The contact

THE CONTACT WEEKLY NEWSPAPER ISSUE - 657, 8 MARCH - 14 MARCH 2016 PH: (905) 671 - 4761

Centre, Punjab Spar Over Pathankot Bill

SRI SRI’S EVENT DASHES FARMERS’ DREAMS SEE PAGE 20

SEE PAGE 5

KANHAIYA LEFT’S NEXT POLL STAR IN INDIA Kanhaiya Kumar, President of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU), could soon become the poster boy for Left politics in India.

On a day the Election Commission of India announced assembly polls in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Kerala and Puducherry, Sitaram Yechury, senior Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader, said Kanhaiya will campaign for the Left Front in the five assembly poll-bound states. Kanhaiya Kumar, President of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU), could soon become the poster boy for Left politics in India.

“He (Kanhaiya Kumar) is a Left activist. As a Left activist, he will naturally campaign,” Yechury said.

Turn to Page 2

Burger Named After Canada’s Sikh Defence Minister

TORONTO Canada’s first Sikh defence minister Harjit Sajjan now has a chicken burger named after him and it is called ‘The Minister of National Deliciousness’.

45-year-old Sajjan, who was in November named Canada’s minister of national defence

SEE PAGE 2

Issue - 657 (2)

8 March - 14 March 2016 Continued from Page 1 Arrested on charges of sedition by the Delhi Police, Kanhaiya spent 23 days in Delhi’s Tihar jail leading to a campaign demanding his release.

Soon after his release on Thursday evening, the young student leader made a fiery speech on JNU campus saying he wanted ‘azadi in India and not azadi from India’.

Now, he seems to have caught the attention of senior Left leaders who see him as a potential youth icon for Leftist politics in India. All this adulation, though, has not overawed the Ph.D. student who sees himself as a future academic who will continue to work for

KANHAIYA MAY PLAY LEFT’S FLUTE IN POLLS students’ rights. “I am a student and not a politician. The citizens of this country have not voted for me, it is the students of JNU who have voted for me. I am a student leader of this university and will always fight for students’ rights,” he said when asked about his political plans.

Kanhaiya is a leader of the All India Students’ Federation (AISF), the students’ wing of CPI, and party leaders feel he could be a star campaigner for the upcoming polls. “There is a demand for Kanhaiya to campaign in different parts of the country. As a student activist and a political activist he is likely to campaign for us. We will have to see how it works out,” said D Raja, General Secretary of the Communist Party of India.

Kanhaiya was arrested following a controversy over an event organised in JNU last month to commemorate the death anniversary of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.

Anti-India slogans were allegedly raised at the

Publishing has diversity issue says Author Rai HONG KONG As the film and music industries grapple with the fallout from the race rows that dogged the Oscars and the Brit Awards, English author Bali Rai warns publishing too has a serious diversity issue.

The award-winning writer, who has Indian heritage but was born and grew up in Leicester,

echoes critics of Hollywood and the Academy Awards when he suggests gatekeepers are only recognising a narrow band of talent and ideas, which does not properly reflect society. He explains: “Publishing in the UK is a white, middle and upper class monolith.

gathering.

Despite arresting Kanhaiya and two others, the police still hasn’t zeroed in on those who indulged in such sloganeering. Kanhaiya addressed the media on Friday as the administration block of the varsity was once again jam-packed with students who had gathered to listen to him. “I request the government to not use words like ‘sedition’ and destroy the future of university students,” he said.

“I am not a political leader and that’s why will not run away from your questions. As I dream of becoming a teacher, I believe in answering questions. I am fully prepared to answer all questions,” he said confidently when asked about his future in politics.

However, he did not shy away from politically-

charged statements.

“Regarding the Afzal Guru issue, I want to clarify that Guru is not any icon. Rohith Vemula for me is an icon,” he said. Vemula, a Dalit student from Hyderabad University who recently committed suicide, has created a political storm.

While on last week Kanhaiya focused more on

Idiots. “The government which should ideally be the country’s government, is becoming one party’s government these days.

We will have to make them realise their responsibilities towards the country.”

Reacting to allegations that the taxpayer’s money was being wasted in running the university, Kanhaiya said he

concept of Akhand Bharat propagated by the ABVP and select sections of society. Explaining the difference between treason and being anti-government, he said that no one in the university can ever be antinational. “Our constitution talks about equality, brotherhood and nationalism. There is a

taking jibes at the Narendra Modi government and the Delhi Police, today he focused on JNU’s image, students and the faculty.

He said he was like an ‘idiot’ from the movie 3

would want to tell the people of the country that the taxes they pay are being invested in the right place. Replying to a question, he said he is against patenting of nationalism and the

difference between desh droh (anti-national) and rajdroh (sedition). We want to convey this to everyone that no one in JNU can ever be antinational,” he said.

Burger Named After Canada’s Sikh Defence Minister Continued from Page 1 in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s 30-member Liberal cabinet, stopped by a downtown Vancouver eatery to sample the burger named in his honour.

“National Deliciousness indeed! Tried my namesake burger at #Vancouver ’s @The CannibalCafe and was not disappointed,” Sajjan tweeted after eating the burger. Sajjan, who represents the VancouverSouth, was in town last week for the Liberal government’s first ministers meeting, but made time to

visit ‘The Cannibal Cafe’ and try out his namesake burger ‘The Minister of National Deliciousness’. “I approve,” Sajjan said after taking the first bite. “It’s got pakoras on it. Who would’ve thought to put it into a burger? Now that that makes sense,” he was quoted as saying by CTV News. The chicken burger also features a tandoorispiced patty doused in butter chicken sauce and pressed yogurt with mint, cilantro and cucumbers. It was introduced as February’s ‘Burger of the Month’ but the eatery’s owner said it was so popular

they added it to the regular menu. Sajjan, who called the experience “very humbling”, also shook hands with the chef behind the burger, Zai Kitagawa, and signed off on a chalkboard featuring a drawing of him in sunglasses. Kitagawa told reporters on Wednesday that he started thinking about the burger shortly after the minister’s appointment. “If there’s a man that a Canadian can be proud of, it’s definitely Mr Sajjan,” he said. Sajjan is a combat veteran and has served in Bosnia and had three deployments to Kandahar,

Afghanistan. He was born in India and moved to Canada with his family when he was five-years-old. Since his appointment as defence minister, Sajjan has faced two incidents of apparent racism. Soon after his appointment in November, he faced racist remarks by a soldier on social media, prompting the Canadian Armed Forces to launch a probe. Last month, Sajjan was heckled in Parliament with an opposition member shouting that MPs needed an “English-to- English” translation as he spoke, an act dubbed as “racist”.

Issue - 657 (3)

8 March - 14 March 2016

Issue - 657 (4)

8 March - 14 March 2016

The United States of Canada?

Trump’s surge fires up liberal American interest in fleeing north

Trump’s actions and speeches make it tempting to call him a bigot. He has railed against minorities, women and others.

Hillary Clinton may be home and dry in the Democratic race for the White House, but for Donald Trump, it could be a case of so close, yet so far. First, there’s Ted

Cruz to contend with. Cruz has managed to stay alive in the Republican race with two wins on Saturday. Trump too made steady gains to extend his lead over his rivals, but that won’t make a difference to the conservative establishment who do not see the brash tycoon as one of them.

Cruz’s two wins could be just the ammunition they would like use to bring down the loose-tongued Moghul. To the GOP top brass, the developer is a Democrat who switched sides, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, so to speak. Marco Rubio calls him a conman, a person who cannot be trusted, and an opportunist who has benefited because of divisions in the ranks of the ‘‘party of Ronald Reagan’’.

There is talk of conservative values which

THE CONTACT STAFF: EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Sunny Bains Lt. Hon. President : Dr. (Prof.) Darshan Singh Executive Editor: Kanwaljit Kaur Bains EDITOR Vinny Bains Foreign Editor: Syed Asif Shahkar (Sweden) Sr. Assistant Editor: Prempal Bajwa Marketing Executive Vinny Bains Special Correspondents: Balkar Chatha France Financial Advisor : Sarabjit Singh Sagoo Photographer: Sandeep Brar 647 294 4948 Head Office: 2-7015 TRANMERE DRIVE, MISSISSAUGA ONTARIO CANADA L5S 1T7 For Advertisement : Call Kanwaljit 416-899-2548 Tel: 905-671-4761 TOLL FREE: 1-888-371-2548 FAX: 1888-982-2818 EMAIL: INFO@AJITWEEKLY.COM

The Contact Weekly and people associated with it are not responsible for any claims made by the advertisers and don’t endorse any product or services advertised in the Contact Weekly. Please consult your lawyer before buying/hiring/ contracting through the ads published in the newspaper. The Contact Weekly is in the business of selling space and claims made by the advertisers are not tested/ confirmed by an independent source.

the modern, average American is finding hard to fathom. By going all out in their bid to deny Donald the party nomination, the GOP is acting undemocratically in a democracy. The man has done well among commoners in the party, but the powers will have nothing of it. There’s sympathy for Trump in some quarters which translated into support during the primaries.

Trump’s actions and speeches make it tempting to call him a bigot. He has railed against minorities, women and others.

What GOP elders don’t realize is that there is a constituency of people who like what he says: to change the establishment and make America great again. There’s voter fatigue against the rich and powerful that he’s tapping into by calling himself a common sense conservative. A Trump-Clinton contest may not be a certainty yet though the two have been taking the odd swipe against each other. One portrays herself as a unifier who says she will make America whole again, while the other hopes to tap into nationalistic sentiment with his flawed message of greatness. It will be a tough choice for Americans caught in the middle.

A majority of young Americans say they would feel like fleeing the country if Donald Trump won the presidency, according to a new Fusion poll about the 2016 election.

The pollsters asked Americans between the ages of 18 and 35 how they would feel about hypothetical wins by the major Republican and Democratic candidates, including Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders. They had a few options: “like declaring a national holiday,” “like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel,” “like shrugging,” “like going back to bed,” or “like fleeing the country.” The responses were: 54% of young people in the United States said that a Donald Trump presidency would make them feel like packing up and getting the hell out of the US. That number

spiked to 73% among young black is roughly a tenth of that of the United Americans, and 64% of young Latinos. Democrats were way more likely to say they’d want to run away in the face of a Trump SUNNY BAINS administration, but one in three young Republicans said they’d feel the same way. On the bright States - 35 million to 320 million of its side: governing the country after half the southern neighbor. It has vast open population under the age of 35 has fled spaces, great natural wealth and beauty, may make the president Trump’s job a and the ability to absorb plenty of little easier. Following is the article written immigrants, although its immigration

by Chidanand Rajghatta in the Times of policy is fine-tuned to absorb more India on the desire among the young educated and high-skilled people unlike the United States. But who would have thought America’s best and brightest would be the potential immigrants, although the idea did begin to take shape more than a decade ago?

When America’s electoral map began to show Conservative Republican red states concentrated in the center of the country, one internet meme named the territory ‘Jesuland’. The liberal east coast and west coast states were conjoined with Canada to form the ‘United States of Canada’.

“Canada is the only country in the world that knows how to live without an identity,” the famed communications expert Marshall McLuhan once said. It now appears Canada has acquired an admirable new identity - as the United Americans to flee the US if Trump were States of Canada, or the New America. to become the president of the country.

So what could a president Trump mean One newspaper ran a mock-tutorial on for India - and the world? Here is a rundown ‘How to flee America’. Google searches based on some of his statements, many for “How to move to Canada” surged by of them unscripted and coming of the top 350% in the space of four hours after of what his critics say is largely an empty Super Tuesday, according to a tweet from head. the company’s Data Editor Simon Rogers Trump has accused China, Japan, (it later went up 1500%). The banner Mexico, Vietnam and India of “ripping us headline in the New York Daily News read: off” by devaluing their currencies and MAKE AMERICA MIGRATE - a take-off keeping out some US exports. This on Trump’s promise to ‘Make America presages a trade war and pressure on Great’. And the Canadian government’s India to further open up its market The immigration website crashed. Donald Republican frontrunner’s campaign has Trump’s Super Tuesday surge is firing up also said he would “pause” new green the urge of many Americans to abandon cards, putting millions of aspiring the country once famed as the sanctuary permanent residents, more than a million of the world. And Canada, long put-down Indians who have been waiting for a as the United States’ attic or top hat or decade or more for their Green Cards, in ‘loft apartment over a really great party’, limbo. Trump has said he would deport is having its moment in the sun - as the the 11 million undocumented people living Promised Land. in America and end “birthright citizenship” “For America it’s becoming a reality that for children born in the US to illegal Trump and Clinton are going to be the immigrants. Currently, children of final two. For me it’s becoming a reality immigrants born, regardless of their to move to Canada,” was among the parents’ status, are deemed US citizens. hundreds of messages posted on social Trump had called for a temporary ban on media on Tuesday night as the reality of Muslims entering the US. He has not the 2016 electoral match-up dawned on explained how he will do this (countries many Americans. Liberal Americans’ love such as India do not identify its citizens for Canada stems as much from their by religion on their passport) and what he revulsion of Donald Trump and his policies will do about the seven million American as their admiration for Canada’s recently Muslims. Trump has said he will build a elected Prime Minister, the young, wall on the border with Mexico (after calling personable, and engaging Justin Trudeau, Mexicans rapists and murderers), and who is the very antithesis of Trump. Mexico will have to pay for it or “face Whereas Trump has made bigotry, consequences.” He has threatened to racism, and intolerance the hallmark of “impound” remittances to Mexico, increase his campaign, Trudeau opened his arms visa and border crossing fees, apply tariffs - and Canada’s - by personally welcoming on Mexican goods and cut foreign aid to refugees from Syria, and pledged to take Mexico. He has also proposed a one-time in more of them, in sharp contrast to 10% “deemed repatriation” tax on deferred Trump, who wants to keep them out. corporate overseas profits and said he Calls have already gone out for a Nobel would end deferral of income from foreign Peace Prize for Trudeau - or even for all subsidiaries; moves that will make US of Canada. Trudeau recently posed in a companies rethink their overseas pink T-shirt proclaiming, “Kindness is one operations. Many of his campaign size that fits all” - a message that would statements bespeak confrontation with the be lost on the crude, coarse, and wider world, both economic and military. bombastic Trump. Canada’s population And you thought George Bush was bad?

Issue - 657 (5)

8 March - 14 March 2016

Centre, Punjab Spar Over Bill Of 6.35 crore Pathankot Operation

We like to feel as if we have answers to at least some of life’s most pressing questions. Actually, we do! We know some things, not others. Often, when we sit down to consider how many things we don’t know, we reach a total that begins to feel more disconcerting, the more we contemplate it.

To make ourselves more comfortable, we focus on the things we do know and avoid the questions we suspect will trip us up. Though, there is a question you should ask, even if you don’t know how to answer it. !!!

Schools and universities teach us how to think, appraise, assess, plan and proceed. They fill our minds with ideas about how to criticize ourselves and others in an effort to ensure we uphold the highest standards. They educate our heads, but how much help do they give to our hearts? Nobody, it seems, encourages us to trust our intuition, to develop our compassion, value empathy or go gently on ourselves or those around us. But if you seek success, the way of the heart will take you there. !!!

‘The truth.’ What nobler cause can any of us be in pursuit of? We all want to see the truth, hear it, tell it and have it told to us. Yet is it all quite so clear and simple to define and discern? Isn’t it relative, comparative, subjective and circumstantial?

Don’t we do our intellect a great disservice when we uphold the pretence that some things are simple, basic, obvious and utterly one-dimensional? As a matter of integrity, you must now look at whether there is another side to a story, before you tell it. !!!

Once, when many people were religious, beliefs, creeds, cultures and traditions would sometimes stand between them and the relationships they wished to forge. These days, we are not so restricted by social protocol, but we still find it hard to get emotionally close to people whose beliefs and opinions differ from our own. Why must a conflict over some point of principle spoil what otherwise has the potential to be a deeply fulfilling connection?

Make a brave choice now to value the heart more than the head! !!!

Some people say physical attraction and emotional affinity are expressions of ‘chemistry’. Yet there are factors that may be even more important in defining potential compatibility … rapport, understanding, and intellectual agreement. To be ‘on the same wavelength’ is to share a special bond; one that can facilitate the forgiveness of many reasons for two people to drift apart. No matter what’s happening (or what you wish was, or wasn’t happening) keep channels of communication open now. !!!

An attraction is not always sufficient to sustain a relationship. There must be an emotional connection too. Things will also be helped greatly when there is a real rapport between the minds of the two individuals.

Likewise, conflicts (no matter how intense) don’t always have to last forever. Eventually we may find that someone no longer upsets or annoys us as once they did. A change is now coming to your personal and emotional life. It suggests that what was once strong, but wrong, may now be weaker.

Punjab government has refused to pay a bill of Rs 6.35 crore to the Center for deployment of paramilitary forces during and after the terror attack at Pathankot air force base. In a communication to the Center, the state government has said that the deployment of these units was in “national interest” and “expenditure thereon should not be billed to the state government”, officials said here. NDA constituents Shiromani Akali Dal and BJP are in power in Punjab. Whenever central paramilitary forces are provided to any state, their expenses are borne by the central government but it is adjusted against the state’s budget later on, a home ministry official said in Delhi. The ministry of home affairs had billed the state government for the deployment of paramilitary forces in Pathankot and nearby areas between January 2 to 27 during and

after the terrorist attack at the Air Force base in the region.

The attack had probably originated in Pakistan and it threatened national security, the state government said in response.

Congress,

Tewari said on microblogging site Twitter. The state, which has a debt of Rs 1.17 lakh crore as of September 2015, was charged by the Centre for 20 companies of

the Border Security Force (BSF). Punjab government also pointed to the Centre that six of those 20 companies were used only to monitor escape points for terrorists and not for law

meanwhile, dubbed as “travesty” the Centre’s move to bill Punjab, making a strong pitch for waiver of all militancy related dues of the state. “Travesty to bill Punjab for #anti-terror operations ALL Militancy related dues of Punjab need waiver Punjab’s fault Pakistan is its neighbor,” party spokesman Manish

paramilitary for a period of 25 days. Deployment of each company costs Rs 1,77,143 per day, according to the ministry of home affairs letter, officials said here. Punjab has also been instructed to bear the transport charges. Of the 20 companies, 11 belonged to the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and nine to

and order management, officials added. On the issue of expenses occurred on operation to neutralize the terrorists at Pathankot, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal had said the defence of Indian territory falls under the Union Government and the Centre should bear the expenses.

Gaza marvels at new Samson GAZA A modern-day Samson is performing feats of physical strength in Gaza.

“Go Samson go!” yelled a crowd in the Palestinian enclave cheering on Mohammad Baraka as the 20-year-old with the Biblical nickname used a rope around his chest to pull a 15-tonne petrol tanker.

Baraka, who prefers to be known as “The Incredible”, perhaps because he lacks the original Samson’s long hair, has been putting on displays in his hometown of Deir al-Balah for the past two years, earning a reputation as the strongest man in the Gaza Strip. “I was confident there was power inside me and I

started to develop it,” said the body-builder and hotel management student.

Traffic came to a halt in Deir al-Balah during the

tow the yellow fuel truck.

As an encore, he dragged a water tanker by his teeth for about 50 metres (yards). Baraka also

weekend performance as motorists and children on their way to school stopped to watch Baraka

wowed his audience by lying on his back and having knives dropped on his bare stomach from a

height of one metre (three feet). Some friends used hammers to shatter bricks placed on his chest.

“At the beginning, some people believed in him, others had their doubts - but everyone was amazed,” said his father, Kamal, a philosophy teacher.

“Mohammad’s power is hidden inside him, it has nothing to do with muscles and training.”

The Biblical Samson was an Israelite warrior who, the Old Testament says, toppled a Philistine temple in Gaza, killing himself and a crowd that had demanded their captured and blinded enemy be brought from prison to entertain them.

Moscow If the world’s only surviving wild horses had a say in the matter, they might opt for a cosy stable and fresh daily oats, scientists studying them joke.

But the path out of oblivion for the species known as Przewalski’s horse - which only two decades ago was extinct in the wild - lies in getting on a plane to China, Mongolia and, most recently, the Russian steppes with their deep snow and icy winds. Six animals born at a reserve in the south of France are

now spending their first winter in Russia’s flagship reintroduction project for the species. Eventually scientists hope to have 100 of the endangered animals on the site in the Orenburg Reserves, a cluster of six strictly protected nature areas along the border with Kazakhstan. The area spanning more than 16,500 hectares (40,770 acres) is “the largest unbroken, strictly protected plot of virgin steppe in Russia,” safeguarded, ironically, by the fact that it belonged to the military for decades,

said Przewalski’s horse expert Tatjana Zharkikh, who heads the reintroduction project.

“They are quite happy,” she told AFP in an interview,

despite the harsh climate in the region, with extreme snowfall which in January trapped several drivers on a local highway, leading to a man’s death.

Once extinct, world’s last wild horse returns to Russian steppes

Issue - 657 (6)

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW!

8 March - 14 March 2016

Kanhaiya Kumar on sedition and ‘freedom’ in India

Indian student leader was arrested in New Delhi for allegedly shouting anti-India slogans By: Saif Khalid Indian student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, who was jailed by authorities on sedition charges, isn’t backing down from his criticism of the government following his release on bail from jail. Police in New Delhi arrested Kumar, a PhD student at Jawaharlal Nehru University, for allegedly shouting anti-India slogans - a charge he has denied.

His speech on March 3 went viral and #Kanhaiyakumar was on Twitter’s top 10 global trending list. Kumar has attacked the administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for what he calls its dictatorial tendencies. Al Jazeera spoke to the 28-year-old student leader Kanhaiya Kumar about his arrest.

There is an outpouring of support for you. How do you feel after coming out of jail?

Through your channel I want to thank people around the world who have stood in support of JNU, democracy and justice. A fight has been waged against those who have attacked democracy. I feel, it’s the beginning of that fight and it’s going to be long.

Can you tell us about the incident in court in Delhi when lawyers attacked you?

It was a worrying moment for me, but I was not scared.

What’s happening in my country is that on the one hand people are talking about justice, constitution and patriotism and on other hand one accused [Kanhaiya] was attacked inside a court complex. It was an attack on democracy. Those who did were in lawyers’ dress, whose profession is to serve justice.

They are now talking about mob justice instead of law of the land.

What’s your take on the sedition law under which you were arrested?

Words can be wrong and right, but they cannot come under sedition law. Unless the words are put into practice, sedition should not be slapped on anybody.

This government has resorted to dictatorial and fascist ways.

Those who speak against them and their ideology are being branded as anti-nationals.

Laws like sedition are not needed in a liberal democratic state. It is being misused. It is being used as a political tool by this government.

It’s the same law drafted by the colonial power. No changes have ever been made. It’s being

honge” (India you will be broken into pieces). But was that slogan shouted or not? I don’t know. It’s still under investigation.

Is the controversy about freedom of speech - or a student backlash against the

India’s sanskriti [culture]. It runs its politics on the basis of rumours and divisive agendas.

For them attacking institutions like JNU is necessary as these institutions stand for human rights.

Multicultural tradition and

stand when it was required. I don’t know what’s Modi’s majboori [helplessness] that after becoming prime minister be it the issue of education, people rights, health, attack on constitution - he has remained silent. Modi has turned out to

used on the same pattern as the British used it.

The current controversy has its genesis in an event organised by students at JNU on the issue of Indianadministered Kashmir. Do you think there is freedom to talk about the Kashmir issue in India?

In India, Kashmiri people can speak - freedom of speech is guaranteed by the constitution.

The way they [government officials] are trying to control freedom of speech, it shows their dictatorial tendency. It’s not a matter of Kashmir or Pakistan, this government does not tolerate persons, institutions and groups that have differing views.

They have this tag of antinational that they impose. If somebody talks about Kashmir, border disputes, capital punishment, if somebody talks about it under the limits of the constitution then it’s not wrong. There was a public outcry after a section of the media focused on the slogan “Bharat tere tukde

government’s education policy?

The government is attacking educational institutions. It’s a continuous attack against India’s intelligentsia, which talks about protection of constitution, human rights and freedom. Voice of dissent arises from there. These voices of dissent become basis for agitation against anti-people policies being pushed by this government.

To limit freedom of expression and trample voices that are against the government’s wishes, and crush any chances of agitations building up against the government attack on JNU is part of this strategy because JNU stands up against anti-people policies.

Why do you think the government and far-right groups such as Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) are attacking JNU? RSS is an organisation with a terrible ideology. It does not understand India; it has always tried to destroy India’s social fabric. It has nothing to do with

thought is against RSS ideology. RSS believes in dictatorial ideology. Its guidelines have been inspired from Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler and their hardcore nationalist views. That’s why they are not able to digest JNU, and thus continuously attack. This government is guided by RSS diktat more than parliament and constitution.

Do you think space for freedom of expression has narrowed in India?

The scope of freedom of expression has not shrunk but it is under continuous attack from the government.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not spoken on this issue. Do you think he should have intervened?

It’s ironic that Modi used to tell us about the last Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, that he was silent as if he did not have tongue. But reality is that the previous prime minister at least used to speak on important issues of the country. He used to take a

be the real silent prime minister.

How do you define Azadi (freedom) - a term that landed you in trouble?

When we talk about Azadi it is not just about one state against another. Its ambit is big and meaning is very big. Azadi is also about getting rid of issues facing the country. By relating meaning of Azadi with unity and sovereignty of the country there was an attempt to misinterpret it. Now the truth is coming out.

Two other students from JNU are still in jail. What is being done to address their cases?

We have a students union and we will take a call as per its constitution. Student council will decide what course of action needs to be taken. There is consensus among students that we will continue agitation for the release of jailed students who are facing sedition cases, and reinstatement of those students who have been suspended.

Even teachers, common students and employees are supporting us, only ABVP (the ruling BJP’s student wing) is not part of this.

Your speech went viral.

Why do you think people liked it so much?

Whatever happened to me, I put before people the truth and my pain. I am very glad and thankful that people liked my speech.

US court favours Sikh religious rights in armed forces Washington Upholding the religious freedom rights of Sikhs in the US armed forces, an American court has ruled in favour of a decorated Sikh US Army Captain who had demanded that the military accommodate his articles of faith and abandon its impromptu

discriminatory testing. Captain Simratpal Singh, 28, in a lawsuit filed against the US Department of Defence demanded the US military accommodate his articles of faith and dump the discriminatory testing.

“Thousands of other soldiers are

permitted to wear long hair and beards for medical or other reasons, without being subjected to such specialised and costly expert testing of their helmets and gas masks,” Judge Beryl A Howell swiftly ruled in Captain Singh’s favour on Thursday.

Issue - 657 (7)

8 March - 14 March 2016

Vatican admits still ‘much to do’ to stop paedophile priests Rome The Vatican on Friday defended the Catholic Church’s action on paedophile priests, saying Popes Francis and

predecessor Benedict have shown a “courageous commitment... to tackling the crisis in several countries, such as the United States, Ireland,

Benedict XVI had “courageously” tackled the issue but admitting there was still much to be done in many countries.

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said “sensationalism” surrounding the Oscarwinning film “Spotlight” and hearings into an alleged cover-up of abuse by Cardinal George Pell in Rome had given the public the wrong impression.

The media furore surrounding both events “meant that most people, particularly those less well informed or with a short memory, think the Church has done nothing or very little to answer to these horrible tragedies”.

“An objective consideration shows it is not true,” he said in a statement, listing steps taken by the Church to meet with victims, draw up guidelines for bishops and update canonical procedures and laws.

Both Francis and his

Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands,” he said in a statement.

But while “cases of abuse have become very rare” in those countries and mostly date to previous decades, “in other countries, usually because of cultural situations which are very different and characterised by silence, there is still much to do”. “There is resistance and there are difficulties, but the path to follow has become clearer,” he said.

Some abuse victims insist the Vatican still has not gone far enough to protect children even in the West - where intense media coverage of paedophile priests has led to greater scrutiny of church practices.

“Purifying the memory” They also accuse it of ducking out of providing proper financial compensation in a bid to protect its assets.

“Spotlight,” which

chronicles The Boston Globe’s investigation into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and institutional efforts to cover up the crimes, won the Oscar for best picture last month.

Much of what went on in Boston has been compared to abuse committed in the Australian town of Ballarat and the city of Melbourne in the 1970s and 1980s.

The Vatican defended Australian Pell, the pope’s powerful finance minister, despite accusations by victims of sex abuse that he protected paedophile priests in his hometown of Ballarat.

Pell admitted this week he “should have done more” to follow-up on claims that a priest was abusing boys, as he gave evidence via videolink to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney.

The 74-year old gave “a dignified and coherent personal testimony”, Lombardi said, though abuse survivors have questioned the credibility of the cardinal’s claims that he had not been aware of widespread paedophilia among priests.

The result was “an objective and lucid picture of the errors committed in many church environments in the previous decades,” Lombardi said, after four days of hearings into abuse in Australia in the 1970s and 1980s.

Parrots are just as smart as apes London Despite having much smaller brains than mammals, some birds like parrots and crows have mental skills that match with those of our ape cousins, new research has found.

Among other things, they are capable of thinking logically, of recognising themselves in the mirror and of empathy, the study said.“The mental abilities of corvids and parrots are as sophisticated and diverse as those of apes,” said one of the researchers Onur Gunturkun from Ruhr University Bochum in Germany.The findings were published in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences.In mammals, cognitive skills are controlled by the multilayered cerebral cortex, also called neocortex.

This brain structure does not exist in birds. Instead, complex mental tasks are managed by the so-called

pallium.

Moreover, birds have much smaller brains than apes.

While ape brains weigh 275 to 500 gram on

similarities.

Single modules of the brains, for example, are wired in a similar way, and both animal groups have a

average, birds, who are just as skilful despite lacking a cortex, only manage five to 20 gram.“How, then, are birds capable of the same cognitive performance as apes?” Gunturkun asked.

To address this question, the researchers compiled studies which had revealed diverse cognitive skills in birds and analysed numerous neuro-anatomic studies.They found that brains of birds and mammals have some

prefrontal brain structure that controls similar executive functions.

It is not known how these similarities have evolved.

The researchers believe that either their last common ancestor passed the neuronal basis to birds and mammals or - and the authors consider this more likely - they evolved independently of each other, because both animal groups faced the same challenges.

One-third of Japan’s working women have been sexually harassed Tokyo One-third of Japanese working women have experienced sexual harassment at their place of work, though nearly twothirds of these women suffer in silence, according to a survey.

The results of the first-ofits-kind study commissioned by Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, came as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has pledged to support working women to kickstart the country’s struggling economy.

Economists have said for years that Japan needs to make better use of its welleducated but underemployed women, which could go a long way toward plugging the country’s labour gap as the country struggles with ageing and declining population.The written survey questioned women currently and previously employed, both full and part time, from the ages of 25 to 44 throughout the nation and received some 10,000 responses.

It was conducted over a three-week period in September and October last year.

Some 30% in total said

they experienced sexual harassment at work, according to the results, released on Tuesday.

Among those fully employed, the figure was

relentlessly asked out or were pressed with demands to have sexual relations.

But more than 63% said they reluctantly remained

slightly higher at about 35%.More than half of the total who experienced sexual harassment complained that their appearance, age and physical features were subject to casual comments, mostly by male co-workers. A total of 40% said they were physically touched in unpleasant ways.

The survey also showed that 38% said they were subject to comments or were asked questions of a sexual nature.

In more serious cases, some said they were

silent about the abuse, though the survey did not offer any reasons why.

And about one in 10 who did complain, however, said they were treated unfairly for speaking up, such as being demoted.

In speech after speech, Abe has urged the country to open up to “womenomics”, encouraging some of Japan’s biggest firms including Toyota, Panasonic and All Nippon Airways to announce targets for boosting the number of female executives.

Issue - 657 (8)

8 March - 14 March 2016

Uber gives its Pakistani drivers classes to prevent sexual harassment Islamabad Uber is teaching its drivers in Pakistan how not to sexually harass women, a spokeswoman said on Friday, after the popular transport app launched in the conservative country where women are often subject to harassment on public transport.

In Pakistan, “there is lack of knowledge on what constitutes sexual harassment”, said Shaden Abdellatif, a spokeswoman for ride-hailing service that launched in the teeming eastern city of Lahore on Thursday.“It seems it is not part of the conversation in basic education”, she added, saying only Uber drivers in Lahore and in the Egyptian capital Cairo had to undergo the training.

California-based Uber was officially banned from the Indian capital Delhi after one of its drivers raped a young woman passenger

there in 2014 in a case that made international headlines.Women in Pakistan have fought for their rights for decades in a country where so-called honour killings and acid attacks are commonplace and where females face routine public harassment.The seminar was brief about half an hour of the four hours of training that Uber’s several hundred drivers in Lahore receive and will continue to be conducted for recently hired drivers in the future. Trainees were also told not to contact women after dropping them off, or to pass their passengers’ phone numbers on to others.“Our primary objective is that drivers understand that sexual harassment is not just about assaulting or harming someone,” said Tooba Fatima, from Pakistan-based social enterprise

RABTT, which designed the seminar.“Making someone

‘You should not be out so late’, ‘Why would you go here or

uncomfortable is harassment, whatever your intention is,” Fatima said.“People here tend to stare, make comments on the way one is dressed, ask questions about who you are going to see or why. And it is the woman who ends up being told:

there’.”Abdellatif told AFP the company is trying to offer “a safer space in public transport for women through educating the drivers, even on a very basic level”.Three quarters of Pakistani women do not participate in the labour market, mainly due to a

lack of safe transportation, according to a study by the International Labour Organization.But there has been a slew of recent initiatives to redress the balance, such as “The Pink Rickshaw” scheme in Lahore, which aims to empower working-class women by providing them with vehicles to transport other females.

The government of Punjab province meanwhile launched an awareness campaign last year called “Women on Wheels” to highlight gender-based violence and street harassment.

Uber, which launched its service at a price of 13.7 Pakistani rupees ($0.13) per kilometre, hopes to expand to other cities in Pakistan outside Lahore.

The start-up valued at over $50 billion is now present in 69 countries and some 380 cities.

North Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered his country to be ready to use its nuclear weapons at any time and to turn its military posture to “pre-emptive attack” mode in the face of growing threats from its enemies, state media said on Friday.

The comments, carried by the North’s official KCNA news agency, marked a further escalation of tension on the Korean peninsula after the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday imposed harsh new sanctions against the isolated state for its nuclear program.

Kim made the comments as he supervised military exercises involving newly developed rocket launchers, KCNA reported. It did

not mention the date of the drills but said the new weapons had South Korea within range.

South Korea’s defense ministry said on Thursday North Korea launched several projectiles off its coast into the sea up to 150 kilometers (90 miles) away, an apparent response to the U.N. sanctions. Kim said North Korea should “bolster up (its) nuclear force both in quality and quantity” and stressed “the need to get the nuclear warheads deployed for national defense always on standby so as to be fired any moment,” KCNA quoted him as saying.“Now is the time for us to convert our mode of military counteraction toward the enemies into an preemptive attack one in every aspect.”

Pakistani religious body says women’s protection law is ‘un-Islamic’ Islamabad A powerful Pakistani religious body that advises the government on the compatibility of laws with Islam on Thursday declared a new law that criminalises violence

against women to be “unIslamic”.

The Women’s Protection Act, passed by Pakistan’s largest province of Punjab last week, gives unprecedented legal protection to women from domestic, psychological and sexual violence. It also calls for the creation of a toll-free abuse reporting hotline and the establishment of women’s shelters.

But since its passage in the Punjab assembly, many conservative clerics and

religious leaders have denounced the new law as being in conflict with the Quran and Pakistan’s Constitution.

“The whole law is wrong,” Muhammad Khan Sherani, the head of the Council of Islamic

Ideology said at a news conference, citing verses from the Quran to point out that the law was “un-Islamic”.

The 54-year-old council is known for its controversial decisions. In the past it has ruled that DNA cannot be used as primary evidence in rape cases, and it supported a law that requires women alleging rape to get four male witnesses to testify in court before a case is heard.

The council’s decision this January to block a bill to impose harsher penalties for marrying off

girls as young as eight or nine has angered human rights activists.

The new law establishes district-level panels to investigate reports of abuse, and mandates the use of GPS bracelets to keep track of offenders. It also sets punishments of up to a year in jail for violators of court orders related to domestic violence, with that period rising to two years for repeat offenders.

Fazlur Rehman, the chief of one of Pakistan’s largest religious parties, the Jamiat-eUlema Islam, said the law was in conflict with both Islam and the Constitution.

“This law makes a man insecure,” he told journalists.

“This law is an attempt to make Pakistan a Western colony again.”

In 2013, more than 5,800 cases of violence against women were reported in Punjab alone, the province where Wednesday’s law was passed, according to Aurat Foundation, a women’s rights advocacy group. Those cases represented 74% of the national total that year, the latest for which data is available.

Be ready to use nuclear weapons at any time, North Korea leader Kim Jong Un tells military

Pakistani man jailed for 13 years for Facebook post Lahore A Pakistani man was sentenced to 13 years in prison for allegedly posting religiously offensive material on his Facebook page, lawyers in the case said.

Rizwan Haider, 25, was convicted on Thursday in an antiterrorism court of three charges, including promoting sectarian hatred, after he supposedly published a post referring to Prophet Mohammed.

“This case... was registered against Haider, who is a Shia Muslim by faith, in January for posting objectionable material against the belief of Sunni

Muslims,” Adeel Chattah, public prosecutor in the case, told AFP. He was also fined Rs 250,000 rupees ($2,500), Chattah said, adding he denied the charges and has the right to appeal.

Haider’s lawyer dismissed the accusations.

“He only liked it and did not post it on the page,” Shameem Zaidi said.

Pakistan tightened its hate crime laws as part of a campaign to combat extremism after a Taliban attack at a school in Peshawar in December 2014 killed 153 people, mostly children.

Authorities have arrested and sentenced several religious clerics, mostly from hardline Sunni sects, for hate speech in

recent months.

But Haider’s case is one of the few in which a Shia Muslim has been jailed for such a crime.

A Pakistani anti-terrorism court jailed another Shia man for 13 years in November 2015 after he also posted what it deemed sectarian hate speech on Facebook. Rights activists condemned the ruling as “extremely concerning”.

Pakistan has been gripped by sectarian violence since the 1980s, with thousands killed in clashes triggered by religious tensions.

Most of the violence is committed by Sunni militants against Shias, who make up roughly 20% of Pakistan’s 200 million people.

Issue - 657 (9)

8 March - 14 March 2016

Soviet ice hockey star immortalised in chocolate statue

MOSCOW Soviet ice hockey star Vladislav Tretiak on Friday came face-to-face with a lifesize chocolate doppelganger created to mark the opening of a confectionery fair in Moscow.At two metres (six foot six inches) tall with an arm raised as if in victory, the cocoa-based statue shows triple Olympic champion Tretiak in the red uniform of CSKA Moscow, where he played as goalkeeper.

‘This gives me a great deal of pleasure, especially since this year we’re celebrating the

70th anniversary of ice hockey in Russia,’ said the 63-yearold, who is currently president of the national ice hockey federation.

Created by chocolatier Mila Zakatova, the sweet sculpture weighs around 100 kilogrammes. ‘I love those medieval stories about strong, brave Russian knights. Today, it’s sportsmen like Tretiak who are those knights for me,’ Zakatova said. After the close of Moscow’s fifth Salon du Chocolat, the effigy will be transferred to the capital’s chocolate museum, she said.

China’s population to grow 45m by 2020 BEIJING China expects its population to rise by around 45 million almost the number of people in Spain - in the next five years, it said Saturday, as it confronts a growing demographic crisis in the wake of the one-child policy.

A draft five-year plan published at the opening of the National People’s Congress, the country’s Communist-controlled parliament, projected that the population - long the world’s largest - would grow to ‘around 1.42 billion’ by 2020.

That contrasted with the previous document, issued in 2011 when population controls limiting most couples to a single offspring were still in force, which pledged to restrict the population to ‘within 1.39 billion’ by last year.

Authorities insist that the family planning rules have been a key contributor to the country’s economic boom, but they were often brutally enforced and have left China with a shrinking workforce and severe gender imbalances.The government this year loosened the hugely controversial one-child policy to allow all couples to have two children. But many parents say they are reluctant to have more because of the cost.

‘We will adhere to the basic

China’s defence budget to cross $150 bn, four times that of India’s

Beijing China’s defence budget will rise by 7% to 8% in 2016, the lowest hike in six years but expected to be enough to push the military outlay over the $150 billion-mark for the first time.

Though the increase for the year 2016-17 is being perceived as modest, it is still more than four times India’s defence budget for the same period.

The lowest hike in the defence budget since 2010 is in line with the slowdown of the economy, a government spokesperson said, adding it reflected China’s defence needs and its fiscal revenue.Beijing raised its 201516 military budget by 10.1%, which in real terms meant it budgeted $141.45 billion for the year. In 2014, it had risen by 12.2%.

“China’s military budget will continue to grow this year but the margin will be lower than last year and the previous years,” said Fu Ying, spokesperson for the National People’s Congress (NPC). “It will be between seven to eight percent.”

China’s actual military spending could be much higher, with experts saying the official budget doesn’t take into account the outlay on strategic forces or research and development of indigenous weapons.

Last month, finance minister Arun Jaitley allocated Rs 2.59 trillion or $36.5 billion for defence, a 0.96% increase over the 201516 allocation. But China’s budget is dwarfed by that of the US: Washington’s defence allocation for this year is over $573 billion.

Fu, the spokesperson for the NPC’s annual session, said on Friday the exact figures will be released in a budget report. The NPC is China’s national legislature or parliament and its annual meeting will start on Saturday at the Great Hall of the People.

China’s economy expanded 6.9% year on year in 2015, the slowest in 25 years, weighed down by a property market downturn, falling trade and weak factory activity.

Premier Li Keqiang will unveil the government’s GDP target on

Saturday.

“The figure is expected to be in a range between 6.5% and 7%, compared with the ‘approximately 7%’ target announced by Li last year,” official news agency Xinhua reported.

Taking questions at a packed “curtain-raiser” new conference for the NPC session at the Great Hall, Fu touched on a variety of subjects, including the situation in the South China Sea. “Currently most of the advanced aircraft and warships passing through the SCS belong to the US,” Fu said, adding it was the US and not China which was militarising the region.

“The US said it did not take sides in the South China Sea disputes. However, its acts and rhetoric make people feel that it is raising tensions in the region.

China is locked in disputes with several countries over the ownership of numerous islands in the South China Sea. Fu described the deployment of missiles and building of airstrips on islands and reefs in the region as part of China building its defence capabilities.

“As the islands and reefs are far from the mainland, they should have defence capacities, but those efforts should not be described as militarisation. If the US is really concerned about regional stability and peace, it should support negotiations between China and neighbouring countries,” Fu said.

national strategy of family planning and comprehensively implement the policy of allowing each couple to have two

raise its retirement age to address the issue, the plan said, ‘gradually postponing’ it in order ‘to comprehensively deal with the

children,’ said the draft five-year plan, which is due to be approved during the NPC. Its expectations for 2020 would represent a significant growth acceleration from the last five years, during which China’s population rose by 33 million.

The total stood at 1.37 billion people at the end of 2015 - when total births fell by 320,000 official data showed. China’s working-age population, which it defines as 15-59, has been in decline since 2012 while the number of people above 60 is ballooning, placing enormous pressure on the country’s pension system.The country will

falling working-age population’.

It also pledged to address ‘the problem of skewed gender ratio at birth’ - a result of sex-selective abortions or infanticide targeting girls because of centuries-old social preferences for boys.

China started implementing the one-child policy in the late 1970s and the average ratio of boys to girls at birth was 114.7 in the 1980-2014 period, state media have reported previously, leaving more than 30 million Chinese men at the risk of ending up without a wife. The ratio still stood at 113.51 last year, the National Bureau of Statistics said in January.

Aged 19 and 20, Norwegian sisters are world’s youngest richest

London Aside from the usual suspects on the Forbes 2016 list of billionaires (think Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos), 19-year-old Alexandra Andresen was on the coveted rich list, making her the youngest this year.Alexandra, along with sister Katharina, is heiress to one of Norway’s largest holding companies, Ferd, known to have centuries-old roots in the tobacco industry. The company now also holds equity, real estate, security, investments and a hedge fund, apart from holdings in oil and gas, industrial equipment, textile and sporting goods, IT services, and transportation. Though their father controls most of Ferd’s assets, each of the sisters own 42.2% of the company.

Alexandra is one of the top dressage riders in Europe; she won bronze and silver medals at the 2013 and 2014 European

Junior Riders Championship respectively. Twenty-year-old Katharina studies social science at Amsterdam University College, and had previously worked on a Ferd project to combat youth unemployment. The Andresen sisters are not known to live a very public life. In an interview published last year in the company’s corporate magazine, the younger Andresen said she saves as much of her money as she can. “I save when I get my weekly allowance, and I save the cash prizes I win in competitions or if I get money as a gift for my birthday. It means I can buy myself things I really want, like a bag or a pair of shoes, without having to ask mum or dad for money,” said Alexandra. “There are both pros and cons of being in the family I have,” said the elder Katharina. “There is a lot of pressure and awkward questions.

Issue - 657 (10)

Jat Sikh parents seeking a suitable match for their daughter, born and raised in Canada, D.O.B. 1987, 5’-3” tall, Bachelor’s degree in Social Science from York University, currently working for Peel School Education Board. The boy should be Jat Sikh born or raised in Canada, professionally educated and settled with family values. Please email recent picture and bio-data to: harjione@hotmail.com Or Call : 647-778-7619 ***660*** Punjabi Sikh parents seek a match for their Canadian born and raised, clean shaven son, 32 yrs. old, 6’-1" tall, handsome, Doctor MD, finished internal Medicine, residency and now doing followship (Specitization).

The girl should be resident doctor (MD) or Physician, born and raised in Canada and from Ontario, beautiful, atleast 5’-5" tall with family values. Please send your bio-data & recent picture: sm9058@hotmail.com ***659*** Prajapat (Ghumar) Sikh parents invite suitable matrimonial alliance for their handsome son, 28 yrs. old, 6’ tall, working as pharmacy technician in a hospital. The boy is US Citizen with family values. The girl should be beautiful, well cultured with family values. Please send your bio-data & recent picture: sidhuinderdeep@yahoo.com Or Call : 1-510-965-8785 ***657*** Ramgarhia Sikh parents seeking a suitable match for their son, 26 yrs. old, 5’-7” tall, Mechanaical Engineer in India, belongs to a very good family.

The girl should be Canadian/ American, Citizen/Immigrant, educatged, and family oriented.

Please email recent picture and bio-data to: sohalsp@gmail.com Or Call : 647-829-5872 (Leave Message) ***657*** Jat Sikh parents seeking a suitable match for their son, 29 yrs. old, 5’-6” tall, born and raised in Canada, well versed in both cultures and professionally employed. The family very well settled in Kitchecher Waterloo Ontario. Please Call :1-519-2222673 ***657*** Jat Sikh parents seek a suitable match for their son, 34 yrs. old, 5’-10” tall, born and raised in Canada, well settled in job. The girl should be beautiful, family oriented, born and raised in Canada. Please Call :1-604-6710002 ***657*** Jat Sikh parents invite matrimonial alliance for their well settled daughter, D.O.B. 1981, 5’-6” tall, born and raised in Canada, well versed in both cultures, family oriented, chartered professionally employed in senior management position. The boy should be well educated with family values. Boy on student Visa/Work permit

8 March - 14 March 2016

(well educated) may also be considered. Please Call: 647298-9665 ***657*** Tonk Kashtrya parents invite matrimonial alliance for their daughter, born and raised in U.S., 26 yrs. old, 5’-1” tall, postgraduate in Public Health, well versed in both cultures. The boy should be well educated, professionally settled with family values. Please email recent picture and bio-data to: rajjassil@gmail.com ***657*** Ramgarhia parents invite matrimonial alliance for their son, 29 yrs. old, 5’-11” tall, University graduate, employed, ready to move on to next step towards marriage. Please email recent picture and bio-data to: julyshaadi@gmail.com Or Call: 289-684-3919 ***657*** Punjabi Sikh parents seek a match for their Canadian born and raised, clean shaven son, 32 yrs. old, 6’-1" tall, handsome, Doctor MD, finished internal Medicine residency and now doing followship (Specitization).

The girl should be resident doctor (MD) or Physician, born and raised in Canada and from Ontario, beautiful, atleast 5’-5" tall with family values. Please send your bio-data & recent picture: sm9058@hotmail.com ***657*** Lubana Sikh parents invite matrimonial alliance for their son, 27 yrs. old, 5’-10” tall, Canadian Citizen, degree in informatic security from Canada, running his own successful businees, belongs to a very good family.

The girl should be suitable educated, beautiful, family oriented from Canada/America.

Please email recent picture to and bio-data to : kuldipsinghshah@gmail.com Or Call : 647-721-2632 ***657*** Professionally qualified match for Jat Sikh, Canadian Citizen boy, highly educated, clean shaven, well settled, 40 yrs. old, 5’-7” tall, issueless divorcee. Please respond with recent pictures and bio-data to: match7479@gmail.com ***1170*** Arora Sikh Parents seeking a suitable match for their Daughter, 24 yrs. old, 5'-6" tall, born and raised in Canada, well versed in both cultures, working as a Registered Nurse. The boy should be born in Canada, living preferably in Vancouver (Lower Mainland), well educated, professionally employed, wears turban, no trimming, vegetarian, non-drinker. Caste No Bar. Call: 1- 604-308-2908 *** 657*** Jat Sikh parents seek a suiable match for their daughter, born and raised in Canada, 1986 born, 5-6” tall, Medical health care professionall, well versed in both cultures. Boy should be Canadian, well educated and professionally employed. GTA

prefered. Please send your recent picture and bio-data to: jotg1738@gmail.com Or Call : 416-564-0617 ***657*** Jat Sikh modern family seek a suitable match for their son, European brought up 32 yrs. old, 6’ tall, handsome, MSc. in Business Studies, major in Accounting and finance. The girl should be Canadian immigrant/ citizen, educated, family oriented, with strong cultures route. Sister is well settled in Canada. Please send your bio-data & recent picture:bspandher 20@gmail.com Please Call : 1-778-867-4101 ***657*** Jat Sikh parents seeking a match for their Canadian born Son, 34 yrs. old, 6’-2” tall, University educated, professionally employed, well paid manager. The girl should be University educated, beautiful with family values. Please email recent picture and bio-data to: tormgr13@gmail.com Or Call : 416-708-1392 ***657*** Ramgarhia Sikh well educated seek a suitable match for their only son, living in Canada, 30 yrs. old, 6’ tall, well educated, handsome, Non-drinker, sweet natured, doing good job. The girl shold be Canadian/American Immigrant or Citizen, educated, sweet natured, family oriented.

Widow or divorcee can also be considered. Caste no bar. Please send your bio-data & recent picture: jkhanjra51@gmail.com Or Call : 1-209-752-8454 ***657*** Jat Sikh parents invite matrimonial alliance for their daughter, born and raised in Canada, 30 yrs. old, 5’-6” tall, Masters in Clinical Psychology, professionally employed, well versed in both cultures. The boy should be well educated, professionally settled between 28-34 yrs. of age.

Mainland area prefered. Please Call : 1-604-317-7576 ***657*** Nai Sikh parents invite matrimonial alliance for their son, 35 yrs. old, 5’-6” tall, turbaned, B.Tech degree in Mechanical Engineering, working as a Warehouse Executive in Escorts (India) also running family business, family is well settled in India. The girl should be American/Canadian, Citizen/ Immigrant educated with family values. Sister is well settled in Canada. Please email recent picture and bio-data to: kkris1109@rogers.com Or Call :416-451-8176 ***657*** Jat Sikh parents invite matrimonial alliance for their son, 31 yrs. old, 6’-2” tall, Canadian Citizen, professionally educated, running his own successful business. The girl should be educated, beautiful, tall with family values from US/ Canada. Please Call : 778-3440303 ***1170*** Kamboj Sikh parents seek a suiable match for their son, 41

yrs. old, 5’-7” tall, Canadian Citizen, Divorcee, having 8 yrs. old son. The girl should be family oriented, residing in Canada/ America/U.K. Please send your bio-data & recent picture: jammu75@hotmail.com Or Call : 1-778-772-4407 ***657*** Jat Sikh parents seek a suitable match for their son age 38 yrs., 6 feet tall, engineering and MBA degree from Canadian University, Divorced. The girl should be beautiful, family oriented and from respectful family. Please Call : 905-275-3047 ***657*** Jatt Sikh Brar family seek a suitable match for their son, 28 yrs. old, 5'-9" tall, two degrees from UBC, professionally employed. The girl should be educated, beautiful, under 26 yrs. of age and well versed in both cultures. Please send your biodata & recent picture to: rbrar1987@gmail.com or call: 1604 557 9070 ***657*** Hindu Medical Parents Kayastha Boy, 35 yrs. old, 5'- 6" tall,135 lb., Canadian Citizen, Very Handsome, Medical Doctor Montreal based General Practician/Urgent Care Physician, flexible to relocate GTA. The girl should be very fair, beautiful, doctor or other professional. Caste No Bar. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: shubhkalyan108@gmail.com *** 657*** Jat Sikh parents seek a suitable match for their Canadian citizen son, 26 yrs. old, 6’-2" tall, cleanshaven, handsome, Non- drinker, Diploma in HVAC- BCIT, Transit Operator- Coast Mountain Bus Company- Vancouver. The Girl should be Jat Sikh , Canadian Citizen/ Permanent Resident, not more than 26 yrs. old, beautiful, professionally employed, preferably from Vancouver or BC area. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: gbala9999@gmail.com or call: 1604 312 0526 *** 657*** Match for Hindu/Sikh Ramgharia Dhiman Girl, 30 yrs. old, 5'-6" tall, B.Sc., M.Sc. in Nursing, Vegetarian, Holds US visitor Visa.

Caste No Bar. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: rupajagdev85@gmail.com or Call: 1-484-557-7706 or 011-9196460-12412 *** 657*** Match for Hindu/Sikh Ramgharia Dhiman Clean shaven boy, 31 yrs. old, 5'-11" tall, M.S. in Engineering/MBA in IT from US, Vegetarian, Working in US on H1B. visa. Caste No Bar. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: rupajagdev85@gmail.com or Call: 1-484-557-7706 or 011-9196460-12412 *** 657*** Ramgariha family seek a suitable match for their daughter, 29 yrs. old, 5’-6” tall, on Visitor Visa in Canada, Master’s in

NANO Technology & Persuing a post graduation programme at Windsor university. The boy should be equally educated, Canadian Immigrant or Citizen & from Ramgarhia famly. Please send your bio-data & recent picture: inderjeetsingh208@ymail.com Or Call :416-720-7670 ***657*** Jat Sikh parents looking a suitable match for their son, born in Canada, raised in USA, 27 yrs. old, handsome, university graduate, well settled, well versed in both cultures. The girl should be tall, slim, beautiful, educated and family oriented. Please send your recent picture & bio-data to: hsd305@gmail.com or call: 1919-637-0921. *** 657*** Gursikh parents seek a beautiful, professional and family-oriented match for their Canadian citizen son (Ghumar, Parjapat), 30 yrs. old, 5’-10" tall, handsome, cleanshaven, well-versed in both cultures and employed in a wellreputed American company.

Family is professionally qualified and well-settled in Canada. Caste no bar. Please send your recent pictures & biodata to: kartapurakh7@gmail.com or call: 647-773-8395 *** 657*** 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 professionally educated and settled, clean shaven, between 34-38 yrs. of age, from a educated and respectable family from Canada. GTA prefered.

Please send your bio-data & recent picture: rsaini1877@gmail.com Or Call : 647-688-1877 ***657*** Saini Sikh parents invite matrimonial alliance for their son, 39 yrs. old, 5’-11” tall, athletic built, Hon’s Bachelor from Canadian University, working as technical consultant, innocently divorced (No kids) belongs to a Urban and Upper middle class family. The girl should be Canadian Immigrant/Citizen, beautiful, (between 33-36 yrs.), educated with family values.

Family backgraound is main considiration. Caste no bar.

Please email recent pictures and bio-data to: rsaini1877@gmail.com Or Call : 647-688-1877 ***657*** Jat Sikh family seek a suitable match for their daughter, 32 yrs. old, 5’-2” tall, Lawyer, Professionally employed, attractive, family oriented, born & raised in Vancourver. The boy should be raised in Canada, educated (College or trade) & professionally employed. Please send your bio-data & recent picture: psand333@gmail.com Or Call : 1-604-277-7838 ***657***

Issue - 657 (11)

8 March - 14 March 2016

Documents show Osama’s wealth was $29 million, he was scared of drones Washington In his handwritten will, al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden claimed he had about $29 million in personal wealth - the bulk of which he wanted to be used “on jihad, for the sake of Allah.”

The will was released on Tuesday in a batch of more than 100 documents seized in the May 2011 raid that killed bin Laden at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

The al Qaeda leader planned to divide his fortune among his relatives but wanted most of it spent to conduct the work of the Islamic extremist terror network behind the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.The threat of sudden death was on his mind years before the fatal raid in Pakistan.

“If I am to be killed,” he wrote in a 2008 letter to his father, “pray for me a lot and give continuous charities in my name, as I will be in great need for support to reach the permanent home.”

The documents were

released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. They address a range of topics, including fractures between al Qaeda and al Qaeda in Iraq, which eventually

at sea without a beach,” he wrote.

“They thought that the war would be easy and that they would accomplish their objectives in a few days or a few weeks, and

splintered off into what is now known as the Islamic State; and bin Laden’s concerns about his organisation’s public image.In another letter, addressed to “The Islamic Community in General,” bin Laden offered an upbeat assessment of progress in his holy war and of US failings in Afghanistan. The letter is undated but appears to have been written in 2010.

“Here we are in the tenth year of the war, and America and its allies are still chasing a mirage, lost

they did not prepare for it financially, and there is no popular support that would enable it to carry on a war for a decade or more.”

Bin Laden sought to portray the US as mired in an unwinnable war in Afghanistan. In an undated letter that appears to have been written in the 20092010 period, he compared the American combat position to that of the Soviet Union in the final years of its occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

“America appears to be hanging on by a thin

Osama had warned against premature declaration of ‘Islamic caliphate’ Washington Osama bin Laden had warned al-Qaeda affiliates against prematurely declaring an Islamic caliphate and cautioned his fighters against excessive display of brutality, according to newly declassified files seized from his Abbottabad hideout.

In letters to subordinates, Osama denounced almost every aspect of the Islamic State playbook but the admonishments were issued several years before al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq severed ties and rebranded itself as the Islamic State.

But the documents released on Tuesday show the extent to which the ideological dispute behind that rupture was becoming intractable even before the slain al-Qaeda leader’s demise.

In one undated letter to Nasir alWuhayshi, who led the al-Qaeda branch in Yemen before he was killed in a US drone strike, Osama warned against taking over the capital city to quickly establish a new Islamic state.

“We want Sana’a to establish an Islamic State, but first, we want to make sure that we have the capability to gain control of it,” Osama wrote.“The enemy continues to possess the ability to topple any state we establish. We have to remember that the enemy toppled the Taliban and Saddam’s regime,” he said.

Defeating the US was Osama’s first priority, and he consistently pushed back against al-Qaeda members who called for hitting local targets instead.

In the letter, Osama instructed alWuhayshi to remind “the new generation” not to pursue “separate operations rather than concentrating on the main objective.”

Osama, in the letters, warned against seizing more territory than would be possible to hold, against prematurely declaring the restoration of the Islamic “caliphate” and even against “publishing pictures of prisoners after they were beheaded”. The origins of the disagreement between al-Qaeda and (its Iraq wing) all the guts are there,” a senior US intelligence official, involved in reviewing the Osama letters and other materials that were declassified for Tuesday’s release, was quoted as saying by the Washington Post. Osama was essentially warning subordinates that if they pursued the Islamic State model, “it will fail”, the official said, adding that he and other counter-terrorism analysts are now “waiting to see if bin Laden was prescient”.Although the Islamic State has experienced significant setbacks in recent months, the organisation has eclipsed al-Qaeda as the dominant brand of Islamist militancy in the years since Osama wrote those messages and has replaced the parent group as the most feared sponsor of terrorist attacks against Europe and the United States.

The documents released on Tuesday were the second set of materials from the 2011 raid made public. The first came out last May.

thread,” he wrote.

“We need to be patient a bit longer. With patience, there is victory!”Beginning last summer, the CIA led an interagency review of the classified documents under the auspices of the White House’s National Security Council staff.

Representatives from seven agencies combed through the documents.

The review is ongoing, with the next release expected later this year.Shortly before his death, bin Laden hailed the overthrow and death of Libya’s strongman leader Moammar Gaddafi.

In a February 25, 2011 letter addressed “to our people in Libya,” bin Laden said al Qaeda had triumphed.“Praise God, who made al Qaeda a great vexation upon him, squatting on his chest, enraging and embittering him, and who made alQaeda a torment and exemplary punishment upon him, this truly vile hallucinating individual who troubles us in front of the world!” he wrote.The documents also show al Qaeda’s leaders were

increasingly worried about spies in their midst, drones in the air and secret tracking devices reporting their movements as the USled war against them ground on.In one document, bin Laden issues instructions to al Qaeda members holding an Afghan hostage to be wary of possible tracking technology attached to the ransom payment. “It is important to get rid of the suitcase in which the funds are delivered, due to the possibility of it having a tracking chip in it,” bin Laden states in a letter to an aide identified only as “Shaykh Mahmud”.In an apparent reference to armed US drones patrolling the skies, bin Laden says his negotiators should not leave their rented house in the Pakistani city of Peshawar “except on a cloudy overcast day.”While the document is undated, the hostage, Afghan diplomat Abdul Khaliq Farahi, was held from September 2008 to late 2010.

Muslim woman held for beheading child says it was a revenge for Putin’s air strikes in Syria A woman was arrested on suspicion of murdering a child in Moscow, Russia.

She brutally murdered a 4year-old girl, beheaded her and carried the head on the streets.Eyewitnesses say she screamed ”Allahu Akbar!”The suspect, Gyulchekhra Bobokulova, is from the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan and was identified as the child’s care taker. A video that went viral showed the suspect carrying the severed head of the child and flashing it outside a Moscow metro station. The woman has said that she did it to avenge the lives of the Muslims killed in Kremlin’s campaign of air strikes in Syria.“I took revenge against those who spilled blood...Putin spilled blood, planes carried out bombings. Why are Muslims being killed? They also want to live.”

Bobokulova is kept in a psychiatric care and attempts are being made to find out if she is capable of understanding her actions.

While the investigation is still on, the investigators have not suspected her of any terrorism-related offence.

Issue - 657 (12)

8 March - 14 March 2016

Hijackers? Aliens? Theories over Malaysian Airlines MH370’s fate abound From a hijacking to an alien abduction, countless theories have arisen about the fate of the Malaysian airliner that disappeared nearly two years ago.With search crews just months away from finishing their thus-far fruitless sweep of a remote stretch of seabed where Flight 370 is believed to have crashed, officials appear no closer to solving one of the most mind-boggling mysteries of modern times. That stubborn lack of resolution has only increased speculation about what might have happened to the Boeing 777 after it vanished with 239 people on board on March 8, 2014. Some believe officials are simply looking in the wrong part of the Indian Ocean, while social media sites are peppered with comments suggesting they’re looking on the wrong planet: “MH370 was abducted by aliens,” reads a typical tweet.

“We knew this was a very highprofile, publicized event and because it was such a great mystery, there was going to be a lot of scrutiny,” says the Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s chief commissioner Martin Dolan, who is leading the search for the plane far off

Australia’s west coast. “We are always open to informed criticism. What we find a bit more difficult is when occasionally people criticize us on the basis of a misunderstanding or a misrepresentation of what we’re doing or saying.”

Here’s a look at a few of the theories that investigators have considered but view as unlikely: THE PLANE WENT NORTH INSTEAD OF SOUTH After veering off-course shortly after takeoff on its flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, officials believe the plane flew south on a straight path into the abyss of the southern Indian Ocean. They arrived at that conclusion after analyzing exchanges between the plane’s engine and a satellite.

But some people insist the plane instead flew north into Asia, and that the satellite data indicating otherwise was tampered with.

Dolan dismisses that theory, noting that British satellite company Inmarsat, which provided the satellite data to investigators, is a widely respected company with a solid track record. There’s no reason to doubt their data, he says.

“Those sorts of theories just seem to over complicate what’s going on

here,” Dolan says. “We think that had any data been manipulated, there would have been a trace of it.”Beyond that, a wing part from the plane washed ashore on Reunion Island in the western Indian Ocean in July, effectively

The military in the Maldives told Malaysia that those reports of sightings turned out to be false.

Last year, Malaysian investigators traveled to the Maldives to examine possible debris that had washed ashore,

eliminating the possibility that the rest of the plane ended up in the Northern Hemisphere. That said, a few people have suggested the wing flap was planted on the island by terrorists.

IT WENT WEST TO THE MALDIVES Some argue the plane must have traveled west to the remote Indian Ocean island nation of the Maldives after early reports emerged of locals spotting a lowflying plane in the area around the time Flight 370 vanished.

but it was determined to be unrelated to Flight 370.

Former Australian Transport Minister Warren Truss has said that while the plane may have had enough fuel to reach the islands, it wasn’t detected by air traffic control or any other local authority.

The flight path to the Maldives is also inconsistent with investigators’ satellite and radar data.“It is not considered a likely

ISIS Burned Alive Their Own Fighters

ISIS reportedly burned its own fighters alive after the city of Ramadi was retaken Iraqi troops.

A statement put out by U.S. military officials indicates that the fighters who fled to the group’s base at Mosul on January 12 were killed as examples.

Iraqis from Mosul said that they believe ISIS is attempting to punish its fighters to persuade others not to flee from battles, reports Nigerian Scoop.

“They were grouped together and made to stand in a circle, and set on fire,” said a former Iraqi resident.

Terrorism and insurgency experts in the U.S. say that they have acknowledged the use of this tactic by the group.

“There is no surprise on executing ISIS fighters from

Ramadi. They did the same to fighters after Tikrit,” said Michael Pregent, former advisor to General Patreaus.

The recapture of Ramadi by Iraqi forces was reportedly a major blow to ISIS. The city is roughly 80 miles west of Baghdad, and is one of the largest cities that ISIS controlled. The terrorist group captured the city in June, 2014. Pregent noted that he believes the terrorist group is resorting to brutal tactics due to its internal instability.

“ISIS is fracturing, paranoid from within,” he said.

Clint Watts of the Foreign Policy Research Institute described a similar breakdown of stability within the terrorist organization as it is faced with opposition from Iraqi and

coalition forces.

“They continue to lose territory, we’ve seen a growing number of defections and a rise in the number of alleged internal spies- many of whom they have killed mercilessly without demonstrating significant evidence of internal espionage,” said Watts.

ISIS has continued to be beaten back by its opponents since losing Ramadi in Iraq, though it has since expanded into Libya.

Army Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc, U.S. special operations forces commander in Africa, said on February 29 that U.S. aid would be needed to combat the group’s gain of territory in the embattled North African state, reports The Wall Street Journal.

possibility,” Truss said last year.

IT WAS SHOT DOWN One of the earliest theories suggested the plane was headed toward Diego Garcia, a British atoll in the Indian Ocean where the U.S. has a military base. The former head of the now-defunct Proteus Airlines, Marc Dugain, voiced his own theory that U.S. military, fearing a Sept. 11-style attack, may have shot down the plane as it approached the atoll.

The U.S. has denied the aircraft came anywhere near Diego Garcia.

IT WAS HIJACKED BY PASSENGERS Immediately after the plane disappeared, many speculated that one or more passengers hijacked the plane. This theory gained traction after it was discovered that two Iranians on board were traveling on stolen passports. Investigators cleared the two after finding nothing linking them to terror groups; it is believed they were trying to illegally immigrate to Europe.

Police scrutinized the backgrounds of every passenger on the plane - but nothing suspicious was found.

German court sentences Islamic State militants ‘storm trooper’ to 4.5 years

Dusseldorf A German court on Friday convicted an Islamic State “storm trooper” who helped track down deserters for the jihadist group in Syria, sentencing him to 4.5 years in prison.

Nils Donath, a 25-year-old German national, had travelled to Syria in October 2013 to join the jihadist group which controls a large swathe of Syria and Iraq.

Prosecutors, who had sought a sentence of four years and nine months, said at the trial that tasks Donath took on at the IS included assisting in interrogations, prison guard duty, as well as participation in the jihadist group’s “storm troops,” a special assault team.

As a member of this unit, Donath took part in 10-15 missions, in

which he helped to track down IS deserters, fully aware they would be tortured to death, according to the prosecution.

Donath has been in police custody since his arrest upon his return to Germany in January 2015.

During the trial that opened in January, he told the court of his troubled teenage years, when he was a “pothead” before he converted to Islam in August 2011.But he later “slipped into radicalism” and joined a local jihadist group called the “Lohberger Brigade” that he travelled with to Syria.Thousands of Europeans have headed for Syria to fight for the IS group, and concern is growing about the threat that returning jihadists pose on their home soil.

ISIS ‘executes 8 Dutch foreign fighters’ ISIS has killed eight Dutch members after they allegedly tried to desert the jihadist group, Syrian activists said on Monday.

“ISIS executed 8 Dutch fighters on Friday, 26 of Feb, after fights with Iraqi leaders in Raqqa and they arrested more Dutch fighters,” Abu Mohammed, a member of the citizen journalist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS), said on Twitter. The group said tension between 75 Dutch jihadis, some

of Moroccan origin, and ISIS intelligence operatives from Iraq had reached a new high over the last month.Three other Dutch jihadis were arrested by Iraqi Isis members, who accused them of wanting to flee. One of the detainees was beaten to death during the interrogation, RBSS reports.When ISIS leaders sent a delegate to solve the dispute, the Dutch cell’s enraged members reportedly murdered the intermediary in vengeance.

Issue - 657 (13)

8 March - 14 March 2016

Pakistan to cut off support to terror groups like JeM and LeT In what is being read as a development of significance, the Government of Pakistan has agreed to cut off support to leading terror groups like the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), while the United States has welcomed the several steps taken by Islamabad to counter terrorism, including the detention of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) leader Maulana Masood Azhar.

This major development has found indirect mention in the joint statement issued at the end of the sixth ministerial-level Pakistan-U.S. Strategic Dialogue.While noting the reference to the terror groups JeM and LeT, senior U.S. analysts said this statement by Pakistan could be “a form of window dressing to mislead the West.”The real test, they said, would come after verification of Pakistan’s true intents, as in the past also such deceptions have been targeted at Western Governments.The American delegation was led by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, while the Pakistan delegation was led by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz.

Referring to the Pakistan-based terrorist groups, “Advisor Aziz affirmed the Government of Pakistan’s resolve to take effective action against United Nations-designated terrorist

Sharif’s stated commitment to take prompt and decisive action on this investigation and to bring the perpetrators of the January 2, 2016 attack on the Pathankot air base in India’s Punjab state

individuals and entities, including al-Qa’ida, the Haqqani Network, and Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and its affiliates, as per its international commitments and obligations under United Nations Security Council resolutions and the Financial Action Task Force,” the joint statement issued after the talks, said. Noting the steps taken by Pakistan to date, including the detention of Maulana Masood Azhar, the United States delegation appreciated Prime Minister

to justice.

The joint statement also agreed that both sides would take effective action against all violent extremists, and specifically underscored the view that no country’s territory should be used to destabilize other countries.Both countries reaffirmed their commitment to countering terrorism, including by targeting all terrorists without discrimination. The United States and Pakistan committed to continue promoting peace,

ISIS air strikes: Civilian death toll from western bombing ‘set to reach 1,000 within days’ The civilian death toll from Western air strikes against Islamic State fighters is set to pass the 1,000 mark “within days”, independent monitors told The Independent on Sunday.

The revelation comes as David Cameron faces mounting pressure to honour his pledge to update Parliament on the impact of Britain’s military contribution to the war.

After the vote on 2 December authorising RAF air strikes in Syria, Mr Cameron pledged “quarterly updates” to Parliament. In the three months since, the Prime Minister has left it to Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, and Justine Greening, the International Development Secretary, to inform MPs about the situation in Iraq and Syria.

MPs and peers, however, insist Mr Cameron left the clear impression that the updates would be on the UK’s military campaign - including the number of air strikes and civilian casualties and the success in driving back Islamic State rather than on the wider diplomatic or humanitarian situation in the region.

An amendment laid in the House of Lords by the Conservative peer Lord Hodgson last week would make it a statutory requirement to publish civilian casualty figures every three months. The Government insists British air strikes in Syria and Iraq have not killed a single civilian.However, according to the independent NGO Airwars,

967 Iraqi and Syrian civilians have died as a result of air strikes by the 12 coalition states engaged in attacks on ISIS. The figure was described in Parliament last week as “credible”. A source at the monitoring organisation said the figure would top 1,000 “within days”.Britain has carried out 591 air strikes in Iraq and 36 in Syria - making up around a quarter of the 2,000 attacks carried out by

countries other than the US in the international coalition against ISIS. Russian air strikes are estimated to have killed up to 2,900 civilians.

But despite the figures, 11 out of 12 members of the coalition, including the UK, claim no civilian casualties have resulted from their strikes.

Lord Hodgson, a member of the all-party parliamentary committee on drones, told peers on 3 March that this would be “unprecedented in a major military engagement” and “naturally invites questions about how civilians are being classified”.

The former Conservative deputy chairman said it was crucial to be transparent about the scale of civilian deaths. He said: “We need to spend a lot of time

making sure we carry the country with us.

“This is a particularly important area for our minority population.

I do think it needs to be done with a degree of seriousness if it is to demand confidence.

“When civilians get killed in the course of war it is a recruiter for the extremists. But when women and children are killed it also destroys the fabric of society.”

The Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake, the party’s foreign affairs spokesman, said it was incumbent on Mr Cameron to update MPs on the UK’s military campaign.He said: “Parliament voted to support the Prime Minister and support military action by the RAF in Syria.

“Parliament is entitled to detailed, quality reports by the Prime Minister setting out what impact that military action has had on Daesh [ISIS] fighters and Daesh finances - and also confirmation of the number of civilian casualties caused by RAF action. We are well past a quarter in terms of the number of days.”Labour’s shadow Defence Secretary, Emily Thornberry, added: “As the reported toll of civilian casualties from coalition bombing in Syria continues to rise, we need answers and accountability from the Government about the role that Britain’s air strikes are playing in this crisis. David Cameron promised quarterly reports to Parliament on the impact of his bombing campaign; keeping that promise is the least the British public deserve.”

stability, and transparency in the region and to eliminate the threats posed by violent extremism and terrorism.

The two delegations also said they looked forward to the upcoming Law Enforcement and Counterterrorism Working Group meeting where both would work together to further bolster Pakistan’s judicial and law enforcement authorities capacity to enforce the rule of law and combat terrorism, including the financing of terrorism.

Both sides underscored the need for effective action against all violent extremists that threaten regional security. The United States expressed appreciation for the role Pakistan has played in helping to degrade al-Qa’ida and its affiliates.

Pakistan reaffirmed its commitment to taking action, in line with the country’s National Action Plan, to ensure that the Taliban are unable to operate from Pakistani soil.

Acknowledging the emerging terrorist threat posed by ISIL/ Da’esh in the region, the U.S. and Pakistani delegations agreed that their countries should work closely together to counter this threat of mutual concern, and affirmed their commitment to combat the extremist ideology

that fuels such groups.

Pakistan reiterated its firm resolve not to allow ISIL/Da’esh to develop a foothold in its territory, and the United States expressed its appreciation for Pakistan’s efforts in this regard.

The two sides underscored the imperative of quickly catalyzing direct peace talks between the Afghan government and Taliban to end the bloodshed and preserve Afghanistan’s unity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.According to the joint statement, Secretary Kerry welcomed Pakistan’s calls on the Taliban to seek a negotiated settlement to end the Afghan conflict and its constructive role in establishing an important regional initiative like the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) that brings together representatives from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, and the United States to achieve the shared objective of initiating peace negotiations between the Afghan government and Taliban.

It was agreed that all members of the QCG will intensify their efforts to forge broader regional consensus in support of the Afghan-led reconciliation process as the best way to bring peace and stability to the region.

ISIS Force 12-Year-Old Girl To Execute Women

Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists have reportedly forced a 12year-old girl to execute five women in northern Iraq. the incident occurred March 2 in the province of Nineveh, according to Daily Mail.

“This evening, a 12-year-old girl belonging to the so-called ISIS executed five women, including a doctor who refused to medicate ISIS members that were wounded in a coalition bombardment, by firing squad,” a source said, according to the Mail.Footage has previously appeared alleging that young boys have carried out executions.“This execution is considered to be the first of its kind to be implemented by a small girl within ISIS,” the source added.ISIS has frequently publicized videos of its youth brigades undergoing military training. Recruits are referred to as the “cubs of the caliphate” by the extremist group. When they die in battle, they are often portrayed as “martyrs” in videos.Last month, one such video claimed to show an 11-year-old boy carrying out a suicide mission by blowing himself up in a truck full of

explosives. The boy, identified as Abu Imara al Omri, was shown kissing his father’s hand as a blessing before driving off in the vehicle.The latest executions were made public the same day as the U.S. military confirmed it had captured a leading ISIS member in Iraq, according to the Guardian.The Pentagon recently deployed a new expeditionary targeting force to the country and the capture of the militant last month is believed to be the first time a top level ISIS member has been taken prisoner alive in Iraq.

The New York Times reported the ISIS leader was being held at a base in Irbil, but officials were not authorized to speak to the public on the case and provided no further details.

Using a different acronym for ISIS, Secretary of State Ashton Carter said Feb. 29 that the new force would be used “to conduct raids of various kinds, seizing places and people, freeing hostages and prisoners of ISIL, and making it such that ISIL has to fear that anywhere, anytime, it may be struck,” the Guardian reported.

Issue - 657 (14)

8 March - 14 March 2016

The paralysed man who can ride a bike Starving animals up Warsaw A man who was paralysed from the chest down after a knife attack in 2010 can now ride an adapted tricycle.

In 2014, surgeons in Poland announced they had reversed Darek Fidyka’s paralysis using cells taken from his nose to repair his spinal cord. The former fireman says he has noticed a gradual return of feeling and muscle control below his injury.

The surgical team is now launching a search for two more paralysed patients who they will try to help walk again. Mr Fidyka told me: ‘I can tell that sensation is coming back and I am getting stronger. A year ago I would not have been able to ride a tricycle. Now I can feel each muscle and each press of the foot on the pedals.’

The BBC’s Panorama told the remarkable story of Darek Fidyka and the 40year research programme involving scientists in Britain and Poland.

The medical team are now launching the worldwide search as they are looking for patients with an uncommon type of injury, where the spinal cord has been completely severed, which can happen after a knife injury.–BBC The head of the project,

surgeon Dr Pawel Tabakow said: ‘If we can bridge the gap between two spinal cord stumps then there will be no doubt that our technique works and this will be historic - if we succeed we will have

found a cure for paralysis.

‘Then we will be able to help other patients with the most common type of injury, caused by a crush or compression.’ The Wroclaw Walk Again Project will be conducted in Poland, but patients anywhere in the world aged 16-65 will be able to apply via the team’s website, which will be officially launched on 8th March in Wroclaw.

All the treatment will be free, but to be eligible patients must have no feeling or voluntary muscle function below the injury and they must be prepared to spend around three years in Poland.

They will undergo extensive physiotherapy

before and especially after the transplant surgery. The medical team are expecting to be inundated with applications in the months ahead. They will make an initial shortlist based on patient scans

and medical notes and then invite a few potential volunteers for assessment in Poland.

Those selected will undergo the same pioneering surgery that was performed on Darek Fidyka which was published in Cell Transplantation. Scientists have spent decades searching for a means of enabling the paralysed to walk again. Motorised exoskeletons, which are strapped on the body, bypassing the injury, are now available commercially.

Electrical stimulation techniques use implants to enable patients to flex their lower limbs. But neither method involves repairing

Email inventor Ray Tomlinson dies at 74 WASHINGTON Ray Tomlinson, the US programmer credited with inventing email in the 1970s and choosing the “@” sym-

brought us email in the early days of networked computers,” his employer, the defense contractor and electronics giant

bol for the messaging system, died at the age of 74, his employer said Sunday.

Tomlinson invented direct electronic messages in 1971. Before his invention, users could only write messages to others on a limited network.

“A true technology pioneer, Ray was the man who

Raytheon, said in a statement.

“His work changed the way the world communicates and yet, for all his accomplishments, he remained humble, kind and generous with his time and talents, he will be missed by one and all.” A company spokesman said

Tomlinson died on Saturday, and the cause of death was not yet confirmed. Tributes poured in from the online world.

“Thank you, Ray Tomlinson, for inventing email and putting the @ sign on the map. #RIP,” Google’s Gmail team tweeted.

Vint Cerf, considered one of the fathers of the Internet who was once a manager of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), lamented the “very sad news” of Tomlinson’s passing.

When Tomlinson invented the “user@host” standard for email addresses, it was applied at DARPA’s ARPANET, a US government computer network that is considered the Internet’s precursor. He was the first to use the @ symbol in this way, to distinguish a user from its host.

the damaged spinal cord.The approach in Poland aims to reconnect the brain with the lower limbs along the neural superhighway that is the spinal cord, enabling both motor control commands to travel down the body and sensation to travel up.

Darek Fidyka’s spinal cord had been almost completely severed as a result of a knife attack, apart from a thin thread of external connective tissue and prior to the transplant, he had no feeling or control below his injury. Now he has had to relearn how to control his muscles and interpret sensations.

He said: ‘I realise how important the brain is while cycling, and that thinking is more tiring than the exercise itself.’

But the results from one patient, however impressive, would never be sufficient evidence on which to base a new approach to spinal cord injury. The forthcoming trial in Poland will be crucial if the wider scientific community is to be convinced that a patient’s own cells can be used to regenerate their spinal cord.

for sale at Gaza zoo

GAZA A Gaza zoo owner is putting the last of his starving animals up for sale.

Mohammad Oweida once hosted family and school outings at his zoo in Khan Younis in the southern part of the Palestinian territory.

But war and economic hardship intervened to turn the venture into what is now a sad collection of 15 emaciated animals that he can no longer afford to feed. “I have to sell them in order to save them,” said Oweida, 24, sitting near the cage of a tiger who had not eaten for four days. In all, he said, some 200 animals, many of them

smuggled across the tightly controlled Egyptian border in tunnels, have starved to death in the zoo since a seven-week war between Israel and Palestinian militants in 2014 prevented him getting enough food for them. Oweida stuffed 15 of the animals he lost, including a lion, a tiger and a chimpanzee, and put them on display for children to pet. But the visitors now stay away. He said he was negotiating to sell the hungry tiger for around $23,000 to a Gaza resident who used to raise lion cubs. Other animals on offer included an ostrich, a turtle and a pelican.

Issue 657 (15)

8 March - 14 March 2016

Priyanka Chopra is to watch out for

Cast:Priyanka Chopra, Prakash Jha, Manav Kaul, Rahul Bhat, Ninad Kamat, Murli Sharma Direction: Prakash Jha Ratings: 2 Stars Prakash Jha is known for going deep into the hinterland and bringing back stories from there. The 2003 Gangaajal was one of his best. But does Priyanka Chopra’s Jai Gangaajal, touted as a sequel to that Ajay Devgn film, live up to its predecessor?

In the Bankipur district of Bihar, Khaki is the slave of local MLA Babloo Pandey (Manav Kaul) and his ‘Chhota Vidhayak’ brother ‘W’ or Dubloo Pandey (Ninad Kamat). The elder brother sanctions W’s misdeeds. Land is grabbed at gunpoint and law and order is paid no heed to in this constituency. DSP BN Singh (Prakash Jha) is by Babloo whenever there’s any wrong to be accomplished.

The police force, from bottom to the top - are all ‘naamards’ (impotent).

Abha Mathur (Priyanka Chopra) is given the charge of Bankipur, her first posting. She is supposed to eat out of the hands of the ruling party, but well.

Mathur reaches her district and unleashes law. Unleashes, because till her arrival, that word was unheard of in Bankipur. In her tenure in Bankipur, she is aided by several doublefaced officers, ‘galti-semisguided’ BN Singh.

Mathur has the task of cleaning up Bankipur. How she achieves it is what Jai Gangaajal is made of.

Priyanka Chopra breathes life into her character.

‘Kali’, ‘Chandi’, several epithets are used to describe Mathur. From beating up goons in the middle of the street to throwing her lot behind the police, Abha Mathur is near-perfect.

It is Prakash Jha’s omnipresence in his acting debut that doesn’t quite fall in place. Out of the 2 hour 38 minutes that Jai Gangaajal runs for, Jha is ubiquitous in a way that gets unbearable after a point of time. Get the man out of the frame for some minutes, and Jai Gangaajal is a decent watch. The one person you want to see more of on screen is Priyanka Chopra. And that is where the film fails to satisfy its viewer.

On his part, Manav Kaul impresses as the diaboli-

cal Babloo Pandey. Ninad Kamat, on the other hand, never quite manages to strike fear even when he’s at his menacing best.

Rahul Bhat’s social worker-ish avatar is believable, but seems out of tune at times.

Jai Gangaajal falters in getting its point across, if there is one, that is. The film works in parts, largely because of the fabulous performances of Chopra and Kaul. But then, the problem that seems to have found a place in Prakash Jha films of late that of losing way thanks to a convoluted plot plagues Jai Gangaajal as well.

The story is very similar to the 2003 Gangaajal. The problems in Badland Bihar are still the same, the cop with a ramrod-spine tries to stop the district from falling into the hands of vigilante justice - it is all too similar. The film feels stretched. The first half is painfully slow, with a detailed description of why Bankipur is in the state it is in. In trying to establish the problems in Bankipur, Jha’s film takes a toll on people’s patience. Jai Gangaajal fails to hit home somehow,

despite repeated attempts.

Sachin Krishn’s cinematography is praiseworthy.

Salim-Sulaiman’s music is largely relegated to the

background, which comes across as a heavy respite. At the end of the day, Priyanka Chopra’s Abha Mathur does offer a role model to many, but

the reality too is too clear: A happy ending is but make-believe in the hinterlands of the country.

Watch Jai Gangaajal for Priyanka Chopra.

Vicky Kaushal’s fine performance alone makes the film worth a watch Director: Mozez Singh Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Sarah Jane Dias, Manish Chaudhary Ratings: 2 Stars For a movie in which a man finds himself through music, it is in the brief interludes of silence that Zubaan best works. And they all feature Vicky Kaushal, who shot this film before he broke through last year with Masaan. So at ease is Kaushal playing the film’s flawed hero Dilsher that he draws you to this predictable self-discovery yarn.

Kaushal is Dilsher, a young man with a stutter. But Dilsher doesn’t let his handicap come in way of his ambition. He has grown up

in awe of Gurcharan Sikan (Manish Chaudhary), a successful businessman from his village, and is hellbent on following his trajectory and making it big. In doing so, writer-director Mozez Singh shows us a man trying hard to be someone he is not. Enter Amira (Sarah Jane Dias), a freespirited singer of whom little is known other than that she lost a brother whom she remembers with a musical outing in a desert. Her part here is to make Dilsher realise his true potential as a musician by throwing some of the hippest underground parties in Delhi. Hell when she sings a song no one other than the incred-

ible French duo Les Twins dance in the background, albeit they seem out of place. Even if you are to buy into the opposites attract theory, Singh fails to convince as to what makes Amira and Dilsher click. Far more engaging are Kaushal and Chaudhary who combine well together to present the fascinating relationship.

Here, we see Dilsher’s hunger to succeed such as when he beats up his rival just so that he can get to work with Sikan, tries to impress the construction magnate by stealing a music CD and belittles Sikan’s son Surya (Raghav Chanana). These scenes tell more about Dilsher than

his introspective but dull conversations with Amira. It doesn’t help that Singh is eager to focus on Dilsher’s redemption. And just like that Zubaan, like its hero, stumbles.

Singh shows promise as a filmmaker especially when he directs his songs like vibrant music videos - “Music is My Art”, and Mandar Deshpande’s fantastic rendition of “Ajj Saanu O Mileya” are standouts - and in one particular darkly comic family dinner scene. But Zubaan is too uneven. It is worth a trip to theatre for Kaushal’s credible performance that leaves you rooting for the hero.

Issue 657 (16)

8 March - 14 March 2016

‘Love Games’ will prove my existence in Bollywood says Tara Alisha Berry Tara Alisha Berry made her Bollywood debut in the critically-acclaimed ‘Mastram’ (2013). Tara’s next film is Vikram Bhatt’s ‘Love Games’.

The actress will also be seen in two other films which will begin soon.

The youngster is keen to work in commercial films and is hoping to be

noticed by the industry’s big names; she is keen to work with filmmakers like Rajkumar Hirani, Karan Johar, and Imtiaz Ali. Says Tara, “‘Mastram’ gave me the needed launch, but ‘Love Games’ will prove my existence in the industry. Love Games releases on April 8.

Preity Zinta confirms her marriage with Gene Goodenough Preity Zinta has confirmed that she has given up her ‘Miss’ tag by marrying her American beau Gene Goodenough.

The dimpled beauty made the announcement on both Twitter and Facebook, just days after news of her secret wedding in Los Angeles surfaced.

“I was holding on the

‘Miss Tag’ rather seriously till now, until I met someone ‘Goodenough’

to give it up for. So now I join the Married Club folks. Thank you all for your good wishes and for all your love.

Kangana Ranaut in Homi Adajania’s next film?

The director-writer Homi Adajania is rumoured to be eyeing Bollywood’s Queen, Kangana Ranaut, for his upcoming project Kangana Ranaut, who is currently shooting for Vishal Bhardwaj’s ‘Rangoon’, seems to be on the wishlist of most Bollywood filmmakers.

We hear that the actress has caught the fancy of Homi Adajania who swears by Deepika Padukone, the heroine of his last two films, ‘Finding Fanny’ (2015) and ‘Cocktail’ (2013) apart from a social awareness initiative titled ‘My Choice’.

A source says, “Homi is in talks with Kangana for a project that he wishes to

Women should respect other women says Anushka Sharma In the week of International Women’s Day, Bollywood actress Anushka Sharma reveals her fitness formula and offers a lesson in gender equality Fitness Formula Fitness, for me, means to simply be the stronger and healthier version of oneself. It’s very important to treat your body right, which means nutrition and training your body.

These two components form my fitness formula. I am regularly at it as it not only helps me stay healthy, but also makes me feel calm. So, I think it’s very important for everybody to have a daily fitness routine.

How I keep fit The way I keep fit depends on the kind of film that I am doing. When I have to look a certain way, I have to learn or train in a particular way. For example, I play a sportsperson in ‘Sultan’, so I’m training to gain mass and muscle and it’s mostly weight training now. Normally, though, my training is more functional. I don’t really cycle, I jog and run on days that I do cardio for a minute or so, then come off for a minute and start again. Coming from an army background, we had a club close to our colony and I used to swim a lot there as did the other kids. It used to be a huge part of my life.

I’d like to try I have never run a marathon and maybe it would be something that I would like to try. I would like to

prepare myself for it and give it a shot when I have free time.

My three principles For me, the three principles of fitness are: to be consistent, eat right and know the program that you are doing really well. That’s really important. It’s important to know that because, for me, that is also the way I motivate myself. Some years ago I had no interest in going to the gym and training because I think the motivation was superficial (looking a certain way), but now I train to be fitter, stronger and healthier. So, now, I feel the motivation is what gives me a kick. I want to get up and go to the gym and train everyday. It’s important to know the direction you’re working towards.

Keep diseases away It’s important for everyone women, men and children to be fit. It’s very important to treat your body right. You can avoid any ailments or diseases then. I think prevention is better than cure. So, staying fit is what everybody should do. I understand that it’s difficult for working men and women to come home and workout.

I know it’s easier for me to say this as it’s part of my work to stay fit, look a certain way.

direct himself.

They have met for script narration sessions on a couple of occasions.”

After wrapping up ‘Rangoon’, the actress will move on to Hansal Mehta’s Simran based on an Indian-origin nurse who was arrested last year for a spate of bank robberies in the US and came to be known as Bombshell Bandit.

“Kangana’s date diary is choc-a-bloc for at least the next six months. However, despite that, she has shown

interest in Homi’s project and has also met him to discuss the nitty-gritty of it. If things fall in place, she may sign it and start shooting by the end of this year or early 2017,” says a source close to Kangana.

Ki and Ka is a very different film because of the concept of gender bias Kareena Kapoor Khan says the issue of gender bias is something which has still not become a centre of discussion. The 35-year-old actor will be seen in the upcoming film Ki and Ka, directed by R Balki. The film features Arjun Kapoor as progressive house-husband supporting his wife, enacted by Kareena, who is a career-oriented woman.

“It is a very different film because of the concept of gender bias. Its an issue which nobody addresses.

There is a stay-at-home husband, there is a woman who wants to work,” Kareena told PTI. “Today anyways women are there in every field, they are leading the pack. They are definitely more independent than what they were 20 years ago,” she said.

Kareena, who last

worked in Salman Khanstarrer Bajrangi Bhaijaan, said it was a challenge to make her character that of an ambitious young

woman real and believable.

“Its a very interesting role where I have tried to play a girl which will make the audience feel she is as normal as the viewer watching the film. When you play a character, your body type becomes like that. Whether you play a footballer, or boxer, your clothes and hair push you to do that.

Issue 657 (17)

8 March - 14 March 2016

Gwyneth Paltrow says ex-husband Chris Martin is like a brother

Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow says says her ex-husband musician Chris Martin is like a brother and they and their children are a ‘true family’.

Martin and Paltrow, 43, split in 2014 after almost 10 years of marriage but have remained so close

for the sake of their kids, Apple, 11 and nine-yearold Moses, that the 43year-old actress says they are now more like siblings.

Speaking about Martin, 39, Paltrow said on ‘Today’ show, “He’s like my brother. I’m really close to him. We’re a

family. Even though we’re not in a romantic relationship, we’re a true family and we like to do things to reinforce that we’re a family for the children [and] for each other. The split was a very intense time for our family.

Emotions were very high and deep and all over the

Olivia Wilde obsessed with Rolling Stones

Actress Olivia Wilde, who is working with the Rolling Stones legend Mick Jagger in the American period

Vinyl is a collaboration of filmmaker Martin Scorsese with Jagger and scriptwriter Terence Winter. “I’m com-

drama TV series, Vinyl, says she was completely obsessed with the British rock band in her teens.

pletely filled with awe when he (Jagger) is around.

Sometimes, I just kind of turn away and try not to

say anything. What he has created has always meant so much to me,” Wilde said in a statement.

“When I was 12 years old I was completely obsessed with the Rolling Stones, and I learned about the blues through the Rolling Stones,” she added. The actress also said, “people will learn a huge amount from the show”.

“That’s what I keep telling people. I love the show not only because it’s so sexy, wellwritten and intense, but what you will learn is so fascinating,” she added.

place. I just try to keep to myself as much as possible.”

The entire family cheered Martin on when he performed with Coldplay during the half-time show at Super Bowl 50 last month but Paltrow admitted she worries about keeping the kids

grounded when they have such incredible experiences. “They were thrilled. They were very proud. It’s pretty incredible. It’s also a little weird that your first football game is that, so how do you also counteract that and instill that life is not that all the time?”

Pamela Anderson refuses to play an ‘old lady’ in the remake

Pamela Anderson, known for her role on TV series Baywatch, has been approached for its big screen reboot but she has not decided if she wants to star in it.

Anderson, 48, starred on the Baywatch TV series which became a worldwide phenomenon between 1992-1997.

The actor said she is unsure about doing the film because she doesn’t want to be ‘the old lady’ on set, reported Female First.

“Well, they called me and asked me to be in it, but I haven’t decided yet. I don’t know. I don’t like remakes of TV shows and I kind of want to leave it as is and be remembered for that.

Calvin Harris not interested in duet with Taylor Swift

Scottish DJ Calvin Harris has “politely declined” a collaboration with girlfriend Taylor Swift over fears that it would destroy their relationship. Harris, 32, doesn’t want to mix his professional with his personal life, a source told The Sun newspaper, reports dailymail.co.uk.

It seems that Harris has learnt from his past as the mega-producer previously collaborated with ex-girlfriend Rita Ora on her last album before their sour split.

Issue 657 (18)

8 March - 14 March 2016

Germany’s BMW celebrates 100th anniversary Munich German luxury carmaker BMW will throw a lavish 100th birthday party on Monday, looking back at its often troubled history and forward as it seeks to adapt to the age of ‘per-

sonal mobility’.

In its home city of Munich the iconic headquarters, a complex dubbed the ‘BMW four-cylinder’, towers as a source of pride while its vast plant, offices and museum are the southern city’s main private employer, with a total of 41,000 staff.

Since its World War I beginnings, the company has

grown into a multinational giant with plants in 14 countries, more than 116,000 employees and 80 billion euros ($88 billion) in annual sales.

BMW today makes cars and motorcycles and its

brands also include RollsRoyce and Mini. Leading its rival Daimler-Benz in units sold, and with giant VW damaged by the emissions scandal, BMW remains in pole position at the high end of the auto industry and is seen as a symbol of German engineering prowess.

‘It's a great product, it's a joy to make it,’ says Stefan

Eichborn, wearing a blue overall and speaking in a Bavarian accent, as he supervises huge machines that press steel sheets into car body parts.

The auto giant started life in far more troubled times - on March 7, 1916, making aircraft engines as Germany's ‘Bavarian Aircraft Factory’.

After WWI, when defeated Germany was forbidden from manufacturing aircraft, it renamed itself Bayerische Motoren Werke (‘Bavarian Engine Factory’) in 1922.

BMW adopted a propellor-shaped logo as a salute to its aerospace origins, in Bavaria's traditional blue-and-white colours. ‘The product for which BMW is best known nowadays was actually the last product to be taken into its portfolio,’ says Manfred Grunert, the company's in-house historian. After producing its first motorcycle in 1923, BMW began making cars in 1928.

99m years old lizard a clue to lost ecosystem Florida A fossilized lizard found in Southeast Asia preserved in amber dates back some 99 million years, Florida scientists have determined, making it the oldest specimen of its kind and a ‘missing link’ for reptile researchers. The lizard is some 75 million years older than the previous record holder, according to researchers at the Florida Museum of Natural History, who announced the finding this week. It was found decades ago in a mine along with other ancient, well-preserved reptile fossils, but the U.S. scientists were able to analyze the finds only recently. ‘It was incredibly exciting to see these animals for the first time,’ Edward Stanley, a member of the research team, said on Saturday. ‘It was exciting and startling, actually, how well they

were preserved.’

Scientists believe the chameleon-like creature was an infant when it was trapped in a gush of sticky resin while darting through

Being encased in solid amber helped to lock the specimen together.

Stanley and other researchers used highresolution digital X-ray

a tropical forest in what is now Myanmar, in Southeast Asia. The creature's entire body, including its eyes and colorful scales, is unusually well-preserved, Stanley said. The other reptiles trapped in the amber, including a gecko and an arctic lizard, were also largely intact.

Small reptiles have delicate bodies and typically deteriorate quickly, he said.

technology to examine the creatures and estimate the age of the amber without breaking it.

The discovery will help researchers learn more about the ‘lost ecosystem, the lost world’ to which the creatures belonged, Stanley said, and it may help researchers learn more about the creatures' modern relatives. ‘It's kind of a missing link,’ Stanley said.

Issue 657 (19)

8 March - 14 March 2016

Sikhs and Muslims join Trump 50 UK children under ISIS rule in Syria and Iraq bandwagon in Maryland Washington A group of Sikhs and Muslims, mostly from South Asian countries, have joined the Donald Trump bandwagon in the US state of Maryland, asserting that the Republican presidential frontrunner is ‘not

against’ their communities.

Under the banner of ‘Sikh Americans for Trump’ and ‘Muslim Americans for Trump’, scores of Sikhs and Muslims held their first meeting in a suburb of Washington DC in Maryland, wherein a representative from the Trump campaign addressed them.

Organisers of the event–from both the Sikh and Muslim communities–argued that the view of Trump about minority community has been ‘twisted’ and ‘taken out of context’ by the mainstream media and claimed that the 69-year-old billionaire real estate magnet would create more jobs in the country, which would benefit the minorities.

“He (Trump) is not at all

against the Sikhs or the Muslim community. What he says is given a spin. The mainstream media did that because they are scared of him.

He is not the status quo. He is not taking anybody’s money,” said Jasdip Singh,

who helped organise the ‘Sikh Americans for Trump’ in Maryland.

A prominent member of the Sikh community, Singh is chairman of the Maryland Governor’s Commission on South Asian Affairs and chairman of the Board of Sikh Associations of Baltimore.

“When he talks about Muslims, he does not talk about all Muslims or American Muslims. He spoke in the context of the refugee crisis that was happening in Syria. We (Sikhs) agree with him. Muslim (Americans) agree with him that we should not bring people into this country before we vet them. And this was a temporary measure proposed by him,” Singh said.

“He is not against minorities.

I have even heard that he is not good for India. On the contrary, I believe he is very good for India.

He has businesses in Pune and Mumbai. He understands all these countries and cultures better than any other candidate,” said.

Singh, who in September had led a delegation of Sikh leaders to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Silicon Valley, said: “Trump had built Tajmahal (Casino) in Atlantic City 25 years ago. He brought a piece of India to the US and tried to take things from India to Taj. So he has a very strong affinity and relationship with India. We should not listen to the spin that is coming from the media.”

“Of all the presidential candidates, Trump is the only one who has achievements to show,” argued Sajid Tarar, a Pakistani American, who helped organise the Muslim Americans for Trump.

“We believe he has the ability and capacity to change America. He has built a huge empire. He is self-funding the campaign and has no special interest behind it,” Tarar said.

“There is a war going on against Trump. Every message and speech of his has been twisted,” he said referring to the Trump’s call to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the country.

Pakistan should have adopted Punjabi as national language says Hafiz Saeed Lahore Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed has questioned Pakistan’s decision to adopt Urdu as its national language in a country where majority of people speak Punjabi.

created.

Saeed, whose base is in South Punjab, is pushing for a review of Urdu as the official language.

The JuD leader is pushing for Punjabi to be the main lan-

Addressing his supporters on Saturday, Saeed said he felt the government did not adopt Punjabi in 1947 because the written text is in Gurmukhi language and that would have questioned the two-nation theory on which Pakistan was

guage of Pakistan. Punjabi is also the main language for the JuD and the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) recruits and there are frequent anti-urdu protests by the cadres of the Punjab based hardline groups.

Saeed also cited the fact that

Punjabi is the main language of the Pakistan Army and that in itself is reason to review the language situation as a mark of respect to the armed forces. Saeed mentioned that though he personally is not a Punjabi speaker, the fact remains that Pakistan’s larger interests are more important.

There has been no word from Pakistan government after Saeed made the comments.

The creation of Pakistan was based on religion rather than their language and ethnicity. The two-nation theory was the founding principle of the movement to create a separate country for Muslims.

44% people in Pakistan speak Punjabi where as Pashto and Sindhi are spoken by an estimated 15 and 12% of its population.

Only 8% of Pakistanis speak Urdu whereas 3.6% speak Balochi.

London At least 50 British children are living under Islamic State (ISIS) rule in war zones of Syria and Iraq and are in danger of becoming “future terrorists”, a London-based think tank said on Sunday.

Researchers for Quilliam found in their study, to be presented in the British Parliament on Wednesday, that the children are at risk of being indoctrinated by ISIS to become suicide bombers or killers.

The report, endorsed by the United Nations, states: “The organisation focuses a large number of its efforts on indoctrinating children through an extremism-based education curriculum, and fostering them to become future terrorists.

“The current generation of fighters sees these children as better and more lethal fighters than themselves, because rather than being converted into radical ideologies they have been indoctrinated into these extreme values from birth.

“The aim is to prepare a new, stronger, second generation of mujahideen, conditioned and

taught to be a future resource for the group.”

According to the ‘Observer’, the report titled ‘Children of Islamic State’ goes onto state that ISIS have studied the Nazis, who created the Hitler Youth movement to brainwash children.

“The area of most concern is that Islamic State is preparing its army by indoctrinating young children in its schools and normalising them to violence through witnessing public executions, watching Islamic State videos in media centres and giving children toy weapons to play with,” the reports says.

Researchers for Quilliam found that children were used extensively in ISIS propaganda between 1 August last year and 9 February this year they identified a total of 254 events or statements featuring images of children to help project the impression of state-building.

ISIS also uses children to try to normalise brutality, with the group encouraging children to hold up decapitated heads or play football with them.

Issue 657 (20)

The upcoming three-day World Cultural Festival on the banks o

$57 2) /,9,1* 868536 )$50(56¡ /,9(/,+22'

by Baishali Adak This comes not from areas like Beed or Vidarbha where distressed farmers commit suicide every year, but the National Capital Region itself. While a mega-show has been planned for Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living (AOL) Foundation event in farmland along the Yamuna, farmers claim the “compensation� does not even cover their sowing costs. “This is how criminals are born! When the poor is trampled upon like this, he either kills himself or takes up arms,� Paan Singh told Mail Today in anguish. Singh claimed his nine bigha of land (3.6 acres) has been acquired forcibly by AOL. “In return, they put ‘26,000 in my pocket. The money I put into raising my crops was Rs. 2.25 lakh, most of it with karza (loan),� he states. “My land has been bulldozed. I don’t know how I’ll manage now,� Singh rued.

Paan Singh’s is among at least 200 farmer families affected by Art of Living’s ‘World Culture Festival,’ the venue for which is the Yamuna floodplain. An estimated 100 acre of land under agriculture - wheat, vegetables and flowers - has been seized on the western side of the river.

This includes villages Chilla, Nangli and Sarai Kale Khan along the DND flyover, and some UP Canal and DDA (Delhi Development Authority) property on the Noida Road side.

A gigantic stage, complete with golden ‘temple-style’ domes, has come up at hopping distance from the DND. White portable cabins, huts and toilets are visible elsewhere, besides two pontoon bridges created on the river itself.

Illegal occupants Vinay Sukhija, an AOL teacher, told Mail Today: “Even one inch of land with crops has not been touched.

Only fallow land has been used.

These farmers are anyway illegal occupants on Yamuna bank. We gave them ‘4,000 per bigha on humanitarian grounds; despite that we are having to face so much jhagda and fasad (fights).�

A senior DDA official, however, said on condition of anonymity: “We granted AOL only 24 hectares (60 acre) of vacant land. Instead, they have spread out on 150-200 acres, including agricultural land on all sides. A farmer even approached us with a High Court stay on eviction

when threatened by AOL people. We immediately shot off a letter to AOL office warning them of court contempt.

They have rampaged everything.�

Master Baljeet Singh, General Secretary, Delhi Peasant Cooperative Multipurpose Society, though, said this is nothing new: “We have been tilling this land since 1950. It was granted to us when the country was under acute crisis, under the ‘Grow More Food’ campaign. It is true we earn our bread from this but we have been chowkidaars (security guards) of Yamuna over these decades. We are harassed and forced out on the pretext of Khel Gaon, Akshardham, DTC Bus Depot, and now this.�

Farmer Dharam Singh said: “It all began a week back. Four men claiming to be from AOL came and said they need to build access roads to their event venue. I said alright.

Then they brought JCB machines and turned my standing vegetable crops kakri, kheera, torai, bengan, gobhi and pyaaz - into pulp. When we protested, they threatened us with

police action. Then they gave me ‘14,000 for my four bigha of crops.

What do I say? I bought gobhi (cauliflower) seeds alone for ‘26,000.�

His neighbour Jagan Lal pointed out that the land may have been taken for only three days - March 11 to 13, the duration of ‘World Culture Festival - but it is likely to be unproductive for at least a year now. “The way they have compacted the land with rollers, it will take us several months to soften it for cultivation. That is two harvesting seasons. Zameen -asman ek karna padega.� “Further, if they lay bricks over it or concretise it for car parking, it will be useless,� he says.

Elong Shri, a 62-year-old woman farmer, said, “Gale se ek niwala nahi utra hai jis din se fasal ujad ke gaye hain (I haven’t had a morsel since my crops were razed). We are small farmers. The real owners of these farmlands have sublet it to us and live elsewhere. We have to pay them rent too. I don’t know from where I will arrange that.�

&DPSDLJQ WR VKLIW $UW R YHQXH JHWV RYHU

by Baishali Adak Petition against the Art of Living (AOL) event on Yamuna banks, on change.org, has gathered over 2,800 signatures. The petition, launched

by Vimlendu Jha of NGO, Swechha India, asks for immediately “shifting out of the event from the ecologically-sensitive area�.

It also asks for “strict action against the damage caused�.

The petition will be submitted to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Justice of India TS Thakur, National Green Tribunal (NGT) chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Art of Living Founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

River activist Manoj Misra, said, “This is a reflection of real anger in the city against the illegality that is happening on the floodplain of their life line river.�

The petition says: ‘Please stop killing my Yamuna, I beg! Destroying the floodplains is not ‘cultural’ or ‘spiritual’. How can the sudden disappearance of the flora and fauna from the floodplains be celebrated?

It further addresses Sri Sri Ravi Shankar himself, saying: “We are aware that you have raised the

cause of to assemb to be in t

going to k Delhi.� “We ackn organisat through a purpose o defeated resource struggling

(21)

8 March - 14 March 2016

of Yamuna has left farmers in the lurch as their future is at stake

RI /LYLQJ HYHQW VLJQDWXUHV

Yamuna in the past, but this act of yours ble 3.5 million people and also supposedly the Guinness Book of World Records is

kill Yamuna, the only source of water for

nowledge your right as an individual and tion to propagate your faith and beliefs an event such as this. However the entire of celebrating the richness of culture gets when it is done at the expense of a natural e and more so, a river that is anyway g to survive.”

6WDJH LV DOO VHW IRU $UW RI /LYLQJ·V PHJD IHVW

by Baishali Adak The work on the festival venue on Yamuna floodplain is 80 per cent complete even as a petition against it rages on in National Green Tribunal (NGT).

A spokesperson for Art of Living (AOL) told Mail Today on Sunday, “The majestic stage is 80 per cent done. Only lighting, sound and barricading arrangements remain. A huge pose of police and volunteers has been deployed to secure the function site and direct the expected 3.5 million-strong crowd.”

“Spread over seven acres, the stage will hold 35,000 musicians - including drummers from South Africa and tribal artistes from Chhattisgarh and Sikkim who will perform concurrently to make a world record. There will be unabated chanting of mantras for world peace.”

A legal suit has been filed by Manoj Misra, a retired Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer against Art of Living (AOL). He has pleaded that any construction activity or event on Yamuna floodplain is against NGT’s judgement, the famed ‘Maily Se Nirmal Yamuna’ order dated January 13, 2015. It had directed that Yamuna’s banks be left undisturbed and in (wild) vegetation to serve

as pollutioncleansing and recharge zone for the river.

NGT is now hearing the case on a daily basis. On Monday, the arguments of DDA, UP Irrigation Department etc. will be heard.

Army has, apparently, help build two pontoon bridges over the main Yamuna river channel. Toilets “with enzymes to decompose sewage” have been built.

Besides, statues of giant elephants have

An expert panel of ecologists, scientists and Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has already advised a ‘120 fine on AOL to restore the floodplain. It is adjacent to the Okhla Bird Sanctuary as well.

At least, six access roads have been created to the venue from Barapulla, Sarai Kale Khan, Mayur Vihar and DND side. The

been erected welcoming guests to the multi-storey stage where the performances will be held.

The guest list includes senior BJP leader LK Advani, Union culture minister Mahesh Sharma, senior Congress leader Karan Singh and the Delhi culture minister, Kapil Mishra of the Aam Aadmi Party.

Issue 657 (22)

8 March - 14 March 2016

Saudi Arabia executes 70th convict this year

Riyadh Saudi Arabia executed a citizen convicted of murder on Sunday, bringing to 70 the number of people it has put to death this year.

Alaa al-Zahrani was found guilty of killing fellow Saudi Abdullah alSumairi with a rock to the head, the interior ministry said.

He was put to death in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, said a ministry statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

The 70 executions so far this year include 47 death sentences for “terrorism” carried out in a

single day on January 2.

Most people sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia are beheaded with a sword. In 2015, Saudi Arabia executed 153 people, most of them for drug trafficking or murder, according to an AFP count. Amnesty International says the number of executions in Saudi Arabia last year was the highest for two decades.

However, the tally was far behind those of China and Iran.

The kingdom has a strict Islamic legal code under which murder, drug trafficking, armed robbery, rape and apostasy are all punishable by death.

Iran sentences billionaire tycoon to death for ‘corruption on earth’ Tehran Iran’s billionaire tycoon, Babak Zanjani, has been sentenced to death for corruption, a judicial official said on Sunday, after a long trial in which he was accused of fraudulently pocketing $2.8 billion.

Zanjani became notorious during the era of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, finding ways to channel hard currency from oil sales to Tehran despite financial sanctions imposed on the Islamic republic’s banks as punishment for its nuclear programme.

The 41-year-old was convicted of fraud and economic crimes and as well as facing the death penalty he must repay money to the state, judiciary spokesperson Gholam Hossein MohseniEjeie said at his weekly press conference.

The trial was held in public, a rarity for such a major case in Iran, and two other accused were also convicted of “corruption on earth”, the most serious offence under the country’s criminal code, meaning

they too will face the death penalty.

“The preliminary court has sentenced these three defendants to be executed, as well as paying restitution to the plaintiff,” Mohseni-Ejeie said, adding that that was the oil ministry.

They must also pay a “fine equal to one fourth of the

repeated declarations from the current government of President Hassan Rouhani that corruption and the payment of illegal commissions thrived under Ahmadinejad’s rule. Other trials are ongoing.

Zanjani had repeatedly said in media interviews that in return for commissions paid by

money that was laundered”, the spokesperson said, without specifying the sum.

Zanjani, who can appeal, had denied any wrongdoing, insisting that the only reason the money had not been paid to the oil ministry was that sanctions had prevented a planned transfer from taking place.

However, the case follows

Ahmadinejad’s government, he was tasked with circumventing sanctions to get money back to Iran.

In October last year, however, Rouhani’s oil minister Bijan Zanganeh signalled the shifting political balance in Iran, hitting out at the use of middlemen such as Zanjani, who before being arrested had boasted of his personal

wealth.

Iranian media have put it as high as $13.5 billion.

Speaking after Iran concluded a nuclear deal with world powers, paving the way for increased foreign activity in Iran’s oil sector, Zanganeh urged investors to deal directly with his ministry and avoid third parties.

“We despise the corrupt parasites that want to suck the nation’s blood even in this situation,” Zanganeh said, to loud applause at an oil and energy industry event in the capital while Zanjani’s trial was under way.

“I recommend foreign companies stay away from these corrupt individuals,” who know nothing but “deceitfulness”.

“They will tell you that until you give us our commission you can’t get your work done. Don’t believe them,” Zanganeh said.

Zanjani was among Iranian individuals blacklisted under US and European sanctions.

Issue 657 (23)

8 March - 14 March 2016

Australian government backs away from gay marriage vote this year Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull backed away from a pledge by one of his senior ministers on Sunday that the government would hold a public vote on same-sex marriage later this year if it is reelected.

A spokeswoman for Turnbull said the government was committed to holding a plebiscite, or public vote, as soon as possible after the election but had not committed further to the timing.

Attorney-General George Brandis had earlier said the vote would occur before the end of the year and that the legislation would immediately be pushed through parliament if the public voted in favour of same-sex marriage.

“We will be going to the election promising a plebi-

scite before the end of the year,” Brandis told Sky News.

Minister Barnaby Joyce called for government unity.

mate issues as his opinion poll ratings plummet ahead of the election and

The confusion adds to perceived instability in Turnbull’s conservative Coalition government, just days after Deputy Prime

Turnbull, who became leader in a party room coup in late 2015, is under pressure on several policy fronts including tax and cli-

a critical budget.

Some of the party instability has been blamed on the man he toppled, former prime minister Tony

Chinese woman found dead after being trapped in elevator for month A Chinese woman died after being trapped in an elevator for a month because maintenance

10th and 11th floors, shouted to ask if anyone was there, and cut the power, it said.

workers shut off the power supply after failing to properly check if anyone was inside, China’s state media reported on Sunday.

Workers came to repair a malfunctioning elevator in the northern city of Xi’an on January 30, the Beijing Youth Daily cited local authorities as saying.

The crew found the elevator stuck between the

The workers left for the week-long Lunar New Year holiday and did not return until March 1.

The government said the investigation found the death was due to a grave error by the maintenance company for not opening the car before cutting the power, and not verifying after the power was off whether there was anyone inside.

The deceased woman, 43,

reportedly lived alone in the building.

China is prone to safety accidents as regulations and standards are often flouted and enforcement is lax, sometimes due to corruption.

Police investigating the incident found no evidence of trauma and have ruled out homicide, Beijing Youth Daily said.

Last July, a woman was killed after she plunged through flooring over an escalator in a Chinese department store.

Security camera footage of the incident posted online showed a panel in the floor giving way as the woman stepped off the escalator. As she fell halfway through she pushed her son forward, and a nearby shop assistant dragged him to safety.

tive level of service, and a fees structure that remains attractive to businesses,

migrants and visitors”.

Indians are among the largest applicants and re-

tograph of himself and wife Lucy at the world-famous lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) pride parade through Sydney’s inner streets.

The federal opposition has put pressure on the government to move quicker on same-sex marriage, pledging to skip a plebiscite and introduce a bill to parliament within 100 days if it wins the federal election.

Turnbull’s government remains ahead in the polls for the election, which the prime minister has indicated is likely to be held between September and November this year, although the gap has narrowed in rec e n t w e eks. Political wrangling has also left open the option of an election being held in July.

at home and did not have a confirmed cause of death. Tomlinson worked in the company’s Cambridge, Massachusetts, office.

An article in the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Tomlinson had died of a suspected heart attack.

The tech world reacted with sadness over the passing of Tomlinson, somewhat of a cult hero for his 1971 invention of a program for ARPANET, the Internet’s predecessor, that allowed people to send person-toperson messages to other computer users on other servers.

“Thank you, Ray Tomlinson, for inventing email and putting the @ sign on the map,” read a Tweet from Gmail’s official Twitter account.

Internet pioneer Vinton Cerf called his death “very sad news.”

Tomlinson was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2012.

“His work changed the way the world communicates and yet, for all his accomplishments, he remained

humble, kind and generous with his time and talents,” Doble said.

Originally from Amsterdam, New York, Tomlinson went to school at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and MIT in the 1960s, and was working at research and development company Bolt Beranek and Newman now Raytheon BBN Technologies - when he made his email breakthrough.

The program changed the way people communicate both in business and in personal life, revolutionizing how “millions of people shop, bank, and keep in touch with friends and family, whether they are across town or across oceans,” reads his biography on the Internet Hall of Fame website.

According to a 1998 profile in Forbes magazine, Tomlinson showed a colleague his invention and then, famously, said, “Don’t tell anyone! This isn’t what we’re supposed to be working on.”

Ray Tomlinson, inventor of email, dies at age 74

Ray Tomlinson, considered to be the godfather of email, has died, according to his employer, Raytheon Company. He was 74.

“A true technology pioneer, Ray was the man who brought us email in the early days of networked computers,” Raytheon spokesman Mike Doble said in a statement.

Doble said Tomlinson died on Saturday morning but he did not know if he was

UK to increase visa fees for nearly all categories from March 18 Britain is increasing fees for almost all categories of visa from March 18, including those related to tourism, students, premium service and settlement.

The move will affect applications made in India and those by Indians in Britain.

Official sources said the new fees were intended to “ensure that the Home Office can achieve a self-funding system, whilst continuing to provide a competi-

Abbott, who remains powerful within the conservative faction of the government.

Australia has been criticised by international human rights groups over its slowness to act on same-sex marriage. Several countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom, United States, France, New Zealand, Ireland and South Africa, have already amended their marriage laws to recognise same-sex unions.

Turnbull, considered a moderate, had brushed off criticism from conservatives to become the first sitting prime minister to attend Sydney’s annual gay Mardi Gras parade on Saturday.

“I’m very proud to be the first PM to attend,” Turnbull tweeted, along with a pho-

cipients of British visas under various categories every year. Immigration minister James Brokenshire opened a new visa centre in Lucknow in February. Among the biggest increases is a 25% rise in fees for applications for settlement, residence and nationality fees, because, the sources said, “these routes deliver the most benefits to successful applicants”.

Issue 657 (24)

8 March - 14 March 2016

This actionoriented week can bring promising results if you channel your energy into key goals and ambitions. The more willing you are to override your limitations, the more successful you can be. Tread with care on Tuesday, as a fiery combination could cause an argument or even a minor accident. This is one day when it pays to go slowly.

Feelings could be intense, yet you might keep them to yourself, which wouldn’t be such a good idea. The pressure could be explosive, especially on Tuesday, causing a bout of anger and frustration. To avoid this, it would be best to tackle issues as they arise and discuss them with those who need to know.

Not only will this help create a solution but can save you a lot of stress as well.

Your social life bubbles with excitement and opportunity. The more people you meet, the more your life opens up in interesting ways. It would be best to avoid cantankerous folks or those looking for trouble on Tuesday. Keep a low profile.

Mercury eases into Pisces and your career sector on Thursday, encouraging you to research your options, apply for jobs.

There’s plenty of activity in your career, kickstarting a new phase. If you’re looking for work, the presence of Mars encourages a proactive approach to getting what you want. Use creative solutions and try to stand out from the crowd and showcase your skills. Avoid impulsive moves on Tuesday, particularly when dealing with those in authority.

The desire for adventure continues to show up this week, spurring you to take up new challenges. An unexpected romantic opportunity could appear, disrupting your best-laid plans. Think very carefully about getting too involved, as it might not be in your best interests and could even have negative consequences.

Go easy regarding finances this week, as it could be all too easy to make the wrong moves.

Overspending or the unwise use of funds in general could leave you struggling at a later date. If you need to talk, discuss things with a professional adviser who can help set you on the right track. Tuesday is the day to watch out for splurging and melting your plastic.

Your relationships can be very direct and honest this week. An upbeat aspect on Monday could encourage you to melt the ice concerning someone you’ve admired for some time. You’ll need to be careful and sensitive to other people’s feelings on Tuesday. Even an innocent remark could cause a spat, leaving you hurt as a result.

There’s a pleasant focus on your romance sector, paving the way for some wonderful date nights. Use your leisure time to channel your creative skills, as doing so can be very therapeutic now.

You can make great strides this week where your job and career are concerned if you focus on one goal and work to achieve it.

The fun meter is set on high, with m a n y opportunities for leisure and pleasure providing thrills and spills. Romance can also be a heady subject, bringing passion and intensity your way. There’s little chance you’ll want to make a commitment, however, which is just as well. Avoid dangerous sports or activities on Tuesday, when it’s best to keep things low-key.

It’s “all systems go” at home, with a chance that the days ahead could be fun yet disruptive. Unexpected events will mean that your best-laid plans may fall by the wayside. Avoid frustration if possible, as that will only make things worse. If you’re feeling annoyed or edgy, channel your energy into exercise or a long walk. Doing so will be calming and therapeutic.

Communication is fast paced this week. You may be busy closing deals, discussing ideas, and generally interacting with others. There’s a lot to be gained from expanding your network and meeting new people, as the lucky breaks will come rolling in. It would be to your advantage to avoid arguments on Tuesday.

An upbeat aspect on Monday can be excellent for attending interviews and meetings with a view toward getting results. Your ability to project a confident demeanor can go a long way to helping you succeed. Avoid impulsive spending on Tuesday, as it will certainly do more harm than good. Channel your energy into exercise instead, which will leave you feeling calm and centered.

Issue 657 (25)

8 March - 14 March 2016

Technology Google tweaks ‘right to be forgotten’ in EU searches Google said Friday it would implement changes in how it applies the so-called right to be forgotten for online searches made in Europe.

The changes, to be implemented next week, would close a loophole that allowed Europeans to find deleted entries by using Google.com instead of the search page for their local country.

“Starting next week, in addition to our existing practice, we will also use geolocation signals (like IP addresses) to restrict access to the delisted URL

on all Google Search domains, including google.com, when accessed from the country of the person requesting the removal,” said a blog post

from Google’s global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer.

“We’ll apply the change retrospectively, to all delistings that we have already done under the European Court ruling.”

A European Court of Justice ruling in May 2014 recognizing the “right to be forgotten” opened the door for Google users to ask the search engine to remove

results about them that are inaccurate or no longer relevant.

Google set up an online form that people in Europe can fill out to ask for infor-

mation to be excluded from search results.

Now a part of the holding company Alphabet under a reorganization, Google’s moves failed to satisfy some regulators, notably in France, because the users could get around the restriction. Google has not changed search results in other areas such as the United States. Up to now, Google had been deleting

certain results from searches made on google.de, google.fr, google.co.uk and other domains within Europe.

“We’re changing our approach as a result of specific discussions that we’ve had with EU data protection regulators in recent months,” Fleischer said.

“We believe that this additional layer of delisting enables us to provide the enhanced protections that European regulators ask us for, while also upholding the rights of people in other countries to access lawfully published information.”

In its most recent update last November, Google said it had complied with less than half of the 348,000 request to remove content in Europe. The largest number of requests came from France, with more than 73,000, followed

by Germany with some 60,000.

Similar processes have been put in place by Microsoft’s Bing search engine that also powers queries at Yahoo.

You can now track your friends’ sleeping habits with Facebook Messenger!

Facebook users will soon be able to track their friends’ sleeping habits using only the data available on the social networking giant site.

A software developer, using ‘time stamps’ taken from Facebook’s own Messenger service, has discovered a way to determine the sleeping habits of his friends. “Many people visit Facebook as the first thing in the morning and the last thing before going to bed.

It is, therefore, possible to get a good impression of their sleeping habits,” said San Francisco-based software engineer Soren LouvJansen in a Mail Online report.

He was curious to see where the “last seen” data was coming from and after doing some research, he

found a list of his Facebook friends’ user IDs and last activity “time stamps”.

This, he added, is embedded in the initial mark-up of Messenger.com and can be viewed by simply visiting the website and clicking “View Source” to see for yourself.

“By creating a simple service that checks Facebook every 10 minutes, I’m able to get an accurate picture of my friends’ Facebook usage,” said Louv-Jansen.

Louv-Jansen published the programme’s source code for his tool on GitHub. GitHub is used by many developers and hackers to put large amounts of information for developer communities to see and take advantage of, the report said.

Can you believe this? Computers Wow! 69 million users view can detect if you’re bored!

Facebook daily in India

This might sound dubious, but it’s true, your computer can tell if you are bored just by reading your body language.

A new study, published online in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, sug-

judge their level of interest.

This can be done by monitoring whether they display the tiny movements that people usually constantly exhibit, known as non-instrumental movements.

According to Dr Witchel, if

gests that computers can be programmed to assess boredom by reading a person’s body language.

Body-language expert Dr Harry Witchel from University of Sussex found that by measuring a person’s movements as they use a computer, it is possible to

someone is absorbed in what they are watching or doing, there is a decrease in these involuntary movements.

“Our study showed that when someone is really highly engaged in what they’re doing, they suppress these tiny involun-

tary movements. It’s the same as when a small child, who is normally constantly on the go, stares gaping at cartoons on the television without moving a muscle,” Dr Witchel explained. “Being able to ‘read’ a person’s interest in a computer program could bring real benefits to future digital learning, making it a much more two-way process,” the author added.

In the study, 27 participants were faced with three-minute computer sessions that ranged from fascinating games to tedious readings from European Union (EU) banking regulations.

At the same time, video motion tracking technology was used to measure their movements.

For two comparable reading tasks, the one that was most engaging resulted in a 42 percent reduction in non-instrumental movement.

Social media network Facebook on Wednesday claimed it had 69 million daily active users (DAU) in India, including 64 million accessing its website on mobile. “In India, we have 69 million DAU, of which 64 million access our site on mobile,” the USbased social network firm said in a statement here.

The platform also boasts of having in India 142 million monthly active users (MAU), including 133 million accessing it on mobile. “Over three million businesses advertise on our site, which is an increase of 50 percent in one year. About 70 percent of them are from outside the US,” the statement revealed. Asserting that it was a bridge to the new mobile economy for small businesses, helping them

communicate with customers anytime, anywhere, the Silicon Valley firm said 50 million of them used its fee pages product to grow. “More than one billion people on Facebook

case their company’s product or service offering to the world.

“As part of the tool, businesses are able to upload their photos from their page, overlay with music

are connected to at least one business.And, in India, 57 percent of people of Facebook are connected to a small business, the statement noted.

Marking the occasion, the company also announced developing ‘Your Business Story’ tool, which makes it easy for owners to show-

and share what they are in the business of doing,” the statement said.

Noting that one billion people on its site were connected to at least one business, the company said the top three verticals building pages were services, local commerce and ecommerce.

Issue 657 (26)

8 March - 14 March 2016

Electric supercar wins young Croatian global fame He's the name behind the world's first electric supercar, winning international plaudits for his ingenuity. But for Croatia’s 28year-old Mate Rimac, it all started as a hobby in his garage.

A keen techie since high school, Rimac was racing an old BMW when he blew the engine and decided to turn the car into an electric one starting with pieces he bought on the Internet. A decade later, his firm Rimac Automobili is becoming a global leader in electric vehicle technology, selling Concept One supercars for 850,000 euros ($923,000) each and giving a muchneeded boost to Croatia’s start-up scene.

‘We want to be the best in the world in what we do and we are changing the world,’ Rimac told AFP in his factory showroom in the small town of Sveta Nedelja, near the Croatian capital. The confident but modest entrepreneur was named by Politico Europe in December as one of 28

people across the continent who are ‘shaping, shaking and stirring Europe’. But mastering the complex technology of electric sports cars and winning financing was no easy task - especially in a small country of 4.3 million

people with no automotive industry. Rimac formed the company in 2009 when he realised there was not much left of the original vehicle he had transformed in his garage, and the aim was to build an electric supercar from scratch.

‘First we had to create a team, then the know-how by trial-and-error method to eventually become a company that could make a product,’ he said.

The company unveiled the Concept One at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show, where nobody expected a small Croatian firm to showcase an electric car that could reach 100 kilometres (62 miles) per hour in a staggering 2.8

seconds. Last week at the Geneva International Motor Show, Rimac introduced the production version of the car along with a prototype of its ‘evil twin’, the even more powerful Concept S. ‘We can't really decide which Rimac creation we'd rather have, so we're off to get lottery tickets with hopes of buying both,’ said a review on motoring news site Autoblog.

Many expected Rimac's

success would lead him to move somewhere else, such as Silicon Valley, Germany or Italy. But instead he has kept the business in Croatia, a country slowly emerging from six years of recession. ‘I want to do it here...

I'm stubborn,’ he said. ‘I think it is possible, I mean we are doing very well.’ He plans to build another factory in Sveta Nedelja, while his employee numbers are set to double this year to 300. Their average age is 30, and many are young engineers straight out of university. They build most of the supercar parts from scratch on-site - from the body and chassis to the power distribution unit and batteries - sticking to Rimac's philosophy of creating know-how and jobs instead of outsourcing.

‘That's why we are growing so quickly and becoming experts in different fields,’ said Rimac, who won financing from three international investors in 2014 and is now in a second round of fundraising.

Scientists discover ghostlike octopus

Washington Scientists have discovered a ‘ghostlike’ octopus in deep water off Hawaii that appears to belong to a previously unknown species, researchers said.

A submersible research craft spotted the small, translucent octopus by chance around 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) underwater off Necker Island on the northwestern end of the Hawaiian Archipelago, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said. ‘As the ROV (remotely operated vehicle) was traversing a flat area of rock interspersed with sediment at 4,290 meters, it came across a remarkable little octopod sitting on a flat rock dusted with a light coat of sediment,’ the NOAA's Michael

Vecchione said. ‘The appearance of this animal was unlike any published records and was the deepest observation ever’ for this type of marine creature, he added, in a statement released on March 2. The octopus - nicknamed ‘Casper the Friendly Ghost’ on social media - was caught on camera by the Okeanos Explorer, which the NOAA uses to explore underwater geology and marine life in little-known parts of the world's oceans. Vecchione said the newly discovered octopus has a single row of suckers on each tentacle instead of the usual two, but is ‘particularly unusual because it lacked the pigment cells, called chromatophores, typical of most cephalopods, and it did not seem very muscular.’

Issue - 657 (27)

8 March - 14 March 2016

Indian-origin store clerk fights off NRI summit in Haryana armed robber in US with hammer cancelled due to jat stir

New York Armed with just a hammer, an Indian-American woman store clerk bravely fought and chased away a man who tried to rob her store at gunpoint, according to a media report.

Bhumika Patel was behind the cash register at her store in Burke County Georgia when the man, identified by authorities as 17-year-old Christian Dakota Thornton approached the counter and instead of paying for the soda bottle he bought, brandished a gun in Patel’s face and demanded that she hand over all the money to him, a report in WRDW-TV Augusta

said.Surveillance video shows that Patel did not hesitate for a moment and took on the robber all by herself.

“I say no I can’t. He say I shoot you! I say go ahead. If you want to shoot me, shoot me!” Patel said in the report recounting the incident.

Patel said she slapped the gun off from his hand and after pushing the gun to the side, she clawed at the man’s hoodie as he tried to grab the money.

She continues to hit the man and grabbing the cash register drawer, begins beating him over the head.

Then as she got her hands on a

New York Google is donating $1 million to fight the spread of the Zika virus and offering engineers and data scientists help to determine where it will hit next. Zika has become an epidemic in Latin America and the Caribbean since last fall. The virus is mainly spread through mosquito bites and has been potentially linked to birth defects.

Google said in a blog post that it is in a good position to assist since its mission is to help people find information, and it has experience analysing large sets of data. The company has seen a more than 3,000% increase in global search interest in Zika since November.

Google operates a group of businesses, including a dominant Internet search engine, under the holding company Alphabet Inc. Google

brought in an operating profit of $6.8 billion in last year’s fourth quarter. The Mountain View, California, company’s grant will go to Unicef and be used to help reduce mosquito populations

Google donates $1 million to help fight Zika virus outbreak

and support the development of diagnostics and vaccines as well as work to prevent virus transmission.

Google’s engineers are helping to build a platform to process data on things like weather and travel patterns to predict potential outbreaks. The company said the platform will be used to help government officials and others to decide where to focus their resources.

hammer, the man fell down and ran out of the store.

Patel said she chased the robber outside the store, hammer still in her hand.

According to the Sheriff’s Office, Dakota is charged with Criminal Attempt Armed Robbery, Aggravated Assault, and Possession of a Firearm during a Crime.

Deputies said the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office helped arrest Thornton at a home in Richmond County after surveillance video deputies said shows him fight with a woman at the convenience store.

Patel said she did not sustain serious injuries in the fight except for a few scratches.People in her neighbourhood are calling her a hero and praising her for fighting off the man with bravery.Patel said she preferred to go down fighting the man instead of letting him rob the store and shoot her.

GURGAON Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Wednesday announced that the ‘Pravasi Bharatiya Divas’ to be held here on March 9 has been cancelled following the jat protests for job quotas that led to widespread violence in the state.Hundreds of Non-Resident Indians (NRI), specially belonging to Haryana, had registered themselves for the event.Khattar said the state had witnessed “unhappy stories and we cannot go forward comfortably with events like an NRI summit though it was a dream event. We will plan it for

Man vandalises gurdwara in US, arrested Washington In an apparent hate crime, a gurdwara in the US state of Washington was vandalised by a “naked” man who desecrated sacred items of the Sikh worship place, drawing condemnation from the community leaders.The incident occurred on Wednesday when Jeffrey C Pittman, 44, broke into the gurdwara in Spokane.

Deputies say that Pittman was arrested early Thursday morning wearing nothing but a sheet taken from the temple’s furnishings. He was also holding the gurdwara’s ceremonial sword.He also desecrated sacred items of the gurdwara.Pittman was booked in Spokane County Jail connection with charges of burglary, malicious mischief and malicious harassment, which is the state’s statute for a hate crime, The Seattle Globalist reported.“All religions should be respected.

Any crime committed due to someone’s religious beliefs will be a priority and fully investigated,” said Spokane Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich in a statement.

“They (deputies) detained Pittman after a short altercation.

The damage is estimated to be

several thousand dollars and there was damage to religiously sacred items of the Temple,” Knezovich said.

Gurdwara priest Gurjwet Singh Augla said he and another man were able to detain the person until police arrived.

“We don’t know the motivations behind the vandalism yet, but we do know that police are treating the case seriously and that the perpetrator has been arrested.

There are no immediate indications that bias was involved,” a statement issued by the gurdwara said.

“No house of worship in America should ever be vandalised. The Sikh articles of faith, which include the turban and beard, show our commitment to

US women more likely to be poor in retirement NEW YORK Women in the United States are 80 percent more likely than men to fall into poverty once they retire because they earned less than men on the job, took time off for their families and tend to live longer, researchers have found.

Income for women age 65 and older is typically 25 percent lower than income for men of the same age, the Washington, D.C.-based National Institute on

Retirement Security (NIRS) said in a report released on Tuesday.

Men’s income is 44 percent more than women’s income by age 80 or older, it said. “The fact that women over 65 are 80 percent more likely than men to fall into poverty in their retirement years is tragic and should be a call to action for policymakers,” Diane Oakley, executive director of the NIRS non-profit research center and co-author of the report, said in

some other time”.He said the cultural programmes scheduled to be presented during the ‘Happening Haryana’ Global Investors Summit on March 7-8 had also been cancelled.

Khattar, however, said the twoday business meet, focused on attracting investment, will be held as per scheduled on March 7 and 8.Properties, business establishments, factories and vehicles belonging to non-Jats were looted and torched at several places in the state. The nine days of violence left 30 people dead and over 200 injured.

a statement.

Analyzing U.S. Census Bureau data, the researchers found women ages 75 to 79 are three times more likely than men to

live in poverty, and widowed women are twice as likely to live in poverty than widowed men.

“Women are financially disadvantaged because we still earn less than men and we typically take time out of our careers for care giving - both of which reduce our ability to prepare for retirement,” Oakley said. Women also need a bigger nest egg for retirement because they tend to live longer than men, she said.

equality, justice and freedom for all. These are not just Sikh values, they are American values,” the statement said.

Rajwant Singh, chairman of the Sikh Council on Religion and Education, expressed shock and anguish over the vandalising of the Sikh gurdwara in Spokane, Washington.

“This is terrible news for Sikhs in the Spokane area and nationwide,” he said.

“This kind of incidents should not become norm for us or for the country,” he said.

“This can change and Americans can appreciate our values once they know that Sikhs believe in equality and tolerance towards other religions,” said Singh, who is also the senior adviser to the National Sikh Campaign.

The incident is the latest in a number of hate crimes against Sikhs in America.

A gurdwara in a suburb has been vandalised with hateful anti-ISIS graffiti in December. In September, a Sikh-American father was viciously assaulted in a suburb outside of Chicago after being called “Bin Laden”.

In 2012, a gunman with NeoNazi ties walked into a Sikh gurdwara and shot and killed six innocent Sikhs in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.

Issue - 657 (28)

8 March - 14 March 2016

Legalised marijuana industry in US poised for major expansion Washington Legal marijuana is becoming more and more entrenched in the United States each year, and 2016 looks to be no exception.

In fact, some observers say it could be a “tipping point” for an ever-growing industry already worth billions of dollars.

By the end of the year, nearly a dozen states will decide whether to legalize marijuana -with seven to determine whether they will allow recreational use.

Already 23 out of 50 states, plus the nation’s capital, allow marijuana in some form, whether for medical or recreational purposes.

At the beginning of 2016, 86% of Americans lived in a state permitting cannabis use in some form.

As acceptance of the drug grows across the United States, so too do sales, which are expected to hit nearly $22 billion by 2020.

“It is going to be a very, very competitive market in the next five years,” said John Kagia, director of industry analytics at New Frontier, a firm specializing in the cannabis business.

While possession, sale and consumption of marijuana remains illegal at the federal level, it is permitted for recreational use in four US states: Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington, plus

the US capital Washington.

According to Kagia, “2016 will be the tipping point” for marijuana, with 11 states slated to decide whether to allow it in one form or another.

The western states of Colorado and Washington pioneered recreational marijuana legalization in 2012, and sales have increased 30 percent per year on average since then in the United States, according to New Frontier and the ArcView Group, another firm focused on analyzing the cannabis industry.

US marijuana sales climbed to $4.6 billion in 2014 and are expected to reach $21.8 billion in 2020, New Frontier says.

The explosion in sales is due mainly to the legalization of recreational marijuana in some states. Although medical marijuana represented 92 percent of all marijuana sales in 2014, its share of the total is expected to fall to 47% in just four years.

Budding entrepreneurs The market for marijuana is in full bloom thanks to burgeoning industrial growing operations, marijuana edibles and a higher demand for equipment from those who want to grow -- or consume -- cannabis at home.

And while entrepreneurs see dollar signs behind every joint rolled, so too do state governments that stand to reap massive gains in the form of

US man shoots himself dead while taking selfie with gun

SAN FRANCISCO In a bizarre incident, a 43-yearold man in the US shot and killed himself accidentally while taking a selfie with a gun in hand.The man from Concrete, Washington, who has not been named, accidentally shot himself in the face with what he thought was an unloaded gun.

The man and his girlfriend were at home taking photos of themselves with the gun when the incident occurred on Sunday, Skagit County Sheriff’s Office Chief of Patrol Chad Clark was quoted as saying by the Skagit Valley Herald.

The girlfriend reported that the pair had done this several times during the day, with the man apparently removing the bullets and then reloading the gun multiple times.After the last time, however, a bullet apparently remained in the gun, Clark said.

The death is being investigated as accidental, Clark said.

The Washington man is not the first to accidentally shoot himself while taking a selfie, or even the first to die doing so.

Last year, a 19-year-old from Houston died while taking pictures of himself with a gun and posting them on Instagram.

He too thought the gun was unloaded when he held it to his head for a photo.It has been reported that more people die while attempting to take selfies than in shark attacks.At least 27 people reportedly died in “selfie-related” incidents around the world last year.

In Russia, where a woman almost died after inadvertently shooting herself while posing for a photo with a gun she had found, the ministry of internal affairs published a brochure instructing citizens on safe selfie habits.

taxes.

Last year, Colorado earned some $135 million in taxes and licensing fees on nearly $1 billion in marijuana sales, according to The Denver Post.

marijuana advocates celebrated the city’s one-year anniversary on Friday for legalizing marijuana.

But the US Congress, which has some authority in the

The state of Washington, meanwhile, took in $70 million on statewide marijuana revenue totaling $257 million, a number that came in lower than expected after a marijuana shortage.

As America falls for marijuana, competition has become increasingly fierce, and the variation in regulations and taxes from state to state has given rise to some tension.

The amount of marijuana a person can grow varies as well, with up to four plants allowed in Oregon and six plants in Colorado, but none in the state of Washington.

Six plants are allowed in the US capital Washington, where

capital’s local governance, has prevented the city from regulating its marijuana market, which means buying and selling marijuana is still illegal.

The next president, who will be elected in November, could tip the balance in either direction at the federal level, experts told AFP at a marijuana tradeshow called CannaShow, held just over a week ago in Washington.

Fight against discrimination For those entering the marijuana industry, the market has sparked particular worries and uncertainties such as the fact that all payments must be made in cash since banking services are not extended to the marijuana industry, the risk of

Congressional intervention or even a price war.

Moreover growing cannabis, or “cannaculture” as it is called, is a costly endeavor, with plants needing gallons of water and a constantly warm environment, and thus electricity.

According to New Frontier, cannabis is the greediest of crops in terms of electricity, accounting for one percent of all electricity used in the US (the same amount as 1.7 million homes) at an annual cost of $6 billion.

Electricity accounts for up to 50% of the wholesale price of cannabis.

Despite these pitfalls, marijuana proponents are quick to point out that legalization of the substance has its societal virtues, such as putting an end to some discriminatory arrests.

In the US capital, for example, 91% of those arrested for marijuana-related offenses before legalization were black.

Legalizing marijuana also keeps down overcrowding of courts and prisons.

Retired Baltimore police commander Neill Franklin, who is part of the advocacy group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, an organization of officers who speak out against current drug policy, said that 500,000 to 600,000 people are arrested each year for cannabis in the United States.

SAN FRANCISCO The Pentagon said on Wednesday it would invite vetted outside hackers to test the cyber security of some public US Defense Department websites as part of a pilot project next month, in the firstever such program offered by the federal government.

“Hack the Pentagon” is modeled after similar competitions known as “bug bounties” that are conducted by big U.S. companies, including United Continental Holdings Inc to discover gaps in the security of their networks. Such programs allow cyber experts to find and identify problems before malicious hackers can exploit them, saving money and time in the event of damaging network breaches.

“I am confident that this innovative initiative will strengthen our digital defenses and ultimately enhance our national security,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in a statement unveiling the pilot program.

One senior defense official said thousands of qualified participants were expected to join the initiative. Details and rules were still being worked out but the competition could involve monetary awards, the Pentagon said. The Pentagon has long tested its own networks using

internal so-called “red teams,” but this initiative would open at least some of the department’s vast network of computer systems to cyber challenges from across industry and academia.

Participants must be U.S. citizens and will have to register

The initiative is being led by the Pentagon’s Defense Digital Service (DDS), which was set up last November to bring experts from the U.S. technology industry into the military for short stints. “Bringing in the best talent, technology and processes from the private

and submit to a background check before being turned loose on a predetermined publicfacing computer system, the Pentagon said. It said other more sensitive networks or key weapons programs would not be included, at least initially.

“The goal is not to comprise any aspect of our critical systems, but to still challenge our cybersecurity in a new and innovative way,” said the official.

sector ... helps us deliver comprehensive, more secure solutions to the DOD,” said Chris Lynch, a former Microsoft executive and technology entrepreneur who heads DDS. Carter introduced Lynch during a speech to the Commonwealth Club on Tuesday and said he had already recruited coders from companies like Google and Shopify for a Pentagon “tour of duty.”

US military invites experts to ‘Hack the Pentagon’

Issue - 657 (29)

8 March - 14 March 2016

Facebook to pay millions of pounds more in UK tax Silicon Valley Facebook is set to pay millions of pounds more in tax in the UK after a major overhaul of its tax structure.

After heavy criticism that it was avoiding tax, the BBC can reveal that profits from the majority of Facebook’s advertising revenue initiated in Britain will now be taxed in the UK. It will no longer route sales through Ireland for its largest advertisers. That includes major businesses such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s, consumer goods firm Unilever and advertising giant WPP. Smaller business sales where advertising is booked online with little or no Facebook staff intervention - will still be routed through Ireland, which will remain the company’s international headquarters.

I am told the change will mean that Facebook will account for substantially more revenue in the UK and will therefore pay a higher level of corporation tax on the profits it makes here.

Corporation tax is levied at 20% on the profits a business makes.

The changes will be put in place in April and Facebook’s first, higher, tax bill, will be paid in 2017. My sources tell me that Facebook moved after coming under increasing global pressure on its tax affairs and as a reaction to changing tax rules.

There was widespread controversy when it was revealed that Facebook paid £4,327 in corporation tax in the UK in 2014, despite Britain being one of the company’s biggest markets outside the US. Globally, the company makes more than £1bn of profit every three months. It does not reveal figures for how much business it does in the UK. The government’s new diverted profits tax was also likely to have a punitive effect on the business in Britain.

That tax is set at 25%, higher than the corporation tax rate, and is aimed at companies

World’s costliest train station to open at 9/11 site NEW YORK New York on Thursday opens the most expensive train station in the world, on the site of the World Trade Center destroyed

14 years ago in the 9/11 attacks.Twelve years in the making, there will be no official ceremony to mark the 3 pm opening to rail commuters of the World Trade Center Transportation Hub next to the site of the Twin Towers, which were destroyed in the Al-Qaeda hijackings.The center connects the PATH commuter rail to New Jersey with New York subway lines, provides indoor pedestrian

access to the Trade Center towers and will also house an enormous shopping and restaurant plaza.The building, designed by Spanish-Swiss architect Santiago Calatrava and called Oculus, is a giant oval made up of steel ribs and glass laid out in elliptical shape, reaching for the sky like wings of a bird.

The space measures 350 feet (107 meters) long by 115 feet (35 meters) at its widest point, according to Calatrava’s website.Thursday is only a partial opening and the shops are slated to open in August. In the 12 years since the project was unveiled, it has been heavily criticized not just for its appearance but also for spiralling so drastically off budget and closing seven years behind schedule.

which use ‘contrived’ structures to move profits out of the country. Facebook executives will be told about the changes this morning.

‘On Monday, we will start

transparency to Facebook’s operations in the UK. ‘The new structure is easier to understand and clearly recognises the value our UK organisation adds to our sales

notifying large UK customers that from the start of April, they will receive invoices from Facebook UK and not Facebook Ireland,’ the internal post, seen by the BBC, says. ‘What this means in practice is that UK sales made directly by our UK team will be booked in the UK, not Ireland. Facebook UK will then record the revenue from these sales. ‘In light of changes to tax law in the UK, we felt this change would provide

through our highly skilled and growing UK sales team.’

At this stage, it is not possible to say precisely how much tax Facebook will pay.

It is not under any regulatory obligation to reveal the size of its UK business until it reaches 10% of its global operations, which generate revenues of nearly $18bn (£12.7bn) a year.

But the importance of Britain to Facebook is revealed by the fact it employs 850 people in the UK

and is building a new headquarters in London.

Facebook has now said that those staff are doing ‘valueadded’ work, a key issue in the setting of tax rates.

Before this new structure, Facebook’s UK revenues were based on a fee payment from Facebook Ireland, which meant that its actual sales here did not affect its tax bill. That is a similar structure to Google UK, which is paid by its US parent firm for operations in Britain.

Google has also faced controversy over its tax affairs.

In January, the BBC revealed that the search giant would pay £130m in back taxes after an inquiry by the tax authority, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. My Facebook sources insist that this move is not a reaction to the Google settlement and has been planned ‘for some time’.

There has been speculation that Facebook is also the subject of an inquir y by HMRC over its tax structure, but the social media giant has refused to confirm or deny there is any live process. I am told the company’s new structure has been discussed with HMRC, although there is no formal ‘agreement’ with the tax authority.

Teenager shoots his family because they told him to get out of bed and go to school NEW YORK A 16-year-old boy from Tennessee had an extreme reaction when his family told him to get out of bed and go to school - he shot them.On Tuesday morning the teenager, who has not been identified, became angry that his grandmother, Eearline Hill, and his mother, Sheryl Williams, told him to get his day started, according to a police statement.

The teenager threatened the two women and then got his handgun, which no one knew he owned. He then fired several shots in the family home, police said.“There was a quarrel about

getting up and getting ready for the day when [at some point] the 16-year-old ran to a closet, got a 9 mm handgun and started

firing,” Nashville police spokeswoman Kris Mumford said, as reported by the Tennessean.Bullets hit his 67year-old grandmother twice, while his 12-year-old sister and 6-year-old nephew - his older sister’s son - were reportedly

grazed by gunfire. The boy allegedly tried to shoot his mother, 42, in the living room but she ducked behind the sofa to avoid being hit.He fled the home and tossed the gun away at a nearby apartment. Metro Schools spokesman Joe Bass said six nearby schools were placed on lockdown. Police later retrieved the gun and captured the teenager, who was walking near a set of railway tracks.He has been charged with four counts of attempted homicide and one count of reckless endangerment. He refused to speak with domestic violence detectives.

US wants UN resolution on peacekeepers accused of sex abuse United Nations The United States is preparing a draft Security Council resolution to expel peacekeepers facing sex abuse allegations from UN missions if no action is taken by their countries to investigate or prosecute them, officials said on Friday.

It would mark the first time the Security Council considers a formal measure taking aim at the worrying rise of such claims against peacekeepers.

“The point of our resolution is to send a strong signal that the Security Council will not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse in UN peacekeeping,” said a US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

UN Secretary-General Ban Kimoon has already ordered the repatriation of troops from the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo following such allegations in the Central African Republic.

The draft resolution would endorse Ban’s new policy of expelling peacekeepers and barring countries from peacekeeping if no action is taken to address allegations of such serious crimes.

Under UN rules, it is up to the country that contributes troops to investigate and prosecute those accused of misconduct while serving under the UN flag.

A US official said the Security Council resolution could use “the leverage of repatriation to really get member-states and TCCs

(troop-contributing countries) to take this with the utmost seriousness that they should.”

No date has been set to present the new package of measures, but the official said: “We want to move as quickly as we can.”

The United States is the biggest financial contributor to UN

peacekeeping, funding 28 percent of the UN’s USD 8.3 billion-budget for such purposes, followed by Japan and France.

Diplomats said the 15-member council was expected to discuss on March 11 a report

by Ban that detailed 69 allegations last year against

peacekeepers from 21 countries, mostly in Africa.

The 69 allegations represent a “marked increase” from 52 in 2014 and 66 the previous year, said the report obtained

by AFP that described the increase as “deeply concerning.”At least 22 children were sexually abused by peacekeepers, according to the report, but that figure may be higher as the age of the victims was not always determined.

Two UN missions accounted for the majority of claims: the MINUSCA force in the Central African Republic and MINUSCO in the Democratic Republic of Congo. But there were also cases in Ivory Coast, Mali and six other missions.

Issue - 657 (30)

8 March - 14 March 2016

Sri Srinivasan nominated for US SC judge WASHINGTON Indian-American Sri Srinivasan, who enjoys a substantial support among Republicans, is among the three candidates being vetted by US President Barack Obama as potential nominees for a rare vacancy at the Supreme Court.

“President Obama is vetting Merrick B Garland and Sri Srinivasan, federal appellate judges who have enjoyed substantial support from Republicans in the past, as potential nominees for a Supreme Court vacancy that has set off a brutal election-year fight,” The New York Times reported today.

According to a person knowledgeable about the process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because it has been cloaked in secrecy, Judge Garland, 63, and Judge Srinivasan, 49, are undergoing background checks by the FBI, it said.

The White House has not given any indication in this regard. The report, however, said that the White House was also vetting Ketanji Brown Jackson, 45, a federal trial judge.

Following the death of Antonin Scalia, the first Italian American judge of the Supreme Court,

early this month, there is a rare vacancy in the country’s top court.

Padmanabhan Srikanth “Sri” Srinivasan, is currently the US Circuit Judge of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit - which many call as a stepping stone to the Supreme Court.

He is not only considered a favourite of Obama, who called him a trailblazer, but also his nomination was confirmed by a record 97-0 votes, which is a no mean achievement given the bitter political divide in the American Senate.

Srinivasan was sworn-in as judge of the second-most powerful court of the US on September 26, 2013, making him the first Indian-American to be on the bench of the US Courts of Appeal for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Retired Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor has called Srinivasan “fair, faultless and fabulous.” Srinivasan began his legal career by serving as a law clerk from 1995 to 1996. He then spent a year as a Bristow Fellow in the Office of the Solicitor General before clerking for Justice O’Connor during the Supreme Court’s 1997-98 term.

He was an associate at the law

Man given ‘wrong keys’ by hotel sues after getting into bed with nine-year-old girl Washington A man is suing a hotel for handing him the wrong keys to his room in a mix-up that saw him climb into bed with a nineyear-old girl - and eventually

lose his highly paid job.Daniel Hughes is filing a lawsuit against the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Missouri claiming staff handed him the key without checking his identification, which led to him getting into bed with the child.He was subsequently taken to court on allegations of child abuse, according to the St Louis Post Dispatch.

Although he was later acquitted of three counts of child molestation and one count of statutory sodomy, Hughes says he lost a $480,000-a-year job projected to rise to more than $1 million by this year - in the process.

His lawsuit against the hotel, and its owners Maritz, Wolff and Co, claims hotel staff failed to conduct “any reasonable and customary key-security precautions that are standard within the hotel industry, and particularly within the luxury hotel market to which the Ritz Carlton belongs”.The case itself, which took place in 2011,

was described by St Louis jurors as “difficult”, according to the St Louis Dispatch.Hughes, then 42, was staying at the hotel for a business conference and was believed to have consumed about 13 drinks when he confused his hotel room numbers and tried his key on the wrong door.Believing it not to be working, he returned to the hotel reception where staff gave him a key to the room he said was his - but which in fact had a nine-year-old girl sleeping inside. He then got into bed with her.Members of the jury were asked to decide whether the girl’s claim that he had touched her inappropriately could be proven or not. Neither of his claims that he thought she was a young woman he had met earlier, and that he was intoxicated, were legitimate defences for the act, jurors were instructed.However, prosecutors were unable to prove he had touched the girl and the jury cleared him. Defence attorney Scott Rosenblum told the St Louis Post Dispatch: “The whole case, at the end, was left in my view to just massive speculation and innuendo, and that’s not enough.”Hughes settled a lawsuit filed by the girl’s parents for $50,000 in 2014 and filed the new lawsuit against the hotel two weeks ago.The Independent has contacted the Ritz Carlton Hotel and Maritz, Wolff and Co in St Louis for comment.

firm of O’Melveny & Myers LLP in Washington, DC, from 1998 until 2002.In 2002, he returned to the Solicitor General’s Office

Stanford Graduate School of Business, which he received along with his JD in 1995.

Srinivasan’s mother is from

as an assistant to the Solicitor General, representing the United States in litigation before the Supreme Court.

He received the Attorney General’s Award for Excellence in Furthering US National Security in 2003, and the Office of the Secretary of Defence Award for Excellence in 2005.

Srinivasan received his BA with honours and distinction in 1989 from Stanford University and his JD with distinction in 1995 from Stanford Law School, where he was elected to Order of the Coif and served as an editor of Stanford Law Review.

He also holds an MBA from the

Chennai and father was from Tirunelveli. His parents came to the US in the 1960s, returned to India, and then returned to Kansas in 1971.

Woman who spent two decades searching for her mother discovers she already knows her A 40-year-old woman spent two decades searching for her mother, only to find that she used to work with her.

Jenny Thomas, from New York, appeared on TLC’s reality TV show Long Lost Family in an attempt to find her mother, whom she believed she hadn’t seen since she was adopted at

the age of four.

A preview for the show, which airs on Sunday, shows Ms Thomas being handed a photo of her mother and exclaiming “Oh my God, I know her!”

Ms Thomas spoke to the New York Post about her experience, and explained that she had worked for two years alongside the woman who she would later found out was her birth mother.

Ms Thomas frequently interacted with her mother, Nita Valdez, at a hospital where she worked part time as a care technician. She told the Post that the two frequently interacted at work.

“I had looked in so many faces for so many years, [thinking] ‘Could that be her? Is she looking at me because she knows me?’” Ms Thomas told the Post. “All the while I had looked at the woman who once knew me as her daughter.”

Ms Thomas said that she had not felt any kind of instinctual connection towards the woman, but they did get on well. She Ms Valdez would laugh at her jokes, but that said “We never went past a working-professional relationship at all.”Ms Thomas’s story will be told alongside that of 15 others trying to find their parents on Long Lost Family.

Pakistan SIT might want to question Gurdaspur SP in Pathankot case New Delhi A Pakistani team probing the attack on the Pathankot airbase might seek to question a top Punjab police official who was allegedly abducted and let-off by the group of militants involved in the strike at the defence installation.

Seven Indian security personnel and six militants, believed to be from the Pakistan-based Jaish-eMohammed (JeM), were killed during the 84-hour siege of the airbase in January.

After New Delhi shared with Islamabad a set of phone numbers allegedly used by the militants, Pakistan proposed to send a special investigation team (SIT) to India.Besides questioning the Gurdaspur superintendent of police Salvinder Singh, the SIT may also seek access to the airbase, this writer learnt during a recent visit to Islamabad.The police official was interrogated by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) several times after doubts were raised about the sequence of events he narrated on his abduction and release.India has agreed to receive the SIT on a five-day notice before its arrival.

“They have to prove their bona fide by arriving for investigation against the real culprits,” a top official in New Delhi told Hindustan Times.

Islamabad recently registered an FIR on the basis of the

telephone numbers shared by India.

Pakistan foreign minister Sartaz Aziz confirmed that one of the numbers was traced to the JeM whose leader Masood Azhar is

evidence.

“We are satisfied with the sections of law they have invoked in the FIR. We expect them to specify during their visit here the names (of

in custody in Pakistan.

Pakistan’s interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan stated at a press conference on February 21 that the probe in his country focused on finding linkages, if any, between telephone numbers and names informally furnished by India of individuals suspected of planning the attack.

“The FIR mentions phone numbers provided by India. We will see if there is any linkage between the phone numbers and persons (informally) named

by India as also those we detained at our end in connection with the attack,” the minister said.

New Delhi expects the Pak probe team to name organisations and individuals against whom it needed further

individuals and organisations) that have come up in their probe,” the Indian official said.

He said the SIT has sufficient material to proceed against those involved in the attack.

“We are ready to help them strengthen their case by furnishing affidavits (detailing the Indian probe), photographs, DNA test and finger print reports of terrorists who attacked the airbase.”

Once trusts develops with exchange of credible information, a foolproof case tenable in their courts could be jointly built by allowing crossexamination of Indian witnesses through videoconferencing with the caveat that the court proceedings are not closed door, said the official.

Issue - 657 (31)

8 March - 14 March 2016

IS hackers target Google but deface an Indian firm’s website

London Hackers affiliated to the Islamic State terror group who promised to take down international search engine giant Google instead targeted a small Indian tech firm, according to a media report.Cyber Caliphate Army (CCA), a hacking group affiliated to the IS, hit www.addgoogleonline.com registered by Gandani K for Indian tech firm Always Say, which offers search engine optimisation (SEO) services to local clients.According to vocative.com website, CCA had vowed on messaging app Telegram that they would attack Google on Monday.“We promised to hack Google. Keep the promise inshallah (God willing), expect us today,” the group declared.However, the website claims that a few hours later, they had instead defaced the website www.addgoogleonline.com, which is completely unrelated to the Silicon Valley-based Google.After it was hacked, the website played an Islamic State (IS) song in French and

displaced the official logo along with a sign saying “Hacked By: CCA”.The CCA’s “defacement of the website” was short-lived as yet another hacker group called “n3far1ous” wiped out the IS message and replaced it with an “Eat this, ISIS” message and a rock tune playing in the background.The ”n3far1ous” message was still on display on Thursday.The CCA allegedly hacked into 35 British websites, which appear to be a random mix of relatively small British businesses, media reports said.The websites hacked into include a Japanese dance instructor’s website, a company selling furniture and laminate flooring and a salon.IS hackers allegedly said that the attacks were “A message to David Cameron” as revenge for the killing of British Muslim terrorist Junaid Hussain, who was killed in a US-led air strike last year.The attacks follow pro-IS hackers’ threats that they would target the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey for shutting down their social media accounts.

Washington India on Friday sternly told a US body which has for long acted as a watchdog on religious freedom around the world that it

bipartisan US federal government commission, wanted to send a team to India to, as it said in its statement, “discuss and assess religious

Haryana’s Jat violence like 1984, says Sukhbir CHANDIGARH Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal has compared the recent violence in Haryana for Jat reservation to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. In an exclusive interview to TOI, he has also said that such riots have continued in the country because the perpetrators of the 1984 violence were not booked and given exemplary punishment and even hinted that the Haryana government was not doing enough.Punjab Congress chief Captain Amarinder Singh had recently commented that non-Jats, especially Punjabis, were targeted during the violence in Haryana and that Shiromani Akali Dal had remained a mute spectator to it. But Sukhbir said, “I strongly condemn what happened there. It is something like what happened in 1984 against the Sikhs. Whoever is guilty has to be put behind bars.

Nobody has the right (to commit such acts of violence).”

He lamented over the slow rate of convictions in caste and religion related violence.

“Unfortunately in our country no one has been convicted for such violence. It is just like 1984.

Here also (in Haryana) I’ve seen that over the last few years nobody has been identified or put behind bars. From the newspapers I have read so far, it has not clearly come out how many people have been arrested. If they don’t put these

people (the rioters) behind bars, then these things will keep happening. You have to set an example. What happened in 1984? Nothing happened. That is why a lot of other riots took

care about repercussions because they should first give a clear message by putting behind bars anyone who is involved.”

He said rioters are often given legalised protection in the

place. People feel that in a riot you can do anything.”The deputy chief minister also said that the Haryana government hasn’t booked enough people to deter such violence in the future.

“The arrests that they are showing are not the kind of numbers that have looted Haryana and caused extensive damage,” he said. “I think the Haryana government should not

country. “The only way to stop such violence is for every state and central government to take firm action. I believe that the punishment should be exemplary - not that you put someone behind bars for a week and then bail and everything is normal. They (the rioters) have ruined lives of people. They have ruined businesses that were built over years.”

NEW DELHI As India gives visa-on-arrival to the Japanese, Tokyo has responded by further relaxing conditions for multiple-entry visas for short-term stay for ordinary Indian passport holders.Last month, it extended the validity period of such visas from a maximum of three years to five years. It also increased duration of visit on multiple entry visas,including tourism and business, to 30 days from the earlier 15. The relaxation is based on an understanding reached between the two countries during Japanese PM Shinzo Abe’s visit to India in December 2015.

After Abe’s meeting with PM Narendra Modi, India and Japan issued a joint statement which, among other things, recognised the importance of facilitating exchanges between people of the two countries by

“simplifying their visa procedures for nationals of each other”. As per the relaxed visa norms, according to Japan authorities, eligibility for multiple-entry visas has been expanded to include people with travel records to Japan for shortterm visit in the past three years and those with travel records as temporary visitor to any other G7 countries.The validity of visas for business purposes and also for “cultural and intellectual figures’’ has been extended from 5 to 10 years. Japan had introduced multiple-entry visas for Indian nationals in July 2014 as an acknowledgement that strengthening people-to-people exchanges was important to broaden its relationship with India.Relaxation of visa norms is important at a time when the two countries are looking to deepen their economic partnership.

Japan relaxes visa rules for Indians

India tells US body on religious freedom it has no ‘locus stand’

has no “locus standi” to either comment on or judge the country.Responding to a statement issued by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom complaining its members were denied visas to visit India, the Indian embassy here said: “We do not see the locus standi of a foreign entity like USCIRF to pass its judgment and comment on the state of Indian citizens’ constitutionally protected rights.”

The USCIRF, which describes itself as an independent,

freedom conditions in that nation”.It said the team, scheduled to leave for India on March 4, had the support of the US state department and the US embassy in India.

“We are deeply disappointed by the Indian government’s denial, in effect, of these visas,” said USCIRF chairman Robert P George in the statement. “As a pluralistic, non-sectarian, and democratic state, and a close partner of the United States, India should have the confidence to allow our visit.”

The USCIRF has been critical

of India on religious freedom and said in its 2015 annual report, “Since the election (of 2014), religious minority communities have been subject to derogatory comments by politicians linked to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and numerous violent attacks and forced conversions by Hindu nationalist groups, such as Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP).”

New Delhi typically ignores these reports, which, by the commission’s brief, are meant as a resource for the US President, state department and Congress.

But it felt compelled to react after the body issued a statement complaining about the refusal of visas to the delegation planning to visit India.

“There is no change in the policy of the Government of India with respect to such visits,” the embassy said in its statement.

“India is a vibrant pluralistic society founded on strong democratic principles. The Indian Constitution guarantees fundamental rights to all its citizens including the right to freedom of religion.”

Issue - 657 (32)

8 March - 14 March 2016

‘Techie’ transgender woman Bhindranwale poster Complainant Jagdeep Singh reduced to begging in Delhi Gill an ardent Beant fan New Delhi A Moga village resident, Jagdeep Singh Gill (31), who filed a complaint against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, for his posters with Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindrawala is an ardent admirer of late Chief Minister, Beant Singh, who he claims is the “holiest of all martyrs who laid down his life to eradicate terrorism from Punjab.”

Claiming himself to be a close friend of Ludhiana Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu, the grandson of Beant Singh, Gill also says he looks up to Punjab Congress President Capt Amarinder Singh for his stand against sharing of Punjab waters.

Gill filed a complaint in a Ludhiana court on Wednesday against Kejriwal and other AAP leaders including Bhagwant Mann, Sanjay Singh and Sucha Singh Chottepur. “I filed the complaint on my own. Believe me, I am not playing into any political hands,” he said, stating he was inspired to file a complaint when Bittu raised the matter in Lok Sabha, referring to the photograph of Bhindranwale in a Kejriwal poster which is at the centre of the complaint. “Despite Bittu raising it, AAP did not even deny it,” he said, claiming to be unaware that Kejriwal had denied that AAP had anything to do with the poster.

Bittu told The Indian Express he had met Gill a couple of times.

“Last time I met him was in Ludhiana. After that we have not been in touch,” he said. Gill lives in Talwandi Mallian village in Moga. Though he is a Sikh, he did not like Bhindranwale,

HEBRON Palestinian students at an elementary school for the blind in

Hebron are concerned the use of music in the classroom is not in harmony with Islamic

because “he pushed Punjab back a 100 years.” Asked why he had never reacted to Bhindranwala’s pictures that appear in many other posters in Punjab, Gill said people in Punjab were getting swayed by Kejriwal’s stories. “I just want to tell them to choose their party as carefully as they would choose a life partner. Look at Punjab Congress President, Capt Amarinder Singh. He almost gave up his post for Punjab’s waters. I am not saying you should vote for him. But I am just quoting an example”.

Palestinians teach blind students English via music

the West Bank are learning English through song.For the youngsters, it’s a welcome departure from the usual braille textbooks and memorising the rules of grammar. “In specific subjects, I like to motivate them (to learn) so I teach them grammar or vocabulary by creating a song, because they feel better and they keep repeating it,” said Hind AlTamimi.“We are dealing with students with special needs, they are blind or visually impaired, so we urge them to depend on their hearing sense more than their sense of touch that they use in braille.” But while students said they were delighted with the new curriculum, some parents in the religiously conservative town of

tradition.Rashid Rashid, Englishlanguage studies supervisor at the Palestinian Ministry of Education, said he has been assuring families that music can be a positive learning tool. “The people think that the musical methods and singing may lead to dancing, so they may not accept it,” he said. “Before we adopted this method at all of the schools, we chose 25 schools and made it clear to the headmasters that the musical method is not taboo and not shameful.”

Scientific studies have shown that musical sounds enhance neuroplasiticity, or the brain’s ability to adapt and change as a result of training and experience, making learning easier.

New Delhi Kiran Sakhi, a transgender woman has been reduced to begging in the national capital and living in a state of penury after she lost her job and faced discrimination in the society.

Kiran, a post-graduate degree holder in computer science from Punjab University, lost her job two years ago for embracing her identity as a transgender and since then, she has had to resort to begging to sustain herself.“The company where I was working accepted me as a transgender, then after two months I began to feel uncomfortable. I couldn’t get along with my junior colleagues at that time. I could not work with them. I became a laughing stock for them. On March 6, 2014, I resigned forcibly and got myself out, even though my human resources and directors motivated me to continue over there,” Sakhi told ANI. Asserting that she barely reaches the interview stage when she applies for a job due to her gender, she said that she

was now begging for a living while at the same time applying for jobs. She also thanked the hijra community that they took her under their wings and treated her as a family member.

Due to their lack of access to

jobs and education, many of India’s male-to-female transgenders -also known as ‘hijras’ - are forced to work as sex workers or beg on the streets.“I faced a lot of difficulties, I did sex work, begging, I did everything I could to make ends meet. I didn’t have these feelings before; life was pretty simple back then.

But since I became a transgender, then I realized how tough life is. Now I am begging in Delhi, life is tough and it is difficult to survive but overall I

am happy,” said Sakhi.

In April 2014, the Supreme Court recognised transgender as a legal third gender and, in a landmark judgment lauded by human rights groups, called on the government to ensure their equal treatment.

The court ruling recognised the community as a marginalised group and directed authorities to implement policies to improve their socio-economic status.

This means all identity documents, including birth certificates, passports and driving licenses must recognise the third gender and the government must allocate a certain number of public sector jobs, seats in schools and colleges to third gender applicants, say lawyers.

But while the judgment was been welcomed by campaigners, it is not being implemented across the country.Activists say the ruling is contradicted by the court’s reinstatement of a gay sex ban that does not recognise their right to sexual relationships.

10 terrorists have entered Gujarat: Pakistan’s NSA PATHANKOT Gujarat was put on a state of high alert on Saturday following an intelligence input from Pakistan’s National Security Adviser (NSA) Nasir Khan Janjua to his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval that 10 terrorists had entered the state to carry out strikes.

Intelligence agencies believe this infiltration is aimed at creating disturbances on or around Shivaratri which falls on Monday. Pakistan’s NSA has informed that these are fidayeen from the Lashkar-E-Taiba and Jaish-eMuhammed cadres.

Following Doval’s communication to Gujarat, security has been stepped up at sensitive installations, places of worship and public places.

This is the first time that Pakistan has shared such specific intelligence.

All security agencies in Gujarat have been placed on a state of

high alert and despatched to specific locations which are vulnerable. The state director

leaves of all police officers and personnel till further directives.

In an order signed late on

general of police P C Thakur convened an emergency meeting on the issue and alerts were sounded off in all major cities and districts.The DGP issued a notification cancelling

Saturday night, Thakur directed that police officers on leave should resume duty . Sources said the directive underscores the fact that state is taking the terror input very seriously.A highlevel meeting of top cops and senior government officials was also held at the secretariat to discuss the plan of action in wake of the specific terror input.

Meanwhile, in Pathankot, Western Army Commander Lt Gen K J Singh told reporters, “There are security-related problems today. You know, Maha Shivratri is coming. There are inputs which are disturbing but notwithstanding that extra care has been taken.”When asked to elaborate on the inputs, he refused but said such events are planned to create “maximum media impact” given the fact that the Parliament session is on and a major festival is round the corner.

Teacher booked for showing obscene video clips to students Muzaffarnagar An assistant teacher at a government school in Muzaffarnagar was arrested for allegedly showing objectionable video clips to the students, police said on Friday.

A case was registered against Ram Kumar, a Shiksha Mitra, following complaints from the parents, SHO Shoeb Miyan said. Meanwhile, villagers were demanding removal of the

teacher.

District Basic Shiksha Adhikari Sateneder Kumar said that a

probe has been ordered into the incident and strict action would be taken against him if found guilty.

Issue - 657 (33)

8 March - 14 March 2016

Complete 520 million-year-old nervous system found London An international team of researchers has discovered a 520 million-year-old fossilised nervous system in China, which is so well-preserved that even individual nerves are visible, helping unravel how the nervous system evolved in early animals.

Considered the most complete and best example yet found, the nervous system is of a crustacean-like animal that lived more than 500 million years ago. It is the first time this level of detail has been observed in a fossil from this age, experts say.

The findings, published in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” journal, are helping researchers understand how the nervous system of arthropods creepy crawlies with jointed legs evolved, a release from the University of Cambridge said.

The animal, called Chengjiangocaris kunmingensis, lived during the Cambrian “explosion”, a period of rapid evolutionary development about half a billion years ago when most major animal groups first appear in the fossil record.

C kunmingensis belongs to a group of animals called fuxianhuiids, and was an early ancestor of modern arthropods the diverse group that includes insects, spiders and crustaceans, the researchers from UK, China and Germany said.“This is a unique glimpse into what the ancestral nervous system looked like,” said study co-author Javier OrtegaHernández of the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology. “It’s the most complete example of a central nervous system from the Cambrian period.”C kunmingensis looked

like a sort of crustacean, with a broad, almost heart-shaped head shield, and a long body with pairs of legs of varying sizes. Through careful

Four men charged in Canada for selling stolen satellite tech to China Ottowa Canadian federal police has charged an American, a Briton and two Canadians with stealing sensitive satellite imaging technology and selling it to China in violation of export laws.Two of them stole the sensor from their employer Teledyne Dalsa of Waterloo, Ontario with help from a former employee, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.They then sold it to two Chinese firms, one of them stateowned, in violation of the

Canadian Controlled Goods Program and other laws.

The fourth accused works for one of the Chinese companies allegedly involved in the scheme.

The microelectronics were “intended for space satellite

World’s longest flight lands in Auckland

Wellington An Emirates Airbus A380 touched down in New Zealand on Wednesday, completing what is believed to be the world’s longest non-stop scheduled commercial flight.

The service from Dubai to Auckland covered 14,200 kilometres (8,824 miles), according to industry website airwaysnews.com, pipping Qantas’ 13,800-kilometre Sydney-Dallas route launched in 2014. It said the route was also the longest in duration, with passengers set to spend 17 hours 15 minutes in the air during the return leg from Auckland to Dubai.

However, that record is expected to be short-lived because Emirates’ upcoming DubaiPanama City service will take 17 hours 35 minutes when it launches later this month.

Emirates described it as “one

of the longest air routes in the world by distance”. “But with the assistance of clever technology and good planning, passengers will get to their destination in the shortest possible time,” it said. ”Emirates will be using flexible routes, which can vary by day, taking advantage of tail winds and avoiding head winds to reduce the time in the air.” The inaugural Dubai-Auckland flight was made by an A380 but the regular service will be carried out using the Boeing 777. New Zealand Transport Minister Simon Bridges said the nonstop service, which cuts three hours off current DubaiAuckland travel times, improved New Zealand’s connectivity to the rest of the world. “Direct flights will encourage even more trade and tourism between our two countries, by offering more choice to passengers and freight customers,” he said.

use,” the RCMP said in a statement on? Monday.“This investigation is an example of foreign governments having an interest in Canadian-based controlled technology and it highlights the RCMP’s commitment to keeping Canadian’s safe from the potential misuse of that technology,” RCMP Superintendent Jamie Jagoe said.

preparation of the fossils, which involved chipping away the surrounding rock with a fine needle, the researchers were able to view not only the hard parts of the body, but fossilised soft tissue as well.

Like modern arthropods, C kunmingensis had a nerve cord which is analogous to a spinal cord in vertebrates running throughout its body, with each one of the bead-like ganglia controlling a single pair of walking legs.

The release said closer examination of the exceptionally preserved ganglia revealed dozens of

spindly fibres, each measuring about five thousandths of a millimetre in length.“These delicate fibres displayed a highly regular distribution pattern, and so we wanted to figure out if they were made of the same material as the ganglia that form the nerve cord,” said Ortega-Hernández.

“Using fluorescence microscopy, we confirmed that the fibres were in fact individual nerves, fossilised as carbon films, offering an unprecedented level of detail. These fossils greatly improve our understanding of how the nervous system evolved.”

Council, Historic England and the Prince’s Regeneration Trust to restore the building, and convert it into a distinguished hotel and luxury residences.

Sanjiv Chadha of the State Bank

The ceremony was attended by Indian High Commissioner Navtej Singh Sarna and former national security adviser M K Narayanan.

Recent high-value London

of India, the funders of the project, said: “With this high profile project and collaboration we have stepped into the London real estate market and we are committed to the successful completion of the project.”Juan-Miguel Villar-Mir, chairman of the Villar-Mir and OHL Group, said: “We are proud to be working in partnership with the Hinduja Group on this historic and prestigious project.”

OHL Developments recently worked on successfully developing the heritage site at Canalejas in Madrid as a worldclass residential, hotel and commercial destination.

acquisitions by Indians: •The Lodha Group acquired a building owned by the Canadian High Commission in Grosvenor Square for £306 million in November 2013.

•In June 2014, Mumbai-based developer Indiabulls bought a building in central London’s Hanover Square for £155 million.

•Great Scotland Yard the iconic building that housed the London Metropolitan police for over 60 years until 1890 was acquired

by Indian billionnaire Yusufalli Kader for £110 million, and is to be redeveloped and opened as a luxury hotel in 2017.

Hindujas acquire historic Old War Office in London London The Hinduja Group has completed the acquisition and taken possession of the historic Old War Office building opposite Downing Street, from where former prime minister Winston Churchill took key decisions during World War II.Acquired on Tuesday with Spanish company Obrascon Huarte Lain Desarrollos (OHLD) on a 250year lease from the ministry of defence, the plan is to convert it into a hotel and luxury residences. The ministry said the sale of the Old War Office was for “in excess of £350 million following a competitive marketing process”.The heritage building, completed in 1906, contains around 1,100 rooms across seven floors, linked by more than two miles of corridors.The two groups will restore the historic fabric of the Old War Office and revitalise a location that has an unparalleled place in Britain’s social and political history.Speaking at a ceremony when the building’s key was handed over, Prakash P Hinduja, chairman (Europe) of the Hinduja Group, said: “We have a new vision for the Old War Office. We are delighted with the unique opportunity we have been given to become the new custodians of this famous Whitehall building.”He said the two groups will work with ministry of defence, Westminster City

Issue - 657 (34)

8 March - 14 March 2016

Teachers complain about cheating watches London Teachers have complained about ‘cheating watches’ being sold online to give students an unfair advantage in exams. These digital watches include an ‘emergency button’ to quickly switch from hidden text to a clock face. The watches hold data or written information which can be read in exams.

But a deputy head from Bath has warned about the scale of this ‘hidden market’ and says it could tempt stressed students into cheating. Watches are advertised on Amazon with the claim that they are ‘specifically designed for cheating on exams’.

One model promises 4GB of electronic storage for text files or images, to be read on the screen of the watch. If the ‘emergency button’ is pressed, the other buttons on the watch are disabled, as the watch switches to a conventional digital clock face.

This ‘watch for easier studying’ is also marketed as being compatible with a mini wireless earpiece. Another advert promises a watch that is ‘perfect for covertly viewing exam notes directly on your wrist’.

Another is offering a new model for this year with 8GB capacity, which could hold video files.

Smart watches or digital watches with concealed content would be covered by rules banning electronic devices from exam halls, such as mobile phones or any other computer technology.

But Joe Sidders, deputy head at Monkton Combe Senior School in Bath, has contacted the BBC to warn that the rise of small wearable devices risks becoming a ‘nightmare to administer’. ‘I expect the hidden market for these sorts of devices is significant, and this offering on Amazon is just the tip of the iceberg,’ he said.

Rupert Murdoch marries model actress Jerry Hall in London

London Media mogul Rupert Murdoch and model-actress Jerry Hall married on Friday at an aristocratic palace in London.

They were photographed emerging with smiles on Friday from Spencer House, which was built in the 18th century by ancestors of the late Princess Diana. The 84-year-old groom wore a business suit; the bride, 59, was in a navy skirt and a trench coat. Murdoch’s News UK confirmed Murdoch and Hall, who announced their engagement in January, had married. It is the fourth marriage for Murdoch, who owns Fox News Channel, movie studio Twenty-First Century Fox, publisher HarperCollins and newspapers in Britain and the United States. Murdoch has six children from his three previous

marriages. It is the first marriage for Texas-born Hall, a former supermodel and long-term partner of Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger.

She and Jagger, who have four children together, had an unofficial private Hindu marriage ceremony in Bali, Indonesia, in 1990.

During divorce proceedings in 1999, a British court declared the marriage invalid.Murdoch and Hall are due to hold a celebration ceremony Saturday at St. Bride’s, the “journalists’ church” in London’s Fleet Street. Britain’s newspapers were based in Fleet Street until Murdoch moved his printing presses to east London in 1986 to escape the grip of the powerful printers’ unions. The rest of the print media soon followed, but the area remains the spiritual home of British journalism.

The deputy head says that it is irresponsible to try to sell such items to under-pressure pupils, who might get caught and disqualified from all their exams. He wants exam boards to take a tough line on this - and to challenge businesses making such devices available.

And he raises concerns that if such devices were in wide circulation it would call into question the validity of results.

There is a model on Amazon on sale in the US for $61 (£43) which can be shipped to Europe. It is also advertised in the UK but described as currently unavailable. Another advert for the UK market has a cheating watch for £44, but via a US-based seller. There are also ‘cheat pens’ on offer, which allow students to conceal information inside a pen.

Cheating watches are also advertised on eBay or can be bought online directly from retailers. Concerns about the dishonest use of smart watches is already affecting examinations, according to people contributing to the BBC’s Facebook page.

Eugene Beirne said he was currently taking airline pilot’s exams and ‘one of the many things you are not allowed is a watch regardless of the make’.

Abigail Lauze said: ‘My microbiology professor does a watch check every time we have a test. If it’s not an old school analogue it has to come off and go in the cell phone bin.’

The Joint Council for Qualifications, speaking on behalf of exam boards, said schools should tell students ‘what is and what isn’t allowed in the examination room’. ‘A candidate found in possession of anything used for cheating like these watches - would be reported to the awarding organisation whose examination was affected.

Cyber kidnappers after your data

SYDNEY Something wasn’t right about the phone screen. It had gone dark. That’s when Nick Harvey examined it more closely. It looked odd. And it was then that he saw the message. His smart phone had, in effect, been hijacked and he was being asked to pay a ransom. ‘My device had been locked’, he told BBC Radio 4’s PM Programme.

He was being instructed ‘to send some money via a voucher code to get the phone unlocked’.

Ken Main knows how Nick felt.

It happened to him with the computers at his hairdressing salon in Glasgow. ‘It was a pale blue screen with the message right in the middle,’ he explained. ‘If we wanted the information back we would have to pay a ransom.’

They had both become victims of what is known as ransomware - a type of computer virus which unlocks the users out of their computers or phones and demands money for the return of the files. ‘It’s like somebody breaking into your house’, Ken said.’ It was a message which kind of created the same sort of emotional fear and then you start thinking ‘God, what happens if I can’t get this information back?’’

You are probably now trying to guess how much Ken and Nick were being asked to pay. It is possibly quite a lot lower than you would think. ‘They asked

me for $50 or •50’ Nick recalled.

For Ken it was slightly more.

‘They were looking for a ransom of $350 initially,’ he said. ‘When we contacted them by email, they put that up to •1000.’

The demands are set at what is regarded as a payable level, according to Jornt van der Wiel from the security software company, Kaspersky Lab. They tend to be for ‘the amount of money that people are still willing to pay in order to get their files back.’ He explained, for a small business, ‘Sometimes it’s cheaper for the company just to pay the ransom than to put back the backup because that in the end costs more’.

Nick Harvey did not have to part with any money. He managed to get his phone working again although he did lose some data.

Ken, however, felt he had no choice but to pay up. ‘I said, ‘Well I need that bloody information back. I’ve got a business to run here.’ I think any businessman in my position would say ‘Yes! Let’s do it’, because I’ve got no other way of getting information to rebuild that database.’

According to Mr van der Wiel, ransomware can enter your computer via malicious email attachments. His advice is not to open any file which you are suspicious about. He says there can also be a problem if the latest ‘security patches’ on your internet browser have not been installed.

The sentencing is expected on Monday, at long last, and end frustration among many in the

a closure for her. “I have lost a daughter,” she said.The latest development in the case comes days ahead of International Women’s Day. Many feminist groups were gearing up for annual celebrations this weekend and some had also planned events to seeking justice for Batalia.According to the Crown, Dhaliwal grew jealous of Batalia after she broke up with him and had been confronting her frequently.

Sarabjit has urged the society to respect the independence of girls.“Relationships cannot be imposed. If anyone decides to break up, nobody has the right to take one’s life (for that),” she said.

Punjabi youth pleads guilty in Maple Batalia’s murder in Canada Vancouver The prime accused in the murder of Simon Fraser University student Maple Batalia has admitted to killing the aspiring model five years ago.

Batalia, 19, was killed in a parking lot near the university campus in Surrey in September, 2011.

Originally charged with firstdegree murder, Gurjinder Singh alias Garry Dhaliwal told the New Westminster Supreme Court that he fired five shots Batalia and then slashed her with a knife.

In a joint statement, both the Canadian Crown and the defence have asked for life sentence for Dhaliwal.

Indo-Canadian community over the extended trial in the case The co-accused in the murder, Gursimar Bedi, is facing charges of accessory (aiding) and manslaughter.

Maple’s mother Sarabjit Batalia told HT that there won’t ever be

Issue 657 (35)

8 March - 14 March 2016

India well on track for World T20, Dhoni says after Asia Cup triumph

As India lifted the Asia Cup trophy without losing a single match in the tournament, skipper MS Dhoni said they were well on track for the World Twenty20, beginning in two days time.

India were dominant in their win against Bangladesh in the final, chasing 121 with eight wickets in hand and seven balls to spare.

Dhoni himself finished the match with a six off Amin Hossain and he said, the top order batsmen with their superb show is making it easy for the side.

“Thanks to top-oder batsmen. They have done the bulk of the job, the lower order batsmen just go and

do what is needed after that. It’s looking very good now, we are on track for the World T20,” Dhoni said at the post match presentation.

Dhoni said paceman Jasprit Bumrah and young all-rounder Hardik Pandya are making the side formidable.

“Jasprit, the beauty is that he can bowl yorkers, if you don’t have the yorker you have to try a lot of other deliveries, his slightly different action also helps him a bit. Hardik can bowl a few overs for us, so if he can give us four in T20s, with his batting and fielding he is a great package,” he said.

Dhoni also praised Yuvraj

Singh for adjusting well to his changed batting position.

“Looking at this team it is tough to give Yuvi the no.4 slot, but he has adjusted.

We have 13-14 players they are all match-winners, that is the beauty of the side, everyone is taking responsibility to finishing the game.”

“Important is to get settled combination. That’s what we have. We are on track for T20 World Cup,” he said.

Man-of-the-match Shikhar Dhawan, who struck 60, said it was a “special” knock for him.

“It’s special. The best thing is that we won. As a team we have worked hard. We

Malinga steps down as Sri Lanka captain ahead of World T20 Injury-ravaged pacer Lasith Malinga has stepped down as Sri Lanka’s captain for the upcoming World Twenty20 in India following another breakdown during a disappointing Asia Cup campaign in Bangladesh.

Malinga, who led Sri Lanka to their maiden World Twenty20 title in the previous edition, is battling a nagging knee injury.

All-rounder Angelo Mathews, who leads Sri Lanka in ODIs and Tests, will now be the team’s captain is all three formats of the game, Sri Lanka Cricket sources said.

SLC Vice President Mohan de Silva said Malinga had written to the SLC last night offering to step down.

“He will continue to make himself available for selections,” de Silva said.

It is speculated that the

SLC management is unhappy with Malinga’s policy of selecting games

and tournaments to play based on his recurring injury.

He played just the opening match of the Asia Cup in which Sri Lanka fared very badly. The islanders eventually crashed out of the tournament losing to India, Pakistan and Bangladesh in what was their worse run in T20 history.

are peaking at the right time. We were talking while chasing runs. We were comfortable during the chase, never felt the pressure. We were under control,” Dhawan said.

Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Mortaza said his team has been doing well and they go into the World T20 with lot of confidence.

“It’s upsetting that we couldn’t win the final but congratulations to the boys for making it this far.

They played really well, we have exciting batsmen and bowlers, hopefully this team will carry on from here. We have a lot of confidence, we have to qualify for the WT20 first, we have a flight early in the morning,” he said.

Virat Kohli said it was a tricky situation out there.

“Rohit getting out early made it tricky but credit to Shikhar for the way he batted. He delivering when the team needed the most.

The 94 stand (with Dhawan) was the game changer,” he said.

Kohli said he loves the challenge of playing against a hostile crowd.

“I back myself to find boundaries and hit the gaps, I don’t try to hit too many sixes.

Mithali Raj wants women’s cricket to be popularised

The ever-improving Indian women cricketers could get a chance to become household names such as tennis star Sania Mirza and shuttle queen Saina Nehwal provided their matches are regularly televised, feels Indian women’s cricket team captain Mithali Raj. The Indian women’s team has been on a roll in recent months. After a historic Twenty20 series win in Australia in January, they have continued their impressive form at home by whitewashing Sri Lanka in both the ODI and T20 series.

Asked if the profile of women cricketers can hope to reach the level of Sania and Saina, Mithali said, “It should, and there is a possibility if our matches are televised.

That attracts a lot of brands and corporate sponsorships for individual players.

If only a few games are televised and you don’t have a follow-up, like no live coverage of the Sri Lanka series after the Australia series, where we did so well, things will not improve.” Mithali said the upcoming World T20 will be a good opportunity to promote women’s cricket in India. “Since we have done well against Australia and

Sri Lanka, the people’s expectations have risen, and it is important that we use this platform to promote women’s cricket in India, because it is the best opportunity,” she was quoted as saying by ‘ESPNcricinfo’.

“The team has good momentum and all the players are confident, so it is the right time for us to play a good brand of cricket for people to appreciate in India and to market the sport.”

Mithali wished to be allowed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to play in T20 tournaments like the ‘Big Bash’.

“Yes,” she replied when asked if she would like to be part of such leagues, adding, “because when you play with the best and interact with them, there are cultural interactions.

You learn a lot by just mingling and it gives the young players someone like Smriti Mandhana, Harmanpreet Kaur or Veda Krishnamurthy the chance to develop as cricketers and mature very quickly, which is what India needs at the moment.”

“I think the BCCI will definitely be very supportive, because we don’t have the IPL.

events to facilitate betting on those events.When we come by a belief that something may happen in the future, bearing in mind that we exist to prevent corruption we decided in this particular case immediately, we

would bring together the entire squad, we would focus on individuals whom we suspected but we would remind the entire squad of their responsibilities.

I am certain that our action in that particular case indeed would prevent the intention of just one or two individuals,” he said.

International team under investigation for corruption, reveals ICC’s ACU chief Chairman of ICC’s anti-corruption unit on Sunday dropped a bombshell when he said an international cricket team was being investigated for match-fixing.

Ronnie Flanagan said that some players were making attempts to “manipulate events” in an upcoming match of an event, reports the Times of India.

“It’s difficult to talk about an ongoing case. Quite recently we had reason to believe that members of a particular team had intentions to manipulate events in a forthcoming match. It is still under investigation, but certain in-

dividuals we believe had the intention to manipulate

Issue 657 (36)

8 March - 14 March 2016

Australia’s ‘ugly’ animals attract less study Sydney Koalas and kangaroos are subject to more scientific study than Australia’s twitching rodents and bats, according to new research which finds ‘ugly’ animals attract less funding and investigation. The bias towards more attractive creatures means that while ‘ugly’ animals make up 45 percent of Australia’s native fauna, they are rarely subject to intense scientific scrutiny, said a study to be published in Mammal Review this week.

Researcher Trish Fleming said once mammals were classed as ‘good’ (such as kangaroos, echidnas and koalas), ‘bad’ (introduced species including cats and rabbits) or ‘ugly’ (native bats and rodents), the latter group had very little written about it.

“Australians are probably surprised to know how many species of native bats and rodents we have,” Fleming told AFP

Monday. “We know so little about them, we tend to ignore them completely. But everyone knows what a koala and

kangaroo looks like.”

Fleming, a wildlife biologist at Western Australia’s Murdoch University, said this bias had a potential impact on conservation, with an incomplete understanding of the importance of these often small and nocturnal animals on ecosystems making them more vulnerable. “The major problem is that if you don’t know anything about their biol-

ogy you could manage their environment in a way that’s detrimental to them,” she said.

Fleming said while global

and national conservation funding largely overlooked the ‘ugly’ species - which include hairy rodents and the carnivorous ghost bat with its oversized, fleshy ears and sharp teeth these were the ones arguably most in need of research. “For the majority of species, researchers have been able to do little more than catalogue their existence,” Fleming said in a statement. “We need to

document observations of their diets, habitat selection, space use and reproduction in order to identify threats and management options.”

Researchers could also be discouraged from investigating obscure species for fear that the resulting papers may be too “parochial and of limited interest” to be published, she added.

With co-author Bill Bateman, Fleming has called for improved funding for the lesser known mammals.

“Since European settlement (in Australia) we have lost about 20 species of mammals, we have about another 20 odd in grave danger of extinction,” Curtin University’s Bateman told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

“I think it would be tragic if we ended up causing the extinction of even more without even knowing anything about them.”

A tale of two brothers, US man wins $291 million-lottery, sibling $7

Washington A US judge who went on a month-long fishing vacation in the Florida Keys has won the $291 million Powerball lottery while his brother just received $7.

Earlier last week, the Pennsylvania judge James Stocklas and his brother Bob bought lottery tickets on the way home from the beach.

James Stocklas, 67, won the $291 million Powerball and his brother won $7, the Florida Lottery said.

After Wednesday’s drawing, the judge had returned to work, and was sitting at

his local diner eating breakfast. He happened to check the numbers on his phone and realised he had won.

To celebrate, he bought breakfast for everyone in the restaurant, CNN reported.

The Florida lottery noted the double winners by printing Bob Stocklas a full-size winner’s cheque.

James Stocklas chose the lump sum payment of $291 million, the Florida Lottery said. There is no word on whether he will bring his brother back to Florida with him.

Issue 657 (37)

8 March - 14 March 2016

Health Peanut butter can help keep extra kilos at bay What if there was a weight loss therapy you can spoon straight out of a jar?

A new study has revealed that snacking on peanut butter or peanuts up to four times a week could be the key to fighting obesity.

The 12-week study from the University of Houston Department of Health and Human Performance (HHP), Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Woman’s University showed that Hispanic middle school children, at high risk for being overweight or obese, reduced their Body Mass Index

(BMI) when they adhered to a nutrition intervention that included a snack of peanuts, compared to those children who did not.

“Obesity is the most pressing health issue facing us today,” said researcher Craig Johnston, HHP assistant professor. “We’d like to think it’s preventable, but from where I sit right now, there hasn’t been a lot shown to be very effective on a large scale.”

The study acknowledged that snacking is more common during the adolescent years and that the unhealthy eating habit can

lead to an unhealthy weight. This is especially true if a student doesn’t have access to other meals during the school day.

Instructors guided 257 Latino adolescents from three Houston-area charter schools through a program of physical activity and nutrition education. About half the students received a snack of peanuts or peanut butter three to four times a week, while the rest received the snack fewer than once a week.

Following the 12-week intervention, students spent

Why using newspapers to soak excessive oil from food is a bad idea!

When we cook fried food, what’s the first thing that we do? Soak the oil.

What do we use in order to to do that? A newspaper, of course!

What if we tell you that this is exactly where you’re going wrong?

Newspapers are the worst things you can use to absorb excessive oil from fried foods.

If you’ve been doing that for a long time, change your habit, but do run a few health checkups to to avoid any potential health risks.

This would be a wise decision, because chemical solvents in newspapers can get transmitted to

food, which can pose serious threats to your health. Below are a few conditions which you’ll be at a risk of, if you continue using newspapers as blotting papers: 1. Cancer: The ink that is used on newspapers is harmful and can get absorbed into the food and pose a risk to your health. Chemical solvents in the ink can easily get passed on to the food.

2. Effect on lungs and kidneys: Newspapers also contain graphite and if ingested, can make your body incapable of eliminating toxicants or their metabolites

through excretion. It may in fact, keep accumulating and lead to problems related to lungs and kidneys.

3. Digestive health and hormones: The chemical solvents come into play again when your digestive health and hormones are concerned.

Hormonal imbalances and and digestive issues could occur.

What can be used instead: To absorb or soak excessive oil from fried foods, you can either use tissue paper or kitchen paper towels. If you must, use plain white paper instead of newspapers.

12 more weeks maintaining the healthy snacking habit. At the end of the period, those students who received the snack more regularly experienced a decrease in their overall BMI compared to those who did not receive the regular peanut snack.

The researchers conclude that afterschool programs and schools can replace energy dense, unhealthy snacks with peanuts to provide a healthier alternative for children (researchers in the study ensured students did not suffer from nut allergies).

Johnston says the fight against obesity needs creative solutions that help people manage their weight, appetite and hunger by offering socially acceptable food choices.

The findings are published in the Journal of Applied Research on Children.

Broccoli can ward off liver cancer risk You may want to start including broccoli in your diet as a recent study has shown that it can reduce the risk of liver cancer and preventing the development of fatty liver.

Since broccoli consumption has previously been linked to reducing the risk of certain cancers, including breast, colon and prostate cancers, researchers at the University of Illinois wanted to see if there was a link between the vegetable and liver cancer and fatty liver, or nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

Researcher Elizabeth Jeffery says that the majority of the U.S. population

eats a diet high in saturated fats and added sugars. However, both of these are stored in the liver and can be converted to body fat. Consuming a high-fat, high-sugar diet and having excess body fat is linked

and liver cancer.

“We called this a Westernized-style diet in the study because we wanted to model how so many of us are eating today,” Jeffery says.

The team wanted to find out

with the development of NAFLD, which can lead to diseases such as cirrhosis

the impact of feeding broccoli to mice with a known liver cancer-causing carcinogen and so they studied four groups of mice; some of which were on a control diet or the Westernized diet and some were given or not given broccoli.

The study shows that in mice on the Westernized diet both the number of cancer nodules and the size of the cancer nodules increased in the liver. But when broccoli was added to the diet, the number of nodules decreased. Size was not affected.

Overeating may be caused by lack Of sleep Do you often find yourself overeating without any specific reason? Turns out that it might be caused by lack of sleep. A new study has said that sleep deprivation might be the reason behind you feeling munchy most of the time.

This is because, sleep deprivation may boost levels of a chemical that makes eating more plea-

surable, which leads to overeating and poor food choices.

According to a report in The Hawk, this chemical signal is endocannabinoid 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2AG). Blood levels of 2-AG are typically low overnight.

They slowly rise during the day, peaking in the early afternoon, researchers said.

Issue 657 (38)

8 March - 14 March 2016

Spotted bananas are better than yellow ones!

Banana’s are perhaps one of the most consumed fruits in the world. A rich source of energy, bananas are also nature’s most under-rated fruits.

Banana’s pack a mean punch when it comes to being a super food, because it provides our body with everything that we need to thrive. So much so, that two banana’s are enough to make up one full meal. This is because they’re packed full of nutri-

ents, vitamins, fiber, and all-natural sugars, like sucrose and fructose.

Who doesn’t like to eat those bright yellow and ripe bananas? We all do. However, what do we do when the bananas start developing brown spots? Most of you, we’re sure, throw them away, thinking that they’ve gone bad.

We totally agree that the browning is a bit off-putting and unappetizing, but think again before you go throw-

ing them away! Did you know that the more dark patches and spots a banana appears to have, the more ripe it is, and the more TNF it contains? TNF stands for Tumor Necrosis Factor, and it’s a cancer fighting substance that helps fight against abnormal cells in our bodies.

In addition to the brown spots and their immune system strengthening qualities, spotted bananas have a number of other

That lingering unhealthy feeling can predict early death too Not just chronic medical conditions and unhealthy lifestyle, psychological factors such as decline in memory or just feeling unhealthy are also likely to

elevate the risk of early death mortality rate especially in the middle-aged and the elderly.

The result of the longitudinal study of over 6,000 adults revealed that better perceived health and smaller decreases in processing speed over time could help reduce mortality risk. “Our study shows

that two psychological variables lower self-rated health and age-related decrements in processing speed appear to be especially important indicators

of elevated mortality risk in middle-aged and older adults,” said Stephen Aichele, scientist at University of Geneva in Switzerland.

Being a woman was also linked with reduced mortality risk, while years of smoking tobacco was connected with an increased risk of early death.

The findings published in the journal Psychological Science may provide useful insights for health professionals, who need better methods for identifying individuals at risk of early death, the researchers noted.

The researchers investigated the relative influence of cognitive, demographic, health, and lifestyle variables in predicting mortality risk from the Manchester Longitudinal Study of Cognition’s data collected for 29 years from 6,203 adults who ranged in age from 41 to 96-years-old when the study began. Participants’ subjective reports of various lifestyle factors including perceived health, number of prescribed medicines, sleep patterns, hobbies, leisure activities, and social interactions were also examined.

health benefits, like fighting signs of depression, curing constipation, heartburn, blood pressure, ane-

said first author Beth Allison from the University of Cambridge in Britain.

The study, published in The FASEB Journal, also

emphasised that the environment we’re exposed to in the womb may be just as, if not more, important in programming a risk of adult-onset of heart dis-

ease. The researchers found that adult rats born from mothers who had less oxygen during pregnancy had shorter telomeres es-

sential part of human cells that affects the age of cells than rats born from normal pregnancies.

The offsprings’ also experienced problems with the

The below video explains all this and more on why spotted bananas are actually good for you!

Want to lose weight? Four easy tricks to add more spinach to your diet!

Full of nutrients, spinach is known as a superfood due to its antioxidants and anticancer composition. This wonderful green leafy vegetable can do wonders for your body, specially if you want to shed those extra pounds fast.

Spinach is dense in vitamins and minerals, but low in calories.

So, if you want to lose as much body fat as possible, start incorporating more spinach in your diet. Re-

Ageing begins even before you are born The process of ageing begins even before we are born, says a new study, which used rats to model pregnancy and foetal development. The study showed that providing mothers with a diet loaded with antioxidants during pregnancy meant that their offspring aged more slowly during adulthood.

The offspring of mothers with lower levels of oxygen in the womb can age more quickly in adulthood.

“Antioxidants are known to reduce ageing, but here, we show for the first time that giving them to pregnant mothers can slow down the ageing clock of their offspring,”

mia, ulcers and are also good for when you’re feeling stressed or moody or going through PMS.

inner lining of their blood vessels revealing signs that they had aged more quickly and were prone to developing heart disease earlier than normal.

However, when pregnant mothers in the group were given antioxidant supplements, this lowered the risk among their offspring of developing heart disease, the researchers noted.

The foetus, which received appropriate levels of oxygen benefiting from a maternal diet of antioxidants displayed longer telomeres than those rats whose mothers did not receive the antioxidant supplements during pregnancy.

search has shown that consuming this wonderful green leafy on a regular basis helps reduce body fat in overweight people.

Here are some quick and easy ways to get more spinach in your diet: • Smoothies - Add a couple of handfuls of spinach to your smoothies to make a super food breakfast. Try it with bananas, berries, mango and orange juice, you’ll love it.

• Salads - Wash a hand-

ful of baby spinach and mix it with other salad greens, nuts and fruits.

• Boiled - Simply add chopped spinach to your cooked mashed potatoes.

Cook and stir for 2-3 minutes. Add homemade garlic and ginger paste to improve the flavour.

• Curry - Spinach and dal go very well. Add chopped spinach to cooked and mashed dal. This dish is not only easy, but super healthy as well.

Feeling more forgetful these days? It may be due to prolonged stress

US researchers have found there is a relationship between prolonged stress and memory loss.

The results of the study showed that those who were repeatedly exposed to stress had a trouble with spatial memory. Also, long-term stress may lead to social avoidance which measures depressive

behaviour that continued after four weeks of monitoring. Further, the researchers found measurable changes in brains including evidence of inflammation brought on by the immune system’s response to the outside pressure brought in by unrelenting stress.

The stress may include repeated, long-term mental assault such as being sustained by bullying victims, soldiers and those who report to beastly bosses, the researchers said.

In the study conducted on mice repetitive visits by a larger and more nasty intruder mouse caused stress.

Issue 657 (39)

8 March - 14 March 2016

NICARAGUAN SEAFOOD SOUP

trinidadian green seasOning Ingredients: 1/2 cup finely chopped culantro or cilantro 1/2 cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley 1/4 cup fresh lime juice 2 tbsp. water 1 tbsp. finely chopped thyme 2 cloves garlic, minced 2 scallions, thinly sliced 1 stalk celery, finely chopped 1/2 small white onion, finely chopped 1/4 red bell pepper, finely chopped Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper Instructions: In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients together with 2 tablespoons water and season with salt and pepper. Store in

an airtight container for up to 3 days.

halved lengthwise Lime wedges, for serving Instructions: In a large Dutch oven, combine the coconut milk with 4 cups water and add the conch, garlic, oregano, bananas, both plantains, cassava, malanga, and onion.

Season with salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a steady simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquid reduces and the vegetables are just tender, about 1 hour.

Add the mackerel and lobster and cook until the seafood is tender, about 10 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat, season with salt and pepper, and serve with lime wedges.

SKILLET-BRAISED SWISS CHARD

freekeH pilaf WitH sumac

Ingredients: 1/2 cup olive oil 1 small yellow onion, finely chopped 1 1/2 cups whole (not cracked) freekah 2/3 cup canned tomato purée 2 vine-ripe tomatoes, cored, peeled, and finely chopped 1 tsp. sumac, plus more to garnish Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper Instructions: In a 4-qt. saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium-high. Add the onion and cook, stirring, until soft, about 6 minutes. Add the freekeh and cook, stirring, until lightly toasted, about 5 minutes. Pour in the tomato purée, vine-ripe tomatoes, and 2 cups water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to maintain a gentle simmer and cook, cov-

ered, until the freekeh is tender, about 1 1/2 hours. Remove the pan from the heat, stir in the sumac, and season with salt and pepper. Spoon the pilaf into a bowl and sprinkle with more sumac before serving.

Ingredients: 1/2 cup olive oil 1 1/4 lb. (2 bunches) Swiss chard, trimmed and halved crosswise 2 large shallots, peeled and finely chopped 2 small carrots, peeled and finely chopped 1 cup canned crushed tomatoes 2 tsp. sugar Kosher salt and freshly ground white pepper Instructions: Heat the olive oil in a 12-inch high-sided skillet over medium. Add the Swiss chard and sprinkle with the shallots and carrots. Pour the tomatoes evenly over the chard, sprinkle with the sugar, and season with salt and pepper. Pour in

1/2 cup water, bring to a simmer, then cover partially with a lid. Cook until the liquid is almost evaporated and the chard is tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Uncover, transfer the chard to a platter, and pour the vegetables and any cooking liquid over the top before serving.

SOUR CREAM CORNBREAD

BEEF AND LAMB KOFTAS Ingredients: 1 lb. ground beef 10 oz. ground lamb 3/4 cup plain bread crumbs 1/3 cup minced red onion 2 1/2 tbsp. finely chopped flat-leaf parsley 1 tbsp. plus 2 tsp. kosher salt 1 tbsp. plus 1/4 tsp. ground cumin 2 1/2 tsp. dried thyme 2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper Coarse-grain mustard, for serving Instructions: In a large bowl, mix the beef and lamb with the bread crumbs, red onion, parsley, salt, cumin, thyme, and pepper.

Using your hands, mix until evenly combined. Divide the meat mixture into 20 pieces, roll each into a ball, and flatten each slightly into a 3/4-inch-thick patty.

Ingredients: 6 cups unsweetened coconut milk 1 lb. conch meat, cut into 1/2-inch cubes, 6 cloves garlic, finely chopped 2 large Cuban oregano leaves (available at garden nurseries) or 1 standard oregano sprig, 2 green bananas, peeled and each cut crosswise into 4 pieces 1 green plantain, peeled and cut crosswise into 8 pieces, 1 yellow plantain, peeled and cut crosswise into 8 pieces 1 medium cassava root, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces 1 medium malanga or taro root, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces 1 small yellow onion, roughly chopped Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, 2 (8-oz.) skinless king mackerel fillets, each cut into 8 pieces 4 rock lobster or Maine lobster tails,

Light a grill or heat a cast-iron grill pan over medium-high. Place the patties on the grill and cook, flipping once, until browned and cooked to medium, about 10 minutes. Serve the grilled kofta while hot with the mustard.

Ingredients: 2/3 cup vegetable oil, plus more for greasing 1 cup sour cream 2 large eggs, lightly beaten 1 medium yellow onion, grated 1 (16-oz.) can creamed corn 1 1/2 cups yellow cornmeal 2 tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. kosher salt 1 cup (about 5 oz.) grated cheddar cheese Instructions: Heat the oven to 350° and grease a 9inch round cast-iron skillet. In a medium bowl, whisk the oil with the sour cream, eggs, onion, and corn until evenly combined. In another bowl,

whisk the cornmeal with the baking powder and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until they form a slightly lumpy batter.

Scrape half the batter into the prepared skillet, sprinkle with 3/4 cup cheese, and spread the remaining batter on top.

Sprinkle the top with the remaining cheese and bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Transfer the skillet to a rack and let the cornbread cool for 20 minutes before serving.

Issue 657 (40)

8 March - 14 March 2016