Month: July 2014

India’s Anthony Amalraj and Madhurika Patkar lost in the fourth round of the mixed doubles table tennis event of the 2014 Commonwealth Games at the Scotstoun Sports Campus here Thursday.

The Indian pair lost 2-3 (11-7, 3-11, 10-12, 11-7, 4-11) to Singapore’s Ning Gao and Ye Lin in 32 minutes.

It was a topsy-turvy match for the Indian team, who won the first game in five minutes but lost the next two in a combined time of 11 minutes.

Amalraj and Madhurika came back strongly in the fourth to take the match into the final game.

The 350 Kerala nurses who returned from strife-torn Iraq have been asked to attend a meeting here Aug 6 to discuss their job prospects, an official said Thursday.

The decision to ask the nurses to attend was made at a meeting with the owners of private hospitals in the state and the Middle-East Thursday.

The meeting was chaired by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, P. Sudeep, CEO of Roots Norka, a state agency set up for the welfare of non-resident Keralites, told IANS.

Norka had opened a helpline for all nurses who returned from Iraq after trouble broke out in the country.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Thursday said UNCTAD will set up a centre of excellence in entrepreneurship training in Kolkata.

“United Nation’s leading agency, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has announced to set up a centre for excellence in entrepreneurship training in Kolkata in association with EMPRETEC and our state government,” she posted on her official Facebook page.

Engineering a protein, research shows, may prevent brain damage in civilians and soldiers exposed to poisonous chemicals – particularly those in pesticides and chemical weapons.

A set of proteins called phosphotriesterases have the unique capability of detoxifying chemicals in a class known as organophosphates – found in everything from industrial pesticides to the sarin gas used in chemical warfare.

Organophosphates permanently bond to neurotransmitters in the brain, interfering with their ability to function and causing irreversible damage.

The death toll in a landslide that wiped out a village near Pune in Maharashtra touched 30 Thursday.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh visited the site in the morning and inspected rescue operations in Malin village which was swept away by the landslide Wednesday.

He promised all assistance to the victims’ families. Over 140 people are still buried under the mudslide and debris.

“Eight injured people have been rescued and 30 bodies have been recovered by rescuers,” a statement from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) said.

A 13-year-old girl was raped by her stepfather and landlord here. Both have been arrested, police said Thursday.

The landlord, 40, and stepfather, 35, both of whom are unemployed, had been sexually assaulting the girl for close to a year, police said.

They were arrested following a complaint by her mother Tuesday at Gandhi Nagar police station in east Delhi.

The mother is employed at a thread-manufacturing factory.

On Tuesday morning, the girl complained of uneasiness and was taken to a nearby hospital by her mother where the doctors confirmed sexual assault.

The Ukrainian parliament Thursday rejected the resignation tendered by Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk last week, the parliamentary press service said.

Yatsenyuk’s resignation was backed by only 16 of the 339 deputies present at the 450-seat assembly, Xinhua reported.

The decision means that Yatsenyuk and the current cabinet will continue to fulfil their duties until parliamentary elections, which are expected to be held in October.

Separatist guerrillas Thursday shot at a private security guard posted at a hospital here, an official said, adding his condition was critical.

Nazir Ahmad was working as a security guard at the Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) hospital here when he was shot at by militants. He was critically injured.

“Militants fired at the ex-serviceman from close range,” a police official told IANS.

Ahmad belongs to the Kupwara district in north Kashmir and was working with a private agency in Kaka Sarai in the city.

Six bodies have been recovered after a boat, carrying over a hundred passengers, capsized in the Jamuna river in Bangladesh.

Chawhali upazila executive officer Mohammad Abdullah said the mishap took place around 10 a.m. Thursday in Sirajganj district, bdnews24.com reported.

Abdullah said the boat was ferrying the passengers from Mituani Bazar to Char Salimabad, and sank after hitting a rundown bridge.
(IANS)

A separate counselling for engineering will be conducted by Telangana Government and students of the region need not attend the certificate verification process for which the notification was issued by the APSCHE, said Education Minister G. Jagadish Reddy.

Jagadishwar Reddy speaking to the correspondents said without prior intimation to the Telangana State government decision was taken by council. “It is the prerogative of Andhra Pradesh government on how to go about the counselling process and our government is not concerned how AP State government goes about it,” Reddy said.

The Gujarat High Court today dismissed the plea of the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigating Team (SIT), to grant a stay on its order granting bail to former minister Maya Kodnani in the 2002 Naroda Patiya riots case.

A division bench comprising justices V M Sahai and R P Dholaria dismissed the plea, saying their (SIT) application has come after the order was executed.

“Order dated July 30, 2014 (which granted bail to Kodnani) was executed prior to SIT moving the application. Therefore, the application filed by SIT becomes infructuous and is dismissed,” the court said.

Telangana government should expedite completion of ongoing infrastructure projects and also take up new ones to bridge the divide between Hyderabad and other parts of the state, industry body Assocham said today.

“Developing infrastructure in Telangana is essential for reducing costs of economic activities thereby leveraging public resources to access a large pool of private resources and providing an environment that help benefit from liberalised policies,” a strategy paper titled ‘Realising Growth Potential of Telangana’, undertaken by the ASSOCHAM, said.

Israeli attacks against US Secretary of State John Kerry accusing him being of a supporter of Islamic militants are “offensive and absurd,” a senior US diplomat said today.

In a sharp exchange with reporters, deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf hit out against a torrent of abuse from “respected voices in Israel talking about the secretary of state, claiming that he supports Hamas, which is offensive and absurd.”

The United States had been giving Israel “a level of support which has been quite frankly unprecedented in our history, even when we stood alone,” she added.

Every second or third time you eat chicken; there is a good chance that you’re also taking in not many but some antibiotics. And if you think this will make you healthier, think for a second time — this only gives rise to superbugs which are resistant to antibiotics.

The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has conducted a study and found that rampant use of antibiotics in chickens, with 40 per cent samples testing positive for antibiotics used for treating serious ailments in human beings, for instance tuberculosis.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called on Kiev and pro-Russian rebels to immediately stop fighting to allow investigators to reach the crash site of the downed Malaysian plane.

“The families of this horrific tragedy deserve closure and the world demands answers — international teams must be allowed to conduct their work,” said Ban in a statement released by his spokesman.

The United States today unveiled USD 378 million in new humanitarian aid for the Syrian people, denouncing “appalling ‘starve or surrender’ tactics” by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

“The regime is asphyxiating half a million Syrians in Aleppo by obstructing deliveries of food, water, and medicine,” Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement.

“Syrians all over the country are being butchered at the hands of a ruthless tyrant,” Kerry said, strongly condemning “the brutally indefensible and illegitimate Assad regime.”

At least 20 bodies have been recovered from two separate beaches in southern Pakistan, where 23 people had drowned, after they went swimming into the sea despite warnings about strong currents.

According to Dawn, twelve bodies were recovered from Clifton Beach in Karachi on Wednesday night after which the rescue operation was suspended owing to the dark whereas an additional six bodies were recovered after 6 am on Thursday morning. Moreover, two bodies were also recovered from Hawks Bay today.

Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar has said that in view of the 2015 agreement on climate change, the Indo-U.S. Joint Working Group needed to work very closely and develop a common understanding on an ambitious and balanced package for the post-2020 period.

Javadekar, who met Special Envoy Climate Change, USA, Todd Stern here yesterday, further said that the Joint Working Group would also establish coordination on mitigation and adaptation aspects.

President Pranab Mukherjee will visit West Bengal and Telangana on August 1 and 2.

On August 1, the President will inaugurate the new building of Ghani Khan Choudhury Institute of Engineering and Technology at Narayanpur in Malda District.

He will also inaugurate the International Conference on Natural Fibres organized by the National Institute of Research on Jute and Allied Fibre Technology at Kolkata on the same day.

On August 2, he will address the annual general meeting of the Indian Chamber of Commerce at Kolkata.

New Zealand is to slap a seven-year jail term on anyone caught match-fixing under a new law due to take effect before it hosts the Cricket World Cup and Under-20 FIFA World Cup next year.

The Match-Fixing Bill, introduced to parliament Thursday with unanimous political support, would apply the lengthy sentences to anyone caught trying to influence or benefit from the outcome of a match or race.

“Match-fixing is a growing problem internationally and has been described as the number one threat to the integrity, value and growth of sport,” Sports Minister Murray McCully said.

Israel mobilised 16,000 additional reservists, taking their total to 86,000, as military operations in the Gaza Strip continue, an army spokeswoman said today.

“The army has issued 16,000 additional mobilisation orders to allow troops on the ground to rest, which takes the total number of reservists to 86,000,” said the spokeswoman.

Egypt will put its clock forward by an hour from midnight tonight to readjust to Daylight Saving Time (DST), the Egyptian cabinet announced.

Starting at 11:59 pm local time, the clock will go an hour forward to readjust to DST, which was applied in late May and then cancelled during the holy month of Ramadan to shorten the fasting period of Muslims.

The reintroduction of summer time is under the pretext that it would save energy.

The DST was first adopted in Egypt in 1988 as a way to reduce energy consumption.

In Egypt, standard time is GMT (UTC)+2. DST Time is GMT+3.

The ruling Telugu Desam Party will field State Urban Development Minister P Narayana for the lone Legislative Council seat in Andhra Pradesh for which by-election is due on August 21.

Narayana, who also runs the Narayana group of educational institutions, was inducted into Chandrababu Naidu’s cabinet on June 8. However, he is not a member of either House of the Legislative Assembly.

The Legislative Council seat fell vacant on May 21 after sitting Congress member K Veerabhadra Swamy resigned, though his term is up to March 29, 2019.

Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi and party vice-president Rahul Gandhi have approached the Delhi High Court to challenge the summons issued to them in a matter of them misusing party funds to pay off debts accrued by the now defunct National Herald newspaper several years ago.

A lower court had on June 26 summoned Sonia and her son Rahul and three others to answer allegations that they used their leadership of the Congress Party to misuse about USD 15 million dollars of party funds for personal profit.

The Gandhis were directed to appear in court on August 7.

With former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh creating a row with his comments about Sonia Gandhi, the Congress President today said that she will come out with her own book, which will reveal the “truth”.

“I will write my own book and then you will come to know everything…the only way truth will come out is if I write…I am serious about it and I will be writing,” she told reporters in Parliament House.