Faithful & fair find place in team YSR

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Hyderabad, May 26: It has Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy’s stamp all the way. Striking a balance between loyalty and efficiency and giving the highestever representation to women, the Chief Minister inducted 35 members into his Cabinet here on Monday. With almost all ministers from Telangana defeated in the recent elections, Reddy picked as many as five women from the region for the Cabinet. The only other woman minister hails from Rayalaseema while the coastal region is represented only by men.

YSR inducts 20 new faces in AP cabinet

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Hyderabad, May 26: Andhra Pradesh CM Y S Rajasekhara Reddy has constituted his council of ministers by inducting 20 new faces in the 35 member-strong team while dropping four senior members of his previous cabinet.

Andhra Pradesh Governor Narayan Dutt Tiwari administered the oath of office and secrecy to the ministers at a grand function at the Raj Bhavan at Hyderabad on Monday.

12 year-old brutally thrashed by cops for theft

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Faridabad, May 26: A 12-year-old boy was brutally beaten by police on charges of stealing the earphones of an iPod. The injured boy was admitted in BK Hospital.

Inspector General of Police Faridabad Zone suspended two policemen with immediate effect in this connection. 12-year-old Manoj had accompanied his mother Meera (who goes by one name) to the Sector 8 house Bhagat Singh Nain where she worked as a domestic help.

2 AP boys among top 10 IIT rankers

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Hyderabad, May 26: Students from the State put up a spectacular show in the Indian Institutes of Technology Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE) for which results were declared on Monday. The State bagged two of the top 10 all India ranks, with Gopi Shivkanth and M Pranay Kumar securing third and eighth ranks respectively.

Caught speaking Malayalam, Apollo nurses asked to resign

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West Bengal, May 26: Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals asked two nurses to submit their resignations for speaking in their “native tongue” inside the hospital premises.

The nurses, Jincy Joseph and Lijy Menon (names changed to protect identity) were posted in ICU of the Cardio Thoracic Vascular Surgery (CTVS) department. The two said they will take their case to the National Human Rights Commission on Tuesday, challenging the hospital’s decision.

YSR to meet Sonia today

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Hyderabad, May 26: Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy will meet Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Monday to get her approval for his list of ministers. Though he was to meet her on Sunday, he could not as she was busy with other affairs of the party. Sources said the Chief Minister secured an appointment with her at 11 a.m tomorrow. As soon as he gets her approval, Reddy will return to Hyderabad by a special flight and the swearing-in ceremony of the ministers would be held at the Raj Bhavan at 6.10 p.m.

Iran’s Ahmadinejad wants to debate Obama at UN

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Tehran, May 26: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposed on Monday a face-to-face debate with President Barack Obama at the United Nations if he is re-elected next month as Iran’s president.

But he balanced the offer with a sharp rebuke to Washington and its allies over Iran’s nuclear program. He reiterated that Iran would never abandon its advances in uranium enrichment in exchange for offers of easing sanctions or other economic incentives.

The nuclear issue “is closed,” he told a news conference.

Muslim nations link better ties with Israel to peace

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Damascus, May 26: Amid reports of an American plan offering Israel ties with Arab and Muslim countries in exchange for talks on all peace tracks, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) stressed, that relations with Israel would come after solving the Arab-Israeli conflict.

“(Any normalization) will come after the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict,” OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu told a press conference following a three-day meeting of the OIC foreign ministers.

India, Pakistan on the side of Sri Lanka in rights battle with West

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New Delhi, May 25 : India and Pakistan find themselves on the same side with Sri Lanka as Europe accuses Colombo of ‘war crimes’ against the Tamils.

A special session of the UN Human Rights Council is due Tuesday in Geneva where Denmark and Britain are leading a vocal and sustained drive to pin down Sri Lanka. The deliberations could extend to Wednesday. The meeting became possible after Denmark got together 17 of the UN body’s 47 member countries to press for the special session to probe charges that Colombo violated human rights and committed “war crimes”.

GM borrows $4 bln more, prepares for bankruptcy

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New York, May 25: General Motors Corp on Friday borrowed another $4 billion from the U.S. Treasury and won a cost-cutting deal from Canadian auto workers as a showdown with bondholders set the stage for a bankruptcy filing by the end of the month.

The latest emergency funds extended by the Obama administration take the total government funding to keep GM afloat since the start of the year to $19.4 billion.

Sena warns Cong leader against insulting Thackeray

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Mumbai, May 25: Irked over Mumbai Congress leader and former state minister Kripashankar Singh’s criticism of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, the Sena has warned that it would “paint the map of Maharashtra beneath Singh’s ears”.

“If Kripashankar continues to insult the Sena chief, we will paint the map of Maharashtra beneath his ears,” Sena spokesperson Sanjay Raut said after Singh yesterday attributed Thackeray’s outburst against him to ‘frustration over loss of all six Lok Sabha seats in Mumbai’.

Mufti blames curricula for deviancy

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Riyadh, May 25: Shaikh Abdul Aziz Bin Abdullah Al Shaikh, Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, has described the curricula in the Muslim world as the main reason for the spread of deviant thoughts and called for immediate action from relevant authorities to correct the “unacceptable situation”.

“Shortcomings in some of the curricula in the Islamic world lead to the promotion of intellectual deviations in the mind of the public, which requires an immediate intervention to find out crucial solutions and correct the confusions caused by these shortcomings,” he said.

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IIT results today

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Hyderabad, May 25: The much-awaited results of the Joint Entrance Examinations for admission into various Indian Institutes of Technology and other allied institutes would be announced on May 25.

Counselling for the candidates would commence from June 13 and the final allotment of seats and courses would be made by June 24, according to JEE officials.

Compared to last year, the competition for the seats has increased dramatically despite the introduction of two new IITs at Indore and Himachal Pradesh. “The students-seats ratio has increased from 44:1 to 49:1.

Islamic Idol: Music spreading message of faith

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Cairo, May 25: Flames burst from the stage for a grand entrance, and fake fog swirls around a young man in a white robe.

He clutches the microphone, gazes seriously into the camera and then, accompanied only by drums, he sings.

“I accept Allah as my God, His religion as my religion, and His Messenger as my Messenger,” he intones, as the audience, divided into men’s and women’s sections, claps along with the rhythm.

Structures around mosque to be razed

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Hyderabad, May 25: Archaeology and museums department officials have asked Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) to pull down 20 structures around
the Hayat Bakshi Begum mosque in Hayatnagar, a protected monument.

Throwing heritage norms to the wind, GHMC officials had allowed nearly 20 buildings in the buffer zone of the mosque. According to the department of archaeology, buildings have come up in survey number 260 of Hayat Bakshi Begum mosque.

Rahul Gandhi becomes the new gay icon

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Mumbai, May 25: Rahul Gandhi emerged as a youth icon during the General Elections with even Prime Minster Manmohan Singh acknowledging his contribution to the Congress’ thumping victory.

But it isn’t only the youth that are looking to him for a voice. The country’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-gender (LGBT) community voted overwhelmingly for the Congress hoping that young Rahul would take up their cause.

Parents beware of kids’ Wikiporn risk

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Sydney, May 25: Parents are being urged not to allow their kids to use website Wikipedia without supervision after an entry on a famous children’s book was edited to contain pornographic material.

Last week, sexual and violent acts between characters were added to the online plot summary for Mrs Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH, which is recommended for students in years 5 to 9.

The edited page for the book, on the list for the Premier’s Reading Challenge, was visible for about an hour before it was changed to the original text.

‘Bloody intersection’ secured by Pakistani troops

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Islamabad, May 25: The Taliban left so many mutilated bodies at the crossing some hanging from trees with threatening notes that Pakistanis in the Swat Valley’s main town took to calling it “bloody intersection.”

On Sunday, the army said that spot and seven other major crossings in Mingora were secured, part of street-by-street urban fighting whose success is considered critical to flushing out the militants from the valley as a whole.

New York Terror Plot “Cooked”: Experts

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Some American experts are accusing the FBI of “cooking” an alleged plot to attack Jewish synagogues and military planes in New York by implanting an informant in a mosque to induce people into terror intrigues. “This whole operation was a foolish waste of time and money,” Terence Kindlon, a New York-based lawyer, told.

“It is almost as if the FBI cooked up the plot and found four idiots to install as defendants.”
Police arrested four people last week on charges of plotting to attack two Jewish synagogues and a military base in New York.

Symonds leads Deccan Chargers to IPL title

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Johannesburg, May 25: Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds led the Deccan Chargers to a six-run victory over the Bangalore Royal Challengers in the Indian Premier League Twenty20 final at the Wanderers.

Symonds, who has not been included in the Australia team to defend the Ashes in England this year, boosted the Chargers’ innings with 33 from 21 balls.

South Africa one-day opener Herschelle Gibbs batted through the innings to score 53 not out in the Chargers’ 143 for six.

Al-aqsa facing “real, immediate” danger

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Occupied Al-Quds, May 25: Palestinians are sounding the alarm that Israel’s continuing excavation works beneath the Haram al-Sharif (Noble sanctuary) in Al-Quds (occupied East Jerusalem) is posing a “real and immediate” danger to its Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest shrine.

“Israeli excavations and continuing digging right beneath the Haram al Sharif’s esplanade have already caused irreparable damage to the stability of Al-Aqsa Mosque’s foundations,” Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the Islamic Movement, told.

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Soon, ‘hands-free’ video games

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London, May 24: The ultimate computer game that banishes handheld controls and allows players’ gestures to dictate the action on screen is to be launched by Microsoft.

The Microsoft Xbox 360 uses 3-D camera technology, and is aimed at challenging the dominance of the Nintendo Wii, reports The Times.

Allowing users to kick a virtual football, drive a car or practise dance moves with a computer-generated partner simply by monitoring an individual’s movements, the entertainment system will become a must-have for any child or even a youngster.

Iran’s says he can stop Israel with ‘one strike’

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Tehran, May 24: Iran’s former Revolutionary Guards chief Mohsen Rezai warned on Sunday he could stop Israel with “one strike” and said it would not dare to threaten the Islamic republic if he is elected President.

“My government understands missiles and tanks as well as foreign policy and knows exactly where Israel’s sensitive spots are. It could stop them forever with one strike,” Rezai told a news conference.

Neither our bodies were touching, nor are we kissing

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Mumbai, May 24: After facing the wrath of political affiliates while doing a bold and scandalous bikini photo shoot for a men’s magazine, actress Neetu Chandra has now developed cold feet.

Recently, while the actress was shooting for The Man magazine at a 3-star hotel with model Krishikka Gupta, a group of regular male customers started shouting “Jai Maharashtra’ slogans and threatened action from Raj Thackeray’s Maharashrtra Navnirman Sena (MNS). They even tried to confiscate the camera, resulting in the shoot having to be abruptly called off.

Civilians trapped in Pakistan’s Swat Valley town

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Islamabad,May 24: Gunshots pierced the air as Pakistani troops battled Taliban extremists in the Swat Valley’s main city, a trapped civilian said, while helicopter gunships pounded alleged militant hide-outs in a nearby tribal region Sunday, killing at least 18 people.

Elsewhere in the northwest, police said they had captured an important militant commander and six other Taliban fighters.