A Czech national was found murdered in a guest house in the coastal village of Baga (20 km from Panaji) Wednesday even as her partner was found unconscious 20 km away, police said.
The 24-year-old deceased has been identified as Narkela Hoark, a tourist staying with her partner Pavel Nuahasi.
Blaming the erstwhile NDA regime for its “muted response” to the country’s security needs and killings of troopers and civilians, Congress leader Ajay Maken Wednesday said the BJP should remember how many armed forces personnel were killed during its tenure.
Maken was responding to the main opposition party’s demand that Defence Minister A.K. Antony apologise for a statement on the killing of five Indian soldiers by terrorists, dressed like Pakistani soldiers, in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch sector early Tuesday.
At least 11 children were killed and 24 others injured, some of them critically, when a bomb exploded near a market in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi early Wednesday, the Geo News reported citing a political leader.
The explosive material was planted on a motorbike, said police.
The explosion occurred in the city’s Lyari area shortly after a football match ended, said Member Provincial Assembly (MPA) Sania Naz, who was elected from Lyari constituency.
AAP leader Santosh Koli dies Thirty-seven days after she was injured in a road accident, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Santosh Koli, who was to contest the Delhi assembly polls later this year, died in a Gurgaon hospital. She was 28.
Confirming the news, AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal tweeted: “Santosh passes away. May her soul rest in peace. We all resolve that we will not let her sacrifice go in vain. We have to take her struggle forward.
Koli was seriously injured on June 30 when a speeding car rammed into a motorcycle on which she was riding pillion.
Parliament was adjourned till 2 p.m. Wednesday as the BJP attacked the government over the killing of Indian soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir. The main opposition demanded that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh make a statement and accused Defence Minister A.K. Antony of having misled both houses on the issue.
Both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha were disrupted for the second consecutive day and adjourned till 2 p.m. over the killing of Indian soldiers Tuesday by Pakistani troops.
If you don’t sleep well, you could well feel the pressing urge to gorge on junk food — thus doing much harm to your health, says new research that seeks to shed light on the link between poor sleep and obesity.
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, examined the brain regions that control food choices and found that inadequate sleep makes one crave junk food.
Researchers have found that weight loss surgery can reverse the symptoms of fatty liver disease.
Earlier research has found that the surgery not only benefits obese people to shed their extra pounds, it also causes early remission of type 2 diabetes.
The findings are derived from research on liver samples in normal and obese patients—some with fatty liver disease and some without fatty liver disease.
The results provide another example of the DNA-altering effects of weight loss surgery.
The International Fund for Agricultural Development will provide livelihood opportunities to villagers of calamity-hit Uttarakhand at an expenditure of Rs 700 crore.
The funds will be provided under the Integrated Livelihood Support project.
In the first phase, Rs 20 crore have been sanctioned, Chief Secretary Subhash Kumar said here today.
This will help in purchase of livestock, purchase of mules and milch animals, as well as seeds according to the requirement of the season, he said.
Blue-coloured night lamps have the worst effect on one’s moods while exposure to red light at night has significantly less evidence of depressive symptoms, says a new study.
New research has shown how colours of night lamps could influence moods. In a study done on hamsters, researchers found that blue light had the worst effects on mood-related measures, followed closely by white.
Hamsters exposed to red light at night had significantly less evidence of depressive symptoms and changes in the brain linked to depression, compared to those that experienced blue or white light.
Pakistan’s former military ruler Pervez Musharraf failed to appear on Tuesday before an anti-terrorism court due to “security reasons” for his trial in the assassination case of former premier Benazir Bhutto, prompting the judge to adjourn the hearing till August 20.
Musharraf, who had been summoned to face charges of criminal conspiracy and the murder of
Bhutto, was not brought to the Rawalpindi court due to threats to his life.
If convicted, 69-year-old Musharraf can be sentenced to death or life imprisonment.
Ukraine on Tuesday banned a US rock musician from entering the country for five years after he urinated on a Ukrainian flag at a concert, the country’s security service said.
The bassist of the band Bloodhound Gang, Jared Hasselhoff, urinated on a Ukrainian flag on stage on July 30 in Kiev in an incident that was captured on video.
“In the interests of national security, the security service took the decision to ban US citizen Jared Hasselhoff from entering Ukraine for a period of five years,” the Ukrainian security service said in a statement.
The US Justice Department has filed charges regarding the attack on a US mission in Libya that killed four Americans, including an ambassador.
The charges, which are under seal, would be the first from the investigation into the attack in Benghazi nearly one year ago.
The CNN, citing people briefed on the matter, said on Tuesday that the charges were against Ahmed Khattalah, the leader of a Libyan militant group suspected of being behind the attack.
The BJP attacked the government Wednesday over Defence Minister A.K. Antony’s failure to blame the Pakistani army for the killing of five soldiers in Kashmir, and asked New Delhi not to have talks with Islamabad.
Bharatiya Janata Party members in both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha were furious that Antony blamed “terrorists” and people “in military uniform” for the early Tuesday ambush while an earlier army statement put the blame on the Pakistan Army.
The chances for a negotiated end to Egypt’s political crisis looked to have hit the rocks on Tuesday with the Army-installed government reportedly ready to declare that foreign mediation efforts had failed.
State-run Al-Ahram newspaper, citing official sources, said the government would make an announcement to that effect soon.
It would also declare that Muslim Brotherhood protests against the Army’s overthrow of president Mohamed Morsi were non-peaceful – a signal that the government intends to end them by force.
The US senator has reportedly contradicted earlier statements by White House and labeled the ousting of former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi as a coup thereby hinting to possible legal ramifications for American aid.
According to the Guardian, US officials so far avoided the use of the term ‘military coup’ as it would have direct implications on the American aid to Egypt; however Senator John McCain became the first official to characterize the overthrow as a coup.
The United Arab Emirates(UAE) and Pakistan have held bilateral talks during which ways to promote existing relations along with preparations for upcoming exchange visits by officials of the two countries were discussed.
The discussion was held Monday between the UAE ambassador to Pakistan, Eisa Abdullah Al Basha Al Nuaimi, and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s foreign affairs adviser Sartaj Aziz.
———–IANS
Top military commanders of Pakistan and India Wednesday spoke on hotline to reduce tensions along the Line of Control (LoC), with the Pakistan Army reiterating to strictly observe ceasefire, military sources said.
Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) of the two countries established contact a day after Indian and Pakistan militaries accused each other of violation of a 2003 ceasefire by resorting to firing, reported Xinhua.
Pakistani troops opened unprovoked firing at Indian positions on the Line of Control (LOC) in Jammu and Kashmir’s Baramulla district, a defence spokesman said Wednesday.
Naresh Vij, spokesman of army’s Srinagar-based 15 corps, told IANS that the Baz battalion of Pakistan Army opened unprovoked firing at Indian pickets in Uri sector of the LOC Tuesday.
“Our troops responded with controlled retaliation to unprovoked Pakistan fire from their Baz battalion in Uri sector of the LOC yesterday. The exchange of fire continued from 12.30 p.m. to 2 p.m. yesterday (Tuesday),” the spokesman said.
President Barack Obama has insisted that the US needs to stay on top of terrorism as violent extremism is still out there even though Washington has been successful in decimating the top al Qaeda leadership.
Obama made these remarks during an interview to the NBC channel when asked about the US decision to shut down nearly two dozen embassies and consulates in North Africa and Middle East because of a specific threat emanating from al Qaeda.
Road raid! An over-ambitious Russian thief managed to steal 82 blocks of concrete slabs from a whole stretch of a busy highway without anyone noticing.
The 40-year-old allegedly ripped up dozens of concrete slabs that formed the road outside the northwestern city of Syktyvkar, officials here said.
He apparently used an industrial manipulator – a combined forklift truck and bulldozer – to chisel away 82 blocks worth 200,000 roubles (USD 6,100), the ‘RIA Novosti’ reported.
The stony swag was then loaded up onto three large trucks.
Former India captain Rahul Dravid wants match-fixing and spot-fixing to be made criminal offences so that it would act as a deterrent to potential fixers.
“I don’t think only education can work, policing it and having the right laws and ensuring that people when they indulge in this kind of activities are actually punished. People must see that there are consequences to your actions. That will create fear for people,” said Dravid.
Glenn Greenwald, the American journalist who published documents leaked by fugitive former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, plans to make new revelations “within the next 10 days or so” on secret US surveillance of the Internet.
“The articles we have published so far are a very small part of the revelations that ought to be published,” Greenwald on Tuesday told a Brazilian congressional hearing that is investigating the US internet surveillance in Brazil.
Union Minister EMS Natchiappan on Tuesday said that laws should be made stricter to ensure safe and secure environment for visitors in the country.
“For ages, India has been attracting tourists with its ancient monuments, knowledge treasury scenic beauty and other attractions,” Natchiappan, the minister of state for Commerce and Industry, said while inaugurating a seminar on tourism in Amity University.
“Framing of strict and new laws alone cannot ensure everything. Their implementation has to be made better and stricter,” he said.
Making clear that its hands off policy on Kashmir has not changed, the US has reiterated that it was for India and Pakistan to determine the pace, scope, and character of dialogue on Kashmir.
The US was “aware of these unconfirmed reports and are concerned about any violence along the Line of Control,” State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki told reporters Tuesday when asked about reports of killing of five soldiers in an ambush of an Indian army patrol.
A USD 5 million gift to the India studies centre at a New York University is set to make it one of the pre-eminent resource centres for the study of Indian culture and civilisation in the US.
The donations make the Centre for India Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at Stony Brook University as the recipient of the largest gift ever made to a US public university for India Studies.