Month: December 2012

Receiving a standing ovation for his act based on a short story by Ismat Chughtai in Lahore, veteran Indian actor Naseeruddin Shah said that his appearance in the play was the “most memorable performance” of his career.

“Tonight was the most memorable performance of my life,” Shah commented after appearing in a play based on Chughtai”s “Gharwali” last night.

The play was part of the acclaimed show “Ismat Apa Ke Naam” that was organised to pay tribute to poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz.

A court in Pakistan has restrained a military estates officer and the administration of the port city of Karachi from demolishing a pre-Partition era temple.

The Sindh High Court Saturday issued an order restraining the demolition of the Shri Rama Pir Mandir in the Soldier Bazaar area, the News International reported Sunday.

The order came on a petition filed by Ram Chander, a resident in the temple premises, who challenged the demolition of the temple and its adjoining quarters and took to courtthe military estates officer, police and a private builder.

According to the report of Mir Mumtaz Ali secretary AIITA AP, teachers meet is being organized by All India Ideal Teachers Association on Sunday, December 2, 11 am, at Islamic Centre Lakadkot, Chatta Bazar. He has appealed teachers to attend the meeting. All India Ideal Teachers’ Association (AIITA) is an All India Level ideological organization.

Siasat news

Hindu Vahini, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and other such organisations are busy creating issues on one or the matter. Surprisingly intelligence, police and government turn blind eye towards the activities of anti-national elements. Now these traitors are circulating currency notes in the denomination of Rs 10, on whose water mark window, stamp is affixed stating ‘Bharat Ko Hindu Rashtra Banao’ in Hindi.

Both houses of parliament will be adjourned for the day Monday after paying tributes to former prime minister Inder Kumar Gujral, who died Nov 30.

“Both houses will pay tributes to the former prime minister and will be adjourned for the day on Monday as a mark of respect to him,” Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Rajeev Shukla told IANS.

Gujral breathed his last at a private hospital in Gurgaon, Haryana, Friday. He was 92.

MBT Corporator Mohammed Amjadullah Khan Khalid kicked off developmental work of laying CC road and BT road worth Rs 19 lakh at Quader Khan dairy farm Chanchalguda on Saturday. MBT leaders besides top officials of Municipal Corporation were present on the occasion.

Addressing the inaugural function corporation Amjadullah khan told MBT is incessantly working on resolving the basic issues of Azampura Municipal division including municipal and water problems, hence laying of road is also a part of it. He told that laying of another BT road will begin on December 3 at New Road Chanchalguda.

At least 80 Shia Muslims were killed in targeted attacks across Pakistan in November, a Shia organisation has said in a report.

The Majlis-e-Wahdat-e-Muslimeen Pakistan (MWM), a group set up to unite all scattered organisations and clerics of the Shia community on a single platform, Saturday released the data in its monthly report.

The report said 28 Shias were killed in Sindh, 27 in Punjab, 14 in Balochistan and 11 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Daily Times said Sunday.

Among major cities, at least 26 Shias were killed in the port city of Karachi and 23 in Rawalpindi.

In a bid to tackle fake votes in the upcoming general elections, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) will use thumbprint-tracing technology to match those on a ballot paper with the national database.

ECP official Muhammad Afzal Khan said the technology will ensure irregularities are avoided in the polling process, the Dawn reported.

“Objectionable votes will be dispatched to the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) for verification through thumbprints. The thumbprints on ballot papers will be matched with those on the NADRA database,” Khan said.

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi has called on Egyptians to vote on December 15 in a referendum on a controversial draft constitution at the heart of widening rifts between political forces.

Mursi called “all Egyptians to a referendum on the draft constitution on Saturday, December 15,” after he received a copy of the final document from the head of the panel drafting the charter during a ceremony in Cairo today.

He urged “all citizens to examine in detail and objectively the articles of the draft” constitution.

An advisory meeting of Jamiat Ulama was held on Saturday, December 1, at Jamiat office. The meeting was presided over by Alhaj Hafiz Peer Shabbir Ahmed president Jamiat Ulama Andhra Pradesh. As per the decision of working committee the meeting proposed to conduct 3 big public conventions in the state. The first public convention will be held on December 27 at Guntur in which scholars and people of 12 districts will participate. The second convention will be held in Chittoor in the last week of January 2013, while the third convention will be held in Nizamabad in the end of February 2013.

India will soon erect a ‘floating fence’, anchored by submerged metallic meshes, along the disputed Sir Creek border area with Pakistan.

The 96-km strip in the Rann of Kutch marshes is notorious for illegal crossings and smuggling of narcotics and arms and is patrolled round-the-clock by BSF marine commandos.

Six members of the provincial assembly, including four ministers, of Pakistan’s Sindh province have resigned after they failed to come up with affidavits testifying that they were not citizens of two countries.

Those who resigned Saturday were Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s (MQM) Raza Haroon, Mohammad Ali Shah, Askari Taqwi and Abdul Moid Siddiqui and the Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) Murad Ali Shah and Sadiq Ali Memon, Geo News reported.

Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray Sunday reiterated his resolve to fight for ‘Marathi Manoos’ and ‘Hindutvavaad’. Uddhav will soon tour the state to meet party workers across the state.

In his first interview in party mouthpiece Saamna after the death of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, Uddhav said he would not take the place of his father, who was irreplaceable and would stay Shiv Sena supremo.

He said that the controversy over the memorial to Bal Thackeray at Shivaji Park was unnecessary.

Starting Monday, Uddhav is set to tour the state and meet party workers.

Nearly 2 months have passed since the fraud in Minority Finance Corporation has come to fore but seeing the alleged laxity of officials in acting against the guilty, apprehensiveness prevails in government circles regarding the probe.

It is said that despite concrete proofs against those responsible for the scam, the officials of CBCID and Minority Welfare Department have avoided action against them.

TRS MLA Mr. T Harish Rao asked the state government to announce sub plan for minorities also and allot Rs 5000 crore for minorities in the next budget. He told that government cannot wash its hands of its responsibilities by just flagging off the Hajj pilgrims or hosting iftar parties.

Harish Rao claimed that Congress is using Muslims as just vote bank. Taking part in the discussion of SC ST sub plan in assembly, Mr. T Harish Rao maintained that the real communal integrity is that Hindu members come forward to talk on Muslim issues and Muslim members on Hindu issues in the assembly.

A major terror attack was averted in Pakistan’s Lahore metropolis when three Taliban militants were arrested and a massive quantity of explosives seized from them, a media report said.

The three militants, identified as Arshad, Umer Zaib, and Amjad, were arrested Saturday by the Crime Investigation Agency in a raid near Lari Adda area, Geo News reported.

AK-47 rifles, handguns, grenades, explosives, bombmaking paraphernalia and other explosive devices were seized from them, officials said.

—IANS

A man has been sentenced to a year and half in jail by a Delhi court for forcing his wife to attempt suicide by beating her up daily after drinking liquor.

“This is the case where victim was not only mentally harassed but also physically tortured. Cruelty in present case is of such a higher degree of intensity that the victim was forced to take such a step to free herself from daily beatings and harassment,” said Metropolitan Magistrate Kiran Gupta, sentencing West Delhi resident Ashok Kumar.

A youth has been sentenced to two years in jail by a Delhi court for kidnapping and molesting his minor cousin after confining her in a room for seven days.

Additional Sessions Judge Kamini Lau held 20-year-old Rohan guilty of taking away his 13-year-old first cousin without her parents’ permission and trying to make physical relations with her and outraging her modesty.

Municipal corporation officials surveyed the approach of traffic and pedestrians at Jubilee Hills kavuri crossroads junction yesterday.

They inspected the area along with the traffic experts from New Delhi. Audit team had critically examined the problem faced by the pedestrians in that area. They suggested that footpaths should be made pedestrian friendly, the audit team made use of traffic gadgets and their quality.

Mr. M.T Krishna Babu, Commissioner of Greater Hyderabad Municipal corporation informed that the vigilance cell of GHMC registered cases against the parties who displayed cases against the parties who displaye4d unauthorized posters and banners in the city and collected Rs.1, 10, 500 fine from them, He said that this campaign would continue. A fine of Rs.1000 would be imposed on violation of rules. The cases were booked in Chikkadpally and Saifabad circles of Municipal Corporation.

—Siasat News

Former actress Ms. Jaya Sudha told that she had reelected polities as her career but was disappointed because she didn’t get her ambition fulfilled. She told that if Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy offers, she would consider joining YSR Congress Party.

Two emissaries of Mr. Rahul Gandhi went to A.P. State Assembly and met Congress President, C.M, ministers and MLA’s. Congress MLA, Mr. Veerashiva Reddy told that ten MLA’s of Congress are in contact with Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy and they will join YSR Congress Party any time.

Mr. Rahul Gandhi has sent his emissaries, Jitender Singh Deshmukh and Vishwajeet Rane to Asses the functioning of Congress M.P’s and MLA’s in the state.

Edwina Mountbatten enjoyed a close and warm relationship with Jawaharlal Nehru but it was spiritual and intellectual, not a sexual one, says the lady’s daughter Pamela Hicks.

Excerpts from her just released book “Daughter of Empire” published in Friday’s Daily Mail say Lord Mountbatten was aware of his wife’s fondness for Nehru but did not interfere.

Edwina, wife of undivided India’s last viceroy, fell madly in love with the country and with Pandit Nehru, the first prime minister after independence, says Pamela Hicks, now 83.

At least five Taliban militants wearing suicide vests Sunday stormed a main NATO base in Jalalabad, capital of the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar, Xinhua reported.

Two explosions rocked the city, 120 km east of Kabul, around 6 a.m.

“Initially there was a car bomb attack hitting the main gate of the base at 6 a.m. and there might be casualties,” police said.

There were no reports available about the casualties.

Government troops immediately cordoned off the area.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack.

IANS

At least seven people went missing after a four-km-long tunnel collapsed in Japan Sunday, a media report said.

The Sasago tunnel in the Chou expressway in Otsuki, about 80 km west of Tokyo, collapsed around 8 a.m., trapping many cars inside, Xinhua reported citing Kyodo News.

Two people were taken to hospital and firefighters have controlled a fire triggered by a crash of two vehicles after the ceiling and wall collapsed in a 100-metre section of the tunnel.

A woman, who managed to escape the collapse, said she was in a car in which five others were trapped.