At least 11 Afghan soldiers were killed in a Taliban ambush in western Afghanistan, officials said on Monday, as security forces face their first fighting season without NATO combat support. “The Taliban ambushed a convoy of soldiers in Karukh district of Herat, killing 11 Afghan army soldiers last evening. The soldiers were riding in pickup trucks,” Ehsanullah Hayat, spokesman for the governor of the western province of Herat, said.
Four teenagers including two brothers drowned in a water tank at Narsapuram village here, police said Monday.
The incident took place last evening under Padbanabham mandal when they entered the tank for swimming and were suddenly caught in the heavy currents.
The deceased were identified as K Kalyan (14, his brother K Mohan (12), S Vinay (14) and J Simhachalam (14),Inspector S Kanta Rao said.
A 16-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped at a gunpoint by two youths here, police said on Monday.
The accused, identified as Deepak, a computer centre operator, raped the victim on Saturday along with his friend at a gunpoint. She had gone to the centre to fill an online form, they added.
Additional Superintendent of Police Vidyasagar Mishra said main accused Deepak has been arrested and hunt is on to nab his accomplice.
As the victim and the accused belonged to different communities tension prevailed in area due to which force has been deployed as a preventive measure.
–PTI
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday accused the Congress of being ‘communal’ and added that twisting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s comments on Raksha Bandhan during his recent Mann ki Baat betrays the grand old party’s credentials.
Seven arrested for gambling
(Siasat News): Police nabbed a gambling gang and arrested seven persons who were found playing cards inside two vehicles.
Police seized the two vehicles, Rs. 89,940 and seven mobile phones. In the meantime, police said that the accused Avula Venkatesham and six of his accomplices hired two vehicles and were playing cards in them.
Further investigations are on.
Man attacks wife and her lover
Taking a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for postponing his Varanasi visit due to heavy
rainfall, Uttar Pradesh minister Azam Khan on Sunday said he should not play with the emotions of the people.
“Whether it’s fortune or misfortune of the people of Varanasi, they will decide, but keeping in mind the manner in which the visit has been cancelled for the second time… now the ‘badshah’ of the country should lay foundation stone or inaugurate schemes from his office instead of holding public meetings,” he said.
The president of the European Commission will make his latest proposals later today to try to avoid a Greek default, the EU commissioner of economic affairs said, adding that Athens was ‘centimetres’ away from a deal when discussions broke down over the weekend.
Jean-Claude Juncker “will indicate the route to follow, I hope everyone will commit themselves to a way of compromise,” Pierre Moscovici told French radio, adding there was still “room for negotiation” between Athens and its international creditors.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has reportedly flown back to Tehran on Sunday night to discuss a final bargaining position on his country’s nuclear programme as the June 30 deadline to hammer out a final deal looked set to be postponed.
Criticising the recent Bombay High Court order which stated that denying permission to erect temporary pandals on roads and foothpaths is not a breach of fundamental right to religion, the Shiv Sena today said that the verdict appears to have come from a Pakistani court.
While hearing a PIL filed on noise pollution during festivals, Bombay High Court had last week ruled that no citizen can claim fundamental right to worship God or offer prayer at any and every place, unless it is a significant place of worship.
Ayurveda entered our lives as tiny, plastic vials of Amritdhara, three drops in a teaspoon of sugar, the panacea for all stomach ailments. Yoga followed in its earliest manifestation as photographs of Pandit Nehru doing a head stand or ‘seesaasan’.
“Don’t try it without being guided by a guru,” elders would warn. “It can be dangerous.” We were tempted because we imagined headstands would make us brainy like Pandit Nehru.
The Telangana transport department has decided to make sure that everyone must wear helmet while driving. The department decided to put fines for not wearing the helmet, the traffic police now will be more stringent while enforcing the rule.
Currently, a helmet rule violation attracts only a fine between Rs 100 and Rs 200. The Road Transport and Safety Bill 2015, proposed by the Centre, seek to increase the fine amount to Rs 500-Rs 1,000.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis today left for a week-long official trip to USA where a series of meetings with trade, commerce and industry houses are lined up.
According to an official from the Chief Minister’s office, a delegation led by Fadnavis includes Industries Minister Subhash Desai, Chief Secretary Swadheen Kshtriya, Principal Secretary in Chief Minister’s office Pravin Pardeshi among others.
Their meetings are scheduled with companies like Microsoft, General Motors, Google, Amazon and Citibank.
Actress Hrishitaa Bhatt has credited her stint in regional cinema for not doing enough Bollywood films these days.
The 34-year-old actress, who was recently seen in “Miss Tanakpur Hazir Ho”, said she shifted to Bengali, Marathi and Punjabi films because she was not getting exciting roles in Bollywood.
“I do less films. I am very choosy. When there is no Hindi script, I do Bengali, Punjabi, Marathi and Southern films. I have been doing films. Marathi and Bengali cinema have got good scripts. As an actor, such roles challenge me,” she told PTI.
Every sunset, during the holy month of Ramzan, fasts are broken with Iftar, whose menu traditionally comprises dates and other fruits washed down with water, milk and juice.
Chefs are now mashing up the traditional dry fruit into easy-to-make dessert to make iftars more special for family and friends.
Another chef Surjan Singh Jolly says he took inspiration from the Hyderabad-origin ‘Qubani ka meetha’ a dessert made from dried apricots to create the ‘Khajoor ka meetha’.
Israeli naval forces boarded and took over an activist vessel seeking to break the Gaza blockade, and were escorting it to an Israeli port early on Monday, the military said, saying that the navy did not use force. “In accordance with international law, the Israeli Navy advised the vessel several times to change course,” it said in a statement. “Following their refusal the Navy visited and searched the vessel in international waters in order to prevent their intended breach of the maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip.”
Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan ended a 56-day hunger strike after Israel agreed to release him, his lawyer and the Palestinian Prisoners Club announced.
Adnan, 37, has been in prison for a year under administrative detention, which allows imprisonment without charge for renewable periods of six months indefinitely, and his case had been at the heart of concerns in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Officials and activists had recently sounded the alarm, warning that he could die “at any moment”.
A Wales court has held a man guilty of attempt to murder for attacking a Sikh dentist with a machete at North Wales’ Tesco Mold supermarket in January, a media report said on Friday.
Zack Davies, 26, of Chester Street in Mold, told the court that he never intended to kill Sarandev Bhambra, 24, when he launched his hammer and machete attack, Mirror online reported.
However, Mold Crown Court Judge Rhys Rowlands sent Davies to a high security hospital in Wales, where his psychiatric profile would be prepared, before he is sentenced.
Five persons including two women, were injured when a clash broke out between two groups over a minor issue at Chala Village here, police said on Monday.
The incident took place yesterday when two neighbours, Naushad and Momin, confronted each other over a disputed drain, they said.
The clash soon snowballed into a violent brawl in which lathis were used, they said, adding, the injured, identified as Usman, Naushad, Momin, Imrana and Salma, were rushed to a hospital.
Additional police has been deployed and security has tightened in the village after the incident.
–PTI
Parents must look at how their kids negotiate and resolve fights so that they do the same to cement the relationship even stronger, says new study.
According to a study led by an Indian-origin researcher, several parents, especially mothers, use how their kids are getting along as a barometer for how well they are doing as a parent.
“When children fight with their siblings, they learn important lessons such as how to settle, negotiate and compromise. They begin to see conflict as a problem they can solve,” said lead study author Niyantri Ravindran from University of Illinois.
Google is reportedly developing a smart contact lens that will measure a wearer’s glucose levels by testing their tears.
In a patent application, Google showed off potential designs for how it could package a smart contact lens.
Google has previously said it is speaking to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about potentially testing its lens, and that general availability of the contact lens is most likely at least five years away, Quartz.com reported.
The lens the company announced it is working on would be able to gauge a wearer’s glucose levels by just analysing tears.
India has witnessed a five-time (455 percent) increase in drug hauls over three years – 2011 to 2013 – according to data released by the government in parliament.
Officials have seized 105,173 tonnes of illegal drugs over this period, a reminder of a growing Indian problem on the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit trafficking, observed on June 26 by the UN.
With nearly 18 percent of the world’s population in the 15-64 age-group, India is a prime market for illicit opiates originating in both Southeast Asia and Southwest Asia, according to the World Drug Report 2014.
English school teachers in Punjab have flunked the English language test.From tenses to spellings, every thing they wrote was wrong, resulting in a rap on their knuckles from Education Minister Dalit Singh Cheema. They may now find themselves back in schools to unlearn the wrong.
Sample these: “Leak of interest”, “Staff of our school was vacant” and “Our school has situated remote area”.
In an indirect message to the Modi government in the wake of the controversy over Sushma Swaraj and Vasundhara Raje, BJP old hand L.K. Advani on Sunday said “Tainted Ministers must go” saying there is a need to maintain probity in public life and recalled how he resigned soon after his name cropped up in the Hawala scam.
President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday extended greetings and felicitations to the Government and people of Congo on the eve of their National Day.
“On behalf of the Government, the people of India and on my own behalf, I have the pleasure to convey warm greetings and felicitations to you and to the friendly people of the Democratic Republic of Congo on the occasion of your National Day,” President Mukherjee said in message to his Congolese counterpart Joseph Kabila Kabange.
The Congress on Monday claimed that Narendra Modi had failed to address the Lalit Modi controversy on the recent edition of his Mann Ki Baat programme because the Prime Minister was ‘shielding’ the former IPL chief.
“When the UPA was in power, the BJP used to take jibes at Dr Manmohan Singh for keeping silent. Yesterday, when the Prime Minister did the Mann ki Baat programme, the entire country expected him to talk on the Lalit Modi controversy but ‘Bada’ Modi is shielding ‘Chhota’ Modi, which is why the Prime Minister chose to stay silent,” Congress leader PL Punia said.