The External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has announced that the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra through the Nathu La route in Sikkim will resume this year.

Pilgrimage was stopped by China in the aftermath of the military face-off with India last year at Doklam.

However, the announcement was made during talks between Sushma Swaraj and her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing on Sunday.

Registration for Kailash Manasarovar Yatra organized by Ministry of External Affairs was commenced on 20 February, 2018. Last date for registration was 23 March, 2018.

This year the Yatra is scheduled during the period 08 June to 08 September through two routes.

There are two routes for this Yatra. The route through Lipulekh Pass (Uttarakhand), which involves some trekking is estimated to cost about Rs.1.6 lakh per person. It will be conducted in 18 batches of 60 pilgrims each. The duration of the Yatra is 24 days for each batch including 3 days in Delhi for preparatory work. This route passes through important sites like Narayan Ashram, Patal Bhuvaneshwar etc. Yatris can also see the scenic beauty of Chialekh Valley, or the ‘Om Parvat’ which has the natural occurrence of snow in the shape of ‘Om’ on this mountain.

The route through Nathu La Pass (Sikkim) is motorable and suitable for senior citizens unable to undertake arduous trekking. From Gangtok the route passes through scenic places like Hangu lake, and through the vast landscape of the Tibetan plateau. It is estimated to cost about Rs.2 lakhs person, and duration would be 21 days including 3 days in Delhi for preparatory work. This year 10 batches of 50 pilgrims each are scheduled for this route.

Hindusthan Samachar/Shri Ram Shaw

Indian-American teenager, Dhruv Gaur, has won the $100,000 Jeopardy college quiz championship.
The first-year student at Ivy League Brown University emerged the champion on Friday in the two-day final round of the college edition of America’s most popular quiz show televised nation-wide.

He faced another Indian-American, Rishab Jain, in the semi-final round on Wednesday before getting to the finals.

Gaur had scored a perfect score of 1,600 in the national-wide college entrance exam, Scholastic Aptitude Test.

About his plans for the winnings, a Jeopardy news release quoted him as saying, “I’m just going to save it until I need it for grad school or to pursue an opportunity I might really want in the future.”

“My little brother is really interested in investing, so I’ll give him some so he can give the stock market a go,” he added.

Viraj Mehta, who came third in the 2017 edition, made news because either intentionally or accidentally he was seen flashing his middle finger — an obscene gesture — while being interviewed by the show’s host Alext Trebek.

Several media pounced on the gesture seen fleetingly on the show.

Vinita Kailasanath is the only other Indian-American, who won the college championship, which was in 2001.

In the teen championships for high-schoolers, Sharath Narayan won the $100,000 prize in 2016.

Two other Indian-Americans had earlier won the teen championship.

The Guruvayur Devaswom hade decided on Tuesday to allow non-Hindus to attend the prasada oottu (temple feast).
THRISSUR: For the first time in the history of Guruvayur Sri Krishna Temple, women wearing purdah attended the temple feast offered to devotees at the Annalakshmi Hall located outside the temple on Wednesday and Thursday. The Guruvayur Devaswom hade decided on Tuesday to allow non-Hindus to attend the prasada oottu (temple feast) exercising the powers vested on the board. The meeting also decided to allow people enter the Annalakshmi Hall wearing shirts, pants and footwear.

Guruvayur Devaswom administrator C C Sasidharan told Express, “We serve feast to around 5,000 devotees every day at noon. On auspicious days, the number of people attending the prasada ottu swells to 7,000. The committee decided to allow non-Hindus participate in the prasada ottu as the Annalakshmi Hall is located outside the temple premises. The decision has been well accepted and I don’t think the thantri (high priest) will object to it. There was no phenomenal increase in the people attending the prasada ottu after the decision was implemented. There were a few women wearing pardah among them. We can’t differentiate the people who attend prasada ottu by religion.”

The devaswom provides upma as breakfast and meals as supper for around 500 devotees every day. Thousands attend the feast at noon. Though the ottu pura (dining hall) was located inside the temple premises earlier, it was shifted outside the premises a couple of years ago.

Asked about allowing K J Yesudas, who has sung hundreds of devotional songs praising Sri Krishna, the presiding deity of the temple, to enter the temple, Sasidharan said the Devaswom committee did not discuss the issue.

Welcoming the decision, Muslim League state general secretary C H Rasheed, who is a native of Chavakkad near Guruvayur, said it will help improve the cordial relationship of Hindus and Muslims in the area.

“There’s an atmosphere of harmony prevailing among the residents of Guruvayur which is above differences in belief. We’re happy to see members of the Muslim community attending the temple feast. I’m planning to attend the feast with my party colleagues soon,” he said.

Several third-party trackers are abusing Facebook Login, exfiltrating users’ data including name, email address, age range, gender, locale and profile photo, a new security research report has claimed.

The unintended exposure of Facebook data to third party JavaScript trackers is not owing to a bug in Facebook’s Login feature.

“Rather, it is due to the lack of security boundaries between the first-party and third-party scripts in today’s web,” said the report prepared by Steven Englehardt, Gunes Acar and Arvind Narayanan, researchers at Freedom to Tinker — a digital initiative by Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy.

“We report yet another type of surreptitious data collection by third-party scripts that we discovered: the exfiltration of personal identifiers from websites through “login with Facebook” and other such social login APIs,” the trio wrote.

Meanwhile, Facebook told the technology website Tech Crunch that they were investigating into the security research report.

The researchers found two types of vulnerabilities: Seven third parties abusing websites’ access to Facebook user data and one third party using its own Facebook “application” to track users around the web.

British political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica was found misusing users’ data collected by a Facebook quiz app which used the “Login with Facebook” feature.

“We’ve uncovered an additional risk: when a user grants a website access to their social media profile, they are not only trusting that website but also third parties embedded on that site,” the report noted.

The researchers found seven scripts collecting Facebook user data using the first party’s Facebook access.

“These scripts are embedded on a total of 434 of the top 1 million sites, including fiverr.com, bhphotovideo.com, and mongodb.com,” they wrote.

The user ID collected through the Facebook API is specific to the website (or the “application” in Facebook’s terminology), which would limit the potential for cross-site tracking.

“But these app-scoped user IDs can be used to retrieve the global Facebook ID, user’s profile photo, and other public profile information, which can be used to identify and track users across websites and devices,” the researchers warned.

“While we can’t say how these trackers use the information they collect, we can examine their marketing material to understand how it may be used,” they noted.

OnAudience, Tealium AudienceStream, Lytics, and ProPS all offer some form of “customer data platform”, which collect data to help publishers to better monetise their users.

Forter offers “identity-based fraud prevention” for e-commerce sites while Augur offers cross-device tracking and consumer recognition services.

Hidden third-party trackers can also use “Facebook Login to deanonymise users for targeted advertising”.

“This is a privacy violation, as it is unexpected and users are unaware of it,” the researchers said.

There are steps Facebook and other social login providers can still take to prevent abuse.

“API use can be audited to review how, where, and which parties are accessing social login data. Facebook could also disallow the lookup of profile picture and global Facebook IDs by app-scoped user IDs,” the report emphasised.

“It might also be the right time to make Anonymous Login with Facebook available following its announcement four years ago,” the researchers added.

(IANS)

Move over Bengaluru and Pune. Udaipur in Rajasthan is aiming to set up the biggest start-up hub in the country with a capacity to accommodate 700 newcomers.
he state plans to create a strong start-up ecosystem, taking a leap to match the top tech cities in the country. The incubation centre, coming up in Udaipur, will give start-ups and entrepreneurs space, internet connections and other infrastructure facilities — all free. It will also throw in government funding.

“The incubation centre will not charge any kind of fee from start-ups as well as entrepreneurs and shall provide free facilities unlike T-Hub in Hyderabad which charges a fee for different facilities. It will be bigger than the biggest T-Hubs operational in India,” Akhil Arora, Principal Secretary, IT and Communication Department of Rajasthan, told IANS.

Arora said some of the best incubators were being invited for the hub and the management would be handled by professionals. Mentoring for start-ups would be provided by top corporates. “We will evaluate the performance of start-ups every three months to ensure that they do not turn complacent,” he said, adding that entrepreneurs can use the facilities for a maximum of two years.

An incubation centre in Jaipur is already running with 45 operating start-ups. The Udaipur one was recently inaugurated — to be operational from next month — and had already drawn “exciting response” from the start-up community, he said.

“We want to spread wings across the state to provide equal opportunity to all. Incubation Centres would be set up in Kota and Jodhpur for which work had already started,” he said.

According to Arora, the start-up ecosystem has the potential to germinate new ideas as this is being extended to even students coming out of college, who will be mentored. “We will help them to take their ideas forward, at a time when they lack sufficient capital structure,” he added.

To take care of funding needs, Bhamashah Technofund was introduced which provides seed capital without any collateral or without detailed evaluation. This was an investment decision taken by the government without expecting big returns, Arora said.

Under Technofund, seven start-ups, based on their Q-Ranking — which blends quality rating and curation — were funded. While six were given Rs 20 lakh each, the seventh one got Rs 15 lakh. The seven were chosen from over 700 applications.

Mudit Jain, founder of Qriyo, and one of the beneficiaries of the funding in Jaipur, said: “Rajasthan’s start-up ecosystem is growing and we are receiving constant support from the government. For the first time, we have seen a government expediting the processes at a fast pace.”

Arora said that for the funding process they had roped in creditable agencies empanelled with the government. “When they grant funding, we match the funds up to Rs 25 lakh, sanctioning them in five days,” he said, adding that the government had earmarked Rs 500 crore to meet the funding requirement of start-ups.

Also, the government gives a grant of Rs 2 lakh to help them try out their ideas. For those looking for expansion, equity capital and interest-free loans are provided after proposals are evaluated by an external jury.

“We are confident that entrepreneurs and start-ups will get their best in Rajasthan as we provide quality lifestyle too, which is missing in Bengaluru, Pune and other similar cities due to modern-day challenges such as traffic and pollution,” Arora said.

(IANS)

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met his Swedish counterpart Stefan Lofven ahead of their bilateral summit here on Tuesday.

“A relationship that has grown in intensity over the years and has a huge potential! PM @narendramodi met with @SwedishPM Stefan Löfven,” Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted.

“The two leaders had a productive exchange of views on bilateral and regional issues,” Kumar said.

Earlier in the day, Modi called on Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf at the Royal Palace here and the two leaders exchanged views on strengthening bilateral cooperation.

Following Tuesday’s summit, a number of agreements across various sectors are expected to be signed.

This apart, Modi and Lofven will attend a round table of Swedish CEOs.

India and Sweden will on Tuesday also co-host the first ever India-Nordic Summit, where, apart from Modi and Lofven, the Prime Ministers of the other four Nordic countries — Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway — will also be present.

Modi will hold separate bilateral meetings with the leaders of the other four Nordic countries on the sidelines of the summit.

The Indian Prime Minister arrived here on Monday evening on the first leg of his three-nation tour of Europe that will also see him going to Britain and Germany.

This is the first prime ministerial visit from India to Sweden in 30 years after Rajiv Gandhi’s visit in 1988.

After attending an Indian community event here late on Tuesday night, Modi will depart for London on the second leg of his tour.

(IANS)

A week after releasing its manifesto, All India Mahila Empowerment Party (MEP) today released its first list of candidates to contest for the upcoming Karnataka Assembly Elections.

While announcing the candidates, Dr Nowhera Shaik, President, All India Mahila Empowerment Party, said, “We have chosen our candidates after a lot of careful deliberations. They all believe in our platform of social justice and equality for all. Their concern too is the welfare of the downtrodden and oppressed groups. Our candidates, too, are concerned with the welfare of women who are at the wrong end of the spectrum.”

She added, “Our candidates have worked at the grassroots, and so they know what needs to be done to uplift the conditions of the people, especially women. All of them are passionate about the issues concerning women in the country. They are all leaders in their own right, and they all want to uplift the economic conditions of women by giving them equal opportunities.”

Dr. Nowhera Shaikh said that her party is confident of winning over 150 seats, in its maiden elections.

“We are contesting on a platform of social justice and equality for all. The welfare of the downtrodden and oppressed groups is our main aim. We are especially concerned about the welfare of the voiceless women who face the maximum discrimination and economic suffering, she added”.

The All Indian Mahila Empowerment Party (MEP) today unveiled its manifesto in an event at The Leela Palace. It also brought out the first list of spokespeople from party for the upcoming Karnataka Assembly elections scheduled to be held on May 12.
Dr. Nowhera Shaik, President, All India Mahila Empowerment Party said, “We are contesting on a platform of social justice and equality for all. The welfare of the downtrodden and oppressed groups is our main aim. We are especially concerned about the welfare of the voiceless women who face the maximum discrimination and economic suffering.”

Introducing the spokespeople, Dr. Shaik said, “Our members are those who are concerned with the conditions of women in the country. They understand the need to be the voice of the women who have been denied a voice by the society while working to uplift the economic conditions of women.”

Mr Khan, Vice-President, All India Mahila Empowerment Party mentioned, “We are glad to be associated with MEP since this is the first party in India which is focussing on women and aims to help them in every possible way. We aim to reserve 50% of the seats in local bodies for women, build separate hospitals for women in each district and provide interest-free loans for enthusiastic women entrepreneurs.”

Mr Kutubuddin Kazi, Spokesperson, AIMEP said, “Education and employment is our key focus. We have plans to provide free education from LKG to PG to all BPL families, free training and coaching for poor students appearing in competitive exams and create ten lakh jobs every year so that society gets economically uplifted.”

The All India Mahila Empowerment Party (AIMEP) will contest all 224 seats in Karnataka Assembly polls. The party aims to make a pro-women government and work towards women empowerment.

About MEP

The Mahila Empowerment Party had its origins in 2012 when Dr Shaik felt the need for a political party as a vehicle for helping women meet their potential by extending the constitutional rights due to them.

About Dr Nowhera Shaik

Dr Shaik has been running her own business for over 20 years and has been educating girls as a means to empower them. She is the President of a reputed Muslim women’s organisation, At-Tawheed International Dawah Centre for Women, which supports thousands of poor women through her charitable activities like sponsoring education, arranging marriages, health camps, etc. The organisation today has chapters across cities in India and the Middle East.

Key highlights of the manifesto:

Women and child welfare

• 50% of the seats in local bodies reserved for women
• Separate hospital for women in each district
• Interest free loans for enthusiastic women entrepreneurs

Agriculture

• All loans would be waived off along with interest
• Agriculture training centres in all districts
• Interest-free loans for agriculture and cottage industry

Education

• Free education from LKG to PG to all BPL families
• Free training and coaching for poor students appearing in competitive exams

Employment

• Ten lakh jobs to be created every year
• Vacant posts in Govt offices to be filled up every year

Health

• Financial support up to 6 months for women post delivery
• Free medical treatment for BPL families at super speciality hospitals
• Action against privt hospitals charging exorbitant treatment fees

Transport

• Free travel facility for senior citizen and BPL card holders in urban transport
• Free bus pass facility for girls studying in schools and colleges

Law

• Mobile courts to be enhanced
• Strict implementation of Prohibition of Alcohol Act

Good Governance

• CCTV in all Government offices to ensure transparency and honesty
• Third party inspection to ensure quality in Government works