Month: September 2014

Scientists have come up with a new biodiversity metric called phylogeographic endemism, to understand the influence of recurring climatic shifts over the last 120,000 years on current patterns of genetic diversity.

A team of researchers from the City College of New York led by biologist Dr. Ana Carnaval analyzed the effects of current and past climatic variation on the genetic diversity of 25 vertebrates in the highly diverse yet much threatened Brazilian Atlantic rainforest.

Sep 2, 9:18 am

Washington, Sept 2 (ANI): A new study has suggested that eating fruits on a daily basis minimizes the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) up to 40percent.

The study presented at ESC Congress observed that that the more fruit people ate, the more their risk of CVD declined.

The Union Finance Ministry is likely to announce by this Friday the final structure of the proposed Rs 30,000 life cover being provided with new bank accounts being opened under the Prime Minister’s Jan Dhan Yojana.

“We have discussed a draft proposal on the structure of the life cover policy with the Department of Economic Affairs Director N Srinivas Rao in New Delhi today,” a senior Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) official told PTI here after the meeting.

Budget carrier SpiceJet under its discount fares as low as Rs 499 has sold over one lakh tickets on Day 1 of the three-day offer.

“The airline has been rolling out such special and heavily discounted fare offers almost every other day so far this year. But the way it has been lapped up by customers today indicates a record of sort,” an airline source told PTI.

By 4 pm, tickets sale touched 1-lakh mark, the source said adding: “It expects to set a new sales record in terms of booking, in a single day.”

Sri Lanka today said it hoped the new UNHRC chief will carry out his duties in a “more balanced” manner after the country had an uneasy relationship with his predecessor Navi Pillay.

Welcoming the Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein of Jordan, who assumed charge as the new United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights today, government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said they hoped the new head will carry out his duties in an unbiased manner.

The Information and Broadcasting ministry has asked a TV news channel to strictly comply with norms after it came to its notice that certain disturbing visuals were telecast by it.

Issuing a warning over the matter, the ministry said it had found that the channel had telecast news bulletins carrying extremely disturbing visuals of dead bodies and injured persons.

A new study has found that shy people spend more time on Facebook but disclose less information.

Dr. Pavica Sheldon said that introverts and people who are lonelier spend more time on Facebook than extroverts do and using the site doesn’t always mean posting on it.

However, the study shows that even though introverts spend more time, the relationship benefits of Facebook tend to accrue to extroverts, narcissists and people who desire great control over how they present themselves.

Himachal Pradesh High Court today put a ban on animal sacrifice to “appease deities” and ruled that “no person throughout the state shall sacrifice any animal in any place of public religious worship”.

Disposing of a number of petitions seeking ban on the “inhuman practice” of animal sacrifice, a division bench of justices Rajiv Sharma and Sureshwar Thakur directed all deputy commissioners, superintendents of police, sub-divisional officers and station house officers to “comply with these directions punctually and faithfully”.

Perez Hilton has apologized for publishing nude images of Jennifer Lawrence on his website.

The American blogger posted his apologies on Twitter saying that he was sorry that he acted hastily just to get the post up and didn’t really think things through, the Mirror reported.

The TV personality continued that they time and again had to make quick decisions at work and he made a really bad decision and then made it worse.

Lawrence had slammed hackers when dozens of private photos showing her in various states of undress surfaced online. (ANI)

A 23-year-old married woman, who was brutally beaten up by robbers last night, succumbed to her injuries today at a private hospital here, police said.

Some unidentified robbers had barged into Anjali’s mother’s house in Nistauli village in Sahibabad area at around 1.30 am and thrashed her brutally, before fleeing with booty, police said.

Robbers also inflicted injuries to her mother Mundresh, a widow, and sisters Preeti(18) and Antim(12) and brother sekhar (10), they said.

A man, alleged to be a habitual offender and involved in at least 59 criminal cases including murder, robbery, was arrested today, police said.

The accused, identified as Shamshuddin alias Shamshu Maharaj, was nabbed from Paschim Vihar area of West Delhi around 8 AM here today following a tip-off.

Police was on his heels after he along with his five associates had allegedly attacked one Naushad, a resident of Uttam Nagar in West Delhi and his friend Naushad Ali, resulting in the former’s death in April this year.

Renowned political theorist Lord Bhiku Parekh today said that it was not easy to bring the black money back to the country, and even if that happened, it would not alleviate the poverty but increase the inflation.

“It is not easy to bring black money back….Even if it comes, it will not eliminate poverty, as claimed by many. It will actually increase the inflation. But, don’t worry, black money will not come back in near future, as several politicians are also having money in such bank accounts,” said Parekh, who was here to deliver a lecture on ‘Culture of Indian Democracy’.

A new study has suggested that people ate more while watching a Hollywood action movie on TV as compared to watching an interview program.

The study observed that viewers ate more M and Ms, cookies, carrots and grapes while watching an excerpt from a Hollywood action film.

The authors examined how objective technical characteristics, such as the frequency of visual camera cuts or variations in sound, might influence how much food was eaten.

A supervisor of a construction company engaged in railway broad gauge work was abducted by unidentified gunmen in Assam’s Dima Hasao district, a senior police officer today.

A group of eight armed men abducted the supervisor, Sofiqul Rahman, of Tribeni Construction Company from the construction site at Hatikhali new BG station last night, Superintendent of Police Bedanta Madhab Rajkhowa said.

A search operation has been launched to rescue Rahman, the SP added.

‘Metro Man’ E Sreedharan today participated in a test run of Hyderabad Metro Rail (HMR) between two stations and termed as ‘high quality’ the quality of construction and facilities created at a depot here.

Sreedharan, Principal Advisor to Delhi Metro Rail Corp, along with HMR Managing Director N V S Reddy took part in the train test run from Nagole to Survey of India metro stations.

He inspected various facilities of Uppal Metro Rail depot and Nagole station.

“The ride quality and behaviour of various components of the Hyderabad Metro system are very good,” he said.

A rape accused’s sister was kidnapped and gang raped by five men in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar district, police said Tuesday.

The victim’s brother was accused of raping a girl Aug 25, police said.

Villagers protested Monday night against the incident outside the Kakrauli police station in Muzaffarnagar.

On Sunday night, five men barged into the rape accused’s house and dragged his 16-year-old sister out of the house. They took her along and allegedly gang raped her. The girl was found Monday in Mirza Tilla.

A music teacher employed in a private school was arrested today by police for allegedly molesting class IV girl students in the school premises.

The Parents of four victim girls studying at Raj Nagar-located private school, in a police complaint, alleged that the students were on Saturday molested by Joseph Jude De-Souza, a resident of Sanjay Nagar area in the district.

They said that when the girls resisted, the teacher allegedly thrashed them.

A day after a case was registered against Bollywood filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma for allegedly hurting religious sentiments through his remarks on Ganesha, one more complaint was today filed against him with the city police.

A local BJP leader Gopal filed a complaint with Shahinayathgunj Police Station seeking registration of a case against Varma over his series of controversial comments on a social networking site, Station House Officer (SHO) P Sattaiah said.

“We will seek legal opinion before proceeding on the complaint,” the police officer said.

A mentally-challenged teenage girl was allegedly raped by an auto-rickshaw driver in the wee hours on Monday in East Delhi’s Ghazipur area, police said.

The incident came to light when staff of a PCR van which was patrolling in the area found an auto abandoned in the middle of the road. While searching for its owner, they found the accused, Ram Ashish, sexually assaulting the girl.

Meghalaya police today sought legal actions against the leaders of the break away faction of the Achik National Volunteer Council militants, the ANVC-B, for spreading rumours that Chief Minister Mukul Sangma had ordered a ‘shoot at sight’ against its cadres.

“The CID today filed an application before the Court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate for further investigation into the recent allegation made by the breakaway faction of ANVC, the ANVC-B against the Chief Minister Mukul Sangma,” a police PRO said in a statement.

The owner of a medical shop was allegedly murdered by unidentified miscreants who also attempted to burn the body by dousing it with petrol at Darbe village in Mant police station area of the district, police said today.

The incident took place yesterday night when the accused called the 45-year-old trader, Deepak Raj Bansal, in his phone and requested him to open the shop around 11 pm saying they urgently needed some medicines, police said.

A 28-year-old man allegedly committed suicide after killing his wife and three-year-old son, whose bodies were found today from a house in Barwali Kalan village in this district, police said.

Body of the man, identified as Daljit Singh, was found hanging from a ceiling fan while the bodies of his wife, Rajdeep Kaur and their son Harmehtab Singh, bore marks of some sharp-edged weapons on their neck, they said.

Police said that it has recovered a two-page hand written ‘suicide note’ in which Daljit held himself responsible for his death and his family members.

A youth, who recently returned from Africa, has been admitted to Raiganj District Hospital here with symptoms of Ebola disease, a senior health department officer said today.

25-year-old youth Alip Das, a resident of Sikarpur village of the district, has been admitted to the district hospital with symtoms of Ebola disease, North Dinanjpur Chief Medical Officer Health (CMOH) D Mondal said.

The CMOH said Das returned from Nigeria recently.

He has been kept under observation in the hospital, the CMOH added.

The city police arrested three people, including a clerk at Visakhapatnam Police Commissionerate called Dasari Trinadh Kumar for allegedly fabricating documents to grant parole to a notorious criminal called Vemula Veeraswamy, the police said here today.

According to the police, Veeraswamy who is a native of Machilipatnam area in Krishna district was allegedly involved in three murder cases and one rape cases. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and was sent to the central prison in Rajahmundry in 2009.

Later, he was transferred to Kadapa central prison in 2013.

The United States today called on all stakeholders in Pakistan to hold peaceful talks to end the current impasse and said violence is not an acceptable means to resolve political differences.

Asserting that the US is not involved in the process or discussions between parties, an Obama Administration official said it has been “carefully monitoring” the demonstrations in Islamabad.

“We continue to urge all sides to refrain from violence, exercise restraint, and respect the rule of law.