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THE CONTACT WEEKLY NEWSPAPER ISSUE - 663, 19 - 25 APRIL 2016 PH: (905) 671 - 4761

Kohinoor was given to Britain, we shouldn’t ask for it: Govt to SC See on Page 6

Brussels attack: Victims’ kin tell ISIS to back off See on Page 4

LESSONS FROM THE MALLYA CASE Lack of transparency weakens our public banking sector. In the age of information technology and the Excel spreadsheet, the necessary transparency is literally just a click away.

by PULAPRE BALAKRISHNAN It appears that not everyone agrees on the true significance of a flamboyant tycoon decamping with debts of Rs.9,000 crore owed to India’s banks. The gentleman is no ordinary businessman at that, having earlier been embraced by the country’s political parties that had rewarded him with membership of Parliament. That

such an honour could have been bestowed upon Vijay Mallya, who only inherited wealth to make a lavish display of it when the country abounds with captains of industry who actually generate it, should alert us to how political patronage works.

When the incident had been analysed in the media as an instance of crony capitalism, a maverick economist had quipped

that it may be better described as “crony socialism”. Perhaps he had had in mind that it is the public sector banks that had lent so fecklessly to Mr. Mallya, and these had for decades, been showcased as a symbol of Indian

socialism.

Action and reaction Bank nationalisation in the 1960s led to schemes such as branch expansion, priority sector-lending and the takeover of private banks teetering on the brink thus

rescuing thousands of small depositors. But now, four decades later, it can hardly be asserted that the performance of India’s nationalised banking sector has been Continued on Page 2

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Lessons from the Mallya case Continued from Page 1 sterling, with inefficiency and poor service having been highlighted, and it taken the Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana to rectify their failure to advance the cause of inclusion on their own. But nothing quite matches the scale of the present scam, with public banks having lent such large sums of money to a single individual with indifferent capacity and without adequate collateral.

We may argue over whether what we have on our hands now is the result of mismanagement, poor judgment or mala fide conduct, but one thing is clear. If the money is not retrieved from Mr. Mallya, the loans would have to be writtenoff, involving a depletion of our assets for we own the banks. And if the banks are recapitalised via the Budget, it would be us who will foot the bill for his excesses.

Either way, it underlines the direct bearing upon us of the actions of public sector banks. There is no escape for us from this connection even if we migrate to the newer private ones for our personal banking, for we would continue to own the public banks.

Banks to blame There is no question that the banks are responsible for the predicament in which they find themselves. How is it that several leading nationalised banks have separately lent such staggering sums to a dubious client struggling to establish himself in an highly competitive industry?

There is reason to believe that Mr. Mallya was the beneficiary of pressure brought to bear upon the banks from the outside. And this could only have come from politicians who preside over the banking system in a governing capacity. If this is not the case, then we must worry seriously about how individual public officials can dispense such large

sums of public money so freely.

Are there no checks and balances in our public sector banks?

The term crony capitalism is used to describe a situation of private players being shielded from competition or vaulting over rivals due to the intervention of the ruling class. This usually takes the form of a relaxation of rules or granting of exclusive licences. The history of the United States in the 19th century is replete with examples of these. But things have improved substantially in that country, and in any case l’affaire Mallya is something worse. It is one in which the Indian public stands to lose directly. In the forms of crony capitalism considered above, the loss is indirect, usually in the form of higher prices. Even in the gigantic market intervention following the recent financial crisis in the United States, money had not been channelled to individuals.

Under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the government had purchased assets of struggling banks with a view to ensuring that they did not collapse taking along with them the rest of the financial system. These assets were disposed of later at a profit by the government! The U.S. government had acted smartly, while in the Indian case the banks now find themselves saddled with loans made by them to an individual with negative net worth. The irony could not have been more stark. The U.S. government had intervened smartly in a society strongly committed to laissez faire. On the other hand, for a country with “socialist” written into its Constitution, our public banks have unduly favoured a hereditary businessman without a sound business plan but with lots of political cronies. Also, the banks

had lent to a company that has been in the news for not having paid its employees for a noticeable period of time. Here, India’s public sector banks have acquiesced in the violation of employment rights.

Dealing with the mess Despite Mr. Mallya’s boorish style, we must resist the temptation of a tit-for-tat response, acting always in our best interest. Things that the Government of India can do would fall in two boxes. The first concerns possible ways to deal with the absconding debtor. The second contains measures needed to ensure that public sector banks do not find themselves in a similar situation ever again. On the first, there can be no question that the retrieval of loans made to Mr. Mallya must be pursued relentlessly. There are no grounds for giving him more time to present himself or to settle for less than what he owes the banks. He is perceived as a wilful defaulter and must be given exemplary treatment. The actions taken so far by the government are pathetic to say the least. The Finance Minister, under whose watch this has taken place, has not made any definite statement.

He must actually announce a plan of action detailing how he intends to bring the businessman to book. In the Mundhra Scandal in the 1950s it had come to light that the Life Insurance Corporation of India had supported an indicted businessman by purchasing shares in his troubled companies.

With advice that retains a freshness today, Feroze Gandhi had stated, “Parliament must exercise vigilance and control over the biggest and most powerful financial institution it has created, the Life Insurance Corporation of India, whose misapplication of public funds we

Islamic State’s income drops 30% on lower oil, tax revenue Baghdad Islamic State’s income and the population under its control have both fallen by about a third, a US-based analysis firm said, describing the declining revenue as a threat to its long-term rule over its self-proclaimed caliphate.

Revenue for the ultrahardline Sunni Muslim group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, fell to $56 million a month in March from

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around $80 million a month in the declined by about 22%?since middle of last year, the analysis mid-2014, while the population of company IHS said. that territory has fallen to around 6 million from 9 million.

“There are fewer people and business activities to tax; the same applies to properties and land to confiscate,” said IHS senior analyst Columb Strack.

Around 50% of the group’s revenue comes from taxation and confiscation, 43% from oil Daily oil output dropped to 21,000 and the rest from drug smuggling, barrels from 33,000 barrels over sale of electricity and donations, the same time frame, as produc- the report said. tion facilities suffered damage The group began allowing people from air strikes carried out mainly sentenced to corporal punishby a US-led coalition. ment to be spared in return for “Islamic State is still a force in cash payments, an indication of the region, but this drop in rev- financial difficulty, it said. enue is a significant figure and will It also introduced new taxes on increase the challenge for the such activities as installing satgroup to run its territory in the long ellite dishes or exiting cities. term,” said IHS senior analyst Fines can be imposed for giving Ludovico Carlino in a report. wrong answers about the Koran, The territory under its control has it said.

shall scrutinise today.” Following Feroze Gandhi’s intervention, the then Finance Minister T.T. Krishnamachari had to resign and Haridas Mundhra was arrested. Actually, l’affaire Mallya represents something more sinister, for a number of publiclyowned banks were commandeered to favour a private party whose dubious reputation was common knowledge.

Immediate revocation of the absconding parliamentarian’s passport would be appropriate. After all, it would be fair to say that the easeof-doing-business, so championed by this government, must be balanced by the difficulty of evading the law.

Making the process clear Now onto the second of the set of actions that may be taken by the government in this case. In a plea to the contrary made by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to the Supreme Court lies an idea with hidden potential. When handing over a list of defaulters of loans from banks, the RBI is reported to have requested that the names not be revealed. As far as the publicly-owned banks are concerned, this goes against an important principle applicable to the public sector.

It would be unfortunate if we are to allow a distinction made

between “passive” and “wilful” defaulters to muddy the waters.

The only question here is whether full disclosure will lead to better outcomes. There is reason to believe that it will.

Details of every loan sanctioned by the nationalised banking sector, including the history of the borrower, the grounds on which viability has been ascertained, the guarantors, the collateral pledged and the officials involved may be posted on the website of the bank concerned.

We also need to work towards a re-engineering of procedures. It has been suggested that fear of being scrutinised by the office of the Central Vigilance Commissioner has petrified loan officers in the public sector into inaction. It is of no use having a publicly-owned banking system that does not extend credit to sound projects on grounds of retrospective scrutiny. This can be taken care of by moving to a system of whetting loan applications through committees, thus allowing joint responsibility to come into play.

Lack of transparency weakens our public banking sector. In the age of information technology and the Excel spreadsheet, the necessary transparency is literally just a click away.

Natural disasters since 1900 cost the world $7 trillion in damages

Natural disasters have caused more than $7 trillion (6.2 trillion euros) in economic damage worldwide since 1900, with floods and storms accounting for nearly 60% of the total, researchers said on Monday. The death toll from such natural calamities -- which also include earthquakes, volcanoes, droughts, heatwaves and wildfires -- topped eight million from 1900 to 2015, according to findings presented at a meeting of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna. More than a third -- 38.5% -- of the economic damage and just over half the loss

of life was the result of flooding, according to James Daniell, an Australian risk engineer at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany.

“Flooding is the key driver” for economic loss and death, said Daniell, who has catalogued 35,000 disasters over 115 years, the largest such database in existence.

Since about 1960, storms and storm surges -- the exceptional waves they cause -- have replaced flooding as the most destructive forces, battering buildings and infrastructure.

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Brussels attack: Victims’ kin tell ISIS to back off

By JAY AKBAR FOR MAILONLINE More than 7,000 people marched through Brussels in a peaceful protest ‘against terror and hatred’ almost a month after coordinated suicide attacks in the Belgian capital killed 32 and wounded hundreds more.

The march, organised by civil society groups, was aimed at displaying a show of unity after the bloodshed.

The 6,000 people who set off from the Gare du Nord railway station were joined in the city centre by 1,000 others who started in Molenbeek, a rundown district that has gained an unwelcome reputation as a jihadi haven.

Many of the thousands to march through the streets were clutching Belgian flags, flowers and emblems and banners of peace.

‘When our fellow citizens, defenceless civilians, are cut down in a cowardly attack, all citizens should stand up to express their disgust and solidarity,’ said Hassan Bousetta, a local councillor from the city of Liege, who helped organise the

march.

‘It is a moment of reflection, a message of compassion for the victims and a moment when citizens come together,’ he said.

Carrying a banner in French and Flemish reading ‘#alltogether against hatred and terror’, the main group of marchers was led by families of the victims, followed by representatives from various religious communities.

At the ceremony, the names of the dead were read out before relatives of the dead and witnesses took turns to speak.

‘Our Islam is based on the love of God and love for each other, regardless of one’s culture, origin, religion,’ said a message from the widower of Loubna Lafquiri, a Belgian-Moroccan mother of three who was killed in the metro blast.

In a poignant address to his wife, he wrote: ‘My princess, my treasure, my eternal

at police during an operation last month to arrest a suspect in connection with November’s attacks in Paris.

‘This is the real problem. Terrorists we can pick up, remove from society. But they are just a boil. Underneath is a cancer that is much more difficult to treat. We can do it, but it won’t be overnight,’ he said. His comments drew fire on Sunday.

‘It is abysmal to exploit events in order to sow division,’ said Pieter Bouchery, a

A dozen members of an association for inter-religious dialogue carried a banner with drawings of doves emblazoned with the words, ‘Together in peace’, while a Muslim group carried a placard reading: ‘Love is my religion and my faith.’

In the group that set off from Molenbeek, children chanted: ‘Daesh [ISIS], off you go, Brussels isn’t for you!’

Thirty two people were killed in the March 22 bomb attacks which targeted Zaventem airport and a subway train at Maalbeek station, near the European Union (EU) institutions in central Brussels.

love, I say to you that we will meet again soon.’

The bloodshed tore at Belgium’s social fabric and stirred anguished debate about the emergence of jihadists among the country’s Muslim underclass.

On Saturday, Interior Minister Jan Jambon - a Flemish nationalist who has been criticised for his handling of security - said a ‘significant section of the Muslim population danced’ when the attacks took place.

He also accused Muslim residents of Molenbeek of throwing stones and bottles

union official with telephone operator Mobistar.

‘To say that Molenbeek is a jihadists’ paradise is stupid and not right for the people who live there.’

Several Socialist MPs have called on Prime Minister Charles Michel to condemn Jambon’s remarks, media reports said.

The march, which involved 160 associations, was initially to have taken place on March 27 but was postponed after the authorities raised security concerns.

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Trump aide lobbied for group that was front for Pakistan’s ISI Washington A top aide to Donald Trump had lobbied for a US-based outfit busted by authorities in 2011 for operating as a front for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, according to a Yahoo News report.

The aide, Paul Manafort, was part of the lobbying firm Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly, which was paid $700,000 by the Kashmiri American Council (KAC) between 1990 and 1995.

The KAC was shut down by the authorities in 2011 and the man who ran it, Ghulam Nabi Fai, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and tax fraud and was sentenced to two years in jail.

The KAC, which received money from the ISI through contacts in the US, lobbied the administration, lawmakers and opinion-makers for independence for Kashmir.

Manafort was hired recently by Trump specifically to prepare his campaign for a contested party convention that is most likely to settle the Republican presiden-

tial race. Neither Manafort nor Trump has responded to the report.

But when asked about some of his controversial lobbying jobs, Manafort said in a TV interview, “I’m not working for any client right now other than working for Mr. Trump.”

Charlie Black, a partner in the lobbying

firm who handled the KAC account, told Yahoo News they were not aware its funding was coming from the ISI. “Nobody was more surprised than me that the guy was taking the money from Pakistan,” Black said in a telephone interview, according to Yahoo News. “We didn’t know anything about it.”

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China bans children of stars from appearing on reality TV shows Beijing China is banning the children of famous entertainers from appearing on popular reality shows as the country continues efforts to try to prevent the manufacture of child stars.

The ban by the government’s media regulator also covers appearances by the stars’ children on chat shows and reports about them on entertainment programs, the official Xinhua News Agency reported on Monday.

Reality shows featuring attractive stars and their well-

dressed, fashionably years.

July that producers of the coiffed and often some- However, apparently con- dozens of reality shows on what precocious children cerned with the growth of satellite channels cut back

travelling or performing tasks together have grown extremely popular with Chinese viewers in recent

Indian student struck by train at London Underground station, dies London Mir Baquer Ali Rizvi, a resident of Hyderabad, died after a London Underground train hit him at Osterley sta-

tion on April 12, it was announced on Monday.

The British Transport Police (BTP) said the death of Rizvi, 33, was not being treated as suspicious. Unconfirmed reports said he was in Britain since 2009 and was an MBA student at the time of the accident that occurred near Heathrow airport.

A BTP spokesperson said: “We were called to Osterley London Underground station at 7.45 pm on Tuesday, 12th April, following reports of a person being struck by a train.

“Colleagues from Metropolitan Police Service, London Ambulance Service and London Fire Brigade also attended, and a 33-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene.

“The man’s death is not being treated as suspicious and his family have been made aware. A file will be prepared for the coroner.”

Osterley is served by the Piccadilly Line of London Underground that connects various terminals of Heathrow airport and other west London areas to central London.

celebrity culture, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television ordered in

on appearances by minors and tamp down parts of the shows seen as attempting to make them stars on

their own.

On Monday, Xinhua cited the administration’s latest order as saying, “Reality shows should pay attention to strengthening protection over minors and endeavour to reduce the participation of minors.”

It said reality show producers have been ordered to drop the “mistaken notion” that they should use well known entertainers to attract viewers. “Do not permit shows to become venues for displaying fame and wealth,” Xinhua cited the order as saying.

A staffer at Hunan Satellite, whose “Dad Where Are We Going?” is one of the biggest hits in the “celebrities and their children” genre, said the station was aware of the administration’s order. Speaking on condition of anonymity because she

wasn’t authorised to speak to reporters, she said a decision had not yet been made on whether to order another season of the program.

Chinese media regulators say they see their task as reining in programs seen as overly materialistic or encouraging the worship of celebrities who might compete with roll models promoted by the ruling Communist Party.

Viewers have increasingly turned to programming on more independent satellite television stations and the internet, where regulators have sought to impose stronger control over live streaming programs usually featuring young women chatting, playing video games or simply going about their everyday tasks.

After Panama Papers, govt may not pick Big B as face of Incredible India New Delhi The Panama Papers scandal appears to have weakened Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan’s chances of becoming the face of Incredible India, the tourism industry’s main publicity campaign that targets global audiences.

A source in the ministry said the government has put Bachchan’s name on hold and is now looking at other celebrities.

“The ministry doesn’t want to appoint anyone in haste.

This is a signature campaign of the government and since his name surfaced in the leak any decision on his appointment will be taken after getting clarity over government’s stand on the entire issue,” said the source, suggesting

Bachchan’s name hasn’t shore tax havens. The ac- Chopra and Akshay Kumar. been completely ruled out tor has denied any connec- “The ministry is also disyet. tion with those companies, cussing whether we should have a female brand ambassador this time. A final decision will be taken soon,” one of them said, requesting anonymity since he was not authorised to speak on the matter.

In January, Bollywood star Aamir Khan ceased to the face of Incredible India, leading to speculation that the move may be due to a fallout of him being embroiled in the ‘intolerance’ row. Khan had in November last year said that his wife Kiran Rao was considering Leaked documents from saying his name may have moving out of the country Panama-based law firm been “misused”. due to the prevalence of an Mossack Fonseca showed According to tourism min- atmosphere of “intolerance” Bachchan was among 500 istry officials, the other – an allusion to attacks Indian entities who owned names in the reckoning purportedly carried out by firms and accounts in off- now are actors Priyanka Hindu extremists.

‘Forced’ into same-sex relation, In Punjab Face-Off, AAP Seems To Have Fallen Into A Congress Trap woman commits suicide Gwalior A 35-year-old woman was found hanging from the ceiling fan of a hotel room in this Madhya Pradesh town on Monday morning, blam-

ing in a yet-to-be-authenticated suicide note a forced same-sex relationship for the extreme step.

The note accuses the landlord’s wife and her sister-in-law of putting pressure on her to have a physical relationship with them,

police said.

The woman reportedly a divorcee from Mumbai worked as an accountant of a private school in Gwalior, where she lived in a rented

house in the Meera Nagar area of Morar.

Police recovered the note in a hotel near the railway station where she had checked in the previous evening.

Besides, her mobile phone and personal belongings were found there. She had

told her neighbours on Sunday that she was going to Mumbai.

The hotel staff broke open the door to her room at 10.20 am on Monday after her mobile phone went unanswered despite repeated attempts.

Additional superintendent of police Dinesh Kaushal said a probe team was examining the note and a WhatsApp message she sent on Sunday evening, which reveals her intent to commit suicide.

Residents of the locality gathered on the streets and demanded action against the suspects after coming to know of the WhatsApp message, which she had sent to her family in Mumbai as well. They dispersed after an assurance from police officers.

New Delhi Did the Aam Aam Party yesterday fall into the trap of giving the Congress what it wants: moving the political discourse from everything else to the persona of Congress leader Amarinder Singh?

Leaders of the AAP, including Arvind Kejriwal himself, had a field day on Twitter; pointing out that Rahul Gandhi had refused to name Amarinder Singh as the party’s chief ministerial candidate for the Punjab assembly elections.

On Saturday, 16 April, the Congress vice president held an interaction with Congress leaders and workers on the outskirts of Chandigarh.

Congress workers persuaded him to declare Singh as the CM candidate.

When journalists asked him about this, Gandhi replied that while the Captain was

the face of the campaign by virtue of being the sate Congress chief, the chief minister would be elected by the MLAs after the election.

In saying so, he seemed to be going back on what he had suggested in his previous visit to Punjab. In his visit in March, Gandhi had said the next Punjab government would be formed under the leadership of Singh. So when on Saturday, Gandhi appeared to retract the declaration, it seemed like an embarrassment for the Punjab Congress, and for Amarinder’s campaign

strategist Prashant Kishor, who had already begun projecting Amarinder as ‘Punjab da Captain’ in a presidential-style campaign.

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BJP corners Congress on Ishrat Jahan case after fresh affidavit expose Armed with fresh revelations in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case, the BJP on Monday launched a full scale attack on the Congress, accusing it of playing with national security in trying to frame then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.

Commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman said at a press conference that media reports on Monday established that the first affidavit, which accepted Jahan was an LeT operative and there was a plot to eliminate Modi, was also signed by then home minister P Chidambaram.

“The media reports have now established that it

was Chidambaram who also cleared the first affidavit,” she said, accusing the Congress leader of acting at his party chief Sonia Gandhi’s behest to implicate Modi.

Based on RTI disclosures, a TV news channel claimed on Monday that Chidambaram had seen and signed the first affidavit, a fact that he has denied.

“Sonia Gandhi cleverly worked on this. She went around the town claiming an encounter has happened. She worked together with Chidambaram and she cannot isolate herself on this,” Sitharaman said. She alleged that the entire Con-

gress party derived benefit out of this.

Pointing out that the second affidavit, also signed by Chidambaram, had removed reference of Ishrat being an LeT operative and the terror plot theory, the Union minister said the government also mislead the court and the country with two different positions.

“Only one of the affidavits could have been true,” Sitharaman said, adding, “You did not event want to do justice to take care that there was a terror plot to eliminate him. You wanted to underplay it.”

Minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju said former home minister P Chidambaram cannot es-

cape from the responsibility now. Rijiju said not only Chidambaram but entire Congress should take responsibility of changing the affidavit in the Ishrat case. He suspected that there was pressure on Chidambaram from elsewhere that made him take the decisions. He accused Chidambaram of failing in his duty as Union home

minister by disapproving the intelligence inputs in the Ishrat case. “On policy decision, action cannot be taken against Chidambaram but it needs to be exposed. How can a terrorist be declared as innocent?” he said.

Chidambaram defends statements Within hours of the BJP onslaught, Chidambaram

said he would not like to comment without “perusing the files and the noting”.

“My public statements on why the second affidavit was filed after due and full consultation with the home secretary and the attorney general are selfexplanatory. I have nothing to add,” he said in a statement.

Man barred from last rites Kohinoor was given to Britain, we shouldn’t ask for it: Govt to SC of kin by caste panchayat Pune A 55-year-old man was barred from attending last rites of his kin allegedly by

his family back in the community, the officer said.

The complainant, a businessman told PTI, “For

a caste panchayat on the ground that his son had married out of the community, police said on Monday.

Shankar Dangi, who belongs to Goud-Brahmin community, on Sunday registered a case against six members of the community, for not allowing him to take part in the last rites of his uncle on April 8, saying that his son had married a girl from a different community, an official attached to the Sahakar Nagar police station said.

Dangi claimed he also came to know that he was allegedly ostracised from the community by the caste panchayat members.

The Maharashtra Assembly on April 13 had unanimously approved the Prohibition of Social Boycott Bill, which seeks to crackdown on extra-judicial bodies like caste and community panchayats.

Members of the panchayat also allegedly demanded Rs 1 lakh to take him and

entire life, I and my family took care of my ailing uncle and bore all the medical expenses and after his death made all the arrangements for his last rites on April 8.”

However, Dangi claimed that during the last rites, some of the members from the community told him to go away from the cremation site.

“When I questioned them, they told me that since my son has married to a girl from different community, we have been boycotted

by the community and (the members) also demanded Rs one lakh to regain the position in society,” he claimed.

“Since, it was all of a sudden, I tried to oppose the decision, but looking at the situation, I and my family left the crematorium and later decided to lodge complaint against the regressive tradition,” Dangi said.

He claimed that his son had married a girl from other Brahmin community five years ago. Two years ago, when another relative had passed away, the community members had not raised on objections, he said.

“We are educated people and can not tolerate such evil and repressive practises,” he added.

A case under sections 120(B)(criminal conspiracy), 384 (extortion), 341 (wrongful restraint), 506 ( criminal intimidation) and other relevant sections of IPC was registered against six persons of the community, Shashikant Shinde, in-charge of Sahakar Nagar police station said.

New Delhi The Kohinoor was neither stolen nor forcibly taken by the British, the government told the Supreme Court on Monday, adding that India should not reclaim the famous diamond that adorns the crown of the British Queen.

The apex court, however, refused to dismiss an NGO’s petition seeking return of the treasure, saying it will prevent India from making “a legitimate claim” over the prized diamond sought by at least four countries.

The 105-carat Kohinoor – the name translates to ‘Mountain of Light’ – is believed to have been mined in present-day Andhra Pradesh in the 13th century and passed several hands before ending up with the British during their occupation of India.

Solicitor general Ranjit Kumar told a bench headed by chief justice TS Thakur that Sikh king Duleep Singh presented the Kohinoor to Queen Victoria in 1850, a year after the British annexed Punjab.

“It has not been

categorised as an object stolen but gifted as compensation. If we lay claim to the gem then tomorrow other countries will start demanding the treasure we have,” Kumar said.

But the court was not convinced with the argument.

returning the diamond among other treasures — belonging to kings such as Tipu Sultan, Bahadur Shah Zafar and Rani of Jhansi.

The chief justice reminded Kumar about Tipu Sultan’s sword which was brought back to India by liquor

“We’ve never colonised others,” the court said.

“If we dismiss this petition it will be read against the government. Tomorrow everybody will say that the Indian Supreme Court has held the gem cannot be brought back,” the bench added. The court gave six weeks to the Centre to clear its stand on the issue.

The petitioner, the All India Human Rights and Social Justice Front, is seeking directions to the British Indian high commissioner for

baron Vijay Mallya.

The solicitor replied in lighter vein: “The man who bought the sword has left the country.” This prompted the court to ask whether Mallya left the sword behind or took it with him when he left the country last month.

A similar petition filed at the Lahore high court by a Pakistani lawyer said the British snatched the diamond from Ranjeet Singh’s son Duleep Singh.

In 1976, Britain refused a request to cede the diamond, citing the terms of the Anglo-Sikh peace treaty.

Bullet train will need 100 daily trips to be financially viable Ahmedabad The proposed bullet train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad will have to ferry 88,000-118,000 passengers per day, or undertake 100 trips daily, for the Railways to keep it financially viable, according to a report by the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A).

The report states if Railways set the ticket price

at Rs 1,500 for 300-km drive per person 15 years after the operation, it will

have to ferry between 88,000 and 110,000 passengers every day to en-

sure it repays the loans on time. Japan has offered a concessional loan of Rs 97,636 crore to fund 80% of the project. For the remaining 20%, the authors assume an 8% average rate of interest (on Rs 20,000 crore to be funded

by Centre). Japan has offered a 15-year moratorium on loan, so revenue concerns will arise from the 16th year.

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Malaysia destroys huge ivory trove PORT DICKSON Malaysia on Thursday destroyed 9.5 tonnes of elephant ivory it had seized over the years,

Malaysia does not compromise in protecting endangered species,” Natural Resources and Environment Minister Wan

which authorities hope will help deter smugglers who have long used the country as a trans-shipment point.

The huge pile of African elephant tusks, estimated to be worth $20 million, was first fed into in an industrial crusher to be pulverised, and then incinerated in a giant furnace in Port Dickson in southern Malaysia.

Malaysia has previously announced in Parliament that 4,624 ivory tusks were confiscated between 2011 and 2014. “This is our first-ever ivory destruction.

We want to send a strong message to the world that

Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar told AFP. The international ivory trade, with rare exceptions, has been outlawed since 1989 after the population of African elephants declined from millions in the mid-20th century to just 600,000 by the end of the 1980s.

But poachers and smugglers have continued to exploit demand, mainly from Asia and particularly China, where ivory is highly prized for medicinal and decorative uses.

Malaysia, a signatory to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species

(CITES), has seized a number of shipments over the years, mostly by sea.

In March, officials said they had confiscated 159 kilogrammes (350 pounds) of ivory smuggled by passengers aboard commercial flights.

Wan Junaidi said the tusks destroyed Thursday originated from 11 African countries ranging from Ghana to Tanzania.

They were publicly destroyed to deter smugglers, he said, while adding it also was partly in response to questions raised by conservationists over the fate of seized ivory.“I do not want any of the seized ivory lost. If the ivory is no longer needed to be kept for evidence, we will destroy it,” he said.

The event was witnessed by foreign diplomats and conservation groups.

“We look forward to these good intentions being bolstered with concrete actions to tackle the factors that have made Malaysia a key transit point in the global ivory trade,” said Kanitha Krishnasamy, programme manager for TRAFFIC in Southeast Asia.

US ex-contractor jailed for sending defence drawings to India Washington A woman US defence contractor has been sentenced to nearly five years in jail for illegally exporting to India military blueprints and technical drawings of parts used in

tech and sensitive hardware like F-15.

She was sentenced to 57 months of imprisonment for conspiring to send sensitive military technical data to India.“We will vigorously prosecute and

some high-tech hardware like F-15 jets using a local church’s website.

Hannah Robert, 49, circumvented the US government and provided export-controlled technical data related to various types of military technology to an individual in India, said Assistant US Attorney General John P Carlin in a statement.

Robert, a resident of New Jersey, was charged with illegally exporting to India the military blueprints and technical drawings of parts used in some of the high-

bring to justice those who abuse their access to sensitive defence information and violate the Arms Export Control Act,” Carlin said.

Prosecutors say she ran two New Jersey-based companies that contracted with the Pentagon to supply defence hardware and spare parts. She owned a third company in India that manufactured parts.Currently under home detention pending trial, she was charged in a superseding indictment with one count of violating

the Arms Export Control Act, one count of conspiracy to violate the act and four counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.According to court documents, Robert, founder, owner, and president of One Source USA LLC, used a local church’s website to transfer technical drawings of military hardware parts.

The exported technical drawings include parts used in the torpedo systems for nuclear submarines, military attack helicopters, and F15 fighter aircraft, the Department of Justice said.She transmitted export-controlled technical data to one PR in India so that they could submit bids to foreigners, including those in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), to supply them or their foreign customers with defence hardware items and spare parts.

Neither Robert nor PR obtained approval from the US Department of State for this conduct, the Justice Department said.

First gender-neutral restroom opens at Los Angeles school Los Angeles A Los Angeles high school on Friday opened the first gender-neutral restroom in the nation’s second-largest school district, and likely the state, in a move geared toward accommodating trans-gender students.

Santee Education Complex converted a second-floor girls’ restroom after the campus Gay Straight Alliance gathered some 700 signatures on a petition calling for the change during a heated national debate over transgender rights.

North Carolina’s governor in March signed into law a measure barring transgender people from using bathrooms consistent with their gender identity, touching off widespread criticism from corporate, entertainment and sports leaders.

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“Our students who advocated for the genderneutral restrooms are the real heroes this valuable experience allowed them to

So-called “bathroom bills” like the one passed in North Carolina have fueled debate about privacy, religious freedom and equal rights

develop leadership skills that will prepare them for college and career,” Santee Principal Martin Gomez said in a statement.

Elise Hill, a spokesperson for the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, which runs Santee, said that it was believed to be the first gender-neutral school restroom in a public school in the state and among only a few nationwide.

Los Angeles Unified School District is the second largest U.S. public school district, with more than 1,000 schools and educational centers, plus 53 affiliated charter schools.

and drawn stern reactions from major corporations and entertainers who call them discriminatory.

North Carolina Republican Governor Pat McCrory earlier this week tweaked his the law with an executive order, adding protections against discrimination for state employees based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Companies such as PayPal Holdings and Deutsche Bank have halted plans to add jobs in the state after McCrory and top Republican lawmakers said they would not repeal the measure.

Issue - 663 (8)

19 April - 25 April 2016

Tracking elephants as new railway cuts Kenya TSAVO Dangling from a helicopter with a high powered rifle, a Kenyan vet fires drugged darts at elephants to sedate them so they can be fitted with satellite collars. Ten minutes after the elephant is darted, the lumbering creature stumbles, and falls asleep. Ground teams are scrambled, rushing to the scene with just a 20 minute window to conduct tests and fit the collar before it regains consciousness.

More than 12,000 elephants live in Tsavo Park, threatened daily by poaching, but also more recently, by the construction of a new high-speed railway linking Kenya’s coast to the capital. The new 483-kilometre (300-mile) train route linking Kenya’s Nairobi to the country’s main port Mombasa is worrying conservationists, who fear the new infrastructure slicing through the giant Tsavo national park will affect the movement of elephants.

It is hoped that the satellite radio tracking collars fitted last month by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and conservation group Save the Elephants, will help conservationists monitor railway crossing points to allow the animals to live in peace. “This

project is the first of its kind in Kenya and indeed in Africa,” said Dr. Benson Okita, head of monitoring at Save the Elephants. “It seeks to understand how elephant movements are influenced by a major infrastructural

area of dense bush, about the size of Slovenia or Djibouti.

Each collared elephant is tracked on a map overlaid with land use, logging their movements as humans encroach ever closer on wilderness areas, help-

project.” Once the railway is complete, a six-lane motorway is also planned, so understanding what impact the railway has on the animals will be crucial to limiting the disruption caused by a new road. Tsavo, spread over a western and eastern park, covers a vast 20,812 square kilometre (8,035 square miles)

ing experts to monitor the impact on elephant ranging patterns.

The elephant movement data “will allow the country to secure space for wildlife as the Kenyan population grows,” KWS deputy director for conservation Patrick Omondi said. Though only elephants are being tagged, the scheme will help experts moni-

tor the movements of other species as well.

“We are only using elephants, as a keystone species, but that will give an indication on how this effects wildlife distribution in general,” said Sospeter Kiambi, who heads the KWS elephant tagging programme. With ivory commanding thousands of dollars per kilo in Asia, conservationists have warned that African elephants could be extinct in the wild within a generation.

More than 30,000 elephants are killed for their tusks every year.

Later this month, Kenya is due to set fire to the vast majority of its ivory and rhino horn stockpile some 105 tonnes of ivory, seven times the size of any ivory stockpile destroyed so far, as well as 1.35 tonnes of rhino horn — in a highly publicised symbolic gesture against poaching led by President Uhuru Kenyatta.

The mass burning is expected to be attended by international celebrities, actors, conservationists and heads of state. And though Kenya is striving to se-

cure its economic future with infrastructure investment like the Mombasa-Nairobi road and rail link, it is hoped that the elephant tracking project will ensure that development does not come at the cost of wildlife.

Kenya launched in 2013 the construction of a Chinese-funded $13.8 billion (10 billion euro) flagship railway project to dramatically increase trade and boost the east African country’s position as a regional economic powerhouse.

The key transport link is eventually hoped to extend onwards to landlocked Uganda, and then connect with proposed lines to Rwanda and South Sudan, a key goods route extending far into the continent. It replaces a colonialera 19th century railway built under British rule, a line dubbed the “Lunatic Express” due to the logistical challenges including in Tsavo, where man-eating lions hunted the struggling railway workers. Chugging once-a-day trains on that slow moving line occasionally hit animals, but posed nothing like the threat the busy, fast new link may pose.

Elephants crossing are being built underneath the railway raised bridges allowing animals to move beneath but concerns remains especially as to the impact of the planned road.

French cave artwork 10,000 yrs older than thought Hackers helped FBI crack WASHINGTON Some of the world’s oldest prehistoric artwork, located in the Chauvet-Pont d’Arc cave in southeastern France, is actually 10,000 years older than previously thought, researchers said Tuesday.

The red and black cave drawings contained in the cave

are more than 30,000 years old, according to a radiocarbon dating study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed US journal.

The cave is located in VallonPont d’Arc, Ardeche, and was classified as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage site in 2014, 20 years after it was first discovered.“What is new in our study is that we have established the chronology of the cave for the first time in

calendar years,” said Anita Quiles, a scientist at the French Institute for Oriental Archaeology in Cairo.Because of stylistic similarities, researchers had long believed that the Chauvet art was from about the same period as that contained in Lascaux, a prehistoric site in southwestern France that dates to 20,000

years ago. “But now we know there is 10,000 years - or even 15,000 years - of a split in the dates of these two sites,” she told AFP.“We can now say with certainty that there has been no human activity in the Chauvet cave for about 30,000 years.”

The study analyzed charcoal samples on the cave floor and walls, and found that there were two phases of human occupation. The first lasted from 37,000 to 33,500 years ago, said the study, appearing to come to an end around the time of a rockfall in one section of the cave.

The second wave of human occupation lasted from 31,000 to 28,000 years ago. “The end of the second human occupation correlates with a second rockfall 29,400 years ago that partially closed off the cave entrance,” said the study.

Researchers also analyzed animal bones found in the cave and identified them as belonging to cave bears.

No human remains have been found inside, and experts believe this is because people did not live in the cave but rather visited from time to time.

The artwork contains 447 drawings of animals, including deer, horses and rhinoceroses.

The study took 18 years, and involved creating a statistical model which included more than 250 dates derived from samples of charcoal and bone, according to Jean-Michel Geneste, scientific director for the Chauvet-Pont d’Arc cave.

“This is pretty revolutionary for us. It is a new tool which could be used elsewhere to study other ancient time periods,” he said.“We can now confirm that 36,000 years ago, during the Upper Paleolithic period when modern tools, art and jewelrymaking techniques appeared, we already had art that was quite evolved, accomplished, and already the object of a very long memory and a long cultural tradition in western Europe,” he said. “Before, this was a hypothesis. Now that we have dozens of dates, we have certainty.”

San Bernardino iPhone

WASHINGTON Professional hackers discovered at least one software flaw that helped the FBI break into an iPhone used by a San Bernardino attacker, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.

These hackers were paid a onetime flat fee for their help, the Post said, quoting people familiar with the case.

The discovery of the flaw was used to fashion a piece of hardware that helped US authorities dodge the iPhone’s four-digit personal identification number without activating a feature that would have erased all the data on the phone, the Post quoted the people familiar with the case as saying.

The FBI would not have had trouble cracking the four-digit PIN. The tricky part, in fact, was

to deactivate a feature on the phone that erases data stored on the device after 10 incorrect tries at guessing the code, the Post said.

In the San Bernardino attacks, Syed Farook and wife Tashfeen Malik killed 14 people on December 2 before dying in a firefight with police. Two other phones linked to the pair were found destroyed after the attack.

The government filed suit to try to force Apple to help it break into a phone used by one of the shooters.

Apple, backed by other tech giants such as Google and Facebook, refused, citing concerns over digital security and privacy. The FBI announced late last month that it had managed to break into the phone with the help of an undisclosed third party, ending the legal standoff.

Issue - 663 (9)

19 April - 25 April 2016

More Western art on shopping list for Chinese tycoon Liu HONG KONG He first stunned the auction world by snapping up hugely expensive Chinese antiquities, but now taxi driver turned tycoon Liu Yiqian is targeting Western

masterpieces, saying it is his “social responsibility” to show them to China’s younger generation.

Liu has become China’s highest profile art collector, hitting headlines with record-breaking buys and an irreverent approach.

His acquisitions have mainly been of Chinese heritage, most famously the tiny Ming Dynasty “Chicken Cup” for which he paid $36 million in 2014 at Sotheby’s before drinking tea from it, causing a social media meltdown.

But in a departure from his Chinese collecting spree, last year Liu splashed out on Modigliani’s “Nu Couche” or “Reclining Nude” for more than $170 million at Christie’s, the second highest price ever paid at auction for a work of art. Liu says he hopes the museum he founded in Shanghai, the Long Museum, where much of his collection is on display across two branches, will increasingly become a showcase for Western art as well as Chinese classics.

The Modigliani is due to go on show at the museum next year.

“The world is globalised our collection is mainly Chinese traditional works of art, (but) we are going to expand into Western and Asian works. I hope in my life time I can collect more from

both China and the West,” he told AFP in an recent interview at Christie’s regional headquarters in Hong Kong.

Liu said he felt a “social responsibility” to enable Chinese youngsters to experience Western masters. “Other than Chinese traditional and contemporary works of art, younger generations in China have developed deeper recognition of Western works,” he said, relaxing in an armchair and talking through a haze of cigarette smoke after cutting the ribbon on a preview ahead of Christie’s spring sales in May. “I hope top Western works of art can be exhibited in Shanghai or in our country. I think it’s something someone has to do...it’s cultural exchange.” With a personal wealth of $1.38 billion according to Forbes magazine, Liu is among the ranks of the new Chinese super-rich.

Having made his fortune in real estate and finance in the 1990s, he now runs a huge conglomerate across several industries from chemicals to investments. Liu’s auction buys

Coy Putin laughs off remarriage question in phone-in MOSCOW President Vladimir Putin on Thursday laughed off a question about Russia’s next first lady during his annual phone-in with the nation, but hinted that “maybe” he will remarry one day.

In 2013, the Russian strongman and his wife Lyudmila, his partner of nearly 30 years with whom he has two daughters, stunned Russia by announcing their divorce on television after attending a ballet performance at the Kremlin. Earlier this year, Russian media suggested that Putin’s former wife had found happiness again, marrying a 37year-old man and taking his last name. Putin’s love life has always been a virtual taboo in Russia’s state-controlled media, although some reports have linked the president to former Olympic gymnast Alina Kabayeva, 32,

even before his divorce.During a highly choreographed annual televised call-in show, one curious female supporter asked

the 63-year-old Putin when he was planning to introduce the country’s next first lady to Russians.Putin laughed off the question, saying he was afraid his marriage may affect the country’s already wobbly foreign exchange rate or oil prices.

“Maybe one day I will be able to satisfy your curiosity,” he said.

He also declared that elected officials should be judged by their deeds and that their personal life was not of “primary importance”.

have not been without controversy - his $8.2 million purchase of an “ancient” scroll of nine Chinese characters was derided as a fake by a group of respected Chinese experts but he brushed off the scepticism.

He also remains unapologetic over drinking from the valuable porcelain “Chicken Cup”, depicting a rooster and hen tending their chicks. “I wasn’t showing off,” he told AFP, drinking this time from an ordinary tea cup.

While he is eyeing Western works, Liu is also still snapping up Chinese pieces. This month he bought a painting by Chinese master Zhang Daqian for $35.93 million at Sotheby’s - a new record for the artist at auction.

Liu has said before that his moves to buy up Chinese antiquities are part of a bid to bring heritage back to the mainland.

He paid a record $45 million in 2014 for a 15th-century Tibetan “thangka” tapestry at a Christie’s auction.

Beijing has ruled Tibet since 1951, a year after invading, and considers the Himalayan region an integral part of its territory. The Tibetan government in exile and some scholars dispute China’s historical claims. “We should not be obsessed with how these things (Chinese antiquities) spread overseas,” Liu told AFP. “It doesn’t matter where they are.

The most important thing is for them to be preserved.”

Runaway chimp survives fall from power line

TOKYO A runaway chimpanzee in Japan was shot with a tranquiliser gun only to hang precariously from a power line before falling to the ground and surviving in a drama shown live on national television.

The chimp, 24-year-old Chacha, was more fortunate than a zebra which escaped from a Tokyo zoo last month, its bid for freedom ending in death when it collapsed in a water trap after also being shot with a tranquiliser. The chimp escaped from Sendai Yagiyama Zoological Park with keepers in hot pursuit but climbed up an electricity pole.Zoo officials shot the chimp with the tranquiliser which eventually kicked in and caused him to lose his footing, though he managed to grab hold of a power line with one hand.

Seconds later however Chacha lost his grip and fell, live footage on TBS showed.

Chacha bounced off a lower cable before plummeting headfirst towards the ground where waiting rescuers tried to break the fall with a plastic sheet.

He was then wrapped in a blanket before being placed into a zoo ambulance.

“Chacha is coming to from the tranquiliser,” Zoo staffer Toshikazu Abe told AFP. “Despite the fall, he was unhurt and there is no threat to his life,” he added.

“We are investigating why he escaped.”

Every year a Tokyo zoo stages a drill where a keeper dresses as an animal and stages an escape, giving zoo workers the opportunity to hone their techniques.

Students run mobile amputee clinic in Syria Syria Maaret al-Numan - In what looks like an ordinary white truck, two men are helping victims who have lost limbs in the conflict in Syria to walk, play, and even herd sheep again. In the past four years, the two technicians have made and fitted about 5,000 prosthetic limbs for an estimated 2,500 people. Their mobile clinic has been running for about six months, and has gone some way to improve access. The fiveyear war between the government of President Bashar al-Assad and insurgents has killed at least 250,000 people and wounded many more. While most of the wounded are between 15 and 45, the clinic also fits children and the elderly with replacement limbs. “The feeling can’t be described when you put the new prosthesis on a patient, especially kids,” says technician Amjad Hajj Khamis.

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“They love to move and play so it’s a wonderful feeling to help a child to walk again.” Khamis, 24, was studying French literature at the University of Homs, and his colleague Abdalrahim Khlouf, 25, was training to be a school teacher. Both had to give up after just four months because of the worsening situation in the city.

services the clinic is able to provide. In each location the mobile clinic visits, keeping patients safe from bombing is a recurrent problem, Khamis says. The UN estimates there are a total 4.6 million people in Syria who are hard to reach with aid.

Among those who have benefited from the travelling prosthesis clinic

Starting work in a field hospital, the men were trained how to make and fit artificial limbs, including a stint in the Turkish border city of Rihaniyya and distance learning from Pakistan, Britain and Germany. Patients come from opposition-held areas including the northwestern province of Idlib, the Douma neighbourhood of Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo, which was Syria’s biggest city until the conflict erupted in 2011. Demand from amputees far outstrips the

is a 9-year-old girl who stepped on a landmine when walking through a field to visit her grandfather. “I woke up at the hospital and didn’t find my foot, it must have proceeded me to heaven,” says Salma. “In the beginning I was depressed, but when my dad told me I was going to get a prosthesis and walk again, I was very happy.” Qusay, 14, lost his foot and his right arm when he and his twin brother Adi found a landmine while herding sheep in February 2015.

Issue - 663 (10)

Khatri Sikh parents invite matrimonial alliance for their son, Canadian Citizen, 28 yrs. old, 5’-11” tall, turbaned, handsome, non-drinker, working as a pharmacist in a GTA hospital. The girl should be from respectable Sikh family, educated, professionally employed and with family values. Please email recent picture and bio-data to: tklamba@hotmail.com Or Call : 647-502-1963 ***664*** Saini Sikh parents invite matrimonial alliance from the GTA for their slim, fair, beautiful, 5’2"/’83 born daughter, born, raised, educated in Canada, Bachelors in Business Management, and employed in the Finance division of a reputable Canadian company.

The boy should be clean shaven, born, raised and educated in Canada & professionally employed.

Please email sub2405@gmail.com or call 416-741-0777 *** 664*** Punjabi Sikh parents seek a match for their Canadian born and raised, clean shaven son, 32 yrs. old, 6’-1" tall, handsome, Doctor MD, finished internal Medicine, residency and now doing followship (Specialization). The girl should be resident doctor (MD) or Physician, born and raised in Canada and from Ontario, beautiful, atleast 5’-5" tall with family values. Please send your bio-data & recent picture: sm9058@hotmail.com ***663*** Punjabi Sikh parents seek a match for their Canadian born and raised, clean shaven son, 32 yrs. old, 6’-1” tall, handsome, Doctor MD, finished internal Medicine residency and now doing fellowship (specialization). The girl should be resident doctor (MD) or Physician, born and raised in Canada and from Ontario, beautiful, atleast 5’-5” tall with family values. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: sm9058@hotmail.com ***663** Match for beautiful, intelligent, well-cultured girl, canadian pr, citizenship this year, born in 1985, 5'-5" tall, B.Tech (india), pg project management (canada), working in Admn.

Dept of a company in canada.

The boy should be Jat sikh, qualified, canadian, well settled. Brother and parents in USA, belong to Ludhiana but now built kothi in Amritsar.

Please send your bio-data and recent picture to: dhillonintl@yahoo.com or call: 1-718-414-4618 *** 663*** Sikh Rathore Rajput family seek a suitable match for their daughter, 24 yrs. old, 5’-2” tall, B.Sc. Nursing, Working as a Nurse in Hospital in Patiala (India). The boy should be

19 April - 25 April 2016

Canadian/American Immigrant or Citizen, Educated & Well settled.

Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: : kulwantrathorsingh@gmail.com Or Call : 416-856-0984 Or : 647909-8484 ***663*** Brahmin parents invite matrimonial alliance for their daughter, 26 yrs. old, 5’-4” tall, Canadian Citizen, pretty, family oriented, university graduate. The boy should be Canadian/American, Immigrant/ Citizen, Professionally qualified, employed from good family background. Boys on student visa for higher studies (university level) may also be considered. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: : bhupp1958@gmail.com Or Call : 647-550-3396 (or leave Message) ***663*** Jat Sikh parents invites matrimonial alliance for their son, 24 yrs. old, 5’-10” all, diploma in Computer and Network from Humber College, now on work permit and working as a Computer Network technician, handsome, clean shaven, vegetarian, non-smoker/nondrinker. The girl should be Canadian Immigrant/Citizen with family values. Parents govt. employees in India. Only sister married and well settled in Canada. Please email recent picture and bio-data to: nav_t@hotmail.com Or Call : 647531-4760 ***663** Jat Sikh parents seek a compatible match for their Non drinker, P. Eng. son, 05/1987 born, 5'-7" tall, family oriented, Non-vegetarian, B.Eng. from Ryerson and M.Eng. from University of Toronto, well employed with an Engineering Company in Toronto, drawing handsome salary.

The girl should be slim, university graduate and well settled.

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The girl should be educated, beautiful, family oriented and well versed in both cultures. Please email recent picture and bio-data to: gk_1925@hotmail.com Or Call : 905-915-0488 Or : 647-206-3245 ***663** Jat Sikh Grewal parents seeking a suitable match for their son, 36 yrs. old, 6’-1” tall, Canadian Citizen, MBA degree holder, working with a reputable bank. The girl should be educated, professionally employed and with family values. Please email recent picture and bio-data to: :grewal2016@yahoo.ca Or Call : 1604-765-9214 ***663** Seeking a suitable match from USA/Canada, for a very attractive 47 yrs. old, South Indian educated woman, American Citizen, Master’s degree from US, well settled with

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Caste no bar. Student visa /work permit can also be considered.

Please your bio-data & recent picture to: goswami1957@gmail.com or Call 778-680-4440. (6-8 pm weekends & 2-4 pm Friday) *** 663*** Jat Sikh parents invite matrimonial alliance for their daughter, 32 yrs. old, 5’-6” tall, beautiful, Master’s degree in English, working in a top ranking bank of Canada, divorced after short marriage. The boy should be well educated, professionally employed, Canadian Citizen and with family values. Please email recent picture and bio-data: gill.roop@hotmail.com Or Call : 1-604-615-4316 Or : 1-639-317-7836 ***663** Jat Sikh family seeking USA/

Canada based match for their beautiful daughter, 27 yrs. old, 5’4” tall, well settled, born and raised in USA, Master of Science in Nursing-Nurse Practitioner/ Bachelor of Science in Nursing, well cultured in both English and Punjabi with traditional values (Non drinker, non smoker). The boy should be Jat Sikh and equally qualified. Please email recent picture and bio-data to: dhaliwal.sr85@gmail.com Or Call : 1-754-673-8388 ***663** Jat Sikh parents seeking a suitable match for their son, 36 yrs. old, 5’-11” tall, born and raised in Canada, MBA and CMA, working as a Business Analyst in a reputed company. The girl should be born/ raised in Canda well educated and family oriented.

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The boy should be well settled & educated. Toronto Area preferred.

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The boy should be educated, settled from Canada/America.

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Issue - 663 (11)

19 April - 25 April 2016

Canada’s local leaders help drive ties with India Toronto The engagement between India and Canada has been kept robust by a series of visits by local leaders, who have added fresh layers that allowed the relationship to sidestep changes in government in both nations.

While the focus has been on high-profile contacts such as the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau on the margins of the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, visits by premiers of Canadian provinces and mayors of key cities too have played a key role.The latest in the line of local leaders to go to India will be the mayor of Canada’s capital Ottawa, Jim Watson. He will arrive in New Delhi on Sunday to kick off a fiveday visit that will also cover Mumbai and Bengaluru.

While Watson has led two similar Team Ottawa Missions to Beijing, this will be his first Indiafocused delegation.

“The purpose is to sign agreements that we have in place but, in addition to that, to really plant the

Ottawa flag in India which is a new market for us. It shouldn’t be, but it is,” he said in an interview.

The focus will be on three broad areas: technology, especially clean energy, tourism, and education.

Nearly 30 business leaders and officials of agencies such as Invest Ottawa and Ottawa Tourism will accompany Watson.

He hopes to sign MoUs and contracts while in India, describing it as a “win-win” partnership.

Over the past 18 months, premiers of the provinces of British Columbia (BC), Saskatchewan, Ontario and Prince Edward Island have travelled to India. This year, BC’s premier Christy Clark is expected to make another trip, while the mayor of Toronto and the premier of Quebec too are planning visits.

India’s high commissioner Vishnu Prakash said, “One thing we’re very pleased about is the

relationship is quite bipartisan on both sides. I do see a consensus across the spectrum.

Visibility is important and high-level visits are welcome on both sides.”

Watson added, “If you think back 40 or 50 years, it was really only the federal government that would be engaged in these kinds of foreign relationships. Over the years, more and more provinces have established offices.“Subsequently, we have also seen many more municipalities and mayors engaged in these kinds of delegations because cities are the economic engine of the country.”

While Ottawa is in Ontario province, Watson said he

Colourful ‘vomit-like’ Australian $5 note unveiled SYDNEY It may be the smallestdenominated Australian dollar banknote, but a new design for the Aus$5 bill attracted an outsized amount of criticism when it was unveiled Tuesday, with

matter experts and the cash-handling industry, as well as qualitative research involving focus groups.”

But critics from social media users to bird-lovers were quick to express their disdain. “Our new fivers look

detractors calling it “hideous” and “like vomit”.

The note, which will replace its more bland predecessor from September 1, features a yellow Prickly Moses wattle flower and a colourful Eastern Spinebill native bird. “Each banknote in the new series will depict a different species of Australian wattle and a native bird within a number of the elements,” Reserve Bank of Australia governor Glenn Stevens said in a statement. “The designs are the culmination of a process of extensive consultation with subject-

like vomit,” one user wrote on Twitter, while another quipped: “A thousand monkeys with a thousand versions of Photoshop could never come up with something as hideous as the new Australian $5 note.”

Some questioned why the same portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, which was drawn from photographs commissioned by the central bank in 1984, was used rather than a recent image of Australia’s head of state. “New Australian $5 note really knocks years off the Queen,” tweeted Joanna Hall.

The bill even managed to raise the ire of bird lovers.

“It’s way off in terms of colouration,” Birdlife Australia’s migratory shorebird programme manager Dan Weller told AFP, although the bird’s shape and markings were fairly accurate.

“The way it’s been shown on the note, the only two colours that are right on there are the black and the white.” Eastern Spinebills found on Australia’s east coast have red eyes, black heads, grey wings and tails, white throats, and chestnutcoloured undersides. But the new bill gives them a bluish underside with a bright blue, yellow, purple and pink wing. One Twitter user tried to cash in on the lack of support for the new note, tweeting: “I like the new Australian $5 note.

For those who hate it, feel free to hand the notes over to me #altruistic.”

The bill is being introduced to mark the 50th anniversary of the nation’s conversion to decimal currency.

wasn’t part of premier Kathleen Wynne’s visit in February this year (which included two other mayors) for fear of his city being “overshadowed”. He felt “it would make sense to do something on our own”.

These new layers in the bilateral relationship should keep the business of regional and urban heads of government taking their sales pitch to India booming.

Octopus makes great escape from NZ aquarium WELLINGTON An octopus the size of a rugby ball made an audacious escape through a narrow pipe at New Zealand’s National Aquarium, reports said, with the “great escape artist” returning to the ocean. “Inky” the male octopus, given to the Napier aquarium two years ago after being rescued from a crayfish pot, made a dash for freedom by slipping through a small gap in his enclosure, sliding across a wet floor and squeezing through a 150-millimetre-diameter (5.9 inches) pipe, Fairfax New Zealand reported Tuesday.

Caravaggio in the attic is original, experts say PARIS A painting discovered in the attic of a house in France is an “authentic” painting by the Italian Renaissance master Caravaggio, which could be worth up to 120 million euros, experts said Tuesday. The owners of the house near the southwestern city of Toulouse discovered the 400-year-old painting when they went to fix a leak in the ceiling. The large canvass of the beheading of the general Holofernes by Judith from the apocryphal Book of Judith is in remarkably good condition, and was painted between 1600 and 1610, specialists believe.Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, expert Eric Turquin said it could be worth as much as 120 million euros ($137 million), describing the painting as having “the light, the energy typical of Caravaggio, without mistakes, done with a sure hand and a pictorial style that makes it authentic”.

While other specialists have questioned its provenance, Turquin got the backing of a top Caravaggio specialist, Nicola Spinoza, former director of the Naples museum. In an expert assessment seen by AFP, Spinoza wrote: “One has to

recognise the canvass in question as a true original of the Lombard master, almost certainly identifiable, even if we do not have any tangible or irrefutable proof.”

The French culture minister

slapped an export ban on the work after experts from the Louvre museum in Paris spent three weeks studying it. In a statement, the ministry said the painting should stay on French soil “as a very important Caravaggian marker, whose history and attribution are still to be fully investigated”.

Turquin said “some serious” art historians “had attributed the work to the (Louis) Finson”, a Flemish painter and disciple of Caravaggio who died in 1617. But the French art newspaper Le Quotidien de l’Art quoted another expert on the artist, Mina Gregori, as saying that it was “not an original” although she recognised the “undeniable quality of the work”. The painting, which measures 144 cm by 175 cm (57 inches by 69 inches) was found in April 2014 in the rafters of the house.

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19 April - 25 April 2016

Global prize honours Cambodian illegal logging activist Phnom Penn An activist’s undercover work to shed light the extent of illegal logging in Cambodia’s forests has been recognised by the Goldman Environmental Prize. Leng Ouch gathered evidence to highlight how land concessions (ELCs) were being abused and forcing communities from their homes. His outspoken criticism of the government led to fears for his safety, forcing Mr Ouch into hiding. In 2014, the government cancelled ELCs that covered 89,000 hectares of forest.

Despite this, Mr Ouch said he felt the plight of the nation’s forests was not improving. “The situation is getting worse year after year,” he told BBC News. “There is no improvement, there is more destruction. There is more deforestation and more demand from overseas.

“We have lost millions of hectares of land through the land concessions.” It is reported that Cambodia has one of the highest deforestation rates in the world, and just 20-30 percent of its original forest cover remains.

One of the driving forces is the demand from nations like China for high-value hardwoods, such as Siamese rosewood that can fetch US $50,000 (£35,000) for a cubic metre.

Another cause for the high deforestation rate is the introduction of Economic Land Concessions (ELCs) in 2001,

which were designed to support economy-boosting largescale agriculture, such as rub-

him undercover and placed him in extreme danger as he attempted to gather evidence of

ber and sugar plantations.

However, the issuing of the ELCs has affected many communities that depended on the land for their livelihoods. Campaigners say that more than 700,000 people have been driven from their homes as a result of ELCs. Leng Ouch’s work has taken

the impact of the ELCs on forests and forest people. Posing as a labourer, he was able to shed light how the land concessions were being used to provide cover for illegal operations.

In 2012, a moratorium was imposed on ELCs, but Mr Ouch argued that it did not go far enough and did not stop for-

Tech billionaire donates $250m for cancer ‘moonshot’ WASHINGTON Tech billionaire Sean Parker announced Wednesday a $250 million grant to fund research aimed at breakthroughs in cancer treatment through immunotherapy. Parker, the founder of music-sharing service Napster and an early investor and executive at Facebook, will create a center for immunotherapy - which aims to

use the body’s immune system to fight the disease collaborating with six US-based cancer research institutions.

“We are at an inflection point in cancer research and now is the time to maximize immunotherapy’s unique potential to transform all cancers into manageable diseases, saving millions of lives,” said Parker, who last year created the Parker Foundation.

“We believe that the creation of a new funding and research model can overcome many of the obstacles that currently prevent research breakthroughs.

Working closely with our scientists and more than 30 industry partners, the Parker Institute is positioned to broadly

disseminate discoveries and, most importantly, more rapidly deliver treatments to patients.”

The new Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy will work with over 40 laboratories and more than 300 researchers and immunologists. All the research and intellectual property will be shared, “enabling all researchers to have immediate access to a broad swath of core discoveries,”

according to a statement.

The center will be headed by University of California-San Francisco scientist Jeffrey Bluestone, who was named to a panel to help guide the “moonshot” cancer initiative announced this year by Vice President Joe Biden.

“Immunotherapy represents a fundamentally new, breakthrough treatment paradigm in the fight against cancer,” Bluestone said.

“It harnesses the body’s own powerful immune system to mobilize its highly refined disease-fighting arsenal to engage and eliminate the cancer cells.”

Bluestone was the founder and served for 10 years as director of the Immune Tolerance

Network, a multicenter clinical immunology research program.

Partners in the project in addition to UCSF include the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Stanford Medicine, UCLA, the University of Pennsylvania and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Parker and his wife Alexandra were holding a gala event in Los Angeles to mark the launch.

The event is to “unveil and celebrate a new philanthropic venture and recognize the heroes who, over the last decades, have brought us to this turning point in the war on cancer,” a statement from the foundation said.Attendees expected include entertainment stars such as Katy Perry, Orlando Bloom, Sean Penn and Ron Howard, as well as tech industry leaders such as Jack Dorsey of Twitter, Anne Wojcicki of Google and Laurene Jobs, widow of Steve Jobs.

US woman indicted for livestreaming alleged rape of a 17-year-old

Ohio A woman used a social media app to livestream the alleged rape of a 17-year-old girl, an Ohio prosecutor said on Wednesday as a grand jury indicted the woman and a co-defendant on several charges including rape and kidnapping.The case came to light when authorities were contacted after an out-of-state friend of the woman saw the images, Prosecutor Ron O’Brien said.Marina Lonina, 18, and codefendant Raymond Gates, 29,

Pistols owned by Simon Bolivar sell for $1.8 million NEW YORK A pair of pistols that once belonged to the Latin American independence hero Simon Bolivar sold for $1.8 million at the auction house Christie’s in New York on Wednesday. The guns’ provenance prompted special interest. They were a present from the French aristocrat the Marquis de Lafayette, who fought in the French and American revolutions and believed Bolivar - who led the liberation of several states from Spanish

ests being felled and people being displaced. Mr Ouch explained why he had spent more than two decades investigating and campaigning to highlight the injustices he felt he had witnessed.

“There are not many people in Cambodia that do this kind of work and I felt it was necessary for me to step in and defend and protect the forests,” he observed.

However, he was aware of the dangers of being an environmental campaigner in Cambodia and had often gone into hiding in order to avoid unwanted attention and threats to his life.

Winning a globally prestigious environmental prize does not remove the dangers. In March, Berta Caceres - a 2015 Gold Prize winner - was killed by gunmen in Honduras. She had been a vocal campaigner against a project to build a massive dam across the Gualcarque River.

rule - shared common Enlightenment ideals. He sent Bolivar the two ceremonial pistols, made by royal gunsmiths at Versailles, in 1825.Contained inside a wooden box, the weapons are inlaid with gold and silver and embossed with symbols from Greek and Roman mythology. Born into a wealthy family in Caracas, Bolivar led the troops who forced the Spanish to surrender control of the Captaincy General of Venezuela in 1813.

were charged with rape, kidnapping, sexual battery and pandering sexually-oriented matter involving a minor.

Lonina was also charged with illegal use of a minor in a nudityoriented material or performance, related to the alleged use of the social media livestreaming app Periscope.Periscope, an app for smartphones, uses a video function to allow users to stream events live.

O’Brien said Lonina and the victim, who were friends, were socialising with Gates at a home in Columbus on February 27 when Gates raped the 17-yearold girl. Lonina used the Periscope app to livestream the assault, O’Brien said.

Lonina had also taken a picture of the girl in the nude the night before at Lonina’s house, O’Brien said.Gates is scheduled for arraignment Friday. Court records don’t list attorneys for either defendant to respond to the charges. They each face up to 40 years in prison, if convicted.

In February, a Florida woman received a six-month license suspension and 150 hours of community service after she streamed live video of herself driving drunk last year.

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19 April - 25 April 2016

Luxury or bust for foreign automakers in Japan TOKYO Tokyo businessman Randal Furudera isn’t about to swap his German-made BMW M5 for a “boring” Japanese car, although he’ll give them some grudging respect for their ho-hum dependability. Deep-pocketed buyers like Furudera are driving sales in Japan of high-end foreign brands, which dominate the niche sector in a car market long seen as all but shuttered to overseas automakers.

“Most Japanese cars these days are sort of becoming moving appliances,” the 54-year-old told AFP. “They’re very reliable, they’re good quality, they never break and all that, but they’re not very interesting to drive.” Midrange foreign vehicles are a rare sight on Japanese streets, but it isn’t hard to spot a Porsche zipping around the capital or a nouveau riche billionaire behind the wheel of a half-a-million dollar Lamborghini.

Sales of the Italian sportscar in Japan doubled to about 300 vehicles in 2015 from a year earlier.

The jump comes as US car giant Ford announced in January it

was quitting the country, blaming the “closed” market, after it sold fewer than 5,000 cars in 2015.

Less than six percent of the more than five million vehicles sold last year in Japan - the world’s number three car market - were made by foreign automakers.

US auto unions have blasted what they say are non-tariff barriers that shut the door on a sector already dominated by eight domestic carmakers, including Toyota, Nissan and Honda.

In 2013, former Ford boss Alan Mulally accused Tokyo of manipulating the yen’s sharp decline to gain a trade advantage for domestic firms, which sell millions of vehicles overseas, including top markets China and the United States.

The imbalance hasn’t gone unnoticed by bombastic US Republican party frontrunner Donald Trump.

“When did we beat Japan at anything?” Trump said in a speech last summer to announce his run for the presidency.

“They send their cars over by the millions, and what do we do?

China to ‘facilitate’ new GM crops after years of waiting

BEIJING China will “facilitate” the planting of genetically modified corn and other plants on an industrial scale in the next five years, officials said, after not authorising any new commercial GM crops for a decade. The controversial science is a key trade issue with the US, whose biotechnology giant Monsanto is a global leader in the field, while its rival Syngenta has agreed a $43 billion takeover offer by Chinese state-owned firm ChemChina. Only two GM crops are currently commercially cultivated in the country - a type of cotton approved in 1996, and a virus resistant papaya authorised in 2006. GM soya, corn, cotton and rape can be imported as raw materials and as ingredients in processed products.

Processed sugar beet imports are also allowed. Beijing is probiotechnology as it has long been concerned over the world’s most populous country’s ability to feed itself - a fear that factored into the introduction of its controversial one-child policy.

But large-scale cultivation of GM crops remains sensitive as

environmentalists and some scientists warn against the technology’s as-yet-unknown long-term consequences for biodiversity and human health.

“During the 13th five-year plan, we will... push forward the industrialisation of major products including new types of insect-resistant cotton and corn,” Liao Xiyuan, a senior official with the Chinese agriculture ministry, told reporters.

Corn is the top grain in China by both production and sown area much of it used for animal feed with rice only in second place, followed by wheat, official data shows.

The government will continue research on GM rice and wheat over the next five years, Liao said at a press conference Wednesday.

GM crops are sometimes found being grown illegally in the country and Liao said had authorities “rooted out” GM rice in the central province of Hubei.

Last year they also destroyed a total of 73 hectares of GM corn in several areas. “Sporadic illegal planting of (GM crops) does exist in some areas and we will crack down harshly on it,” Liao said.

When was the last time you saw a Chevrolet in Tokyo? It doesn’t exist, folks.”

Trump is not far off - Chevrolet and Cadillac maker General Motors sold a puny 1,600 vehicles in Japan last year.

Japan’s luxury car market has remained frothy despite a yearslong downturn in the economy, while a stock market rally in recent years has also helped buoy sales.

Nissan considered selling its

But it’s a different story for prestige foreign brands, whose success didn’t come without a fight.

They had to “overcome stereotypes like Western cars break down easily or they’re expensive to repair”, said Miki Kurosu, communications director for BMW Japan, which sold about 46,000 vehicles last year, along with 21,000 Minis.

high-end Infiniti brand at home, as Honda did with Acura. But those plans were scrapped owing to foreign automakers’ dominance in the market.

Meanwhile, rival Toyota has struggled to score big with its Lexus in Japan, although sales have been on an upswing lately.

“Lexus is a bit behind. They had great ambitions when they launched the brand (at home) in

2005, but have not achieved their goals,” said Yoshiaki Kawano, an auto analyst at IHS Automotive.

German brands have slick marketing campaigns and a topnotch image in Japan, and rich drivers rarely switch brands so domestic automakers were late to the party.

“There is quite a bit of prestige attached to certainly the three main German brands,” said Furudera.

Foreign brands tend to focus on the driving experience, rather than just passenger comfort, added the car enthusiast.

In Japanese cars, “(passengers) are probably enjoying it more than the drivers - watching DVDs, getting a massage from their chairs - but the driver is not enjoying it that much”, Furudera said.

“In a German car, the driver gains the most - that’s kind of the big difference.”

While he may consider buying a Lexus down the road, it’s not likely to happen any time soon.

“I wouldn’t say never, but for now I think BMW still has the edge in terms of driving experience.”

Queen is still ‘the boss’ as she approaches 90th birthday LONDON Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, the world’s oldest monarch, turns 90 next Thursday showing no sign she will be retiring from the stage anytime soon. Her birthday comes months after she surpassed the 23,226 days her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria spent on the throne to become Britain’s longestreigning monarch. Since turning 65 in 1991, the nation has speculated about whether she would step aside in favour of her eldest son, Prince Charles. But aides and commentators say there is no prospect of her giving up her job. “The queen has a phenomenal drive and energy and I think the fact that she still works is what keeps her going,” Ingrid Seward, editor in chief of “Majesty” magazine, told Reuters. “The queen doesn’t want to put her feet up. This is what she wants to do, and this is what she’s going to do for as long as she’s fit and able to do so.” Born on April 21, 1926 in central London, Elizabeth still hosts state visits, presides over the annual state opening of parliament and holds a weekly audience with the prime minister.

While she has cut back on her once demanding schedule of foreign trips, those close to her say only incapacity would stop her from performing her royal duties. Last year she carried out 341 official engagements. “As she turns 90, she’s a remarkably energetic and guiding force for her family,” her grandson Prince William said in a speech in India this week. “She maybe my grandmother, but she’s also very

much the boss.”

Although Elizabeth’s father died at the relatively young age of 56, her mother, who was known as Queen Elizabeth the Queen

told Reuters.Others have suggested that one reason for the queen to hang on is the relative unpopularity of her son Charles, 66, already a record-holder as

Mother, lived until 101 and was still appearing in public almost up until her death in 2002. Her father only became king because her uncle Edward VIII abdicated to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson.Although monarchs in the Netherlands and Belgium have abdicated in recent years, there is no question that the queen will do so, royal historian Hugo Vickers

Britain’s longest-serving heir apparent.“When the queen’s reign comes to its natural end, there is likely to be an urgent debate about the role of the royal family in modern Britain - a debate whose outcome is uncertain,” royal author Anna Whitelock wrote in the Daily Mail newspaper.

“There is no absolute guarantee about the monarchy’s long-term survival,” Whitelock said.

Rare Bengal tiger cubs born to travelling circus A trio of rare Bengal tiger cubs have become the stars of a Mexican circus in Nicaragua, one of the few Central American countries that still allow circuses to own live animals. The tigers one white, one orange and one golden - were born three months ago to Paulina, a 200-kilogram (440-pound) female in the De Renato Circus, its owner, Renato Fuentes Townsend, told AFP.

Bengal tigers are classed as an endangered species, and Fuentes said “it is the first case I’ve seen” of such varied coloring in one litter.

His outfit, part of a traditional Mexican circus group called Hermanos Gasca, is unable to return to its homeland because of a law passed there 15 months ago prohibiting circuses from owning live animals, in line with legislation across much of Central America.

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19 April - 25 April 2016

French beggar gets a life after saving one DOLE French baker Michel Flamant, who owes his life to the homeless man who begged for handouts

outside his bakery, knows more than anyone that man does not live by bread alone. To show his gratitude, Flamant is selling the business in the eastern town of Dole to Jerome Aucant for a symbolic one euro. The corpulent Flamant, who wears a tank top and shorts to help him cope with the heat of his bread ovens, says he has always had a big heart despite his “piggish character”. In fact, long before the fateful day in December when he nearly died from carbon monoxide poisoning, he would greet Aucant every morning with a cup of coffee and a croissant. “If Jerome wasn’t around that day I would have been a goner,” the 62-year-old Flamant said, recounting how a defective bread oven began leaking the odorless, lethal gas.

When Aucant noticed Flamant begin to stagger around the bakery, he called the emergency services. The poisoning

landed Flamant in the hospital for 12 days. Back at work, the baker initially offered Aucant, 37, a parttime job. He soon realised how well the tattooed, dreadlocked homeless man applied himself. “And I’m demanding. The work has to be done as I say and that’s that!” the whitehaired Flamant said as he lined up baguettes on an oven tray. He said he loves teaching people like Aucant who are “smart enough to listen to my advice”. The garrulous Paris native says that as a child he thought he would be a truck driver when he grew up.But his father put him to work in the family bakery when he was 14 and the job pleased him.

His companion minds the till on the ground floor while he makes bread, croissants and pastries in the basement from

midnight to noon, six days a week.

Flamant, whose three daughters are not interested in taking over the business, had been trying to sell it for the past two years. Then it dawned on him to cede the bakery to Aucant for a token one euro. “What’s more important, money or life? I don’t care about money.

I’m not rich but I don’t care.

I want to be free, I want to take it easy now. And also, if this makes him happy...”

Flamant has taken Aucant under his wing until September when he will retire and hand over the keys. After that, “It will be up to him to make it work,” Flamant said. “Jerome is a hard worker and he wants to succeed. He deserves a chance.”

Aucant, who has shorn his dreadlocks, revels in his new work.

“I want to work and the hours don’t put me off,” he said. Aucant, with little previous work experience besides occasional seasonal stints at funfairs, is fully aware of the responsibility he will be taking on. “I have to be 100 percent on the job,” he said, adding: “Michel has given me a real gift, and now. I want to be worthy of it.” Flamant, sitting on a stack of plastic crates to rest his arthritic legs, said for his part: “I’ve made bread all my life, now I’m tired.”

Loch Ness monster find turns out to be film prop LONDON A marine robot deployed in the waters of Scotland’s Loch Ness has found the remains of a monster but

is not the remains of the monster that has mystified the world for 80 years,” Scottish tourism agency VisitScotland, which is

it turned out to be a prop from a movie shot in 1970.

The robot, belonging to Norwegian offshore oil company Kongsberg Maritime, is drawing up the first high-resolution map of the 230-metre (755-feet) deep lake in a project named “Operation Groundtruth”. “Although it is the shape of Nessie, it

backing the project, said on Wednesday. The agency’s statement said “Nessie found” with an asterisk at the bottom reading “replica model”.

The blurry object with a long neck was a 30-foot (9.15-metre) long model of the monster made for the film “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes”,

directed by Billy Wilder.

“It is thought the model sank after its humps were removed (the buoyancy was in the humps) never to be seen again,” VisitScotland said in a statement.

The monster was actually a submarine in the film. The mapping is being carried out by a robot called “Munin”, which resembles a missile-shaped drone.

It also found a 27-foot long shipwreck, which is still being investigated, and worked out that there is no “Nessie trench” in the loch bed in which a creature could be hiding, as previously believed.

“The vehicle is providing insight to the loch’s depths as never before imagined.

Finding Nessie was, of course, an unexpected bonus,” Craig Wallace, a Kongsberg Maritime engineer, said in a statement.

Australian village, including cows, on sale for $10m SYDNEY A small, picturesque Australian village has been listed for sale, attracting interest from China and Singapore, with its new buyer set to own dozens of homes, a lake full of fish and 35 Highland cattle.

Property agents said they hoped the 145-hectare (358.3-acre) Tarraleah village in the heart of Tasmania state would fetch up to Aus$13 million (US$10 million). “I’ve never sold a town before,” property agent John Blacklow, who has been selling hotels for more than three decades, told AFP. Since the village was placed on the market late last week, it has attracted prospective buyers - individuals as well as companies - from Australia and also China, Hong Kong and Singapore, Blacklow said. The village in the Central Highlands was originally built in the 1920s and ‘30s to support 2,000 hydroelectric workers, but as the dams and power stations servicing southern Tasmania became automated, staff were no longer required. Property developer Julian Homer eventually bought the entire village, which had become run down, restoring the art-

deco buildings to turn it into a tourism-focused site.

“He’s finally finished his programme of renovation, which has taken him 13

Tasmanian devils. Former resident Ingrid Mitchell, who lived in the village in the 1960s when her father worked at the station, said

years, so the whole of the town - all the 33 buildings and infrastructure - have been done up to a very highclass standard,” Blacklow said. “Now it’s ready for an operator to actually take over and continue the operations as a tourism village for accommodation, mainly.”Tarraleah, which agents said brings in an annual revenue of Aus$2.1 million, currently has no permanent residents, only tourism-related staff.

Visitors can fish at a lake with trout and salmon, go bushwalking, play golf, have a drink at a bar and stay in cottages - while enjoying the company of ducks, geese and native animals such as kangaroos, wallabies and

she was “very sad” to hear Tarraleah was for sale and wanted it to remain in local hands. “It was a thriving community, we had a normal butcher, shopping centre, the school was always busy, the post office, the swimming pool,” she told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Impotence?

416-992-5489

Issue 663 (15)

19 April - 25 April 2016

Shah Rukh Khan is a scene stealer as Gaurav in this drama Direction: Maneesh Sharma Cast:Shah Rukh Khan, Shriya Pilgaonkar, Deepika Amin, Yogendra Tikku, Sayani Gupta, Waluscha De Sousa Ratings: 3 Stars There are plenty of falls in Fan - physically, morally and occasionally even on the narrative front. But Fan also marks the resurgence of Shah Rukh the dramatic actor, the one which went on a hiatus for a couple of years to produce films that were trope-ridden affairs. In such a scenario it’ll be interesting to see how audiences who have been fed a certain brand of SRK will respond to a film that taps into the obsessions of a fan and the vulnerabilities of a star in tackling an irate fan.

It’s a demanding watch for those accustomed to seeing songs and heroines in a film for here there are none. This is a Shah Rukh show out and out, and for most part it keeps you hooked.

If somehow you have managed to keep yourself away from the deluge of Fan promotions, then here is the plot. Gaurav (Shah Rukh Khan) is a twenty something man from Inder Vihar in Delhi who has hero worshipped Aryan Khanna (Khan) since he was a child. What makes him stand out from the pack is that he also resembles Khanna - his nose and lips are thinner and physique tinier. Called “photocopy”

by those not fond of him, Gaurav is mostly a colony favourite as the guy who does spot-on impersonations of Khanna to win competitions. From the prize money of one, he makes a trip to Mumbai to fulfill his eternal dream meet Aryan Khanna.

But Khanna’s fan-star encounter doesn’t go according to plan and falls below his lofty expectations. His exalted status for his idol, whom he occasionally refers to as God, is crushed when the star rebukes him for his actions. Crestfallen that Aryan doesn’t appreciate his grandiose gesture, an isolated Gaurav devises revenge strategy inspired by the sentiments of Khanna himself: agar mere fans nahi toh main kuch nahin (a star is nothing without his fan). A year later, Gaurav decides to use his likeness to Aryan Khanna to jeopardise his career and reputation among fans.

It’s a novel idea that instigates introspection on how a fan’s sense of entitlement and subsequent disillusionment can wreak havoc. What are the boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour? But Sharma, who came up with the story, and Habib Faisal (Do Dooni Chaar, Ishaqzaade), who has written the screenplay, stretch the concept with little meaningful to add. “Asli drama toh ab shuru hoga,” says Gaurav. But that drama

turns into a game of cops and robbers that eventually becomes a child’s game.

Gaurav wants an apology.

Aryan won’t say sorry.

Questions remain as to why Gaurav who is mistaken for Khanna only after the second half and why not before. There are one too many chase sequences and little other than Gaurav’s newfound unwavering contempt for Khanna driving the narrative.

It’s not that Fan is not without merit. There is a superb, entirely meta dance medley in which Shah Rukh as Gauarv mimics Shah Rukh’s iconic moves.

The dramatic sequence in the Madame Tussauds in London where Gaurav mocks and berates his plastic self - “This is fake” - is particularly memorable. Fan the movie travels to Dubrovnik for a funtastic reason: just so Aryan Khanna can dance at a wedding for which he has been paid a “bomb” and then show his heroic skills with a well-choreographed parkour chase. It in such sequences when Fan adopts a tongue-incheek attitude to question the exalted status of stars and the limitations of Hindi film actors, it is funny.

From recapping the highlights of Shah Rukh’s career to presenting glimpses of his fan following and stardom, Fan is very much a tribute to how far and ahead SRK has come.

Faisal and Sharat Katariya

(Dum Laga Ke Haisha) make use of Khan’s popular dialogues to demonstrate Gaurav’s devotion.

Khan as Khanna shows the troubles and frustrations of an actor who has to combat a determined, tad deranged soul. But when Khan is in the mind of Gaurav that he most impresses as he tackles a character whose entire

All sorts of things crop up in this Vikram Bhatt film Star Cast of Love Games: Patralekha, Gaurav Arora, Tara Alisha Berry, Hiten Tejwani Director: Vikram Bhatt Ratings: 1 Star The five things you can learn from ‘Love Games’, Vikram Bhatt’s new film, are as follows: Bollywood flicks are now all grown up and all, featuring femme fatales and f*** buddies, and threesomes. Wow. Bolly Love is no longer pure. It is all about playing the game. Said femme fa-

tale (Patralekha), hereinafter called FF, to seen sucking lots of lip with f*** buddy (Gaurav Arora) whom we will call FB, are stalkers. Said game is all about toting new victims into the sack, one with FF, the other with FB. The first one past the past is the winnah. Double wow. Bolly mums are no longer the best. FF and FB are not really bad people. Both have had traumatic childhoods. One’s mommy didn’t rescue her from an abusive uncle; the other one’s mum ran away. Oh

these bad, bad mothers, look what they make their poor kids do. Aha. Bolly beds are busy. FF and FB run into a good girl (Tara Alisha Berry), who will be addressed as GG, who, in turn, is being harassed by a horrible husband (Hiten Tejwani), whom, we will call, yes, correct, HH. The creaks in the plot, and there are many, are filled with rumpled sheets, writhing bodies and furious lip and tongue. Ooh. Bolly plots are bust. The Bhatts’ longstanding promise of giving

us fully adult men and women bursting with carnal desires and twisted motives used to be backed by storylines. This one gives up quickly. All sorts of things crop up—blood, bodies, guns, murder, and dollops of confusion wrapped in eye-popping improbability. Missing the point you are? Bunging in a kiss we are. Uh oh.

Conclusion? Some of the smooching looks professional, about the only thing that does. As for the rest, bye bye, two hours, which will never come back.

identity centres on an actor.

When Gaurav sees Khanna for the first time or hears his voice, it isn’t make believe, it is real. He makes you root for Gaurav, the naive youngster, with his Dilli zubaan and enthusiastic deameanour, and a menacing nemesis with his shifty eyes, quivering cries and disconcerting smile.

Fan digs deep into the dynamics of fan-star relationship. And it’s a film with a significant message: Imitation is the best form of flattery but it can also hinder creativity and individuality.

Shah Rukh displays both these aspects in abundance in Fan. The film is a reminder why the outsider has survived for 25 years, many of them on top.

Issue 663 (16)

19 April - 25 April 2016

Prachi Desai laughs off tiff rumours with Shraddha Kapoor Actress Prachi Desai says reports that she did not get along well with her ‘Rock On 2’ co-star Shraddha Kapoor are completely ‘ridiculous’.

While Prachi also starred in the first part of the hit musicaldrama, the ‘Ek Villain’ actress is new addition to the ensemble. “These reports are completely ridiculous. We both shared a great rapport and got along really well. I am sure she will laugh about this when she hears this too,” Prachi said. There were reports that the 27-year old actress was not too comfortable shooting with Shraddha for the sequel. “I assume when people have nothing to do, when they run out of ideas, they start these rumours. But they don’t affect me at all.

We all had a great time shooting and are friends. Sure, we don’t meet often because of our schedule but the bond remains intact.”

Directed by Shujaat Saudagar, the film stars Farhan Akhtar, Arjun Rampal and Purab Kohli reprising their role from the first

part. Prachi, who made her Bollywood debut with ‘Rock On’ in 2008, feels being part of the sequel was a special experience. “I did ‘Rock On’ when I was

19-year-old. To come back to the series, and meet everybody was extremely special. Over the years all of us who were in the film have evolved as an actor and individual. There was this strange bonding between us,” said the ‘Once Upon A Time In Mumbai’ actress. She says the film will live up to the expectations of the fans of the franchise.

“It is not a conventional sequel, it is something which you haven’t seen before.

This has a very strong story line and I am sure the fans won’t be disappointed.”

Dia Mirza pushes for nature conservation awareness Nature lover, co-founder member of WTI Club Nature and actress Dia Mirza says bringing the narrative of nature into whatever we are doing will effect a difference in educating the society.

“You feel balanced when there is nature. It gives you water and food. If that itself does not exist, imagine what are we going to do.

So my idea is to find a way to build the bridge between conservation groups and people in mainstream media,” Dia told IANS. Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) Club Nature is an entity formed by some committed individuals who want to do something for nature conservation.

Dia feels that short films, anthems and advertisements could be a strong medium to spread awareness about nature conservation.

“Filmmaking is the medium that I enjoy and recognise. I know its power. There are a large number of good people in

the industry. If they become aware of this, it will also make a big

difference. Of course, short films, anthems, advertisements will help spread the awareness,” Dia said, and added that her agenda is to “strategise, plan and execute”.

“Climate change has become such a glaring reality and we are seeing the effects of it in our daily lives. Today’s current topic is water.

It’s not a new problem, but we need to stop pointing out to the issues and point out the solution instead,” she added.

Salman Khan is ‘looking forward’ Reaction to my performance in ‘Fan’ overwhelming says Shriya Pilgaonkar to Manoj Bajpayee’s film ‘Traffic’ Shriya Pilgaonkar is over“When I got to know I will be

Superstar Salman Khan, who is currently prepping for his upcoming film “Sultan”, says he is “looking forward” to watching the thriller “Traffic”, which stars Manoj Bajpayee. “Looking forward to this film ‘Traffic’,” the “Dabangg” star tweeted on Sunday. “Traffic” is based on a road trip from Mumbai to Pune. The story revolves around transportation of a harvested heart for a heart transplant case, chasing a strict deadline. During the mission, the characters face numerous difficulties

and obstacles, traffic being one of them. The film is presented by Foxstar Studios, who had also produced “Neerja”, based on the true story of air hostess Neerja Bhanot who sacrificed her life while saving passengers on board a hijacked Pan Am Flight 73 at Karachi. Directed by late Rajesh Pillai, produced by Deepak Dhar of Endemol India and presented by Foxstar Studios, “Traffic” also stars Jimmy Shergill, Divya Dutta and Sachin Khedekar.

whelmed that the audience has stood up and took notice of her acting in ‘Fan, which features Shah Rukh Khan in double role.

Daughter of talented actors Sachin and Supriya Pilgaonkar, Shriya plays the role of Shah Rukh’s love interest in the film.

“The reaction is overwhelming.

Honestly, I did not want to have any expectation because it was a small role and we had two Shah Rukhs in the film but I am so happy that everyone took notice and has acknowledged my performance,” Shriya told PTI. Directed by Maneesh Sharma, ‘Fan’ features Shah Rukh as an obsessive fan Gaurav and the object of his obsession, superstar Aryan Khanna. Shriya was auditioning for other projects for Yash Raj Films, and not specifically for ‘Fan’, when she got a call that she has been selected for the part, for which nearly 750 girls had auditioned.

starring opposite Shah Rukh, I was speechless. One part of me wanted to scream ‘yes yes yes!’ and the other part knew it was a big decision and wanted to understand it,” Shriya said. “Maneesh was very honest about the part. He told me it is not a typical debut, it is a small role. But I knew whatever screen time I had, I needed to make the most of it,” she added. The young actress made her Marathi film debut in 2013 with “Ekulti Ek” which was directed by her father. For ‘Fan’, Shriya was paired for the first time opposite a big star but she was not nervous as five years ago, the actress had a chance to meet with Shah Rukh while working on a short film and the ice was broken. Having worked with the 50-year-old actor now, Shriya bonded with Shah Rukh over books, long conversations and got to know the real person behind the superstar.

Issue 663 (17)

19 April - 25 April 2016

Kylie Jenner doesn’t share everything on social media

Amber Heard pleads guilty over bringing dogs to Australia

Reality TV personality Kylie Jenner doesn’t share everything on her social media account because she still wants to keep aspects of her personal life “super” private. Speaking about her openness with her fans, Kylie said that “there is a really big part” of her life that she doesn’t share online, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

“I feel like people think that just because I have a reality TV show and I’m on Snapchat for probably 10 minutes altogether throughout the day, that they know my life,” Kylie was quoted as saying by Adweek magazine. “But I feel like everybody -every celebrity, at least -keeps a big part of their life super private. Like, I don’t show a lot of my relationships or my ups and downs. I would never have a fight with someone (on Instagram),” she added.

Mariah Carey announces Bianca’s comeback Hold your breath as Mariah Carey has announced Bianca’s come back! The 46year-old Music Box singer took to her Twitter handle to share the news of her arch-nemesis, “Ladies and gentlemen... #Bianca.#Bianca returns.” Carey added a snap of the 30-year-old singer wearing a black, thong leotard, leggings and boots. Bianca made her debut in Carey’s Heartbreaker music video in 1999. The music video for the hit single featured Carey joining her girlfriends for a trip to the movie theatre where, along with dancing around in her pink crochet crop top and low rise flare jeans, the singer spied on her boy-toy Jerry O’Connell while he was on a date with none other than Bianca.

Concentrate on work of director not gender says Katie Holmes Actress Katie Holmes says people should focus more on the work a filmmaker is doing rather than the gender.

The 37-year-old actress is making her directorial debut with “All We Had,” an adaptation of Annie Weatherwax’s popular novel. “You need to concentrate on the work of the person rather than the gender.

If you’re nervous about it, then figure out what you’re nervous about exactly and fix that,” Holmes said.

Impotence?

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Actress Amber Heard, along with husband Johnny Depp, pleaded guilty to making a false statement to immigration about the couple’s Yorkshire terriers Pistol and Boo. Heard, 29, and the “Black Mass” star both attended Southport Magistrate’s Court in Queensland state on Monday, said The Hollywood Reporter. The presiding judge dropped two illegal importation charges against the actress. The presence of Pistol and Boo in Australia caused a furor last year when then Federal Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce threatened to deport them or have them put down. “The Danish Girl” actress

brought the dogs into Australia on Depp’s private jet on a visit while he was filming “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales,” without permits or a period in quarantine, flouting Australia’s strict animal import laws.

Heard’s lawyer Jeremy Kirk has submitted a video to the court of her expressing remorse and respect for Australia’s bio-security laws. “Ms Heard has made a video, the significance of which will become apparent... It relates to an expression of remorse and recognition of the importance of compliance with Australia’s border protection laws,” said Kirk.

Issue 663 (18)

19 April - 25 April 2016

Gravitational wave mission Pollution probe begins as China students fall sick passes sanity check

New York A European Space Agency effort to try to detect gravitational waves in space is not only technically feasible but compelling, a new report finds. A panel of experts was asked to perform a “sanity check” on the endeavour, which is likely to cost well in excess of one billion euros.

The Gravitational Observatory Advisory Team says it sees no showstoppers. It even suggests Esa try to accelerate the project from its current proposed launch date in 2034 to 2029.

Whether that is possible is largely a question of funding. Space missions launch on a schedule that

is determined by a programme’s budget. “But after submitting our report, Esa came back to us and asked what we thought might be technically possible, putting aside the money,” explained panel chairman, Dr Michael Perryman.

“We are in the process of finalising a note on that, which will suggest the third quarter of 2029. So, 13 years from now,” he told BBC News. The agency has stated its intention to build a mission that investigates the “gravitational Universe”, and is set to issue a call to the scientific community to submit a detailed proposal.

SHANGHAI Authorities in China have launched an investigation after a report that hundreds of children attending a language school built near a polluted former industrial site developed health problems, including cancer, state news agency Xinhua reported on Monday. The municipal government of Changzhou, about 100 km (60 miles) northwest of Shanghai, said that since December students and faculty at the Changzhou Foreign Languages School had been complaining about an “unusual smell” emitting from three former chemical plants nearby, Xinhua said. But a report by state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) late on Sunday suggested that the problems were much more serious, and the case has raised an outcry online. Of 641 students from the school who underwent health checks recently 493 were found to have conditions

ranging from chronic coughs, headaches and blood abnormalities, to lymphoma and leukemia, CCTV reported.

Widespread environmental pollution is a dark legacy

come.

Parents of the students in Changzhou had suspected for months that their children’s’ ailments were linked to the school, which had opened on the site in

of the growth-at-all-costs development path that China took since the 1970s, and it is increasingly a source of social unrest. The ruling Communist Party in recent years has dedicated more resources and attention to cleaning the country’s polluted air, water and soil, but the severity of the problem will be felt for decades to

September, and called for it to be moved elsewhere, CCTV said in a report online.

Photographs posted on microblogs show what appear to be dozens of people staging protests with banners calling for the school to relocate. It is unclear when the pictures were taken. “In China, only the lives of people with

power and money have any value!! The lives of common people are buyone-get-10-free!! Right?!!

Rubbish government officials!!” one person said in a comment online.

Another interjected: “Emigrate, quickly.

That is no place to hang around.” Xinhua quoted the municipal authorities as saying that a soil restoration project at site was underway at the time of the complaints.

“An environmental-expert panel concluded in February that the programme had achieved the expected results and that the air quality meets national standards,” it said. The CCTV report said previous environmental assessments had found extremely high levels of contamination in the soil and water at the former industrial site. Surveys commissioned by concerned parents of students found the water, soil and air on the school campus were also contaminated, it said.

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19 April - 25 April 2016

South Africans sweet on drinks despite fat tax JOHANNESBURG South Africa plans a new "fat tax" on sugary drinks to combat an obesity epidemic but sweet toothed consumers say its chances are slim of making them cut down.

Ranked as one of the most obese nations on the continent, South Africa is joining a growing list of countries around the world, such as Britain and Mexico, trying to put a cap on fizzy drinks.

But even health experts, who welcome the proposed levy, don't believe the tax will single-handedly discourage South Africans from popping open bottles of sugar-packed soda and sweetened juices.

The levy, announced by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan in his budget in February, will come into effect in April next year. It is aimed not only at saving people from their own unhealthy appetites but at offsetting the economic costs of diseases related to obesity.

In Zandspruit, a township west of Johannesburg, 30-year-old insurance broker Thulani Masango scoffs at the levy.

"We know sugar causes diabetes and obesity, but we cannot survive without sugar," said Masango, as he strolled

down a dusty street. "As we speak, the price of meat has gone up, but we continue braaing (barbecuing). Alcohol goes up almost every year, we still drink. "It's the same with sugar. It's something that is

uncontrollable," said Masango. A Zandspruit supermarket supervisor and mother of two, Anastacia Tshabalala, 53, agrees. She believes that sugar is addictive.

"Sugar is sugar! We are going to take it no matter what.

Even if the price goes up, we have to take sugar everyday - you can't live without it," she said. South African endocrinologist Professor Tess van der Merwe, who says half of adult women and a third of adult men in South Africa are "overweight", is also sceptical.

"These are epidemic proportions," she said, adding that about 15 percent of South Africans are in the "morbidly obese category" -- more than 100 pounds or 45 kilogrammes overweight.

"I don't believe that it will curb the epidemic unless we have a definitive preventative and treatment strategy in place -like tax didn't curb alcohol use," she said. Obesity rates are rising sharply among African children. A World Health

Organization-commissioned study released in January showed that childhood obesity has become an "exploding nightmare" in the developing world, including Africa.

The number of overweight or obese children under five nearly doubled from 1990 to 2014, from 5.4 million to 10.3 million.

The WHO declared obesity a disease 10 years ago, but people still struggle to accept it as a deadly disease. "People need to realise that there are more people dying from obesity (related illnesses) than from any other disease in the world," said van der Merwe.

Minister Gordhan has yet to reveal the proposed taxation rates, but a Plos-One study published in 2014 projects that a 20 percent tax on sugary drinks will reduce obesity in South Africa by between 2.4 and 3.8 percent for females and males respectively. Manufacturers of sugar-sweetened drinks in South Africa believe the tax could lead to job losses. "For the treasury to announce a tax on only one category of foods is discriminatory," said Mapule Ncanywa, executive director of the Beverage Association of South Africa.

"We don't think that it's going to have the desired result of reducing excessive intake of sugar, let alone obesity for that matter." Security guard Thomas Sithole, who relies on caffeine- and sugar-laden energy drinks to make it through his night shifts, worries that the tax may be disastrous for him.

"There are things they can tax, but not sugar everybody needs sugar," said Sithole, seated outside a local soft-drink shop after his night's work.

Woman left infant in hot car for strip club audition Tennessee A woman and her friend are facing charges after they left her infant in a hot car outside a strip club where she was auditioning.

WSB-TV reports 24year-old Kelsey McMurtry was auditioning at club in downtown Nashville Thursday while her daughter sat in a locked car with the windows up. A passerby saw her and called police.

According to a warrant, it was 72 degrees outside when officers arrived and temperatures inside the car had reached 100 degrees. Wit-

nesses estimated the baby was in the car 30 minutes.

She was treated at a hospital and placed with children’s services.

McMurtry’s friend, 19-year-old Summer Taylor, told police she was watching the child but witnesses disputed that.

McMurtry and Taylor both face child neglect charges.

Fate of Obama’s immigration plan in hands of US Supreme Court

Washington The U.S. Supreme Court takes up a case on Monday probing the limits of presidential powers as the justices weigh whether President Barack Obama overstepped his authority with unilateral action to protect millions of people in the country illegally from deportation.

The case, pitting Obama against 26 states led by Texas that filed suit to block his 2014 immigration plan, is one of the biggest of the court’s current term ending in June. The court is evenly divided with four liberal justices and four conservatives following the February death of conservative Antonin Scalia.

That raises the possibility of a 4-4 split that would leave in place a 2015 lower-court ruling that threw out the president’s executive action that bypassed the Republicanled Congress.

Obama took the action after House of Representatives Republicans killed bipartisan legislation, billed as the biggest overhaul of U.S. immigration laws in decades and providing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, that was passed by the Senate in 2013.

Obama’s plan was tailored to let roughly 4 million people – those who have lived illegally in the United States at least since 2010, have no criminal record and have children who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents – get into a program that shields them from deportation and supplies work permits. Obama’s program is called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA).

Shortly before the plan was to take effect last year, a federal judge in Texas blocked it after the Republican-governed states filed suit against the Democratic president’s executive action.

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THE BIZARRE THEFT OF A CELTIC SEA GOD

By Paul Clements One of the most bizarre news stories of 2015 was the January theft of a Celtic sea god. A gang mercilessly smashed the tall, steel and fibreglass statue of Manannán mac Lir, one of Ireland’s most captivating mythological figures. It had been erected in 2013 near a mountain in Derry County overlooking Donegal, the most northerly starting point of the Wild Atlantic Way, a 2,500km route that hugs Ireland’s dramatic west coast.

Mystery surrounds the theft of the statue, but it was believed to be linked to Christian fundamentalists offended by Celtic idolatry. The perpetrators left behind a wooden cross carved with the words “You shall have no other gods before me.”

Manannán, who borrowed iconography from Neptune, was depicted with a belted

affiliated with Tir na nÓg (the Land of Youth or the Ever-Young). His horse, Enbarr of the Flowing Mane, which pulled his Wavesweeper chariot, could gallop over water as though it were solid land.

On my meandering journey along the Wild Atlantic Way – the world’s longest continuous coastal drive, brimful of inlets, tranquil peninsulas and sequestered villages – Manannán became a leitmotif and presiding sprit. At Lough Foyle, the estuary that separates Donegal from Derry, I learned that locals believe his spirit is released during fierce storms, now regarded as the new normal on the western seaboard. Some people are still heard to remark “Manannán is angry today” and believe he inhabits the offshore sandbanks between Inishtrahull Sound and Magilligan waters.

dress and long robe, his fragarach (sword) said to be able to cut through any armour.

In Irish mythology, Manannán was a divine lord of the Tuatha Dé Danann (a supernatural race who colonized Ireland and lived in the Otherworld), and he was

As I drove along the indentured coastline, developments unfolded in the statue’s increasingly puzzling tale. The police swept into action: a large-scale search, an appeal for information on a missing “person”, the involvement of the voluntary

citizen Crime Stoppers group, and even a reward for his safe return filled the news agenda. More than a month after he was stolen, a party of hikers stumbled on his remains, unceremoniously dumped in a nearby forest.

Further south along the Way, Manannán is linked to Inishglora, an uninhabited holy island off the County Mayo coast. This island was the final resting places of the mythological Children of Lir, half-siblings of Manannán, who, according to legend, were magically turned into swans for 900 years.

They spent 300 of it here, suffering great hardship in the Atlantic storms.

Neighbouring Connemara, a western region of Galway County, is a raw and desolate landscape of shelterless bogland, shimmering lakes, deserted Famine villages and beaches and coves where the tide creeps in over seaweedy black rocks and where narrow boreens (country lanes) end in a deserted jetty. It is an excellent place to listen to the booming breakers and absorb the tingling fresh air that has crossed 5,000km of ocean.

Here, the area around Mannin Bay at the southwestern tip of Connemara is known as the Kingdom of Manannán. Historians

believe that Mannin Bay is named after him and he is thought to be an ancestor of the Conmhaícne Mara, the people for whom Connemara is named. The thick foamy waves that appear on days when the Atlantic heaves and gurgles are known as caiple Mhanannáin (Manannán’s seahorse). Local folklore has it that one day, Manannán’s daughter was caught in a storm while boating in Kilkieran Bay. When he saw the danger she was in, he conjured up a rock to rescue her. That rock, an unprepossessing grassy mound in the bay measuring just 21m by 15m is known as Oileán Mana (Mann Island).

As a shape-shifting god, Manannán was both a trickster and a magician, a philanderer and a cunning opportunist who moved the heavens and dominated the action. His bag, made from the skin of a crane, is said to contain the

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like money and jewellery, and surrounded by a mosaic of wild flowers, such as bog asphodel, thyme, hawkweed and wild angelica. From her imposing spot, she is waiting for her consort Manannán to return. But in her case it was not just Manannán, but many other gods and demigods that she had as a lover.

Reputedly, she had seven lifetimes, and 55 children on Beara alone by all the various gods and warriors. Catch the right day, and this dazzling area of west Cork, with its shape-shifting light, wide skies and seascapes in harmony, will live long in your memory. It is the final section

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of the way and somewhere to reflect on the yarn spinning of mythology, folklore and legend in which the west coast indulges through its seanchaí,or storytellers. Manannán mac Lir has now returned to his elevated position on the Derry coast.

With little fanfare, a new statue – sculpted by Northern Irish artist John Darren Sutton – was quietly erected in February 2016 as part of a myths and legends trail. Raised again, a reinforced Manannán stands proud, arms outstretched, back in his rightful place as a swashbuckling figure in Irish mythology.

Pre-mature Ejaculation?

treasures of the Tuatha Dé Danann.

These included knives, shields, shears and even bones; whoever has these is said to be safe from his enemies.

Passed down through the storytelling tradition, legend has it that the treasures can be seen at certain times in the Western Sea (the Northern Atlantic Ocean) but at ebb tide they vanish. It is also believed that the bag holds the source of inspiration for all the poets of the land – a source of enormous power and potential.

Deeper in southwest Munster province, as I followed the narrow road that curls around Ballycrovane Harbour to a lonely headland at Kilcatherine Point on the northern side of the wild Beara Peninsula, I came upon the Cailleach Bhéara (Hag of Beara). This large rock, said to be a wise woman or witch and influential fertility and power goddess, stands on a commanding

position with an unimpeded view of the wide arc of Coulagh Bay. Blotched with lichen and furred with moss, the Hag has become a shrine, decorated with offerings

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19 April - 25 April 2016

Nail polish and mascara: beauty brands eye up Iran DUBAI When Dubai businesswoman Negin FattahiDasmal opened the first branch of her luxurious nail salon chain in Iran this year, it was met with both excitement and scepticism among image-conscious young Iranians. Despite - or perhaps partly because of - strict Islamic dress codes, cosmetics sales in Iran are among the highest in the Middle East. Women are required to wear modest clothes and headscarves, but their faces and hands are not covered and many express their individuality with lipstick, mascara and nail polish in styles that would seem elaborate by Western standards. With most international economic sanctions now lifted after a nuclear agreement with world powers that took effect this year, FattahiDasmal thinks it is time to bring in a high-end international brand. Her chain of nail salons, N.Bar, already has a customer base among the thousands of well-off young Iranians who holiday in nearby Dubai, where they can sun-

bathe, shop and dress with relative freedom.

"For Iranian women it's a sought-after brand," Fattahi-Dansal, an Iranianborn Emirati, said in an interview. "There have been

cate the quality and consistency customers are used to in Dubai, where branches offer dozens of standardised treatments and stringent hygiene procedures. Iran's fashion-for-

dependent shops in the affluent northern districts of Tehran managed to obtain the latest seasonal collections of top global brands such as Dolce & Gabbana, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and

a lot of counterfeit products in Iran. They are extremely hungry for anything that is real, genuine and imported from the West."

Nonetheless, she said some customers were sceptical that the new Tehran branch could repli-

ward twenty-somethings have kept up with global trends on social media and travels abroad, skirting diplomatic isolation and domestic repression. FattahiDansal says they are discerning consumers.

Even under sanctions, in-

Roberto Cavalli. Some of those luxury fashion brands are now entering Iran directly, and there could be similar opportunities for beauty and cosmetics -- a market estimated

by Iran's parliament's research centre to be worth

more than $4 billion a year.

But they could face resistance from conservative factions in the establishment, which enforce dress codes and are wary of allowing any perceived Western cultural influence into the country.

"The way women dress and look is still one of the red lines in the Islamic Republic," said Afshin Sadeghizadeh, a brand management consultant in Tehran and former editor of Iran's Style magazine.

"The brands going to Iran should be ready to face resistance from conservatives or even get shut down and expelled from Iran," he said. Some conservatives even see foreign luxury brands as part of a war against the Islamic Republic. The Tasnim news agency, close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, last week reported that the CIA could spy on Iranians through fake eyelashes or skin care lotions.

Complex business and

banking regulations are another potential obstacle that lead many, including Fattahi-Dansal, to opt for a franchise arrangement, licensing to a local partner rather than owning her Tehran shop herself. An expensive and badly-regulated rental market adds to the difficulties.

"Because of the legalities and complications, Iran is not an easy place to do business but it is also very lucrative. That was the reason we franchised," Fattahi-Dansal said. Some brands have been held up by the difficulty of finding a partner who is a good fit for their business and not linked to any entity designated under U.S. sanctions that remain in place.

"Iran has potential but we are still at the stage of finding the right partner," said Jean Cassegrain, chief executive of handbag maker Longchamp, adding that the process could take considerable time. But Fattahi-Dansal is not deterred, and is even considering exporting another of her brands to Iran. JetSet, an aviation-themed hair salon chain, could soon land in Tehran.

Issue 663 (23)

19 April - 25 April 2016

Brazilians losing Facebook friends BRASÍLIA The steel wall cutting across the heart of Brasilia does more than separate rival protesters for Sunday's Congress vote on impeaching President Dilma Rousseff -- it now symbolizes the divide tearing through Brazil. Authorities installed the kilometer (half-mile) long barrier in front of Congress to prevent disturbances when an estimated hundreds of thousands of people gather for the controversial vote. The two-meter high barrier now represents the widening gulf between supporters of the 68-year-old leftist leader and her detractors who argue in the streets, at home and on social media. "This is what the government has done its whole life," said Ilson

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Jose Redivo, a 60-year-old soya farmer from Mato Grosso state holding a banner reading "impeachment now." "It has divided the rich against the poor, blacks against whites, and bosses against employees. It is once again dividing society," he said. As he walked toward Congress late Saturday to hold a candlelight vigil there with others from the agricultural sector, Rousseff supporters driving by shouted at his group, which replied in kind. But for Jose Cesar Silva, who was marching with hundreds of other Rousseff supporters down another boulevard, the right wing was responsible for the wall. "It's a symbol of the division of our country, the old class struggle," said Silva, a 53-year-old high school art teacher playing an acoustic guitar as others chanted "there won't be a coup!" over samba beats.

People on both sides of the political divide were optimistic that their cause would prevail on Sunday.

At separate camp sites on opposite sides of a huge boulevard, they pitched tents for the night,

played samba music and ate barbecues.

But the mood could turn

mask government shortfalls during her 2014 reelection -- are not grounds

ian flag at the pro-impeachment camp site near an amusement

darker on Sunday as lawmakers hold a marathon vote. At least 342 of 513 lawmakers must back impeachment in the lower house for the measure to move to the Senate, which would then decide in May whether to open trial and suspend Rousseff.

Rousseff's supporters say the charges against her -that she illegally manipulated public accounts to

for impeachment.

Her opponents blame her government, and her predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, for the current economic recession and a massive corruption scandal at the state-owned oil firm Petrobras. "I have already lost a lot of friends because of my opinion about Dilma," said Carlos Conrado, 30, a book editor wrapped in a Brazil-

park, where 200 tents were erected.

Fifteen people have cut links with him on Facebook because of his political opinions. Some uncles, meanwhile, no longer talk to him. At the pro-Rousseff camp outside the Mane Garrincha football stadium, physical education teacher Jose Carlos Lemos said 10 people have unfriended

him on the social media website.

"They didn't agree with my comments," Lemos said.

"I came to protest in favor of democracy." There is one thing both sides seem to agree on: Corruption scandals have infected a wide array of Brazilian politicians.

On the pro-impeachment side, some say they are not enamored with the idea of Vice President Michel Temer, a former Rousseff ally, succeeding her.

Temer, whose centrist PMDB party left Rousseff's coalition, is alleged to have been involved in illegal ethanol dealings. For his part, House Speaker Eduardo Cunha, the architect of the impeachment process, has been charged with taking millions of dollars in bribes linked to a massive embezzlement cartel centered on Petrobras.

Zaqueu Oliveira Mota, a 33year-old private security guard from Sao Paulo state, backs military intervention, a sentiment that a small and controversial minority share in a country that was ruled by a junta from 1964 to 1985. "We need a total cleanup," he said

E-skin can monitor body's oxygen level Shakespeare anniversary Tube map, micro-statue unveiled

TOKYO Scientists say they have developed ultra-thin electronic "skin" that can measure oxygen levels when stuck to the body. The goal is to develop such "skin" to monitor oxygen levels in organs during surgery, say researchers in Japan. Tests on volunteers found the "skin" provided stable measurements of oxygen concentration in blood. The device contains micro-electronic components that light up in red, blue and

green on the surface of the body. Scientists at the University of Tokyo are working on ways to display numbers and letters on the skin for health monitoring purposes.

Wearable electronics are a future growth area in research, with interest in medical applications

such as contact lenses that monitor glucose levels, or smart glasses. The latest findings are revealed in Science Advances.

"The device unobtrusively measures the oxygen concentration of blood when laminated on a finger," said lead researcher Tomoyuki Yokota and colleagues.

He added: "Ultimately, flexible organic optical sensors may be directly laminated on organs to monitor the blood oxygen level during and after surgery."

LONDON A Shakespearean map of the London Underground was unveiled this week ahead of the 400th anniversary of the famous playwright’s death, part of a series of eye-catching initiatives to celebrate the “Bard”. The map replaces the names of Tube stations and lines with Shakespeare-inspired alternatives, including characters from his famous plays, modern adaptations and his royal patrons Elizabeth I and James I. The Northern Line becomes the “Villains” line, while the Bakerloo Line is re-named “Heroines”. The feuding Montagues and Capulets

from “Romeo and Juliet” are placed next to each other on a “Fathers and Kings” line, normally the Jubilee Line. The map also includes three theatres where

5-year-old US boy accidentally shoots and kills 4-year-old sister New York In yet another shooting incident in the US involving toddlers, a five-year-old boy shot and killed his four-year-old sister inside their home in Philadelphia.

The girl, whose mother rarely let her or her siblings play outside their Kensington home because of chronic violence in the area, was shot dead inside her home on Saturday by her brother, police said.

The girl, whose name has

not been released by police, was shot once in the face and was pronounced dead at the scene by medics. Police said a

semi-automatic pistol was recovered. Captain James Clark of the city’s homicide division said investigators were working to

find and interview everyone who was in the house at the time of the shooting.

The girl’s father, Maurice “Stephon” Phillips, 30, could not be located after the shooting, Clark said.

“We desperately need to find the father, who for whatever reason, fled the scene. We’re looking for him,” Clark was quoted as saying by Philly.com.

Phillips’ current Facebook cover photo, posted on February 14, shows a semi-automatic pistol with

a box of hollow point bullets. Another photo, mixed in with images of children, shows what appears to be an assault rifle.

Several neighbours identified the girl’s mother as Tera Riddick. They said she and Phillips are the parents of six children, four daughters and two sons.

Neighbour Louise Sawyer said Riddick has been quite protective, rarely letting them out to play for fear of violence.

Shakespeare plays were performed the Globe Theatre, which has been rebuilt close to its original site next to the River Thames, and the Blackfriars and Curtain theatres, which no longer exist.

“What this wonderful keepsake reveals is that Shakespeare’s work, his characters and themes intersect with each other in fascinating ways,” said Farah Karim-Cooper, head of research at Shakespeare’s Globe.

The map will be available from Monday online or in paper form at the London Transport Museum and The Globe, ahead of anniversary celebrations on April 23 in Shakespeare’s hometown of Stratfordupon-Avon, central England.

Issue 663 (24)

19 April - 25 April 2016

There’s a shift in the air this week as home-based projects and plans give way to adventurous options and fun outings. Try to get any overdue responsibilities out of the way so you’ll have more time to explore delightful opportunities. You’ll be experiencing a pleasure peak, too, when romance, creativity, and entrepreneurial ideas vie for your attention.

A social theme sets the pace at the start of the week, although you might be involved in one or two formal events. Things should go well if it’s a business meeting or function. However, family and home affairs come into focus as the Sun and Mercury ease into Leo, and you might be doing more jobs around the home, removing clutter and entertaining family and friends.

The practicalities of sorting out fnances might occupy your attention early on.

With some clever talking you might nab a new contract or deal that’s rock solid and worth pursuing. Communication and interaction gain in importance from midweek, making this a good time to advertize goods and services and tweak your online business.

The start of the week seems productive, bringing opportunities for creative projects to gel and even a budding romance to deepen. It might involve some hard work, but it will be worth it. The midweek mark reveals a shift of focus to financial matters, when you may be tempted to indulge.

However, you can also use this phase to take stock of your creative talents.

If certain matters have seemed out of your control lately, you’ll easily regain your stride this week. You’ll feel renewed once the Sun and Mercury edge into your sign. By Thursday the wheels of your mind will be turning as you plan ahead for your next project or challenge. Venus rewinds in your financial sector from Saturday, so don't commit to big money schemes.

Social factors keep you busy early on, plus there’s a chance of collaborating with someone on an exciting project. By midweek the focus shifts to your spiritual sector, which means you’re entering a phase in which it helps to kick back and make more time to relax. It’s vital to take this opportunity to connect with your heartfelt desires and inner feelings.

If you’ve been busy lately with career goals or personal ambitions, this phase could begin to ease as more pleasurable options show up. A sociable focus can help you make progress with business affairs, too, but you’ll also enjoy the party atmosphere, along with the option for dating and romance. You’ll be in your element if you feel like getting involved in organizing an event.

Firm up decisions and take action regarding vacation plans or a golden opportunity to expand your horizons. As the focus shifts, it’s time to put yourself even more firmly in the spotlight so that others can appreciate your talents. Make a point of connecting with people who share your ambitions and you’ll find it easier to make progress.

Curb any desire to spend on impulse and instead consider investing spare cash in more profitable areas, such as property or study. Will you heed the call of adventure when the Sun and Mercury encourage you to learn from new experiences? Travel, working abroad, and the chance to expand your reach could all appeal.

Make constructive plans with others, whether for a social event or a chance to collaborate on a project. It seems you’re going to be busy no matter what you’re up to. Finances come into focus midweek, encouraging you to explore ways to make your money work harder for you. Use this opportunity to make changes that can help you pay off debt.

Monday to Wednesday are productive, with a chance to plan ahead and feel satisfied with all you’ve accomplished.

From midweek relationships and key interactions could take up more of your time. Romance, business, and social activities bring out the best in you, with new opportunities showing up the more you network and connect.

Fun outings and cultural expeditions bring pleasure and encourage you to explore talents that may have lain dormant. You may find you’re a natural at a skill that others can benefit from. Lifestyle issues become more important later this week, with fresh opportunities showing up at work. You may be eager to exercise more in order to get yourself in peak condition.

Issue 663 (25)

19 April - 25 April 2016

Technology Indian-origin engineer develops technology to double Wi-Fi speed An Indian-origin engineer has developed a novel technology that doubles Wi-Fi speeds with a single antenna -- an achievement with potential to transform the telecommunications field in future.

Columbia University’s Harish Krishnaswamy, an electrical engineering graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, has for the first time integrated a non-reciprocal circulator and a full-duplex radio on a nanoscale silicon chip to create the breakthrough system. “This technology could revolutionise the field of telecommunications,” said Krishnaswamy, director of the Columbia High-Speed and Mm-wave IC (CoSMIC) Lab. “Our circulator is the first to be put on a silicon chip, and we get literally orders of magnitude better

performance than prior work,” he noted. Last year, Columbia researchers invented a technology -- full-

duplex radio integrated circuits (ICs) -- that can be implemented in nanoscale CMOS to enable simultaneous transmission and reception at the same frequency in a wireless radio.

That system required two antennas. “Full-duplex com-

munications, where the transmitter and the receiver operate at the same time and at the same frequency, has become a critical research area and now we’ve shown that WiFi capacity can be doubled on a nanoscale silicon chip with a single antenna.

This has enormous implications for devices like smartphones and tablets,” Krishnaswamy explained. “Being able to put the circulator on the same chip as the rest of the radio has the potential to significantly reduce the size of the system, enhance its performance, and introduce new functionalities critical to full duplex,” added coresearcher Jin Zhou.

Krishnaswamy’s team had to “break” Lorentz Reciprocity - a fundamen-

tal physical characteristic of most electronic structures that requires electromagnetic waves travel in the same manner in forward and reverse directions - to develop the technology.

“It is rare for a single piece of research, or even a research group, to bridge fundamental theoretical contributions with implementations of practical relevance. It is extremely rewarding to supervise graduate students who were able to do that,” said the Indian-origin engineer who has earlier won many accolades for his research efforts.

The research was published in the journal Nature Communications and the paper was presented at the “2016 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference” in San Francisco, California, recently.

Apple to stop security support for ‘QuickTime for Windows’

Technology giant Apple will not roll out security updates for “QuickTime for Windows” after security software company Trend Micro Inc. reported that two new critical vulnerabilities are affecting the software.

Trend Micro’s “Zero Day Initiative” released two advisories detailing two remote code execution vulnerabilities that could allow an attacker to gain control of the victim’s system and access larger company-wide networks.

“These advisories are being released in accordance with the Zero Day Initiative’s Disclosure

Policy for when a vendor does not issue a security patch for a disclosed vulnerability,” the company stated.

Because Apple is no longer providing security updates for “QuickTime on Windows”, these vulnerabilities are never going to be patched.

“We are not aware of any active attacks against these vulnerabilities currently. But the only way to protect your Windows systems from potential attacks against these or other vulnerabilities in Apple QuickTime now is to uninstall it,” the company noted.

Facebook introduces terrestrial Facebook may soon add news connectivity systems for internet-dead zones section to its mobile app!

Facebook rolls out two new terrestrial systems to connect the internet-dead zones of the world.

Terragraph and Antenna Radio Integration for Efficiency in Spectrum (ARIES) are the two ground based technologies which will connect the people across the world where the networks are routinely jammed or have zero access to any cell towers or fiber optics cable. This announcement was made at a two-day F8 conference in San Fransisco, US this week where the social network giant unveiled its grand plan of connecting every person on the planet with fast, efficient and high bandwidth internet. According to a Forbes report, Facebook is mainly focusing the rural population of developing economies, including India. Terragraph, a 60GHz wireless system aims to bring high speed internet to the dense urban areas of the developing countries. Facebook is currently testing the sys-

tem at its headquarters and plans to test the system soon in the city of San Jose,

California, the report added.

Facebook also launched ARIES -- a base station with 96 antennas that can support 24 devices or streams simultaneously over the

same radio spectrum -can cover more users across large, rural areas by using multiple transmitters and receivers. Facebook is working diligently on a bunch of other connectivity plans like its Internetbeaming drone Aquila, satellites, lasers and Free Basics, a program that is banned in India after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India ruled against it and opted for net neutrality in February this year.

The popular social media website Facebook has been adding many exciting features to the site to make it more handy for users.

This is definitely a good news for all users as Facebook may soon add a news section to its Android and iOS smartphone apps.

The news section may look like Facebook Paper, a standalone mobile app created only for iOS. Facebook confirmed to Mashable tech website that it is testing the new, sectioned news feed, in

addition to the current format, though it is unclear if the feature would ever get an official launch.

of the mobile app that highlighted multiple news sections, with topics such as world and us, sports and

Some screenshots surfaced on Twitter on Friday, showing that a new layout

food.

“People have told us they would like options to see more stories on Facebook around specific topics they are interested in,” a Facebook spokesperson was quoted as saying.

“So we have been testing a few feeds for people to view more and different stories from people and Pages based on topic areas,” the spokesperson added.

The report said the move would encourage users to get more news from Facebook rather than other sources like Twitter or Google News.

Mark Zuckerberg buys domain named after his daughter from Kochi boy for $700 The popular social networking giant Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg just bought a domain whose name is the same as his daughter from Amal Augustine, an engineering student from Kochi.

Interestingly, Amal Augustine had bought the domain and registered as ‘maxchanzuckerberg.org’

when Mark Zuckerberg announced the birth of his daughter, Maxima Chan

Zuckerberg (Max) on December 1, 2015.

Now, the Kochi boy had sold the same domain to Mark Zuckerberg for $700 which is around Rs 46,000.

According to a report in Times of India, Facebook had approached Augustine for the domain name registered by him as it was the short

form of Maxime Chan Zuckerberg, the name of FB founder Mark Zuckerberg’s daughter.

Amal Augustine is 21year-old electronic and communication engineering student at KMEA Engineering College, Aluva, Kochi. This online process of making money by selling and buying domain is called cyber squatting.

Issue 663 (26)

19 April - 25 April 2016

Why Rahul Gandhi ignored Pulitzer Prizes mark 100th Captain in race for CM post? year with Monday’s awards Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday did not announce former Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh as the party's chief ministerial candidate for 2017 Assembly elections, activating rumour mills. However, in-

Singh's nomination as the PCC chief was done after much thought and said too much should not be read into the event. Party sources said at least a dozen leaders favoured Captain as the CM candidate. However, Rahul's al-

formally, Rahul endorsed Singh as the captain of the Punjab Congress.

"It is the tradition of the Congress to make such an announcement only after the elections. Captain Amarinder is obviously the leader of the party, being the president of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee," Rahul told a group of senior editors during an off-camera interaction later on. Party leaders said

leged move has come as a major disappointment for the Captain's camp.

Interestingly, Rahul had indirectly announced Captain as the candidate in March. "I ask Amarinder Singh to deal with the drug issue sternly on a priority basis when you form the government since the problem of drug is big issue for the inhabitants of the state," Rahul had said.

While Congress leaders

are silent on the sudden change in Rahul's mind, those in the opposite camp refused to come on record and said a number of political developments have taken place which may or may not be in Captain's favour. "Captain has pushed his opponents to the brink.

Suspension of former Congress Working Committee member Jagmeet Singh Brar besides merger of People's Party of Punjab and Akali splinter group SAD (Longowal) are being looked as hasty decisions.

Leaders from these parties will demand tickets.

Moreover, Rahul has said the party will focus on young leaders. The party may announce a young face as the CM candidate," a senior Congress leader, requesting anonymity, said.

AAP MP Bhagwant Mann ridiculed the campaign Punjab Da Captain, saying the person whom the party is not trusting as the CM candidate cannot lead Punjab. "He is not even Congress' Captain yet as Rahul has said it is not confirmed that Amarinder would be the CM candidate.

NEW YORK The Pulitzer Prizes, established in 1917 with a bequest from trail-blazing publisher Joseph Pulitzer, are marking their 100th year on Monday with the announcement of the winners of what are regarded as the most prestigious awards in American journalism. The Pulitzers recognize excellence in categories that range from breaking news reporting to public service articles to feature photography.

In addition to the journalism awards, there are prizes in fiction, history, drama, music and other literary forms.

All told, there are 21 prizes in play every year. Winners are selected by an independent board after judges make nominations from a total of 2,400 entries across the range of categories. The board has the option of naming no winner in any category. The announcement takes place at 3 p.m. ET (1900 GMT) on Monday at New York’s Columbia University, which founded its School of Jour-

nalism with an endowment from Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the New York World and other U.S. newspapers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

His will provided funding for the prizes in the early years

reporting prize for its coverage of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

Last year’s Pulitzer for Public Service went to Charleston, South Carolina’s Post and Courier for its series on domestic violence.

and named Columbia to administer them.

Over the years, the New York Times has taken more awards than any other news organization, receiving 117 Pulitzer Prizes and citations, according to the newspaper’s website. Last year the paper won three Pulitzers, including an international

In the inaugural awards in 1917, Herbert Bayard Swope of the New York World was the prize winner in reporting for a series of articles entitled “Inside the German Empire,” while the New York Tribune won the award for editorial writing on its piece on the first anniversary of the sinking of the Lusitania.

Issue - 663 (27)

19 April - 25 April 2016

With Rs 152 crore, Mohali SSP Gurpreet Singh Bhullar leads Punjab IPS crorepati club The two richest legislators in Punjab according to affidavits filed in 2012 are two Congress MLAs - Kewal Dhillon with Rs

137 crore (including his son’s assets) and Karan Kaur Brar with Rs 128 crore. But guess who can trump them both senior superintendent of police (SSP) Gurpreet Singh Bhullar.

The top cop has properties worth Rs 152 crore, according to the latest property returns of

IPS officers uploaded on the Union home ministry website.

Bhullar who has had the longest term as SSP of Mohali has

shown 16 properties that include eight residential, four agricultural and three commercial plots. His assets include a Rs 85-lakh commercial plot at the venerated Barakhamba Road in central Delhi along with a 1,500 square-yard vacant plot in Delhi’s posh Sainik Farms. His

Islamic leaders pledge to stand united, combat terrorism

most expensive asset is pegged at Rs 45 crore and mentioned as “uncultivable land” in village Bariali in Mohali.

According to the documents, most of the properties have been inherited. Bhullar has given the source as “ancestral property flowing from grandparents” in many cases.

The officer has had two terms as Mohali SSP, first between 2009 and 2013 and from 2015 till now. Bhullar has shown the date of acquisition for at least 12 properties as January 11, 2013.

He is among the 130-plus IPS officers from Punjab who have submitted details of their properties registered under their own name or spouses or parents, as part of mandatory immovable property returns (IPRs) that have been made public since 2011.Union home ministry records reveal that the total worth of properties declared by Punjab’s IPS officers is around Rs 500 crore.

Among the senior cops, current Punjab Police chief DGP Suresh Arora has shown properties worth Rs 4.1 crore.

Former DGP Sumedh Saini has listed properties worth Rs 16.6 crore and prison reforms DGP Sanjiv Gupta has given details of properties worth Rs 8.75 crore. While Arora’s last property purchase was of Rs 3.3 crore on May 30, 2013 in Chandigarh’s posh Sector 18A during his tenure as then DGP (vigilance), Saini has shown ancestral properties as far as Shimla, Mandi, Ghaziabad, Ropar including a six-acre orchard in Himachal Pradesh.

30-yr-old Bathinda man killed over illicit relationship with 60-yr-old woman

A 30-year-old man was beaten to death by four persons at Baghapurana in Moga district on the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday, for having an ‘illicit relationship’ with a 60-year-old woman.

The deceased has been identified as Sukhminder Singh (30), a resident of Baghapurana, while the elderly woman, Bhajan Kaur, who is a grandmother, is also a resident of the same tehsil.

Meanwhile, the police have booked four persons, including Bhajan Kaur’s grandson Gurdit Singh and his three friends, namely Kaalu, Dharma and Gurpreet Singh, all residents of Baghapurana.

As per the information, Sukhminder was working as a car driver at Bhajan’s home and was allegedly having an illicit relationship with her.

Jassa Singh, brother of the deceased, in his first information report (FIR) stated that he got

the information at around 1.30am on Thursday that his brother Sukhminder was lying injured at Bhajan’s house. He brought him to a nearby private hospital, where he died during treatment.

The police officials said Sukhminder was at Bhajan’s house when Gurdit and his friends caught hold of him and started beating him with wooden sticks.

Bhajan told the police that she tried to stop her grandson from beating him, but they didn’t stop.

Sub-inspector Gurbinder Singh said that they got the information about the incident on Thursday afternoon when Sukhminder had already succumbed to his injuries. “All the accused persons are absconding. The police are raiding various places to nab them,” he said. Meanwhile, a case has been registered under Sections 302, 427, 148 and 149 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) at Baghapurana police station, Moga.

Belgian minister says many Muslims ‘danced’ after attacks A two-day summit bringing together leaders of the Islamic world concluded in the Turkish city of Istanbul with a pledge to combat terrorism and overcome sectarian divide.The final declaration Friday expressed strong condemnation of the Islamic State (IS) group and the role of Iran and its proxies in regional conflicts. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who chaired the final session of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit, lamented the fact that Muslim countries who are “the heirs of a civilization that was built on columns of peace and justice are being remembered more for wars, armed conflict, sectarianism and terrorism.”

“As Muslims, we cannot overcome our difficulties without achieving unity in spite of our differences,” said the Turkish leader during the closing

ceremony after delegates took a break to perform Friday prayers.

Erdogan also said the establishment of an international arbitration body in Istanbul is part of the OIC 2025 action plan and welcomed a decision reached a day earlier to create a Turkeybased police coordination center aimed at increasing cooperation against terrorism.The Istanbul meeting drew representatives from across the Muslim world, including King Salman of Saudi Arabia and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, whose countries have squared off in Yemen and Syria.The final declaration expressed hope that negotiations that started in Geneva on April 13 would contribute to resolving “the Syrian crisis as soon as possible” and “deplored Iran’s interference” and “continued support for terrorism” not only in Syria but also Bahrain, Yemen, and Somalia.

Belgian interior minister Jan Jambon said on Saturday that a “significant” part of the Muslim population celebrated attacks, blaming the country’s policies for failing to integrate migrants into society.

He did not, however, explicitly refer to last month’s jihadist attacks on Brussels’ airport and metro system that killed 32 people “A significant section of the Muslim community danced when attacks took place,” Jambon said in an interview with the Flemish-language De Standaard newspaper.

The Belgian minister also accused Muslim residents of Brussels’ largely immigrant Molenbeek neighbourhood of attacking police during an operation last month to arrest a suspect in connection with the deadly attacks in Paris last November.

“They threw stones and bottles at police and press during the arrest of Salah Abdeslam. This

is the real problem. Terrorists we can pick up, remove from society. But they are just a boil.

Underneath is a cancer that is much more difficult to treat. We can do it, but it won’t be overnight,” he said.

Jambon, whose New Flemish Alliance party has been a key part of Belgium’s ruling centreright coalition since 2014, previously offered to resign in the wake of the Brussels attacks.

In today’s interview he said that

the danger linked to the radicalisation of youth from third and fourth generation families is “too deeply rooted” in some areas because Belgium “have for many years ignored the warning signs”.

Following the November 13 attacks in neighbouring France, Jambon sparked controversy when he promised to “clean Molenbeek” when it emerged that several of the attackers had links to the impoverished district of the Belgian capital.

Issue - 663 (28)

19 April - 25 April 2016

UN refuses to ban Masood Azhar: India slams use of ‘hidden veto’ in sanctioning terrorists Days after China blocked its bid at the UN to ban JeM chief Masood Azhar, India today slammed use of “hidden veto” and demanded accountability, saying the world body’s general members are never informed of the reason for not acceding to

requests for sanctioning terrorists.“The procedures of unanimity and anonymity of the Al Qaeda, Taliban and ISIS Sanctions Committees need to be revisited. The procedures of unanimity and anonymity result in a lack of accountability,” India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin told the UN Security Council in an open debate on ‘Threats to International Peace and Security Caused by Terrorist Acts’ here.

Also Read: Pathankot attack:

Jaish-e-Mohammad hails ‘friend’ China for blocking move against Maulana Masood Azhar Against the backdrop of China last month again blocking India’s bid to ban the mastermind of the Pathankot terror attack Masood in the UN Sanctions Committee,

Akbaruddin said each of the 15 members in the committee now have a veto. Without naming China, he said none except these 15 members are told of who is it that has wielded the veto in a specific instance.

“The general membership of the UN is never ever formally informed of how and why requests for listing terrorists are not acceded to. Counter terror mechanisms such as the Sanctions Committees that act on behalf of the international community need to build trust

not engender impunity by the use of this form of a ‘hidden veto’,” Akbaruddin said.

After the attack on the airbase in Pathankot in January, India had in February written to the UN calling for immediate action to list the chief of the Pakistanbased terror outfit Jaish-eMohammad (JeM) under the UN Sanctions Committee. The Indian submission was considered by the CounterTerrorism Executive Directorate (CTED) for technical aspects of the evidence provided.

The technical team then with the support of the US, UK and France had sent it to all the members, sources had said. All were told that if there are no objections, the designation will be announced after the expiry of the deadline but just hours before the deadline, China requested the UN committee to keep on hold the designation.

When asked at a briefing earlier this month as to why China had put a hold on the listing request

by India against Azhar, Chinese envoy and President of the Security Council for the month Liu Jieyi had said that any listing would have to meet the requirements, stressing that it was the Council members’ responsibility to ensure that the criteria were followed.

UK ‘permanently poor’ outside EU? No, says Brexit camp

London The combined power of official economists was brought to bear on the referendum campaign on Monday as chancellor George Osborne unveiled a 200-page document that told Britons they would be “permanently poor” outside the European Union.

In dense economic-speak littered with figures in billions and equations, the document claimed families will be £4,300 poorer per year, taxes and prices would go up, and 44% of British exports to the EU would be adversely affected. The David Cameron government has taken a pro-EU position on the June 23 referendum, while six ministers and others have been campaigning for leav-

ing the 28-state grouping. The “referendum period” officially came into force on April 15.

The Brexit camp was quick to pick holes in Osborne’s headline figures, including the claim that the British economy outside the EU will be 6% smaller.

“The idea you can predict anything in any economy 14 years ahead is quite absurd...It is simply not credible,” said Tory MP Liam Fox, while others saw it as part of “scaremongering” and “Project Fear”. The treasury document addresses three scenarios put forth by the Brexit camp, and rejects each of them: membership of the European Economic Area (EEA), like Norway; a negotiated bilateral

agreement, such as that between the EU and Switzerland, Turkey or Canada, and World Trade Organisation (WTO) membership without any form of specific agreement with the EU – like Russia or Brazil. Osborne said: “It is a perfectly honest position to say that Britain would be worse off but that is a price worth paying. But don’t pretend to the British people that leaving the EU comes at no economic cost.

“For me, in the end, it’s not just about the economics. It’s about who we are as a country. The Britain I love is open, confident in its values and ready to shape the future of our world. I don’t want Britain to be like Norway or like Canada or anyone else.”

Baby with two brains gets a new life

For five month old Yamanoor, life hadn’t even begun yet when right after his birth, a small swelling at the back of his head indicated a tumor the size of his brain. The Neurosurgical team at Sapthagiri Hospital concluded that Yamanoor was suffering occipital encepha-locele, a rare condition among infants wherein sac like protrusions of the brain along with fluids bulge out forming a swelling owing to a skull defect. A life altering surgery that lasted at least six hours on March 28, by the team of doctors, saw Yamanoor getting rid of the tumor that could have taken his life away long back.Residents of Kushtagi Taluk, Bellary, Kariappa and his wife were distraught while they took their 3 day old baby back to their home unaware of what needs to be done next. “We had no money and doctors told us it was a brain defect my child was suffering.

Since I couldn’t afford any money for such a treatment, I just left it to God and took him back home, where my two other children were awaiting their baby brother,”

Kariappa said.5 months later, a camp set up by Sapthagiri Hospital in Bellary was where Yamanoor was noticed by a health worker and was referred to the neurosurgical team at the hospital where his surgery which would ideally cost Rs 2.5 Lakh was conducted free of charge under Vajpayee Arogyashree Scheme. Being the first case for the team of surgeons headed by Dr Hariprakash Chakravarthy, Neurosurgeon and Dr Jayasheel, head of Anesthesia department, to operate on as well, an MRI scan first taken revealed significant brain matter in the swelling.

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Web host 123-reg deletes sites in clean-up error

London Web hosting firm 123-reg has accidentally deleted an unspecified number of its customers’ websites. The company, which hosts 1.7m sites in the UK, said an error made during maintenance “effectively deleted” what was on some of its servers. “We can conclude that the issues faced have resulted in some data

loss for some customers,” the firm admitted. It started a “recovery process”, but advised customers with their own data backup to rebuild their own websites.

The web host, which has 800,000 customers in the UK, would not say how many websites had been deleted but said it was a “small proportion”.

After earthquake, ‘mysterious foam’ shocks people of Japan Tokyo In a very shocking incident, people of the earthquake-hit Japan’s Fukuoka city saw a huge carpet of mysterious foamy bubbles on the streets.

The foam, which looked very disgusting, filled the streets of this southern Japanese city in

the early hours of Saturday morning? shortly after tremors from a devastating earthquake of magnitude 7.3 shook the town. According to media reports, Fukuoka is 90km away from Kumamoto, where the strongest tremors were felt.

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19 April - 25 April 2016

Pak says Kirpal Singh died of heart attack as India takes up issue

India’s Acting High Commissioner J P Singh met Director General (South Asia) in the Pakistan Foreign Ministry in Islamabad following a directive from the Indian government in connection with the death of Kirpal, who was jailed in Pakistan for nearly 25 years in connection with a serial blasts case.“According to the government of Pakistan, Kirpal Singh died on April 11 at 1455 hours due to a heart attack. We await further details,” MEA spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.He said India’s Acting High Commissioner had requested the Pakistan Foreign Ministry to investigate the incident and sought early repatriation of Kirpal’s body.Later, External

Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj met Kirpal’s family and conveyed that the government was making all efforts to get his body back as early as possible. She also told the family that India would try to revive the Indo-Pak Judicial Committee dealing with the welfare and overall status of prisoners of India and Pakistan lodged in each other’s jails. The committee has not met for the last couple of years.Kirpal was lodged in a Pakistan jail for nearly 25 years on spying charges. He allegedly crossed over to Pakistan through Wagah border in 1992 and was arrested.

He was subsequently sentenced to death in a serial bomb blasts case in Pakistan’s Punjab province.

Mallya invested nearly half of Rs. 950-crore IDBI loan outside India: ED Vijay Mallya invested nearly half of a Rs 950-crore loan from IDBI bank in properties outside India, investigators probing allegations of money laundering by the embattled liquor baron told a special court on Saturday.

The court is hearing a plea by the Enforcement Directorate, an agency that investigates financial crimes, seeking a nonbailable arrest warrant and a redcorner notice against the Rajya Sabha MP who owes Rs 9,400 crores to several banks in India.

The court reserved its order until Monday.

ED counsel Hiten Venegaonkar told the court that Mallya siphoned off Rs 430 crore from the IDBI bank loan under heads such as aircraft lease rent, import of spare parts and aircraft maintenance services. The loan was given to his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines.

The ED’s remarks before the court are the first specific charges against Mallya, who left the country in March amidst mounting pressure from banks to pay up. The agency has approached several countries, including Britain, France and the United States over Kingfisher Airlines’

transactions. Some ED officials suspect that money might have been parked in overseas tax havens, sources said.

“We have stumbled upon the money trail and found that of the money he borrowed, a portion had been used to buy a property outside India,” Venegaonkar said adding that major recipients of the amount have been identified, along with their bank details.

“Payments of various amounts to companies apparently unrelated to the business were made,” he said.

He said the agency has approached countries such as Ireland, UK and France to verify the transactions by Kingfisher Airlines which ceased

operations in 2012.

The 60-year-old businessman - once known as the ‘king of good times’ for his flamboyant lifestyle -- owns several properties outside the country, including in the US, South Africa, UK and France.

Mallya, believed to be in UK, ignored three summons by ED to appear for questioning in the case but claims he is not on the run and will abide by the law.

The ED counsel told the court that Mallya offered to answer its questions through videoconferencing or mail but that was not acceptable as “investigations cannot proceed as per the convenience of the accused”.

Racism fear looms as Indian doctors head for UK If you are one of those young doctors excited by the new recruitment policy of the UK government to hire more Indian doctors to tackle its acute staff shortage, here is a reality check before you board the flight: Going to the UK can prove to be a dead end for your career, because you will be entering a system that is notoriously “racist”, “discriminatory” and “awful.”

The warning comes from some of the top doctors of Indian origin in the UK, including Dr. Kailash Chand, the deputy chair of the British Medical Association (BMA) and an OBE (Order of the British Empire) recipient from the Queen in 2010.In an exclusive interview to Mailtoday in the backdrop of the recent move by the UK National Health Service (NHS) to recruit general practitioners (GP) and other clinical staff from India to work in the UK, Dr. Chand cautioned dreamy-eyed aspirants to be aware of the pitfalls of coming to work in the UK.“There are huge problems. Working conditions in the UK for doctors have deteriorated a hell of a lot. It is not as good as people think,” said Chand, a GP with 35 years of experience.

Health Education England, the NHS training and recruitment agency, had recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Apollo Hospital chains to reportedly hire “as many GPs as possible”.The details of the deal, however, are still still closely guarded, as the hospital chain refused to respond to requests from Mail today, regarding the number of doctors or clinical staff who will be covered under the

agreement.

According to UK’s Department of Health, the immediate target is to meet a shortfall of 5,000 doctors in general practice by 2020.Though NHS has always turned to Indian subcontinent to address its staff shortages in the past (as many as 23 per cent of NHS is already filled with Indian doctors), the service had been under attack for its racist and discriminatory practices towards Indian doctors.A 2001 report by Kings Fund, an English health charity, had accused NHS of perpetuating “institutionalised racism” against BME doctors, an umbrella term for people belonging to Black, minority and ethnic community, which also include Indian doctors, till the day they retire from service.

The report had also noted how the career path for non-White staff is too often blocked and are more likely to get shunted into unpopular specialties and innercity general practice.

Nearly 15 years later, the situation appears to remain the same. Though 33 per cent of the NHS workforce is BME doctors, according to BMA, only five per cent of them are in high medical position. “They are not many Indian doctors at very high positions,” said Chand, who counts himself as “one of the lucky ones.”

The Bedford-based British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO), a 50,000 strong body of Indian doctors blames this extreme disparity on the unfair way in which non-White doctors are assessed for promotions to become specialists.

“There is a huge difference in pass percentage between Whites and non-Whites in the MRCGP exam that allows doctors to progress in their career towards specialisations,” said Dr. Mehta, president, BAPIO. “For instance, if you are a White

distant dream. ”All glamorous specialisations go to European doctors,” said Chand who himself vainly tried to chase his dream of becoming a Paediatrician in the late 1970s only to realise that he did not even get shortlisted in any of the 40 hospitals he applied,

UK-trained doctor; the pass rate is 98 per cent. But if you are a doctor from India, then the rate of clearing the exam is 34 per cent or even less in some specialties,” said Dr. Mehta.

“This happens because the way MRCGP is conducted is not fair.

The clinical assessment component of the exam is not conducted with real patients. but with actors. Almost all these actors are White and prone to subjective racial discrimination based on aspects such as communication and behavioural traits of a doctor, unlike real patients who are more flexible and non-judgemental while interacting with a doctor,” said Mehta.Even for the few who clear the test, aspiring to be a specialist in Paediatrics, Cardiology or Opthalmology is a

eventually specialising in Emergency Medicine.“Only nonglamorous specialisations such as Psychiatry, Geriatrics and Emergency Medicine known as Cinderella services go to BME doctors,” he said.

The discrimination doesn’t end there. BME doctors who are in consultancy positions at various UK hospitals are often overlooked by their employers when it comes to conferring the annual merit awards, a recognition that also helps recipients to get a monetary incentive of more than 50,000 pounds.“As many as 25 per cent of the consultants at UK hospitals are BME. Yet, only 4.5 per cent of them get a merit award,” said Chand.

Complicating the situation further is the current state of affairs in

UK’s healthcare system. “At present, there is very low morale among doctors working in the NHS.Not many local graduates want to work in general practice as the working conditions are awful with a lot of paper work and pressure regarding targets set by the Department of Health,” said Mehta.“Native junior doctors are leaving the UK in their hundreds to countries such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada, as they are unhappy with the new policy regulation of the government under which they have to work seven days a week,” he said.

“There is currently a drought of doctors in the UK. There is a shortage of 5,000 in GPs alone.

They will need another 10,000 to 15,000 in other specialties,” added Dr. Mehta.

The fact that NHS is reaching out to Indian doctors again in its hour of crisis is also a tacit admission that there are no suitable doctors available within the European Union to fill the shortage, a mandatory requirement, as per a new rule introduced by the UK government in 2006, to give preferential treatment for EU doctors in NHS. “Doctors from the EU have had major problems of language and are not popular in the UK,” claimed Dr. Mehta.

Yet, for all the negatives, people like Chand believe that the British society was a lot more biased in the 1970s than it is now. “At least multiculturalism is now acceptable in places like London,” he said.“Doctors who come to the UK from India, should come with an open eyes,” said Chand. “They should know that it is not a bed of roses.”

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19 April - 25 April 2016

British plane ‘collided Google wins copyright battle over books with drone’ lands safely LONDON A British Airways passenger aircraft was hit by what most likely was a drone as it prepared to

Sunday at Terminal 5.

Britain’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch confirmed on Monday that it had launched an in-

land at Britain’s Heathrow Airport, police said, increasing worries about the risks posed by increasing civil drone use. Police said the pilot of the BA flight from Geneva had reported that he believed a drone had struck the aircraft before it landed safely on

vestigation into an incident involving an unmanned air vehicle and a passenger aircraft at Heathrow, Europe’s busiest airport. The use of civil drones, whether for commercial purposes such as crop surveillance, monitoring of natural disasters, photography or just as a leisure activity, is rising.

That popularity has led to increasing reports of near-misses with commercial aircraft.

The European Commission has conceded that “drone accidents will happen”, while the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority last year issued a warning after seven incidents in less than a year where drones had flown near planes at different British airports.

Pilots’ associations and others have called for drones to be fit-

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ted with geo-fencing technology, which uses GPS software to stop them straying into certain areas, along with height and distance limits. They also call for registration of drones.

Commenting on the latest incident, the British Airlines Pilots Association said that more education for drone users and stronger enforcement of the rules around drones were needed to keep aircraft safe. “It was only a matter of time before we had a drone strike given the huge numbers being flown around by amateurs who don’t understand the risks and the rules,” BALPA flight safety specialist Stephen Landells said.

British Airways, which is owned

by IAG, said in its statement that the aircraft, which had 132 customers and five crew on board, was fully examined by engineers before being cleared to operate its next flight.

The incident was reported to police by the pilot after the flight landed at about 1150 GMT on Sunday. “It transpired that an object, believed to be a drone, had struck the front of the aircraft,” the police said. The incident on Sunday followed another at Heathrow in February, when a New York-bound plane was forced to return to the airport after a “laser beam incident”.

More than refugees, Germany looks within for terror suspects HAMBURG With Europe under a fresh wave of terror attacks coinciding with an incessant refugee influx from Syria, Germany is looking within for jihadis, rebuffing paranoia that those fleeing the war may be the principal source of concern. Mohd Atta, the

perpetrator of 9/11 attacks, is cited to rubbish the fears. Now legend in the jihadi folklore, Atta and Ramzi were among the three youths from the Hamburg Harburg who went on to author the twin-tower attacks which changed the trajectory of the 21st century.

“If we want to understand the task... It is necessary to know this. They had no reasons, they

were middle-class in their countries. They had attended the university in Germany. They were relatively successful. So, they were fully integrated, it is not that they had no chance in the German society. (why they became terrorists) is something extra,” a top government official

of Hamburg said. The blunt, if introspective, words, in the port city-state - hosting Muslims from Turkey, West Asia, Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan indicate Germany is taking a hard look at what is happening within its borders more than being obsessed with the Syrian refugees.The comments seek to decouple the conflating discourses on jihadi terrorism

and Syrian refugees. By a quirk of time, the coinciding of the twin waves from the Muslim world have resulted in a far-right campaign that has put mainstream traditional politics of Social Democrats and Christian Democrats on the back foot. It is an explosive narrative which dominates Germany today but indications from the sensitive state suggest that irrespective of the rise of the xenophobic AfD, the refugee issue is being tackled separately from the vigil on terror. According to a top official, the London underground attacks or the recent Brussels and Paris strikes were carried out by people who had lived in those cities, were part of their social life. The root cause behind the trouble is seen as the “cultural conflict” arising from interaction between modern Europe and natives of migrant background who are unable to shed the baggage of conservative Muslim societies. “It is not that easy that these are poor people who are angry about their situation and life. In many cases, it is just the people who cannot face the situation with women having the same rights. I think this is half of the reason for the terror attacks,” the official said.

Wahington An eleven-year legal battle between Google and an authors’ group has ended with a ruling in Google’s favour. The US Supreme Court said it would not hear an appeal from the Authors Guild, which claimed Google breached copyright laws by scanning books. The search giant began curating a searchable database of books in 2004, but was sued by the Authors Guild and some individual authors in 2005.

The Supreme Court’s judgement is the final ruling on the matter.

Google’s database of books lets people search through millions

of titles and read extracts and selected pages from them. While some of the books in the database are old titles that are no longer protected by copyright, millions are more recent publications.

The Authors Guild had argued that the project undermined authors’ ability to make money from their work. Google said its database was a “fair use” of protected works, describing it as “a card catalogue for the digital age”. The firm could have faced billions of dollars in damages claims from authors if it had lost the case.

ISIS releases video showing brutal executions as victims beg for mercy

Iraq After being driven out of Syrian cities of Palmyra and alQaryatain, the Islamic State has released a new propaganda video to spread terror among people.According to a report in the Daily Mail, the undated footage has been shot in Anbar province in Iraq. The video shows Islamic State militants beheading their prisoners as they plead for mercy.

The militants are shown killing Iraqi soldiers and government officials in the video. It also shows how ISIS hurls bombs at civilians and government vehicles.

The video then moves forward to

show an Iraqi official begging for his life before being brutally killed.

The number of Islamic State militants have recently dropped to the lowest level since the year 2014. The terror group has also witnessed a downfall in their caliphates, especially after Syrian army retook major cities from them.

The territories captured by ISIS in Iraq have dropped to nearly 40 per cent, an official was quoted as saying.

Last month, Barack Obama vowed to wipe out Islamic State and put an end to the war situation in Iraq and parts of Middle East.

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19 April - 25 April 2016

How corruption revealed in Panama Papers opened the door to Isis and al-Qaida Who shall doubt ‘the secret hid Under Cheops’ pyramid’ Was that the contractor did Cheops out of several millions?

The message of Rudyard Kipling’s poem is that corruption is always with us and has not changed much down the ages.

There is some truth in this, but degrees of corruption greatly matter, as the Cheops would have found to his cost if he tried to build his pyramid in modern Iraq instead of ancient Egypt.

The project would cost him billions rather than millions - and he would be more likely to end up with a hole in the ground than anything resembling a pyramid.

Three years ago I was in Baghdad after it had rained heavily, driving for miles through streets that had disappeared under grey-coloured flood water combined with raw sewage. Later I asked Shirouk Abayachi, an advisor to the Ministry of Water Resources, why this was happening and she said that “since 2003, $7bn has been spent to build a new sewage system for Baghdad, but either the sewers weren’t built or they were built very badly”. She concluded that “corruption is the

key to all this”.Anybody discussing the Panama Papers and the practices of the law firm Mossack Fonseca should think about the ultimate destination of the $7bn not spent on the Baghdad drainage system. There will be many go-betweens and middle men protecting anyone who profited from this huge sum, but the suspicion must be that a proportion of it will have ended up in offshore financial centres where money is hidden and can be turned into legally held assets.There is no obvious link between the revelations in the Panama Papers, the rise of Islamic State and the wars tearing apart at least nine countries in the Middle East and North Africa. But these three developments are intimately connected as ruling elites, who syphon off wealth into tax havens and foreign property, lose political credibility. No ordinary Afghans, Iraqis and Syrians will fight and die for rulers they detest as swindlers. Crucial to the rise of Isis, al-Qaida and the Taliban in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan is not their own strength and popularity, but the weakness and unpopularity of the governments to which they are opposed.Kipling was right in

believing that there has always been corruption, but since the early 1990s corrupt states have often mutated into kleptocracies.

Ruling families and the narrow coteries around them have taken a larger and larger share of the economic cake.In Syria since the turn of the century, for instance, the rural population and the urban poor no longer enjoyed the limited

government of prime minister Haider al-Abadi held files on corrupt individuals, including “one politician who has amassed a fortune of $6 billion through corrupt dealings.”The danger of citing extreme examples of corruption from exotic and warravaged countries like Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria is that these may sound like events

benefits they had previously received under an equally harsh but more egalitarian regime. By 2011, President Bashar alAssad’s first cousin Rami Makhlouf was reported to be a dominant player in 60 per cent of the Syrian economy and to have a personal worth of $5 billion.In Iraq earlier this year, a financial specialist, who wished to remain anonymous, said that the

happening on another planet. But the political and economic systems in Iraq and Afghanistan were devised under the tutelage of the US and allies like Britain.

They were proponents of free market economics which in the West may increase inequality and benefit the wealthy, but in Kabul and Baghdad were a license to steal by anybody with power.Neo-liberal economists

Islamist militants in Philippines set deadline to execute foreign captives

Islamist militants in the Philippines on Friday announced a new deadline of April 25 for the execution of three foreign captives and a Filipino, but scaled back their ransom demand in a video posted on social media.

The captives - two Canadian men, a Norwegian man and a Filipino woman - were kidnapped from a beach resort on a southern island last September.

They are believed to be held in the jungle on Jolo island, a stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf group, which is known for bombings, beheadings and kidnappings.

In the video, the captives, with machetes held to their necks, asked their families and governments to pay a ransom of 300 million pesos ($6.51 million) each, down from the figure of a billion pesos each that the militants demanded last year.

“This is already an ultimatum,”

the masked militant leader said.

“We will certainly behead one of these four,” he added, setting the execution for 3 p.m. on April 25.

There was no explanation why the ransom was reduced or a new deadline set.

A spokesman for the Philippine military declined to comment, saying he had not seen the video.

In Ottawa, a spokeswoman for the Canadian foreign ministry said the government was aware of the video. “(We) will not comment or release any information which may compromise ongoing efforts or endanger the safety of Canadian citizens,” Rachna Mishra said in an emailed statement.

In the nearly two-minute clip posted on YouTube, the foreigners appealed for the militants’ demands to be met.

“I am told to tell you that my ransom is 300 million,” said one

man, who identified himself as Robert Hall.

“My specific appeal is to the Canadian government, who, I know, have the capacity to get us out of here. I’m wondering what they’re waiting for.”

The other Canadian and the Norwegian also made appeals, but the Filipino woman was not allowed to speak.

The video was the fourth such appeal released by the militants.

In their third clip last month, they set an April 8 deadline but no ransom was specified.

Security is precarious in the resource-rich south of the largely Christian Philippines, despite a 2014 peace pact between the government and the largest Muslim rebel group that ended 45 years of conflict.

Abu Sayyaf militants are holding other foreigners, including one from the Netherlands, one from Japan, four Malaysians and 10 Indonesian tugboat crew.

have a lot to answer for. A few days after Isis had captured Mosul in June 2014, I was in Baghdad and asked a recently retired four-star Iraqi general why the much larger and betterequipped Iraqi army had been defeated so swiftly and humiliatingly. He replied that the explanation was: “Corruption!

Corruption! Corruption!”

He added that this was pervasive and had begun when the US was building a new Iraqi military after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, when the American commanders had insisted on out-sourcing food and other supplies to private contractors.

These businessmen and the army officers soon determined that, if the Iraqi government was paying money to feed and equip a battalion of 600 men, but its real strength was only 150, they could pocket the difference. So profitable was this arrangement that by 2014 all officers’ jobs were for sale and it cost $200,000 to become a colonel and up to $2m a general in charge of a division.Blatant corruption at the top in Kabul and Baghdad has been frequently reported over the years, though nothing much seems to change.

Experts give new details of IS destruction of Syrian museum

Experts back from assessing damage at the museum in Palmyra offered grim new details Saturday about the extent of the destruction caused by the Islamic State group during the 10 months it ruled the ancient town.The museum was trashed and some of its best-known artifacts and statues were smashed by the extremists, who cut off the heads and hands of statues and demolished others before being driven out last month. Bartosz Markowski, from the Polish Archaeological Center at the University of Warsaw, told The Associated Press in Damascus that most of the 200 objects which were exhibited on the ground floor were destroyed, many of them apparently with hard tools like hammers. Many artifacts have been stolen, he added. He and his colleagues were the first specialists to visit Palmyra after it was taken over by the Syrian army, and spent a week collecting fragments of sculptures and preparing them for transportation to Damascus for conservation in a rescue

mission.“We collected everything we could. The fragments were spread around the whole museum among broken glass and furniture ... It is a catastrophe,” he said.

Among the best-known statues destroyed was the famous Lion of Allat, which previously greeted visitors and tourists outside the Palmyra museum. The statue, which used to adorn the temple of Allat, a pre-Islamic goddess in Palmyra, was defaced by IS militants and knocked over by bulldozers.On a visit to Palmyra on Thursday, The Associated Press saw the statue lying outside the building with its face cut and some of its broken pieces lying next to it.

“Fortunately we collected most of the fragments and I hope it can be reconstructed very soon,” said Markowski, who in 2005 took part in a Polish archaeological mission that did renovation work on the statue.

His colleague, Robert Zukowski, said the lion should be the first thing restored and “it should stay in Palmyra as a sign of resistance against the barbarians. “

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19 April - 25 April 2016

3 injured in an explosion at Gurudwara in western Germany

Washington German police say three people have been injured in an apparently deliberate explosion at a Sikh temple in the western city of Essen. A spokesman for Essen police told The Associated Press that a masked person is reported to have fled the scene shortly after the blast at 7 p.m. Saturday (1700 GMT). Spokesman Lars Lindemann said the explosion

was “quite violent,” blowing out several windows. One of the injured was said to be in a serious condition. Lindemann says police are working on the assumption that the explosion was caused deliberately but that there are no indications it was a terrorist incident. He says the temple had hosted a wedding earlier in the day and those injured are believed to have been among the guests.

TCS to appeal against US jury’s $940 million notice

Indian-origin peer faces ban over parliament expenses claim in UK LONDON An 84-year-old Indian-origin millionaire peer is facing an eight-month suspension from the House of Lords for breaching the British parliament’s expense claim rules for the second time.

Lord Amir Bhatia was under investigation by the House of Lords Committee for Privileges and Conduct, which recommended his suspension in a report on Friday.

The report concluded: “The commissioner found that Lord Bhatia had breached the House of Lords’ rules on financial support for members on 63 occasions from January to July 2010, claiming mileage expenses from the House of Lords while also claiming expenses for the same journeys from another organization.“The commissioner also found that in submitting the claims Lord Bhatia had breached the code of conduct by failing to act on his personal honour.”The report’s conclusions will now be taken up in the House of Lords next week for a formal decision on the suspension.This is the second time Bhatia can be suspended over expenses irregularities, the first time in 2010 after he wrongly claimed 27,446 pounds in overnight allowances and mileage expenses.The latest incident follows a television broadcast in December 2013 on

“BBC Newsnight”, which alleged that Bhatia claimed and received mileage expenses from both the House of Lords and a charity he was involved with, the Ethnic

recommended that he repay the 756 pounds he had wrongly claimed.

Lord Bhatia had appealed to the House of Lords against its

Minority Foundation, in respect of the same journeys.

A complaint was made alleging that Bhatia breached the House’s rules on financial support by such double claiming.Bhatia admitted to the Lords committee that he had wrongly claimed the mileage expenses from both bodies “due to a system not being in place in his office to prevent doubleclaiming”.

He said his claims were prepared by his long-standing personal assistant and he signed the forms she prepared.

He apologized and offered to repay the money, the committee’s report notes.

The committee has

findings, which was rejected and the final report released this week. “This is Lord Bhatia’s second case of breach of the House’s rules on financial support for members Lord Bhatia in October 2010 was found to have misused the system of financial support for members by wrongly designating his main residence and claiming overnight allowance and mileage expenses accordingly from October 2007 to January 2009, amounting to 27,466 pounds, for which he was suspended from the House for eight months,” the committee noted. Bhatia is a millionaire businessman who entered the House of Lords as a cross-bench peer in 2001.

Amid growing incidents of hate crimes, Sikh fervour grips Times Square

Washington India’s leading IT company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) today denied the charges of Intellectual Property infringement and asserted that it will appeal against the US Federal Court’s verdict that slapped the company with 940-million.

A US grand jury has slapped two companies, Tata Consultancy Services and Tata America International Corp - with a $940 million fine in connection with alleged stealing of software information from Epic Systems.

While $240 million has to be paid for IP infringement, $700 million for punitive damages.

In a lawsuit filed by Epic Systems in October, 2014, the company had accused TCS and Tata America International Corp

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of brazenly stealing its trade secrets, confidential information, documents and data”.

Epic said that it “recently learned from an informant” that TCS employees have been “fraudulently accessing” Epic’s software beyond what the consulting contract required - and using Epic’s software to improve their own competing product.

A TCS employee’s account, which was used in India and several US locations, downloaded 6,477 documents, according to Epic. “Rather than compete lawfully with Epic, TCS has engaged in an apparently elaborate campaign of deception to steal documents, confidential information, trade secrets, and other information and data from Epic, for the purpose of realising technical expertise developed by Epic over years of hard work and investment,” the lawsuit said.

TCS said it intended to appeal against the verdict in higher courts. “While TCS respects the legal process, the jury’s verdict on liability and damages was unexpected as the company believes they are unsupported by the evidence presented during the trial,” the company said in a statement mailed to IANS.

NEW YORK The iconic Times Square was seeped in the colours of the Sikh culture as thousands of community members gathered here to celebrate Vaisakhi and educate fellow Americans about Sikhism in the wake of growing incidents of hate crimes and discrimination against them.

Legendary Indian sportsman Milkha Singh addressed one of the largest such celebrations in the US, calling on the Sikh community to educate the young generation about the significance of the Sikh culture.

Hundreds of excited tourists and children queued up at the popular city destination to get turbans tied on their heads in bright colours by members of the Sikh community and took pictures and selfies wearing them as ‘Turban Day’ was also celebrated at the event.

The participants jostled to get a picture clicked with the elderly ‘Flying Sikh’, who had travelled from Canada for the event.

“Today if the Sikhs have a name, are known around the world, it is because of the turban. Milkha Singh is called a ‘Flying Sikh’ because I have the turban on my head and the beard on my face.

My beard and turban are the reasons for the respect and recognition that I have across the world,” Singh told PTI.Non-profit organisation Sikhs of New York

and New Jersey and the event’s organisers Bobby Sidana, Kawaldeep Sahni, Chanpreet Singh and Gurmeet Sodhi said the event aimed at not only celebrating the festival marking

about Sikhism and its rich history.

“People here should know that Sikhs are warriors, they have fought for other people and will do everything to help others. The

the spring harvest but also educating Americans and thousands of tourists about the Sikh culture.They said it would also make them aware of the significance of the Sikh articles of faith like turban and beard and to address the misinformation about Sikhism that leads to profiling and backlash against members of the community, particularly after the 9/11 attack.

Lauding the organisers for putting together the event, Milkha Singh said such a celebration of Sikh culture will inspire and educate people across the city and country

event will inspire people here and educate them about the Sikh culture, they will get to know who Sikhs are,” he said.

In his message to the gathering, Singh said he would like to see “one more Milkha Singh” from the Sikh community spread across the US and the world.

Lamenting that Sikh articles of faith such as the turban and beard are often still misconstrued and associated with terrorism, the organisers invited passers-by and those at the event to get a turban tied on their heads and to ask about the Sikh culture.

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Pakistan university bans boys and girls sitting, walking together University of Swat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan on Friday issued a notification banning its male students and female students

from mingling together.

In a much conservative and controversial move, the University of Swat banned all the opposite gender students to sit or walk together within the campus limits, reported Daily Pakistan.

According a notice pasted on the notice board of the university, the students are warned that a fine ranging from Rs 50 to Rs 5,000 will be imposed in case of

violation. Moreover, the parents will also be called for an emergency meeting by the university administration, according to the document signed by Chief Proctor Hazrat Bilal.The University of Swat is a

Indian-American Yale student awarded prestigious fellowship

public sector university. The main campus of the university is situated in Saidu Sharif, 2 km away from main city Mingora, Swat Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan.

According to the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, the university was ranked at 124 in 2012.

In a much similar move in past, Pakistan’s top university National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) had made it mandatory for female students to wear ‘dupatta’ and put a ban on wearing ‘jeans’ in the premises of the university which is located in the heart of capital city Islamabad.

In September 2013, nearly a dozen students in NUST were also fined because of different reasons, including smoking and eating in labs.

Despite several challenges, Swat has remained a centre of education since long and even during the days when militants dominated the valley students both boys and girls managed to continue their education.

Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate, also hails from Swat Valley, where the local Taliban had at times banned girls from attending school. Her family runs a chain of schools in the region.

Justin Trudeau turns professor, gives quick lesson in quantum computing

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave a lesson on quantum computing at an institute in Ontario.

At a press conference at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario on Friday when a reporter sarcastically suggested that Trudeau should explain quantum computing, the premier took up the challenge.

Before going into politics, Trudeau taught at the elementary and high school level in Vancouver, studied engineering and started a master’s degree in environmental geography, Global News Canada reported.“I was going to ask you to explain quantum computing but...” the reporter said before asking a serious question about Canada’s role in defeating the Islamic State (IS).

But Trudeau answered the question anyway.

“OK, quite simply, normal computers work by...” Trudeau

said before being drowned out by laughter and applause.

“No, no, don’t interrupt me, when you walk out of here you will know more, well no, some of you will know far less about quantum computing,” he continued.

“A regular computer bit is either a one or a zero, either on or off.

A quantum state can be much more complex than that, because as we know, things can be both particle and wave at the same time and the uncertainty around quantum states allows us to encode more information into a much smaller computer.”

“So that’s what’s exciting about quantum computing,” he said as the crowd erupted into applause.

Martin Laforest, a quantum computing expert at the University of Waterloo, told HuffPost Canada that while Trudeau had just learned about quantum computing that morning, his answer was “quite accurate.”

Hijab-clad Muslim woman removed from US plane

An Indian-American student at the Yale University is among 30 recipients of a prestigious fellowship aimed at supporting graduate students who have demonstrated “creativity” and “originality” in their lives.Durga Thakral is among the winners of the 2016 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans and will use her award to support work towards an MD/PhD in genetics at Yale School of Medicine, the university said in a statement.Thakral says her work with communities with minimal healthcare resources has shown her the “dire need for better access to medical care and affordable biomedical devices”.An MD/PhD student in the laboratory of Yale geneticist Richard Lifton, Thakral said she hoped to take advantage of the vast and growing power of molecular medicine in her work to improve the human condition and empower others to pursue their dreams.

The fellows, selected from a pool of over 1,400 applicants, will receive tuition and stipend

assistance of up to $90,000 in support of graduate education — in any field and in any advanced degree-granting programme in the US.Hungarian immigrants Paul and Daisy Soros established the programme in 1997 to support the graduate educations of students who were born abroad but have become permanent residents or naturalised citizens of the US. Each award recipient must have “demonstrated creativity, originality, and initiative in one or more aspects of her or his life,” as well as “a commitment to and capacity for accomplishment that has required drive and sustained effort,” the statementr said.

In addition, they must have shown a commitment to the values expressed in the US constitution and the Bill of Rights.Born in Illinois, Thakral is the daughter of Indian immigrants. She earned a combined bachelor’s and master’s degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale.

A hijab-clad Muslim woman in the US was reportedly removed from a Southwest Airlines plane after she asked for switching seats with a flight attendant saying she “did not feel comfortable” with the passenger. Hakima Abdulle, a Muslim woman from Maryland, said she was removed from the flight from Chicago to Seattle “without any credible explanation”. Abdulle said she wanted to switch seats but instead, she ended up being removed from the flight. This was the second such incident involving the carrier this month after an Iraqi man claimed that he was removed from a Southwest Airlines plane after a fellow passenger heard him speaking in Arabic.Zainab Chaudry, an official with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a news conference that Abdulle had

boarded the Seattle-bound aircraft on Wednesday when a flight attendant told her she would not be permitted to remain on board. Airport police then escorted Abdulle, who is of Somalian descent and was wearing a hijab, to the ticket counter, where she waited several hours for a later flight, Chaudry was quoted as saying by The Baltimore Sun.The flight attendant and Southwest employees inside the terminal were unable to provide “any reasonable explanation” for their action, Chaudry said, adding that Abdulle, who speaks little English, was reduced to tears and “suffered extreme distress and anxiety as a result of this experience.”When police asked the flight attendant at the gate if there was any reason why Abdulle had been taken off the plane, the flight attendant reportedly replied,

“No” and that she did “not feel comfortable” with the passenger.

Brandy King, a spokeswoman for Southwest Airlines, was quoted as saying that the “information available, collected at the time of the event, indicates that our employees followed proper procedures in response to this customer’s actions while on board the aircraft”. “We are not in the business of removing passengers from flights without reason,” King said. Abdulle’s husband Abukar Fidaw said, “She was humiliated because of her religion and the way she dressed.”In a similar incident on April 6, UC Berkeley senior Khairuldeen Makhzoomi was supposed to fly from Los Angeles to Oakland. Instead, Makhzoomi was removed from Southwest Airlines flight after speaking Arabic before his flight took off, the Daily Californian reported.

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US First Lady praises India’s steps to educate, empower girls Washington US First Lady Michelle Obama has praised the recent steps taken by India to educate and empower girl students through various programmes that break down the cultural barriers that

keep them out of school.

“I am thrilled that countries like Ghana and India and Rwanda are already doing such important work as part of this effort -- from scholarships and mentorship opportunities, to innovative programmes to break down the cultural barriers that keep girls out of school,” Michelle said.

“We need you to work with the Bank to develop programmes that will meet the needs of girls in your countries. And if your country has already reached gender parity in education, then we need you to step up and support countries where

disparities still exist,” she said in her remarks at a Special Event at the World Bank titled “Let Girls Learn!”.

During the event, the World Bank announced USD 2.5 billion in support of adolescent girls’

education over the next five years.

“That is truly amazing,” Michelle said.

The Indian Government has taken a series of steps including “Beti Bachao Beti Padhao” towards education and empowerment of girls in the country, the Indian Ambassador to US Arun K Singh said.

India’s National Campaign for Secondary Education aims to make quality education for adolescent girls accessible and affordable, enhancing the enrolment by providing a secondary school within a reasonable distance, improving

the quality of education by ensuring compliance to prescribed norms and removal of gender, social-economic and disability barriers, he said.

“The goal is to achieve an enrollment of 90%? by 2017, and universal retention by 2020. In five years, enrollment of Girls has improved from 58.70 to 78.94.

Gender Parity Index has increased from 0.88 to 1. And there is sharp reduction in Gender gap,” Singh said.

India, he said, has rolled out a national incentive scheme that gifts money to young women from disadvantaged backgrounds when they turn 18 and have passed their 10th grade exams.

“Separate toilets have been built for girls in over 96% of secondary schools.

Hostels were constructed close to schools to serve girls from remote areas. In one particular scheme, bicycles were given to girls who completed elementary school, making it easier for them to go to schools,” he said adding that more and more female teachers are being hired.

Google Calendar helps make most of spare time

MasterCard CEO Banga to head US cybersecurity body

Washington President Barack Obama on Thursday nominated MasterCard’s Indian-American CEO Ajay Banga to a newly announced commission on enhancing national cybersecurity. Banga was among 10 people named in the White House announcement, along with former boss of the top US spying body National Security Agency, General Keith Alexander. Obama has appointed a large number of Indian-descent Americans to his administration — perhaps most yet — and to advisory bodies such as the commission on cybersecurity.

This commission was set up past February to “make detailed recommendations to strengthen cybersecurity in both the public and private sectors while protecting privacy, ensuring public safety and economic and national security”, according to its mission statement.

As CEO of MasterCard, a global financial services corporation that grapples with cybersecurity challenges every day and in myriad battlefields, Banga will

bring the commission much relevant expertise.

Banga has been heading MasterCard since 2010, during which period he also took charge of the US-India Business Council, a body to promote business between the two countries.During Banga’s highprofile tenure at the USIBC, the body hosted Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a much-cited public event in DC during his first visit here after taking office.

Banga, an alumnus of Delhi’s St Stephen’s College, was with Citigroup in various capacities from 1996 to 2009m with his last assignment there being CEO of the group’s Asia Pacific unit.

Before Citi, Banga spend two years at Pepsi as director of marketing and business development at the multinational’s India operations.

He started his career in Nestle.

Banga has been a member of the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations since 2015, and serves on the boards of the Dow Chemical Company and American Red Cross.

He is also co-chair of the American India Foundation.

NY Times adds $50m for global digital expansion

SAN FRANCISCO Google on Wednesday made it tougher for people to hide behind excuses when it comes to finding time to hit the gym or learn new languages. Google added “Goals” tools to free calendar applications tailored for smartphones powered by Apple or Android software, using artificial intelligence to let software figure out when one could fit in workouts or lessons.

“Whether it’s reading more books, learning a new language or working out regularly, achieving your goals can be really hard,” Google product manager Jyoti Ramnath said in a blog post. “That’s why starting today, we’re introducing Goals in

Google Calendar.” People can add personal goals such as going for runs or getting to gyms, and then Google calendar software analyzes schedules for optimal times to squeeze in activities, according to Ramnath.

Calendar will automatically reschedule time for personal goals if conflicts arise, and is programmed to automatically reschedule activities if users simply prefer to put them off.

The more people use the Goals feature in Calendar, the better the software gets at picking times for personal objectives, according to Google. “Calendars should help you make the most of your time, not just be tools to track events,” Ramnath said.

NEW YORK The New York Times announced plans to invest $50 million into efforts to boost digital readership and revenue outside the United States.

The prestigious US daily said it was creating a new “international digital growth team” to help promote the Times to global audiences. The paper has one of the world’s largest newsroom operations but has been making a slow transition to the digital era, especially in the global arena where Internet-only news sites have been leading growth.

“International growth was identified as one of the top editorial and commercial priorities for the company in Our Path Forward,” said a memo to staff from publisher Arthur Sulzberberg Jr, chief executive Mark Thompson and executive editor Dean Baquet. “The Times has long taken great pride in the quality and depth of its international coverage and has managed to attract tens of millions of international readers,” it added. “But because our digital report is still designed and produced mainly for a US audience, we have not come close to realizing our potential to attract readers outside our home

market.”

The statement said the Times seeks to be “an indispensable leader in global news and opinion” and will invest $50 million over the next three years to help achieve that goal. “We believe we can achieve much more by better engaging our non-

The Times launched a digital Spanish-language edition in February. But the newspaper’s executives have hinted at broader changes to meet the challenges of a transition from print to digital. In its latest quarterly report, the New York Times Co. reported profit rose to

US readers and reporting for them as well as about them,” the statement said.

“Every part of the company, the newsroom, product and technology, advertising and consumer marketing, and data and analytics, among others, needs to think creatively about attracting and retaining a bigger non-American audience and growing revenue outside the US.”

$51.7 million in the fourth quarter from $34.9 million a year earlier.

Revenue held unchanged at $444.7 million.

The number of paid digital-only subscribers rose to 1,094,000 as of the end of the fourth quarter, a jump of 53,000 in that period, up 20 percent from a year earlier.

Digital accounted for 24 percent of the newspaper’s total ad revenue in the quarter.

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No loyalty to team, it’s loyalty to money now says Steve Waugh The “loyalty to money” which Twenty20 leagues around the world are promoting has made it impossible for any country to strike the perfect balance between all three formats of cricket, says former Australian captain Steve Waugh.

Waugh, however, feels India, Australia and England are closest to getting the equilibrium right.

Worried about the impact that Twenty20 cricket is having on the game, Waugh said the incentive on offer in T20 leagues has led to a decline in loyalty towards national duty.

“I think Australia is the closest when it comes to striking a balance, India has the potential and England is also coming up nicely...I think it’s impossible to strike a perfect balance given that there are three different teams. It’s not realistic. I don’t think there would ever be one world no.1 in all three formats of the game,” Waugh said in an interaction with the Indian media at the Laureus World Sports Awards.

“Somebody like Brendon

McCullum retired from Test cricket even though I feel he still had three-four years in him. He is just working for superannuation right now, for his family, which

is alright. Overall I feel there is no loyalty to the team, there is loyalty to money now. I don’t blame the players but it’s tough on the fans,” Waugh said.

His sentiments were echoed by former England captain Ian Botham, who said Twenty20 should be kept at the “bottom of the shelf”.

“Test cricket is number one because it ebbs and flows beautifully but there is shelf

life for every format. And I feel Twenty20 should be at the bottom of the shelf.

People are saying it was a great World Twenty20 final last month. I say it was a

great last four balls, the rest of the final was a drag.

I think it was a pretty poor final,” Botham said.

West Indies beat England in a last-over thriller in the World T20 final with Carlos Brathwaite smacking Ben Stokes for four consecutive sixes.

Botham said the way things are going, Twenty20 is in the danger of becoming a lottery.

“That’s a real threat. T20 could become a lottery because cricket is much more than just 20 overs.

Crowds like it but then crowds like Test cricket too. In England every big Test series is sold out, it’s the same in Australia, South Africa or New Zealand” he said.

“I think players have to remind people of how important Test cricket is. Players have the obligation to look after Test cricket,” Botham added.

Waugh said West Indies is a prime example of how T20 can affect the growth of other formats.

“There is a danger and we all know that. Look at West Indies. The incentive to play T20 cricket is so much more than Test cricket,” he said.

CC WT20 Ind-Pak clash reached 83 mln viewership

The International Cricket Council (ICC) today rated the high-octane World T20 India-Pakistan clash on March 19 as the best with a reach of 83 million viewers in India.India clinched the encounter by six wickets played at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata.”In India alone, the India versus Pakistan encounter rated 17.3 across the Star Sports network and Doordarshan, the best rated Twenty20 match ever

since the final of the World Twenty20 in 2007, reaching 83 million people,” ICC said in a release.”And the cumulative in-home viewership for the event in India was 730 million, an increase of 114 per cent over the previous edition.”In Pakistan, the game was rated 14.5, a 100 per cent increase to the same match which was played two years back in the WorldT20 edition in Bangladesh.

Misbah-ul-Haq ready to postpone retirement till Australia tour Pakistan’s most successful Test captain, Misbah-ul-Haq is considering prolonging his career until the tour of Aus-

ing all the series it will also be subject to my form and fitness as if it goes down then I will walk away rather rather than

safe hands and standing solidly on their own feet.

If the team remains intact, when a new captain replaces me it shouldn’t

tralia later this year. Pakistan will undertake a long series of Test matches starting in England in July followed by series against West Indies, New Zealand and Australia.

“If I manage to play the England series then I should also play the upcoming West Indies, New Zealand and Australia series as well mainly because they are at close gaps. Although I am certain about my will of play-

being a burden on the team,” Misbah was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.

Misbah also emphasised on his decision to extend his career before bidding farewell to cricket.

“All you think is positive and I want to contribute and this is why I am planning to play a certain length of time so that youngsters are ready to take my place. I hope by the time I leave, the Pakistan Test team is in

feel any different,” Misbah said. Misbah has led Pakistan in 42 Tests and has overseen 20 victories, 11 losses and 11 draws with a win record of 47 per cent. “As a captain and a player you cannot achieve everything but I am satisfied with the result I have got for Pakistan so far. Although I am disappointed that I couldn’t do well with the limited-overs team I believe I have achieved a lot,” Misbah said.

Dipa Karmakar, first Indian woman gymnast to seal Olympics berth Dipa Karmakar on Monday created history by becoming the first Indian woman gymnast to qualify for Olympics as she booked a berth for the Rio Games after a strong performance at the final qualifying and test event. The 22year-old garnered a total score of 52.698 points in the Olympics qualifying event to book a berth for artistic gymnastics in Rio Games to be held here in August. Apart from being the first Indian woman, she will also be an Indian gymnast qualifying for the quadrennial extravaganza after 52 long years.

Since the independence of the country, 11 Indian male gymnast have taken part in

the Olympics (two in 1952, three in 1956 and six in 1964) but this will be the first for an Indian woman at the Olympics. The International Federation of Gymnastics (Federation Internationale de

Gymnastique) has confirmed Dipa’s Rio Games qualification in its official release. “Following the Women’s Qualification Competition at the Gymnastics Test Event in Rio, the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) herewith confirms the list of nations and individual gymnasts that have qualified for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games,” the world body said in its release. Dipa has been listed as the 79th gymnast among individual qualifiers in the list of women’s artistic gymnast who have qualified for the Rio Olympics.

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19 April - 25 April 2016

Brazil’s lower house backs Dilma Rousseff impeachment Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff lost a crucial impeachment vote in the lower house of Congress on Sunday and appeared almost certain to be forced from office in a move that would end 13 years of leftist Workers’ Party rule.

As thousands of pro- and anti-impeachment protesters demonstrated outside Congress, the opposition comfortably surpassed the two-thirds majority needed to send Rousseff for trial in the Senate on charges of manipulating budget accounts.

The floor of the lower house was a sea of Brazilian flags and pumping fists as dozens of lawmakers carried the deputy who cast the decisive 342nd vote in their arms. In Brazil’s largest cities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, fireworks lit up the night sky and cars honked their horns

in celebration after the vote.

If the Senate now votes by a simple majority to proceed with the impeachment as expected in early

May, Rousseff would be suspended from her post and be replaced by Vice President Michel Temer as acting president pending her trial. Temer would serve out Rousseff’s term until 2018 if she is found guilty.

The impeachment battle, waged during Brazil’s worst recession since the

1930s, has divided the country of 200 million people more deeply than at any time since the end of its military dictatorship in 1985.

It has also sparked a bitter battle between the 68year-old Rousseff and Temer, 75, that appears likely to destabilise any future government and plunge Brazil into months of uncertainty.

Despite anger at rising unemployment, Rousseff’s Workers Party can rely on strong support among mil-

lions of working-class Brazilians, who credit its welfare programs with pulling their families out of poverty during the past decade. “The fight is going to continue now in the streets and in the federal Senate,” said Jose Guimaraes, the leader of the Workers’ Party in the lower house. “We lost because the coup-mongers were stronger.”

Opinion polls suggest more than 60 percent of Brazilians support impeaching Rousseff, Brazil’s first female president.

While she has not been accused of corruption, Rousseff’s government has been tainted by a vast graft scandal at state oil company Petrobras and by the economic recession.

Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators from both sides took to the streets of towns and cities across the vast nation.

Singapore acquits a ‘woman who lives as man’ in sexual assault case Singapore state prosecutors on Monday appealed against a high court decision acquitting a woman of sexually assaulting a 13year-old girl because the law applied only to men, citing public interest.

Zunika Ahmad, 40, a woman who lives as a man, was acquitted last week of six counts of sexual assault despite pleading guilty to the charges, sparking strong reaction from women’s and gay rights activists.

Judge Kan Ting Chiu said he threw out the guilty plea and acquitted Zunika because the law on which the charges were based relates only to men with a penis.

He jailed Zunika eight months on the lesser charge of having a sexual relationship with a person aged under 16.

Calling the case a matter of public interest, the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) said the law was intended by parlia-

ment to be gender neutral.

“Having reviewed the written grounds of decision, the prosecution has concluded that an appeal is

merited against Senior Judge Kan’s finding that section 376A(1)(b) does not apply to female accused persons,” the AGC said in a statement.

It is also appealing Zunika’s eight-month jail sentence.

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Issue 663 (37)

19 April - 25 April 2016

Health Pollutants in fish may prevent humans from expelling toxins Fish that contain environmental pollutants may harm people who eat them by preventing the human body from doing its natural job of flushing out toxins, researchers said Friday.

The study in the journal Science Advances examined 10 persistent organic pollutants (POPs) -- including the pesticide DDT and industrial chemicals such as flame retardants - found in yellowfin tuna and human blood and urine.

All 10 pollutants studied interfered with the effectiveness of a key protein in

humans and animals, known as P-gp, which expels foreign chemicals from the body.

One chemical used to make flame retardants in upholstery and plastics, known as PBDE-100, was found for the first time to bind itself to the crucial protein and prevent it from doing its defensive job.

“When we eat contaminated fish, we could be reducing the effectiveness of this critical defense system in our bodies,” said lead author Amro Hamdoun of the Marine Biology Research Division at the Scripps Institution of

Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.

Babies are particularly vulnerable to pollutants in fish -- which they may ingest via breast milk even if they are not eating solid food yet -- because they have low amounts of the protective P-gp protein, the study said.

The US Food and Drug Administration currently recommends that pharmaceuticals be tested to see whether they impede the body`s natural defense system. Researchers urged authorities to do the same for pollutants that

can make their way into fish.

“It`s unsettling to find that all of the tested persistent environmental pollutants interfered with the P-gp

Parasitic worms can help treat inflammatory bowel disease

A recent study has suggested that a certain type of parasitic worm has the potential to actually help treat the inflammatory bowel disease.

The findings provide important insights into how intestinal worms, or helminths, manipulate the gut

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microbiota in a way that is beneficial for its host.

Researcher Deepshika Ramanan and colleagues found that mice deficient in the gene Nod2, which are used to model Crohn’s disease, develop abnormalities in their small intestines, including a compromised layer of mucus and changes to intestinal cell morphology. These alterations allowed for greater colonization by the bacteria Bacteroides vulgatus. The team found that chronic infection of

these mice with the helminth Trichuris muris restored the mucus and cell morphology within the small intestines. A closer look at inflammatory markers revealed that the parasitic worms help inhibit B. vulgatus via the immune signaling molecules, interleukin (IL)-4 and IL-13, which was confirmed by knocking out a relevant transcription factor.

Similar and even more profound results were found with a second type of helminth. Monitoring the gut microbiota of the mice over the course of infection revealed that the parasites

flammatory bowel disease is less prevalent in regions where helminth infection is very common.

Therefore, Ramanan et al. studied an indigenous population in Malaysia that has a very high rate of infection of intestinal worms, analyzing stool samples collected from individuals before and after deworming treatment.

They detected significant changes in gut microbiota composition, where Clostridiales was the most significantly reduced order, and Bacteroidales was significantly expanded following treatment. These re-

help increase the colonization of strains of a different family of bacteria, Clostridiales, at the expense of B. vulgatus. In-

sults reveal an intriguing and beneficial facet of a symbiotic relationship between helminths and humans.

protein`s ability to protect cells,” said Jacob James, managing director of the Waitt Foundation, which funded the study.

“We are the only species

that can influence entire food chains and habitats, we must act more responsibly in the design and use of chemicals in our environment.”

Get rid of back pain with these tips

Back pain and spinal problem are the two most common health issues that people come across at workplace. Most of the professionals suffer from these two conditions due to inactivity and poor posture. It is difficult to live with these problems but at the same time, it is easy to deal with them by taking precautions. Here are some tips that can help you in dealing with severe back aches.

Choose a comfortable chair To avoid spinal problem and back pain, it is essential to sit on the right chair.

Choose a chair that suits you and provides comfort.

Avoid sitting on soft sofas, bean bags and stiff backed chairs.

Ensure proper back support One should always choose such a chair which has proper back support with hips all the way behind and

legs supported on the floor.

This helps in equal distribution of chair throughout the spine.

Drink enough fluids It is important to keep yourself hydrated especially in summers. It is essential to nourish our invertebral discs as they largely consist of water. So to keep them healthy, stay hydrated.

Avoid stress on the spine If you have to pick up anything, it is advisable to bend your knees, get the thing closer to your body and then lift it. Follow this rather than straight away bending your back as it puts immense pressure on the muscles.

Eat properly Pay attention to whatever you consume. Specialists say that consumption of vitamin B12, vitamin D3 and calcium helps in keeping the spine and bones healthy.

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19 April - 25 April 2016

Hepatitis C increases risk of developing head and neck cancers People infected with Hepatitis C virus are at a greater risk of developing certain head and neck cancers, according to a study.

The new study demonstrates that hepatitis C patients are two to five times more prone to such cancers in comparison to normal persons.

The study done at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center revealed that the associa-

tion of and oropharyngeal and nonoropharyngeal cancers is as high as its link to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The findings showed that the risk of risk increased 2.4 times for oral cavity cancers, 2.04 times for oropharynx cancers, and 4.96 times for larynx cancers.

The study published in National Cancer Institute identified 34,545 MD Anderson patients who

were tested for HCV between 2004 and 2014.

At the time of time all patients were tested for HCV

Easy home remedies to get rid of acne scars!

Who likes to have those ugly and unwanted acne scar on face? Well, no one as acne scar is the worst scar as it doesn’t go away easily. Usually, it occurs when pimple popped and leaves behind a layer of

damaged skin.

Here are some home remedies to get rid of acne scars: Aloe Vera We all know that aloe vera is good for skin as it helps in regenerating the damaged tissues boosting the healing process. It is always better to use the

fresh gel from the aloe vera leaf rather than products containing aloe vera.

Take an aloe vera leaf, peel its outer green cover and apply the gel on your scars. After applying the gel on face, leave it for half

an hour and then wash off.

Olive oil Many not know that olive oil is equally good for skin like it is to hair. Olive oil contains a whole lot of vitamins A, D, E, C, B1 and B2 , iron and antioxidants. It also contains the anti-inflammatory properties that helps in removing acne scars.

Honey This sweet thing helps you in getting rid of those ugly and unwanted scar on your face. Honey contains excellent antibacterial, antiseptic, anti-allergic and antioxidant qualities in it which is good for skin.

Take some honey, apply it on your scare and leave it overnight. Wash off in the morning. You can also mix honey with lemon, sandalwood and multani mitti to make packs for scar.

Lemon juice Lemon contains Vitamin C which helps in rebuilding collagen and get rid of acne scars. The acid in lemon juice helps in brightening your skin and make the scars less visible.

Take a fresh lemon and squeeze out its juice. Apply the juice on your scars with finger tips or a cotton ball. Leave it for ten minutes and wash it off with water.

antibodies and viral RNA tests were used to confirm chronic infection.

Out of these patients 409

and nurturing young minds.

The University of Montreal researchers discovered that maple syrup can actually help protect neurons from amyotrophic

lateral sclerosis, or ALS. This study was done with C. elegans worms, which were genetically modified

to express TDP-43 that is related to ALS and will result in 50 percent of the worms being completely paralyzed after two weeks.

The worms were given

some maple syrup at various concentrations. At the two week mark, only 17 percent of the worms

were paralyzed, showing that the syrup did in fact help protect them from the illness.

The reason maple syrup helped is because it contains sugar and some

cluding two-thirds of tongues, roof and floor of the mouth, the gums and the lips.

The study showed that 20 % of non-oropharyngeal cancer patients and 14 % of oropharyngeal cancer patients are tested positive for HCV antibodies.

The researchers claims that this study is vital for both the screening of those with the virus and the treatment of those with head and neck cancers

Want to sync your body clock?

Eat magnesium-rich diet!

In today’s busy world most of us experience a mismatch between our body clock and external timings.

Shift work, time zone changes or sudden change in routine are some of the reasons that causes Circadian rhythm disorders commonly known as delayed phase sleep disorder.

Recently researchers at University of Edinburgh made a surprising discovery that the amount of magnesium in our diet helps in regulating the sleep-wake cycle of our body.

They observed the activity of each collected human cells for a period of 24hours. Throughout the observation the level of magnesium drastically rose and fell with 24- hours sleep and wake cycle.

The team then concluded that the presence of magnesium is directly associated with the amount of a person’s sleep and how much energy they burn in

Maple syrup, the new brain food A team of researchers has tagged maple syrup as a promising option in protecting brain neurons

were diagnosed with head and neck cancers, of whom 164 had oropharyngeal cancers and 245 had non-oropharyngeal cancers.

Ororpharyngeal or throat cancer starts from starts from the middle section of throat including the back one third of the tongue, soft palate, the side and back walls of the throat and the tonsils.

Non-oropharyngeal cancer begins in the mouth in-

powerful antioxidants, polyphenols. “Sugar is good for the nervous system. Diseased neurons require more energy to combat toxic proteins. But maple syrup is rich in polyphenols, powerful antioxidants found in certain foods,” said researcher Martine Therrien.

Therrien added, “We isolated phenols contained in the maple syrup, and we showed that two polyphenols in particular, gallic acid and catechol, have a neuroprotective effect. In pure maple syrup, these polyphenols are found in low concentrations. Probably a combination of sugar and polyphenols prevents the occurrence of the disease in worms.”

the entire day.

The study published in journal Nature pinpointed that the oscillation of magnesium levels controlled the biological function of

tremely beneficial in keeping a check on the ebb and flow of sleep and wakefulness. Many health experts belief that disruption in biological clock leads to

when and how effectively cells burned energy.

Researchers claims that this discovery will provide valuable feedback into the development of chronotherapy, treatments scheduled by time of the day.

Our biological clock is ex-

many chronic health issues like depression, mood disorders, sleep disorders etc.

So, now instead of taking daily doses of sleeping pills try to increase the intake of magnesium- rich foods like leafy greens, chocolates, nuts, seeds etc.

Eat drumstick flowers for a healthy sex life!

Drumstick, commonly called Shehjan in India is known for its numerous health benefits. Being high in vitamin B complex and tasty in nature the flowers, leaves and drumsticks themselves forms an integral part of Indian cuisine.

But very few of us are aware with the fact that the flowers of drumsticks plays a significant role in curing the sexual debility especially in men .

If health experts are to be believed, eating drumstick flowers for two weeks aids impotency, premature ejaculation, and thinness of semen.

Terigospermin, a compound found in these flowers not only increases the sperm count but also strengthens the motility of sperm. This revelation found its place even in Ayurvedas where it is mentioned that drumstick flowers are extremely beneficial in healing erectile dys-

function. And that’s why today’s experts call them ‘sex powerhouse’.

Drumsticks are one of the

aphrodisiac foods that stimulates sexual desires.

So, increase the intake of this super-safe, with zero side effect food and enhance your mood towards more enjoyable time of passion!

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Issue 663 (39)

19 April - 25 April 2016

Chicken Casserole

Southern Pulled Pork Ingredients: 1 tablespoon butter 2 pounds boneless pork roast 1 tablespoon Cajun seasoning 1 medium onion, chopped 4 cloves garlic, crushed 4 cups water 1 tablespoon liquid smoke flavoring Directions: Cut the pork roast into large chunks. Season generously with the Cajun seasoning.

Melt butter in a large skillet over mediumhigh heat. Add pork, and brown on all sides.

Remove from the skillet, and transfer to a slow cooker.

Add the onion and garlic to the skillet, and cook for a few minutes until tender. Stir in the water scraping the bottom to include all of the browned pork bits from the bot-

tom of the pan, then pour the whole mixture into the slow cooker with the pork. Stir in liquid smoke flavoring.

Cover, and cook on High for 6 hours, or until meat is falling apart when pierced with a fork. Remove pieces of pork from the slow cooker, and shred. Return to the slow cooker to keep warm while serving.

to a boil. Add pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain.

While pasta is cooking, cook tomatoes with remaining 1 tablespoon oil, oregano and basil over medium heat in wine mixture until tender, 10 minutes.

Toss hot pasta with shrimp, tomato sauce and feta. Feta will melt slightly.

Serve.

Ingredients: 2 cups potatoes, cubed 2 cups cooked ham, cubed 1 (15.25 ounce) can whole kernel corn, drained 1/4 cup finely minced fresh parsley 1/4 cup butter 1 tablespoon chopped onions 1/3 cup all-purpose flour 1 3/4 cups milk 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper 4 ounces processed cheese food, shredded Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add potatoes and cook until ten-

der but still firm, about 15 minutes. Drain and cool.

Combine potatoes, ham, corn and parsley; set aside. In a saucepan saute onion in butter for 2 minutes, stir in flour until blended well. Gradually add milk and pepper. Bring to a boil. Cook and stir for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and pour over the ham mixture. Stir to mix well.

Pour into greased 11x7 baking dish. Cover and bake for 25 minutes. Uncover, sprinkle with cheese and bake 5 to 10 minutes longer until cheese melts.

Shredded Pork

Stuffed Green Peppers Ingredients: 2 cups water 1 cup uncooked white rice 3 large green bell peppers, halved and seeded 1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef 1 onion, diced garlic powder to taste salt to taste ground black pepper to taste 1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce 2 cups finely shredded mozzarella cheese Directions: In a medium saucepan, bring water to a boil. Add rice and stir. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Place green bell peppers in

ery, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/8 teaspoon pepper, and enough water to cover. Cover, reduce heat to medium low; simmer for 35 minutes. Drain, reserving 1 cup liquid.

Cool chicken, remove meat from bones, and cut into bite-size pieces.

In a large bowl, stir together sour cream, soup, broth, celery salt, onion powder, garlic powder, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix in cooked rice and chicken.

Spoon mixture into a 9x13 inch casserole dish. In a resealable bag, shake together crushed crackers and melted butter. Sprinkle crackers over the top.

Bake in preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes.

Hearty Ham Casserole

Shrimp and Feta Cheese Pasta Ingredients: 3 tablespoons olive oil 1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined 5 cloves garlic, minced 1 tablespoon white wine 1 pound linguine pasta 2 tomatoes, chopped 1 teaspoon dried oregano 1/2 teaspoon dried basil 1 (6 ounce) package crumbled feta cheese Directions: In a medium skillet over medium heat, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil. Cook shrimp, garlic and white wine for 5 minutes, or until shrimp is pink. Remove shrimp with slotted spoon and set aside.

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water

Ingredients: 4 skinless, bone-in chicken breast halves 2 stalks celery, cut into thirds 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon pepper 1 cup cooked rice 6 ounces sour cream 2 (10.5 ounce) cans condensed cream of chicken soup 1/4 teaspoon celery salt 1/8 teaspoon onion powder 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder salt and pepper to taste 2 cups crushed buttery round crackers, 1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Bring to a boil the chicken breasts, cel-

a medium saucepan with enough water to cover. Bring to a boil and cook for 10 minutes. Remove peppers from the water and set aside in a 9x13 inch baking dish.

In a large saucepan over medium heat, brown the ground beef; drain. Return to heat and mix in onion, cooked rice, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Pour in tomato sauce and mix thoroughly. Let simmer for about 10 minutes. Remove from heat.

Spoon the meat mixture onto each half of the green peppers. Bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes or until mixture begins to turn golden brown. Sprinkle mozzarella cheese over the top of each stuffed pepper. Return to the oven and bake until cheese is lightly browned, about 5 to 10 minutes.

Ingredients: 1 (3 pound) boneless pork loin roast, cut into 2 inch pieces 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 (4 ounce) cans diced green chile peppers 3 cloves garlic, crushed 1/4 cup chipotle sauce 3 1/4 cups water, divided 1 1/2 cups uncooked long grain white rice 1/4 cup fresh lime juice 1/4 cup chopped cilantro Directions: Place the roast in a slow cooker, and season with salt. Place chile peppers and garlic on top of roast. Pour in the chipotle sauce and 1/2 cup water.

Cover, and cook 7 hours on Low. In a pot, bring remaining 2 3/4 cups water and rice to a boil. Mix in the lime

juice and cilantro. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 20 minutes.

Remove roast from the slow cooker, and use two forks to shred. Return pork to the slow cooker, and allow to sit 15 minutes to absorb some of the liquid. Serve over the cooked rice.

Issue 663 (40)

19 April - 25 April 2016