Month: July 2013

Bomb hoax triggers panic at Dilsukhnagar

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Within a few hours after DGP’s claim of a major breakthrough in the February 21 Dilsukhnagar twin bomb blasts case, a bomb hoax triggered panic in the city. Sources told that intelligence agencies received an information on Tuesday afternoon which stated that a blast hit Dilsukhnagar area again.

With the receipt of information, police missionary sprung into action and cops in plain clothes were seen inspecting various places of Dilsukhnagar. Local police inspected the prime area of Dilsukhnagar however the report turned out to be a hoax.

Jana Urges Seemandhra Leaders To Help Solve T Issue

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Reiterating that the Telangana issue will be solved very soon, Panchayat Raj Minister K Jana Reddy has urged the Seemandhra Congress leaders to cooperate with the Centre in solving the Telangana issue and then only two regions would develop and stood as model States in the country.

Sri Lanka decimate India by 161 runs

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Upul Tharanga scored a career-best unbeaten 174 as Sri Lanka produced a clinical display to thrash India by 161 runs in the third match of the ODI tri-series here.

Sent into bat, Sri Lanka first rode on Tharanga’s 174 and Mahela Jayawardene’s 107 to pile up a mammoth 348 for one yesterday and then shot out the Indians for a paltry 187 in 44.5 overs.

Apart from Tharanga and Jayawardene, skipper Angelo Mathews made a quickfire 44.

PREPARING FOR RAMADAN

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When we know we are to attend a wedding, we begin to plan and prepare from days and even weeks in advance. We pay much attention to detail so that we arrive to the function on time, are dressed up smartly with clean/ new shoes, have organised a place to stay, eat carefully so as not to ruin our clothing and so on. In a similar way we prepare and plan for other important events, functions, interviews etc.

Suicide attack the biggest sin in Islam: Fatwa

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Ulema of the Sunni Ittehad Council on Saturday declared that suicide bombing is the biggest sin in Islam, Express news reported.

As many as 50 Ulema of the Sunni Ittehad Council in a collective edict declared that killing an innocent is the biggest sin and killing of foreign guest is the worst crime. It was also declared in the edict that attacks on Mosques, hospitals, educational institute, funerals and security forces is not Jihad.

Edict was given in the wake of the recent killings of foreign tourists and attacks in Peshawar and Quetta.

Khurshid to begin Singapore visit today

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External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid will begin his first visit to Singapore from today, the foreign ministry here has said.

Khurshid’s July 3-5 visit is at the invitation of Singapore’s Foreign Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam, it said, adding that the External Affairs Minister will be accompanied by senior officials of his ministry.

He will today call on Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong and Deputy Prime Minister, Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Home Affairs Teo Chee Hean.

Pope now has over 7.2 mn followers on Twitter

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Pope Francis now has more than 7.2 million followers on microblogging website Twitter, where his tweets are published in nine languages.

The Argentine Pope’s tweets in Spanish at his @Pontifex account have the highest number of followers (some 2.73 million), followed by his English tweets (around 2.6 million).

“We cannot live as Christians separate from the rock who is Christ. He gives us strength and stability, but also joy and serenity,” Francis tweeted Tuesday.

–IANS

Important notice for Pre & Post Matric scholarship students

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Applications of thousands of students of Andhra Pradesh state who applied for the pre & post matric scholarships for year 2012-13 were rejected. Some students reached Siasat office in this connection and they expressed surprise that their applications have been rejected despite securing good marks.

MERS virus death toll rises in Saudi Arabia as Muslim hajj approaches

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Saudi Arabian health officials announced Tuesday that two people had died after contracting the virus, bringing the global death toll to 42. An estimated 3 million Muslims will converge on Mecca in October for one of the religion’s holiest rites, causing concern from global health officials that MERS could quickly spread to more people.

It is the kind of scenario that keeps virologists up at night.

Siasat distributes food and clothing packages among Burma victims

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Several families of Muslims of Burma who became targets of vicious Buddhist mob attacks have taken refuge in Hyderabad. They await relief from charitable persons for their food and shelter and rehabilitation. Seeing the misery of 46 such families staying at Shaheennagar old city, Siasat daily decided to provide and take rehabilitation measures. Faiz-e-Aam Trust extended its cooperation in this connection.

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Myanmar’s Muslim Minority Confronts Fear and Mistrust

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Night can be very dark in Yangon, a city where street lamps, when there are any, flicker on and off with the uneven electricity supply. For a group of Muslim men guarding their neighborhood until dawn, it is never clear what is lurking down the potholed roads and alleyways.

“The government cannot guarantee our safety,” said U Nyi Nyi, a businessman who sat on a plastic chair with a half-dozen of the 130 men he has organized for an improvised Muslim neighborhood watch program.

Vatican bank officials resign amid fraud scandal

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The director and deputy director of the Vatican Bank have resigned following the arrest of a senior cleric on charges of plotting to smuggle 20 million euros into Italy from Switzerland.

The Vatican’s announcement of the resignations of Paolo Cipriani and Massimo Tulli came three days after the arrest of one of its accountants, Monsignor Nunzio, an Italian secret service agent and a financial broker, over the plot to smuggle the cash.

John Paul II approved for sainthood

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Late pope John Paul II only needs Pope Francis’s sign-off to become a saint later this year after a Vatican panel approved his second miracle.

At a meeting Tuesday, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints ruled that an “inexplicable recovery” May 1, 2011 of a French nun, Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, from Parkinson’s Disease was due to the late pope’s intercession.

The commission of cardinals and bishops proposed a canonisation ceremony in December, Vatican sources said.

Fugitive held for death of 15 migrants in Italy

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A human trafficker who was sentenced to 12 years in prison for causing 15 migrants to drown in Italy has finally been arrested after he was on the run for more than 10 years.

Border police in southern Italy’s Bari city Tuesday arrested 32-year-old Mustafa Hergis as he disembarked from a vessel from Greece.

A court in Bari had sentenced Hergis in November 2011 to 12 years and six months in jail over an incident in May 2000 when a motorised rubber dinghy laden with illegal migrants rammed into a coastguard vessel off the coast of Puglia, causing 15 Albanian migrants to drown.

Christian Bale rules out Batman reprise

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Actor Christian Bale, who is known to have essayed caped crusader Batman in the “Dark Knight” movie trilogy, says he is not playing the character in the forthcoming film “Justice League”.

However, he is looking forward to see what someone does with the character.

“I have no information, no knowledge about anything. I’ve literally not had a conversation with a living soul. I understand that they may be making a ‘Justice League’ movie, that’s it,” contactmusic.com quoted Bale as saying.

Italy vows to stand by Palestinians

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Italy would support the Palestinian people in their bid for statehood, President Enrico Letta has said.

“I repeated to President (Mahmoud) Abbas a concept that I firmly believe in – that Italy will never abandon the Palestinian people,” Letta said after a meeting with Abbas in the West Bank.

Letta also stressed the longstanding ties that bound Italy to the Palestinians.

“The historic ties between our peoples have existed for a very long time and they are relations I am happy to strengthen with this visit,” he said.

Sooraj Pancholi’s parents thank judge, got for his bail

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Aditya Pancholi and his wife Zarina Wahab’s 20-day ordeal of watching their only son Sooraj, an aspiring actor, imprisoned for allegedly abetting actress Jiah Khan’s death, has ended. The parents thank the judiciary and the god.

Sooraj, who was arrested June 10, was granted bail by the Bombay High Court Monday. He has been ordered to pay a surety of Rs.50,000, surrender his passport and report to police whenever required for investigations.

Afridi wants to play both Twenty20 & ODIs

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Pakistan all-rounder Shahid Afridi made it clear on Tuesday he is hoping for a recall after being dropped for last month’s Champions Trophy.

The 33-year-old veteran of 348 one-day internationals paid the price for a below-par performance on the tour of South Africa, where he remained wicketless in all five ODIs and scored only one half century.

But Pakistan’s humiliating three successive defeats in the Champions Trophy have raised his hopes for this month’s tour of the West Indies for five ODIs and two Twenty20s.

Doctors: Patents keep HIV drugs too pricy to use

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Doctors Without Borders warned today that rising intellectual property rights are blocking the generic production of newer drugs to treat HIV and are keeping them out of reach for developing countries.

The medical aid group said at an international AIDS meeting here that prices of older drugs long used to treat patients have fallen sharply as India and other countries make generics.

But newer drugs that are more effective against the AIDS virus are too expensive, costing up to 15 times more.

Azam Khan lashes out at Cong MLA over ‘enemy property’ row

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Proactive steps taken to improve governance in Rampur had not gone down well with certain sections of the people who are now making baseless allegations to create trouble in his home district, Uttar Pradesh Urban Development Minister Mohd Azam Khan said today.

He was responding to charges levelled against him by Congress MLA Kazim Ali, the scion of the erstwhile royal family of Rampur, who has said that the minister was out to grab ‘enemy property’ for his private trust in the district.

Man drowns wife, infant son over dowry

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In a shocking incident, a man allegedly pushed his wife and son into a village well in Bihar’s Jamui district today over dowry, leading to their deaths, police sources said.

Apparently infuriated with his in-laws for not meeting his dowry demands, the accused, Sanjay Yadav, pushed his wife Dulari Devi (22) and son Anand Kumar (10 months) into a well at his wife’s parental home under Chandramandi police station, the sources said.

The mother-son duo drowned in the well from where their bodies were later recovered and sent for post-mortem.

Bahrain jails 7 Shiites to 15 years over murder bid

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A Bahraini court sentenced seven Shiite men to 15 years in prison today for the attempted murder of a police officer in August 2012, a judicial source said.

An eighth Shiite was sentenced to three years in prison while two others, on trial over the same case, were acquitted, the source said.

The group were also accused of setting a police station ablaze in the Shiite village of Sitra using petrol bombs and of taking part in an “unauthorised gathering,” according to the charge sheet.

PM’s directive on India-Abu Dhabi air services agreement

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The Prime Minister had last month directed that the India-Abu Dhabi air services agreement (ASA) should not be operationalised till it was discussed in the Union Cabinet.

“In the interest of wider consultations and greater transparency, the Prime Minister directed that the matter may be brought to the Cabinet for a decision before operationalising any agreements that may be arrived at by the government with the other party,” according to a Prime Minister’s Office note of June 13.

Enemies of Muslims do not want our community to progress: Azam

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UP minister and Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan today alleged that “enemies” of Muslims do not want the community to progress and go beyond learning Urdu and Persian.

Addressing a gathering here, Khan said that those opposed to the community do no want Muslims to have another eminent scientist and former President A P J Abdul Kalam.

Government foiled on money issue in WikiLeaks case

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The government is struggling to prove a key element in the theft charges against Pfc. Bradley Manning, the soldier on trial for leaking classified information to WikiLeaks.

The judge in Manning’s court-martial ruled today that a witness called by the government will not be allowed to testify as an expert about the monetary value of the leaked documents.

Though aiding the enemy is the most serious of 21 charges against Manning, there also are five counts of theft — each saying he stole a thing of value worth more than USD 1,000.