‘Nirbhaya’ play opens in London
London, March 6
After its UK premiere at the prestigious Edinburgh Fringe Festival last year, a play based on the brutal gang rape of a paramedical student in Delhi has opened in London. 'Nirbhaya', a dramatisation of the true events that took place on the night of December 16, 2012, has been created by internationally acclaimed playwright and director Yael Farber.

No Indian varsity in top 100
London, March 6
India's struggle to break into the list of world's top 100 universities continued as the higher education institutions from the country yet again failed to impress academics across the world.

Karzai’s brother withdraws from Afghan Prez election
Kabul, March 6
The brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai today dropped out of the country's election and endorsed Zalmai Rassoul, a move widely seen as signalling the current leader's preferred choice of successor. "I and my team, we consider ourselves as a key part of this new alliance and declare my support for Doctor Zalmai Rassoul," Qayum Karzai told a press conference in Kabul.

Simferopol, March 6
Crimea's Parliament voted to join Russia on Thursday and its Moscow-backed government set a referendum within 10 days on the decision in a dramatic escalation of the crisis over the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula.

The sudden acceleration of moves to bring Crimea, which has an ethnic Russian majority and has effectively been seized by Russian forces, formally under Moscow's rule came as European Union leaders gathered for an emergency summit to find ways to pressure Russia to back down.

US President Barack Obama took steps to punish those involved in threatening the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, ordering the freezing of their US assets and a ban on travel into the United States. The US Navy announced a guided-missile destroyer, the USS Truxton, was heading to the Black Sea in what it said was a long-planned training exercise and not a show of force.

The Crimean Parliament voted unanimously "to enter into the Russian Federation with the rights of a subject of the Russian Federation". The vice premier of Crimea, home to Russia's Black Sea military base in Sevastopol, said a referendum on the status would take place on March 16. He said all state property would be "nationalised", the Russian rouble could be adopted and Ukrainian troops would be treated as occupiers and be forced to surrender or leave.

The announcement, which diplomats said could not have been made without Russian President Vladimir Putin's approval, raised the stakes in the most serious east-west confrontation since the end of the Cold War. Russia stocks fell and the rouble weakened further after the news. Moody's ratings agency said the stand-off was negative for Russia's sovereign creditworthiness. Russia said it would make it easier to give passports to native Russian speakers who have lived in Russia or the former Soviet Union.

Putin has cited the threat to Russian citizens to justify military action in Georgia in 2008 and now in Ukraine. Far from seeking a diplomatic way out of the crisis, Putin appears to have chosen to create facts on the ground before the West can agree on more than token action against him. EU leaders had been set to warn but not sanction Russia over its military intervention after Moscow rebuffed Western diplomatic efforts to persuade it to pull forces in Crimea, with a population of about 2 million, back to their bases.

It was not immediately clear what impact the Crimean moves would have. The Ukrainian government does not recognise his authority or that of Parliament. A Crimean Parliament official said voters will be asked two questions: should Crimea be part of the Russian Federation and should Crimea return to an earlier constitution (1992) that gave the region more autonomy? "If there weren't constant threats from the current illegal Ukrainian authorities, maybe we would have taken a different path," deputy parliament speaker Sergei Tsekov told reporters outside the parliament building in Crimea's main city of Simferopol. — Reuters

Bangkok, March 6
The order for deporting a leading Indian businessman for participating in anti-government rallies defying emergency in Thailand has been approved, even as he is seeking to petition the King to block the move.

Center for Maintaining Peace and Order (CMPO) chief Chalerm Yoobamrung said he has already approved the deportation order of Satish Sehgal, the president of the India-Thai business forum.

The CMPO has alleged that 70-year-old Sehgal had led anti-government protesters to surround government offices including the Civil Aviation Department after a state of emergency was announced in the country.

Sehgal, 70, who has lived in Thailand for 65 years, has appointed his lawyers to petition the Thai King to intervene in his case and prevent him from being deported.

He will be represented by his lawyer Chup Chairerkchai and his younger brother Arthit Sehgal.

The pair is seeking to petition the King after Interior Minister Charupong Ruangsuwan signed an order to revoke Sehgal's Thai residency and Chalerm signed a deportation order.

Now that both orders have been signed, police can arrest Sehgal and deport him.

However, Immigration Bureau Commissioner Lt Gen Phanu Kerdlarpphol said Sehgal has seven days to appeal against the deportation order. Phanu said he has not yet received the order from the Interior Ministry.

Phanu said after he receives the order, he will send a letter to Seghal to notify him and then the businessman must file an appeal against the order within seven days. Sehgal has denied that he broke any laws.

On January 22, the Yingluck Shinawatra-led caretaker government put Bangkok under a state of emergency for 60 days to quell the protests. — PTI

London, March 6
After its UK premiere at the prestigious Edinburgh Fringe Festival last year, a play based on the brutal gang rape of a paramedical student in Delhi has opened in London. 'Nirbhaya', a dramatisation of the true events that took place on the night of December 16, 2012, has been created by internationally acclaimed playwright and director Yael Farber.

"India is where the play comes from. The revolution on the streets (following the student's death) is exactly the spirit that the play captures. It is a protest against the conspiracy of silence," says actress and producer Poorna Jagannathan, who had contacted Farber in the aftermath of the incident that triggered worldwide protests.

The play, which bagged the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award 2013 after its opening in Scotland, will have a short run at the Southbank Centre in London until March 12.

It will then travel to Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore over the coming months. Funds for the tour were crowd-sourced through the Kickstarter scheme and supplemented by grants from the British Council and Oxfam.

"With an extraordinary cast and creative team from India, Farber brings us a blistering evocation of that terrible night and the ripples of change it set in motion. Tearing away the shame that keeps the survivors silent 'Nirbhaya' is a voyage into a tapestry of personal testimonies that speaks for both a nation and a world no longer able to hold the tides of change at bay," the Southbank Centre said in a statement.

The work follows five women as they share their stories of sexual violence, emboldened to break their silence after the attack on Nirbhaya, the name given to the Delhi student who eventually succumbed to her horrific injuries in a Singapore hospital. — PTI 

London, March 6
India's struggle to break into the list of world's top 100 universities continued as the higher education institutions from the country yet again failed to impress academics across the world.

Harvard University in the US has yet again topped the annual Times Higher Education (THE) magazine's 2014 'World Reputation Rankings' released here today.

Harvard is followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Stanford University is placed third, the University of Cambridge at fourth, the University of Oxford comes fifth and the University of California, Berkeley sixth. The list, based on a largest invitation-only survey of senior academics, saw conspicuous absence of Indian varsities.

"India is the only one of the so-called BRIC [Brazil, Russia, India and China] nations - those large, exciting developing economic powers - which does not have a university in the world top 100. Mainland China has two, both in the top 50, Russia and Brazil have one each - this should be a cause for concern for India," Phil Baty, editor of the rankings, told PTI.

"While we only officially rank the world's top 100 institutions, I can reveal that India is some way off the pace roughly around the 200th position," he added.

Punjab University, alma mater of Indian PM Manmohan Singh, found a place in the unranked section of 226-300. It is followed by the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur and Roorkee, which languish in the lowest grade of 351-400. — PTI 

Kabul, March 6
The brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai today dropped out of the country's election and endorsed Zalmai Rassoul, a move widely seen as signalling the current leader's preferred choice of successor.

"I and my team, we consider ourselves as a key part of this new alliance and declare my support for Doctor Zalmai Rassoul," Qayum Karzai told a press conference in Kabul.

Former foreign minister Rassoul, a softly-spoken loyalist of Hamid Karzai, said: "From now on, both teams will fight for victory... and I'm sure with the blessing of God, and the support of the people, we will win." President Karzai, who is constitutionally barred from standing again after serving two terms, has pledged not to publicly endorse any candidate in the April 5 elections.

But his brother's support of Rassoul is likely to be taken as a signal that Rassoul is the palace's choice to lead Afghanistan into a testing new era, when it will have to fight the Taliban insurgency without the aid of NATO combat troops.

The NATO combat mission ends in December, though a small number of US troops may stay in Afghanistan on training and counter-terrorism operations if a long-delayed security deal is signed with Washington.

Nearly 13 years after the fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan remains in a parlous condition, despite billions of dollars of military and development aid pouring into the country. — AFP