Press Trust of India The cricket World Cup 2015 trophy was unveiled here Friday amid cheers and celebrations that continued on its tour to several cities in the country.
Virender Sehwag, member of the 2011 World Cup winning Indian squad, was also present during the event.
While viewing the prestigious trophy, people marked their signatures on a 30-feet bat. Fans also wrote their messages and conveyed their wishes to the Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led Indian team.
The government is considering a fresh bidding process in next three to six months for four ultra mega power projects (UMPPs) at different locations, Power Minister Piyush Goyal said here Friday.
“These four proposed UMPPs include two for which we have cancelled the bid and we will be inviting fresh bids, and two more have been identified — one in Bihar and another in Jharkhand,” Goyal told reporters on the sidelines of an Economic Times event on the power sector.
The process of inviting bids will start in the next three to six months, he added.
Canada’s Seneca College has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the New Delhi-based Entrepreneurship and Management Processes International (EMPI) to expand its international reach through strategic partnerships.
“The MOU with EMPI focuses on a joint post-graduate programme in social media and business aimed at providing mobility for qualified MBA/PGD (post graduate diploma) students to specialise in Seneca’s social media post-graduate programme in their second year,” said David Agnew, president, Seneca College.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday instructed the health ministry to set up mechanisms for ensuring more accountability for doctors and health officials in the public sector.
“In order to achieve the desired goal of health for all, there is a need to substantially improve the efficiency of existing mechanisms and schemes,” the prime minister said while chairing a meeting on healthcare.
Giving the example of insurance, he called for establishing synergy in all schemes for the health sector being run by the central and state governments, a statement said here.
Actress-director Angelina Jolie’s war drama “Unbroken” will open in China Jan 30.
The film, about Olympian Louis Zamperini and his experiences as a prisoner of war in World War II, could be a hit in China, reports hollywoodreporter.com.
The response to the news was overwhelmingly positive on Chinese micro-blogging website Sina Weibo.
US Senator Tulsi Gabbard, a devotee of Lord Krishna who used the Bhagavad Gita while taking oath of office, visited the Iskcon temple here Friday.
Gabbard is the first Hindu in the US Congress. She recently gifted her personal copy of the Bhagavad Gita to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New York.
Gabbard has on many occasions said she has been inspired by the teachings of Lord Krishna and that the Gita is an excellent source of leadership skills.
One policeman was killed and two others were wounded in a bomb attack in the southern Afghanistan province of Uruzgan Thursday, police said.
The blast took place after a police vehicle travelling along a road in Mehar Abad locality of provincial capital Tirin Khot was struck by a bomb planted by the roadside, deputy provincial police chief Mohammad Islam Kochai told Xinhua news agency.
The injured were shifted to a hospital, he said, blaming the Taliban insurgent group for triggering the blast which occurred at around 3.30 p.m.
Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi Thursday expressed his helplessness for repeatedly committing faux pas, saying he was a “novice” in politics.
“I have learnt everything except how to be clever, I am just a novice,” a smiling Manjhi said at a function here.
He said he did not ask for but was given the responsibility to run the state. “I am running the government because the task was given to me.”
A day after transporters in the state called off their strike, the Haryana government made it clear Thursday that no new transport vehicle will be registered if it is not compliant with the Central Motor Vehicle Rules (CMVR) 1989 within one year.
“Such vehicles, as are on the roads, have been given one year to go right-size and conform to the prescribed standards,” a state government spokesman said here.
The poll panel Thursday directed all its district election officers here to initiate action against the citizens who have filed wrong information while enlisting themselves as voters.
The decision was taken after a voter from Rajinder Nagar assembly constituency made 12 online applications giving wrong data and pasting the photos of movie stars in all applications.
In a similar case in Bijwasan assembly constituency, 15 voters were served notices for making multiple entries.
The Goa government’s promise of providing 50,000 jobs by 2017 was unrealistic and unattainable and the BJP-led coalition would require another term to achieve the target, state Industries Minister Mahadev Naik said Thursday.
“We are working towards creating jobs, but 50,000 jobs by 2017 as promised by then chief minister Manohar Parrikar, it is not possible in reality. Now there is limited time left. But we assure to fulfill this promise once we return to power again for five years in 2017,” Naik told reporters.
Spanish football club Real Madrid’s coach Carlo Ancelotti was forced to defend his decision to leave talismanic striker Cristiano Ronaldo out of the starting line-up in his side’s 0-2 Kings Cup defeat to Atletico Madrid.
Ancelotti defended himself in the same way as FC Barcelona coach, Luis Enrique recently shield himself after dropping striking spearhead Lionel Messi from the first 11 in a La Liga match, reports Xinhua.
Ronaldo was forced to watch from the dugout as Real fell a goal behind to their local rivals and entered the game as a 60th minute substitute.
Pope Francis Thursday launched the Twitter hashtag #PrayersForParis, to honour the victims of Wednesday’s terror attack in Paris against the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, in which 12 people were killed.
The message did not add any other text. The aim was merely to boost the hashtag, which had acquired more than 1,000 retweets a short time after being posted.
Speaking at the morning Mass he celebrated in his Santa Marta residence, the pontiff denounced the “human cruelty” of the attack on the French magazine, asking for prayers for the victims.
Heavy fog returned to the capital Thursday, disrupting rail and air services while road traffic was affected too with vehicles crawling in the morning hours with full headlights. Friday morning is expected to be same.
After a string of clear days, Delhi woke up to a blinding fog and remained under it till late in the morning. The visibility at 8.30 a.m. plummeted below 50 metres.
While the movement of over 100 trains was affected, fifteen flights were delayed. Vehicles plied with their headlights on in the early hours with many driving or riding at snail’s pace.
The CBI Thursday conducted several places in Kolkata and Odisha in connection with the Odisha chit fund scam, an agency official said.
The search was conducted in 11 places in Kolkata and five locations in in Odisha against Asha Agro Equipment Industries India Ltd.
The places searched include the offices and residences of managing director Tarun Kumar Barui and directors Ranjit Santra, Susanta Mohapatra, Ananta Barik, and Parimal Biswas.
The five places raided in Odisha include Bhubaneswar, Baleswar, Remuna, Baliapal and Jaleswar.
Three suspected members of banned outfit Indian Mujahideen were Thursday arrested for their involvement in the Dec 28 blast in the city in which a woman was killed, a top police official said.
The three accused – Syed Ismail Afaq, 34, Saddam Hussein, 35, and Abdus Subur, 24 – were arrested in Bhatkal in the coastal district of Uttara Kannada and brought to the city for interrogation,” Commissioner of Police M.N. Reddi told reporters here.
A court here has acquitted a 73-year-old former armyman, who was accused of raping his daughter-in-law.
The court also ordered filing of a case against the woman for falsely implicating her father-in-law.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi Thursday met Guyana President Donald Ramotar and said India would set up its first IT Centre of Excellence on the South American continent in his country.
Meeting Ramotar on the sidelines of the 13th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in Gandhinagar, Modi recalled his interaction with South American leaders on the sidelines of the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – Summit in 2014.
India has approved a new Line of Credit of $50 million for the East Bank Demerara-East Coast Road Link Project in the small country on the continent’s Caribbean coast.
Municipal workers and BJP members were Thursday busy erecting a huge tent, placing metal detectors and barricades at the gates and setting up CCTV cameras and LED screens at the Ramlila Maidan, from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi will Saturday formally kick off BJP’s campaign in poll-bound Delhi.
Bharatiya Janata Party leaders said the party’s three newest chief ministers from Haryana, Jharkhand and Maharashtra and over one lakh people are expected at the sprawling ground in the heart of the city.
A court in east China’s business hub Shanghai Thursday upheld the death sentence awarded to a post-graduate student charged with poisoning his roommate.
The Shanghai Higher People’s Court rejected the appeal of Lin Senhao, a medical student at the prestigious Fudan University, after a second trial Dec 8, Xinhua news agency reported.
The death penalty is subject to review by the Supreme People’s Court.
Lin allegedly used N-Nitrosodimethylamine, a deadly chemical compound taken from a university lab, to contaminate a water dispenser in his dormitory March 31, 2013.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Thursday highlighted tourism as a focus area, as state-owned firms pitched a total financial commitment exceeding Rs.1 lakh crore during the Bengal Global Business Summit here.
“There is so much tourism potential in Bengal. Eco-tourism is coming up,” Banerjee said at the summit which saw the participation of 20 countries besides over 1,000 businessmen from India.
The Indian Medical Association (IMA) Thursday said it will develop a model health village with all parameters defined in the UN Millennium Development Goals.
“Under the Aao Gaon Chalen (lets go to village) project of the IMA, the organisation will come out with a model health village, which can be replicated at a national level, both by the government as well as NGOs,” IMA national president A. Marthanda Pillai told reporters here.
Pillai said the model health village will have all parameters met within a year as defined by the UN Millennium Development Goals.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan Thursday kicked off his campaign for re-election in the West African country as the nation prepares for general elections next month.
Jonathan’s re-election campaign kicked off in Lagos, the commercial hub of Nigeria and the most populous city in the country, from which the campaign train will hit other states of the nation.
Taking forward its probe into the murder of Sunanda Pushkar, the wife of Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, Delhi Police Thursday questioned their domestic help Shri Narayan Singh but said they had not yet called the MP for questioning.
Singh, who had been interrogated by police twice earlier, was Thursday again called for questioning, police said.
The special team investigating the murder of Pushkar took Singh to an undisclosed location in south Delhi, an official said.
Tharoor’s staff had Wednesday night received a call from police asking Singh to join the probe.
A court here sentenced an auto driver to 18 months in jail for molesting a woman in 2008.
Metropolitan Magistrate Ekta Gauba Wednesday awarded the punishment to 33-year-old auto-driver Narender and slapped him with a fine of Rs.6,000, of which Rs.5,000 will be paid to victim.
The court observed that auto-driver Narender misbehaved with the woman when she was passing by on the road and in view of the facts and circumstances, he does not deserves the benefit to be released on probation.