Viral video: US man ties son to car to pull out tooth

A father in the US employed a bizarre method to extract his eight-year-old son's wobbly tooth - tying him to the back of his car and driving off.
A video of the act which shows Robert Abercrombie in Florida revving up the car before hitting the accelerator as the string dangles from his son's mouth has gone viral on the internet.
Fortunately, the amateur dentistry produced results and the kid's head barely jerked as the tooth was whisked away.

 

 

"It came out!" said the grinning boy in the video, 'Sky News' reported.
Abercrombie, a professional wrestler who goes by the name Rob Venomous, said he has been surprised by the video's popularity.
Abercrombie said his only worry was that he did not want to spin rocks on his kid's face.

Pakistan close to buying eight Chinese submarines: Reports

Chinese President Xi Jinping with Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz SharifPakistan is close to agreeing a multi-billion dollar deal to buy eight submarines from China, the Financial Times reported on Thursday, in what would be one of China's largest overseas weapons sales. The decision had been agreed "in principle", the newspaper said, citing a hearing in the Pakistani parliament's defence committee. Pakistani newspaper the Dawn said negotiations with China were at an advanced stage.
Pakistani defence officials could not immediately be reached for comment. China's Ministry of Defence declined to comment. A former senior Pakistan navy officer with knowledge of the negotiations told the Financial Times the contract could be worth $4 billion to $5 billion.
It was unclear what type of submarine Pakistan was looking to buy but China has poured resources into developing diesel- and nuclear-powered submarines in recent years. China and Pakistan call each other "all-weather friends" and their close ties have been underpinned by long-standing wariness of their common neighbour, India, and a desire to hedge against US influence across the region.

 

 

President Xi Jinping will travel to Pakistan this month, the government in Islamabad has said. China has said Xi would visit this year but given no timeframe. China is Pakistan's top supplier of weapons, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which tracks global arms sales, selling 51 percent of the weapons Islamabad imported in 2010-2014.
China has also surpassed Germany to become the world's third largest arms exporter, SIPRI said in a report last month. Little is known about China's arms exports because the country does not publish data on such sales.
A senior Pakistani government official, Muhammad Saleem Sethi, would leave for China on Thursday where the submarine deal was expected to be discussed, the Dawn newspaper said. The Pakistan navy was also in touch with Germany, Britain and France about the possible purchase of used submarines, the Dawn quoted officials as telling the defence committee.
A top US Navy admiral said in February that though they were technologically inferior, China's submarine fleet now outnumbered that of the US navy.

NASA's asteroid mission passes critical milestone

Picture for representational purpose. Photo: Reuters NASA's ground-breaking science mission to retrieve a sample from an ancient space rock has moved closer to fruition.
The Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission has passed a critical milestone in its path towards launch and is officially authorised to transition into its next phase, the US space agency said in a statement.
"This is an exciting time for the OSIRIS-REx team. After almost four years of intense design efforts, we are now proceeding with the start of flight system assembly," said Dante Lauretta, principal investigator for OSIRIS-Rex at the University of Arizona, Tucson.

 

 

OSIRIS-REx is the first US mission to return samples from an asteroid to the Earth.
The spacecraft will travel to a near-Earth asteroid called Bennu and bring at least a 60-gram sample back to Earth for study.
OSIRIS-REx carries five instruments that will remotely evaluate the surface of Bennu.
The mission will help scientists investigate the composition of the very early solar system and the source of organic materials and water that made their way to the Earth, and improve understanding of asteroids that could impact our planet.
OSIRIS-REx is scheduled for launch in late 2016. The spacecraft will reach Bennu in 2018 and return a sample to the Earth in 2023.
"The spacecraft structure has been integrated with the propellant tank and propulsion system and is ready to begin system integration in the Lockheed Martin highbay," added Mike Donnelly, OSIRIS-REx project manager at the NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland.
OSIRIS-REx complements NASA's "Asteroid Initiative". The initiative will conduct research and analysis to better characterise and mitigate the threat these space rocks pose to our home planet.
The initiative includes NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), a robotic spacecraft mission that will capture a boulder from the surface of a near-Earth asteroid and move it into a stable orbit around the moon for exploration by astronauts, all in support of advancing the nation's journey to Mars.
The agency also is engaging new industrial capabilities, partnerships, open innovation and participatory exploration through the NASA "Asteroid Initiative".
NASA has identified more than 12,000 Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) to date, including 96 percent of near-Earth asteroids larger than one-km in size.

From brides to battlefield, women taking up new roles with Islamic State

Hundreds of Europeans have also joined the fight. Their involvement has raised fears about the possibility of attacks at home if they return trained and further radicalised. Women travelling to join Islamic State militants are no longer just seeking to become "jihadi brides" but are taking on new roles, on the frontline in logistics and intelligence and as medics, according to military and expert sources.
Female presence in Islamic State's battles to establish a medieval-style caliphate across the Middle East has been unusual with the radical Sunni Islamists imposing strict restrictions on women's dress and behaviour and deeming their role as domestic. But as more foreigners, both male and female, go to join or fight Islamic State, the traditional role of women is being challenged, with reports of women working at hospitals controlled by Islamic State and aiding in logistics.
Colonel Rafat Salim Raykoni, head of a military intelligence unit in the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces battling Islamic State militants, said women fighters had emerged around the town of Sinjar, a frontline in the fight in northern Iraq. "They are not many but they are starting to arrive on the frontline. Here in Sinjar they are very active," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in the peshmerga headquarters in the outskirts of Sinjar city.

 

 

Raykoni is not the only one to have spotted the trend with high ranking commanders in different areas of Iraq and Syria reporting Islamic State women around the battlefield although so far no female militants have been reported killed. Pareen Sevgeen, the commander of a Kurdish women militia in Iraq, YJA Star, who is also known by her nom de guerre Beritan, was fighting north of Sinjar earlier this year when her brigade intercepted communications of the jihadis.
"We heard a woman giving order to men. She was saying move there or here, go left or right. She was obviously a commander," said Beritan while sitting in her compound outside Sinjar dressed in a dark green military uniform.
Women in a new role
YJA Star, which also campaigns for gender equality in the region, was able to re-take the area within hours and they never heard from the woman again despite making inquiries.
"We looked for her because we wanted to know more. We know she is a foreigner by the way she was talking on the radio. Arabic is not her first language. Our sources on the other side told us she is from India."
The Canadian counterterror research group iBRABO, late last year said they had identified one woman who travelled from Canada to Islamic State frontlines, giving away her locations on Twitter as she visited besieged cities in Syria and Iraq.
Tracking her mobile phone's geo-tagging function on Twitter, the group concluded her movement "reflects a broader trend of women becoming more active in supporting male jihadists, such as intelligence collection, implementation and adherence to Sharia Law, and even reported execution of punishments to women judged to be in transgression of Sharia Law".
Jayne Huckerby, director of the International Human Rights Clinic at Duke University's School of Law, North Carolina, was not surprised about women appearing on the frontline as thousands of foreign recruits join the fight.
The London-based International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) estimates at least 20,000 foreigners have joined the Syria/Iraq conflict of which about 4,000 are Western citizens. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue estimates about 550 of these are women.
ICSR director Peter Neumann has said about 80 percent of foreign fighters from Western nations are joining Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, drawn by its ideological appeal and savvy outreach in foreign languages and over the Internet.
Islamic State seized large sections of north and west Iraq and much of eastern Syria last year and the Iraqi government, with its Western and Iranian allies, is now trying to recapture the nearly one-third of Iraq under the jihadists' control.
Brides and battles
So far most attention about the role of women in the conflict has focused on those joining as "jihadi brides". In one of the most high-profile recent cases, three British schoolgirls are thought to have travelled through Turkey to Syria in February to join the militant group. Their families and British authorities have made repeated appeals for them to return home.
But four of nine British medical students who were believed to have crossed into Islamic State-held areas this month were also reported to be female with their parents are trying to convince them to come home. "We are providing consular assistance to families of British nationals who are believed to be missing after travelling to Turkey," a Foreign Office spokesman said without giving any further details of the students who were studying in Sudan.
The Home Office has said the medics would not automatically face prosecution under anti-terror laws if they returned to Britain as long as they could prove they had not been fighting for Islamic State. Huckerby said the evidence challenged the Western stereotype of women just wanting to be "jihadi brides" and was an important evolution in the group's view on the women in the caliphate.
"A number of Western women who travelled to (Islamic State)have expressed their willingness to fight and to be in combat. They want to become Jihad Jane types," said Huckerby. She said this shift was flagged in a recent manifesto by Islamic State's all-female Al-Khansaa Brigade whose mission is to pursue and arrest women who break the group's strict rules on Islamist morality.
This manifesto, translated by the London-based think-tank the Quilliam Foundation, maintained that women are permitted to abandon their domestic roles for jihad "if the enemy is attacking her country and the men are not enough to protect it and the imams give a fatwa for it".
There are precedents of women fighting in the Islamic world, said David Romano, a political science professor at Missouri University and expert on women fighters. He pointed to the Moscow theatre hostage crisis of October 2002 when at least 170 people were killed including 40 male and female attackers claiming allegiance to an Islamist militant separatist movement in Chechnya.
About 140 kms (87 miles) northeast of Sinjar, on the battlefield around Teleskuf, peshmerga general Wahid Koveli, head of a Special Forces First Division, has also heard Islamic State female fighters on the radio at least twice. "Female fighters have started to arrive on the frontline. It might means that (Islamic State) are in difficulties and they are starting to use everybody to help them fight," he said.

70 dead in Kenya university attack, 500 rescued

Gunmen from the Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab stormed a Kenyan university campus on Thursday, killing and wounding dozens of students and staff.
Police and soldiers surrounded the Garissa University College and exchanged gunfire with the attackers throughout the day.
Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, an Al Shabaab's spokesman, said the gunmen were holding Christian hostages inside.
"We sorted people out and released the Muslims," he told Reuters.

Several hours into the incident, Interior Minister Joseph Nkaissery told reporters in Garissa that the death toll was at least 70, with 79 wounded, but the siege was almost over. About 500 out of 815 students were accounted for, he said.
He did not specify precisely how many students, staff or security personnel had died but said four al Shabaab fighters were killed.
However, he cautioned that "the operation is ongoing, anything can happen".
One Kenyan policeman at the scene of the attack said six al Shabaab fighters, from the original 10 that stormed the university campus, remain holed up inside, along with about 100 student hostages.
Al Shabaab, who carried out the deadly attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi in 2013, claimed responsibility for the pre-dawn raid on the campus in Garissa, a town 200 km (120 miles) from the Somali border.
The group has links to Al-Qaeda and a record of raids on Kenyan soil in retaliation for Nairobi sending troops to fight it in its home state of Somalia.
Kenyan police chief Joseph Boinet said the attackers had "shot indiscriminately" while inside the university compound.
One image provided by a local journalist showed a dozen blood-soaked bodies strewn across a single university classroom.
Some students had managed to escape unaided.
"We heard some gunshots and we were sleeping so it was around five and guys started jumping up and down running for their lives," an unnamed student told Reuters TV.
Authorities offered a 20 million shilling ($215,000) reward for information leading to the arrest of a man called Mohamed Mohamud, described as "most wanted" and linked to the attack.
Police chief Boinet said Kenya had imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on four regions near the Somalia border.
Tourism and religion
Al Shabaab, which seeks to impose its own harsh version of sharia law, has separated Muslims from Christians in some of its previous raids in Kenya, notably late last year in attacks on a bus and at a quarry.
Its repeated raids, together with attacks on churches by home-grown Islamist groups, have strained the cordial relations between Kenya's Muslim and Christian communities.
Having killed more than 200 people in Kenya over the past two years, Al Shabaab has also brought the tourism industry to its knees.
Thursday's attack undermined a renewed drive by President Uhuru Kenyatta to persuade foreigners the country is now safe to visit.
On Wednesday, he had urged Kenyans abroad to help attract tourists back despite the wave of militant violence, criticising a warning from Australia of a possible attack in Nairobi and an advisory from Britain urging its citizens to avoid most coastal resorts.
Grace Kai, a student at the Garissa Teachers Training College near the university, said there had been warnings that an attack in the town could be imminent.
"Some strangers had been spotted in Garissa town and were suspected to be terrorists," she told Reuters.
"Then on Monday our college principal told us ... that strangers had been spotted in our college... On Tuesday we were released to go home, and our college closed, but the campus remained in session, and now they have been attacked."
Many Kenyans living in the crime-ridden frontier regions blame the government for not doing enough to protect its citizens from the militants.

Fake IAS official at academy: SIT to probe case l

LBS National Academy of Administration staff and trainees with President Pranab Mukherjee during his 2014 tour. 




























A special investigation team was constituted on Thursday to probe the case of a woman allegedly masquerading as an IAS official at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Administrative Academy in Mussoorie, officials said, an IANS report stated.
However, the woman maintained that the academy's deputy director knew she wasn't an IAS probationer.
The Uttarakhand government has formed a special investigation team (SIT), headed by a woman police official, which will probe how Ruby Chowdhary managed to stay at the academy for months.

 

 

Chowdhary has said deputy director Saurabh Jain knew she was not an IAS probationer. She also told mediapersons that Jain facilitated her gate pass to the academy.
Director General of Police (DGP) BS Siddhu said the case is being probed "with all the seriousness it deserves".
Chowdhary has accused Jain, 38, an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) official from the Kerala cadre, of seeking a bribe of Rs 20 lakh to get her a librarian's job.
She said that when President Pranab Mukherjee visited the academy, she was in the group photograph, hinting at a serious breach of security.
Chowdhary also alleged that Jain had asked her to keep quiet and not report the matter to the media in lieu of Rs 5 crore.
The matter came to light when the advance security detail of the President, who is scheduled to visit the academy April end, scrutinised the list of IAS probationers residing on the campus. It was found that Chowdhary was living on the campus for the last six months as an IAS probationer.
Jain is currently on deputation to the hill state. He has served in various capacities in Uttarakhand and joined as the deputy director of the academy in September 2013.

Amazing! Now humans can travel to Mars in just 29 days

Experts develop engine for spacecraft that can reach the Red Planet in just 29 days. 





























One of the firms which US space agency NASA has selected for building a superfast spacecraft to travel to Mars has said that it has an engine that can reach the Red Planet in just 29 days.
The US space agency has sought help from a number of companies to help develop high-speed engines and other machineries for its deep space exploration.
The initiative is part of the NASA project called 12 Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextStep), the dailymail.co.uk reported.
The Texas-based company Ad Astra Rocket has said that its engine "Vasimr", fitted with a nuclear power source, can drastically reduce the travel time to Mars from months to weeks.
A prototype of this machine was successfully tested in 2013 and NASA is now planning to use it in future Mars exploration.
"We are thrilled by this announcement and proud to be joining forces with NASA in the final steps of the technology maturation,' the report quoted Ad Astra's Chairman Franklin Chang Diaz as saying.
The company will get $10 million from NASA to build the machine.
NASA has also selected seven companies to develop the habitats for the astronauts for Mars exploration in the 2030s.

Bihar court orders FIR against Giriraj Singh for white skin remark ;

Union Minister Giriraj Singh 

























A court in Bihar on Thursday ordered police to file an FIR against Union Minister Giriraj Singh for his controversial remarks on Sonia Gandhi who ignored the racist comment saying she won't respond to people with "narrow mindset".
The Congress also took to streets stepping up its demand for sacking of Singh staging protests in Delhi and also in Bengaluru where BJP leaders have gathered for its National Executive meet.
The BJP on its part sought to bring closure to the raging controversy, saying it considers the matter closed as the minister has expressed his regret.

 

 

 

As the outrage against the minister continued after he kicked up a row with his remarks asking whether Congress would have accepted Sonia's leadership had she not been white-skinned, Singh came under attack even from BJP ally and Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha.
"It does not behove a Union minister to speak in such a language...it's objectionable remark," Kushwaha, President Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP), an ally of BJP, told reporters in Patna.
When newsmen sought her reaction, Sonia said she would not like to respond to people with "narrow mindset".
"I feel it is not worth responding to persons having such a narrow mindset," Gandhi told reporters in Neemuch in Madhya Pradesh where she had gone to survey the damaged crops and meet farmers.
In Bihar, Sanjay Kumar Singh, a Congress worker, filed a complaint against Giriraj for his remarks against Sonia in the court of Muzaffarpur Chief Judicial Magistrate Ved Prakash Singh, who transferred the case to the court of Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate Anju Singh.
The magistrate directed Mithanpura police station to register a case against the minister on the basis of the complaint, lawyer of the petitioner Sumit Kumar said.
The SDJM gave the order to Mithanpura police station under Section 166 of IPC (public servant disobeying law with intent to cause injury to any person).
The complainant, a resident of Miscote colony of Muzaffarpur, said in the petition that after reading a news report about the racist remark on Sonia he was pained.
The Youth Congress staged a protest outside a residential complex in Delhi where Singh lives while another demonstration was staged by the Delhi Mahila Congress outside BJP's headquarters at 11, Ashoka Road.
Condemning the remarks of Singh on Sonia, senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh said the Congress demands not only a public apology from the Minister but also seeks his dismissal from the Cabinet.
In Bengaluru, Congress and NSUI workers assembled at a major junction, about 1km away from a hotel where top BJP leaders have gathered for the party's two-day National Executive meeting beginning on Friday.
They shouted slogans against the minister and burnt his effigy.
"Giriraj Singh has clarified his position. The matter has ended and should not be made an issue by our opponents. Giriraj Singh has expressed his regret," BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain told reporters in Bengaluru.

Mail Today Even teachers cheat in Bihar ;

A file photo of candidates appearing for the Bihar Teachers' Eligibility Test in Patna.After grappling with the problems of mass copying and 'dummy' candidates in different examinations recently, Bihar's Nitish Kumar government has yet another problem staring in its face now: Fake certificates.
Thousands of applicants to the posts of primary teachers in the state have submitted fake TET (teachers' eligibility test) certificates, along with their applications in different districts. The TET is the main criterion for the selection.
This came to light during a meeting of the senior officials of the primary education department with the district magistrates, deputy development commissioners and other officials on Wednesday.

 

 

Results deferred
According to education department officials, approximately 25 per cent of the applicants have furnished fake certificates in several districts.
Director (Primary Education) Sridhar C. has asked the district officials to lodge FIRs and take other suitable actions against the erring job aspirants. Education department officials said that the date for the results of the recruitment test has now been deferred from March 29 to April 15.
Bihar had recently witnessed widespread cheating in the matriculation examinations which was followed by the arrest of more than 1,200 candidates in the ongoing police constable recruitment examination on the charge of forgery.
The government is, at present, in the process of filling 94,000 vacancies for primary teachers.
"The exact number of applicants who have furnished fake certificates is not known as the data from all the districts is yet to come. However, the number of candidates is believed to be substantially high," said, senior education department official R.S. Singh, who attended the meeting with the district officials.
"Orders have been given to lodge FIRs against those found guilty," he added. Singh said that the government had organised the TET in 2011 and later in 2013 for Urdu teachers. "The results of those tests are valid for seven years for the recruitment of teachers. Besides, the Central Teachers Eligibility Test (CTET) results are also valid. But many candidates who failed to qualify in those tests chose to forge documents to get the jobs," he said.
Singh said that the fraud was detected because the department had provided the results of both the TETs to all the district education officials.
Last year, the Bihar government had sacked about 1,100 teachers for submitting fake documents.
The Nitish Kumar government had offered jobs on contract to about 2.5 lakh teachers on a consolidated salary of up to `7,000 per month after coming to power in 2005 in a bid to improve the education scenario in the state. But many contractual teachers later resorted to agitation seeking salary at par with regular teachers.

Germanwings pilot searched on computer for ways to commit suicide

Wreckage of the Airbus A320 is seen at the site of the crash, near Seyne-les-Alpes. Photo: Reuters. 
























German prosecutors said on Thursday they believed the co-pilot who crashed a Germanwings plane in the French Alps last week had searched on a computer for ways to commit suicide shortly before the crash which killed 150 people.
In a statement, prosecutors in his home town of Duesseldorf they said the computer, found in his home, also showed searches on cockpit doors and safety precautions related to them.
They said Andreas Lubitz had also "looked for information on ways to commit suicide" in computer searches that took place between March 16 and 23, one day before the crash.
"On at least one day, the person had for several minutes undertaken searches related to cockpit doors and their safety precautions," it added.
The disclosure feeds into an acceleration of the multiple investigations into the crash of the German airliner as police in the French Alps said they had found the plane's second "black box" cockpit recorder.
"The second black box has been recovered. The prosecutor is going to make an announcement", a Gendarmerie officer said.
The Marseille prosecutor in charge of the case, Brice Robin, confirmed he was planning a news conference for later on Thursday.
Robin said last Friday that preliminary evidence from the cockpit voice recorder, which was quickly recovered from the scene, suggested 27-year-old Lubitz crashed the jet on purpose after barricading himself at the controls.
The second "black box", or Flight Data Recorder, contains hundreds of parameters taken from the Airbus A320.
The first box, which records pilot conversations, cockpit sounds and radio messages, was found hours after the crash.
There was no immediate word on the condition of the device, designed to withstand the force of a significant impact.
If intact, the data is expected to provide further detailed evidence including any commands from the co-pilot seat.
France's BEA air crash investigation authority, which is expected to decode the information as part of a parallel safety investigation, was not immediately available for comment.
Investigators are still trying to work out the motive for which Lubitz would take the controls of the A320, lock the door that was specially reinforced after 9/11 and apparently deliberately steer the aircraft into a mountainside.
German daily Bild reported on Thursday that Lubitz had allegedly lied to doctors, telling them he was on sick leave rather than flying commercial planes.
Germanwings parent Lufthansa has come under pressure to explain what it knew about his condition.
It said this week that when Lubitz resumed pilot training in 2009 he provided the flight school with medical documents showing he had gone through a "previous episode of severe depression".

Lamborghini Gallardo crashes in central Delhi;

 

The Lamborghini Gallardo which was severely damaged in an accident near Copernicus Marg in Delhi on Wednesday night. Nobody was injured in the accident. A police constable, who saw the crash, said the vehicle was being driven at 150 kmph. (Photo: Qamar SiIn what could have been another one of those major accidents in which a high-speed luxury car is involved past midnight, a major mishap was averted on Wednesday late night when a Lamborghini Gallardo turned turtle near Copernicus Marg in the Capital.
The yellow-coloured luxury car was reportedly being driven at 150 kmph when it hit the pavement on one side of the road. No one, however, was injured in the accident.
A police constable on duty in the area claimed he saw the luxury car, which can reach 0-100 kmph in 3.9 seconds, running wildly on the outer circle of C-Hexagaon at Copernicus Marg around 1.15 am.
"The car was very fast, and ended up hitting the pavement of a park between Copernicus Marg and Tilak Marg. The driver immediately got out the car after the accident and ran away," a senior police officer said, adding that the driver is still absconding.
"The car had no number plate. However, we found the car papers inside and consequently the vehicle registration number as well," the officer added. The car is in the name of a real estate company in Noida.
The Delhi Police has registered a case under appropriate Sections, including Section 279 (rash driving), of the Indian Penal Code and the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.
According to a senior traffic police officer, these luxury cars are not very easy to handle as they can reach up to 200 kmph in just 10 seconds.
Though these cars have high-end safety features, a speed of over 150 kmph can have disastrous effects on the car, and the safety provisions can often prove to be useless.
In this case too, the speed of the car went out of the driver's control and led to the accident," the traffic police officer added.
This is not the first such incident in Delhi where people, after midnight, bring out their high-speed cars on to the city roads and imagine them to be racing tracks.
In October 2011, a young man was driving a Porsche sports car model at around 180 kmph near India Gate when the car met with an accident. According to an eyewitness, the car was barely recognisable after the accident. The impact was such that the front right tyre uprooted and landed on top of the car's engine. In 2012, real estate tycoon Anukool Rishi died on the BRT corridor when his luxury car hit a cyclist.

Centre working on substitute of Section 66A: Fadnavis ;

 

Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said that the Centre is working on formulating a new law under IT Act, on the lines of section 66 (A) that was struck down recently by the Supreme Court.
Fadnavis was replying to Shiv Sena MLC Neelam Gorhe, who asked whether the state will frame a new law in place of Section 66 (A) that would compensate for the repercussions on the Supreme Court order.
"Under the previous law, an accused could be put behind bars if he made objectionable comments on somebody. After this law was struck down, these miscreants will now get teeth to continue doing this. Will the state government formulate a law in line with the previous law?" Gorhe asked.
Fadnavis said that there is no need for the state government to frame a new law as the Central government is already working on it.
"The Centre is working on formulating a new law on the lines of Section 66 (A) that was struck down by the SC. There was no conviction in the previous law and thus a law is being formulated that will be strong and which will result in convictions," the chief minister said.
While there were 937 registered cases under the IT Act in 2013, the number rose to 2,696 in 2014, he said.
Replying to a question by Hemant Takle (NCP), who pointed out that merely training 1,000 policemen will not help and that all police stations should be trained in handling cases of cyber crime, Fadnavis said that his suggestion will be considered.
He also said that while 1,000 policemen are being trained to tackle cyber crime cases, NASSCOM and DSCI are also imparting training to 4,416 officials and 5,972 low-level officers.
"To tackle cases, we will also think about taking help from outsourced agencies if required," the CM added.

Kenya: Al-Shabab militants kill 147 at an university '

A Kenya Defense Force soldier runs for cover near the perimeter wall where attackers are holding up at a campus in Garissa. ReutersAl-Shabab gunmen rampaged through a university in northeastern Kenya at dawn Thursday, killing 147 people in the group's deadliest attack in the East African country. Four militants were slain by security forces to end the siege just after dusk.
The masked attackers — strapped with explosives and armed with AK-47s — singled out non-Muslim students at Garissa University College and then gunned them down without mercy, survivors said. Others ran for their lives with bullets whistling through the air. Amid the massacre, the men took dozens of hostages in a dormitory as they battled troops and police before the operation ended after about 13 hours, witnesses said.
When gunfire from the Kenyan security forces struck the attackers, the militants exploded "like bombs," Interior Minister Joseph Nkaissery said, adding that the shrapnel wounded some of the officers.

 

 

Al-Shabab spokesman Ali Mohamud Rage said fighters from the Somalia-based extremist group were responsible. The al-Qaida-linked group has been blamed for a series of attacks in Kenya, including the siege at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi in 2013 that killed 67 people, as well as other violence in the north. The group has vowed to retaliate against Kenya for sending troops to Somalia in 2011 to fight the militants staging cross-border attacks.
Most of the 147 dead were students, but two security guards, one policeman and one soldier also were killed in the attack, Nkaissery said.
At least 79 people were wounded at the campus 145 kilometers (90 miles) from the Somali border, he said. Some of the more seriously wounded were flown to Nairobi for treatment. A dusk-to-dawn curfew was ordered in Garissa and three nearby counties.
One suspected extremist was arrested as he tried to flee, Nkaissery told a news conference in Nairobi. Police identified a possible mastermind of the attack as Mohammed Mohamud, who is alleged to lead al-Shabab's cross-border raids into Kenya, and they posted a $220,000 bounty for him. Also known by the names Dulyadin and Gamadhere, he was a teacher at an Islamic religious school, or madrassa, and claimed responsibility for a bus attack in Makka, Kenya, in November that killed 28 people.
One of the survivors of Thursday's attack, Collins Wetangula, told The Associated Press he was preparing to take a shower when he heard gunshots coming from Tana dorm, which hosts both men and women, 150 meters (yards) away. The campus has six dorms and at least 887 students, he said.
When he heard the gunshots, he locked himself and three roommates in their room, said Wetangula, who is vice chairman of the university's student union. "All I could hear were footsteps and gunshots. Nobody was screaming because they thought this would lead the gunmen to know where they are," he said.
He added: "The gunmen were saying, 'Sisi ni al-Shabab,'" — Swahili for "We are al-Shabab." He heard the attackers arrive at his dormitory, open the doors and ask if the people who had hidden inside were Muslims or Christians.
"If you were a Christian, you were shot on the spot," he said. "With each blast of the gun, I thought I was going to die." The gunmen then started shooting rapidly, as if exchanging fire, Wetangula said.
"The next thing, we saw people in military uniform through the window of the back of our rooms who identified themselves as the Kenyan military," he said. The soldiers took him and around 20 others to safety. The attack began about 5:30 a.m., as morning prayers were underway at the university mosque, where worshippers were not attacked, said Augustine Alanga, a 21-year-old student.
At least five heavily armed, masked gunmen opened fire outside his dormitory, turning intense almost immediately and setting off panic, he told the AP by telephone. The shooting kept some students indoors but scores of others fled through barbed-wire fencing around the campus, with the gunmen firing at them, he said.
"I am just now recovering from the pain as I injured myself while trying to escape, Alanga said. I was running barefoot," Alanga said. As terrified students streamed out of buildings, arriving police officers took cover. Kenya's National Police Service said a "fierce shootout" ensued as police guarded the dorms.
Three dorms were evacuated as the gunmen holed up in a fourth, and Kenyan Defense Forces surrounded the campus. "I am saddened to inform the nation that early today, terrorists attacked Garissa University College, killed and wounded several people, and have taken others hostage," President Uhuru Kenyatta said in a speech to the nation while the siege was underway.
After the militants took hostages, fears arose over the fate of some of the students, but the National Disaster Operations Center said all were eventually accounted for. The US condemned the attack, with White House spokesman Josh Earnest saying Washington was standing with the people of Kenya, "who will not be intimidated by such cowardly attacks." U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also condemned it, reiterating his solidarity with the Kenyans "to prevent and counter terrorism and violent extremism," his office said.
Wetangula, who was rescued by troops, said one soldier instructed a group of students to run and to dive for cover at their command as they ran to safety. "We started running and bullets were whizzing past our heads, and the soldiers told us to dive," Wetangula said. The soldier told students later that al-Shabab snipers were perched on a three-story dormitory called the Elgon, he said.
Kenyatta has been under pressure to deal with insecurity caused by a string of attacks by al-Shabab. In his speech to the country, he said he had directed the police chief to speed up the training of 10,000 police recruits because Kenya has "suffered unnecessarily due to shortage of security personnel."
Kenya's northern and eastern regions near the Somali border have seen many attacks blamed on al-Shabab. Last month, al-Shabab claimed responsibility for attacks in Mandera county on the Somali border in which 12 people died.
Police said 312 people have been killed in al-Shabab attacks in Kenya from 2012 to 2014. Last week, al-Shabab claimed responsibility for a siege at a Mogadishu hotel that left 24 people dead, including six attackers.

Jammu-Srinagar highway closed, passengers stranded ;

Heavy rains and landslides forced the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway to remain closed for traffic for the third day today, leaving over 500 Kashmir-bound passengers stranded.
Authorities have not allowed any fresh movement of traffic from Jammu to Srinagar or from the other side as a precautionary measure in view of the bad weather conditions, PTI reported.
Fresh landslides have occurred at three to four places on the highway, police said.

 

 

 

The men and machines of Border Roads Organisation (BRO) are working to clear the highway of landslides and make it motorable but the continuous heavy rains is making the task of clearance of landslides on the highway difficult, they said.
Over 1000 vehicles are stranded at various places at Jammu, Udhampur, Banihal, Ramban, Batote and Patnitop areas of the highway.
Traffic authorities had yesterday cleared some vehicles and trucks carrying essential supplies.
As a result of closure of the highway, over 500-600 Kashmir-bound passengers are stranded at the Jammu bus stand for the past three days and are demanding that they be airlifted to Kashmir.
They have also held protests against the government and demanded that they be provided boarding and lodging facilities.
Meanwhile, the Batote-Doda-Kishtwar inter-district road has been closed for traffic in view of landslides at different places, they said, adding efforts are being made to restore the road for traffic.

Hindus to be world's 3rd largest population by 2050: Report ;

Hindu devotees pray during the annual Maha Shivaratri festival. ReutersHindus will become the world's third largest population by 2050, while India will overtake Indonesia as the country with the largest Muslim population, according to a new study.
According to the Pew Research Center's religious profile predictions assessed data released on Thursday, the Hindu population is projected to rise by 34 per cent worldwide, from a little over 1 billion to nearly 1.4 billion by 2050. By 2050, Hindus will be third, making up 14.9 per cent of the world's total population, followed by people who do not affiliate with any religion, accounting for 13.2 per cent, the report said.
The people with no religious affiliation currently have the third largest share of the world's total population. Muslims are projected to grow faster than the world's overall population and that Hindus and Christians are projected to roughly keep pace with worldwide population growth, the report said.
"India will retain a Hindu majority but also will have the largest Muslim population of any country in the world, surpassing Indonesia," it said. "Over the next four decades, Christians will remain the largest religious group, but Islam will grow faster than any other major religion," according to the report.
The report predicted that by 2050 there will be near parity between Muslims (2.8 billion, or 30 per cent of the population) and Christians (2.9 billion, or 31 per cent), possibly for the first time in history. There were 1.6 billion Muslims in 2010, compared to 2.17 billion Christians.
"The number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians around the world," it added. If the trend continues, Islam will be the most popular faith in the world after 2070, it said.
By 2050, Muslims will make up about 10 per cent of the Europe's population, up from 5.9 per cent in 2010. Over the same period, the number of Hindus in Europe is expected to roughly double, from a little under 1.4 million (0.2 per cent of Europe?s population) to nearly 2.7 million (0.4 per cent), mainly as a result of immigration, it said.
In North America, the Hindu share of the population is expected to nearly double in the decades ahead, from 0.7 per cent in 2010 to 1.3 per cent in 2050, when migration is included in the projection models. Without migration, the Hindu share of the region's population would remain the same.
Buddhism is the only faith that is not expected to increase its followers, due to an ageing population and stable fertility rates in Buddhist countries, such as China, Japan and Thailand. The projections considered fertility rates, trends in youth population growth and religious conversion statistics.

Nuclear deal: World powers, Iran seal breakthrough framework ;

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, right, delivers a statement, flanked by European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, or Ecole Polytechnique Federale De Lausanne, in Lausanne, Switzerland.Capping exhausting and contentious talks, Iran and world powers sealed a breakthrough agreement Thursday outlining limits on Iran's nuclear program to keep it from being able to produce atomic weapons. The Islamic Republic was promised an end to years of crippling economic sanctions, but only if negotiators transform the plan into a comprehensive pact. They will try to do that in the next three months.
The United States and Iran, long-time adversaries who hashed out much of the agreement, each hailed the efforts of their diplomats over days of sleepless nights in Switzerland. Speaking at the White House, President Barack Obama called it a "good deal" that would address concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called it a "win-win outcome."
Those involved have spent 18 months in broader negotiations that were extended twice since an interim accord was reached shortly after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani entered office. That deal itself was the product of more than a year of secret negotiations between the Obama administration and Iran, a country the US still considers the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism.

 

 

Opponents of the emerging accord, including Israel and Republican leaders in Congress, reacted with skepticism. They criticized the outline for failing to do enough to curb Iran's potential to produce nuclear weapons or to mandate intrusive enough inspections. Obama disagreed.

"This framework would cut off every pathway that Iran could take to develop a nuclear weapon," he declared. "This deal is not based on trust. It's based on unprecedented verification."
If implemented, the understandings reached Thursday would mark the first time in more than a decade of diplomatic efforts that Iran's nuclear efforts would be rolled back.
It commits Tehran to significant cuts in centrifuges, the machines that can spin uranium gas to levels used in nuclear warheads. Of the nearly 20,000 centrifuges Iran now has installed or running at its main enrichment site, the country would be allowed to operate just over 5,000. Much of its enriched stockpiles would be neutralized. A planned reactor would be reconstructed so it produced no weapons-grade plutonium. Monitoring and inspections by the U.N. nuclear agency would be enhanced.
America's negotiating partners in Europe strongly backed the result. President Francois Hollande of France, which had pushed the US for a tougher stance, endorsed the accord while warning that "sanctions lifted can be re-established if the agreement is not applied."
Obama sought to frame the deal as a salve that reduces the chances of the combustible Middle East becoming even more unstable with the introduction of a nuclear-armed Iran. Many fear that would spark an arms race that could spiral out of control in a region rife with sectarian rivalry, terrorist threats and weak or failed states.
Obama said he had spoken with Saudi Arabia's King Salman and that he'd invite him and other Arab leaders to Camp David this spring to discuss security strategy. The Sunni majority Saudis have made veiled threats about creating their own nuclear program to counter Shia-led Iran.
The American leader also spoke by telephone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, perhaps the sharpest critic of the diplomacy with Iran. Netanyahu told Obama a deal based on the agreement "would threaten the survival of Israel." The White House said Obama assured Netanyahu that the agreement would not diminish US concerns about Iran's sponsorship of terrorism and threats toward Israel.
Obama saved his sharpest words for members of Congress who have threatened to either try to kill the agreement or approve new sanctions against Iran. Appearing in the Rose Garden, Obama said the issues at stake are "bigger than politics."
"These are matters of war and peace," he said, and if Congress kills the agreement "international unity will collapse, and the path to conflict will widen."
Hawks on Capitol Hill reacted slowly to the news from the Swiss city of Lausanne, perhaps because the framework was far more detailed than many diplomats had predicted over a topsy-turvy week of negotiation.
House Speaker John Boehner said it would be "naive to suggest the Iranian regime will not continue to use its nuclear program, and any economic relief, to further destabilize the region."
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said his panel would vote this month on legislation giving Congress the right to vote on a final deal. Freshman Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who penned a letter that many GOP senators signed last month to Iran's leaders, said he would work "to protect America from this very dangerous proposal."
Many of the nuclear limits on Iran would be in place for a decade, while others would last 15 or 20 years. Sanctions related to Iran's nuclear programs would be suspended by the US, the United Nations and the European Union after the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed Iran's compliance.
In a joint statement, European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and Iran's Zarif called the agreement a "decisive step." Highlighting Iran's effort to show a new face of its government, Zarif then held a news conference, answering many questions in English, and Obama's statement was carried live and uncensored on Iranian state TV.
Still, all sides spoke with a sense of caution.
"We have taken a major step, but are still some way away from where we want to be," Zarif told reporters, even as he voiced hope that a final agreement might ease suspicion between the US and Iran, which haven't had diplomatic relations since the 1979 overthrow of the shah and the subsequent US Embassy hostage crisis in Tehran.
Zarif said the agreement would show "our program is exclusively peaceful, has always been and always will remain exclusively peaceful." But he also said it would not hinder the country's pursuit of atomic energy for civilian purposes. "We will continue enriching," he said. "We will continue research and development." He said the heavy water reactor would be "modernized."
Kerry lashed out at critics who have demanded that Iran halt all uranium enrichment and completely close a deeply buried underground facility that may be impervious to an air attack.
"Simply demanding that Iran capitulate makes a nice sound bite, but it is not a policy, it is not a realistic plan," Kerry said.
The final breakthrough came a day after a flurry of overnight sessions between Kerry and Zarif, and meetings involving the six powers at a luxury hotel in Lausanne.
As late as Thursday afternoon, it still appeared an agreement might be beyond reach as the US pushed to spell out concrete commitments and Iran adamantly demanded that only a vague statement be presented. In an apparent compromise, some details were noted in the general statement and others were saved for a more detailed position paper issued by the White House and State Department.
Some of that tension remained.
"There is no need to spin using 'fact sheets' so early on," Zarif tweeted. He also questioned some of the assertions contained in the document, such as the speed of a US sanctions drawdown.

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/iran-nuclear-deal-us-world-powers/1/428180.html

Mulayam cosying up to Modi to escape CBI action in assets case ;

Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the wedding ceremony of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh's kin.If the proposed Janata Parivar fails to take shape, much of it could be due to Mulayam Singh Yadav. With the Samajwadi Party chief walking on a tightrope - at times cosying up with Prime Minister Narendra Modi while at other times opposing the Bharatiya Janata Party - the possibility of a United Janata Dal seems to be unlikely. It seems Mulayam just cannot afford to annoy Prime Minister Modi, more so when the Central Bureau of Investigation can swoop down on Samajwadi Party chief and his family in a disproportionate assets case.
And so, the Samajwadi Party supported PM Modi's National Democratic Alliance government for the Mines and Minerals Development and Regulation Amendment Bill, but opposed the Land Acquisition Bill. The contradictory stances of Mulayam's outfit, say observers, clearly indicate that he is not willing to go the whole hog to oppose BJP. At the same time Mulayam wants to maintain a distance with the ruling party at the Centre to keep his Muslim vote bank intact.
Top sources in the SP told MAIL TODAY that Mulayam cannot offend Modi in any way because the Uttar Pradesh government of Akhilesh Yadav needs Central funds. But at the same time, Mulayam knows that his Muslim vote bank will not be happy if he befriends the prime minister. A senior SP leader said: "The Muslims would seek an explanation from him for his friendly gestures towards Modi. But Mulayam too is worried about parties like the DMK, AIADMK and the Trinamool Congress. They haven't shown much interest in the third alternative under Mulayam's leadership. Rather, AIADMK of Jayalalithaa supported the Land Bill. So he is trying a balancing act."
Vishwanath Chaturvedi, the petitioner in the disproportionate assets case against Mulayam and sons, believes that the SP chief is trying his best to keep the BJP happy. "This is because the CBI can change its posture in the case and make Mulayam's life miserable," Chaturvedi told MAIL TODAY.
"Moreover, even though the egoist leaders of Janata Parivar parties may accept Mulayam as their leader for the time being, the SP chief himself knows that he will become too weak after the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections," Chaturvedi added.
Mulayam is also worried about the dual membership issue in the Janata Parivar. Lalu Prasad of RJD, Deve Gowda of JD (S) and others would not like to completely merge their separate identities with that of the United Janata Dal. They would like to retain their identities by means of dual membership, as was the case for Janata Party and the Jan Sangh members in the late 1970s. "But history tells us that such dual membership can be the cause of disintegration. It happened with the Janata Party under Morarji Desai," a top SP leader said.
A.K. Verma, a political analyst and head of political science at Kanpur's Christ Church College said, "People are disgusted with the politics of Congress and BJP. They may be looking for a new alternative. But they have bitter experiences with the third alternative. They understand that Mulayam-led front belongs to vision-less politicians. Lalu has returned from jail and Mulayam is into communal and caste politics. This is why I believe this third front will not be able to fulfill expectations."
Amid all this, Mulayam's rivals are mincing no words. "Mulayam is an agent of the communal Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. This is why he is breaking the promises made during 2012 Assembly elections to provide jobs to Muslims. He is now a friend of Modi who is anti-Muslim," BSP general secretary Nasimuddin Siddiqui said.