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THE CONTACT WEEKLY NEWSPAPER ISSUE - 688, 11 - 17 OCT., 2016 PH: (905) 671 - 4761

250 militants hiding in Kashmir Valley

waiting to strike

New Delhi The government believes at least 250 terrorists belonging to three Pakistanbased terror groups are active in the Kashmir valley and they could target security forces to ‘avenge’ the surgical strikes carried out by the Army across the Line of Control (LoC). Quoting intelligence inputs, top government sources said that most of the 250 terrorists belonging to Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Hizbul Mujahideen had infiltrated before the surgical strikes and were hiding here.

They said the terrorists have been given clear instructions by their handlers across the border to target security forces to “avenge” the surgical strikes.

The central government has asked security forces operating in Jammu and Kashmirto maintain maximum alertness and take all precautions to foil any attempt by the militants to target them. Sources said even though vigil along the LoC as well as the international border was intensified, there were gaps in many places due to the difficult topography. Army, BSF, CRPF and J&K Police have also stepped up search for the terrorists.

Continued on page 4

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Hafiz Saeed and Salahuddin moved to Pak Army bases

New Delhi IMMEDIATELY after the terrorist attacks, the Pakistan Army swung into action and shifted terrorist leaders in the safe custody of Pakistan Army cantonments and bases. LeT Chief Hafiz Saeed and chief of Hizb-ulMujahideen Sayyed Salahuddin were shifted into formations under the Lahore-based IV Corps, according to top government sources.

Pakistan Army Special Forces

commandos in plain clothes are providing them close security, sources added. Middle-rung terrorist leadership has also been held under close watch in Pak Army bases in Bahawalpur fearing surgical strikes against specific terrorist leaders. Pakistan Army has also shifted back the terrorist launch pads from approximately 600m-1.5km near the LoC to 7-8 km deep inside. During the surgical strikes, there were atleast 10-15 terrorists and Pakistan Army handlers in each location. Highly placed government sources further said, the cost of such attacks for the Pakistan Army’s leadership would be very heavy.

The assessment reports available from Indian army field units which included radio conversations between various Pakistani formations showed maximum damage was inflicted on LeT, a banned terror group, at Dudniyal launch pad in Pakistanoccupied Kashmir (PoK) , opposite to Kupwara sector of North

Kashmir, sources said. After the successful strike inside the PoK, an effective radio monitoring and a strict vigil was maintained, the sources said, adding the wireless messages from radio intercepts of Pakistani army indicated that atleast 10 LeT terrorists had been killed during the multiple and synchronised surgical strikes on the four terror launch pads.There was heavy movement of Pakistani army vehicles till the break of dawn and all the bodies were cleared off and taken away, the sources said. The Sources further added that as per the radio intercepts, there was a mass burial in the Neelum valley in PoK. As per fresh interception recorded by intelligence agencies, terrorists targeting soft targets like police stations are still active in Kashmir after the surgical strike.

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Husband arrested for murdering Kanpur magistrate

The husband of a 30-year-old joint magistrate, whose body was found hanging in her house in Kanpur, was arrested on Monday for allegedly murdering her as she refused to undergo an abortion, police said.

The body of Pratibha Gautam, who was three months pregnant, was found hanging in her house at Circuit House colony on Sunday with her husband Manu Abhishek claiming that he had found the body after he returned from Delhi.

The post-mortem report has confirmed it to be a case of murder.

Injury marks were found on her hands and legs which indicate that she was probably beaten with a rod, assistant superintendent of police Shalabh Mathur said.

Police suspect that she was strangulated using a rope and then hanged from the ceiling fan.

Injury marks from blade were found on her wrists. He said Abhishek was arrested after police went through his call details and WhatsApp records.

He is being questioned by the police. His parents and Gautam’s domestic help are also being questioned, he said.

The couple were having frequent fights recently as Abhishek wanted her to undergo an abortion and she had refused, Mathur said.

Gautam was posted in Kanpur (Rural) and the two had married in January this year against the wishes of their families.

Abhishek had claimed that she had gone to Delhi two days ago and came back on Saturday, following which her phone was switched off. After being unable to contact her, he said he left for Kanpur from Delhi and found her body hanging from the ceiling fan in the house.

Once an ace player, Navjot Sidhu now struggles to find a team Once regarded as the BJP’s ace crowd-puller, who could sway the electorate with his gift of the gab, cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu now finds himself on the periphery of Punjab’s political set-up.

Following his exit from the BJP, Sidhu has been clutching at straws in an attempt to regain significance in Punjab’s politics.

His chances of joining the Congress appear to have taken a hit after the party’s Punjab chief, Captain Amarinder Singh, labelled him “undisciplined”.

Amarinder also deflated Sidhu’s wife Navjot Kaur Sidhu’s claim that her husband was in talks with the Congress top brass by declaring that “no such talks were on”. The 53-year-old outspoken leader now finds himself in a predicament as he has so far failed to side with any party after resigning from the BJP. Sidhu appears to have made a political miscalculation by leaving his BJP-backed Rajya Sabha berth and floating a separate forum Awaaz-e-Punjab on September 2. The saffron party has made no efforts to bring Sidhu, who was once projected as its Sikh face and was a cause of envy for all opposition parties, back into its fold.

Political experts said Sidhu was able to achieve success in the BJP because of the party’s cadre strength and he would struggle

to raise a political outfit individually.

The three-time Amritsar MP’s talks with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have also failed to reach any conclusion.

Sidhu currently finds himself preoccupied with a nationallytelevised comedy show, giving only sporadic appearances before news-seekers. Sidhu’s focus on his other professional commitments seems to suggest that the former Indian opener is more involved in the world of entertainment, with politics becoming his ‘side venture’.

His irregular meetings with other Awaaz-e-Punjab members also cast doubts over his seriousness towards “the cause of Punjab”.

Once projecting himself as a symbol of the anti-Badal sentiment, Sidhu also started training his guns on Amarinder, which further limited his options after he fell out of favour with the

BJP. “By restricting his options, he has restricted his support base. He started as a significant factor but has now become one of the common factors,” Institute of Development and Communication’s Pramod Kumar said.

While resigning from the Rajya Sabha (RS), Sidhu had written, “With the closure of every window leading to Punjab the purpose (of joining RS) stands defeated ... now a mere burden. I prefer not to carry it”. After facing rejection from the Congress and talks with AAP not paying any dividends, it appears that a new political window may not open up for Sidhu. However, former national hockey team captain and Awaaz-e-Punjab member Pargat Singh felt Sidhu’s current distant status in Punjab was only temporary. “It’s not the end of the road for (Navjot) Sidhu, he will re-emerge,” he said.

MNS warns Mahesh Bhatt, Johar over working with Pak artistes

Escalating its opposition to Pakistani actors, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) on Monday threatened to “beat up” film makers Karan Johar and Mahesh Bhatt if they work with or release films featuring artistes from the neighbouring country.

The threat was given by the film wing of Raj Thackeray- led MNS which had recently set a 48-hour deadline for all Pakistani artistes working in India to leave the country.

“We had appealed to film industry not to work with Pakistani artistes in the wake of the Uri attack.

However, Bhatt and Johar have

actors will go on. We will oppose their films. If these two films (“Ae Dil Hai Mushkil” and “Raees”) release, we will stall the release.

Our workers are ready to go to jail. We will stall the films in our ‘style’,” he told a TV channel.

“If Karan Johar and Mahesh Bhatt even dare to make a film with Pakistani actors in the future, we will beat them up on the streets.

We will also thrash Pakistani artistes.”

Bhatt took to Twitter to give his response to the MNS threat. not given a positive response to When a journalist pointed it out our appeal,” head of MNS to him that MNS has threatened Chitrapat Sena, Amey Khopkar to beat him up, Bhatt tweeted, “How beautiful and dignified it is said.

“If they work with any Pakistani artiste, they should be prepared for a befitting response from us,” Khopkar told PTI. Khopkar also said that their workers would oppose the release of “Ae Dil Hai Mushkil” and “Raees” since they feature Pakistani actors.

“We have not received any written assurance from either Shah Rukh Khan or Karan Johar (assuring DRUNK & DRIVING? that Pakistani actors won’t be CALL VICKY SINGH taken in their movies). Our 416-992-5489 agitation over banning Pakistani

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to remain silent when someone expects u to be enraged?”

The MNS leader stressed that the nation and jawans come first, and art next, adding that if somebody is taking his words as ‘dadagiri’, so be it. He said, “If they think it is goondagiri or dadagiri, yes it is dadagiri.”

“We gave a 48-hour deadline to Pakistani actors and artists to leave India or MNS will push them out,” Khopkar said recalling the MNS threat.

He had even threatened to beat up Pakistani artistes and those who cast them in their productions.

The MNS warnings came amid heightened tension between India

and Pakistan following the terror attack on an Army camp in Uri in Kashmir in which 18 Army personnel were killed.

This is not the first time Pakistan-based artists have been threatened by Mumbai’s political parties. Shiv Sena had told ghazal singer Ghulam Ali to cancel his performance in Mumbai. It had also opposed hosting a cricket match in the city between India and Pakistan during the T20 World Cup. The Shiv Sena had also said it will obstruct promotions of Pakistani actors Fawad Khan’s ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’ and Mahira Khan’s ‘Raees’.

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Issue - 688 (3)

11 - 17 Oct., 2016

Issue - 688 (4)

11 - 17 Oct., 2016

Now Indian hackers do a surgical strike on Pak New Delhi INDIAN hackers are in their elements: they have singed the Pakistan government network, locking their computers and data. Facing the largescale Indian cyber attack, Pakistani techies are down on their knees — they paid the Indian hackers with Bitcoins so that their systems can be unlocked.

However, patriotic Indian hackers have rejected the offer and kept the Pakistani sites under their control. The Indian attack came in the wake of Pakistani hackers defacing Indian sites and circulating videos that say India’s recent surgical strike in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) was fake. The malicious

THE CONTACT STAFF: EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Pakistani propaganda and cyber attack angered the Indian hackers so much that they deployed the Ransomware to lock the network in the neighbouring country.

One of the Indian hackers has been identified. Experts in India claim that an ‘anonymous’ hacker, a member of Telangana cyber warrior, was among those who infected Pakistan government systems and have taken control over hundreds of computers. Experts say Indian hackers attacked the Pakistani network after thousands of Indian websites were hacked by the techies from Pakistan. To counter the offensive, Indian hackers locked Pakistan government computers. “To unlock their data, techies from Pakistan also paid in Bitcoins but ‘patriotic’ Indians refused to give away the decrypt key to unlock the data.

Pakistani officials have been asked to pay the amount again to unlock,” a black hat hacker told. Sources told that Indian hackers are ready to launch a massive cyber attack which can destroy the cyber space of Pakistan. However, they warned that Pakistani hackers will also retaliate.

Indian agencies are now on alert to

websites targeted include the official website of the National Green Tribunal (www.greentribunal.gov.in) and Bihar State Electronics Development

ensure that there is no data loss in the ongoing cyber war. Experts believe that intelligence gathering has increased as the hackers are not only defacing the sites but silently spying into critical network. According to reports, a group of Pakistani hackers the Pakistan Haxors Crew has claimed that it had defaced 7,051 Indian websites after India launched surgical strike in PoK. The

Corporation (www.biharonline.gov.in.)

“Indian hackers just responded after smelling the malicious intention of Pakistani hackers. Techies across the border targeted Indian sites. They are also trying to circulate fake links and videos claiming that India never carried out surgical strike,” said Kislay Chaudhary, a cyber crime expert. Indian experts also believe that cyber attacks from Pakistan

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250 militants hiding in Kashmir Valley waiting to strike continued from page 1 It is believed that some 100 terrorists are waiting across the border to infiltrate, as was first reported by TOI last week. Security forces have killed more than 40 terrorists in the last one month while they were trying to infiltrate or attack the bases of Army and other security forces. Since the attack on the Army’s Uri camp which killed 19 soldiers, terrorists have made several attempts in Baramulla, Pampore and Handwara. According to sources, LeT suffered maximum damage in the cross-LoC surgical strikes carried out by the Army with radio intercepts indicating that around 20 of its militants were killed.

The intercepts revealed that LeT suffered maximum damage at Dudniyal launch pad in PoK, opposite Kupwara sector of north Kashmir, sources said.

are state-sponsored but Indian agencies have not retaliated. However, if the Indian hackers want, they can easily destroy the entire Pakistani cyber space. “Indian hackers are technically sound and can easily spy or steal data from any country.

But no one ever tried to bring young talents under one umbrella for information gathering,” a hacker told. According to security officers, many Pakistani accounts have become active post India’s surgical strike. These accounts are used for expanding terror network. Security agency officials said that they have zeroed in on several suspected accounts, including the account of one Salman Chaudhary, who is uploading objectionable content like videos that talk of Pakistan attacking India with nuclear weapons. Chaudhary’s account is active since 2014 and his IP address is based in PoK. Speaking to one of the Indian hackers said it took over three months to infect the Pa computers. Over 100 computers are now under his control, that belong to the education department, government tender website, among others. Thehacker said he got 120 bitcoins to release the Pak computers. “The money is being distributed among the trusts involved in education of poor kids,” he said.

Gurugram woman delivers baby boy in auto-rickshaw near gate of civil hospital Gurugram, A 30-year-old woman gave birth in an auto inside the premises of Gurugram civil hospital on Monday.

According to executive civil surgeon Dr Vijay Kumar of civil hospital, such a situation arose as the pregnant woman had come in at the hospital late. He said both the baby and mother are safe and healthy.

The woman lives with her husband Taufiq at Chakkarpur village and started for the hospital only after labour pain arose.

The distance and uneven roads only enhanced complications.

“As soon as the auto reached the gate of the civil hospital, she delivered a baby

boy. It was the negligence of her husband who reacted late. If they would have come in time, the delivery could have taken place in the gynecology ward in a proper manner,” Dr Kumar said.

Issue - 688 (5)

DURING the 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign in Varanasi, where AAP president Arvind Kejriwal was pitted against BJP’s Narendra Modi, one would invariably hear a line or two in the former’s praise: “Bande mein dum hai (This man has guts).” The electorate acknowledged Kejriwal as the David taking on Modi the Goliath. Some even called him ‘Chhota Modi’, for they felt Kejriwal was promising to deliver the same goods as Modi an accountable governance shorn of corruption and dynastic servitude. So riled were some of the blind Modi followers that Kejriwal was attacked with ink instead of a valid charge to discredit his promises. Thanks to the governance vacuum created by previous regimes, Modi took over New Delhi as prime minister in 2014 and the ‘Chhota Modi’ as Delhi chief minister the following year. Much ink has flown in the air since. Kejriwal is no longer the challenger. Instead of filling in the vacuum of governance that he promised, he has added more vacuum by doing little else than finger-pointing. The protest-andhide guerrilla warfare is going a bit too far. The party leaders do not seem to realise that they are serving a polity wherein an honest leader is no good if he or she cannot deliver the promises made before elections. And the patience is running thin. Thus, when on Tuesday night, two men set off an ink attack on Kejriwal against what he had said on surgical strike videos, and thus playing into Pakistani hands, it reflected how wrong the AAP’s flirtations with the camera have gone. Earlier too, the party has faced slap-fest and slipper handouts in public view but ink has remained its most loyal companion Varanasi onward.

Pray, why would the AAP draw such a reaction repeatedly? Is it divisive or provocative? Hardly. In fact, the party is a rare combination of left-right-centre elements with clean governance as its purported mainstay. But if you hold it to its mainstay, it falls apart. Ask an AAP leader about one front that the party has delivered and he/she will hum and haw, before repeating ad lines on Mohalla Clinics, flyover projects’ savings, and probably the oddeven experiment on city roads. The only achievement of the AAP government has been its ability to stay in news. Its ministers have chased headlines and camera, more often for wrong reasons. Yet, their fetish for camera continues to grow. And it flows from the top. Social media, a variable reflection of the urban mindset, is rife with jokes about how Kejriwal’s Sabmileyhuye-hain-ji (all of them are together in this racket) has been replaced by Sab-Modi-ne-

11 - 17 Oct., 2016

karwaya-hai-ji (Modi is behind all this). And the double-edged coverage of this favourite resort Modi has helped making it sound like the proverbial cry-wolf.

Common man analogy was another field that was Kejriwal’s forte once. He would use colloquial adages like raita-phailgaya or thulla which had a ring of familiarity with the Delhi middle class. Kejriwal and his team were ‘people like us’. No longer. The Delhi CM now makes news for attending medita tional courses and his deputy for visiting abroad to learning educational system of the West. Far from a common man’s lifestyle. Whither governance, people are asking.

But Kejriwal has little to show. The vanguard of change has turned out

Inkpot thrives by calling the kettle black to be a workman fighting his tools.

The AAP government’s report card becomes starker when one places Kejriwal against Modi, his imagined bête noire. The Modi government may not have any earth-shaking achievement to its credit so far, but it seems to be functioning, and functioning well.

The Centre is seen moving decisively towards albeit slowly, according to the critics a robust foreign policy, economic reforms and better infrastructure. AAP leaders, meanwhile, are happy with the camera lights, even when they come at the cost of ink stains.

Many AAP supporters strongly feel

and share their concerns with the media in private that the party needs to come out of its prototypical protest formula to salvage its sagging image. The AAP suffers from the labour union mindset, they argue, where one gets things done through strikes. The AAP leadership does not realise that it

has moved into the management sphere now, where one has to get work done pragmatically. But Team Kejriwal has decided to run with the management board and hunt with the labour union. No wonder it ends up with ink on its face every now and then. The writer is Deputy Editor

North Korea ‘bitches’ about the South NORTH Korea has labelled the South Korean President a ‘barefaced and impudent bitch’ after she called for North Koreans to abandon their country and move south. Her invitation sparked an angry response from Kim Jong-un’s state newspaper, which branded her comments ‘insane baloney’. Speaking on South Korean Armed Forces Day on October 1, President Park Guen-hye urged citizens in North Korea to move to the ‘bosom of freedom’ in the South.

In her speech, Park spoke of the ‘gruesome realities’ faced by people living in North Korea, and told citizens they were welcome to relocate ‘whenever you want’.

Her message came just a day after a soldier crossed the heavily fortified border into the south, while in August the second most senior official at Pyongyang’s embassy in London defected to South Korea. In response, North Korea’s official state

newspaper Rodong Sinmun [Workers’ Newspaper] hit back, labelling her comments ‘insane baloney’ and branding her a ‘barefaced and impudent bitch’.

The article, published on Monday, read: “Park Geun-hye has the gall to ignore the reality within her grasp and to doggishly and overtly utter ravings as saying the land of freedom and encouraging defection. There is no such a barefaced and

impudent bitch elsewhere.” In her speech, Park also attacked Kim, and warned of growing tensions between the two countries, and said acts of terrorism from North Korea were ‘likely’, Yonhap News Agency reports.

“Chances are high that to fend off internal instability and social confusion, North Korea will stage various acts of terrorism and provocations, such as

saber-rattling along the Northern Limit Line (NLL) and the Demilitarized Zone,” she said, referring to the border between the two countries.

Hitting back, the article in Rodong Sinmun continued: “It’s ridiculous and foolish that Park Geun-hye flutters her feet to smear our dignified leader’s reputation with infamy by persisting hallucinations in her head as an established fact and mentioning a reign of terror as well as starvation and repression.” Official data from Seoul shows defections from the North to the South are on the rise. A total of 894 people crossed the border between January and August this year a 15 per cent increase on the same period a year ago. In response to North Korea’s criticism, an official at Seoul’s unification ministry said: “North Korea should focus on the lives of its ordinary people who are in serious distress,” according to Yonhap News Agency.

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11 - 17 Oct., 2016

Islamic State confirms death of propaganda chief

Beirut Islamic State on Monday confirmed the death of its propaganda chief, whom the Pentagon said was killed in a USled air strike in Syria’s Raqqa province last month. A statement posted online by the militant group paid tribute to Wa’il Adil Hasan Salman al-Fayad, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Furqan.

The statement just referred to him by his alias. It did not say when, where or how he had died. The Pentagon said last month that a US-led coalition air strike on September 7 had killed alFayad. It said he was minister of information, overseeing Islamic State’s propaganda, and a prominent member of its Senior Shura Council, or leadership group. IS’s statement referred to alFayad as head of its media arm. The air strike took place near Raqqa, IS’s de facto capital in northern Syria, and targeted al-Fayad while he was on a motorcycle outside his house, the Pentagon said. Islamic State controls large parts of Iraq and Syria and has broadcast its beheadings of journalists and aid workers over the past few years.

The group has sympathizers in several countries who have carried out bombings and shootings of civilians.

State governments are increasingly becoming dependent on alcohol revenue to fund their schemes. For most of states, up to one-fifth of their budgets are funded by booze, which has registered a very high growth rate in the country.

AS the court battle is being fought over the prohibition law in Bihar, the old ethico-economic question back in the public discourse. Should governments across India implement the relevant directive principle mentioned in the Constitution?

The fact is that for most of the state governments, upto one-fifth of their budget is funded by booze. Apart from Bihar (after the Supreme court stayed Patna High Court order), Gujarat, Nagaland, Mizoram and Manipur, where liquor is prohibited, booze revenue is a major contributor to state exchequer.

BOYCOTT HITS CHINAGOODS A SOCIAL media campaign to boycott ‘Made in China’ goods, in a rebuttal to its continued support for Pakistan and for voting in the United Nations against Indian interests, has begun to show results. Traders at some of the biggest wholesale markets across the country have reported 10 to 20 per cent fall in demand for “cheaper” Chinese wares. The development is an indication of a nationalist sentiment sweeping the country in the aftermath of terror attack on Uri Army base and consequent surgical strikes by Indian Army in retaliation. “If people have decided to teach China a lesson, it can have serious repercussions for the trade,” said Praveen Khandelwal, secretary general of the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT). Khandelwal said there was an unprecedented patriotic wave across the country and the market cannot remain unaffected.

India is a huge market of Chinese items as they are cheaper.

According to an estimate, the

volume of Chinese goods during eight to 12 weeks ahead of festive seasons falls in the vicinity of Rs 1000 crore in Delhi alone. There are similar wholesale inventories of imports from China in all major cities of the country. A majority of these goods include toys, fancy lights, gift items, plastic ware, decorative goods etc.

“Retailers say that their customers have started asking for Indian items,” said Rameshwar Goyal, a trader dealing in decorative items at Sadar Bazar, the biggest wholesale market of north India. Goyal said he too had received messages on his phone about boycotting Chinese lights during Diwali. “I think that campaign has made a difference.

People are openly talking about boycotting Chinese items,” he said. Devendra Bansal another trader in Sadar Bazar told : “Retailers from NCR and other states come to this market to purchase items. And, there has been huge demand of Chinese items as they are cheaper. But, this time they have taken lesser amount of such items.

Instead, they specifically asked for Indian items.”

The campaign began with a fake letter which was claimed to be signed by

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none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi which urged the Indian consumer to user swadeshi products during Diwali and repulse Chinese goods. The fake letter was circulated all over social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, and also on WhatsApp. The Prime Minister’s Office, however, was quick to contest the veracity of the letter and in a tweet clarified that the document was not authentic. Other than this fake letter, there have been

memes and images doing the rounds on the internet spreading the same message. The campaign has managed to tap into the latent anger against China, which has supported Pakistan in the past and had also blocked India’s bid to join Nuclear Supplier Group. Soon, politicians of all hues began to ask people for the boycott.

BJP national secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya on October 3 called for a

boycott of Chinese products in protest against its role to shield Jaish-eMohammed head Masood Azhar from United Nations ban. However, he had to delete his tweet some time later. Majority of traders that Mail Today spoke to agreed that such a boycott might harm the business this year but in the long run it will be good for Indian traders and industry.

“Traders will have to take a call on not to import Chinese items and consumers will have to decide not to purchase these goods,” said Khandelwal of CAIT. “This will be good if people start accepting Indian goods.”

Several groups have initiated the campaign which include promoting sale of earthen diyas from villages on social media platforms.#BoycottChina, #BoycottChineseproducts have trended on Twitter recently.

Please pledge “This Diwali we will only buy Indian, regardless of price & not Chinese,” was tweeted from the handle Fearless Hindu.

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Pak politicos ask govt to rein in Hafiz Saeed, act against ‘non-state actors’ New Delhi Pakistani politicians have called for action against “non-state actors” who are

(Saeed) as the reason for bad relations between Pakistan and India,” he added.

bringing the country into disrepute, with one lawmaker from the ruling PML-N questioning why nothing was being done to rein in LeT founder Hafiz Saeed.

A leading opposition politician, former interior minister Aitzaz Ahsan, said on Thursday that Pakistan is isolated because it gives “freedom to non-state actors” who may have had a hand in the Uri attack.

Speaking at a meeting of the National Assembly’s standing committee on foreign affairs, PML-N lawmaker Rana Muhammad Afzal Khan specifically named Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed while demanding action against non-state actors, BBC Urdu reported.

Khan questioned why Pakistan was turning a blind eye to Saeed’s activities. “The efficacy of our foreign policy speaks for itself when we couldn’t curtail Hafiz Saeed,” he said.

“India has built such a case against us about the JuD chief that during meetings abroad on Kashmir, foreign delegates mention

Khan, who was recently sent to France as a special envoy on the Kashmir issue, said Saeed’s name was repeatedly brought up by his French interlocutors.

Noting that Saeed was considered a notorious character in international circles, he questioned whether Saeed was “good for the Kashmir cause”.

While backing the Pakistan government’s stance on Kashmir, Khan said banned groups were a source of embarrassment for the country.

Speaking during a special joint session of Parliament convened to discuss tensions with India, former minister Aitzaz Ahsan said: “The government has been completely unsuccessful in imposing restrictions on non-state actors according to the National Action Plan (NAP).”

He criticised the cabinet’s denial of Pakistani involvement in the terror attack on an Indian Army camp at Uri in Kashmir that killed 19 soldiers.

“Saying we believe Pakistan has no hand in the Uri attack is not a

categorical denial,” he said.

This implied Pakistan did not “know if our non-state actors are behind it”, Ahsan said, according to the website of Dawn newspaper.

“When you cannot completely implement NAP and then something like this happens, the blame will fall on Pakistan and we will be isolated.

Then Bangladesh and Afghanistan will not speak to you, and Bhutan and Nepal will begin supporting India,” he said.

“You have isolated Pakistan,” said Ahsan, who is considered one of Pakistan’s leading lawyers.

Ahsan, who also served as law minister, held Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif responsible for Pakistan’s diplomatic isolation as the premier also holds the foreign affairs portfolio.

“Pakistan’s isolation is Nawaz Sharif’s personal failure,” he said.

“Nawaz Sharif did not anticipate the Uri attack.

Our defence minister said that perhaps India did it themselves to divert attention away from Kashmir…I agree, it is possible, but then why is it Pakistan which is isolated now? It is because you have given freedom to non-state actors.”

He implied non-state actors continue organising protests and rallies and making speeches in Islamabad, Lahore, Faisalabad and Karachi. “I don’t want instability in any country, as the blame of that will then fall on us because of these nonstate actors,” he said.

Belgian charged with terror-related offences after stabbing 2 police officers

Brussels Prosecutors charged a Belgian man, who stabbed two police officers, with attempted terror-related murder and being part of a terrorist group on Thursday and detained his brother.

The man, 43-year-old Belgian Hicham D, stabbed one officer in the neck and another in the stomach and broke the nose of a third. Named by media as Hicham Diop, he was then shot in the leg and taken to hospital.

Belgian media said Diop was a former soldier who may have had a grudge against the police after being hit accidentally by a police car in 2011.

His brother Aboubaker D, a Belgian born in 1970, was detained on Thursday afternoon. A special counter-terror judge will decide on Friday whether he should remain in custody.

Brussels is on high alert after bombings in March killed 32 people at the city’s airport and in a subway carriage.

Islamic State recruits more educated than average Washington Recruits into the Islamic State group are better educated than their average countryman, contrary to popular belief, according to a new World Bank study.

Moreover, those offering to become suicide bombers ranked on average in the more educated group, said the newly released study titled “Economic and Social Inclusion to Prevent Violent Extremism”.The study, which aimed to identify socioeconomic traits that might explain why some are drawn to the Syria-based extremist group, made clear that poverty and deprivation were not at the root of support for the group.

Almost without exception, fighters joining IS’s Syria and Iraq-based forces had several more years of education in their home countries -- whether in Europe, Africa or elsewhere in the Middle East -- than the average citizen.The data shows clearly, the report said, that “poverty is not a driver of radicalisation into violent extremism.”Out of 331 recruits described in a leaked Islamic State database, only 17% did

not finish high school, while a quarter had universitylevel educations. Only those from Eastern Europe were below the average, and only marginally so, according to the study.

Islamic State group, also known as Daesh, according to the study.

However, it noted that a significant number of those choosing “suicide fighter” as their preferred option

“Foreign recruits from the Middle East, North Africa and South and East Asia are significantly more educated than what is typical in their region,” the Bank report said. About 30 percent of the recruits told the extremist group what positions in the force they wanted. Around one in nine volunteered for suicide operations, and their educational levels were on par with those who sought to be administrators, the report said.“The proportions of adminis-trators but also of suicide fighters increase with education,” it said.

Most of the 331 recruits also reported having a job before travelling to join the

when enlisting said that they had not been employed back in their home country, or that they were in the military before joining the group.

“An important finding is that these individuals are far from being uneducated or illiterate. Most claim to have attended secondary school and a large fraction have gone on to study at university,” the report said.

“We find that Daesh did not recruit its foreign workforce among the poor and less educated, but rather the opposite. Instead, the lack of economic inclusion seems to explain the extent of radicalisation into violent extremism.”

Issue - 688 (8)

11 - 17 Oct., 2016

Case filed against Kerala school with links to IS men for teaching hate Thiruvananthapuram The Kerala Police on Saturday filed a case against Peace Educational Foundation that runs a chain of schools in Kerala

and neighbouring states for allegedly including objectionable study material in school curriculum aimed at disrupting communal harmony. The educational group was under scanner after it came to light that some of the 21 missing persons from the state who were believed to have joined the Islamic Stateworked in schools run by the foundation. The case has been filed under Section 153 (A) of the IPC for promoting enmity between different groups, religion or race.Police had raided the Peace International School in Ernakulam after they found that one of the missing persons Merin

had taken class there. Similarly, Yasmin Ahmed who was arrested from Delhi airport two months ago before slipping out of the country worked as an

English teacher with the Peace International School in Kotakkal in Malappuram district for two years. Yasmin was motivated by Abdul Rashid who was also missing along with his wife.

Rashid was the public relations officer of the group until he vanished. Later, the police had asked the education department to examine the syllabus of the school group. The department found that some of the study material/lessons were objectionable, lauding a single religion and putting others in bad light. Though the schools were affiliated with the CBSE they never followed its curriculum, it

Sena activists booked for opposing Nawazuddin’s participation in Ramleela

Muzaffarnagar Shiv Sena district chief Mukesh Sharma and 19 others were on Friday booked on charges of promoting enmity and public mischief for opposing Bollywood actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui in taking part in a Ramleela at his native place in Budhana, a senior police official said.

Siddiqui pulled out of the Ramleela programme on Thursday due to opposition by the right-wing activists following which it was cancelled.

“Police has registered a case against 20 Shiv Sena activists, including district chief Mukesh Sharma, for opposing the film star today,” senior superintendent of police, Deepak Kumar said.

They have been booked under

IPC sections 153(a)--promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony and 505(2)-statements conducing to public mischief.

Sharma is absconding, he added. The actor was to play Maarich, a rakshasa (demon), because the demon wanted to be killed by the arrows of Ram. But the organisers had to cancel the programme after the activists approached them and expressed their displeasure over Nawazuddin’s participation. The district authorities had said police would provide security to Nawazuddin but he decided to pull out of Ramleela.

found.

Founded in 2006 by a preacher MM Akbar, and run by Niche Group, an independent religious body aiming to propagate Islam, Peace International runs 10 schools in Kerala and one each in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

Akbar is locally known as Kerala’s Zakir Naik, the Mumbaibased Islamic evangelist who is in the eye of storm. Faced with its links to those who disappeared, the school is battling to save its reputation and stay clear of trouble. It has disowned Rashid and others but many parents have already applied for transfer certificates for their children.

Besides Akbar the police are likely to question three businessmen who invested heavily in the group. However the school group denied any involvement with the missing and insisted that it was part of a “vilification campaign aimed to tarnish a reputed educational institution”.

Last week the National Investigation Agency had busted a Kerala module of IS and arrested six persons from north Kerala and four others from Tamil Nadu. A radical outfit, Popular Front of India, is also under watch list as two of the arrested were active workers of PFI.

Surgical strike fallout: Pakistan’s ISI chief likely to be replaced

Islamabad According to reports, Chief of Pakistan’s powerful spy agency Inter- Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt Gen Rizwan Akhtar is expected to be replaced within the next few weeks.

Akhtar replaced the retiring Lt Gen Zaheer-ul-Islam as the director general in September 2014 and took office in November 2014.

TENURE A director general has a tenure of three-years unless he retires or is replaced by another army chief. According to The Nation, preparations were underway to change the command.

“Intriguingly, he may be leaving the position earlier than the typical three-year tenure of a ISI DG,” the report said.

REPLACEMENT Akhtar is expected to be

replaced by corps commander of Karachi, Lt Gen Naveed Mukhtar, sources said.

Another senior security official was quoted as saying that Akhtar -- who has already served in Karachi as Director General, Sindh Rangers -- knows the challenges in Karachi and “the swapping makes sense”.

TIMING OF THE SWITCH According to an official, “It depends on whether the army chief, Gen Raheel Sharif, gets an extension or retires as announced.

I don’t think the notification of other changes in military command will come before that,” he said. “There are a lot of variables involved.”

Raheel had announced earlier this year that he is not seeking an extension and would retire in November.

India rejects Pakistan’s references on Kashmir at UN United Nations India has strongly rejected Pakistan’s references on Kashmir at the UN, saying such remarks are a self-serving attempt by Islamabad to bring extraneous issues to the world body for its “territorial aggrandizement”.India, exercising the Right of Reply after Pakistan’s envoy to the UN Maleeha Lodhi raised the Kashmir issue at the UN, said on Friday Pakistan had made references to the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir in a selfserving attempt to bring extraneous issues before the Committee.Such efforts were a flagrant misuse of the body for Pakistan’s own territorial aggrandizement, India said, recalling that the Special Committee on Decolonisation was concerned only with NonSelf-Governing Territories. It asserted that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India.Pakistan responded by saying that the United Nations recognised that all people under alien subjugation had a right to self-determination.Exercising its Right of Reply, Pakistan said India continued to perpetrate misinformation on the Kashmir issue year after year.Raking up the Kashmir issue again at the UN, Pakistan had said the nonimplementation of UN Security Council resolutions for a plebiscite in Kashmir is the “most

persistent” failure of the UN. “The decolonisation agenda of the United Nations will remain incomplete without resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, among the oldest items on the UN’s agenda,” Lodhi had said

with several resolutions of the UN Security Council.

Lodhi said the UN has a moral responsibility towards people suffering under colonial domination and foreign occupation.“There is an urgent

yesterday at a debate of the Special Political and Decolonisation Committee in the General Assembly.She said for over six decades UN Security Council resolutions promising a plebiscite under UN auspices to allow the Kashmiri people to determine their destiny, have not been implemented.“This is the most persistent failure of the United Nations,” she said, adding generation after generation of Kashmiris has only seen broken promises and brutal oppression.She asserted that Jammu and Kashmir “never was and can never be” an integral part of India but is a disputed territory, the final status of which has yet to be determined in accordance

need to bring the work on this unfinished agenda to closure and eliminate the last remaining vestiges of colonialism. We hope that we will be able to achieve this shared goal sooner rather than later,” she said.

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Issue - 688 (9)

11 - 17 Oct., 2016

Food fight as Jamie Oliver’s China again blocks UN ban on paella inflames Spain Masood Azhar over ‘different views’ Beijing China defended on Saturday its second technical hold to prevent a UN ban on Pakistan-based JeM chief Masood Azhar saying there were “different views” on India’s application and that Beijing’s move will allow more

time for the “relevant parties” to have consultations.

Reacting to India’s criticism that its second hold on attempts to ban Azhar sends a dangerous message, the Chinese foreign ministry said that the listing application member states submitted to the 1267 Committee of UN “must comply” with specific requirements of relevant resolutions of UN Security Council (UNSC).

Though China is the lone member among the 15-member UNSC to oppose the ban on Azhar, Beijing claims that

“different views” existed about India’s application against Azhar.

“There are still different views on India’s listing application made this March. The technical hold on it will allow more time for the Committee to deliberate on the matter and for relevant parties to

have further consultations,” the ministry said in a written reply to PTI to a question seeking its response to India’s strong criticism. The reference to “further consultations” apparently referred to direct consultations between India and Pakistan over the issue.China had put the first technical hold six months ago on India’s application following Azhar’s alleged involvement in the Pathankot terrorist attack.

China had extended the second technical hold valid for three months during this week despite several consultations between

New Delhi and Beijing at various levels.

It is expected to figure again during the expected meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the BRICS summit to be held in Goa from October 15-16.

While opposing the ban against Azhar, the Chinese foreign ministry however said, “China firmly supports combating all forms of terrorism, stronger international cooperation against terrorism, and supports the central and coordinating role of the UN in international counterterrorism cooperation”.

It said, China always maintains that on the listing matter, the 1267 Committee should stick to the principles of objectivity, impartiality and professionalism, base its judgments on solid evidence and decide upon consensus among the members of the Security Council.

Without naming China, external affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said on October 6 that only one country had put the technical hold, blocking the ban by another three months, and criticised the completely “non-transparent and anonymous” manner of designating individuals by the UN Sanctions Committee.

LONDON British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver is facing a fierce backlash after his chorizo-filled paella triggered outrage in the home of the traditional Spanish dish.

“Good Spanish food doesn’t get much better than paella. My version combines chicken thighs and chorizo,” he posted on Twitter, accompanied with a picture.Oliver faced an immediate avalanche of hostility, with traditionalists insisting that putting chorizo in a paella was utterly unacceptable. “Remove

the chorizo. We don’t negotiate with terrorists. First warning,” said one social media user.

Others threatened retaliation by making traditional British fish and chips with duck and aubergines.

Oliver defended himself on Canada’s CBC television, insisting: “It did say my version.

“That is my version and I stand by it. It’s damn good.” He did receive some support.

Omar Allibhoy told the London Evening Standard newspaper: “I’m a Spanish chef, I know how it’s cooked.

Ghana govt wants to relocate ‘racist’ Gandhi statue

Vietnam court rejects fishermen lawsuits against Taiwan’s Formosa HANOI A Vietnamese court has rejected hundreds of lawsuits filed by

fishermen who demanded more compensation from a Taiwanese-owned steel plant responsible for a devastating toxic leak, a leading activist said Saturday. In a rare case of civic action in authoritarian Vietnam, crowds of fishermen swamped a court house last month to file 506 lawsuits against Taiwan’s Formosa, which is building a multi-billion-dollar steel plant in Ha Tinh province.

The conglomerate paid Vietnam’s government $500 million after it was blamed for dumping waste that poisoned tonnes of fish and decimated the local seafood industry earlier this year. Local fishermen launched their lawsuits in an effort to wrest more money

from Formosa and demand it shut down the steel operation altogether. But Catholic priest

Dang Huu Nam, who helped lead the plaintiffs, told AFP the court had returned more than 100 case files and that he was expecting more.

“We will look into why the files are returned as the court did not say concretely, before deciding what moves to do next,” Nam said.

The court’s judge, Nguyen Van Thang, was quoted in state-run media saying that all 506 cases were returned.

The fishermen had asked for compensation of roughly $2.5 million but did not provide clear evidence of their losses, he said according to Phap Luat, an official legal news site.

Dead fish and other marine life

began washing up on Vietnam’s central coast in April, hitting fishermen and triggering rounds of protests.

After weeks of obfuscation the government laid blame on Taiwan’s Formasa, which has a history of environmental scandals spanning the globe, and ordered the conglomerate to pay a $500 million fine.

The government said it would start distributing the cash to affected fishermen in October and confirmed last month that payouts would range from $130 to $1,600 per person.

Last Sunday, thousands of Vietnamese protesters surrounded the steel plant, with some scaling its walls and holding signs demanding its closure.Vietnam’s communist rulers tolerate little dissent but anger over corruption and environmental degradation often spark significant protests.

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ACCRA Ghana’s government said Wednesday that it wants to relocate a statue of Mahatma Gandhi off of a university campus after professors launched a petition claiming he was racist.

A statue of Gandhi was unveiled in June at the University of Ghana campus in Accra by Indian President Pranab Mukherjee as a symbol of close ties between the two countries.s But in September a group of professors launched a petition calling for the removal of the statue because they say Gandhi was racist and that the university should put African heroes and heroines “first and foremost.”

“It is better to stand up for our dignity than to kowtow to the wishes of a burgeoning Eurasian super-power,” said the petition, which quotes passages written

by Ghandi that say Indians are “infinitely superior” to black Africans. Ghana’s ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement that it has followed the controversy with “deep concern” and that it wants to relocate the

statue. “The government would therefore want to relocate the statue from the University of Ghana to ensure its safety and to avoid the controversy,” it said.

“While acknowledging that human as he was, Mahatma Gandhi may have had his flaws, we must remember that people evolve,” said the ministry, emphasising that Ghana and India have “championed the struggle for the liberation of oppressed peoples around the world.” Statues on university campuses have recently sparked charged debates in Africa as students wrestle with the legacy of colonialism and history of racism on the continent.

Last year, students in South Africa successfully campaigned for the removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes, a notoriously racist mining magnate who died in 1902, from the University of Cape Town campus.

Gandhi, an Indian liberation hero, became a global peace icon after his non-violent protest movement helped India to win independence from Britain.

Issue - 688 (10)

Punjabi Sikh parents seek a match for their Canadian born & raised, clean shaven son, 33 yrs. old, 6’-1" tall, handsome, Doctor M.D., completed internal Medicine residency & fellowship (Specialization), now working as a specialist in G.T.A. The girl should be resident Doctor/M.D. or Physician, Born & raised in Canada from Ontario, beautiful atleast 5’-6" tall with family values. Please send your biodata and recent picture to: sm9058@hotmail.com ***682*** 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.

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Looking for a life partner between 45-55, family oriented, must hae Master’s degree, Ph.d or having experience in journalism, prefered Pakistani West Punjabi.

Two daughter’s married and well settled in Canada. Owns property in India. Divorced may also be considred.Please Call : 647-821-7170 ***680*** Hindu Pujabi Khatri parents looking for a suitable match for their daughter, 39 yrs., 5’-5” tall, working as Administrative Manager in a reputed concern in India, widow (Two sons 15 and 12 yrs.) The boy should be Canadian Immigrant/Citizen and family oriented. Parents and two real brothers are very well settled in Milton (Canada) for the last 16 yrs. Caste no bar. PleaseCall : 647-892-6498 Or : 289-878-9285 ***680*** Jat Sikh parents invite a matrimonial alliance for their daughter, 33 yrs. old, 5’-6” tall, Canadian Citizen, Post graduate, employed in one of the reputed banks of Canada, divorced after a brief marriage (no kids). The boy should be Canadian Citizen, Jat Sikh, well educated and professionally employed. Please email recent picture and bio-data to: gill.roop@hotmail.com Or Call : 1-604-615-4316 Or : 1-778-9547274 ***680** Jat Sikh parents invite a matrimonial alliance for their daughter, 29 yrs. old, 5’-6” tall, Diploma in Hair dressing from Australia, beautiful, family oriented from a good family background, living in India and managing Canadian family

11 - 17 Oct., 2016

business in India and Africa, widw (one daughter). The boy should be Canadian/American, Immigrant/Citizen, well educated, settled with family values. Whole family is well settled in Canada.

Respond with family details to:dsahsi@gmail.com Or Call : 1-604-618-5834 ***680*** Well settled Jat Sikh parents seeking professionally qualified Jat Sikh match from U.S.A. or willing to relocate in U.S.A. for their daughter, 36 yrs. old, 5’-6” tall, American Citizen, Graduated, Currently Working as Human Resource Information Systerm “HIRS” Analyst with well known Health Care Organisation in Bay Areas, California. Please send your biodata and recent picture to: wss4279@gmail.com Or Call : 1-408-657-7644 ***680*** Sikh Khatri parents seek a suitable match for their teetotaler, US Citizen son, 28 yrs. old, 5’4’’ tall, master’s degree in engineering from a top US university, working at a private company in New York area. The girl should be family oriented, educated, beautiful, preferably residing in US. Please send your biodata & recent pictures to: chhabra.harjitsingh59@gmail.com or call: 1- 347- 921-1453 *** 680*** Punjabi Brahman Doctor parents seek a suitable match beautiful girl for their son, 28 yrs. old, 6’ tall, doctor in punjab. The girl should be beautiful, preferably from medical line. The boy wants to settle his own business in Ontario. Any upper caste also welcome. Younger brother software engineer is in Ottawa and relatives are well settled in Ontario & Quebec. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to:ishan247@yahoo.co.in or call: or call: 011-91- 91987-2614118 *** 680*** Jat Sikh educated family seek a suitable match for their American citizen daughter, 31 yrs. old (born in 1985), 5'-3" tall, well settled in job. Boy preferred to be in USA or have a work permit.Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: bobby21_52@yahoo.com or call: 1- 209-629-3506 *** 680*** Suitable match for Jassal boy, 26 yrs. old, 5’-10” tall, clean shaven, B.Pharma, Own Business in India. The girl should be Canadian Immigrant or Citizen. Parents Currently in Canada on visitor visa. The boy’s two sisters are well settled in Canada. Caste No Bar. Please Call : 416-540-0080 ***680*** Jat Sikh parents seek a suitable match for their Mangleek son, 25 yrs. old, 5’-10” tall, Canadian Immigrant, Bachelor in IT, well settled. The girl should be Canadian/American, Immigrant/ Citizen, educated with family values atleast 5’-5” tall. First preference goes to Chandigarh,

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Issue - 688 (11)

11 - 17 Oct., 2016

Afghan Taliban chief preached in Pak, UK glamour model arrested over Islamic State link despite govt’s ‘crack down’ on terror

Kuchlak For 15 years until his sudden disappearance in May, Haibatullah Akhundzada, the new leader of the Afghan Taliban insurgency openly taught and preached at the Al Haaj mosque in a dusty town in southwestern Pakistan, associates and students told Reuters.

Details of Akhundzada’s life in Kuchlak, near the city of Quetta, have not previously been reported, and could put further pressure on Pakistan to do more to crack down on militants openly living there.

The row over how far Islamabad will go to get rid of jihadi fighters and leaders has hurt relations between Pakistan and Washington, in part because nearly 10,000 American soldiers

are in Afghanistan supporting the war against insurgents.

A spokesman for the US state department’s South Asia bureau said it was not “not in a position to confirm Akhundzada’s whereabouts, past or present.”

Akhundzada is now believed to be in hiding after crossing the long and porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, but not before going untouched in Kuchlak, located in Baluchistan province, as he rose up the ranks of the Afghan Taliban.

He was promoted to “emir” in May after a US drone killed his predecessor, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, in another part of Pakistan, a strike that infuriated Islamabad but reflected growing impatience over what Washington sees as

22-year-old Syrian refugee suspected of planning terrror attack nabbed by police in Germany

Berlin German police said on Monday they had captured a man suspected of planning a bomb attack who had slipped through their grasp during a raid two days ago. ”Tired but overjoyed: we captured the terror suspect last night in Leipzig,” Saxony state police said on twitter.

Police had been looking for the suspect, 22-year-old Syrian refugee Jaber Albakr, since he evaded them during a raid on an apartment in the eastern city of Chemnitz on Saturday.

Police found several hundred grammes of explosive in the apartment during Saturday’s raid.

Albakr had been in Germany since last year and was officially recognised as a refugee, police said at the weekend.

“The overall picture of the investigation, in particular the amount of the explosive found, suggests that the person was

planning to carry out an Islamistmotivated attack,” a spokesman for the Federal Prosecutor’s Office told broadcaster SWR on Sunday.

The suspicion that a refugee was planning a bomb attack will prove unwelcome news for Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose conservatives have lost support to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party over her open-door migration policy.

Merkel, who said last month she wished she could “turn back the time by many, many years” to better prepare for last year’s influx of almost 1 million migrants, has yet to say whether she will seek a fourth term as chancellor in elections next year.

In July, the Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for attacks on a train near Wuerzburg and at a music festival in Ansbach that wounded 20 people.

ambivalence towards its enemies.

Five years earlier, US forces stormed a compound near the Pakistani capital and killed al Qaeda’s leader Osama bin Laden.

“Once he became Emir, he left with his whole family,” said Hafiz Abdul Majeed, who runs the Al Haaj mosque, adding that he himself studied for several years under Akhundzada.

“You can’t teach religion and run (the Taliban’s) government at the same time. And it would of course have been dangerous for us and the students and the mosque if he remained here.”

Pakistan says it does all it can to go after militants. The interior ministry did not reply to written questions about Akhundzada’s time in Kuchlak.

A military spokesperson said the army would not comment.

Analysts say Pakistan has historically backed the Afghan Taliban as a hedge against the influence of arch-rival India, with whom Pakistan has fought three wars, in its backyard. Pakistan denies this. “I strongly reject any organised presence of Taliban in Baluchistan,” Sarfaraz Bugti, home minister for the province, told Reuters.

London A British glamour model who was on an IS-related terror watchlist after she used social media to communicate with Islamic State extremists has now been arrested.Kimberley Miners, who has posed topless for ‘The Sun’, is believed to have secretly converted to Islam and her “liking” and sharing IS videos had triggered an investigation by Britain’s anti-terrorist police and MI5 secret service.

According to ‘The Sunday Times’, she was detained on Friday for alleged offences under the Terrorism Act 2000 after officers had repeatedly warned her about her contact with extremists online.

Police also searched her home in Bradford, West Yorkshire. The 27-year-old was released on bail last evening pending further

inquiries.“As part of an ongoing investigation, officers have arrested a 27-year-old woman from Bradford on suspicion of the possession of terrorist material,” a spokesperson for the NorthEast Counter Terrorism Unit said.The newspaper had revealed last month that Miners appears on social media under the alias Aisha Lauren alBritaniya and has posted images of Muslim women brandishing rifles and other weapons.

Pictures show her fully veiled or with only her blue eyes on display, but in public she wears skinny jeans and leaves her long blonde hair uncovered.

Miners claims the accounts were “fake profiles made against me”.

“I myself am not active on any social media and do not have contact with anyone in association with terrorism.

Islamic State has lost more than a quarter of its territory: Analysts London The terror outfit Islamic State has lost more than a quarter of the territory it once controlled and the area under its hold now in Iraq and Syria is roughly the size of Sri Lanka, according to new data.

Security and defence analyst at IHS say the terror group’s control has reduced by 28% since its height in January 2015.

In 2015, the Islamic State’s territory shrunk from 90,800 sq km to 78,000 sq km, a net loss of 14%. In the first nine months of this year, IS’ territory fell from 78,000 sq km to 65,500 sq km, IHS analysts said.

As of October this year, the IS controls roughly 65,500 sq km in Iraq and Syria, which is roughly the size of Sri Lanka, they said.

IHS Conflict Monitor released its last territory report in July 2016.

As of July 4, 2016, the IS controlled roughly 68,300 sq km in Iraq and Syria, about the size of Ireland.

“The Islamic State’s territorial losses since July are relatively modest in scale, but unprecedented in their strategic significance,” said Columb Strack, senior analyst and head of the IHS Conflict Monitor.

“The loss of direct road access to cross-border smuggling routes into Turkey severely restricts the group’s ability to recruit new fighters from abroad, while the Iraqi government is poised to launch its offensive on

Mosul,” he said.

The Islamic State’s losses in Syria over the last three months have been concentrated in northern Aleppo province, where Turkish proxy groups have pushed the jihadists back to around 10 km from the border.

In Iraq, government forces have secured Qayyarah Airbase in Iraq’s Nineveh province, a critical staging area for the anticipated offensive to liberate Mosul.

However, IS losses have slowed in the three months till October.

The terror group has lost just 2,800 sq km since July.

The slowdown appears to coincide with Russia reducing the number of air strikes against IS targets, IHS has observed. At the start of the year, some 26% targeted IS, but by the summer it had dropped to just 17%.

“Last September, President (Vladimir) Putin said it was Russia’s mission to fight international terrorism and

specifically the Islamic State,” said Alex Kokcharov, principal Russia analyst at IHS Country Risk.“Our data suggests that is not the case. Russia’s priority is to provide military support to the Assad government and, most likely, transform the Syrian civil war from a multi-party conflict into a binary one between the Syrian government and jihadist groups like the Islamic State; thereby undermining the case for providing international support to the opposition,” he said.

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Issue - 688 (12)

11 - 17 Oct., 2016

A civilised talk with the Pakistanis...

Harish Khare ----------------------On October 2, Gandhi Jayanti, I found myself, of all places, in Edmonton, capital city of the province of Alberta in Canada. I had been asked by the Punjabi Media Association of Alberta to give a talk on the political situation in India, particularly in Punjab. Edmonton, it appeared to me, was a perfect showcase for Canada’s multiculturalism, invigorated and institutionalised.

As I was driven around the city, I was rather pleasantly surprised to have spotted an Ahmadiyya mosque. I was in for a greater surprise when I was told that the Indians and Pakistanis enjoyed the best of relationships, and that a few years ago when a Pakistani community centre was being constructed, the “Indian Punjabis” had gone out of their way to contribute very substantially towards its completion.I was also pleased to learn that the very banquet hall where I was to give my talk was owned by a Pakistani, by the name of Javed Chaudhry. And, I was also informed that many Pakistanis would be in attendance at my talk. Indeed, they were there. And they asked questions, too. I expressed a desire to have a chat with some of them after the lecture.An impromptu gathering was organised. Chaudhry played the amiable host. Copious quantities of samosas, burfis and chai were produced. The conversation with the Pakistanis — most of them professionals or businessmen — was expectedly polite and civilised. No voices were raised.

It was just two days after the “surgical strikes” and the Pakistanis’ questions were laced with apprehension about the conflict getting out of hand. I did my best to quell the possibility of a wider confrontation. It was also obvious to me that India and Pakistan had managed to invent two different versions of the same shared history, each version selfcontained with its own certainties. I was pointedly asked: “India is never an issue in Pakistan’s electoral politics.

Why is it that Pakistan is always an issue in Indian political discourse?” There was no easy or obvious answer.

Curiously enough, in this group of Pakistanis were two Ahmadiyyas who had come armed with a gift (of two books) for me. The present was gratefully accepted, and when I remarked that at least in Edmonton there was an Ahmadiyya mosque, the reply came, without rancour: “Ham ek tabeez the, in logo ne fek diya” (we were a talisman, they discarded us).

This pleasant conversation with these Pakistanis fitted very much with the spirit of Gandhi Jayanti, even though it was at odds with the violent anti-Pakistani sentiment being whipped up back home in India.

And, equally at variance with the mood back home was the

Gandhi Jayanti celebration in the evening, organised by the Mahatma Gandhi Canadian Foundation for World Peace. At a time when back home we were giving in to the temptation of the beating of war drums, here in Edmonton, they were singing “Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram, Patit Paavan Sita Ram....”

of having to work within the legal framework of Canadian laws and rules. The Alberta model breaks down when it comes to the native Indians, the aboriginals. A visit to the “reservation” made a depressing excursion. Katherine Swampy, a political activist, was generous with her time and her opinions on the extreme

ethnic groups — are very actively involved in the political transactions of electoral politics.

They even manage to import loyalties from back home — Majha versus Malwa, Ludhiana versus Jalandhar, etc.

The Punjabi Media Association, it seems, has sufficient clout and connections in the provincial

This was, in fact, the 28th time when such an annual celebration was taking place. The occasion saw the presence of quite a number of provincial political leaders, paying respect to this prophet of peace. An annual gathering that enabled the local Indians and Canadians to renew a spiritual link with the Mahatma.

Within two days, it was easy to gain an appreciation of the multicultural arrangements in Alberta. The various ethnic groups — the Ukrainians, the French, the English, the Chinese, the Indians — had their own spaces, without any expectation or demand to merge themselves in the “mainstream.”

No group was too big to be too dominant to make the other feel vulnerable. And, since Alberta is a rather rich province, with an overabundance of natural resources, the economic pie is big enough for all to have a sense of partnership and participation.

Each ethnic group, it seems, has managed to create a selfsufficient economic platform for itself, with the added advantage

deprivation and near-destitution of her community. Only in recent years has the “mainstream” begun to acknowledge the past injustices done to these original natives of the land that is now known as Canada.

All the familiar maladies — factionalism, tribal animosities, political opportunism — have left these aboriginals a divided lot, increasingly unequal to the task of readjusting to a very fast changing economy. Those belonging to the younger generation, such as Katherine Swampy, feel entitled to have an acute sense of grievance at the historical injustice done to the community — how the original “treaties” between the “First Nation” and “Canada” were violated to deprive the aboriginals of their share in natural wealth.

And then, there is a new mood, unaccommodating and unapologetic, among the conservatives in the political class that borders on resentment at the perpetual whining and complaining from “them”.

The Indians — as also other

Assembly. Three MLAs were on hand to greet me when I visited the Assembly. A minister also dropped in for a photo-op.

Rod Loyola, MLA from the Edmonton-Ellerslie constituency, was our host. He and his colleague had just finished a meeting of the ethics committee. They are attempting to change the funding rules, so as to provide a level playing field.

They want to minimise the influence that money can buy.

Alberta has a new ruling political dispensation after decades of conservative rule. The new government has suddenly raised the minimum wages for the province and has gladly incurred a heavy public debt.

An animated discussion on the minimum wage rate hike followed. And, lo and behold, Loyola is quoting John Maynard Keynes to buttress his argument that more money in the hands of the working class would mean a more vibrant economy. Even if it means that the province’s public debt would go up considerably.

Over coffee, Loyola wants to

know about the shifting moods in Punjab politics. He has a Sikh gentleman for a chief of staff. A trade unionist, a political refugee from Pinochet’s Chile, Loyola’s politics is of working class loyalties and sympathies, though incongruously enough, he chooses to dress up very conservatively. He has a handsomeness that reminds one of Leonardo DiCaprio.

Dr Prem Singhmar was my gracious host in Edmonton. He has made it big in the world of real estate and the hotel industry.

He is accepted and respected in the “mainstream”.

He has made a very handsome contribution to the city’s educational and cultural life. Two buildings bear his name. Not bad at all. Very atypical immigrant Indian behaviour. Naturally, he is quite active in the conservative politics in the province.

Unsurprisingly, he is an admirer of Narendra Modi. But he was too suave to voice his disappointment that I did not subscribe to any such admiration.

At the local gurdwara, the talk was only of the forthcoming elections in Punjab. The community elders, who congregate every day, vocally told me that they would be getting involved in the elections.

They want to influence the outcome in favour of the AAP because of its promise of a new politics. And at the local mandir, the community’s new prosperity was very much in evidence.

Both at the mandir and gurdwara, it was obvious that more than being religious centres, these were sites of community solidarities and fellow-feelings.

Back home, I was told of something very curious. Air Force Day is celebrated on October 8.

Since ages, the Air Force Chief hosts “At Home” reception on the day, and the President, the VicePresident and the Prime Minister put in an appearance. This year, curiously enough, the “At Home” was held a few days in advance.

It was learnt that the President was not available on the Air Force Day. Inexplicable. And, interestingly enough, the Defence Minister was not able to attend the Air Chief’s reception.

Man Kaur, 100, star of Patiala marathon Patiala Man Kaur of Chandigarh began running at the age of 93. Now at 100, she can’t do without it — the sport has proved to be the elixir of life.

Having won more than 20 medals across the world in 100m, 200m and 400m races, ‘Bebe Man Kaur’, as she is fondly called, is here to participate in the Patiala Marathon 2016 tomorrow.

Running alongside other participants, she hopes to inspire them to take to a healthy lifestyle. “I was born and raised in Patiala.

Life has come full circle and I am extremely glad to be in the city again,” says the former cook with the royal family of the erstwhile princely state.

“Youngsters these days are obsessed with technology. They shun physical activity. This is bad for health,” warns Man Kaur, herself a

bundle of energy. On her initiation to the sport, she says: “It all happened by chance. One day, my son Gurdev Singh pointed out that people in their late 70s and 80s were competing in different tournaments and were fit as a fiddle. He asked me to give it a shot too. He took me to Panjab University grounds and we both ran. Since then, there has been no looking back.”

Man Kaur does all the household chores — from cooking to washing clothes. And that is her fitness mantra. “I survive on daal-roti and shun fried and junk food.

Many times my children tell me I should be more careful about my health. I tell them Guru Gobind Singh runs along with me and till He is around, I am in safe hands,” says Man Kaur, who is deeply religious. Her son Gurdev Singh will also take part in the marathon.

Issue - 688 (13)

11 - 17 Oct., 2016

Navjot Kaur Sidhu quits BJP Chandigarh The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Dr Navjot Kaur Sidhu, wife of cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu, on Saturday resigned from primary membership of the party.

Dr Sidhu, 53, MLA from Amritsar (East) constituency, sent a oneline resignation to Vijay Sampla, president of the party’s Punjab unit.

“The state BJP president, Vijay Sampla, has accepted the resignation of Navjot Kaur Sidhu from the primary membership of the party,” the BJP said in a press release.

Right from the beginning of her political innings in March 2012 as an MLA, Dr Sidhu has been a thorn in the flesh of both the saffron party and the Akali Dal. She began attacking the Akali Dal and BJP often, after the BJP denied her husband the ticket to contest the 2014 Lok Sabha elections from Amritsar, the constituency he had represented thrice.

Also known for always exploring

the possibility of hogging the limelight, Dr Sidhu had enacted a ‘resignation drama’ in April this year, via Facebook the same platform her husband used to float Awaaz-e-Punjab forum on September 8, which is now gasping for breath.

“Finally, I have resigned from the BJP. The burden is over,” Dr Sidhu had said in her Facebook announcement on April Fools’ Day. But Dr Sidhu, who was also a chief parliamentary secretary, within a day took a somersault, saying her grievances had been addressed and that her resignation was just a joke.

The Sidhu couple were always miffed as they felt the party was “ignoring” them.

Their main grouse was against the Akali Dal, the alliance partner of the BJP. That Dr Sidhu will quit the BJP sooner than later became clear when her husband quit his Rajya Sabha membership in July and resigned from the saffron party in September this year. Her resignation comes over a month

after Sidhu floated the new outfit, Awaaz-e-Punjab, and a series of flip-flops over this forum.

Now, political future of the husband and wife hangs in balance after announcing that the Awaaz-e-Punjab will not become a political party. With the assembly elections due in Punjab early next year, the former MP is now desperately awaiting an invite from the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), while Dr Sidhu will follow in his footsteps.

Sidhu’s rider that his forum Awaaz-e-Punjab will have no truck with the Congress till it is led by its state chief Captain Amarinder Singh has further exposed him and dented his credibility. On the day Sidhu launched his forum, he had openly derided AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal as an “insecure man”.

Just when Punjab and Punjabis were thinking they would cobble up a fourth front, Sidhu on September 22 threw another googly he would not form a

political party and divide the antiincumbency vote.

Within the BJP, meanwhile, no one is shedding tears over Dr Sidhu also leaving the saffron party. Instead, they are elated over this belated development.

Navjot Kaur Sidhu, wife of cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu, on Saturday resigned from the primary membership of the BJP. Sidhu, MLA from Amritsar East constituency, sent a one-line resignation to Vijay Sampla, president of the party’s Punjab unit. A press release by the party said that her resignation was accepted.

She had for long been criticising the BJP’s majority partner,

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).

Navjot Kaur’s resignation came over a month after her husband floated a new outfit, Awaaz-ePunjab. In September, Navjot Singh Sidhu announced the formation of the front .

The three-time MP of the Bhartiya Janata Party from Amritsar had quit his Rajya Sabha membership in July and resigned from the saffron party in September this year.

His political future hangs in balance after announcing that the front will not become a political party.With assembly elections due in Punjab early next year, he is now awaiting an invite from the Congress or the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) , it is learnt.

Dalit man killed for arguing with 13-year-old girl dies after fasting for upper-caste school teacher man more than two months for Jain ritual

Humanity was shamed once again on October 6 when an upper - caste primary school teacher killed a Dalit over a minor argument in Bageshwar, Uttarakhand.A 35 year-old Dalit man, Sohan Ram, went to a flour mill and was waiting for his turn when Lalit Karnatak, a primary school teacher, came to the shop.

Lalit didn’t want to wait for his turn and wanted to get his flour grinded before the Dalit man. Sohan Ram refused as he had reached the shop earlier and had been waiting for some time.

A fight broke out and Lalit, along with a few other upper-caste men, started hurling abuses at the poor man and making insulting remarks about his caste. Then, Lalit took out a sickle and slit Sohan Ram’s throat.None of the by-standers came to the Dalit man’s help and he bled to death

at the mill itself.

HUGE PROTESTS BREAK OUT After the incident, huge protests have broken out in Bageshawar.

The Dalit community is demanding justice.

The various Dalit groups filed a complaint, based on which the police has arrested Lalit. He has been kept in the Almora jail.

The accused has been booked under IPC sections 302 (murder) and 506 (criminal intimidation), and is also charged under relevant sections of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. According to Bageshwar Senior Superintendent of Police, Sukhveer Singh, Lalit’s family members are threatening the Dalit groups to withdraw complaint. The police tried arresting the family members, but they were absconding.

Dalit youth killed for ‘refusing to sell liquor’ Muktsar: An 18-year-old Dalit youth, who had reportedly refused to sell liquor for some “smugglers”, was found murdered on the Bura Gujjar road here this morning.

The family of the deceased held a protest at Maseet Wala Chowk in the town, seeking action against the accused. The deceased, Ajay Singh alias Pahwa of Gandhi Nagar here, had recently lodged a complaint to the police alleging that some persons had threatened to kill him, sources said. Some children playing in the morning spotted his body in a vacant plot, after which the police was informed.

Eyewitnesses said that Ajay’s head was found severed from his body and his face was badly damaged.

Hyderabad A 13-year-old girl died in Secunderabad after fasting for 68 days as part of a Jain ritual, police said on Saturday, bringing the spotlight back on the rigorous religious practices followed by the minority community.

Though the girl, identified as Aradhana, died on October 3, the Andhra Pradesh Child Rights Association lodged a police complaint on Friday seeking action against the parents for allegedly forcing her into performing the ‘tapasya’ (penance).A family friend, however, said her action was voluntary.The Hyderabad incident came months after the Rajasthan high court asked police to register criminal cases against a Jain family after an 82year-old woman opted for the ritualistic fast to death called ‘santhara‘.The woman died 50 days into her fast after the Supreme Court stayed the high court order amid a nationwide debate on religious freedom in India.The Jain community, with an estimated population of less than 50 lakh in India, follows an austere lifestyle including vegetarianism and a large section is known to observe the rigid customs laid down thousands of years ago.

Digambara Jain monks – who consider the sky their clothing – still go naked. Doctors at the Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) in Secunderabad said the long fasting could have led to her death. “We did not admit her and gave the family a brought-dead certificate. However, doctors who examined her observed that she might have got cardiac arrest and renal failure due to imbalance of electrolytes in her body,” KIMS

spokesperson Dr Alok Malik said.

Aradhana, a class eight student, was the only child of her parents who own a jewellery store at Pot Bazar area in the city.

observed fast for 34 days and this time, she wanted to fast for 68 days… It was purely her personal decision, which was respected by her parents,” he added.

A photograph available with

The child rights association alleged that Aradhana was forced into fasting after the family’s ‘spiritual guru’ advised them of the ritual to help the family business grow.

“As per the ritual, she was provided only with water, that too, only till 6 pm. At the end of 68th day, a puja was held…the girl fainted and was taken to the hospital,” association president P Achyuta Rao told Hindustan Times.While the girls’ parents were not available for comment, a close family acquaintance, who identified himself only as Piyush, said there was no truth in the complaint.“Theirs is a welloff family with no financial problems. In fact, both the parents and the girl were very religious and were planning to become monks. The girl offered to take up tapasya on her own,” he said.He said the number 68 has a significance in Jainism as one could attain self-purity by chanting a specific mantra 68 times.

“Last year, Aradhana had

Hindustan Time shows Aradhana dressed up like a bride but looking very weak. Several women are also seen dancing in a colourfully-decorated tent.

“They (family members) feel she had made the supreme sacrifice and attained salvation. Hundreds of people attended her funeral held the following day,” Achyuta Rao said.

Secunderabad Market police station inspector M Mattaiah said the association filed the complaint with the commissioner of police and it was yet to reach him.

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11 - 17 Oct., 2016

Jail for Punjab cops who tattooed ‘jeb katri’ on 4 women’s foreheads Patiala Pronouncing the judgment in the 23-year-old ‘jeb katri’ tattooing case, a special Central Bureau of

tattooed ‘jeb katri’ on the foreheads of four habitual offender women. The National Human Rights Commission took

Investigation (CBI) court has convicted three cops.

The case involved tattooing of ‘jeb katri’ word on the foreheads of four women in 1993 that had brought criticism to the Punjab Police from world over.

Terming the act of the accused as inhuman, special CBI judge Baljinder Singh, who wrapped up the trial in a year, on Friday awarded three-year rigorous imprisonment (RI) to the then superintendent of police Sukhdev Singh Chinna and sub-inspector Narinder Singh Malli, the then SHO of Rambagh police station, and a year’s RI to ASI Kanwaljit Singh.

The victim women were: Gurdev Kaur, Parmeshri Devi, Mohinder Kaur and Jaswinder Kaur. The Punjab Police had faced widespread criticism as the incident hit the headlines across the world in 1994 after cops in Amritsar

cognisance of a press report dated January 12, 1994 and lodged proceedings under Section 12 (b) of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993.

The victims had also filed a writ petition in the high court in 1994, praying for directions to the respondents, the government of Punjab, Amritsar superintendent of police, and others, to arrange for plastic surgery for removal of the tattoo, giving compensation for the inhuman act and humiliation and punishing the guilty cops. On January 17, 1994, the NHRC not only approached the high court to become a party, but also addressed a letter to the Punjab chief secretary, seeking a report on the matter. The NHRC had also submitted an affidavit in the court, demanding a CBI probe. After hearing counsel of NHRC and

petitioners, the high court not only handed over the probe to the CBI, but also directed Punjab government to arrange plastic surgery of the victims and pay a compensation of `50,000 to each victim, as recommended by NHRC. The case, reached to the Supreme Court, which upheld the decision of high court. The CBI filed the challan in 2015 under Sections 326 (Voluntarily causing grievous hurt), 342 (wrongful confinement), 346 (wrongful confinement in secret)and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code.

How it happened As per the petition, the victims alleged that they had gone to visit Golden Temple on December 8, 1993. After paying obeisance when they reached at bus stand, ASI Kanwaljit Singh stopped them and kept them custody from December 8 to 15. Later, the ASI on the directions of the SP and SHO, got tattooed ‘jeb katri’ on their foreheads.

The case came to fore when during a hearing of a pickpocketing case, the police produced them in the court, foreheads covered with ‘dupatta’. One of the women showed to the court the tottoo on her forehead. Though the court didn’t make any observation, the media highlighted the story.

Terrorists may target Israeli tourists, Jews in India, warn intelligence agencies

Central intelligence agencies have issued an alert on possible threat to Jewish tourists and its establishments in India.

The alert has been issued ahead of Jewish festivities celebrated by travellers and members of the Jewish community in India.

Intelligence sources said the alert has been issued in view of Jewish New Year, which is celebrated on October 2. It is followed

by the Fast of Gedalya, Yom Kippur and Succot.

During this season a large number of Israeli travellers and members of the local Jewish communities celebrate together in India.

Since a large number of Israeli tourists visit India around this time, there is a possibility that the festival season may be targeted by terrorist organisations.

Clear directions have been

issued to strengthen security measures at places of Jewish congregation, especially Chabad House in Pahar Ganj and Vasant Vihar.

Security personnel have also been briefed to mount strict security measures around the synagogues, places visited by the Jewish community, Israeli representatives and Israeli facilities identified in the country.

Badal’s stickers to corner Kairon on Atta-Dal cards Patiala The Chief Minister’s office has suspended the distribution of Atta-Dal Scheme cards by the Food and Civil Supplies Department among over 30 lakh households. Reason: The cards carry the picture of Food and Civil Supplies Minister Adaish Partap Singh Kairon, not of the Badals.

Now, the cards will be distributed after stickers with Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal’s photo are pasted beside Kairon’s picture.

A senior IAS officer said the cards were received a fortnight ago and they were initially told to distribute these. “However, when we reported to our seniors that pictures of the CM and the Deputy CM were missing, we were told not to give away the cards till further orders,” the officer added.

The Punjab Government had recently directed the deputy commissioners to expedite card distribution among the beneficiaries.

Sources said the cards were printed and sent to the districts by food and civil supplies officers on the directions of the department’s top brass.

“Carrying the CM’s photo or mentioning his name is a decision to be taken by the political boss, not us,” an officer said.

The cards also mention Kairon’s designation and address, besides a message from him about the scheme.

Efforts to contact Kairon as well as Director, Food and Civil Supplies, Shiv Dular Dhillon proved futile. Joint Director Simarjot Kaur

also could not be contacted.

Rahul Tewari, Special Principal Secretary to Deputy CM Sukhbir Badal, said he had issued written orders to all DCs to wait for 30 lakh stickers to be sent to them in the next few days. “These will be pasted on all cards. There was a goof-up by the food and civil supplies officers who got the cards printed,” he said.

Issue 688 (15)

11 - 17 Oct., 2016

PLASTIC PASSIONS LOVE never dies. Love never ages. So, if you are out to tell a new love story in Bollywood an industry that has mostly survived cashing in on mush in some way or the other just change the faces on the screen. Bring on Harshvardhan Kapoor and Saiyami Kher for a fresh twist then, as Bollywood continues romancing the soppy saga. Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s new film draws its USP from the greenhorn lead pair it flaunts. Harshvardhan and Saiyami have been packaged to look good together, essaying double roles in a designer commercial package that sadly comes with most of the lows and very few of the highs you have come to associate with Mehra’s trademark filmmaking style. The folktale of Mirzya is lyrical yet fiery. Mehra’s screen tribute is dull and dimwitted. For a man who gave Hindi commercial cinema one of its most unique spins with Rang De Basanti a decade ago, Mehra is surprisingly out of ideas as a director this time. It is almost as if he made this film because a filmmaker of his stature needs to routinely keep churning out stuff every now and then. Despite touting a poetic love story at its core, Mirzya is all about plastic passions. It has no soul. What it does have is a Rang De Basanti hangover.

The two films may be different as chalk and cheese thematically, but Mehra’s style of

Vinayak Chakravorty By

Mirzya Cast: Harshvardhan Kapoor, Saiyami Kher, Om Puri, Art Malik, KK Raina, Anjali Patil, Anuj Chaudhary Direction: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra

linking the past with the present is the same in both cases. Like Rang De Basanti, Mirzya too picks out a slice of the past and tries equating it with a modernday context. Rang De Basanti found a parallel between Bhagat Singh’s life story and the tale of present-day happy-go-lucky collegegoers who are shaken when in conflict with a corrupt system. Mirzya tries out the same formula exploring the genre of love. Mehra equates the legend of Mirza-Sahibaan with the strifetorn tale of two modernday lovers. The idea is to highlight the fact that love is universal and timeless. Unlike, Rang De Basanti,

Out on DVD Phobia Cast: Radhika Apte, Satyadeep Mishra, Ankur Vikal, Yashaswini Dayama, Nivedita Bhattacharya, Amrit Bagchi Direction: Pavan Kirpalani ONE of the most intriguing films to come out of Bollywood in a long time, Pavan Kirpalani’s latest proves the director’s streak of catering original horror content continues. Kirpalani, who shot to fame directing Ragini MMS, has this time narrated the story of a young talented artist named Mahek (Radhika Apte), who suffers from agoraphobia after an accident, an illness that prevents her from stepping out of her

however, Mirzya does not click. For one, the love story is too jaded compared to Mehra’s treatment of burning patriotism in Rang De Basanti. Also, a decade after Rang De..., the parallel narrative style seems repetitive.

What stumps you watching the pedestrian effort is it has been screenplayed by Gulzar.

The veteran, clearly fumbling for new ideas, gives the film a climax that would squarely remind you of Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, which seemed cool almost 30 years ago. It is left to Harshvardhan and Saiyami to salvage some interest. The newcomers get double roles — as Mirza-Sahibaan, and as a present-day stable boy and his childhood lover. The first track unfolds through a stock of designer perfect ethnic frames that are too cold to have any emotional impact. The modernday story soon takes a clichéd poor boy-rich girl turn. Still, the budding duo plays the field with aplomb and emerges as the film’s only worthwhile mention. Both Harshvardhan and Saiyami look like they have some mileage career-wise. No one expected pathbreaking cinema from Mirzya.

But the film could at least have worked as an entertaining commercial package. It does not, and the makers must hope whatever hype they have garnered over the past weeks helps them draw the crowds over the opening weekend.

home. Soon after Mahek shifts into a new home with the help of her boyfriend (Satyadeep Mishra), she starts complaining there is something wrong with the house. She thinks that the house is haunted. Phobia works for a brilliant act by Radhika Apte as well as for a taut thriller script that holds audience attention all through its runtime.

Raman Raghav 2.0 Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Vicky Kaushal, Sobhita Dhulipala Direction: Anurag Kashyap ANURAG Kashyap’s new psychological

thriller takes inspiration from the life story of the 1960s serial killer Raman Raghav, who committed a series of murders before being nabbed by the police.

Kashyap alters the premise a bit he casts Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Raman the psycho and Vicky Kaushal as Raghav the cop out to nab him. As Raghav gets obsessed in his chase of Raman, he too starts developing violent criminal tendencies like the killer. Essentially, the film uses engaging suspense drama to establish the fact that good and evil are two faces of the same coin.

— Vinayak Chakravorty

Issue 688 (16)

11 - 17 Oct., 2016

Ajay Devgn says it: Karan and Kajol don’t share the same warm equation anymore

Ajay Devgn has said his actor wife Kajol, who was once a close friend of

filmmaker Karan Johar, doesn’t share the same equation today due to

some personal issues.

Karan has often said that he considers Kajol as his lucky mascot and the two share a great camaraderie.

The filmmaker and Ajay have never been friends.

Ajay and Karan are set for a festive clash at the box office this year with the former’s directorial venture Shivaay and the latter’s Ae Dil Hai Mushkil releasing on the same day on October 28.

“I am not friends with him (Karan). Even Kajol’s equation is not as warm as it was. It is a personal issue... not due to any professional thing. It’s a

personal hurtful feeling. It has nothing to do with the clash,” Ajay told PTI. When asked about the reason, Ajay said, “I would not like to talk about it.”

Kajol’s friendship with Karan, with whom she has worked in multiple projects including hits Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, My Name is Khan and special appearances in Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna and Student of the Year, had gone through a rough patch in 2012, while the same is being speculated now.

On the work front, Ajay is busy juggling between

Riteish has struggled. He is a self-made man and I am proud of him: Genelia

Genelia Deshmukh, currently on a break from films to focus on her family, is regularly asked one particular question when will she be seen on the big screen again?

The actor says this query doesn’t bother her.

“People will ask, and it’s their job to do so. But whenever an exciting

project comes my way, I will definitely take it up. I have never said that I won’t. Yes, after I got married, I wanted a break for a while, because I had worked a lot for 12 years,” she says. The actor has starred opposite Riteish Deshmukh (right; who she married in 2012) in films such as Tujhe Meri Kasam

(2003) and Tere Naal Love Ho Gaya (2012), and says that working with him again “would be like a party”.

Speaking of her husband, Genelia says she is proud of him as he is a “selfmade” man. “Riteish has gone through a lot of struggle. His father, Vilasrao Deshmukh, was elected the chief minister of Maharashtra twice. But Riteish chose to pave his own path. He [Vilasrao] was very proud of Riteish, and so am I,” says the actor. Genelia also opens up about the equation she shared with her late fatherin-law. “In the little time I spent with him, I learnt so much,” she says, adding,

“I learnt to always smile and to have a positive attitude no matter what.

He was an absolute family person. From what I know of my fatherin-law, I see a lot of him in his three children (Riteish and his brothers Dheeraj and Amit Deshmukh) and the bond they share. The way they are with their wives and mother (Vaishali Deshmukh) is special, and that is something that they have imbibed from his [Vilasrao’s] teachings. I always tell Riteish, ‘If my sons are half the son you are, then I will feel like the luckiest person in the world (smiles).”

promotions and finishing the film, while the 42-yearold Kajol has been handling marketing responsibilities of their home production. “It’s her production house also. I am too occupied finishing the film. She is taken some responsibility and is handling other things. She is helping me in letting my

pressure down,” he said.

Though Kajol is actively involved with the marketing of Shivaay she hasn’t seen the film yet.

“She doesn’t know the whole script she has an idea what the script is. She has not seen the film... she has seen songs and trailer and she has loved it,” Ajay adds.

Saiyami Kher vehemently opposes the belief that models cannot act Model turned actor Saiyami Kher has already made her Bollywood debut with acclaimed filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra in Mirzya but she vehemently opposes the thought that models cannot act. “Everyone is an actor. I don’t know where this thought came in people’s mind from.

Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone are best actors in the industry and they have been models too. They completely redefined this statement.

Models can’t act when they don’t want to. If they love the craft then they can act,” says the actor, who stars opposite actor Harshvardhan Kapoor in the film. She adds, “I feel that modelling and films

are very different subjects.

When I was modelling, I was doing theatre here and there, but I couldn’t see myself doing that for a long time because the growth is very little as a performer. It was then that I took up films. The process of acting is such a beautiful journey. All of us have actors within us and it’s all about digging deep.”

Online portal approaches Kareena to I think I am the easiest guy to document her pregnancy, Kardashian-style work with: Prabhudheva

Kareena Kapoor Khan will next be seen in Veerey Di Wedding, a project helmed

by Rhea Kapoor, which also features Sonam Kapoor. She will begin shooting for the movie in March 2017 (post the birth of her first child). Apart from her films, the Ki & Ka actor has been in the news lately for fulfilling her professional commitments without taking a break.

Inspired by how busy Kareena is keeping herself during her pregnancy, a digital

portal has approached the actor with an offer to document her nine-month journey. Apparently, the public appearances that she has made during her pregnancy, the several magazine covers that she has shot for, the media interactions, and the fact that she set a new fashion trend in B-town by walking the ramp with a baby bump, will be part of a documentary. A source says, “Kareena was approached by the online portal a few days ago. They are keen to showcase her journey. They plan to highlight various moments — from the time she announced her pregnancy till the month of December, when the baby is due to arrive.” Apparently, Kareena is being approached for a host of new endorsements since the news of her pregnancy was made public. The source explains, “Kareena’s brand value has shot up after she announced her pregnancy.

Brands now believe she epitomises the spirit of a modern working mother.

Actor-director-choreographer Prabhudheva says it really does not make a difference if he’s working with first-timers or veterans.

Prabhu, who teamed up with actor Sonu Sood for his recently released debut production Tutak Tutak Tutiya, says he has no apprehensions working with first time directors or producers. “I think I am the easiest guy to work with. I come on time and I am clear that whatever they tell me, I have to deliver it. I don’t indulge in lot of talking, argument or conversation. I just do it,” he says.

However Prabhu admits that the only challenge an actor might face working with first timers, is understanding. “If you know someone, you can judge their thought process, and when you don’t know them, you can’t figure out what they are thinking. That’s about it,” adds the 43-year-old actor who has

also directed films such as Wanted (2009), Rowdy Rathore (2012), Singh Is Bling (2015) among others.

Prabhudheva is unlike other Bollywood stars who tend to blame the makers if a movie fails at the box office. “It’s a human tendency to blame each other if a movie doesn’t do as expected. But as an actor, I take full responsibility. It’s equally our film,” he says.

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11 - 17 Oct., 2016

De Niro is so angry, he wants to punch ‘blatantly stupid’ Donald Trump Oscar-winning actor Robert De Niro has hit out at Donald Trump, saying he wants to punch the Republican US presidential candidate in his face. The 73-year-old star’s remarks feature in a video produced

by Anonymous Content, which has been making a series of short interviews for an initiative called #VoteYourFuture, reported Variety.

“I’d like to punch him (Trump) in the face,” he said in the clip.

De Niro’s message to Trump didn’t make the final cut of the celebrity “Get Out The Vote” advertisement, but

Ben Affleck has reportedly moved back in with Jennifer Garner and their kids

Actor Ben Affleck has reportedly moved back in with his estranged wife Jennifer Garner and kids into their Pacific Palisades house. The 44year-old star was living in a rented property during the time the guest house at their main mansion was renovated. It is believed that after the project was finished the actor moved back in with

his family, reported AceShowbiz. “At some point it just seemed illogical to keep living separately,” a source said. “He spends so much time in the main family home, the kids thought it was weird and they were asking lots of questions so both Jen and Ben thought it made sense for him to officially come home,” the source added.

“The Kelly File” show has obtained the footage.

The Hollywood icon said, “Trump is so blatantly stupid. He’s a punk. He’s a dog.

He’s a con, a bulls**t artist, a moth who doesn’t know what he is talking about, doesn’t do his homework, doesn’t care, thinks he’s gaming his society, doesn’t pay his taxes.”

De Niro also called him a “national disaster” and an “embarrassment to this country”, reports foxnews.com.

Hugh Jackman teases final Wolverine movie, says trailer is coming soon Actor Hugh Jackman has said fans can expect some sort of first look of the final Wolverine movie in the coming weeks, adding that the film is going to be very different in tone.

Jackman, 47, also revealed that the filming has wrapped and director Jim Mangold is busy editing the movie.

“We’ve finished shooting.

I just saw Jim Mangold today. He’s editing away and finishing that,” Jackman told Entertainment Tonight.

“There’s going to be some stuff coming out in the next week or so. That’s all I’ll say. I’m not good. I’m the kind of person who tells everybody everything.

Basically, it’s going to be very different. Very different in tone and hopefully

different to anything we’ve done.”

Written by Green Lantern

scribe Michael Green, the final Wolverine solo film will reportedly be based on

Old Man Logan comic book series.

It will be set in the future, where supervillains have taken control over the world.

Patrick Stewart is back to reprise his role as Charles Xavier aka Professor X in the third Wolverine film.

Set to hit US theatres on March 3, 2017, it also stars Boyd Holbrook, Richard E Grant and Stephen Merchant.

It is very likely that Sean Penn is dating someone younger than his daughter Mystic River star Sean Penn and his rumoured girlfriend Leila George have made their red carpet debut at a Los Angeles County Museum of Art event after they were spotted kissing in Hawaii. The 56-year-old Oscarwinning actor and George have made their first public appearance as a couple, reported AceShowbiz.

Penn looked causal in a denim shirt while George, 24, opted for a

black dress.

George, the daughter of actor Vincent D’Onofrio, also shared a picture of herself on Instagram along

with Penn, captioning it, “In the studio today recording Pappy Pariah’s mem-noir Bob Honey: Who Just Do Stuff.”

Brad Pitt meets his children for first time There’s no other job like it: Daniel Craig since divorce, has a ‘wonderful’ time changes mind, hints at 5th Bond film

Daniel Craig, popularly known for playing James Bond, says he might take on the role once again as it is one of the best things to do in the world.

The 48-year-old star, who has portrayed 007 in four films beginning with the 2006 film Casino Royale says playing bond is the best job in the world, reported Femalefirst.

However, in an interview to Time Out London in October 2015, when the

British actor was asked about the chances of him playing Bond again, he said, “Now? I’d rather break this glass and slash my wrists. No, not at the moment. Not at all. That’s fine. I’m over it at the moment. We’re done. All I want to do is move on.”

His mind seems to have changed now. “I’ve got the best job in the world doing Bond. The things I get to do on a Bond movie and the type of work it is,

there’s no other job like it.

“If I were to stop doing it just say - I’d miss it terribly. It’s one of the most thrilling things as an actor you can do. I love this job.

I get a massive kick out of it. And, if I can keep getting a kick out of it, I will,” he said.

However, he denied the reports that he had been offered USD 150 million to sign on for two more movies in the popular spy franchise.

Actor Brad Pitt reportedly reunited with his children for the first since Angelina Jolie filed for divorce.

Jolie filed for divorce on September 19 citing irreconcilable differences and said the decision has been taken for the “health of the family”. The 52-yearold actor had a “wonderful” time with his kids, reported People magazine. “Brad has spent some wonderful time with children recently,” a source said.

The LA Department of Children and Family Services has maintained

an open investigation following allegations that Pitt was verbally abusive and got physical with the couple’s eldest son, Maddox, during a fight on the family’s private plane.

A therapist was likely

present when Pitt met with his children.

Jolie, 41, requested sole physical custody of their six children in her divorce filing with visitation for Pitt, while the actor wants shared custody.

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11 - 17 Oct., 2016

Pets or pests? Quaker parrots invade Madrid MADRID They may be cute, colourful and chatty, but South American quaker parrots have taken up residence in Madrid and other Spanish cities, irritating residents with their shrill squawks and destabilising the ecosystem.

The small, bright green and greybreasted birds also known as monk parakeets first arrived in Spain in cages as entertaining pets, but some either escaped or were let loose, getting their first taste of freedom in the green, leafy Spanish capital and then proliferating.

Maria Moreno, who lives in the Los Carmenes district in southwestern Madrid, said she first noticed them several years ago.

A pair of parrots chose the area as their home, and enjoyed it so much that there are now a dozen parakeets who fight among

themselves and compete for food with pigeons, sparrows and magpies.

“The noise and mess they make is awful,” she says, adding “and they urinate on cars,” as she watches the parrots fly to and from trees along her road.

Some districts of Madrid, as well as parks such as Casa de Campo or the Retiro, are full of the birds which originate from Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia.

They build communal nests that weigh up to 50 kilos (110 pounds), mostly in trees they favour cedars but also in electric pylons.

In order to do so, the parrots tear thousands of branches off trees, at times leaving them nearly bare.

“It causes a significant

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deterioration in the health of the tree, and some dry up,” says Blas Molina, an expert at the Spanish Ornithological Society (SEO/Birdlife).

According to research by the society, there were around 20,000 quaker parrots called so for their bobbing and shaking in Spain last year, many of them in Madrid, Barcelona and Malaga on the southeast coast.

Other European countries such as Britain have also seen an influx of monk parakeets.

Paris, Rome and London meanwhile have large colonies of ring-necked parakeets, which come from Asia and Africa and are also deemed aggressive towards other birds.

Jose Luis Postigo, a researcher at the University of Malaga and an expert on quaker parrots, about which he is writing a thesis, says the species is “very adaptable.”

It can live in a warm country like Spain, as well as in the colder climes of Brussels or Chicago, adapting by building thicker nest walls.

Husband from hell? Man arrested for torturing wife with burning matchsticks

New Delhi In a new low for brutality and torture, a man pricked his wife’s skin with burning matchsticks, leaving her with 30 such burn marks all over her body.

The incident was reported in Ecotech-3 area of Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh. Acting on the woman’s complaint, the police have arrested the accused, Mani, who belongs to Chhapra district of Bihar.

Mani often remained in an inebriated condition and allegedly tortured his wife regularly.

During the investigation, the police found that Mani pricked his wife’s

skin with burning matchsticks.

The woman bears more than 30 such wounds on her body.

Not able to take the humiliation further, the woman left her husband’s place in Kulsera village and is currently staying at her parents’ place in Ghaziabad.

She then registered a complaint against her husband with the police.

The couple has two children.

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Issue 688 (19)

11 - 17 Oct., 2016

Marathon Gurugram power cut forces Civil Hospital nurses to use 3 Idiots-like jugaad, hold up cellphones to deliver baby

BABY BORN IN MOBILE LIGHT

Gurugram A woman in labour pain; a hospital without power or generator back-up; no doctor on duty; and a bunch of determined nursing staff – the situation looks similar to the one in popular Bollywood drama, 3 Idiots.

Except that this actually happened last Sunday at the government-run Civil Hospital in Gurugram, also called the Millennium City. Mercifully, as in the movie, ‘all izz well’ for the mother and the new-born.

However, this brings to light the issue of erratic power distribution in a city that is home to large multinational corporate groups and upscale residential societies. While most private

establishments bridge the supply-demand gap with the help of large, diesel-run power generators, the government institutions remain prey to mismanagement and apathy.

“When my wife, Kavita, was admitted to the hospital on Sunday evening, the ward was functioning under candlelight and several corridors were in total darkness,” Kapil Kumar, father of the three-day old baby boy, told MAIL TODAY. “She reported severe labour pain around midnight and I reported the matter to the nurse on duty.”

According to Kumar, there was no doctor on duty in the maternity ward on the night and nurses had to hold out candles

as the expectant mother was wheeled into the delivery room.

The inverter installed in the room also broke down, unable to standby for long hours at a stretch. “The 25 minutes that I stood out of the delivery room were the longest anxious moments of my life,” said Kumar, who feels the safe birth of his child was nothing short of miracle performed by the hospital staff. Kumar said the maternity staff used flash-lights of their cellphones, besides a few candles, to illuminate the delivery room and carry out the birth of his son. Kavita was discharged on Monday morning and is recovering well at home when MAIL TODAY visited the family at Daulatabad colony in Old Gurugram on Wednesday.

Kumar, who has three daughters before the newlyborn son, refused any pictures of the family to be taken. The power supply at the hospital has continued to remain erratic. On Wednesday, when Mail Today visited the government premises, the hospital was still reeling under a power cut. The hospital staff said there was no power for the previous 11 hours between Tuesday and Wednesday. The hospital has one power generator but it was not functioning as the administration had run out of diesel. When contacted, Pushpa Bishnoi, the chief medical officer of Gurugram, told Mail Today: “We have asked the medical superintendent of the

war, in which more than 3,000 people have been murdered since June. Vigilantes have a licence to kill with impunity since President Rodrigo Duterte declared a war on drugs, and claimed he would be ‘happy’ to slaughter three million users and dealers.

Duterte sparked outrage when he compared himself to Hitler, and his purge of drug pushers to Germany’s purge of Jews during the Holocaust. Since Duterte came to power, extrajudicial killings are accepted

as police turn a blind eye to vigilante retribution, reportedly on the orders of the President.

Aurora Moynihan, is the highest profile casualty of the savage crackdown to date.

Daughter of Lord Anthony Moynihan, one of Britain’s most colourful aristocrats, the former public schoolgirl’s bullet-ridden body was found dumped by the roadside in Quezon City, close to the capital, Manila, in September.

Aurora, 45, a mother of two, enjoyed a privileged childhood within the English aristocracy, but was said to be a user of methamphetamine, known as shabu.

CCTV images showed her getting out of a Toyota SUV and being shot by unknown assailants before being found next to a torn piece of cardboard warning ‘drug pusher to the celebrities, you’re next.’

Drug pusher executed on the streets

A SUSPECTED drug dealer is held with his hands tied behind his back by two men. One of them pulls out a pistol, takes aim and shoots him at point blank range at the back of the head. In the blink of an eye, both men calmly climb onto mopeds and speed off. Lying dead in the road, the ‘drug pusher’ is the latest victim of Philippines’ deadly narcotics

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hospital to submit a report about the irregular power supply as well as this incident. The health department is also approaching South Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) to ensure

Incidentally, a similar incident took place in June 2015 at the same hospital when a baby was given birth under candle light.

In November, 2015 too, Mail Today published a report of the

uninterrupted power supply in the hospital.” An employee at hospital said although the hospital has provision of biometric attendance system but a large number of employees were not registered until power supply was restored at the hospitals. In the absence of the attendance system not functioning, it was difficult to determine the absentees and pin the blame for any medical negligence.

hospital turning down the admission to 17 expected mothers as it was facing power cut for the past 14 hours. The patients at the hospital who begin queuing up from 7 am at the hospital when the Out Patient Department opens up complained on Wednesday that the hospital services were not functioning till 10 am due to lack of diesel to run the generators.

Issue 688 (22)

11 - 17 Oct., 2016

The Parisian Macao resort has opened with a deal that will surely entice Indian travelers

By Adila Matra IF PARIS seems too far away, there’s something that reminds you of the City of Light just a five hour flight from Delhi. After recreating Venice with the Venetian Macao in the famous Cotai Strip of Macau, Sands Resorts Cotai Strip Macao has added one more themed property to its portfolio. The Las Vegas of Asia now has a Paris-themed hotel, Parisian Macao, which positions itself as an ‘affordable luxury’ property. The property sweeps the guests into Paris once they cross the gates. Featuring a half-scale authentic recreation of the Eiffel Tower, The Parisian Macao will offer a full array of integrated resort facilities, including approximately 3,000 guestrooms and suites, convention and meeting space, international restaurants, kids’ club, health club, pool deck with themed water park, 1,200- seat theatre and entertainment. Ruth Boston, vice-president of Destination Marketing and Sales, Sands China Ltd, says, “From the moment they step inside the hotel’s grand lobby, guests will be overwhelmed by the spectacular Frenchthemed architecture and décor. Once visitors enter the majestic gilded doors inspired by the Palais Garnier, the stunning gleaming dome in the Rotunda provides the perfect backdrop for photographs.” Charles Lee, the architect behind Parisian Macao, is a modest, down-to-earth gentleman who does not want to let out the fact that he was the art director of many visually magical movies including Titanic and The Golden Eye. He has designed the gilded dome in the lobby after one of France’s most exquisite domes the L’Hotel National des Invalides in the 7th arrondissement of Paris. Flanked by promenades of French limestone and marble ceilings, the Rotunda and its bronze and gilded ‘Fontaine de Mers’ fountain form the heart of The Parisian Macao. The Eiffel Tower, says Lee, is made of steel and was assembled in China.

The Grand Opening Package of Parisian Macao that is available till January 27, 2017, starts from HKD 1,398 (`11,983).

There is French dining, a light-and-sound show at the towering Eiffel Tower, live music concerts at The Parisian Theatre and an Aqua World. Says Boston, “Approximately 3,000 guestrooms

alongside conference space, retail stores, restaurants and theatres all under one roof reinforce our unique ability to attract MICE groups of every conceivable size.” Boston hopes that Parisian Macao will do for Indians what Venetian did enthral them with a plethora of magnificent sights and cuisines. Up until 10 years ago, Macau wasn’t on the map of Indian travellers, but with increased interest in casinos and events such as the IIFA awards choosing Macau as its host country, all this is changing. Parisian Macao, with its ‘affordable luxury’ USP, expects to lure Indians too. There are straight flights from New Delhi to Hong Kong and it is a one-hour ferry to Macau from Hong Kong.

5

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ZOMATO Food is one thing that a traveller first looks for when deciding to plan their trip. You need an expert to guide to tell you about the best and all the options around and Zomato does it all. Browse through restaurant menus, photos, user reviews and ratings to decide where you want to eat, and use the map feature to guide you there.

Issue 688 (23)

New Delhi UP IN the skies and beyond the “range of enemy radars, 30 Indian “commandos armed with Kalashnikovs, “Tavors, rocketpropelled “guns and thermobaric weapons “deploy parachutes on a dark, “cold moonless night for a rare “military insertion to ambush terror “assets on the rugged “Himalayan terrain of Pakistanoccupied “Kashmir. “No audio devices on the ground are “able to pick any sound either as they “plummet down from a freezing “height of 35,000 feet. “Simultaneously, seven other crews of the “Indian army’s dauntless Special Forces “walk, crawl and slither

11 - 17 Oct., 2016

through Pakistani “barricades across the Line of Control. “All eight teams of the deadly warriors “reach their targets without detection and “annihilate them with a sudden thunder of “explosions, smoke bombs and gunfire. “Highly-placed military sources have exclusively “shared with India Today TVthe lowdown “of the covert surgical strikes of Sep “28, from their planning to meticulous execution. “Here’s the timeline of the entire inside “story that began in Uri on September 18 “and culminated in the destruction of terror “infrastructure across the LoC 10 days “later.”

Issue 688 (24)

11 - 17 Oct., 2016

You are kind, affectionate and big-hearted with family and friends as you celebrate Dussehra this week. Your instinct and intuition lead you in a positive direction in personal and professional matters.

You bring material stability and physical well being for the family and yourself with knowledge, discipline and understanding. Do not allow work to become a drudgery but keep your enthusiasm alive. Your ambitions are realized in the coming months if you continue to be persistent in your efforts towards achievement.

You make excellent creative and earthy plans, which materialize in the New Year. Financial investments are gainful. A wonderful idea begins to take shape and you explore your management potential. It is a good time to resolve property matters. You celebrate in lavish style to bring in Dussehra on a joyous note. A journey over land is on the cards. You regain good health and indulge in sporty activity. You are content in relationships. Involvement in art, theatre or media is rewarding. You can start writing a book or working on the garden.

It’s important to protect yourself from negative influences at home and disruptive elements at work this week. It’s not a good idea to disclose business plans and changes that you are wanting to make in the future as others try to discourage you or steal your ideas. Some assets need to be kept away from family and associates or they have unrealistic expectations. A slow and steady approach allows you to fulfill ambitions and achieve professional goals. You are able to encounter your adversaries without any trepidation. It’s best to underplay your hand and keep a low profile this week.

You tend to be sentimental and sensitive this week as emotions cloud your vision, not allowing you to see things as they really are.

It’s best to assess situations with your head, as well as, with your heart before taking important decisions. A woman, close to you, tends to get easily upset emotionally and take advantage of your good nature. Professional and business matters need to be viewed from a realistic point of view so that finances and material aspects are not ignored.

You feel unburdened, free and happy during Dussehra celebrations this week. You are blessed with courage to stand up for values and priorities in personal relationships. A new opportunity expands your vision and horizon.

Travel and movement give you a sense of release and freedom from routines and patterns. You delegate responsibility and allow others to flower and grow to their potential. You may not conform to social norms and patterns. Meditation, spiritual pursuit, physical exercise or dancing can be therapeutic.

You may be disappointed as you have too great an expectation at work and in personal relationships. Be realistic. Travel plans may be postponed. Professional ventures should not be overambitious or there could be delay, useful in a way because the right time for lucrative professional investment has yet to come. It is best not be judgmental but watch the turn of events – which can be sudden and unexpected – before things settle down. Anxiety is lifted at the end of the week when monetary situations are resolved.

Love, pleasure, beauty, grace and happiness manifest in personal relationships and family scenes this Dussehra. This is a time of endings and new beginnings in professional situations and relationships! Partnerships and business collaborations are balanced, supportive and gainful. Travel and opportunities are on the cards. Be aware of dissipation, idleness and over indulgence.

An integrated perspective and a new vision of life and reality is your blessing this week! Your elegant appearance and gentle nature add to the impact you make on people.

Dushshera brings transformation and change in your life this week. You feel sacrificed to routines and patterns and want to make some changes in relationships and professional projects but have to consider what you give up in the process. Don’t be unrealistic about goals. Learn from past experience and get on with your life rather than repeat old patterns.

Endings and beginnings are on the cards! A positive attitude in personal relationships brings healing and love. Rescheduling plans and routines may be for the better.

After a period of labour and strife, this week you complete perfect unfinished business projects. Important relationships are sealed, as loving commitments are forthcoming. Personal matters and ambitions are best attended to and fulfilled as you are at your dynamic best, blessed with confidence and style. You are balanced in your approach to family and friends, who tend to go to extremes at this point. Lower stress level, or a health problem will become manifest. Dussehra on the 11th brings new beginnings.

You are blessed with the gift of communication on all levels of consciousness and brings out your creative potential this Dussehra. You work and relate well with people, excel at buying, selling or trading and expand your business. You have choices and find it hard to make decisions as you see both sides of every option. Personal and professional partnerships and priorities become clear and you know who or what is important in your life. Love, romance and travel are on the cards this week! Your social life is enviable and exhausting.

You have great energy to achieve business targets and professional goals. You are impatient and unable to suffer fools gladly this week. You make quick decisions and follow plans with dynamic energy. Personal relationships are full of romance and passion and you celebrate Dussehra with style and enthusiasm. You can be fiery and outspoken when opposed or attacked by adversaries or competitors. Beware of a proud and bigoted older man who can be disruptive in the work area.

Death and rebirth or endings and new beginnings are on the cards as you celebrate Dussehra this week! You can expect major changes in professional and business aspects, which look destructive but lead to positive situations. Inner transformation of priorities, values and attitudes leads to spiritual growth and understanding. It also leads to voluntary or involuntary, perhaps sudden and unexpected changes. You may restructure office routines, busy schedules, travel plans, work systems, food habits, fitness programs and patterns this week.

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11 - 17 Oct., 2016

Technology Now buy and sell items on Facebook’s Marketplace

New York In a bid to make inroads into the emerging ecommerce space, Facebook has launched ‘Marketplace‘ its new user-to-user exchange for buying and selling goods with others in the community on its platform.

Over the next few days, Marketplace will roll out to everyone over 18years-old in the US, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand on the Facebook app for iPhone and Android.

“We will continue expanding to additional countries and make Marketplace available on the desktop version of Facebook in the coming months,” Facebook`s Director of Product Management Mary Ku said in a post late on Monday.

In recent years, more people have been using Facebook to connect in another way buying and selling with each other.

“This activity started in Facebook Groups and

has grown substantially.

More than 450 million people visit buy and sell groups, each month from families in a local neighbourhood to collectors around the world,” Ku added.

Marketplace is a convenient destination to discover, buy and sell items with people in the community.

To visit Marketplace, just tap on the shop icon at the bottom of the Facebook app and start exploring.

Marketplace opens with photos of items that people near you have listed for sale.

To find something specific, search at the top and filter your results

by location, category or price.

You can also browse what‘s available in a variety of categories such as household, electronics and apparel.

Use the built-in location tool to adjust the region you‘re looking in, or switch to a different city altogether.

“When you find something interesting, tap on the image to see more details from the seller, including a product description, the name and profile photo of the seller, and their general location. You can also save the item to find it later,” Ku posted.

You can also send the seller a direct message

from Marketplace to tell them you‘re interested and make an offer.

From that point on, you and the seller can work out the details in any way you choose.

Facebook does not facilitate the payment or delivery of items in Marketplace.

To sell an item in ‘Marketplace‘, take a photo of your item or add it from your camera roll.

Enter a product name, description and price.

Confirm your location and select a category.

“To keep track of all of your current and past transactions in Marketplace, visit Your Items section. There, you can view your saved items, products you`ve posted for sale, and all your messages with people,” Ku noted.

Facebook does not allow transactions of illegal items like drugs or explosives. It also bans the sale of firearms, animals, and alcohol, among others.

Know how a single click online can ruin your life!

New Delhi Technology has made the world a smaller place to live in - bringing shopping marts, banking, entertainment, and above all your friends and relatives closer to you.

But did you realize that any unmindful clicking online can put you into deep trouble, and literally ruin your life?

Keep the following tips in mind before you browse unknown sites for shopping or downloading content: 1. Must check the url of the site you want to shop from or view on www.scamadviser.com.

You will be able to collect all the information about the site.

2. Always put your phone on Guest mode before share with anyoneknown or unknown to

you. You must know that there are apps which, when downloaded on your phone, can be used to manipulate your personal data.

3. Avoid clicking on an unknown link on social media sites like Facebook. There could be a Trojan or other malware lurking in those links that can harm your computer or access your personal data.

4. If you own an Android phone, always download apps from Google Playstore. Also, you must not ignore the type of information, an app seeks before you download it from the play store. Its best to keep safe than sharing too much of personal information with the app creator.

Facebook Messenger now lets you Google, Apple, Disney out from Twitter acquisition race encrypt your chat; here’s how to do it

New Delhi After WhatsApp, social n e t w o r k i n g site Facebook will let you encrypt your chats on Messenger so that it’s just between you and your friend.

With the test having started in July, Facebook has finally rolled out an end-to-end encryption for its Messenger users

globally.

“That means the messages are intended just for you and the other person not anyone else, including us,” Facebook said in a post. However, unlike WhatsApp, end-toend encryption on Facebook Messenger is optional, which means that users will have to set it themselves and is not automotic.

So, here is how to set the end-to-end encryption on your Facebook Messenger.

1. Choose the contact you want to have secret conversation with 2. Tap on the ‘i’ icon on the top right 3. Click on ‘Secret Conversations’ and choose ‘turn on’ Behold! It’s done. And as seen from the setting, it has to be set for an individual by the users.

However, there is a catch too – the timer options range from 5 seconds to up to 1 day and the encrypted messages disappear after that.

Moreover, the secret messages can only be read on one device.

San Francisco Twitter stocks fell significantly after Google and Walt Disney reportedly ruled out to acquire the struggling micro blogging platform - leaving only Salesforce in the bidding race.

According to a Re/Code report, Twitter‘s shares dropped 17 percent in pre-market trading on Thursday after “deeppocketed companies Google, Apple and Walt Disney” were reported to be out from the Twitter buyout race.

Twitter is expected to announce its next quarterly earnings on October 27.

According to earlier reports, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is “building

a case to Salesforce.com Inc. investors and others that his company should be the buyer.” The acquisition of Twitter struggling to add new users amid stalled growth - may cost over $20 billion. It currently has 313 million monthly active users.

Salesforce is vying for a social networking

platform in its kitty for long.

The company, “which reached $6 billion in annual revenue faster than any other enterprise software company”, offers customer service software, market research tools, email marketing systems and other products and several of them already use social media.

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11 - 17 Oct., 2016

Caliphate becomes hot tin roof for cats

ISIS issues fatwa against cat breeding; home-to-home searches on JIHADI fighters are hunting down kittens in the Iraqi city of Mosul after a fatwa on cat-breeders was issued by senior ISIS clerics. The new law forbids indoor breeding of cats inside the Islamic State’s ‘caliphate’ and claims to be in line with the jihadists’ “vision, ideology and beliefs”.

Residents of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul were warned not to violate the ban which was declared on Tuesday, as ISIS fighters began searching their houses for kittens, Iraqi News reported. The purge will come as a surprise to many after the terrorist

group deliberately posted pictures of kittens on social media in a bid to attract new breed of young fighters. A UN report in 2014 showed thousands of jihadists had flocked to Iraq and Syria after seeing pictures of cats posed alongside AK-47s and in the arms of masked terrorists. 15,000 fighters from 80 countries joined the fight after seeing their posts on social media.

The move was a deliberate attempt to groom youngsters into joining the terrorist group, said the report. ISIS understands and recognises ‘the terror and recruitment value of

multi-channel, multilanguage social and other media messaging’, it said, adding that by embracing the cat craze, they were attempting to show a more ‘cosmopolitan’ side. One twitter account, The Islamic State of Cat, showed ISIS fighters feeding and playing with kittens, as well as sick photographs of cats surrounded by guns and grenades. Last year, prolific British ISIS recruiter Omar Hussein posted pictures of his pet alongside propaganda images and advice about how to join the ISIS. In one, his grey cat, named Lucy,

was shown curled up inside a suicide belt.

Below the shot, Hussein, who once worked as a security guard at Morrisons’ supermarket in Buckinghamshire, wrote ‘Come closer and I’ll blow the entire house down!’ But many of the terrorists seem to be genuine feline fans. In 2015, Dutch jihadist Israfil Yilmaz, 28, became an overnight heart-throb after he posted

pictures of himself holding a ginger kitten. The terrorist, who was reportedly killed in an airstrike in Raqqa last month, received 10,000 marriage proposals after posting the images with the caption “Soft towards the creation of Allah, but fierce and harsh towards disbelievers”. A fatwa is a legal decree issued by a specialist in Islamic law.

ISIS relies on a central

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committee to issue fatwas which is comprised of influential clerics and figures working for the group. Earlier this year jihadis operating in the ‘Euphrates provice’ in Iraq and Syria declared an embargo on the common practice of breeding of pigeons on rooftops, claiming the sight ‘reveals the genitals’ which is an idiom used to indicate dishonorable activity.

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Issue - 688 (27)

11 - 17 Oct., 2016

Colombian street artists graffiti for peace US plane evacuated after new BOGOTA Spray-paint cans in hand, a generation of street artists is covering Colombia’s run-down

walls with rifles that shoot heartshaped bullets and rainbowcolored pleas for peace.

After half a century of conflict, the end of which remains just beyond reach, war and peace have become central themes in Colombia’s graffiti art.

On the streets of Bogota, corncobs that look like grenades and gun barrels sprouting carnations have provided the backdrop as the government and the leftist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of

Colombia (FARC) worked for nearly four years to conclude a historic peace agreement. The peace process suffered a shock

setback Sunday when voters rejected the resulting accord in a referendum, apparently resentful of the blood shed by the Marxist guerrillas and the lenient punishment the deal meted out for their crimes.

But that only fueled the creative fire for people like DjLu, a graffiti artist known for dotting central Bogota with black-and-white messages of peace.

“I prefer a twisted peace to a perfect war,” said the secretive artist.

Two American diplomats given date rape drug in Russia, claims state department

DjLu, who prefers not to use his real name, doubles as an art professor at Catholic University of Colombia when he isn’t out spray-painting public spaces as a self-described “servant of peace.”“I wanted to send a message that would open people’s minds,” he told AFP of his turn to politically charged graffiti a decade ago.

“I’m simply human, and as a human I think the conflict is absurd.”The prospect of turning the page on more than half a century stained by violence is increasingly fueling street artists’ creativity in Bogota, where graffiti is surging as an artistic medium.

The city’s mayor from 2012 to 2015, former guerrilla fighter Gustavo Petro, actively promoted graffiti as a public art form. That stance helped counter the stigma of graffiti as vandalism, and giant murals sprouted up in iconic spots throughout the city.

Today, visitors and fans can even take a graffiti tour, created by Australian expatriate Christian Petersen.

Not everyone is embracing the trend.

“Peace is in vogue... on the tourist stage that Colombia is becoming,” said the street artist Stinkfish.

But Toxicomano (“Addict”), a graffiti artist known for works protesting atrocities committed by the Colombian army during the war, said the medium is wellsuited to politically engaged art.

Samsung phone catches fire

Washington A plane scheduled to depart from the US state of Kentucky was evacuated on the runway after a passenger’s Samsung cellphone caught fire, airline officials said.

Passengers and airline employees were taken off Flight 994, which was scheduled to leave for Baltimore on Wednesday, after a customer reported “smoke emitting from a Samsung electronic device,” the New York Times quoted Southwest Airlines as saying in a statement.

The Verge news identified the passenger as Brian Green and his phone as “a replacement Galaxy Note 7”.

A Samsung official said in a statement that the company was unable to immediately confirm which device was involved in the episode. “We are working with the authorities and Southwest (Airlines) now to recover the device and confirm the cause,” the statement said.

“Once we have examined the device, we will have more information to share,” it added.

The company, which is the world’s largest smartphone maker, announced last month that it would replace 2.5 million of the smartphone model because of a flaw in its battery that could result in the devices bursting into flames or exploding.

Green told The Verge news that he had picked up the new phone on September 21, after the recall.

The episode could be damaging for the company, because the replacement devices were thought to be safe.

The new models were approved by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, which on Wednesday said it was investigating the episode.

Many airlines have started warning passengers not to use the Samsung phones while on their flight or stow them in checked luggage because of smoke issues.

US no longer a world power; Pak may move towards Russia, China: Sharif’s envoy

The US State Department has raised concerns over the issue of American diplomats being given ‘date rape’ drugs while they were attending a conference in St Petersburg.“This is an escalating pattern of harassment by Russia,” said the US State Department. As per a report by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFERL), a male and a female were targeted while attending a conference on the issue of corruption at the United Nations in November last year. Attacking Russia, the US officials alleged that the probe in the case was hampered by the Russian

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intelligence services after the power at the clinic where the diplomats were being treated was cut, leaving doctors and staff helpless.

NO PROPER PROOF OF INCIDENT: RUSSIA However, Russia has denied all the allegations and has said that there was no proper proof of the alleged incident. As per the Russian authorities, the American diplomats were simply drinking at the hotel bar. “As we have repeatedly pointed out, such assertions have nothing to do with reality and, in essence, are an attempt to divert attention from Washington’s own unseemly actions, including in relation to Russian citizens,” said Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, Sergey Ryabkov.

US SUSPENDS TALKS WITH RUSSIA The United States recently suspended its talks with Russia over its ceasefire violation in Syria. The US accused Russia of failing to live up to its commitments under an earlier ceasefire deal.

Washington Pakistan would move towards China and Russia if its views on Kashmir and India are not considered by the US, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s envoys have warned and termed America as a “declining” world power. “(The) US is no longer a world power. It is a declining power.

Forget about it,” special Kashmir envoy of Sharif, Mushahid Hussain Syed was quoted as saying on Friday after the conclusion of an interaction at the Atlantic Council, one of the top American think-tanks.

Syed and Shazra Mansab, another Kashmir envoy, are in the US as part of the Pakistan’s effort to apprise the global community of the current situation in Kashmir and allegations of human rights violations in the Valley.

Syed has gone to the extent to warn US that Pakistan would move towards China and Russia if its views on Kashmir and India are not considered.

Syed was apparently responding to a question from a member in the audience after the conclusion of the 90-minute interaction during which he expressed his frustration over the lack of response on the issue.

The remarks of Syed were not recorded on camera, but was heard prominently by those inside the room. Thereafter, he was quick to mention China and

Islamabad,” he said, referring to the joint military exercise between Pakistan and Russia.

Syed said the Russian government has for the first time

newly perceived relationship with Russia.

Syed submitted a dossier of alleged human rights violation in Kashmir to special US representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Olson.

With no takers for Pakistan’s Kashmir policy, Syed said China is now an important factor in South Asia and described Beijing as part of what he termed as Greater South Asia.

“There has been slow and steady building of relationship between Moscow and

agreed to sell arms to Pakistan and the US should take note of this changing regional alignment.

“Unfortunately under the Obama administration, there was a drift in American foreign policy towards our region, towards Afghanistan.

There was confusion and there was a lot of flip-flops. I think, the Obama administration could not figure out this region Afghanistan and Pakistan and as a consequence this region suffered,” he said.

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11 - 17 Oct., 2016

Trump’s net worth down $800m, falls in Forbes wealth ranking New York Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is worth about $ 800 million less this year as compared to 2015, dropping 35 spots on Forbes list of richest

Americans.Trump’s net worth was pegged at $ 3.7 billion, an $ 800 million decline from last year, according to Forbes. The real estate developer and presidential candidate’s ranking fell 35 spots to No. 156 on the gilded list, released Tuesday.Last October, Trump’s net worth was $ 4.5 billion, putting him on the 121st rank on ‘The Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest people in America’.It said Trump and his father had appeared on the inaugural issue of the list in 1982 with a shared fortune valued at

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more than $ 200 million.

“An avalanche of debt stemming from bad business deals knocked The Donald out of the ranks in 1990,” it said.

However six years later, riding

robust real estate markets, Trump returned to the list with a fortune of $ 450 million.

By 2015 Forbes estimated he was worth 10 times that much as property values continued to soar, especially in New York.

At $ 4.5 billion he appeared alongside Wal-Mart heiress Ann Walton Kroenke, ahead of New Balance owner Jim Davis and fellow Manhattan real estate tycoon Sheldon Solow.Forbes said all three of them are wealthier than Trump this year.

The 70-year-old reality TV star shares his new spot at number 156 with 16 other billionaires, including filmmaker Steven Spielberg, FedEx founder Frederick Smith and five heirs to the SC Johnson fortune.

While Trump fell, many others gained in the list. A total of 38 billionaires passed Trump on the 2016 list including one of Trump’s most vocal critics, Reid Hoffman (No. 150). The LinkedIn cofounder, who added $ 100 million his fortune this year, has

US Army gives career long approval for Sikh soldiers to grow beard, wear turban

Washington The US has allowed career-long religious accommodation for Sikhs to serve in the armed forces while maintaining their articles of faith like the turban and beard. “We are a stronger nation, and a stronger military, because of our respect for religious and personal freedom, and I’m pleased to see the US Army once again recognise this with its new directive,” Congressman Joe Crowley, who

had spearheaded the campaign on behalf of Sikh Americans, said in a statement.

“Sikh Americans love this country and want a fair chance to serve in our nation’s military on equal footing. I believe we should embrace this wish for religious freedom, not place restrictions on it,” he said.

Crowley said he looks forward to reviewing this directive carefully, though it initially seems like a step forward in the right direction.

publicly offered $ 5 million to veterans groups if Trump releases his tax returns. Forbes said in recent years Trump largely moved away from real estate development in favour of “The Apprentice” and licensing his name globally to luxury properties he does not own. Still, 53 per cent of Trump’s fortune lies in Manhattan properties though he is far from the richest developer in New York City. Trumps fall in wealth ranking comes amid many controversies he has been embroiled in, including the recent one in which he was caught in a 2005 video making lewd remarks about women.

Trump vows to stay in race after lewd remarks surface With his campaign in crisis, US presidential candidate Donald Trump vowed on Saturday to stay in the race despite calls from more than two dozen prominent Republicans for him to drop out following the release of a recording of him making lewd comments about women.

Both Trump's wife and his running mate criticised his words, saying they were insulting and indefensible.

"The media and establishment want me out of the race so badly — I WILL NEVER DROP OUT OF THE RACE, WILL NEVER LET MY SUPPORTERS DOWN!" Trump wrote on Saturday afternoon on the social media website Twitter.

US accuses Russia of interfering in US elections with hacking attacks

Washington The United States officially accused the Russia government on Friday of trying to interfere in the presidential election by hacking into the computer networks of political organisations such as the Democratic National Committee.

“The US Intelligence Community…is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organisations,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security said in a joint statement.

It added: “We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s seniormost officials could have authorised these activities.”The statement did not name any Russian official or government

entity that the US suspects of carrying out the hacking. But it named DCLeaks.com, WikiLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 “online persona” as hosts of some of the hacked material “consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts”.

The Obama administration is under pressure to order punitive measures and has mulled economic sanctions, according to reports, but a decision has not been taken yet.Moscow dismissed the accusation as “nonsense”. Dmitry Peskov, press secretary to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said, “Every day, Putin’s site gets attacked by tens of thousands of hackers. Many of these attacks can be traced to US territory. It’s not as though we accuse the White House or Langley of doing it each time it happens.”

Sikh man’s turban knocked off, hair cut in alleged hate crime in US New York A 41-year old Sikh-American IT specialist was brutally attacked by some men, who knocked off his turban and allegedly cut his religiously-mandated unshorn hair with a knife, prompting a civil rights organisation to demand a hate crime investigation into the incident.

Maan Singh Khalsa, a father and IT specialist in California, was driving home on the night of September 25 when a group of men in car threw a beer can at his vehicle.

“Khalsa drove away from the scene but the men followed him and assaulted him through his open car window, knocking off his Sikh turban and hitting his face repeatedly,” according to a statement from The Sikh Coalition, the nation’s largest Sikh civil rights organisation.

Khalsa said there were “five to six white males in their late 20s to early 30s” who abused him and three of them then attacked him physically.

Shouting that Khalsa’s hair should be cut off, the men pulled his head out of the window, and cut a fistful of his religiouslymandated unshorn hair with a

knife, the complaint alleged.

Khalsa sustained injuries to his fingers, hands, eye and teeth.

The Sikh Coalition has written to the Richmond Police

Harsimran Kaur urged authorities to fully investigate “this hateful attack” on Khalsa and his Sikh identity.

“The purpose of a hate crime

Department and the Contra Costa County district attorney’s office on behalf of Khalsa, urging authorities to conduct a hate crime investigation and prosecution in the case.

“The attackers caused physical injuries and deep harm when they targeted my Sikh faith,” Khalsa said in a press statement released by the Sikh Coalition.“I urge a thorough investigation so we can address the tide of violence and bigotry in this country.”

Sikh Coalition legal director,

investigation and prosecution is to ensure that our government and communities accurately account for the problem of bias in our society,” Kaur said.

The Sikh Coalition said that in the 15 years that have followed 9/11, Sikhs remain hundreds of times more likely to be targeted in cases of profiling, bigotry and backlash than the average American.

“We need to acknowledge hatred so that we commit the resources necessary to stem bias-based violence,” Kaur said.

Issue - 688 (29)

11 - 17 Oct., 2016

Indian-origin Canadian professor tests road that self repairs in Karnataka Toronto In recent months, Nemkumar Banthia, professor in the department of civil engineering at the University of British Columbia (UBC) has had his eyes fixed on a road.That road, though,

happens to be more than 12,500 km from Vancouver, where he is based. It’s a demonstration project in a village about 90 km from Bengaluru and uses advanced materials and technology that could help with enhancing rural road connectivity.The project is the result of research that marries materials science and structural engineering to create selfrepairing roads that are cost effective, have greater longevity and are sustainable. Banthia, who graduated from IIT-Delhi before moving to Canada 34 years ago, undertook the project under the auspices of the Canada-India

Research Center of Excellence IC-IMPACTS, where he is scientific director.

In 2014, his team selected Thondebavi village, after a series of interactions with gram panchayat members and the

local community. Based at UBC, the center is focused on research collaboration between Canada and India to develop and implement “community-based solutions to the most urgent needs of each nation”.

Construction of the road, which connects Thondebavi to the highway and replaces a dilapidated dirt track, was completed in the late winter of 2015, but the last few months were critical as it had to be monitored for how it lasted through the extreme heat of an Indian summer and the monsoon.

Now, it can be claimed a success. The road’s thickness,

Part of China’s Great Wall collapsed due to strong winds: Officials

Beijing A 500-year-old section of China’s Great Wall called “Moon Gate” in northern Shanxi province has collapsed after being hit by strong winds, officials said on Saturday.The section was what remained of a former watchtower on the Guangwu Great Wall section built during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1662). It was called the “Moon Gate” by Great Wall aficionados due to its round shape, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.Officials said the section collapsed due to strong winds, refuting rumours that the historic attraction broke down because local villagers had been using its bricks for construction.A few weeks ago, concerns were raised after a 780metre stretch of “wild,” or original, wall in Liaoning dating back to the 14th century was found to have been covered in white cement, state-run China Radio International reported. Many people complained the

restoration work was ugly and made the attraction look like a city sidewalk. The stretch in the wall that collapsed in Shanxi was also built during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and served as a key historical and cultural reference when Beijing repaired its own sections. In 2006, the Great Wall Protection Ordinance was passed by the State Council, China’s Cabinet, to improve protection and strengthen regulation. Wu Guoqiang, secretary-general of the Great Wall Society of China said that after 10 years, however, many parts of the wall remain structurally compromised, especially in areas not visited by tourists.A lack of detailed procedures and renovation standards were at the root of lacklustre repairs, but these criteria take time to be established, and a special foundation for Great Wall protection should be established, he said.

at about 100 mm, is about 60% less than that of a typical Indian road, reducing cost and materials.

About 60% of the cement is replaced with flyash, thus curbing the usual carbon footprint, especially as cement production releases greenhouse gases. It comes with built-in crack healing, as high strength concrete is supplemented with fibre reinforcement with nano-coating that makes it absorb water and keeps the road hydrated. Banthia described this as a “cute mechanism” and explained: “These are fibres which have a hydrophilic nano-coating on them. Hydrophilia means they attract water and this water then becomes available for crack healing. Every time you have a crack, you always have unhydrated cement and this water is now giving it the hydration capability, producing further silicates which actually closes the crack in time.”Also, native drainage prevents the village from turning into a marshland as it often did during monsoon months.Banthia, originally from Nagpur, said he expected the road to last about 15 years, far beyond the two-year lifespan of the average rural or mid-town road in India. It’s also 30% cheaper in terms of a first time cost, though the savings, he said, would be substantial over its life cycle.

Games PMs play: Norway PM caught playing Pokemon Go in parliament

Norway Prime Minister Erna Solberg was on Tuesday caught playing Pokemon Go during an ongoing debate in parliament.

Solberg reportedly had her phone out during an active debate, while another minister was speaking. Funnily, the minister who was at the podium, Trine Skei Grande, was also caught in playing the game during a national security meeting in August.

According to local channel Norway TV2, Solberg joked about it saying, “I think that Trine will like that I opened the game while she was at the pulpit.”While some political opponents called the move ‘disrespectful,’ Grande herself was amused by the report. “She heard what I said, we ladies can do two things at the same time you know,” she tweeted.

Solberg’s love for Pokemon Go is no secret.

Back in August, during a visit to Slovakia, Solberg used free time between official meetings to hunt for Pokemon. She hit the streets accompanied by bodyguards, senior officials and a television crew and said, she was mainly trying to hatch eggs and catch the rarest Pokemon.

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Robots galore as Asia’s biggest tech fair kicks off CHIBA A Japanese inventor is hoping a robot that still needs humans will win over Asia’s largest tech fair, offering a counterpoint to major technology firms pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence (AI). Katsumori Sakakibara was showing off his little droid called Caiba at the Cutting-Edge IT & Electronics Comprehensive Exhibition (CEATEC), which kicked off Tuesday near Tokyo. Waist-high Caiba - whose name means hippocampus, a key area of the brain, in Japanese - is controlled by a human wearing a virtual reality handset and mechanical arms. If the person waves their arms, the little robot follows suit.

But whatever Caiba does, it depends on a human to control it. “People say what an amazing AI (artificial intelligence) we’re using for the robot. So I tell them: ‘well, it’s actually a middle-aged guy’,” Sakakibara told AFP during a press preview this week.

“Humans are more flexible in that they can recognise a huge amount of different information, but so far AI can only be used in limited situations” such as playing chess, he added.

“We thought it would be better to use humans instead of AI.” Google, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft are among a growing number of technology firms that

have been investing in making machines smarter, contending the goal is to improve lives through artificial intelligence.

Some critics, however, have warned that AI could turn on

screen beside the ping pong table.“A perfect serve!” it says, or apologises for missing a ball.

“But its AI is not good enough so that it could beat professional table tennis players,” Oya

humanity and be its ruin instead of a salvation.Less risky to the future of humanity was a robot arm made by automation parts maker Omron that can play - and coach - humans at ping pong.

The machine is now a Guinness World Record holder as the first robot table tennis tutor, according to the company.“It can now understand if a player is a beginner or experienced and change how it plays,” said Omron’s Taku Oya, referring to the robot’s AI capabilities.

It can even give a compliment or two in text that appears on a

warned.

Meanwhile, Sharp is taking aim at the housing market with pintsized Rin-chan, which can operate home appliances based on its owners’ feelings.

For example, if a house dweller says ‘it’s too hot’, the robot will turn on the air conditioning.

Another star of the show is a mug-sized, doe-eyed robot called Kirobo Mini made by Toyota as a chatty companion for its human owners.

The 10 centimetre (four inch) tall robot will go on sale next year in Japan for 39,800 yen ($400).

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11 - 17 Oct., 2016

Street art graduates to Paris gallery PARIS Not content with spray painting its way into the urban collective consciousness, street art is at

last graduating to the gallery as Paris opens its first permanent exhibition of the genre.

After a Rome exhibition for British graffiti king Banksy, French counterpart JR’s trompe l’oeil wrapping of the Louvre Pyramid and a feast of “Urban Exploration” at Villa Medicis, now comes a Parisian sequel 150 works on permanent show at the Art 42 peer-to-peer learning centre.

The exhibition which opens this month is a further sign of how street art is establishing itself as an art form in its own right, some 50 years after early proponents used metro tunnels and handy walls as blank canvases. Street art’s earliest incarnations may well conjure up visions of artists toiling surreptitiously in quasiderelict surroundings on work that was merely decorative.

But British artist Banksy has notably and astutely used his creations to make powerful political points, not least with his unique take on the refugee crisis.

He recently depicted Steve Jobs as a migrant at the infamous Jungle camp in the French port of Calais to underscore that the late Apple guru’s biological father

was a Syrian immigrant to the United States.

“The essence of street art is its militant wallscapes,” said

Nicolas Laugero-Lasserre, who has lent 150 works from his own personal collection for the Paris exhibition.

But remaining faithful to its “edgy” traditions hasn’t stopped street art from moving into the more formal world of museums, from Amsterdam and Saint Petersburg and now Paris with Berlin to follow next year.

Some, not least 1980s US American pioneer Futura 2000, have consciously chosen to head from the streets into the galleries.

Laugero-Lasserre has amassed a sizeable collection of works from the likes of Frank Shepard Fairey, who was behind the “Hope” mural for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, and Italian artist Blu, who allowed his Berlin murals to be painted over fearing they might fuel soaring real estate values.

The new permanent exhibition will feature works by Banksy and JR but also a range of lesserknown, emerging names from an ever-growing graffiti globe.

The idea is to showcase upcoming and established talents’ eyecatching and sometimes outlandish creations, tableaux worth in many cases

With new law, Pakistan stiffens penalty for ‘honour’ killers

Islamabad Pakistani lawmakers have passed a law that stiffens the penalty for convicted “honour” killers and closes a loophole that often allowed them to go free.

The bill was passed Thursday after a raucous debate that lasted nearly four hours. The law gives a mandatory 25 years in prison to anyone convicted of killing in the name of honour and no longer allows family members

to forgive the killers.

More than 1,000 women were killed last year in so-called honour killings in Pakistan, often by fathers, brothers or husbands, prompted by acts as innocent as a woman marrying the man of her own choice or being seen sitting with a man. Killers were rarely punished because of the forgiveness provision. Human rights activists have been battling for years for tighter laws.

thousands of euros (dollars) which can be seen for free during guided visits.

Despite entering the shop window provided by exhibitions, Magda Danysz, who runs galleries in Paris and Shanghai, says street art has not quite arrived yet.“Street art is not three graffiti-sprayers on an empty bit of terrain. It is an artistic phenomenon which has managed to adorn walls right across the globe,” Danysz said.“(But) in terms of recognition, we are still waiting for the big-hitting exhibition on the subject.”Now, the genre, whose raison d’etre French artist JR has termed “bringing art to people who never go to museums”, is looking to broaden its general appeal beyond the fringes.

“The more you talk up street art the better,” quips Mehdi Ben Cheikh, a gallery owner behind the Tour Paris 13 project, a block transformed into a huge temporary exhibition area in 2014 which brought together some 100 artists before its eventual demolition That was also what happened at the 5 Pointz mural space on Long Island, New York, used by some 1,500 artists who made artistic hay before the area was demolished in 2013 for construction of a condominium complex.

Singapore aquarium diver killed in stingray attack

SINGAPORE A Singaporean diver has died after being struck on the chest by stingray in a closed underwater attraction in the citystate, the aquarium’s owners said Wednesday. Veteran diver Philip Chan, 62, was stung on Tuesday at Underwater World Singapore in a “tragic accident”, while readying stingrays for transfer to another aquarium, the attraction’s owners Haw Par Corporation said in a statement.

He later died of his injuries in hospital.

The incident brought back memories of Australian celebrity conservationist Steve Irwin, who was killed by a stingray barb in the chest in 2006 during a diving expedition off the Great Barrier Reef. Haw Par said it has suspended the animal transfer programme while police

investigations are underway. The 25-year-old facility on the resort island of Sentosa shut down in June when it could not keep up with newer attractions on the same island, including a bigger aquarium and water adventure park. Its pink dolphins, fur seals and otters were moved to the Chimelong Ocean Kingdom in Zhuhai, China, one of the largest marine parks in the world, while its other sea creatures were still looking for new homes, local media reported.It is unclear which species of stingray struck Chan in the chest. Stingrays are commonly found in tropical waters and their barbs, at the end of their tails, are coated in toxic venom which they use to defend themselves when threatened.

While the animals’ stings are painful, they rarely attack humans.

Polish parliament rejects near-total abortion ban after women protest Warsaw Following protests by tens of thousands of women, Polish lawmakers on Thursday rejected plans for a near-total ban on abortion, in a hastily arranged vote that marks the first major domestic setback for the conservative government.

The ruling Law and Justice party (PIS) unexpectedly withdrew its support for draft proposals drawn up by an independent antiabortion campaign group after an unscheduled parliamentary committee meeting late on Wednesday. “PiS continues to back the protection of life,” party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, a devout Catholic, told parliament.

“And it will continue to take action in this respect but it will be considered action.”

Since winning a parliamentary majority last October, the economically left-leaning PiS has appeared firmly in control, thanks to a mix of generous welfare payouts, promises to help poorer Poles and nationalist rhetoric laced with Catholic piety.

However, it appears to have failed to correctly gauge public support for the party’s sociallyconservative agenda. Some of the women who joined Monday’s protest rallies against the abortion plans had previously voted for PiS but felt it was not for the authorities to further curtail their right to choose.

Poland remains one of Europe’s most staunchly Catholic nations

but the clergy’s sway over their parishioners has steadily waned during more than two decades of democratisation and market reforms since the 1989 fall of communism. The rejected proposal, which had the backing of Poland’s powerful Catholic

pregnancies,” she told lawmakers.

PiS managed to win last year’s election by broadening its appeal beyond its traditional base mainly poorer, rural, less educated voters - to include more women and younger people

bishops, would have banned abortion in all cases except when there was a direct danger to the mother’s life. The current rules, still among the most restrictive in Europe, allow termination in the case of incest, rape, serious concerns for the mother’s health or when the baby is likely to be permanently handicapped.

Angry voters Explaining her party’s U-turn on the issue, Prime Minister Beata Szydlo said the government would introduce new proposals by the end of the year but hinted that new restrictions would be few, if any. “We will present a programme to support women who choose to give birth to children from difficult

attracted by its promises to introduce family benefits and increase other forms of public spending.The PiS candidate for Poland’s presidency, Andrzej Duda, was also elected head of state last year on a similarly broad platform. “PiS voters have included conservative people who previously voted for the centrists or those voting for the leftists who support the PiS welfare ideas,” said Zuzanna, a 35-year-old educator from Warsaw who voted for Duda. “This proposal (on abortion) could have led to a decline in support among those whom they had attracted with welfare programmes,” she said.

PiS may have already suffered consequences.

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Hitler a ‘super-junkie’, heavily relied UK chef goes on trial for murders on drugs during WWII, says new book London Adolf Hitler was a gibbering “super- junkie” whose veins were all but destroyed by thousands

of opiate injections and the Nazi dictator’s heavy reliance on drugs was behind his “increasingly erratic” decision-making in later stages of World War 2, a new book has claimed.

According to Norman Ohler, an award-winning German author, the Fuhrer became addicted to a heroin-like substance called Eukodel which was prescribed following a nervous breakdown in 1944.Ohler’s book, Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany, which British historians have praised as a “remarkable” work of research, argues that the heroin-like opiate was largely to blame for Hitler’s erratic and paranoid behaviour towards the end of his life, The Telegraph reported.It brings to

light extracts from the journal of Dr Theo Morell, Hitler’s personal physician, who once complained he could no longer inject the drug

as nearly all of his patient’s veins had collapsed.

“I cancelled injections today, to give the previous puncture holes a chance to heal,” one entry reads.“Left inside elbow good, right still has red dots (but not pustules), where injections were given,” it says.Ohler said Hitler began the drugs regime after narrowly surviving the 1944 assassination attempt known as Operation Valkyrie, in which the German resistance planted a bomb in a briefcase under his desk.The explosion shattered both of Hitler’s eardrums, riddled his body with splinters from a wooden table that shielded him from the blast and turned him into a nervous wreck.

“I’m afraid that from 1944 onwards, Hitler did not spend a single day sober,” Ohler was quoted as saying.

“Before then, he was a very public person...but the attempt on his life left him withdrawn, paranoid and anxious. He demanded that Dr Morell restore him to his former confident self, so from that point on he received thousands of injections –- most frequently Eukodol, which is like heroin but with a greater potential to make you euphoric,” he said.

In an extract from the book itself, Ohler writes: “Germany, land of drugs, of escapism and worldweariness, had been looking for a super-junkie.”

“And it had found him, in its darkest hour, in Adolf Hitler,” it says.

As the drugs took their toll, Hitler’s decision-making became more erratic.

Antony Beevor, a British war historian, said the book’s findings explained Hitler’s “completely irrational” military tactics during the Battle of the Bulge, which was the dictator’s last-ditch attempt to defeat the allies.“All of these elements show how he was really no longer in control of himself, but he was still in control of the German armies,” he told the BBC’s Today programme.

LONDON A British chef went on trial on Wednesday accused of drugging and murdering four young men he met on gay networking sites, then dumping their bodies in or near a graveyard close to his London home.Stephen Port, 41, invited the men back to his flat and spiked their drinks or injected them with drugs so he could have sex with them while they were unconscious, a London court heard.Four of his victims died of overdoses and Port is accused of dragging their bodies outside, planting bottles of the party drug GHB on some of them and writing a fake suicide note for another.

He is accused of sexually assaulting or raping another eight victims who survived.“In the pursuit of nothing more than his own sexual gratification, (Port) variously drugged, sexually assaulted and in four cases killed

young gay men he had invited back to his flat,” prosecuting lawyer Jonathan Rees said.Port faces 29 charges relating to 12 men between February 2012 and October 2015, including the murders of four men in their 20s.

All four died in “strikingly similar” circumstances, the court heard, and in each case, Port is accused of lying to police about his involvement with the victims.

Port denies all the charges against him.The court heard how Port was attracted to smaller men with boyish looks, known as “twinks”, who he met on social networking sites such as Grindr. He also allegedly used the sites to buy a range of drugs, including poppers, Viagra, Meow Meow a synthetic stimulant and GHB and GBL, chemically similar substances which can induce euphoria but can also have strong sedative effects.

Australian gamers shift from megabytes to ‘live action’ SYDNEY A high-pitched scream pierces the air as a “zombie witch” in a dirty, white dress sprints down a street at a Sydney university, hair whipping around wild eyes as she chases a group desperately scrambling to get out of her way.

Welcome to “Zedtown” - an adventure event where competitors play out a zombie apocalypse: people race to reach an evacuation point to ensure their survival, but must also avoid being caught and turned by the “undead”.

Described interchangeably as a giant game of zombie-themed tag and a ‘liveaction’ video game, the events capitalise on an emerging legion of gamers who have grown up battling virtual enemies on computer screens - and now want to experience such fantasies in real life. “It’s a great feeling having hundreds of fully grown men and women running away in legitimate fear from you.

It’s really exhilarating,” the woman who plays the zombie witch, Katerina Halkeas, tells AFP. “Video games themselves are becoming so much more immersive. And then when you have something like this, it’s really the next step,” adds Halkeas, who took her inspiration from a character in the “Left 4 Dead” video game.

But unlike computer games, in real life players can’t hit pause or pull the plug, or even head to the toilet without risking their “lives”. They have to keep running

to escape the threats in the game, adding to the heightened intensity.

The events kicks off with humans, dubbed “survivors”, outnumbering zombies, though all that is required to turn

who has plans to roll out the event in other cities.

Tasks and challenges are set for people to progress through the event space, and to try to make sure they don’t simply stay hidden.

someone into the undead is to tag or touch them.

Both sides are in an assortment of costumes and in high spirits.

The organisers add jeopardy at the start of the game by anointing a small faction, who appear to be survivors, as secret zombies.

This, players say, sows mistrust and quickly swells the number of those hunting, versus the number of those hunted.

“You find yourself talking to people you wouldn’t have otherwise spoken to and relying on those people for your life and... you form intense relationships quickly,” says Zedtown creator David Harmon,

As darkness falls, tensions rise and the ranks of the undead thicken - sometimes chanting “one of us” in hordes to scare the few remaining survivors as they make a last-gasp attempt to reach the evacuation point.

“Emotionally, it’s an absolute rush,” says player Ian Kilburn, whose long, tattered blackhooded cloak “Death” costume, which includes a sickle tossed over his shoulders, is well-known among Zedtown participants.

“I’ve always been blown away by the costumes and the effort that everyone goes to to make it a very fun experience,” he tells AFP during the Zedtown game held at

the University of New South Wales.

Such is the demand to play, tickets for the most recent event at UNSW, which cost Aus$45 (US$34) each, sold out within minutes.

Shooting games such as laser tag or paintball have been around for some time but Zedtown taps into a trend blending vintage video game concepts with reality.

Pokemon Go, which is based on software first launched in 1996 for Nintendo’s iconic Game Boy console, uses players’ smartphone cameras and satellite location to enable them to see cartoon monsters to capture - in real-world settings.

Escape the Room computer games such as the Submachine Series and Mystery of Time and Space, where players have to solve riddles and puzzles to reach the next level and ultimately leave, have spawned physical adventures - known as Escape Rooms - where participants are locked in a room and have to solve problems to get out.The next generation of games though, will see consumers playing in the physical world but immersing themselves in settings and against foes in the virtual world, industry experts say. Oculus Rift, the virtual reality system and headset owned by Facebook, was released in the US in March and the UK in late September to favourable consumer responses.

“VR isn’t a thing you do, it’s a

place you visit,” one gamer said in an online review of the US$599 device.

Tim Ruse, chief executive of start-up Zero Latency, says he has seen huge interest in his firm’s virtual reality system.

Competitors - sporting headsets and carrying backpacks with a computer as well as fake guns enter a large warehouse and explore different simulated settings. These include battling zombies, an arcade-style game where you defend a fort, and an outer-space exploration scenario.

Just a year after launching in Melbourne, Zero Latency are expanding their model to the United States, Spain and Japan at Sega’s amusement park in Tokyo. “I guess humans have always - from storytelling to cinema to gaming - sought to remove themselves from reality,” Ruse tells AFP, adding: “I think this next generation of fully immersive experiences are that next level of entertainment or escapism.”

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Invasive insects cause tens of billions in damage PARIS Invasive insects cause at least $77 billion (69 billion euros) in damage every year, according to a study released Tuesday that says this figure is “grossly underestimated” because it covers only a fraction of the globe.

Climate change is on track to boost the area affected by nearly 20 percent before mid-century, the authors reported in the journal Nature Communications.

Canvassing more than 700 recent scientific studies, researchers looked at the impact of non-native species on goods and services, healthcare and agricultural output.

Most of these studies applied to North America and Europe, which means the devastation wrought by crop-chomping and disease-carrying bugs from afar has not been adequately measured, the authors said. The most destructive of the insects

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canvassed was the Formosan subterranean termite, which lives in huge colonies and feasts on wooden structures and living trees. It has infested large swathes of the United States and has proven impossible to eradicate.

The diamondback moth, which originated in the Mediterranean region, has also spread worldwide and is a voracious consumer of so-called cruciferous crops: broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy and especially cabbage.

Also in the rogues’ gallery of invasive insects are the brown spruce longhorn beetle (which ravages evergreen trees, especially in Canada), the gypsy moth (tree defoliation) and the Asian long-horned beetle (which attacks temperate forests).

Insects are “probably the costliest animal group to human society,” a team of researchers led by Franck Courchamp from France’s National Centre for Scientific Research concluded.

The global health bill attributable to invasive insects tops six billion dollars (5.4 billion euros), in large measure due to the impact of Dengue fever, a tropical disease spread by mosquitoes.

The estimate does not include the impact of malaria, the Zika virus or economic losses in tourism or productivity, the researchers said.

Global warming - which has seen

Pak PM Sharif’s family denies owning businesses, properties in India

Lahore Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s family has refuted as “baseless” allegations by Pakistan Tehreeke-Insaf chief Imran Khan that they own properties and businesses in India.

The Sharif family’s spokesperson said that the prime minister’s kin do not own and run any businesses in India.

“Imran Khan should not misguide the nation by propaganda,” said the spokesman.He said that Imran should be “ashamed” of spreading baseless allegations and lies. “Imran Khan has time and again claimed that the Sharif family has businesses in India, although the allegations have always been denied by the latter as baseless,” he was quoted as saying by Geo News.

In September, Pakistani politician Tahirul Qadri had also

pointed out ties between the Indian workers and Sharif family which were later refuted by Yousaf Abbas Sharif, the Managing Director (MD), Sharif Group of Industries.

Yousaf Abbas Sharif had also said that not a single Indian is working in Sharif family sugar mill.

Earlier this year, Prime Minister’s son Hussain Nawaz also denied any links to business partnerships in India.

Hussain had said that his family neither owns any commercial business in India, nor are they involved in a business partnership with any Indian industrialist anywhere in the world.

In 2015, Imran had claimed that Sharif has earned $60 million from his business with India including setting up of two new sugar mills.

average surface temperatures climb one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in the last 150 years - has pushed plants and animals towards the poles, especially northward.

“The distribution of many invasive

colonised new territories, but they have managed to wreak havoc all the same.

Only a tenth of insect species that wind up in another part of the world become established, and only ten percent of these

species is today limited by temperature barriers, and climate change could allow them to invade regions that were inhospitable up to now, said Courchamp.

There are some 2.5 million insect species in the world. Only a tiny percentage - some 2,200 - have

qualify as invasive, the study notes.The best way to combat this growing threat - spread mainly through international commerce - is not more pesticides, said Courchamp.

“We’ve see how well that worked,” he told AFP. Nor is it genetic manipulation

such as gene drive, a technology that makes it possible to engineer local extinctions by releasing males into the wild that produce only male offspring.

“The solution is better ‘biosecurity’,” said Courchamp.

“This includes inspection of ship and air cargo from certain regions, legislation to ensure that high-risk imports must be treated and rapid eradication of new incursions.”

All insects, including those in their native habitat, take a heavy toll on agriculture, consuming 30 to 40 percent of global harvests - enough to feed a billion people.

Mosquito-borne diseases, especially malaria, claim hundreds of thousands of lives every year. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) maintains a database of invasive species with nearly 900 species currently listed, including plants, animals, bacteria and fungus. The UN Convention on Biodiversity has said that “priority” invasive species should be “controlled or eradicated” by 2020.

By 2024, China may be the only country to have a space station Beijing China will be the only country to have a space station in service in 2024 as the International Space Station currently in service would retire by then, a Chinese space official said on Friday.

When the International Space Station retires in 2024, China’s space station may be the only one left in service, Lei Fanpei, chairman of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp.

(CASC) said.

China recently successfully launched a second experimental space lab. Two astronauts were expected to join the lab later this month for month long stay and experiments. The main lab was expected to be ready by 2022.

China plans to launch the experimental core module of its space station around 2018 with a Long March-5 heavy load carrier rocket, and the 20 tonne combination space station will

be sent into orbit around 2022, Lei was quoted as saying by state-run Xinhua news agency.

China’s space station will include a core module and two lab modules, with ports that will allow multiple spacecraft to dock, Lei said.

After that, a manned spacecraft and cargo spacecraft will travel between the space station and the Earth to provide supplies.

Taikonauts, a Chinese astronaut,

can stay at the space station for over one year. The space station has a designed life of 10 years in orbit 400 km above the earth surface.

With this space station, China will become the second country after Russia to have developed a space station, Lei said.

China in 1992 made a three-step strategy for its manned space program, the large-scale manned space station being the last step.

Britain will allow EU citizens to stay after Brexit: Reports London All European Union (EU) citizens currently living in Britain will be able to stay after Brexit, a newspaper reported on Saturday, citing unnamed cabinet ministers, despite the government’s refusal to publicly guarantee their status.

Official research suggests that more than 80 percent of the 3.6 million EU citizens living in Britain will be eligible for residency by the time Britain is expected to leave the European Union in 2019, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Under plans being drawn up by the interior ministry, the remainder would be offered some

kind of amnesty involving the right to permanently stay in Britain, it said.Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May said she “fully expects” to be able to guarantee the rights of EU citizens to stay

in Britain, but said it was dependent on the rights accorded to Britons living elsewhere in the EU.Earlier this week, International Trade Secretary Liam Fox repeated her position, and said that their fate was part of Britain’s negotiating hand.

“To give that away before we get into the negotiation would be to hand over one of our main cards in that negotiation and doesn’t necessarily make sense at this point,” he told a fringe meeting at the Conservative party conference.

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One in five Japan employees Indian-origin barrister Shami Chakrabarti in UK shadow cabinet face ‘death from overwork’ London Expanding the shadow cabinet, newly re-elected Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on Friday appointed prominent human rights barrister Shami Chakrabarti to the role of shadow attorney-general, taking the

number of non-white MPs in his cabinet to a high of five.

The expansion was supposed to be an attempt to reunite the party after the recent bruising leadership contest, but none of

Corbyn’s critics who left his cabinet in recent weeks found a place in the new team.

Chakrabarti is the only Indianorigin member in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, but Barry Gardiner, shadow energy minister and shadow secretary

of state for international trade, is known for his proximity to Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the days the latter was Gujarat chief minister.

Accepting the shadow cabinet

UK PM Theresa May likely to visit India in November

role, Chakrabarti said it was “an enormous privilege” “I hope to follow in a great tradition of law officers on both sides of the aisle who have defended rights, freedoms and the rule of law,” she said.

Many MPs were said to be dismayed that Rosie Winterton, the opposition chief whip, was sacked from her post, to be replaced by former prime minister Gordon Brown’s aide, Nick Brown.Corbyn’s long-time aide, Diane Abbott, was made the shadow home secretary.

Chakrabarti, 47, is the former director of campaign group Liberty.

She was elevated to the House of Lords just a month after she concluded a report into alleged anti-semitism in the Labour party. Her peerage was criticised

by MPs and others who questioned her independence.

However, Chakrabarti, who studied law at the London School of Economics, insisted there was “nothing remotely transactional” about her inquiry report that absolved the party of anti-semitism.

Her rise in politics has been described as rapid.

A former lawyer for the Home Office, Chakrabarti was a panel member of the Leveson inquiry into phone hacking and carried the London Olympics flag in the 2012 opening ceremony.

TOKYO-A fifth of the Japanese workforce faces the risk of death from overwork, according to a new government survey into the country’s notoriously strenuous working culture. Hundreds of deaths related to overwork - from strokes, heart attacks and suicide - are reported every year in Japan, along with a host of serious health problems, sparking lawsuits and calls to tackle the problem. The survey was part of the nation’s first white paper on “karoshi”, or death from overwork, endorsed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet on Friday. While the popular image of Japanese salarymen toiling long hours for the company before taking the last train home is changing, many still spend far more hours in the office than counterparts in other modern

economies. According to the paper, 22.7 percent of companies polled between December 2015 and January 2016 said some of their employees logged more than 80 hours of overtime each month the official threshold at which the prospect of death from work becomes serious.

The report added that approximately 21.3 percent of Japanese employees work 49 or more hours each week on average, well above the 16.4 percent reported in the US, 12.5 percent in Britain and 10.4 in France. The survey concluded that Japanese employees also reported feeling high levels of stress related to their work, pushing officials to call on companies to improve working conditions.

Another Indian-origin MP in UK shadow cabinet London Prime Minister Theresa May, who often mentions India as a key market for a post-Brexit Britain, is likely to visit New Delhi during the first India-UK Tech Summit scheduled for November 7-9.

There is no confirmation yet from the Indian side, but efforts were on to ensure that May’s first visit to India as the prime minister takes place to signal Britain’s eagerness to forge a free trade agreement after the country exits the European Union. Initial talks have already been held on this issue.

May previously visited Hyderabad as Home secretary in November 2012 to address top officers in the National Police Academy, and mentioned how the lessons of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks were incorporated in Britain’s security forces.

The British side is keen to focus on a free trade agreement, but the issue of new plans for immigration curbs announced at the Conservative party

conference earlier this week is expected to figure during the visit, since it would affect Indian professionals and students.

The plans have dismayed Indian circles, particularly after leading lights of the Brexit campaign had promised an easier immigration policy post Brexit for professionals from India and other Commonwealth countries, including allowing recruitment of chefs from the Indian subcontinent to ease severe shortages in Britain’s multibillion pound Indian food industry.

“Given the current climate in India, May will also be expected to say something on Pakistan’s export of terrorism when she is there”, a senior functionary told Hindustan Times.

Britain condemned the September 18 Uri attack in a statement, but Indian circles bristled at the statement calling Jammu and Kashmir as “Indianadministered Kashmir”, which some saw as reiterating Pakistan’s conception of the Indian state.

London Valerie Vaz, who entered British parliament in 2010 and retained her seat in the 2015 election, has become the second Indian-origin woman to be inducted in the shadow cabinet led by Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Vaz, 61, is the sister of senior Labour MP Keith Vaz and represents Walsall South constituency in the west Midlands. Her family traces its roots to Goa. She has been appointed shadow leader of the House of Commons in the new team put together by Corbyn. This is her first frontbench job since entering Parliament and involves watching complex parliamentary processes on Labour’s behalf.

Corbyn appointed human rights barrister Shami Chakrabarti on Friday as the shadow attorney general in the opposition cabinet that is mandated to scrutinise the work of corresponding ministers, develop alternative policies and hold the government to account.

The new appointments in the shadow cabinet were supposed to be a unifying exercise in the party riven by dissensions against Corbyn, but most of his trenchant critics have not found

a place in it. The exercise has further strengthened his position but also increased uneasiness within Labour.

The Labour parliamentary party

However, shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said the criticism of Corbyn was unfair.

She told BBC Radio: “The problem is that on the one hand

had passed a motion of noconfidence in Corbyn. John Cryer, chairman of the parliamentary party, wrote to Corbyn and reminded him of ongoing talks to allow elections to some shadow cabinet posts while retaining his right to appoint to other posts.

As senior Labour leader Alan Johnson insisted the re-elected Corbyn was still not up to the job of leader of the opposition, Cryer wrote: “It now seems to me that the party’s leadership did not engage in the talks in any constructive way...Obviously, I deeply regret this turn of events.”

people criticise Jeremy for being weak and taking too long on his reshuffles and yet when he decides that he needs to do one in order to fill vacancies and reach out, people then criticise him for being too decisive and too strong. You can’t play it both ways.”

It was time, Thornberry said, “we stop fighting among ourselves”.

She added, “We have a job to do. We were elected to be MPs, represent our constituents and stand up to the government.

That’s what our priority ought to be and we need to get on with it.”

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Brazil’s biggest dinosaur found after passing 60 years in cupboard RIO DE JANEIRO Brazil just found its biggest ever dinosaur - in a storage cupboard.

In its prime, more than 66 million years ago, this long necked herbivore was 25 meters (82 feet) long - longer than an articulated bus - and could chomp through trees at a terrifying rate.

By the time the creature was found by renowned Brazilian paleontologist Llewellyn Ivor Price in 1953, only a few hefty, fossilized bits of the spine remained.

Researchers knew immediately they’d stumbled on something big.

They didn’t have the staff or resources to figure out how big, however, so the dinosaur pieces languished the next six decades in storage at Rio’s ornate Museum of Earth Sciences.

Until now.

The remains of what has been named “Austroposeidon magnificus,” and pronounced Brazil’s biggest dinosaur, went on general public view for the first time Thursday.

A nearly complete spinal vertebra - about the size of a microwave oven and entirely petrified - and numerous fragments of other vertebrae lie on a black cloth in an upper room of the museum.

Nearby hangs an enormous artist’s rendition, done to scale, of what “Austroposeidon magnificus” might have looked like: a small head, long neck, enormous body and long tail.

“It sounds a bit ridiculous to say this. “ But he explained that in the 1950s Price and his assistants were pioneers in the field for Brazil, and while “it was certain

A patch of the reptile’s skin is shown pulled back to reveal where the prize vertebra would have slotted in.

Museum director Diogenes de Almeida Campos said six decades does sound on the slow side for studying such a big find.

“A friend said to me just yesterday, ‘Diogones, what, it took you 60 years?’,” he recalled with a wry smile.

that vertebrae of this size came from a gigantic animal, it needed to be studied.”

Campos said money was an issue holding back research, as well as a lack of people up to the task.

Even today there are only 10 serious dinosaur experts in the country, he said.

“We were waiting for the staff,” he said. ”We made a first effort with students about eight years ago and it didn’t succeed.”

Finally, Campos’ student Kamila Bandeira made the mysterious

Mini ‘Pepper’ robots start new jobs in Taiwan

monster the subject of her doctoral thesis and over the last four years put the pieces of the puzzle together.

The most spectacular dinosaur discoveries come in desert or largely bare areas, such as the US southwest, the south of Argentina or Mongolia, where they are easier to find.

The fossilized bones of the biggest dinosaur known to date - an estimated 40 meters (130 feet) long - were unearthed in Argentina in 2014.

“Austroposeidon magnificus” was found, like many other dinosaur remains, by chance during road building near Sao Paulo.

The reason only a few fossilized bones were found - and not the whole skeleton - points to the creature’s unceremonious end, Campos says.

“When these animals die, it’s. a huge new source of meat.

So all the hunters, the carnivores ate this creature.

The first thing they ate is the head, because the brain must be tasty,” said Campos.

“They also broke the long bones to get at the marrow. .After, came smaller animals and nothing was left over.

Anything that did remain the beetles and the spiders and the ants finished, and when there was just bones, the bacteria came.

Finally the remains sank into the

lagoon.”

There may be many such discoveries waiting to be made in Brazil’s thick flora.

“Pay attention when roads are built, when wells are dug,” Campos advised.

“You could have a dinosaur in your backyard and not realize!”

A lifetime hanging around fossils of extinct giants has given Campos, 73, unique perspective on creation and destruction.

But today’s world, where human activity dominates for the first time, disturbs him.

“Extinction is as normal a thing for paleontologists, as is the appearance of a new species,” he said.

“But in comparison with what’s happening today - the disappearance of tigers or whales - this is not caused by nature.”

“It’s worrying.” In the palatial but at times shockingly decrepit Rio museum - a victim, like many other Brazilian public institutions, of underfunding Campos said his job was a great passion. He recalled studying under the great Price and “traveling with him over almost all of Brazil, collecting materials.”

Tears sprang to his eyes as he pointed out that he, Price and Bandiera were all now linked in a kind of paleontologists’ family tree. Dinosaur hunting, he said, his voice brimming with emotion, “is an activity you can compare to art.

Myanmar jails Dutch tourist for pulling plug on Buddhist sermon

TAIPEI A shiny new cohort joined the workforce in Taiwan Thursday a troop of mini robots all going by the name “Pepper”, enlisted to entertain customers and give them the hard sell. Chinesespeaking Pepper was introduced into two banks and an insurance company in the capital Taipei, dancing to music, playing with children in lobbies and leading staff aerobics sessions. The pint-size white automatons are designed to flatter queueing customers, declaring: “It’s my honour to serve you”.

Skilled in public relations, they guess clients’ ages at far lower than reality.

Then they move in for the kill, providing information on financial products and encouraging customers to go to company websites and sales staff for information. Cathay Life Insurance, Taiwan’s biggest insurer, introduced its first Pepper into its Taipei branch Thursday.

The firm plans to have 10 robots island-wide, but stressed that Pepper is meant to supplement its human colleagues, not sideline them.

“Pepper’s job is to greet customers and introduce products to make the wait for services less boring,” said Rachel Wang, the insurer’s executive vice president.

“We hope it can do more in the future, but it definitely won’t replace our staff,” she said.

Standing 120-centimetres (fourfoot) tall, the robot was first unveiled by Japanese mobile carrier SoftBank in 2014, whose French arm Aldebaran developed the technology.

Pepper has a wide-eyed face perched on top of a white plastic body, with rollers and what looks like a tablet computer on its chest showing its name.

The robots have already been introduced into other workplaces around the world, including in Japan and France.

MANDALAY A Myanmar court on Thursday jailed a Dutch tourist for three months with hard labour for insulting religion after he unplugged an amplifier relaying a late-night Buddhist sermon.

Klass Haytema, 30, was arrested two weeks ago after he pulled the plug on the Buddhist service held near his hotel in the northern city of Mandalay, complaining about the noise.

Slights against religion are treated with extreme seriousness by the courts and a pious public in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.Delivering the ruling, a judge on Thursday said Haytema was “clearly guilty” of insulting religion and was “sentenced to three months imprisonment with hard labour”.The Dutchman, who cried while the sentence was read, also opted to pay a fine of 100,000 kyat ($80) rather than serve another three months for violating the terms of his visa, which requires tourists to respect local customs. Haytema apologised during previous hearings, according to local media, saying he did not realise what he was doing and simply wanted to sleep. He was also accused of insulting Buddhism by not taking off his shoes when he entered the prayer hall.

Haytema is one of several foreigners to recently fall foul of the law, which criminalises “voluntary” disruption of a

religious ceremony.

In July, a Spanish tourist was deported after monks complained about a tattoo of Buddha on his leg.

Last year a New Zealand bar manager also spent 10 months in jail for “insulting religion” by using a Buddha image to promote a cheap drinks night.

Religion is an important part of daily life for many across the devout country, where crimsonrobed monks walk the streets every morning and prayer halls regularly blast hypnotic chants on loudspeakers late into the evening.

The nation has also battled a rising tide of radical Buddhist nationalism in recent years, with Mandalay a stronghold of the monk-led movement.

The clash of cultures has become a growing problem as

the former junta-run country sees a surge in tourism under a new civilian government, the first in half a century.

Other countries in the region have also chafed at irreverent portrayals of the Buddha.

In neighbouring Thailand, posters in airports warn arriving visitors not to buy figurines or get tattoos of the holy figure.

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Issue 686 (35)

27 Sept. - 3 Oct., 2016

Virat Kohli & Co register comprehensive 197 run win in 500th Test

Kanpur Indian cricket team made their 500th Test memorable as they thrashed New Zealand by 197 runs in the opening Test of the three-match series played at Green Park.

R Ashwin, who has been in brilliant form in the last few years, was once again India’s hero as he claimed another fivewicket haul.

Chasing an impossible 434-run target, Kiwis were bowled out for

236 in 87.3 overs on the final day of the opening Test.

Resuming on 93/4, New Zealand were off to a good start in the first session where Mitchell Santer and Luke Ronchi, two unbeaten batsmen on Day 4 continued to frustrate the Indian team with a brilliant fifth-wicket stand. Both the batsmen played some delightful strokes and India had to wait for quite some time for the first breakthrough in the morning session.

It came in the 58th over of the innings when Ronchi (80) perished while trying to hit Ravindra Jadeja for a six. He played against the spin and holed one towards point which was easily caught by Ashwin.

The wicket also ended the 102run stand for the fifth wicket.

Mohammed Shami then provided two quick breakthroughs when he dismissed BJ Watling (18) and Mark Craig (1) in consecutive overs. After lunch, Ashwin claimed the remaining three wickets, including the wicket of Santner(71), and also completed yet another tenwicket haul.

India now lead the three-match series 1-0.

Ravindra Jadeja, who picked six wickets and scored valuable 92 runs, was adjudged Man of the Match. The second Test is scheduled to be played from September 30 at Eden Gardens in Kolkata.

Future of tennis Zverev stuns Wawrinka to win maiden ATP title London US Open champion Stan Wawrinka came up short against rising German star Alexander Zverev in the Saint Petersburg Open final on Sunday, the teenager claiming his maiden ATP title 6-2, 3-6, 7-5.

Zverev, the 19-year-old Monte Carlo resident, came into the final full of confidence and broke the Swiss top seed’s serve twice for a one-set lead in 39 minutes.

In the second set, world number three Wawrinka, who has won 11 of his previous ATP finals, also broke twice to level at oneset all after one hour, 22 minutes on court.

Wawrinka, 31, broke early in the deciding set but the 27-ranked

Zverev broke back twice to close out his win in two hours, 23 minutes.

“I’m full of emotions! I just couldn’t have chosen a better place to win my maiden title,” said Zverev, who has Russian origins, at the hardcourt of Sibur Arena.

“It was really hard when I was trailing 3-0 in the deciding set but I forced myself to keep on fighting. And now I’m really happy with my win.”

Will speak to AIFF on clubs Viv Richards backs expansion of pulling out of I-League, says cricket to non-traditional nations Sports Minister Vijay Goel

New Delhi Sports Minister Vijay Goel on Monday expressed unhappiness over the top football clubs of the country leaving the I-League and promised to speak to the All India Football Federation (AIFF) to look into the matter.

Talking on the sidelines of the unveiling of the BRICS U-17 football tournament logo in Panaji, Goel said, “I will speak to those from the federation and ask them to find a resolution to the problem. He was asked if he was concerned about the exodus of top-flight teams from the Ileague, following the emergence of Indian Super League (ISL).

Top teams from Goa like the

Salgaocar FC and Sporting Clube de Goa have already exited the I-League, while former league winners Dempo FC are also expected to follow suit.

Goel said both he as well as Prime Minister Narendra Modi were keen on promoting football and other sports in the country.

He added that the U-17 tournament, which will be held parallel to the BRICS Summit, will strengthen the ties between the member states.

“We should encourage such games between member states as that will increase bonding and create a warm atmosphere between the people of those countries,” Goel said.

Legendary former West Indies captain Vivian Richards has thrown his support behind the expansion of cricket to nontraditional nations.

The 64-year-old, the symbol of West Indies cricket supremacy during the late 1970s and 80s, said many Asians and the West Indians were now residing in countries like the United States which did not have a rich cricket legacy and it was therefore important that the game was pushed into such markets, reports bdnews24.com.

“The influence of Asians like Indians and Pakistanis is huge in cricket. Despite leaving their country, they want to be part of cricket,” he said, currently in Dubai working as a TV media analyst for the ongoing West Indies-Pakistan series.

“So folks from these countries who live in this part of the world have brought cricket culture here and in the process cricket has spread its wings.”

He added: “Cricket should reach countries which have no cricketing tradition. There are folks from all over the world who love cricket living in America. They have been missing the game after they left

home.”

“If it can be brought to America in a big way, there is going to be a wide clientele especially as far as Twenty20 is concerned.”

Only last month, the West Indies and India made history when they played a two-match Twenty20 International series at the Central Broward Regional Park Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, United States. It represented the first time the two nations had played a bilateral series in North America. Richards, who never lost a Test series as captain, is also widely considered the most dominant batsman of his era. He

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plundered 8540 runs in 121 Tests at an average of 50 and 6721 runs from 187 One-Day Internationals at an average of 47. He was at the forefront of the limited overs revolution, helping the West Indies to win the first two 50overs World Cups, and emerged as one of the drawing cards for one-day cricket during the 80s. Richards, who played several One-Days in Sharjah during his time, said the entire United Arab Emirates had been pivotal to cricket development. “I have been impressed on coming back to the UAE to see not just that stadium in Sharjah but two more in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. For me, Emirates have become sort of huge as far as cricket is concerned,” he pointed out.

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Issue 686 (36)

27 Sept. - 3 Oct., 2016

Bengal man Musa, now being grilled by NIA, is an ominous symbol of a new kind of terrorism sneaking into the country

CONFESSIONS OF ISIS’ INDIAN LONEWOLF New Delhi and Dhaka MOHAMMAD Masiuddin was a travelling terrorist till authorities arrested him two months ago. Better known as Musa, the 25- year-old from West Bengal’s Birbhum district emerged as the face of trans-national, trans-organisational jihad, which is the newest threat to India’s security even as the country fights Pakistansponsored terrorism on the western borders. The man in the National Investigation Agency’s custody had two handlers— ISIS India head Shafi Armar who’s now based in Syria, and Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen member Abu Suleman, a Bangladeshi national and a wanted terrorist. Musa had moved from West Bengal to Tamil Nadu where he worked at a shop in Tirupur. Like many ISIS recruits, he got radicalised online. A terror plan in mind, he recced his carefully chosen targets

in J&K and West Bengal.

But what surprised even the NIA was when he appeared in a YouTube video, raising the ISIS flag in downtown Srinagar.

India has the world’s thirdlargest Muslim population at nearly 175 million but only a handful of them have joined the West Asian group. However, JMB, which is aspiring to set up a Bangladeshi

Caliphate, has been active in India and has set up base in states like West Bengal, Jharkhand and Assam.

Analysts say growing radicalisation in the neighbouring country has made it a hotbed for ISIS-inspired extremists who could spill over to India or weave alliances to carry out attacks. Musa is the Indian face of ISIS JMB, an ominous symbol of new kind of terrorism. He travelled to Kokata and Srinagar to recce targets on instructions from Shafi Armar alias Yusuf Al Hindi who asked him to hit foreign nationals from the United States, UK, Canada and Israel.

Armar started off as a member of the banned militant outfit Indian Mujahideen. In early 2009, he fled to Pakistan with a few of its topranking members – including Riyaz and Iqbal Bhatkal.

He later left IM to join ISIS and is involved in

recruiting and luring Indian youth. Musa told NIA and Bangladeshi interrogators who visited Kolkata to question him this month that Abu Suleman was his handler for JMB. Even as a siege unfolded on July 1 at a Dhaka cafe that shook the world, India watched with bated breath as Rapid Action Bangladesh (RAB) forces dealt with one of the deadliest terror attacks there. The key link to the strike emerging from India was not just Indian televangelist Zakir Naik who is under the home ministry scanner, but also the links to the JMB wing owing allegiance to ISIS. Soon after the attack, Suleman, a wanted man, was suspected to have slipped into West Bengal. He had earlier visited India twice, raising alarm bells in the security establishment.

When asked by Suleman to join JMB full-time, Musa simply said, “I have a family.” In India, Suleman attempted to set up a JMB module with the help of Musa, who was then working in Tirpur.

Musa’s journey to the JMB-ISIS module began in June 2015, when he liked a Facebook page of ISIS Bangladesh from the id Sabilillahkhan.

He was instantly contacted by Suleman, also known as Jihadi John.

Musa had Rs 60,000 in his bank account, money he had saved by selling a small property. He used his own money to travel to both Bengal and Kashmir. He took the long route to Srinagar, reaching till Jammu by train and then taking a bus. Musa then visited Kolkata where he reportedly bought a 13-inch machete. He then boarded the Visva Bharati passenger train from Howrah and left for his hometown in Birbhum. Acting on specific intelligence by the NIA, he was picked up by GRP and Burdwan police.

Issue 686 (37)

27 Sept. - 3 Oct., 2016

Health 7 most common reasons why your hair is falling out!

New Delhi Almost everyone experiences some type of hair loss as they age. But not all hair loss is the same; it could be due to several reasons, including hormonal changes, heredity, medications or some serious underlying conditions.

Hair loss is considered normal when you lose up to 100 hairs a day, but when this limit is crossed and a person has excessive hair shedding it may be a sign of more serious condition that needs an evaluation by a medical doctor and treatment. Here are some common reasons why your hair is falling out: Stress Both physical and emotional stress can cause hair loss. Intense physical stress such as childbirth, surgery, etc,

can result in hair loss for several months after delivery. Also, extreme mental stress and anxiety can contribute to hair loss.

Hormonal changes Hormonal changes, which take place as a result of various conditions, including pregnancy, childbirth or the onset of menopause can cause temporary hair loss.

Besides, man can also lose hair as their hormonal composition changes with age.

Thyroid disorders Perhaps, hair loss is a

common side effect of thyroid disorders. Both hypothyroidism (too little thyroid hormone) and hyperthyroidism (too much) can cause hair to fall out. Treating the thyroid disorder can help the hair grow back.

Lupus Thinning hair is often one of the first signs of lupus, an autoimmune disease that causes thinning of the hair on your scalp. Some people may experience thinning of the beard, eyebrows, eyelashes, and other body hair.

Medical conditions A long-term illness, such as cancer, liver disease or inflammatory bowel disease can lead to hair thinning. Also, skin conditions such as psoriasis and dermatitis can interfere with hair growth.

Medications Drugs used for cancer, arthritis, depression, heart problems, high blood pressure and birth control may cause hair loss.

Genetics Hereditary - pattern baldness - a natural condition caused by some combination of genetics, hormone levels and the aging process -is the most common cause of hair loss. Although, this hereditary condition usually occurs in both male and female, it is most common in men and can begin as early as puberty.

Try these home remedies to treat high blood pressure!

New Delhi High blood pressure is a chronic medical condition which boost the risk of developing many health related problems like heart disease, stroke and kidney failure.

People get to know that they have high blood pressure is by getting it measured by a professional. But, one can treat their high blood pressure without any medication with the help of natural remedies.

Here are some home remedies to treat high blood pressure: Garlic Include garlic in your daily diet if you want to treat your high blood

pressure because it acts as a natural medicine and helps in lowering cholesterol. It also keeps the blood pressure in check.

Onion and honey Start having a cup of onion juice with two table spoon of honey daily to lower your blood pressure.

Carrot Drink a glass of carrot and spinach juice twice a day to lower your blood pressure.

Beet root Beet root juice is also helps in lowering your blood pressure. SO, drink this healthy juice twice a day to treat high blood pressure.

Want to get rid of Talking to a nurse may persuade acne? Eat these foods! smokers to quit smoking

New York Talking to a trained nurse might help smokers to quit smoking, a study has found.The research shows that selfreported quit rates increased when nurses and other staff members were trained to coach patients on how to stop smoking.”Hospitalisation is the perfect time to help people quit. They are more motivated and nurses can explain how smoking harms their health, including slowing healing,” said Sonia Duffy, Professor at The Ohio State University in the study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.The study looked at the quit rates of 1,528 patients,

who were discharged from the hospital after six months. Those who had been treated met with a nurse who had undergone a one-hour training on how to help people quit smoking.Six months after release, 16.5 per cent of the smokers from the intervention hospitals said they did quit, compared to 5.7 per cent from other hospitals. The researchers also looked at lab-confirmed quit rates based on urine tests and found a twofold difference among patients from intervention hospitals, but that data was not considered statistically significant.

According to the study, many smokers, even those who plan to quit, start smoking the minute they leave the hospital. Getting them started with a quitting plan while they are admitted to hospitals boosts their chances of success.”I hope hospital administrators will look beyond telephone quit lines to help people. Nurses have the greatest access to patients, they have relationships with patients and they can relate the benefits of quitting to the patient’s medical condition,” Duffy added.

New Delhi Nobody likes to have ugly acne marks and unwanted dark spots on their face. Acne is a common skin problem that occurs when oil and dead skin cells clog up your pores.It can pop up any time and its causes are many. It could be a genetic problem or hormonal or constipation or simply lifestyle issues. But one can simple prevent and cure acne by eating the right and healthy foods. Here are some foods that will help to get rid of acne: Spinach If you want to get of acne then include lots of green veggies like spinach in your daily diet. Being rich in chlorophyll, spinach

helps cleanse bacteria and toxins from the digestive tract and blood stream. The green veggie is also rich in Vitamin A that acts as an anti-acne agent.

Turmeric Turmeric helps in curing acne as it fights inflammation and brightens the appearance of the skin. It also acts as a natural remedy against internal bacteria and

toxins that lead to acne.

Carrots Eat lots of carrots along with a healthy diet to get rid of acne as they are rich in Vitamin A in the form of beta-carotene that work against it.

Salmon Salmon helps in getting rid of acne as it contains high amount of omega 3 fats, protein that boosts collagen in the skin and helps fight inflammation.

Issue 686 (38)

27 Sept. - 3 Oct., 2016

Obese and lean children have different gut bacteria

New York Children and teenagers who are obese have different microorganisms living in their digestive tract than those who are lean, according to a new study. The study finds gut microbiota or gut flora is closely related to fat distribution in children and teenagers.

“Our findings show children and teenagers with obesity have a different composition of gut flora than lean youth,” said Nicola Santoro, Researcher at the Yale University in Connecticut, US. “This suggests that targeted modifications to the specific species composing the human microbiota could be developed and could help to prevent or treat earlyonset obesity in the

future,” said Santoro.

The study examined gut microbiota and weight in 84 children and teenagers, who were between seven and 20 years old. The participants included 27 obese, 35 severely obese, seven overweight and 15 with normal weight.

The researchers analysed the participants’ gut microbiota and performed an MRI to measure body fat partitioning. They also tested blood samples and reviewed their three-day food diary.They found eight groups of gut microbiota that were linked to the amount of fat in the body.

Four of the microbial communities were seen flourishing in children and teens with obesity as compared to their normalweight counterparts.

Smaller amounts of the

other four microbial groups were found in participants, who were obese compared to children and teenagers of normal weight.

The gut microbiota found in youth, who were obese, tended to be more efficient at digesting carbohydrates than those found in teenagers and children’s gut from normal weight category.

In addition, the children with obesity had higher levels of short chain fatty acids in the blood than those of normal weight.

The study found short chain fatty acids — produced by some gut bacteria — to be associated with the production of fat in the liver.

“Our research suggests that short chain fatty acids can be converted to fat within the liver and then accumulate in the fat tissue,” said Santoro. The researchers said this association could signal that children with certain gut bacteria face a longterm risk of developing obesity. The study was published in the journal Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

Parent-child bonds may affect your midlife health New York Growing up in a well-off home can benefit a child’s physical health, but lack of good relationship with parents, or the presence of abuse, may affect health, as well as well-being during mid-life, a study has found.

“Good parent-child bonds may be necessary to enforce eating, sleeping and activity routines,” said researcher Assistant Professor Matthew A. Andersson at Baylor University in Texas, US. The study found that if the parent-child relationships are strained or abusive, meals may be less coordinated among the family, and children are more likely to eat sugary or high-fat foods as snacks, even in place of proper meals.

Sleep and activity routines could also become irregular, keeping children from developing healthy lifestyles and social and emotional skills necessary for successful ageing.

On the other hand, good parent-child bonds in

economically disadvantaged homes, might promote health, but do not seem to lessen the negative impact of low socioeconomic status as the children age, Andersson said.

Parents with less education and fewer financial advantages are more apt to threaten or force obedience rather than have constructive dialogue, and that may lessen warm relations.

In addition, disease rates or inflammation among those children when they become adults have been linked strongly to abuse, mistreatment or lower levels of parental warmth.

“Without adequate parentchild relationship quality to match, socio-economic advantage during childhood may not offer much protection against

major chronic disease as children become adults and reach middle age,” Andersson stated.

In the study, good health at mid-life was defined as being free from 28 possible conditions — cancer, circulatory or respiratory disease, endocrine diseases, nervous system diseases, infectious and parasitic diseases, skin and digestive disease and musculoskeletal conditions.

For the study, the team analysed data on disease or poor health of middleaged adults. They surveyed 2,746 respondents aged 25 to 75 in 1995 about their childhood treatment by parents.

Surveys were conducted again nearly 10 years later, with 1,692 of the individuals taking part.

New test to predict the exact duration an How depression is linked to avanced ovarian cancer patient would live diabetes during pregnancy London A new computer test has been developed that is helping doctors to accurately predict the survival span of women suffering from advanced ovarian cancer. The test, developed by experts at the Institute of Cancer Research in London, highlighted a ‘staggering’ difference between those patients who would live for five years or more and those who would die before that, reports Daily Mail. It examines the cell ‘ecosystem’ around secondary tumors, in other parts of the body, once cancer has spread from the ovaries.

The test gives a score

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according to whether the tumor spread is in one dominant cell type, or its more diverse cell population containing

immune or connective tissue cells.Scientists found that survival rates of women with high score were far more than those of women with a low score. Just 9 percent of women with a high score survived five years from diagnosis, compared with 42 per cent of those whose cancer spread were dominated by one

cell type. Doctors said the test will help in identifying those women, who have the most lifethreatening type of cancer

and who urgently need the most aggressive treatment.

About 7,000 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer each year in the UK and the disease kills about 4,000 women a year.

Symptoms can be vague and include feeling bloated or full, irregular periods or bleeding, tummy or back pain and passing urine more often than normal.

Pain during sex and constipation are other

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possible signs.

Researcher Yinyin Yuan said, “We used to think of tumors as simply a collection of cancer cells but we now know that they are often complex ecosystems made up of different types of healthy cell, too. Our study has revealed that diverse cell populations at the sites of cancer spread are a clinically important feature of particularly aggressive ovarian cancers.”

Adding, “We have developed a new test to assess the diversity of metastatic sites and use it to predict a woman’s chances of surviving their disease.” “More work is needed to refine our test and move it into the clinic but, in future, it could be used to identify women with especially aggressive ovarian cancers so they can be treated with the best possible therapies available on the NHS or through clinical trials,” said Yuan. Research on the test involved 61 women with 192 secondary tumours.

New York Depression in early pregnancy more than doubles the risk of gestational diabetes, which, in turn, increases risk of postpartum depression six weeks after giving birth, says a study.Gestational diabetes is a form of diabetes occurring only in pregnancy and, if untreated, may cause serious health problems for mother and infant.”Our data suggest that depression and gestational diabetes may occur together,” said study first author Stefanie Hinkle from US National Institutes of Health’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).”Until we learn more, physicians may want to consider observing pregnant women with depressive symptoms for signs of gestational diabetes.

They also may want to monitor women who have had gestational diabetes for signs of postpartum depression,” Hinkle noted.Although obesity is known to increase the risk for gestational diabetes, the likelihood of gestational diabetes was higher for nonobese women reporting depression than for obese women with depression, the study found.The researchers analysed pregnancy records from the NICHD Fetal Growth StudiesSingleton Cohort, which tracked the progress of thousands of pregnancies, to understand the patterns of fetal growth.

Issue 686 (39)

27 Sept. - 3 Oct., 2016

INDIAN LAMB CURRY IN A BREAD BOWL (BUNNY CHOW)

Bunny chow, a hollowed out bread bowl with a spicy, meaty curried filling, is as delightfully messy as it sounds. You can eat every last morsel of this version from Hollywood Bets in Durban, including the curry-soaked bread from the bottom and sides.

Ingredients 6 large cloves peeled garlic One 3-inch piece peeled fresh ginger 1 /4 cup plus 2 Tbsp. canola or olive oil 2 large white onions, chopped (about 3 cups) 4 bay leaves 2 small cinnamon sticks 1 tbsp. ground turmeric 1 /4 cup plus 1 Tbsp. garam masala 3 medium tomatoes, chopped (2 cups) 2 1 / 4 lb. boneless mutton or lamb

shoulder, cut into 1-inch cubes 2 tbsp. kosher salt 3 medium russet potatoes (1 3/4 lb.), peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes Leaves from 12 sprigs fresh cilantro One 1-pound loaf unsliced white bread, cut crosswise into quarters Instructions In a small food processor or mortar and pestle, add the garlic and ginger and pulse or pound until a paste forms. Set aside.

In a large (8-quart) Dutch oven or heavybottomed pot, heat the oil over medium heat until it shimmers. Add the onions, bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, and turmeric and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the garam masala and 1/ cup of the garlic-ginger paste (reserve 4 any remaining paste for another use); cook for a few seconds, stirring to prevent the spices from burning. Add the tomatoes and bring to a simmer; let cook for 5 minutes. Add the mutton and salt, stirring to coat the meat in the sauce and distribute the seasoning. Simmer, stirring occasionally, 15 minutes. Stir in the potatoes and 2 cups water; bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook, uncovered, until the meat is tender and potatoes are soft, about 40 minutes.

To serve, cut out most of the center of each bread quarter and reserve it whole, making sure to leave some bread at the base of each. Divide among 4 plates and fill the bread bowls with the curry mixture. Garnish with the cilantro, and top or serve with the reserved bread pieces.

THE ORIGINAL AUTHENTIC NACHOS 1

A balance of pickly, salty, cheesy, and crisp, this recipe inspired by the original developed by Ignacio Anaya in a Mexican border town proves that simple is preferable when it comes to nachos.

When deep-frying your own tortillas, look for soft tortillas made with all corn (and no flour) for the crunchiest results.

Ingredients Vegetable oil, for frying 10 soft corn tortillas, cut in half Kosher salt 1 /4 cups refried black beans 1 medium shallot or 1D 4 red onion, minced 1 / 2 cup shredded orange cheddar cheese (1 1/2 oz.)

1 / 2 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese (1 1/2 oz.)

/2 cup crumbled queso fresco or Cotija cheese 20 pickled jalapeño slices, or to taste Instructions Set a paper-towel-lined tray next to the stove. In a large, high-rimmed skillet, add enough vegetable oil to reach 1 inch up the sides of the pan. Set over high heat until a deep-fry thermometer reads 350°. Working in batches as needed to avoid overcrowding, add the tortillas and fry, turning once, until crisp but not browned, about 30 seconds on each side. Remove, transfer to the prepared tray, and season with salt.

Meanwhile, preheat the broiler. On a large baking sheet lined with foil or parchment paper, place the chips in a single layer. Spread each chip with a thin layer of refried beans and sprinkle them with half of the shallot. Top with the cheddar and Jack cheeses, then the queso fresco. Garnish with the pickled jalapeños and the remaining shallot.

Transfer the baking sheet to the oven and broil until the cheeses are just melted and the chips are lightly singed on the edges, about 5–7 minutes (watch closely to avoid burning).

Transfer to a platter if desired, and serve immediately.

CHINESE RED-BRAISED PORK BELLY WITH EGGS Two types of soy sauce and a touch of sugar give this dish beloved throughout China its signature glossiness and a deep red-brown tint. Serve the tender pork belly morsels and boiled eggs with a light vegetable, like bok choy.

Ingredients 6 eggs 1 spring onion, white part only 3 / 4 oz. ginger (about a 2-inch piece) 1 3/4 lb. pork belly, skin on if desired 1 tbsp. canola or vegetable oil 1 star anise 1 cinnamon stick 3 tbsp. Shoaling wine 3 cups hot water or stock 2 tbsp. light soy sauce 1 tbsp. plus 1 tsp. dark soy sauce 3 tbsp. superfine sugar or 1 1/2 oz. rock sugar Cooked white rice, for serving Instructions In a small saucepan, add the eggs and enough water to cover by 1 inch; bring to a rapid boil and let cook 2 minutes.

Remove and let the eggs rest in the water for 10 minutes. Let cool, then shell. In each egg, make 6–8 shallow slashes lengthwise to allow the flavors of the stew to enter.

Smack the spring onion and ginger gently with the flat side of a cleaver or a rolling pin to loosen their fibers.

In a medium saucepan, add the pork and enough water to cover; bring to boil, then let boil 5 minutes. Drain and rinse the pork with cold water. When cool enough to handle, cut into 1-inch cubes.

Heat the oil in a seasoned wok over high heat. Add the ginger, onion, star anise, and cinnamon and stir-fry briefly until aromatic (about 2 minutes). Add the pork and cook until the meat is faintly golden and some of the fat is rendering, 1–2 minutes. Splash the Shaoxing wine around the edges of the pan. Add the eggs, water or stock, light soy sauce, 2 teaspoons dark soy

sauce, and the sugar. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer; cover and let cook 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Pour into a bowl, let cool, then chill until the fat congeals (a few hours or overnight). Remove and skim away any fat that has settled on the surface. Pour the meat and liquid back into a wok, then boil, stirring constantly, to reduce the sauce by half, 10–15 minutes.

Discard the ginger, spring onion, and whole spices. Stir in the remaining 2 teaspoons dark soy sauce.

Shortly before serving, bring back to a boil over high heat and reduce the sauce to about 1 inch of dark, sleek gravy. Transfer to a rimmed serving dish. Serve with rice.

FREEKEH PILAF WITH SUMAC Freekeh sun-dried and roasted unripe wheat berries is a popular grain in Mediterranean cuisines, and has a mildly smoky flavor and pleasant chew. Here, chef Mehmet Gürs of Istanbul’s Mikla cooks it pilaf-style and spices it with sumac, a bright red spice that lends color and a lemony zing to anything it hits.

Ingredients 1 /2 cup olive oil 1 small yellow onion, finely chopped 1 1 / 2 cups whole (not cracked) freekah 2 / 3 cup canned tomato purée 2 vine-ripe tomatoes, cored, peeled, and finely chopped 1 tsp. sumac, plus more to garnish Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper Instructions

In a 4-qt. saucepan, heat the olive oil over mediumhigh. Add the onion and cook, stirring, until soft, about 6 minutes. Add the freekeh and cook, stirring, until lightly toasted, about 5 minutes.

Pour in the tomato purée, vine-ripe tomatoes, and 2 cups water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat

to maintain a gentle simmer and cook, covered, until the freekeh is tender, about 1 1/2 hours. Remove the pan from the heat, stir in the sumac, and season with salt and pepper. Spoon the pilaf into a bowl and sprinkle with more sumac before serving.

Issue 686 (40)

27 Sept. - 3 Oct., 2016