Month: August 2011

London, August 4: Sonar scans looking for a century-old wreck of a Swedish merchant ship have revealed a grainy outline of a saucer shape against the dirt in the Gulf of Bothnia — hinting of a crashed UFO on the ocean floor.
The mysterious shape found at a depth of roughly 100 metres, between Sweden and Finland, makes scientists certain about one thing — that our planet has been visited by extraterrestrials.

The ocean exploration team which found it suggests that the mud around the craft has been scarred, suggesting it has tried to move around, the Daily Mail reports.

Urumqi, August 4: China on Monday blamed Muslim extremists trained in Pakistan for launching one of two deadly weekend attacks in a troubled far western region, while overseas activists feared the government could respond by cracking down on ethnic Uighurs widely blamed for the unrest.

Sunday’s attack left 13 dead, including seven suspected assailants, in the Silk Road city of Kashgar. Authorities have not pinpointed suspects behind clashes a day earlier in the city that killed seven, including one of two men who allegedly hijacked a truck and rammed it into a crowd.

—Agencies

Moscow, August 4: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Tuesday approved an Indo-Russian deal easing issuance of business and tourist visas to their nationals.

The Russian Cabinet, chaired by Putin, at a meeting gave its nod to the agreement and forwarded it to the Lower House of Parliament the State Duma for ratification.

Melbourne, August 4: Australia has recorded a drop of almost 63 per cent in offshore international student visa applications from India in the last financial year, according to latest official data.

The figures also show an overall drop of 20 per cent in the offshore international student visa applications, media reports said today.
The Indian market has been the hardest hit by the fall in offshore applications with a drop of 63 per cent.

Cairo, August 4: Egypt’s prosecutor general on Sunday formally summoned Hosni Mubarak to appear at his trial, giving the clearest indication that the ousted president will be brought to the Cairo courtroom this week despite questions about his health.

If he does appear at Wednesday’s opening session in a makeshift courtroom at the national police academy, Mubarak will face an audience of 600 people, including relatives of some of the 850 protesters killed in the crackdown on the 18-day uprising that forced him from power in February.

Ras Al Khaimah, August 04: A criminal court in Ras Al Khaimah sentenced an Ethiopian housemaid to death after she was convicted of murdering her Moroccan employer and her three-year-old daughter, newspapers reported on Thursday.

The court found S. Burhanu, 23, guilty of stabbing the 35-year-old Moroccan woman to death nearly 100 times before she set the woman and her little daughter on fire at their house in the northern city, they said.

Washington, August 4: Hours before the midnight deadline, US President Barack Obama signed into law a compromise plan to raise America’s $14.3 trillion debt ceiling to avoid a catastrophic US default sending shock waves through the world economy.

The US Senate passed the plan, which imposes sweeping new spending cuts over the next decade, shortly after noon Tuesday.
The bill was approved in a 74-26 vote; 60 votes were required for passage.

Hyderabad, August 04: Mr. N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, Chief Minister of A.P. thanked Mr. Kapil Sibal, Union HRD Minister for releasing Rs. 409.77 crore for starting 353 model schools in educationally backward areas. Govt. of A.P. has a plan for establishing six thousand model schools. This grant has been sanctioned to secondary schools society.

United Nations, August 4: The UN Security Council under India’s presidency has called on Syrian authorities to cease the use of force, saying an inclusive and Syrian-led political process is the only solution to the crisis there.
Such a process should aim at “effectively addressing the legitimate aspirations and concerns of the population which will allow the full exercise of fundamental freedoms for its entire population, including that of expression and peaceful assembly,” it said Wednesday in a presidential statement.

Dubai, August 4: The live TV images of a caged and bedridden Hosni Mubarak being held to account for alleged crimes against his own people — by his own people — captivated viewers across the Middle East and appeared to many to be a powerful turning point in this year’s uprisings.

Some hoped the trial, which began Wednesday in Cairo, would be the first of several bringing longtime autocrats to justice. Others weren’t quite sure what to make of the spectacle, torn between a desire for justice and the discomfort of seeing a once-all-powerful Arab leader treated like a common criminal.

New York, August 4: A federal grand jury in the US has indicted 26 people, including 19 Indians, for their participation in a multi-million dollar health care fraud and drug distribution scheme to facilitate the submission of false claims to Medicaid and private insurers.

The indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Detroit charged 26 individuals, including doctors and psychologists, United States Attorney Barbara McQuade announced on Wednesday.
An Indian-origin pharmacist is accused of being at the center of the conspiracy.

Hyderabad, August 04: Secretary, Dept of Minorities Welfare Dr. Mohammed Ali Rafath, IAS issued a G.O. canceling the ban on issuing the marriage booklets to Qazis for performing Muslim marriages.

Tirumala, August 4: Nine treasure hunters, including an employee of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), were arrested on the Tirumala Hills on Wednesday after they were found to be excavating at the Itakayala mandapam near the Venugopalaswamy temple en route to Papavinasanam in the hope of unearthing a treasure trove.

Hyderabad, August 04: Gutla Begumpet Eidgah consists of 98 acres of Wakf land but due to the carelessness of Wakf Board land grabbers got an opportunity to usurp this land illegally. Every year, Minister of Minorities Affairs visits other Eidgahs but this Eidgah is never visited. This is the reason by which the land grabbers get encouragement to grab the land. Some Muslims initiated the movement to save this land. Siasat pointed out the lacaunae in the court proceedings. As a result of which Wakf board appointed a noted lawyer Mr. Shafeeq Ur Rahman Mohajir.

Hyderabad, August 4: Rajya Sabha member V Hanumantha Rao on Wednesday asked ministers to come out clean on decisions taken by the late YS Rajasekhara Reddy.

Speaking to media persons at Delhi, the MP said it was not enough for the PCC president and Transport minister B Satyanarayana to say he cannot be held responsible for what happened behind the scenes, after a cabinet decision was taken.

Hyderabad, August 4: Minister for handlooms and textiles P Shankar Rao lodged a complaint with the Central Crime Station on Wednesday alleging that he had received threatening calls from an unidentified person.

Hyderabad, August 4: TJAC chairman Prof M Kodandaram has said that as a part of Sakalajanula Samme the entire state adminitration would be paralysed.
Speaking at the maha dharna organised by the Telangana Teachers’ JAC at Indira Park, here on Wednesday, attended by 24 teachers’ association representatives, Kodandaram said all the elected representatives from Telangana should quit their posts and submit resignations to the speaker. He said resignations only would help build pressure on the Centre to achieve T state.

Hyderabad, August 4: A two-Judge Bench of Chief Justice Nisar Ahmad Kakru and Justice Vilas Afzalpurkar of the High Court on Wednesday reserved its orders on a writ petition filed by Telugu Desam leader K Yerran Naidu and others for an inquiry into the alleged ill-gotten wealth of YSR Congress chief YS Jagan Mohan Reddy.

Hearing the petition, the third in as many days against Jagan, the Chief Justice pointed out that the court was concerned only with the question whether there was a prima facie case against Jagan.

Ghaziabad,August 04:Hitman charged `10- 25 lakh for killing his targets.THE POLICE officer was armed with an AK- 47, just in case. But as it turned out, Anil Kaparwan, a Special Operations Group ( SOG) officer, didn’t have to pull the trigger.

Hyderabad, August 4: Chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy on Wednesday asked the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to focus on employment creation in the state as part of the proposed Partnership Summit to be held in the city in January next year.

Hyderabad, August 4: The nine Telangana Congress MPs from Lok Sabha who had resigned to their posts for T cause and stayed away from Parliament session which began on Monday, were now in dilemma whether to attend the session on Friday, the day when Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar will take up discussion on Telangana issue under call Attention motion moved by Opposition leader Sushma Swaraj. The MPs will meet in New Delhi on Thursday to take a final decision on the issue.

Karachi, August 04: Hundreds of extra paramilitary troops have been deployed in Pakistan’s economic capital Karachi which is struggling to end violence that has killed 58 people in five days, officials said on Wednesday.

Authorities are battling to halt gunfights raging across the key port city — used by NATO to ship supplies to Afghanistan — where political, ethnic and criminal rivalries left more than 200 people dead last month.

New Delhi, August 04: Law Minister Salman Khurshid on Wednesday recalled a powerful one-line dialogue of popular Hindi film Deewar to stress how the Manmohan Singh government was doing everything in its power to rein in prices.

Injecting a dash of humour during a discussion on price rise in the Lok Sabha, Mr. Khurshid said: “There is a famous old [film] dialogue that you may have everything, par mere paas Ma hai [but I have my mother on my side]. That’s what we are saying…you may have everything, but we have Dr. Manmohan Singh.”

Mumbai, August 04: Reports claiming that Vidya Balan secretly married UTV Motion Pictures` head honcho Siddharth Roy Kapur have been splashed all over the net but the actress has shot it down saying she is so busy with her film that she doesn`t have time to think about marriage.
 
“I am not yet ready to make a wedding album. I am busy making `Dirty Picture` (her forthcoming film) at the moment,” Vidya, 33, said in a statement.

The reports of Vidya and Siddharth dating each other have been doing the rounds for quite some time, but neither has confirmed it so far.

Mumbai, August 04: The one-film old Sonakshi Sinha is giving other actresses a run for their money by bagging endorsements and big films, but the `Dabangg` girl says she doesn`t consider herself as part of the competition.
 
“I don’t look at it that way. I think everybody here has something to offer. Everyone has their own charm and their own personality. Everybody brings something new and something different for the audience. I don`t believe in competition,” Sonakshi told reporters. She was in the capital Wednesday for the launch of new Pantene Hair Control shampoo.