Month: August 2014

A Japanese scientist and expert on embryonic stem cells – embroiled in a recent stem-cell research controversy – committed suicide Tuesday, media reports said.

The research papers by Yoshiki Sasai, deputy director of the Riken Center for Developmental Biology, appeared in the journal Nature in January and showed a revolutionary method of creating stem cells.

The research was challenged and Nature retracted research papers in July, stating they contained inaccurate data, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported.

With poor monsoon and food inflation continuing to remain a worry, the Reserve Bank today kept key policy rate unchanged, giving no respite either to borrowers or India Inc.

RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, however, lowered the Statutory Liquidity Ratio, the portion of deposits that banks are required to keep in government bonds, by 0.5 per cent to unlock about Rs 40,000 crore into the system.

Although 19 Punjabis returned to India by a special flight Tuesday, there is still no word on the whereabouts of another 40 Punjabi men taken hostage by militants in conflict-torn Iraq, officials said.

The 19 men were received at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi by Punjab Chief Secretary Sarvesh Kaushal and other officials.

A spokesperson from the Chief Minister’s Office said the officials ensured smooth clearance at immigration for the men returning from Iraq as they were without proper documents.

At least four foreign soldiers were reportedly killed when an Afghan soldier fired at them in a military centre in Kabul Tuesday, a source said.

“An Afghan soldier on guard duty at the National Defence University opened fire after an argument with foreigners, leaving several Afghan and foreign military officers dead and injured,” a source told Xinhua.

“Around 12 noon, a terrorist wearing Afghan army uniform fired on personnel of the academy. As a result, several people were wounded,” Afghan defence ministry spokesman Zahir Azimi said in his Twitter account without providing details.

Four civilians, including two minors, were killed in an attack by a US drone in the western Afghan province of Herat, an official said Tuesday.

“A man, a woman, a teenager and a baby died in a drone attack Monday evening in Zawal city, located in the Shindand district of heart,” provincial police spokesperson Abdul Raouf Ahmadi told Efe news agency.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) security mission told Efe they are looking into the facts.

A Saudi man was beheaded today for torturing and beating his two-year-old boy to death, while another was executed for practising sorcery, the interior ministry said.

Maqbul bin Madi al-Sharari hit his son Mohammed “repeatedly with a cane on the back of his head and the rest of his body,” the ministry said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency.

He also punched the toddler in the face repeatedly and “burned him in different parts of his body, torturing him several times, which led to his death,” the ministry said.

Eating less meat would protect water resources in dry areas around the world, scientists say.

Researchers at Aalto University in Finland have found that reducing the use of animal products can have a considerable impact on areas suffering scarce water resources, as meat production requires more water than other agricultural products.

Diet change together with other actions, such as reduction of food losses and waste, may tackle the future challenges of food security, said researcher Mika Jalava from Aalto University.

The Andhra Pradesh government plans to develop the port city of Visakhapatnam as a hub for film industry-related activity.

Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu conveyed this to a delegation of film personalities who called on him here today, an official release said.

Visakhapatnam, located on the east coast of the country, is endowed with picturesque locales which are a favourite destination for filmmakers to shoot their movies.

Film shootings happen regularly in the coastal districts of East and West Godavari, neighbouring Visakhapatnam.

In a volatile session, the benchmark Sensex today rose by 185 points in the last 90 minutes of trade as investors cheered RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan’s move to give more funds to banks for lending even as he left interest rates unchanged for the third straight time.

Firm European trends amid renewed buying by foreign funds in sectors like auto, consumer durables and realty also boosted the market sentiment, brokers said.

Doctors in Saudi Arabia are testing a patient suspected of having contracted Ebola during a trip to West Africa, hit by an epidemic of the virus, the health ministry said today.

The Saudi man was admitted to hospital in the Red Sea city of Jeddah after showing symptoms of haemorrhagic fever upon his return from Sierra Leone.

The patient, in his 40s, is in critical condition and has symptoms “similar to that of Ebola infection.”

Ebola-like symptoms include fever, vomiting, severe headaches and muscular pain and, in the final stages, profuse bleeding.

The Egyptian government Tuesday launched a project to dig a new 72-km canal alongside the original Suez Canal.

Head of the Suez Canal Authority Mohab Mamish said during the opening ceremony of the Suez Canal Corridor project that it was aimed at creating “a new Suez Canal parallel to the current channel”, Xinhua reported.

The ceremony was also attended by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Ismailia province.

The new project was expected to provide more than one million job opportunities, Mamish said.

At least 30 militants were killed Tuesday during airstrikes carried out in Pakistan’s North Waziristan region.

According to Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) officials, the airstrikes also destroyed six militant hideouts in Datta Khel, Marsikhel, and Kamsham areas, Dawn online reported.

So far, more than 400 militants, mostly foreigners, have been killed during the Zarb-i-Azb military operation.

The operation was launched by the army June 15 following a brazen Taliban terror attack on Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport June 8.

Actor Rajkummar Rao, who considers the Oscar-winning talent Daniel Day-Lewis as his role model, says he enjoys being compared to Bollywood’s “brilliant” names like Dilip Kumar, Irrfan Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, but when it comes to competition he only wants to beat himself with every new role.

A slew of actors are endorsing fairness products but actor Abhay Deol believes they “stoke the inferiority complex” amongst Indians.

“If Indians were ‘White’, would there be a ‘Dark and Sexy’? Here are some brands to stoke our inferiority complex….,” he tweeted, along with a photograph featuring three products.

From Aishwarya Rai, Shah Rukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra to Shahid Kapoor and Varun Dhawan – various actors have featured in advertisements for fairness products.

Actors Dhanush and Adah Sharma will soon be seen in a new television commercial for chewing gum brand Centre Fresh. The advertisement, which was shot in Chennai as well as Mumbai, will go on air later this month.

“Half of the ad was shot in Chennai and the rest in Mumbai. It’s a big ad and has a lot of dancing in it. It has a retro feel to it and is laced with comedy too,” a source from the sets, told IANS.

Dhanush, who recently completed shooting for “Shamitabh”, is awaiting the release of Tamil film “Anegan”.

Adah is busy shooting for Kannada film “Ranavikrama”.
(IANS)

The water level at the Bhakra Dam in Himachal Pradesh has improved and is higher than in the same period last year, officials said Tuesday.

“The water level in the Bhakra Dam reservoir recorded today (Tuesday) at a level of 1,655.14 feet against 1,651.43 feet last year on the same day,” a spokesman of the Punjab irrigation department said here.

However, the water level at the Pong Dam on the Beas river was recorded at 1,337.52 feet, which is 31.6 feet less than the level of 1,369.12 feet recorded on the same day last year.

The Trinamool Congress Tuesday raised the issue of Prime Minister Narendra Modi offering prayers at the Pashupatinath temple in Nepal and claimed that he had not offered people greetings on the Eid. The government refuted this.

Sudip Bandopadhyay, Trinamool Congress MP from Kolkata North, raising the issue in the Lok Sabha Tuesday, said he appreciated the prime minister offering prayers at the temple in Nepal, “but it is equally expected that he should offer Eid greetings to the other community”.

The death toll in the Odisha flash floods caused by rain rose to 23 Tuesday, an official said.

While 15 deaths were reported in July, more occurred this month, a senior official at the state flood control room told IANS.

“Most of the people died due to drowning or house collapse. In Aug, four people died in Mayurbhanj district while Boudh, Sambalpur, Kandhamal and Koraput districts reported one death each,” he said.

Kerala nurses evacuated from Libya, who arrived here Tuesday, are so traumatised by their experience in the violence-hit country that as one of them said “words cannot describe our pain”.

Tears rolled down the cheeks of the nurses who met their relatives on arriving here at 8.50 a.m. The nurses, 44 of them, were first taken from Libya’s capital city Tripoli to the Tunisian border and then to Dubai Monday evening.

Lashker-e-Taiba founder and mastermind of Mumbai terror attack Hafiz Saeed has been holding rallies which were “highly critical of India” in proximity to Line of Control and International Border in Jammu and Kashmir.

“In the recent past Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Amir Jammat-ud-Dawa (JUD), has visited a number of places along the International Border and Line of Control,” Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju said in a written reply in Lok Sabha.

Rijiju said during these visits, Saeed has addressed several rallies where he has been “highly critical of India”.

The condition of three students, injured in bus-train collision at an unmanned railway crossing in Telangana’s Medak district last month, continues to remain critical.

Nithusha(7), who was undergoing treatment at Yashoda Hospital, was today discharged while three boys in the age group of 6-7 years continued to remain critical and they were under close observation, doctors said.

Sharath, Prashant, and Varun Goud are still under acute medical care management, Yashoda Hospital Chief Operating Officer Dr R Chandrasekar said in a release.

Rescuers in quake-hit Chinese village today faced difficulty in evacuating villages near rising lakes formed by landslides, complicating relief efforts following a powerful 6.5 magnitude earthquake that killed at least 410 people and injured 2,300 others.

Chinese Premier, Li Keqiang who is personally supervising the relief operations from a tent in the affected areas paid silent tribute to those who died in the earthquake in Yunnan Province.

Women who drink alcohol during pregnancy may slow the development of their children’s brains, affecting their ability to concentrate, scientists, including an Indian-origin researcher, have warned.

In the first study of its kind, Prapti Gautam, and colleagues from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles found that children with foetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) showed weaker brain activation during specific cognitive tasks than their unaffected counterparts.

These novel findings suggest a possible neural mechanism for the persistent attention problems seen in individuals with FASD.

Telangana Youth Congress president and MLA Vamshi Chandra Reddy on Tuesday alleged that Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has been aspiring to become dictator of Telangana.

The Indian senior football team will play two international friendly matches against Palestine in October later this year, All India Football Federation (AIFF) said today.

The Indian team would play the FIFA ranked 85th side on October 6th and 9th but the venues are not yet disclosed.

India, which is currently ranked 151st in the world, last played the recently-crowned AFC Challenge Cup champions in February 2013 in Kochi where it lost by a 2-4 margin.