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Discrimination against Dalits in giving Bharat Ratna: Mayawati

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"Kanshi Ram should have been honoured keeping in mind his sacrifices and contribution. Similarly, Jyotiba Phule, who belonged to a backward caste," Mayawati said.

“Kanshi Ram should have been honoured keeping in mind his sacrifices and contribution. Similarly, Jyotiba Phule, who belonged to a backward caste,” Mayawati said.

Lucknow: BSP supremo Mayawati today charged the NDA government with discriminating against Dalit icons like Kanshi Ram while awarding Bharat Ratna to Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Madan Mohan Malviya.

She also attacked the Narendra Modi government for adopting the “ordinance route” on key issues.

“Just like the previous Congress-led UPA government, the NDA government is adopting the same discriminatory attitude while honouring two persons of the same caste – Vajpayee and Malviya – with the Bharat Ratna recently,” she told a press conference here.

“Kanshi Ram should have been honoured keeping in mind his sacrifices and contribution. Similarly, Jyotiba Phule, who belonged to a backward caste, should have been given the award for his work in the field of education and efforts to establish equality in society,” she said.

“Many other deserving persons have been ignored,” she rued.

Taking exception to the Modi government adopting the ordinance route, Mayawati said this was not in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution.

Her remarks came against the backdrop of ordinance amending the Land Acquisition Act envisaging procuring land for industrial corridors, rural infrastructure, defence and housing, and insurance ordinance raising foreign investment limit in the sector to 49 per cent from 26 per cent, besides an ordinance to push coal auction.

On the land acquisition ordinance, she said it was against the interest of farmers. “I do not find it right…the amendments could have been brought in the next session of Parliament.”

(PTI)

Pakistan rejects Indian report on explosives boat

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Pak_boat

Islamabad: Pakistan has rejected India’s claim that the crew of a Pakistani fishing boat blew up and sank their vessel in an attempt to evade capture at the hands of the Indian Navy in a high-speed chase at sea, Geo News reported.

Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Tasneem Aslam denied that any boat from Keti Bunder port of the country’s Sindh Province had sailed off.

Sources in the Foreign Office termed the Indian claim as mere propaganda to tarnish the image of Pakistan, the report added.

The Coast Guard on December 31 night intercepted a Pakistani fishing boat with explosives near the maritime boundary off the Porbandar coast in the Arabian Sea.

Based on the intelligence inputs, a Coast Guard Dornier aircraft undertook a sea-air coordinated search and located the suspect fishing boat 10-15 km inside Indian waters. Thereafter, a Coast Guard ship on patrol was diverted and it intercepted the unlit boat around midnight, 365 km west-southwest of Porbandar.

(IANS)

Iran and US tentatively agree on formula to reduce nuclear programme

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Washington hopes Tehran will ship enriched uranium to Russia to reduce its weapon-making ability, diplomats say

John Kerry, US secretary of state and Mohammed Javad Zarif, Iranian foreign minister, at talks over Iran's nuclear programme in November 2014. Photograph: Ronald Zak/AP

John Kerry, US secretary of state and Mohammed Javad Zarif, Iranian foreign minister, at talks over Iran’s nuclear programme in November 2014. Photograph: Ronald Zak/AP

by AP

Iran and the United States have tentatively agreed on a formula that Washington hopes will reduce Tehran’s ability to make nuclear arms by committing it to ship to Russia much of the material needed for such weapons, diplomats say.

In another sign of progress, two diplomats told Associated Press that negotiators at the December round of nuclear talks drew up for the first time a catalogue outlining areas of potential accord and differing approaches to remaining disputes.

The diplomats said differences still dominate ahead of the next round of Iran six-power talks on 15 January in Geneva. But they suggested that even agreement to create a to-do list would have been difficult previously because of wide gaps between the sides.

Iran denies it wants nuclear arms, but it is negotiating with the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany on cuts to its atomic programme in the hope of ending crippling sanctions. The talks have been extended twice due to stubborn disagreements.

The main conflict is over uranium enrichment, which can create both reactor fuel and the fissile core of nuclear arms.

In seeking to reduce Iran’s bomb-making ability, the US has proposed that Tehran export much of its stockpile of enriched uranium – something the Islamic Republic has long said it would not do.

The diplomats said both sides in the talks are still arguing about how much of an enriched uranium stockpile to leave Iran. It now has enough for several bombs, and Washington wants substantial cuts below that level.

But the diplomats said the newly created catalogue lists shipping out much of the material as tentatively agreed upon.

The diplomats, who are familiar with the talks, spoke to the AP recently and demanded anonymity because they are not authorised to comment on the closed negotiations.

Issues that still need agreement, they said, include the size of Iran’s future enrichment output. The US insists that it be cut in half, leaving Tehran with about 4,500 centrifuges used to enrich uranium, or fewer if it replaces them with advanced models. Tehran is ready for a reduction of only about 20%, according to the diplomats.

Two other unresolved issues are Iran’s Fordo underground enrichment site and the nearly built Arak nuclear reactor. The US and its five allies in the talks want to repurpose Fordo to a non-enrichment function because it is believed impervious to a military attack from the air.

The six also seek to re-engineer Arak from a model that produces enough plutonium for several nuclear weapons a year to a less proliferation-prone model.

Negotiators hope to reach a rough deal by March and a final agreement by 30 June.

US-Trained Afghan Army Behind Deadly Attack on Wedding Party

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New Year’s Eve incident that killed as many as 26 sparks protest, investigation

U.S. military conducting training for Afghan National Army Soldiers in 2010. (Photo: isafmedia/flickr/cc)

U.S. military conducting training for Afghan National Army Soldiers in 2010. (Photo: isafmedia/flickr/cc)

by Andrea Germanos, Common Dreams

The U.S.-trained Afghan army was responsible for a New Year’s Eve attack on a wedding party that killed as many as two dozen people including women and children, local officials have said.

The incident took place in Sagin district in the southern province of Helmand, and was first reported on by the Associated Press.

Witnesses said the house where the wedding was taking place was hit after guests fired celebratory shots into the air.

The incident sparked hundreds of people to travel from Sagin to the home of the governor in the provincial capital to demand justice, AP reports.

“What we know so far is that our soldiers fired mortar rounds from three outposts but we do not know whether it was intentional,” General Mahmoud, the deputy Commander of the Afghan 215 corps in Helmand province, toldReuters.

“We have launched our investigation and will punish those who did this,” he said.

The exact toll from the attack is still unclear; Agence-France Presse‘s latest reporting indicates that 17 people, all women and children were killed, and that 49 others were wounded in the shelling. Reuters reported Thursday that 26 people were killed and 41 others wounded.

According to reporting by AP on Friday, two soldiers have already been arrested, and eight more are under investigation.  Mahmoud told AP that there was “still a possibility of more arrests.”

In a statement issued Thursday, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack and urged the Afghan government to conduct a full investigation of the incident.

The deadly fire came at the end of what was the deadliest year for Afghan civilians, and just hours before Afghanistan formally took over security operations for the country, even as the U.S. is continuing its military role there for at least another year.

“I want to congratulate my people today that Afghan forces are now able to take full security responsibility in protecting their country’s soil and sovereignty,” Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani said in a speech Thursday marking the transition.

US sanctions North Korea over Sony hacking

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Korean government officials among those blacklisted for cyber attack on Sony Pictures firm blamed on Pyongyang.

Hackers began to issue threats against Sony over the release of the comedy film 'The Interview' [EPA]

Hackers began to issue threats against Sony over the release of the comedy film ‘The Interview’ [EPA]

by Al Jazeera

The United States has imposed fresh sanctions on North Korea in retribution for a cyber attack on Hollywood studio Sony Pictures blamed on Pyongyang.

In an executive order on Friday, US President Barack Obama authorised the US Treasury to place on its blacklist three top North Korean intelligence and arms operations, as well as 10 government officials, most of them involved in Pyongyang’s arms exports.

Obama said he ordered the sanctions because of “the provocative, destabilising, and repressive actions and policies of the government of North Korea, including its destructive, coercive cyber-related actions during November and December 2014”.

The activities “constitute a continuing threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” he added, in a letter to inform congressional leaders.

“The order is not targeted at the people of North Korea, but rather is aimed at the government of North Korea and its activities that threaten the United States and others,” Obama added.

The sanctions came after hackers penetrated Sony’s computers in late November, stealing and releasing over the internet employee information, unreleased films and an embarrassing trove of emails between top company executives.

The hackers, a group calling itself Guardians of Peace, then began to issue threats against the company over the looming Christmas release of the comedy film “The Interview”, which depicts a fictional CIA plot to kill North Korea’s leader.

The threats led first to worried movie theater owners dropping the film and then Sony cancelling the public debut altogether, beforereleasing it online.

After the hackers invoked the 9/11 attacks in their threats, the White House branded it a national security threat, and an investigation by the FBI said North Korea was behind the Sony intrusion.

Pyongyang repeatedly denied involvement, but has applauded the actions of the shadowy Guardians of Peace group.

‘Proportional’ response

The White House stressed Friday that its response will be “proportional”, but also that the sanction actions were only “the first aspect of our response”.

“We take seriously North Korea’s attack that aimed to create destructive financial effects on a US company and to threaten artists and other individuals with the goal of restricting their right to free expression,” said White House press secretary Josh Earnest.

In parallel with the White House announcement, the US Treasury named the first targets of sanctions in the Sony case.

They included the Reconnaissance General Bureau, the government’s main intelligence organisation, and two top North Korean arms exporters: Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (KOMID) and Korea Tangun Trading Corporation.

The individuals named included agents of KOMID in Namibia, Russia, Iran and Syria, and other representatives of the government and the sanctioned organisations.

An administration official, briefing reporters, said that they remain “very confident” in their assessment that Pyongyang is behind the attack on Sony, amid doubts raised by security experts.

The official said the three organisations had “no direct involvement” with the hacking. “They are being designated to put pressure on the North Korean government,” the official said.

It was the first time US sanctions had been invoked due to a threat to a private company, the official acknowledged.

The sanctions forbid US individuals and companies from doing business with those blacklist, and freezes any assets those blacklisted might have on US territory.

A particular aim of such sanctions is to limit their access to international financial services by locking them out of the US financial system.

All three of the organisations blacklisted in the Sony case are already under US sanctions for the country’s persistence with its nuclear weapons program, its alleged provocations on the Korean peninsula, and other “continued actions that threaten the United States and others,” as Obama said in his letter.

102nd Indian Science Congress not a platform for pseudo-science talk: Dr. Ramprasad Gandhiraman

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vedic myth

Mumbai: Dr. Ramprasad Gandhiraman, a scientist with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Ames Research center and the Universities Space Research Association in California, has launched an online petition demanding that a talk ‘Ancient Indian Aviation Technology’ be scrapped from the 102nd Indian Science Congress.

India’s prestigious 102nd Indian Science Congress will be held in Mumbai from 3rd to 7th January and Mr. Bodas and Mr. Jadhav will be delivering a talk titled “Ancient Indian Aviation Technology”. The conference will have high profile scientist speakers from India and abroad including Nobel Laureates.

“Such kind of mythology-based talks do not in any way contribute to science…my biggest concern is these things will (eventually) become part of school curriculum (in India), and that is completely unacceptable,” told Dr. Gandhiraman to Rediff.com

“What impact it would have on Nobel laureates, who come and listen to such kind of talks that say ancient Indians had airplanes that could travel from planet to planet? You can’t imagine President Obama talking like this and the American scientific community keeping quiet.”

“I sense a new trend of parliamentarians openly eulogizing the past without any scientific basis,” he said.

Mumbai Mirror, which reported on the controversy, wrote, ‘how organisers of the 102nd Indian Science Congress… had slipped in Vedic mythology about aviation into the Science Congress’ schedule, which is otherwise packed with talks on ribosomes, resistance to antibiotics and the origin of life, and discourses on controlling the cell cycle, all delivered by some of the finest scientific minds, including six Nobel laureates.’

The newspaper reported that Captain Anand J Bodas, when questioned about his talk on ‘Ancient Indian Aviation Technology’, had said, ‘The Vedic or rather ancient Indian definition of an airplane was a vehicle which travels through the air from one country to another country, from one continent to another continent, from one planet to another planet. In those days, airplanes were huge in size, and could move left, right, as well as backwards, unlike modern planes which only fly forward.’

“Providing a scientific platform in a prestigious science conference for a pseudo-science talk is appalling. It questions the integrity of scientific process. It also appears that this is the first time such a session is held in Indian Science Congress. This talk is not an isolated incident to shrug off. A google search with key words “Indian Prime minister plastic surgery”, “Indian Home minister Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle”, “Indian Health minister sex education ban”, “Gujarat school books science myths” etc., will give plenty of alarming developments happened over the past 6 months. We as scientific community should be seriously concerned about the infiltration of pseudoscience in science curricula with backing of influential political parties. The accelerated pace with which it is being promoted will seriously undermine nation’s science and it will have a disastrous effect on the future generation scientists. Giving a scientific platform for a pseudo-science talk is worse than a systematic attack that has been carried out by politically powerful pseudo-science propagandists in the recent past.”

“Scientific temper and the accompanying curiosity to understand the universe had always existed throughout human history. Today, we live in an era which has seen amazing technological advancement. And we are able to understand our universe in a way that is far superior than our ancestors did at any point in human history. Pseudo-Science does a great disservice to science and it is the responsibility of the scientists to stand up and defend the science. If we scientists remain passive, we are betraying not only the science but also our children.”

Mehdi Masroor Biswas sent to judicial custody

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Mehdi Masroor Biswas

Bengaluru: A special court Friday sent ISIS Twitter handler Mehdi Masroor Biswas to 14 day judicial custody after his 15-day police custody expired, a top police official said.

“Our probe team has collected sufficient evidence from him (Mehdi) on his pro-ISIS propaganda for the banned terrorist outfit (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) during his police custody over the last two weeks,” city Police Commissioner M.N. Reddi told reporters here.

The 24-year-old executive in a private firm was arrested Dec 14 and a case was registered against him under sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Information Technology (IT) Act for waging war against a friendly country.

“With the help of social media experts, we have so far analysed about 12,000 messages Mehdi tweeted/posted on his Facebook account, in which he encouraged youth to join ISIS though it is difficult to establish if recruitment took place,” Reddi said.

British News Channel 4 Dec 11 unmasked Mehdi as a radical supporter of ISIS through social media and Twitter handler @ShamiWitness where he was regularly tweeting from here on the group’s unlawful activities in Iraq and Syria.

“Investigation so far has revealed that Mehdi is a propagandist of ISIS ideology and has been instrumental in influencing minds against our friendly countries and against whom the terror group is at war,” Reddi said.

Mehdi, who hails from Gopalpur town in West Bengal’s Nadia district, is employed in the foods division of the Kolkata-based ITC Ltd here.

“We know Mehdi was in touch with one combatant in Iraq and was of some help to him, informing him of movement of forces and availability of passages. He is a highly radicalised person and has deep knowledge of what he was doing,” Reddi said.

Mehdi confessed to the investigation team that he had been operating the Twitter account after he got interested in the developments of the Levantine region comprising Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Gaza Strip, Egypt and Libya.

He has about 17,000 Twitter followers and used to aggressively tweet by collecting information and watching developments in the desert region.

Mehdi’s Twitter handler was shut Dec 12 after the news channel revealed his identity and reported about the terror activities he was carrying in the virtual world beyond office hours.

(IANS)

Racial slurs against Northeast people will be a criminal offence

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North East Racism

New Delhi: Racial slurs against the people of India’s northeast will soon be a criminal offence as the central government plans to insert new sections in the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Announcing that the government has accepted the recommendations of the Bezbaruah Committee, union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said in the capital that new sections, 153C and 509A, will be added to the IPC.

“The Indian Penal Code will be amended for insertion of new sections of 153C and 509A as recommended by the committee,” the home minister said Friday, adding that the law ministry has agreed to it.

“The government is committed (to the) safety and security of the people from the northeast region living in Delhi and other metropolitan cities,” he said.

The committee headed by M.P. Bezbaruah, a member of the North Eastern Council, was set up in February 2014 after 19-year-old Nido Tania, a student from Arunachal Pradesh, died here after he was thrashed by local shopkeepers.

The panel was formed to look into the concerns of the people of the northeast living in other parts of the country and suggest suitable remedial measures.

“As part of legal assistance, a panel of seven lawyers, including five women lawyers, has been constituted by the Delhi State Legal Service Authority for providing legal assistance to the needy people from the northeast,” he said.

Rajnath Singh said the Delhi government would also provide monetary assistance to the victims of any violence in the city.

“The Delhi government will also be providing compensation and monetary assistance to the northeast people under Delhi Victim Compensation Scheme 2011.”

“Recommendations made by the committee regarding special police initiatives and additional steps to be taken by various state police forces and Delhi Police have been accepted for immediate implementation,” the minister said.

Over two lakh people of eight northeastern states are living in Delhi.

A development of northeastern region ministry official said 86 percent of the people from northeast living in Delhi have faced some sort of racial discrimination.

According to reports, many citizens from the northeast have complained that they have been stereotyped by such characterisations as ‘Chinky’, ‘Hakka’, ‘Nepali’, ‘Chinese’ and ‘Chow Mein’ by the people in metro cities with reference to their facial features.

In 2007, the North East Support Centre and Helpline was started with the determined object of increasing awareness of prejudices and attacks against people from the northeast.

(IANS)

Bengaluru: 3 children injured in gelatin stick blast in Sai Baba School

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Representational image. Photo: AP/File

Representational image. Photo: AP/File

Bengaluru: In a freak incident, three students of a private school suffered ‘minor’ injuries today when gelatin sticks they took from a waste dump exploded in their classroom, police said.

The children studying in the Sai Baba School at Madiwala had found the gelatin sticks lying in a waste dump while they were playing and carried them to their classroom, Additional Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Alok Kumar said.

The explosion occurred as soon as they switched on the electric panel into which they had stuffed the gelatin sticks, he said.

The injured children have been admitted to ESI Hospital and are undergoing treatment for minor injuries, he said.

(PTI)

'PK' becomes Bollywood's highest grossing film

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pk

Mumbai: As protests against the film continued, the producers of Aamir Khan-starrer ‘PK’ today said the film has broken ‘Dhoom 3’ record to become the biggest earner in Bollywood by collecting Rs 278.52 crores since its release on December 19.

The film has faced criticism by right-wing organisations who said the Rajkumar Hirani-directed film disrespects Hindu religion, an allegation rejected by its makers.

Hirani, 52, said the film’s word-of-mouth performance has been overwhelming.

“I had never in my wildest dreams thought this film will cross these numbers. It reinforces faith that content is king. We can continue making films we believe in. The messages I get are overwhelming. People are watching the film over and over again. It’s humbling,” the director said in a statement.

‘PK’ with its Rs 278.52 crores at the box office is the second film by both Aamir and Hirani after ‘3 Idiots’ (Rs 202 crores) to be a part of the highest earning films’ club.

Aamir-starrer ‘Dhoom 3’ is second biggest earner with Rs 271.82 crores followed by Salman Khan starrer ‘Kick’ (Rs 244 crores) and Shah Rukh Khan’s ‘Chennai Express’ (Rs 228 crores).

The film has done well in overseas markets as well by contributing Rs 124 crores at the box office.

(IANS)

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