Month: May 2012

Nargis Fakhri’s Hindi lessons yielding results

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American model-turned-actress Nargis Fakhri, whose voice in her debut film “Rockstar” was dubbed due to her poor Hindi diction, is busy working on the language and reveals that finally she can read and write a bit of Hindi.

“Everything takes time, it doesn’t happen like this. I was plucked out of the sky and put here. So, it’s taking time but it’s going well,” she said Monday at the launch of the Gaja Store.

“I am really happy, I am reading and writing, which is great. So at least when I can read I am like, ‘Yes, I can read’,” she added.

Congress distances itself from media GAG bill

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The Congress Tuesday distanced itself from a bill on media regulation proposed by Meenakshi Natarajan, a Lok Sabha MP and an aide of party general secretary Rahul Gandhi, even as Press Council of India chairman Markandey Katju accused the media of diverting interest from national issues.

“The bill is based on her (Natarajan’s) views. These are not the views of Rahul Gandhi. Neither are these his views nor has she got his consent on this bill,” Congress General Secretary Janardan Dwivedi told reporters here.

Staged shootout: Charges framed against Rajasthan IPS officer

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A court here Tuesday framed charges against suspended Indian Police Service (IPS) officer A.K. Jain in the case of killing of criminal Dara Singh in a staged shoot-out, a lawyer said.

Jain had surrendered before a court in Jaipur on Feb 27, nine months after he disappeared fearing arrest by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Another Pakistan will emerge inside India: Nizami

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The Nation Editor-in-Chief and Nazaria-i-Pakistan Trust (NPT) Chairman Majid Nizami has said that another Pakistan will emerge inside India if the latter did not stop atrocities against its Muslim population.

Addressing a poetry competition ceremony among the students of various educational institutions at Aiwan-e-Karkunan Tehrik-e-Pakistan on Monday, he said that India and America were united to destroy the nuclear assets of Pakistan. But, he believed, they would never succeed in their conspiracies against the sole atomic power of the Muslim world.

Delhi Daredevils restrict Royals to 141/6

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Rajasthan Royals made 141 for six against Delhi Daredevils in an Indian Premier League match here Tuesday.

Skipper Rahul Dravid top-scored with 57 while Ajinkya Rahane made 42.

Pawan Negi took four wickets for the Daredevils.

British Muslim Voters Getting Active

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A new study has found that British Muslim opt out from voting, a trend Muslims refer to decades of political parties failure to reach out to the religious minority as well as Muslims feeling of a lack of representing political parties.

“I’m not totally surprised, but I’m not happy about it,” Talha Ahmad, chair of the membership committee at the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), which represents more than 500 Islamic organizations in Britain, told the BBC on Tuesday, May 1.

Nupur Talwar stands in jail queue for lunch

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Dentist Nupur Talwar stood in queue to get her lunch of arhar dal, aloo palak subzi and chapati Tuesday in Ghaziabad’s Dasna jail. She also got issued a book from the jail library, a jail official said.

Talwar, the mother of murdered teenager Aarushi, would have to spend another night in the jail with a special court reserving till Wednesday its order on her bail plea.

Talwar, who is in Barrack number 13 along with 69 other women inmates, is “like a normal qaidi (prisoner)”, Dasna jail superintendent Viresh Raj Sharma told IANS.

Subway targets to have 1,000 outlets in India by 2015

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Restaurant chain Subway Tuesday said it is targeting to raise the number of its outlets in India from the existing 263 to 1,000 by 2015 with an investment of $58 million.

The US-based company, present in 50 cities, will be targeting smaller Indian towns.

It aims to generate employment opportunities for another 15,000 people through this expansion in India.

Jennifer Lopez sued by ex-driver

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Jennifer Lopez is being sued by her former personal driver Hakob Manoukian. He claims the singer’s manager Benny Medina humiliated him and destroyed his career.

According to the lawsuit, the driver claimed he started working for the singer and Marc Anthony in 2005, and they loved him so much that they convinced him to shut down his company and work exclusively as Lopez’s personal head of security and transportation, reports tmz.com.

Hakob said Lopez agreed to pay him more than $200,000 per year.

Presidential poll: Rift in NDA, Left may support Congress

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Differences appeared Tuesday in the opposition National Democratic Alliance over the presidential candidate while the Left indicated it may support a Congress candidate.

A day after BJP leader Sushma Swaraj said her party would not support Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee or Vice President Hamid Ansari, Janata Dal-United leader and NDA convenor Sharad Yadav bluntly said that allies did not necessarily share her view.

Sangakkara and White star in Chargers’ second victory

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The highest third-wicket partnership of 157 runs in the Indian Premier League (IPL) between Kumar Sangakarra and Cameron White steered Deccan Chargers to their second win in the fifth edition. Yet, Pune Warriors came tantalisingly close to the 187-run target before losing by 13 runs at the Barabati Stadium here Tuesday.

Skipper Sangakarra top scored with 82 off 52 balls and was well supported by Australian White, who smashed 74 off 45 balls, taking Chargers to 186 for four and that looked good enough to defend even on the easy-paced wicket.

Hyderabad Metro to finalise vendors in two months

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Larsen and Toubro Metro Rail (Hyderabad), a subsidiary of L&T Infrastructure Development Projects, will finalise in the next two to three months vendors for various components of the Rs.16,375 crore Hyderabad metro rail project, described as the world’s largest metro project under public-private partnership.

Vivek B. Gadgil, chief executive and managing director of L&T Metro Rail told reporters Tuesday that vendors for rolling stocks, signalling, telecommunications, automation for collection of fares and lifts and elevators for stations would be finalized.

Inspection of Israeli embassy car allowed

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A Delhi court Tuesday allowed the Israeli embassy car damaged in a bomb blast here Feb 13 to be inspected by an insurance surveyor to assess the damages for reimbursement. The court also ordered for video-recording of the inspection.

“The applicant (Alon Yehoshua) is at liberty to get the vehicle inspected in malkhana of Special Cell with minimum intervention to the vehicle,” the court said while allowing the car to be inspected on May 10 between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.

Blast kills two in Pakistan

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Two people died in a bomb attack in southwest Pakistan’s Quetta city Tuesday, police said.

The blast took place on Sariab road. Fifteen others were injured. The target of the attack was a security vehicle, Geo News reported.

Court allows Jaya Jaitley to visit Singapore

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A Delhi court Tuesday allowed former Samata Party chief Jaya Jaitley, facing trial in a graft case linked to a purported defence deal, to visit Singapore for a week to attend a debate.

Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Special Judge Kanwaljeet Arora allowed Jaitley’s plea to visit abroad from May 30 to June 8 to attend the panel debate on furnishing a surety bond of Rs.3 lakh in the form of fixed deposit receipts of a bank and asked her not to extend her stay in Singapore.

She plans to attend a panel debate on “Smith Women Leading Change: Asia 2012”.

Five held in US for plotting to blow up bridge

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Five suspects have been arrested by the FBI for allegedly plotting to blow up a bridge in Ohio state, media reports said Tuesday.

The arrests were, however, not connected to the one-year anniversary of Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden’s death. Instead, the suspects were described as anarchists, Xinhua reported citing local TV station WKYC.

The FBI said the suspects had plotted to blow up the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad Brecksville Station near Cleveland.

Year after Osama, world still unsafe

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A year after Osama bin Laden was hunted down and killed at his safehouse in Pakistan’s military town of Abbottabad by elite American forces, an event that made splashing headlines the world over, strategic analysts across the spectrum are agreed that little has changed and the Al Qaeda may be weakened but is still dangerous.

Abducted Chhattisgarh collector may walk free Wednesday

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Maoists may set abducted Sukma District Collector Alex Paul Menon free Wednesday, official sources in Chhattisgarh said Tuesday.

“Maoist interlocutors G. Hargopal and B.D. Sharma communicated to the Maoists Tuesday that they had signed an agreement Monday night with mediators appointed by the Chhattisgarh government, and it is believed the rebels have no objection to releasing Menon by Wednesday,” a top official source told IANS.

Chief Minister Raman Singh chaired a cabinet meeting Tuesday that approved the agreement signed between the two sides for release of Menon.

Priest sex scandal shocks Poland

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A priest in Poland, found guilty of having sex with a disabled 19-year-old girl who was entrusted in his care, has been sentenced to four years in prison.

This is the first time a priest has been caught and sentenced in Poland, though there have been few incidents in the past where priests
were asked to resign.

Bialystok’s District Court found that between July 2010 and February 2011 the priest had sexual intercourse with her as many as eight times, a media report said.

Akbar attack case: Mohammed Pahelwan surrenders in court

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The prime accused in the Akbaruddin Owaisi attack case Mohammed Bin Omer Yafai aka Mohammed Pahelwan along with his brother Younus Bin Omer Yafai and business associate Bahadur Ali Khan aka Munawar Iqbal today surrendered before the Nampally criminal courts.

The accused surrendered themselves before the third additional metropolitan session’s judge at nampally, where the judge sent them to fourteen days judicial custody till May 14. According to the sources the accused received the order copy from the High court this yesterday.

Dhoni to decide retirement plans depending on his fitness

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India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni today rubbished talks about his retirement plans in 2013, saying his comments made during the Australian tour were “blown out of proportion” and there was still time for him to take a call.

“That was blown out of proportion,” he told reporters here referring to his comments made during India’s tour of
Australia in January this year.

Dhoni had then said that he may retire from Test cricket if he is to play in the 2015 cricket World Cup.

Osama planned to change name of al-Qaeda: top US official

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The felling of his top commanders one after the other by US drone strikes had plunged the slain al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden into gloom in his last days and he was mulling changing the name of the group, a top US official said.

Bin Laden rued “disaster after disaster”, inflicted by the US drones in his last days, according to Deputy National
Security Adviser John Brennan, who claimed that the CIA campaign had left al-Qaeda seriously weakened and unable to
replace wiped out commanders.

UN chief Ban holds talks with Suu Kyi in Myanmar

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UN chief Ban Ki-moon met Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi today for talks about the country’s political future after a surprise climbdown by the Nobel laureate in her boycott of parliament.

The talks at the opposition leader’s lakeside mansion in Yangon, where she was locked up by the former junta for much of the past two decades, come a day after Ban became the first visiting foreigner to address Myanmar’s legislature.

Female drug dealer hid cocaine in her hair

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Two African female drug dealers who managed to skip airport customs in other countries were seized separately in Dubai, with one hiding costly cocaine in her hair and the other concealing heroin in her shoes.

Customs inspectors at Dubai airport caught the two in April after receiving information by the emirate’s counter-drug squads that two African women might be trying to smuggle narcotics through Dubai.

The first women, a 25-year-old Kenya, arrived from Argentina on April 4 and Dubai airport female inspectors noticed an unusual bulge in her hair.

Woman commits suicide with sons in UP

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A 38 year-old woman committed suicide along with her two young sons here over a family dispute in UP, police said today.

Imrauti of Chikwan Kar Purva village had a dispute with her husband Nathu last evening following which she went and
sat on a nearby railway track along with her six children, police said.

Seeing the approaching train, four of her children fled while she and her two sons Anu (6) and Shubham (5) were
killed, police said.

———————–PTI