This Eid, several multinational companies are feeling the heat of boycott of products called by groups protesting the incessant attacks on Gaza Strip by Israel.
A leading multinational milk company figures prominently on a list of companies which purportedly have Israeli or American investments. The list has gone viral on social media and is also being circulated through pamphlets and fliers in Hyderabad.
NOTWITHSTANDING tall development and financial management claims of the state, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India ( CAG)’ s five audit reports on the last leg of Narendra Modi’s rule as the Gujarat Chief Minister after a 12- year stint has fished out in all disputed transactions worth ` 25,000 crore that points to fiscal profligacy and rising debt burden.
The recently downed Malaysia Airlines jet in the eastern Ukraine had suffered an explosive loss of pressure after getting punctured by shrapnel from a missile, BBC reported Tuesday citing Ukranian security officials.
They say the information came from the plane’s flight data recorders, which are being analysed by British experts. However, it remains unclear who fired a missile, with pro-Russia rebels and Ukraine blaming each other.
There were 298 on board the MH17 plane. No body survived.
Israeli jets struck early Tuesday the house of Ismail Haneya, deputy chief of Islamic Hamas movement, in western Gaza City, Gaza’s interior ministry said. But it caused no casualty.
Haneya’s son wrote on his Facebook page there was no body at the house of the former Hamas Gaza prime minister, Xinhua reported.
Hamas said that its TV station Al-Aqsa TV was also targeted. But the station continued to broadcast.
About 85 kg of pure cocaine, worth around 17 million euros (about $23 million) in retail market, was seized Monday from an Italian port of Gioia Tauro, a media report said.
Police reportedly uncovered the illegal shipment following a series of crossed checks of suspicious containers at the port, one of Europe’s largest container ports located in Calabria region. The cocaine was hidden in two containers filled with wood coming from Chile, Xinhua reported.
New air strikes by Israeli war jets on central and southern Gaza Strip killed 16 Palestinians and wounded more than 50 early Tuesday, medics and witnesses said.
Ashraf al-Qedra, spokesman of health ministry in Gaza told reporters that nine Palestinians were killed and 40 injured in a pre-dawn air strike on a house in the central Gaza Strip refugee camp of al-Bureij, Xinhua reported.
Another seven Palestinians from one family were killed in an Israeli air strike on their house in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah. Ten others were injured, he added.
Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao will visit Singapore next month at the invitation of Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Alumni Association.
The association extended an invitation to Rao to attend its conference scheduled Aug 22-23, said a statement from the chief minister’s office. Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and other dignitaries are also scheduled to attend the event.
This will be the first foreign tour by Rao since he took over as the first chief minister of Telangana on June 2.
A 42-year-old suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist has been arrested for his involvement in planning terror strikes in various parts of the country, police said here Monday.
Abdul Subhan, a resident of Haryana’s Mewat area, was arrested a week ago from south Delhi and is in the custody of Delhi Police’s Special Cell.
Sources said his name surfaced during interrogation of two youths from Mewat who were arrested a few months back.
They had told police that Subhan used to motivate youths to join the terrorist groups and carry out attacks in the country, the sources added.
The Delhi High Court Monday issued notice to Hindu College on a plea by an admission seeker against scrapping of the five percent quota for admission to undergraduate courses for sportspersons and for extra-curricular activities (ECA).
Justice Manmohan sought a response from the college while hearing the plea of Vishal Maharaj, who contended that Hindu College has 37 seats available under the ECA category but it scrapped the quota.
The student sought quashing of the college’s notification where it decided to scrap the sports and ECA category for the current session.
Government forces have taken control of several rebel cities in Ukraine’s Donetsk region close to where a Malaysia Airlines plane carrying nearly 300 people was shot down earlier this month, the army said Monday.
They have seized the city of Debaltsevo and Saur Mogila, a hill used by pro-Russian militias to fire on soldiers, the army said in a statement.
The army also regained control of the cities of Shahtersk, located close to the wreckage of the Malaysia Airlines plane, and Torez, the town from which the victims’ bodies were taken in a refrigerated train to the city of Kharkiv.
Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao Monday announced that the state’s industrial policy will be finalised within a week.
He directed the officials to acquire all land available for industry and transfer the same to Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (TSIIC). He also suggested that for industries to be set up on this land, the government should take all approvals in advance.
KCR, as Rao is popularly known, said on the land transferred to TSIIC, proper infrastructure should be provided and industrial areas should be created.
US multinational General Electric’s (GE) financial arm Monday announced it has invested an unspecified amount in three wind projects of Atria Power from the $1 billion fund it budgets annually for renewable energy projects worldwide.
“The three wind farms, including one in Andhra Pradesh and two in Madhya Pradesh will have a combined capacity of 126 megawatts (MW) and support the Indian government’s programme to generate competitively priced grid-interactive clean power,” GE Energy Financial Services said in a statement here.
China Monday launched an official investigation in the offices of Microsoft across the country for reasons not yet specified, media reports said.
Investigators from the State Administration for Industry and Commerce visited Microsoft installations in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu, Efe reported citing the South China Morning Post as saying on its website.
Microsoft China spokeswoman Joan Li confirmed the investigation, and told the newspaper that the company would “actively cooperate” with the Chinese government in its inquiry.
Taiwan has finished decoding the data from the two black boxes of its ill-fated plane that crashed last week, the island’s aviation council said Monday.
The council will release the information of one of the black boxes as soon as the data is confirmed, Xinhua quoted council chief Wang Hsing-chung as saying.
Recordings of conversations in the TransAsia GE 222 plane’s cockpit cannot be made public for legal reasons, and the council is considering publishing a summary of transcripts of the conversation.
The following is the scoreboard after the second day’s play of the third cricket Test between India and England at the Rose Bowl here Monday:
England (first innings, overnight 247/2)
Alastair Cook c Dhoni b Jadeja 95
Sam Robson c Jadeja b Shami 26
Gary Ballance c Dhoni b Sharma 156
Ian Bell c Pankaj Singh b Kumar 167
Joe Root c Dhoni b Kumar 3
Moeen Ali c Rahane b Kumar 12
Jos Buttler b Jadeja 85
Chris Woakes not out 7
Extras (b 5, lb 11, w 2) 18
Total (for seven wickets declared in 163.4 overs) 569
At least three people were killed and 16 others injured in two suicide bombings Monday in northern Nigeria’s Kano state, officials said.
In the first incident, a female suicide bomber attacked a petrol station in the morning, killing at least three people and injuring more than 10 others, a police officer told Xinhua.
In the second bombing, another female suicide bomber carried out an explosion at a trade fair complex in Kano, injuring six people, Xinhua quoted a security source as saying.
Some other residents were also injured in the attack.
Indian weightlifter Vikas Thakur won the silver medal in the men’s 85kg category at the 2014 Commonwealth Games here Monday.
The gold was clinched by Richard Patterson of New Zealand with a lift of 335kg — 151kg in snatch and 184 in clean and jerk.
The 21-year-old Vikas lifted a total of 333kg – 150kg in snatch and 183 in clean and jerk. Both Vikas and Canada’s Pascal Plamondon were tied on 333kg but Vikas won the silver on the account of lesser body weight. Plamondon also lifted 150kg in snatch and 183kg in clean and jerk.
–IANS
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Monday criticised the UN Security Council’s call for ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, saying it strengthens Hamas and neglects Israel’s security needs.
In a telephone talk with the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Netanyahu slammed Monday’s call by the council for “an immediate and unconditional humanitarian cease-fire”, Xinhua reported.
Israel’s top political and defence leadership Monday night defied international calls for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, determining to continue the massive offensive there until risk posed by Gaza militant groups is “neutralised”.
“We must be prepared for a prolonged campaign,” Xinhua quoted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying at a joint televised press conference with Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Chief of Staff Lt.Gen. Benny Gantz.
Britain will send a battle group to take part in a major military training in October as part of a NATO package to reassure its allies in eastern Europe, the British defence ministry said Monday.
The new deployment is Britain’s largest to the region since 2008 and is one of a planned series of NATO maneuovers due to take place throughout the autumn in support of allies in eastern Europe and the Baltic states, Xinhua quoted the ministry as saying in a statement.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa Monday congratulated Satish Kumar Sivalingam for winning a gold medal in weightlifting in the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and reminded him of the state government’s Rs.50 lakh cash prize.
In a congratulatory letter to Sivalingam, she said: “You have done both the nation and the state of Tamil Nadu proud by winning a gold medal and setting a new Commonwealth Games record…”
The Commonwealth Games 2014 are being held in Glasgow, Scotland.
The death toll in the last week’s school bus-train collision at an unmanned railway crossing in Telangana’s Medak district rose to 17 with a seven-year-old boy succumbing to his injuries at a private hospital here today, even as the condition of five other students remained critical.
Tarun, who was in “very very critical condition” after sustaining severe head injuries in the mishap, died this evening, said a senior official with Yashoda Hospitals.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav today said those guilty of violent incident in Saharanpur district would not be spared and stern action would be taken against them.
During a meeting with Punjab Assembly Speaker Charanjeet Singh Atwal here, Yadav said the state government was committed to provide justice and security to all residents.
When asked about the plot of land for which clashes erupted in Saharanpur, the Chief Minister said the matter is sub judice and action would be taken accordingly.
The Centre has agreed to set up an AIIMS-like super speciality hospital-cum-teaching institute in Telangana.
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has written a letter to state Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao in this regard, a release from the Chief Minister’s Office said here today.
Harsh Vardhan has asked the state government to propose three-four locations where about 200 acres of land is available in each site.
Uttar Pradesh saw the highest number of deaths in communal clashes in India in 2013, according to a US report which said the world last year witnessed the largest displacement of religious communities in recent memory.