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Archives for December 2014

Polling for 2nd phase Jharkhand Assembly election begins

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jharkhand-POLLS

Ranchi: Polling began today at 7 am in 20 Maoist-affected constituencies amid tight security in the 2nd phase of Assembly election to the Jharkhand Assembly, with polling personnel airdropped in the remote parts of the state.

An electorate of 44,31,900, including 21,72,982 women, is eligible to vote in 5,048 polling stations across seven districts to elect 223 candidates, said Jharkhand Chief Electoral Officer P K Jajoria.

There are 35 women among the candidates with Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, BJP and Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) nominating four women each.

Polling began at 7 am in all 20 constituencies. While it will end at 5 am at Jamshedpur (West) and Jamshedpur (East) seats, the exercise will end at 3 pm in the rest of the seats, Jajoria said.

Inspector-General of Police M L Meena said there were 1,424 supersensitive and 2,048 sensitive polling stations and added that polling personnel were airlifted to remote areas to be brought back by air after the polling.

The November 25 first phase election covering 13 Maoist-affected constituencies had ended peacefully, recording 62 per cent votes.

The CPI (Maoist) and the People’s Liberation Front of India are the banned extremist outfits operating in several rural areas across the seven districts – Seraikella-Kharsawan, West Singhbhum, East Singhbhum, Khunti, Simdega, Ranchi and Gumla where the 20 Assembly segments are situated.

The BJP is contesting in 18 seats in this phase, leaving two – Tamar and Jugsalai – for its pre-poll alliance partner, the AJSU Party.

The Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (JVM-Prajatantrik) and Trinamool Congress are contesting in a pre-poll alliance, with the JVM-P fielding candidates in 18 seats, conceding two seats to the TMC.

Ruling allies JMM and Congress, who parted ways just before the Assembly election, are contesting against each other in all 20 constituencies.

In this phase, RJD and JD(U) are not in the fray. A Prominent among the candidates are incumbent Agriculture minister Banna Gupta (Jamshedpur -West), HRD minister Geetashree Oraon (Sisai) and Industry minister Champai Soren (Seraikella).

Former chief ministers Arjun Munda and Madhu Koda are the other figures trying their luck.

Former IAS officer J B Tubid, who took voluntary retirement to join the BJP, is contesting from Chaibasa, while former MLA Surya Singh Besra is fighting from the Potka seat.

(PTI)

Former Maharashtra CM A.R. Antulay passes away

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AR Antulay

Mumbai: Former Chief Minister of Maharashtra and a veteran Congressman Abdul Rahman Antulay, widely known as A. R. Antulay passed away on Tuesday morning. He was 85. He also served as the Union Minister for Minority Affairs in the UPA-I government.

The funeral will take place at his native Ambet village in the state’s Raigad district on Wednesday, said news agency PTI.

The veteran Congress leader had been admitted to Breach Candy Hospital around a month ago for severe kidney ailment. He had renal failure a year-and-a-half ago.

Antulay had been a heart patient for years. He underwent a bypass surgery in 1985 and a pacemaker was fitted in 1993.

Mr. Antulay was the first and only Muslim Chief Minister of Maharashtra during the years 1980 to 1982. However he had to resign from his post following allegation of corruption. He was convicted in an extrotion case by the Bombay High Court.

Later, he worked as party MLA and MP, representing the Congress in Raigad district. He fought his last election in 2009, which he lost to the Shiv Sena, after which he was out of the active politics.

He was minister in the Congress-led UPA 1 government but was sidelined soon after his controversial comment on the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack in 2008.

Mr. Antulay had questioned the circumstances of Anti-Terrorism Squad Chief, Hemant Karkare’s death in the Mumbai terror attack on 26 Nov 2008. The party had distanced itself from his comment and soon he was removed from the union cabinet. He had suggested that there should be a probe into the circumstances of Karkare’s killing.

Abuse, insult of Backward Castes may soon attract penal action

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Karnataka Social Welfare Minister H. Anjaneya

Karnataka Social Welfare Minister H. Anjaneya

Bengaluru: The State Government is considering a proposal to enact legislation aimed at preventing abuse of the backward classes on the basis of their caste, according to Social Welfare Minister H. Anjaneya.

A proposal to this effect has been made to the Law Department. “We are keen on it and we will take a call based on the department’s opinion,” the minister said on Monday.

A meeting of leaders from backward communities, intellectuals and writers, chaired by Social Welfare Minister H Anjaneya, resounded with vehement demands for a law to end abuse and insult of people belonging to the backward castes.

The meeting, on Monday, was held ahead of the launch of a caste-based census covering all of Karnataka. “Even today, seeing people of certain communities when setting out for important work is considered a bad omen. People engaged in some traditional vocations are insulted and abused by their caste names,” Anjaneya said, explaining the need for a new law.

“We are also considering banning the use of words that insult people belonging to certain castes. This is affirmative action to prevent caste discrimination,” the Social Welfare Minister added.

ISIS our biggest challenge: Rajnath Singh

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Rajnath Singh

by Manoj Anand, Asian Age

Union home minister Rajnath Singh said here on Saturday that the growing threat of Islamic State (ISIS) in the Indian subcontinent was the biggest challenge, especially in the wake of some youth being lured by them.

Referring to the attack in Arnia sector, Mr Singh said that Pakistan claims “non-state” actors are behind such incidents, which is not true.

“I want to ask Pakistan if its intelligence agency the Inter-Services Intelligence, is also a ‘non-state actor’,” Mr Singh said, reiterating that Pakistan was engaged in destabilising India.

The Union home minister also pointed out, “Though ISIS was born in Syria and Iraq, it is a fact that the Indian subcontinent is not outside its radar, especially as some Indian youth are also getting attracted to it.”

He said, “Moreover, the Al Qaeda had recently announced the formation of a new outfit, Qaeda-ul-Jihadi, with the intention of specifically targeting Gujarat, Assam, Bihar, Jammu & Kashmir and Bangladesh.”

He said, “India cannot remain unaffected by international terrorism, (and the) activities of the Islamic State. We can’t take Al Qaeda’s threat of turning India into an Islamic country lightly, we should consider it a challenge.”

Asserting that India was capable of handling these threats, Mr Singh, in his inaugural address at the 49th police conference, however, asserted, “There might be many terrorist organisations in the world, but we will not allow them to get a foothold in our country.”

Mr Singh also expressed confidence that these Islamic terror groups will never be able to succeed in India and said that the majority of Indian Muslims will not side with them. “I am sure these terror groups will never succeed in India. They may try to convert India into an Islamic country on the assumption that a large number of Muslims will support them. But the fact remains that Indian Muslims had fought and sacrificed equally with others for India’s independence,” Mr Singh said.

The home minister, at the meeting attended by police chiefs from across the country as well as senior officials from intelligence agencies, also urged states to fill up vacancies in police forces and assured them of all possible help.

Speaking about modernising police forces, Mr Singh stressed the need to make the police people-friendly.

“Our coastal security network is inadequate and it should be strengthened,” he said while expressing his concern on the growing use of cyberspace by anti-national and anti-social forces. He asked the police chiefs to deliberate on strategies and steps to monitor cyberspace. He admitted that the biggest stumbling block in this direction was that the majority of servers are outside India. “We should work out a strategy on how to handle it,” he said.

Palestinian woman shot after stabbing attack

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Bet Fajjar resident transferred to hospital after being shot for stabbing Israeli civilian in southern West bank.

West bank

by Al Jazeera

The Israeli army has shot and wounded a Palestinian woman after she stabbed an Israeli civilian near a Jewish settlement bloc in the southern part of the occupied West Bank, police said.

Witnesses told Al Jazeera that the woman, said to be in her 20s and from Bethlehem, arrived at the Gush Etzion settlement bloc on Monday and stabbed the civilian with a knife, injuring him lightly.

“According to the police, the woman approached an Israeli soldier with the intention of stabbing him but was unable to do so. So she then used her knife to harm a passerby, an Israeli civilian, who was apparently only lightly injured,” Al Jazeera’s Nisreen El-Shamayleh reported from Ramallah.

The Palestine Red Crescent told Al Jazeera that they saw the Palestinian woman after she was shot at the junction and that she was still alive at the time. However, Israeli authorities did not allow the Palestinian medical team to approach her.

Police released a statement saying that the Israeli civilian suffered minor injuries in the stabbing at the settlement bloc south of Bethlehem, and that the Palestinian woman was transferred to a hospital for further medical treatment.

The Gush Etzion junction is a business, commercial and tourism centre in the southern West Bank, which serves as the entry point to the Gush Etzion bloc of settlements.

Why Muslims are unhappy with SP in UP

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The Modi magic which seems to have cut across caste and even religious lines to some extent is making the Samajwadi Party edgy.

Akhilesh Yadav adjusts microphone for his father Mulayam during a meeting with the newly elected legislators at party headquarters in Lucknow

by Piyush Srivastava, Daily O

The Samajwadi Party has become increasingly edgy over the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) attempts to woo Muslim voters in the state. On paper of course, it seems very unlikely that the BJP will win a fraction of Muslim voters in Uttar Pradesh. But the Modi magic which seems to have cut across caste and even religious lines to some extent is making the SP edgy, fearing that it will lose its Muslim votebank in the upcoming Assembly elections in 2017.

The SP has also been hurt by allegations made by certain prominent members of the Muslim community, who claim that there is really no difference between the party and other Hindu parties, as the former practises “soft Hindutva” and the other i.e the BJP “hard Hindutava”. The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) party that has recently announced that it will contest the next Assembly election — a first time for the party in the state — has left SP leaders edgy, as it will divide the Muslim votebank.

The SP’s fears are grounded in some reality. Though the MIM won only two seats in Maharashtra, the party took away a significant number of votes that would have gone to the SP or the Congress. This is ideal for the BJP, as sources say, the recent communal tensions in the state, along with the Modi factor, will give the party Hindu votes. And if some Muslim votes come on board so much the better.

Prime Minister Modi has already begun wooing Muslims. During his trip to Varanasi earlier in November, Modi laid the foundation stone for the Trade Facilitation Centre (TFC) which was meant for members of Julaha (Muslim weaver caste) community. While doing so, the PM took a swipe at the SP, saying he wanted the Rs 147-crore TFC in the heart of the city so that the weavers could reach there without any hassle. But the state government has not cooperated with the Centre.

The fact that Modi’s words hit home were seen by the sharp rejoinder from the SP. Senior leaders such as Azam Khan tried to stir up passions by saying, “The TFC was planned in Lalpur because not a single member of the community resides there. In fact, the BJP wants the minorities to migrate to Pakistan.”

But a jittery SP was still not confident that Azam’s move was enough to convince the community. So Rajendra Chaudhary, party spokesperson of the UP unit, too jumped into the fray by reminding the Julahas about the work done for them by Mulayam government in the past and the packages presented to them by Akhilesh government.

“Mulayam has given a package of Rs 5,032 crore for weavers’ rehabilitation. Akhilesh has given special package to them. A loan of Rs 8.06 crore was given to 7,520 weavers,” Chaudhary told reporters. He added that Mulayam was in the process of developing Azamgarh, his Parliamentary constituency in a better maner than Modi’s Varanasi. The SP hopes that such promises and sops will keep this crucial votebank with them.

But MIM’s entry is hurting the party. Already, controversial MIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi asked the state government: “Where is the Muslim reservation that was promised during the last Assembly elections? (the SP in its election mainfesto had promised reservations for Muslims in the police and other government jobs). What action has been taken to ensure justice to Muslims who suffered as a community in Muzaffarnagar? These are questions that the ruling party will have to answer,” he said. The fact that Owaisi who refuses to categorise himself as a “Muslim candidate” and has also said that Dalits and Muslims must come together on common causes, is another blow for the SP, Bahujan Samaj Party and an already decimated Congress in UP. The Congress and the SP have so far hit back claiming that the MIM has a tacit understanding with the RSS in the state. But such allegations prove weak as the MIM was a part of the previous UPA government. Clearly, then these parties, especially the SP, will have to rehone their strategies if they retain power in the next elections.

A Gorgeous Photograph of the Milky Way Galaxy Over Devils Tower in Wyoming

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A gorgeous photograph by astrophotographer Dave Lane shows the Milky Way galaxy over Devils Tower in Wyoming. The photograph was featured recently as NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, complete with an annotated version highlighting some of the nebulas in the photograph.

milky_way_galaxy

photos via Dave Lane

via Astronomy Picture of the Day

Petrol price cut by 91 paise/litre, diesel by 84 paise

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petrol-price-oil

New Delhi: Petrol price is cut by 91 paise a litre, the seventh reduction since August, and diesel by 84 paise per litre, the third straight cut, as international oil rates continued to slump, on Sunday.

Petrol and diesel price reduction will be effective from midnight tonight, Indian Oil Corp, the nation’s largest fuel retailer, announced.

In Delhi, petrol price will cost Rs 63.33 a litre as compared to Rs 64.24 per litre previously while in Mumbai the reduction will be 96 paise to Rs 70.95 per litre.

Diesel will cost Rs 52.51 a litre in Delhi from tomorrow as against Rs 53.35 currently while in Mumbai the price will be cut by 93 paise to Rs 60.11 per litre.

Rates differ from state to state due to differential local sales tax or VAT rates.

The prices of petrol and diesel were last revised downwards on November 1 by Rs 2.41 a litre and Rs 2.25 per litre respectively (including state levies at Delhi) on the back of declining international oil prices.

“Since the last price changes, the international prices of both petrol and diesel have continued to be on a downtrend.

The Rupee-USD exchange rate has however appreciated since the last price change. The combined impact of both these factors warrant a decrease in retail selling prices of both petrol and diesel,” IOC said in the statement.

This is the seventh consecutive reduction in petrol prices since August and third in diesel in rates since October.

Prior to today’s reduction, petrol price has been cumulatively cut by Rs 9.36 per litre since August.

Diesel price was cut for the first time in more than five years on October 19 by Rs 3.37 a litre when the government decided to deregulate the fuel. This was followed by another reduction on November 1.

“The movement of prices in international oil market and INR-USD exchange rate shall continue to be closely monitored and developing trends of the market will be reflected in future price changes,” the statement said.

WHO reports sharp rise in Ebola deaths

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New toll of 6,928 shows a leap of about 1,200 since Wednesday and appears to include previously unreported deaths.

Representational image. Reuters / Susana Vera

Representational image. Reuters / Susana Vera

by Al Jazeera

The death toll from the worst Ebola outbreak on record has reached nearly 7,000 in West Africa, according to the World Health Organisation.

The toll of 6,928 dead showed a leap of just over 1,200 since the WHO released its previous report on Wednesday, according to a Reuters news agency report.

The UN health agency did not provide any explanation for the abrupt increase, but the figures, published on its website, appeared to include previously unreported deaths.

A WHO spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

Just over 16,000 people have been diagnosed with Ebola since the outbreak was confirmed in the forests of remote southeastern Guinea in March, according to the WHO data that covered the three hardest-hit countries.

Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia have accounted for all but 15 of the deaths in the outbreak, which has touched five other countries, according to previous WHO figures.

In a separate development, Sierra Leone will soon see a dramatic increase in desperately needed treatment beds, but it is not clear who will staff them, a top UN official in the fight against the disease has said.

Sierra Leone is now bearing the brunt of the eight-month-old outbreak. In the other hard-hit countries, Liberia and Guinea, WHO says infection rates are stabilising or declining, but in Sierra Leone, they’re soaring. The country has been reporting around 400 to 500 new cases each week for several weeks.

Those cases are concentrated in the capital, Freetown, its surrounding areas and the northern Port Loko district, which together account for about 65 percent of the country’s new infections, Anthony Banbury, head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, said in an interview with the Associated Press news agency.

“The critical gap right now in those locations are beds. It’s as simple that: We need more beds,” said Banbury, who spoke by telephone from Ghana, where the mission is headquartered.

Only about 350 of some 1,200 promised treatment beds are up and running, according to WHO figures.

‘A long, hard fight’

Five more British-built treatment centres will open next month, tripling the current bed capacity, according to the UK’s Department for International Development. One near the capital is already up and running.

Still, more beds alone are not enough.

“We’re concerned that the partners who have signed up to operate the beds won’t be able to operate them in the numbers and timeline really required,” Banbury said. He is flying to Sierra Leone to address that problem.

The UN had hoped that by December 1, the end of the outbreak would be in sight: Two months ago, it said it wanted to have 70 percent of Ebola cases isolated and 70 percent of dead bodies safely buried by that date.

WHO numbers show they are significantly short of that goal and Banbury acknowledged that the overall goal would not be met. He stressed that tremendous progress has been made, and many places throughout the region would meet or even exceed the targets set.

“As long as there’s one person with Ebola out there, then the crisis isn’t over and Ebola is a risk to the people of that community, that country, this sub-region, this continent, this world,” he said.

“Our goal and what we will achieve is getting it down to zero, but there’s no doubt it’s going to be a long, hard fight.”

Source: Reuters And AP

Final blow to Arab Spring? All charges dropped against Egypt's Mubarak

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Ousted president may not walk free immediately, but court’s ruling seems to complete counter-revolution in nation that helped spark wave of uprisings

Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was accused of ordering the killings of hundreds of people during the 2011 Arab Spring that resulted in his ouster.

Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was accused of ordering the killings of hundreds of people during the 2011 Arab Spring that resulted in his ouster.

by Jon Queally, Common Dreams

In yet another blow to the Egyptian revolutionaries whose hopes have been repeatedly dashed since the protests they initiated in 2011 swept former autocratic ruler Hosni Mubarak from power, a court on Saturday dropped all the remaining criminal charges, including allegations of murder, that had been levied against the nation’s former president.

Al-Jazeera America reports:

An Egyptian court has thrown out charges against former President Hosni Mubarak, his interior minister, and six aides over the killing of protesters during the 2011 Egyptian uprising.

[…] Chief Judge Mahmoud Kamel al-Rashidi also cleared Mubarak and his sons, Alaa and Gamal, of corruption charges related to gas exports. The judge said too much time had elapsed since the alleged crime took place for the court to rule on the matter.

Nearly 900 protesters were killed in the 18-day uprising that ended when Mubarak stepped down, handing over power to the military. The trial, however, was concerned only with the killing of 239 protesters, whose names were cited in the charge sheet.

Mubarak, 86, will not walk free after Saturday’s verdicts. He was found guilty in May in another case related to theft of public funds and has been serving that three-year sentence while under house arrest for medical reasons in an army hospital in an upscale Cairo suburb.

In response to the news, Egyptian-American journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous tweeted:

Though army tanks blocked off access to Tahrir Square in Cairo following the court’s announcement, some Egyptians got as close as they could to express their disappointment with the ruling:

The New York Times adds:

The decision, Judge Rashidi declared on Saturday, “has nothing to do with politics.”

Beyond the courtroom, though, many Egyptians said that it reflected the times. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the former general who last year led the military takeover that ousted Egypt’s elected Islamist government, has consolidated power as the country’s new strongman. He has surrounded himself with former Mubarak ministers and advisers.

State-run and pro-government media now routinely denounce the pro-democracy activists who led the 2011 uprising as a “fifth column” out to undermine the state. Some of the most prominent activists are in prison, and the Islamists who dominated the elections are now jailed as terrorists.

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