Month: July 2013

Modi to address BJP workers in Bihar via teleconference

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Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who heads the BJP”s election campaign committee, will address the party leaders and workers in Bihar via teleconference on Saturday evening.

Modi”s interaction with the party cadres will focus on the BJP”s election strategy, as the Lok Sabha polls are now less than a year away.

Moreover, Modi decision to choose Bihar to begin his future game plan is also seen as a significant step.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is known to be a strong critique of Modi.

Egyptian police arrests top Islamist leader after Mursi’s ouster

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The most influential Islamist politician, Khairat al-Shater, has been arrested by the Egyptian police on Friday over aiding ousted Islamist President Mohammed Mursi.

An interior ministry general said Khairat al-Shater and his brother have been arrested at the request of the prosecution.
Fox News reports that the move comes as the Egyptian army chief, General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, ousted Mursi on Wednesday and announced that the head of Egypt”s Constitutional Court will be appointed head of the state.

Politicians should not discriminate between great men: Advani

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Dismayed over Congress MPs not attending a programme to pay floral tributes to Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee in Parliament, BJP leader L K Advani on Saturday said politicians should not discriminate on party lines between great men of the nation.

Congress MPs, Speaker Meira Kumar and Vice President Hamid Ansari were conspicuous by their absence from a programme organised in Central Hall of Parliament to pay floral tributes to Mookerjee on his birth anniversary on Saturday.

BJP rakes up Ram temple issue, Amit Shah visits Ayodhya

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With an eye on the Lok Sabha elections, BJP on Saturday raked up the Ayodhya Ram temple issue in a bid to boost the party’s morale in Uttar Pradesh where good performance in the past had helped it capture power at the Centre.

Amit Shah, a close confidant of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, made his first visit to the make-shift Ram temple here after he took over as BJP General Secretary In-charge of UP recently.

Rajnath Singh refuses to comment on fresh controversy over Ram temple

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Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Rajnath Singh on Saturday avoided commenting on his party”s Uttar Pradesh in-charge Amit Shah”s assertions of building a Ram temple in Ayodhya, saying he had not heard his statement.

“If I had I heard what he said then I would have surely commented on it,” he told the media after his meeting with the top Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leaders here.

Rajnath Singh meets RSS leaders, says ”Advani is not upset”

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Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Rajnath Singh, who met senior Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) functionaries here on Saturday, ruled out reports over party patriarch Lal Krishna Advani being upset over the new power equation in the outfit.

“Advaniji is not upset. There are no differences in our party. As far as Advaniji is concerned, he is our tallest leader and a guide,” he told the media here.

Rajnath Singh also emphasized that he had not come to Nagpur to discuss the party”s election strategy with the top RSS leaders.

Digvijaya statement will only prolong Telangana suspense

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When Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh said that a decision on Telangana would be taken soon, it did not surprise many as similar statements have often come from party leaders and even Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde.

However, unlike in the past, this time the party did not set any deadline for announcing a decision. So, this time the suspense will be not only on what decision the party will take but also when.

Except for a section of Congress leaders from Telangana, not many believe the party would soon take a decision on the contentious 60-year-old issue.

Amit Shah prays for ‘grand Ram temple’

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BJP general secretary and in-charge of Uttar Pradesh Amit Shah Saturday prayed at the makeshift Ram temple built here in 1992 and hoped it will become a grand shrine one day.

Driving straight to the temple town from Lucknow, Shah offered prayers before the idols of Lord Ram and then went to the nearby Hanuman Garhi temple.

Talking to reporters later, Shah said he prayed for good governance to return to this country after the Congress gets ousted and that everyone will come together to build a grand Ram temple in Ayodhya.

Former BJP minister joins JD-U

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Former BJP minister Ramji Das Rishideo Saturday joined Bihar’s ruling Janata Dal-United (JD-U) in the presence of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, party leaders said.

It is the first time a senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader has joined the JD-U in Bihar after Nitish Kumar dumped the party last month.

Rishideo was a minister in the first BJP-JD-U government led by Nitish Kumar. “I joined the JD-U to work for development of Bihar,” he said.

Some JD-U leaders have claimed that more than a dozen BJP leaders are in touch with the JD-U and they will soon join the party.

–IANS

Jairam announces special package for rural development

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Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Saturday announced a special package of Rs.4,130 crore for rural development in Bihar.

“The central government will provide this amount for rural development in Bihar,” Jairam Ramesh told reporters.

The minister is on a two-day visit to the state to take stock of rural development projects.

“It is the biggest financial package for rural development in Bihar in the last 12 years,” Jairam Ramesh said.

New technique paves way for better drugs

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Swedish scientists have developed a technique to directly measure the extent to which drugs reach their targets in the cell.

The method, developed by researchers at Karolinska Institutet, could make a significant contribution to the development of new, improved drug substances.

Most drugs operate by binding to one or more proteins and affecting their function, which creates two common bottlenecks in the development of drugs; identifying the right target proteins and designing drug molecules able to efficiently seek out and bind to them.

Insulin helps new mums with breastfeeding problems lactate

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A new study has looked into insulin`s role in lactation success among mothers have difficulty in making enough milk to breastfeed their babies.

The study is the first to describe how the human mammary gland becomes highly sensitive to insulin during lactation.

It is also the first study to get an accurate picture of how specific genes are switched on in the human mammary gland during lactation.

Exercise helps rescue mutated neural stem cells

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A new study has found that CHD7 mutant neurons (a mutation in a gene) were fully rescued after a running exercise.

The study also found that they were able to create functioning networks.

That running causes a dramatic increase in neurogenesis in adults has been confirmed in animals and humans.

Shweta Tiwari to quit `Parvarrish`?

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Actress Shweta Tiwari is reportedly quitting ‘Parvarrish – Kuchh Khattee Kuchh Meethi’ and she may not join the show again.

In the show about parents-children relationship, she plays Sweety, a mother of two children. It took a two-year leap last month.

The actress, who has daughter Palak from her first marriage with actor Raja Chaudhary, is getting married to actor Abhinav Kohli this month and sources said that this could be the reason behind her quitting the show.

In the show, the actress is seen leaving for a wedding for 10 days.

Less active female mice tend to live longer

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A new study has found that female mice with greater life expectancy are less active and less explorative than their fellow females with lower life expectancy.

Anna Lindholm, behavioral biologists from the University of Zurich, and her doctoral student Yannick Auclair investigated whether risky behavior can lead to premature death in animals – like it does in humans – by studying the behavior of 82 house mice.

Today’s wealth of world’s seed banks key for the future

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With fewer than a dozen flowering plants out of 300,000 species accounting for 80 percent of humanity’s caloric intake, people need to tap unused plants to feed the world in the near future, claims Cornell University plant geneticist Susan McCouch in the Comment feature of the July 4 issue of Nature.

New method proposed to predict solar flares

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Researchers at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, have tested the reliability of seven techniques against their record of predicting flares and non-flare events correctly, as well as their history of missed flares and false alarms.

When the predictions were put into context of the Sun’s activity levels over time, some of the most seemingly successful techniques slid down the table.

Solar flares are sudden and dramatic releases of energy from the Sun’s atmosphere in the form of radiation and electrically charged particles.

India’s first infrastructure debt fund assigned ‘AAA’ rating

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Ratings agency Crisil Friday assigned ‘AAA’ ratings to India Infradebt Limited, the country’s first infrastructure debt fund under the non-banking finance company structure.

The fund, jointly promoted by ICICI Bank, Bank of Baroda, Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and Citicorp Finance (India), awarded its first sanction letter to a road project.

Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram said a high ratings would make infrastructure debt funds competitive in the refinancing market.

How Can We Prepare For The Arrival Of Ramadan?

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Many people misunderstand the true nature of fasting, and they make it an occasion for eating and drinking, making special sweets and staying up late at night and watching shows on satellite TV. They make preparations for that long before Ramadan, lest they miss out on some food or prices go up. They prepare by buying food, preparing drinks and looking at the satellite TV guide so they can choose which shows to follow and which to ignore.

No radical shift in Nawaz Sharif govt’s new anti-terror strategy

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The newly elected Nawaz Sharif government’s yet to be unveiled counter-terrorism policy will renew commitment to fight terror.

The policy, however, contains no radical shift in the strategy for dealing with the problem, but just acknowledges that ‘enabling environment’ existed in the country for growth of extremism and terrorism.

The draft policy titled National Counter-Terrorism and Extremism Policy would have five elements, dismantle, contain, prevent, educate and reintegrate, for curbing terrorism.

13 killed in Pak accident

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At least 13 people, including a woman and two children, were killed today when a motorcycle rickshaw they were travelling in was crushed by a moving train at a railway crossing in Pakistan’s Punjab province.

The motorcycle rickshaw carrying 14 people was crossing the railway line in Sheikhupura, about 40 kilometres from here, when it was hit by a Lahore-bound train coming from Karachi, rescue work spokesman Jam Sajjad told a news agency.

Pak slammed for revoking suspension of death penalty

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Human Rights Watch has warned Pakistan government of reviving a cruel and degrading punishment by ending the suspension on the death penalty, when globally it is being abolished.

Early this week, newly elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government had ended a five-year old ban on the death penalty in a bid to tackle rising crime in the country.

The Independent reports that Pakistan has about 8,000 prisoners facing death sentences but the government puts the figure lower at around 400.

Pak dispatches envoy to begin Track-II diplomacy with India

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Pakistan has said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has sent a former senior diplomat to India as part of the Track-II diplomacy to support peace efforts.

Foreign Office spokesman Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhary said former foreign secretary Shahryar Ahmad Khan had been asked by Sharif to conduct Track-II diplomacy, and he is already in India for the purpose.

According to the Daily Times, he said that Track-II diplomacy had always been part of the overall peace process with India.

Pakistan, China sign deal to build 200-km-long tunnel through PoK

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China and Pakistan on Friday signed eight agreements, including a whopping USD 18 billion deal to build a 200 km-long strategic tunnel through the rugged PoK, as the two all-weather allies sought to boost economic ties and supply critical oil to the energy-hungry Communist giant.

The agreements were signed after visiting Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif held talks with his Chinese counterpart Li Keqiang here at the Great Hall of the People.

Even boys are not safe in Madhya Pradesh: Digvijay Singh

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Congress leader Digvijay Singh on Saturday took a dig at Madhya Pradesh Finance Minister Raghavji, who quit on Friday following allegations of having unnatural sex with his servant.

The Congress leader tweeted: “Got a sms from a friend which I couldn’t resist to tweet ! ” Now not only girls but a even boys are not safe in MP” No offence meant to RSS! (sic)”