New Delhi, May 01: Kate-Middleton’s Grace Kelly inspired Alexander McQueen wedding gown not only won laurels from fashion watchers across the globe but also got thumbs up from Indian designers, who hailed her “glamorous yet understated” style.
The royal bride, who wed Prince William in a grand ceremony at Westminister Abbey on Friday, wore a stunning ivory and satin, lacy gown, designed by Sarah Burton from McQueen’s collection.
Chennai, May 01: Casting aside the track record and “paper strength”, Chennai Super Kings coach Stephen Fleming emphasized the old saying in the shorter version of cricket that form on the day matters more than the reputations.
The former New Zealand captain pointed out that almost every team looked good on paper, but it did not always reflect in the performances on the field of play as he looked ahead to Sunday night’s game here against the Deccan Chargers in the Indian Premier League.
Kolkata, May 01: After Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) clinched a handsome victory over Kings XI Punjab, KKR owner and Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan Saturday said former KKR skipper Sourav Ganguly who came to see the match at Eden Gardens had brought luck for the team.
“Sourav had brought luck for the team. Sourav was sitting at a place far away from me so we could not talk today. But definitely I will talk to him soon,” said Shah Rukh Khan.
Shah Rukh also expressed his happiness for his team playing well as team.
Bhubaneswar, May 01: Two Indian scientists have questioned reports that the long elusive sub-atomic Higgs boson or the “god particle” – a hypothetical particle believed to be a basic building block of matter – has been discovered, with one even denying the possibility of its physical existence.
New Delhi, May 01: The Howrah-Delhi Rajdhani is set to become the first train in India to have Wi-Fi connectivity that would enable passengers to access internet during their rail journey.
Railways have awarded the Rs 5.3 crore contract for making equipping three rakes of the Delhi-Howrah-Delhi Rajdhani with the facility.
While the satellite link-up cost is more than Rs 1 crore, it would cost about Rs 4 crore for the equipment to facilitate internet access, a senior Railway Ministry official said.
Internet facility is expected to be fully operational in two months.
New Delhi, May 01: Despite the ban on smoking in public places, people continue breaking the law and as many as 21,600 violators were fined in the national capital over the last 15 months, according to Delhi Health Minister A.K. Walia.
“Between January 2010 and March 2011, a total of 181,000 places were inspected, and 21,600 persons and 3,200 tobacco vendors were fined,” Walia said Saturday.
The minister said this while inaugurating a month-long “No Tobacco” campaign in the city.
Cairo, May 01: Amnesty International has slammed Egypt’s ruling junta over a law which bans protests, urging Egyptian authorities to immediately revoke the law.
In a statement published on its website on Saturday, the organization said Egyptian authorities should make use of the historic moment following the January 25 revolution to introduce reforms and show commitment to the protection of labor rights, Egyptian daily al-Masry al-Youm reported.
The legislation states that those convicted of breaking it could be jailed for up to a year.
Kuala Lumpur, May 01: Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak says his wife Rosmah Mansor gets irritated with his late night tweeting.
An avid blogger, Najib told his “Facebook friends” with whom he interacts in different cities across the country that his wife does hot approve his late evening working on iPad.
Answering questions in a meeting with over 100 of his Facebook friends here, Najib said he often tweets at night due to his busy schedule.
“My wife is angry with me as I look at my iPad to update my status rather than look at her,” he quipped.
New Delhi, May 01: A Delhi court Saturday awarded 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment to a man who sexually abused his minor stepdaughter for almost four years before the crime came to light in 2009 in north Delhi.
The court also suggested considering enactment of a law for surgical and chemical castration of such convicts, on the lines of penal provisions for similar offences in many developed countries.
Manama, May 01: The United Nations’ silence over the atrocities committed by Bahraini regime forces against anti-regime protesters in the Persian Gulf country is astonishing, an observer says.
“That [the crackdown on protesters] is completely against the Geneva Convention[s] in any warfare or any protest situation; so to be breaking the Geneva Convention[s]… and to (be) basically committing genocide, I think it’s … an amazing situation that the UN isn’t looking further into these things,” London-based documentary filmmaker David Lawley told Media on Saturday.
Berhampur, May 01: Seven persons were burnt to death by a mob at an illegal stone crusher unit near a village in Ganjam district. Police suspect that the gruesome incident was the fallout of a long-running dispute between the unit owners and residents of Sheragada block’s Badaguda village, 60 km from Berhampur.
Hyderabad, May 01: The incident which shaken the Hyderabad yesterday with the attack on Akbaruddin Owaisi was the true story said to the media or their was still truth left which has to be disclosed….
Mohammed Pahalwan the man behind the attack on Akbaruddin Owaisi wants to share his side of truth. Talking with the local channel, he exposed the incident in a different way which was kept behind the curtains from the people of Hyderabad.
Aligarh, May 01: The Aligarh Muslim University was closed indefinitely and exams postponed on Saturday, following a clash between two groups of students Friday night. Nine students were injured — two suffered gunshot wounds — in the clash at the Proctor’s office on the campus.
The university asked the students to vacate the hostels within 48 hours.
Chennai, May 01: A helper at the Chennai Corporation maternity hospital in Shenoy Nagar was placed under suspension and memos were served on two maternity assistants following the post-delivery death of a woman, on Friday.
A senior medical officer told Express that 26yearold Kavitha was admitted to the Corporation hospital with labour pain around 4 pm on Thursday.
She gave birth to a 2.5kg baby boy through normal delivery after three hours. While the placenta was removed and the baby was healthy, the mother was bleeding heavily, she said.
Bikaner, May 01: Intelligence agencies are interrogating a Pakistani spy who was arrested from Indo-Pak international border in Sri Ganganagar, officials said here today.
The spy, identified as Ismail Khan who used to work as an ISI agent, was arrested on April 28 from his residence at Karanpur area in Sri Ganganagar.
A satellite phone through which he used to send messages to Pakistani handlers had been seized, officials said.
Three mobile phones with Pakistani sim, a laptop and some documents were also recovered from his possession, they said.
–Agencies
New Delhi, May 01: As the strike by Air India pilots entered the fifth day today, the national carrier reduced its operation to 40 flights across its network against the regular 165.
“We are continuing with our contingency plans and will be operating 40 domestic flights across the country today. we will be utilising Boeing 737 aircraft of our subsidiary Air India Express on some of the sectors,” an Air India spokesperson said.
The national carrier will be operating 14 flights, including one each to Kathmandu and Dubai, today out of its scheduled 52 flights from the national capital.
Hyderabad, May 01: The bandh call given by the Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen on Sunday to protest the attempt on the life of its MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi is likely to throw life out of gear. Transportation in the Old City is likely to be hit, with MIM activists reportedly preparing to disrupt MMTS services.
The Railway authorities though have decided to run MMTS services as usual. The APSRTC is also planning to do the same.
“We will run our trains as per schedule. If the situation becomes volatile, we will take a decision then,” a South Central Railway official said.
Hyderabad, May 01: A division bench of the High Court comprising chief justice Nisar Ahmad Kakru and justice Vilas Afzulpurkar on Saturday made it clear that K Aravinda Rao would continue as the director-general of police until further orders.
Beirut, May 01: Syrian troops backed by tanks and three helicopters on Saturday took a prominent mosque that had been controlled by residents in a besieged southern city killing four people, a witness said.
The operation in the town of Daraa came a day after President Bashar Assad unleashed deadly force to crush a months-old revolt, killing at least 65 people, mostly in the border town.
Gaza, May 01: Ismail Haniya, the Prime Minister of the Islamist Hamas movement in power in the Gaza Strip, said on Saturday that he was “ready to resign.”
“I am prepared to tender my resignation as part of the reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Fatah,” the secular party of Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmud Abbas.
“This agreement is very important and should boost efforts to end the divisions and encourage unity among Palestinians,” he added.
Cairo, May 01: Egypt’s ousted President Hosni Mubarak would face the death penalty if convicted of ordering the shooting of protesters during the uprisings that brought him down, the country’s new Justice Minister said on Saturday.
Mohammed el-Guindi told the daily Al Ahram on Saturday that Mubarak, his two sons and wife are also facing allegations of corruption, which he said the former President had made the chief “discourse” of his Government.
Washington, May 01: A US Senate delegation has arrived in the autonomous region of Puntland in northeastern Somalia in a surprise visit to the conflict-plague nation.
The delegation, headed by Illinois Republican Sen. Mark Kirk, arrived in the port town of Bosaso, located about 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) north of Mogadishu, on Saturday and met with local authorities, a Press TV correspondent in Mogadishu reported.
Puntland, unlike the breakaway region of Somaliland to the west, does not consider itself an independent country.
Gaza, May 01: A senior member of Hamas political bureau says the reconciliation deal between Fatah and Hamas will hold despite pressures from the US and Israel.
“I am sure that this deal will hold despite all the Israeli and American pressure,” Ezzat al-Rishq told Media in an interview on Saturday.
“The Israeli enemy has been the only side that benefited from the rift and division between Fatah and Hamas movements, launching a wide-scale war against Gaza and Judaizing al-Quds (Jerusalem),” he noted.
Kandhar, May 01: At least eight prisoners have reportedly escaped from a detention center in Afghanistan’s northwestern province of Herat.
The jailbreak took place in Kohsan district, located 730 kilometers (454 miles) west of the capital Kabul late Friday, a Press TV correspondent reported Saturday.
Prison officials announced that guards were giving prisoners’ meals when a group of inmates attacked them.
A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that a prison warden sustained injuries in the incident, adding that Taliban militants were not among the escapees.
Jerusalem, May 01: Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has expressed concern about a reconciliation deal between the Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas.
“We expect world leaders and especially the United Nations to attach conditions to any cooperation with a Palestinian unity government — to whatever extent that this will happen,” AFP quoted Barak as saying in a telephone conversation with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday.