.
Rajasthan is one of the few states that can boast of two tiger projects, a bird sanctuary and 25 wildlife sanctuaries.
These protected areas offer great eco-tourism opportunities for both domestic and foreign tourists.
The priorities of the new government outlined in President Pranab Mukherjee’s address Monday had the stamp of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has laid thrust on use of technology to bring quick results, revive Brand India and use social media for participative governance.
The address sought to build on ideas of Modi’s campaign speeches and give concrete shape to many of his plans.
Condemning the attack on it party workers by “BJP goons” in West Bengal, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Monday threatened to sit on a fast-unto-death demanding the arrest of the attackers.
The party also demanded Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) state president Rahul Sinha to take back his claim that the AAP’s state unit has merged with the saffron party.
The AAP claimed that three of its volunteers were critically injured Sunday when over 100 BJP “workers and goons” attacked them while they were peacefully demonstrating against Sinha’s “baseless claim”.
Deregulated electricity markets suffer from short-term focus and are ignoring the long-term advantages of nuclear energy such as tackling climate change affecting its development, a leading nuclear expert said here Monday.
The Thai military junta Sunday announced lifting of curfew in Koh Chang of Trat province, Hat Yai of Songkhla province and Koh Pha Ngan of Surat Thani province.
The National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) has so far lifted curfew in 10 tourist areas including Pattaya, Phuket, Koh Samui, Krabi, Hua Hin, Cha-am and Phang Nga in a move to boost the country’s tourism that has been dragged down by the political turmoil, Xinhua reported.
Trinamool Congress MP Renuka Sinha’s gold chain was snatched outside the Banga Bhavan in Delhi Sunday night, party spokesperson Derek O’Brien said here.
“Trinamool MP’s gold chain snatched off her neck by thieves moving on mobikes,” Rajya Sabha member and the party’s national spokesperson O’Brien said in a tweet.
The incident took place just outside the Banga Bhavan on Hailey Road.
Renuka Sinha, an MP from Cooch Behar constituency of West Bengal, was safe, said O’Brien.
A police mobile van was posted outside the Banga Bhavan following the incident.
(IANS)
Actor-producer Aamir Khan Sunday released a documentary titled “Chale Chalo” on the journey of his film “Lagaan” on &Pictures.
“I am so glad I can show this film to the nation. I am extremely happy for the first time we will see this film live. This film is about the journey of how we made ‘Lagaan’ and we wanted to make it on record.
“For me, this journey is now like a family album I can even watch it 20 years down the line and enjoy it. I am so glad even the nation can watch it with us now,” Aamir told reporters during the screening of “Chale Chalo”.
Hundreds of techies working in the information technology sector here Sunday condemned the killing of an IT professional in Pune over the alleged uploading of objectionable pictures on a social network.
“We are shocked by the inhuman attack on 28-year-old Shaik Mohsin Sadiq by suspected elements of a Hindu outfit, which threatens the social and secular fabric of our country,” Haynes Davis, spokesman of an IT employees’ forum, said in a statement.
Over 50 techies held a candle-light protest to express sympathy with the family of the deceased man.
A total of 69 people were killed and 99 others wounded in separate insurgent attacks across Iraq Sunday, police and medical sources said.
Earlier in the morning, up to 17 people were killed and 65 others wounded in Iraq’s eastern province of Diyala, when a booby- trapped car exploded at a parking lot outside the office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and a nearby Kurdish security headquarters in the city of Jalawlaa, some 130 km northeast of the capital Baghdad, Xinhua quoted a provincial police source as saying Sunday.
Spanish tennis great Rafael Nadal won his ninth men’s singles title at the French Open beating Novak Djokovic in four sets here Sunday.
The top seed and World No.1 won 3-6, 7-5, 6-2, 6-4 in three hours and 31 minutes to become the first man in history to win five consecutive Roland Garros titles.
World No.1 tennis player Rafael Nadal won his record ninth men’s singles title at the French Open by beating second-seeded Serbian Novak Djokovic in four sets at Court Philippe Chatrier here Sunday.
A galaxy of national and regional leaders attended the swearing-in ceremony of N. Chandrababu Naidu as the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh near here Sunday.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L.K. Advani led the host of National Democratic Alliance (NDA) leaders at the gala ceremony attended by tens of thousands of people.
Chief ministers of six states also turned up to congratulate Naidu.
BJP president and union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal were among the prominent leaders who addressed the gathering.
Four people, including three policemen, were killed when an escort vehicle of a legislator rolled down into a deep gorge in Jammu and Kashmir Sunday, police said.
The accident took place on the Jammu-Srinagar highway in Ramban district, 160 km from here.
Three policemen and a civilian cook of MLA Chaman Lal Gupta were killed in the accident, police said.
The dead people were identified as constables Jarnail Singh, Narinder Kumar and Jeet Raj and cook Sanjay Kumar.
(IANS)
At least 24 students of an engineering college in Hyderabad were reported missing Sunday after strong currents in the mighty Beas river in Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi district washed them away, an official said.
The students – from V.N.R. Vignan Jyothi Engineering College – were on an excursion and were getting themselves photographed on the banks of the river when they were reportedly washed away as the flow in the river suddenly increased, Mandi Deputy Commissioner Devesh Kumar told IANS.
A rescue operation was on but no body had yet been fished out. The incident occurred around 7 p.m.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin is expected to be in the capital for talks June 18 to establish Moscow’s first contact with the new Indian government.
Rogozin co-chairs the India-Russia Inter-governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation which functions as a key mechanism for developing bilateral interaction in the economic and investment fields.
His visit would see both sides discuss all issues, including defence, trade, nuclear energy and space cooperation.
Russia is a major arms supplier to India.
An auto-rickshaw driver was shot dead in Meghalaya by two unidentified assailants Sunday, police said.
The incident took place in Chepagre village in South West Garo Hills district.
The armed men waylaid Somendra Pal and forced him to take them to another location. But he refused to heed to their demand, leading to an altercation, Ramachandran Muthu, district police chief, told IANS.
“They later fired at Pal and fled from the area. Pal drove the auto-rickshaw himself to a police check post at Taktaki area,” he said.
China Sunday made contact with the new Indian government as its Foreign Minister Wang Yi, special envoy of President Xi Jinping, held talks with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj here, during which “all issues of significance” were on the table, including the unsettled border, Tibet and stapled visas besides a boost in trade ties.
Soon after taking oath as chief minister of Andhra Pradesh late Sunday evening, N. Chandrababu Naidu signed four files to fulfill his poll promises.
Naidu announced the setting up of a committee to work out modalities to waive loans of farmers, women self-help groups and weavers.
The Telugu Desam Party chief said the panel would submit its report in 15 days.
At the swearing-in, Naidu signed another file to increase monthly pension of the aged and widows to Rs.1,000. The handicapped will get pension of Rs.1,500.
Six people have been arrested for vandalising dairy cooperative Amul’s office here, police said Sunday.
Six people, all drivers of Amul vehicles, Saturday night vandalised the office of Amul’s bottling plant at Manesar town over the issue of filling up milk in their vehicles on priority basis.
“They wanted priority in filling up milk in their vehicles,” police officer Preet Pal Singh said.
They were Sunday presented before a duty magistrate, who granted them bail.
(IANS)
Virtually admitting to the involvement of party factions in a clash which left many injured in the posh New Town area in Kolkata’s outskirts, the ruling Trinamool Congress’s general secretary Partha Chatterjee Sunday said “we know how to control our party colleagues”.
Two Trinamool factions – owing allegiance respectively to a Lok Sabha member and the local legislator – clashed for several hours Saturday allegedly over control of syndicates supplying construction material.
Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan Sunday called on President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, officials said.
Mahajan called on the president at Rashtrapati Bhavan, her office said in a statement.
She also called on Modi at his Race Course Road residence, the prime minister’s office said in a separate statement.
Both the visits were described as a “courtesy call”.
Mahajan was Friday unanimously elected speaker of the 16th Lok Sabha.
(IANS)
Trinamool Congress parliamentarians will be vocal about what the party calls “deprivation of West Bengal” by the former Congress-led government and will claim the state’s “just dues” in the coming days in parliament.
Party sources said the Trinamool parliamentarians would repeatedly focus on the “economic deprivation” of the state by the Centre, dwelling on the Congress-led UPA regime’s refusal to provide a bailout package to the debt-stressed state.
The BJP and the Congress Sunday blamed the Uttar Pradesh government for the murder of BJP leader Vijay Pandit, who was shot dead by unidentified assailants in Greater Noida near the national capital Saturday night.
Bharatiya Janata party spokesperson Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said there was “no law and order in Uttar Pradesh”.
Terming as “casual” the response of the Samajwadi Party government in the state to such incidents of violence, Naqvi said: “Such a response not only encourages criminals but also gives no relief to the victims of these crimes.”
A 12-member Left Front delegation, led by chairman Biman Bose, will Monday meet West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the wake of post-poll violence in the state that has claimed the lives of four of Left activists.
Asserting that the post-poll violence across the state has reached “alarming proportions”, the Left Front has claimed that four of its activists and sympathisers, including a student, have been killed, over 1,000 supporters injured and several hundreds forced to flee their homes.
Three youths have been booked here for gang-raping a 14-year-old girl, police said Sunday.
The three accused – identified as Manoj, Bulla and Meenu – are students of Class 10 to 12 and in the age group of 18 to 20 years.
The three from Pathredi village here were booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and for hatching a conspiracy, gang-raping a minor, criminal intimidation and threatening to kill, police officer Praveen Kumar told IANS.