Nasheman

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

You are here: Home / Archives for News & Politics / India

Modi speaks to Sharif, says India stands firmly with Pakistan

by

Pakistani parents react near the site of an attack by Taliban gunmen on a school in Peshawar on December 16, 2014. At least 130 people were killed in a Taliban attack on an army-run school in northwest Pakistan, officials said. AFP PHOTO/ A MAJEED

Pakistani parents react near the site of an attack by Taliban gunmen on a school in Peshawar on December 16, 2014. At least 130 people were killed in a Taliban attack on an army-run school in northwest Pakistan, officials said. AFP PHOTO/ A MAJEED

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday evening spoke with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif over phone and offered his deepest condolences for the dastardly terror attack on a school in Peshawar. He said India was ready to provide all assistance during this hour of grief.

The prime minister spoke to Sharif after the latter returned from a visit to the school where around 140 people, mostly children, were slaughtered by Taliban gunmen.

“India stands firmly with Pakistan in fight against terror. Told PM Sharif we are ready to provide all assistance during this hour of grief,” he tweeted.

External affairs spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin in a tweet posted the prime minister’s statement during his talk with Sharif, which said Modi condemned in the strongest terms the brutal terrorist attack in Peshawar.

Modi said the “savage killing of innocent children, who are the epitome of the finest human values, in a temple of learning was not only an attack against Pakistan, but an assault against the entire humanity”.

“At a time when the world is getting disturbingly accustomed to acts of terror, this terrible tragedy has shaken the conscience of the world,” he said.

“He said the people of India shared the heart rending pain and sorrow of the bereaved families and the people of Pakistan and stood with them in solidarity in this hour of immeasurable grief.

“He (Modi) also hoped that the children who had witnessed the horrific attack and loss of their friends would come through this trauma with counselling.”

Modi told Sharif that “this moment of shared pain and mourning is also a call for our two countries and all those who believe in humanity to join hands to decisively and comprehensively defeat terrorism, so that the children in Pakistan, India and elsewhere do not have to face a future darkened by the lengthening shadow of terrorism”.

Earlier in the day, Modi tweeted his condemnation, saying: “It is a senseless act of unspeakable brutality that has claimed lives of the most innocent of human beings – young children in their school. My heart goes out to everyone who lost their loved ones today. We share their pain & offer our deepest condolences,” he said.

(IANS)

IS banned in India, minority youths discouraged from joining: Rajnath

by

Rajnath Singh

New Delhi: Home Minister Rajnath Singh Tuesday said the Islamic State (IS) terror group has been banned in India, and congratulated the Indian minorities for discouraging their youth from joining the outfit.

“We have banned the ISIS as a first step. I will like to inform (the house) that the group has been banned under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Amendment Act 62,” he told the Lok Sabha, referring to the terror outfit by its earlier name ISIS.

Rajnath Singh said the group has been proscribed under the provisions of the UAPA that relates to organisations listed in the schedule to the UN Prevention and Suppression of Terrorist (Implementation of Security Council Resolutions) Order, 2007 made under section 2 of the United Nations (Security Council) Act, 1947 and amended from time to time.

The home minister said the government had taken cognizance immediately after the IS activities began to spread in various parts of the world.

“There are only a handful or negligible number of people involved in ISIS activities in India. Their involvement too has not been direct. I congratulate the Indian minorities for discouraging their youth,” he said during question hour in the Lok Sabha.

In many developed countries like Britain and France, minority families were encouraging youth to join the IS, but Indian minorities were discouraging their children, he said.

“I congratulate the minority community for discouraging youth from getting radicalised,” Rajnath Singh said.

Responding to a supplementary question on steps taken by the government to prevent the spread of the IS, he said India has already banned the outfit and was monitoring the cyberspace to stop its propaganda.

“Cyberspace is a very serious issue. To monitor this system, it needs to be strengthened and I have asked for a committee to be constituted to monitor this.”

“We will ensure that it is properly monitored,” he added.

Mehdi Masroor Biswas, a pro-Islamic State (IS) tweeter, was arrested Saturday from Bengaluru after a British news channel Dec 11 unmasked the 24-year-old executive as a supporter of the outfit through social media and Twitter handle @ShamiWitness.

The home minister also assured the Lok Sabha that no innocent person from the minority community would be taken into custody with regard to suspected terror activities. If there were such instances, they could be brought to his notice.

Responding to another query on the IS, Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju said the matter was “very, very sensitive and the details cannot be discussed”.

(IANS)

Petrol, diesel rates cut by Rs 2 per litre

by

petrol-price-oil

New Delhi: Petrol and diesel prices were today cut by Rs 2 per litre each as international oil prices slumped to five-year low.

This is the eighth straight reduction in petrol prices since August, and fourth in diesel since October. New rates will be effective midnight tonight, Indian Oil Corp, the nation’s largest fuel retailer, announced here.

In Delhi, petrol will cost Rs 61.33 a litre, the lowest in 44 months, as compared to current price of Rs 63.33. The price has been cut by Rs 2.09 a litre in Mumbai to Rs 68.86.

Rates differ from state to state because of varied rates of local sales tax or VAT.

Diesel will cost Rs 50.51 a litre in Delhi, the lowest since July 2013, as against Rs 52.51 currently. In Mumbai, it will cost Rs 57.91 per litre as compared to Rs 60.11.

The rate cut would have been steeper but for the government deciding to make hay out of the crude oil rate slump to USD 62.37 per barrel by raising excise duty on petrol by Rs 2.25 and by Re 1 a litre on diesel.

Crude oil price in June was USD 115 per barrel. The prices of petrol and diesel were last revised downwards on December 1 by 91 paisa a litre and 84 paisa per litre respectively (including state levies at Delhi) on the back of declining international oil prices.

After today’s reduction, petrol price has been cut by Rs 12.27 per litre cumulatively 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 a Rs 2.25 a litre reduction on November 1 and 84 paisa per litre on December 1. Cumulatively, diesel prices have been cut by Rs 8.46 a litre in four reductions.

There would have been another reduction on November 15 but the government mopped up, raising excise duty on petrol and diesel by Rs 1.50 a litre each. In the two excise duty hikes, the government has raised its revenue by Rs 10,600 crore this fiscal.

IOC said in a statement: “The prices of petrol and diesel were last revised downwards with effect from December 1 by Rs 0.91 per litre and Rs 0.84 a litre respectively (including state levies at Delhi) on the back of declining international oil prices.

“Since the above price changes, the international prices of both petrol and diesel have continued to be on a downtrend. The Rupee-US Dollar 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.”

The movement of prices in international oil market and Rupee-USD exchange rate shall continue to be closely monitored and developing trends of the market will be reflected in future price changes, it added.

(PTI)

Indian consulate in Sydney evacuated

by

SYDNEY CAFE SIEGE

New Delhi: The Indian consulate in Australia’s Sydney city has been evacuated following a hostage taking at a nearby cafe, an official said.

Vinod Bahade, deputy consul general in Sydney, told IANS that though there was no confirmation regarding the nationality of the hostages, the officials were in constant touch with the security agencies.

The consulate is barely 400 metres from the cafe where a gunman took over three dozen people hostage.

“Minutes after we got to know that some people at a nearby cafe have been taken hostage by a gunman, the Indian consulate was evacuated. However, we have not shut it and the work will resume once the problem is solved,” Bahade told IANS over phone from Sydney.

The hostage-taking took place in Sydney’s bustling central business district.

Bahade said they have been constantly getting updates from the Australian authorities and trying to know if any Indian was among the hostages.

Surinder Datta, deputy high commissioner at the Indian High Commission at Canberra, told IANS that the incident is being constantly being monitored.

“We are taking reports from the Indian consulate in Sydney. This is a very critical issue and we do not want to take any decision in hurry,” he told IANS over phone from Canberra.

(IANS)

Fourth phase: 49% cast vote in J&K, 61% in Jharkhand

by

Jharkhand polls

Ranchi: Ignoring the boycott call given by separatists and braving cold weather, over 49 per cent of 14.73 lakh voters exercised their franchise in the penultimate phase of Assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir.

Barring minor clashes between supporters of rival parties at a dozen places, polling in all the 18 constituencies spread over three districts of Kashmir, including summer capital Srinagar, and one district in Jammu region was by and large peaceful.

Despite severe cold, long queues of voters were seen outside the polling stations to exercise their franchise at many polling stations.

The trends in voter turnout in eight constituencies of Srinagar city, which have witnessed low voter turnout in the past elections due to separatist boycott calls, pointed towards a higher poll percentage this time.

While four constituencies of Khanyar, Habbakadal, Amirakadal and Zadibal had already surpassed the turnout recorded in 2008 assembly elections, the polling was going on briskly in other segments.

Sonawar constituency, where Chief Minister Omar Abdullah is contesting, witnessed the highest 33.85 per cent turnout in Srinagar followed by Hazratbal constituency at 22.77 per cent.

Edigah, Zadibal, Khanyar, Amirakadal and Batmaloo constituencies witnessed over 21.51 per cent, 20.14, 21.02 and 18.73 per cent turnout, respectively, till 2 PM in the fourth of the five-phased Assembly polls.

Anantnag constituency in south Kashmir, where PDP patron Mufti Mohammad Sayeed is a candidate, saw 30.58 per cent of the electorate cast their votes in the first six hours.

Pahalgam constituency in Anantnag district was leading in the turnout in Kashmir with 54.63 per cent of electorate exercising their franchise till 2 PM.

Shangus constituency recorded 53.46 per cent turnout, followed by Dooru (52.63), Kokernag (51.95), Bijbehara (44.07), Shopian (39.78) and Wachi (36.30).

Stringent security arrangements have been put in place to ensure incident-free polling across the state, the officials said.

Women outnumber men in Jharkhand

Women voters Sunday outnumbered men in the fourth phase of the assembly elections in Jharkhand. Around 61 percent balloting was reported from across the 15 constituencies that went to the polls, officials said.

“The highest polling was reported from Chankayari with 71.28 percent, followed by 70.2 percent in Madhupur. Polling was by and large peaceful. The turnout in Maoist-affected areas was more than 60 percent,” a poll official said. Women voters scored over the male voters.

“In the fourth phase, women’s turnout was around two percent more than male voters,” an Election Commission official said.

Balloting for 15 of the 81 assembly constituencies began at 7 a.m. While voting for 13 seats ended at 3 p.m., it continued in Bokaro and Dhanbad till 5 p.m. Voting took place at 5,482 booths, including 36 auxiliary ones.

As many as 716 booths were declared ‘very sensitive’ and 2,007 declared ‘sensitive’.

The Election Commission declared 183 polling stations as model polling stations. Webcasting facility was available in 335 polling stations and 27,410 polling personnel were deployed in the fourth phase.

A total of 43,48,709 voters, including 20,03,516 females, were eligible to elect their representatives.

The fate of 217 candidates, including 16 females, was sealed in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) by the end of balloting for the day. Former chief minister Babulal Marandi contested from Giridih constituency.

Ministers Mannan Mallik of the Congress, Haji Hussain Ansari of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and Suresh Paswan of the Rashtriya Janata Dal were among the other prominent candidates in this phase.

In the 2005 assembly polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party and its then alliance partner Janata Dal-United won seven of these 15 seats together. The JMM won four seats.

(Agencies)

Indian may be among Sydney hostages: minister

by

Armed police run toward a cafe in the central business district of Sydney on December 15, 2014. SAEED KHAN / AFP / GETTY IMAGES

Armed police run toward a cafe in the central business district of Sydney on December 15, 2014. SAEED KHAN / AFP / GETTY IMAGES

New Delhi: An Indian origin IT professional may be among the hostages held by a gunman in a cafe in Australia, according to Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu who later said the reports were unconfirmed.

“We don’t want to discuss it because there is some information that one of our IT persons is also there. So the External Affairs Ministry is keeping in touch with concerned people there– both our embassy as well as our counterpart also,” Naidu told reporters outside Parliament House.

Later, Naidu added that there were no confirmed reports and it was only preliminary information.

“There is some initial information that some people were taken hostage in Sydney by some person.

What is the purpose, what is the motive, (it is) not known and our External Affairs Ministry is keeping in touch with our embassy there in Australia.

“So far information says that people who were held hostages are safe, no harm is done to them.

All these information here and there– nothing has been confirmed about any citizens of our country is in that or not. It is a sensitive matter. I request all people to show restraint till the issue is resolved,” he said.

The Minister said whatever steps need to be taken are being taken.

Several people were taken hostage at a popular cafe in the heart of Sydney city in south-east Australia by one gunman this morning, leading to evacuation of important buildings, including the Indian consulate which is located 300-400 metres from the cafe. An Islamic flag was also reportedly seen hanging from the window of the cafe.

The Indian Consulate in Sydney was evacuated in view of the hostage situation in a cafe near its premises and all the staff members are safe, the External Affairs Ministry today said.

In Sydney, Consul General Sunjay Sudhir said that due to security concerns “we locked down our office at 12:00 PM and asked all our officers to go to places of safety”.

He said that the Central Business District (CBD) where the cafe is located is the area where many Indian establishments including the SBI, Bank of Baroda and Indian tourism office are located.

“We are in touch with the security agencies and have asked them specifically if any Indians were present inside the cafe…they have not told us about the nationality,” Sudhir said.

(PTI)

Kasargod: Court pronounces Praveen Togadia as absconder in hate speech case

by

Praveen Togadia

Kasargod: Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) international working president Praveen Togadia has been declared an absconder by the Hosadurga first class court in connection to a hate speech case.

Togadia was accused of making a provocative speech at a VHP convention in Kanhangad on April 30, 2011. The Hosadurga police had booked him for trying to create communal tension through his speech.

Togadia was then issued summons to appear before the court, but he failed to oblige. Despite warrants, Togadia did not appear in the court, and thus, the Hosagurga court has now declared him as an absconding accused.

During the last hearing in the case, the court issued a non-bailable warrant against him. On Saturday, the police told the court that they were unable to trace Togadia. Hence, the court decided to pronounce him as an absconder.

Another case had been registered against Togadia for making a provocative speech at Marad in Kozhikode during a VHP convention in July 2003. However, the state government recently withdrew this case, sparking much controversy. Chief minister Oommen Chandy had later clarified that the case was withdrawn as part of a Marad peace deal, and it was done after reviewing the legal procedures.

Pro-IS tweeter Mehdi Biswas sent to five days police custody

by

shamiwitness

Bengaluru: A local court Sunday sent pro-Islamic State (IS) terror group tweeter Mehdi Masroor Biswas to five day police custody for interrogation, a police official said.

“We had produced Mehdi before the sessions court, which remanded him to five day police custody till Dec 18 for interrogation by our investigation team on his unlawful activities,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Abhishek Goyal told IANS here.

Biswas was arrested early Saturday following a British news channel Dec 11 unmasking the city-based 24-year-old executive as a supporter of IS through social media and Twitter handle @ShamiWitness.

“Preliminary investigation reveals that Mehdi Biswas is a propagandist of IS ideology and has been instrumental in influencing minds against our friendly countries against whom the terror group is at war,” Additional Director General of Police Hemant Nimbalkar told reporters later.

Police registered a case against Biswas under sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Information Technology (IT) Act.

“We are quizzing him on his virtual and actual relations with the terror group and checking his antecedents, including mobile calls, e-mails, chat sessions and postings in the social media like Facebook, blogs and Twitter,” Nimbalkar said.

A police team raided Biswas’ one-room apartment in the northern suburb early Saturday and apart from arresting him, seized two mobiles, one laptop, incriminating documents, religious literature, pictures, pen drivers and compact discs (CDs) from the premises.

“We are also probing if Biswas or the terror group has any local presence in the form of sleeper cells or networks,” Nimbalkar added.

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

He admitted to the probe team that he had been operating the Twitter account after he got interested in the developments of the Middle Eastern region.

He has about 17,000 Twitter followers and used to aggressively tweet by collecting information on regional developments.

Bangalore Police Comissinor Mr. M.N Reddy, said on Monday that Shamiwitness could have been anyone in the world, it is only a coincidence that he happened to be in Bangalore.

When Nasheman inquired about his Twitter being reactivated, Mr. Reddy smiled and said that he does not knows who did it.

(With inputs from IANS)

Mehdi Masroor Biswas aka @shamiwitness had no direct contact with ISIS

by

shamiwitness

Bengaluru: Mehdi Masroor Biswas, who went by the nomme de guerre Shamiwitness was undoubtedly the most popular English voices of the Islamic State on Twitter, but the police interrogation since his arrest Saturday Dec 13th, has revealed that he had no direct contact with ISIS or any Jihadi groups.

Biswas was detained by Bengaluru police early Saturday morning, after Britain’s Channel 4 News had aired the report regarding the country’s IT capital’s link with the Twitter account that is followed by foreign fighters.

Mehdi, an electrical engineer from Kolkata, had moved to Bengaluru in 2011. He has two sisters and his father is a retired employee of the West Bengal state Electricity Board. He had been employed with the multinational corporation as a marketing executive since 2012 at an annual salary of Rs. 5.3 lakh.

Police interrogation after Mehdi’s arrest

Mehdi got interested in the developments in middle-east countries like Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Gaza strip, Egypt and Libya since 2003. He used to work during the day and surfed internet on a 60 GB monthly plan late into nights.

During the initial questioning, he said that he mainly concentrated on Muslims living abroad “as the Indian muslims were incapable of Jihad.” It is also learnt that more than 17,000 followers in his twitter account were English-Speakers from Europe.

Most of his tweets have been deleted and the account was shut down after the report surfaced. Even the police have not found any activity against India or anti-India tweets so far. Also there is no evidence to prove that he had planned terror attack in India. He had no previous criminal record too.

Even though Mehdi had contact with English speaking ISIS men on twitter, he did not reveal his true identity to them. Mehdi was not involved in any of the activity in propagating the ISIS agenda. He was just translating the arabic tweets into English. He collected the data and videos of ISIS from cyberspace and then posted on the internet.

Police also said that Mehdi has not travelled outside the country neither he received any funds from ISIS.

Mehdi’s interview to UK Channel 4

Channel 4’s investigators, meanwhile, discovered that Mehdi aka @ShamiWitness had used a personal email address, ElSaltador@gmail.com, to set up a personal Twitter account, @ElSaltador. Based on this lead, the channel found out that the same email address had been used to open personal LinkedIn and Google Groups accounts. The data enabled them to contact Mehdi  in Bangalore.

Reached by Channel 4, he denied that he intended to win over recruits to the Islamic State, saying his tweets only expressed his opinion. “Just because someone follows me, it doesn’t mean that I am the reason for their joining ISIS,” he said in the audio interview that was telecast along with the report.

But in the Channel 4 interview, he made clear his support for Islamic State, adding that he was prevented from joining the group by his commitments to his family.

According to Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, a graduate from Brasenose College, Oxford University, and an authority on the ongoing conflict in Syria, “It would not really be accurate to characterize Shami so much an ‘IS source’ as much as a ‘disseminator’, as Peter Neumann of the International Center for the Study of Radicalization puts it…If one looks back on Shami’s Twitter feed, as more and more official IS venues of information on Twitter emerged, much of the time he was simply retweeting. Shami’s role can therefore also be described as an ‘aggregator’ of IS content, something he also did in the days before official IS (IS) provincial news feeds and the like.”

Indian government sources said the UK’s intelligence services had been contacted for any information they might have on Mehdi, but were told he was not a person of interest for any ongoing terrorism investigation.

India on alert after massive oil spill in Sunderbans

by

Villagers have been asked to help the government clear the spill

Villagers have been asked to help the government clear the spill

by Reuters

New Delhi: Authorities on India’s eastern coast are on alert after a tanker and another vessel collided, spilling more than 350,000 litres of furnace oil into the waters of the Sunderban tidal mangrove forests in neighbouring Bangladesh.

“We are taking all precautionary measures,” Pradeep Vyas, additional director of India’s Sunderban Biosphere Reserve, told Reuters on Friday.

The Indian Coast Guard and Border Security Force are both monitoring the situation, and boats are patrolling the rivers that connect the Sunderban region, which straddles the border between India and Bangladesh, he said.

On Tuesday, an oil tanker carrying 358,000 litres of furnace oil and another vehicle crashed together. That caused the tanker to sink in the Shela river, in the Sunderbans, and spill its cargo into a complex network of rivers and canals, according to Mohammad Yunus Ali, chief conservator of forests in the Ministry of Environment and Forest.

A thick, black sheen spread in the days after the tanker crash, covering some 60km of waterways

Both Sunderbans include large swaths of protected areas that host a diverse wildlife, including threatened species such as the Bengal tiger, rare dolphins and the estuarine crocodile.

Yunus denied that the oil slick was moving towards India and said clean-up efforts were continuing. “We have been trying seriously to clean it within the quickest possible time,” he said. It was unclear when the process would be completed, he added.

Seven members of the sunken tanker’s crew managed to swim ashore, but the boat’s captain, Mokhlesur Rahman, was still missing as of Friday evening.

The Bangladesh government has filed a lawsuit against the owners of both ships.

Officials are still unclear about the extent of the damage from the spill

The chief wildlife warden in the state of West Bengal told Reuters the spill had not yet had any impact on the tiger reserve territory or marine life on the Indian side of the border.

“It may happen, and if it happens we have to deal with it,” said Ujjwal Kumar Bhattacharya, the chief warden.

KNOW US

GET INVOLVED

PROMOTE

Archives