Month: September 2014

Argentina captain Lionel Messi will miss his side’s friendly against world champions Germany on Wednesday due to a groin strain, his club side Barcelona confirmed today.

The match offers Argentina an immediate chance for revenge for their agonising 1-0 extra-time defeat to Germany in the World Cup final last month.

Messi suffered the injury in Barca’s 1-0 win away to Villarreal on Sunday and will also miss a charity match in Rome on Monday.

“Leo Messi will remain in Barcelona as a precaution due to a strain in his right adductor,” Barca said in a statement on their website.

Andhra Pradesh Cabinet, which met for five-and-a-half hours this evening, was said to have discussed at length the report of a Centre-appointed panel on the possible location of the new capital of the State.

The K C Sivaramakrishnan Committee, appointed to suggest possible options for location of the new capital, submitted its report to the Centre last week but did not pinpoint any particular city or area.

The differences among the Telangana Congress leaders came to the fore during the launch of party’s election campaign for Medak by-elections on Monday.

Japan today briefed India about the international symposium on women, the World Assembly for Women in Tokyo (WAW! Tokyo 2014) to be held this year in September.

The countries welcomed the Programme on Empowerment for Women Leaders in India to be held in November 2014 in Tokyo by HIDA.

Moreover, both sides expressed satisfaction with the ongoing plan of exchange of approximately 1300 youth between the two countries under JENESYS 2.0 program.

Congress today charged that there has been a rise in communal incidents in the country during the NDA coalition’s first 100 days in power even as it questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “silence” over the matter.

“In the first 100 days, the most worrying factor is the way in which communal tension has not risen but rather has been made to rise,” senior Congress leader Manish Tewari said here today.

He said that after the BJP-led government had assumed power, statements regarding Article 370 and Uniform Civil Code had appeared aimed at undermining communal peace.

A Sub-Registrar in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh was today arrested by Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) sleuths for allegedly demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 25,000 from a general stores owner.

P Gopalakrishna, Registrar of Chila Mathur in Anantapur was caught red-handed by the ACB officials at a general stores while accepting the bribe from the complainant in the case for doing an official favour, an ACB release said here.

The accused handed over the bribe amount to one Laxminarayana, owner of the general stores, it said.

The case is under investigation.

The Gujarat High court today issued a notice to the Union government over a 2002 legislation which removed three communities from the list of scheduled tribes (ST) and scheduled castes (SC).

The division bench of Justice Akil Kureshi and Justice J B Pardiwala directed the Centre to file reply by September 29, explaining the deletion of Koli, Pardhi and Devipujak (Vaghri) communities.

State-run United Bank of India (UBI) Monday declared the defunct Kingfisher Airlines, its promoter Vijaya Mallya and its three directors as wilful defaulters after they did not turn up for a meeting with its grievances redressal panel, an official said.

“We have declared Kingfisher Airlines, its chairman (Mallya) and three directors on its board as wilful defaulters as per the RBI circular pertaining to loan advanced to the airline,” a senior official of the bank’s recovery cell told IANS here.

The three directors are A.K. Ganguly, Subhash R. Gupte and Ravi Nedungadi.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Monday criticized the NDA government’s 100 days in office, saying it has been a failure.

“I agree that the new government has been a failure. You should ask them about the prices, have they gone down?” asked Gandhi.

She also slammed Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party government for not providing adequate water and power facilities in the villages of Rae Bareli.

“There are two primary issues here and those are that of water and power. There is no provision of water and electricity in these villages,” said Gandhi.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday condemned the attack on Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leaders in Kerala and held the CPM responsible for the untoward incident. “There have been reports of a gruesome killing. There can be political differences between people but where is the place for violence?

Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Monday criticized the NDA government’s 100 days in office, saying it has been a failure.

“I agree that the new government has been a failure. You should ask them about the prices, have they gone down?” asked Gandhi.

She also slammed Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party government for not providing adequate water and power facilities in the villages of Rae Bareli.

“There are two primary issues here and those are that of water and power. There is no provision of water and electricity in these villages,” said Gandhi.

The Nawaz Sharif led Pakistan government is preparing to crack down upon anti-government protestors, warned Pakistan defence minister Khawaja Asif.

Speaking to the media, Asif said, “Pakistan is preparing to launch a selective crackdown against anti-government protesters trying to bring down the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.”

Meanwhile, reports state that the Lahore police have included terrorism charges in the FIR registered in connection with the Model Town deaths in June, where workers of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) party were killed.

Argentina football captain Lionel Messi will miss his side’s friendly against world champions Germany Wednesday due to a groin strain, La Liga giants Barcelona confirmed Monday.

“Leo Messi will remain in Barcelona as a precaution due to a strain in his right adductor,” Barca said in a statement on their website, reports Xinhua.

“Barca’s No. 10 will miss the match for peace in Rome this evening and will also not be able to participate in the match between Germany and Argentina.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe agreed to enhance the cooperation of their countries in regional connectivity during their talks here on Monday.

The French Football Federation confirmed Monday that Arsenal centre back Laurent Koscielny has been forced to skip this week’s international friendlies of France with a head injury.

The 28-year-old clashed with Jeffrey Schlupp in the Gunners’ 1-1 English Premier League draw at Leicester City Sunday and had to be replaced by Calum Chambers in the 26th minutes, reports Xinhua.

Barcelona new signing Jeremy Mathieu will take the place of Koscielny for France’s international at home against Spain Thursday and three days later to Serbia.

The Supreme Court Monday imposed a cost of Rs.50,000 on a petitioner advocate as it dismissed as “frivolous” his plea seeking directions to the government to furnish details on the mysterious disappearance of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

Dismissing the petition by M.L. Sharma as “frivolous”, a bench of Chief Justice R.M. Lodha, Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman initially imposed a cost of Rs.1 lakh but scaled it down to Rs.50,000 as it held that the petitioner advocate was in the habit of filing frivolous petitions.

India’s technology hub, Bangalore will host ‘India Nano’ summit Dec 4-5 to showcase research and development and applications in nano-science and nano-technology, an official said Monday.

“There is no part of human life that is not touched by nano-science and nano-technology, which deal with structures and materials on the scale of a nanometer, a unit of spatial measurement equivalent to one billionth of a metre,” Karnataka Science and Technology Secretary Srivatsa Krishna said at a preview of the summit’s seventh edition here.

Infrastructure, railways, civil aviation and energy are the key areas among others in which Indian and Japan seek to enhance cooperation between them, an official statement said Monday.

Infrastructure

The Japan International Cooperation Agency will study the feasibility of setting up of a 10 MW canal-top grid-connected solar photovoltaic (PV) power plant in Gujarat.

Japan will also cooperate in building Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) Project and Smart Community projects across 6 states in India.

Real Madrid confirmed a deadline day signing Monday with a loan deal to take Manchester United’s Mexican striker Javier ‘Chicharito’ Hernandez to the club.

The 26-year-old Hernandez, whose nickname ‘Chicharito’ literally means ‘little pea’, joins Real Madrid on a deal which will see him play this season on loan after failing to convince new Manchester United coach, Luis Van Gaal he deserved a place in the squad, reports Xinhua.

A music teacher at a prestigious school here was Monday arrested for molesting a student while in an inebriated condition, police said.

Joseph Jud D’Souza, who works as a music teacher at the school in Sector 6, Raj Nagar, allegedly came to school drunk and molested the student Aug 30, police said.

As Aug 31 was Sunday, the girl’s parents reached the school Monday and protested against him.

The girl’s father said in a police complaint that he along with over a dozen other parents received complaints from their children about the teacher.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) may find it tough to host the Annual General Meeting (AGM) as scheduled by the end of September after the Supreme Court Monday ignored pleas to reinstate N. Srinivasan as its president.

What has struck the BCCI hard is also the fact that the apex court gave two more months to the Mukul Mudgal Committee to submit the final report in the spot-fixing and betting scandal in the 2013 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) that involved 13 people, including some prominent cricketers. The court has set Nov 10 as the next date of hearing.

On the final day of the Dutch football transfer market Feyenoord bought goalkeeper Kenneth Vermeer from long-time rivals Ajax for around one million euros.

The 28-year-old Vermeer is a product of the Ajax youth academy and played for Ajax during his whole career, apart from a loan-spell at Willem II in the 2007/2008 season. He was a regular in 2010/2011 and 2011/2012 season, but he lost his place to Jasper Cillessen last year, reports Xinhua.

Eighteen people were arrested while gambling in a five-star hotel here, said police Monday.

They were arrested Sunday night in a raid at the hotel located in Parliament Street area.

“On a credible information, we raided the hotel and apprehended 18 gamblers who had gathered from different parts of trans-Yamuna area,” said Additional Commissioner of Police S.B.S. Tyagi.

“Board money to the tune of Rs. 1.10 lakh and cash Rs. 1.06 lakh was seized from the gamblers,” Tyagi said.

In what could worry China, India and Japan Monday pledged to develop “closer and strategic partnership” as Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared on the third day of a path-breaking visit that relations with Tokyo were “the highest priority for my government”.

India and Japan also decided to speed up the negotiations over civil nuclear cooperation, and work on an agreement to collaborate on military technologies.

Four people from Nepal were arrested here and sandalwood worth Rs. 2 crore smuggled from Karnataka was seized from them, police said Monday.

Jhabendra Khadka, Resham Bahadur, Kishan Bahadur and Deepak Khadka were arrested late Sunday night from IMT Manesar.

The accused were arrested while unloading sandalwood from a truck. Four other men managed to escaped from the spot.

“Total 455 planks of sandalwood, weighing nearly 10 tones, were recovered from the truck and a warehouse in sector 7 of IMT Manesar,” Joint Police Commissioner Vivek Sharma said.