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Abu Dhabi: England need 99 runs in a possible 19 overs to win the first Test after Pakistan collapsed to 173 all out in their second innings in Abu Dhabi on Saturday.
The Test was heading for a draw after England declared their first innings at 598-9, but they bowled with fire and employed aggressive field settings on a weary fifth and final day pitch at Sheikh Zayed Stadium pitch.
Spinners Adil Rashid (5-64) and Moeen Ali (2-28) did the damage while paceman James Anderson took 2-30.
(Agencies)
To Sri Pranab Mukherjee
The President of India
Your Excellency,
As citizens of a democratic country, we are deeply concerned about the growing culture of murderous intolerance and the brazen assault on the fundamental right to life of those who maintain the core values of diversity, plurality and tolerance of which you yourself have recently reminded us. The targeting of innocents like the recent killing of Muhammad Akhlaq in Dadri and the series of attacks against rationalists and freethinkers including the gruesomely casual killing of Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and M.M. Kalburgi has made us strangers in our own country. We are horrified at the callous lack of support and apathy of the state in finding and bringing the culprits to justice. The stifling atmosphere of fear and uncertainty is fatal to the freedom of expression that is at the heart of our shared lives, and it is for the restoration of this common fabric that we urge you to intervene.
On behalf of the freethinking, creative minds of India – indeed, on behalf of every citizen of India – we urge you, the guardian of the Constitution of India, to ensure that those who have infringed upon this founding document of the State with impunity, whether overtly or by silent complicity, be brought to justice. Throttling the right to free thought and expression threatens the very existence of our plural society. We demand your active intervention in protecting the basic freedom which is the right of all Indian citizens without discrimination by religion, caste, class or gender. We appeal to you to take firm and immediate steps to combat this well-planned conspiracy to endanger Indian democracy.
From the creative and academic community of West Bengal,
Two Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in occupied West Bank, one in East Jerusalem, after alleged stabbings.
![Video footage showed the moment after an Israeli settler shot dead a Palestinian man in Hebron [YouTube]](https://i0.wp.com/nasheman.in/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Israeli-settler.jpg)
Video footage showed the moment after an Israeli settler shot dead a Palestinian man in Hebron [YouTube]
Three Palestinians have been shot dead in separate attacks after they allegedly tried to stab Israelis in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, the latest incidents in a wave of violence that has escalated this month.
In Hebron, a Jewish settler killed a Palestinian man early on Saturday after the Palestinian allegedly tried to stab him. Israeli police said the man was shot dead before he could harm the Israeli.
Witnesses disputed the Israeli police version of the event, saying the incident looked more like an attack by the settler on the Palestinian.
Video circulated by Palestinian activists showed a young man wearing a kippa brandishing a pistol as shots rang out before Israeli soldiers moved in to pull him away from a body lying on the ground.
Palestinian security sources identified the Palestinian as 18-year-old Fadel al-Kawatsmi.
In the second attack, a Palestinian woman was shot dead by Israeli forces after she allegedly attempted to stab a female soldier guarding an illegal Jewish settlement in Hebron.
The soldier suffered minor injuries to her hand, according to an Israeli police spokesperson.
Palestinian media said her assailant was aged 16.
Israeli police sealed off the city by blocking road access after violent clashes broke out between Palestinian protesters and Israeli forces following the killings.
In East Jerusalem, a Palestinian allegedly tried to stab a soldier at a checkpoint in East Talpiot but was shot dead by other soldiers.
Police said the boy was a 16-year-old from nearby Jabel Mukaber, the same neighbourhood that was home to three Palestinians who were killed earlier this week after alleged attacks against Israelis.
Amid tit-for-tat attacks between Israelis and Palestinians, the ongoing streak of violence has left dead at least 42 Palestinians – including suspected attackers, as well as unarmed protesters and bystanders – and seven Israelis.
Israeli security forces have deployed massively in Jerusalem and on Wednesday began setting up checkpoints in parts of East Jerusalem, including Jabel Mukaber. But it has failed to stop the violence.
The mounting death toll has prompted speculation about a new Palestinian intifada, or uprising, like those of 1987-93 and 2000-2005, when thousands were killed in near-daily violence.
Palestinian plea rejected
Saturday’s killings came a day after Israel rejected a Palestinian plea to the United Nations for an international force to police the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem.
Tensions boiled over into violence earlier this month as Israeli incursions into the al-Aqsa complex – the third holiest site in Islam – gave way to protests and clashes that have consumed much of the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.
“An international presence on the Temple Mount [al-Aqsa Mosque compound] would violate the status quo of the last several decades,” Israeli ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said on Friday.
“Israel does not think international intervention [in] the Temple Mount would be helpful or contribute to stability,” Danon added.
Washington: Harvard University’s prestigious ‘Humanitarian of the Year’ award has gone to Nobel Peace Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi, in recognition of his continuing contribution to the cause of children’s rights and abolition of child slavery.
Satyarthi is the first Indian to get this honor.
“I humbly accept the award on behalf of millions of left-out children, for whose rights we strive to work for. Let us all pledge together to eradicate child slavery from the world,” the activist said in his acceptance speech yesterday.
Each year, the Harvard Foundation presents the award to people whose work and deeds have improved society and been inspiring to people.
Satyarthi recently succeeded in getting child protection and welfare-related clauses — which aim to end slavery, trafficking, forced labour and violence — included in the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations,
“Even developed countries, including the Unites States, have hundreds of slaves who are forced into labour, pushed into sex trade or trafficked into domestic labour. Undocumented immigrants, people in the margins of the society are pulled into a circuit of slavery,” Satyarthi said.
In the past this honor has been given to luminaries like Martin Luther King Sr., Secretaries-General of the United Nations: Kofi Annan, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Javier Perez de Cuellar, and Ban Ki-moon; Nobel laureates: Jose Ramos-Horta, Bishop Desmond Tutu, John Hume, and Elie Wiesel; Ethel Kennedy, R C Gorman, artist and ThorbjornJagland, head of the Nobel Peace Prize committee.
(PTI)
Ramanagara: Senior BJP leader and former Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister KS Eshwarappa today courted controversy when he asked a woman journalist what can the opposition members do if “someone drags and rapes” her.
Responding to a woman journalist’s question if opposition BJP has failed in its duty by not making government accountable for such crimes, Eshwarappa, Leader of Opposition in the state Legislative Council, said “You are a woman, you are here now, if someone drags you and rapes you, we opposition people will be somewhere else. What can we do?”
“You tell me what we need to do, we will do it;…we have criticised it in the Legislature, when a six-year-old girl was raped I used all sorts of language that I had to, you people objected to my language…,” he said.
Eshwarappa had earlier too found himself in the eye of a storm over his poser to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Home Minister KJ George on whether they will have feelings for victims of sexual assault in the state only if their daughters are “raped”.
His remarks in November last year had come against the backdrop of incidents of sexual assaults. Congress had then slammed the remarks as “distasteful” while an embarrassed BJP Karnataka unit distanced itself from the controversy.
The state has witnessed alleged incidents of gangrape in Bengaluru, Mandya and Tumakuru in the last couple of weeks.
A 20-year-old woman from Mysuru was allegedly gangraped by four men, including her friend, near Pandavapura taluk in Mandya on October 9.
(PTI)
New Delhi: Two minors were brutally gangraped in the city, incidents which come close on the heels of the rape of a four-year-old girl in northwest Delhi last week.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal expressed concern over the “repeated” rape of minors in the city and asked what the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Delhi LG were doing.
While a two-and-a-half-year-old girl was raped in Nihal Vihar area of west Delhi yesterday, a 5-year-old girl was allegedly gangraped by three men who were later arrested by the police in East Delhi’s Anand Vihar.
The two-and-a-half-year-old girl was kidnapped and allegedly gangraped by two bike-borne men who picked her up last night from outside her home in Nihal Vihar area of south-west Delhi.
The girl was later found by the locals in a park and was profusely bleeding. She was rushed to Sanjay Gandhi Hospital where she is undergoing treatment, police said.
A case has been registered under relevant Sections of IPC and POCSO Act and a manhunt has been launched to arrest the accused, said a senior police officer.
In other incident, three men who were allegedly under the influence of intoxicants gangraped a 5-year-old girl last evening in Anand Vihar area of east Delhi, police said.
The victim, who sustained severe injuries to her private parts, was rushed to GTB Hospital. The accused Prakash, Rewati and Sitaram were caught by the locals after they heard the shrieks of the girl. The accused were thrashed and later handed over to police.
A case has been registered against them under relevant Sections of IPC and POCSO at Anand Vihar Police Station, DCP of East district police Bhairon Singh Gurjar said.
Taking a grim view of the cases, the Chief Minister said, “Repeated rape of minors is shameful and worrying. Delhi Police has completely failed to provide safety. What are the PM and his LG doing?” “Am on my way to hospitals to meet rape victims,” he tweeted.
Chairperson of Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) Swati Maliwal, who visited the victims in hospitals, termed the incidents as “absolutely disgusting” and “shameful.”
“Woke up to 2 incidents of gangrape of a 2.5-year-old n 5-year-old. Bleeding not stopping for 2.5-year-old,” she tweeted.
“When will Delhi wake up? Till when will girls continue to be brutalised in the Indian capital. Gangrape of 2.5-year n 5-year-old. Shameful,” she said in another tweet. Last week a four-year-old girl was brutally raped in the city.
(Agencies)
Abu Dhabi: Alastair Cook continued to bat solidly to help England approach Pakistan’s massive total on the fourth day of the first Test in Abu Dhabi on Friday.
The England captain was unbeaten on 237 as England reached 468 for five at tea, just 55 runs behind
Pakistan’s first innings total of 523 for eight declared as the prospects of a result on a flat Sheikh Zayed Stadium diminished.
Ben Stokes was the other unbeaten batsman with 16.
Cook came to the crease in the last hour of the second day and has since batted with authority and grit, smashing 17 boundaries during his resolute 471-ball knock.
He added 141 runs for the fourth wicket with Joe Root who made a brilliant 85 after England resumed at 290-3.
Paceman Rahat Ali provided Pakistan the breakthrough after they went without wicket in the extended two-and-a-half hour session due to Friday prayers.
After lunch Root played a rash shot off a wide delivery and was caught by wicket-keeper Sarfraz Ahmed. He hit seven boundaries during his 143-ball stay.
But it was Cook’s third double century that enlivened an otherwise dull day.
Cook flicked paceman Wahab Riaz to backward square-leg for two to complete his double century off 395 deliveries, the second of the match behind Pakistan’s Shoaib Malik’s 245.
Cook has so far hit 16 boundaries in a 407-ball stay.
Root also batted with authority, reaching his 14th Test half-century with a reverse sweep boundary off Malik.
Pakistan were once again sloppy in the field as they missed another chance to dismiss Cook when wicket-keeper Sarfraz Ahmed failed to take an inside edge off Riaz when the England captain was on 173.
Fawad Alam had let off Cook on 147 off spinner Zulfiqar Babar on Thursday.
Root also survived a confident leg-before shout when fast bowler Imran Khan trapped him but Pakistan’s review once again went unsuccessful.
Riaz was the pick of the bowlers with 3-116.
Pakistan’s frontline spinner Babar also struggled to take a wicket, conceding 132 runs in his 58 overs.
Pakistan has played seven Test matches at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium, winning four, including the last two by massive margins against Australia (356 runs) and New Zealand (248 runs) and drawing the other three. It won the only Test match here against England by 72 runs in 2012.
Bengaluru: A police sub-inspector was stabbed to death while a constable suffered severe injuries when two bike-borne armed thieves attacked them on Friday in Bengaluru.
The deceased SI is Jagadish and the injured constable is Venkateshmurthy.
While Jagadish died on the spot, the constable sustained severe injuries and has been admitted to Nelamangala government hospital.
It is said that after being tipped off about two notorious thieves identified as Raghu and Krishna, SI Jagadish and Venkateshmurthy had managed to corner the thieves after hot pursuit. However, in a bid to escape, the thieves launched a fatal attack on Jagadish using a shovel. The duo even snatched away Jagadish’s revolver, it is said.
Jagadish is survived by his wife and two daughters.
Senior police officers rushed to the spot and conducted a detailed probe. A massive manhunt has been launched to nab the duo who are on the run.
(Agencies)
A Palestinian man prays outside the Old City in Jerusalem due to Al-Aqsa restrictions, October 9, 2015. (AFP/File)
Israeli police have imposed age restrictions at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Friday as a preventative security measure, with only Palestinian men over 40 allowed to enter for prayers.
Israeli police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld said security measures are in place across Israel and Jerusalem.
There were no reports of restrictions on women.
Meanwhile, around 130 worshipers from Gaza, all over the age of 60, prayed at the holy site early Friday in a coordinated weekly visit.
The flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound has been the site of clashes for weeks, with Israeli forces repeatedly storming the holy site to clear way for Jewish worshipers during a series of Jewish holidays in September.
Palestinians fear Israel is seeking to change rules governing the site, where Jews are allowed to visit, but not pray to avoid provoking tensions.
In early October, Israeli police took the unprecedented measure of banning Palestinians from East Jerusalem’s Old City for 48 hours following two stabbing attacks in which two Israelis were killed.
At least 32 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank and 12 in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 1.
Seven Israelis have been killed in the same time period in Palestinian attacks.
New Delhi: As the second phase of Bihar polls was underway, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday anticipated a victory for Nitish Kumar and claimed that the BJP, led by Narendra Modi, was all set to “badly” lose the elections.
The AAP convenor said that incumbent Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will get another shot at power. Kejriwal has openly endorsed Kumar’s candidature.
“As per my information, Modiji is losing Bihar elections badly. Nitishji is winning the polls,” Kejriwal tweeted.
Kejriwal had extended full support to his Bihar counterpart’s candidature at a conclave organised by the Delhi government in the capital in August.
However, he did not campaign for the JD(U) in the ongoing polls.
Making common cause against Modi, the duo also attacked him for announcing a Rs 1.25 lakh crore package for the election-bound state.
AAP has had to walk a tightrope in supporting Nitish as his party JD(U) is part of a grand alliance of which Lalu Prasad-led RJD is also a part.
(PTI)