Month: August 2014

A 22 year-old Israeli who was severely wounded from a rocket attack in south-central Israel succumbed to his wounds Friday, media reported.

Netanel Maman from Gan Yavne was being hospitalised for the past week following his injury from a rocket fire last Friday, Xinhua reported citing the Ynet news website. With this, the Israeli death toll amid Israel’s Operation Protective Edge reached 71.

He was hurt as he was sitting with his brother, who was slightly injured, in a car when a rocket exploded on a nearby road.

Former President A P J Abdul Kalam today called upon teachers to love their profession and be role model for the students.

A teacher is a beacon light that acts as a lighthouse to guide the stranded students in the sea of life, he said.

Kalam was speaking at Satya Bharti School, run by Bharti Foundation, at Sherpur Kalan, 45 km from here.

The former President said a teacher’s life is a living message for his students to work hard in the service of the country.

Bahrain will help 100 people injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza to get treatment in Egypt, a media report said Friday.

Bahrain has pledged $150,000 to fly 100 injured people from Gaza to Egypt for treatment, Gulf Daily News reported, adding that voluntary organisations — Bahrain Medical Society (BMS), the Bahrain Red Crescent Society (BRCS) and the Red Crescent Societies of Palestine and Egypt — will sign an agreement to this effect next week in Egypt’s capital Cairo.

A total of 13 people, including five doctors, died of Ebola virus disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the country’s Minister of Public Health Felix Kabange told Xinhua Friday.

The official said that all the 13 cases occurred in Djera, a remote region in the country’s northwest province of Equateur.

There is no report of Ebola in any other district.

He added that five suspected cases of Ebola recorded in the country’s capital Kinshasa are negative.

“All samples from Kinshasa were negative,” said Kabange.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif Friday told parliament that he has not sought the army’s mediation in the current political crisis as was claimed by two opposition leaders whose activists have camped in Islamabad and are demanding his resignation.

The two opposition politicians, Imran Khan and Tahir ul Qadri, claimed Thursday that the government has approached the army chief for mediation to end the deadlock.

Imran Khan and Qadri held separate meetings with the army chief, Gen. Raheel Sharif, at the military headquarters to explore ways of a peaceful solution.

The “Made in Pakistan Expo”, scheduled to kick off Sunday, has been cancelled, the organisers said.

This was to have been the second edition of the event in India’s financial capital.

The second ‘Made In Pakistan Expo Mumbai’, scheduled to start Aug 31, was abruptly cancelled at the last minute by organizers Friday.

In a terse statement, the organizers said: “We would like to inform you that due to the ongoing tension situation at the Line of Control (LOC) and on the advice from our partners ‘World Trade Centre’, we have ‘postponed’ the 2nd edition of MIPEM 2014.

P.V. Sindhu’s father and mentor P.V. Ramana fervently hopes that his daughter would Saturday improve on the bronze she won at the 2013 World Badminton Championships in Guangzhou and settle for no less than a silver — or better still gold.

The World No.12 created history Friday by reaching the women’s singles semi-finals and assuring herself of at least a bronze at the Worlds in Copenhagen. By achieving this, the Hyderabadi was in line to become the first Indian to win two medals at the sport’s most prestigious event.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday expressed confidence that his visit to Japan would open a new chapter in the relationship between the two countries and take their strategic and global partnership to the next “higher” level.

“I am confident that my visit will write a new chapter in the annals of relations between Asia’s two oldest democracies and take our strategic and global partnership to the next higher level,” Modi said in a statement on the eve of his departure Saturday.

The CBI Friday filed a charge sheet against former communications minister Dayanidhi Maran, his brother Kalanithi Maran, Malaysian business tycoon T. Ananda Krishnan and five others in the Aircel-Maxis deal case.

The charge sheet was filed before special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Judge O.P. Saini, who will hear the matter Sep 11.

The CBI has named five individuals. As one among them has died, charges against him have abated.

A policeman, deployed as the personal security guard of the district magistrate of Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag, was critically injured Friday after being shot by separatist guerrillas, police said.

Constable Fayaz Ahmad was shot at by militants outside the DM’s office in Anantnag town, 54 km from Srinagar.

“He was immediately shifted to Srinagar for specialised treatment. Doctors have described his condition as critical,” said a senior police officer.
(IANS)

Animal rights group PETA has named a pair of rescued chinchillas after Hollywood couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, who got married at the weekend, as a gift to mark the occasion.

The couple wed in secret in France at the weekend and now activists at PETA have honoured the animal-loving pair by naming two newly-free pets after them, reports hollywood.com.

Pitt and Jolie are up for adoption at PETA’s Virginia headquarters after the organisation’s leaders closed down one of the largest chinchilla ranches in California.

A man was booked today for allegedly raping his 21-year-old daughter for the last three years, police said here.

Soon after the report was filed yesterday, the accused, Balram Sahu (42), fled the town, Keolari police station in-charge Amit Vilas Dani said.

Sahu, an insurance agent, had been allegedly raping his daughter from the past three years by threatening her to kill her brother and mother, the police officer said.

The case was registered against Sahu under Section 376 and Section 506 of the Indian Penal Code, he said.

With Minority Affairs Minister Najma Heptulla stoking a controversy by reportedly calling all Indians “Hindus”, CPI(M) today accused the RSS-BJP of “distorting” history to serve their ideological and political ends.

“RSS-BJP and their government are completely distorting history and historical record… This is being done to serve the Sangh’s ideological and political project of converting our secular, democratic republic into their version of a rabidly intolerant, fascistic Hindu Rashtra,” senior CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury told PTI here.

Authorities at Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan’s Alwar district – around 110 km from here – have reported spotting two more tiger cubs in a span of just over a month.

“Two cubs of tigress ST-10 have been spotted Thursday evening through camera traps,” Manoj Kumar Parashar, deputy conservator of forests and deputy field director, tiger project, Sariska told IANS over phone Friday.

The cubs seem to be about four-five months old.

With these cubs the total strength of tigers in Sariska now touches 13 – nine adults and four cubs.

“Koi lauta de mere beete huye din,” this famous song of Kishore Kumar is being hummed on the streets by the people today after 100 days of Modi government, senior CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury said today.

Reacting to the completion of 100 days in office by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said, “Earlier, the people were forced to listen to ‘achche din aanewale hain’ (good days are coming. And they were made to believe it.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi Saturday begins a five-day visit to Japan, hoping to boost ties in infrastructure, trade, defence and civil nuclear energy. This is his first sojourn outside South Asia since he took office in May.

India has described Modi’s Aug 30-Sep 3 visit to Japan as “extremely substantial”. The perception is being reciprocated by Japan — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in a special gesture, is flying to Kyoto to receive Modi.

Switzerland manager Vladimir Petkovic Friday named the squad to face England in their opening 2016 European Championship qualifier in Basel Sep 8.

Xherdan Shaqiri and Goekhan Inler will be the two biggest threats for the English side.

Following is the Swiss squad:

Goalkeepers: Roman Buerki (Freiburg), Marwin Hitz (Augsburg), Yann Sommer (Moenchengladbach)

BSF troopers recovered four kg of heroin sought to be smuggled in from the Pakistan side in the Amritsar sector of Punjab, officials said here Friday.

“Border Security Force (BSF) personnel seized four packets of contraband heroin and one pistol, magazine and ammunition Friday in the Mahwa border outpost,” a BSF spokesman said.

He said BSF troopers challenged and fired at smugglers on the other side of the barbed wire fence but they managed to escape taking advantage of the darkness and the standing paddy crop while leaving behind the heroin packets.

Broadcaster Discovery will launch over 100 multi-genre series in India, catering to the interests of children, youth, men and women, through its 11 networks in the last quarter of 2014, an official said Friday.

Discovery’s current portfolio in India includes 11 channels, which are Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, ID, TLC, Discovery Kids, Discovery Science, Discovery Tamil, Discovery Turbo, Discovery HD World, TLC HD World and Animal Planet HD World.

The Visva Bharati University in West Bengal’s Shantiniketan is looking into a sexual harassment complaint by a student from the northeast even as the state women’s panel said it will seek intervention of the prime minister, who is the chancellor of the institution.

The fine arts student from Sikkim was allegedly sexually assaulted earlier in the week by some of her seniors, who even recorded the assault to blackmail her.

The Supreme Court Friday noted that technology always moves at a pace faster than the law yet there has to be a co-ordination between law and governance to match the pace of technological changes to check pornography websites.

A bench of Chief Justice R.M. Lodha, Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman made the observation as Additional Solicitor General L. Nageshwara Rao, pointing to the difficulties in blocking pornography websites, told it that when one is blocked, another surfaces.

Goa’s beleaguered Congress president John Fernandes will continue in his chair at least for now, AICC secretary in charge of Goa, A. Chella Kumar said Friday.

Speaking to IANS, All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary Kumar said discussions within the party high command were still on about the issue of leadership in Goa, even as a section of the local media have tipped Congress Working Committee (CWC) member and former chief minister Luizinho Faleiro for the post.

Leading Indian shuttler P.V. Sindhu created history Friday by reaching the women’s singles semi-finals and assuring herself of at least a bronze medal finish at the World Championships here.

By achieving the feat, the 19-year-old Hyderabadi was in line to become the first Indian to win two medals at the sport’s most prestigious event having won the bronze last year at Guangzhou in China.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council have strongly condemned the detention of UN peacekeepers serving in the Golan amid increased fighting in the area between Syrian government forces and armed rebels, and demanded their immediate release.

The 43 Fijian peacekeepers from the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) were detained by armed militants of the opposition in the vicinity of Al Qunaytirah, according to the world body.

Eighty-one more peacekeepers are currently being restricted to their positions in the vicinity of Ar Ruwayhinah and Burayqah.

Beating expectations and showing another sign of revival, the Indian economy expanded by 5.7 percent during the first quarter of the current financial year to log the highest growth yet in nine quarters, official data showed Friday.

The gross domestic product (GDP), which is the aggregate market value of all the goods and services produced in the country, had expanded by just 4.6 percent in the previous quarter, that is January-March, and by 4.7 percent in the like quarter of last fiscal.