Month: December 2012

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has condemned the ongoing violence in Pakistan, describing it as “escalating terrorist violence” and expressing the UN’s support for the country to counter terrorism.

The UN chief’s spokesperson in a statement Sunday said: “The secretary general is appalled by the escalating terrorist violence in Pakistan… He condemns in particular the continued violent targeting of religious minorities.”

On Sunday, a car bomb hit a convey of three buses in southwest Pakistan, killing some 20 Shia pilgrims on their way to Iran and injured 25 others, Xinhua reported.

Lakhdar Brahimi, the international envoy to Syria, has warned that as many as 100,000 could die in the country in the next year if the ongoing civil war does not end.

Brahimi, the UN-Arab League envoy for the Syrian crisis, said that if the crisis continues, Syria will not be divided into states “like what happened in Yugoslavia”.

He, instead, warned that the country would face “Somalisation, which means warlords, and the Syrian people will be persecuted by those who control their fate”.

Leading Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband has issued an order banning its students from using mobile phones with cameras and seized 14 such devices from the hostel.

According to deputy Vice-Chancellor Maulana Abdul Khalik, from now on, students may only use simple cellular phone handsets without camera or video features since these are seen as having an adverse effect on their studies.

Students at the seminary have been warned that disciplinary action would be taken against anyone found using camera phones.

–PTI

A court here Sunday awarded death penalty to five people for the murder of Saudi diplomat Khalaf Al Ali, Xinhua reported.

Of the condemned killers, four are behind the bars while one is on the run. The punishment of the only fugitive will be effective from the day of his arrest or surrender, said Judge Mohammad Motahar Hossain of the Speedy Trial Tribunal-4 in Dhaka while announcing the verdict.

Pakistani hardline party Jamaat-e-Islami’s (JI) chief Azad Kashmir Abdur Rasheed Turrabi has said the discussions between Pakistan and India would not be proved fruitful until the latter took serious steps towards resolution of Kashmir issue.

Turrabi said that to give the status of ‘Most Favoured Nation’ (MFN) to India was the betrayal with the blood of Kashmiri martyrs and also an attempt to put solidarity of the country at stake.

Reports about Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari visiting India to witness a cricket match between the two countries are “all rumours”, the presidential spokesman said on Sunday.

“These are all rumors. There is no invitation and I am not aware of any plans to visit without an invitation,” presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar told PTI this evening.

Earlier in the day, media reports had said Zardari would visit India to watch an India-Pakistan match in Kolkata with President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

PTI

The unprecedented Olympic medal haul ended up being overshadowed by ugly turf wars which jeopardised the country`s Olympic future even as it went from bad to worse on the cricket field where voids left by legends seemed too huge to fill in a largely depressing year for Indian sports.

The half a dozen medals clinched in London were supposed to drastically improve the sporting scene but once the felicitations had been done, it was back to the harsh reality for Indian sports where politics took precedence over sporting progress.

Legendary Indian all rounder Kapil Dev has urged Mahendra Singh Dhoni to contemplate not playing in the Indian Premier League (IPL) to focus on the other formats of the game.

Dev said it is not possible for any player to keep playing regularly for 300 days an year with the same consistency, the Gulfnews.com reports.

When asked whether he could suggest a replacement captain, Dev replied he doesn’t have the authority to propose a new captain but believes someone has to be appointed based on his leadership capabilities.

An Indian art student at the Royal College of Art has designed a bicycle helmet that is entirely made from cardboard.

The helmet is about 15 percent lighter than the standard ones, but it can absorb three times more impact from a collision.

Anirudha Surabhi, the designer, was inspired by the average woodpecker when he was considering the design of the helmet, Discovery New reported.

Woodpeckers are able to repeatedly strike hard wooden surfaces without injury because of their corrugated cartilage structure that separates beak from skull.

In a new study, a team of researchers has discovered that massive earthquakes in the range of 8 to 8.5 magnitudes on the Richter scale have left clear ground scars in the central Himalayas.

This ground-breaking discovery by scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has huge implications for the area along the front of the Himalayan Mountains, given that the region has a population density similar to that of New York City.

Dr. M. M. Pallam Raju, Union Minister for Human Resource Development, will lay the foundation stone of H. K. Sherwani Centre for Deccan Studies at Maulana Azad National Urdu University Urdu University, Gachibowli on 31st Dec. 2012 at 10:00 a.m.

Prof. Ved Prakash Chairman, UGC will also be present on the occasion. A meeting will also be organized in honor of Dr. Pallam Raju at Central Library Auditorium, MANUU Campus after the foundation laying ceremony.

Live streaming of the event will be available on University website www.manuu.ac.in. Invitees are requested to attend.

Building on its successful first round-trip mission to space rock Itokowa, Japan’s space agency is readying to launch an ambitious new asteroid sampling probe in 2014.

The new space mission, Hayabusa2, is scheduled for launch in 2014 and is aimed at the asteroid 1999 JU3, a large space rock about 3,018 feet in length.

The mission is due to arrive at the asteroid in mid-2018, loiter at the space rock and carry out a slew of challenging firsts before departing the scene at the end of 2019.

Following the death of the Delhi gang-rape victim, people took to Facebook and Twitter to vent their ire, demanding punishment for the culprits and more security for women.

Criticising the authorities for doing little to protect women, Soumyadipta Singh from Orissa wrote on micro-blogging site Twitter: “Kanun mein badlav layenge, aisa karenge, waisa karenge..etc…kaha the aap baba log?” (We will bring in changes in the law, we will do this, we will do that… where were you till now?)

Puja Mohindra from Los Angeles called for another freedom struggle, but this time for women.

Indian scientists burrowed the forest beds in the northeast to discover a new family of vertebrates, built a satellite that can peer through clouds and dark nights, and grappled to commission the first large nuclear power plant at Kudankulam in 2012.

Indian science also aimed beyond the moon, a frontier they conquered in 2008, with their eyes set on exploring Mars hoping to soon join the select group of nations who have launched scientific missions to study the red planet.

Election strategy in the formation of Separate Telangana State won’t be helpful. It would fail once again, This has been confirmed by the incidents which took place during Telangana Movement, The leaders of Telangana Praja Front expressed these thoughts at a meeting held at Press Club, Basheer Bagh yesterday.

The leaders of Telangana Praja Front declared that TDF would organize meetings and rallies in all the districts of Telangana on 5th January.

The annual Alumni meet of Muffakham Jah College of Engineering and Technology, Banjara Hills, was organized by Alumni Association on December 29, at Ghulam Ahmed Auditorium of the college.

President Alumni Association Mr. Khaja Asif Ahmed delivered inaugural address. Mr. Mohammed Arifuddin Sohail joint secretary threw light upon the activities of the association and its objectives. Mr. Zafar Javeed honourary secretary Sultan-ul-Uloom Education Society launched MJCET Alumni portal which has been launched with a view to connect all alumni with the college.

Veteran actor Pran, who has been ailing for some time, is back in hospital barely a month after he was discharged in November. Though his family maintains that he is better, friends of the family are not that optimistic about the veteran actor`s health any more.

“He is getting on. Pran saab is a fighter. But one can`t really fight old age beyond a point,” a colleague said.

However the family maintains Pran (92) is recuperating in hospital.

An Indian man hailing from Andhra Pradesh, who runs a super market in the US, was found dead at the store under suspicious circumstances, according to reports reaching here tonight.

According to R Shyam Sunder Reddy, an advocate in Karimnagar, his brother-in-law Goli Venkat Reddy (48) runs a super market at Cincinnati in Ohio state after he left here for the US about 12 years ago.

The victim is married to Kavitha, a software engineer, and has a son named Praneeth.

Actor-filmmaker Kamal Haasan Sunday said that Telugu filmmaker Dasari Narayana Rao was the first to welcome his decision to release forthcoming film ‘Vishwaroopam’ first on the Direct-To-Home (DTH) platform.

“When I informed Dasari sir that I`m planning to release my film (Vishwaroopam) on DTH, he was more than happy to support my decision. It is because of him I`m able to release my film peacefully in Andhra Pradesh,” Haasan told reporters here at the audio launch of the Telugu version of ‘Vishwaroopam’.

The progress and prosperity of the Muslims depends on education. Muslim society won’t progress until they are educated.

Mr. Zahid Ali Khan, Editor of Siasat expressed these thoughts while addressing a gathering at Humnabad located at Hyderabad- Bangalore Highway.

The meeting was organized by Inayath Millat Welfare and Charitable Trust.

Addressing the gathering convened for the distribution of financial aid to the students, Mr. Zahid Ali Khan appealed to the rich persons to identify poor students and provide them financial assistance.

Pop sensation Justin Bieber has reportedly written two songs for girlfriend Selena Gomez and they`re going to be included on his upcoming acoustic album.

The album will include acoustic reworkings of Bieber`s previously-released material, as well as the new songs for his on-off girlfriend. It will be released on January 29.

Scientists have identified that certain nerve cells are specialized to detect itchy sensations, and those receptors don’t detect painful sensations.

The finding, recently published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, has resolved a long-standing debate over whether itchiness is just a weird form of pain, Discovery News reported.

Now, researchers could silence these responsible nerve fibers to develop better anti-itch treatments, said Ethan Lerner, a neuroscientist at Harvard University who was not involved in the study.

Researchers have found that surrogacy or `wombs for hire` from foreign surrogate mothers has increased in the past five years, particularly by Indian agencies.

The research, published in The Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, reveals there is an increasing demand in the number of couples registering children to foreign surrogates.

“Parental orders” were granted following surrogacy to transfer the child from the surrogate mother to the commissioning parents, The Independent reported.

Mohammed Abdul Samad president Tanzeem Promotion of Urdu Language Andhra Pradesh and other officials of the Tanzeem Mohammed Masooduddin, Mohammed Abdur Rasheed, Mohammed Wajid Ali, Mohammed Ayazuddin, Abdul Hafeez Rahmani, Javeed Mohiuddin, Mohammed Qital Ahmed, Mir Majid Ali Rehan, Mohammed Habeebuddin, Mohammed Aleemuddin and Khaja Moinuddin in a joint statement hailed the conduct of World Telugu conference in Tirupati from 27th to 29th December and urged chief minister Andhra Pradesh to also hold Urdu conference under the auspices of government.

Siasat news

Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen has offered a bounty of gold worth 160,000 dollars to anyone who assassinates U.S. ambassador Gerald M. Feierstein.

The group announced that it would pay tens of thousands of dollars to anyone who kills the U.S. ambassador to Yemen in Sanaa or an American soldier in the country.

They offered 3 kilograms of gold for killing Feierstein, and said it will also pay 5 million Yemeni riyals for anyone who kills an American soldier.

According an American news agency, the offer is valid for six months.