THE CONTACT WEEKLY NEWSPAPER ISSUE - 638, 27 OCT. - 2 NOV. 2015 PH: (905) 671 - 4761
Did Chhota Rajan surrender to protect himself from Dawood? Government agencies might be taking all the credit for capturing Chhota Rajan, but if sources in Mumbai Police are to be believed, the infamous gangster was the architect of his own arrest. After more than two decades on the run from the authorities and his arch rival and former
crime boss, Dawood Ibrahim, advancing age and the need to constantly look over his shoulder got to Rajan (55), and he decided to turn himself in, claimed officials from the Crime
Branch. The Home Ministry confirmed yesterday that Rajan alias Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje had been arrested at Bali airport by the Indonesian police, acting on a Red Corner Notice issued by Interpol. The official version is that the arrest was made on a tip-off by the police in Australia,
where Rajan had been living for years. However, a Crime Branch official said Rajan had planned the whole operation and had, in fact, tipped off the authorities himself.
Paranoia At 55, age had started to catch up with the gangster, who is suffering from kidney-related issues, as well as problems with the bullet injury he had received in an attack in 2000. The bigger problem though, was paranoia. “Rajan’s aides Santosh Shetty, Anil Chandra and
Bunty Pandey were all deported from various foreign countries. Rajan was a very vulnerable target living all alone. Dawood’s aide, Chhota Shakeel, even tried to kill him in Australia in July,
but the Indian intelligence agencies intimated him about the attack after they learnt of it by tapping Shakeel’s phone,” said a police officer. During interrogations of his men, the police learnt that Rajan felt this vulnerability keenly and saw threats in every corner. “Rajan is extremely paranoid. He
killed J Dey (mid-day journalist) thinking he was tipping off Shakeel. Rajan killed Farid Tanasha, his own man, under the same belief. He killed several persons just because he doubted
Who is the Punjab’s new DGP Suresh Arora?
Badal govt replaces police chief Sumedh Saini with Suresh Arora amid sacrilege row CHANDIGARH Amid unrest and unending protests over growing incidents of sacrilege in Punjab and killing of two Sikhs in Faridkot by police, the ruling Akali Dal-BJP government on Sunday removed its police chief Sumedh Singh Saini. Saini was replaced by his batchmate and Vigilance Bureau (VB) director Suresh Arora, a
1982-batch IPS officer. When asked about if he himself opted out to remain as the DGP or was told to be removed,
he did not wish to offer any comments. Arora was also not reachable for any comments. Saini, who was appointed
as DGP in 2012 when the SAD-BJP had resurged to power for the second consecutive term, had superseded at least four senior IPS officers and three of his batch-mates. As many as 112 torn pages of the Guru Granth Sahib were first found in Bargari village on October 12 which triggered widespread Continued on Page 2
them. Living this way had become difficult for him, we learnt while interrogating his people,” said the officer, adding, “The best option for him was to surrender and live in India in jail and carry on his activities from within.” The arrest A source close to Rajan revealed, “Seth (Rajan) planned his arrest. He shared his travel itinerary (Passport no: G 9273860 registered under the name of Mohan Kumar, Garuda Indonesia flight GA715 from Sydney to Bali on October 25) to the Indian agencies, who shared the said information with a Red Corner Notice to Australian intelligence agencies who further alerted the Indonesian Interpol team,” said a source close the mobster. Rajan, a resident of Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia, would frequently make the trip
to Bali to visit a hotel belonging to his aide, Anil Chandra. As soon as Rajan arrived at the airport he was cornered by the Interpol and Indonesian officials and taken to the detention room. Sources said Rajan was asked to share his passport details and his fingerprints and eyes were scanned before he was taken in. Deportation? The two countries do not have an extradition treaty, so it is likely that the Tilak Nagar don will be deported. Sources claimed that a lot of planning had gone into the arrest, with several Indian ministers flying to Indonesia over the past month or so to hammer out the terms on which Rajan’s custody would be transferred to Indian authorities. As recently as October 24, Minister of State for External Affairs Vijay Kumar Singh Continued on Page 2
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Issue - 638 (2)
27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
Did Chhota Rajan surrender to protect... Continued from Page 1 met Indonesian Foreign minister Retno LP Marsudi to discuss bilateral cooperation between the two countries. Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj had also visited Indonesia in April. Incidentally, Vice-President Mohammad Hamid Ansari had planned to visit Indonesia from November 1-4. “Recently, several Indian ministers made
trips to Indonesia. Just last week MoS for External Affairs Vijay Kumar Singh met Indonesian Foreign minister Retno LP Marsudi. We think all these meetings were held to work out Rajan’s surrender. I am sure they discussed Rajan and the co-ordination needed to bring him back,” said a senior crime branch officer, requesting anonymity. “I don’t think deportation will be a problem as Rajan had entered Indonesia without valid documents. His passport itself is fake, so the country can deport him,” said Y P Singh, former IPS officer and lawyer. Wanted in Mumbai Rajan is wanted for at least 68 cases in Mumbai alone, including over 20 murder cases and other serious
offences under MCOCA, POTA and the Arms Act. Several of the cases are registered in Tilak Nagar, Chembur, which is Rajan’s home turf. The state will push for the gangster to be handed over to Mumbai Police. “We are gathering details regarding all the
cases registered against Rajan and are in touch with several central agencies. We are hopeful that Mumbai Police will get his custody,” said Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Atul Chandra Kulkarni. “We are in
Family relieved Sources close to Rajan’s family said that after hours of being unable to contact him, the entire Nikalje family was relieved to hear of his capture. A person close to the family said, “Seth (Rajan) was aware that Shakeel had located him in Australia and feared that he would be eliminated. He was stranded in Australia and was changing his residence from one state to another frequently.” “Seth’s family tried to contact the gangster on his personal number, which was switched off for 12 hours, but after which they discovered that he was taken into Interpol’s custody, they heaved a sigh of relief. Seth himself wanted to come back to his country and settle down,” said the source. It is learnt that since last morning, Rajan’s family home in Tilak Nagar has borne a deserted look, as his politician brother Deepak Nikalje also seems to have gone hiding along with Rajan’s wife, Sujata alias Nani, with her siblings.
discussions as to how investigations will proceed in cases against Rajan, as some of them date back to 1979. We plan to form a Special Investigation Team (SIT),” added Kulkarni.
The source elaborated, “The family will hire highend legal assistance for Rajan. For now, they are convinced that once deported to India, he will find safe haven in prison.”
RAW, IB used ‘patriotic’ don against Dawood Ibrahim NEW DELHI While arrested gangster Chhota Rajan will be crucial to cracking cases such as the murder of journalist J Dey and other criminal or terrorism cases registered against him and others in Mumbai, there is little hope that he will have any new piece of information to share with Indian agencies. Sources in the security establishment say Rajan has been out of touch with the core underworld as he has led an isolated life since several years now. He had restricted the reach of his acquaintances even further in the past one year. He only made calls on VOIP using proxies to hide his location. At times, he made calls on Whatsapp. Even as these reports have been doing the rounds, there is one theory that the arrest may have been stage-managed by Rajan himself as he wanted to return to India due to his ill health and feared being killed by rival Chhota Shakeel. “By December 2014, Rajan virtually had no members in his gang. He was in touch with some people from Uttar Pradesh and other states to get men for any job temporarily. He was finished as a ganglord,” said an official who had been tracking Rajan’s movements. This state of affairs is a far cry from the year 1998, when Rajan was detained in Thailand while travelling on a fictitious passport, but he walked out within a day. Sources said the Union home ministry as
well as the security agencies were not interested in getting him extradiated. Officials said intelligence agencies were using him to counter fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim. Rajan was instrumental in eliminating certain ISI and
Dawood aides, including Nepal MLA Dilshad Mirza Baig, ISI mastermind Khalid Masood, Parvez Tanda in Nepal- all with the blessings of the Indian intelligence. There were unconfirmed reports that Rajan was involved in the killing of Takiuddin Wahid Khan of East-West Airlines, suspected to be close to Dawood. He also allegedly orchestrated the killing of Nepal cable operator Jamim Shah, another D-Company aide. Senior police officials said Rajan always tried to portray himself as “a patriotic Hindu don” after his split from Dawood following the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai. The Intelligence Bureau and particularly the Research Analysis Wing (RAW), have in the past used Rajan against Dawood. In 2005, the agency had reportedly sent two Rajan aides - Vicky Malhotra and
the late Farid Tanasha- to eliminate Dawood in Karachi. A senior official of IB who currently holds a senior post in the government, supervised the operation. But before that, Mumbai crime branch arrested Malhotra and Tanasha and booked them under the stringent MCOCA. This was the time when Dawood’s elder daughter Mahrook was to get married to Pakistani cricketer Javed Miandad’s son in Karachi. “The plan was that when Dawood would arrive at the venue, the two shooters would kill him,” said an officer. “As far as I can recall, it was Rajan who used his clout and paid a huge bribe to free himself in 1998,” said a retired police officer. The second time Rajan slipped from the Thai police was in September 2000 when Chhota Shakeel’s shooter Munna Jingada carried out a serious attack on him in Bangkok. While Rajan was seriously wounded in the firing, his confidante Rohit Verma was shot dead. Rajan was admitted at Samitivej Hospital in Thailand. A team of five police officers flew to Thailand to record his statement and get him back to India but before this, Rajan’s allies Vijay Shetty and Santosh Shetty helped him flee from the hospital. Thai government suspended five officials for negligence and a police officer came under the radar for allegedly aiding Rajan’s escape.
Badal govt replaces police chief Sumedh Saini with ... Continued from Page 1 protests across the state. The announcement of Saini’s removal came even as on Tuesday, Punjab Police additional director general of police Iqbal Preet Sahota had announced arrest of two baptized Sikh brothers Rupinder Singh and Jaswinder Singh in the Faridkot sacrilege case. The police, however, had come under immediate criticism from some sections of political parties and Sikh communities who alleged that innocent Sikhs were arrested. The government had also come severe flak for not being able to control the sacrilege incidents, seven of which have been reported this month. Also, the government has been under flak for ordering firing
on protesters and not fixing the responsibility on any senior cop. On October 14, Punjab Police had opened fire on 200-odd demonstrators, protesting against the desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib. Sahota had also alleged a foreign conspiracy with some “foreign hand” in Australia and Dubai behind these incidents. These disclosures were based on two separate audio clips. Sahota had mentioned a 40-second recording of a telephonic conversation in which there were alleged subtle references to the desecration. According to the audio clip, which the police claim to be a clinching evidence, Rupinder makes polite inquiries from his brother on what is to be done with the holy book. When his
brother seeks clarity on whether Rupinder is referring to the torn pages or the remaining portion, he asks him not to discuss the issue on the phone. In another audio clip between an Australian and Rupinder, references are made on financial transactions. The second clip, however, was trashed by Melbourne-based Sukhjit Singh Deol, who came out in open and disclosed his identity even as Punjab cops had not done so. He reproduced receipts of Western Union money transfer for $1,000 Australian dollars sent to Rupinder for his medical aid. Meet DGP Suresh Arora Soon after the announcement of placing Suresh Arora as Punjab’s new DGP, Sikh community
raised strong voice against his character and termed him as another Genocidal killer Cop. “Sumedh Saini has been transferred,” Punjab Home Secretary Jagpal Sandhu said, adding that he was given the new charge as Chairman of the Police Housing Corporation. Suresh Arora replaced Sumedh Saini. Arora, a 1982-batch IPS officer, was serving as the DirectorGeneral of Police-cumChief Director, Vigilance Bureau. During 1980’s Suresh Arora was posted as SP (Headquarters), Amritsar, during Operation Black Thunder I, and as SSP Amritsar at the time of Operation Black Thunder II. He played main role in eliminating thousands of Sikh Youth while he was the
head of interrogation center based in Amritsar. The new DGP, Suresh Arora, has served as SSP in almost all districts, besides serving as the DIG, CM Security, after the assassination of then chief minister Beant Singh. 1980’s DGP KPS Gill along with his trusted aides such as Sumedh Saini, Ajit Sandhu, Swaran Ghotna, Suresh Arora along with many others killed thousands of Sikh youth within 10 years. The infamous Police officer Swarn Ghotna used to interrogate Sikh youths often at CIA Staff Jalandhar. In the name of interrogation many youth were inhumanely tortured. Swarn Ghotna was the loyal servant of SSP Suresh Arora, at his behest Ghotna would torture many Sikhs till unconsciousness and
then eliminate them. A postgraduate in law from the University of London, Arora has won various gallantry medals and awards, including the President’s Meritorious Medal, the Distinguished Service Medal and the Prakram Medal for his works against Sikh revolution of 1980’s and 90’s. The Election Commission of India had appointed Suresh Arora as the Director General of Police of Punjab ahead of the last Lok Sabha poll. He was selected from among three officers, whose names were forwarded to the ECI by the state government for the post, after DGP Saini had proceeded on a long leave ahead of the poll, following which the Congress had sought his removal from the post.
Issue - 638 (3)
27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
Issue - 638 (4)
27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
Bol Ke Labb Aazad Hein Tere – Speak for You Must! History has shown that societies benefit from dissent, not conformity. People speak up, they are heard, opinions are formed, laws are modified, norms change for the better, people become more informed ... all because we argue and disagree with each other. Discussion is merely another form of dissent. True patriotism is not abject compliance. In functional democracies, it is also protection of dissent arising from minority voices. It is hard to accept it if you are in a managerial position or if you are running a government. Top down managers have a brief to crush dissent because smooth functioning they are told is when every part is well oiled and works in sync. Round pegs cannot fit in square holes. Find the right fit for all and see that unification of opinion happens without laying down the law. If necessary, do that too. In a democracy it is not just the right but also the duty of several sections of society to dissent. The media is first and
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foremost. It is their job to ask the uncomfortable questions. An Indian columnist recently criticized a reporter for having asked Rahul Gandhi if his visit to the village where Dalit kids were burned alive was a photo-op. If the columnist had seen the video he would have got a clearer picture. The reporter asked for Rahul Gandhi’s opinion to the BJP’s allegation that his visit was a photo-op. Mr. Gandhi was livid that the question was even asked of him, he lambasted the BJP and after the first angry 30 seconds, he figured that the reporter was not to blame. It was her duty to ask that question. Don’t blame the messenger! A similar situation occurred in Canada where prime minister-elect Justin Trudeau shushed up his own party’s supporters who booed a reporter for asking a tough question about the TransCanada pipeline. He reminded his supporters, “Hey! Hey! We have respect for journalists in this country. They ask tough questions and they’re supposed to. OK?” In the past few weeks, several Indian writers and artistes have returned their state awards in protest against rising intolerance in their society. You may or may not agree with their manner of protest, even blame them for their political affiliations, but the fact is that it is a legitimate manner of protest. Gentler voices must be heard else they become loud and harsh. And sometimes violent. In a democratic society the need to accept difference of opinion is an essential ingredient of plurality. In that sense, the right of dissent also becomes the duty to dissent since the tactics to suppress dissent tend to diminish the democratic essence. Disagreeing, resolving and accommodating dissenting voices are a process that lawmakers need to adopt. Civil society’s role is diminished in a democracy if its voice is stifled. When stifled, dissenting voices will find a way to be heard and in an angry manner. Amplification could lead to anarchist movements. The Maoist movement and insurgencies in several parts of India are largely voices which were not heard when they should have been. This month has particularly witnessed a dramatic surge in xenophobia in India where Hindu extremist activists forced to cancel a concert of Ghulam Ali, a seventyfour year old legendary Urdu singer from Pakistan who is equally popular in India, in Mumbai. On October 12, in what the NDTV called as the “brazen display of shaming India”, members of the same extremist group, the Shiv Sena, who had previously demanded the cancelation of a book launch event featuring the author and Pakistan’s former foreign minister, attacked the organizer with black paint. On October 19, Shiv Sena, whose operatives broke into the offices of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), succeeded in disrupting talks between the cricket authorities of the two countries. The talks were meant to find a way to resume cricket matches between India and Pakistan. On the same day, the International Cricket Council (ICC) announced the withdrawal of Aleem Dar, a Pakistani umpire, from matches between India and South Africa because, according to the ICC, “under the present circumstances, it will be unreasonable to expect from Aleem that he will be able to perform his duties to the best of his
abilities.” What is happening in India today is reminiscent of the Pakistani experience. For example, when the Taliban initially SUNNY BAINS began to curtail civil liberties in remote parts of Pakistan, policymakers and opinion leaders its scope if people decide to sit on a chair distanced themselves arguing that their and raise their virtual voice. The recent actions did not represent the majority of instances of hate against Pakistan and the Muslims. The government believed the Shiv Sena-imposed ban on artistes, Pakistan, a country with nuclear writers and sportspersons from across
weapons, was easily capable of the border has triggered a spontaneous controlling the Taliban. Pakistanis would online campaign that has spurred support get offended if you asked them if their beyond boundaries and could hold a country was the new Afghanistan (with lesson for politicians. #ProfileForPeace respect to the Taliban rule). The Taliban is a hashtag campaign that has won made advancements from rural towns to hearts and minds and gone viral overnight the country’s capital. They grew so on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, with powerful that they could easily attack thousands of Indians from Kerala to Pakistan’s most important civil and Kashmir and Pakistanis from Lahore to military installations whenever and Karachi as well as those living in the US, UK and UAE changing their profile wherever they wanted. Pakistan does not have a success story pictures to one with a little love note to teach India how to grapple with religious scribble that says where they are from, intolerance. Nonetheless, India can still that they don’t hate each other, and are learn from Pakistan where they only being divided by hate politics. experimented with mixing religion and This peace campaign was started by 36Bandra-based Ram politics. People do have the right to believe year-old that their religion is awesome, but that Subramanian, who calls himself an awesomeness should not come at the artivist. He was riled by recent incidents cost of someone else’s freedoms. As of Pakistani artistes being banned and Been Sarwar says in her blog, “There have shunned by Sainiks in Mumbai. “It had been compassionate and creative been brewing in my head ever since I heard responses from the Pakistanis, who have of a series of bans and attacks. Most of all too often suffered the poison of bigotry us common blokes don’t feel such hate and injection of religion into politics. After nor want these fights. And when you close a Pakistani family had to spend the night the doors to art you open up a door for on the footpath in Mumbai because they dark and unwanted things to come in,” he lacked the requisite papers allowing them said. So he took to Facebook on the night to stay in a hotel, Pakistani entrepreneur of Dussehra to express himself via a selfie Iqbal Latif responded by offering free meals with a post-it note that read, “I am an Indian. to the Indians visiting Pakistan at his I am from Mumbai. I don’t hate Pakistan. I Dunkin’ Donuts franchises. His Canvas painting on India-Pakistan Music Controversy. gesture was widely reported and drew a massive response in India. Meanwhile, Indians are also finding ways to creatively and peacefully express their Let the music Play! distaste for bigotry and hooliganism. After the Sena am not alone. There are many people like successful blocked respected Pakistani me!” He made that his profile picture. “No musician Ghulam Ali’s concert in Mumbai, more artists being banned. This is my one Indian made a painting that he voice. This is our voice for our Mumbai, tweeted: My Canvas painting on India - our India. Enough of hate politics,” he wrote Pakistan Music Controversy. Let the further and managed to inspire a few thousand people from all ages and walks music Play. Some people call these protests an of life who are now following his route and Armchair activism, but it isn’t a bad word sending out their message of love and any more. In fact, there’s nothing beyond peace across the border.
Issue - 638 (5)
27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
Liberal Navdeep Bains elected as MP from the new riding of Mississauga-Malton
If you ever meet anyone whose love life is perfect, do let us know. On second thoughts, don’t! It is not that we fear we may be jealous; it is more that we all know it will only be a matter of time before the facade begins to crumble, and we see the messy, complicated, truth that it has been hiding. Invariably, where there is emotional entanglement, there is challenge - and a degree of chaos too. But none of that need preclude the possibility of true, lasting happiness. Soon you will see what’s right about what’s wrong. Even reluctant romantics who resist fanciful fantasy experience a twinge of resonance when they hear the phrase ‘dream lover’. We can’t quite help ourselves, no matter how pragmatic we pretend to be. We know that such visions leave us with ludicrously tall orders to fulfil. We know, too, that nobody can be all that we might secretly wish them to be. And sometimes, under some circumstances, certain exchanges and interactions take us closer than we expect to that ideal. This could be one of those times. ‘If only our partners were perfect.’ We all wish that but in our hearts we know it is an unreasonable aspiration. Are you perfect? Well then, how do you expect anyone else to be, no matter how much you may love them or they may love you? Now, here is a very relevant question for your current emotional climate. How can two imperfect people have a perfect relationship? We have to learn to see the perfection in our own imperfections - and those of others, too. Life now brings you the chance to transcend a problem.
At times, we all experience an urge to take care of other people. We want to save them from pain, alleviate their stress and help to guard them from potential dangers and difficulties. That’s all very noble and kind, but it can also be slightly selfdefeating when we start to take that duty too seriously. Who protects us from our own impulse to protect others? Do what you can for someone else by all means now, but when you suspect you may have done enough, let that be enough. Don’t go beyond your limit. Someone needs you for something. But do you need to be needed in this way? Is a state of unhealthy interdependency developing? Are you caught up in an arrangement that suits the other party more than it suits you? There is nothing wrong with a process of give and take, as long as all involved are doing a little giving as well as a little taking. But where there is an imbalance, there is also an opportunity now to reach a more mutually beneficial agreement. Don’t be afraid to say what you feel and expect respect for those feelings. If little things count for a lot, why do we all seek big victories? Why do we yearn for dramatic, decisive developments that settle all arguments and leave no room for further dispute? There is a very strong, very human impulse to paint clear markings with a broad brush, yet all you’ve got in your hand is a very fine pen. You can’t brandish it with a flourish but you can use it to inscribe some highly persuasive writing on an extremely important wall. Your message will get across, and it will yet make all the difference.
Mississauga Voters in the riding of Mississauga-Malton handed the Liberal candidate NavdeepBains a resounding victory in the recently held federal election on October 19, 2015. An MP from 20042011 in the old riding of Mississauga-Brampton, Mr. Bains was seeking a fourth term in Parliament from the newly configured riding. Mr. Bains was elected by over 13,000 votes, capturing almost 59% of the votes cast in the riding. In total, Mr. Bains received almost 26,000 votes. Throughout the campaign, Mr. Bains and his team met with countless voters and knocked on over 150,000 doors, becoming one of the select few campaigns to cross that mark in the
country. In addition to being a candidate, Mr. Bains also served as the Ontario campaign co-chair, providing valuable advice to candidates from across Ontario. He looks forward to continuing this leadership role in parliament In his victory speech, Mr. Bains thanked his supporters and volunteers. “This isn’t just a victory for me, it’s a victory for you, for Canadians, and for Real Change”, Mr. Bains said to his supporters. “Tonight, Canadians rejected the politics of fear and voted for the politics of hope,” the 38year-old added, surrounded by family and friends who formed the core of his campaign team. Former mayor Hazel
McCallion visited Mr. Bains’ victory party. The 94-year old McCallion had endorsed Justin Trudeau in recent days. “I know Justin and I think he’s going to bring the change we need, especially
2 Indians accused of conspiring to smuggle people into US Two Indian nationals conspired with an undercover federal agent to smuggle people from Thailand to New Jersey, prosecutors said on Thursday. Nileshkumar Patel and Harsad Mehta were
arrested Wednesday at Newark Liberty International Airport and were remanded into custody after a brief appearance before a judge Thursday on smuggling and conspiracy charges. Messages left seeking
comment from attorneys for the men weren’t immediately returned. Patel and Mehta met with an undercover Homeland Security Investigations agent on multiple occasions in Bangkok starting in April 2014 and
paid the agent $35,000 to $50,000 to have six Indians smuggled into New Jersey even though they didn’t have legal clearance to come to America, Special Agent Douglas Doherty said in a criminal complaint.
Patel was involved in all six cases, and Mehta in four, prosecutors said. The sting operation began in June 2013 when an HSI investigation revealed a smuggling operation that was “attempting to find methods to illegally smuggle aliens from India to the United States,” Doherty said. The investigation found that the organization recruited Indians and others to pay them to get them to the United States. Patel began contacting the undercover agent, whom he believed was a smuggler, telling him he wanted to “discuss sending ‘packages’ to the United States,” Doherty said. Patel later told the agent that he had been smuggling people into the United States since 1998, Doherty said.
for Canadian cities. He’s a strong, energetic leader,” she said in an interview to the Toronto Star on Oct 10, 2015.Mr. Bains gained extensive experience as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and as the Liberal Critic for Public Works and Government Services, the Treasury Board, International Trade, Natural Resources, and Small Business and Tourism, during his term as an MP from 2004 to 2011. He holds an MBA with a specialization in Finance, and as a Certified Management Accountant, he worked several years in accounting and financial analysis for the Ford Motor Company of Canada.
Hyderabad woman murders husband for not providing money for alcohol
An alcoholic woman strangled her husband to death for refusing to give her money to buy alochol. Ramulamma, a 50-yearold woman from Manikeswar Nagar in Hyderabad, murdered her husband A Chandraiah, on Thursday, The New Indian Express reports. Ramulamma asked her husband for money to buy liquor to celebrate the ocassion of Dussehra. The husband and wife got into a rather ugly scuffle when Chandraiah refused to give her money. “Ramulamma assaulted her husband, Chandraiah fell to the ground and was unconscious.
Indian-origin politician sworn in as Mayor of German city Berlin Indian-origin politician Ashok Sridharan has been sworn in as the Mayor of Bonn, pledging to make the former German capital a major investment destination and the European hub of UN institutions.49-year-old Sridharan, who is the son of a migrant from India and a German mother was sworn in during a ceremony in Bonn’s municipal council yesterday in presence of the councillors and representatives of the public.
As a candidate of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Sridharan had polled 50.06 percent of the
votes in the mayoral election on September 13 to wrest power from the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which ruled the city
for more than 21 years.Sridharan is the first person of Indian-origin to become the head of administration in a major German city. He kicked off his five-year term on Wednesday by symbolically taking over the power from his SPD predecessor Juergen Nimptsch, who retired after six years in office.Nimptsch announced at the end of last year that he will not seek another term when his current term expires in October.
Issue - 638 (6)
27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
Pakistani singer Adnan Sami may get Indian citizenship Pakistani singer Adnan Sami, who has been staying in the country since 2001, is likely to be granted Indian citizenship under Section 6 of the Indian Citizenship Act, 1955.Sami’s request for Indian citizenship comes against the backdrop of Shiv Sena’s strong opposition to performance by ghazal maestro Ghulam Ali and ink attack on Sudheendra Kulkarni hours ahead of the launch of a book written by former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri. The Bollywood singer’s request for Indian citizenship on the grounds that he has renounced his Pakistani citizenship and made India his home, has been endorsed by the Attorney General of India. The Ministry of Home Affairs is also mulling granting him citizenship by naturalization in view of his distinguished service to the cause of art.Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju on August 5, 2015, conveyed to Lok Sabha that Sami was exempted from deportation proceedings under Section 3 of the Foreigners Act and allowed to stay in India for an indefinite period following his appeal to legalise his stay in India on humanitarian grounds after his Pakistani passport expired in May due to its non-
renewal. Sami had approached Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh seeking relief from deportation after Pakistani authorities refused to renew his
approved, will come in the backdrop of Shiv Sena’s strong opposition to performances by Pakistani artists.Section 6 of the Citizenship Act allows an
passport in May over marital dispute with his second wife, Sabah Galadari, a UAE citizen. The couple divorced in 2012, and Sami is now married to Roya Faryabi, his third wife.”In pursuance of the powers conferred under Section 3A of Foreigners Act, 1946 (31 of 1946), the central government...declares...that he (Adnan Sami Khan, son of late Arshad Sami Khan) is exempted from deportation proceedings. This order shall remain valid until further orders,” said a home ministry order tabled in the Lok Sabha in August.The citizenship for the Lahore-born singer, if
applicant to be granted a certificate of naturalization if the central government is satisfied that he/she is qualified for the same under the provisions of the Third Schedule. However, the conditions specified in the Third Schedule may be waived if the central government is of the opinion that the applicant has rendered distinguished service to the cause of science, philosophy, art, literature, world peace or human progress generally.Lahore-born Sami first arrived in India on March 13, 2001 on a one-year visitor’s visa issued by the Indian high commission in Islamabad.
Google dedicates its Doodle to cartoonist RK Laxman on his 94th birthday To pay respect to legendary cartoonist RK Laxman and his work, Google on Saturday celebrated the humorist’s 94th birthday by dedicating its doodle.Google sketched out a black and white doodle which depicts a studio in three parts comprising his work desk - the artist sitting on a chair drawing his famous Common Man on a vertical canvas, with the Common Man peeping from behind, and a collection of work canvasses shown at the end.Born this day in 1921, Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Laxman passed away aged 93 after a prolonged illness in a Pune hospital on January 26 this year, marking the end of an era.Laxman’s is the latest in the series of over 2,000 special
doodles created by Google so far to mark various important milestones of global importance, historic or contemporary, birth anniversaries of top personalities and other important events or
festivals.The last one figuring an Indian artiste was themed on the late MF Husain on his birth centenary on September 26. Laxman was best known for his creation The Common Man and for his daily cartoon strip, You Said It in The Times of India, which started in 1951.
Indian-origin tycoon’s ‘Taj Mahal’ to be demolished in Australia
Bank of America official’s wife falls to death from Mumbai high-rise apartment
In a shocking incident in Mumbai, Tarun Dhingra Kumar, who was married to Dhawal Kumar (Bank of America Merrill Lynch) was found dead in mysterious circumstances after the security guard saw her body lying in a pool of blood.According to MidDay.com report, the 28-year-old
was found dead in the compound of Sukhada Apartment in Worli, Mumbai where she stayed. Reports suggest that she was found dead on October 16 around 2.30 am on Friday night.Senior police inspector at Worli police station was quoted as saying that, “The watchman heard a thud
on Friday night at around 2.39 pm. When he went to check, he found a women lying in a pool of blood.” Taruna stayed on the 10th floor of the high-rise building, which is a posh residential apartment, home to several political bigwigs.Taruna’s husband Dhawal and his brother Dhruv, along with two friends were present in the house besides her. She went to sleep in the bedroom, locking the door from inside. However, the security guard later knocked on the main door and told Dhawal, Dhruv and their two friends about her fall, said Deputy Commissioner of Police, Zone III, S Jayakumar, as per the report.She had been found dead on October 16 at Sukhada Apartment where she stayed at Worli.
Malaysia plans to bring in English teachers from India Kuala Lumpur Malaysia plans to recruit trained English teachers from India soon to help improve the competency levels of local teachers in schools in rural areas, Education Minister P Kamalanathan has said.Kamalanathan told the lower House of Malaysian parliament -- the Dewan Rakyat -- yesterday that the teachers would be placed in several rural schools across the country, including the “hot spot” schools, those with low passing rates for
the English language paper.The teachers from India would be recruited in line with the Upholding the Malay Language
and Strengthening Command of English policy under the School Improvement Specialist Coaches (SISC +) programme.”It had been on the ministry’s agenda to bring in trained teachers from India in the near future, to improve command of the language in rural schools in the country,” Kamalanathan said.He said with the SISC+ programme teachers would be made aware of effective teaching practices and ways of managing the classrooms more efficiently.
An Indian-origin couple’s 70 million dollar mansion in Australia, known as “Taj Mahal on the Swan”, will be demolished after the former fertilizer magnates failed to reach an agreement with the local council. Pankaj and Radhika Oswal are owners of the domed structure in Perth, which included a temple, a gym, an observatory with a revolving roof and parking for 17 cars. The controversial property was being built by the Oswals, who fled the country in 2011 when their Burrup Fertilizers empire collapsed a year earlier. The Oswals left Australia owing millions of dollars in taxes, AAP news agency reported. The couple purchased multiple blocks in a posh suburb of Perth in the early 2000s to contruct their property. The report said that they might have spent over 25 million dollars buying the land before starting construction of the home on the 6,600-square-metre site. Work for the mansion ended in 2010, when the couple experienced business problems and left for Dubai. It was estimated they had spend close to 40 million dollars on the unfinished home. “An application filed by Oswal with state administrative tribunal to prevent the demolition was now being withdrawn, in time to cancel a
full hearing that was scheduled for November 9,” Peppermint Grove shire president Rachel Thomas said. Preparation works must begin by December 31 and the site must be cleared by September 30, 2016, all at the Oswals’ expense, Thomas said. “We’d rather it was demolished sooner rather than later, and given this has been going on for so long, we really wanted to have certainty on the outcome, and it seemed a reasonable compromise to accept the timetable that was proposed,” Thomas was qouted by AAP. Thomas said police were regularly called to the unfinished property after it was left to fall into disrepair. “We were aware that it was a real nuisance for the immediate neighbours in particular because of the antisocial behaviour. And with the graffiti, it was a real blot on the landscape,” she said. “It really impacted on the amenity of the area. We’ve had people smoking dope in there, police called out on a number of occasions because of noisy parties, people climbing over the wall - it’s been a real problem. “We are very pleased that we’re heading for a resolution now and know that the building will be demolished,” she added.
Issue - 638 (7)
27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
Conversion: In search of equality, education, 90 Dalits embrace Buddhism Two years after 5,000 Dalits converted to Buddhism in Junagadh in Gujarat, 90 Dalits embraced Buddhism at a programme organised by the Gujarat Buddhist Academy in Dholka town of Ahmedabad district on Thursday. The Dalits, who come from Ahmedabad’s
Jivraj Park area, include 27-yearold Bhamini Delwadia, an MBA, who belongs to the Scheduled Caste (SC).Bhamini was joined by 89 other Dalits, including four of her family members, at the newly-built Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Hall in Sonar Kui locality of Dholka, 30 km from Ahmedabad City.The 90 Dalits, most of them between 20-35 years, took “diksha” from Bhikshu Pragnya Ratna, a Dhamma pracharak from The Great Ashoka Buddha Vihar in Porbandar, and general secretary of Gujarat region of Akhil Bharatiya Bhikshu
Mahasangh. Bhikshu Pragnya Ratna was also joined by Bhikshu Padmasambhav from Surat and Bhikshu Pragnavansh from Madhya Pradesh as Buddhist religious leaders at the function attended by around 500 persons.The conversion took place at a significantly simple
function during which the 90 persons, including nine women, were given “diksha”, following which all present at the programme were showered with rose petals amid Buddhist prayers. Following the conversion, they gave a short speech in which they cited “inequality and unscientific and superstitious rituals” in Hinduism and their liking for Dr Ambedkar’s ideals as the reasons for conversion.”I believe in equality for all and do not find it in Hinduism. And I believe in the ideals of Dr Ambedkar, who himself converted to Buddhism
while shedding Hinduism. So, following in his footsteps, we have adopted Buddhism today,” says Bhamini. Bhamini’s IIM postgraduate husband Kunal and his parents Abhilash and Hiraben and brother Rahul also converted to Buddhism during the function.Hemlata Sonara (20) from Dholka is among the nine women who converted to Buddhism. She is pursuing her Masters in Arts from HK Arts College in Ahmedabad. “Hinduism is full of superstitions. And the principles of independence and equality for all are lacking in it. Plus, I am attracted towards Buddhism since it is a religion entirely based on the scientific approach. Also, it gives a great emphasis on women’s education,” Hemlata says.Jatin Makwana (28), another convert, says, “I have learnt a lot from Buddhism. It’s a religion full of equality which is in stark contrast to Hinduism. Being a Dalit, wherever you go, people ask for your caste and then discriminate against you. In Buddhism, there is no such hierarchy, all are equals.”“So, it is better to follow a religion which practises equality than the one in which one gets humiliated on caste lines,” adds Jatin, who works as a lab assistant at a pathology laboratory in Dholka.Nikita Parmar (26) from Rasikpura village of Ahmedabad is a housewife.
Hindu outfit disrupts Pakistani artistes’ play in Gurgaon
A group of six to seven people, believed to be associated with a Hindu outfit, disrupted an open theatre show of a Pakistani artiste in Leisure Valley Ground on Saturday. The event was being organised by the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG).The artistes were performing a stage show depicting how the armies of both the countries - India and Pakistan -were spending huge amounts of money to claim territories in the Siachen region.The group vandalised the stage and pulled down the Pakistani flag, which was put up on the stage to show the location of Siachen. An Indian flag was also put up on the stage for the same reason. The attackers also shouted slogans of ‘Hindustan zindabad’ and ‘Pakistan murdabad’. The attack lasted for a few
minutes but there were no policemen were present at the venue despite the organizer of the show seek for police protection.Local police, however, suspect that the hand of Shiv Sena in the incident.According to MCG spokesperson, the corporation organises such events every Saturday and Pakistani artistes had performed at the venue earlier as well but no disruption had taken place that time.”This was the second time we have invited Pakistani artistes to perform in Gurgaon. It was quite unfortunate that such an incident happened,” he said.The incident has sent an alarming message considering that Shiv Sena, the ally of BJP in Maharastra was responsible for cancellation of Ghazal singer Ghulam Ali’s concert in Mumbai recently.
Dalit writer attacked for anti-Hindu writings in Karnataka
A Dalit activist-writer was assaulted on Wednesday for his writings against the Hindus. Huchangi Prasad, a journalism student in Davanagere, Karnataka and author of a book Odala Kichchu which speaks against the caste system, said that the attackers threatened to cut his fingers for writing against Hinduism.”A group of eight to nine persons came to SC/ST hostel where I reside and told me that my mother was unwell. Worried I followed them. They took me to a place and started threatening and assaulting me for writing against Hinduism and caste system,” Prasad said.”They (the attackers) said I was born a Dalit because of the sins I had committed in my previous life,” he added.A literary body comprising of eminent writers Nayantara Sahgal, K Satchidanandan and Romila Thapar strongly condemned the
attack.”If this is how disagreement is to be expressed, how can we call India a democracy? The recent writers protests, and the setting up of a forum that will support all writers and other cultural practitioners, is precisely to resist such attempt to muzzle the voices of all writers, whichever community or region they come from, and whichever language they write in,” the statement said.A case has been filed against the unidentified persons involved in the attack. Police said they are on a lookout for the suspects.Indian Writers Forums statement signed by Githa Hariharan, Satchidanandan, Thapar and Sahgal said, “Its a sign of hope that Prasad has said categorically that he will continue to write. The Forum, and all citizens of conscience, salute him.”
Issue - 638 (8)
27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
Woman teacher uploads nude pics of over 20 kids in China Beijing A lady teacher of a kindergarten in China took nude photos of over 20 boys and uploaded them on
social media claiming that it was part of sexual education, sparking outrage among netizens.The shocking incident happened in central China’s Henan province where a teacher surnamed Ma said that she took a series of nude photos in July and uploaded them to social media but insisted that she did
this for a good reason, chinanews.Com reported.Ma was quoted as saying that she was giving the boys sexual
education and helping them to learn about life.She had not taken permission from the parents of the boys for her initiative.Ma said that she uploaded the pictures onto the internet simply because she felt the kids were cute. She sent the girls to another classroom when she took these pictures.One of
Islamic State claims responsibility for Shia shrine bombing in Bangladesh DHAKA Islamic State (ISIS) has claimed responsibility for bombings that targeted Shias in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, on Saturday, the monitor group SITE said.It cited Islamic State as saying “soldiers of the Caliphate in Bangladesh” detonated explosive devices in Dhaka during “polytheist rituals”.
Islamic State - an ultra-hardline Sunni Muslim group that sees Shias as apostates - claimed responsibility for the attack.Earlier on Saturday, a series of blasts killed at least one person and wounded dozens as Shia Muslims gathered for a procession in the old part of Bangladesh’s capital to mark the holy day of Ashura, police said. However, Bangladesh’s interior minister told Reuters that no militants were involved and the blasts were not linked to an attack that killed 16 people at a Shia procession in Pakistan hours earlier.Police cordoned off the area and one officer said four suspects had been arrested. Witnesses said people fled after blasts, losing their flip-flops and
sandals in the panic.Attacks on the Shia minority have been rare in Sunni-majority Bangladesh, but Sunni militant groups have become more active.”This is not a militant attack, rather it is a planned and destructive attack aiming only to destabilize the situation of the country,” interior minister Asaduzzaman Khan told Reuters. “Though the attack came hours after a suicide bombing in Pakistan, we strongly believe the situation is not similar at all as we live peacefully with Shia community,” he said.At least 10 people were admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, and most of them were in a stable condition, an official there said.Mirza Fakhrul Alamgir, acting secretary general of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, demanded a “neutral investigation” into the attack.”This is a clear sign of a deteriorated law and order,” said Moqbul Ahmed, the acting amir of the country’s largest SunniMuslim Islamist party, Jamaate-Islami Bangladesh.US ambassador Marcia Stephens Bloom Bernicat released a statement saying she was shocked by the attack and noted Bangladesh’s long tradition of religious tolerance and communal harmony.
the photos uploaded online showed about 20 naked boys standing in rows with their hands covering their private parts. Another picture showed boys lying on the ground in a heart shape, staterun Global Times reported.Some parents, who stumbled across the pictures online, felt “very uncomfortable” and few accused the teacher of being a pervert, the report said.The incident triggered public discussion among netizens with some questioning the teacher’s motivation and others expressing their worries that someone could hurt the children in the name of education.”What kind of education needs her to take nude photos? The teacher should be punished by law. And we really need to teach our kids to protect their privacy,” a net user commented.
Ancient crystal suggests life on Earth appeared 4.1b years ago
Sydney An ancient zircon crystal unearthed in Western Australia may hold evidence that life appeared on the planet 4.1 billion years ago, or about 300 million years earlier than previously thought, according to a team of U.S. researchers. Scientists from Stanford University and the University of California, Los Angeles said they recently collected some 10,000 multibillion year-old zircons in Jack Hills, Australia, including one believed to contain a carbon deposit that is 4.1 billion years old, give or take 10 million years. “Its complete encasement in crack-free, undisturbed zircon demonstrates that it is not
contamination from more recent geologic processes ... (and) may be evidence for the origin of life on Earth by 4.1 (billion years ago),” according to a paper published by the team in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday.Scientists have used the fossil record to assert that the history of life on Earth began about 3.8 billion years ago, in the form of single-celled creatures. Humans are believed to have first appeared on Earth only about 200,000 years ago. The study was authored by Elizabeth Bell, Patrick Boehnke, and T. Mark Harrison of the University of California, Los Angeles along with Wendy Lao of Stanford.
Bangladesh rejected IS claim over Shia shrine blasts DHAKA Bangladesh on Sunday rejected as “entirely baseless” claims by the Islamic State (IS) that it was behind bomb blasts targeting Shia community that killed a 12year-old boy and injured 90 others and said people trying to discredit the government were behind the incident. “The (reported IS) claim is entirely baseless and Islamist militants were not involved in it...give us just one or two days and by that time we expect the real culprits to be exposed to justice,” home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told PTI. A boy was killed and about 90 others injured in Saturday’s blasts targeting a Shia procession in front of the community’s main shrine in the Bangladeshi capital. The bombing comes just weeks after an Italian aid worker and a Japanese farmer were shot dead in attacks claimed by the Islamic State. Kamal said the culprits planned such an attack under a well drawn up design coinciding with the Shia Muslim mourning festival of Ashura so that the incident could be attributed to the ultra Sunni IS. “For now, I would also like to tell you briefly that all the three incidents, the murder of the two foreign nationals and the blasts at the Husseini Dalan, are interlinked... the same group of
people masterminded the attack to create instability and discredit our (ruling Awami League) government,” the minister said. Police said three bombs were hurled at the procession joined by more than 20,000 people around 1.30am at Huseni Dalan, an important 17th century centre of learning for the Shia
Hours after the attack, the USbased Site Intelligence Group that monitors militant threats reported that the Islamic State claimed the responsibility for the bombing on the Shia shrine. The attack came hours after a suicide bombing at a Shia Muslim mosque in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province killed at
community. They said it was believed to be the first attack on the Shias in the Sunni-dominated Bangladesh, which has witnessed an increase in violence this year claimed by the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group.
least 12 people. “But here in Bangladesh, there is a different motive behind the attack unlike Pakistan...the explosions at Husseini Dalan was carried out on Ashura to give it a colour of Sunni-Shia clash,” Kamal minister said.
Issue - 638 (9)
27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
India third-largest student market in London London India is the third-largest international student market in London after China and the US, according to a latest report.International students studying at London universities last year provided a 3 billion pounds boost to the UK economy and helped support 37,000 jobs, the report by London & Partners, the Mayor of London’s official promotional company, said.Of those figures, Indian students spent an estimated 130 million pounds in 2013-14 compared to 407 million pounds by the Chinese and 217 million pounds by the Americans. Of the 130 million pounds total, Indians spent 43 per cent at 56 million pounds on tuition fees, 56 per cent at 74 million pounds on subsistence and less than 1 per cent on visiting friends and relatives.’The Economic Impact of London’s International Students’ report also noted that while Chinese student numbers have grown by 49 per
cent since 2009-10, the Indian market has continued to decline, falling by 11 per cent year on year.”The drop in Indian students, started after the peak in 2009-10, followed a sharp expansion of the Indian student population that took place between 2004-5 and 2009-10. It is widely speculated in the press that the decline can be attributed to a change in post-study visa requirements,” the report said.Italy, Germany, France, Hong Kong, Greece, Malaysia
and Nigeria complete the top 10 countries of origin for international students in London.Mayor of London Boris Johnson said: “There’s a reason why thousands of university students from all over the world are drawn to London each year we have some of the best universities on the planet, producing everything from ground breaking scientific research to virtuoso musicians.”“London’s universities help to make the capital such a thought-
Mysterious star stirs controversy WASHINGTON A mysterious star located about 1,500 light-years from the Earth has stirred controversy due to unusual fluctuations of light, leading some to theorize that an
alien civilization could have been found. Not so fast, said NASA. “The mysterious star, KIC 8462852, does have an odd light curve,” said Steve Howell, a US space agency scientist working on the Kepler space telescope’s planet-hunting mission, which launched in 2009 but lost its key orientation abilities in 2013. “It does not look like a normal exoplanet or binary star light curve. However, I think that saying that it immediately is alien is a bit of a stretch,” Howell said in an email to AFP. A paper recently authored by Tabetha Boyajian, a postdoctoral student at Yale University, and several citizen scientists, described the
planet as having a unusual light pattern, and suggested that it appeared to have matter circling it. The paper was published in October in a British journal called the Monthly Notices of the Royal
Astronomical Society. “We’d never seen anything like this star,” Boyajian was quoted as saying in The Atlantic magazine. “It was really weird.” Kepler observes distant planets and stars by observing transits, or the dimming of light when another celestial body passes in front. The light from this strange world was seen to dim from 15 to 22 percent at irregular intervals. A planet could not be the cause, because even if it were the size of Jupiter - the largest planet in our solar system - the light from the star would dim only about one percent when it passed in between the star and the telescope. Boyajian’s paper
explored various natural scenarios, including defects with the Kepler space telescope, an asteroid pile-up or an impact that created a sea of comet debris. But another astronomer, Jason Wright, Penn State University, is preparing his own paper that interprets the light pattern as being the sign of an extraterrestrial civilization. Wright theorizes that a “swarm of megastructures,” perhaps on the order of alien solar energy panels, are to blame. President Barack Obama got a guided tour of the moon on Monday, peering at its craters through a large reflective telescope set up on the South Lawn of the White House to promote science and technology careers at “Astronomy Night.” Obama was joined by budding young scientists who checked out a moon rock and took selfies with NASA astronauts and other science celebrities. Chief among the selfie targets: Ahmed Mohamed, better known as “clock boy.” Mohamed, 14, was arrested last month when he brought a homemade clock to his Dallas-area school that teachers mistook for a bomb. Mohamed was wearing a NASA t-shirt when he was arrested. The photo went viral, prompting an invitation from Obama to the astronomy event. Obama briefly met Mohamed as he shook hands with students at the event, giving the student a hug.
provoking, stimulating and breathtaking city which provides a learning experience in itself. London is also the global capital of culture and I urge this year’s intake of international students to make the absolute most of their time here. Visit our iconic theatres and galleries, take in our amazing museums, learn from our greatest minds and inspire others to follow in your footsteps.”In 2013-14, London had 13,460 Chinese students, 6,440 American students and 4,790 Indian students enrolled across the capital of a total of 106,000 international students.Students from the US were the highest contributors per capita, spending 33,600 pounds per year on average, while the European Unionoccupy the lower rungs of the top 10 league, with per capita spending for Italian, German, French and Greek students averaging around 23,000 pounds per year.
Brahmins want rape-tainted seer to step down
Havyaka Samana Manaskara Vedike, a group of Brahmins in Karnataka owing allegiance to the powerful Ramachandrapura Mutt, on Saturday urged rapetainted Sri Raghaveshwara Bharati to step down from the pontiff’s position in view of the rape charges against him.”The charges leveled against the swamiji are serious in nature. Imagine the plight of the Mutt when the pontiff is made to stand in the witness box in the court. He has no moral right to continue as the pontiff. We welcome him back if he is cleared of the charges. He should step down immediately,” said Vedike’s Honorary President KH Srinivasa.
Watch worn by US astronaut on Moon sells for $1.6 million
NEW YORK An exceptionally rare watch worn by an American astronaut on the Moon has sold for more than $1.6 million, a US auction house said Friday. Dave Scott, the commander of the Apollo 15 mission to the Moon in 1971, wore the Bulova Chronograph watch on his third lunar walk after his standard-issue Swiss Omega became damaged. It is the only watch worn on the Moon in private hands and was bought by a Florida businessman in a frenetic, 12minute bidding war with a rival in Britain, said Boston-based RR Auction. It is also the only Americanmade watch ever worn on the Moon, and sold for $1,625,000 — smashing the auction house’s pre-sale estimates of $750,000
to $1 million. The dozen men who have set foot on the moon all wore NASA-issued Omega Speedmasters, which are considered US government property, and many are housed in institutions. But after his second moonwalk, Scott noticed that the crystal of his Omega popped off when he returned to the cabin, so he strapped on his personal backup watch, the Bulova. “Among the decisions I made, the monitoring of time was perhaps most important,” 83-year-old Scott stated in a detailed five-page letter that accompanied the sale. Apollo 15’s third lunar excursion lasted four hours, 49 minutes and 50 seconds. The watch exhibits significant wear from exposure while on the Moon, as well as from splashdown and recovery.
Issue - 638 (10)
Ramgarhia Sikh parents invite matrimonial alliance for their son, 25 yrs. old, 5’-8” tall, Dental Surgeon in India at present in USA on visitor visa, belongs to a very well settled family. The girl should be American Citizen, beautiful and family oriented. Please email recent picture and bio-data to: piarausa@hotmail.com Or Call: 1-662-347-9532 ***638*** Mazbi Sikh parents living matrimonial alliance for their daughter, 37 yrs. old, 5’-4” tall, Bechelor in Computer Science from Canadian University, well employed in govt.sector as senior Analyst, never married before. The boy should be professionally educated and employed, with family values. Caste no bar. Please send your bio-data and recent picture to: joginder1943@icloud.com Or Call: 416-885-3265 ***638*** Parents seek a suitable match for beautiful, slim, Sikh girl, American Citizen, 39 yrs. old, 5’7” tall, bachelor in I.T. system, project manager, Lgally divorced. Caste no Bar. Please send your bio-data and recent picture to : smsingh6@gmail.com Or Call : 1-908-265-0263 ***638*** Jat Sikh family seek a suitable match for their clean shaven handsome, good natured, 31 yrs. Old, 6’ tall, professionally qualified, working as a senior financial Analyst largest company in Toronto. The girl should be well educated, tall, fair, slim and family oriented. Please send your bio date and recent picture to: matrimonial600@yahoo.com ****638*** Looking for a match in Canada for British Jat Sikh Girl, 29 yrs., 5'-3" tall, graduate from London. Currently visiting her well-settled family here. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: Jaswindertaggar@gmail.com *** 638*** Jat sikh parents seek a suitable alliance for their son, Toronto Based, Canadian Citizen, 30 yrs old, 5'-6" tall, smart, handsome, clean shaven, family oriented, B.Eng and M.E.Sc from Canadian University having good engineering job. The girl should be slim and well qualified. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: inderpreetsran@gmail.com or call 647 449 1640 *** 638*** Well educated Jat Sikh Sidhu family seeking Professionally qualified match for their son, 84 born, 6'-2" tall, MS in Engg from USA. Call: 1- 916-339-7051 *** 638*** Down-to-earth, handsome, intelligent, family-oriented Jat Sikh boy living in US since 1998, Belongs to well-educated, humble family, Age 29, June 1986 born, 5'-10" tall, US Citizen, slim and athletic, Graduated from UCLA and working as a
27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
Mortgage Loan Officer. Girl should be educated and residing in US/Canada/UK. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: gsranu@yahoo.com or call: 1559 540 4851 *** 638*** Ramgarhia Sikh parents seek a suitable match for their son, 26 yrs. old, 5’-6” tall, bachelor in engineering, living in India. The girl should be beautiful, Canadian/American immigrant or citizen. Please email recent picture and bio-data to: sohalsp@gmail.com Or call : 416-247-8865 ***638*** Suitable match for Canadian PR Sikh Tonk Kshatriya boy, born 83/ 5’-11”, I.T. Professional. Preference Canadian PR/ Immigrant, well educated, beutiful, 5’-5” girl. Email: contactsunny114 @gmail.com Or Call: 905-494-0326 (Please call after 6 PM) ***638*** Jat Sikh parents seek a suitable match for their Canadian born daughter, 38 yrs. old, 5’-10” tall, professionally graduate from U.B.C. & Employed, well settled. The boy should be atleast 6’ tall, professionally employed. Vancouver area preferred. Call:1-604-596-4945 Or 1-778240-8051 ***638*** Well settled Jat Sikh parents living in North California USA seek a suitable match for their very handsome son, 26 yrs. old, 6’-2” tall, American born, well settled, owns a very successful business. The girl should be well educated, beautiful, attractive. Please send your bio-data and recent picture to: ssandhu1966@gmail.com Or Call:1-209-890-9384 ***638*** Jat Sikh parents seek a suiable match for their daughter, 36 yrs. old, 5’-4” tall, beautiful, innocentrly divorced, Canadian Citizen, well versed in both cultures, professionally employed in Toronto. The boy should be family oriented and from a respectable Jat Sikh family. Please send your biodata and recent picture to : torontomatrimonail@gmail.com Or Call : 416-509-5012 Or 416418-5151 ***638*** Saini Sikh parents invite matrimonial alliance for their daughter, 33 yrs. old, 5’-6” tall, Canadian Citizen, Hon’s Bachelor from Canadian University, beautiful, slim, fair, pretty, working in finance in down town Toronto. The boy should be professionoally educated and settled, clean shaven, between 34-38 yrs. of age from a respectable family from Canada/ USA. Please send your bio-data and recent picture to : rsaini1877@gmail.com Or Call : 647-688-1877 ***638*** Well settled Jat Sikh parents living in North California USA seek a suitable match for their
very handsome son, 26 yrs. old, 6’-2” tall, American born, well settled, owns a very successful business. The girl should be well educated, beautiful, attractive. Please send your bio-data and recent picture to: ssandhu1966@gmail.com Or Call: 1-209-890-9384 ***638*** Ramgarhia Sikh parents seek a suitable match for their daughter, 27½ years old, 5'- 3" Inch tall, B. Sc Nursing degree holder, registered nurse, at present living in India. The boy should be Canadian/American, immigrant or citizen. Please email recent picture and bio-date to: sohalsp@gmail.com or Call: 647-829-5872 (Leave Message) ***638*** Jatt Sikh Dhaliwal parents seek a suitable match for their son, September 1985 born, 6' tall. B. Pharmacy, Living in India. The girl should be well-educated Canadian/ American immigrant/ citizen. Please call at: 011-9197810-22528 or 905-789-8454 ***638*** Jat Sikh parents invite matrimonail alliance for their dauther, born and raised in Canada, 30 yrs. old, 5’ 6” tall, post gradute degree in Clinical Psyclology, professionally employed, well versed in both cultures, can speak punjabi as well. The boy should be well educated, professionally settled with family values between 2834 yres. of age. Lower Mainland area prefered. Please email recent picture and bio-data to: parmjit50@gmail.com or Call : 1-604-317-7576 ***638*** Jat Sikh family seek a suitable match for their doughter, 28 yrs. old, 5'-1" tall, Canadian born, B.D.S. from India, Master's in public health from England, Candian and British Citizen. The boy should be professionally educated, well settled in Canada or USA and from upper middle class. Please send your biodata and recent picture to: kirnsbirk@gmail.com or Call: 0011-91-98159-25258 or 647550-8836 ***638*** Kainth family looking for a suitable match for their son, born and raised in Canada, DOB June 1986, 5’-9” tall, Working in CIBC. The girl should be educated with family values, girls on student visa/work permit may also be considered. Please email your recent picture and bio-data to: rskainth@rogers.com Or Call : 416-565-7965 ***638*** Tonk Kashtriya family seeking a suktable match for their Canadian Citizen daughter 28 year old, 5’3”., CGA, B.Com, Working in Govt. job. The boy should be well educated professionally seetled. Cast no bar. Toronto Based family will be preffered. Please send your Bio-data and recent picture to : singhjag_@hotmail.com Or Call : 1-416-722-9771 ***638***
Jat Sikh parents invite matrimonial alliance for their well settled daughter, DOB 1981, 5’-6” tall, born and raised in Canada, well versed in both Cultures, family oriented, chartered professional accountant designation and professionally employed in senior management position. The boy should be well educated, professionally employed with family values. Please Call: 647-298-9665 ***638*** Ramgarhia parents seek a suitable match for their Son, 28 yrs. old, 5'-8" tall, B.Com.,Diploma in Business Admin., New zealand PR. Two sisters & mother are well settled in Canada. The girl main consideration, should be Canadian PR or Citizen. Please send your bio-data and recent picture to: 905homes@gmail.com or call: 647-273-6445. *** 638*** Jat Sikh parents seeking Canada/ US based match for their very beautiful, slim, fair Daughter, 29 yrs. old, 5'-5" tall, Never married, convent educated, MBA (India), Post Degree (Canada), professionally employed in Canada. The Boy should be Jat Sikh, clean shaven, handsome, tall and well settled. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: asr.bc93@yahoo.ca *** 638*** Seeking a beautiful, tall, well educated and family oriented girl for a handsome, tall, jatt Sikh Brar boy, 30 yrs. old, 6' tall, Well Educated, Canadian PR, residing in Toronto area. The Girl on work permit and student visa can also be considerd. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: simisidhu1980@hotmail.com or call: 1-778-869-7664 or 905-5954600 *** 638*** Jat Sikh Sidhu parents invite matrimonial alliance for their slim & beautiful daughter 28 yrs. old, 5’-7” tall, B.Sc. (Nuring), doing Job in PGI Chandigarh since 2010. The boy should be Canadian Immigrant. Please send you bio-data and recent picture to : nacbadesha@gmail.com Or Call : 647-267-3397 ***638*** Ramgarhia Sikh parents invite matrimonial alliance for their son, 27 yrs. old, 6’ tall, clean shaven, Bachelor of Science in Airline tourism and hospitality, running his own successful business in Mohali (India), having 10 yrs. multiple visa for Canada and America. The girl should be
Canadian Immigrant/Citizen, educated and family oriented. Parents are in Canada on visitor visa and sister is well settled in Canada. Please email recent picture and bio-data toi: sskalsi07@gmail.com Or Call : 647-234-4601 ***638*** Jat Sikh family seek a suitable match for their Canadian Citizen daughter, 39 yrs. old, 5’-5” tall, divorcee (One daughter). The boy should be Jat Sikh, settled preferably in California or USA. Please send you bio-data and recent picture to: sandhujs@hotmail.com Or Call:1-559-400-7142 ***638** Jat Sikh parents seeking Canada/US based match for their very beautiful slim, fair daughter, 29 yrs., 5’-5” tall, never married, convent educated, MBA (India), Post Degree (Canada), professionally employeed in Canada. The Boy should be Jat Sikh, clean shaven, handsome, tall well settled. Contact with biodata and photo. Email : asr.bc93@yahoo.ca ***638*** Jat Sikh parents invite matrimonial alliance for their son, 25 yrs. old, 5’-7” tall, Mechanical Engineering degree, at present in Canada on student visa. Owns good urban and rural property in India. The girl should be Canadian/American, Immigrant/ Citizen, educated and family oriented. Please email recent picture and biodata to: balvir8182@gmail.com Or Call : 647-808-2572 Or : 1-972-3468182 ***638*** Amritdhari Jat sikh, USA citizen, Engineer boy, 28 yrs. old, 5’-9" tall, Working as Engineer in Government Dept. The Girl should be Amritdhari and professionally qualified. Please send your biodata and recent picture to: khalsa9450@gmail.com ***638*** Saraswat B\rahmin family seek a suitable match for their Manglik son, Jan. 26, 1984 born, time 10.30 A.M. (Jagraoon), 5’-10” tall, Canadian Immigrant, M.Sc., B.Ed., living in Winnipeg. The Girl should be Canadian/American Immigrant or Citizen, well educated, Manglik, Preferably from Canada. The Girl on Studen/Visitor/Work Permit Visa can also be considered. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to : sharmatejpal@ yahoo.com Or Call : 1-204-9519909 ***638***
Housekeeper Wanted Everyday duties include: Cleaning the house on 3 levels, kitchen, dishes, counter, floor, fridge, cupboards, dishwashers, washing, drying clothing and ironing, preparing lunch & dinner, grocery shopping, keeping the household supplies fully stocked, receiving & serving guests, bed making, linen changing, daily massage for elderly woman, etc. Driving license a must. Livein only. Serious inquiries please. Be prepared to state your salary expectations. Must have 1-2 yrs. of working experience in a fast paced environment. Please call: 647-632-3999
Issue - 638 (11)
27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
Pakistan will be world’s fifth largest nuclear weapon state by 2025 Pakistan is likely to become the fifth largest nuclear weapon state in next year ten years. According to a report Pakistani nuclear forces programme, if the country continues to enrich its nuclear arsenal with the
present speed, it will have 220 to 250 warheads by 2025.The same report also said that at present Pakistan has a nuclear weapon stockpile of 110 to 130 warheads, a rise from an estimated 90 to 110 in 2011. “Pakistan has a nuclear weapons stockpile of 110 to 130 warheads, an increase from an estimated 90 to 110 warheads in 2011,” said a report on ‘Pakistani nuclear forces 2015’ by the
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists released during the ongoing visit of Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.”With several delivery systems in development, four operating plutonium production reactors, and uranium
facilities, the country’s stockpile will likely increase over the next 10 years, but by how much will depend on many things,” it said.The report authored by Hans M Kristensen and Robert S Norris said the two key factors will be how many nuclear-capable launchers Pakistan plans to deploy, and how much India’s nuclear arsenal grows. Pakistan appears to have six types of currently operational
nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, plus at least two more under development the short-range Shaheen-1A and medium-range Shaheen-3. Pakistan is also developing two new cruise missiles, the groundlaunched Babur (Hatf-7) and the air-launched Ra’ad (Hatf-8), the report said. According to the report there are signs that Pakistan is developing a nuclear weapon initially probably a nuclearcapable cruise missile - for deployment on submarines.In 2012, the Pakistani navy established Headquarters Naval Strategic Forces Command (NSFC) for the development and deployment of a sea-based strategic nuclear force. The government said that this command would be the “custodian of the nation’s second-strike capability” to “strengthen Pakistan’s policy of Credible Minimum Deterrence and ensure regional stability”.
Plane birth latest in bizarre airplane incidents The birth of a child by a Taiwanese woman aboard a flight to the United States is the latest in a long line of unexpected events aboard commercial airliners
how far along her pregnancy was and forcing the plane to divert. The child was granted US citizenship upon landing in Alaska per US law.- A Korean Air flight
featuring the scary, dangerous and just plain bizarre. Here are some of the more noteworthy.A still unidentified woman forced an emergency landing in Alaska on Oct. 8 after giving birth during a flight from Taiwan to Los Angeles. Local media reported that the woman appeared to be seeking to give birth in the US in order to obtain American citizenship for her child and repeatedly asked the cabin crew, “Are we in US air space?” She could now be stuck with a bill of $33,000 for lying to airline staff about
preparing to depart from New York’s JFK International Airport returned to the gate after an airline executive traveling in first class became enraged after being offered macadamia nuts in a bag instead of on a dish. Cho Hyun-ah, the daughter of Korean Air’s chairman and one of the richest women in South Korea, had ordered the chief flight attendant off the Dec. 5, 2014, flight, winning herself worldwide notoriety and, ultimately, a one-year prison sentence for obstructing flight duties and
assault. The incident became a lightning rod for anger in South Korea where the economy is dominated by family-run conglomerates known as haebol that often lord it over their fellow citizens.A Chinese woman identified only by her surname, Piao, opened an emergency door on an Asiana Airlines flight on Feb. 12, 2015, as the plane was taxiing down the runway in the Chinese city of Yanji, causing the emergency slide to deploy and forcing the aircraft to stop abruptly. The incident led to revelations that Chinese passengers had opened one or more airplane emergency doors without authorization at least 12 times in the first half of 2015 alone, prompting the imposition of harsher penalties. While some of the incidents were dismissed as accidents, others were blamed on passengers venting their frustration over delayed flights or simply trying to exit the plane ahead of the crowd, underscoring ongoing problems with unruly passengers.
No sex, gluttony, golf: Communist Party China makes list of sins for party cadres China’s ruling Communist Party has listed sex, gluttony and golf as violations for the first time for its members with an intention to stop the scourge of corrupt practices among officials. The rules extend not just to officials but the entire 88 million Communist party cadre states a report in Xinhua news agency. The official Xinhua news agency stated the list to be ‘a moral ethical code that members must abide by’. The report states the following as sins that members must not indulge in:i) extravagant eating and drinking ii) engaging in sexual relationships outside of marriageiii) playing golfImproper sexual relations in the rules only referred to ‘ “keeping paramours and conducting adultery”, reports Asia Times. Tales of corruption and austerity drive: Ideally bureaucrats in China are supposed to follow a humble and simple life. However, extravagant lifestyle, corruption among party officials of all levels
has been fairly common in China and is also major cause for the widespread outrage among the public.Since assuming power as the party leader in 2012 Chinese President Xi Jingping has launched an austerity drive and a crackdown on corruption.
window for corrupt officials to make shady deals. Owner of a golf equipment store in Shanghai,Huang, told Reuters ‘In other countries golf is more about the sport, here it’s about the social interaction. If a company boss can’t play with a
Dozens of officials have been investigated and jailed since then. An estimated 100,000 officials have been punished and a prominent figure being Chinese’ former security chief, Zhou Youngkang who was given a life sentence for corruption, reports the Guardian. New rules stand as an impediment to the golf market and sports in general. Golf in China was seen as a potential growth booster for foreign firms, reports Reuters. According to the report golf was the
government official, there’s little point in him spending his money. This year, things are even more dismal. With our regular revenues we can no longer make ends meet.”In conclusion, the official state agency report states that the “Party members must separate public and private interests, put the public’s interest first, and work selflessly,” Indulgence in any of these activities can lead to expulsion from the party.
Issue - 638 (12)
27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
The boy who can’t stop smiling Genetic disorder means James, 11, always looks happy - even though he can’t speak Most parents would be delighted if their 11-year-old son was always laughing and smiling. But for James Edgar’s mother Rachel, his constantly happy nature is a simply a reminder of the difficulties life may hold for him. James was born with Angelman syndrome - a chromosome disorder which causes severe learning difficulties. And the rare neurological condition has a side-effect that means sufferers tend to be easily excited and are left almost permanently laughing or smiling. So while the youngster, from Caernarfon, North Wales, appears to be the happiest child in the world, he actually experiences intellectual and developmental delay, seizures and jerky movements. Fewer then 1,000 cases of Angelman syndrome have been reported in the UK. James’s mother, Rachel Martin, said: ‘James is such a happy, lovable, cuddly child. But he needs constant supervision as he is not aware of danger. ‘He may appear happy, but he does feel other emotions, even if he doesn’t show it. ‘That’s not to say there aren’t moments when he’s
challenging, but he’s such a pleasure to be around.’ James was diagnosed when he was 17 months old after doctors had monitored him because of his lack of progression.
His mother said: ‘When he was diagnosed, we were upset although not entirely surprised as we had thought that James had a disability for some time. ‘When you receive confirmation that your child had a disability, all your plans for the future change instantly. ‘As a parent you have subconscious expectations for your child that are not going to be realised, and some parents go through a period of loss, almost like grieving, for the child they thought you were going to have.’
James is unable to talk, but he is able to express himself through his iPad. Rachel says he uses several apps to tell stories at school and also bring stories home to share with family. She said: ‘The iPad is amazing - it has helped him so much. ‘His favourite site is YouTube, he can spend all day on it. He particularly loves the Disney Parades and Chapstick video. ‘He has brought immense joy and happiness to our family and while I would happily take away the challenges he faces in life, I wouldn’t want to change him. He is who he is - just James!’ James lives at his home with his siblings Alexandria, 15, Zac, seven and Beth six, who, says Rachel, are all very good at helping. Rachel is the chair of the Angelman Syndrome Support Education and Research Trust. She said: ‘Since James was diagnosed I’ve been involved with the trust. ‘It allows families to meet and learn about the syndrome and gives national support to those involved.’ Now, the Newlife Foundation, an organisation set to help disabled children, is fundraising to help the youngster. They hope to raise £5,000 in addition to the £2500 already donated to fund a specialist bed for James to control his complex behaviours.
China’s richest man doubled fortune in 12 months
China’s richest man saw his fortune balloon by nearly $17 billion - a sum larger than the GDP of Iceland - in the past year, business magazine Forbes said Monday. Wang Jianlin, founder of real estate and entertainment conglomerate Wanda Group, saw his wealth rocket from $13.2 billion to $30 billion in the publisher’s 2015 China Rich List. The windfall, which came despite sluggish growth in the world’s second-largest economy, was driven by the flotations of two of his company’s subsidiaries - even though he lost $3.6 billion in a single day during China’s market turmoil this summer. “It’s good to have money,” Wang said in a brief appearance at the announcement of the ranking. At his average rate of accumulation last year he would have become more than $200,000 wealthier during his seven minutes on the stage. The son of a Red Army captain, Wang was himself a soldier before he founded Wanda in the 1980s, building it up with military discipline. Its website says it is Asia’s largest private property owner. Now 61, he is the 15th richest man on the planet according to Forbes’ real-time billionaires ranking. “To unabash-
edly go out and make money, then fairly and equitably distribute that wealth - this is what rich people should do,” Wang said. Wang has sought to play down overseas media speculation on the link between his success and government ties, which in China can be crucial to seal land deals with local authorities. He said Monday that market forces and creative abilities were crucial to building major businesses in China, rather than personal connections. “If you’ve made money, it’s definitely because you have skills; I believe that the majority of people who’ve made money did so through normal channels,” he said. “The majority of people with money, especially extraordinarily rich people, are good people.” Wang is known outside China for a string of overseas acquisitions including the organiser of Ironman extreme endurance contests, Swiss sports marketing group Infront, and a stake in Spanish football club Atletico Madrid. He burst into the international spotlight in 2012 by buying US cinema chain AMC Entertainment for $2.6 billion and his company owns more than 200 malls, shopping complexes and luxury hotels across China.
Is history wrong about the Wright Brothers? New evidence suggests German immigrant flew TWO YEARS before pioneers took off at Kitty Hawk
A growing number of aviation experts say history is wrong about the Wright Brothers - their 1903 flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina was not the first. This new movement claims the first manned flight of an airplane was made by German immigrant Gustave Whitehead more than two years earlier in Connecticut. However, the only known photograph of the takeoff of his plane the Condor is too blurry to definitively confirm the flight and the original was lost decades ago - forcing historians to rely on a version that is even less clear. Most mainstream aeronautical historians, including those at the Smithson Institution, are unswayed by newspaper accounts of Mr Whitehead
making several flights before the Wright Brothers. However, the seminal journal on manned flight, Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft, recently threw its weight behind Mr Whitehead - asserting that he, and not the Wright Brothers, deserves credit for having the first manned flight of an airplane. ‘In the early hours of 14 August 1901, the Condor propelled itself along the darkened streets of Bridgeport, Connecticut, with Whitehead, his staff and an invited guest in attendance,’ writes Paul Johnson, the editor of All the World’s Aircraft.’In the still air of dawn, the Condor’s wings were unfolded and it took off from open land at Fairfield, 15 miles from the city, and performed two demonstration
sorties. The second was estimated as having covered 1½ miles at a height of 50 feet, during which slight turns in both directions were demonstrated.’Mr Johnson goes on to compare the Wright Brothers’ December 17, 1903 first flight as clumsy next to Mr Whitehead’s maneuvering. ‘This, it must be stressed, was more than two years before the Wrights manhandled their Flyer from its shed and flew a couple of hundred feet in a straight line after lifting off from an adjacent wooden rail hammered into the ground,’ the editor writes. Mr Whitehead was born in Bavaria, Germany, in 1874 and had an early love of kites, birds and all things that flew. He caught birds and performed experiments on them to determine how they flew. He jumped off roofs with homemade wings - attempting to tap into the miracle of flight even at an
early age, according to Australian historian John Brown, who is leading the newest academic charge to credit Mr Whitehead with making the first manned flight.Orphaned at age 13, Mr Whitehead trained in Germany as a machinist. But, he had a mind for the burgeoning field of aeronautical engineering. He immigrated to the U.S.in 1893 and was later hired by the Aeronautical Club of Boston to build two flying machines. On the fateful day of his first reported flight an editor with the Bridgeport Herald was on hand to see the event. The newspaper, and several others, later printed accounts of the feat. However, the photograph turned out blurry in the morning light. The Herald printed a lithograph that was reportedly drawn using the picture. Not everyone is convinced of Mr Whithead’s feat. Critics say
reproductions of the photograph made that day are too blurry to prove anything about a flight. Additionally, the story was played in only a few newspaper and was not made banner news - indicating skepticism at the time over whether it had actually happened. Further, several witnesses - interviewed 30 years later - said the flight never actually happened. The All the World’s Aircraft speculates that Mr Whitehead became lost in history because of his poor business sense. ‘After two false starts, his third investor proved to be the serial convicted criminal (and, subsequently, lunatic asylum patient) Herman Linde who, early in 1902, attempted to appropriate the venture and had Whitehead locked out of the factory containing his production line of between four and six aeroplane,’ the editor writes.
Issue - 638 (13)
27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
Australian tech allows cows’ weights to be monitored from space SYDNEY Australian farmers managing cattle stations as large as some European nations will soon be able to monitor their cows and pastures from space as part of
“groundbreaking” technology, scientists say.The technology, developed with government and private funding, taps into a satellite passing overhead to record the weights of herds daily while monitoring pasture conditions - a task traditionally impossible due to the stations’ vast sizes and harsh, remote locations. Some stations, such as Newcastle Waters in the Northern Territory, span 10,000 square kilometres (3,861 square miles) - an area larger than Cyprus and home to 55,000 cattle. Australia is one of the world’s largest beef exporters. “There’s just a huge labour component and time that goes
into collecting that data (of weight and pastoral conditions), which is essentially why producers don’t do it on a more regular basis,” Sally Leigo from the Northern Territory’s primary
industry department, the project’s research leader, told AFP Thursday.On average, cattle are only weighed 1.5 times a year and only two percent of pasture is regularly viewed, the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation, the private-public funded organisation that developed the tool, estimates. The technology exploits the stations’ semi-arid conditions, which means there is little access to surface water with cattle having to walk to manmade watering points each day. A weighing platform that the cows - which each have an electronic tag - must step on is placed at the watering points and powered
by solar panels, with the data fed to a satellite and then to a station manager’s computer. The satellite also monitors pastures every 250 metres (820 feet), allowing farmers to determine when cattle must be moved to the next paddock. “The global demand for beef is booming at the moment,” said Murray Grey, whose family has for three decades run the remote West Australian 1,970-squarekilometre Glenflorrie station, one of the five taking part in the trial before a public showing next week. “We’ve haven’t got the room to breed more cows, but we have got the room to make the cows that we have got produce more efficiently. “Ultimately, it’s getting that animal to market quicker,” Grey added, saying the technology would boost efficiencies in the lucrative business, such as cutting costs and lifting revenue, by 25 to 40 percent.While farmers traditionally look for a visual change in a herd to determine when they are losing weight and their feed needs to be refreshed, the technology will allow them to monitor this almost instantaneously.“There’s a lot of systems still in place on pastoral stations that haven’t changed in over 100 years... and it’s great for our industry to finally be in pace with the technological world,” Grey said. Leigo said she was hopeful the technology would become commercially available to cattle stations worldwide by 2017.
Pet dogs originated in Nepal, Mongolia
MIAMI Dogs may have become man’s best friend in Central Asia, specifically in what is modern day Nepal and Mongolia, researchers said Monday. Dogs evolved from Eurasian gray wolves at least 15,000 years ago, but just where and how they made the historical leap from roving in packs to sitting before human masters has been a matter of debate. Aiming to resolve a long-standing mystery about where dogs were first domesticated, the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences described itself as the “largest-ever survey of worldwide canine genetic diversity.” The team, led by Adam Boyko at Cornell University, analyzed more than 185,800 genetic markers in some than 4,600 purebred dogs of 165 breeds,
along with more than 540 village dogs from 38 countries. The analysis “suggests that dogs were likely domesticated in Central Asia, plausibly around modern-day Nepal and Mongolia,” said the study. “Domestic dogs may have originated in Central Asia and spread to East Asia and beyond.” Some archaeologists have long believed Central Asia was a likely origin for domestication of dogs, but genetic studies have been lacking. Still, the study cautioned “we cannot rule out the possibility that dogs were domesticated elsewhere and subsequently, either through migration or a separate domestication event.” More study is needed to confirm the findings, and to determine whether these early dogs were just scavenging scraps from hunter-gatherers, or if they were assisting in the hunts.
Crocodiles sleep with one eye watching Snow leopards face new climate change threat London Canberra Crocodiles can sleep with one eye open, according to a study from Australia. In doing so they join a list of animals with this ability, which includes some birds, dolphins and other reptiles. Writing in the Journal of Experimental Biology, the researchers say the crocs are probably sleeping with one brain hemisphere at a time, leaving one half of the brain active and on the lookout. Consistent with this idea, the crocs in the study were more likely to leave one eye open in the presence of a human. They also kept that single eye trained directly on the interloper, said senior author John Lesku. “They definitely monitored the human when they were in the room. But even after the human left the room, the animal still kept its open eye… directed towards the location where the human had been suggesting that they were keeping an eye out for potential threats.” The experiments were done in an aquarium lined with
infrared cameras, to monitor juvenile crocodiles day and night. “These animals are not particularly amenable to handling; they are a little snippy. So we had to limit all of our work to juvenile crocodiles, about 40-50cm
long,” said Dr Lesku, from La Trobe University in Melbourne. As well as placing a human in the room for certain periods, the team tested the effect of having other young crocs around. Sure enough, these also tended to attract the gaze of any reptiles dozing with only one eye. This matches what is known of “unihemispheric sleep” in aquatic mammals, such as walruses and dolphins, which seem to use one eye to make sure they stick together in a group. By contrast, birds use this strategy to watch out for
predators.”In threatening situations, birds will increase their use of unihemispheric sleep and maintain their open eye on any potential threat,” Dr Lesku explained. “It seems to be a bit of both, in the case of these juvenile saltwater crocodiles.” The next step will be to confirm that, as well as simply opening one eye, the crocs are indeed only physiologically half asleep. “Ultimately we would require electrophysiological recordings so you’d have to look at brain waves in both hemispheres of a sleeping crocodile, to say: is one hemisphere awake while the other is asleep.” Dr Lesku is already preparing those experiments, working with colleagues in Germany to stick electrodes - carefully - on the heads of Nile crocodiles. Meanwhile, the discovery of one-eyed sleep in crocodiles firmly fixes this capacity to yet another branch of the evolutionary tree.
Kathmandu Warmer temperatures are threatening to shrink the habitat of the snow leopard and weaken their struggle against extinction, a report says. Conservation charity WWF says more than a third of the animal’s mountain living areas could become uninhabitable because of climate change. It says plants and trees there are not able to survive in warmer temperatures. The report describes snow leopards as one of the most beautiful and enigmatic big cats.“But it is also one of the most elusive and endangered,” it says. Climate change will exacerbate most of these threats, the report says, further increasing the pressure on snow leopards and reducing them to unsustainable numbers in many
areas.“The Himalayas region will face a major crisis if we choose to ignore climate change. Not only do we risk losing
majestic species such as the snow leopard, but hundreds of millions of people who rely on water flowing from these mountains may be affected,” WWF-UK’s Snow Leopard Programme Lead Rebecca May said. The charity says that
Porn in captivity They are not known for their sexual prowess and their libidos are notoriously low. So conservationists in China are celebrating after a shy pair of pandas successfully mated while watching a porn video.Vets at the Panda Breeding and Research Base in Chengdu, Sichuan province, Southern China, were worried when inexperienced five-year-old female Colin kept rejecting her mate, Yongyong.
Issue - 638 (14)
27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
Dalit children killings: Sunped family New Delhi holds first car-free day was assured of police protection In what reminds one of the findings of the Justice Iqbal Singh commission in Mirchpur carnage in Haryana in 2010 in which the inquiry had indicted the
the family some protection. “Despite the police, these elements are fearless and we are under a life threat from them,” she had added in the letter shot to the
police and the local administration, the Sunped killings of two Dalit toddlers too, seem to be a result of police apathy.This was revealed by a letter written by the mother of the two dead children to the police barely a fortnight before the incident.”Dominant people of the village come to our house and abuse us on and off. These people came to our house again on October 4 and 5 and abused us. They said they will not let Dalits live in the village,” said Rekha in a letter to request the station house officer of the Sadar Police Station to accord
SHO on October 6.Rekha said in the letter that after the incident that took place last year in which three people were killed over a trivial dispute over a mobile phone, the family had to flee the village fearing for their lives. “We were sent back to the village under the protection of the administration, but despite the police protection we have been harassed by the goons,” she wrote.The letter from the SC Commission dated November last year too, is consequential in this respect. The letter dated
November 21, 2014, mentions that the commission had ordered the commissioner of Faridabad to normalise the situation in the Sunped village.It also said that efforts to bring back the Dalit families who had fled the village needed to be resettled and that more force needed to be stationed for their protection.Documents reveal the police in turn replied to the commission in December 2014, saying guaranteed the protection of the Dalit families. The affected family had been accorded the protection of six police personnel along with a PCR and two riders for increased surveillance, the letter said.Two-and-ahalf year old Vaibhav and 11-month-old Divya died after their house was set on fire by members of an upper caste community late last Monday. They were rushed to Safdarjung Hospital where doctors declared them dead as both children had suffered 60-70 per cent burns. Their mother Rekha, 23, was critical but had regained consciousness on Wednesday.
No house to house world’s tallest Durga idol The Durga Puja organisers who put up the “world’s tallest Durga idol” here are now in fix. With the festival at its fag end, the Deshapriya Park Puja
hours.Kolkata police subsequently banned public viewing of the idol, and filed a case against the organisers for violating rules and regulations.”We
committee members are hunting for the ideal location to house the 88foot-high exhibit.The highly-publicised cement and fibre glass Durga had been at the centre of a controversy in the eastern metropolis which is decked up with around 3,000-odd installations each year during the Puja.Such was the buzz surrounding the idol that on October 18, a day ahead of the Durga Puja, a stampede-like situation was created at the marquee and a number of people were injured.The entire city, wrapped in banners and hoardings announcing the idol’s dimensions, came to a grinding halt as traffic stopped for a couple of
know that we will find a lot of places to house the idol. But we want the best location to exhibit it. So we are still looking,” said a Puja committee member.”We are unhappy
about the fact that hundreds of people couldn’t see the idol after the marquee was closed. So we hope we can display it somewhere,” the member added.A distraught Mintu Pal who along with nearly three dozen workers slogged for months to create the colossal idols is now pinning hopes on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for preserving it.”It is really very painful that after putting so much of effort, the people were devoid of watching my creation. People from faraway places came to see it, had to return disappointed,” said Pal.”I hope the chief minister comes to the rescue and ensures the idol is preserved and exhibited for people to see it,” he added.
Dalit youth killed in Agra, 5 cops suspended Five police officers have been suspended and 11 booked for allegedly killing a Dalit youth in custody in Agra. Identified as Vijay Pal (25) of village Bhagupur in the district, the youth was arrested by the police apparently after an exchange of firing with some outlaws on Wednesday.But Pal was found dead in Etmadpur police station on Thursday evening. The family members of the deceased claimed that there was no
criminal record against Pal, who was subjected to third-degree of torture that allegedly led to his death. While the local administration initially tried to hush up the incident instead of taking action against the guilty police officers, they hurriedly registered cases under Section 302 of the IPC against 11 policemen when a large number of villagers surrounded Etmadpur police station and resorted to violence.
The Indian capital held its first “car-free day” Thursday to try to improve New Delhi’s notoriously filthy air, but motorists were seen ignoring signs to keep off the roads. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal flagged off the initiative by cycling along what would normally be one of the city’s busiest roads, flanked by a couple of hundred bureaucrats and bicycle enthusiasts. “People should leave their vehicles and use public transport. Since pollution is increasing in Delhi, there is a need to run, cycle which is also good for health,” Kejriwal said. Around 8.5 million vehicles ply the city’s roads, which are considered highly unsafe for both pedestrians and cyclists. Authorities have been criticised for failing to curb pollution, in a city ranked by the World Health Organization as having the worst air quality in the world.Thursday’s voluntary initiative, lasting five hours, was held on a public holiday when most offices and schools are shut and traffic is thinner anyway. Cars were seen using a designated “carfree” stretch running from
the historic Red Fort to India Gate in central Delhi ignoring volunteers on foot who were encouraging
study of 1,600 cities released last year showed Delhi had the world’s highest annual average
them to turn back. “It is more of a symbolic gesture at the moment, more of an awareness-raising activity,” Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director of Delhibased Centre for Science and Environment think tank, told AFP.“What we need to curb the city’s pollution is simultaneous hard decisions on restraining car usage through parking policies, taxation and scaling up of public transport,” she said. Delhi’s government is determined to push ahead with the initiative, planning a “car-free day” once a month in designated sections of the city. A WHO
concentration of small airborne particles known as PM2.5 higher even than Beijing.These extremely fine particles of less than 2.5 micrometres in diameter are linked to increased rates of chronic bronchitis, lung cancer and heart disease as they penetrate deep into the lungs and can pass into the bloodstream. India’s top court, acting on a petition, this month approved a government trial to slap charges on thousands of diesel trucks, which mostly enter the city at night en route to other states, in a bid to reduce traffic.
Issue 638 (15)
27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
Beware! This movie on insomniac lovers Alia and Shahid may give you sleepless nights Director: Vikas Bahl Cast: Shahid Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Pankaj Kapur Rating: 2 Stars A jigsaw puzzle infused with animations is what Shaandaar is all about. A few minutes into the movie, and you are left wondering whether it is a cartoon series, a Dharma production wedding film (read: a grand castle at an exotic European location this time), or a musical you have come to watch. Sadly, the formula of a destination wedding, good looking people,
walking ‘Google’, she has an answer for everything, and why not for she has all the time in the world to read. Bahl took Terry Prachett’s magic realism to another level in the movie in trying to make us believe in the existence of a girl who doesn’t get any sleep whatsoever. The Cinderella of the castle is brought home by her ‘Peeps’, Pankaj Kapur, who only wishes to find his adopted daughter a Prince who can put her to sleep (no pun intended). The adopted
loud families, could not rescue us from the wrath of the not-so Shaandaar movie. Meet the forcefully effervescent ‘Aila’ Alia ( Alia Bhatt) who, surprise-surprise, plays an exact opposite of the image the actress built for herself post her Koffee with Karan quiz debacle. A
child receives but no love from her foster mother and grandmother, Sushma Seth. Wakey-wakey for walks in the wedding planner, Jagjinder Joginder (Shahid Kapoor), who too turns out to be an insomniac. The wedding of Arora clan’s Esha (Sanah Kapoor) with
the Sindhi Fundwani’s uber-cool Robin, a serial gymmer is but a deal to save both the bankrupt families of bankruptcy. Yes, you read it right! They end up spending a lot of moolah to get money off of each other. The bride is interested in the marriage but all everybody including the Arora matriarch, Sushma Seth and the Fundwani head of the clan, played by Sanjay Kapoor are interested in are gold digging. A word of caution, don’t forget to take your dark glasses for you’ll witness a lot of bling with the Fundwani’s show of gold. Amidst the wedding planning, Alia and Shahid make time for romance, and spending their nights together swimming and dancing, playing and eating together. The bouts of comic exchange between Jagjinder and Kapur, could have been adorable, but seem forced as the latter playing the protective father (it’s a no-brainer to guess that she is the love child of Kapur). A grand wedding picnic, a sangeet in one of the broadway theatres, took the grand wedding to another level. What could have been a witty episode was the ‘Mehndi with Karan’ segment. It does
amuse us for a bit, and could have been explored further. If you want to go watch the movie, go only for the new kid on the block. The most promising Kapoor in the movie was Sanah Kapoor.
The Gulaabo will literally steal your heart away with her dimpled smile and natural banter in the movie. The cherry on the cake is the sangeet qawalli song, where the body-shamed bride re-
ceives support from members of her family. We’d love to see what the girl will do next! It comes as a surprise that Bahl is the same movie maverick who gave us Queen. It’s okay, if you shun Shaandaar!
ening spell. Leslie is a witch who runs a bar and who enters Koulder’s life just as he is being advised
by the 36th Dolan to “find someone”. Plus, she is to jog Koulder’s deep-ingrained memory about the
clash with the witch queen that changed his life. The thing is the queen’s followers are trying to bring her
back to life, and that’s not good at all, especially as she threatened to usher in the plague the last time.
The Last Witch Hunter Directed by Breck Eisner Starring Vin Diesel, Michael Caine, Elijah Wood, Rose Leslie Rating: 2 Stars Shot, sliced, struck, splayed; saved, sailed, smiled, strayed; and carried on. For Vin Diesel to start at one end of that trajectory and appear unscathed at the other is par for the course. Now imagine him as witch hunter Kaulder, with special powers and immortality. Witch, witches, or witch queen which has a chance? Not for want of trying. Kaulder may have survived 800 years of similar witch fights, starting with a maelstrom involving a lot of
gnarled roots and barely discernible bodies, but here they are giving it another shot. Lending the whole exercise a sense of worldthreatening gravitas is Michael Caine as ‘Dolan’, one of a series of priests appointed as hand-holders by the Church for Koulder. Potions figure, powders fly, insects buzz, fires spark, shrivelled things become ‘weather manipulators’, swords with ancient engravings are dusted, and lots and lots of mysterious plants get dug up in the battle. Wood is Dolan 37th, who replaces Caine’s Dolan 36th, after the latter has been put under a life-threat-
Issue 638 (16)
27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
‘Fitoor’ ignited passion in me as an actor says Katrina Kaif Actress says her forthcoming film Fitoor reinspired her and ignited the passion in her as an actor. “Fitoor is a script I fell in love with the moment I heard it. I was very excited and passionate about it. When I started working on the film, we initially went slow, then I
Would love to do ‘Pyaar Ka Punchnama 3’ says Kartik Aaryan He has been a part of both the installments of Pyaar Ka Punchnama and actor Kartik Aaryan says he would love to have another film in the popular buddy -comedy franchise. Kartik made his debut with Luv Ranjan’s sleeper hit in 2011 and also starred in its sequel, which released on October 16 this year. “Definitely, I would love to have a part three. But not right now. Even the second part took some time to come. They have to work on the writing and make sure it is better than the previous two. “Pyaar Ka Punchnama is a universal concept. You can use different set of characters and put them in a situation like this again and again. But the content has to be good and different,” Kartik told PTI. While the 26-yearold actor played submissive Rajat in the first movie, he was seen as a more opinionated character, Gogo in the sequel. Kartik is “overwhelmed” by the response of the
film and says he was under a “lot of pressure” to outdo his previous outing. “I was under a lot of pressure. The first film is a cult and we knew we had to surpass that. But thankfully, we had a strong content and a good film. We were aware about the comparisons. “We didn’t want fans to say ‘Oh this was not better than the first film.’ We wanted them to love this as much as they loved the first one.” Pyaar Ka Punchnama is best known for its sevenminute-long hilarious monologue in which Kartik’s character vented out the frustration of every guy in a relationship. A similar and muchlonger monologue from the sequel has now gone viral and the actor says
started understanding things,” Katrina told PTI. “I have learnt so much from the film. It has reinspired me... Ignited the passion in me as an actor. It is like a new journey for me as an actor. If I could go back and live everyday on the set, I would,” she said. Earlier, the Abhishek Kapoor-directed film had veteran actress Rekha, but instead of her Tabu is now doing the movie. Katrina said she had a memorable experience working with Rekha. “I got few days to work with
Nargis Fakhri to do cameo in ‘Dishoom’
he is happy that audiences have connected with it as well. “The current monologue went viral and has got standing ovation, hooting and clapping. It was a 12-min and 12-page long shot. It took me almost six days, five sleepless nights and seven-eight takes. “I used to shoot other scenes of the film during day and listen to the monologue, which I had recorded, while driving back home in my car. It was tough initially but it became easy as I had everything on my mind.”
Actress Nargis Fakhri will reportedly be seen in a cameo role in John Abraham-starrer actionadventure Dishoom. The Rohit Dhawan-directed movie also stars his younger brother Varun and actress Jacqueline Fernandez in the lead roles. “Nargis is doing a cameo in the film. She is doing a guest appearance. She will shoot for it once the dates are worked out keeping in mind John’s injury,” sources said, without divulging details about her role in the film. Nargis, 36, earlier worked with John in Shoojit Sircar’s 2013 film Madras Cafe and romanced Varun in David Dhawan’s Main Tera Hero (2014). Gossip mills are abuzz that superstar Akshay Kumar will also do a cameo in Dishoom. His spokesperson was unavailable for a comment on it.
her. I always had a great connection with her. She had been amazingly friendly, warm person. We are saddened that it did not work out. Every film has its destiny and we respect that. “I have seen Rekha quite a few times. So when she came on sets we had a warm connection. As a performer... As work everyone is a fan of her. I was very respectful towards her. Since we knew each other so it was a close connection,” she said. The Namastey London actress will be seen with Siddharth Malhotra in Nitya Mehra’s Baar Baar Dekho. “Nitya’s film is an amazing love story. It is an idea that
shocked me when I first heard it. I have not seen or heard a film like this in long time. Most of the love stories are of similar types, but this seemed new and exciting. There is lot of performance in it,” she said. Both Katrina and Siddharth will go for prosthetics for getting a certain look for the film.”It (prosthetics) is there for a small portion in a film. Like in Barfi, when they (Ranbir and Priyanka) are growing old and dying so you won’t say it is a film using prosthetics. It is used in a small portion in the film. There is a very small portion (growing old) that comes towards the end of the film,” Katrina said.
Issue 638 (17)
27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
Sarah Jessica Parker feels fragrance matters a lot Actress Sarah Jessica Parker says she thinks fragrance makes much more of an impression than what you wear. “It’s immediately communicating more than your clothes, which we think tell our story, right? But clothes don’t invade anybody else’s space,” Parker said. “You know how you feel when someone hugs you and they are wearing a fragrance you don’t care for and it’s stuck on you and you go to the ladies’ room and you try to really carefully, discreetly wipe it off? Or gentlemen in the old days, who liked really strong cologne? “It’s unique in that way. Your make-up doesn’t do that. Your bag doesn’t do that, your shoes, or your clothes, but fragrance completely lives in both worlds,” Parker told The Cut magazine, reports femalefirst.co.uk. The 50-year-old actress released her perfume, Lovely, 10 years ago and
recalled the first time she was ever mesmerised by a scent. “I was like 15, 16 maybe? Up to that point I was wearing probably Love’s Baby Soft, and she (actress Mary McDonnell) would get up and spray Aliage on every day and I was hypnotised. I saved up some of my money and bought Aliage,” she said. “When I went to do ‘Square Pegs’, I shared a room with my baby brother because he was really tiny. He and I shared this little room in temporary apartments or something. “One day, he went into my closet and he sprayed all of my Aliage. I was so angry because I had saved up for so long, and he was just like (mimes spraying motion) around the whole closet.
Kaley Cuoco ‘grateful’ Drew Barrymore to to family, fans for support daughters support during split to pursue acting after 18
Hollywood star Drew Barrymore began her career at the age of seven, but the actress says she will not let her daughters get into acting until they are 18. Barrymore, 40, who has two daughters, three-year-old Olive, and Frankie, 18 months with husband, Will Kopelman, says she does not have any issue with them getting into acting, reported People magazine. The 50 First Dates actress said she will support them “one hundred percent”, but not at young age. “Not even a little. Not until they’re 18. I know it sounds crazy, but I want them to be kids. But I would by no means poo-poo a thing I love so much!,” she said. The actress has penned down her life experience in her book Wildflower Actress Kaley Cuoco has thanked her family, friends and fans for their support following her split from husband Ryan Sweeting. Cuoco, who filed for divorce from the professional tennis player last month after 21 months of marriage, said she is preparing for the “next chapter” of her life, reported Female First. The 29-year-old star broke her silence on the split on Instagram, writing, “I’m feeling completely overwhelmed with the outpouring of kindness and support from the people that surround me and from those I have never even met. “I want you to know, I read all your comments and your sweet words have touched me deeply. I’m incredibly grateful for all your love as I start this next chapter in my life.” Sweeting, 28, recently filed court documents requesting spousal support from Kaley, who earns USD 1 million per episode, as per their pre-nuptial agreement.
and shared intimate stories from working on the ET set with director and mentor Steven Spielberg to lifelong friendship with Adam Sandler and Cameron Diaz. “It was such a private, quiet thing to write the book.
Angelina Jolie’s quality time with kids Hollywood star Angelina Jolie prefers to spend quality time with each of her children one at a time so she can give them her individual attention. The 40-year-old actress, who has Maddox, 14, Pax, 11, Zahara, 10, Shiloh, nine, and seven-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne, with 51-year-old husband Brad Pitt, thinks it’s important to spend one-on-one time with them all, reported Vogue magazine. “I schedule individual time with each of the kids like a crazy person,” Jolie
said. The By The Sea star also thinks her children are better behaved when she’s around.
Issue 638 (18)
27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
Indian ‘mystery woman’ Geeta says family not hers
An Indian woman who was stranded in Pakistan for a decade has returned home, but says the family she had identified in photos is not hers. India’s Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said the woman, named Geeta, is “refusing to recognise her family”. Geeta arrived in Delhi on Monday morning, days after she identified her family in photos sent from India. The government will now carry out a DNA test to ascertain if the family, who met her in Delhi, is really
hers. In the meantime, Geeta will be lodged at a shelter home in the central Indian city of Indore. Apart from a family from the eastern state of Bihar that Geeta identified from photographs, and later met in Delhi, at least two other families claimed her as their own. Image copyright AFP Image caption Geeta arrived in Delhi on Monday morning, days after she identified her family in photos sent from India Image copyright AFP Image caption Geeta will
be lodged at a shelter home in the central Indian city of Indore Ms Swaraj said that they would “counsel” Geeta to accept her family, if the DNA test proved that they were related. If the tests are negative, she will be cared for at the shelter home until her family is traced, officials said. “Whether or not her parents are found, Geeta is our daughter. I thank Pakistan from the core of my heart for looking after her for so long,” Ms Swaraj said. Geeta, who has speech and hearing impairments, was about 11 when she is believed to have strayed into Pakistan. Her plight emerged following a Bollywood film Bajrangi Bhaijaan, which told the story of a Pakistani girl who cannot speak and is trapped in India.
PM Narendra Modi meets Geeta, announces Rs 1 crore for Edhi Foundation
Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with Geeta, a young deaf-mute Indian woman who was stranded in Pakistan for nearly 15 years, and announced that he is making a contribution of Rs 1 crore to the Edhi Foundation, which had been taking care of her. Geeta, now 23, was reportedly just 7 or 8 years old when she was found sitting alone on
the Samjhauta Express by Pakistani Rangers 15 years ago at the Lahore railway station. She was adopted by Bilquees Edhi and lived with her in Karachi. On meeting with her on Monday, Modi welcomed her and tweeted that it was wonderful to have her back home and that it was a delight to have spent time with her. Modi also tweeted that what the Edhi
Foundation has done for her is too priceless to be measured. Geeta is said to have identified her family through a photograph sent to her by the Indian High Commission in Islamabad. But she has refused to identify the family that had received her at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi.
Issue 638 (19)
27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
Low carbon electricity better than gas London Low-carbon electricity, not gas, is the cheapest way to keep lights on and meet carbon targets, says the government’s climate advisory panel. The Committee on Climate Change says onshore wind and solar are already price-competitive if you factor in the cost imposed on society by carbon emissions from gas. Ministers have
recently imposed major cuts on renewables. But the committee says wind and solar offer value for money. The committee has pleaded for an end to the current turmoil over energy policy since the Treasury slashed subsidy for renewables because the budget was overspent. The government has commissioned a report into the full system costs of renewables, which is expected to show that wind and solar power are dearer than they appear because they need back-up generating
capacity when it’s not windy or sunny. The climate committee says its own report takes that backup into account - and still concludes that onshore wind and solar are a good value way of meeting energy targets. It says the costs including backup are on a cost par with nuclear and environmentalists will point out that renewables have no problems with waste
disposal either. The report says there will still be a charge to bill-payers from low-carbon investments; it estimates in the 2020s these will swell the typical electricity bill by about £15 a year. The committee says this is relatively low because the first big tranche of clean energy investment is already in train and current subsidies have brought down the price of future investments. The committee says other technologies - such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) and offshore wind, will need
continuing subsidy - but will be able to stand on their own feet in the 2020s. The document assumes that the government will keep to its promise to stick to its climate targets, which have set the UK on course for 80% CO2 cuts by 2050. The committee’s jobs is to advise the government of the cheapest and most effective way to stay on track. The Prime Minister promised before the election to abide by the Climate Change Act. Since then the government has said there will be a “reset” of energy policy, without specifying a date. Lord Deben, the committee chair, said: “The 2020s are crucial in setting the direction for UK power generation. The government must urgently clarify the direction of future policy to ensure the power sector can decarbonise at lowest cost to businesses and households.” The committee’s head of carbon budgets Mike Thompson told BBC News that the extra cost to the grid of accommodating wind and solar was about £10 per MWhour. He said this was the first time the CCC had properly projected the full system costs of renewables. “The system costs are important but not dominant.” Solar and onshore wind, for instance, both signed contracts to provide power at around £80/MWh in recent subsidy auctions. The system costs will add around 10-15% to this figure - making solar and onshore wind comparable with new nuclear at Hinkley.
Titanic biscuit sells for 15000 pounds at UK auction London The “worlds most valuable biscuit”, which survived the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, has fetched a whopping 15,000 pounds at an auction in the UK, while a photograph
collector in Greece, far exceeding its presale estimate of between 8,000 pounds and 10,000 pounds. The cracker was saved by James Fenwick, a passenger on the Carpathia which picked
believed to be that of the iceberg which sank the liner sold for 21,000 pounds. The Spillers and Bakers Pilot cracker, from a survival kit in a lifeboat, was “the worlds most valuable biscuit,” said Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge from Henry Aldridge & Son auctioneers in Wiltshire. The biscuit was sold to a
up Titanic survivors. He kept it in an envelope complete with original notation, “Pilot biscuit from Titanic lifeboat April 1912”. The auction also saw a photograph purporting to show the iceberg that sank the illfated liner selling for 21,000 pounds, BBC News reported. The estimated guide price had
been between 10,000 pounds and 15,000 pounds. Titanic had been four days into a week-long Transatlantic crossing from Southampton to New York when it struck the iceberg on April 14, 1912, killing more than 1,500 people. The grainy black-and-white photograph was captured the day after the luxury liner sank. It was taken by the chief steward of steamer the Prinz Adalbert, who was at the time unaware of the tragedy that had occurred the previous day. A cup presented to the captain of the Carpathia also sold for 129,000 pounds to a UK collector. It was given to Captain Arthur Rostron by survivor Molly Brown, paid for by donations from wealthy passengers after the disaster. Aldridge said the price paid for the cup made it the third most valuable item associated with the Titanic story to have ever been sold.
Aliens have transitioned from organic forms to machines London Aliens may resemble little green men or tentacle monsters in sci-fi films, but the Astronomer Royal claims they may be far less organic. British astrophysicist and cosmologist, Sir Martin Rees, believes if we manage to detect aliens, it will not be by stumbling across organic life, but from picking up a signal made by machines. It’s likely these machines will have evolved from organic alien beings, and that humans will also make the transition from biological to mechanical in the future. Writing for Nautilus, Sir Martin said that while the way we think has led to all culture and science on Earth, it will be a brief precursor to more powerful machine ‘brains’. He thinks that life away from Earth has probably already gone through this transition from organic to machine. On a planet orbiting a star far older than the sun, life ‘may have evolved much of the way toward a dominant machine intelligence,’ he writes. Sir Martin believes it could be one or two more centuries before humans are overtaken by machine intelligence, which will then evolve over billions of years, either with us, or replacing us. Seti seeks our electromagnetic transmissions thought to be made artificially, but even if it did hit the jackpot and detect a possible message sent by aliens, Sir Martin says it is unlikely we would be able to
decode it. He thinks such a signal would probably be a byproduct or malfunction of a complex machine far beyond our understanding that could trace its lineage back to organic alien beings, which may still exist on a planet, or have died out. He also points out that even if intelligence is widespread across
the cosmos, we may only ever recognise a fraction of it because ‘brains’ may take a form unrecognisable to humans. For example, instead of being an alien civilisation, ET may be a single integrated intelligence. He mused that the galaxy may already teem with advanced life and that our descendants could ‘plug in’ to a galactic community. However, he says there’s a chance Earth’s biosphere may be unique and searches will fail, meaning our planet could be the most important place in the cosmos. ‘We would then be of especially great cosmic significance, for being the transient precursor to the deeper cogitations of another culture - one dominated by machines, extending deep into the future and spreading far beyond Earth.’
Issue 638 (20)
Bajrang Dal to train 10 lakh new volunteers for cow protection Bajrang Dal - under ruling BJP’s ideological parent RSS - has kicked off drives to engage 10 lakh new volunteers to ramp up its cow protection programmes across states. The right-wing outfit is already re-training three lakh of what it claims as an existing 15 lakh-strong volunteer base to radically build a notion of Hindu identity around cows and mobilise dominant caste groups into the Hindutva fold. Founded as a small force in UP in 1984, Bajrang Dal started acting as vigilante cow protectors across states in 1996. In 199697, it claimed to have saved 1.5 lakh cow and its progeny (cow, calf, bull and bullock). Functioning as the youth wing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), it claims to save around one lakh such cattle from slaughterers every year.The next membership drive - the last one happened in 2010 - is slated for 2016. The outfit, which has faced allegations of rioting and violence against religious minorities, plans to touch the 25-lakh mark. This is based on the number of weekly meetings that has gone
%$-5$1* '$/ %5$&(6 )25
%,* &2: 6(:$ up from 4,900 in December 2014 to 5,800 in July this year. The plans come amid ‘anti-cow slaughter but divisive’ remarks by some top BJP leaders following the lynching of a Muslim man over rumours of beef consumption in UP’s Dadri, resulting in a perceptible climate of religious intolerance. The vigilante cow protection has peaked ahead of the 2017 Uttar Pradesh state elections because of a significant political symbol. Slaughter Cow slaughter is legal only in some Indian states such as Kerala, West Bengal and most parts of the Northeast where butchers are mainly Muslims and Dalits. But cow meat is legal - except in BJP-ruled states such as Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand - and is consumed widely by Muslims and Christians, and also by Hindus mostly in parts of southern India. The Dadri incident also prompted writers to go on an award-returning spree, forcing the President and the Prime Minister to call for harmony. Villagers in Himachal Pradesh recently killed a Muslim man for allegedly smuggling cattle. Manoj Verma, national training head of Bajrang Dal, says, “We saw outrage over what happened in Dadri. But the silence over the subsequent lynching of Prashant Poojary, who campaigned against cow slaughter in Karnataka, is baffling. We’re running programmes down to the grassroots level across states.” Bajrang Dal has planned to have lakhs of its volunteers in all districts to take a renewed cow protection pledge on December 6. The VHP-Bajrang Dal combine
V
celebrates the day as “shaurya diwas” after the demolition of Babri Masjid in UP’s Ayodhya on the day in 1992, triggering bloody riots in states that killed around 2,000 people. It’s early morning at VHP headquarters in south Delhi’s RK Puram. Devendra Nayak, who edits VHP’s monthly magazine on cow protection, is instructing a boy on how to feed the animals at an in-house shelter. “You must let a cow lick the food off your palm. The touch of her tongue has the powers to alter one’s fate line for the better,” he explains. Dozens of office-bearers of VHP and its wings live on the campus sparsely guarded by policemen.
Back in his office upstairs, Nayak takes out old, Hindi newspaper clippings to make a point. “It’s not only about Poojary. A 22-yearold man was brutally killed in Gurgaon in August 2013. Did you hear of it? That’s the problem,” he says. Nayak, who earlier handled media for VHP, looks busy sourcing articles for the yearend special edition of Gosampada. In his editorial for the latest issue, he has called beef-eaters ‘pigs.’ “What else do I call such people? I’m challenging the so-called liberals to drag me to court for what I have written,” he says, peeling off apples for breakfast. “You must remove toxins.” Meat export
India does not officially export cow meat but is the biggest exporter of buffalo meat - the trade of which involves mostly Muslims. But rightwing vigilante protectors fear cow meat is sneaking into India’s buffalo meat export. India has some 4,000 legal slaughterhouses. But it is only one tenth of the number of those running illegally. Bajrang Dal says it rescues cows headed for abattoirs. VHP then takes over and does the conservation at its 5,000-odd cow shelters across states. “By the time courts decide on cases, cows are either kept with the local administration or cow shelters and farmers. Then cows go as per court orders,” Verma says.
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The BJP in Karnataka sought the transfer of Mangaluru City Police Commissioner S Murugan contending that he was ‘biased’ and it would affect a fair probe into the murder of Bajrang Dal activist Prashant Poojary. “We have lost faith in the Karnataka Police, particularly Murugan. He is not a competent officer to monitor the investigation. The police swung into action only after we intensified our protests,” said BJP’s Karnataka unit president Prahlad Joshi. The state BJP chief alleged that there were attempts by the Congress government to systematically hush up the case. “There are three powerful ministers from the coastal Karnataka region and they have not met the family members of the victim. What does this say? Justice is heavily one-sided in Karnataka. We have lost faith in the Congress government,” Joshi added. Over a period of three days, the police arrested eight people and another three accused are at large. According to the BJP, the police are not showing any urgency in nabbing the accused. Though the victim had clearly named the assailants before dying, the arrests took place nearly 10 days after the incident. “This shows the attitude of the police. They seem to be deliberately ignoring the attacks on the majority in the coastal region,” said Joshi.
According to the police, all eight accused have confessed of being part of the conspiracy to eliminate Prashanth Poojary, as he was involved in busting illegal slaughter houses. While the police are contending that the attacks on the majority are retaliatory in nature, activists of Hindu organisations disrupt it.
“There have been six incidents of attacks on the majority in the last two months. Despite lodging a complaint, how many of them have been arrested? It is evident that the police are working in favor of particular people,” alleged Hindu activist Sharath S. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah maintained that there was no political interference in the probe.
A 24x7 ‘Hindu helpline’ run by Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has grown popular with the number of people approaching its call centres going up by 25 per cent in the last one year. Among other things, it also claims to respond to “complaints of cow slaughter.” About 50,000 volunteers are working across states to help people who approach the helpline for medical, travel, legal and religious purposes. Those in emergency - such as accidents can also seek help. Reetesh Singh, a young professional working in Allahabad with a drug manufacturing firm, on Thursday had complaints against alleged cow slaughter in his neighbourhood. He dialed the number. “They gave me the number of senior VHP leader Ashok Singhal for any help in the matter,” Singh told MAIL TODAY. Cow slaughter - legal only in some Indian states such as Kerala, West Bengal and most parts of the Northeast - has been a major polarising issue as Muslims and Dalits are involved in the trade. National president of the facility, Ranjeet Natu, says the helpline’s nature is not agitational. “In such cases, we connect people to VHP leaders and workers. In cases, we also pass the information to the police. Our main focus is service,” he said. “Our volunteers help even if one has no problem but wants someone reliable around during shopping or sightseeing.” The helpline was started in April 2011. Till date it has received 1.10 lakh calls. The number for the last one year is 25,000 - up from 20,000 the year before. The numbers are 020-66803300, 075886 82181. “In India and abroad, billions of Hindus live, work, and travel and need support systems. Sometimes, they want to know about Hindu events - for example the exact muhurat for Mahashivraatri Abhishek. Some may want to know the ancient Hindu name of Swat Valley in
Pakistan,” said an operator of the helpline. Natu says in emergencies, this helpline plays the role of a reliable friend of Hindus. “We’re also running a subsidiary helpline in 15 cities with its call centre in Ahmedabad. In each city, we have 300-500 doctors who treat patients referred to by us free of cost. Our
VHP health 150-200 ambassadors ensure that patients avail of government health schemes,” said Natu. The helpline also responds to complaints of ‘harassment’ of Hindu girls, and ‘helps’ Hindu women married to Muslim husbands. Calls related to ‘forced conversions’ are also responded to. Love jihad (fears of Muslim men marrying Hindu women to convert them) has been a major campaign of VHP, a hard-line wing of ruling BJP’s ideological parent RSS. Launching the helpline in 2011, senior VHP leader Pravin Togadia had said the idea was to assist pilgrims in distress and reach out to the Hindus across states and abroad.
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27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
Facebook killing your phone’s battery Michigan Earlier this week Facebook was accused of draining people’s battery with its iOS app. It has now admitted the problem, which caused the app to run in the background even if it had been closed, is being caused by one of its request processes being stuck on a loop. The social network has apologised for the inconvenience this has been causing people and has issued an update to the app to fix the problem. In a post on his personal page, ?Facebook’s engineering manager Ari Grant wrote: ‘The first issue we found was a ‘CPU spin’ in our network code. ‘A CPU spin is like a child in a car asking, “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?” with the question not resulting in any progress to reaching the destination. ‘This repeated processing causes our
app to use more battery than intended.’ His team also found a second issue being caused by the way the app manages audio. ‘If you leave the Facebook app after watching a video,
battery simply by being awake. ’Our fixes will solve this audio issue and remove background audio completely.’ His team has identified improvements and ‘some of these’ are in
the audio session sometimes stays open as if the app was playing audio silently,’ he continued. ’This is similar to when you close a music app and want to keep listening to the music while you do other things, except in this case it was unintentional and nothing kept playing. ‘The app isn’t actually doing anything while awake in the background, but it does use more
the version of the app the site released yesterday. People concerned about the problem can update their app by opening the App Store and clicking on Updates. If automatic updating is enabled the update should have already been made. Mr Grant also stressed that the issues they found were not caused by the optional Location History feature in the Facebook app, or
anything related to location. ‘If you haven’t opted into this feature by setting Location Access to Always and enabling Location History inside the app, then we aren’t accessing your device’s location in the background,’ he said. ‘The issues described above don’t change this at all.’ Matt Galligan, co-founder of mobile news app Circa was among the first to publicise the problem. He said the seemingly powerhungry app was responsible for 15 per cent of all battery drain over a week, despite disabling the background app refresh feature, which should stop the app running in the background. It is possible to see how much battery life apps use thanks to a new feature in iOS 9, which shows power consumption over different periods of time.
When Chinese spy posed as Xi Jinping’s translator to get into Queen Elizabeth II’s Coach
London British and Chinese security officials reportedly engaged in verbal volleys during President Xi Jinping’s visit in London after a Beijing-based “spy” posed as Jinping’s translator to get into Queen Elizabeth II’s Coach. In no time, members of the British diplomatic protection squad intercepted the Chinese official and he was ousted,
The Sunday Times reported citing documents circulating in Whitehall, the centre of the British government. British officials believe the Chinese agent wanted to join Xi and the Queen in her royal carriage. When the ruse was rumbled it led to heated exchanges, the daily said citing three senior figures who confirmed details of the incident.
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27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
The New Moon brings an excellent opportunity to take a romantic or business relationship to the next level. And if you’re signing deals or contracts at this time, you’ll get things off to a winning start. On the whole, this is a constructive week in which you’ll be eager to overcome obstacles and forge ahead. Should anything stand in your way, you'll apply sheer willpower to overcome it.
Monday’s New Moon could be the perfect time to begin a diet or start an exercise routine. There’s also a very powerful focus on your zone of leisure and pleasure, which could see you excited about creative opportunities, particularly if they relate to entrepreneurial ideas. If you’ve been thinking about starting your own business, this might be a good time to research your options.
Have you been thinking about inviting a special person on a date? Monday might be the day to go ahead. With Mercury in Libra, charming conversation can pave the way for future outings. However, you may be more cautious when it comes to getting involved, preferring to take things one day at a time rather than jump in at the deep end.
A change in the family dynamic or DIY projects associated with your home are best implemented on Monday. The New Moon can help get things off to the best possible start. And with just a little planning you’ll be even more successful. When it comes to writing, communicating in general, or selling something, you can do really well now.
Monday is the day to sign deals, collaborate on projects, or start an advertising campaign. This week’s New Moon can help things get moving! For business appointments or important dates, you’ll need to pin people down to a time and place or it could be a no-show. You might have an opportunity to considerably increase your income.
Monday’s New Moon could coincide with a new beginning for your finances, with a chance to reduce stress and get everything in order. Avoid making any impulsive purchases that might set you back rather than contribute to any gains. Setting a practical budget can be a great help right now. It seems you’re on a roll with a positive lineup of planets jogging through your sign.
Monday’s New Moon in your sign may be the best of the year for you. This is the time to implement changes in key areas of your life. Make a start over the next few days and you’ll notice a difference even sooner. You might find it useful to write down your goals, as this will kick-start the process and help you achieve them.
There’s a more relaxed focus showing up that encourages you to kick back and enjoy life. Monday’s New Moon in your spiritual sector could entice you to take up a spiritual practice that might help you achieve greater peace of mind. You’ll also be eager to contribute to community events and collaborate on projects, especially any that might be a bit of a challenge.
Interesting and lucrative opportunities could show up for you this week, bringing a chance to move up the career ladder or expand your business in a new direction. Along with this, the New Moon in your social sector is actively encouraging you to move in new circles. Doing so could lend wings to your professional aspirations.
Your willingness to learn stands you in good stead right now, not only because it offers a chance to upgrade your skill set but also because it expands your understanding of what’s possible. You may get a chance to apply your newfound abilities when this week’s New Moon entices you to consider the possibility of a new job.
Money matters look much improved, although Jupiter in your zone of shared finances could be pushing you to think big when it comes to business. If there’s an opportunity to pool your skills and resources with others, this could be a good way to make progress sooner rather than later.
Relationships seem to be a major focus and a very pleasant one at that. With Venus currently dancing through Virgo with Jupiter and Mars, there could be more passion and interest than there has been for some time. You’ll be more inclined to do things with your love interest, friends, or family and include others in your plans.
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27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
How these tech companies got their names Wondering how Wipro, Apple, Microsoft, Accenture got their iconic brand names? We reveal the fascinating stories
Apple: According to Steve Jobs, Apple was so named because Jobs was coming back from an apple farm, and he was on a fruitarian diet. He thought the name was “fun, spirited and not intimidating”
Wipro: From Western India Palm Refined Oil Ltd Wipro Technologies. The company started as a modest Vanaspati and laundry soap producer and is now also an IT services giant.
Hotmail: Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing e-mail via the web from a computer anywhere in the world. When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service he tried all kinds of names ending in ‘mail’ and finally settled for Hotmail as it included the letters “HTML” – the markup language used to write web pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective upper casing.
Facebook: Name stems from the colloquial name of books given to newly enrolled students at the start of the academic year by university administrations in the US with the intention of helping students to get to know each other better.
Twitter: Having rejected the name Twitch for their social networking service, co-founder Jack Dorsey says: “we looked in the dictionary for words around it and we came across the word ‘twitter’ and it was just perfect.
Accenture: From “Accent on the future”. The name Accenture was proposed by a company employee in Norway as part of an internal name finding process (BrandStorming). Before 1 January 2001, the company was called Andersen Consulting.
Adobe Systems: From the Adobe Creek that ran behind the house of co-founder John Warnock
Google: An originally accidental misspelling of the word googol and settled upon because google.com was unregistered. Googol was proposed to reflect the company’s mission to organize the immense amount of information available online.
Acer: Born as Multitech International in 1976, the company changed its name to Acer in 1987. The Latin word for “sharp, acute, able and facile
Skype: The original concept for the name was Sky-Peer-to-Peer, which morphed into Skyper, then Skype.
Dell: Named after its founder, Michael Dell. The company changed its name from Dell Computer in 2003.
Amazon.com: Founder Jeff Bezos renamed the company Amazon (from the earlier name of Cadabra.com) after the world’s most voluminous river, the Amazon.
Infosys: Short form of ‘Information Systems’
Cisco : Short for San Francisco.
Lenovo Group: A portmanteau of “Le-” (from former name Legend) and “novo”, pseudo-Latin for “new”.
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27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
Technology YouTube videos give insight into sleepy driving YouTube videos of drowsy drivers give useful insights into how people perceive sleepy driving as a common yet controllable behaviour, according to a new study. “In-vehicle footage relating to driver fatigue is present on YouTube and is actively engaged with by viewers,” said author Ashleigh Filtness from Australia’s Queensland University of Technology’s (QUT) Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety. “My study found a mix of both criticism and sympathy for fatigued
drivers and a willingness to share advice on staying awake, which highlights the perception that people view sleepy driving as a common yet
controllable behaviour,” said Filtness. The study observed 442 uploaded YouTube videos relating to fatigue
between 2009 and 2014, and found in most cases driver fatigue was portrayed as dangerous. A total of 107 of these videos were in-vehicle
filming. However, Filtness said those that trivialised the issue of sleepy driving were more popular and
Twitter launches new tool for embedding tweets
At the brand’s developer conference on October 21, Twitter announced a new tool for embedding tweets: Twitter Publish. Twitter product manager
Michael Ducker described embedded tweets (tweets that appear outside of Twitter in articles, on a site etc.) as the modern day pullquote, reaching a far
larger audience than Twitter itself. This potential reach is crucial for the company’s growth. Other new products on Twitter include a curating tool, Curator, and last month’s release, Moments, a storytelling feature. The free new tool, Twitter Publish, enables users to arrange their embedded tweets into a far less clunky, betterlooking display. See the site here: www.publish.twitter.com
received more views and evoked more comments. “Of the in-vehicle filming, dashcam footage was the most prevalent type of video and had the most potential to create impact with the highest views per video per day.” “What is concerning is that 15 percent of these in-vehicle videos were drivers recording themselves while driving.” “Video blogging or vlogging distracts the driver in the same way as texting and mobile phone use, and adds to the danger already being experienced by fatigued driving,” she said. Filtness presented her findings at the 2015 Australasian Road Safety Conference held from October 14 to 16 at the Australasian College of Road Safety and Austroads, Gold Coast.
Google shares ‘confidential’ plans for time-traveling car
On the occasion of Back to the Future Day, Google has tweeted a link to a pdf in which it outlines plans for what it calls “Project Flux.” Spotted by The Verge, the document is linked to in a seemingly unrelated tweet that reads, “Special delivery: 15 new Gmail themes to make your inbox more awesome ’! goo.gl/ 1cGrWd.” Clicking on the link leads to a 14-page document that begins with the
message “Confidential: Do Not Share Outside of Google.” It goes on to lay out the mission of the fictional Project Flux, including the statement, “Teleportation is only an incremental solution to make the world universally explorable. Flux...is designed to be a 10x solution.” Drawings for 7 “prototype capsules” follow, as does a mention of plans to hold “88 public test flights by mid-2016.”
Twitter introduces polling feature to all users
Instagram introduces looped-video app Boomerang Instagram has announced a new app that lets users string photos together into a video that can be looped back and forth. To use Boomerang, users simply choose something to shoot preferably something that’s moving and the app takes a burst of photos, then strings them together into a high-quality video. The video can be played both forward and backward, and the result can be shared to Instagram or Facebook.
Microblogging site Twitter announced that it has expanded its polling feature to all users. Polls, which were earlier accessible only to a limited users, will soon be available to all. “We’re excited to share that in the coming days, everyone will be able to create polls on Twitter.
And, with just a couple of taps, people can weigh in on all the topics they care about”, wrote Product Manager Todd Sherman in a blog. The feature will allow users to create their own two-choice poll right from the compose box where it will remain live for 24 hours.
Sherman notes while users will not know who voted or how others voted in their polls, participants can view the results after the votes are in. The company is rolling out the feature over the next few days on iOS, Android, and on desktop at twitter.com.
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27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
Earth in danger of being hit by comet Earth may be in great danger as the sun’s path through the galaxy sends comet flying towards our planet, scientists have warned. Researchers have identified a 26 million-year
cycle of meteor impacts that coincides with the timing of mass extinctions over the past 260 million years. The doomsday events are linked to the motion of the sun and its family of planets through the dense mid-plane of the Milky Way. Gravitational disturbance of the Oort Cloud - a shell of icy objects on the outer edge of the solar system - is believed to lead to periodic
showers of comets pouring through the inner region where the Earth resides. The last of these events is said to have occurred about 11 million years ago, roughly the same time as the Middle
Miocene mass extinction. But according to geologist Professor Michael Rampino, it might be wrong to assume that we are living in a completely safe era, millions of years away from the next danger period. ‘There is evidence that the comet activity has been high for the last one to two million years, and some comet orbits are perturbed, so we may be in a shower at the present
time,’ he said. Dark matter is the mysterious invisible substance that surrounds galaxies and can only be detected from its gravitational effects. It is believed to account for more than 80 per cent of all the matter in the universe. Professor Rampino, from New York University, and colleague Professor Ken Caldeira, from the Carnegie Institution, carried out an analysis of meteor impacts and extinctions using newly available data providing more accurate age estimates. They found that six mass extinctions linkedwith the timing of heightened periods of impact cratering on Earth. One of the impacts studied was caused by the large comet or asteroid that struck the Earth 65 million years ago off the Yucatan coast of Mexico and is said to have wiped out the dinosaurs. Five of the six largest impact craters coincided with mass extinction events, said the scientists writing in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Food triggers same part of the brain as drugs
There’s a good reason why you just can’t resist reaching for another slice of Stilton. Scientists claim that cheese is as addictive as drugs because of a chemical called casein. This is found in dairy products and can trigger the brain’s opioid receptors, which are responsible for addiction. The study, by the University of Michigan, took a look at which items act as the ‘drugs of the food world’. The researchers discovered pizza was one
of the world’s most addictive foods, largely because of its cheesy topping. ‘Fat seemed to be equally predictive of problematic eating for everyone, regardless of whether they experience symptoms of ‘food addiction,’’ Erica Schulte, one of the study’s authors, told Mic. Dr Neal Barnard of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine said that casein ‘breaks apart during digestion to release a whole host of opiates
called casomorphins.’ Some scientists believe the influence of cheese is so potent that they refer to it as ‘dairy crack’. A number of studies have revealed that casomorphins lock with opioid receptors, which are linked with the control of pain, reward and addiction in the brain. ‘Casomorphins really play with the dopamine receptors and trigger that addictive element,’ registered dietitian Cameron Wells told Mic.
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27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
‘Escape rooms’ challenge Americans with puzzling adventures WASHINGTON Dental lab technician Jon Choi and his friends celebrated his birthday this month under pressure: they were locked together in a small “escape room” and had to solve a series of puzzles to achieve their freedom within 60 minutes. They finally made it out with one minute to spare. Choi avidly plays computer games with the same set-up, but had never visited a physical escape room before. The experience was both fun and tough enough that he is now planning to try other similar rooms. He has plenty of options. Escape rooms are the latest entertainment phenomena to seize the United States, where people break out of locked rooms using their smarts, or any that the friends, family members or strangers interred with them may possess. There are more than 100 across the country, according to the Escape Room Directory, charging between $20 and $30 for the experience. In an era when socializing no longer requires real-time conversation and the answers to all life’s questions are a screen-
tap away, those seeking to connect with others in person and use their own knowledge for intellectual challenges find the rooms refreshing. The concept has captivated Americans so
time” in the “Prison Escape” room. In Los Angeles, players can relive their city’s Raymond Chandler past in a room called “The Detective.” Once the door is closed and the timer set, the first
shocked when they finally cracked the mystery. According to Escape Game Orlando, the rooms’ roots are in video games, with the basic idea of trapping a player in a single location first
much that the Science Channel created the game show “Race to Escape” around it. Themes of the independentlyowned rooms vary from place to place. In Pittsburgh, families are encouraged to share “bonding
puzzle emerges. Its solution leads to the next puzzle. Clues are tucked all over the room, some in plain sight and others in secret compartments. Step by step, players solve the overarching mystery of the room. For Choi and his friends at Escape Room Live in Alexandria, Virginia, that mystery revolved around fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. “We looked up at the time and there was 10 minutes left and I was like, ‘God!’” said Andew Kim, who was
appearing in the 1988 game “Behind Closed Doors.” A real-life room opened in Kyoto in 2007 and the trend soon spread throughout Asia and Europe, according to the company.When Ginger FlesherSonnier started Escape Room Live a year ago in Washington, D.C. with a secret agent-themed room, she was surprised by the demand. Within three weeks, Flesher-Sonnier, a former math teacher, had to create a second room at the site and within nine
Pluto’s moon Kerberos finally shows itself
months she opened the Alexandria location featuring two Holmes-themed rooms. In August alone, 6,000 people visited both Escape Room Live locations. So many people have tramped through that, after rent and salaries, prop storage has become the company’s biggest expense. It must have exact duplicates of all the puzzle objects ready to swap in every few weeks. Flesher-Sonnier estimates 60 percent of visitors are millennials. Corporate teambuilding provides many customers and three men have popped the question by having engagement rings hidden in puzzles. Few players solve the mysteries in time without getting hints from the game masters who monitor and run the rooms. They have seen that the puzzles bring out all sorts of quirks in people’s personalities and relationships. “I think strangers work the best. The reason why is you can’t get mad at a stranger,” the manager of the Alexandria location, Hop Dang, said. “Families - they don’t hold back.”Dang attended his first escape room a year ago, thinking, “why am I paying someone to lock me in a room?” Now he often dreams at night about secret doors and hidden objects. The world tends to look different to people once they have escaped, Dang said. “Every thing that you see, you’re going to try to open.”
iPhones are impossible to unlock
Washington An image of Kerberos, one of the two tiny moons of Pluto, has finally been returned by the US space agency’s New Horizons probe. It shows the object to have two lobes, which may be the consequence of icy bodies bumping into each other and joining up. Kerberos’s larger lobe is judged to be about 8km across. The smaller lobe is roughly 5km in diameter.Styx, the other little moon in the system, is of a comparable size. Mission scientists say these satellites are brighter than they expected. Planetary bodies usually darken over time as a result of chemical changes triggered by sunlight and cosmic ray impacts. But these moons reflect about 50 percent of all incident light, which indicates their water-ice covering is very clean. Kerberos orbits about 60,000km from Pluto and is the second-outermost of five moons. It sits between Nix and Hydra, and beyond the orbits of Styx and
the much larger Charon, the dominant moon in the system. The newly released image of Kerberos was acquired by New Horizons’ Lorri camera from a distance of just under 400,000km. The picture incorporates a number of views and has been processed to recover as much detail as possible. New Horizons continues to downlink its data gathered during the flyby of the dwarf world back on 14 July. The probe is currently moving deeper into space and is now more than 5 billion km beyond Earth. This week sees the start of manoeuvres to change the trajectory of the spacecraft. The intention is to send it towards another Kuiper Belt Object called 2014 MU69. This encounter would occur in 2019, although Nasa has yet to formally agree to fund the operation of New Horizons that far ahead. Scientists will first have to write a proposal for a mission extension. It is likely they will submit this next year.
Washington Apple has said that encrypted data on newer iPhones can’t be accessed, even by Apple, though the firm could in theory help police unlock older phones. The comments came in a briefing filed on Monday to a US judge who asked for Apple’s input in a case. A US Department of Justice request has tried to force the company to help prosecutors access a seized iPhone. According to Apple, 90 percent of its devices running iOS 8 or higher can’t be unlocked. The phone that is the subject of the justice department’s request is an older device, but Apple has so far resisted unlocking it for authorities. “Forcing Apple to extract data in this case, absent clear legal authority to do so, could threaten the trust between Apple and its customers and substantially tarnish the Apple brand,” the company said in its briefing. US magistrate Judge James Orenstein, of Brooklyn in New York, has scheduled a hearing for Thursday though it is not clear whether an Apple representative will be present. In order to decrypt the data on newer devices, the encryption key - known only to the user -
would have to be entered. Meanwhile, Apple chief executive Tim Cook has told an audience in California that the company does not allow intelligence agencies to access data via “back doors” in its
unlock it any more than the US state department,” he told the BBC. He added that law enforcement agencies often found themselves attempting to circumvent this problem. This can be done by getting the user
software. “We think encryption is a must in today’s world,” said Mr Cook, speaking at the Wall Street Journal’s WSJDLive conference. “No-one should have to decide privacy or security. We should be smart enough to do both.” The data encrypting services that come with the latest smartphone and computer operating systems can only be unlocked when a specific key is used, according to Dr Joss Wright of the Oxford Internet Institute. “Apple may supply the device and system but if they don’t have that key they’re not able to
to voluntarily give up the key or by installing malware on the user’s phone that snoops on the key as it is typed in. “The core encryption is as near to unbreakable as you can get,” he said. “The point is you don’t try to break the encryption, you break the software - you try to get the password from the user’s computer so you can unlock it.” In another privacy-conscious step, Apple also recently removed more than 250 apps from the app store which used Chinese advertising software to extract personally identifiable information about users.
Issue - 638 (28)
27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
Day off in Washington for hero mine-clearance dog WASHINGTON A day trip to a crowded State Department office full of
unfamiliar faces and smells might have upset some dogs, but then Astra’s day job is itself pretty terrifying. The seven-year-old German Shepherd mine-clearance expert ignored the defused weaponry arrayed on the conference table, but perked up when a box of donuts was opened. Over the past five years she and her handler, Lebanese army sergeant Ahmad Solh, have
scoured the battlefields of Lebanon for land-mines and unexploded bombs.
Named by anti-landmine group the Marshall Legacy Institute as the champion mine-clearers of the year, they came to the US capital to promote their work. “I love her, I see her more than I see my family,” said Solh, who has worked with Astra for five years seeking unexploded ordnance in communities scarred by war. “I come home all the time and tell them stories about what we’ve done at work
Eight Indian-Americans figure among Clinton’s Hillblazers WASHINGTON Eight Indian Americans have been named Hillblazers by Hillary Clinton’s presidential
campaign for raising a minimum of USD 100,000 each for the Democratic frontrunner. Their names are prominently displayed on the election
website of the Hillary Campaign.As per the list updated on September 30, the Indian Americans who figure in this list of Hillblazers are Ankit N Desai (Washington DC), Shefali Razdan Duggal (San Francisco), Raj Fernando (Chicago), Frank Islam and Mahinder K Tak from Maryland, Deven J Parekh from New York, and couple Kamil and Talat Hasan from California.It also has three Pakistani Americans as Hillblazers: Shaista Mahmood from Virginia, Asif Mahmood from California and Imaad Zuberi.
Marijuana use in US has doubled in 12 years WASHINGTON Marijuana use in the US more than doubled between 2001 and 2013 - from 4.5 to nearly 10%, according to new research. Laws and attitudes about marijuana are changing, with 23 states having medical marijuana laws and four of these states having also legalised marijuana for recreational use, researchers said. Bridget F Grant of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and coauthors used nationally representative data on pastyear prevalence rates of marijuana use, marijuana use disorder and marijuana use disorder among marijuana users
in the US. The prevalence of past year marijuana use climbed to 9.5% of adults in 2012-2013 from 4.1% in 2001-2002, with increases particularly notable among women and individuals who were black, Hispanic, middle-aged or older, the authors said. The prevalence of a diagnosis of a past-year marijuana use disorder (abuse or dependence) also increased to 2.9% in 2012-2013 from 1.5% in 2001-2002, implying nearly 3 of every 10 Americans using marijuana in the past year had a diagnosis of a marijuana use disorder (approximately 6.8 million Americans).
and they really enjoy hearing about her and the wonderful job she does.” In some Middle Eastern communities dogs and doghandlers are shunned, but Solh said his fellow Lebanese honor the life-saving work he and his eager friend do. Most of the mines that Astra locates were left during Lebanon’s 1975-1991 civil war, but she also finds bombs dropped in the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. The Marshall Legacy Institute, working with the US State Department and private sponsors - including individuals who adopt dogs - has provided 205 dogs in 11 countries. Astra learned her craft in Bosnia before being sent to Lebanon, and teams have worked in Afghanistan, Angola, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Thailand. MLI president Perry Baltimore told reporters who came to meet Astra that Lebanon has now received 27 dogs under the program, bonded with human handlers. “This is the top dog,” he said of Astra, whom he also calls “Joan” on honor of the late US private citizen who sponsored her training and followed her progress. In Lebanon, the State Department has spent $55 million in the past 17 years under its conventional weapons destruction program to support mine clearance.
Zuckerbergs to start school mixing learning and health
San Francisco Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg and his doctor wife revealed their plans to start a private school in a hardscrabble Silicon Valley town, mixing education with health care.Zuckerberg voiced pride in his wife, Priscilla, for the plan to create “The Primary School” in the working-class city of East Palo Alto.Chan works as a paediatrician and has also been a teacher, seeing first-hand how poor health hinders learning in classrooms, her husband said.”Health and education are closely connected,” Zuckerberg said in a post on his Facebook page.”When children aren’t healthy, they can’t learn as easily.”Despite being located between highincome Palo Alto and thriving Menlo Park where Facebook has its headquarters, East Palo Alto has long had a reputation for crime, gangs and poverty.Chan has been
working over the past year with the community to combine early-childhood through 12th grade education with pre-natal support and on-site healthcare for children, according to the blog post.”By bringing healthcare and education together in one place, the goal is to support families and help children from underserved communities reach their full potential,” said Facebook cofounder and chief executive Zuckerberg.”It’s inspiring to see Priscilla grow as an entrepreneur and leader.”In June of last year, Zuckerberg and Chan began pumping USD 120 million into San Francisco Bay Area schools.Distribution of the money is being spread over five years, with initial grants going toward initiatives for providing computers and Internet access in public schools as well as training teachers and enlisting parents in efforts to keep students on track.
Teen hacker says he cracked CIA head’s personal email Washington A teenaged hacker broke into CIA Director John Brennan’s personal email account and swiped sensitive files including a top-secret application for a security clearance, the New York Post reported. If true, the story will be a major embarrassment for Brennan and the Central Intelligence Agency, coming after months of intense national scrutiny of Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server when she was secretary of state. The Post said a hacker, describing himself as an American high school student, had called the newspaper to describe his exploits. Stored on Brennan’s private email account were a range of sensitive files including his 47-page application for the security clearance, the hacker told The Post in a story Sunday. In a series of tweets from his purported Twitter account @phphax -- the hacker taunted authorities and showed redacted images of what appeared to be sensitive government information. The account references “CWA.” The hacker
told the Post this stood for “Crackas With Attitude,” which he said referred to him and a classmate. The man said he was
Homeland Security spokesman told AFP: “We are aware of the media report, however as a matter of policy, we do not comment on
not Muslim but carried out the hack because he opposed US foreign policy and supported Palestine. As well as cracking Brennan’s personal AOL account, he claimed to have targeted Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, accessing his Internet provider account and listening to his voicemails. The CIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment yesterday but told the Post it had “referred the matter to the appropriate authorities.” A
the Secretary’s personal security.” According to CNN, the FBI and Secret Service are investigating the report. The Post said the alleged hacker told them he accessed the account by using a process called “social engineering” in which he tricked Verizon workers into divulging Brennan’s personal information then convinced AOL to reset his password. The hacker told the newspaper he had even prankcalled America’s top spy and taunted him by reciting Brennan’s Social Security number.
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China’s first lady ‘sacrifices’ pomp for students LONDON Chinese first lady Peng Liyuan slipped away from the pomp, politics and deal-making of President Xi Jinping’s state visit
to meet teenagers studying the Mandarin language and some of Britain’s pop culture icons. Xi’s wife, 52, a huge star in China with independent fame as a folk singer, spent the first few days of the visit, the first by a Chinese leader in 10 years, touring a succession of schools, events and universities in London. At a creative industry event on Wednesday, alongside Britain’s Prince William and his wife Kate, Peng and Xi met some of the robot overlords known as Daleks from BBC television’s long-
running sci-fi television series “Dr Who.” They chatted with Hong Kong kung fu film star Jackie Chan and viewed an exhibit about fictional secret agent James
Bond. During a visit to a school in north London she listened to poetry and songs in Mandarin, widely considered one of the most difficult languages for English speakers. “Your Chinese is better than my English,” she told the students at Fortismere school, according to translated words. She also watched a Mandarin class during which students learnt Mao Zedong’s saying that “girls hold up half the sky”. Asked by students whether girls and boys were equally represented in
Chinese app developer sorry after Apple boots software
China’s education system, Peng said too many “good girls” missed out on a place despite working harder than the boys. “It was an absolutely amazing experience, quite surreal at times,” the school’s headteacher Helen Anthony said of Peng’s visit. “She was delightful, warm, and she very much put the students at ease.” Coming from humble beginnings, Peng has credited education for her emergence as one of China’s most famous figures. She was named a UN special envoy for female education last year. When Peng married Xi in 1987, when he was vice mayor of the southeastern port city of Xiamen, she was far better known than he was, having spent years singing about China’s rise. But when Xi became vicepresident in 2007 she was ordered to take a back seat as he was being groomed for state power. However as China has tried to soften its image abroad she has re-emerged into the limelight. She has broken the mould of Chinese first wives who have kept an intentionally low-profile since the 1970s with her advocacy for education and her status as a fashion icon. The China Daily newspaper last year compared Peng with U.S first lady Michelle Obama calling them both symbols of glamour who “stand uneclipsed by their more powerful husbands.” Peng’s fashion sense has not gone unnoticed in Britain. Scientists at Imperial College London university presented her with a perfectly fitted cape on Wednesday after experts studied 700 photos of her to create the garment. The British press has also lauded her dress sense. The Telegraph newspaper called the blue silk coat-dress she wore to meet Queen Elizabeth on Tuesday “the height of restrained elegance”.
Struggling at maths, Spanish schools turn to chess
MADRID Eleven-year-old Alvaro Pineda has played chess at home since he was five. Now he plays it in the classroom too. In an effort to boost their pupils’ low maths and reading marks, more and more Spanish schools are holding chess clubs and some could even make it a compulsory class. “It really increases your mental capacity. I have improved a lot,” said Alvaro, at a chess group in his school north of Madrid. “You have to really focus on the board and on where all the pieces are, and think lots of moves ahead,” which helps strengthen the memory, he added. Spain’s parliament this year unanimously adopted a law allowing regional governments to introduce chess as a compulsory or optional subject in schools. The law won the rare unanimous backing of lawmakers from rival parties. The opposition Socialist Party deputy who drafted it, Pablo Martin Pere, cited studies showing that an hour of chess a week could boost pupils’ performance in maths by 30 percent. Education studies by the OECD economic grouping have regularly shown that Spanish pupils lag behind their peers in other developed countries in maths and reading. The class Alvaro goes to, in the
Aldebaran School in the Madrid suburb of Tres Cantos, is run by masters from the local chess club. Some say however that regular teachers can be trained for the task. One of the instructors, Javier Martinez de Navascues, 24, divides the lesson time between chess games, theory and showing the pupils “cool things that they really like, moves like ‘the nail’ and the ‘x-ray attack’”. He says two or three weeks’ training is enough to prepare a normal school teacher to give chess classes. The local chess club’s president Daniel Gil disagrees. “It is just as well that the instructors be chess masters,” he said. “They have a certain experience of teaching,” he said, but chess classes also require special knowledge. “There’s a lot to chess.” The southern Russian region of Kalmykia is seen as the pioneer in using chess as an official educational tool, having introduced it as a school subject in 1996. Armenia became the first country to apply the policy nationwide in 2011. Mexico followed in 2014, as well as parts of China, India and Germany. In Spain, one of the game’s leading figures is Adriana Salazar, an international chess master and nine-time national champion in her native Colombia.
Toyota recalls 6.5m vehicles globally over window defect BEIJING A Chinese app developer apologised on Tuesday after Apple kicked out more than 250 applications that collect personal data in violation of the company’s privacy policies from its online store. The iPhone maker made the announcement a day after researchers discovered hundreds of apps used Chinese advertising software that extracts “personally identifiable user information”. Youmi Mobile Technology “apologised” to developers and partners for the disruption to their business, according to a statement posted on its website. Researchers at the US mobile analytics firm SourceDNA said Sunday they had discovered hundreds of apps that extract personal information, saying it was “the first time we’ve seen iOS apps successfully bypass the app
review process”. Apple does not allow third-party applications to share data about a user without obtaining users’ permission, and it rejects apps that require users to share personal information, such as email addresses or birth dates.The researchers said they found 256 apps with an estimated one million downloads that have a version of Youmi that violates user privacy. Youmi denied “collecting personal information (mobile phone numbers, e-mail address, for example) or offering to sell personal information,” it said in the statement. In September, Apple confirmed hundreds of popular mobile apps has be infected with malicious software potentially allowing access to private user data and passwords, including two widely used Chinese apps, instant messaging service WeChat and ride-hailing app Didi Kuaidi.
TOKYO Toyota said Wednesday it was recalling 6.5 million vehicles worldwide over a power window glitch that presented a fire risk, the latest in a string of such moves by the Japanese auto giant. In recent months, Toyota has recalled nearly 10 million vehicles outfitted with defective air bags that have been linked to several deaths globally. A driver’s side power window master switch could short circuit and cause parts to overheat and melt, Toyota said in an email. “A melting switch may produce smoking and, potentially, lead to a fire,” it added. The recalled models include the Yaris, Corolla, Camry and RAV4 sport utility vehicle produced between 2005 and 2010, it said. About 2.7 million affected vehicles were sold in North America and 1.2 million in
Europe, Toyota added. The company said it had not received reports of accidents tied to the defect, but one customer may have suffered a burn on their
hand due to the problem. Toyota has been working to regain its reputation for safety after the recall of millions of cars globally for various problems, including the airbag issues at embattled supplier Takata. Tokyo-based Takata has been under fire over the crisis, as it faces lawsuits and regulatory probes into accusations that it knew about
the problem and concealed the dangers. Its defective airbags have been blamed for eight deaths and scores of injuries around the world, leading to the biggest recall in US history. The defect thought to be associated with a chemical propellant that helps inflate the airbags - can cause them to deploy with explosive force, sending metal shrapnel hurtling toward drivers and passengers.Apart from Toyota, the crisis has affected 10 other rivals including Germany’s BMW, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Nissan, and Subaru. Last year, Toyota said it would pay $1.2 billion to settle US criminal charges that it lied to safety regulators and the public as it tried to cover-up deadly accelerator defects that might be linked to dozens of deaths.
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Firms target digital-savvy, eco-conscious drivers TOKYO Toyota’s three-seater exoskeleton car and an electric vehicle with touch screens that turn it into a “digital space” are among the concept models that will be on display at the Tokyo Motor Show this week. The biennial event will also focus on self-driving cars and the latest environmental technology as firms look to tap growing demand for green vehicles, seen as the next evolution in the global automotive industry. “This year, autonomous driving will be a big trend, with the Japanese automakers really showing what they are trying to do and trying to show that they can match, if not do better, than what Silicon Valley is up to,” said Hans Greimel, Asia editor for the Automotive News. The show’s 44th
edition, which kicks off Wednesday and runs until November 8, will feature 160 exhibitors including global auto giants and parts
suppliers from a dozen countries. It starts a week after Honda said it would put a commercialised selfdriving car on the road by 2020, challenging rivals Toyota and
Nissan, which are also betting on the future of vehicles that can drive and, in some case, park themselves. Google has been testing self-driving cars in Silicon Valley, as have USbased Tesla and General Motors, while Nissan hs vowed to put an experimental automated car on Japan’s highways as soon as 2016. At the show, Nissan, a leader in electric vehicles (EV), will show off an EV concept car without knobs and buttons, replaced by tabletstyle touch screens featuring controls and maps on a white instrument panel. Music, videogames and movies can also be played on the screens. “The car becomes a digital space when it’s parked,” said Nissan product planning general manager Hidemi Sasaki. “You can use it as a
gaming room, movie theatre...or you can chat online with your friends.” Toyota’s Kikai vehicle conjures images of the Terminator films with some of a usually hidden underbelly - including fuel tank and hoses - exposed, giving an inside look at the car ’s machinery. The automaker said its concept car shows off “the fundamental appeal of machines: their fine craftsmanship, their beauty, simplicity, and their fascinating motion”. Toyota and Honda will also exhibit their latest fuel-cell offerings, after Toyota last year started selling the world’s first mass market fuel-cell car in Japan. Toyota is hoping to sell tens of thousands of the fourdoor Mirai - which is powered by hydrogen and emits nothing but water vapour from its tailpipe - over the next decade, as it looks to stop producing fossil-fuel based cars altogether by 2050.
102 countries pledge not to Friendly robot Pepper oppose UN action on genocide makes debut in France
UNITED NATIONS More than 100 countries have signed a “Code of Conduct” pledging not to vote against a credible UN Security Council resolution seeking to prevent or end genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes. The initiative was launched yesterday, the eve of the UN’s 70th anniversary, by Liechtenstein’s Foreign Minister Aurelia Frick who called the code “a catalyst for a culture of zero tolerance for atrocity crimes within the council.” She said it would also serve as a catalyst for political accountability between the council and the rest of the 193 UN member states. While not legally binding, the Code of Conduct reflects growing concern at the power of the five veto-wielding council members
the US, Russia, China, Britain and France to veto a resolution on crimes against mass atrocities. France and Britain signed the code but the three other permanent council members have not, and Russia has made clear its opposition to any restriction on using the veto. The code, signed by 102 countries, also contains a political pledge to support timely and decisive council action against atrocity crimes. Richard Dicker, director of international justice at Human Rights Watch, said if effectively invoked by signatories, the Code of Conduct “could increase the political costs of voting against a credible Security Council resolution in situations of mass atrocity crimes.”
LAGUNA BEACH A humanoid robot name Pepper designed as an upbeat companion made its European debut on Tuesday helping shoppers with wine, and more, in a major shop in France. The test run involves seven robots stationed in different parts of a Claye-Souilly region Carrefour store, where they are programmed to do things such as suggest food recipes or wine choices, or assess customer satisfaction, Magali Cubier of Aldebaran Robotics told AFP. “The main focus is to entertain people and to test how they react to seeing a robot in a shop,” Cubier said, standing opposite a pair of Pepper robots giving hugs and high-fives to attendees at a WSJDLive technology conference on the Southern California coast.“It is the first time we are getting Pepper out of Japan, so we will see the reaction of users in France.” Aldebaran has sold 4,000 Pepper robots since they launched in Japan in June. The Paris-based company is about 98 percent owned by SoftBank Group in Japan. Aldebaran sells one batch of 1,000 Pepper robots monthly, with an up-front price of $1,500 euros and then monthly subscription payments of about $200 euros for three years, according to Cubier.
Pepper was billed as a “new species” of robot capable of recognizing basic emotions such as happiness and sadness by looking at people’s faces. “Faces mean a lot to me; even more when they are
applications for small business purposes. Pepper was at WSJDLive as part of a quest for partners in the hope of expanding to the US market, according to Cubier. “We see robots being more and
smiling,” a Pepper model said while describing its facial recognition capabilities during a demonstration. “It is pretty clever because it keeps me from trying to interact with nonhuman things,. For example, those couches never talk back.”Aldebaran in September began gathering research that showed people tended either use the robots as day-to-day home companions or took creative approaches of building in their own software
more present in our daily life to help us; assist us; entertain us, live with us,” she said. Pepper’s effort to spread to France and beyond comes with the challenge of adapting robots to different ways emotions are expressed in the world’s diverse array of cultures and places. For example, Pepper will shake hands with shoppers in France - but not greet them with robotic pecks on cheeks, something Cubier promised to look into.
Russian search engine to use robots to write articles MOSCOW Russia’s leading Internet search engine Yandex said Monday it will launch an experimental “newswire of the future”, using computer algorithms to churn out short articles on weather forecasts and traffic updates. The project - that is set to start in November - will provide the short news items in Russian for media outlets that subscribe to the project. “We don’t call it a news
agency. From our perspective it’s kind of experimental prototype of the newswire of the future - how a news agency may look like,” Yandex’s press office told AFP. “The news timeline will be developed by our algorithms (or robots if you wish),” the press office said, adding that at first the short updates would be on weather forecasts and road traffic. The initiative by the Russian Internet giant is one of a number looking to get
computers writing articles currently being bashed out by journalists. US firm Narrative Science has developed a programme that analyses data to produce Englishlanguage narrative reports. Russian news agency Interfax already uses algorithms to write some of its financial information, while America’s Associated Press has started using automation technology to produce some news items.
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The 12 most expensive hotels in the world The Le Dune, Forte Village Resort, located on the Mediterranean Island of Sardinia, Italy, is considered to be the most expensive hotel in the world according to a recent survey from Luxury-Hotels.com
1. The Le Dune, Forte Village Resort The Le Dune, Forte Village Resort, located on the Mediterranean Island of Sardinia scored the top spot in the list with an average rate of $2539 per night. As the resort occupies one of Italy's stunning locations, this exclusive hotel offers a high profile 'Made in Italy' feel and a unique sense of charm
2. Royal Mansour Located in Marrakech, Morocco, the Royal Mansour is second on the list with an average rate of $2060 per night. This luxury hotel is a place of refinement, elegance and artistry. It gracefully embodies the Moroccan architecture and hospitality.
3. Hotel Pitrizza Hotel Pitrizza which is located in Sardinia, Italy is the third most expensive hotel in the world with an average rate of $2041 per night. The luxury hotel has refined intimacy of an ancestral island home, it offers some breathtaking views of the bay and has a swimming pool carved out of rock.
4. Villa del Parco Located in Sardinia, Italy, Villa del Parco is classified as one of the most expensive hotels with an average rate of $2031 per night. Embraced by greenery, the hotel shares the tranquility of a centuries-old pine grove.
5. Amankora & Spa Amankora & Spa is located in Paro, Bhutan is the fifth most expensive hotels in the world with an average rate of $1910 per night. The hotel, which is raised up in a blue-pine forest of the Motithang area, sits close to the capital's intriguing sights and traditional shops.
6. Hotel Cala di Volpe Located in Sardinia, Italy Hotel Cala di Volpe is considered to be the sixth most expensive with an average rate of $1904 per night. The hotel's design is inspired by old fishing villages, its charming archways, porticoes and turrets is located on the enchanting Costa Smeralda, facing the glittering waters of the Mediterranean
7. Hotel Romazzino Hotel Romazzino is located in Sardinia, Italy is ranked seventh on the list with an average of $1850 per night. This hotel is believed to be one of the perfect locations for exclusive family vacations that will delight travelers of all ages with interesting activities
8. Maia Luxury Resort and Spa Located in Anse Louis, Seychelles, Maia Luxury Resort and Spa is flows on the eight spot with an average of $1692 per night. The hotel promises to take you out of your frenetic pace and helps you rediscover senses dulled by the incessant demands of life
9. Southern Ocean Lodge Southern Ocean Lodge is located in Kangaroo Island, Australia and is ninth on the list with an average of $1665 per night. Floating atop a secluded cliff on a rugged stretch of coast, the lodge commands peerless views of the wild Southern ocean and pristine Kangaroo Island wilderness.
11. Song Saa Private Island Song Saa Private Island is located in Preah Sihanouk, Cambodia and has an average price of $1649 per night. The hotel is considered to take their guests on a tour which promises them a handful of lucky adventurers to experience in the beautiful.
12. Burj Al Arab Located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, the Burj Al Arab has an average price of $1611 per night. This all-suit luxury hotel reflects the very finest that the world has to offer while the guests are assured of the ultimate in personal service throughout their stay.
10. Lizard Island Located in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia Lizard Island is tenth on the list with an average price of $1651 per night. Lizard Island is truly secluded from the rest of the world providing their guests elegant, yet understated Great Barrier Reef accommodation
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Harry Potter play to pick up where left off LONDON A new play that opens in London next summer will pick up the story of Harry Potter where the seventh and final volume of J.K. Rowling’s saga left off, with a plot involving a
grown-up Harry and his youngest son, Albus. “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”, based on a new story part-written by Rowling, opens at the Palace Theatre in London’s West End district on July 30, 2016, publicists for the production said on Friday. The story takes place 19 years after Harry’s final showdown with the dark wizard Lord Voldemort, described in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, the seventh book. Now an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic with three school-age children, Harry “grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs”, a statement about
the new play said. Meanwhile, Albus, named after Harry’s old headmaster and mentor Albus Dumbledore, struggles with the weight of the family legacy. “As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son
learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places,” the publicists said. The play will be in two parts which are intended to be seen in order on the same day, or on two consecutive evenings. An initial 16 weeks of performances will go on sale in the first booking period, which starts on Oct. 30. Publicists have been releasing a drip-drip of information over several months in what appears to be a strategy to tantalise fans, although commercial success for the venture looks extremely likely regardless of any marketing efforts. So far everything connected to Harry Potter has turned to gold.
Rowling’s books have sold over 450 million copies and been translated into 78 languages, while the eight-part film franchise based on the books grossed more than $7 billion at the worldwide box office. The new story was a collaboration between Rowling, scriptwriter Jack Thorne and theatre director John Tiffany, who has won awards in London and New York for his work on the musical “Once”. “The story only exists because the right group of people came together with a brilliant idea about how to present Harry Potter on stage,” Rowling was quoted as saying. “I’m confident that when audiences see ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ they will understand why we chose to tell the story in this way.” Responding to a tweet about the artwork for the new production, Rowling said on her Twitter account: “And I love it!” The artwork shows what appears to be a child in a bird’s nest with wings, on a bright yellow background possibly evoking fire. Both parts of the play will be performed on the opening day, July 30. Reduced price previews will start on June 7. Tickets go on sale online at 1100 GMT on Oct. 28 for those who registered for priority booking on the official website, H a r r y P o t t e r t h e P l a y. c o m . Tickets then go on sale to the general public on Oct. 30 at 1100 GMT.
Faith leaders call for zero carbon future
BONN More than 150 religious leaders from around the world urged UN climate negotiators in Bonn Tuesday to bequeath a liveable planet to future generations. “It is our duty to leave this Earth behind to our children and grandchildren to ensure sustainable and acceptable living conditions in future for all,” they said in a statement submitted to the UN. “We urge governments to commit to building climate resilience, phasing out fossil fuel energies and reaching zero emissions by mid-century.” The appeal comes less then two months ahead of a 195-nation climate conference in Paris tasked with beating back the threat of global warming and helping poor countries cope with its impacts. At the five-day meeting in Bonn, ending Friday, rank-and-file negotiators are preparing a draft of a climate deal to be inked in the French capital
in December. Progress is halting, but negotiators were set to resume work Tuesday after developing countries balked at a text which they said sidelined several of their redline issues. The statement by faith leaders echoes the landmark encyclical released by the Catholic Church earlier this year on climate change and the environment. In June, Pope Francis urged the world to act quickly to prevent “extraordinary” climate change from destroying the planet, saying rich countries must bear responsibility for creating the problem, and finance a solution. Signatories of the statement released Tuesday included Reverend Olav Fykse Tveit, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches; Archbishop Thabo Makgoba from the Anglican Church of South Africa; Imam Ibrahim Saidy; and Sulak Sivaraksa of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists.
Briton who could smell Parkinson’s Prince William appeals Chinese to save elephants prompts new research LONDON The widow of a man who suffered with Parkinson’s has triggered new research this week into the condition after she discovered she could “smell” the disease. Joy Milne, 65, told researchers that she had noticed a change in the odour of her late husband, Les, years before he developed symptoms of Parkinson’s. He passed away from the disease, a nervous system disorder whose symptoms include shaking and slowness of movement, earlier this year at the age of 65. “I’ve always had a keen sense of smell and I detected very early on that there was a very subtle change in how Les smelled,” Milne, from Perth, Scotland, said on Thursday. “It’s hard to describe but it was a heavy, slightly musky aroma. I had no idea that this was unusual and hadn’t been recognised before.”
About one in 500 people suffers from Parkinson’s, a degenerative illness that is difficult to diagnose and for which there is no cure. Milne made the connection between the smell and the disease after picking up the same scent from other sufferers.
She went on to tell researchers, who dubbed her “super-smeller” after finding that she could identify Parkinson’s sufferers from T-shirts they had slept in. That prompted research charity Parkinson’s UK to this week launch a project to find whether
the disease and odour are linked. “It’s very early days in the research, but if it’s proved there is a unique odour associated with Parkinson’s, particularly early on in the condition, it could have a huge impact,” said Arthur Roach, director of research at the charity. “Not just on early diagnosis, but it would also make it a lot easier to identify people to test drugs that may have the potential to slow, or even stop Parkinson’s, something no current drug can achieve.” Researchers are investigating whether the condition triggers changes in sebum, an oily substance secreted by skin, and aim to recruit 200 people with and without the condition for the study. Swabs taken from them will be analysed by machine at the molecular level, and will also be scrutinised by Milne and a team of smell experts from the food and drink industry.
LONDON Britain’s Prince William made a direct appeal to Chinese people to boycott ivory and other animal products used in medicine or ornaments to preserve the world’s remaining elephants on Monday. China is a major consumer of ivory, with demand for the tusks threatening dwindling elephant populations with extinction. Speaking during the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Britain, William recorded a message for popular Chinese television show “Let’s Talk”. “In the 33 years since I was born, we have lost around 70 percent of Africa’s elephant population. Of those that are left, 20,000 are being killed every year — that is 54 elephants killed every single day,” William said. “At this rate, children born this year, like my daughter Charlotte, will see the last wild elephants and rhinos die before their 25th birthdays.” Along with Chinese former basketball star Yao Ming and former footballer David Beckham, William has campaigned for an
end to the trade in ivory. He greeted viewers by saying “Xiexie. Hen gaoxing he ni
jianmian,” or “Thank you, I’m pleased to meet you.” William, who is second in line to the throne, noted that his own ancestors had collected animal trophies, but said that the prospect of total extinction meant traditions had to change. “I am absolutely convinced that China can become a global leader in the protection of wildlife,” William said as he concluded. “Your influence in the world means you can change the face of conservation in this century. ”BBC presenter threatens to remove panellist from live show after he raises Sikh killings’ issue.
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Children access porn sites from age SIX And begin flirting online at aged eight Children start watching porn on the internet from the age of six and will start flirting online when they are just eight-years-old, a study has revealed. More than 19,000 parents worldwide took part in a survey, with data compiled using information on which sites they choose to block and which their children have access to regularly. The study found that almost a quarter of children had at least one social network account by the time they were 12-yearsold and that most lie about their age when creating their online profiles. To join Facebook, for example, you have to be 13-yearsold.Disturbingly, two per cent of computer addicts were just fiveyears-old and 17 per cent were social media users by age 10. Overall, kids are turning to computer games and things like instant messaging at a younger age than they did a
few years ago. The study was published by Bitdefender, the creator of some of the Internet's best antivirus
Internet-connected device, and they will find a way to things parents would like to ban forever.'Jo Webber, CEO of
software.It also found that gaming, hacking and so-called 'hate' websites, where young people are free to use profanity are go-to sites for children. Bitdefender Chief Security Strategist Catalin Cosoi told USA Today: 'Kids nowadays are acting like young adults online - just give them an
Virtual Piggy, a website that enables kids to manage and spend money within a parentcontrolled environment, said: 'Kids lie about their age to get access to something they want to explore, in this case a social network. It's no different than my generation lying about age to get cigarettes or into a bar.'
Do environmentally friendly LED lights cause BLINDNESS? Eco-friendly LED lights may damage your eyes, according to new research. A study has discovered that exposure to LED lights can cause irreparable harm to the retina of the human eye.LED lights have been touted as a super-efficient alternative to traditional bulbs because they use up to 85 per cent less energy and each bulb can last up to 10 years.In April, Philips, the world's biggest lighting maker, reported a 38 per cent jump in LED light sales from last year.They are already widely used in mobile phones, televisions, computer screens and can also be fitted as a replacement for traditional lighting in the home.The government's Enhanced Capital Allowance Scheme, which was brought in to help cut UK carbon emissions, is also pushing the use of the lighting by offering businesses added tax relief if they use LED and other lowenergy bulbs.Dr. Celia Sánchez-Ramos, of Complutense University in Madrid and who led the study, explained that light from LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, comes from the short-wave, highenergy blue and violet end of the visible light spectrum.She said that prolonged, continuous exposure to this light may be enough to damage a person's retina.The retina is composed of light-sensitive tissue that is
responsible for detecting light and in turn allowing us to see. 'This problem is going to get worse, because humans are living longer and children are using electronic devices from a young age, particularly for schoolwork,' Sánchez-Ramos told ThinkSpain.com. 'Eyes are not designed to look directly at
light - they are designed to see with light,' Sánchez-Ramos said.Her comments are partly based on her 2012 study that was published in the journal Photochemistry and Photobiology. The study found that LED radiation caused significant damage to human retinal pigment epithelial cells in vitro.Sánchez-Ramos added that modern humans have their eyes open for roughly 6,000 hours a year, and are exposed to artificial light for the majority of that time.Some experts have called for the LED lights to have built-in filters to cut out the blue glare.This is not the first time energy-saving lights have come under scrutiny for safety reasons. Compact fluorescent light bulbs, or CFLs, have been criticized for the high levels of mercury they contain as well as the UV radiation they can emit.
Natural sex supplements bought online may contain dangerous prescription drugs People should not buy sex supplements online because they may contain secretly added prescription medications, according to scientists in America.Experts at Harvard Medical School say that there is no scientific evidence to suggest that sexual enhancement supplements are effective. They also claim that the supplements could cause serious harm.The researchers are warning that supplement manufacturers sometimes add undisclosed prescription drugs, such as Viagra, to their products to make them more effective. Live Science reported that the secretly added drugs are sometimes untested versions of the prescription medications meaning that they are not known to be safe. Even if they are legitimate medications, they can cause side effects such as low blood pressure if unwittingly taken alongside other medications.Dr Pieter Cohen, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a general internist at Cambridge
Health Alliance in Boston, told Live Science: ‘These products either do not work, or if they do work, are potentially harmful, because they contain undisclosed drugs.’ Four years ago more than 12 people in Asia died after taking
sex supplements which were laced with large quantities of a diabetes medication.To avoid a similar situation in Europe and the U.S. Dr Cohen is calling for greater regulation of online supplements.
People should eat more insects to fight hunger and reduce pollution, U.N says The U.N. has new weapons to fight hunger, boost nutrition and reduce pollution.But the answer to food crises around the world may not be that palatable - because they want people to eat insects.The Food and Agriculture Organization on Monday hailed the likes of grasshoppers, ants and other members of the insect world as an underutilized food for people, livestock and pets. A 200-page report, released at a news conference at the U.N. agency's Rome headquarters, says 2 billion people worldwide already supplement their diets with insects, which are high in protein and minerals, and have environmental benefits. Insects are 'extremely efficient' in converting feed into edible meat, the agency said. On average, they can convert 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of feed into 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of insect mass. In comparison, cattle require 8 kilograms (17.6 pounds) of feed to produce a kilo of meat. Most insects are likely to produce fewer environmentally harmful greenhouse gases, and also feed on human and food waste, compost and animal slurry, with the products being used for agricultural feed, the agency said. Currently, most edible insects are gathered in forests
and what insect farming does take place is often family-run and serves niche markets.But the U.N. says mechanization can ratchet up insect farming production. The fish bait industry, for example, has long farmed insects. Insect farming is 'one of the many ways to address food and
examining the potential of arachnids, such as spiders and scorpions, although they are not strictly speaking insects. University biologists have analyzed the nutritional value of edible insects, and some of them, such as certain beetles, ants, crickets and
feed security,' the food agency said. 'Insects are everywhere and they reproduce quickly,' the agency said, adding they leave a 'low environmental footprint.' They provide high-quality protein and nutrients when compared with meat and fish and are 'particularly important as a food supplement for undernourished children,' it said. Insects can also be rich in copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, selenium and zinc, and are a source of fibre. The agency noted that its Edible Insect Program is also
grasshoppers, come close to lean red meat or broiled fish in terms of protein per gram (ounce). But the question on everyone's lips is - are they tasty? The report noted that some caterpillars in southern Africa and weaver ant eggs in Southeast Asia are considered delicacies and command high prices. And some people who might not entertain the thought of consuming insects might already be eating them as many insects are ingested inadvertently.
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Rajnath says gangster arrested in Indonesia is Chhota Rajan Home minister Rajnath Singh said on Monday mob boss Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje alias Chhota Rajan was arrested by Indonesian authorities in the popular resort island of Bali after being on the run for decades. He is likely to be deported to India. “It is official. We have captured Chhota Rajan. The identification process is on,” home minister Rajnath Singh said. Singh’s remark came after the Central Bureau of Investigation’s director Anil Sinha said Rajan had been held at the agency’s request made throught the Interpol.
Acting on a tip-off from Australian police, Indonesian authorities detained Nikalje on Sunday as he arrived in Bali from Sydney, police spokesman Heri Wiyanto told AFP. Confusion prevailed immediately after the news of the arrest broke as several reports said the fugitive held in Bali was a serial killer called ‘Cyanide Mohan’, sentenced to death in India after his 2013 conviction for allegedly killing at least 20 women. Sinha later confirmed Nikalje’s arrested. Nikalje (55) had been on
the run for two decades and Interpol had flagged him as a wanted man in
arrested the man at the airport yesterday. What we know is that this man was
1995, Wiyanto said. “We received information from police in Canberra yesterday (Sunday) about the red notice for a murderer,” he said. “We
suspected to have carried out 15 to 20 murders in India.” Bali police are coordinating with Interpol and Indian authorities and it is likely
Pakistan calls in India’s deputy envoy over ‘threatening call’ Pakistan on Monday said it had called in India’s deputy envoy to seek a
government of India may have the matter investigated and share
probe into a “threatening phone call” purportedly made from New Delhi to the Governor House in the southern port city of Karachi last week. The spokesperson for Pakistan’s Foreign Office said the Indian deputy high commissioner was called in on Saturday and “informed of the threatening phone call received in the Governor House, Karachi, from New Delhi” on October 23. “Details of the call were also shared with him. It was requested that
results with Pakistan at the earliest,” said a brief statement issued by the Foreign Office. It did not give details about the purported phone call. There was no official word on the development from the external affairs ministry. According to reports in the Pakistani media, the Governor House in Karachi, the capital of Sindh province, received a “threatening call” from an unidentified man in India who claimed the governor’s residence would be
bombed. The call was made purportedly made from New Delhi on Friday morning, the media reports said. The staff of the Governor House staff informed security agencies about the development. Security arrang-ements at the Governor House were beefed up and Pakistani authorities launched an investigation into the matter. A search of the Governor House did not yield any explosive materials, the media reports said. “It was most probably a hoax call aimed at panicmongering,” an unnamed official was quoted as saying in a report on the website of Samaa news channel. The development became public on a day when Geeta, a hearing and speech impaired woman stranded in Pakistan for nearly 15 years, returned home to India.
Nikalje will be deported to India, Wiyanto said. A spokesperson for Australian Federal Police said Interpol in Canberra had alerted Indonesian authorities, “who apprehended Nikalje at the request of Indian authorities”. The federal police confirmed last month that Nikalje was living in Australia under another identity and had been in discussions with Indian authorities, the spokesperson said but would not provide further details. Interpol’s website states Nikalje was born in Mumbai and is wanted for
multiple charges, including murder and possession and use of illegal firearms. Chhota Rajan began his career in crime as a petty thief and bootlegger under the wings of Rajan Nair, who was known as ‘Bada Rajan’. He became the head of Nair’s gang after the latter’s murder. Before he fled to Dubai in 1988, Chhota Rajan began working with mob boss Dawood Ibrahim. The two fell out after Ibrahim masterminded a string of bomb blasts in Mumbai in 1993 that killed 257 people and injured hundreds more.
Drunk AAP MP Bhagwant Mann asked to leave religious ceremony Bhagwant Mann, the Aam Aadmi Party’s MP from Punjab’s Sangrur, was forced to leave a religious ceremony held for the two men killed in police firing
foul and told him to leave the stage. We are struggling with the case of disrespect to the Guru Granth Sahib and how can a man come drunk on the
told him to leave at once and he, too, did not argue with us,” he added. Singh also said that Mann should not be allowed take part in any religious
after he was allegedly found drunk by a former granthi. The two men were killed in police firing during a protest against the alleged desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib when at least 100 pages of the holy book of Sikhs were found strewn near a gurdwara in Bargari in Faridkot district on October 11. “I found Mann was smelling
stage where Guru Granth Sahib Parkash had been done,” Jagtar Singh, the former ceremonial reader of the Guru Granth Sahib at Amritsar’s Darbar Sahib, was quoted as saying by the Indian Express. “Had I announced this from the stage, the crowd would have attacked him and the whole atmosphere would have become tense. So, I
ceremony in future and should apologise. Mann left the venue in a huff after he was reportedly asked to come down the stage. He was confronted by a few members of the community as he was leaving. A video of Mann leaving the venue in a huff on Sunday went viral on the social media.
Pakistan uses Taliban to counter India: CIA chief’s hacked emails Pakistan uses militants as proxies to counter India’s growing influence in Afghanistan, according to a set of documents released by WikiLeaks from the hacked personal email account of CIA director John Brennan. The documents, released by the whistle-blower website and deemed classified by the CIA, contained reports on Afghanistan and Pakistan, and also ideas for US policy towards Iran. Brennan, three days after Barack Obama was elected US President in November
2008, wrote to him in a position-cum-strategy paper that Pakistan uses the Taliban to counter India in Afghanistan. “Pakistan’s desire to counter India’s growing influence in Afghanistan and concerns about US long-term commitments to Afghanistan increase Pakistan’s interest in hedging its bets by ensuring that it will be able to have a working relationship with the Taliban to balance Indian and Iranian interests if the US withdraws,” Brennan wrote on November 7 in
2008. Brennan, then a top foreign policy and counterterrorism adviser to Obama, then a presidentelect, was in the running to be CIA Director. The post, however, went to
Leon Panetta. Obama initially made Brennan his top counterterrorism adviser, and in January 2013 he nominated him as CIA Director. Brennan’s views on Pakistan was disclosed
in a 13-page executive summary of key findings and recommendations on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Brennan, in the summary, said efforts in the federally administered tribal areas (FATA) have been challenged by Pakistan’s ambivalence towards, and perhaps outright support for, the Taliban. “While the US intelligence community differs on the extent of the relationships, at least some elements of Pakistan’s military and intelligence services appear to be ambivalent
about the anti-Taliban and anti-militant mission in the FATA, in part due to their history of close ties to the Taliban in Afghanistan’s conflict with the Soviet Union and Pakistan’s use of militant proxies in its conflict with India,” he wrote. Coalition forces have won every major battle with Afghan insurgents, but these tactical successes have not resulted in a strategic victory, largely because insurgents are free to regroup in sanctuaries across the AfPak border, he wrote.
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No series win for India under MS Dhoni this year India steady at No. 2, Kohli rises in ICC ODI rankings There could not have been worse scene for the Indian
fort to claim their first ever bilateral ODI series victory
214-run defeat in the final ODI at Wankhede in
cricket fans than witnessing the bashing of Team India by South Africa in their own backyard on Sunday. It is rare for Indian team to be on the losing side on their home soil in limited-over cricket and Proteas finally climbed the
in India in their fifth attempt since 1991. South Africa did it in an emphatic manner; first they amassed a massive 438/4 and then bowled out the hosts for 224 in 36 overs and sealed the fivematch series 3-2. India’s
Mumbai was also their second biggest loss in terms of runs in one-day internationals. This is India’s second ODI series defeat at home in almost three years after Pakistan prevailed over the hosts in 2012/13.
Match fixers should be banned for life says Farokh Engineer Expressing regret at exNew Zealand cricketer Chris Cairns facing trial over match fixing allegations, former India stumper Farokh Engineer on Monday called for life ban for match and spot fixers. “Match fixers should be banned for life. Chris Cairns is a sad case, what a fantastic cricketer he was, but people now will remember him only for the match fixing allegations and not his cricket,” Engineer said during a media interaction here. Cairns is alleged to have attempted to manipulate games while playing for the now defunct Indian Cricket League. Engineer, who played 46 test matches for India, termed spot fixing as the worst malady. “Spot fixing is the worst of all. Just to bowl a no-ball you get thousands and thousands of pounds. People may think what harm a single no-ball can do, what they don’t realise is by doing one such thing, they get sucked into the whole match fixing affair. You just can’t get out of that vicious circle,” said the 77year-old referring to the Pakistan trio of Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir who were found guilty of spot fixing. The trio was banned for
accepting illegal money to orchestrate deliberate noballs in the Lord’s Test against England in 2010. However, the International
Cricket Council allowed Amir to feature in domestic home matches earlier in the year. “I am glad that Amir has been given a retrieve and I am equally glad that the other two have been punished because they were instrumental dragging the youngster into the fixing. “Any Indian cricketer, if found guilty of fixing, should be given a life ban. Match fixers or spot fixers, they have no place in cricket,” said the former wicketkeeper-batsman.
Winning and losing is part of the game when the two teams play but the way India succumbed to South Africa left team’s and ODI skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s fate in dark. And what worries more is the fact that India failed to win a single series under Dhoni’s leadership this year. India will finish the season with only one series victory and it came surprisingly from the second string team who whitewashed Zimbabwe 3-0 away from home under the captaincy of Ajinkya Rahane. The midas touch for which Dhoni is known for, which guided India to all three ICC titles - the World Twenty20 in 2007, the World Cup in 2011 and the Champions Trophy in 2013, seemed to have gone and has stopped working in favour of the team. Dhoni, who quit from Test cricket last year, has been unable to show the instincts that had helped him outsmart the opposition with clever bowling changes and field placements. Dhoni’s own deathovers batting has also lost its spark. India started their ODI assignments this year with a triangular series in Australia. And their struggle had also began as they found themselves in a precarious position suffering defeat after defeat and ended their winless campaign in the tournament that involved hosts Australia and England.
The series loss to South Africa notwithstanding, India held on to their second spot in the team list, while star batsman Virat Kohli rose up a rung to second in the batsmen’s table of the latest ICC ODI cricket rankings issued on Monday. South Africa retained their third position but reduced second-ranked India’s advantage to two points in the rankings following the 3-2 series victory, which concluded with a mammoth 214-run victory in Mumbai on Monday. The Proteas went into the series on 110 points, five adrift of MS Dhoni’s men, but AB de Villiers’ side fought back after conceding early ground to clinch the series in a dramatic final game. Meanwhile, as a consequence of the 3-2 home
series defeat, Zimbabwe have stayed in 10th place, a fraction ahead of Ireland, with Afghanistan one more point behind following their historic inaugural series victory over a Test playing country. By stint of a series of impressive batting displays the top 10 has re-jigged and a number of Proteas batsmen have risen in the ICC Player Rankings for ODI Batsmen. Skipper de Villiers retained his number one ranking, and is now 96 points clear of Kohli in second place, after scoring three centuries (104 not out, 112 and 119) in five matches. Hashim Amla has dropped three places to fifth, while Dhoni has moved up two places to sixth and holds an 11-point advantage over his teammate Shikhar Dhawan.
BCCI to examine details before taking action on Ravi Shastri Commenting on the controversy over Indian cricket team director Ravi Shastri abusing Wankhede Stadium curator Sudhir Naik for the nature of the pitch during the fifth one-dayer against South Africa, BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur said on Monday that the board needs to first look into the details of the incident before taking drastic action against anyone. Shastri allegedly made abusive remarks about the track as he crossed paths with Mumbai Cricket As-
sociation (MCA) curator Naik after the match here on Sunday evening. South Africa registered a mammoth 214-run win over a spiritless India in the fifth and final One-Day International (ODI) to clinch the series 3-2. Three centuries from their top order batsmen helped them post a massive score of 438/4 in 50 overs. In reply, India were bowled out for 224. The loss was one of the most humiliating that the hosts have ever endured in home conditions.
The hosts were expecting a spin-friendly track on Sunday, but the curator had prepared a flat track
which favoured the batsmen. “As far as the BCCI taking action as anyone is
concerned, whether it is the player or the management or member of the support staff we have made it very clear that the rules and regulations are equal for everyone. The yardstick will be followed in every case. We need to look into the details first and can’t straight away take action against anyone,” Thakur said while unveiling mobile phone manufacturer Vivo as the title sponsor of the Indian Premier League (IPL) for the next two seasons.
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Death toll in Afghan quake crosses 300, Pakistan worst hit A major earthquake struck the remote Afghan northeast on Monday, killing more than 300 people in Afghanistan and nearby northern Pakistan, injuring hundreds and sending shock waves as far as New Delhi, officials said. The death toll could climb in coming days because communications were down in much of the rugged Hindukush mountain range where the quake was centred. In one of the worst incidents, at least 12 girls were killed in a stampede to flee their school building in Taloqan, just west of Badakhshan province where the tremor's epicentre was located. “They fell under the feet of other students,” said Abdul Razaq Zinda, provincial head of the Afghan National Disaster Management Agency, who reported heavy damage in Takhar. Shockwaves were felt in New Delhi in northern India and across northern Pakistan, where hundreds of people ran out of
buildings as the ground rolled beneath them. No deaths were reported in India. “We were very scared ... We saw people leaving buildings, and we
were remembering our God,” Pakistani journalist Zubair Khan said by telephone from the Swat Valley northwest of the capital Islamabad. “I was in my car and, when I stopped my car, the car itself was shaking as if someone was pushing it back and forth.” The quake was 213 km (132 miles)
deep and centred 254 km (158 miles) northeast of Kabul in Badakhshan province. The U.S. Geological Survey initially measured the magnitude
at 7.7, then revised it down to 7.5. Just over a decade ago, a 7.6 magnitude quake in another part of northern Pakistan killed about 75,000 people. In Afghanistan, where rescue and relief work is likely to be complicated by security threats created by an escalating Taliban insurgency, at least 52
people were reported dead in several provinces. In addition to the 12 schoolgirls in Takhar, officials said seven people died in the eastern
province of Nangarhar, two in Nuristan province in the northeast, 22 in eastern Kunar province and nine in Badakhshan, where hundreds were killed in mudslides last year. Hundreds of houses were also destroyed, creating additional hardship, with cold weather setting in. Remote areas cut off In
Pakistan, the head of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Provincial Disaster Management Agency, Amer Afaq said the death toll had reached 167, while military spokesman General Asim Bajwa said nearly 1,000 were injured. Officials said most of the casualties had occurred in northern and northwestern regions bordering Afghanistan and the death toll was likely to rise. Dr. John Ebel, chairman of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Boston College in the United States, said the depth of the earthquake meant damage was likely to be spread broadly rather than focused in one disaster zone. But he said landslides on the unstable slopes of the mountainous region could pose a major problem to rescuers in the coming days. “Obviously if a landslide comes in to a village, it will take out buildings, but landslides can also take out roads and communications and power systems, so you lose the ability to access remote areas,” he said.
Modi offers Afghanistan help after the quake
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said he felt “very pained” when Afghan President Ashraf Ghani told him about the deaths of school children in the devastating earthquake in his country. When Modi got to know about the massive earthquake which measured 7.5 on the Richter scale, he took to social networking site Twitter.
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27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
Health Six ingenious ways to use fruit and vegetable peels! Imagine you’re eating a fruit. You peel the fruit, devour the juicy, delicious pulp, enjoy every second of it, relish it and you’re done. Now what do you do with the fruit peel? Why, throw it of course, what a question to ask! This is exactly where you’re going wrong. Stumped? Don’t be. It’s second nature for everyone to throw away those fruit skins and peels away right after you’re done enjoying the benefits of what’s inside it. But what you weren’t probably aware of, was that fruit skins are also helpful and can aid you in everyday life. Want to know what they are? Then you need not look any further! Given below are seven amazing ways you can use those fruit skins or peels for your benefit. Take a look!
1. Revitalizing your skin: Soft, fuzzy peaches have skin that is rich in vitamin A and potassium, which are great for your skin. So, next time you
treat your taste buds with the fleshy fruit, don’t forget to pamper your skin. Add a little white sugar to the inside of the peach’s skin and then use it as a gentle scrub on your face. Your skin will feel hydrated and revitalized. 2. Keep brown sugar from solidifying: Lemon zest is great for keeping brown sugar from turning
hard. You can simply throw a piece of lemon peel in the brown sugar jar, ensuring that you completely remove the pith and pulp. It will help
in keeping the brown sugar moist and soft for months in the cabinet. 3. Plant pots: Watermelon, grapefruit, coconut and avocado shells make perfect plant pots to grow your seeds. After you scoop the pulp out of your favourite citrus fruits or avocados, use their shells to make your own biodegradable seedling pots. Put mud
Know the amazing health benefits of fasting! Have you ever tried fasting? Perhaps you’ve fasted several times, but you weren’t quite sure whether it could be beneficial. While fasting has been adopted by various religious groups as a spiritual
fasting is, it surely yields results. Below are a few health benefits of fastingIntermittent fasting fasting that is controlled within a set number of hours – can help you lose weight, improve health and even live longer.
practice since ancient times, it is an act of willing abstinence or reduction from certain or all food, drink, or both, for a period of time. Now, do not be confused for research suggests that fasting does have various benefits for the body. Whatever your purpose of
Intermittent fasting, which gives your digestive system a rest, can energise your metabolism to burn through calories more efficiently while promoting a healthy bowel function. Fasting improves your brain function as it boosts the production of brain-derived neurotrophic
factor (BDNF), a protein that influences brain function as well as the peripheral nervous system.
and seeds in the shells and hang them to let your seedlings to start sprouting in spring. Once the seeds begin to grow, you can plant the entire pot in the ground and save yourself a little time, space and money! 4. Cracked heels: Papaya peel is rich in vitamin A and papain which can help remove dead skin from your soles and make them feel refreshed. Just rub the pulpy side of the papaya skin on your feet soles for cleaner, softer heels. 5. Soothing the eyes: Tired and puffy eyes are a daily beauty hang-up and nothing seems to work on them. Potato peels to the rescue! Yes! All you have to do is gently press the inside of the peel onto your eyes and let it stay for 10 to 15 minutes. The vitamins in potatoes are great for relieving inflammation. 6. Making jelly: If you like your apples peeled, you could use the rind to make jelly. It will involve some of your time but the delicious homemade apple jelly/jam will be worth it. And all you need is the apple peels, lemon zest, water and sugar.
Biological sensor can help Health benefits of ward off obesity, diabetes
mulberry!
A team of researchers has found that sensor protein could help fight against obesity and diabetes. In the study, researchers showed a protein called NLRP1 is switched on when increased dietary energy (food) intake triggers the cell to become ‘unstable’. Activating the protein sets off a chain of events that instructs cells to use up their energy or fat stores to prevent excess fat accumulating. Lead author Seth Masters from Melbourne’s Walter and Eliza Hall Institute said NLRP1 was a biological sensor that could hold the key to developing new ways of treating obesity and type 2 diabetes. NLRP1 is a biological sensor that can respond to and prevent obesity and metabolic syndrome, which are
causing a dramatically increasing burden of disease throughout the world, Masters added. The sensor is activated if it detects that the body’s energy intake is too high. When the sensor is activated, it tells cells to burn fat stores to prevent excess build up of fat. We showed that without NLRP1, fat stores continue to build up, especially with a highenergy diet, leading to obesity. Masters said NLRP1 was more commonly known for its role in the immune system. “However it is becoming increasingly clear that immune signalling proteins also have an important role in regulating metabolism.” However the investigators cautioned that the treatment would have to be tightly controlled to avoid potential side-effects, Masters said.
The sooner babies get cochlear implants, the better As per a recent research, babies’ babbles reflect their own involvement in the language development. Babbling sounds with consonantvowel repetitions, such as ‘dada,’ are common among infants once they reach 8 months old; however, these sounds are not prevalent among infants who have profound hearing loss, that is, until they receive cochlear implants. Now, University of Missouri research shows that babies’ repetitive babbles primarily are motivated by
infants’ ability to hear themselves. Additionally, infants with profound hearing loss, who received cochlear implants to improve their hearing, soon babbled as
often as their hearing peers, allowing them to catch up developmentally. Hearing is a critical aspect of infants’ motivation to make early
sounds, said Mary Fagan. The fact that they attend to and learn from their own behaviors, especially in speech, highlights how infants’ own experiences help their language, social and cognitive development. Fagan noted “This research doesn’t diminish the importance of the speech that babies hear from others, we know they need to learn from others, but it raises our awareness that infants are not just passive recipients of what others say to them.
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27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
Pear good for your gut Recent in vitro, animal, clinical and epidemiologic studies have indicated that pear consumption potentially improves gut health, setting the stage for further evidence of associated health benefits. To explore the potential
health benefits associated with pear consumption and related health outcomes, Joanne Slavin of the University of Minnesota, assisted by food science graduate Holly Reiland, conducted a systematic review of studies from PubMed (database of the National Library of Medicine with citations and abstracts of biomedical literature) and
Aerobics exercise helps to control asthma
A new study has found that aerobics is really helpful for asthma patients and is effective in controlling asthma. The researchers of American College of Chest Physicians did a 12-week supervised aerobic exercise program for patients with asthma and found that exercise yielded significant improvements in asthma control. The researchers observed that patients, who performed aerobics exercise, had clinically and statistically improved asthma control (0.5 decrease in ACQ), shortacting bronchodilator (SABA) usage (nearly three times less per week), and depressive symptoms (four-point drop in BDI-II).
Agricola (database of the National Agricultural Library with citations of agricultural literature) from 1970 to present. Pears are an excellent source of fiber and a good source of vitamin C for only 100 calories per serving. One medium
pear provides about 24 percent of daily fiber needs. They are sodiumfree, cholesterol-free, fatfree and contain 190 mg of potassium. The USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans and CNPP MyPlate advise people who eat more fruits as part of an overall healthy diet are likely to reduce their risk of some chronic diseases, although little
is published on the health outcomes associated with individual fruits, including pears. In the review conducted by Slavin and Reiland, pears were found to be a source of fructose, sorbitol and dietary fiber. “Americans fall short on
dietary fiber,” said Slavin. “The high content of dietary fiber in pears and their effects on gut health set pears apart from other fruit and deserves further study.” Slavin found the body of evidence for a relationship between pear intake and health outcomes to be sparse and diverse and believes intervention studies with
pears that show positive health outcomes, most likely improvements in gut health, are needed. According to Slavin, an epidemiologic cohort study conducted by Larsson et al.2 found, among individual fruit and vegetable subgroups, inverse associations with total stroke and the consumption of pears, along with apples and leafy green vegetables. In a meta-analysis of twenty prospective cohort studies Hu et al.3 found apples/pears, citrus fruits and leafy vegetables might contribute to stroke protection. An epidemiologic study conducted by Wedick et al.4 linked the consumption of anthocyanin-rich foods, particularly pears, apples and blueberries, with lower risk of Type 2 diabetes. An additional epidemiologic study via Mink et al.5 indicated flavonoid-rich foods including pears were associated with a significant reduction in mortality from coronary heart disease and cardiovascular disease in postmenopausal women.
Single blood test to predict premature death risk
Protein in blood can predict fatal kidney disease
Researchers have found that presence of a protein in blood can be an early indicator of endstage renal disease and ultimately of death in people with hypertension. An increased level of cardiac troponin T (cTnT) in the blood can be an early indicator of the disease and accurately identify patients who need intervention, said lead study author LaTonya Hickson, nephrology and hypertension physician at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, US. “Early intervention and treatment can be key to stopping kidney disease progression and, potentially, preventable death events,” Hickson said. End-stage renal disease or end-stage kidney failure often is associated with hypertension or high blood pressure, a
common cardiovascular disease. The researchers studied patients using blood samples from people enrolled in the Genetic Epidemiology Network of Arteriopathy (GENOA) study between June 1996 and August 2000. In this cohort, more than 70 percent of patients had hypertension, and all others were from hypertensive families. The researchers examined baseline data from 3,050 patients enrolled in GENOA and conducted follow-up assessments of death and end-stage kidney failure events nearly 10 to 12 years later. “Among the overall cohort, we found that, at 10 years, those with an abnormal cTnT had a high cumulative incidence of death totaling 47 percent, compared to those with a normal cTnT (7.3 percent),” Hickson said.
Skin cancer risk? Beer to the rescue
With identification of a biomarker, researchers have found that a single blood test could reveal whether an apparently healthy person is likely to die of pneumonia or sepsis within the next 14 years. Based on an analysis of 10,000 individuals, the researchers identified a molecular byproduct of inflammation, called GlycA, which seems to predict premature death due to infections. The findings suggest that high GlycA levels in the blood indicate a state of chronic inflammation that may arise from low-level chronic infection or an
overactive immune response. That inflammation damages the body, which likely renders individuals more susceptible to severe infections, the study said. “As biomedical researchers, we want to help people, and there are few more important things I can think of than identifying apparently healthy individuals who might actually be at increased risk of disease and death,” said cosenior author of the study Michael Inouye from University of Melbourne, in Australia. “We want to short-circuit
that risk, and to do that we need to understand what this blood biomarker of disease risk is actually telling us,” Inouye noted. The researchers noted that additional studies are needed to uncover the mechanisms involved in GlycA’s link to inflammation and premature death, and whether testing for GlycA levels in the clinic might someday be warranted. “We still have a lot of work ahead to understand if we can modify the risk in some way,” co-senior author Johannes Kettunen from University of Oulu in Finland pointed out.
A new study has revealed that vitamin B3 derivative can cut risk of new skin cancers. A year of treatment with nicotinamide, a form of vitamin B3, significantly lowered the risk of common, non-melanoma skin cancer in high-risk patients, according to University of Sydney research. All 386 participants in the study had a history of skin cancer, increasing their risk for additional skin cancers. Taken as a twicedaily pill for 12 months, nicotinamide reduced the incidence of new nonmelanoma skin cancers by 23 per cent relative to placebo controls and cut the incidence of pre-
cancerous sun spots by around 15 per cent. Nicotinamide is safe, affordable, and available over the counter in most countries. The findings have the potential to decrease the health burden and economic cost of skin cancer - the most common form of cancer in fair-skinned populations worldwide. Senior author, Dr Diona Damian, said that they hope that these findings can be immediately translated into clinical practice. However, people at high risk of skin cancer still need to practice sun safe behaviour, use sunscreens and have regular check-ups with their doctor.
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ROASTED CAULIFLOWER WITH COFFEE SAUCE Ingredients: 1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, 1 tsp. instant espresso powder 2 heads cauliflower (about 4 1/2 lbs.), cored and cut into 1 1/2-inch florets Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, 2 shallots, minced 3/4 cup brewed coffee 1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp. whiskey 3/4 cup heavy cream 1/4 cup toasted hazelnuts, chopped 3 tbsp. roughly chopped tarragon leaves and sprigs Instructions: Heat the broiler. In a large bowl, whisk 1/4 cup olive oil with the espresso powder, add the cauliflower, and season with salt and pepper. Toss the
27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015
GREEN RICE cauliflower in the oil until evenly coated and then spread out evenly between two baking sheets. Working with one baking sheet at a time, broil the cauliflower, turning as needed, until tender and charred in spots, about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil in a 10inch skillet over medium-high. Add the shallots and cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly caramelized, about 3 minutes. Pour in the coffee and whisky and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to maintain a simmer and cook until the liquid has almost evaporated, about 5 minutes. Stir in the cream, season with salt and pepper, and remove the sauce from the heat. To serve, transfer the cauliflower to a serving platter, drizzle with the sauce, and top with the hazelnuts and tarragon.
IRISH COFFEE SODA BREAD Ingredients: 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting 2 cups whole-wheat flour 1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar 1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt 1 tsp. baking soda 4 tbsp. chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes 1 1/2 cups buttermilk 1/4 cup Irish whiskey 3 tbsp. instant espresso powder 1 large egg, lightly beaten Instructions: Heat the oven to 375°. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle, whisk both flours with the sugar, salt and baking soda to combine. Add the butter and mix on medium-low speed until the
utes. Remove pot from heat, but keep covered, allowing rice to cook for another 10 minutes.
STIR-FRIED CHICKEN WITH CASHEW NUTS
butter is the size of peas. In a large measuring cup, whisk the buttermilk with the whiskey, espresso powder, and egg until smooth. With the stand mixer on low speed, pour the buttermilk into the dry ingredients and mix just until the dough comes together. Scrape the dough onto a lightly floured work surface, form into a ball, and then transfer to a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Using a serrated knife, cut a cross into the top of the dough ball and bake until the bread puffs and is dark golden brown on the outside, 50 to 55 minutes. Let the soda bread cool completely before slicing.
Ingredients: 1 tbsp. canola oil 3/4 cup cashew nuts 15 dried chiles 2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped 1 1/2 lb. chicken breast (about 4), cut into 1-inch pieces 5 oz. button mushrooms, quartered 3 tbsp. oyster sauce 1 tbsp. fish sauce 1 tbsp. soy sauce 1 tsp. sugar 1 (7-oz.) jar baby corn, drained and halved 1 bunch scallions, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces 1/2 cup cilantro leaves, to garnish cooked white rice, for serving Instructions: Heat oil in a wok over medium heat;
ROAST LEG OF LAMB
SPICY CUCUMBER SALAD Ingredients: 2 large hot house cucumbers (about 1 1/2 lbs.) 3 tbsp. rice wine vinegar 2 tbsp. kosher salt 1 tbsp. sugar 1/4 cup vegetable oil 5 cloves garlic, roughly chopped 1 tbsp. crushed red chile flakes 1 tsp. Sichuan peppercorns 1 tsp. toasted sesame oil Instructions: On a work surface, use a rolling pin or heavy can to gently pound each cucumber until it begins to split. Cut each cucumber lengthwise into quarters and then cut crosswise into 1-inch pieces. Transfer the cucumbers to a bowl and toss with the vinegar, salt,
Ingredients: 1 small white onion, peeled and quartered 2 poblano chiles, deveined, seeded, and quartered 3 cloves garlic, peeled 1 cup fresh cilantro 2 cups Chicken Stock Salt and freshly ground black pepper 1 cup long-grain white rice 2 tbsp. vegetable oil Instructions: Place onions, chiles, garlic, cilantro, and 1 cup stock in a blender. Blend, strain, and season with salt and pepper. Rinse and drain rice. Heat oil in a heavy pot over medium-low heat. Add rice and sauté, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes. Add sauce and remaining 1 cup stock. Cover and simmer for 20 min-
and sugar until evenly combined. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, heat the vegetable oil and garlic over medium-low and cook, stirring, until fragrant, 12 to 14 minutes. Stir in the chile flakes and peppercorns and remove the pan from the heat. Let the oil cool and then strain into a medium bowl, discarding the solids. Remove the cucumbers from the refrigerator, lift the cucumbers and squeeze lightly to drain, and then transfer to the bowl with the chile oil; discard the liquid. Toss the cucumbers with the chile oil and the sesame oil until evenly coated before serving.
Ingredients: 2-3 garlic cloves 7-8 lb. leg of lamb handful of extra-virgin olive oil coarse salt freshly ground black pepper Instructions: Preheat oven to 450°. Peel and slice 2–3 garlic cloves. Make small incisions all over a 7 – to 8 – lb. leg of lamb with the tip of a paring knife, inserting a piece of sliced garlic in each slit as you go. Rub lamb with a handful of extra-virgin olive oil, some coarse salt, and freshly ground black pepper. Put lamb in a heavy roasting pan, meatier side up, and roast in oven for 30 minutes. Reduce heat to 325° and continue roasting until internal temperature reads 130° for medium rare, about 30– 40 minutes more.
add cashews and chiles and cook until cashews are lightly toasted, about 2 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer cashews and chiles to a bowl. Add garlic to wok and cook until pale golden, about 1 minute. Increase heat to high and add chicken; cook 3-4 minutes or until brown. Add reserved cashews and chiles, the mushrooms, oyster sauce, fish sauce, soy sauce, sugar, corn, and spring onions and cook until the chicken has cooked through, about 3 minutes more. Transfer to a serving plate and garnish with cilantro. Serve with rice.
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27 Oct. - 2 Nov. 2015