Month: March 2014

Sethusamudram channel project of no use to people: Jayalalithaa

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Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J.Jayalalithaa Saturday said the Sethusamudram ship channel project will not benefit the people or the state as well as affecting the fishermen’s livelihood and the environment.

She said the government has called for tenders to prepare a detailed project report for a desalination water project in Ramanathapuram district and steps are being taken for setting up an industrial park for production of petro-chemicals and fertiliser units.

Cop shot at by guerrillas in Kashmir

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A policeman was injured in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama distict Saturday after guerrillas fired at him, a police official said.

A senior police officer said militants fired from close range at a police constable in Kakpora town of Pulwama, 25 km from here, in the afternoon. He was taken to hospital where his condition is now stable.

“The police constable was fired at with a pistol and sustained a bullet wound in his leg. He was taken to hospital. Doctors at the hospital said the constable is out of danger,” the police officer said.

Rashtriya Ulema Council chief to take on Mulayam in Azamgarh

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Claiming that Samajwadi Party was “not real well-wishers” of Muslims, Rashtriya Ulema Council president Maulana Amir Rashadi Madni today announced that he would contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from Azamgarh against SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav.

“As per the decision of the Ulema Council’s parliamentary board, I will contest the upcoming elections from Azamgarh against the SP chief,” Rashadi told reporters here.

Greater Hyderabad Witnesses Hectic Political Activity

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Congress, YSRCP, TDP, MIM, BJP and LS Seek Dominance

The 24 Assembly seats in the Greater Hyderabad limits are witnessing a hectic political activity in view of ensuing Assembly and Lok Sabha elections to be held simultaneously on April 30.

Assad preparing to run for president despite war

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Syrian President Bashar Assad is quietly preparing the ground to hold elections by early this summer to win another 7-year term, even as the Syrian conflict rampages into its fourth year with large parts of the country either in ruins or under opposition control and nearly a third of the population scattered by civil war.

Amid the destruction, which has left more than 140,000 dead, presidential elections may seem impossible. But Syrian officials insist they will be held on time.

Modi, Hooda birds of a feather: Kejriwal

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Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal today dubbed Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and his Gujarat counterpart Narendra Modi as “birds of a feather” even as he charged that the two were “property dealers” making “big money” for themselves.

Kejriwal, who is on a three-day road show through Haryana where election for the 10 Lok Sabha seats is to take place on April 10, alleged that Hooda and Modi were exploiting the common man by acting as “property dealers”.

Congress candidate Masood arrested for threatening Modi

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Imran Masood, Congress candidate from Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur constituency, was arrested early Saturday for his hate speech against BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, police said. A court later sent him to 14 days judicial custody.

Officials said a first information report (FIR) was lodged in Saharanpur, soon after clips of Masood’s hate speech were telecast on TV channels.

Senior Superintendent of Police Manoj Kumar led the team that arrested Masood, who is the nephew of jailed Congress leader Rashid Masood.

106 candidates for Jharkhand’s second phase poll

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One hundred and sox candidates are in the fray for six Lok Sabha seats in Jharkhand where voting will take place in the second phase April 17.

“Total 106 candidates are in poll fray for the second phase of polling in Jharkhand. Ten nomination papers were rejected on technical grounds and four candidates withdrew,” an Election Commission official told IANS.

The six Lok Sabha seats to go to polls are Jamshedpur, Giridih, Ranchi, Singhbhum, Khunti and Hazaribagh and the number of candidates trying their luck are 15, 17, 28, 12, 14 and 20 respectively.

World T20: New Zealand beat Netherlands by 6 wickets

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Brendon McCullum’s 65 off 45 balls gave New Zealand a six-wicket victory over the Netherlands in a Group 1 match here Saturday and kept them in contention for a semi-final berth in the ICC World Twenty20.

The victory at the Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium here helped the Kiwis leapfrog South Africa into second place in Group 1. Sri Lanka, New Zealand and South Africa are all on four points having played three games each but run-rate differentiates the three teams.

DMDK chief Vijaykant’s brother joins AIADMK

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Tamil Nadu’s ruling AIADMK is not only attracting the legislators of DMDK floated by actor-turned politician A.Vijaykant but has now drawn his own brother A.Palraj into its ranks.

In a statement issued here Saturday, the AIADMK said Palraj and his wife Venkatalakshmi met the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J.Jayalalithaa, who is also the party chief, in Madurai Friday and joined the party.

Already eight legislators of DMDK have turned rebels and are extending support to AIADMK in the state assembly.

Two JD-U women legislators campaign for BJP, RJD

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Two women legislators from Bihar’s ruling JD-U, one of them a former minister, are campaigning and seeking votes for the BJP and RJD candidates against the official party candidates.

The two legislators are Renu Kumari Kushwaha and Poonam Yadav.

Kushwaha, who resigned from the state cabinet of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar early this month, is still a Janata Dal-United (JD-U) legislator from Bihariganj assembly constituency.

New tobacco plant fights West Nile virus

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Scientists have developed therapeutics from a new generation of tobacco plant that fights West Nile virus and other pathogens.

The therapeutics developed by the research group led by Arizona State University professor Qiang “Shawn” Chen, is potentially safer and more cost-effective and were shown to neutralize and protect mice against a lethal dose challenge of West Nile virus even days after infection.

Chen said that the overarching goal of their research is to create an innovative, yet sustainable and accessible, low cost solution to combat the global threat of West Nile virus.

WHO certifies India as ‘polio free’

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The World Health Organisation (WHO) has presented official certification to India for its ‘polio free’ status.

India is among other countries in its South East Asian region which have been certified as being free of the wild polio virus.

Minister for Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad received the official certificate at a function, here yesterday. This achievement makes the South-East Asia Region, the fourth WHO Region to be certified as polio-free, after the Region of the Americas in 1994, the Western Pacific Region in 2000 and the European Region in 2002.

109-year old steam engine rolls out on Shimla track

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An 109-year old British-era steam engine Saturday once again chugged down the Kalka-Shimla heritage track with over 12 passengers, mostly foreigners on board, railway officials said here.

Considered to be an engineering marvel, locomotive KC 520, the only narrow gauge steam engine which dates back to 1905, operated to and fro between Shimla and Kathlighat, commercial inspector (railways) Amar Singh Thakur told IANS.

The one-way 22-km journey between the two stations, located on the Shimla-Kalka rail line that figures in UNESCO World Heritage site list, takes more than one hour.

Sonia Gandhi gave T by cutting her stomach: Damodar Rajanarasimha

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Sonia Gandhi gave T by cutting her stomach in to half! This is the remark made by TPCC campaign committee Chief Damodara Rajanarasimha.

Damodara made this comment while lambasting TRS for showing no gratitude towards Congress for giving Telangana statehood. The former Deputy Chief Minister said that Sonia Gandhi gave Telangana despite knowing that Congress loses badly in Seemandhra region.

Chronic stress in early life linked to anxiety, aggression in adulthood

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Researchers have suggested that chronic stress in early life causes anxiety, aggression in adulthood.

A research team led by Associate Professor Grigori Enikolopov of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) conducted experiments designed to assess the impacts of social stress upon adolescent mice, both at the time they are experienced and during adulthood.

The tests began with 1-month-old male mice – the equivalent, in human terms of adolescents – each placed for 2 weeks in a cage shared with an aggressive adult male.

Orchestra-like-human-circadian clock has many conductors

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Researchers have challenged the prevailing wisdom about how our body clocks are organized, and suggest that interactions among neurons that govern circadian rhythms are more complex than originally thought.

Orie Shafer, a University of Michigan assistant professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology and U-M doctoral student Zepeng Yao looked at the circadian clock neuron network in fruit flies, which is functionally similar to that of mammals, but at only 150 clock neurons is much simpler.

India’s forex reserves rise to $298.63 bn

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India’s foreign exchange (forex) reserves rose by $1.34 billion to $298.63 billion for the week ended March 21, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data showed.

This is the fourth consecutive week of increase in the country’s forex reserves as overseas investors poured in money in local bonds and stock markets.

The forex reserves had jumped by $1.83 billion for the week ended March 14.

According to the RBI’s weekly statistical supplement, foreign currency assets, the biggest component of the forex reserves, rose by $1.58 billion to $271.39 billion.

Drunk Australian goes wild in Thai hospital

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An Australian man on his flight to Phuket in Thailand passed out drunk and was carried off on arrival still unconscious.

Christopher Lazarus Boubis, 39, Friday, on regaining consciousness in the Thalang Hospital immediately went on a rampage in the emergency ward.

“He was shouting and verbally abusing staff, scaring them, before he collapsed again unconscious in an emergency treatment room,” a nurse told the Phuket Gazette.

“He even groped one of the female staff,” she said.

According to the hospital staff, when Boubis woke, he seemed dazed and confused.

US trying to rope in India, China to isolate Russia

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In a bid to isolate Russia over its annexation of Crimea, the US says it is talking with Moscow’s friends like India and China, but it has not yet asked them to impose any sanctions.

“Well, I don’t think we’re there yet. Obviously, we’ve been consulting very closely with the Europeans about sanctions,” State Department spokesperson Marie Harf told reporters Friday when asked if the US was going to seek Iran-oil like sanction from countries outside NATO.

Russia denies plans to raise overseas military bases

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Russia has denied intentions of building a network of military bases abroad, but confirmed it was in talks over creating logistics facilities for its naval ships, senior officials said Saturday.

“Construction of bases similar to those built by the Americans (in other countries) is out of the question,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a local television interview released Saturday.

Noting that Russian warships do “not just cross oceans for training purposes”, Lavrov said the navy was only making efforts to counter piracy off the African coast, Xinhua reported.

Pakistan’s Opposition protest against blasphemy sentence

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Pakistan’s two main opposition parties in the National Assembly reportedly protested against a death sentence passed by a Lahore court against a Christian man on charges of blasphemy. Shirin Mazari of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and then Shazia Marri of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) complained against persecution of minority communities in the country on basis of fraudulent blasphemy charges.

Sienna Miller hopes to design couture

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Actress-designer Sienna Miller and her sister Savannah quit being co-creative directors of their fashion label Twenty8Twelve in 2012. But Sienna says she wants to continue creating fashion pieces.

Femalefirst.co.uk reports that in the new edition of Nylon magazine, Sienna revealed what will make her fulfilled.

“We were designing a really big collection in the end…I think maybe I’d be more fulfilled being a couturier or something, or doing 10 amazing pieces a season,” she said.
(IANS)

Tight security arrangements in place for ULB polls in Andhra

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As many as 16 companies of Central paramilitary forces and 130 battalions of Andhra Pradesh Special police besides regular police have been deployed as part of security arrangements for the elections to urban local bodies in the state.

Polls would be held for 146 municipalities and 10 municipal corporations in the state tomorrow, said State Election Commissioner P Ramakanth Reddy today.