Month: June 2015

Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, who has the central government’s backing over the Lalit Modi controversy, arrived here on Saturday and is likely to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Raje is here to attend a NITI Aayog meeting. A party leader said she is likely to meet Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah.

The central government has decided to continue to back Raje despite pressure from the Congress, demanding her resignation for helping former IPL chief Lalit Modi with his residency application in Britain.

To make the world aware about the worsening human rights situation in Balochistan, Brahamdagh Bugti, the chief of Baloch Republican Party has demanded that human rights organizations and the media get access to the region for a ground reality check.

The exiled Baloch leader was speaking at an interaction event in Geneva, where a short film about the history and present situation in Balochistan was also screened.

The world might be celebrating the joy of equality after the Supreme Court’s historic gay marriage decision but columnist and Pulitzer prize winner, Charles Krauthammer thinks that this was a huge loss to a democracy.

Comparing the decision to the invention of the right to abortion on the ‘Special Report with Bret Baier,’ the 65-year-old Fox News contributor said that the idea of LGBT marriage has been hidden in the Constitution for over a hundred years but wasn’t recognized before, so it can be said that it has been removed from the democratic arena.

Anti-graft activist ‘ Traffic Ramaswamy’, who is up against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa in the RK Nagar bypolls, on Saturday alleged that there was ‘zero security’ in the polling booths.

“Security measures are zero.because in next booth, no policeman is available and people are pouring in like anything inside the room. And polling officers are afraid to control them,” said Ramaswamy.

The bypolls for Tamil Nadu’s RK Nagar constituency began this morning amid tight security across Chennai.

Burundi’s ambassador to the United Nations has told the Security Council that elections will go ahead as planned on Monday despite a call from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for a postponement. “The government simply cannot accept to tumble head-first into an institutional vacuum, into a chasm,” Ambassador Albert Shingiro yesterday told the 15-member council.

“That is why we’re going to move forward to elections on Monday.”

Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje on Saturday arrived in New Delhi to attend a NITI Aayog meeting, amid the ongoing calls by the opposition for her resignation.

Clad in a grey saree, Raje was mobbed by a horde of reporters upon her arrival at the Palam airport.

As per reports, Raje is also scheduled to attend a sub-committee meeting of NITI Aayog on June 28.

The Rajasthan Chief Minister had yesterday rebutted reports of personally calling MLAs to seek their support and loyalty, rubbishing the news as ‘baseless’.

The government will celebrate July 15 as the ‘World Youth Skills Day when the Prime Minister is expected to make major announcements, a top government official today said.

“Making skill development a national priority, July 15 will be celebrated as the World Youth Skills Day, where major announcements on skills will be made by the Prime Minster,” a CII statement said, quoting Sunil Arora, Secretary, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.

He disclosed it at a workshop organised by CII on skill development yesterday.

Polling for the crucial bypoll to Dr Radhakrishnan Nagar constituency, from where Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa is seeking re-election, began today at 8 AM amid tight security.

Twenty eight candidates, including social activist “Traffic” Ramaswamy are in the fray. However, the main contest is between Jayalalithaa and CPI nominee C Mahendran.

One of the smallest constituencies in Tamil Nadu, R K Nagar has 1,20,210 men voters and 1,23,014 women voters and 77 voters of the other category, the third gender, according to the Election Commission.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje will visit New Delhi on Saturday to attend a meeting of Niti Aayog, amid mounting opposition pressure for her resignation in connection with the Lalit Modi controversy.

She is also likely to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah separately after Neeti Ayog meeting.

At a press conference in BJP office here, Medical and Health Minister R S Rathore said with all possibilities CM will attend Niti Aayog meeting in Delhi on Saturday.

Raje will also attend sub-committee meeting of NITI on June 28.

Clashes broke out today between pro-separatist protestors and security forces during which Pakistan and global terror outfit IS flags were raised by some youth in Nowhatta area here.

As soon as the Friday prayers were over at Jamia Masjid, a large number of youth raised pro-freedom and pro-Pakistan slogans and tried to march towards Nowhatta Chowk, police said.

Security forces deployed there asked the youth to disperse but they pelted stones on the forces leading to intense clashes between the two sides.

Five students were killed and six others injured when a big tree fell on their school bus near today, police said.

The children, in the age group of five and 14, were returning home from the Vidya Vikas School, about 40 km from Kochi, when the tree fell on the bus at Nellimattam at around 4.30 pm. Three other students escaped unhurt.

Five of the injured have been hospitalised while one seriously wounded student had been admitted to Medical College Hospital, Kolencherry, police said.

Priyanka Gandhi’s office on Friday said she has “not had a meeting, even socially” with former IPL chief Lalit Modi whose claim that he had “run into” her and her husband Robert Vadra in London triggered a political row.

“Priyanka ji has not had a meeting with Mr Lalit Modi, not even socially,” her office said.

The clarification came in the midst of a fresh war of words between BJP and Congress over Lalit Modi’s tweets in the escalating row over the help rendered to the tainted former IPL boss by two leaders of the saffron party.

The Supreme Court declared on Friday that same-sex couples have a right to marry anywhere in the United States.

Gay and lesbian couples already can marry in 36 states and the District of Columbia. The court’s 5-4 ruling means the remaining 14 states, in the South and Midwest, will have to stop enforcing their bans on same-sex marriage.

The outcome is the culmination of two decades of Supreme Court litigation over marriage, and gay rights generally.

“No union is more profound than marriage,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy, joined by the court’s four more liberal justices.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah left Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official 7, Race Course Road residence, following a meeting with the latter.

Detailed story to follow. (ANI)

The Islamic State group killed 164 civilians in its offensive on the Kurdish town of Kobane, in what a monitor has called one of the jihadists’ “worst massacres” in Syria.

The killing spree, which took place mostly inside Kobane itself, was widely seen as vengeance for a series of defeats inflicted on the jihadists by Kurdish militia in recent weeks.

At least 120 civilians were killed in a 24-hour rampage on Kobane, and another 26 were executed in a nearby village, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Joining the chorus of fellow cricketers, former women’s team captain Anjum Chopra today said that there is no need for limited-overs skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni to relinquish captaincy since defeats are part and parcel of the game.

“Why should he quit?,” Chopra said when asked about the raging controversy over skipper Dhoni’s comments after demoralising series-defeat against Bangladesh, who are fast emerging as a new cricket force in the sub-continent.

Indian captain Sardar Singh today said there are no hard feelings between the subcontinental rivals as Pakistan’s team management regretted the behaviour of the its players during the onfield Champions Trophy victory celebrations that almost snapped the reciprocal hockey relations between the two countries.

Ramandeep Singh scored two fine goals as the showpiece subcontinental hockey encounter between arch-rivals India and Pakistan ended in a thrilling 2-2 draw in the World League Semifinals at the KHC Dragons Stadium today.

Asian Games champions India were threatening to score a late match-winner when their strikers thrice took shots at the rival citadel in the last three minutes during a surcharged encounter played at a brisk pace.

Top seeds Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis were ousted from the WTA Aegon International following a semifinal defeat to Caroline Garcia and Katarina Srebotnik, today.

The top seeds lost 5-7 4-6 to fourth seeded French-Slovak combine in the last-four stage of the USD 31,000 WTA Premier grass court event, which is the last before the Wimbledon championships.

Sania and Hingis split USD 11,360 as prize money and collected 185 ranking points each.

Sania and Hingis had numerous opportunities but they could convert only three of the 15 break chances.

A new smartphone app that measures a person’s walk in “real-time” may prevent dangerous freezing of gait in Parkinson’s patients, scientists say.

Many patients in the later stage of Parkinson’s disease are at high risk of dangerous, sometimes fatal, falls.

One major reason is the disabling symptom referred to as Freezing of Gait (FoG) – brief episodes of an inability to step forward that typically occurs during gait initiation or when turning while walking.

The average smartphone may contain thousands of germs but that could soon change as the Canadian smartphone maker BlackBerry is planning to develop a bacteria-free phone, specifically for use in hospitals.

BlackBerry CEO John Chen said workers in the healthcare industry will have one less thing to worry about to wipe clean with the planned bacteria-free smartphone.

Several previous studies have analysed how many germs live on devices such as smartphones with some of them concluding that the devices harbour more bacteria than a toilet seat, Global News reported.

InFocus on Friday started selling its much-hyped M530 4G smartphone with 13 megapixel camera, both on front as well as on rear side, priced at Rs 10,999.

The sale began from Friday on Snapdeal.

Features:

Dual sim
2GB RAM with 16 GB internal storage which is expandable up to 64GB
3100 mAh battery
octa-core processor
Priced at Rs 23,000
It has a scratch and shock resistant 5.5 inch full-lamination display with Corning Gorilla Glass 3
It will be available in two colors White and Violet

PTI

Lenovo on Friday launched its new device ‘K3 Note’ in association with eCommerce firm Flipkart, priced at Rs 9,999.

“We have already sold about 1.1 million 4G smartphones through Flipkart in the last few months. We will continue to expand our range in the country. The focus will also be on expanding our offline presence,” Mathur added.

Registrations for the K3 Note are open and it will go on sale from July 8.

Features:

4G-enabled K3 Note
5.5 inch display
13 megapixel rear
5 MP front camera
1.7 GHz processor

Hinduja Group’s flagship company Ashok Leyland today said its light commercial vehicle (LCV) ‘Dost’ has crossed one lakh sales mark.

In less than three years since Ashok Leyland and Nissan formed a joint venture to manufacture LCVs, the company has rolled out the 1,00,000th unit of Dost, Chennai-based Ashok Leyland said in a statement.

The benchmark BSE Sensex fell almost 172 points to 27,724.12 in early trade today on fresh selling by participants as July series in the derivatives segment began on a subdued note amid weak Asian cues.

The 30-share index, which had gained 166.30 points in the previous session, fell by 171.85 points or 0.61 per cent to 27,724.12.

Selling in realty, banking, power, capital goods, metal, PSU, oil&gas and auto stocks weighed on the performance.

On similar lines, the NSE Nifty was trading lower by 45.50 points, or 0.54 per cent, at 8,352.50.