Month: July 2014

Three minor Dalit girls were allegedly assaulted and gangraped by seven men for opposing eve-teasing in Singauli village here, police said today.

Three youths of a neighbouring village indulged in eve-teasing with the girls on Sunday who had gone to a nearby field.

As the girls raised objection, four other associates of the accused also joined them in beating the girls.

One of the girl’s brother, who rushed to their rescue, was also beaten up, police said.

India’s ambassador to the UAE T P Seetharam has been appointed as the country’s permanent representative to the Abu Dhabi-based International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

The move makes India 19th member of IRENA to designate a permanent representative to the inter-governmental organisation.

Congress today slammed the Railway Budget as “pro-rich” with former Railway Minster Mallikarjun Kharge insisting that it is bereft of any new scheme, plan or railway line and seeks to please the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Kharge, who is also Leader of Congress in the Lok Sabha, said that “the budget is only for Ahmedabad.”

He also ridiculed the government’s plans to introduce a bullet train in Mumbai-Ahmedabad sector and setting up of a Diamond Quadrilateral network of high speed rail connecting major metros and growth centres.

Railways Minister Sadananda Gowda has said that the Indian Railways is on its way to fulfill the long cherished dream to run a bullet train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

Presenting the Railway Budget 2014-15 in Parliament today, he said, the Railways proposes bullet trains by starting off with an already identified Mumbai-Ahmedabad sector, where a number of studies have been done.

“The Rail Budget will prove to bring in speed, development to Indian Railways, security and service to citizens. For the first time there is holistic railway budget of modern India. Railway cannot be run on an adhoc basis. This Rail Budget will prove that Railways plays an important role in the Nation’s development,” Modi said.

“Institution mechanism is necessary; this budget gives strength to that and to transparency and integrity. This Rail Budget will become a huge power for the economy. Its about developing the nation through development of railways.

Parakala Prabhakar today assumed charge as the Advisor (Communications) to Andhra Pradesh government here.

Prabhakar, who had worked with BJP and erstwhile Praja Rajyam Party, is also a media personality.

Talking to reporters after assuming charge, he said he would act as a bridge between the government and the people and sought the cooperation of media in the endeavour.

Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is Prabhakar’s wife.

In an industry which stereotypes actors easily, Vidya Balan, who has essayed a variety of roles, says she is very selfish as an actor and she only works for herself.

The actress has charted herself a different trajectory with her film choices be it ‘Paa’, ‘Ishqiya’, ‘No One Killed Jessica’, ‘The Dirty Picture’ or ‘Kahaani’.

“I only work for myself. If I like something, I don’t think about what people are going to say or whether the story is ‘different’ enough. I am very selfish, I don’t think of anything but what I want to do,” Vidya told PTI in an interview.

Congress party leaders have said that while their expectations from the Railway Budget remain low, the government should try to deliver on the promises it made regarding the budget.

Congress leader Rashid Alvi said, “I don’t have any expectations from the budget. They have increased the prices more than 14 percent already. Rail fare should be hiked only in rail norms. Modi had always opposed the idea to hike rail prices before rail budget.”

The general secretary of the Nationalist Congress Party of India (NCP), Tariq Anwar today said that the Railway Budget should seek to connect districts with metro cities.

Tariq Anwar told ANI, “Railway is the lifeline of India as lakhs of people travel through it. We welcome the idea of bullet trains but the major focus must be on connecting districts to cities. People belonging to lower working class travel the most through railway.”

Lack of leisure-time physical activity, not caloric intake, may be to blame for increased obesity, according to a new US study.

The study shows that in the past 20 years there has been a sharp decrease in physical exercise and an increase in average body mass index (BMI), while caloric intake has remained steady.

Investigators theorised that a drop in leisure-time physical activity, especially among young women, may be responsible for the upward trend in obesity rates.

India batsman Yuvraj Singh will hold a charity auction here on July 14 to raise money for cancer patients.

The auction will take place at London Hilton, Park Lane in the presence of Virat Kohli, Sachin Tendulkar, Kevin Pietersen, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly.

The items up for grabs include exclusive cricket memorabilia such as Sachin Tendulkar’s ‘t-shirt’ from his 200th Test match, 2011 World cup winning medal along with a chance to win a dinner date and practice session with Yuvraj.

With focus on ‘Mission 150’ for the forthcoming Maharashtra Assembly elections, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray today expressed confidence that the traditional ‘puja’ at Pandharpur next year would be performed by Chief Minister of Sena-BJP alliance.

“Definitely. It would be performed by Chief Minister from Shiv Sena and the saffron alliance,” Uddhav told reporters when asked whether he would perform the ‘Ashadhi Ekadashi puja’ as CM next year.

Government is preparing the National Population Register incorporating all genuine Indian citizens and will give them national identity cards in a time bound manner.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh announced this in Lok Sabha while replying questions on reports of illegal infiltrations into the country.

“We have to identify who is Indian citizen and who is not. We have to take steps to identify genuine Indian citizen,” he said amidst applause from members of the ruling coalition.

Kevin Pietersen thinks England could be in for a particularly tough Test series at home to India in the absence of Graeme Swann.

Off-spinner Swann’s retirement during England’s 5-0 Ashes thrashing in Australia has left Alastair Cook’s side without a specialist slow bowler, given the selectors refusal to recall Monty Panesar.

Swann took 255 wickets in 60 Tests and was a mainstay of the attack.

An American newspaper apologized after it referred to President Barack Obama using the ‘N’-word in an opinion piece published in its July edition.

WestView News, a newspaper published from New York has hogged headlines ever since it used the racist slur in one of its headlines in reference to Obama. According to The Independent, the opinion piece which used the N-word was written by James Lincoln Collier and was titled “The N***** in the White House.”

Former union minister and Congress leader Manish Tewari on Tuesday described the reported news of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader Ram Madhav joining the BJP as a mere formalisation of the hold of the RSS over the BJP.

Women are superior to men when it comes to marathon race pacing, a study suggests, adding that this gives women athletes better decision-making abilities than men.

The study, led by Robert Deaner, an associate professor of psychology at Grand Valley State University in Michigan, was based on 14 marathons that occurred in the US in 2011.

On average, men ran the second half of the marathon 15.6 percent slower than the first half, whereas women slowed by an average of 11.7 percent.

Not just fantasies, but heavy porn viewing may make some women “hypersexual” – to have sex so frequently that it may cause them problems, a fascinating study reveals.

To get a better idea of what hypersexual women actually do, the researchers surveyed nearly 1,000 women in Germany and asked them how frequently they watched porn and how many sexual partners they have had.

Researchers also assessed hypersexual behaviour in participants using a questionnaire called “Hypersexual Behavior Inventory”.

Twenty-four hours of sleep deprivation can lead to conditions in healthy persons similar to the symptoms of schizophrenia, says a study.

“It was clear to us that a sleepless night leads to impairment in the ability to concentrate,” said professor Ulrich Ettinger from the University of Bonn in Germany.

“But we were surprised at how pronounced and how wide the spectrum of schizophrenia-like symptoms was,” Ettinger added.

The chronic form of psychosis is referred to as schizophrenia, which involves thought disorders and misperceptions.

Shaken by the inordinate delay in the onset of monsoon, farmers and villagers across Shimoga district celebrated “weddings” of donkeys and frogs besides offering food to rain God, praying for rains.

All the villagers of Devra Narsipura in Bhadravathi taluk thronged their village temple to perform the weddings of a pair of donkeys, which were first given a fresh bath and later decorated with new clothes and flowers. They were taken in a procession through the village before the celebrations.

Three persons were arrested Tuesday with a huge cache of arms and ammunition from different places in Munger district, a police officer said.

Acting on a tip off, the police arrested one Md Neyaz from Bardah-Purab Sarai road and seized three automatic pistols and 90 ammunition which he was carrying on his bicycle to deliver to a client, Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Sanjay Kumar Singh said.

Nearly 800,000 people have been internally displaced in Pakistan as a military operation against militants progressed in North Waziristan, media reported Tuesday.

The Fata Disaster Management Authority (FDMA) Tuesday said the number of displaced people in Pakistan’s North Waziristan region has reached 800,000, the Dawn online reported.

The FDMA data said the number of displaced families was 62,493, including 2,11,549 male and 236,883 female members, while the number of children was 339,456.

A woman was allegedly raped by her older brother-in-law repeatedly in Bhayander as she failed to return the money lent by him two years ago, police said.

According to API Priyatama Mote of Navghar police station, accused Kamlesh Jain sexually abused his sister-in-law after he kept harassing her to return the money lent to her in June 2012 for an operation.

As the woman was unable to repay him, Jain assaulted her since April, when no one was home, and then forcibly abused her after taking her to a lodge in Gorai, the complaint by the woman said.

Continuing their record-breaking spree, markets on Tuesday hit new record highs with the Nifty breaching the 7,800-level for the first time and the BSE Sensex scaling another peak of 26,190.44 on hopes of growth-oriented measures in the Budget.

The 50-issue Nifty crossed the 7,800-level for the first time by gaining 21.70 points, or 0.27 percent, to trade at an all-time high of 7,808.85, surpassing its previous intra-day high of 7,792.00 touched yesterday.

It had gained over 72 points in the last two days.

With diesel price deregulation likely at some point this fiscal, high subsidies on LPG and kerosene will continue to be a major challenge, Icra Research said on Monday.

With the BJP-led government continuing with the previous government’s decision of raising diesel prices by up to 50 paisa per month, “the retail price of diesel could get aligned with the market determined prices within FY’15 barring a spike in crude oil prices or depreciation of the rupee versus the US dollar,” it said in a statement here.