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Archives for July 2018

7 new events included in 2022 Winter Olympics

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Seven new events will be included in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board has said.

The IOC on Wednesday approved the addition of monobob and freestyle ski big air, as well as dynamic mixed team formats including short track mixed relay, a ski jumping mixed team event, mixed team aerials and a snowboard cross mixed team event, Xinhua news agency reported.

“The additions reflect our continued commitment to making the Olympic Games programs more youthful and gender balanced,” said IOC Sports Director Kit McConnell.

A record number of women athletes are expected to participate in the Games, with the female quota being increased from 41 to 45.44 percent.

Amarinder urges Sushma to ensure safety of Sikhs in Afghanistan

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Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has urged External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to take all possible steps to ensure the safety, security and well-being of Sikhs settled in Afghanistan.

In a letter to Sushma Swaraj on Wednesday, he expressed concern at the recent bombings in Kabul, besides the earlier series of terror attacks in Afghanistan, that had left many Sikh families adversely affected.

The Chief Minister urged the minister to advise the concerned officials in Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), as well as the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan, to ensure the safety and security of Sikhs in the war-torn country.

“Measures aimed at security, relief and rehabilitation of violence-affected Sikh families in Afghanistan needed to be pursued at the level of MEA in order to ensure justice to them,” he said in his letter.

Pointing out that about 40 families had migrated to Ludhiana from Afghanistan in 2012, of which 20 had returned but the remaining were still in Ludhiana, he said: “The issues concerning these families also needed to be attended on priority. This is essential so that the simmering discontent in the community about the fate of these families could be addressed.”

He urged a humane approach in resolving the problems of these Sikh families and requested the Minister to intervene on an urgent basis.

Shahid, Madhuri, Rekha attend ‘Dhadak’ special screening

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Makers of “Dhadak” hosted a special screening of their film here that was attended by a host of Bollywood celebrities.

Both lead actors Ishaan Khatter and Janhvi Kapoor had their families, along with all-time divas Rekha and Madhuri Dixit in the audience.

Janhvi Kapoor, who makes her debut in Bollywood with this remake of 2016 Marathi film “Sairat” had her father Boney Kapoor and sister Khushi Kapoor present on Wednesday.

There was Ishaan’s parents Neelima Azeem and Rajesh Khatter, His half-brother actor Shahid Kapoor and his wife Mira Rajput, besides Kunal Kemmu and Soha Ali Khan, along with Malaika Arora, Karishma Kapoor, Neha Dhupia, Angad Bedi.

Singer Neha Kakkar, Dino Morea, David Dhawan, Sonakshi Sinha were also seen attending the screening of the film that releases on July 20.

“Dhadak” director Shashank Khaitan along with producer Karan Johar were also present along with the cast.

Produced by Dharma Productions and Zee Studios the film has created quite a buzz.

AI-first approach will transform our lives: Satya Nadella

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Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have been “pretty stunning” but what the humanity is going to see soon will be even more profound, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has stressed.

Addressing thousands of partners at the ‘Microsoft Inspire’ event here on Wednesday, Nadella said that the potential is for us to be able to turn every industry into an AI-first industry, be it healthcare or agriculture.

“We want to be able to make sure that they can take their data, in a secure, privacy-preserving way, and can work that into AI capabilities,” he told the gathering.

“As we look forward, the opportunity for us to serve our customers in this new era of the Intelligent Cloud and the Intelligent Edge is far greater,” Nadella said.

According to him, Microsoft is going to infuse everything with AI.

“It’s going to have perception capability, language capability and autonomy that’s going to be built into the applications going forward.

“Autonomy is not just about a few self-driving projects. This is about autonomy everywhere,” the Microsoft CEO added.

On its Azure Cloud offerings, Nadella said the computing needs will go far beyond the data centre.

“We are going to take Azure to Azure Stack, to Azure IoT Edge and to Azure Sphere. This is a ubiquitous, distributed computing fabric,” he noted.

Nadella said that Microsoft 365 will help customers have people-centred experiences rather than device-centred experiences.

The tech giant which has touched $800 billion valuation for the first time, was scheduled to release its quarterly results late on Thursday.

Trump offers meeting requests to Rouhani: Iran

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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani received eight requests from his US counterpart for a meeting, presidential chief of staff Mahmoud Vaezi announced on Wednesday.

Vaezi said US President Donald Trump’s requests were made during Rouhani’s visit to New York for a United Nations General Assembly meeting in September 2017, according to Xinhua.

He did not elaborate, however, about Rouhani’s response to Trump’s meeting invitation.

In September 2013, Rouhani and former US President Barack Obama talked over the phone during the 68th annual session of the UN General Assembly. It was the highest-level contact between the two countries in more than three decades.

Israel approves controversial ‘Jewish nation state’ law

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Israel’s parliament on Thursday passed into law a controversial bill that defines the country as an exclusively Jewish state.

The “Jewish nation state” bill downgrades Arabic as an official language and says advancing Jewish settlement is a national interest. It also states that the “whole and united” Jerusalem is its capital, BBC reported.

Israeli Arab MPs condemned the legislation but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised it as a “defining moment”.

The bill, backed by the country’s right-wing government, says that “Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and they have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it”.

It was passed after a stormy session in the Knesset that lasted more than eight hours. Sixty-two MPs voted for the bill, with 55 against.

However some clauses were dropped following objections by Israel’s president and attorney-general, including a clause that would have enshrined in law the creation of Jewish-only communities.

Israeli Arabs make up about 20 per cent of the Israel’s population of about nine million people.

They have equal rights under the law, but have long complained of being treated as second class citizens and say they face discrimination and worse provision of services such as education, health and housing.

Arab MP Ahmed Tibi said the bill’s passing represented the “death of democracy”.

Adalah, an Arab rights NGO, said the law was an attempt to advance “ethnic superiority by promoting racist policies”.

Last week, Netanyahu defended the law, saying: “We will keep ensuring civil rights in Israel’s democracy but the majority also has rights and the majority decides.”

G.Noida building crash toll rises to 9; many still trapped

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The death toll in the twin-building collapse here in Uttar Pradesh climbed to nine on Thursday, with five more bodies pulled out from the rubble of the residential apartments early in the day.

The rescue operations were still on in the Shahberi village where the crash took place late on Tuesday, an official said.

A rescue personnel told IANS that according to estimates given by neighbors, at least 20 persons are still feared trapped inside.

Six of the deceased have been identified. There is Priyanka Dwivedi, 26, of Mainpuri; Shamshad, 25, of Faizabad; Ranjeet Bhimali, 30, from West Bengal; Raj Kumar,50, Shiv Trivedi,28, and Pankhuri of just 14 months.

A National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) official said based on the operation conducted with the help of sniffer dogs, “chances of anybody surviving under the concrete debris were slim” as more than 36 hours have elapsed since the incident.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has announced an ex gratia of Rs 2 lakh each to the families of the dead.

The District Magistrate of Gautambuddh Nagar (Noida) has already ordered a magisterial probe.

Cases have been filed against two dozen persons and four of the accused, including the builder Ganga Sharan Dwivedi, brokers Dinesh and Sanjeev have been arrested.

We walked the talk on electrification, says Modi

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday claimed that officials working on electrification projects under his government reached every village, remotest of areas to fulfill his promise to the nation.

“From the ramparts of Red Fort, I announced every village will be electrified. We walked the talk and went to every village. We not only focussed on electrification but also reformed the distribution systems across the country,” Modi said addressing residents of newly electrified villages via the NaMo App.

“Most of the villages were in remote, hilly areas, and in areas with poor connectivity. It was not easy to reach there but a dedicated team of people did it,” he said.

In April, Modi announced that the Rs 76,000 crore Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY) project was completed with the electrification of around 18,000 villages.

“It has been 70 years since we attained independence but 18,000 villages did not have an electricity supply. This was quite unfortunate,” he said.

Taking a snipe at the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, Modi said: “In 2005, the then government promised to electrify every village by 2009. Then President (Sonia Gandhi) of the ruling party (Congress) went a step ahead and said ‘we will bring electricity to every home’.

“Needless to say, none of that happened during their long tenure,” he added.

EU hits Google with $5bn fine for breaking competition rules

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The European Union slapped Google with a record $5bn fine for using its Android smartphone system to illegally boost its search engine – the biggest anti-trust penalty in EU history.

Google immediately said it would appeal the massive fine.

Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition commissioner, announced the stiff penalty on Wednesday saying the US tech giant forced – and in some cases paid – major phone makers to pre-install its search engine and Google Chrome browser.

The company also limited the ability of manufacturers to sell phones running alternative versions of Android.

“Google has used Android as a vehicle to cement the dominance of its search engine,” Vestager said in a statement. “This is illegal under EU anti-trust rules.”

The company, however, said instead of restricting competition it did the opposite.

“Android has created more choice for everyone, not less,” said Google spokesman Al Verney. “We will appeal the commission’s decision.”

The commission also ordered Google to end the illegal conduct within 90 days or face additional penalties of up to 5 percent of parent Alphabet’s average daily worldwide turnover.

Wednesday’s ruling came a year after the EU’s enforcer handed down a $2.7bn fine on Google for favouring its shopping service over rivals.

Angering Washington

Vestager has targeted a series of Silicon Valley giants in her four years as the 28-nation European Union’s competition commissioner, winning praise in Europe but angering the United States.

On Wednesday, Vestager told a news conference in Brussels she “very much” likes the United States.

“But the fact is that this has nothing to do with how I feel. Nothing whatsoever. Just as enforcing competition law, we do it in the world, but we do not do it in political context,” she said.

Brussels has repeatedly targeted Google over the past decade amid concerns about the Silicon Valley giant’s dominance of internet searches across Europe, where it commands about 90 percent of the market.

The EU ordered Apple in 2016 to pay Ireland 13bn euros in back taxes that the maker of iPhones and iPads avoided by a tax deal with Dublin.

It has also taken on Facebook over privacy issues after it admitted millions of users may have had their data hijacked by British consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica.

1,10,333 rape cases registered in India in 2014-16

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As many as 1,10,333 cases of rape were registered in the country between 2014-16, Union Minister Kiren Rijiju said today.

Rijiju said in Rajya Sabha that 38,947 cases of rape were registered in 2016, 34,651 cases of rape were registered in 2015 and 36,735 cases of rape were registered in 2014.

Altogether 3,38,954 cases of crime against women were registered in 2016, as many as 3,29,243 cases of crime against women were registered in 2015 and 3,39,457 such cases were registered in 2014, he said in a written reply.

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