Month: June 2015

Amidst sharp criticism for defending the tainted ministers, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday alleged that the Congress has indulged in so much corruption that it cannot see beyond it.

In the cases of Vasundhara Raje, Pankaja Munde, Sushma Swaraj and Smriti Irani, it has been categorically explained that nothing can be termed as corruption. They are so engulfed in corruption that they don’t see anything else,” BJP leader Sudhanshu Trivedi said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday paid tribute to former prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao on his birth anniversary.

“Tributes to P.V. Narasimha Rao on his birth anniversary. We remember him as a wonderful scholar with very rich political experience,” he said.

Rao was prime minister from June 21, 1991 to May 16, 1996.

He was born on June 28, 1921 at Karimnagar in Telangana and died in 2004.

–IANS

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”.

These are some of the shocking errors that came to light in the written replies of 220 teachers of government schools who were asked by the Punjab School Education Board to explain the poor results of Class 10 students in English in their schools.

In a veiled message to the Modi government in the wake of the controversy over Sushma Swaraj and Vasundhara Raje, BJP patriarch LK Advani on Saturday said 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.

Advani resigned as an MP in 1996 following allegations of his involvement in the infamous Hawala scam and he was consequently re-elected in 1998 after his name had been cleared.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has welcomed the historic ruling by the US Supreme Court recognizing gay marriage across the country, saying the decision marks a “great step forward” for human rights in America.

“The Secretary-General welcomes the decision of the Supreme Court that paves the way for gay and lesbian Americans to have their relationships legally recognized, no matter what part of the country they live in,” Ban’s Deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters at the United Nations.

An earthquake of intensity measuring 5.6 on the Ritcher scale struck Assam on Sunday morning at around 6:40 am, reports the US Geological Survey (USGS).

However, according to TV reports no loss of life or property was reported so far.

Mild Tremors were felt in Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal and eastern part of India.

According to the Indian Meteorological Department reports, the epicentre of the earthquake is reported to be in Kokrajhar 23km north of Basugaon in Assam.

Locked in a bitter turf war, the Centre today asked the Delhi government to leave its “confrontationist” attitude and not to create confusion in the administrative appointments, a mandate of which lies with the Union Home Ministry.

Taking note of the tussle over the functioning of Anti Corruption Branch (ACB), highly-placed sources in the Ministry said the Delhi Legislature had been formed under 239AA of the Constitution where the state government has no say on the issues of Police, Public Order and Land.

Delhi high court praises a Muslim couple’s effort to raise two Hindu orphans ‘Ayush and Prarthana’ and termed the effort as a “noble effort “.

HC recently appointed Mohd Shahnawaz Zaheer, a commercial pilot, as the guardian of the twins under the Hindu Minority & Guardianship Act.

“In a time when no one bothers to take care of orphans, we salute the efforts of Mohd Shahnawaz Zaheer though the couple in not benefited with anything”, Said Justice Waziri.

A fire, which was suspected of resulting from explosion of a large amount of unknown flammable powder, in a recreational park in Taiwan’s New Taipei city on Saturday has injured at least 474 people.

Suffering various degrees of burns, the injured had been rushed to dozens of hospitals in New Taipei city and nearby cities of Taipei and Taoyuan, Xinhua reported citing the local public health department.

The fire broke out at about 9:52 p.m. at the main stage of a water park, which was having a Colour Play Asia party.

US President Barack Obama has praised South Carolina’s Indian-American Governor Nikki Haley after she called for the removal of the controversial slavery- era Confederate flag from the State capitol 150 years after the end of the American Civil War.

Haley, 43, had called for the removal of the battle flag from the State capitol, days after nine people were killed inside a historic black church by a white shooter, who was seen holding the flag, a symbol of white supremacy.

A 20-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped by two youths in Vemuru village near Tenali town in Guntur district, police said today.

The incident took place last night and police arrested four accused, including two youths for abatement, early today.

“The victim and her 22-year-old boyfriend, who belong to a nearby Kollur village, had come to Vemuru railway station last night to catch a train. They had run away from home and planned to tie a knot as their parents were opposed to their marriage,” Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), Tenali, K Sowjanya said.

Thousands of Israelis protested in central Tel Aviv Saturday evening against a natural gas deal between the government and a US-Israeli energy conglomerate, calling for better transparency.

Under a deal approved by the cabinet on Thursday, the US Noble Energy company and Israeli conglomerate Delek Group, both owned by Israeli tycoon Isaac Tshuva, gains the right to develop Israel’s Tamar and Leviathan offshore reserves. The government is expected to submit the deal to parliament for approval this coming week, Xinhua reported.

The Congress in Tripura alleged massive rigging by ruling Left Front in several polling centers in both the seats and demanded re-polls in the state.
Opposition leader Sudip Roy Barman alleged that a section of presiding officers stopped the Congress polling agents to enter the polling hall to help the ruling party cadres do rigging.

Continuous rains in Assam have resulted in a flood like situation in Sonitpur and Lakhimpur districts of the state, causing distress to the local residents.
The river Brahmaputra and its tributaries have started to overflow following the rains, leading to floods in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.

Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger has shared that a sequel to the 1980s comedy “Twins” is coming.

The movie, called “Triplets”, will reunite Schwarzenegger with Danny DeVito, who also starred in the first part. However, it’s not clear if director Ivan Reitman will be returning to take the helm, reports dailystar.co.uk.

The “Terminator” star confirmed that “Triplets is happening” – with a plan to introduce Eddie Murphy as a third brother.

“We’re talking about a sequel, where we find out at the funeral of our mother, when we read the will, that there’s three of us,” he said.

Days after his mother was shot at in their home, the son of Trinamool Congress legislator Arjun Singh on Saturday expressed concern about his safety and filed a complaint against his cousin over the incident.

Pawan Singh also alleged that his father was hiding the truth.

“If something can happen to my mother, why not me?” Pawan Singh said after filing a complaint at Jagatdal police station in North 24 Parganas district against his cousin Sourav Singh for allegedly firing at his mother.

Seven people were injured on Saturday in a road accident in Udhampur district of Jammu region.

Police said the driver of a vehicle coming from Srinagar lost control of the vehicle near Kud town on the Srinagar-Jammu national highway and it fell into a 40-metre deep gorge.

“Seven occupants of the vehicle were injured in this accident that occurred near Kud town, 90 kilometers from Jammu city, at 11.50 a.m. today (Saturday).

“All the injured have been shifted to hospital for treatment.

“An FIR has been registered in this incident”, a senior police officer said.

(IANS)

Taking forward India’s Act East policy, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is on a two-day visit to Thailand from Saturday during which she will attend the 16th World Sanskrit Conference and the India-Thailand Joint Commission meet.

Sushma Swaraj’s visit comes more than two months after National Security Advisor Ajit Doval visited Bangkok during which both sides agreed to boost cooperation in defence, strategic, maritime security and counter-terrorism efforts.

Six people have been arrested for cheating several job seekers across India on the pretext of providing them government jobs under the “Rajiv Awas Yojana” scheme run by the ministry of housing and urban poverty alleviation, police said on Saturday.

Sulabh Gulati, 23, Samar Malik, 26, Manoj Sharma, 26, Abhishek Sharma, 29, Mohinder Kumar, 29 and Javed Khan, 32 — all residents of Meerut in Uttar Pradesh– were arrested from different locations in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) within the last fifteen days.

Those who logged onto Facebook and Twitter on Saturday were in for a surprise as rainbow profiles and heart icons dominated the social media. Indian social media celebrated the US Supreme Court’s verdict legalising same-sex marriages as lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders (LGBTs) also cheered the move.

However, they also expressed apprehension whether the verdict would translate into any concrete action in India.

At least 11 extremists were killed and four suspects were arrested on Saturday during security raids on their hideouts in Rafah and Sheikh Zuweid cities of Egypt’s North Sinai province, security sources in the peninsula told Xinhua.

“The raid also destroyed three buildings and seven motorbikes used by the militants, and seized three wireless devices for remote explosion, 12 cylinders designed as explosive devices and a bulletproof vest,” said the sources, adding that the raid also destroyed the opening of a cross-border smuggling tunnel in Rafah border area.

Snake venom valued at Rs.100 crore in the international market was seized and six people were arrested at Belakoba in West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district on Saturday, officials said.

Acting on a tip off, forest guards stopped six people on motorcycles and recovered the venom from their possession after a search, said Baikunthapur forest division ranger Sanjoy Datta.

“They were carrying school bags. After we searched the school bags, we found the venom storied in containers,” he said.

Datta said probably they were smuggling the venom to Bhutan.

(IANS)

For the second day running, road links between West Bengal’s Siliguri and Sikkimese capital Gangtok remained cut off on Saturday due to landslides at Rambhi in Darjeeling district, officials said.

Between 50-60 tourists descending to Siliguri from Sikkim were stranded on National Highway 10 on which the landslides occurred on Thursday night at Rambhi under Kalimpong police station following incessant rain.

Another 200 tourists were brought down to Siliguri through another circuitous route, said the officials.

The credit-deposit ratio (CDR), a key measure of the total loan of the bank’s deposits, has improved by 1 percent this year at 68 percent in West Bengal, state Finance Minister Amit Mitra said here on Saturday.

Mitra said that although there has been an improvement in the CDR, it was still below the national average.

“It is below the national average, which is a little more than 70 percent,” he said after chairing the State Level Bankers Committee (SLBC) meeting here.

A controversy is brewing in Karnataka’s Lokayukta between its ombudsman and his deputy over an inquiry the former ordered into a bribery charge against the anti-graft institution.

“The central crime branch (CCB) of the state police cannot hold an inquiry without first filing an FIR (first information report) and it lacks expertise to conduct such a probe,” state Upalokayukta (deputy ombudsman) Justice Subhash B. Adi told reporters on Saturday in Udupi, about 400 km from here.