saleem New Delhi, July 21: The ongoing war between Congress and Bahujan Samaj Party continue (BSP), as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati rewarded BSP MP Intezar Abdi – who is allegedly behind the burning of Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi’s house.
Abdi has been given the Deputy Chairmanship of the UP Sugar Corporation. Abdi is the BSP leader who allegedly led the mob that torched Joshi’s residence
Mumbai, July 21: Actor Saif Ali Khan was born and brought up in a liberal atmosphere. He was not religious and didn’t bother much about politics. That changed when he started working in Rensil D’Silva’s tentatively titled movie Jehad.
The actor gets out of his zone to play an Islamic fundamentalist in the movie. “Yes, I play an Islamic fundamentalist while Vivek Oberoi plays the more moderate Muslim,” said Saif.
London:, July 21: Slumdog Millionaire the Mumbai based potboiler about a street urchin’s struggle to find true love has become UK’s most successful movie of 2009.
The multiple Oscar winning film which took in 32 million £ on the box office emerged on top of a list of 2009 superhits compiled by the Cinema Advertising Association, reported Mirror online.
Cinemas in the country are enjoying a seven-year high in ticket sales during the recession and the feel-good entertainer directed by Danny Boyle scored well with the audiences.
Mumbai, July 21: She is one of the reigning stars in Bollywood, but Priyanka Chopra says she was a very bad actress when she debuted with i>Andaaz six years ago. While the former Miss World has set high goals for herself and is experimenting with roles like never before, she is also clear about what she is looking for in her ‘Mr Right’.
EXCERPTS FROM AN INTERVIEW:
Q: Having had two hits in 2008, Fashion and Dostana along with several awards… how do you look back at your past year?
Islamabad, July 21: An increasingly confident Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani appears set to enhance his control over the Pakistan government, having cancelled the appointment of an ambassador nominated by President Asif Ali Zaradari and planning to remove three ministers considered close to him.
New Delhi: The frisking of former president Dr A P J Abdul Kalam at the Delhi airport was “absolutely unpardonable” and Continental Airlines of the US had been issued a notice for its action, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Tuesday.
“The frisking was absolutely unpardonable,” Minister of State for Civil Aviation Praful Patel said in the Rajya Sabha. “Action will be taken in accordance with the sentiments of the house,” said Patel, who has ordered a probe into the incident.
Dhaka, July 20: Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty Monday alleged that 25,000 among the Bangladeshi nationals visiting India every year do not return home.
Speaking at a seminar on ‘Bangladesh-India Economic Relations’, he claimed the number of Bangladeshis illegally staying in India would be even higher as many go unrecorded.
Colombo, July 20: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has closed its offices in eastern Sri Lanka after the government called on the organisation to scale down its operations now that the war with Tamil Tiger rebels is over, officials said Monday.
Four main offices of the ICRC located in Eastern Province have been closed down by the organisation, but its operations in Northern Province remain, officials said.
New Delhi, July 20: Though it reduced his jail term by three years, the Delhi High Court was very cutting in its criticism of Sanjeev Nanda, describing him as a “merchant of death stalking the roads of Delhi”.
Justice Kailash Gambhir, in his judgement reducing Nanda’s sentence to two years from five, said the accident was “all on account of his own doing” and that he had no real sympathy for the families of the six people he had mowed down under his BMW in 1999.
Phuket (Thailand), July 20: The 42nd annual meeting of the foreign ministers of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) wound up Monday with a strongly worded joint statement on regional security issues but little action.
The ASEAN foreign ministers’ final joint statement condemned last week’s Jakarta bombings and North Korea’s recent underground nuclear test while calling for the freedom of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
New Delhi, July 20: It’s been three-year wait for the four-time women’s world boxing champion M.C. Marykom to get nominated for the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award. The Manipuri who was finally nominated for the country’s highest sporting award Monday, however, regrets it has come after so long.
“It’s been a long wait for me, I have been applying for the award from the past three years. Despite performing, I wasn’t even nominated. I regret that,” Marykom, an Arjuna Award winner and a Padmshree, said as a matter of fact.
The petite lady is nonetheless happy to be nominated.
Kolkata, July 20: Railways Minister and West Bengal’s main opposition Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee Monday asked her party workers not to call unnecessary shutdowns or road blockades for staging any political protest in the state.
“I request our party leaders and Trinamool Congress workers not to call frequent strikes or road blocks unnecessarily in the state as it might cause inconvenience to the common people,” Banerjee said at a press conference here.
“I advise my party workers to take permission before calling any strike or road blockade in the state.
Washington, July 20: What North Korea has been doing does not deserve international attention it wants to get, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said.
The top US diplomat Monday said in the “Good Morning America” programme of the ABC television that the Obama administration has changed its approach toward Pyongyang last month, after North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test May 25 and test fired a series of ballistic missiles.
London, July 20: Jermaine Jackson fought back tears as he tried to come to terms with the tragic reality of his brother Michael’s death.
Michael JacksonThe former ‘Jackson 5’ member revealed how he held on to his sibling’s hand, and showered his face with kisses, as the singer lay dead at hospital bedside.
“Why did you go? What do you want me to do?”British tabloid The Sun quoted Jermaine as saying.
The 54-year-old was said to have last seen the King of Pop hale and hearty at a family reunion in a Hollywood restaurant.
New Delhi, July 20: The Supreme Court Monday suspended a Jammu and Kashmir High Court order for narco tests of police officers involved in the rape and murder of two women in Shopian town.
However, the bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justice P. Sathasivam postponed the decision on the police officers’ bail plea till Friday.
Hyderabad, July 20: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy Monday surprised everyone by riding a two-wheeler.
The occasion was the inauguration of driving test track of Road Transport Authority (RTA) at Uppal on the city outskirts.
YSR, as the chief minister is popularly known, took a Honda Activa and covered some distance on the track, much to the surprise of a few ministers and officials present there.
The chief minister’s security personnel had a tough time as photographers and television crews vied with each other to capture the rare moment on their cameras.
Hyderabad, July 19: An Akshardham temple attack suspect, Shaukatullah Ghori, who had been on the run for the last seven years, was arrested by the sleuths of Counter Intelligence Cell as he arrived at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport from Saudi Arabia on Saturday morning and handed over to Gujarat police by late afternoon.
According to Cyberabad police commissioner S Prabhakar Reddy, Gujarat police reached Hyderabad with a long pending non-bailable Pota warrant against Ghori after coming to know about his arrest and took him to Gujarat immediately.
London, July 18: Henry Allingham, who just last month became the world’s oldest living person at 113 years, has died, his nursing home near Brighton City said Saturday.
Allingham had gained the status as the planet’s oldest living person in June after Tomoji Tanabe of Japan died, also at the age of 113.
–Agencies
Ranchi, July 18: A Hindu ascetic has been arrested after six bombs were found in his possession in Deoghar district of Jharkhand Saturday, police said.
According to police, the bombs were recovered from the sadhu’s house, situated at Hirna colony of Deoghar district, around 400 km from Ranchi, early Saturday morning.
On a tip-off, police raided the house and found the bombs. Police are trying to ascertain the reason for keeping the bombs.
Dhaka, July 18: Protesters here began a ‘long march’ against a dam across the border in northeastern India as Bangladesh’s main opposition rejected Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s assurance that no work would be started without holding talks.
Activists of Nirvik, an environmental organisation, Friday set out on a six-day 264 km march to Sylhet to mobilise public opinion against the dam project.
Mumbai, July 18: “Let us rid the world of hatred and extremism that produces such nihilistic violence,” US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote in memory of the Mumbai terror victims while hailing the “brave men and women” of India’s financial capital.
Paying homage to those killed and wounded in the November 2008 savagery,
Clinton penned her thoughts in a register at the Taj Palace and Tower Hotel where she is staying and which was one of the landmarks which was stormed by terrorists from Pakistan.
London, July 18: Most lizards are content scurrying in and out of nooks and crannies in walls and between rocks. But neon blue tailed tree lizards (Holaspis guentheri) leap from branch to branch as they scamper through trees in the African forest. A new study has found their bones are full of air to enable them to glide.
Bieke Vanhooydonck from the University of Antwerp and her colleagues, Anthony Herrel and Peter Aerts, decided to find out whether neon blue tailed tree lizards really glide.
London, July 18: A daily dose baking soda or sodium bicarbonate, used in baking, cleaning, acid indigestion, sunburn and more slows the decline of kidney function in some patients with advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD), a new study has found.
“This cheap and simple strategy also improves patients’ nutritional status, and has the potential of translating into significant economic, quality of life, and clinical outcome benefits,” comments Magdi Yaqoob, of the Royal London Hospital (RLH), who led the study.
Washington, July 18: There are still many secrets waiting to be gleaned from moon rocks collected by Apollo 11 astronauts on their historic moonwalk 40 years ago.
Randy L Korotev, research professor in the department of earth and planetary sciences Washington University-St Louis (WUSTL), has studied lunar samples and their chemical compositions since he was an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin.
Johannesburg, July 18: Diamond Trading Co (DTC) Botswana, the sales arm of global diamond major De Beers, has appointed an Indian diamond producer as its sightholder to ensure the sustainability of its diamond manufacturing capacity in the African country.
Shrenuj Botswana, which is part of the Mumbai-headquartered Shrenuj India group, will now be authorised to buy rough diamonds.
A sightholder is a company on DTC’s list of authorised bulk purchasers of rough diamonds. The De Beers group is the single largest producer and purveyor of rough diamonds in the world.