Anuradha, a bubbly, creative writer-journalist with a very liberal outlook, took breast cancer head-on, after she was diagnosed with the killer-disease in 1998.
In July this year, she accepted defeat and disappeared into time-wrap. But during the 16 years of her fight against the disease, Anuradha helped the medical fraternity in spreading awareness among women as also to overcome the psychological trauma of cancer affected.
The 12th edition of the National School of Drama’s (NSD) children’s festival will begin here Sunday, a statement said Saturday.
Featuring performances in eight languages – Assamese, Bengali, English, Kannada, Marathi, Malayalam, Manipuri and Hindi, the festival will continue till Nov 14.
Theatre in Education Co.’s (TIE) this year’s edition of ‘Jashnebachpan’ envisages maximum participation of child performers, adult performers and experts in the field.
Six days after the execution of a woman who killed her attempted rapist, Iran has lashed out at critics of its appalling human rights record at a U.N. hearing on Friday, blaming the West for Saturday’s execution.
The Islamic Republic’s rebuttal of a derogatory report from the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Iran came during a three-hour review in Geneva of the U.N. Human Rights Council of Tehran’s record.
Pakistan has finally woken up to the threat posed by Islamic State infiltration in the country.
A fortnight after the New York Post published a report suggesting that Pakistan appeared unperturbed by the news of a deadly collaboration between the Pakistani Taliban and the Islamic State group, the country made it a point to demand extermination of the IS by the international community before the UN Security Council.
The United Nations mission in Baghdad says at least 1,273 Iraqis were killed in violence in October, a slight increase compared to last month amid the ongoing assault by the extremist Islamic State group.
The UN report issued today said violence killed 856 civilians and 417 members of Iraq’s security forces. It said attacks wounded 2,010 Iraqis.
The worst-hit city was Baghdad, with 379 civilians killed.
The UN says the figures do not take into account causalities in Anbar province nor some other militant-held parts of Iraq.
With the prices of both global and silver declining sharply in the global markets, India has slashed their import tariff value to ascertain their import duty, an official statement said Saturday.
The tariff value for gold has been cut to $391 per 10 grams from $401, while that for silver has been reduced to $551 per kg from $575 per kg. These tariff values for a host of commodities are ascertained on a fortnightly basis.
The slash in tariff value on imported gold has been notified by the Central Board of Excise and Customs.
Launching a frontal attack on Nitish Kumar, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sushil Kumar Modi on Saturday said the decision to terminate the state assembly membership of four Janata Dal (United) MLAs as undemocratic, and added that this had been done on the orders of the former Bihar chief minister.
“The base on which their membership have been cancelled is very undemocratic. We expect the Speaker to be unbiased, but the person has worked as if he is a member of the party. This is a dictatorship attitude and all has been done on the orders of Nitish Kumar,” said Modi.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi Saturday said that the BJP should emerge as a “diverse” party reflecting the diversity of the country.
“BJP should also come across as a diverse party. People from all strata of society should feel that we have a representative in this vase of flowers,” Modi said at a function to launch the BJP’s first membership drive post its emphatic win in the 2014 general elections.
Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal has asked for time bound special courts to conduct trials and dispense justice in the 1984 Sikh riots case.
“Justice will be delivered only when those responsible for the crimes are punished. Time-bound special courts should be set up and justice must be delivered,” Badal told media persons in New Delhi.
“We have asked for a SIT or a Supreme Court committee to dispense justice. It should not take another three-four years to wait for justice. Time-bound special courts should be set up and justice must be delivered,” he addedl.
Ninety nine percent of Indian hospitals are dealing with acute shortage of healthcare professionals and severe challenges in acquiring the right talent, a study revealed here Saturday.
The study, Healthcare Talent Issues, conducted to map the talent crunch in the healthcare delivery industry, stated that in 70 percent of the hospitals surveyed the positions of doctors have remained vacant for at least 2-6 months.
Over 88 percent of the hospitals in India take 2-8 months to fill senior positions and at least 15 days to 3 months to fill junior level positions.
A day after BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis took charge as the Maharashtra’s 27th Chief Minister, Shiv Sena leaders met at party chief Uddhav Thackeray’s Matoshree residence here on Saturday to decide on the party’s future strategy.
Shiv Sena leader Neelam Gore after the meeting said that Uddhav Thackeray and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership will soon reveal the decisions that have been taken during their meetings.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has called on his country’s military and the ruling Communist Party to “pay great attention to and seriously reflect” on law violations by China’s highest ranking General, who is being investigated for taking huge bribes.
There should be serious reflection on the discipline and law violations by former Central Military Commission (CMC) Vice Chairman Xu Caihou, said Xi, who is general secretary of Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and CMC chairman.
The Assam government will hand over cases related to jihadi activities in the state to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) as decided at a law and order review meeting convened by Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi here today.
The meeting decided to hand over the cases to the NIA so that the cases could be probed thoroughly as it has international ramification, a government release said.
Gogoi directed the officials to take all possible steps against anti-national activities, the release said.
A group of Jawaharlal University (JNU) students Saturday protested outside the Delhi Police headquarters alleging discrimination against the minority community in the communal violence that hit east Delhi’s Trilokpuri.
“A group of 60-70 JNU students staged protest against Delhi Police over the Trilokpuri communal violence and blamed the force for taking action against minority community residing in the locality,” Deputy Commissioner of Police Alok Kumar told IANS.
At least 100 jihadists from the Islamic State group have been killed in three days of fighting for the strategic Syrian border town of Kobane, a monitor said on Saturday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the deaths brought the total number of IS fighters killed in the ground battle for Kobane to 576 since clashes there began on September 16.
“Over the last three days, at least 100 members of the Islamic State and its religious police have been killed… In Kobane and its surroundings,” the Britain-based group said.
Aam Aadmi Party Chief Arvind Kejriwal today sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention in setting up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and ensure justice to the victims.
In a letter to Modi, Kejriwal welcomed Centre’s decision to give Rs five lakh each to next of kin of 3,325 victims of the riots but at the same time asked him to implement the erstwhile AAP government’s decision to appoint an SIT to probe the cases.
The Odisha cabinet headed by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Saturday approved the procurement of 30 lakh tonnes of rice in 2014-15, an official said.
Food Supply and Consumer Affairs Secretary Madhusudan Padhi said that normal paddy would be procured from farmers at Rs.1,360 per quintal while Grade I paddy would be procured at Rs.1,400 per quintal.
The government has also decided to have a facility to store paddy on a temporary basis. It has decided to store 10 lakh metric tonne (MT) of paddy this year in cover and plinth (CAP) storage locations under open sky.
Strange deer with vampire-like fangs have been spotted more than 60 years after the last confirmed sighting in the rugged forested slopes of northeast Afghanistan.
Known as the Kashmir musk deer – one of the seven similar species found in Asia – the last scientific sighting in Afghanistan was believed to have been made by a Danish survey team traversing the region in 1948.
However, recent surveys led by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), confirmed the presence of the endangered species in the Nooristan province.
Burkina Faso’s senior military officer Isaac Zida, who was in command of the presidential guard, Saturday announced he has seized power as head of state during the interim period.
“I now assume… the responsibilities of head of the transition and of head of state to assure the continuation of the state” and a “smooth democratic transition”, Xinhua cited Col. Zida as saying in a statement aired by a local television station.
Zida said an interim body would be established in order to restore constitutional order.
Prime Minster Narendra Modi Saturday said the BJP is one of the world’s most important organisations and could even be a subject of study.
“The BJP is one of the most important organisations in the world. Yet we have never positioned it like that,” Modi said at the launch of the party’s membership drive.
“To be a member of BJP is to live the disciplined life it demands… every member of BJP is a representative of the people,” he added.
(IANS)
A Russian died of burn injuries as he forgot to switch off the water-heater after immersing himself in a bath tub in an inebriated state, police said Saturday.
Alexander Nesterovich, 51, who succumbed to his severe burn injuries at the Apollo Victor hospital in Margao, 35 km from here, was staying at a five-star resort in south Goa, where the accident happened.
“The deceased was under the influence of alcohol,” a police spokesperson said, adding that the burn injuries were a result of staying immersed in the tub’s scalding hot water.
Over two dozen people, including a few policemen, were injured here Saturday when a group of farmers, protesting the delay in compensation for their land, went berserk and pelted stones at security personnel, officials said.
Violence broke out near the Gokul Barrage in Mathura when police tried to disperse the farmers staging a sit-in along with Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) activists as the protest was causing a traffic jam.
The mob raised slogans against police and the state government, and hurled stones at the security personnel, injuring a few of them.
At least three people were killed when the goods carrier they were travelling on rammed into a 16-wheel truck on the Agra-Mathura highway early Saturday, officials said.
A mother and her son are among the dead. At least six people, including the driver of the vehicle, were seriously injured in accident near a village about 30 kms from here, police said.
Eyewitnesses said the goods carrier was overloaded with people headed to Mathura for a pilgrimage.
(IANS)
Himachal Pradesh Governor Urmila Singh Saturday stressed upon the need for identifying diseases posing a threat to potato crop and strategies to protect it from the effects of climate change.
Speaking at a national seminar on ‘Emerging problems of potato’, organised jointly by the Indian Potato Association and the Central Potato Research Institute (CPRI) of Shimla, she said expressed the need for developing its new varieties.
“The introduction of latest technologies could boost potato production to a large extent.
In the line with the announcement made by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the first week of August, the “Bharat-Nepal Shiksha Maitri Karyakram” for Nepalese students pursuing undergraduate and postgraduate courses in various disciplines in Nepal was announced here Saturday.
The programme, fully funded by the Indian government, envisages visits by Nepalese students to prestigious universities of India in batches of about 20 each for four to six weeks, according to the Indian embassy in Kathmandu.