Press Trust of India

Prime Minister Narendra Modi Thursday tweeted that he had urged the World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim in a meeting here that speedy implementation was required for projects in India backed by the global lender.

“My meeting with World Bank President Jim Yong Kim was very fruitful. We live in a world where speed matters. Quick execution is essential. Speeding up World Bank projects will surely increase the impact,” Modi tweeted on his official handle.

The World Bank Wednesday said it will provide financial support of $15-18 billion to India over the next three years to help accelerate economic growth and reduce poverty.

Talking to media persons after meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi here, World Bank group president Jim Yong Kim said the Indian government has outlined a comprehensive plan to reduce poverty and return to over nine percent economic growth trajectory.

“The new government would like India to return to growth rate of nine percent a year. The World Bank group fully supports this goal,” he said.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay Wednesday warned that Israeli military attacks on Gaza could constitute a war crime, as the toll in Israel’s ongoing offensive on the Palestinian enclave rose to over 650.

Pillay told a special session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that independent reports on the Israeli attacks indicated “a strong possibility that international humanitarian law has been violated, in a manner that could amount to war crimes”, Efe news agency reported.

The Delhi High Court Wednesday issued a bailable warrant against a woman after she failed to appear in court in a case filed by her ex-husband after she withdrew their child from a school.

Justice Manmohan issued the bailable warrant against the woman who was asked in May to appear before the court Wednesday.

The court posted the matter for Sep 16 while again asking the woman to appear before it.

Mohun Bagan have signed Haitian footballer Sony Norde as their fourth foreign recruit for the forthcoming football season, the city soccer giants announced Wednesday.

The 25-year-old striker had drawn attention of football buffs with his fine performance when he turned out in Kolkata for Lt. Sk. Jamal Dhanmondi Club in the 118th IFA Shield tournament.

Sony earlier secured a spot at Argentine club Boca Juniors.

The Congress Wednesday moved the Supreme Court challenging the Delhi High Court verdict that held it and the BJP guilty of receiving funds from subsidiaries of Britain-based Vedanta.

The Congress sought stay of the March 28 Delhi High Court order which had prima facie found both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party guilty of violating the foreign funding statute and had asked the central government and the Election Commission to initiate proceedings against both the parties within six months.
(IANS)

Pro-Russian separatists Wednesday exited three towns on the outskirts of the eastern city of Donetsk and areas surrounding the airport, rebel militia chief Igor Strelkov said even as the rebels shot down two Ukrainian military aircraft.

The separatists left Karlovka, Netailovo and Pervomayskoye to avoid being encircled and annihilated by government forces, which have broken the siege around Donetsk airport and reached the northwestern part of the city, Efe news agency quoted Strelkov as telling a Russian agency.

Armed robbers Wednesday robbed the manager-cum-cashier of a Uttar Pradesh minister in Bijnor and escaped with Rs.12 lakh in cash, police said.

The incident took place in Mandawar of Shahbazpur locality in Bijnor when the manager-cum-cashier of Minister of State for Urban Development Chitranjan Swaroop, left the factory premises in a Skoda car belonging to the minister.

After a short distance, four armed men riding two bikes intercepted the vehicle.

The following is the list of Indians participating on the first day of competition at the 2014 Commonwealth Games here Thursday.

India’s schedule:

Badminton: India will take on Ghana and then Uganda in Group B of the Mixed Team event

Cycling (track): Amrit Singh, Alan Baby, Amarjit Nagi will participate in men’s sprint while a four-member Indian team will compete in the men’s 4,000m team pursuit event. In the women’s 500m, Indian swimmers Mahita Mohan, Kezia Vargheese and Deborah will take part.

The NHRC will probe the alleged surrender scam in Jharkhand in which adivasi youths were asked to pose as Maoists and surrender for jobs, a commission official said Wednesday.

“The commission has directed its director general (investigation) to depute a team to conduct a thorough inquiry in the matter and submit a report within four weeks,” said the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) official.

National Award-winning filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar has started shooting his next project “Calendar Girls”. He will launch five fresh faces with the movie.

“Start shooting #CalendarGirls from today (Wednesday)! High on concept, this youthful film has 5 new faces to be shot in a 40 day start-to-finish schedule,” Bhandarkar tweeted.

Earlier there were reports that he had approached model-turned-actress Deepika Padukone for the film but the rumours were quashed.

An Indian student has won 3,500 pounds ($5,967) in damages for her illegal detention at Heathrow Airport in London, media reported.

Swathi Palisetty, a student of the University of Bedfordshire in Luton town, was held for 17 hours by suspicious UK Border Agency (UKBA) officials at Heathrow after she returned from a trip to India in December 2011.

Palisetty was later flown to Hyderabad in India after the detention ordeal.

A British high court heard that the agency had wrongly concluded Palisetty was not registered at her university college, BBC reported Tuesday.

The CBI was Wednesday pulled up by a court here for filing an incomplete reply to a plea filed by Congress leader Jagdish Tytler, facing charges of forgery of a letter sent to the prime minister.

CBI Judge V.K. Gupta was irked after observing that the reply filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to Tytler’s plea seeking some documents related to the case.

“Why you (CBI) have not written it (regarding filing of documents in sealed cover in another court) in your reply? It should be specific in the reply,” the judge asked CBI.

Actress-singer Priyanka Chopra has sung a lullaby in her forthcoming film “Mary Kom”, a biopic on the five-time World Champion boxer.

“I have sung a lori (lullaby) in the film, which comes in the important part of the film. It’s a very intimate conversation between the mother and child and yes, it was fun. It has a good tune,” said Priyanka. She was speaking at the trailer launch of “Mary Kom” Wednesday.

Director Omung Kumar got ample support from Mary Kom during the making of the movie, which will release Sep 5.

Bollywood superstar Salman Khan has teamed up with the small screen’s favourite animated character Chhota Bheem for an action-packed entertainment package. The movie star had “fun” doing it.

The makers of “Kick” have joined hands with POGO – a multi-genre channel created exclusively for kids in India – to create a special TV presentation with Salman and Chhota Bheem to promote the movie, which is releasing Friday.

The special titled “Bheem Aur Salman Ki Kick” will air July 27 on the channel.

A 14-year-old Class 8 student died under mysterious circumstances at a government school here Wednesday afternoon, police said.

The incident was reported from a government-run senior secondary school in Rohini Sector 15 area of north Delhi around 12.15 p.m.

Sanjay Kumar, a resident of Rohini, was rushed to the Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar Hospital where doctors declared him dead.

The student’s family blamed the school authorities. They claimed there was foul play, and the school authorities were trying to hide the exact cause of death

Somali lawmaker Saado Ali Warsame and her driver were killed by suspected Islamist gunmen Wednesday in a drive-by shooting in the capital Mogadishu, police and witnesses said.

The lawmaker, who is also a prominent singer, was shot along with her driver at the main junction in Mogadishu by gunmen who shot at her vehicle while speeding past, Xinhua reported.

“The member of parliament, Saado Ali Warsame, and her driver were killed in the shooting by anti-peace elements and they are now being pursued by our security forces,” police officer Mohamed Ahmed told Xinhua.

Two Ukrainian fighter jets were shot down in rebel-held eastern regions, the country’s defence ministry said Wednesday.

“We have information about the downed fighter jets; now we are investigating the circumstances of the incident,” Alexei Dmitrashkovsky, a spokesman for the ministry, told reporters.

Dmitrashkovsky later wrote on his Facebook page that the pilots of the jets had parachuted, but their whereabouts remained yet unknown, according to Xinhua.

DMK leader Kanimozhi has moved the Supreme Court seeking an early hearing of her plea seeking the quashing of charges framed against her in the 2G case being exclusively heard by a special CBI court.

Contending that she was innocent of the offences alleged against her by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Kanimozhi alleged that NGO Centre for Public Interest, which was made a respondent in the matter, following the Jan 21 order of the apex court, was “deliberately” not making an appearance and has failed to file its response to her plea.

At least 51 people were killed and seven others injured when a passenger plane with Taiwan’s TransAsia Airways made an emergency landing on the outlying island county of Penghu Wednesday, media reported.

The plane was carrying 54 passengers and four crew, Xinhua reported citing the local fire department.

Forty-seven people on board a Taiwanese TransAsia Airways plane were killed in a failed emergency landing in the island county of Penghu Wednesday, Taiwan’s transportation authority has confirmed.

At least 25 people were killed Wednesday in a bomb explosion in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna, police said.

The bomb exploded in the city centre and targeted moderate Islamic cleric Dahiru Bauchi who was travelling in the area, BBC reported citing police.

Bauchi reportedly escaped unhurt.

Meanwhile, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Bauchi had completed a preaching session in the nearby Murtala Muhammed square, and his convoy was passing through the area when the blast occurred, the report said.

The number of people killed by typhoon Rammasun in China has increased to 33, officials said Monday.

Rammasun, the strongest typhoon to hit China in four decades, brought downpours and floods affecting more than 8 million people in the southern coastal provinces of Hainan, Guangdong, Yunnan and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Xinhua reported quoting a ministry of civil affairs statement.

According to the latest government figures, 13 deaths have been reported in south China’s Hainan, nine in Guangxi and 11 in neighbouring Yunnan.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Cairo Monday afternoon for talks with Egyptian officials on achieving a ceasefire in the war-stricken Gaza Strip, media reported.

Ban is currently on a regional tour that includes Egypt, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority for discussions on reaching a ceasefire in the restive enclave, Xinhua quoted state official MENA news agency as saying.

US Secretary of State John Kerry was also expected to arrive in Cairo later Monday over the ongoing crisis in Gaza.

As a fallout of the alleged rape of a six-year-old student in a private school and other rape cases in the city, the Karnataka government Monday transferred Bangalore police commissioner Raghavendra Auradkar and Additional Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Kamal Pant.

In a damage-control exercise, the government appointed Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) M.N. Reddi as the new police commissioner with immediate effect.

Search operations have ended at the site of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crash in Donetsk region, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said here Monday.

“(A total of) 282 bodies and 87 fragments that belonged to 16 other bodies of the innocent victims were found at the site,” Groysman told reporters during a media conference.

He said the bodies and remains of the victims have been placed inside refrigerated cars and will be taken to the eastern city of Kharkov later in the day for examination, Xinhua reported.