Tag: India

  • Gujarat man loses 10 kgs in three months to commit burglary

    Gujarat man loses 10 kgs in three months to commit burglary

    Moti Singh Chauhan from Ahmedabad shed 10 kg for a very special reason and that is to commit a burglary, reports News 18.

    During police interrogation, he revealed that he ate only once a day for three months continuously, which enabled him to slim down and slide through a ventilator.

    According to the news outlet, two years ago, 34-year-old Singh was working at the house in Bhopal. He had gathered information about where the valuables were kept and he was also aware of the location of cameras.

    His former employers told the police that he would skip his dinner often.

    The local police found him in the footage of a Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) camera of a hardware shop where he had gone to buy a trowel and a saw to cut the glass of the kitchen window to get inside the house.

    He managed to steal INR 37 lakh from the house on November 5, the police said.

  • ‘Victory against injustice’: Rahul Gandhi’s response to Modi’s U-turn on controversial farm laws

    Indian Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi has taken a U-turn by announcing that his government will repeal three controversial agricultural reform laws, which set off huge protests across India by the farmers.

    “Today I have come to tell you, the whole country, that we have decided to withdraw all three agricultural laws,” announced Modi.

    “In the parliament session starting later this month, we will complete the constitutional process to repeal these three agricultural laws.”

    “I appeal to all the farmers who are part of the protest … to now return to your home, to your loved ones, to your farms, and family. Let’s make a fresh start and move forward,” said the Indian prime minister.

    “Friends, I apologise to the countrymen and want to say with a clean heart and conscience that we must have fallen short in our efforts to explain (the benefits of the farm laws) to a section of the farmers.”

    Rahul Gandhi, leader of the Congress party, took to Twitter and wrote, “Congratulations on this victory against injustice!”

    In a high-profile protest against controversial agricultural reforms, tens of thousands of farmers drove a convoy of tractors festooned with brightly-coloured flags through the outskirts of India’s capital of New Delhi on the country’s Republic Day, January 26.

    Three laws pertaining to agriculture and farming were passed in India, which the farmers said would affect their livelihood. Modi billed these laws as necessary to modernise Indian farming.

  • ‘Brotherhood, humanity’: Sikhs open gurdwaras for Friday prayers after Muslims attacked by Hindu extremists

    ‘Brotherhood, humanity’: Sikhs open gurdwaras for Friday prayers after Muslims attacked by Hindu extremists

    After an official ban on Muslim prayers at open places in India’s Gurugram city near New Delhi, a local organisation taking care of gurdwaras, holy places of the Sikh religion, has announced opening the doors of a gurdwara for Muslims.

    Hindu extremists have been protesting against the Muslims’ act of offering Friday prayers at open places outside mosques for the last several weeks. As Muslims in larger numbers swarm to mosques to say their weekly Friday prayers, mosques mostly cannot accommodate these big numbers of worshipers and they have to use the open places outside the mosques to say their prayers.

    Keeping in view the protests by Hindu extremists, the local authorities in Gurugram city have stopped Muslims from using the open places outside the mosques to offer their Friday prayers and cancelled the permission letters issued earlier in this regard.

    Hindu extremists have also been disrupting the Muslim Friday prayers at open places by raising their religious slogans.

    Last week, Hindu extremists filled an open place with cow dung where Muslims were going to say their Friday prayers the next day. They said they wanted to turn that place into a volleyball court.

    Against this backdrop, an organisation associated with gurdwaras of the Sikh religion has come forward and announced opening a gurdwara in Gurugram so that Muslims can offer their Friday prayers there.

    Harteerath Singh, Community Development Director at Hemkunt Foundation, wrote on Twitter, “Gurgaon’s Sadar Bazaar Gurudwara is now open for our Muslim brothers to offer their daily namaz keeping in mind the recent events that took place in the city.”

    Despite of death threats, he said that he will “always stand up for truth and sewa (help).”

    https://twitter.com/HarteerathSingh/status/1461355592027496467?s=20

    In another tweet, he added: “The best part is tomorrow is Guru Nanak Dev jis Gurpurab and Friday namaaz too. What a spectacular sight it will be tomorrow- prime example of brotherhood and humanity!”

    Thousands of Sikh pilgrims will attend the 552nd birth anniversary commemorations in Kartarpur today. An 18-member delegation led by Indian Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh entered Pakistan from the Kartarpur corridor on Thursday.

    Prime Minister Imran Khan has also extended felicitations to Sikhs.

  • Indian government has apprehensions about participation in 2025 Champions Trophy in Pakistan

    Indian government has apprehensions about participation in 2025 Champions Trophy in Pakistan

    Pakistan has recently been awarded the rights to hosting the ICC Champions Trophy in 2025. Just a day has passed and the Indian government expressed apprehensions about participation in the international tournament. India’s Sports Minister and Former BCCI President, Anurag Thakur on Wednesday, said that the Indian government will monitor the security situation at the time in Pakistan before taking a decision on whether the India team will travel for the eight-team global tournament.

    “The Indian government had earlier also made its decision,” Thakur said while talking to reporters in Delhi on Wednesday. “When such global tournaments happen several factors are considered.”

    He added: “Even in the past, you would have seen many countries have pulled out to go there (Pakistan) and play because the situation there is not normal. Security is the main challenge there, like teams have been attacked in the past, which is a concern. So when the time comes, the Indian government will take a decision depending on the circumstances then.”

    Read More – Threatening e-mail was sent to New Zealand cricket team from India: Fawad

    The Champions Trophy is the first ICC tournament that will be hosted in Pakistan since the 1996 men’s ODI World Cup which was co-hosted by two other countries: India and Sri Lanka. No Indian team has played cricket in Pakistan since the 2008 Asia Cup.

    The two neighbours have not played any bilateral cricket in Pakistan since Rahul Dravid’s side travelled to Pakistan in 2005-06 for a full tour comprising three Tests and five ODIs. Pakistan toured India for a reciprocal tour in 2007-08 but the strained political equation between their governments since then has restricted ties to one white-ball bilateral series in 2012-13 in India and games between the two in ICC tournaments. Pakistan traveled to India to play in the 2011 ODI World Cup semi-final and later to participate in the 2016 T20 World Cup.

    The 2023 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup is scheduled to be played in India during October and November. Earlier, the global tournament was shifted from India to UAE and Oman citing fears of the second wave of Covid-19 in the country.

  • Lahore tops the worst air quality list, again

    Lahore tops the worst air quality list, again

    Lahore on Wednesday topped the list of the most polluted cities in the world with the worst air quality levels.

    India’s Delhi is second on the list, Poland’s Krakow and Kyrgyzstan’s Bishkek are placed in third and fourth spot respectively while Bangladesh’s Dhaka is on number five according to the air pollution data released by the US Air Quality Index (AQI).

    Screengrab of air quality and pollution city ranking

    Lahore recorded a particulate matter (PM) rating of 364 that classifies the city under the “hazardous” category of air quality.

    The United States Environmental Protection Agency regards air quality as satisfactory if the AQI is under 50.

  • Diwali fireworks: Delhi residents pay the price

    Diwali fireworks: Delhi residents pay the price

    India’s capital New Delhi has the worst air quality in the world as the city is at the top of the Air Quality Index (AQI) with 332.

    The morning after the Diwali celebrations, a thick smog turned daylight into dusk around the capital as AQI surged to 463 on a scale of 500, which is the maximum recorded in 2021, indicating “severe” conditions that affect even healthy people let alone those with existing respiratory diseases, reports Reuters.

    In India, toxic air kills reportedly more than a million people annually.

    “No country delights more in passing laws and then bypassing them than ours. Today Delhi particularly is facing the consequences of this feature of our lives,” Jairam Ramesh, a lawmaker and a leader of the main opposition Congress Party tweeted on Friday.

    Gopal Rai, Delhi environment chief said authorities planned to install 20 anti-smog guns to spray water into the air to help dilute the smog.

    Currently, there have been calls for more strict measures such as a temporary ban on construction activities and shutdowns of high-polluting factories.

    Indian Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi told the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow that India would achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2070, but some experts reckoned that the target was at least two decades too late.

    As per today’s date (Saturday), Lahore was at 3rd place. While India’s other two cities currently stand at 4th and 5th.

  • ‘Three sugar mills in Sindh were shut down, leading to an increase in the price of sugar to Rs140 per kg’: PM Khan

    ‘Three sugar mills in Sindh were shut down, leading to an increase in the price of sugar to Rs140 per kg’: PM Khan

    Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan during an address at a ceremony in Attock on Friday said that Sindh shut down three operational sugar mills, which contributed to an increase in the price of sugar.

    “The price of sugar in Pakistan has hit Rs140 per kg. I inquired why this was so. I learned that three sugar mills in Sindh, which were operational, were shut down,” the prime minister said.

    The prime minister went on to say that he subsequently learnt that due to the reduced supply, the sugar mills in Punjab began to hoard the commodity.

    “I told the chief secretary that our law forbids hoarding and so if the sugar mills are doing so, we must retrieve the stock and bring it out to the market so the price drops.”

    “We found out that since July, the sugar mills have obtained a stay order against the rule. And so our government was unable to do anything,” PM Imran Khan said.

    “This is a gross injustice that the sugar mafia earns billions after having broken the backs of our people. And when the government moves to do something, they obtain stay orders,” he remarked.

    PM Khan claimed that there was uproar in India as well over high petrol prices and Pakistan still had the cheapest petrol prices in the region.

    “In India today, there is uproar as well [over petrol prices] and the petrol price per litre is Rs150 while it is Rs200 in Bangladesh. [On the other hand] it is the lowest in Pakistan at Rs146,” the premier said.

    “The biggest [impact] of what happened was that the oil price first decreased and now in the last three months it has doubled […] when oil becomes expensive, then everything becomes expensive.”

    “When there was inflation in the whole world then obviously Pakistan is in this same world and not in the heavens so we also had to be affected. As a result, we fully tried and are still trying to protect our people from this inflation.”

    The prime minister’s comments come the same day as the government increased petroleum prices by up to Rs8.14 per litre with immediate effect to ensure the revival of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme.

  • ‘Pointless’: Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis slam match-fixing ‘conspiracy theories’ after India beats Afghanistan

    ‘Pointless’: Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis slam match-fixing ‘conspiracy theories’ after India beats Afghanistan

    Former Pakistan captains Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram were critical of suggestions on social media of match-fixing during the India-Afghanistan clash. The pace bowling duo dismissed the claims as ‘conspiracy theories’.

    After two back-to-back defeats, India finally registered a victory in the T20 World Cup with a comprehensive 66-run win over Afghanistan. However, while most of the cricketing fraternity praised India’s dominant performance, some users on social media started a viral trend alleging the match was fixed and India ‘paid’ well.

    Reacting to the trends, Akram said on A Sports, “I don’t know why we like to create such conspiracy theories? India are a very good team. They just had couple of bad days at the start of the tournament.”

    Waqar echoed the sentiment saying, “It’s a pointless thing to say and people should not give it much attention.”

    After losing the toss and being asked to bat first, India scored 210 for two in their must-win Super 12 game. This is so far the highest score of this World Cup and the only time a team crossed the 200-run mark in what has been a low-scoring tournament.

  • T20 World Cup: Twitter reacts after India crushed Afghanistan

    T20 World Cup: Twitter reacts after India crushed Afghanistan

    Soon after Indian batting ended in the first half of India vs Afghanistan match of T20 World Cup Super 12 stage, Twitter was flooded with reactions on Afghanistan’s performance.

    Taking to Twitter, many users were disappointed by the bowling figures of the Afghan team. Some tweeted that the match is fixed, while others said that the Indian team paid well to the Afghans.

    Here are a few reactions of the netizens:

    https://twitter.com/Dani_Baloch7/status/1456111258902609920?s=20
    https://twitter.com/Aliraza30010129/status/1456124333206671360?s=20
    https://twitter.com/utpk07/status/1456113150684770306?s=20
    https://twitter.com/Haider0fficial/status/1456112846132101121?s=20

    Many notables took to Twitter to express their displeasure with the Afghan team.

    However, many chided those who believed in such conspiracy theories.

    https://twitter.com/hassan_a_niazi/status/1455939309664489476?s=21

    KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma put together India’s biggest opening stand at T20 World Cups. Hardik Pandya and Rishabh Pant then provided India the finishing kick with a 63-run partnership in the last 3.3 overs. Having put such a high total, India’s bowling was too good for Afghanistan, keeping them to 144, moving into positives on the net-run-rate.

    Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s net-run-rate dropped from 3.1 to 1.481. India has played three matches and their current NRR is 0.073. Their next matches are against Scotland and Namibia.

  • Husband reunites wife with her lover five months after own wedding

    Husband reunites wife with her lover five months after own wedding

    A man in Kanpur, India, helped his wife reunite with her lover just five months after he got married to her.

    Pankaj told reporters that his wife Komal used to maintain distance from him since their marriage. “She neither consummated the marriage nor even talked to anyone. After being coaxed, she confided that she wanted to marry her lover Pintu,” he said.

    When Pankaj informed the girl’s family, they tried to convince Komal but she remained persistent.

    Read More: Barat sent back for coming with the wrong older groom

    The matter then reached the Anti-Domestic Violence Cell and Asha Jyoti Centre where a meeting was arranged between the woman, her husband, her lover, and their relatives.
    Seeing that Komal was determined, Pankaj agreed and even made arrangements for her marriage. He also arranged a lawyer to solemnise the marriage of his wife to her lover Pintu on Friday evening, which was attended by relatives and guests from both sides.