Nasheman

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

You are here: Home / 2024 / Archives for October 2024

Archives for October 2024

Bajrang, Vinesh accepting exemption from trials hit image of protest: Sakshi Malik

by

New Delhi: Olympic bronze medal-winning former wrestler Sakshi Malik has said that Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia’s decision to accept exemption from the Asian Games trials last year hit the image of their protest against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh as it made their movement seem “selfish”.

Sakshi, who was one of the three prominent faces of the prolonged protest, made this statement in her recently-released book ‘Witness’. She said their protest developed cracks when “people close to” Bajrang and Vinesh began to fill their minds with “greed”.

The three had alleged that Sharan Singh, the former head of the Wrestling Federation of India, sexually harassed women wrestlers during his tenure. The case is still being heard in a Delhi court.

The ad-hoc committee, that took over the administration of wrestling after WFI’s suspension, exempted Bajrang and Vinesh from the 2023 Asian Games trials but Sakshi decided not to seek the favour as suggested by her colleagues.

Eventually, Sakshi did not compete while Vinesh suffered an injury before the Games and Bajrang failed to win a medal in Hangzhou.

“The old way of thinking selfishly was taking over once again. The people close to Bajrang and Vinesh had started filling their minds with greed. Now they were talking about this exemption from trials for the Games,” Sakshi wrote in the book co-authored with journalist Jonathan Selvaraj but did not give names of those who influenced the duo.

“…Nothing good came of Bajrang and Vinesh’s decision to take the exemption…their decision badly hurt the image of our protest. It put us in a situation where many supporters started to think that we were actually in the protest for selfish reasons,” the 32-year-old said.

The protest ended after the wrestlers’ march towards the new Parliament Building was halted by the Police on May 28, 2023.

Both Vinesh and Bajrang joined the Congress party before the Haryana assembly elections earlier this month. The former contested and won from the Julana constituency, while the latter was made head of the party’s national farmers’ unit.

Before the political plunge, Vinesh endured a heartbreaking sporting low when she was disqualified from the 50kg category Olympic finals in Paris for being 100gm overweight.

Was harassed as a child

The 32-year-old from Haryana said she was molested in her childhood too by a tuition teacher but she kept quiet.

“I could not tell my family about it because I thought it was my fault. My tuition teacher from my school days used to harass me. He would call me over to his place for classes at odd times and sometimes tried to touch me. I was scared to go for my tuition classes but I could never tell my mom.”

Talking about her struggles at the start of her career, Sakshi said she hated confrontations and would think of running away from her bouts at the beginning of her career.

“It’s a fear that I’ve carried to the end of my career. I’ve never enjoyed the actual act of confrontation.

“… I was an exceptionally slow starter in wrestling. I won my first bout only after nearly two years of my first stepping on a wrestling mat. It wasn’t that I didn’t have any physical skills.

“I was always one of the fastest and strongest girls at my coaching centre for my age. But I never developed the fearlessness you needed for a fight. I would always get very nervous before my bouts.”

But she was a picture of defiance during the protest against Sharan Singh and said the political class disappointed her.

She also alleged that former wrestler Babita Phogat, who is now a BJP politician, had selfish motives even though she portrayed herself as a well-wisher for the protesting trio.

“In hindsight, while I know that ending Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh’s reign was the primary goal for Vinesh and Bajrang, I made the mistake of thinking that that was Babita’s sole intention too.”

“…She didn’t just want to just get rid of Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh – she wanted to replace him.”

Babita could not be reached immediately for a comment on this assertion.

In the book, Sakshi also claimed that her parents took away most of her award money. She also alleged that her family was against her match with fellow wrestler Satyawart Kadian but she took a stand for their relationship.

Karnataka registers 10.2 per cent GSDP growth in 2023-24

by

Bengaluru: Karnataka has registered a robust GSDP growth of 10.2 per cent in 2023-24, the state government said on Monday. Citing a data from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), the government said in a statement that the state has significantly surpassed the national average of 8.2 per cent.

“Initially, the National Statistical Estimate (NSE) had projected a modest 4 per cent GSDP growth for Karnataka, but this was revised to 13.1 per cent by the end of the fiscal year, indicating early underestimation of the state’s economic performance,” the statement read.

The government pointed out that this feat was achieved despite severe challenges, including the worst drought in a decade and a slowdown in global IT markets. The state’s agriculture sector faced negative growth due to drought conditions, while Karnataka’s dependence on the IT and hardware sectors—accounting for 28 per cent of its Gross State Value Added (GSVA)—made it vulnerable to global economic downturns, according to the statement.

The Indian IT industry’s growth, which slowed from 15.5 per cent in FY 2022 to 8 per cent in FY 2023, reflected global recessionary fears and inflation. For FY 2024-25, the NSE forecasts Karnataka’s GSDP to grow at 9.4 per cent, slightly below the national average projection of 10.5 per cent, the statement said.

However, the Ministry of Finance projects a more optimistic 14 per cent growth for the state, supported by strong fiscal indicators, it added. “As of September 2024, Karnataka recorded a 10 per cent year-on-year increase in GST collections and a 24 per cent surge in stamp duty revenue, signaling a healthy economic trajectory,” the government said.

Karnataka’s per capita GSDP remains among the highest in the country, on par with Telangana, reflecting the strength of Congress-led governance in both states, the statement said. The state government gave credit to its pro-people policies, including its five guarantees, saying they have ensured that the benefits of growth reach all sections of society.

Will be able to go back to 2020 patrolling: EAM Jaishankar on India-China pact on patrolling

by

New Delhi: Indian and Chinese troops will be able to carry out patrolling the way they used to do before the military standoff between the two sides erupted in May 2020, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Monday after the two sides sealed a pact to resolve the festering border row in eastern Ladakh.

Shortly after the foreign secretary announced the agreement on patrolling along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh, Jaishankar said the disengagement process with China has been completed.

The breakthrough in resolving the over four-year military standoff in eastern Ladakh came ahead of a likely bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan this week.

“We reached an agreement on patrolling and with that the disengagement that we have gone back to where the situation was in 2020 and we can say…with that the disengagement process with China has been completed,” Jaishankar said at the NDTV summit.

“I think it is a good development; it is a positive development and I would say it is a product of very patient and very persevering diplomacy,” the minister said.

The ties between the two Asian giants nosedived significantly following the fierce clash in the Galwan Valley in June 2020 that marked the most serious military conflict between the two sides in decades.

The two sides disengaged from a number of friction points following a series of military and diplomatic talks in the last couple of years.

However, the talks hit hurdles over the way forward in resolving the situation in Depsang and Demchok.

The external affairs minister said peace and tranquility along the border is important for the overall ties between the two countries. “We always said that if you disturb the peace and tranquillity how can the rest of the relationship go forward?”

To a question, Jaishankar indicated that India will be able to carry out patrolling in Depsang and other areas.

“So what has happened is that we reached an understanding which will allow the patrolling which you spoke about Depsang, that’s not the only place,” he said.

“There are other places also. The understanding to my knowledge is that we will be able to do the patrolling which we were doing in 2020 (prior to the standoff),” he said.

The external affairs minister said both sides have been holding negotiations to end the standoff since September 2020.

“On the one hand we had to obviously do the counter deployments, but side-by-side, we have been negotiating.

“We have been negotiating since September of 2020 when I met my Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Moscow,” he said.

“It has been a very patient process,” Jaishankar said, adding maybe “it was more complicated than it could have and should have been”.

Jaishankar said there was peace and tranquility along the LAC before 2020 and “hopefully we will be able to come back to that”.

“That was our major concern because we always said that if you disturb the peace and tranquility, how do you expect the rest of the relationship to go forward.”

On the difficult negotiations, Jaishankar said, “At various points of time, people almost gave up, you can say.”

Cleric Fethullah Gulen accused of 2016 coup against Turkey’s Erdogan passes away in US

by

 Fethullah Gulen, a reclusive US-based Islamic cleric who inspired a global social movement while facing accusations he masterminded a failed 2016 coup in his native Turkiye, has passed away.

Abdullah Bozkurt, the former editor of the Gulen-linked Today’s Zaman newspaper, who is now in exile in Sweden, said on Monday that he spoke to Gulen’s nephew, Kemal Gulen, who confirmed the death. Fethullah Gülen was in his eighties and had long been in ill health.

The state-run Anadolu Agency quoted Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan as saying the death has been confirmed by Turkish intelligence sources.

Gulen spent the last decades of his life in self-exile, living on a gated compound in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains from where he continued to wield influence among his millions of followers in Turkiye and throughout the world.

He espoused a philosophy that blended Sufism — a mystical form of Islam — with staunch advocacy of democracy, education, science and interfaith dialogue.

Gülen began as an ally of Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but became a foe. He called Erdogan an authoritarian bent on accumulating power and crushing dissent. Erdogan cast Gülen as a terrorist, accusing him of orchestrating the attempted military coup on the night of July 15, 2016, when factions within the military used tanks, warplanes and helicopters to try to overthrow Erdogan’s government.

Heeding a call from the president, thousands took to the streets to oppose the takeover attempt. The coup-plotters fired at crowds and bombed parliament and other government buildings. A total of 251 people were killed and around 2,200 others were wounded. Around 35 alleged coup plotters were also killed.

Gülen adamantly denied involvement, and his supporters dismissed the charges as ridiculous and politically motivated. Turkiye put Gulen on its most-wanted list and demanded his extradition, but the United States showed little inclination to send him back, saying it needed more evidence. Gulen was never charged with a crime in the US, and he consistently denounced terrorism as well as the coup plotters.

In Turkiye, Gulen’s movement — sometimes known as Hizmet, Turkish for “service” — was subjected to a broad crackdown. The government arrested tens of thousands of people for their alleged link to the coup plot, sacked more than 130,000 suspected supporters from civil service jobs and more than 23,000 from the military, and shuttered hundreds of businesses, schools and media organisations tied to Gulen.

Gulen called the crackdown a witch hunt and denounced Turkiye’s leaders as “tyrants”.

“The last year has taken a toll on me as hundreds of thousands of innocent Turkish citizens are being punished simply because the government decides they are somehow connected’ to me or the Hizmet movement and treats that alleged connection as a crime,” he said on the one-year anniversary of the failed coup.

Turkish Foreign Minister Fidan said on Monday that Gulen’s death “will not make us complacent. Our nation and state will continue to fight against this organisation, as they do against all terrorist organisations”.

Fethullah Gulen was born in Erzurum, in eastern Turkiye. His official birth date was April 27, 1941, but that has long been in dispute. Y. Alp Aslandogan, who leads a New York-based group that promotes Gulen’s ideas and work, said Gülen was actually born sometime in 1938.

Trained as an imam, or prayer leader, Gulen gained notice in Turkiye some 50 years ago. He preached tolerance and dialogue between faiths, and he believed religion and science could go hand in hand. His belief in merging Islam with Western values and Turkish nationalism struck a chord with Turks, earning him millions of followers.

Gülen’s acolytes built a loosely affiliated global network of charitable foundations, professional associations, businesses and schools in more than 100 countries, including 150 taxpayer-funded charter schools throughout the United States.

In Turkiye, supporters ran universities, hospitals, charities, a bank and a large media empire with newspapers and radio and TV stations.

But Gulen was viewed with suspicion by some in his homeland, a deeply polarised country split between those loyal to its fiercely secular traditions and supporters of the Islamic-based party associated with Erdogan that came to power in 2002.

Gulen had long refrained from openly supporting any political party, but his movement forged a de facto alliance with Erdogan against the country’s old guard of staunch, military-backed secularists, and Gulen’s media empire threw its weight behind Erdogan’s Islamic-oriented government.

Gulenists helped the governing party win multiple elections. But the Erdogan-Gulen alliance began to crumble after the movement criticized government policy and exposed alleged corruption among Erdogan’s inner circle. Erdogan, who denied the allegations, grew weary of the growing influence of Gulen’s movement.

The Turkish leader accused Gulen’s followers of infiltrating the country’s police and judiciary and setting up a parallel state, and began agitating for Gulen’s extradition to Turkiye even before the failed 2016 coup.

The cleric had lived in the United States since 1999, when he came to seek medical treatment.

In 2000, with Gulen still in the US, Turkish authorities charged him with leading an Islamist plot to overthrow the country’s secular form of government and establish a religious state.

Some of the accusations against him were based on a tape recording on which Gulen was alleged to have told supporters of an Islamic state to bide their time: “If they come out too early, the world will quash their heads.” Gulen said his comments were taken out of context.

The cleric was tried in absentia and acquitted, but he never returned to his homeland. He won a lengthy legal battle against the administration of then-President George W. Bush to obtain permanent residency in the US.

Rarely seen in public, Gulen lived quietly on the grounds of an Islamic retreat centre in the Poconos. He occupied a small apartment on the sprawling compound and left mostly only to see doctors for ailments that included heart disease and diabetes, spending much of his time in prayer and meditation and receiving visitors from around the world.

Gulen never married and did not have children. It is not known who, if anyone, will lead the movement.

T20 Emerging Teams Asia Cup: India beat UAE by 7 wickets to qualify for semifinals

by

Al Amerat (Oman): Opener Abhishek Sharma struck a scintillating half-century after an excellent performance by the bowlers as a dominant India defeated UAE by seven wickets to enter the semifinals of the Emerging Teams Asia Cup here on Monday.

This was the Indian team’s second win in as many matches in the tournament, having beaten traditional rivals Pakistan by seven runs in the opener.

Abhishek smashed 58 in 24 balls before Ayush Badoni completed the formality of chasing down a target of 108 with a six and four. India won with as many as 55 balls still left to be bowled.

While Abhishek hit five fours and four sixes in his blazing knock, skipper Tilak Varma missed out on a big one after making 21 in 18 balls.

Opting to bat first, UAE were bowled out for 107 in 16.5 overs.

The decision backfired as UAE lost both openers — Mayank Kumar (10) and Aryansh Sharma (1) — inside the first two overs.

Seamer Rasikh Salam dismissed three batters in his opening over, reducing UAE to 40 for 5 inside the power play.

Salam was adjudged the Player of the Match for returning excellent figures of 3/15 with the ball. There were also a couple of strikes from Ramandeep Singh (2/7) as India bundled out UAE with more than three overs remaining in their innings.

UAE skipper Basil Hameed (22 off 12 balls) and Rahul Chopra (50 off 50 balls) steadied the ship with a 41-run partnership before Abhishek broke the partnership, getting the former caught off his own bowling.

That UAE managed to cross 100 was largely due to Chopra’s effort.

India are currently on top of Group B with four points, and take on hosts Oman in their final group game on Wednesday.

Sunil Mittal exposes AI scam says my voice was perfectly articulate in cloning attempt

by

Scammers often use AI voice clones to con commoners to transfer money or disclose financial information but it’s rare when they try to impersonate a billionaire. This is exactly what scammers tried to do by cloning telecom czar Sunil Bharti Mittal’s voice to scam his executive in Dubai to transfer money.

Fortunately, the executive was smart enough to realise Mittal won’t ask for such a huge money transfer and the scam was stopped in its tracks.

On Monday, speaking at the NDTV World Summit, Mittal cited the incident to caution people about the risks posed by misuse of emerging technologies like AI.

Mittal recounted how the said executive stationed in Dubai received a fraudulent call that seemed to mimic his voice and tone and directed that a large fund transfer be done.

The official who was vigilant and “sensible” immediately realised it was a scam, Mittal said admitting that when he heard the voice recording himself he was completely “stunned” as “it was perfectly articulated just as I would speak”.

“And anyone who would not have been vigilant may have done something about it,” Mittal said and warned that in future misuse of technology would enable fraudsters to go a step ahead and misuse digital signatures, even replicate faces on zoom calls to perpetrate such acts.

“We’ll have to protect our societies from the evils of AI, and yet we have to use the goodness of AI, because those companies, and nations that will not adopt AI will be left behind. So this is a conundrum for every time you get a new technology into place, there are pluses and minuses. I remain very optimistic about the benefit of AI that the human race will achieve and be able to do jobs which are otherwise very difficult to perform,” Mittal said.

It is pertinent to mention here that advent of tech era, powered by AI and digital tools, has armed economies and businesses with transformative powers. That said, it is also being misused blatantly by online scammers and fraudsters to dupe unsuspecting public.

There are umpteen instances of fraudsters nudging victims to click on malicious links, or using deepfakes and voice cloning for scams.

The sophisticated web of AI-powered deceit makes it harder to spot online scams, and fraudsters have been known to clone and mimic a person’s voice from even short audio clips nicked from video a person may have uploaded online.

Scammers then leverage the AI-cloned voice to pose as the person and demand money from friends and family.

At the same time, scammers are also using ‘digital arrest’ modus operandi, where they place audio or video calls, falsely pose as law enforcement officers, and use online intimidation to confine victims to their homes for extortion.

These elaborate and sophisticated scams involve cybercriminals using fake documents, replicating virtual courtroom or police stations as a backdrop, to place victims under ‘digital arrest’.

Recently, SP Oswal, chairman and managing director of Vardhman Group was defrauded of Rs 7 crore by a gang which posed as officials from various government agencies.

No community asked to leave Chamoli

by

Gopeshwar: Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district administration on Monday said the reports of a community being asked to leave Khansar valley before December 31 by the Vyapar Mandal are false.

In a statement issued, Chamoli District Magistrate Sandeep Tiwari said that the president of the Vyapar Mandal had clarified that he had taken out a public awareness rally to get the administration to verify the outsiders who were setting up stalls in the Gairsain area.

“Its objective was to ensure that no untoward incident or law and order problem takes place in the area,” the statement read.

Tiwari said that the situation in the area is cordial and there is no tension of any kind.

In a meeting called on Wednesday last week to discuss the increasing criminal activities in the district, the Vyapar Mandal and local of Maithan had allegedly warned the people of a particular community living there to leave the area by December 31, failing which they and their house owners would be fined.

People from other villages of Khansar valley also attended this meeting.

Maithan Vyapar Mandal President Baldev Singh Negi had allegedly said that for some time now, criminal incidents, especially related to women, are increasing in the entire district and the involvement of people of a particular community is being seen in them.

Negi had allegedly said, “We held a meeting on this issue and unanimously passed two resolutions. First, people of other communities living here were given time till 31 December to leave the area and second, people coming to the area in the name of the ferry were banned from staying here after 31 December.”

He had allegedly said that this decision was taken in view of the incident in Nandanagar and then Gauchar in Chamoli district and the increasing number of hawkers and people of other communities coming to Khansar Valley without verification in recent times.

However, all these alleged statements are said to be false, a press release from the Chamoli district administration said on Monday.

Maithan, a remote village in Gairsain tehsil of Chamoli district bordering Almora district, is located in the Ramganga valley on the road going to Bachhuwabar from Karnaprayag-Nainital National Highway.

Customs officials seize over Rs 15 crore hydrophobic weed from woman passenger at Delhi airport

by

Customs officials seize over Rs 15 crore hydrophobic weed from woman passenger at Delhi airport

New Delhi: Customs officials have seized over Rs 15 crore worth hydrophobic weed from a woman passenger at Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport here, the department said on Monday.

On the basis of specific information, baggage of an international transit lady passenger travelling from Bangkok to Paris via Delhi by different flights on Sunday was brought to the customs scanning machine. Upon scanning the checked in bag, the officers “noticed/detected some narcotic substance”.

“Thereafter, the on duty dog of Customs K9 squad was called for sniffing the baggage. The duty dog indicated the presence of narcotics substance. The bags were opened in presence of the said passenger as per the procedure, wherein 15.046 kg of greenish brown substance appearing to be hydrophobic weed was recovered from the baggage. The recovered goods have been seized under NDPS Act, 1985,” the customs department said in a post on X.

The passenger has been detained for further questioning and investigation is in process, it said, adding that the value of the seized substance is Rs 15.04 crore.

Ishan Kishan returns, Ruturaj Gaikwad named captain of India A team for Australia tour

by

Ishan Kishan returned to the national set-up as he was on Monday named in a 15-member India A squad, to be led by Ruturaj Gaikwad, for the upcoming tour of Australia.

Fresh from his fine hundred against Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy, Maharashtra’s Gaikwad was named captain of the India A team.

India A will play two first-class matches against Australia A in Mackay and Melbourne and then take part in a three-day intra-squad game against the senior India team in Perth.

Apart from Gaikwad, the squad also includes other opening batters like Abhimanyu Easwaran and Sai Sudharsan, as India will likely need to name a reserve opener in their Test squad for the upcoming tour of Australia, with captain Rohit Sharma set to miss one of the first two matches of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for personal reasons.

Kishan, who was dropped from the BCCI central contracts earlier this year due to concerns that he was “prioritising” the cash-rich Indian Premier League over domestic cricket, made his return to the India A setup.

Kishan was last part of the India squad during the tour of South Africa in 2023, which he had left midway.

The batter had reportedly taken a personal break which did not go down well with the BCCI.

After the player decided to skip the domestic competitions in the run-up to the IPL, the BCCI dropped him from the central contract.

India A squad for the tour of Australia: Ruturaj Gaikwad (capt), Abhimanyu Easwaran (vice-captain), Sai Sudharsan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Devdutt Padikkal, Ricky Bhui, Baba Indrajith, Ishan Kishan (WK), Abishek Porel (WK), Mukesh Kumar, Khaleel Ahmed, Yash Dayal, Navdeep Saini, Manav Suthar, Tanush Kotian.

Several BJP leaders including three ex-MLAs join JMM ahead of Jharkhand polls

by

Ranchi : Several BJP leaders, including three former MLAs, joined the ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) weeks ahead of the assembly polls in the state.

The former legislators who switched sides on Monday were Lois Marandi, Kunal Sarangi and Lakshman Tudu. The development also comes barely two days after three-term BJP legislator Kedar Hazra and AJSU Party leader Umakant Rajak joined the JMM.

“We joined the JMM today,” Sarangi, the BJP’s former spokesperson and ex-Baharagora MLA, told PTI.

Lois Marandi, a former BJP legislator, had in 2014 defeated Chief Minister Hemant Soren by a margin of 5,262 votes from Dumka.

Soon after Lois embraced JMM, Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren welcomed her to the party.

“We heartily welcome former BJP Vice President and senior leader respected Lois Marandi Ji to JMM family,” Soren posted on X.

In 2019, Soren won the Dumka seat by a margin of 13,188 votes. He, however, vacated the seat and retained the Barhait constituency.

His brother Basant Soren had defeated Marandi by over 6,842 votes in party stronghold Dumka in a bypoll.

Sources said Lois Marandi in a letter to BJP state president Babulal Marandi has drawn his attention to the “neglect” of committed workers like her and rising factionalism in BJP.

She has mentioned how the BJP for the first time won Dumka, considered a JMM bastion, in 2014 since Independence.

Sarangi had in July resigned from the party’s primary membership, around a month-and-a-half after stepping down from the post of Jharkhand unit spokesperson.

He sent his resignation letter to BJP Jharkhand unit president Babulal Marandi, citing various organisational and people-oriented issues in East Singhbhum district.

Sarangi had also expressed disappointment with the party leadership’s “indifferent approach” despite his efforts to highlight crucial issues.

He had said, “I resigned from the spokesman’s post hoping that the party leadership would address the concerns I raised, but nothing has happened yet.”

Lakshman Tudu in 2014 had defeated JMM’s Ramdas Soren from Ghatshila constituency by a margin of 6,403 votes.

Others who came to JMM-fold include BJP leaders from Seraikela — Ganesh Mahli, Basco Besra and Bari Murmu.

Three-term BJP legislator Kedar Hazra and AJSU Party leader Umakant Rajak joined the JMM on October 18.

Elections to the 81-member Jharkhand assembly will be held in two phases – November 13 and November 20 – with the counting of votes scheduled for November 23.

Filing of nomination papers for the 43 assembly constituencies going to polls in the first phase began on Monday, with three nominations submitted so far.

In total, 2.60 crore people are eligible to vote in the assembly elections.

KNOW US

GET INVOLVED

PROMOTE

Archives