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Mild tremors were felt in Himachal Pradesh on Monday. No damage or casualty was reported.
“An earthquake measuring three on the Richter scale were felt for a few seconds at 9.11 a.m.,” regional Meteorological Office Director Manmohan Singh told IANS. People rushed out of their houses.
The epicentre of the quake was in Kinnaur district, bordering Tibet in China.
IANS
At least eight passengers were killed when a private bus in which they were travelling rammed into a stationery truck on the Pune-Aurangabad highway, on Monday, an official said.
According to Ahmednagar Police Control official Riyad Inamdar, the incident occurred at around 5.20 a.m. when the bus was speeding from Aurangabad to Pune.
When the bus approached the Wadegavhan area, it suddenly lost control and banged into the truck parked beside the highway.
The victims died on the spot while over a dozen injured have been rushed to hospitals in Shirur, Inamdar said.
IANS
Broadly positive Asian markets, along with a stable rupee and value buying pushed the key domestic equity indices higher during Monday’s morning trade session.
In addition, healthy buying was seen in interest rate sensitive stocks like banks, auto and capital goods.
Besides, the Indian rupee strengthened to around 73.28 to a US dollar from its Monday’s open of 73.41 to a greenback. It had closed last Friday’s session at 73.33 against the dollar.
There was a slight rise in global crude oil prices to around $80-per-barrel and other geo-political concerns capped gains.
Index-wise, the S&P BSE Sensex opened at 34,689.39 points from its previous close of 34,315.63 points on last Friday.
Around 9.30 a.m., it traded at 34,450.89 points higher by 135.26 points or 0.39 per cent.
Similarly, the Nifty50 of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) made gains during the morning trade session.
The NSE Nifty50 traded at 10,341 points during the morning trade session, down 37.45 points and 0.36 per cent.
IANS
At least 30 people have been injured when a floor collapsed during a party held at the Clemson University in the US’ South Carolina, police said.
The Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity annual homecoming party was just getting started on Sunday when the floor gave way, the BBC reported.
Some of the attendees broke bones as they fell from the common area into the basement of the off-campus apartment complex. Videos of the collapse posted online showed graphic footage.
Emergency responders were at the scene in minutes, and 23 people were taken to hospital.
“The beat was about to drop and literally the whole floor collapsed,” student Larissa Stone told Greenville News. “People are hurt. People are bleeding. I had blood on my sneakers. It was really bad.”
“Everybody was jumping, next thing you know… I can feel myself falling,” attendee Leroy Pearson told news channel WSPA-TV. “I blacked out, and there (were) girls everywhere with blood all over their face.”
The “Clemson Student Affairs is working to determine how many of those injured were Clemson students, and to notify other institutions if one or more of their students were in attendance”, the varsity statement said.
The building where the party took place at the Woodlands of Clemson apartment complex was reportedly built in 2004.
IANS
Telugu is the fastest growing language in the US, says a study by an American think tank.
The number of US residents speaking Telugu rose by 86 per cent between 2010 and 2017, according to an online video by the World Economic Forum.
But Telugu, the fourth most spoken language in India, is still outside the top 20 of the most widely-spoken languages other than English in the US, reports the BBC.
The video referred to a study by the US-based Centre for Immigration, which analysed census data to look at the pace at which languages were being spoken in America.
The study on languages spoken in the US used data from the American Community Survey and compared the number of people who said they spoke a language other than English at home in 2010 and 2017, the BBC said.
Last year there were more than 400,000 Telugu speakers in the US – nearly double the number in 2010. Out of the top 10 fastest-growing languages in America, seven are from South Asia.
The rise of Telugu was connected to the links forged between Hyderabad and the US engineering and technology industries, Prasad Kunisetty, founder of the Telugu People Foundation, a non-profit organisation in the US, was quoted as saying.
The rapid growth of IT in the mid-1990s led to a huge demand for software engineers, he said.
Many were recruited from Hyderabad, which sends students to the US in large numbers.
Down the years, Telugu-speaking Americans have continued to hire software engineers from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the BBC said.
Notable US-based Telugu speakers include the first Indian-American Miss America Nina Davuluri and the current Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
Of the more than 60 million people that speak a language other than English out of the total population of about 320 million, the vast majority speak Spanish.
Out of the most commonly spoken South Asian languages, Hindi is first, followed by Urdu, Gujarati and then Telugu.
IANS
The President of Afghanistan on Sunday officially announced that voting in the Afghan parliamentary elections had closed, with initial data from the election commission estimating that over four million eligible voters exercised their democratic rights over the weekend.
President Ashraf Ghani made the remarks in a televised speech broadcast nationwide, Efe reported.
“The great nation of Afghanistan, thank you! By casting your votes, you proved to the world that you don’t want violence. You proved your will for democracy,” the leader said, highlighting the large turnout despite the persistent threat of violence from the Taliban insurgent group.
“You proved to the Taliban that no one can bring this nation under their control by force,” Ghani added.
At least 27 civilians and 10 members of the security forces were killed and over 100 were injured during the two-day voting period as the Taliban launched over 250 separate attacks in a bid to stop people from voting.
Ghani described those killed during the election process as martyrs for democracy who sacrificed themselves for the democratic hopes of future generations.
He also highlighted the role of women, whether as candidates or as voters, as a success for Afghan democracy.
Abdulbadi Sayyad, chairman for the independent election commission in Afghanistan, told a press conference that around four million people – of which 33 percent were women – cast their votes across 32 provinces.
“Forty-five percent of eligible voters (of which there are 8.8 million) have taken part in this election,” he said, proclaiming it a success.
Around 401 polling stations that were kept closed Saturday due to security threats had been scheduled to reopen the following day.
However, only 76 of those were functioning throughout Sunday, Sayyad said.
IANS
Asian Games gold medallist Bajrang Punia beat Tulga Tumur Ochir of Mongolia 5-3 to enter the semifinals of the men’s 65 kg Freestyle category at the World Wrestling Championships here on Sunday.
In a thrilling quarterfinal, the Indian held the upper hand until the last minute, leading 4-1.
But Punia conceded to his Mongolian opponent three crucial points, including one for the neutral position and two for the takedown within 40-odd seconds, which almost stopped the Indian’s progress.
But luckily, Punia held his nerves and even thwarted a challenge by the Mongolian in the last second, thus earning an additional point for the CWG gold medallist.
The Indian will take on Alejandro Enrique Valdes Tobier of Cuba in the semifinals.
Earlier, Punia defeated Roman Asharin 9-4 in the first round and beat Korean Lee Seungchul 4-0 in a bout which saw both grapplers threading cautiously.
After having earned three points in the first period, Punia added just one more in the second even as the Korean was concentrating more on his defence.
In other freestyle bouts of the day, Sandeep Tomar scored an excellent first-round win over his Guatemala opponent Jose Mox Arias with a score of 10-0, six of his points coming in the second period.
He, however, lost the second round to Azerbaijan’s Giorgi Edisherashvili 2-2 — his opponent was declared as the winner because of a warning which the Indian received in the first period.
Sachin Rathi lost his first round 92 kg category bout 1-13 to Mongolian wrestler Unurbat Purevjav, the latter outclassing the Indian in the second period.
On the other hand, Deepak, who received a first-round bye, lost 0-4 to Liubomyr Sagaliuk of Ukraine in the second round.
The Mysuru royal family suffered a double blow Friday marring Dasara festivities when Putta Chikkammani (98), mother of Rajamata Pramoda Devi, and Vishalakshi Devi, sister of late Maharaja Srikantadatta Wadiyar, died in hospital.
The royal family has announced postponing rituals associated with the Dasara festival to October 22, Raja Chandra, brother-in-law of the late Maharaja, said.
He said Pramoda Devis mother died in the morning while sister-in-law Princess Vishalakshi Devi, youngest daughter of late Maharaja of Mysuru Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar, died in the evening.
Raja Chandra said being in a state of impurity following the death, the royal family, including the titular Maharaja Yaduveer Krishnadatta Wadiyar, could not take part in rituals like special prayers to weapons, welcoming the entry of elephant carrying howdah and Uttara Pooja.
By evening, Vishalakshi Devi died in a private hospital in Bengaluru, he said, adding, she was 55.
The 10-day long Mysuru Dasara festivities came to an end Friday with a colourful procession here.
PTI
N Muthappa Rai, former gangster, activist, president of the Karnataka Athletics Association has received a notice from the Central Crime Branch police after he posted a video on social media performing a puja on arms and lethal weapons during the Ayudha Puja event .
In the video, Rai was seen with long guns and machetes. The video went viral on social media.
The Assistant Commissioner of Police of the Organised Crime Wing issued a notice to Rai on Friday, seeking an explanation and the documents to own the weapons.
PTI
A woman worker of a software firm in Pakistan was told to either stop wearing hijab at workplace or resign, in perhaps the first incident of its kind in the Muslim-majority country.
The incident caused an uproar on social media, leading to the resignation of Chief Executive Officer Jawwad Kadir of the Creative Choas company.
She was told that she could keep her job only if she took off her hijab by her line manager who said that wearing hijab would spoil the company’s image as an “all-embracing” workplace.
Kadir initially tried to downplay the incident by issuing an apology.
“Yesterday, a senior member of our staff asked a colleague to resign on unprofessional and unethical grounds. She was told that her obligations may come in the way of her performance,” Kadir said.
“Not only is this action disgraceful but shows extremely poor moral judgement by her hiring manager. I take full responsibility for this failure and am deeply ashamed that a colleague was put through distress and trauma,” he said.
Kadir said the victim has been asked to withdraw her resignation and resume her job.
A Facebook post detailing the trauma faced by the hijab-wearing woman caused a hue and cry with majority of people terming it as discrimination against the woman.
The software firm in a Facebook post later said Kadir had been asked to step down “for workplace discrimination”.
In an email sent to the board members and associates, titled “My apology is not enough”, Kadir said he was resigning as the CEO of the software house.
“I have crossed a line which I deeply regret,” he wrote in the email, a copy of which was available on social media.
PTI