Luz of Charlie Hebdo to stop drawing Mohammed

The Charlie Hebdo cartoonist who drew the front page of the first edition to appear after January’s massacre says he no longer intends to draw the prophet Mohammed.

Luz said he was tired of doing so.

After the murder of 12 people at the satirical paper’s Paris offices by two jihadists, the next edition sold eight million copies.


courtesy: euronews

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Bharat has transformed, but not fast enough

Two years ago, the rural consumer was the delight of consumer goods companies and financial firms as they sought to tap the growing demand in India’s countryside. After repeated spells of poor weather in the past two years, rural demand seems to have weakened sharply. Villagers appear to be trapped in a new cycle of distress, which threatens the resurgence of earlier years.

The past decade has been transformational for the rural economy in many ways. Yet, several deep-rooted vulnerabilities remained unaddressed. The combination of high economic growth, populist policies and good fortune had helped mask structural problems in the rural economy over the past decade. The latest crisis has exposed those fault lines once again.

Non-farm employment has grown sharply over the past decade

A large section of villagers has moved away from farm jobs over the past two decades. The share of farm workers in the rural workforce declined from 77% in 1993-94 to 73% in 2004-05, and further declined to 64% in 2011-12. The growth in non-farm jobs accelerated between 2004-05 and 2011-12 largely because of a massive construction boom, which generated new jobs for unskilled labourers.

The share of horticulture in agricultural output has spiked

Agriculture has transformed over the past decade, with an increasing number of farmers opting to grow fruits and vegetables rather than rice and wheat. The share of fruits and vegetables in farm produce has risen sharply over the past two decades.

Fruits and vegetables account for nearly a quarter of agricultural output. Horticulture (which also includes flowers, condiments and spices) accounts for nearly a third of agricultural output, and is a key driver of India’s agricultural trade.

Horticulture offers higher returns to farmers

Horticulture offers much higher returns compared with traditional crops. For small farmers, growing such crops is more viable compared with growing food grains.

Growing non-farm job opportunities in villages and growing diversification within farms have helped raise rural incomes and living standards over the past decade. The rise in non-farm jobs has benefited even farm labourers, as it has raised demand for labourers, and contributed to a sharp rise in rural wages. The growing commercialisation of agriculture has led to a more intensive use of almost all inputs including labour, further pushing up wages. While the rural job guarantee scheme could have helped push up wages, additional spending on the welfare programme did not seem to have impacted wage growth much, as an earlier Plain Facts columnpointed out. Rural wage growth has been moving largely in line with the growth in farm output and the rise in construction activity.

Rising incomes have reduced poverty

Rising wages boosted the purchasing power of those at the bottom of the pyramid and led to a sharp fall in rural poverty. The dramatic fall in poverty ratios between 2004-05 and 2011-12 was largely because of the sharp decline in rural poverty.

While rural monthly per capita expenditure grew at an anaemic annual rate of 0.8% between 1993-94 and 2004-05, it grew at a much faster pace of 3.3% a year between 2004-05 and 2011-12 at constant prices.

The improvement in farms is also reflected in lower suicide rates

The revival in rural fortunes also brought down India’s farm suicide rates below the overall suicide rate of the country.

A decade ago, farm suicide rates were the key drivers of India’s high rate of people killing themselves. However, farm suicide rates have fallen below non-farm suicide rates over the past few years. This holds true even after adjusting for under-reporting by states such as Chhattisgarh and West Bengal.

“The frustrating thing about India is that whatever you can rightly say about India, the opposite is also true,” Cambridge University economist Joan Robinson had famously quipped long years ago.

Robinson’s observation seems to be particularly true of rural India, where about 70% of the country’s population, or 830 million Indians, live. Although rural India experienced transformative changes over the past decade, many old problems remained unattended.

The moneylender’s grip over the rural economy

One such weakness in the rural economy is the high dependence on moneylenders, who charge usurious rates of interest. Except for the top three decile classes in terms of assets, the percentage of rural households indebted to non-institutional agencies is higher than those who borrow from formal sources such as banks, other financial institutions and self-help groups.

The burden of debt from non-institutional sources is typically high because of the exorbitant interest rates. As much as 69% of all non-institutional finance is given at interest rates of 20% and above.

Farm credit has grown sharply

The high dependence on non-formal sources of credit has persisted despite a sharp increase in the credit intensity of agriculture. Over the past decade, agricultural credit as a share of agricultural gross domestic product has risen exponentially.

Bank credit is not reaching small farmers

Although aggregate credit intensity of agriculture is rising, small and marginal farmers (who make up 85% of rural households) have not benefited much, economists R. Ramakumar and Pallavi Chavan pointed out in a 2014 research paper. Urban and metropolitan areas have seen a sharp spike in disbursal of farm loans. Further, there has been an increase in the share of larger-sized loans since 1991.

Worryingly, the larger loan size has not translated into productive investments in agriculture. There has been a sharp fall in the share of long-term credit in total agricultural credit over the past two decades. “Consequently, the portion of agricultural credit that was used for fixed capital formation in agriculture became smaller,” wrote Ramakumar and Chavan.

Subsidies rather than investments dominate public spending on agriculture

The lack of private investments in agriculture has been compounded by a declining share of investments in public spending on agriculture. Rising subsidies, which offer short-term relief but do not help long-term growth, have crowded out public investments in agriculture. GFC (Public) in the chart refers to gross fixed capital investments in agriculture by the government.

Productivity growth has been anaemic

The absence of adequate investments has hit productivity growth in agriculture. Annual growth rates in food grain productivity have steadily fallen since the first decade after independence.

The use of high yielding varieties of seeds since the late sixties led to a spike in yields in the seventies and eighties, popularly known as the green revolution. However, productivity growth turned anaemic after the eighties.

Since the green revolution, the country has come to rely largely on subsidies to support farm incomes, rather than on investments that can raise farm incomes sustainably. The mess was exacerbated over the past decade. Such a strategy is increasingly becoming fiscally and ecologically unsustainable. Price incentives such as guaranteed minimum support prices which do not lead to productivity growth raise public debt, and stoke inflation. Subsidies on inputs such as fertilizers are not only regressive (as they benefit large farmers more than smaller ones and a few states more than others) but also harm soil health by damaging the balance of nutrients in farmlands. Power subsidies have led to a groundwater crisis in the country.

Unless short-term palliatives such as cheap loans and input subsidies give way to long-term investments such as those in water management systems, and research and extension networks, it will not be possible to sustain growth in rural incomes.

Raising productivity growth will raise farm profits and wages without stoking inflation, even while freeing up farmlands for industrial development. If only India could raise rice yields to China’s level, we would need just half the land that is currently used for rice cultivation to grow the same amount of rice.

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Axis Bank shares surge on strong Q4 earnings

Mumbai: Axis Bank Ltd shares rose as much as 5.3% on Thursday, a day after the bank reported better-than-expected earnings. This is the third consecutive session of gains for the stock.
In intra-day trading, it touched a high of Rs.582—the last highest level was seen on 19 March. The stock has gained 11% in the last three sessions, and 15% year-to-date.
Also, the Axis Bank board has approved raising foreign institutional investment (FII) limit to 74% from 62% earlier. The board also approved depositary receipts (DRs) of up to 142 million, with conversion of five equity shares to one DR.
Axis Bank had on Wednesday said that net profit rose 18.4% for the March quarter due to higher net interest income and other income, despite a rise in provisions for non-performing assets (NPAs).
Net profit in the March quarter rose 18.36% to Rs.2,180.59 crore from Rs.1,842.32 crore in the same period last year. The bank’s profit was higher than the Rs.2,150 crore forecasted by 22 analysts polled by Bloomberg.
Net interest income (NII), the difference between interest earned on loans and that paid on deposits, increased 20.01% to Rs.3,799.2 crore from Rs.3,165.8 crore last year.
Axis Bank shares closed at Rs.567.85, up 2.70% from their previous close on BSE, while the benchmark Sensex index fell 0.79% to 27,011.31 points


courtesy: Mint

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In rush to help Nepal, Narendra Modi ends up annoying its leaders

Kathmandu/New Delhi: It took just about four hours after an earthquake ripped across Nepal on Saturday for India to get a C-130J Super Hercules cargo airplane and its roaring propellers headed toward the disaster zone, with relief workers aboard.
Almost 100 disaster personnel soon came in a C-17 Globemaster III. An Ilyushin IL-76 went next, with additional people and five sniffer dogs to find survivors.
More followed in what amounted to an airborne armada from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. For the people of Nepal, the second-poorest nation in Asia now living in a landscape pocked with flattened homes and ruptured roads, it was a godsend. Thousands were dead and millions homeless.
But less than a week later, the efficiency of Modi’s response — part of a wider effort to improve ties with the region since he took office — is having an unintended consequence: It’s made clear just how underequipped and dysfunctional Nepal’s own government has been in the aftermath of the earthquake.
Nepal brought up media coverage of India’s response in a meeting with high-ranking officials, triggering a diplomatic flare-up that’s gone all the way to Modi’s office, said a senior Indian official in Kathmandu who asked not to be identified because the subject is politically sensitive. India has had to spend time doing damage control that has distracted from relief efforts, the official said.
‘Leader like Modi’
Touring an Indian relief work site where a six-story building collapsed and killed 30 people, Nepal home minister Bam Dev Gautam said on Wednesday that the government wasn’t equipped to handle a large search-and-rescue mission on its own.
“While we are grateful to our neighbour for their swift response, we need the entire world’s help at this time,” he told a group of reporters, many of whom had traveled from Delhi to ask about India’s role in the relief efforts.
After watching Gautam, a 64-year-old man named Vijay Shrestha turned to a reporter and spoke up.
“What kind of government do we have here? I have not seen a drop of water or food in four days,” the shopkeeper said. “Maybe if we had a leader like Modi who took charge and was decisive in his actions, things would not be this bad.”
A front-page headline on The Himalayan Times on Thursday encapsulated the impatience: “Govt slow in distributing relief.” The day before, another front page story said “relief has been pouring in from all corners of the world but the government has no clue about how to get it distributed among the needy, nor is it willing to hold anyone accountable for its failure.”
Survivors found
Rameshwar Dangal, the official coordinating rescue and relief efforts for Nepal’s home ministry, acknowledged in an interview on Wednesday that “there’s some discontent” over the response. “It’s not widespread,” he added.
Rescuers found two survivors on Wednesday and are still hoping to find more, Dangal said. The country’s resources are being used to rescue wounded people in rural areas, he said, leading to shortfalls elsewhere such as a lack of tarps for people to use as tents in the continuing rains.
Discontent among residents in the aftermath of large-scale natural disaster is common, such as New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 or Haiti after the devastation of its 2010 earthquake. But the problem in Nepal is compounded by national politics that were already fragile before parts of the country were torn apart on Saturday.
‘Kick them out’
A decade-long Maoist insurgency ended in 2006. The monarchy, which had ruled for more than 200 years, was abolished in 2008. An assembly elected in 2008 to draft a new constitution failed to do so in four years. A new body was voted in during 2013 and hasn’t done any better.
Faced with damages that the country’s finance minister says will exceed $10 billion, about half the size of the nation’s economy, Nepal’s 28 million citizens look increasingly vulnerable. For representatives of nations providing humanitarian aid — including top trading partner India — growing frustration among the public can be diplomatically delicate to the point of being uncomfortable.
“We, of course, all want to leave Nepal in charge,” Wendy Sherman, US under secretary for political affairs, told reporters in New Delhi on Wednesday. “It is their country — how they want to proceed. But I know that they could not proceed forward in this overwhelming disaster. When you have a disaster like this, you’re in trauma.”
In Kathmandu on Thursday, the patience of citizens like Milan Magar was wearing thin. He said he hadn’t received any water or food aid since the earthquake five days ago.



Courtesy: Mint

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Motorola unveils awesome discounts for Moto X, Moto G, Nexus 6 and Moto 360

Motorola’s “Friends with Moto” discounts are back! Last year, the company offered $50 off the Moto X, but now it’s dealing out great discounts on most of its mobile lineup, assuming you know someone working at Motorola.

Thankfully, Motorola employee Gopinath Palaniappan shared the news on Google+ last night, along with a link to claim the discount for yourself. Unfortunately, he has to approve every request personally, which has really slowed down the process. Additionally, this offer is only available within the U.S.

If you do manage to score a confirmation, here’s what you’re in for. Motorola is offering 20 percent off for the Moto 360, dropping the price to $199.99 for the leather band model, $239.99 for a metal band watch and $269.99 for the champagne gold model. The company is also offering a 26 percent discount on the Nexus 6, which puts the price at $427 for the 32GB version of the phone, or $529 for 64GB of storage. Meanwhile, the Moto X is 28 percent off, while the Moto G gets a 16 percent discount as well.

Hit the source link below to grab the discount now. We’re still trying to lock down this deal for ourselves, and it seems like it might be worth any wait associated with the approvals.


courtesy: technobuffalo.com

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If you find Radhika Apte's 'leaked' nude photos online, here's what NOT to do

This picture was uploaded by Katrina Kaif on her Twitter account yesterday. That is, she voluntarily shared the image with her fans and followers on a social media platform. No one hacked into her phone, stole her private pictures and released them online. This makes this picture ok to share. Because it doesn’t violate her privacy. Got it?
Actress Radhika Apte has also put up loads of photos of herself on Twitter, but those aren't the ones that have made her a topic of conversation. In February, private pictures that were allegedly of Apte made their way online. Apte is a talented actress who has been working since 2005 and has a knack for picking unusual roles and standing out on the strength of her performances. This year, she’s won critical acclaim for Badlapur and Hunterrr. No one cared about any of this when those pictures started circulating on the internet.
Instead of talking about her upcoming films, Apte was faced with question after question about the graphic photographs. She issued a statement that the photos were not of her. With admirable good humour, Apte tweeted, “You guys! If you're going to get someone to pass off as naked me, she needs to look a lot more like me.”
Of course, that didn’t stop leading publications and a barrage of Bollywood tabloid bottom-feeders from splashing headlines to the effect of “LEAKED! Radhika Apte’s Nude Selfie”. Amazingly, a majority of these publications thought it was ok to publish the pictures as though they were news items.
This is a fairly unique Ferris wheel of crime. First, there is the alleged crime of phone hacking/stealing and the loss of privacy. Then the coverage of this said crime reinforces the violation by publishing the very data that has been stolen or hacked. This isn’t entertainment journalism, it’s crimeception.
As if that episode wasn’t bad enough, last week we learnt that an explicit scene from a short film by Anurag Kashyap had been leaked. Apte is the actress in the scene, which shows her lifting her clothes to reveal her nude body. Kashyap has since filed an FIR with the Cyber Crime Investigation Cell. On cue, again, there were headlines like “OMG! Viral Hua Radhika Apte ka nude clip”.
Now, since we seem unable to distinguish between a Gangnam Style video and a sex crime, here are some very basic guidelines about publishing and reacting to private or graphic images – particularly those of a famous person – that have been circulated without the subject’s consent:
Stop linking or publishing such content under the guise of reporting
A headline “XYZ Actress’s Nude Pictures leak on Whatsapp” followed by those very pictures is just clickbait. There is no need to carry the pictures in question. When you do, you’re basically feeding the public’s voyeuristic curiosity.
Some publications display a lot of misplaced sensitivity by slapping two black bars on the breasts and pubic area in such pictures. It’s not as though only the “sexy” bits of the photo violate the subject’s privacy. The whole photograph, edited or unedited, does. So do not do what sites like India.com, Bollywoodlife.com and Iluvcinema.in did and crop/ edit photos in an effort to feed the internet beast while pretending to report news. None of it is right.
An actress who is comfortable wearing ‘revealing’ outfits is not ‘fair game’
In a country where Deepika Padukone has to explain why zooming into her cleavage without her consent is wrong, this is obviously a difficult concept. However, let’s attempt to get things straight: if an actress has worn a bikini in a film or shot a sexy selfie, this does not mean she has waived her right to privacy. Unless she’s committed murder or is secretly dismembering puppies, she’s the only one who has the right to decide how she will present herself and what of her activities she’ll disclose to the public. I know, sounds crazy, right? But it’s true.
It’s NOT a publicity stunt
Years of reading fake news and swallowing the spiel that Bollywood PR machinery dishes out to the reading public has clearly taken its toll on us. We are now so jaded that the most humiliating and/ or exploitative incidents can be explained as publicity stunts. We are willing to accept that someone would actually orchestrate an assault upon their privacy, just for a few extra eyeballs. This is victim-shaming at a whole new level. From “She had it coming”, we’ve now reached the “She did it” stage.
Here’s a pro-tip: if it is a publicity stunt, then the truth will be out sooner rather than later. You’re free to crow if and when there is proof to that effect. Until then, stick to the facts, rather than wild theories.
Do not use these pictures to body shame the victim
It’s already horrible that the pictures are getting circulated, but to turn that into a platform debating the pros and cons of their bodies is a new low. Some decided that the leaked film clip gave them the right to comment about Apte’s body hair, for example. Never mind how politically incorrect and rude such observations are, they make you look uglier than a WWF wrestler with rotten eggs on his face.
Stop using the words ‘leak’ or ‘scandal’ for this type of crime
‘Leak’ has a connotation of a trivial and accidental action, but circulating private and/ or graphic images is a malicious, criminal act. And ‘scandal’ doesn’t even begin to capture the violation that has occurred. As Jennifer Lawrence said when hackers hacked her iCloud account and posted nude private pictures online, “It is not a scandal. It is a sex crime, it is a sexual violation.” Listen to Katniss.


Courtesy: First Post

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Pak court sentences ten to 25 years for attack on Malala

Ten Pakistani Taliban militants were on Thursday sentenced to 25 years in jail by an anti-terrorism court for their 2012 gun attack on Malala Yousafzai, the teenage child rights activist who last year won the Nobel Peace Prize.

The ATC in Swat District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province announced the judgment after trial of the accused, finding ten guilty and handing down 25 years imprisonment to each of them, a district official from Swat said.

Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants had claimed responsibility of the attack on Malala in October 2012. Malala, who was 15 at the time, was shot in the head on board her school bus in the Swat valley. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 along with India's rights activist Kailash Satyarthi for campaigning for children's rights, despite the risk to her life.


Pakistan army said in September, 2014 that it arrested ten men involved in the attack on the 17-year-old activist. Officials said the 10 men, who do not include the man named as chief suspect, belonged to the TTP.

Ataullah Khan, a 23-year-old militant, was identified by a police report at the time of the shooting - but he did not appear in the list of ten men convicted. The activist survived the gun shots and recovered after treatment first in Pakistan and later in the UK, where she lives with her family. Malala won worldwide acclaim for standing up for the right to education of girls in Swat valley in 2007 when Taliban controlled the region.

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Microsoft Build 2015: Porting of Android and iOS apps to be simplified on Windows 10

Terry Myerson, Microsoft’s vice president of OS development, made an ambitious announcement at the Build 2015 event. He said that it is the goal of Microsoft to have around 1 billion devices running Windows 10 OS within two to three years of its release.

In order to do that Microsoft is going all out in terms of embracing various other platforms as well. Myerson announced four ways to go about getting more apps on the Windows 10 platform, namely Web apps, .NET and Win32 apps, Android (Java/C++) apps and iOS objective C apps.

One way to get more applications on the Windows Store, will be to provide software developers with tools to port the apps from Android as well as the iOS platform onto Windows 10 platform.

According to Myerson, Microsoft software development kit (SDK) will let developers use Java or C++ code that many Android apps are based on and transform it into a Windows app with support for Microsoft services. He also said that developers can use another SDK to tweak the Objective C code which runs on Apple’s iOS apps, helping get the Apple apps on to the Microsoft platform.

This move makes sense from a developers point of view, as they do not need to make new apps from scratch for the Windows 10 platform. Microsoft aims to have a single platform across devices. It demoed some native Windows 10 Universal apps on stage at the Build conference where a single app ran on the desktop, phone as well as on Xbox.

Speaking to The Verge Myerson said, “We want to enable developers to leverage their current code and current skills to start building those Windows applications in the Store, and to be able to extend those applications.” He acknowledges that porting apps across platforms will not be a simple task. For instance, the Google APIs then for the Windows platform there will be relevant Microsoft replacement for those APIs. Microsoft is offering the promise of using its various tools such as Cortana, Xbox Live, Holograms, Live Tiles and so on to the apps that can be ported.

According to Myerson, King’s Candy Crush was ported from the iOS platform to Windows Phone OS using Microsoft’s SDK without many modifications.

Microsoft has also created a way for websites to run within a Windows universal app and use services such as notifications, in-app purchases. This basically allows developers to have a web app on the Windows Store instead of a full blown app. Microsoft is also working to get the current .NET and Win32 apps on to Windows 10 platform as well, since there are currently over 16 million of those being used every month on Windows 7 and Windows 8 according to Myerson.

Developers can either do a simple port of the apps from Android/iOS or work deeper to add in features offered by the Windows platform including the Windows design element. According to Myerson, Microsoft has kept both the options open and it’s up to the developers to decide which route they want to take.

Courtesy: tech.firstpost

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'Extremely simplified' income tax form soon: Arun Jaitley tells Lok Sabha

An "extremely simplified" income tax return form will soon replace the controversial 14-page ITR that sought information like all bank accounts and foreign trip details, finance minister Arun Jaitley announced in the Lok Sabha on Thursday.

"I am having the entire matter reviewed and very soon you will hear an extremely simplified procedure coming for us," he said replying to the debate on the Finance Bill, 2015.

Referring to the criticism of new 14-page income tax return (ITR), he said the entire issue has been reviewed and the form will be based on feedback received from the industry and MPs.

"Recently, a controversy did come up. There is an old income tax form of 12 pages which was made thirteen-and-a-half page. I was out of the country when this was done, I had it stopped," he said.

The finance ministry is considering easy taxation form which an "assessee can do things himself and does not have to run to various advisers".

Many members cutting across party lines had criticised government for issuance of a new tax return form saying that the present form impinges on the individual's privacy as it seeks details of all bank accounts and foreign travel.

Earlier this month, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the apex policy making body of the Income Tax department, notified the new ITR forms for the current assessment year, seeking additional details to check the menace of black money.

As it stands, the new ITR forms, including the ITR-1 and ITR-2, require an assessee to furnish the number of bank accounts held by the individual "at any time (including opened/closed) during the previous year" with the last balance in the account on March 31 of the just-concluded fiscal.

The assessee will also have to furnish the name of the bank, account numbers, their address, IFSC code and any possible joint account holder.


Courtesy: HT

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Boy rescued in Kathmandu rubble, some villagers still stranded

(Reuters) - Hundreds of onlookers cheered as rescuers toiling amid the rubble left by Nepal's earthquake pulled a boy to safety on Thursday after he had been trapped for five days, a rare moment of joy for a country struggling to cope with the disaster.

Officials said the chances of finding more survivors were fading as the death toll exceeded 5,500. But Nepal's Armed Police Force managed to save 15-year-old Pema Lama from the collapsed ruins of Kathmandu's Hilton Hotel."I saw the police drilling for four hours to remove mounds of debris before they could pull him out," said Ambar Giri, a medical worker who was at the scene.

While rescuers were out in the capital despite heavy morning rain, helicopters could not fly to the worst-hit areas in the countryside of the Himalayan nation.

"The rain is adding to the problems. Nature seems to be against us," said Rameshwor Dandal, chief of the disaster management centre at Nepal's home ministry.
Many people have been sleeping in the open since Saturday's quake. According to the United Nations, 600,000 houses have been destroyed or damaged.

It said eight million people have been affected, with at least two million in need of tents, water, food and medicines over the next three months.

An official from Nepal's home ministry said the number of confirmed deaths from the 7.8 magnitude earthquake had risen to 5,582 by Thursday afternoon, and almost 11,200 were injured.

Anger over the pace of the rescue has flared up in some areas, with Nepalis accusing the government of being too slow to distribute international aid that flooded into the country.

It has yet to reach many in need, particularly in remote areas hard to access given the quake damage and poor weather.Tensions between foreigners and Nepalis desperate to be evacuated have also surfaced. In Langtang valley, where 150 people are feared trapped, a helicopter pilot was taken hostage by locals demanding to be evacuated first, one report said.

"ON OUR OWN"

In Ashrang village in Gorkha, one of the worst-hit districts about four hours by road from Kathmandu, hundreds of Nepali villagers were living out in the open with little food and water despite boxes of biscuits, juices and sacks of rice and wheat being stored in a nearby government office.Police commandos shut the high iron gates of the building, refusing people access while they counted the relief supplies."We told them we can manage without their help," said Mohammad Ishaq, a school teacher, who had been offered four plastic sheets. "It is as if we are doing everything on our own, feeding our people, tending to the sick."

But district facilitator Dipendra Shrestha said the local administration was doing what it could to get aid to victims and help foreign teams offering rescue and medical support.

"Owners are refusing to rent out vehicles," he said. "We only have 20 at the moment. We need many more."

A German search and rescue team in the area was shifting focus to medical work, because villagers had managed to dig bodies and survivors from the remains of mud and brick homes themselves.

In the capital, a Nepali-French rescue team pulled a 28-year-old man, Rishi Khanal, from a collapsed apartment block on Tuesday after he had spent around 80 hours trapped in a room with three dead bodies. "I managed to take out the handkerchief from my pocket, soaked it with my urine and squeezed it in my mouth," Khanal told Reuters on Thursday, a day after he had one of his legs amputated. "It gave me some energy to shout and I survived."

But he wondered how he would live with his injury, which would prevent him from working in the Middle East or on a farm in Nepal.

"I don't even have the money to buy a wheelchair now. How will I spend the rest of my life and support my family?"In another tale of escape, a young girl worshipped by many as a living goddess survived Saturday's earthquake near one of the royal palaces in Kathmandu where most other buildings were flattened. "Her temple stands intact because of her divine powers," Pratap Man Shakya, the girl's father, told Reuters.

APPEAL FOR HELICOPTERSNepal is appealing to foreign governments for more helicopters. There are currently about 20 Nepali army, private and Indian army helicopters involved in rescue operations, according to Laxmi Prasad Dhakal, a home ministry official.

China is expected to send helicopters on Thursday, he said.Prime Minister Sushil Koirala told Reuters earlier this week the death toll from the quake could reach 10,000, with information on casualties and damage from far-flung villages and towns yet to come in.

That would surpass the 8,500 who died in a 1934 earthquake, the last disaster on this scale to hit the nation of 28 million people sandwiched between India and China.

In Kathmandu and other cities, hospitals quickly overflowed with injured soon after the quake, with many being treated out in the open or not at all.

"The new waves of patients are those who survived the quake, but are sick because they were living in the open and drinking contaminated water," said Binay Pandey, a doctor at the government-run Bir Hospital in the capital.Pandey said at least 1,200 patients suffering from water-borne illnesses had been admitted in the hospital since Wednesday morning.

Sporadic rains made it difficult for students and volunteers to clean the streets and dispose of garbage.

In the Himalayas, climbing is set to reopen on Mount Everest next week after damage caused by avalanches triggered by the quake is repaired. [ID:nL4N0XRHAD]

A massive avalanche wiped out a swath of Everest base camp, killing 18 climbers and sherpa mountain guides on Saturday. Many climbers have abandoned their ascent of Everest, the world's tallest peak.

(Additional reporting by Sanjeev Miglani, Rupam Nair, Frank Jack Daniel, Andrew Marshall, Adnan Abidi and Christophe Van Der Perre in Kathmandu, Aman Shah and Clara Ferreira-Marques in Mumbai, Aditya Kalra, Douglas Busvine in New Delhi; Writing by Andrew MacAskill; Editing by Mike Collett-White)


courtesy: Reuters

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Girl jumps off Badal's family bus to escape molestation, dies; MHA seeks reports from Punjab govt

Chandigarh: The Ministry of Home Affairs has sought a report from Punjab government over the shocking death of a 13-year-old girl after she along with her mother were were forced to jump out of a moving bus to escape getting molested.


The incident took place on Wednesday night on the Moga-Bhatinda highway, near Moga city. The 35-year-old woman, wife of a marginal farmer, was travelling with her daughter and 14-year-old son in an AC bus operated by Orbit Bus Service – owned by the family of Punjab CM Parkash Singh Badal – when some youths started to harass the girl.
When her mother complained about the lewd comments to the driver and conductor of the bus, they laughed it off. The conductor, reportedly, joined the youth in the act.

The woman then asked the driver to stop the bus but the driver responded by further increasing the speed of the vehicle.

Fearing that they will be sexually assaulted, the woman and her daughter jumped off the bus. Her son was left on the bus.

Passersby took them to a nearby hospital. While the 14-year-old girl was declared brought dead, her mother is battling for her life.
The driver later abandoned the bus and fled with his accomplices. However, police managed to arrest the driver and the conductor this morning.

Talking to reporters, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal admitted that the bus in which the incident took place belonged to his company.

Describing the incident as unfortunate and saddening, Badal said the probe is on and assured that all the accused will be arrested soon.

Leader of Opposition in Punjab Assembly Sunil Kumar Jakhar and Punjab Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa, meanwhile, led a party protest in front of Badal's residence.

Bajwa has demanded that a murder case be registered against Badal.


courtesy: zee News

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The only player who could rival AB de Villiers is Viv Richards: Mickey Arthur

When Mickey Arthur took the reins as South Africa’s national coach a decade ago, he was enamoured with his precocious opening batsman. To Arthur, it was obvious that AB de Villiers was a special prospect. But although he had an innate knack of scoring runs quickly, de Villiers hadn’t harnessed his burgeoning talent.
It was clear the then 21-year-old, who had only played 11 Tests and been in the South African team for six months, needed to hone his game, and Arthurs believed keeping de Villiers at the top of the order alongside captain Graeme Smith would provide the fillip for long-term success.
AB de Villiers plays shots other batsmen can't even imagine. SportzpicsAB de Villiers plays shots other batsmen can't even imagine. Sportzpics
“We came into the South African side nearly at the same time and my initial thoughts were that AB was exceptional and that he would eventually become the best batsman in the world,” Arthur told Firstpost. “But he needed to tighten his batting, as he was a little loose at times. Being an opener makes a batsman have to iron out their technique and it tests their mental fortitude. It was a great initiation for AB and one that I think has contributed to his enormous success throughout the years.”
Fast forward a decade and de Villiers, stating the obvious, is regarded as the best batsman in the world. The extensive superlatives are endless. Notably, he’s been described as the most freakish batsman ever, a player defying the conventions of batting with his incredible array of breathtaking and highly effective hitting.
De Villiers’ eclectic ability has been showcased for Royal Challengers Bangalore during the Indian Premier League, especially his mesmerising 11-ball 41 against Mumbai which included an astounding shot that melted social media and was broadcasted globally. Against express bowler Lasith Malinga, de Villiers improvised with a ‘hockey shot’ as he attempted a reverse paddle sweep and it flew to fine leg for a boundary. The astonishing shot confirmed de Villiers’ unparalleled ability to craft strokes to every part of the cricket field. There is no corner immune to him plundering runs.
Arthurs, who coached South Africa during a successful five-year reign from 2005-2010, believes de Villiers’ inventive batting emanates from a healthy fusion of preparedness and intuitiveness. “It doesn’t surprise me the shots he comes up with because he practices really hard,” he says. “He has incredible hand-eye coordination and that provides him with the rare ability to improvise at the last moment. His instinctiveness allows him to alter his shot in the last second. His shots generally aren’t pre-meditated, which makes it so hard for the bowler.”
After his brilliant World Cup, where he scored 482 runs at an average of 96.4 with a strike rate of 144, it is clear de Villiers is in his prime. He’s at the career stage – aged 31 with 10 years of international experience – where batsmen traditionally thrive. But as he boldly demonstrated against Mumbai, de Villiers continues to add to his array of trickery in a determined effort to stay ahead of the evolving nature of the game.
“He continually reinvents his game to keep getting better,” Arthur says. “He always believes he can get better and that is why his batting just keeps soaring to new heights.”
It is not only de Villiers’ destructiveness and resourcefulness that sets him apart. Others have warranted comparison, notably Glenn Maxwell after his audacious batting was a rampant success in Australia’s World Cup triumph. But Maxwell, at this stage anyway, is merely a specialist in the shorter formats.
De Villiers averages 52 from 98 Tests, and could very well be regarded as the best batsman in each of cricket’s three formats – the ultimate testament to his incomparable versatility.
While de Villiers’ creativity garners the plaudits, Arthur believes his orthodoxy is the catalyst for his success across the formats. “I think AB is really correct with his technique,” Arthur says. “He sets up really well and is in a good position when the bowler delivers. His solid foundation allows him to do extraordinary things.”
De Villiers’ has become a prototype, as young batsmen clamour to mimic his imitable style. But Arthurs believes there is one legend from the past who possessed similar characteristics to the South African. “Viv Richards is probably the only batsman who had the talent, technique, audacity and creativity to rival AB,” he says. “Brian Lara perhaps too had the ability to shift gears so profoundly but he wasn’t as innovative. Sachin Tendulkar was so elegant and could dominate but he probably didn’t quite have the flair of AB and Viv.”
Sill in the midst of his pomp, de Villiers is set to cement his legacy as a cricket marvel in the ensuing years. “I think great players should be judged on their ability to win games and AB is the ultimate match-winner,” Arthur says. “When his career is over, AB will remembered as one of the greatest ever cricketers.”


courtesy: first post

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David Cameron to German diplomat: Phoren politicians and their love for Bollywood

Who doesn’t like a dash of desi in their life? Well, everyone in India who is either posh or aspires to be posh. However, the moment you go beyond our subcontinent, brown appears to be warmest colour. All thanks to the dubious pleasures of Bollywood.
For instance, Europe just can’t get enough of Indian kitsch, it seems. Recently, we saw Abhishek Bachchan accompany Labour MP Keith Vaz on the latter’s campaign trail in Leicester. Junior B reportedly answered questions on football and his career (that part must have been short-lived), and basically wooed Vaz’s Indian vote bank. Though as far as those wooing efforts go, that tight-fitted suit that Bachchan was wearing may have been self-defeating.
It seems the Conservatives didn’t want to leave things to chance and the potential impact of Bachchan’s sartorial ineptitude. Lest the Indian-origin Brits get carried away and vote for Labour instantly, a Hindi music video featuring David Cameron and his wife has been released which might well convince viewers that Cameron was born in Ludhiana instead of London.
Titled Neela Hai Aasman, the video for this original number sees Cameron and wife shake it like desis do. There's the London Eye, followed swiftly by a shot of the Golden Temple for good measure; she’s wearing saris; he’s folding his hands and bowing before babas and gurus.
Cameron makes chapatis, pays his respects to the Prabhupada, matha thhekos in a gurdwara, hands a carnation (awkwardly) to a popular guru, does many namastes and finally, the tour de force: stands shoulder to shoulder with Narendra Modi, Arun Jaitley, Amitabh Bachchan and a statue of Mahatma Gandhi. (Not altogether, fortunately or unfortunately.)



courtesy: first post

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Farmers who commit suicide are ‘cowards’, ‘criminals': Haryana agriculture minister Dhankar

As the debate on farmer suicide gathers momentum, a minister in Haryana has made shocking remarks that could put the Narendra Modi-led ruling dispensation in a dilemma.
Agriculture Minister OP Dhankar told reporters on Wednesday that the farmers who commit suicide are ‘cowards’ and ‘criminals’. Since ‘suicide is a crime as per Indian laws’, he said the state government could not support those who were committing suicide as they were criminals under the rule of law.
Dhankar added that ‘coward’ farmers, who were committing suicide, were running away from their responsibilities and leaving their families with liabilities.
Dhankar, who previously headed the BJP’s Kisan cell, often used to condemn the earlier UPA administration for not doing enough for farmers, leading to them committing suicides.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday vowed to raise voice for farmers on every platform and said the government should take into account their concerns and not just extend monetary assistance.
Gandhi, who met farmers hit by unseasonal rains in Punjab and stayed here overnight after travelling by train to the NDA-ruled state, also took a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asking whether the farmers are not contributing to ‘Make in India’ by providing food to the entire country.



Courtesy: the indian express

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Kalavati, Dalit dinners, and now 'jai kisan': There's nothing new about populist Rahul 2.0

Two speeches in the Parliament, one brief intervention, a trek to Kedarnath, a visit to a Delhi hospital where Gajendra Singh died after hanging himself at an AAP rally and a trip to Punjab in the cattle class of a train.
By Rahul Gandhi’s career strike rate, this much activity would have been sufficient for at least four years. But after warming the backbench for almost a decade, Rahul seems to have made up his mind: he is going to get out in the field and score quickly.
Rahul’s frenzied—by his laidback standards and rare cameos—political activity since his return from the latest sabbatical is a clear indication that he has made the transition from a reluctant, part-timer to a professional politician. Rahul has sorted himself. Now that he has said 'I do', you can expect Sonia Gandhi to soon pass on the president’s crown to him and walk into the sunset; little sister Priyanka—like father Rajiv who made way for brother Sanjay—can wait.
Now that the decade-old dilemma of ‘will, he won’t he’ has ended, it is time to move to the next question: can Rahul 2.0 (or whatever version it is) make it as a politician? Can he succeed after a string of failures?
Rahul may have reinvented himself, but he is not trying to reinvent the wheel of Congress politics. Like grandmother, the only Gandhi to have made a successful comeback, he has gone back to the formula of politics of farmers, garib and yatras.
Left-leaning politics, championing the cause of the poor and the underprivileged is an old Congress template. It worked well for the Congress for several years, before Narendra Modi’s neo-liberalism and strategy of carrying the middle-class and urban India along trumped it in the 2014 election.
There is no guarantee that Rahul will succeed just because Indira did. But you can see that he is trying to carve out a constituency for himself. His repeated references to farmers, their problems; attempts to talk about them at available forum are indications of Rahul’s desire to speak to the rural voter and those who live on the margins of urban India.
In theory, this isn’t a bad strategy. As pointed out by Firstpost earlier, the Congress has realised it doesn’t stand much of a chance with the urban middle class and elite. It knows its existing culture of dynasty-based entitlements and politics of doles and freebies is largely unacceptable to this section.
But the Congress believes the Narendra Modi government has given it an opening by acquiring the reputation of being pro-corporate and anti-poor. Modi’s monogrammed suit, the controversy over the land acquisition bill and his frequent foreign jaunts have convinced the Congress that it can revive itself by restarting the debate around haves and have-nots and making the PM seem like a representative of the rich and the privileged.
Several ground reports, including the latest cover story in Outlook, suggest farmers are getting disenchanted with Modi. The noise around the land-acquisition bill, the agrarian crisis in the country and the inadequate government response to crop damage due to rain and hailstorms has made rural India uneasy.
There is anger brewing among Jats, who play an important role in the elections in at least four north India states: Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab and UP. In Rajasthan, the Congress is making inroads because of the failure of Vasundhara Raje’s government to live up to expectations. In Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal has become a poor caricature of himself.
The iron is red hot.
So, Rahul is trying to highlight this Bharat vs India divide; to position himself as a politician worried about the hinterland in comparison to the PM who cares very little for India. “Pradhan Mantri ji ka Hindustan mein tour laga hai, kuch dino ke liye woh yahan aaye hain. He should now go to Punjab to speak farmers,” Rahul said in Parliament on Wednesday. Though borrowed, this is another soundbyte like the ‘suit-boot ki sarkar’ jibe that would have the desired impact.
The problem with Rahul’s strategy is that he is been there, done that before. His faux anger, speeches, train yatras, aam aadmi acts all give a sense a déjà vu. Almost a decade ago, he had made Kalavati the country’s talking point, several years ago he had made night-halts at the homes of Dalits and farmers and ridden on pillion to villages to interact with people. Not even the stubble has changed.
But none of this added any gravitas to Rahul’s political image or on the electoral prospects of the Congress. The rare night-outs in rural India were seen as sabbaticals and PR events because Rahul lacked consistency of approach and sincerity of purpose. After every visit to a village, he would disappear for long periods, often for a foreign holiday. And rarely did he follow an issue or put in the required political struggle to take it to a logical conclusion.
Rahul is lucky that he is getting another chance. The media is giving him importance, cameras are following him and newspapers are putting him in headlines. Amongst people, there is renewed interest in him, even if just out of curiosity. Rahul’s redemption lies only in being consistent and faithful to the politics he is pursuing. If he runs away again, abandons the cause he has picked up, this could well turn out to be his last act.




Courtesy: first post

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Bollywood celebrities mired in controversies

The cyber cell of Mumbai police has registered a case against an unknown person for leaking an adult video of actress Radhika Apte, as reported by The Indian Express. The complaint was reportedly filed after director-producer Anurag Kashyap approached the Mumbai police with a complaint last week. A nude video featuring actress Radhika Apte, which was part of a 20-minute short film, was leaked over the weekend. Anurag Kashyap has been furious over the leak of the video which he says was shot as part of a short film meant to be viewed abroad.

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Gulzar's new poetry collection a tribute to Pluto

Veteran lyricist-poet Gulzar celebrates the metaphor of exile in many ways in a new collection of poems which he has dedicated to the planet Pluto.

In "Pluto", Gulzar addresses his pet themes - relationships, his relationship with god, nature, time, the art of poetry - with characteristic wit and brevity, and the uncommon ability to find meaning in the mundane.

The poems have been translated into English by Nirupama Dutt and the book, published by Harper Collins India, include, for the first time in a volume of his poetry in English, a selection of the poet's own sketches.

"Pluto lost its status as a planet recently. Scientists said: 'Away with you. We will not include you in our family of nine planets? you are not one!' I had lost my place long ago when my family said, 'How come a mirasi in a family of businessmen?' Silence echoed that you are not one of us," says Gulzar.

"My heart is saddened at Pluto's sorrow on being rejected thus. It is so far away? so tiny? so all my 'pint-sized' poems I gift to it. Some moments are fleeting, ephemeral. We often fail to grasp them. I like to hoard them," he says.

According to Gulzar, many of the 111 poems in this collection are unconventional. "But then that is not such a bad thing, is it," he asks.

Dutt says Gulzar is an artiste of the little things that matter: the short fleeting moments that he captures so originally and the small wonders that still excite him.

"This comes through most spontaneously in the short poems that the poet dedicated to Pluto, the planet that was banished from the family of its planets! It is the metaphor of exile that he celebrates in many ways in this collection which looks at the grim and the joyous, the ordinary and the extraordinary, the stagnant and the fluid, the amusing and the annoying with the poetic flourish so typical of him," she says.

courtesy: TOI

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National Guard arrives in Baltimore as police commissioner admits rioters 'outnumbered us and outflanked us'

National Guard troops arrived in Baltimore shortly after midnight Tuesday, almost nine hours after a confrontation between black youths and police at a city mall mushroomed into riots during which several businesses were looted and burned and over a dozen officers injured.

A few minutes earlier, city police commissioner Anthony Batts admitted that his officers were not prepared for the outbreak of violence that forced Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan to declare a state of emergency, activating the Guard, and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to announce a weeklong 10 p.m.-to-5 a.m. curfew, to take effect Tuesday.

"Yes, we planned for it. That wasn't the issue," Batts told reporters late Monday. "We just had too many people out there [for us] to overcome the numbers we had." The commissioner added that the rioters had pulled his officers to "opposite ends of the city" and had "outnumbered us and outflanked us."

Rawlings-Blake described Monday as "one of our darkest days as a city" as she surveyed fire damage. 

"Too many people have spent generations building up this city for it to be destroyed by thugs who, in a very senseless way, are trying to tear down what so many have fought for," she added. "It's idiotic to think that by destroying your city, you're going to make life better for anybody." 

"These acts of violence and destruction of property cannot and will not be tolerated," Hogan said at a late-night press conference. The governor also said he was deploying 500 state troopers and had asked for 5,000 officers from neighboring states to deal with the violence.

Batts said the National Guard would be used to take control of what he called "structures and fixed posts" to support police efforts to regain control of the city's streets.

Baltimore City police said late Monday that two dozen people had been arrested. As the violence grew Monday, officers wearing helmets and wielding shields occasionally used pepper spray to keep the rioters back. For the most part, though, they relied on line formations to keep protesters at bay. After midnight Monday, authorities were still struggling to quell pockets of unrest.

The violence began hours after Monday's funeral for Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old man who died last week from a severe spinal cord injury he suffered in police custody. Gray's fatal encounter with officers came amid the national debate over police use of force, especially when black suspects, like Gray, are involved. Gray was African-American. Police have declined to specify the races of the six officers involved in his arrest, all of whom have been suspended with pay while they are under investigation.

Gray's family denounced the violence late Monday, saying it was not the way to honor him

"I think the violence is wrong," Grays twin sister, Fredericka Gray, said. "I don't like it at all."

The attorney for Gray's family, Billy Murphy, said the family had hoped to organize a peace march later in the week.

During Gray's funeral Monday, police released a statement saying that the department had received a "credible threat" that three notoriously violent gangs are now working together to "take out" law enforcement officers. A police source told Fox News several gangs, including Black Gorilla Family, Bloods and Crips all had “entered into a partnership to take out law enforcement officers.”

The confrontation that sparked the violence stemmed from an online call for a "purge" that would begin at the Mondawmin Mall in west Baltimore and end downtown. The phrase is a reference to the 2013 movie "The Purge",  which takes place in a world in which crime is made legal for one night only. 

Alerted to the warning, authorities mobilized police officers to the Mondawmin Mall in west Baltimore, within a mile of where Gray was filmed being arrested and pushed into a police van April 12. The shopping center is a transportation hub for students at nearby schools.

At 3 p.m., the time of the reported "purge," between 75 to 100 students on their way to the mall were greeted by police in riot gear. The students began throwing water bottles and rocks at the officers, who responded with tear gas and Mace.

As the crowds at Mondawmin Mall began to thin, the riot shifted about a mile away to the heart of an older shopping district near where Gray first encountered police.

Emergency officials were constantly thwarted as they tried to restore calm in the affected parts of the city of more than 620,000 people. Firefighters trying to put out a blaze at a CVS store were hindered by someone who sliced holes in a hose connected to a fire hydrant, spraying water all over the street and nearby buildings.

The smell of burned rubber wafted in the air in one neighborhood where youths were looting a liquor store. Police stood still nearby as people drank looted alcohol. Glass and trash littered the streets, and other small fires were scattered about. One person from a church tried to shout something from a megaphone as two cars burned.

Later Monday night, a massive fire erupted in East Baltimore that a mayoral spokesman initially said was connected to the riots. He later texted an AP reporter saying officials are still investigating whether there is a connection.

The Mary Harvin Transformation Center was under construction and no one was believed to be in the building at the time, said the spokesman, Kevin Harris. The center is described online as a community-based organization that supports youth and families.

Kevin Johnson, a 53-year-old resident of the area, said the building was to have been earmarked for the elderly. Donte Hickman, pastor of a Baptist church that has been helping to develop the center, shed tears as he led a group prayer near the firefighters who fought the blaze.

"My heart is broken because somebody obviously didn't understand that we were for the community, somebody didn't understand that we were working on behalf of the community to invest when nobody else would," he said.

The focus of the rioting later shifted back to Mondawmin Mall, as people began looting clothing and other items from stores which had become unprotected as police moved away from the area. About three dozen officers returned, trying to arrest looters but driving many away by firing pellet guns and rubber bullets.

Downtown Baltimore, the Inner Harbor tourist attractions and the city's baseball and football stadiums are nearly 4 miles away from the worst of the violence. While the violence had not yet reached City Hall and the Camden Yards area, the Orioles canceled Monday's home game against the Chicago White Sox for safety precautions.

On Monday night, Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings and about 200 others, including ministers and mostly men, marched arm-in-arm through a neighborhood littered with broken glass, flattened aluminum cans and other debris, in an attempt to help calm the violent outbursts. As they got close to a line of police officers, the marchers went down on their knees. After the ministers got back on their feet, they walked until they were face-to-face with the police officers in a tight formation and wearing riot gear.

In a statement issued Monday, Attorney General Lynch said she would send Justice Department officials to the city in coming days, including Vanita Gupta, the agency's top civil rights lawyer. The FBI and Justice Department are investigating Gray's death for potential criminal civil rights violations.

Many who had never met Gray gathered earlier in the day in a Baltimore church to bid him farewell and press for more accountability among law enforcement.

The 2,500-capacity New Shiloh Baptist church was filled with mourners. But even the funeral could not ease mounting tensions.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

courtesy: fox news

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