Nasheman

India's largest selling Urdu weekly, now also in English

You are here: Home / 2018 / Archives for April 2018

Archives for April 2018

Weapon snatched from bank guard in J&K, recovered from ‘miguided youth’

by

A group of unidentified attackers snatched the weapon of a bank guard in Jammu and Kashmir’s Shopian district and fled on Thursday but it was later recovered from “miguided youth”, police said.

The unarmed assailants overpowered the guard of a J&K Bank branch in Pinjora village of Shopian and took away his 12-bore, cartridge-firing gun, a police official said.

According to police, the local police swung into action and started “meticulous investigation” and on “basis of accurate human and technical inputs, the boys were identified”.

“However, police decided to adopt a humane approach as the boys involved were found to be only misguided youngsters from the village.

“Parents and senior citizens of the area were contacted and the search for boys was carried out. The said gun was recovered and boys were let off after proper counselling,” said police, adding that the general public hailed police for a “people-friendly approach and assured cooperation in maintaining peace in the otherwise militancy-affected area”.

Queen Elizabeth II wants son Charles to lead Commonwealth

by

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II has asked Commonwealth leaders gathered at Buckingham Palace for the opening of a major summit to appoint her son Prince Charles to succeed her as their head.

She said it was her “sincere wish” that Prince Charles takes over “one day”, as she opened the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) attended by 53 member countries in London on Thursday, the BBC reported.

The Queen said that her son should follow her and lead the organisation which her father, King George VI, founded after the end of the British Empire.

The role is not hereditary and will not pass automatically to Charles, the Prince of Wales, on the Queen’s death. The Commonwealth leaders will make a decision on the succession on Friday, No 10 Downing Street said.

“It is my sincere wish that the Commonwealth will continue to offer stability and continuity for future generations, and will decide that one day the Prince of Wales should carry on the important work started by my father in 1949,” she told the leaders.

Over 100 officers and soldiers from the Coldstream Guards were in honour guard outside the venue, wearing scarlet tunics and bearskins, as a 53 gun salute marked the formal opening.

Issues under discussion at the two-day summit included ocean conservation, cyber security and trade between the countries.

Prime Minister Theresa May told the leaders the summit would “take on some of the 21st Century’s biggest questions”.

Speaking in the ballroom, which was decorated with the flags of the 53 nations, May said: “There have been difficulties, successes, controversies, but I believe wholeheartedly in the good that the Commonwealth can do.”

She also thanked the Queen for hosting the event, calling her a “steadfast and fervent champion” of the Commonwealth.

The ceremony was attended by 46 Commonwealth heads of government, out of the 53 member states, with the remaining attendees being Foreign Ministers.

In his speech, the 69-year-old Prince said: “For my part, the Commonwealth has been a fundamental feature of my life for as long as I can remember, beginning with my first visit to Malta when I was just five years old.

“The modern Commonwealth has a vital role to play in building bridges between our countries.”

Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Harry and Prince William were among the other royals in attendance.

(IANS)

Pakistan calls India’s claims on surgical strike ‘baseless’

by

Pakistan on Thursday rejected as “false” and “baseless” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s claims of having launched a surgical strike on terrorist camps in Pakistani territory.

At an interactive session at the Central Hall Westminster in London, Modi said on Wednesday that Islamabad was informed about the 2016 surgical strike before this was made known to the media.

Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesperson Mohammad Faisal told the media that the claims about the surgical strike by the Indian military was a “lie” and “repeating it doesn’t turn it into the truth”.

India said its special forces conducted the surgical strike across the Line of Control (LoC), which divides Jammu and Kashmir between the two countries, on September 29 and inflicted heavy casualties on terrorists preparing to infiltrate into Indian Kashmir.

In a veiled message to Pakistan, Modi said in London that “antics of those exporting terror and trying to backstab us will not be tolerated” and “they will be answered in a language they understand”.

Spokesperson Faisal said: “Repeating a lie doesn’t turn it into the truth… It is the other way around and India is backing terrorists in Pakistan.

“The whole world knows who the terrorists are and who their head is. Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav is a proof of Indian state-sponsored terrorism,” he said.

(IANS)

Rape as a political tool in India

by

The brutal rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl from a Muslim minority group is not just about gender violence.

The gruesome rape and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl in Kathua district of Indian-administered Kashmir is a chilling reminder of how sexual assault is used as a tool to instil fear among those belonging to the minority communities in India.

There have been many Indians, especially on social media platforms, who have repeatedly claimed that one must look at this rape as a gender violence crime. But to turn a blind eye to the events that took place before and after her murder and to her belonging to the Bakarwal nomadic minority would be grossly unfair.

The official investigation has already shown that there is a hate crime element to the rape and murder – in other words, the victim being attacked by her murderers had a lot to do with her being a Muslim Bakarwal.
In the course of investigation, it transpired that [one of the accused] was against the settlement of Bakarwals in Rasana Kootah, and Dhamyal area, and always kept on motivating the members of his community of the area not to provide land for grazing or any other kind of assistance…

[Two of the accused] were also against the settlement of Bakarwals in Rasana, Kootah and Dhamyal area who had already discussed this issue […] to Chalk out a strategy for dislodging the Bakarwals from the area. They were blaming the Bakarwals on one pretext or the other and used to threaten them…

This apart during investigation it transpired that a particular community had a general impression that the Bakarwals indulge in cow slaughter and drug trafficking and that their children were turning into drug addicts…

Thus during investigation it has become abundantly clear that the accused had a reason to act against the Bakarwal Community and hence the conspiracy ultimately resulting into the gruesome rape and brutal murder …”

One could easily see in these lines elements of the demonising stereotypes that have provoked attacks on minorities across India in recent years. In 2017 alone, accusations of cow slaughter (forbidden in most Indian states) against minority communities resulted in dozens of mob lynching and 11 deaths.

Furthermore, tensions between the Hindu majority and minorities have also resulted in communal violence in the past in which women and girls have been specifically targeted, as was the case in Gujarat in 2002 and Uttar Pradesh in 2013.

In this sense, it is difficult to see the sexual assault and murder in Kathua only in the framework of gender violence. Unfortunately, we live at a time when rape has become a political tool to instil fear among minority groups in India.

Support for the suspect rapists
Before this brutal case made to national and international news, the Bakarwal community struggled with pressure from members of the Hindu majority not to make noise about it. The family and their lawyer were repeatedly threatened not to speak out; some members of the community left early for the mountains. Her parents were forced to take her brutalised body to another village to bury because baton-wielding locals did not allow them to lay her to rest in the place where she used to live.

But even more disturbingly, after the suspects in the case were arrested, locals organised protests in their support. On February 15, thousands joined the demonstrations in Kathua to demand the release of special police officer Deepak Khajuria – one of the accused.

READ MORE
After girl’s rape and killing, fear engulfs Muslim nomads
The march was organised by the newly created right-wing Hindu Ekta Manch (Hindu Solidarity Platform, based in Jammu) and was backed and attended by officials from the ruling right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), including two ministers in the state government.

After much outrage, the ministers submitted their resignations, but one cannot but wonder why they were not expelled by the party immediately for being part of the protests. Similarly, Congress Party member Ghagwal Vijay Tagotra, who was also in the front line of the protest, was suspended but not expelled from the party.

It took national public outrage and the release of gruesome details of the violence unleashed on an 8-year-old girl in temple premises for the prime minister to come out and issue a general statement four months after the murder. This says a lot about how seriously a crime committed against a Muslim girl belonging to a nomadic community in a state like Jammu and Kashmir is treated.

But it hasn’t only been Kathua locals and politicians who have reacted disgracefully to the brutal murder.

Public figures like Indian feminist and academic, Madhu Kishwar have gone as far as claiming that the crime was committed by “jehadi [sic] Rohingya” refugees.

Support for the Bakarwal community from tribal organisations has also been conspicuously absent.

“The inherent bias against the Muslim minority community also displays itself in the fact that there have not been any joint statements made by de-notified/nomadic tribal organisations across the country condemning the incident faced by the nomadic family let alone standing in solidarity with them,” told me one leader of an alliance of denotified tribes, who did not wish to be named.

As protests around the country take place to demand justice for the eight-year-old victim, we must ponder two points.

One, in the December 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape case, the family of the victim did not have to beg and plea for their safety and security; there were no protests in support of the six suspects and rightly so.

Two, not one of those named as the suspects in the gang rape of seven Muslim women during the Muzaffarnagar riots in Uttar Pradesh in 2013 are behind bars today. Society and media both forgot the women soon after they received a small amount of compensation as rape survivors.

With this in mind, we should continue to demand not only that justice is served for the Kathua victim and her family, but also that it is seen as a hate crime.

We need to acknowledge that there is a problem with both gender and communal violence in our country.

Aljazeera

This election is about Ram Mandir vs Babri Masjid.Hindus Vs Muslims, says BJP MLA

by

Karnataka Political temperature has started to rise.With elections due in less than a month now, Both BJP and Congress are busy taking potshots at each other. But a BJP lawmaker in Karnataka recently allegedly made a communal remark which has lead to much outrage in the state politics.

BJP MLA Sanjay Patil on 17th April said that ” This election is not about roads, water or other issues.This election is about Hindus vs Muslims, Ram Mandir vs Babri Masjid: BJP MLA Sanjay Patil”. He made the comments during an election rally in Belagavi where he is a candidate. The clip has gone viral on social media.

He also said that the party is looking to build Ram temple whereas Congress wants to build Babri Masjid. He was quoted as saying, ” Whoever wants Babri Masjid, Tipu Jayanti they should vote for the Congress. And who wants Shivaji Maharaj and Ram Mandir should vote for the BJP”.

In the past, there has been controversy over celebration of Tipu Jayanti in the state, where BJP has accused Congress of trying to pander to minority votebank. Currently the Babri Masjid case is in Supreme Court. This is not the first time that Sanjay Patil, who is MLA from Belagavi Rural has landed into controversy. According to reports, last year a clip of the MLA threatening a police officer had gone viral.

Karnataka will go to polls on May 12 to elect its representatives for the 225-member assembly. The results will be out on May 15.

Yeddyurappa confident of win:
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief ministerial candidate for Karnataka B.S. Yeddyurappa on Thursday said he is confident of a massive victory in the upcoming assembly polls.

” I am going to get 30 to 40 thousand lead and everybody is supporting our community people,” Yeddyurappa said before filling his nomination in Shimoga’s Shikarpur constituency. Further talking about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tribute to 12th-century Lingayat philosopher and social reformer Basaveshwara in London, the former chief minister of the state said that the move is a message for those who are dividing the Lingayat and Vishveshwara.

The Income-Tax Department’s turned stare on India’s salaried class

by

Till now it was only the rich who were afraid of income-tax sleuths. With his tax deducted at source and having little scope to play with the figures, a salaried employee bothered little about tax department closing in on the evaders with latest technological means including robo audits and scanning of social media.

But not any longer. Now even the salaried employees will be under the sharp gaze of the tax sleuths. The income tax department has cautioned salaried taxpayers against using
How did the things change so drastically?
A few cases that came to light in January in Bengaluru alerted the income tax department to what seemed a pervasive trend. The department busted a racket of extracting fraudulent tax refunds by employees of several big companies such as IBM, Vodafone and InfosysNSE 0.61 % and Thomson Reuters in alleged connivance with a fake chartered accountant in Bengaluru. The investigation wing of the department conducted searches on the premises ..

IPL-2018: All-round KKR record facile seven-wicket win over Rajasthan

by

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) stretched their winning run to two games by registering a facile seven-wicket victory over Rajasthan Royals in an Indian Premier League (IPL) clash at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium here on Wednesday.

After restricting RR to 160/8, the two-time champions, who also won against Delhi Daredevils by 71 runs in their last game, rode on Robin Uthappa’s 36-ball 48 (6×4, 2×6) to set up the chase and eventually win with seven balls to spare posting 163/3 in 18.5 overs.

Skipper Dinesh Karthik (42 not out; 2×4, 2×6) and Nitish Rana (35 not out; 2×4, 1×6) combined for an unbroken 61-run partnership for the fourth wicket to ease past the line. Karthik hit a six off Ben Laughlin to secure the win in style.

KKR never looked in trouble despite losing out-of-form Australian opener Chris Lynn (0) in only the second ball of their innings, with off-spinner Krishnappa Gowtham (2/23) flattening his stumps with a ball that spun sharply into the batsman who tried to cut.

Uthappa and Narine then came together for a 69-run stand for the first wicket. Uthappa looked in imperious form, hitting Jaydev Unadkat for three fours in the fifth over.

Narine took time to get into the groove, smashing a six off Laughlin over deep midwicket using the depth of the crease to good effect.

Narine was run out soon after the Powerplay in which the visitors had raced to 53/1, while Uthappa fell two short of a half century, holing out to Ben Stokes who took a brilliant catch at the long-on boundary off Gowtham’s bowling.

Earlier, KKR bowlers picked up wickets at regular intervals to restrict RR to 160/8 in 20 overs.

Narine had an off day leaking 48 runs in four overs without taking a wicket but in-form Rana put his hand up to remove openers Ajinkya Rahane (36; 19b 5×4 1×6) and D’Arcy Short (44; 43b 5×4 1×6) while Tom Curran shaved off the lower order with two scalps in two deliveries.

For the hosts, Short was the top-scorer but never got going while explosive England wicketkeeper-batsman Jos Buttler helped them reach a fighting target with a 18-ball, 24 not out.

In the last over, young fast bowler Shivam Mavi (1/40) bowled three wide balls and Chris Lynn dropped Dhawal Kulkarni (3) but he was later run out.

The visitors, choosing to field first after skipper Karthik won the toss, were given a good start by wrist spinners Piyush Chawla (1/18) and Kuldeep Yadav (1/23) who combined well to leak just nine runs in the first three overs.

Rahane then took on Narine, the most economical bowler in the IPL so far, hitting him for four back-to-back fours straight up. The India Test team vice-captain swept and drove the West Indian mystery spinner with aplomb to garner 18 runs off the over.

Rahane looked in sublime form as he smashed Mavi for a flat six down the wicket in the next over as Short also milked the U-19 World Cup winner for a boundary. After six overs, RR were 48/0.

RR then lost two quick wickets. First, Karthik effected a brilliant diving run out to get rid of the dangerous Rahane off Nitish Rana, breaking the 54-run opening wicket stand between him and Short.

Sanju Samson followed suit soon after, picking out Kuldeep at deep midwicket off Mavi and just when Short was looking to accelerate, Rana castled him with a slider in the next over to break the 36-run third wicket partnership with Rahul Tripathi.

The inaugural IPL winners never recovered from there and were short by 10-20 runs.

Brief scores: Rajasthan Royals 160/8 in 20 overs (D’Arcy Short 44, Ajinkya Rahane 36; Ntiish Rana 2/11, Tom Curran 2/19) lost to Kolkata Knight Riders 163/3 in 18.5 overs (Robin Uthappa 48, Dinesh Karthik 42 not out, Nitish Rana 35 not out; K Gowtham 2/23) by seven wickets.

Barbara Bush, a First Lady Without Apologies

by

She knew who she was, and she saw no need to apologize for it. In the spring of 1990, the administration of Wellesley College — the alma mater, as it happened, of Hillary Rodham Clinton — invited Barbara Bush, then the first lady of the United States, to speak at commencement and receive an honorary degree. Students at the women’s college protested, declaring in a petition that Mrs. Bush had “gained recognition through the achievements of her husband,” and adding that Wellesley “teaches us that we will be rewarded on the basis of our own merit, not on that of a spouse.”

And so a generational battle was joined. As her husband, George H. W. Bush, put it in his private White House diary, Mrs. Bush was being attacked “because she hasn’t made it on her own — she’s where she is because she’s her husband’s wife.” Mr. Bush added: “What’s wrong with the fact that she’s a good mother, a good wife, great volunteer, great leader for literacy and other fine causes? Nothing, but to listen to these elitist kids there is.” To the young women of the last decade of the 20th century, Mrs. Bush, who had dropped out of Smith College to marry, seemed a throwback to a less enlightened time.

Mrs. Bush, who died on Tuesday at age 92, never flinched, appearing at Wellesley and using her commencement address to explore the complexities of life’s choices. There was no single path, she told the graduates; one followed one’s heart and did the best one could. “Maybe we should adjust faster, maybe we should adjust slower,” she said. “But whatever the era, whatever the times, one thing will never change: Fathers and mothers, if you have children — they must come first. You must read to your children, hug your children, and you must love your children. Your success as a family, our success as a society, depends not on what happens in the White House, but on what happens inside your house.”

The loudest applause came when she remarked that perhaps there was someone in the audience who would, like her, one day preside over the White House as the president’s spouse. “And I wish him well,” Mrs. Bush said.

It was classic Barbara Pierce Bush: politically skillful, balanced — and good for her husband, for she presented herself as at once reasonable and reasonably conservative, which was the essence of Mr. Bush’s own political persona.

Barbara Bush was the first lady of the Greatest Generation — a woman who came of age at midcentury, endured a world war, built a life in Texas, raised her family, lost a daughter to leukemia, and promoted first her husband’s rise in politics, and then that of her sons. As the wife of one president and the mother of another, she holds a distinction that belongs to only one other American in the history of the Republic, Abigail Adams.

It’s neither sentimental nor hyperbolic to note that Barbara Bush was the last first lady to preside over an even remotely bipartisan capital. She and her husband were masters of what Franklin D. Roosevelt once referred to as “the science of human relationships.”

Part of the reason grew out of the generational and cultural disposition that had prompted the Wellesley protesters to speak out. Born in New York City in 1925, raised in Rye, N.Y., and long shaped by the WASP code of her mother-in-law, Dorothy Walker Bush, Mrs. Bush was reflexively hospitable. The elder Bushes governed in a spirit of congeniality and of civility, a far cry from the partisan ferocity of our own time. In her White House — and at Camp David and at Walker’s Point, the family’s compound on the coast of Maine — Democrats and Republicans were welcomed with equal frequency and equal grace.

She had always known what she was getting into, for George H. W. Bush saw life as both a great adventure and as a long reunion mixer. After graduating from Yale in 1948, Mr. Bush drove himself to Odessa, Tex., sending for Barbara and George W., who had been born in 1946, once he’d rented half a duplex they were to share with a mother-daughter team of prostitutes. It was the first of 27 moves the Bushes would make on their American odyssey.

Writing her parents from Odessa to thank them for sending $25 to pay for nursery school for George W., Mrs. Bush reported that “G.W.B. has a wee bit of the Devil in him. This a.m. while I was writing a letter early he stuck a can opener into my leg. Very painful and it was all I could do to keep from giving him a jab or two.” They would lovingly tease each other for decades; George W. Bush often said he had inherited his father’s eyes and his mother’s mouth.

And her tongue could be sharp. In 1984, after she unwisely described Geraldine Ferraro, who campaigned against her husband as Walter Mondale’s vice-presidential running mate, as a word that rhymed with “rich,” she acknowledged that her family was now referring to her as the “poet laureate.”

She was tireless in her advocacy for literacy, and in 1989, at a time when AIDS was still shrouded in mystery and misunderstanding, Mrs. Bush visited a home for H.I.V.-infected infants in Washington, and hugged the children there, as well as an infected adult man. It sent a powerful message — one of compassion, of love, of acceptance. Her popularity as first lady was such that, in 1992, some voters sported buttons with a final plea for the World War II generation: “Re-Elect Barbara’s Husband.”

KKR bowlers restrict Rajasthan to 160/8

by

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) bowlers picked up wickets at regular intervals to restrict Rajasthan Royals to 160/8 in 20 overs in an Indian Premier League (IPL) clash at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium here on Wednesday.

Sunil Narine had an off day leaking 48 runs in four overs without taking a wicket but in-form Nitish Rana put his hand up to remove openers Ajinkya Rahane (36; 19b 5×4 1×6) and D’Arcy Short (44; 43b 5×4 1×6) while Tom Curran shaved off the lower order with two scalps in two deliveries.

For the hosts, Short was the top-scorer but never got going while explosive England wicketkeeper-batsman Jos Buttler helped them reach a fighting target with a 18-ball 24 not out.

In the last over, young fast bowler Shivam Mavi (1/40) bowled three wide balls and Chris Lynn dropped Dhawal Kulkarni (3) who was later run out.

The visitors, choosing to field first after skipper Dinesh Karthik won the toss, were given a good start by wrist spinners Piyush Chawla (1/18) and Kuldeep Yadav (1/23) who combined well to leak just nine runs in the first three overs.

Rahane then took on Narine, the most economical bowler in the IPL so far, hitting him for four back-to-back fours straight up. The India Test team vice-captain swept and drove the West Indian mystery spinner with aplomb to garner 18 runs off the over.

Rahane looked in sublime form as he smashed Mavi for a flat six down the wicket in the next over as Short also milked the U-19 World Cup winner for a boundary. After six overs, RR were 48/0.

RR then lost two quick wickets. First, Karthik effected a brilliant diving run out to get rid of the dangerous Rahane off Nitish Rana, breaking the 54-run opening wicket stand between him and Short.

Sanju Samson, whose unbeaten 45-ball 92 helped RR win against Royal Challengers Bangalore in the last game, followed suit soon after, picking out Kuldeep at deep midwicket off Mavi who bowled really well to cramp the Kerala batsman for room.

Just when Short was looking to accelerate, taking on Mavi for a six and four off successive deliveries in the 12th over, Rana castled him with a slider in the next over to break the 36-run third wicket partnership with Rahul Tripathi.

The inaugural IPL winners never recovered from there as Tripathi (15) and Ben Stokes (14) departed without any significant contribution, their wickets taken by Kuldeep and Chawla respectively.

Curran then accounted for K. Gowtham and Shreyas Gopal in consecutive deliveries to further dent RR’s plans of scoring big in the last two overs with the big-hitting Buttler at the crease.

Brief scores: Rajasthan Royals 160/8 in 20 overs (D’Arcy Short 44, Ajinkya Rahane 36; Ntiish Rana 2/11, Tom Curran 2/19) vs Kolkata Knight Riders

(IANS)

KNOW US

GET INVOLVED

PROMOTE

Archives