Month: January 2015

Modi election rallies to be held in high security

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Following intelligence inputs of terror threats during Delhi elections, security has been stepped up for the upcoming four rallies of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in separate parts of the national capital, an official said.

Over 5,000 personnel will be deployed in and around the grounds where Modi will address partt rallies. This include the officials of Special Protection Group (SPG), who look after the prime minister’s security, the official said.

Facebook testing new ‘Place Tips’ app that shows relevant info about user’s location in News Feed

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Facebook is testing a new feature called Place Tips that will put useful and relevant information about the users’ location in their News Feed.

According to the Verge, the Facebook app will try to guess when a user is in a popular or interesting location and surface relevant tips, photos, and posts from the place in question.

Facebook’s product manager Mike LeBeau said that News Feed today is a pretty good tool at connecting one to friends and news, adding that it is Facebook’s job to connect the world.

The latest feature has been rolled out to users in New York as of now.

BJP MP targets Kejriwal’s children

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North East Delhi BJP MP Manoj Tiwari on Friday targeted Arvind Kejriwal’s children during campaigning saying he hoped that they “grow beyond his shadow, and his lies”.

The Bhojpuri actor-turned-politician was referring to the Congress support taken by AAP after the last Assembly polls “despite swearing by his children of not allying with the party”.

Powerful blast in Shia mosque in Pak kills 50

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A powerful blast killed nearly 50 people, including children, during Friday prayers at a packed minority Shia mosque in Pakistan’s Sindh province, the deadliest sectarian attack to hit the country in recent times.

The explosion, carried out by Jundullah, a splinter group of Taliban, brought down the roof of Imambargah Maula Karballa in Lakhi Dar area of Shikarpur – around 470 kilometres north of here – and buried worshippers.

New 3-D map of nearby supernova remnant reveals its ‘bubbly interior’

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Astronomers have recently created a 3-D map of nearby supernova remnant with the help of the astronomical equivalent of a CAT scan, which revealed that it has a “bubbly interior.”

Cassiopeia A, or Cas A for short, is one of the most well studied supernova remnants in our galaxy. But it still holds major surprises. A Harvard-Smithsonian and Dartmouth College astronomer with the help of map found it was composed of a collection of about a half dozen massive cavities or “bubbles.”

Hubble spots massive ring made of stars in space caused by gigantic galactic collision

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NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has recently observed a massive ring made of stars in space caused by the gigantic galactic collision.

The NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope photo of NGC 7714 presents an especially striking view of the galaxy’s smoke-ring-like structure. The golden loop was made of Sun-like stars that have been pulled deep into space, far from the galaxy’s center. The galaxy was located approximately 100 million light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Pisces.

Titan behaves like Venus, Mars when exposed to raw power of solar wind

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NASA’s Cassini mission has recently found that Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, behaves like Venus and Mars when exposed to raw power of solar wind.

The observations suggest that unmagnetized bodies like Titan might interact with the solar wind in the same basic ways, regardless of their nature or distance from the Sun.

Titan is large enough that it could be considered a planet if it orbited the Sun on its own, and a flyby of the giant moon in Dec. 2013 simulated that scenario, from Cassini’s vantage point.

Rahul Gandhi never told us what to do: Salman Khurshid

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Former external affairs minister and senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid on Friday defended party vice president Rahul Gandhi, saying the latter never interfered in any minister’s work when the UPA was in power.

“We have all been ministers and there has never been a situation where Rahul Gandhiji told us what to do,” Khurshid told ANI.

“If we got guidance from our leaders, we would be honoured that the leader is taking interest in our work,” he added.

DSC soon, coordination with AP on Eamcet: Kadiam

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Newly appointed Deputy Chief Minister Kadiam Srihari today said his priority was to push ahead with government schemes like KG to PG free intensive education and addressing Eamcet and other examinations focusing on curbing corruption and leaving no room for irregularities.

Housewives set world record with marathon bhajan singing

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A group of Maharashtrian women, mostly housewives settled in Chhattisgarh, have a created a new world record of marathon singing of bhajans (devotional songs) for a staggering 27 hours and 45 minutes, a member said here Friday.

The record performance – ‘Longest Spiritual Songs Marathon’ – included bhajans in nine Indian languages rendered continuously by nine members of the Shri Samarth Swardhara group Dec 24-25 last year.

Bank of Baroda shares slump 11.5% on weak Q3 earnings

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Shares of Bank of Baroda (BoB) on Friday tumbled 11.5 percent after the company reported a steep 68 percent decline in net profit for the quarter ended December 31, 2014.

Reacting to the sluggish numbers, shares of BoB plunged 13.58 percent to Rs 187.90 during the day and finally ended at Rs 193.35, down 11.08 percent on the BSE.

At the National Stock Exchange, it slumped 11.49 percent to close at Rs 192.20.

The stock was the top loser among 50 index constituents on the Nifty index.

Economy to be a $4-5 tn economy in 10-12 years: Sinha

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Stating its great time to invest in India, Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha on Friday said the Indian economy has potential to become a USD 4-5 trillion economy in the next 10-12 years.

“You might not find a better opportunity to create wealth. It’s great time to invest in India…We are going to take India’s USD 2 trillion economy to USD 4-5 trillion economy in the next 10-12 years,” Sinha said at an event organised by the Indian Private and Venture Capital Association (IVCA) here.

Sushma Swaraj to travel to China on Saturday

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External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will travel to China on a four-day visit on Saturday during which she will hold talks on “issues of concern” with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi and attend Russia-India-China (RIC) meeting.

Swaraj will be accompanied by new Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar among other senior ministry officials. It will be Jaishankar’s first foreign trip after being appointed two days back, replacing Sujatha Singh whose tenure was abruptly “curtailed”.

Mitt Romney not to seek presidency in 2016

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Republican Mitt Romney, who had lost to Democrat Barack Obama in the 2012 US presidential election, Friday said he would not seek nomination from his party to run for the presidency in 2016, media reports said Friday.

The former Massachusetts governor shared his decision on a conference call with a small group of advisers, The New York Times reported.

ICICI Q3 Net up 14%; bad loans jump

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ICICI Bank Friday reported a 13.7 percent rise in consolidated net profit at Rs 3,265.32 crore for three months to December, helped by better performance of subsidiaries even as concerns emerged over bad loans.

It had posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 2,872.30 crore for the October-December quarter of last fiscal.

On a standalone basis, the bank’s post-tax net rose by a similar 14 percent to Rs 2,889 crore in the third quarter ended December 2014.

25 swine flu deaths in Telangana in January

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Twenty-five people have succumbed to swine flu and related complications in Telangana this month, the state government said here Friday.

As of January 29, 1,472 samples of suspected infection cases were tested, of which 523 were positive for swine flu, the state health department said.

Yesterday itself 121 samples were tested and 35 were found to be positive for the H1N1 virus.

As per the statistics from 2009 onwards, the virus had weakened and severity of infection had come down, it said, adding that enough stock of medicines was available at all the hospitals.

Base year change pushes GDP growth to 6.9% in 2013-14

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The economic growth rate was Friday revised upwards to 6.9 percent for 2013-14, as against 4.7 percent estimated earlier, after the government updated the base year for measuring national accounts.

The higher growth rate, however, may not provide any cushion on the fiscal deficit front as size of economy has shrunk to Rs 113.45 lakh crore following the revision.

4-yr-old boy crushed to death by RTC bus

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In a gruesome accident, a four-year-old boy was crushed to death by an RTC bus near Chintapalli Bus Stop on Friday.

According to Ibrahimpatnam police, the boy, Gurram Sai Sarath, was crushed under the front tyre of the bus. When the victim was alighting at the bus stop along with his mother, the bus took off and he slipped down under the tyre. He died on the spot. He was a resident of Bheem Nagar near Ramdaspally of Ibrahimpatnam. (INN)

Ill-health drives three persons to suicide

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Three persons, including two women, committed suicide allegedly due to ill-health.

In Miyapur police limits, an 18-year-old girl, Sana Afreen, committed suicide by hanging to the ceiling at her residence in Aditya Nagar on Thursday night. In another case, B Saritha, 26, succumbed to burn injuries which she sustained on January 28 after setting herself ablaze at her residence in Medipally. She was admitted to the Gandi Hospital where she died last night.

Fiscal deficit overshoots budget target

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India’s fiscal deficit overshot the budget estimate of Rs 5.31 lakh crore by December-end and may prompt the government to take tough steps in the remaining part of 2014-15 to restrict it to 4.1 percent of GDP.

As per the data released by Controller General (CGA) of Accounts Friday, the fiscal deficit during April-December period was Rs 5.32 lakh crore or 100.2 percent of the 2014-15 estimate, mainly because of subdued revenue realisation.

Bomb attack at Pakistani mosque kills over 60: Officials

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A bomb tore through a busy Shiite mosque in southern Pakistan on Friday killing at least 40 people, officials said, in the deadliest sectarian attack to hit the country in nearly two years.

The blast hit the mosque in Shikarpur in Sindh province, around 470 kilometres (300 miles) north of Karachi, as hundreds of worshippers attended Friday prayers.

Pakistan has suffered a rising tide of sectarian violence in recent years, most of it perpetrated by hardline Sunni Muslim groups against minority Shiite Muslims, who make up around one in five of the population.

King Salman is friend of India, says Indian diplomat

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India is looking forward to having stronger relations with Saudi Arabia under the leadership of King Salman, who is a friend of India like King Abdullah, said Indian Consul General BS Mubarak.

“Our Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks with King Salman on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Brisbane, Australia. During that meeting, the Saudi ruler expressed his desire to expand cooperation with India in all sectors,” Arab News quoted Mubarak, consul general for Jeddah, as saying.

Three killed in different train accidents

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In separate cases, three unidentified persons were killed in train accident at different places in the city.

While a woman, aged about 60 years, was killed between Borabanda – Bharat Nagar, another unidentified man of about 25 years got killed near Hafizpet Railway Stations on Thursday night, according to Nampally Railway Police.

In another case, an unidentified man of about 60 years died on the spot after he was hit by a train between Falaknuma and Shivarampally stations on Friday morning, according to Kachiguda Railway Police.

TS Govt offers 25% discount, installments to regularise encroachments

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Following poor response to the land regularisation drive, the Telangana Government on Friday announced a flat 25% discount for all categories of encroachers who are in possession of unobjectionable government land and surplus land under Urban Land Ceiling.

As per the GO Ms No 59, those occupying between 125-250 sq yards were asked to pay 50 per cent of registration value while those under possession of land from 250-500 sq yards were to pay 75 per cent of land value. The encroachers on above 500 sq ft of land were asked to pay 100 per cent registration value for regularisation.