Press Trust of India Zambia’s football governing body says it intends to adopt an electronic ticketing system to avert rampant fraud in view of the country’s bid to host the 2019 African Cup of Nations (AFCON).
Zambia is bidding for the hosting of the 2019 AFCON tournament and the southern African nation is doing everything possible to ensure that it hosts a successful tournament if selected, reports Xinhua.
The fourth international exhibition and conference on civil aviation, India Aviation-2014, will be held at Begumpet Airport in Hyderabad from March 12-16.
More than 250 exhibitors including Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, Dassault and Rolls Royce are participating in the event. The biggest aircraft in the world, Airbus A-380 and Dreamliner Boeing 787, will be special attractions at the air show.
The show will be open to the general public on March 15 and 16. The initial three days are reserved exclusively for the business community in which big deals are expected to be signed.
BJP leader Arun Jaitley Tuesday welcomed the Supreme Court directive on expeditious trial in criminal cases involving elected representatives, saying “it was a step in the right direction”.
“Criminalisation of politics has been a very serious issue confronting Indian polity. The malady has been that people with criminal track record and pending charge sheets are fielded by political parties,” Jaitley said on his blog.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has received nearly Rs.15 million ($246,000) as donations in the first 10 days of March from within the country and outside, party sources said.
Interestingly, on March 5, when AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal was detained in Gujarat, it received a staggering Rs 24,26,481.
After a stunning debut in Dec assembly elections, the party is set to expand on the national political landscape and take on the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party in the April-May general elections.
From March 1 to March 10, the year-old-party received Rs.14,535,050.
East Bengal edged past Mohammedan Sporting 2-1 at the Salt Lake Stadium Tuesday evening to move up to the seventh spot in the Airtel I-League table.
James Moga’s opener was cancelled out by Mohammedan’s Taro Hasegawa in the first half but Edeh Chidi settled the encounter with a late winner in the second period.
The result keeps Mohammedan Sporting in the bottom two with 18 points from 17 outings while East Bengal are now 11 points behind league leaders Bengaluru FC and still have three games in hand.
(IANS)
A total of eight first information reports (FIR) have been registered against political parties for violating the model code of conduct prior to the Lok Sabha elections, the poll panel said Tuesday.
The model code of conduct came into force March 5 with the Lok Sabha election scheduled in the national capital April 10.
While one FIR has been registered against the Congress, seven are against other parties.
“No FIR has been registered against the Aam Aadmi Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party,” Chief Nodal Officer Ankur Garg told mediapersons.
Veteran actress Moushumi Chatterjee Tuesday ended speculation about contesting the Lok Sabha elections on a Trinamool Congress ticket, and also said no to campaigning for candidates.
In 2004, Chatterjee had contested the Lok Sabha elections for the Congress from Kolkata North East constituency but lost to Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) candidate Mohammed Salim.
Last week the actress met West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at the state secretariat Nabanna, fuelling speculation that she was eyeing a ticket for the polls.
The Meghalaya government will put all power projects on fast track to meet the power shortfall in the mountainous state, Chief Minister Mukul Sangma said Tuesday.
“We will expedite all power projects on a fast track under joint ventures to increase our generation and avail 12 percent free and cheaper power,” Sangma told the assembly in his reply to the Calling Attention motion moved by lone Garo National Council legislator Clifford R Marak.
The Lok Sabha polls in Assam will not be a mere battle of the ballot for the state’s most prominent regional party Asom Gana Parishad (AGP). The party will actually be fighting a battle for its very existence in the state.
Born out of the six-year-long anti-foreigners agitation between 1979 and 1985, the AGP is battling for its survival following its dipping popularity among people in the last few years.
The ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) Tuesday announced names of three candidates for the Lok Sabha polls.
The three include party chief Shibu Soren who would contest from Dumka.
“Guruji (Shibu Soren) will contest from Dumka, Vijay Hansda is to contest from Raj Mahal and Jagannath Mahato will fight from Giridih,” general secretary of the party Suprio Bhattacharya told reporters.
He said: “We will decide name of Jamshedpur Lok Sabha seat in a day or two.”
Two people have been arrested for operating a fake Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) website and promising jobs in the premier investigative agency, authorities said Tuesday.
“A case has been registered on the information that an alleged fraudulent recruitment racket in the name of CBI was being carried out through a website www.cbirecindia.com,” the CBI statement said.
Using technical evidence, the two accused were tracked down to Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Searches were conducted at their premises and the duo were arrested.
(IANS)
The armed wing of the Hamas movement that is in power in Gaza said Tuesday it has seized an Israeli drone that crashed near the Gaza-Israel border fence.
“The Israeli drone which fell inside Gaza is in the hands of our militants,” an official from the Izz al-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, told Xinhua.
According to the official, the Israeli drone fell 500 metres away from the fence near the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, Tuesday.
The international police agency Interpol does not believe the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines plane over the weekend was the result of a terrorist attack, its chief said Tuesday.
“The more information we get, the more we are inclined to conclude it was not a terrorist incident,” said Lyon-based Interpol chief Ronald K. Noble, Xinhua reported citing local media.
According to earlier reports, two passengers had used stolen or lost European passports to board the plane.
Participants at the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies here have recommended creation of an Abu Dhabi-based Islamic council, comprising prominent and wise Islamic scholars, and mandated to help extinguish the raging fires in Islamic nations.
The proposed body will be named ‘Muslim Wise Men Council’ with by-laws scheduled to be issued during the holy month of Ramadan.
This came during the closing session of the two-day forum here Monday evening and attended by the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
An Indian-origin schoolboy in Britain, who went missing last week, has been found safe in the port city of Southampton in Hampshire.
Jaspreet Khunkhun, 12, from Walsall in West Midlands was located at a family member’s home Monday, the Birmingham Mail reported.
The boy was reported missing March 5, after he did not return home from school.
“Thankfully Jaspreet has been found safe and well, some miles away in Hampshire,” Joanne Myatt-Jones, a police officer, was quoted as saying.
“We want to thank everyone who has helped us with this missing persons inquiry,” he added.
The BJP, notwithstanding the many straw polls showing it well ahead of its rivals, is having a fairly tough time internally in declaring seats for its top leaders as also in deciding about some alliances for the Lok Sabha polls, say party sources.
“Not everything is hunky dory in the party on decisions concerning seats,” acknowledged a party insider.
“Issues have to be sorted out including choice of seats for some top party leaders,” he said.
AIADMK general secretary and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa Tuesday said Indians are of the view that the corrupt Congress should not only be ousted from power but it should not be allowed to return in the future.
Addressing an election rally here, 225 km from Chennai, Jayalalithaa said: “Not only you but all over India, people are of the view that the Congress-led government that destroyed the country’s economy with its scam-ridden rule should not only be ousted from power but should never be voted in again.”
Commercial aircraft manufacturer Airbus Tuesday announced forming a new subsidiary – Airbus India – which will manage its activities in India.
“Building on the success of the Airbus Engineering Centre India (AECI) in Bangalore, Airbus India will include strategy, customer services and procurement teams under one organisation,” the company said in a statement.
“A maintenance repair and overhaul (MRO) capability will be established, at a later date.”
Airbus also appointed Srinivasan Dwarakanath as chief executive of the new subsidiary.
A trial court Tuesday allowed the special public prosecutor’s application to charge French consular official Pascal Mazurier with committing sodomy on his four-year-old daughter.
“The offence of sodomy has been included as an additional charge against the accused (Mazurier) and the court will frame (charges against) him March 15 on this count too,” special public prosecutor B.T. Venkatesh told IANS here.
The 40-year-old Mazurier was charged under section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The Border Security Force (BSF) Tuesday seized 41 kg of heroin, its biggest seizure this year, following a shootout with smugglers from Pakistan along the border in the Amritsar sector, BSF officials said here.
The seized heroin is said to be valued at Rs.205 crore in the international market.
The seizure was made at two places in the sector. These were near border outpost (BOP) Rattan Khurd and BOP Daoke, 35 km from Amritsar, a BSF spokesman said.
The ruling Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh Monday said it may not put up candidates against Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and her son and party vice president Rahul Gandhi in Rae Bareli and Amethi.
At a press conference here, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav said his party “had no plans to field candidates against the Congress leaders”.
Stating political courtesy as the reason behind not fielding candidates in Amethi and Rae Bareli, the chief minister said that in the past too his party had not fielded candidates against the Gandhi mother-son duo.
The Anti-Corruption Bureau Monday booked nine bureaucrats, including a former district collector, in connection with a rural development scam in Goa, a police official said.
Former South Goa district collector G.P. Naik and eight other officials of the rural development ministry and the south district administration were booked for executing a work contract to build a community water tank at Fatorpa village, 50 km from Panaji, twice, and paying the contractor on both occasions.
The AAP Monday announced that former Infosys director V. Balakrishnan will be its candidate in the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency.
Balakrishnan joined the AAP Jan 1 after resigning from the IT bellwether Dec 31.
Balakrishnan is a founder-member and chairman of Exfinity, a venture capital fund for technology start-ups here.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has re-nominated P.C. Mohan, who won in 2009, while the Congress is yet to announce its candidate.
The new Indian ambassador to the US, S. Jaishankar, Monday formally presented his credentials to President Barack Obama at his oval office at the White House.
Jaishankar was second of the six ambassadors who presented their credentials to Obama one by one in a traditional ceremony that marks the formal beginning of an ambassador’s service in Washington.
Pakistan’s Ambassador Jalil Abbas Jilani also presented his credentials Monday along with the new envoys of Tunisia, Papua New Guinea, Belgium and Qatar.
A court here Monday said judges are not “caged parrots” while rejecting a plea seeking further direction to probe the role of former railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal in the railway bribery case.
The court was hearing a plea moved by NGO Delhi Pradesh Social Progress Society (DPSPS), seeking further direction to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate Bansal’s role, alleging that the agency had not investigated it “purposely”.