Patna, July 30: To add to the cases of religious profiling of Muslims by banks, several cases have have been reported from Seemanchal region of Bihar where discrimination by banks has not only created problems for Muslim students, but has also put the nation to shame.
Baghdad, July 29: Al-Qaida briefly planted its flag in Baghdad today as militants killed 23 members of Iraq’s security forces across the country in a combination of shootings and roadside bombs demonstrating the dangers the country still faces.
The worst attack came in Baghdad’s Sunni neighbourhood of Azamiyah when 16 Iraqi security forces were killed by what appeared to have been coordinated strikes by al-Qaida militants, who then planted their flag close to the blood-soaked site.
London, July 30: Increasing numbers of Muslim brides are having taxpayer-funded ‘virginity repair’ operations before marriage.
There were 116 hymen replacement operations carried out on the NHS between 2005 and 2009. The total for 2009 was 30, up 25 per cent from 24 in 2005.
The health service figures echo a trend reported by private clinics, which are seeing a huge surge in demand for the procedure from Muslim women paying up to £4,000.
One Harley Street clinic said that demand for its half-hour procedure had tripled in recent months.
Hyderabad, July 30: The Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) is leading in 11 constituencies and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in one as the counting of votes in the by-elections to 12 assembly seats in Andhra Pradesh’s Telangana region began Friday morning.
Early trends show the two parties may retain their seats while the TRS has also established lead in one constituency held by the Telugu Desam Party (TDP).
Sana’a, July 30: The Yemen-based wing of militant outfit Al Qaeda has threatened to “cleanse the land” with a new army of 12,000 fighters.
“We have a good news for the Islamic nation, that an army of 12,000 fighters is being prepared in Aden and Abyan,” Xinhua quoted Mohamed Saied al-Omda, field commander of the Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) as saying in an audio recording posted on a website Thursday.
“By this army, we will establish an Islamic Caliphate,” said al-Omda, referring to Yemen’s southern province of Abyan and the port city of Aden.
Gaza, July 30: The Islamic Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza Strip, Thursday rejected the Arab League’s conditions on which its support for direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks depend, calling them a “cover”.
“We reject any cover for the resumption of the direct talks with the Zionist occupation,” Ismail Radwan, a senior Hamas leader in Gaza said. “This committee is not authorised to make concessions over the rights of our people.”
London, July 30: Lady Gaga’s fitness trainer was in for a surprise when the pop singer turned up in a quirky outfit for work out sessions in the gym.
The “Poker Face” hitmaker approached celebrity fitness guru Harley Pasternak last year to tone up her body in preparation for her exhausting “The Monster Ball” tour.
Washington, July 30: Canadian scientists said Thursday that they have rediscovered the HMS Investigator, a famous British rescue ship that got trapped in Arctic ice 157 years ago while trying to track the fate of another Arctic expedition.
Archaeologists located the well-preserved hull of the Investigator 11 metres below sea surface in Mercy Bay on Banks Island. Using sonar equipment, they found the remains of the ship along with three corpses within 15 minutes of searching, they said.
Washington, July 30: US environmental regulators Thursday rejected a series of challenges to the science behind climate change, reaffirming that global warming is real and the result of man-made pollution.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruling was welcomed by US climate groups and comes after a number of recent controversies over the workings of climate scientists provided fodder for sceptics around the world.
Mumbai, July 30: One is obsessed about food, the other about fashion. One doesn’t mind showing her dirty feet and hates makeup, the other is glamorous. They are two young Bollywood sisters who seem as different as chalk from cheese, and yet, Rhea and Sonam Kapoor share not just clothes but also space.
“Sonam and I share each other’s clothes a lot. Her style is a little more glamorous. I like simpler things. But she always takes my things,” Rhea, 23, who has produced the movie “Aisha” that stars 25-year-old Sonam, told IANS.
London, July 30: At a time when one in five 16-24 year olds in Britain are unemployed, the government has decided to scrap the default retirement age of 65 years from October. This means employers cannot tell workers attaining the age of 65 to leave their jobs.
Employment Relations minister Ed Davey said it was the government’s contribution to age equality. “With more and more people wanting to extend their working lives, we should not stop them just because they have reached a particular age.”
Mumbai, July 30: Parallel cinema is still struggling to find a place in India and even multiplexes have not been able to create space for it, says veteran actor-director Amol Palekar.
“Non-mainstream cinema is mostly forgotten when we talk about Indian cinema. Only masala Hindi films are not what Indian cinema consists of,” Amol, 65, told IANS in an interview here.
Washington, July 30: The United States says it encourages a dialogue between India and Pakistan despite “revelations” of known links between Pakistani spy agency ISI and the Taliban as it is in the interest of all three nations.
“We are simply encouraging Pakistan and India to pursue a dialogue that we think is fundamentally in the interest of both countries,” State Department spokesman Phillip Crowley told reporters Thursday when asked why the US was nudging India for talks when it knew that ISI was funding Taliban to kill Indians in Afghanistan.
Mumbai, July 30: Bollywood’s intense actor Ajay Devgn, who is said to be playing the character of Haji Mastan in the controversial film “Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai”, denies any direct resemblance to the late Mumbai underworld don but admits that he was a point of reference.
Kolkata, July 30: Thee was a major controversy in a Kolkata college after the students’ union decided to stop a guest lecturer from teaching unless she came in burqa.
The lecturer Shirin Middya has not been allowed to hold classes in Aliah University, Bengal’s first Muslim University. Shirin and her family however have refused to relent. They say she would wear a burqa only if she wished to and not under prerssure.
Mumbai, July 30: The Pant Nagar police have arrested a 15-year-old boy for allegedly raping a five-year-old girl from his neighbourhood in the Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar at Ghatkopar.
According to police, the accused, Salim Shaikh (name changed), lured the victim with a chocolate and asked her to come to his residence. He then allegedly raped her and told her not to tell anyone about it and sent her back home.
Thailand, July 30: The world has less than 12 years to go before it faces major ice-melting and potentially catastrophic effects if nothing is done to reduce carbon emissions, a Thai environmental conservationist has warned.
Energy and environmental conservationist Chirapol Sintunawa said it would take approximately that time for the carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere to reach the 450 parts per million (ppm) figure, which would cause temperatures to rise and ice to melt, increasing sea levels.
Mumbai, July 30: Barely a week after Abu Salem was attacked by Mustafa Dossa inside the Arthur Road Jail, the gangster claimed to have received encounter threats from two policemen yesterday.
Salem was taken to J J hospital for a medical check-up from Taloja jail, where he is currently being held. His lawyer, Raja Thakur, said that a policeman inside the hospital told Salem that he would be shot in an encounter. Later, another officer who was escorting Salem repeated the threat.
Mumbai, July 30: Dimpy Ganguly walks out of Mahajan’s home, alleges he beat her regularly. Rahul Mahajan’s second wife, Kolkata model Dimpy Ganguly, left his Worli house in the early hours of Thursday after what she has described as a night of violent abuse.
Mumbai, July 30: To protest the central government’s decision to import milk powder and other dairy products, Shiv Sena activists spilled thousands of litres of milk on the Satara-Pune highway.
The activists stopped a milk tanker on the highway and spilled the milk all over the road. The import of dairy products will hurt the interests of the local dairy farmers, they claimed.
In a similar protest last week, Sena activists had stopped five tankers and wasted over 50,000 litres of milk in Satara.
New Delhi, July 30: Eyebrows were raised on Thursday when Congress President Sonia Gandhi skipped her scheduled meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron . In fact, the Congress president — known as a stickler for convention and her son, Rahul Gandhi have also been skipping the monsoon session of Parliament.
Congress sources have disclosed that Sonia is probably away from the country, visiting her ailing mother, Paola Maino.
New Delhi, July 30: The CBI, probing the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, is likely to question Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi in this connection. It is also likely to file a status report with the Supreme Court in a few days, in which it is expected to argue that questioning Mr Modi is crucial to ascertaining certain facts in the case.
London, July 30: The British government has refused to consider returning the jewel in the British monarch’s crown.
In an emphatic rebuff to India, Prime Minister David Cameron has said the 105-carat gemstone, known as the Kohinoor diamond, will stay firmly
in the actual crown.
Riyadh, July 30: Worshippers at a mosque in a Saudi Arabian village near Mecca discovered they were praying for 10 years in the wrong direction, a newspaper in the country reported on Thursday.
Muslims are meant to pray in the direction of the most sacred site in Islam, known as the Kaaba, a large granite structure in the holy city of Mecca.
Villagers in Hadda, 20 km north-west of Mecca, should have prayed southeast, but instead bent down five times a day in a northern direction.
Nellore, July 29 Police are said to be looking for actress Amani who has been named in a dowry harassment case filed by her sister-in-law. Her brother Srinivas was reportedly arrested by the Nellore police along with his mother and second wife on Wednesday evening.
Amani’s sister-in-law, Leelavathi left her marital home and returned to her parents’ yesterday and filed a dowry harassment case against Srinivas, her husband of 13 years, alleging relentless harassment.