All India Jameatul Quraish, Hyderabad has decided to boycott Unislamic celebrations. It has appealed to Quraish Community to refrain from celebrations like Sanchak, Mehendi etc. Which have no relevance with Islam.
Former Karnataka Lokayukta and Team Anna member Santosh Hegde on Sunday said no government would like to bring in a strong Lokpal Bill in the country as the government does not have the intent.
“The government should bring in a strong Lokpal bill, but I don’t think any government will want to bring a strong Lokpal bill. The government does not have the intent”, Hegde told reporters as he joined in the protest by Karnataka Chapter of India Against Corruption at the Freedom Park here.
Veteran BJP leader and chairman of its Parliamentary party L K Advani has written a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urging him to involve leaders of the Opposition in the selection of the Chief Election Commissioner(CEC).
”The present system whereby members to the Election Commission are appointed by the President, solely on the advice of the Prime Minister, does not evoke confidence among the people,” he said.
Widespread opposition notwithstanding, Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council Chairman C Rangarajan has strongly favoured an immediate increase in prices of diesel and cooking gas to contain government expenditure.
“It (increase in prices of diesel and LPG) should be done, as early as possible…We need to take action…. howsoever unpleasant it may be,” he said in an interview on a leading news channel.
Opposition politician Imran Khan on Sunday called for the audit of the budgetary allocations for Pakistan’s armed forces to ensure the effective use of the country’s resources.
The former cricketer, who heads the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf party, further said the discretionary funds of the President, Prime Minister and Chief Ministers too should be audited.
Addressing a news conference on the budget for fiscal 2012-13, he criticised the government for allocating large amounts to the armed forces.
The funds allocated for the military should be audited, he said.
Kiwi keeper-batsman Brendon McCullum today backed controversial opening batsman Jesse Ryder, saying the hard-hitting southpaw’s talent was ‘unquestionable’ but he needed to remove doubts about his commitment once he’s ready to attempt a comeback to the national side.
‘His talent is unquestionable but I guess his respect within the team needs to be continued to be re-earned.
He’s got a tremendous amount of talent and everyone wants him back on the park. He’s just got a couple of blemishes he’s got to iron out,’ McCullum was quoted as saying by ‘cricinfo’.
Under a programme aptly titled “Bolivia reads”, the South American country will open 12,000 new libraries to encourage and nurture reading habits among “freshly literate” people, the Prensa Latina news agency reported.
The “Bolivia Lee” programme that began in May has already amassed 37,790 books out of the 100,000 goal through public and private donations.
Education Minister Roberto Aguilar has said Bolivia’s Football Federation will send a big batch of books ahead of a match in La Paz versus Chile for the 2014 Brazil World Cup.
Lyricist Prasoon Joshi is impressed with the young crop of eager and innovative musicians but he feels that they are in too much of a hurry and that in the race to be in the reckoning they are ignoring traditional music.
“The young musicians today are very talented. They like to experiment with their music and are also technically well-versed. They are open to accepting what is right and what is wrong,” Joshi told IANS in an interview on phone from Mumbai.
However, he rued that youngsters are less aware of traditional Indian music.
Over 153 people were feared dead when a passenger plane tragically crashed into a residential building shortly after takeoff in Nigeria’s commercial capital of Lagos on Sunday.
The plane carrying 153 passengers and crew members had taken off from Lagos but was attempting to return to the airport after the pilot noticed a glitch with the aircraft.
The aircraft belonging to Dana Air crashed into a building and caught fire immediately, sending billows of thick black smoke into the air at the Iju neighbourhood where it went down.
Pakistan team manager Naveed Akram Cheema today defended newly-appointed T20 skipper Muhammad Hafeez, saying the youngster should be given time to prove his leadership credentials after a disappointing start to the tour which saw the tourists lose the opening Twenty20 by 37 runs agaisnt Sri Lanka. ‘The loss hurt all of us but people should understand that we have a new leader and a new team so they need time to gel,’ Cheema was quoted as saying by the ‘Express Tribune’.
Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has turned down demands from some players to further increase the match fees and the pay announced recently in the central contracts, according to sources. The PCB had announced a 25 per cent hike in the monthly central contract retainers and another 10 per cent raise in the match fees. But before leaving for Sri Lanka last week, majority of the players had not signed the contracts amid reports that some of the seniors were not happy and wanted around 50 per cent raise in the contracts and match fees.
Master blaster Sachin Tendulkar will on Monday take oath as Rajya Sabha member in the chambers of RS Chairperson Hamid Ansari.
Sachin was nominated to the Upper House along with film actress Rekha and industrialist Anu Aga in April, but had to wait to take his oath until the end of IPL season 5.
Union Minister of Health and incharge of Party Affairs in Andhra Pradesh Ghulam Nabi Azad today said the bye-election for 18 assembly and one Lok Sabha seats on June 12 was being held due to the ‘selfishness’ of one individual. However, he did not name YSR Congress Party President Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today complained to Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Bhanwarlal against Atmakur Circle Inspector assigned for Parkal Assembly Constituency for preventing the celebrations of Bathukkamma and Bonalu as part of the election campaign. In a representation to Mr Bhanwarlal, a copy of which was released to the media here, the BJP said as part of election campaign, some supporters of the party performed Bathukkamma and Bonalu.
Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief and former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu today ridiculed Vijayamma Honorary president of YSR Congress party for making hue and cry over her son Jaganmohan Reddy’s arrest who had indulged in amassing of wealth to the tune of Rs 140 lakh crores making gross misuse of his father Late Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy’s official position.
A Joseph Antony from ‘The Hindu’ will be the new President of the Andhra Pradesh Sports Journalists Association (APSJA). Elections to various posts were held at the Press Club, Somajiguda here today. The Association patron, T N Pillay and election officer, Abhijeet Sen Gupta, declared the office-bearers elected unanimously. APSJA Office-bearers: President, A Joseph Antony (The Hindu).
In an interesting turn, Nuzvid TDP MLA Chinnam Ramakotaiah met Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy and AICC general secretary and State Congress affairs in-charge Ghulam Nabi Azad here on Sunday. Congress Rajya Sabha member Chiranjeevi was also present when he met them in a hotel here.
A teenaged girl, dubbed as Britain’s fattest teen and presently hospitalised, used to order her favourite junk food online and get it stealthily delivered, her parents have revealed.
Georgia Davis would use her laptop to secretly order her favourite junk food, The Sun quoted her parents – Lesley Davis and Arthur Treloar – as saying.
The girl’s parents did their best to help the 19-year-old eat healthily and were baffled when her weight kept rising. They discovered she was ordering secret supplies from shops and having it delivered by van.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad next week prior to an international round of talks on Iran’s nuclear programme, a presidential aide said Sunday.
The meeting will allow Putin to “feel the heat surrounding the Iranian problem and see how this issue is perceived in Tehran”, said Yuri Ushakov, an advisor to Putin on foreign policy.
Putin will meet with Ahmadinejad on the sidelines of the 12th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit to be held June 6-7 in Beijing.
Iran is building a new space centre to launch satellites, Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi said Sunday.
The Imam Khomeini Space Centre is currently under construction. Iran launched its first indigenously-made satellite, Omid (Hope), for data-processing in 2009, Xinhua reported.
At least 25 members of a wedding party died in Pakistan early Monday when their bus fell into a deep ravine, police said.
The accident took place in Nurh area of Kahuta town, some 30 km from here. Over 60 others were injured, Xinhua reported.
Rawalpindi district administrator Saqib Zafar said the driver lost control of the bus due to over speeding. He was arrested after he jumped out of the vehicle.
The victims were on its way to Chakwal after attending a wedding ceremony in Kahuta.
At least seven women and four children were among the dead, witnesses said.
Sixteen people died in a US drone attack early Monday in Pakistan.
The attack took place around 5.00 a.m. A militant hideout and a vehicle carrying militants in Mir Ali area of North Waziristan were targeted.
The latest attack was the third of its kind in the last three days, Xinhua quoted the Urdu channel Dawn TV as saying.
The Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee River Pageant concluded Sunday as a world record-beating 1,000-strong flotilla passed under the Tower Bridge here with hundreds of thousands of people cheering along the Thames.
People crowded the Thames river’s shoreline to watch the pageant organised to celebrate the Queen’s 60 years on the throne.
APCC official spokesperson Dr N Thulasi Reddy has said that YSRCP Chief Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy’s family itself was acting vindictively towards the Congress.
Speaking to the media at Gandhi Bhavan, Thulasi Reddy reminded that Jagan’s family was making atrocious statements like “We will throw the Congress in the Bay of Bengal” and so on. Though the Congress had given top priority to the Jagan’s family, Jagan and his mother Y S Vijayamma were acting hysterically against the Congress, he added.
TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu has questioned the people if they would vote to a person, who has been put in jail for committing crimes.
Naidu, who came to Ramachandrapuram in East Godavari district for election campaigning, has spoken to the media at Kakinada. He said that while the Congress was a party of thieves, YSR Congress was a party of plunderers. He said that these parties have also corrupted the judiciary through their heinous methods.