The West Bengal Assembly on Thursday passed a resolution renaming the state as “Bangla”.
The resolution was moved by the Trinamool Congress and supported by the Left parties and the Congress.
Archives for 2018
CID puts 88 NGOs on notice over Rs 265-crore funds
The Crime Investigating Department (CID) of the Jharkhand Police has served notice to 88 non-governmental organizations that received funds totaling Rs 265 crore in three years starting 2013, informed sources said on Thursday.
CID sources said the NGOs have been asked to explain whether they are registered under the relevant laws, details of office-bearers, sources of funds, including from abroad, and income and expenditure details of the last five years, among others.
The sources said that these NGOs had received Rs 265 crore between 2013 and 2016, following which the Special (Intelligence) Branch had expressed apprehensions in 2016 that foreign funds were being misused for religious conversions in the state.
The sources said that a probe was initiated following directions from the Home Ministry to the state government.
“The Ministry had received a complaint against these NGOs which were receiving funds from abroad. These NGOs allegedly did not file annual income tax returns and also hid their sources of income and expenditure,” one source added.
The Additional Director General of Police (CID) is monitoring the probe.
The Ranchi police are already investigating the Missionaries of Charity after an uproar over the alleged sale of several newborns at its Ranchi shelter home.
On the other hand, Christian organizations have accused the state’s Bharatiya Janata Party government of “harassing them by leveling false allegations”.
The Jharkhand Police has recommended a CBI probe into the activities and funds received by the Missionaries of Charity and affiliated organizations. The Raghubar Das government is yet to take a decision.
Parrikar to meet Sushma to secure release of Dubai ponzi scam accused
Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Thursday said his government would seek the help of Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj to secure the release of Ryan de Souza, who was in April this year sentenced to 517-year imprisonment by a Dubai court for alleged involvement in a $200 million ponzi scam.
“I can’t decide the matter. It depends on facts though I have sympathy for him. The case has been decided by the Dubai Court. I will meet the External Affairs Minister when I visit Delhi either August 7 or 8,” Parrikar told the Goa assembly, in response to a question raised by Thivim MLA Nilkanth Halarnkar.
De Souza is a resident of Siolim village in North Goa and was employed at the Lemos Foundation, run by Sydney Lemos, an alleged mastermind of the ponzi scam, who was similarly sentenced by the Dubai Court. De Souza, 24, was arrested while attempting to leave the Emirate.
Pointing out that India shares warm relations with Dubai, he said the cordiality should help in resolving the matter.
Among other legislators, who urged the Chief Minister to speed up the process were Opposition leader Chandrakant Kavlekar and Nationalist Congress Party MLA Churchill Alemao.
On April 11, De Souza, along with his employer Sydney Lemos, promoter of the Exential Group, were sentenced by the Dubai Misdemeanours Court for their involvement in the ponzi scam probed by the United Arab Emirates authorities.
Uttara Karnataka Horata Samiti calls for Bandh on August 2
The demand for a separate North Karnataka state has once again gained momentum in the state with a few activists calling a bandh.
On Wednesday, the President of the Uttara Karnataka Horata Samiti, Somashekar Kotambari said that the state government was doling out “step-motherly treatment” to the areas of north Karnataka.
He called for a bandh in the 13 districts of North Karnataka on August 2 against the “government’s attitude” towards settling the Mahadayi water dispute.
The Uttara Karnataka Horata Samiti individuals additionally said that they have moved toward different activists and associations in the northern district, who will support their objective. The individuals from the UKHS communicated their disappointment in regards to Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy’s announcement on Monday regarding the demand of waiving farmer’s loan in Koppala.
The UKHS has demanded that the state government form an expert committee to assess the demand for a separate state of North Karnataka and to likewise present the committee’s report to the Central government for approval.
The Samiti also demanded that the state government promptly resolve the Mahadayi water dispute.
Pakistan elections: Who is Imran Khan?
The outspoken cricketer-turned-politician, Imran Khan, is seeking to lead Pakistan as prime minister.
Contesting its third elections, Khan’s opposition party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) is poised to make inroads at the country’s general elections on Wednesday.
He has appealed to the masses, especially the younger generation, with his campaign slogan of creating a “new Pakistan” and rooting out corruption.
Michael Kugelman, a US-based analyst at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington, DC, said Khan’s rise to power would be in line with global trends, where “maverick, unconventional, and shoot-from-the-hip national leaders” are enjoying a renaissance.
“For Imran Khan’s legion of devoted followers, he represents the new, bold, incorruptible leader that the country has long sought,” Kugelman told Al Jazeera in an emailed interview. “In reality, there would be some considerable concerns about a Prime Minister Khan, ranging from his complete lack of experience in holding the national power to his proud and stubborn personality, which could worry a Pakistani military that prefers that civilian leaders be pliable.”
Early life
Khan, 65, was born and raised in an affluent ethnic Pashtun family in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore, Punjab.
He was schooled at Lahore’s elite all-boys Aitchison College before graduating from Oxford University in 1975 with a Bachelor’s degree in philosophy, politics, and economics.
As the captain of Pakistan’s national cricket team, Khan famously led the country to its first and only victory at the 1992 World Cup in Australia.
After retiring from the sport, Khan devoted most of his time to philanthropy and social work.
He launched Pakistan’s first specialized cancer center, Shaukat Khanum, named after his late mother who succumbed to the disease.
In 2008, Khan also established a private technical college in Punjab’s rural Mianwali district, called Namal College.
Political career
Increasingly disillusioned by the county’s bureaucracy and endemic corruption, Khan entered the political realm in 1996, founding his centrist PTI party with a promise of ensuring “insaf” (justice) for all.
As party chairman, Khan won his first seat in the National Assembly in the 2002 general elections, contesting from his paternal ancestral hometown of Mianwali, Punjab.
Following a boycott of the 2008 polls as a stance against corruption, Khan stunned the political classes in Islamabad by unexpectedly attracting hundreds of thousands of supporters to public rallies in Lahore and Karachi in late 2011.
After a provincial victory at the 2013 general elections, PTI governed the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province for five years.
“Since emerging as a major player in Pakistani politics in 2013, what Pakistan has seen of Imran Khan is a lot of disruptive and agitational politics, a lot of disregard for elected institutions including the parliament to which he was elected but he hardly went there,” said Aamer Ahmed Khan, a Karachi-based journalist.
Khan led Pakistan to its first and only cricket World Cup victory in 1992
Khan has long been a vocal critic of the now-jailed prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
He led protests in 2014, demanding that the government, led by Sharif’s ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), resign over alleged poll-rigging.
Khan pushed the Supreme Court case instigated by the Panama Papers leak scandal against Sharif, which ultimately led to his disqualification and imprisonment.
Khan’s rivals say his rise and the fall of Sharif was engineered by the establishment – a local metaphor used for Pakistan’s powerful military. Khan denies the allegations as a “foreign conspiracy” to malign the army, which also rejects the charge.
Policies
Ahead of the elections, under the slogan of “new Pakistan”, Khan spearheaded a campaign against corruption with a promise to reform systems of governance in the country.
Khan has pledged to create as many as 10 million jobs, in addition to building five million low-cost housing units over the next five years, according to his party manifesto.
“Pakistan is broken from inside, not from outside; and when Pakistan reforms itself from the inside, the outside will improve very significantly,” said Rasul Bakhsh Rais, professor of political science at Lahore University of Management Sciences in a phone interview. “And he [Khan] is the right man to take courageous decisions.”
What Pakistan has seen of Imran Khan is a lot of disruptive and agitational politics, a lot of disregard for elected institutions, including the parliament.
Internationally, Khan has called for the resolution of the Kashmir dispute with rival and neighbour India within the parameters of the UN Security Council resolutions.
The PTI head has criticised US policy in Afghanistan and called for peace talks to be held with the Taliban, forcing his critics to call him “Taliban Khan” for being too soft on the armed group. He vehemently denies the accusations.
If elected, analysts and critics say the inexperienced public office holder will face significant domestic and foreign policy challenges.
“Internationally, Khan would have to deal with two neighbours – India and Afghanistan – that mistrust Pakistan in a big way and will be watching closely to see how conciliatory a message Pakistan’s next leader delivers to them, and how much policy space the military gives that new leader to wage foreign policy,” said Kugelman.
“There is also the troubled relationship with the US, which Khan has vociferously criticised over the years and will be in no rush to try to improve.”
Man detonates bomb outside US Embassy in Beijing
A man detonated a bomb on a street outside the US Embassy in Beijing on Thursday, rattling the diplomatically sensitive area in the capital.
The police identified the man as 26-year-old Jiang Moumou, who set off a device made from fireworks, injuring his hand. He hails from China’s Inner Mongolia region.
“There was an explosion at approximately 1 p.m. on the street outside the South East corner of the Embassy compound,” the US mission said in a statement.
“There was one individual who detonated a bomb. Other than the bomber, there were no injuries and there was no damage to Embassy property. The local police responded,” it added.
The street in front of the Embassy, Tianze Road, which is also near the embassies of India and Israel, was closed for about an hour after the blast. Soon after the street reopened, a new line began to form outside the Embassy compound.
State media outlet Global Times tweeted that local residents had heard a “thunder-like bang”. Video and images posted on social media showed smoke rising from the vicinity of the Embassy in the heart of the Chinese capital with crowds gathering.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang called the explosion an “isolated security incident”.
“Chinese police have dealt with it in a timely and proper manner,” he said.
A visa agent, who said he was about 30 feet away when the blast occurred, said the source appeared to be an explosive device, set off by a man who had been trying to call attention to a human rights issue.
Earlier in the day, the police arrested a woman spraying petrol on herself in a suspected attempt at self-immolation. It was not clear whether the two incidents were related.
The incident came at a time when the US and China are locked in a trade war.
Attacks on sites in the Chinese capital are rare. The most serious incident in recent years saw a car ploughing into a crowd at Tiananmen Square in 2013, killing five people including the attackers.
BJP to conduct padayatra from today
The form waiver loan in Karnataka remains a burning political issue After Karnataka Cheif Minister H D Kumaraswamy announced a total of RS 44.700 crore crop loan waiver for farmers. The Bharatiya Janata Party is carrying out a three-day padayatra from Ramanagaram area to Bengaluru from Thursday demanding complete waiver of all farmer loans.
This is viewed as the party’s preparation for the by-polls to Ramanagaram and the 2019 Lok Sabha election for Bengaluru Rural seat. Former Minister C.P. Yogeshwar, and Tejaswini Gowda and N. Ravikumar, MLCs, will take part in the inaugural function to mark the commencement of the padayatra.
The padayatra will start from Kengal Anjaneya temple, which is situated in Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy’s constituency of Channapatna.
Mahadayi Water Dispute Tribunal’s final will be hearing in August
The final verdict by the Mahadayi Water Dispute Tribunal is relied upon to be delivered next month.
Given the long-standing agitation by the drought-stricken people of North Karnataka, the state government is expecting favorable verdict for sharing of Mahadayi waters with Goa.
Addressing correspondents in Bengaluru on Wednesday, July 25, Karnataka’s Water Resources minister D K Shivakumar said the state government has given all records, including photos on utilizing water by Goa, to the court to look for justice in water sharing.
In the meantime, the Goa government has chosen to move the Tribunal against Karnataka’s asserted demonstration of redirecting the Mahadayi river water to its Malaprabha basin.
A group of authorities from Goa visited Karnataka’s Kanakumbi village, situated in the Malaprabha basin on Monday and affirmed that the Mahadayi river water was being redirected, Goa’s Water Resources Minister Vinod Palyekar said in Goa on July 23.
However, Shivakumar said the state government would battle the fight with neighboring Goa within legal limits. The state government is hoping to get justice from the court in one month, he said.
Imran Khan summons party leaders as PTI leads
As early results showed the victory of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf in the general elections, PTI chairman Imran Khan summoned his party leaders on Thursday for consultations at his residence in Bani Gala.
According to the sources in the know of the development, the party leaders will discuss and decide on the strategies for forming a government.
Khan is expected to ask his party leaders to contact independent candidates from across Punjab and enlist their support. The meeting will formulate a strategy to counter the opponent’s allegation that the elections were rigged.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has rejected the results citing outright rigging.
Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) denied the allegations, asserting that the elections were “100 percent fair and transparent.”
Moving mosque welcomes Muslims
A large white-and-blue truck pulls up outside a stadium in central Japan and slowly expands into a place of worship.
Welcome to the Mobile Mosque.
As Japan prepares to host visitors from around the world for the 2020 Summer Olympics, a Tokyo sports and cultural events company has created a mosque on wheels that its head hopes will make Muslim visitors feel at home.
Yasuharu Inoue, CEO of Yasu Project, said the possibility there might not be enough mosques for Muslim visitors in 2020 was alarming for a country that considers itself part of the international community. His Mobile Mosques could travel to different Olympic venues as needed.
“As an open and hospitable country, we want to share the idea of ‘omotenashi’ [Japanese hospitality] with Muslim people,” he said in a recent interview.
The first Mobile Mosque was unveiled earlier this week outside Toyota Stadium, a J-League football venue in Toyota city, which is also the headquarters of the car company with the same name.
The back of the modified 25-tonne truck flipped up to reveal an entrance and then the side slid out, doubling the width of the truck. The 48-square meter room can accommodate 50 people.
The mosque on wheels has the capacity for up to 50 people [Mobile Mosque Executive Committee via AP]
Muslim guests prayed inside the mosque, which includes outdoor taps and a washing area for pre-worship cleansing.
Indonesian students who were victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami also participated in the debut ceremony.
“The Mobile Mosque is very important to Muslim people such as Japanese people or tourists, Muslim tourists who visit Japan,” said 14-year-old Nur Azizah. “I want to show my friends.”
An estimated 100,000 to 200,000 Muslims live in Japan.
Tatsuya Sakaguchi, a Japanese guest, expressed hope the Mobile Mosque would help open people’s minds worldwide.
“Looking in from the outside at the people in the mosque, they looked very happy,” said Sakaguchi, the representative director of an Osaka retail company.
Inoue said the inspiration for the project came to him on a trip to Qatar four years ago.
Initially, the project organizers plan to target international sporting events both in Japan and overseas. Inoue said he hopes the project will do more than fill a gap in religious infrastructure.
“Going forward, I would be so happy if people from Indonesia, Malaysia, Africa, the Middle East and, for example, refugees who are coming from Syria are able to use the mosque as a tool to promote world peace,” he said.
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