Qayam Ali

Ignoring the outcry making Yoga compulsory for children to participate in International Yoga Day on June 21, Maharashtra Minority Affairs Minister Eknath Khadse waded into controversy and claimed that ‘Namaaz itself a form of Yoga’.

“Namaaz is a form of yoga,” Minority Affairs minister Eknath Khadse said that standing and bowing in Namaz is same we do in yoga. Namaz is nothing but a type of yoga exercise; it hardly matters whether you do it by remaining vertical or going horizontal,” he added.

Pakistan army chief on Wednesday assured China that maximum security would be provided for the USD 46 billion economic corridor that passes through PoK and there will be no hurdles in the completion of the project opposed by India.

Army chief General Raheel Sharif gave the assurances over the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) during his meeting with Chinese Vice Minister of Ministry of State Security Dong Haizhou at the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi.

The chances of India becoming top emerging country of the BRICS grouping are “extremely good” under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, tech giant Cisco’s Chairman and CEO John Chambers said today.

“We made a big bet on India”, which has the possibilities and “may be probability of being the very top emerging BRICS country. And being candid, under the leadership of Mr Modi, I think the probabilities of that happening are extremely good,” said the outgoing CEO.

Israel has barred a Palestinian photographer allegedly shot in the eye by an Israeli soldier from entering east Jerusalem for specialist treatment, he said today.

Nidal Shtayyeh, who works for Chinese news agency Xinhua, was wounded while covering a small demonstration at Huwarra checkpoint near the northern West Bank city of Nablus on May 16.

As he was covering the rally, Shtayyeh was hit in the face by a rubber bullet which entered his eye, causing serious damage, he told AFP.

The Minister of State in Prime Minister’s Office, will hold interaction with various sections following the Prime Minister’s directive.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked his ministerial colleague Jitendra Singh to go to Manipur to take stock of situation there, a day after the Army’s retaliatory strike in Myanmar that neutralised insurgents believed to be behind the ambush in the state that killed 20 soldiers.

Pope Francis met privately with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Vatican on Wednesday, using the talks to call for a sincere effort aimed at bringing peace to Ukraine.

Vatican spokesman the Rev Federico Lombardi said their talks concentrated on the Ukraine conflict and the Middle East, where the Holy See is worried about the fate of the Christian minority.

Putin earlier in the day met Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in Milan and arrived an hour late to the meeting at the Vatican, his second with Francis since he became pope in 2013.

The benchmark BSE Sensex regained the 27,000 mark by soaring over 159 points in early trade today on increased buying by participants after the current account deficit (CAD) narrowed sharply to $1.3 billion, or 0.2% of GDP, in the fourth quarter of FY15 amid positive global cues.

Rising for the second day, the 30-share index recaptured the crucial 27,000 mark by gaining 159.64 points, or 0.59%, to trade at 27,000.14 as all sectoral indices, led by realty, consumer durables, healthcare, capital goods and FMCG, were trading in the positive zone with gains of up to 1.35%.

A division bench of the Hyderabad High Court comprising of Chief Justice Dilip B Bhosale and Justice SV Bhatthas directed the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) to remove illegal encroachments and structures from the land belonging to the historic Toli Masjid in the city, in accordance with the law.

The bench and Justice SV Bhatt was disposing of a public interest litigation filed by Mohammed Abdul Raoof, a resident of the city, challenging inaction of the GHMC and Wakf authorities in removing the encroachments.

The cabinet on Wednesday approved Rs.6,000 crore interest free loan to sugar mills to make payments to sugarcane farmers, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said.

“We have taken this decision in the interest of farmers,” Gadkari told the media after a cabinet meeting.

Asked about the government’s long term plans for the sugar industry, he said: “For long term, the government is in discussion.”

The major sugar producing states are Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Uttarakhand and Punjab.

Controversial BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj who has a history of issuing provocative statements on Wednesday, once again sparks a controversy saying “We can win over death by yoga and “yoga is not communal, it is good for the health, he further added”.

The Unnao MP said that people who are criticizing Modi’s yoga are doing so because they have failed to find any fault in Modi’s regime and that Muslims have also believing in the Prime Minister.

The PIL bench of the High Court at Hyderabad on Monday rejected the writ petition (PIL), seeking a CBI probe into a death of a 11-year- old boy allegedly at the hands of Army personnel at Army Garrison campus at Mehdipatnam in the city.

The boy, in his dying declaration, had clearly stated that two army personnel were directly involved in setting him ablaze.

Gulam Rabbani, a city based advocate filed a petition in the Hyderabad High Court with a plea to direct the Telangana government to order a CBI probe into the death of 11-year-old Shaik Mustafauddin.

Qatar could run its first budget deficit in 15 years in 2016, official government figures have predicted.

Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics figures also showed that the energy-rich Gulf state’s economy will grow by 7.3% next year.

This was down on the previous estimate of 7.7%, but still above growth in 2014 of just over six per cent.

The figures were released today in a statement posted on the ministry’s website.

In 2016, Qatar expects to run a fiscal deficit of 4.9% of GDP, the ministry said, and 3.7% the following year.

“We should be credited for the completion of the project and for bringing a smile on the faces of people and we will definitely take this credit,” the Sena said today in its mouthpiece ‘Saamana’.

Centre’s approval for the 35-km long coastal road connecting north and south Mumbai, has resulted in both the ruling parties in Maharashtra- BJP and Shiv Sena- claiming credit for the project.

While the Sena says that the project was envisaged by it, ally BJP maintains that it is the Central government led by Narendra Modi that has granted crucial approvals.

Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar was on Wednesday unanimously re-elected as the president of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), a post he has occupied since he founded the party in 1999 after parting ways with Congress.

74-year-old Pawar’s re-election was declared by NCP General Secretary T P Peetambhar Master at the party’s sixth national convention, where Pawar’s nephew and NCP legislature party leader Ajit Pawar was conspicuous by his absence.

Queried about the absence of Ajit Pawar, top party leaders said they were unaware why he did not participate in the convention.

A 19-year-old sprinter of the Lakshmibai National College for Physical Education in Thiruvananthapuram, a Sports Authority of India (SAI) centre, attempted to cut a nerve in his left arm this morning but the reason for his actions is not yet clear.

“The boy tried to harm himself. He created a small cut on his left arm using a glass piece and was immediately rushed to the Trivandrum Medical college hospital here where he was given first aid and discharged,” said Dr G Kishore, Principal of the LNCPE.

Aiming to attract more students from abroad, including India, the Obama administration has proposed to provide six-year work permit to certain category of foreigners who come to study in the US.

The move, likely to benefit Indian students, the most is being opposed by a top Republican lawmaker.

Indian captain Virat Kohli won the toss and elected to bat against Bangladesh in the one-off cricket Test here on Wednesday.

India have gone with five bowlers including three pacers in Ishant Sharma, Varun Aaron and Umesh Yadav along with Ravichandran Ashwin and veteran Harbhajan Singh making a comeback after 2 years.

Among the batsmen, who last played in Sydney Test match, opener KL Rahul makes way for Shikhar Dhawan’s comeback in the playing XI.

For Bangladesh, young Litton Das makes his Test debut as wicketkeeper while Mushfiqur Rahim will play as pure batsman.

Teams:

Did grinding poverty force a poor tribal couple living in western Tripura’s Khowai district to sell their one-day-old son since the expenses for bringing him up were too much for them to bear? It depends on which way you look at it.

Officials in Left-ruled Tripura maintain that the poor parents, who already had three children, did not sell the infant for a mere Rs.4,500 but “gifted” him to a childless couple living in the Madhabbari area of the Mandai block in west Tripura district.

Telangana state police has come up with new advanced anti-terrorism training programmes in district police departments for their personnel againts the rise of potential threats and terror attacks by terrorists.
The includes Self-Loading Rifle while 9mm pistol training for SIs and senior officials has been organized, said a senior official from state police headquarters who informed that physical exercise and yoga classes too included in the training.

Supreme Court judge A K Sikri today held governments responsible for “perpetrating” torture in India and said to maintain human dignity, torture needs to be prohibited.

Speaking at a seminar on ‘Torture, International Law and Human Rights’, he said there was a need to tackle the issue which includes infliction of physical and mental pain on prisoners and accused.

“To maintain human dignity, torture needs to be prohibited but in our country, governments are the perpetrators of torture,” he said.

Teenage girls abducted by Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria are being sold in slave markets”for as little as a pack of cigarettes or for several hundred dollars,” the UN envoy on sexual violence has said.

Zainab Bangura who visited Iraq and Syria in April, and has since been working on an action plan to address the dreadful sexual violence being waged by IS fighters.

“Jihadists continue to run slave markets for girls abducted during fresh offensives, but the exact number enslaved by the fighters is not yet known”, said Bangura.

The Telangana government on Monday gave a clean chit to Nestle on lead content in Maggi noodles, but accused the Swiss food major of ‘misbranding’ the product after detecting presence of monosodium glutamate (MSG) in the tastemaker.

In its report, the state-run Food Laboratory, an arm of the Institute of Preventive Medicine said that the lead content in the noodle samples was 1.929 parts per million, which is quite within the permissible limit of 2.5 per cent. However, the lab detected MSG in the tastemaker.

After resisting JD(U)’s demand for weeks, RJD chief Lalu Prasad on Monday agreed to naming Nitish Kumar as chief ministerial face of the “secular alliance” for Bihar polls, saying he was ready to drink “poison” to crush the “cobra” of communalism.

The Shiv Sena on Monday dared All India Majlis-e-Ittedahul Muslimeen (AIMIM) to “raze thousands of illegal mosques constructed on government lands in Maharashtra”.

“Will they make a demand to demolish unauthorised mosques? The Muslims have benefitted most from Haj pilgrimage subsidy. Even Haj concessions come from government treasury…. Isn’t this also a waste of public funds,” Shiv Sena said in an edit in the party mouthpiece ‘Saamana’.

India-born Padmasree Warrior has quit her position as Chief Technology Officer with IT major Cisco. This comes as a process in the reshuffling of top management under the new CEO Chuck Robbins.

Cisco said Warrior will move into an advisory role till September.

In her advisory post, Warrior “is charged with aligning technology development and corporate strategy to enable Cisco to anticipate, shape, and lead major market transitions,” Cisco said.