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Archives for August 2018

Any unconditional financial support should be accepted: Rahul

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Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said that any unconditional financial support from anywhere should be accepted, as it will bring solace to flood-hit Kerala.

Gandhi made the remark while speaking to reporters before beginning his second day trip to the flood-ravaged areas of the state.

He was responding to a question on India’s ‘rejection’ of funds to the tune of $100 million offered by the UAE government for flood relief work.

“My personal opinion is any unconditional offer of funds to reduce pain and sufferings should be taken,” said Gandhi.

On the question of the support from the Centre to the state, he said that it was sad that the Centre had not really supported the way Kerala wanted.

“This is Kerala’s right and they should give more,” said Gandhi. He said he was in the state to express his solidarity with the people who were suffering and not to do politics.

Gandhi arrived in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday and visited half a dozen camps in the southern districts of the state, where the flood had hit hard.

Gandhi was scheduled to travel to the hilly district of Wayanad in north Kerala. However, due to bad weather it was cancelled and instead he opted to go to Idukki.

BBMP approved new advertisement policy

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The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) approved the new advertisement policy — the BBMP Outdoor Signage and Public Messaging Policy and Bylaws 2018 — to regulate the flex and banner menace in the city.

The policy prohibits all commercial hoardings in the city. The policy will be submitted to the High Court for its hearing.

Bengaluru Mayor, Sampath Raj has said that even government offices are barred from using flex and banners for its events. “Only display boards with public message is permitted.

Vendors, too, have been banned from carrying advertisements of any product on signages outside their shops.

“The name boards of the shops will have to follow the specifications mentioned in the bylaws, apart from ensuring prominence to Kannada,” he said.

“And this is subject to specific rules like using 60% of the display in Kannada and sticking to the prescribed size,” he added.

Sudha Murthy to inaugurate Mysuru Dasara

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Sudha Murthy, wife of Infosys Founder N R Narayana Murthy will inaugurate this year’s Dasara celebration atop Chamundi Hills on October 19.

Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy announced this during a high power committee meeting held at the Government Guest House here on August 28. A formal communiqué and invitation will be extended to her in due course as per tradition.

The newest entry to the festivities this year will be ‘Janapada Jathre’ for showcasing of the rich folk art and culture of the land. The Chief Minister said there was no dearth of funds for the events and the Mysuru Deputy Commissioner, who will be the Dasara Special Officer, would have a free hand in organising the festivities.

CM seeks Rs.3000 cr to rebuild Kodagu

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Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy plans to seek Centres help to rebuild flood-hit Kodagu district.

Kumaraswamy said that he would meet Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in New Delhi and seek a help of Rs. 3,000-crore as immediate relief rehabilitate and rebuild the district.

Kumaraswamy, who toured the flood-affected areas, said the final report on extent of loss is being prepared by the district administration.

The Chief Minister said 1 crore was donated to the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund in Mysuru, with Suttur Mutt donating 50 lakh and farmers and various other organisations giving away cheques for carrying out relief work.

ED attaches assets worth Rs 26 cr of journalist

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The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday said it has attached properties worth Rs 26.65 crore of senior journalist Upenra Rai in connection with its ongoing probe into a money laundering case.

An ED official told IANS that the attached assets includes a building in south Delhi’s Greater Kailash 1 area and a flat on Hailey Road in the heart of Delhi.

The ED also attached a flat and a penthouse of Rai in Uttar Pradesh’s Gautam Buddha Nagar and a flat each in Gomatinagar and Gokhale Marg in Lucknow.

The agency also attached investment worth Rs 5.62 crore in bank fixed deposits and mutual funds and three luxury cars.

The ED earlier filed a charge sheet in the case alleging that Rai laundered over Rs 29.58 crore by adopting different modus operandi and was involved in “extortion of the huge amount from different companies and corporate houses”.

The agency alleged that Rai took “undue advantage of his connections with several government officials” to gain access to confidential information about the penal proceedings contemplated against various defaulters.

According to the ED, Rai entered into agreement for consultancy services and issued false invoices to give genuine and legal shape to those transactions.

He allegedly received huge amounts of money from shell companies. The individuals and shell companies existed only on paper.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in July arrested a Bureau of Civil Aviation Security official, Rahul Rathore, and the Chairman and Managing Director of aviation firm Air One Aviation Pvt Ltd, Alok Sharma, after it found out about their involvement in the commission of crime committed by Rai, currently lodged in Delhi’s Tihar Jail.

Rai was arrested by the CBI on May 3 for dubious transactions of over Rs 100 crore in his bank accounts during 2017-18 and for using false information to obtain access to sensitive areas through Aerodrome Entry Pass (AEP) for all airports in the country. The ED arrested him on May 8.

Congress allegations on Rafale complete falsehood: Jaitley

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Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday termed the Congress allegations on the Rafale deal as “complete falsehood” and said the basic aircraft price at which the fighter jets had been bought was 9 per cent cheaper than that negotiated by the UPA government.

In a blogpost, Jaitley accused the Congress of seriously compromising national security by delaying the Rafale deal by over a decade and alleged that it was raising issues to “further delay defence procurement so that India’s defence preparedness further suffers”.

He said the Congress had launched a “false campaign” that the Modi government had paid a higher price for the fighter jets, an industrialist had been favoured and the interests of the public sector were compromised.

“Each one of the above issues is based on complete falsehood. It is expected from national political parties and its responsible leaders to keep themselves informed of the basic facts before they enter a public discourse on defence transactions,” Jaitley said.

“Every fact that Gandhi and the Congress has spoken on pricing and procedure are completely false,” he said.

“The UPA was a government which suffered from a decision-making paralysis. Do you agree that the delay of over one decade was only on account of the incompetence and indecisiveness of the UPA Government?

“Did this delay seriously compromise national security? Is not the medium multi-role combat aircraft required by our forces to identify and strike at targets particularly when two of our neighbours have already enhanced their strength in this area?

“Was this delay and eventual abatement of the purchase by the UPA based on collateral considerations as had been witnessed in earlier transactions such as the purchase of the 155 mm Bofors gun?” Jaitley questioned.

The Minister said the Congress and its President Rahul Gandhi were unaware of the Rafale deal facts.

“How is it that Gandhi quoted a price of Rs 700 crore per aircraft in Delhi and Karnataka in April and May? In Parliament, he reduced it to Rs 520 crore per aircraft, in Raipur he increased it to Rs 540 crore, in Jaipur he used Rs 520 crore and Rs 540 crore in the same speech,” he said.

“Truth has only one version, falsehood has many. Are these allegations being made without any familiarity with the facts of the Rafale purchase?” he asked.

(Ians)

Teenagers prefer Snapchat over Facebook, Instagram: Study

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San Francisco Photo-messaging app Snapchat is the most preferred social networking platform among US teenagers, surpassing the userbase of Facebook and Instagram in that age-category, says a new study.

In 2018, 16.4 million 12 to 17 year-olds are likely to use Snapchat, comapred with 12.8 million for Instagram, according to the analysis by market research company eMarketer.

Snapchat will remain dominant among teenagers till 2022, the report said.

“Snapchat and Instagram are the top social apps for teens, and this year they’ll add nearly the same number of new teen users,” the report quoted Christopher Bendtsen, Senior Forecasting Analyst, eMarketer as saying.

“Snapchat will continue to add users aged 12 to 17, while Facebook will continue to lose users in that cohort. In fact, we estimate Snapchat will add 1.2 million new users in that age group by 2022, while Facebook will lose 2.2 million,” the report said.

This year, 11.5 million people in the US ages 12 to 17 will be on Facebook, down from 12.1 million in 2017. By 2022, the number of Facebook users in that age bracket will drop to 9.3 million, it added.

However, Facebook continues to be the most used social networking app among US millennials, with 58.5 million users expected to use the platform this year followed by Instagram ranking second with 43.3 million expected users, according to the research.

[IANS]

Outrage after activists arrested over alleged Maoist links

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Indian police arrested prominent writers and left-wing activists for suspected links to banned Maoist rebels, sparking outrage across the country.

The arrests on Tuesday drew condemnation from human rights groups who called the police raids a “massive crackdown” on government critics.

In a series of coordinated operations, police arrested five activists accusing them of delivering speeches that triggered protests and violence near the western city of Pune last year.

Those arrested include Telugu language poet Varavara Rao in Hyderabad, activists Vernon Gonzalves and Arun Ferreira in Mumbai, journalist Gautam Navlakha in New Delhi, and civil rights lawyer Sudha Bhardwaj in Faridabad.

“These persons have been arrested for their Maoist links,” Shivaji Bodakhe, joint commissioner of Pune police in western Maharashtra state, told AFP news agency, without giving further details.

India’s Maoist rebels: An explainer
The government says Maoist rebels, who are active in several states, are India’s biggest internal security threat.

The raids on Tuesday were in connection to an ongoing probe into the violence between lower caste Dalits and right-wing groups at Maharashtra’s Bhima Koregaon village on December 31.

‘Atmosphere of fear’
The crackdown was condemned by lawyers, academics, authors and rights watchdogs, with government critics accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of attempting to silence its opponents.

“The nationwide crackdown on activists, advocates and human rights defenders is disturbing and threatens core human rights values,” Amnesty International’s Indian chapter and NGO Oxfam India said in a joint statement.

“The government should protect people’s rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly instead of creating an atmosphere of fear,” said Amitabh Behar, CEO of Oxfam India.

Booker-prize winning author Arundhati Roy, an outspoken critic of Modi, said the “perilous” arrests on “ludicrous charges” were an attempt to muzzle freedom ahead of next year’s polls.

“The simultaneous state-wide arrests are a dangerous sign of a government that fears it is losing its mandate and is falling into panic,” Roy told Press Trust of India news agency.

In July, media watchdog Reporters Without Borders warned of deteriorating press freedom in the world’s largest democracy amid a sharp rise in online hate campaigns directed at critics of Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.

The communist political movement in India started in the 1920s as an anti-colonial struggle when the country was still ruled by Britain, but the current phase of Maoist rebellion began in 2004.

Aljazeera

NASA’s InSight will decode how mountains formed on Mars

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Washington NASA’s InSight spacecraft, that has passed the halfway mark to Mars, carries a unique instrument that will enable scientists to understand what geological processes created the massive mountains on the Martian surface.

InSight stands for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport.

The Mars lander carries a unique instrument — Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) — that is capable of measuring heat flowing out of the planet.

This could shed light on how the Mars’ massive mountains — which eclipse Mt Everest here on Earth — first formed, NASA said in a statement.

“Planets are kind of like an engine, driven by heat that moves their internal parts around. With HP3, we’ll be lifting the hood on Mars’ engine for the first time,” said Sue Smrekar, deputy lead for HP3 at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California.

The Red Planet has some of the tallest mountains in the solar system. They include Olympus Mons, a volcano nearly three times the height of Everest. It borders a region called the Tharsis plateau, where three equally awe-inspiring volcanoes dominate the landscape.

“Most of the planet’s geology is a result of heat,” Smrekar said.

“Volcanic eruptions in the ancient past were driven by the flow of this heat, pushing up and constructing the towering mountains Mars is famous for,” Smrekar added.

The HP3, built and operated by DLR (German Aerospace Centre), will be placed on the Martian surface after InSight lands on November 26.

A probe called a mole will pummel the ground, burying itself and dragging a tether behind it. Temperature sensors embedded in this tether will measure the natural internal heat of Mars.

The mole has to burrow deep enough to escape the wide temperature swings of the Martian surface. Even the spacecraft’s own “body heat” could affect HP3’s super-sensitive readings, NASA said.

The findings of the InSight mission will also reveal to scientists how all rocky planets are formed — including Earth, its Moon and even planets in other solar systems.

[IANS]

China’s swine fever outbreak threatens other Asian countries

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Rome The rapid onset of African Swine Fever in China – the country’s first reported outbreak – and its detection in areas more than 1,000 km apart, could mean the deadly virus may spread to other Asian countries anytime, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned, urging regional cooperation to guard against the disease.

“Outbreaks such as this one are important reminders to us all that we must work together in a multi-lateral and inter-governmental effort to prevent and respond to outbreaks of animal diseases because these diseases know no borders,” said Kundhavi Kadiresan, FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific.

“Good communication and coordination with the region’s private sector is essential to strengthen cooperation in ASF prevention and control,” she added.

There is no effective vaccine to protect swine from the highly contagious disease which also infects wild boar but not humans. Outbreaks can be devastating with the most virulent forms lethal in 100 percent of infected animals, FAO said.

There are increased fears that the disease will move across borders to neighbouring countries of Southeast Asia or the Korean Peninsula where trade and consumption of pork products is also high, FAO warned.

Chinese authorities have culled more than 24,000 pigs in four provinces in efforts to control the spread of the disease, FAO reported.

“The movement of pig products can spread diseases quickly and, as in this case of ASF, it’s likely that the movement of such products, rather than live pigs, has caused the spread of the virus to other parts of China,” explained Juan Lubroth, FAO’s Chief Veterinarian.

[IANS]

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