|
 |
| L
A T E S T N E W S |
Modi says he won't attack Shiv Sena
TASGAON: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday attacked the Congress and NCP in Maharashtra but said he would not utter a word against estranged ally Shiv
Sena.
"Some newspapers have reported that the prime minister has criticized the Shiv
Sena," Modi told an election rally here.
"This is the first election in the absence of Balasaheb Thackeray. I have decided I will not say anything against the Shiv
Sena. This is due to my respect for the great leader," he said The Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) ended their 25-year-old alliance in Maharashtra ahead of the Oct 15 elections over seat-sharing and the chief ministerial candidate.
The prime minister accused the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government of widespread corruption.
"They have even snatched the homes meant for Kargil widows. Why are sugar factories shut? Why are farmers upset?" Modi thanked the people for electing the BJP to rule the country in the Lok Sabha election.
He said it was shameful that some people were misusing Shivaji's name. "It was the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government which named the Mumbai airport after
Shivaji." –IANS 
25 people injured in clash
MUZAFFARNAGAR: 25 people, including five women, were injured in a clash between two groups at Saidpur village under Totawi police station in the district.
According to SHO Virender Kumar, last evening Tanveer and Mehraj got into an altercation over money which turned into a violent clash in which fire arms and bricks were also used, police said.
Police rushed to the spot and brought the situation under control. Extra police has been deployed in the village and security has been tightened, he added.
The injured have been shifted to the hospital. -PTI
J-K govt announces tax sops to flood-affected businessmen
SRINAGAR: Jammu and Kashmir government has announced a slew of concessions to the flood-affected businessmen with a view to give immediate succour to the community and bring on the track the economic activities.
The relaxations were considered after detailed meeting with the State Economic Reconstruction Forum (SERF), a trade body formed in the aftermath of the floods, by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather the other day, an official spokesman said.
The government has agreed that the registered dealers, whose business record and sales accounts have been destroyed due to floods, can file their returns of the second quarter of the current fiscal by the prescribed last date for filing third quarter returns, the spokesman said.
"The government has further decided that whose stocks destroyed due to the floods shall be deducted from the assessment of sales on the basis of declarations to be made by the concerned registered dealers," he said.
The stocks transported into the state but lying with the transport companies and destroyed due to floods shall also be taken cognizance of in a similar manner at the time of assessment, he added.
The assessing officer shall not insist on production of a copy of FIR for the purpose of taking cognizance of losses of stocks and record due to the floods, the spokesman said adding the Commercial Taxes Department shall take cognizance of information provided by the Revenue Department or their prescribed authorities for this purpose.
The filing of audited accounts for the year ended March 31, 2014 has been deferred to March 31, 2015 for flood-affected dealers.
"Any registered dealer required bringing in furniture, fixtures, gadgets or equipment necessary for replacing his assets lost due to the floods in order to restart his business shall be exempted from entry tax and toll on such equipment for a period of one month," the spokesman said.
Similarly, no toll shall be charged on the movement of damaged fabric through Lakhanpur Check Post when such fabric is returned or sent out for disposal or reprocessing, he said adding this facility shall be available up to December 31, 2014.
The Chief Minister and Finance Minister have assured the business community in the State that in this hour of distress the State Government stands with them and all other stake holders and the civil society at large and shares with them a common cause of initiating all the requisite steps which would help in speedy placing the economic activities back on rails. –PTI
Pashmina Promotion Programme to be launched on Oct 8
NEW DELHI: Seeking to develop crafts of Jammu and Kashmir, Union Textiles Minister Santosh Gangwar will launch the Pashmina Promotion Programme and lay the foundation stone of Pashmina Dehairing Plant at Leh, Ladakh on October 8.
The government had proposed the Pashmina Promotion Programme (P-3) and a programme for the development of other crafts of Jammu & Kashmir in the Union Budget and set aside a sum of Rs 50 crore for the purpose.
Pashmina shawls are famous throughout the world and exported to various countries. They are hand spun, woven and embroidered in Nepal and Kashmir, and made from fine cashmere
fibre.
Pashmina is a type of fine cashmere wool. The textiles made from Pashmina were first woven in India. The name comes from Pashmineh, which in Persian means "made from wool".
The government is in the process of framing the new National Textiles Policy, which aims to achieve USD 300 billion exports by 2024-25, and create additional 35 million jobs by attracting investments. -PTI
Hong Kong unrest continues; no dialogue in sight
HONG KONG: Clashes in Hong Kong between pro-democracy activists and counter-protesters continued Saturday, while one of the groups leading the week-long demonstrations demanded explanations from the local government as a pre-condition for returning to the negotiating table.
Criticism of the pro-Beijing government of this semi-autonomous Chinese territory continued to mount over the police's alleged passivity in dealing with hundreds of counter-protesters, who have violently tried to drive the mainly young, student-led demonstrators from the occupied streets.
The clashes Friday night and early Saturday left 18 people injured, including students and reporters who said they were attacked by both the counter-demonstrators and police. Nineteen people were arrested.
The main organisers of the pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong -- Occupy Central, Scholarism and the Hong Kong Federation of Students -- said Friday they were suspending talks with the Chinese government following a day of violence they claimed was orchestrated and carried out by supporters of China's rule.
A Federation leader said Saturday that the group will not engage in talks unless the government offers explanations about attacks on the pro-democracy demonstrators Friday and Saturday.
Counter-demonstrators continued to clash Saturday morning with the students, trying to break up their protest camps in the districts of Mong Kok, the commercial heart of Hong Kong, and the commercial district of Causeway Bay.
Police and the Hong Kong government said that among those arrested Friday were eight members of organised crime gangs known as triads.
Opposition, pro-democracy lawmakers in Hong Kong's parliament Saturday said the violent incidents were the result of a coordinated effort between the government and the triads against the student activists.
But the secretary for security of the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, Lai Tung-kwok, vehemently denied those allegations, calling them "irrational and extremely unfair".
Roughly a thousand activists remained at the protest camps Saturday, many expressing anger at the passivity of the police.
"I'll keep coming. The Hong Kong government has shown its dark side. We're not just another city of the Chinese mainland," Chui Kayan, a student who has been sleeping in the protest camps since last Sunday, said.
"The people of Hong Kong are easy to manage and keep content, but the lack of respect with which the government is treating us is unacceptable... I can't believe this is Hong Kong," Kelvin Li said in Mong Kok, which was the epicenter of Friday's clashes and also the scene of violence Saturday, although to a lesser degree.
The protesters' demands include a call for the resignation or removal of the chief executive of the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, Leung Chung-ying, widely seen as Beijing's puppet.
They also are seeking guarantees that Hong Kong citizens can freely vote for their leaders in 2017 from an unrestricted list of candidates, as Beijing promised when Britain handed over the territory in 1997. -IANS
Typhoon Phanfone on course to lash Tokyo with
heavy wind, rain
TOKYO: A powerful typhoon is on course to brush by Tokyo on Monday, after barrelling into southwestern Japan with heavy rain and wind that caused flights to be cancelled flights and knocked out power.
Typhoon Phanfone, which was downgraded from an earlier status of a super typhoon, is moving at 20 kph (12 mph), the Japan Meteorological Agency said on Sunday.
It is expected to head north after hitting parts of Kyushu and Okinawa islands with heavy rain and wind. About 30 cm (12 inches) of rain and heavy wind are forecast for eastern Japan, including the Tokyo metropolitan area.
"My school has already decided not to have classes tomorrow," said Tomoko Kakinuma, a 20-year old college student in Tokyo.
On Sunday, Japanese airlines All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines Co cancelled flights to several southern Japanese cities and Kyushu Electric Power Co said over 21,000 households were without power.
Nansei Sekiyu, a Japanese refiner wholly owned by Brazil's Petrobras, has suspended marine operations at its 100,000 barrels-per-day refinery in Okinawa due to the typhoon, but other operations are unaffected, a company spokesman said.
The approach of the typhoon also forced the suspension of search efforts on Mount Ontake in central Japan, where 12 people remain missing following a volcanic eruption that killed at least 51, Kyodo news agency said. –Agencies
Pak violates ceasefire again
JAMMU: Violating the ceasefire for the 10th time this month, Pakistani troops on Sunday opened heavy fire on Indian posts along the LoC in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir.
Army troops guarding the borderline with Pakistan effectively responded to the firing.
"Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire by resorting to unprovoked and heavy firing on Indian forward posts along LoC in Balnoie sub-sector of Poonch district around 0800 hours", Defence Spokesman Lt Col Manish Mehta said here.
There was no causality on the Indian side till reports last came in from the area.
This was the tenth ceasefire violation along the Indo-Pak border in Jammu and Kashmir since October 1. There have been seven ceasefire violations along the LoC in Poonch and three along the IB in Jammu.
Pakistani troops had yesterday fired mortar shells along the LoC in Poonch district, drawing equal retaliation from Army.
On October 3, Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire four time by shelling forward areas and villages along LoC and International Border in Gulmarg sector of Kashmir Valley and Poonch and Jammu sector in Jammu region in which a girl was killed and six persons were injured.
On October 1 and 2, Pakistani troops had violated the ceasefire two times along the LoC in Poonch district resulting in injuries to six persons and damage to some houses. On October two, Pakistani troops had targeted border hamlets in forward areas along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district by shelling them with mortar bombs and firing resulting in injuries to six civilians.
There have been over 100 ceasefire violations by Pakistan along the Line of Control in recent months. -PTI
Earth has 117 million lakes: study
NEW YORK: Scientists have finally pinned down the number of lakes that exist on Earth - a grand total of 117 million.
Most of the world's lakes are in places where humans don't live, said David Seekell, an environmental scientist at Umea University in Sweden.
"This is something one would have assumed had been done long ago, and was in a textbook somewhere," Seekell said.
Instead of counting lake by lake, earlier estimates were statistical guesses, based on the number of lakes in a parcel of land or on average lake size. One widely cited study from 2006 estimated the lake total at 304 million, 'LiveScience' reported.
The new study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, used high-resolution satellite data and supercomputers to discover that there are 117 million lakes in the world.
However, the bodies of water cover more land (3.7 per cent of Earth's surface) than previous studies had predicted.
This is because quite a few medium- to large-size lakes were missing from older databases, said Cory McDonald, a research scientist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, who was not involved in the study.
About 90 million of the lakes fall in the smallest size category, measuring 0.5 to 2.5 acres (0.2 to 1 hectare), the study found.
"Most lakes are in the far North, and there's actually quite a few of them," said Seekell, co-author of the new study.
According to the study results, the world's lakes cover about 5 million square kilometres, which is 3.7 per cent of the land uncapped by glaciers.
Most lakes are in the Northern Hemisphere between 45 degrees north latitude and 75 degrees north latitude.
This results from the tectonic scattering of continental landmasses and the past positions of glaciers, the researchers said.
There is less land in the southern high latitudes, and the North's sizable plains were scraped by ice age glaciers, leaving behind millions of pothole lakes.
The majority (85 per cent) of Earth's millions of lakes are at low altitudes, found at elevations less than 1,600 feet above sea level.
The study excluded the Caspian Sea, the world's largest lake, which covers an area of about 371,000 square km.
Antarctica and Greenland were also left out of the study. -PTI
UK woman marries herself!
LONDON: A woman in the UK who was fed up of being single got married to herself in a full wedding ceremony attended by 50 guests.
Grace Gelder, a photographer by profession, said that after being single for six years she had built up a brilliant relationship with herself - and creating that bond with someone else seemed like too much hard work.
Gelder even 'proposed' to herself on a park bench in Parliament Hill, London, last November and walked solo down the aisle in mid-March this year, 'mirror.co.uk' reported.
Gelder bought a dress, a ring, rehearsed vows and eventually wed in a farmhouse in rural Devon watched by her sister and friends - sealing the deal by planting a kiss on a mirror.
"A few did comment, in a light-hearted way, that it was a bit narcissistic," Gelder said.
"Obviously, if you have just announced you're marrying yourself, it is plainly a statement of self-love, and I was under no illusion how self-indulgent that might appear.
"But I was completely comfortable with my motivations.
I'd been on a journey of personal development using meditation, dance and performance to increase my self-awareness," Gelder told the Guardian.
Although the wedding holds no legal ground, Gelder is glad she is no longer a 'single' lady. -PTI
|
