Editor – Link Punjabi

Everyone thought Ravindra Jadeja’s absence would weaken India but Axar Patel was outstanding: Andrew McDonald

Editor — Mon, 26 Sep 2022 07:42:55 +0000

HYDERABAD: Ravindra Jadeja’s absence from the T20 series was expected to weaken India but the hosts found an able replacement in “outstanding” Axar Patel, said Australia coach Andrew McDonald.
Left-arm spinner Axar, who was shoed in as a like-for-like replacement for the injured Jadeja, impressed everyone with his bowling, ending as the leading wicket-taker in the three-match series.
“Axar, in particular, had an outstanding series. With Jaddu out everyone thought that it might become a bit of a weakness for India, but they’ve found another one again, which tends to happen,” McDonald said at the post-match press conference after India clinched the series.
The Australian bowling attack, comprising the pace duo of Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, was taken to the cleaners by the Indian batters.

Asked if it’s a concern heading to the World Cup, McDonald said: “Across the series the run rate was high, it was entertaining cricket from the get-go. Bat dominated the ball, so there was really no place to hide for bowling units, in particular death.
“We worked our way through some plans. We saw some good results with some of the plans that we implemented that might be able to transition to the World Cup.”
McDonald added that Australia will have reinforcements in the form of Mitchell Starc when they begin the defense of their World Cup title at home next month.

“The connection between here (India) and Australia might be slightly different, a little bit more bounce, different tactics. Mitchell Starc comes back into the picture being one of our best death bowlers. So, we feel like we’ll get reinforcements there.”
McDonald feels most of the bowling attack is “under the pump” due to the skills of the batters.
“The conversations always going to be can you get better at your death bowling? The answer to that is yes.
“We encourage our guys to make good decisions and execute them. Sometimes the batter out-executes you and we’ve seen that with Hardik (Pandya) across the series.
“Suryakumar Yadav was outstanding today and he’s gonna be dangerous in the World Cup but he showed what he can do.”
Australia were without a few of their World Cup-bound players due to injuries but the head coach feels the defending champions have enough depth to overcome the situation.
“It’s fortuitous that some of the guys got the opportunity here. We got a couple of injuries which are concerning leading into a World Cup. You don’t like to see some of your mainstay players out of the team leading in but we feel as though we’ve got some good options in depth.”
In the absence of David Warner, who was rested, Cameron Green “embraced the challenge of opening”.
The all-rounder amassed 118 runs, including two belligerent half-centuries to give Australia great starts.
“I’ve asked him to show great intent on top of the order and everything that we’re seeing so far shows that he’s doing that.
“It’s probably opportunistic the way that he’s come into the opening position with obviously David Warner not being here and a couple of other players from our World Cup 15.
“And that’s all you can do, given an opportunity… Before we came over here we thought he had the skill sets to be able to succeed there, and he’s taken on some of the best bowlers in world cricket.”

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Bharat Jodo Yatra enters Palakkad district

Editor — Mon, 26 Sep 2022 07:41:53 +0000

PALAKKAD: The Congress party’s Bharat Jodo Yatra resumed its journey on Monday from Shornur in Kerala’s Palakkad district with hundreds of party workers accompanying Rahul Gandhi in the walk.
The morning leg of the march, which entered its 19th day, will cover 12.3 km and halt at Pattambi.
The Congress party tweeted that the yatra entered Palakkad district with “excitement and hope”.
“…And we can’t wait to start this journey with you,” it said in the tweet.

Hello Palakkad,#BharatJodoYatra comes to you with excitement and hope. And we can’t wait to start this journey wi… https://t.co/U4B0Yk68Ve

— Congress (@INCIndia) 1664152200000

Senior Congress leader K Muraleedharan and Leader of Opposition in Kerala Assembly V D Satheesan joined Gandhi in the morning session of the yatra.
Hundreds of people waited on both sides of the road to meet Gandhi. A group of young girls presented the Congress leader with a framed drawing of himself.
“Couldn’t have asked for a better start to the Padyatra. The young minds are coming out in large numbers to bless @RahulGandhi Ji and all the Padtyatris. We owe them a brighter future. Towards achieving our goal. #BharatJodoYatra,” the party said in a tweet along with a photo of the young girls holding Gandhi’s drawing.
The Congress leader will garland a Mahatma Gandhi statue on the way to Pattambi, the party said. The yatra will resume at 5 pm and conclude at Koppam, it said.
The Congress party’s 3,570 km and 150-day long foot march started from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu on September 7 and will conclude in Jammu and Kashmir.
The yatra, which entered Kerala on the evening of September 10, will go through the state covering 450 km, touching seven districts in 19 days before entering Karnataka on October 1.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Pakistani military helicopter crashes killing six soldiers

Editor — Mon, 26 Sep 2022 07:27:45 +0000

QUETTA, Pakistan: A Pakistani military helicopter crashed in the southwest area of the country late on Sunday killing all six soldiers on board, including two officers, the military said on Monday.
The helicopter crashed during a “flying mission” near Harnai in the province of Balochistan, the military’s public relations wing said in a statement. No reason for the crash was given.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan pens a gratitude note for all the warmth and love for Ponniyin Selvan:

Editor — Mon, 26 Sep 2022 07:26:09 +0000

Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is currently awaiting the release of her next film ‘Ponniyin Selvan: I’ The actress will be essaying a dual role in this period drama. Post a grand Mumbai event for the film, Aishwarya penned a gratitude note thanking her fans and well-wishers.

Sharing a selfie, Aishwarya wrote, “Thank you all for your love, warmest wishes and blessings… Lots of love always”.

With PS-I, Aishwarya has reunited with her guru. Speaking about the same, Aishwarya had earlier shared, “I worked in my first film with Mani garu, who is my guru. I regard myself blessed that I got the opportunity to start my journey as an actor working with him. He’s the perfect school and the perfect guru.”

Aishwarya also revealed that her daughter Aradhya got a chance to be on the sets and how mesmerised she was.

The 48-year-old actress shared, “Seeing a period drama is always exciting and she did get the opportunity to visit me on set. It’s mesmerising, I could see that in her eyes. She already knows my admiration for working with him. She respects him, and she is awe of him too. Sir too made her feel warm and his affection is so sweet”.

She further revealed, “I think, one thing which really excited her the most was there was this one day when she was on the sets, Mani Ratnam Sir gave her the opportunity to say ‘Action’, and she couldn’t get over that. I think none of us have got that opportunity yet. We were really surprised as much as she was. It’s a really precious and cherished moment for her”.

‘Ponniyin Selvan: I’ is adapted from Kalki Krishnamurthy’s novel by the same name. It will hit the screens on September 30 and will be released in Tamil along with the dubbed versions in Hindi, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

5 revelations made by Gauri Khan about her life and Shah Rukh Khan on ‘Koffee With Karan 7’

Editor — Thu, 22 Sep 2022 12:32:06 +0000

When Karan Johar said Shah Rukh is so warm that he actually goes out to drop every guest till their car, Gauri said, ‘it’s a negative thing’. Because, is the party outside or inside? People are wondering where’s the host? She also finds it annoying that he spends 100 hours in the bathroom doing what not! He watches television inside the bathroom, he reads and does it all inside. Moreover, she’s thankful for the fact that her kids have not imbibed one quality of SRK, which is not being punctual. She says that her kids are quite punctual, unlike Shah Rukh Khan.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

SC cites Hindus’ religious assets rights to counter Waqf Act critics

Editor — Tue, 20 Sep 2022 12:49:44 +0000

NEW DELHI: As BJP leader and advocate Ashwini Upadhyay challenged various provision of Waqf Act and alleged that why only Muslims be allowed to manage properties when there was no law for other religious community, the Supreme Court on Monday reminded him that there are Hindu Endowments Act framed by many states on as per which only Hindus can manage and administer religious places and their assets.
The apex court was hearing a plea filed by Upadhyay contending that the Waqf Act was totally against the secularism, unity and integrity of the nation as the law was made to administer the properties of Muslims but there were no similar laws for followers of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jain-ism, Sikhism, Judaism, Bahaism, Zoroastrianism and Christianity.
As the petition also raised questions on the impartiality of the judicial officer who is part of the tribunal set up under law, Justice Joseph said that such contention was shocking as a judicial officer decides the case on the basis of law and asked senior advocate Ranjit Kumar, appearing for the petitioner, whether he also believed so.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Imran Khan claims Shehbaz Sharif felt intimidated in Putin’s presence

Editor — Tue, 20 Sep 2022 12:48:35 +0000

ISLAMABAD: Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan mocked his successor Shehbaz Sharif, saying that the latter felt intimidated in the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin at the recently-concluded Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan.
Addressing a public gathering in Chakwal on Monday, Khan took a jibe at the premier claiming that his legs were trembling in the presence of Putin during their bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the 22nd SCO Summit, Geo News reported.
Khan criticised Sharif for his recent foreign trips following flood devastations in the country and said: “Look at Shehbaz’s insensitivity. He is visiting (countries) abroad during such conditions. What battle is he going to win aboard while the country has been flooded?”
Nitpicking the premier for his conversation with the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the PTI Chairman said: “I have not seen any prime minister talk like the way Shehbaz did with the UN Secretary-General. He was asking him for money.”
He further revealed that Guterres knows that 60 per cent of Sharif’s cabinet is released on bail.
“On what basis would he (Secretary-Ggeneral) give you money as he knows that corruption cases are registered against the premier?” Khan queried.
The former premier also pointed his guns at Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari denouncing him for leaving the country during a time of crisis.
“Bilawal also went abroad. They have been imposed (on us) because he will listen to their orders,” Khan added.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Smriti Mandhana rises to career-best 2nd position in T20Is, ranked 7th in ODIs

Editor — Tue, 20 Sep 2022 12:47:12 +0000

DUBAI: Star India opener Smriti Mandhana on Tuesday achieved a career-best world number two rank in T20Is and climbed to the seventh spot in ODIs in the latest ICC Women’s Player Rankings, riding on her stupendous show against England.
The left-handed batter had aggregated 111 runs in the three-match T20I series against England. The performance helped her jump two places.
Mandhana, a former top-ranked batter in ODIs, also jumped three slots to number seven after a match-winning 91 in the first ODI against England.
Among other Indians, skipper Harmanpreet Kaur has zoomed four spots to ninth place in ODIs, all-rounder Deepti Sharma gained one place to reach 32nd position and wicketkeeper Yastika Bhatia jumped eight places to 37th following India’s seven-wicket win in Hove on Saturday.
Deepti also climbed six places to 12th in bowlers’ list.
For England, Emma Lamb and Sophie Ecclestone have gained three slots each and are 64th and 72nd among batters, respectively, while Charlie Dean is up to 86th in the list.
Dean is also up four places to 20th among bowlers, while Kate Cross is in the top 10 after grabbing two wickets with her seam bowling.
In the T20I rankings, Kaur (up one place to 14th among batters), new-ball bowler Renuka Singh (up three places to 10th among bowlers) and spinner Radha Yadav (up four places to 14th among bowlers) made notable gains.
All-rounders Sneha Rana and Pooja Vastrakar are in joint-41st position.
England’s Sophia Dunkley jumped 12 spots to 32nd after leading the run-aggregate with 115 runs in the T20I series, while Alice Capsey is now 20th among batters.
Zimbabwe players Sharne Mayers (up 28 places to 39th among batters), captain Mary-Anne Musonda (up 10 places to 50th among batters) and Precious Marange (up 24 places to 34th among bowlers), who are featuring in the ongoing ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Qualifier in Abu Dhabi, have also moved up the rankings.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

One farmer dying every hour in BJP rule: Congress

Editor — Tue, 20 Sep 2022 12:46:06 +0000

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Tuesday held the policies of the ruling BJP dispensation responsible for farmers’ suicides in the country, claiming that one farmer died by suicide every hour.
Addressing a press conference in the wake of a September 17 suicide of Pune-based Dashrath Lakshman Kedari, Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said the farmer, in his suicide note, held “the BJP government’s policies responsible for his death and noted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was concerned only with himself”.
“Dashrath Lakshman Kedari in his suicide note said he did not have any money to pay back his loans and was ending his life due to helplessness. He sought reasonable MSP (Minimum Support Price) for farm produce as a farmers’ right and blamed the policies of the incumbent government for his decision to end life,” Shrinate said.
She said as many as 10,881 people involved in agriculture died by suicide in 2021, which was 6.6 per cent of 1,64,033 suicide deaths last year.
“This means, every day 30 farmers are dying by suicide and every hour more than one farmer is dying,” she said.
Citing the National Crimes Record Bureau data, she said more than 53,881 farmers killed themselves between 2014 and 2021, which translates to 21 deaths daily.
Shrinate said it was ironic that 2022, the year by which the government had promised to double the income of farmers, was actually witnessing “barely Rs 27 average income” for them.
“Who is responsible for the dire straits of Indian farmers? The policies of this government,” the Congress leader said.
She also recalled the death of over 700 farmers during the year-long farmers agitation against the three agricultural reforms laws to allege the “government’s apathy towards farmers and the farm sector”.
Further, she said the government’s remarks before the Supreme Court that payment of MSP over and above 50 per cent of the cost to farmers would distort the market, and that the Centre’s decision not to procure the produce if state governments bought them above the MSP clearly went against the farmers.
The Congress leader said the government had “looted the farmers” by increasing diesel prices, imposing a range of GST on farm products — five per cent on fertiliser; 18 per cent on insecticides, 12 per cent on farm equipment, and 18 per cent on tractors, “pushing the production cost to Rs 25,000 per hectare.”
Quoting data from the National Sample Service Organisation, Shrinate said the average daily earnings of farmers now stood at Rs 12 as against the average loan of Rs 74,000.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Asia Cup: Suryakumar, Kohli star as India beat Hong Kong by 40 runs to seal Super Four spot

Editor — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 15:14:05 +0000

DUBAI: In the 26 balls he faced against Hong Kong on Wednesday, Suryakumar Yadav demonstrated all the right things about his T20 batting while exposing everything that is not quite right with India’s top-three. Surya walked out to bat at the end of the 13th over with the scoreboard reading 94/2 after KL Rahul went for a 39-ball 35 and Virat Kohli still striking just about run-a-ball.
When he walked off unbeaten with 68 runs to his name and Virat Kohli by his side with a 59 off 44, he had propelled India to 192/2. In doing so, Surya had put the game well beyond the spirited Hong Kong team who finished with 152/5 having cashed in on India’s two inexperienced bowlers Arshdeep Singh (1/44) and Avesh Khan (1/53). India’s head coach Rahul Dravid, wearing a particularly unamused look in the dugout, will go into the Super 4s with the same set of unresolved issues.
The pitch and Hong Kong’s inexperienced bowling looked non-conducive to the modern-day slam-bang T20 batting till the time Surya took strike. Captain Rohit Sharma’s dismissal for 21 off 13 earlier in the innings at mid-on was indicative of a double-paced pitch.
It was one of those days when the scoreboard belied the intent of the Indian batters, barringSurya. The first two balls he faced, he swept left-arm spinner Yasim Murtaza for boundaries on either side of long-leg. All of a sudden, the pitch started looking different while he was on strike.
This match was always about oiling the machinery. Virat Kohli did get to spend enough time in the middle and got the runs under his belt. But if his arduous partnership with Rahul is anything to go by, there was a heavy layer of rust on the top order.
It was bizarre till the time Rahul and Kohli batted together. The match was reduced to having a knock in the nets to get a feel of the ball. It seemed spending time in the middle was a greater priority than getting a move on. Perhaps, knowing the batting credentials of Hong Kong gave them that liberty.
The duo waited for balls to land absolutely in their zone to go for the big shots. Credit to Hong Kong bowlers, they offered very few. In his 44-ball knock, Kohli found the fence only four times. Three of those times he cleared the deep mid-wicket stand. That’s evidence of being cautious.
Surya’s innings showed it was neither the bowling nor the pitch. It was about the intent and confidence in his skills that shredded the inexperienced team.
For teams like India, matches like these are meant to flex their muscles to the extent where it looks like they are bullying the newbies. For 13 overs, Hong Kong must have believed they got away. Surya moved around the crease on his nimble foot, targeted all parts of the ground and ended up bullying them smashing four out of his six sixes in the last over medium-pacer Haroon Arshad even as Kohli looked content knocking the ball down the ground with a straight bat.
Hopefully, the time spent in the middle has shaken off the rust for Kohli and Rahul. The big teams won’t offer so much time to ease into an innings.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Govt to give states 15L tonne of chana

Editor — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 15:09:39 +0000

NEW DELHI: The Union Cabinet on Wednesday decided to dispose of 15 lakh tonne of chana procured under its schemes to states at a discounted rate, incurring a cost of Rs 1,200 crore. It also raised the procurement ceiling for tur, urad and masur from current 25% to 40% under the price stabilisation scheme.
While the first measure will help states utilise the subsidised chana for various welfare schemes and free up space for stocking pulses which will be procured during the rabi crop season, the second decision has been taken considering the rise in prices of the three other pulses. There are indications of the area under tur cultivation being reduced this year and that has also caused prices to rise.
The Centre will offer 15 lakh tonne chana to states at a discount of Rs 8 per kg over the issue price of sourcing state on first-come-first-serve basis. “This will be one-time dispensation for 12 months or till complete disposal of 15 lakh tonnes stock of chana, whichever is earlier.” it said.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

WHO: New Covid cases, deaths keep falling nearly everywhere

Editor — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 15:08:50 +0000

GENEVA: The number of new coronavirus cases and deaths reported globally continued to fall nearly everywhere in the world in what the World Health Organization described as a “welcome decline” at a media briefing on Wednesday.
The UN health agency said there were 4.5 million new Covid-19 cases reported last week, a 16% drop from the previous week. Deaths were also down by 13%, with about 13,500 fatalities. WHO said Covid-19 infections dropped everywhere in the world while deaths decreased everywhere except for Southeast Asia, where they climbed by 15% and in the Western Pacific, where they rose by 3%.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that with the coming onset of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and the possible emergence of a more dangerous new Covid-19 variant, experts expect to see a spike in hospitalizations and deaths. Tedros said vaccination rates, even in rich countries, were still too low, noting that 30% of health workers and 20% of older people remain unimmunized.
“These vaccination gaps pose a risk to all of us,” he said. “Please get vaccinated if you are not and a booster if it’s recommended that you have one.”
In the US, the Food and Drug Administration cleared its first update to Covid-19 vaccines on Wednesday, booster doses that target today’s most common omicron strain. Authorities said shots could begin within days.
Until now, Covid-19 vaccines have targeted the original coronavirus strain, even as wildly different mutants emerged. The new US boosters are combination, or “bivalent,” shots. They contain half that original vaccine recipe and half protection against the newest omicron versions, called BA.4 and BA.5, which are considered the most contagious yet.
Earlier this month, Britain decided it would offer adults 50 and over a different booster option from Moderna, a combo shot targeting that initial BA.1 omicron strain.
On Friday, the European Medicines Agency will consider whether to authorize the combination Covid-19 vaccine including BA.1 made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. Another version of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine incorporating the BA.5 subvariant of omicron is also under review by the EU regulator.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Isro’s aim: 10% share in global space economy | Bengaluru News – Times of India

Editor — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 15:06:27 +0000

New Isro chief S Somanath (Photo: Union minister Jitendra Singh/Twitter)

BENGALURU: Isro chairman S Somanath said in Bengaluru on Monday that the agency has its eyes set on increasing India’s share in the global space economy from about 2% to a two-digit number.
Speaking at the 75th Independence Day celebrations at Isro headquarters, he said: “…What lies ahead is more important than what we’ve accomplished.” Expressing various institutes’ desired growth path for the next 25 years, he said the department of space’s vision was: “To see our share of space economy (grow) from less than 2% of the global economy to a higher value of typically 10%.
” For this to be achieved in the next few years, he believed drastic structural changes are needed in the way the department works.Somnath saw tremendous growth in business opportunities in the space sector and said there is a need to work towards it by enabling people with the right aptitude and capability.
“While Isro and DoS continue to make great strides in technology development…we will look at the private ecosystem for making the business transactions in space sector grow,” he said.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Australia pick Singapore-born Tim David in T20 World Cup squad

Editor — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 15:05:39 +0000

Singapore-born all-rounder Tim David has been named in Australia’s Twenty20 World Cup squad, while legspinner Mitchell Swepson has been omitted, Cricket Australia said on Thursday.

T20 specialist David, who was raised in Western Australia, burst into the spotlight in the Pakistan Super League last season and has become hot property as a finishing batsman in global leagues.
“Tim continues to establish himself with some quality performances in leagues around the world, earning a place in the squad,” selector George Bailey said in a statement.

Tim David can hit a LONG ball! And captain Aaron Finch is looking forward to seeing his power showcased in the n… https://t.co/jN6QBIvKne

— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) 1662006540000

“He is a highly gifted, natural ball-striker who will add extra batting depth to the group which has had a lot of success in T20 cricket.”
David is the only notable inclusion in the squad for Australia’s World Cup defence on home soil starting in October.
“Mitchell Swepson was unlucky to miss out based on conditions in the UAE at the last World Cup where we planned for tired, spinning wickets compared to what we would expect are good batting conditions along with the larger grounds in Australia,” added Bailey.

World Cup squad assembled! Here’s the 15 who will represent our national men’s team at the upcoming T20 World Cup… https://t.co/X8xaS1fXGr

— Cricket Australia (@CricketAus) 1661987297000

The Aaron Finch-captained squad will travel to India for three T20 Internationals in September before returning home to play the West Indies, England and India leading into the World Cup.
Key batsman David Warner will miss the Indian tour as part of a “managed period of preparation”, Cricket Australia said, while Cameron Green will join the squad for the Indian T20 Series.
Australia T20 World Cup squad:
Aaron Finch (c), David Warner, Mitchell Marsh, Steven Smith, Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Matthew Wade, Tim David, Josh Inglis, Ashton Agar, Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Adam Zampa, Josh Hazlewood, Kane Richardson

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

PM Modi pays tributes to Puli Thevar

Editor — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 15:04:11 +0000

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday paid tributes to Puli Thevar, an 18th century Tamil warrior who fought against the British, on his birth anniversary.

His valour and determination give inspiration to countless people, the prime minister said.
Modi tweeted, “I pay homage to the brave Puli Thevar on his birth anniversary. His valour and determination give inspiration to countless people. He was at the forefront of resisting imperialism. He always fought for the people.”

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

History’s bookends: Putin reversed many Gorbachev reforms

Editor — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 15:02:47 +0000

NEW YORK: One stood for freedom, openness, peace and closer ties with the outside world. The other is jailing critics, muzzling journalists, pushing his country deeper into isolation and waging Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II.
Such are history’s bookends between Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union’s last leader, and Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president.
In many ways, Gorbachev, who died Tuesday, unwittingly enabled Putin. The forces Gorbachev unleashed spun out of control, led to his downfall and the Soviet Union’s collapse.
Since coming to power in 1999, Putin has been taking a hard line that resulted in a near-complete reversal of Gorbachev’s reforms.
When Gorbachev came to power as Soviet leader in 1985, he was younger and more vibrant than his predecessors. He broke with the past by moving away from a police state, embracing freedom of the press, ending his country’s war in Afghanistan and letting go of Eastern European countries that had been locked in Moscow’s communist orbit. He ended the isolation that had gripped the USSR since its founding.
It was an exciting, hopeful time for Soviet citizens and the world. Gorbachev brought the promise of a brighter future.
He believed in integration with the West, multi-lateralism and globalism to solve the world’s problems, including ending armed conflicts and reducing the danger of nuclear weapons.
In marked contrast, Putin’s worldview holds that the West is an “empire of lies,” and democracy is chaotic, uncontrolled and dangerous. While mostly refraining from direct criticism, Putin implies that Gorbachev sold out to the West.
Returning to a communist-style mindset, Putin believes the West is imperialistic and arrogant, trying to impose its liberal values and policies on Russia and using the country as a scapegoat for its own problems.
He accuses Western leaders of trying to restart the Cold War and restrain Russia’s development. He seeks a world order with Russia on equal footing with the United States and other major powers, and in some respects is trying to rebuild an empire.
Gorbachev sometimes bowed to Western pressure. Two years after U.S. President Ronald Reagan implored him to “tear down this wall” in a speech at the Berlin Wall, Gorbachev did so, indirectly, by not intervening in populist anti-communist revolutions in Eastern Europe. The dropping of the Iron Curtain and end of the Cold War followed.
At home, Gorbachev introduced two sweeping and dramatic policies — “glasnost” or openness — and “perestroika,” a restructuring of Soviet society. Previously taboo subjects could now be discussed, in literature, the news media and society in general. He undertook economic reforms to allow private enterprise, moving away from a state-run economy.
He also loosened up on the dreaded police state, freed political prisoners such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov, and ended the Communist Party’s monopoly on political power. Freer foreign travel, emigration and religious observances were also part of the mix.
Putin has veered away from Gorbachev’s changes. He focused on restoring order and rebuilding the police state. An increasingly severe crackdown on dissent has involved jailing critics, branding them traitors and extremists, including for merely calling the “special military operation” in Ukraine a war. He sees some critics as foreign-funded collaborators of Russia’s enemies.
In his quest for control, he’s shut down independent news organizations and banned human rights and humanitarian organizations. He demands complete loyalty to the state and emphasizes traditional Russian family, religious and nationalistic tenets.
Gorbachev’s leadership was not without failures. His more liberal policies were uneven, such as a bloody 1991 Soviet crackdown on the independence movement in the Soviet Baltic republic of Lithuania and the attempted early coverup of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster.
By 1988, he realized that trying to hide bad events wasn’t working, so when a massive earthquake hit Armenia in December 1988, he opened the borders to emergency international help and allowed transparency about the destruction.
After nearly a decade of fighting in Afghanistan, Gorbachev ordered the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, entered into multiple arms-control and disarmament agreements with the United States and other countries, and helped end the Cold War. For those efforts, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.
But at home, Gorbachev’s economic reforms didn’t go well. Freeing industries from state control and allowing private enterprise too quickly and haphazardly created widespread shortages of food and consumer goods, worsened corruption and spawned a class of oligarchs.
The burgeoning independence movements in Soviet republics and other problems so angered Communist Party hard-liners that they attempted a coup against him in August 1991, further weakening his grip on power and leading to his resignation four months later.
In the end, many in Russia felt Gorbachev had left them with broken promises, dashed hopes and a weakened, humiliated country.
One who felt that way was Putin. For him, much of what Gorbachev did was a mistake. The biggest was the Soviet Union’s collapse, what Putin called “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”
The Soviet Union was disrespected, defeated and broken into pieces – 15 countries. For Putin, it was also personal, because as a KGB officer stationed in East Germany, he watched in horror as massive crowds staged the popular uprising that led to the removal of the Berlin Wall and Germany’s reunification, at one point besieging his KGB office in Dresden.
To this day, Putin’s perceptions about threats to his country and popular revolutions color his foreign policy and his deep mistrust of the West. They underpin his decision to invade Ukraine on Feb. 24.
As one justification for the war, he cites what he believes was a broken U.S. promise to Gorbachev – a supposed 1990 pledge that NATO would not expand into Eastern Europe. U.S. officials have denied making such a pledge, but Putin believes NATO’s expansion, and specifically the prospect of neighboring Ukraine joining the alliance, pose an existential threat to Russia.
Critics allege that Putin distorts the facts and ignores local sentiments to claim Ukrainians want to be liberated from the Kyiv government and align with Moscow.
He has also embarked on a massive effort to modernize and expand Russia’s military might, moving away from arms-control accords that Gorbachev agreed to.
Putin’s war in Ukraine, his human rights violations and the 2014 annexation of Crimea have drawn massive international sanctions that are reversing the cultural and economic ties that Gorbachev fostered. But for a few allies, Russia is isolated.
While one might expect Gorbachev to have been more critical of Putin, he did condemn NATO’s eastward expansion and said the West bungled the chance offered by the Cold War’s end. He even supported Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
But in many other ways, the historic bookends between the two leaders are far apart.
Before Gorbachev rose to power, Reagan in 1983 famously branded Russia an “evil empire.” Five years later, he recanted the description at a summit with the Soviet leader.
Fast forward to today, when the current US president, Joe Biden, has called Putin a “killer,” a “butcher” and a “war criminal” who “cannot remain in power.”
The Cold War that Gorbachev helped end is back.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Antibodies that may lead to next-gen vaccines for all Covid strains found

Editor — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 14:58:47 +0000

LOS ANGELES: Scientists have identified antibodies that are effective against many different SARS-CoV-2 variants, an advance that paves the way for next-generation vaccines which could protect from different Covid-19 strains. The antibodies identified in monkeys by a team at The Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, US are also effective against other SARS viruses like SARS-CoV-1, the highly lethal virus that caused an outbreak in 2003.
The results show that certain animals are more able to make these types of “pan-SARS virus” antibodies than humans, giving scientists clues as to how to make better vaccines.
The findings, published on Thursday in the journal Science Translational Medicine, reveal the antibody structures that produce this more comprehensive immune response.
The researchers found these neutralising antibodies recognise a viral region in the spike protein — which the virus uses to enter and infect the cells — that is relatively more conserved.
This means that the region is present across many different SARS viruses, and is therefore less likely to mutate over time, they said.
The finding may help develop next-generation vaccines that can offer additional protection against emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants and other SARS-related viruses, according to the researchers.
“If we can design vaccines that elicit the similar broad responses that we have seen in this study, these treatments could enable broader protection against the virus and variants of concern,” said study senior author Raiees Andrabi, an investigator at The Scripps Research Institute.
The researchers immunised rhesus macaque monkeys with the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Two shots were administered, resembling a similar strategy used with currently available vaccines in humans.
However, unlike the vaccines, the macaques were shown to have a broad neutralising antibody response against the virus, including variants such as Omicron.
The scientists found these antibodies recognise a conserved region on the edge of the site where the spike protein binds to host cells, called the angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor binding site.
This is different than the region where the majority of human antibodies target, which overlaps more with the ACE2 receptor binding site and is more variable to change, they said.
“The antibody structures reveal an important area common to multiple SARS-related viruses,” said study co-senior author Ian Wilson.
“This region to date has rarely been seen to be targeted by human antibodies and suggests additional strategies that can be used to coax our immune system into recognising this particular region of the virus,” Wilson said.
The researchers notes that the macaque’s gene coding for these broad neutralising antibodies — known as IGHV3-73 — is not the same in humans.
The dominant immune response in humans is related to the IGHV3-53 gene, which produces a potent but much narrower neutralising antibody response, they said.
However, the scientists said this finding paves the way to rationally design and engineer vaccines or vaccine-adjuvant combinations that elicit more broad protection against SARS-CoV-2 and its many variants.
“According to our study, the macaques have an antibody gene that offers them more protection against SARS viruses,” said Dennis Burton, a co-senior author of the study.
“This observation teaches us that studying the effect of a vaccine in monkeys can only take us so far but also reveals a new target for our vaccine efforts that we might be able to exploit by advanced protein design strategies,” Burton added.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

‘Extreme heat belt’ to cover middle of US by 2053: Report

Editor — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 14:28:32 +0000

WASHINGTON: An area of intensely warm weather — a so-called “extreme heat belt” — with at least one day per year in which the heat index hits 125 Fahrenheit (52C), is expected to cover a US region home to more than 100 million people by the year 2053, according to a new study.
The research, carried out by nonprofit First Street Foundation, used a peer-reviewed model built with public and third-party data to estimate heat risk at what they called a “hyper-local” scale of 30 square meters.
First Street Foundation’s mission is to make climate risk modeling accessible to the public, government and industry representatives, such as real estate investors and insurers.
A key finding from the study was that heat exceeding the threshold of the National Weather Service’s highest category — called “Extreme Danger,” or above 125F — was expected to impact 8.1 million people in 2023 and grow to 107 million people in 2053, a 13-fold increase.
This would encompass a geographic region stretching from northern Texas and Louisiana to Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin — inland areas far from the more temperate weather often seen near the coasts.
Heat index, also known as the apparent temperature, is what the outside temperature really feels like to the human body when relative humidity is combined with air temperature.
To create their model, the research team examined satellite-derived land surface temperatures and air temperatures between 2014 and 2020, to help understand the exact relationship between the two measurements.
This information was further studied by factoring in elevation, how water is absorbed in the area, the distance to surface water and the distance to a coast.
The model was then scaled to future climate conditions, using a “middle of the road” scenario envisaged by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in which carbon dioxide levels start falling by mid-century, but do not reach net zero by 2100.
Beyond “Extreme Danger” days, areas across the whole country are expected to experience hotter temperatures, with varying degrees of resilience.
“These increases in local temperatures result in significant implications for communities that are not acclimated to warmer weather relative to their normal climate,” the report said.
For example, a 10 percent temperature increase in the northeastern state of Maine may be as dangerous as a 10 percent increase in the southwestern state of Texas, despite the higher absolute temperatures seen in Texas.
The biggest predicted shift in local temperature occurred in Miami-Dade County, Florida, which currently sees seven days per year at its hottest temperature of 103 Fahrenheit. By 2053, that number is expected to increase to 34 days at 103 degrees.
And the increase in air conditioning use that is likely to result from such temperature spikes will strain energy grids, the report warned, leading to more frequent, longer lasting brownouts.

News & Photo Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

India A vs New Zealand A: Mukesh Kumar impresses with three wickets as New Zealand A score 156/5 on Day 1

Editor — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 14:18:55 +0000

BENGALURU: Bengal seamer Mukesh Kumar bowled to a probing channel in all his spells as India A stifled New Zealand A to 156 for five before bad light stopped play on the opening day of the first ‘Unofficial’ Test.
Playing for a representative national side (India U-19, India U-23, India A or Senior India) for the first time, the right-arm fast-medium bowler got the ball to move both ways and finished with figures of 13-4-34-3, with a wicket in each of his three spells.
In fact, Mukesh got wickets with the new (4.3 overs), semi-new (35.3 overs) and old ball (57.4 overs), as only 61 overs of play was possible out of the maximum 90.
While two left-arm pacers Yash Dayal (13-2-35-1) and Arzan Nagwaswalla (13-2-34-1) also got a wicket apiece, Mukesh was the best bowler on the day by a fair distance.
Not only did he bowl to a probing channel but he also forced the New Zealand batters to play most of his deliveries, unlike the other two who were letting them leave quite a few.
Mukesh drew the first blood when he got one to move a shade as opener Chad Bowes (5) edged one to Ruturaj Gaikwad at first slip.
It wasn’t long before Nagwaswalla struck at the stroke of an hour when left-hander and Black Caps Test player Rachin Ravindra (12), sent to open, tried to drive a fuller length delivery, only to offer a catch to Rajat Patidar at second slip.
Dayal joined the list of wicket-takers when Abhimanyu Easwaran held on to a catch in the second slips to dismiss southpaw Mark Chapman (15), who has played T20Is as recently as the month of July.
The right-handed No. 3 Joe Carter (73 batting off 170 balls) showed a lot of composure, having come out to bat only in the fifth over. Carter has so far hit 10 fours in his innings.
When Carter and skipper Robert O’Donnell (24) seemed to have nicely settled down with a 49-run stand, India A captain Priyank Panchal brought back Mukesh for his post-lunch spell with the semi-new ball.
A fullish delivery that cut back enough found O’Donnell plumb in front to leave New Zealand A in trouble at 100 for four in the 36th over.
Wicketkeeper Cam Fletcher (13 off 66 balls) defended doggedly for close to two hours as Kuldeep Yadav (0/44 in 19 overs), in his first competitive red ball game in more than 18 months, didn’t look penetrative enough.
Mukesh, who came back for his third spell, got the old ball to break back in and found Fletcher’s pads after a 49-run stand in just over 22 overs.
Brief Scores: NZ A 1st Innings 156/5 (Joe Carter 73 batting, Mukesh Kumar 3/34, Arzan Nagwaswalla 1/34, Yash Dayal 1/35) vs India A.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Jharkhand crisis: Selective leaks from governor’s office creating chaos, say UPA MLAs

Editor — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 14:17:14 +0000

[ad_1]

NEW DELHI: A delegation of JMM and Congress MLAs met Jharkhand governor Ramesh Bais on Thursday amid uncertainty over chief minister Hemant Soren‘s political future in the state.
The meeting comes days after the Election Commission recommended Soren’s disqualification in a letter to the governor over an office-for-profit case.
The group of MLAs requested the governor to declare his opinion on the matter, saying that speculations on Soren’s fate has encouraged the destablisation of a democratically-elected government.
The legislators also expressed “shock” over the “selective leaks” from the governor’s office on Soren’s disqualification as a legislator.
The delegation, in its representation to Bais, said such leaks created “chaos, confusion and uncertainty”.
It asserted that disqualification of the CM as MLA will not affect the government, as the ruling JMM-Congress-RJD coalition enjoys an absolute majority in the 81-member House.
In the Jharkhand assembly, the ruling alliance has 30 MLAs of JMM, 18 MLAs of Congress and one MLA of RJD.
Following a petition by the BJP seeking Soren’s disqualification from the assembly, the Election Commission sent its decision to Bais on August 25.
Though the EC’s decision is not yet made official, there was a buzz that the poll panel has recommended the chief minister’s disqualification as an MLA.
The Raj Bhavan is yet to announce anything on this matter. This has led to growing uncertainty among the ruling coalition about Soren’s future.
(With inputs from agencies)

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Russia launches war games with China amid tensions with US

Editor — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 14:15:58 +0000

[ad_1]

MOSCOW: Russia on Thursday launched weeklong war games involving forces from China and other nations in a show of growing defence cooperation between Moscow and Beijing, as they both face tensions with the United States.
The maneuvers are also intended to demonstrate that Moscow has sufficient military might for massive drills even as its troops are engaged in military action in Ukraine.
The Russian Defence Ministry said that the Vostok 2022 (East 2022) exercise will be held until September 7 at seven firing ranges in Russia’s Far East and the Sea of Japan and involve more than 50,000 troops and over 5,000 weapons units, including 140 aircraft and 60 warships.
Russian General Staff chief, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, will personally oversee the drills involving troops from several ex-Soviet nations, China, India, Laos, Mongolia, Nicaragua and Syria.
The Defence Ministry noted that as part of the maneuvers, the Russian and Chinese navies in the Sea of Japan will “practice joint action to protect sea communications, areas of marine economic activity and support for ground troops in littoral areas.”
Beijing sent more than 2,000 troops along with more than 300 military vehicles, 21 combat aircraft and three warships to take part in the drills, Chinese news reports said.
China’s Global Times newspaper noted that the maneuvers marked the first time that China has sent forces from three branches of its military to take part in a single Russian drill, in what it described as a show of the breadth and depth of China-Russia military cooperation and mutual trust.
The drills showcase increasing defense ties between Moscow and Beijing, which have grown stronger since Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his troops into Ukraine on February 24.
China has pointedly refused to criticize Russia’s actions, blaming the US and NATO for provoking Moscow, and has blasted the punishing sanctions imposed on Moscow.
Russia, in turn, has strongly backed China amid the tensions with the US that followed a recent visit to Taiwan by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Putin has drawn parallels between US support for Ukraine and Pelosi’s trip, describing them both as part of alleged efforts by Washington to foment global instability.
Alexander Gabuyev, a political analyst who closely follows Russia-China ties, noted that “it’s very important for Beijing to show to the US that it has levers to pressure America and its global interests.”
“The joint maneuvers with Moscow, including the naval drills, are intended to signal that if the pressure on Beijing continues it will have no other choice but to strengthen the military partnership with Russia,” Gabuyev said.
“It will have a direct impact on the interests of the US and its allies, including Japan.”
He noted that the Kremlin, for its part, wants to show that the country’s military is powerful enough to flex its muscle elsewhere despite the campaign in Ukraine.
“The Russian leadership demonstrates that everything goes according to plan and the country and its military have resources to conduct the maneuvers along with the special military operation,” Gabuyev said.
The exercise continues a series of joint war games by Russia and China in recent years, including naval drills and patrols by long-range bombers over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea. Last year, Russian troops for the first time deployed to Chinese territory for joint maneuvers.
China’s participation in the drills “aims to deepen pragmatic and friendly cooperation between the militaries of the participating countries, enhance the level of strategic cooperation among all participating parties, and enhance the ability to jointly respond to various security threats,” Chinese Defence Ministry spokesperson Col. Tan Kefei said last week.
Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping have developed strong personal ties to bolster a “strategic partnership” between the former Communist rivals as they both are locked in rivalry with the US.
Even though Moscow and Beijing in the past rejected the possibility of forging a military alliance, Putin has said that such a prospect can’t be ruled out. He also has noted that Russia has been sharing highly sensitive military technologies with China that helped significantly bolster its defense capability.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Space mission shows Earth’s water may be from asteroids: Study

Editor — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 21:18:12 +0000

TOKYO: Water may have been brought to Earth by asteroids from the outer edges of the solar system, scientists said after analysing rare samples collected on a six-year Japanese space mission.
In a quest to shed light on the origins of life and the formation of the universe, researchers are scrutinising material brought back to earth in 2020 from the asteroid Ryugu.
The 5.4 grams (0.2 ounces) of rocks and dust were gathered by a Japanese space probe, called Hayabusa-2, that landed on the celestial body and fired an “impactor” into its surface.
Studies on the material are beginning to be published, and in June, one group of researchers said they had found organic material which showed that some of the building blocks of life on Earth, amino acids, may have been formed in space.
In a new paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy, scientists said the Ryugu samples could give clues to the mystery of how oceans appeared on Earth billions of years ago.
“Volatile and organic-rich C-type asteroids may have been one of the main sources of Earth’s water,” said the study by scientists from Japan and other countries, published Monday.
“The delivery of volatiles (that is, organics and water) to the Earth is still a subject of notable debate,” it said.
But the organic materials found “in Ryugu particles, identified in this study, probably represent one important source of volatiles”.
The scientists hypothesised that such material probably has an “outer Solar System origin”, but said it was “unlikely to be the only source of volatiles delivered to the early Earth”.
Hayabusa-2 was launched in 2014 on its mission to Ryugu, around 300 million kilometres away, and returned to Earth’s orbit two years ago to drop off a capsule containing the sample.
In the Nature Astronomy study, the researchers again hailed the findings made possible by the mission.
“Ryugu particles are undoubtedly among the most uncontaminated Solar System materials available for laboratory study and ongoing investigations of these precious samples will certainly expand our understanding of early Solar System processes,” the study said.

News and Photo Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Danube drought reveals parts of hidden World War II history

Editor — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 17:16:29 +0000

[ad_1]

PRAHOVO: The worst drought in Europe in decades hasn’t only scorched farmland and hampered river traffic, it also has exposed a part of almost forgotten World War II history: The hulks of dozens of World War II German battleships have emerged from the Danube River as its water levels have dropped.
In the middle of the mighty river separating Serbia and Romania near the Serbian port of Prahovo, a rusty hull, a broken mast where the swastika flag used to fly, an upper deck where a command bridge used to be, a barrel that could have been holding fuel — or even explosive materials — lean on a pebblestone dune that has emerged from the water.
The ships, some still laden with munition, belonged to Nazi Germany’s Black Sea fleet that was deliberately sunk by the Germans as they retreated from Romania as Soviet forces advanced.
Historians say up to 200 German warships were scuttled in September 1944 near Prahovo in the Danube gorge known as The Iron Gate on the orders of the fleet’s commander as they came under heavy fire from the Soviets. The idea behind the deliberate sinking was to at least slow down the Soviet advance in the Balkans. But it didn’t help as Nazi Germany surrendered months later, in May 1945.
The unusually hot weather across Europe this summer was linked by scientists to global warming and other factors. The dropping water levels created dangerous conditions for shipping on many rivers on the continent, including the Danube, Europe’s second-longest river that flows through 10 nations. Authorities in Serbia have used dredging to keep vessels moving.
The wrecks appearing from the depths are an impressive sight, but they have caused decades of trouble for those using the river, and now the Serbian government, with European Union support, is planning to do something about them.
Some of the wrecks were removed from the river by the Communist Yugoslav authorities right after the war. But most of them remained, hampering shipping, especially in summer when water levels are low. For years there were plans to take the ships out of the muddy waters, but the operation was considered too risky because of the explosives they carried and there were no funds to do it until recently.
Now, the European Union and the European Investment Bank have agreed to provide loans and grants to finance the operation to remove some of the vessels near Prahovo in order to improve the traffic capacity of the Danube. The total cost of the operation is estimated at 30 million euros ($30 million), of which about 16 million are grants.
“These vessels have been sunk and they have been lying on the river bed ever since,” the EU ambassador to Serbia, Emanuele Giaufret, said during a recent trip to the wreckage site. “And this is a problem. It’s a problem for the traffic on the Danube, it restricts the capacity to move, it’s a hazard because certain vessels still contain unexploded ordnance.”
Accompanying Giaufret was Alessandro Bragonzi, the head of the European Investment Bank in the Western Balkans. He said the project consists of the removal of 21 sunken vessels.
“It has been estimated that more vessels are underwater, up to 40, but those that are currently impeding the fairway conditions of the Danube, especially during periods of low water level, are 21,” Bragonzi said.
Experts say the salvage operation will consist of removing the explosive materials from the sunken vessels and then destroying the wrecks, rather than dragging the ships out of the river.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

‘This ain’t India’: Indian-American racially abused by compatriot in California

Editor — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 16:36:30 +0000

[ad_1]

NEW YORK: An Indian-American man has been racially abused by a compatriot in the US state of California who hurled racist slurs that he is a “dirty Hindu” and a “disgusting dog,” days after another hate crime was reported against four women from the community in Texas. Krishnan Jayaraman was verbally attacked by 37-year-old Singh Tejinder in the Taco Bell at Grimmer Boulevard in Fremont, California on August 21, NBC News reported on Wednesday.
Tejinder, of Union City, was charged on Monday with a hate crime in violation of civil rights, assault and disturbing the peace by offensive language, the Fremont Police Department said.
Tejinder was listed in charging documents as “Asian/Indian,” the report said.
Jayaraman recorded the tirade, which lasted over eight minutes, on his phone, capturing the moment Tejinder told him: “You’re disgusting, dog. You look nasty. Don’t come out in public like this again.”
In the foul-mouthed rant, Tejinder called him a “dirty Hindu,” repeatedly used the N-word, insinuated that Jayaraman didn’t eat meat and yelled “beef!” in his face. He appeared to spit at Jayaraman twice in the video.
At one point Tejinder was seen saying: “…this ain’t India! You…India up, and now you’re…America up,” the report said.
Jayaraman said he was frightened by the incident and was even more upset to learn later that the perpetrator was also Indian.
“I was scared, to be honest with you. I was infuriated on the one hand, but I was scared that what if this guy becomes too belligerent and then comes after me?” he told NBC Bay Area.
“I’m not here to pick a fight with you,” Jayaraman said. “What do you want? He said you know you Hindus are a shame, disgusting. Then he spat on me,” KTLA.com website reported.
Jayaraman says that’s when he and a restaurant employee called Fremont police. He says the man continued yelling for more than eight minutes.
Fremont police are still investigating the incident.
Jayaraman’s video ended with Fremont police officers arriving, abc7news.com reported.
The police chief later addressed the community on social media.
Police Chief Sean Washington wrote: “We take hate incidents and hate crimes seriously, and understand the significant impact they have on our community. These incidents are despicable. We are here to protect all community members, regardless of their gender, race, nationality, religion, and other differences.”
“We would like to urge the community to be respectful of each other and to immediately report any circumstances such as this that, upon investigation, may rise to the level of a crime. In the event of a hate crime, we will devote all available resources to follow up and investigate. Fremont is one of the nation’s most diverse communities, and we are thankful for the contributions of community members from different cultures and backgrounds,” the statement said.
On Friday, four Indian-American women were racially abused and smacked by a Mexican-American woman in the US state of Texas who hurled racist slurs at them that they are “ruining” America and should “go back to India”.
The incident took place on Wednesday night in a parking lot in Dallas, Texas. The woman, identified as Esmeralda Upton, has been arrested.
The incident has shocked the Indian-American community across the country.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Aamir Khan can make up his 100 crore loss on LSC if he lowers his remuneration fee

Editor — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 16:29:39 +0000

[ad_1]

Aamir Khan’s ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’ turned out to be a box office failure due to multiple controversies and especially due to the ‘Boycott Laal Singh Chaddha’ trend. The film could hardly make Rs 100 crore worth of sales at the ticket window. Hence, in order to compensate for the monetary loss, Aamir is keen on reducing his fee for his producers.

According to a report by Bollywood Hungama, Aamir is certain about his waiving his remuneration fee to make for the the producers’ loss after the box office debacle. A source shared with the portal, “If Aamir Khan decides to charge his acting fees, Viacom 18 Studios would have entailed losses of nearly Rs. 100 crores. However, that loss is something that Aamir Khan has decided to absorb himself. Now, the producer will lose nominal money.”

The source further added that Aamir gave four years to the film but has not made a single penny from it and thus his opportunity cost on Laal Singh Chaddha is upwards of Rs. 100 crores, but he has decided to take care of the losses taking the complete blame of failure on himself.

Helmed by Advait Chandan, Laal Singh Chaddha is the official remake of the hit Hollywood film, Forrest Gump, starrin Tom Hanks. The film also stars Kareena Kapoor Khan, Naga Chaitanya and Mona Singh in pivotal roles.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Congress president’s election mired in controversy as leaders question voters’ list

Editor — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 14:58:00 +0000

[ad_1]

NEW DELHI: The election to the Congress president’s post is getting mired in one controversy or the other with each passing day. In the latest row, senior party leaders have questioned the constitutionality of the voters’ list.
After veteran Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad’s resignation on August 26 and the continuous frontal attack on party leader Rahul Gandhi since then, a couple of senior leaders of the organisation have raised questions over the very veracity of the electoral roll for the president’s election scheduled to be held on October 17.
Two Congress Lok Sabha MPs – Manish Tewari from Sri Anandpur Sahib in Punjab and Karti Chidambaram from Sivaganga in Tamil Nadu – on Wednesday alleged that the party’s presidential election could not be held in a free and fair manner without a transparent and well-defined electoral roll.
In a series of four tweets, Tewari, a grassroots leader, asked a few questions from Madhusudan Mistry, the chairperson of Congress’s central election authority (CEA) which is overseeing the election of party president.
Tewari said, “With great respect @MD_Mistry ji, how can there be a fair and free election without a publicly available electoral roll? Essence of a fair and free process is (that) names and addresses of electors must be published on @INCIndia website in a transparent manner. You are quoted as saying, ‘the list is not made public but if a member of our party wants to check, they can check at the PCC office. And, of course, it will be given to the candidates once they file their nomination papers’.”
Tewari told Mistry that the party’s highest decision-making body Congress Working Committee (CWC) has announced the schedule of party president’s election, not to 28 pradesh Congress committees (PCCs) and 8 territorial Congress committees (TCCs).
He asked, “Why should someone have to go to every PCC office in the country to find out who the electors are? This does not happen in a club election also with great respect.”
The former Union minister appealed to Mistry to make the voters’ list public. “In the interests of fairness and transparency, I urge your good self to publish the entire list of electors on @INCIndia website. How can someone consider running if he/ she does not know who electors are? If someone has to file his/ her nomination and gets it proposed by 10 Congresspersons, as is the requirement, CEA can reject it (by) saying they are not valid electors,” Tewari added.
Tewari is a member of G-23, a group of 23 Congress leaders who had written a letter to Sonia Gandhi in 2020 demanding internal reforms in the party. He has been demanding transparency, accessibility and an overhaul of the manner in which the party’s top leadership functions.
Karti Chidambaram, son of former Union finance minister P Chidambaram, also questioned the validity of the voters’ list.
In a tweet, Karti said, “Every election needs a well-defined and clear electoral college. The process of forming the electoral college must also be clear, well defined and transparent. An ad hoc electoral college is no electoral college.”
In another tweet, he said, “Reformists are not Rebels.”

Reformists are not Rebels.

— Karti P Chidambaram (@KartiPC) 1661923321000

Replying to other tweets, Karti said, “Can anyone tell the world who are all eligible to vote and on what basis they became eligible?… Absolutely we must have primaries in every constituency, but for that we need a defined and transparent members list. Today we claim we have membership numbers which no one has ever verified.”
Tewari agreed with Karti. Tagging the latter’s tweet, he said, “My colleague in Parliament @KartiPC is spot on. For any election to be kosher, the electoral college must be constitutionally constituted. I read in the papers @AnandSharmaINC had articulated this widely shared concern in the CWC and he even publicly confirmed that he had raised it.”

MyColleague in Parliament @KartiPC is spot on. For any election to be kosher the electoral college must be constitu… https://t.co/EXb7ASslli

— Manish Tewari (@ManishTewari) 1661925098000

With questions being raised about the constitutionality of the voters’ list, the election of the president may itself become controversial.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

‘Burning with pain’: Pakistan floods threaten major health crisis

Editor — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 08:49:36 +0000

[ad_1]

SUKKUR: At a charity clinic in a southern Pakistani village, dozens of people affected by relentless rains and floods crowd around the door waiting to talk to a volunteer doctor.
The village of Bhambro is in a poor district of Sindh province, hard-hit by record floods that have destroyed more than a million homes and damaged critical infrastructure including health facilities across the country.
Bhambro is surrounded by vast stretches of flooded farmland, its streets full of mud and strewn with debris and manure — conditions ripe for outbreaks of malaria, cholera and skin diseases such as scabies.
“Skin diseases are the main problem here because of dirty, stagnant water and unhygienic conditions,” said Sajjad Memon, one of the doctors at the clinic, which is run by the charity Alkhidmat Foundation.
He used the flashlight on his mobile phone to examine patients, who were mostly reporting scabs and rashes on Tuesday.
Many had made their way to the clinic walking barefoot through filthy floodwater and mud.
“My child’s foot is burning with pain. My feet too,” said Azra Bhambro, a 23-year-old woman who had come to the clinic for help.
Abdul Aziz, a doctor in charge of Alkhidmat’s clinics in the area, told AFP that cases of scabies and fungal infections were on the rise.
Scabies outbreaks are common in crowded places with tropical conditions — such as flood relief camps and shelters — and can lead to severe itching and rashes, according to the World Health Organization.
Memon told AFP that many of the patients at the clinic could not afford to purchase shoes.
The millions of people affected by the floods face major health hazards including potentially deadly diseases such as malaria and dengue fever, the WHO warned in a statement Tuesday.
Sindh province, in Pakistan‘s south, has been hit particularly hard, with vast swathes of land under water and many villagers forced to head to large cities for shelter, food aid and medical assistance.
The health threat is even greater in areas such as Bhambro, where health services were already limited, and for the tens of thousands who are taking shelter in crowded relief camps.
“Ongoing disease outbreaks in Pakistan, including acute watery diarrhoea, dengue fever, malaria, polio, and Covid-19 are being further aggravated, particularly in camps and where water and sanitation facilities have been damaged,” the WHO said.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Long way to go before India reverses pre-Covid ‘Modi slowdown’: Congress

Editor — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 07:35:00 +0000

NEW DELHI: Ahead of the release of GDP numbers for the April-June quarter, the Congress on Wednesday said the figure could show a jump and turn out to be a headline grabber but the real growth is lower than in 2018.
Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said there is still a long way to go before India reverses the pre-Covid “Modi slowdown”.
“Jumla Alert: Apr-Jun 2022 quarterly GDP figure later today could show a jump from a year ago. This headline-grabbing number will be due to low-base effect,” the Congress general secretary said on Twitter.
“Real GDP in Apr-Jun 2021 was lower than in Apr-Jun 2018! A long way to go before we reverse the pre-Covid Modi slowdown,” Ramesh also said.
The GDP numbers for the April-June quarter of 2022-23 are likely to be released on Wednesday by the government.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Asia Cup 2022, India vs Hong Kong: Best Fantasy playing XI, possible playing XIs, full squads and more

Editor — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 07:32:59 +0000

[ad_1]

It’s time for India’s second match at the ongoing 2022 Asia Cup. The Men in Blue will play Hong Kong this evening in Dubai, who beat the UAE to qualify for the tournament.
Overall India and Hong Kong have played two matches at the Asia Cup and both were played in the 50 over format. In June 2008, India thrashed Hong Kong by a record 256 runs in Karachi. This remains the largest margin of victory in terms of runs by any team at the Asia Cup.
Then in 2018, Hong Kong pushed India hard, eventually falling short of the target by less than 30 runs. India won that match in Dubai by 26 runs.
India are the defending champions, having beaten Bangladesh in the last edition’s final in 2018 by 3 wickets.
In T20I cricket, the two teams will be playing each other for the first time. Match will begin at 7:30 PM IST in Dubai.
India are the Number 1 ranked T20I team in the world, while Hong Kong are ranked 20th.
If you are an avid fantasy cricket player you must be wondering who to pick in your playing XI tonight.
Here’s a quick look at a possible fantasy playing XI combination that you might consider:
Fantasy playing XI: Possible combination –
Top order batters: Rohit Sharma, Babar Hayat, KL Rahul
Middle order batters: Suryakumar Yadav & Kinchit Shah
Wicket-keeper: Scott McKechnie
All-rounders: Hardik Pandya (c) & Nizakat Khan
Pacers: Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh
Spinners: Yuzvendra Chahal
Possible Playing XIs for India and Hong Kong:
India: Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Avesh Khan, Yuzvendra Chahal & Arshdeep Singh
Hong Kong: Yasim Murtaza, Nizakat Khan(c), Babar Hayat, Kinchit Shah, Aizaz Khan, Scott Mckechnie (wk), Zeeshan Ali, Haroon Arshad, Ehsan Khan, Mohammad Ghazanfar, Ayush Shukla
Full squads of India and Hong Kong at the Asia Cup 2022:
India: Rohit Sharma (C), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wk), Deepak Hooda, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Ravi Bishnoi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh, Avesh Khan
Standby Players: Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, Deepak Chahar.
Hong Kong: Nizakat Khan (c), Kinchit Shah (vc), Aftab Hussain, Aizaz Khan, Ateeq Iqbal, Babar Hayat, Dhananjay Rao, Ehsan Khan, Haroon Arshad, Scott McKechnie (wk), Mohammad Ghazanfar, Mohammad Waheed, Ayush Shukla, Ahan Trivedi, Wajid Shah, Yasim Murtaza, Zeeshan Ali
Pitch:
The pitch in the first two games did a lot. Bowlers are likely to dominate
Weather Conditions:
Oppressive playing conditions will prevail with temperatures in the high 30s and humidity in the mid 40s
Where to watch and follow Asia Cup 2022 matches:
You can follow live match commentary, updates, latest stats, toss results, player analysis and more on: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports
TV: All Asia Cup matches will be telecast on the Star Sports channels – Star Sports 1, Star Sports 1 HD (English), Star Sports 1 Hindi and Star Sports 1 Hindi HD (Hindi)
Live Streaming: On the Disney+ Hotstar website and the app

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Alcohol use and high BMI key risk factors in India’s cancer deaths

Editor — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 07:30:59 +0000

[ad_1]

NEW DELHI: Smoking, alcohol use, high BMI (Body Mass Index) and other known risk factors were responsible for over 37% of cancer deaths in India in 2019, as per a new research published in the Lancet.
Globally 44.4% (4.5 million) of all cancer deaths were attributable to risk factors, says the study. The estimates are based on the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk factors Report, 2019.

According to the study, nearly half (50.6%) of all cancer deaths in men globally in 2019 (2.8 million) were due to known risk factors, compared with 36.3% all female cancer deaths (1.5 million) attributable to these factors.
Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine and a co-senior author of the study, said, “Smoking continues to be the leading risk factor for cancer globally, with other substantial contributors to cancer burden varying.”
In the study, researchers investigated how 34 behavioural, metabolic, environmental and occupational risk factors contributed to deaths and ill health due to 23 cancer types in 2019. Changes in cancer burden between 2010 and 2019 due to the risk factors were also assessed.
They found that the leading risk factors globally for cancer deaths and ill health for both sexes were smoking, alcohol use and high BMI.
The leading cause of risk-attributable cancer death for both men and women globally were tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer, which accounted for 36.9% of all cancer deaths attributable to risk factors.
This was followed by colon and rectum cancer (13.3%), oesophageal cancer (9.7%), and stomach cancer (6.6%) in men and cervical cancer (17.9%), colon and rectum cancer (15.8%), and breast cancer (11%).
Between 2010 and 2019, cancer deaths due to risk factors rose by 20.4% globally, increasing from 3.7 million to 4.45 million. Ill health due to cancer increased by 16.8% over the same period, rising from 89.9 million to 105 million DALYs (Disability-Adjusted Life Years), the Lancet statement said. Metabolic risks accounted for the greatest increase in cancer deaths and ill health, with deaths increasing by 34.7% (6,43,000 deaths in 2010 to 865,000 in 2019) and DALYs by 33.3% (14.6 million in 2010 to 19.4 million in 2019), it added.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Mikhail Gorbachev ended Cold War but presided over Soviet collapse

Editor — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 02:47:50 +0000

[ad_1]

LONDON: Lauded in the West as the man who helped bring down the Berlin Wall and end the Cold War without bloodshed, Mikhail Gorbachev was widely despised at home as the gravedigger of the communist Soviet Union.
The former Soviet president, who died on Tuesday aged 91, set out to revitalise the sclerotic Communist system through democratic and economic reform; it was never his intention to abolish it.
But he unleashed forces beyond his control, and found himself occupying a shrinking middle ground between diehards intent on preserving centralised power and separatists set on dismantling it.
In August 1991 he survived a shambolic coup by hardliners that fell apart after three days – but his authority had been fatally undermined. Four months later his great rival, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, engineered the break-up of the Soviet Union and Gorbachev found himself out of a job.
“In this sense, I feel that Gorbachev is a tragic figure, similar in many ways to Shakespeare’s King Lear,” said Valery Solovei, close to Gorbachev’s inner circle in the 1980s and an ally after his fall. “This is a man who ruled a superpower – but by the end of his reign, the state had disappeared.”
After decades of Cold War tension and confrontation, Gorbachev struck nuclear arms deals with the United States and brought the Soviet Union closer to the West than at any point since World War Two.
But he saw that legacy destroyed in the final months of his long life, as President Vladimir Putin‘s invasion of Ukraine brought Western sanctions crashing down on Moscow, and politicians in both Russia and the West began to speak openly of a new Cold War – and the risk of a nuclear World War Three.
Break with the past
The ex-farm worker with the rolling south Russian accent and distinctive port-wine birthmark on his head gave notice of his bold ambition soon after winning a Kremlin power struggle in 1985, at the age of 54.
Television broadcasts showed him besieged by workers in factories and farms, allowing them to vent their frustrations with Soviet life and making the case for radical change.
It marked a dramatic break with the cabal of old men he succeeded – remote, intolerant of dissent, their chests groaning with medals, dogmatic to the grave. Three ailing Soviet leaders had died in the previous 2-1/2 years.
Gorbachev inherited a land of inefficient farms and decaying factories, a state-run economy he believed could be saved only by the open, honest criticism that had led so often in the past to prison or labour camp. It was a gamble. Many wished him ill.
With his clever, elegant wife Raisa at his side, Gorbachev at first enjoyed massive popular support.
“My policy was open and sincere, a policy aimed at using democracy and not spilling blood,” he told Reuters in 2009. “But this cost me very dear, I can tell you that.”
His policies of “glasnost” (free speech) and “perestroika” (restructuring) unleashed a surge of public debate arguably unprecedented in Russian history.
Moscow squares seethed with impromptu discussions, censorship all but evaporated, and even the sacred Communist Party was forced to confront its Stalinist crimes.
Chornobyl disaster
Glasnost faced a dramatic test in April 1986, when a nuclear power station exploded in Chornobyl, Ukraine, and authorities tried at first to hush up the disaster. Gorbachev pressed on, describing the tragedy as a symptom of a rotten and secretive system.
In December of that year he ordered a telephone to be installed in the flat of dissident Andrei Sakharov, exiled in the city of Gorky, and the next day phoned him to personally invite him back to Moscow. The pace of change was, for many, dizzying.
The West quickly warmed to Gorbachev, who had enjoyed a meteoric rise through regional party ranks to the post of General Secretary. He was, in the words of British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, “a man we can do business with”. The term “Gorbymania” entered the lexicon, a measure of the adulation he inspired on foreign trips.
Gorbachev struck up a warm personal rapport with Ronald Reagan, the hawkish US president who had called the Soviet Union “the evil empire”, and with him negotiated a landmark deal in 1987 to scrap intermediate-range nuclear missiles.
In 1989, he pulled Soviet troops out of Afghanistan, ending a war that had killed tens of thousands and soured relations with Washington.
Later that year, as pro-democracy protests swept across the Communist states of Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania, the world held its breath.
With hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops stationed across Eastern Europe, would Moscow turn its tanks on the demonstrators, as it had in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968?
Gorbachev was under pressure from many to err on the side of force. That he did not may have been his greatest historic contribution – one that was recognised in 1990 with the award of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Reflecting years later, Gorbachev said the cost of trying to prevent the fall of the Berlin Wall would have been too high.
“If the Soviet Union had wished, there would have been nothing of the sort and no German unification. But what would have happened? A catastrophe or World War Three.”
August coup
At home, though, problems mounted.
The glasnost years saw the rise of regional tensions, often rooted in the repressions and ethnic deportations of the Stalin era. The Baltic states pushed for independence and there was trouble also in Georgia, and between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, a leading reformist ally, resigned dramatically in December 1990, warning that hardliners were in the ascendant and “a dictatorship is approaching”.
The following month, Soviet troops killed 14 people at Lithuania’s main TV tower in an attack that Gorbachev denied ordering. In Latvia, five demonstrators were killed by Soviet special forces.
In March 1991, a referendum produced an overwhelming majority for preserving the Soviet Union as “a renewed “federation of equal sovereign republics”, but six of the 15 republics boycotted the vote.
In the summer, the hardliners struck, scenting weakness in a man now abandoned by many liberal allies. Six years after entering the Kremlin, Gorbachev and Raisa sat imprisoned at their Crimean holiday home on the Black Sea, their telephone lines cut, a warship anchored offshore.
The “August coup” was mounted by a so-called Emergency Committee including the KGB chief, prime minister, defence minister and vice president. They feared a complete collapse of the Communist system and sought to prevent power from draining away from the centre to the republics, of which the biggest and most powerful was Yeltsin’s Russia.
The putschists ultimately failed, assuming wrongly that they could rely on the party, army and bureaucracy to obey orders as in the past. But it was no outright victory for Gorbachev.
Yeltsin’s moment
Instead it was the burly white-haired Yeltsin who seized the moment, standing atop a tank in central Moscow to rally thousands against the coup. When Gorbachev returned from Crimea, Yeltsin humiliated him in the Russian parliament, signing a decree banning the Russian Communist Party despite Gorbachev’s protestations.
In later years, Gorbachev dwelt on whether he could have averted the events that ultimately triggered the Soviet Union’s collapse, described by Putin as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.
Had he been reckless in leaving Moscow that hot August, as coup rumours swirled?
“I thought they would be idiots to take such a risk precisely at that moment, because it would sweep them away too,” he told the German magazine Der Spiegel on the 20th anniversary of the coup. “I’d become exhausted after all those years … But I shouldn’t have gone away. It was a mistake.”
Personal revenge may have mingled with politics when in late 1991, at a secluded country house, Yeltsin and the leaders of the republics of Ukraine and Belarus signed accords that abolished the Soviet Union and replaced it with a Commonwealth of Independent States.
On December 25, 1991, the red flag was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time and Gorbachev appeared on national television to announce his resignation.
Free elections, a free press, representative legislatures and a multi-party system had all become a reality under his watch, he said.
“We opened up to the world, renounced interference in other countries’ affairs and the use of troops beyond our borders, and were met with trust, solidarity and respect.”
But the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the first Communist state and a nuclear superpower that had sent the first man into space and cast its influence across the globe, was no more.
Child of Stalinism
Born into famine on March 2, 1931, in a hut in the village of Privolnoye in the southern region of Stavropol, Gorbachev was, like millions of Russians, baptised into the Russian Orthodox faith despite the official atheism of the Soviet era.
The arrests of family members in Josef Stalin’s 1930s purges gave Gorbachev a lifelong wariness of the abuse of power. But he embraced the party, working hard to secure a coveted place at Moscow State University.
He became a Central Committee member at 40 and a full Politburo member in 1979, thanks to the patronage of ideological puritan Yuri Andropov, the KGB secret police chief.
Andropov took power in 1982 on the death of Leonid Brezhnev, who had for 18 years led Moscow through a gentle decline that reformers branded the “era of stagnation”.
On his death 15 months later, Gorbachev was passed over for aged Brezhnev ally Konstantin Chernenko. Only when Chernenko died after barely a year in office did the younger man’s reforming ambitions win out.
That Gorbachev’s achievements were not appreciated at home should perhaps have been no surprise. Russia can deal harshly with reformers.
Hardliners accused him of destroying the planned economy and throwing aside seven decades of Communist achievements. To liberal critics, he talked too much, compromised too much, and balked at decisive reforms.
As Moscow’s control ebbed, ethnic tensions broke out that were to erupt into full-scale wars in places such as Chechnya, Georgia and Moldova after the Soviet Union collapsed.
Three decades later, some of those conflicts remain unresolved. Thousands were killed in late 2020 when war broke out again between ethnic Armenian and Azerbaijani forces over the mountain enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
After the fall
With his Nobel prize in hand and his stellar reputation abroad, Gorbachev gradually settled into a second career. He made several attempts to found a social democratic party, opened a think-tank, the Gorbachev Foundation, and co-founded the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, critical of the Kremlin to this day.
In 1996, he put his popularity to the test by running for president. But Yeltsin won decisively, and Gorbachev secured a dismal 0.5% of the vote.
Increasingly frail in later years, Gorbachev spoke out to voice his concern at rising tensions between Russia and the United States, and warned against a return to the Cold War he had helped to end.
“We have to continue the course we mapped. We have to ban war once and for all. Most important is to get rid of nuclear weapons,” he said in 2018.
His tragedy was that in trying to redesign an ossified, monolithic structure, to preserve the Soviet Union and save the Communist system, he ended up presiding over the demise of both.
The world, however, would never be the same.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

‘38% of suicides in 2021 were by daily-wagers, self-employed’

Editor — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 01:33:15 +0000

[ad_1]

NEW DELHI: Daily wagers and the self-employed constituted nearly 38% of persons who died by suicide in 2021, according to NCRB. The share of these two categories of people in total number of suicide deaths has consistently increased since 2018 — from 32% to 35%, and from 36% to 38% — and even the actual number of such fatalities has gone up during these four years from 43,276 to 62,215.
The comparative study of the suicide data of 2018-2021 period shows there was a spike in the number of daily wage workers taking their own lives by 39% during this period — from 30,127 to 42,004. In the last two years, one in every four suicide victims was a daily wage earner. Data shows suicide by daily wage workers was maximum in Tamil Nadu and the three other states that reported high number of such fatalities were Maharashtra, MP and Telangana. If the data of suicide of daily wage workers is compared between 2014 and 2021, then the number of such deaths has more than doubled during these eight years.
So far as the suicide of self-employed persons were concerned, the comparison of the figures show that such fatalities have gone up from 13,149 in 2018 to 20,213 during 2021, an increase of nearly 54%. The category of self-employed persons include vendors and tradesmenAs per reports, the number of vendors dying by suicide has increased by nearly 40%, from 3,230 in 2018 to 4,532 during the last year. Similarly, the number of tradesmen (small businessmen) dying by suicide went up from 2,615 in 2018 to 3,699 in 2021. The main reasons for suicide across all categories across these years have been family problems, illness, love affairs and marriage-related issues.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Asia Cup 2022: I was mentally ready to bat at number four, says Ravindra Jadeja

Editor — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 01:31:16 +0000

[ad_1]

DUBAI: His promotion to number four in the batting order was a masterstroke from the team management and all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja, who made a crucial 29-ball 35 in India’s tense win over arch-rivals Pakistan, on Tuesday said he was “mentally ready” for the challenge.
Against Pakistan, Jadeja came out to bat after opener KL Rahul and captain Rohit Sharma got out for nought and 12 respectively. He shared 52 runs with Hardik Pandya (33 not out) for the fifth wicket before the latter took India past the target of 149.
“Of course (I knew it was coming)… I knew such a situation would come after seeing their playing XI. I was mentally ready. Luckily, I scored those crucial runs for the team,” Jadeja said of India’s famous five-wicket win against Pakistan in the Asia Cup opener on Sunday.

“I was the only lefty in the top-seven, sometimes when left-arm spinners and leg-spinners are bowling, it’s easy for a left hander to take chances.
“I just play according to the situation whenever I go out there. In T20, you don’t have much time to think, you just go out there and express yourself. I just have to score runs while batting and give breakthroughs when it’s needed.”
Asked if it (his batting at No. 4) is the way forward, Jadeja said: “It depends on the situation and the opponent’s bowlers.”
Jadeja was promoted to negate the spin duo of Shadab Khan and Mohammad Nawaz as both of them turned the ball away from a right-hander. The move paid off as Jadeja took India out of trouble after they lost Rohit and Virat Kohli (35) for the addition of just three runs to be 53/3 inside 10 overs.

Jadeja consolidated India’s chase with a 36-run stand with Suryakumar Yadav (18) in the middle overs before he and Hardik put on the match-winning 52-run partnership.
Asked what he and Hardik discussed while batting, he said: “India-Pakistan matches are always high pressure games. You have high expectations.
“I don’t think there was anything much to discuss, such things happen in T20 format. Everyone contributed in batting, bowling and catches. There was not much to discuss and dissect.”
While bowling, both he (2-0-11-0) and Yuzvendra Chahal (4-0-32-0) returned wicketless but Jadeja said they did well to check the run flow.

“Spinners also did well, sometimes you do well but don’t get wickets. The T20 format is like that. As a bowling unit, we did well.
“It was a collective effort. Spinners didn’t get any wicket but they restricted the run flow. Those 15-20 runs were crucial in the end,” he said.
Asked about the concluding group match against qualifiers Hong Kong on Wednesday, Jadeja said: “We are going to play against Hong Kong with a positive mindset and we will not take them lightly.
“On a given day, anything can happen in T20Is. We will give our best and play positively,” he said.

Getting Match Ready! #TeamIndia | #AsiaCup2022 | #INDvHK https://t.co/DuPwgatgQc

— BCCI (@BCCI) 1661869273000

Jadeja had a forgettable IPL for Chennai Super Kings and there was talk about whether he will be selected for the T20 World Cup in Australia or not.
Asked how he dealt with such rumours, Jadeja said: “Beech mein toh khabar aayi thi ki main mar gaya hoon! Ish se badi khabar toh ho hi nahi sakti… (There was a rumour in between that I’m dead — can it be anything bigger).”
He was referring to the news of the death of 61-year-old former Saurashtra cricketer Rajendra Jadeja in May when the India all-rounder fell victim to the “fake news” on social media.
“As I said, I don’t think much. I just have to go out there and perform. I practice hard and improve on my weaknesses, that helps in actual match situations. That’s all I do, day in and day out — bowling, batting and fielding,” he concluded.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

James Webb Space Telescope shows Jupiter’s auroras, tiny moons

Editor — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 01:29:02 +0000

[ad_1]

CAPE CANAVERAL: The world’s newest and biggest space telescope is showing Jupiter as never before, auroras and all.
Scientists released the shots Monday of the solar system’s biggest planet.
The James Webb Space Telescope took the photos in July, capturing unprecedented views of Jupiter’s northern and southern lights, and swirling polar haze. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, a storm big enough to swallow Earth, stands out brightly alongside countless smaller storms.
One wide-field picture is particularly dramatic, showing the faint rings around the planet, as well as two tiny moons against a glittering background of galaxies.
“We’ve never seen Jupiter like this. It’s all quite incredible,” said planetary astronomer Imke de Pater, of the University of California, Berkeley, who helped lead the observations.
“We hadn’t really expected it to be this good, to be honest,” she added in a statement.
The infrared images were artificially colored in blue, white, green, yellow and orange, according to the U.S.-French research team, to make the features stand out.
NASA and the European Space Agency’s $10 billion successor to the Hubble Space Telescope rocketed away at the end of last year and has been observing the cosmos in the infrared since summer. Scientists hope to behold the dawn of the universe with Webb, peering all the way back to when the first stars and galaxies were forming 13.7 billion years ago.
The observatory is positioned 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Trump calls for revolt in FBI over raid on his home

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 20:46:26 +0000

[ad_1]

WASHINGTON: Former US President Donald Trump on Tuesday virtually called for a revolt in the FBI over the raid on his home in Florida to retrieve classified White House documents amid warning from a key political ally there would be “rioting in the streets” if he is prosecuted for the matter.
In what critics termed as an incendiary call on his social media platform Truth Social aimed at driving a wedge within the government, Trump suggested FBI agents who disagreed with the raid go “nuts” and “make America great again.”
“When are the great Agents, and others, in the FBI going to say ‘we aren’t going to take it anymore,’ much as they did when James Comey read off a list of all of Crooked Hillary Clinton’s crimes, only to say that no reasonable prosecutor would prosecute.,” Trump said.
“The wonderful people of the FBI went absolutely “nuts,” so Comey had to backtrack and do a FAKE INVESTIGATION in order to keep them at bay,” he continued. “The end result, we won in 2016 (and did MUCH better in 2020!). But now the ‘Left’ has lost their minds!!!”
A little later, he re-upped the message, exhorting, “FBI, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Trump’s call came hours after US Senator Lindsey Graham, one of his more ardent supporters, said there will be “rioting in the streets” if Trump is prosecuted. Graham later denied his remark constituted incitement or threat.
Trump essayed a similar double edged call against the Biden administration last week, prompting the Washington Post to editorially accuse him of “summoning the mob.”
A Trump lawyer reportedly delivered what it said was a “sinister” message to the Justice Department: “President Trump wants the Attorney General to know that he has been hearing from people all over the country about the raid. If there was one word to describe their mood, it is ‘angry.’ The heat is building up. The pressure is building up. Whatever I can do to take the heat down, to bring the pressure down, just let us know.”
The paper compared Trump’s strategy to the “madman theeory of foreign policy” adopted by Richard Nixon when he directed aides to suggest to his counterparts overseas that they might not be able to control a volatile and reckless president.
“Now, Donald Trump and his defenders are using a version of that gambit to deter the Justice Department from prosecuting the former president, arguing that going after Trump would dangerously incite his already angry followers,” it said.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Asia Cup 2022, Bangladesh vs Afghanistan Highlights: Spinners, Najibullah Zadran take Afghanistan to Super 4s

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 18:57:51 +0000

[ad_1]

SHARJAH: A fine performance from the spinners and an impactful cameo from Najibullah Zadran helped Afghanistan record a seven-wicket win over Bangladesh in the Asia Cup here on Tuesday.
Afghanistan’s star spinners Mujeeb Ur Rahman (3/16) and Rashid Khan (3/22) ran through a reckless Bangladesh batting line-up to restrict the opposition to 127.
Bangladesh stifled Afghanistan in the run chase before Najibullah’s belligerent 43 not out off 17 balls, comprising six sixes, got his team over the line in 18.3 overs.
As it happened
Ibrahim Zadran also contributed with 42 off 41 balls as he shared an unbeaten 69-run stand off 36 balls with Najibullah.

What a win! Things went right down to the wire but AfghanAtalan led by the Zadran duo of @iamnajibzadran 43* (17… https://t.co/lf7IJo0mmt

— Afghanistan Cricket Board (@ACBofficials) 1661880241000

With their second win in as many games, Afghanistan also became the first team to qualify for the Super 4s.
Like Bangladesh, Afghanistan too found it hard to push the scoring rate.
Skipper Shakib Al Hasan opened the bowling for Bangladesh and returned with impressive figures of 1 for 13 in four overs. The other bowlers too were accurate with Afghanistan batters not able to put them away.
After the fall of openers Hazratullah Zazai (23) and Rahmanullah Gurbaz (11), Afghanistan found themselves needing 80 off the last 10 overs.
With the batters struggling to find the big hits, it seemed the game would go down to the wire. However, a barrage of sixes from Najibullah quickly change the course of the game.
It was only fitting that the left-hander finished the game with a six.
Earlier, Mossadek Hossain (48 not out off 31 balls) was the sole Bangladesh batter who played smartly and saved Bangladesh the blushes.
It was the pacers who rocked Sri Lanka in Afghanistan’s earlier match but the team’s traditional strength, the spin, wreaked havoc here as Mujeeb and Rashid shared three wickets each.
The spinners had a clear plan to target the stumps and Bangladesh batters chose to play cross-batted strokes against them, leading to their downfall.
Mujeeb broke the backbone of Bangladesh batting by striking thrice in the powerplay. He used the slider effectively to get through left-handed Mohammad Naim’s (6) stumps before Anamul Haque (5) went for the slog sweep only to be trapped in front of the stumps.
Mujeeb’s third scalp was of opposition skipper Shakib Al Hasan (11) who played a poor shot to see his stumps dislodged.
Number one spinner Rashid then joined the party by removing the seasoned Mushfiqur Rahim (1) with a googly. He got rid of left-handed Afif Hussain (12 off 15 balls) with a leg-break, leaving Bangladesh in dire straits at 53 for five. The quick pace both the spinners bowl at did not give the batters time to free their arms.
The experienced Mahmudullah (25) and Hossain tried to stabilise the innings but the damage was already done.
Medium pacer Azamatullah Omarzai was brought into the attack in the 20th over in which he did well to concede just seven runs.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Back to Moon: Nasa set to launch Artemis-1 lunar mission on Monday

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 18:56:23 +0000

[ad_1]

In a step towards sending humans back to Moon over half a century later, Nasa is set to launch Artemis-1 mission on Monday, which will be the US space agency’s first non-crew mission to the Moon in recent times that will pave the way for the manned orbital mission (Artemis-2) and manned landing mission (Artemis 3) in 2025.
The new Space Launch System (SLS) will be the most powerful rocket engine ever flown to space, even more powerful than Apollo‘s Saturn V rocket that took astronauts to the Moon in the 1960s and 1970s. The Orion spacecraft that will be launched by the rocket is scheduled to travel to the Moon, deploy some small satellites and then settle into orbit.
“Artemis-I will be the first in a series of increasingly complex missions to build a long-term human presence at the Moon for decades to come. The primary goals for Artemis I are to demonstrate Orion’s systems in a spaceflight environment and ensure a safe re-entry, descent, splashdown and recovery prior to the first flight with crew on Artemis II,” says Nasa.
“This is a mission that truly will do what hasn’t been done and learn what isn’t known,” said Mike Sarafin, Artemis I mission manager at Nasa headquarters in Washington.
Artemis-1 will test how well SLS and Orion can complete a mission to the Moon and back and will ensure that both rocket and the spacecraft can safely ferry astronauts that far into space and back. The spacecraft will stay in orbit for approximately six days to collect data and allow mission controllers to assess the performance of the spacecraft.
The SLS is a new type of rocket system because it has both a combination of liquid oxygen and hydrogen main engines and two strap-on solid rocket boosters derived from the space shuttle. It’s really a hybrid between the space shuttle and Apollo’s Saturn V rocket.
The mission is also going to carry a series of small satellites that will be placed in orbit of the Moon. Those will do some useful precursor science, everything from looking further into the permanently shadowed craters where scientists think there is water to just doing more measurements of the radiation environment.
The Artemis programme is driven by a number of different goals. It includes in situ resource utilisation, which means using resources at hand like water ice and lunar soil to produce food, fuel and building materials. The Nasa administration has said that in that first crewed flight, on Artemis-3, there will be at least one woman and very likely a person of colour.
Though no humans will be aboard in the Artemis-1, a mannequin — nicknamed Commander Moonikin Campos to honor a legendary Nasa engineer who helped bring Apollo-13 safely back to Earth — will be on board, sitting inside the commander’s seat. Various sensors on its seat and spacesuit will gather data about vibrations, acceleration and radiation throughout the mission. Two additional mannequin torsos will be on board, outfitted with thousands of sensors to record even more details.The main objective of the uncrewed mission is to test the rocket’s heat shield, which will protect astronauts upon re-entry, Nasa administrator Bill Nelson said.
Additionally, a package called Callisto, named for the companion of Artemis in Greek mythology, will be flying inside Orion. Callisto houses both an Amazon Alexa and a touchscreen that will host Cisco’s Webex software. The payload is meant to test out smart tools that future astronauts might use on Orion in order to communicate over video with the mission control and get information about where they are in space.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Imran Khan raises Rs 5 billion for Pak flood victims through international telethon

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 14:25:04 +0000

[ad_1]

ISLAMABAD: Former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan has raised Rs 5 billion through an international telethon for the people affected by the devastating floods in the country, according to a media report on Tuesday.
Khan, the Chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said during the telethon held on Monday that the objective was to raise funds for the flood victims as no government alone could deal with such a catastrophe.
Earlier, the Pakistan government had launched an international appeal seeking funds for relief and rehabilitation for flood-hit people and restoration of damaged infrastructure.
“The entire country has been affected by this [flood]. As per the initial assessment, losses of over Rs1,000 billion were incurred due to floods and over 1,000 people have died so far,” Khan was quoted as saying by The Express Tribune newspaper.
He said he received a lot of calls from Pakistanis, including expats who wanted to help the flood victims.
The former premier said people can donate to two bank accounts opened by the Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) governments. The funds will be spent to help the flood-hit people across the country, he assured.
The country-wide death toll has touched 1,136 as of Monday, with over 1,634 injured and 33 million displaced, according to the latest data issued by the National Disaster Management Authority.
The Federal Minister of Planning and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal also said that the initial economic losses from floods in Pakistan could reach at least USD 10 billion, adding that the unprecedented floods caused by abnormal monsoon rains have washed away roads, crops, infrastructure, and bridges, affecting over 33 million people.
The monsoon season runs from July to September in Pakistan. This year monsoon and pre-monsoon rains broke the 30-year record in Pakistan and the NDMA data shows that the 30-year average rain was 130.8 millimeters but the rainfall in the 2022 season was 375.4 mm.
Iqbal added that it might take five years to rebuild and rehabilitate the nation of 200 million people, which will be facing an acute challenge of food shortage, according to the paper.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Nobody can fill Jhulan Goswami’s shoes, her passion for cricket is unmatched: Harmanpreet Kaur

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 12:30:48 +0000

[ad_1]

BENGALURU: India skipper Harmanpreet Kaur on Tuesday paid a glowing tribute to Jhulan Goswami, saying the veteran pacer’s passion for the sport is unmatched and “nobody can fill her shoes”.
The 39-year-old, who is leading wicket-taker in international cricket in a career spanning more than two decades, is set to retire after the third and final ODI against England at Lord’s on September 24.
“She goes to every game with the same kind of passion which is unmatched, nobody can beat that,” Harmanpreet said in a media interaction here on the eve of their departure for their white-ball series in England.
Having made her debut under the captaincy of Jhulan in a match against Pakistan in the 2009 World Cup, Harmanpreet has some vivid memories of the legendary Indian pacer who has a world record 252 wickets to her name from 201 ODIs — the only bowler with more than 200 wickets in the format.
“When I made my debut she was the captain, it’s a great opportunity for me that I would be leading the side when she would be playing her last ODI. When I entered the team, she was the one who was leading from the front. I’ve learnt a lot from her. Nobody can fill in her shoes.
“She’s someone who always puts in the same kind of effort, bowling two-three hours She still puts in the same kind of hard work she used to during her early days… I’ve never seen her make any changes to her practice regimen.”
“You hardly see any bowler doing like that, or even at the nets while batting… Nobody can bring that passion she has for cricket.
“As a cricketer and a person, I’ve learnt a lot from her. She’s a great example for all of us. There are many back home who have grown up watching her and then took up the sport.”
Jhulan last played for India during the ODI World Cup in New Zealand in March this year before sustaining a side strain ahead of India’s final group game against South Africa and missed the Sri Lanka tour in July.
Having made her International debut in 2002, Jhulan called it quits from T20s in 2018, and played her last Test match in October 2021.
Overall, Jhulan has played 12 Tests, 68 T20 Internationals and 201 ODIs including six World Cup appearances.
Fresh from their silver medal winning show at Commonwealth Games Birmingham, India will begin their tour with three T20s starting from September 9.
Thereafter India will play three ODIs at Hove (September 18), Canterbury (September 21) before the marquee ODI at the Lord’s, their first at the hallowed venue since their 2017 Cricket World Cup final defeat.
Harmanpreet said they would do their best to make it a special occasion for her.
“We are talking about it being her last tournament. It would be very special for her and for us. We would try to create some great moments for her so she can go back with some special memories.”

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

NASA shoots for the Moon, on its way to Mars

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 12:29:16 +0000

[ad_1]

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, US: NASA’s most powerful rocket yet is set to blast off Monday on the maiden voyage of a mission to take humans back to the Moon, and eventually to Mars.
Fifty years after the last Apollo mission, the space program called Artemis is to get under way with the blast off of the uncrewed 322-foot (98-meter) Space Launch System (SLS) rocket at 8:33 am (1233 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Tens of thousands of people are on hand along the beaches of Florida to watch this launch that’s been decades in the making. They include Vice President Kamala Harris.
Hotels around Cape Canaveral are booked solid with between 100,000 and 200,000 spectators expected to attend the launch.
The goal of the flight, baptized Artemis 1, is to test the SLS and the Orion crew capsule that sits atop the rocket.
The capsule will orbit the Moon to see if the vessel is safe for people in the near future. At some point Artemis will see a woman and a person of color walk on the Moon for the first time.
“This mission goes with a lot of hopes and dreams of a lot of people. And we now are the Artemis generation,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson said Saturday.
The massive orange-and-white rocket has been sitting on the space center’s Launch Complex 39B for a week.
Its fuel tanks were to be filled overnight Sunday into Monday with more than three million liters of liquid hydrogen and oxygen.
NASA said there is an 80 percent chance of acceptable weather for a liftoff on time at the beginning of a launch window lasting two hours.
For the first time a woman — Charlie Blackwell-Thompson — will give the final green light for liftoff. Women now account for 30 percent of the staff in the control room; there was just one back with Apollo 11.
Cameras will capture every moment of the 42-day trip and include a selfie of the spacecraft with the Moon and Earth in the background.
The Orion capsule will orbit around the Moon, coming within 60 miles (100 kilometers) at its closest approach and then firing its engines to get to a distance 40,000 miles beyond, a record for a spacecraft rated to carry humans.
Besides the weather, any kind of technical snafu could delay the liftoff at the last minute, NASA officials have said, stressing that this is a test flight.
If the rocket is unable to take off on Monday, September 2 and 5 have been penciled in as alternative flight dates.
One of the primary objectives of the mission is to test the capsule’s heat shield, which at 16 feet in diameter is the largest ever built.
On its return to the Earth’s atmosphere, the heat shield will have to withstand a speed of 25,000 miles per hour and a temperature of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius). That is half as hot as the Sun.
Taking the place of people for now, dummies fitted with sensors will take the place of crew members, recording acceleration, vibration and radiation levels.
It will deploy small satellites to study the lunar surface.
A complete failure would be devastating for a program that is costing $4.1 billion per launch and is already running years behind schedule.
“What we are starting with the launch Monday is not a near term sprint, but a long term marathon to bring the solar system and beyond into our sphere,” said Bhavya Lal, NASA associate administrator for technology, policy, and strategy.
The next mission, Artemis 2, will take astronauts into orbit around the Moon without landing on its surface. The crew of Artemis 3 is to land on the Moon in 2025 at the earliest.
While the Apollo astronauts who walked on the Moon were exclusively white men, the Artemis program plans to include the first woman and person of color.
And since humans have already visited the Moon, Artemis has its sights set on another lofty goal — an eventual crewed mission to Mars.
The Artemis program is to establish a lasting human presence on the Moon with an orbiting space station known as Gateway and a base on the surface.
Gateway would serve as a staging and refueling station for a voyage to Mars that would take a minimum of several months.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Explainer: Pakistan fatal flooding has hallmarks of warming

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 04:57:03 +0000

[ad_1]

The familiar ingredients of a warming world were in place: searing temperatures, hotter air holding more moisture, extreme weather getting wilder, melting glaciers, people living in harm’s way, and poverty. They combined in vulnerable Pakistan to create unrelenting rain and deadly flooding.
The flooding has all the hallmarks of a catastrophe juiced by climate change, but it is too early to formally assign blame to global warming, several scientists tell The Associated Press. It occurred in a country that did little to cause the warming, but keeps getting hit, just like the relentless rain.
“This year Pakistan has received the highest rainfall in at least three decades. So far this year the rain is running at more than 780% above average levels,” said Abid Qaiyum Suleri, executive director of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute and a member of Pakistan’s Climate Change Council. “Extreme weather patterns are turning more frequent in the region and Pakistan is not a exception.”
Climate Minister Sherry Rehman said “it’s been a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions.”
Pakistan “is considered the eighth most vulnerable country to climate change,” said Moshin Hafeez, a Lahore-based climate scientist at the International Water Management Institute. Its rain, heat and melting glaciers are all climate change factors scientists warned repeatedly about.
While scientists point out these classic climate change fingerprints, they have not yet finished intricate calculations that compare what happened in Pakistan to what would happen in a world without warming. That study, expected in a few weeks, will formally determine how much climate change is a factor, if at all.
The “recent flood in Pakistan is actually an outcome of the climate catastrophe … that was looming very large,” said Anjal Prakash, a research director at India’s Bharti Institute of Public Policy. “The kind of incessant rainfall that has happened … has been unprecedented.”
Pakistan is used to monsoons and downpours, but “we do expect them spread out, usually over three months or two months,” said the country’s climate minister Rehman.
There are usually breaks, she said, and not as much rain — 37.5 centimeters (14.8 inches) falls in one day, nearly three times higher than the national average for the past three decades. “Neither is it so prolonged. … It’s been eight weeks and we are told we might see another downpour in September.”
“Clearly, it’s being juiced by climate change,” said Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Massachusetts.
There’s been a 400% increase in average rainfall in areas like Baluchistan and Sindh, which led to the extreme flooding, Hafeez said. At least 20 dams have been breached.
The heat has been as relentless as the rain. In May, Pakistan consistently saw temperatures above 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit). Scorching temperatures higher than 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) were recorded in places like Jacobabad and Dadu.
Warmer air holds more moisture — about 7% more per degree Celsius (4% per degree Fahrenheit) — and that eventually comes down, in this case in torrents.
Across the world “intense rain storms are getting more intense,” said Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer. And he said mountains, like those in Pakistan, help wring extra moisture out as the clouds pass.
Instead of just swollen rivers flooding from extra rain, Pakistan is hit with another source of flash flooding: The extreme heat accelerates the long-term glacier melting then water speeds down from the Himalayas to Pakistan in a dangerous phenomena called glacial lake outburst floods.
“We have the largest number of glaciers outside the polar region, and this affects us,” climate minister Rehman said. “Instead of keeping their majesty and preserving them for posterity and nature. We are seeing them melt.”
Not all of the problem is climate change.
Pakistan saw similar flooding and devastation in 2010 that killed nearly 2,000 people. But the government didn’t implement plans to prevent future flooding by preventing construction and homes in flood prone areas and river beds, said Suleri of the country’s Climate Change Council.
The disaster is hitting a poor country that has contributed relatively little to the world’s climate problem, scientists and officials said. Since 1959, Pakistan has emitted about 0.4% of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, compared to 21.5% by the United States and 16.4% by China.
“Those countries that have developed or gotten rich on the back of fossil fuels, which are the problem really,” Rehman said. “They’re going to have to make a critical decision that the world is coming to a tipping point. We certainly have already reached that point because of our geographical location.”

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

NASA scrubs launch of new moon rocket after engine problem

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 04:41:47 +0000

[ad_1]

CAPE CANAVERAL: NASA called off the launch of its mighty new moon rocket on its debut flight with three test dummies aboard Monday after a last-minute cascade of problems culminating in unexplained trouble related to an engine.
The next launch attempt will not take place until Friday at the earliest and could be delayed until mid-September or later.
The mission will be the first flight in NASA’s Artemis project, a quest to put astronauts back on the moon for the first time since the Apollo program ended 50 years ago.
As precious minutes ticked away Monday morning, NASA repeatedly stopped and started the fueling of the Space Launch System rocket because of a leak of highly explosive hydrogen, eventually succeeding in reducing the seepage. The leak happened in the same place that saw seepage during a dress rehearsal in the spring.
The fueling already was running nearly an hour late because of thunderstorms off Florida’s Kennedy Space Center.
Then, NASA ran into new trouble when it was unable to properly chill one of the rocket’s four main engines, officials said. Engineers struggled to pinpoint the source of the problem well after the launch postponement was announced.
Mission manager Mike Sarafin said the fault did not appear to be with the engine itself but with the plumbing leading to it.
Complicating matters, as engineers were trying to troubleshoot that problem on the launch pad, yet another hydrogen leak developed, this one involving a vent valve higher up on the rocket, Sarafin said.
“This is a very complicated machine, a very complicated system, and all those things have to work, and you don’t want to light the candle until it’s ready to go,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
Referring to launch delays, he said: “It’s just part of the space business and it’s part of, particularly, a test flight.”
The rocket was set to lift off on a flight to propel a crew capsule into orbit around the moon. The six-week mission was scheduled to end with the capsule returning to Earth in a splashdown in the Pacific in October.
The 322-foot (98-meter) spaceship is the most powerful rocket ever built by NASA, out-muscling even the Saturn V that took the Apollo astronauts to the moon.
The dummies inside the Orion capsule were fitted with sensors to measure vibration, cosmic radiation and other conditions during the shakedown flight, meant to stress-test the spacecraft and push it to its limits in ways that would never be attempted if humans were aboard.
Asked about the possibility of another launch attempt on Friday, mission manager Sarafin said, “We really need time to look at all the information, all the data. We’re going to play all nine innings here.”
Even though no one was on board, thousands of people jammed the coast to see the rocket soar. Vice President Kamala Harris and Apollo 10 astronaut Tom Stafford were among the VIPs who arrived.
Assuming the shakedown flight goes well, astronauts will climb aboard for the second Artemis mission and fly around the moon and back as soon as 2024. A two-person lunar landing could follow by the end of 2025.
The problems seen Monday were reminiscent of NASA’s space shuttle era, when hydrogen fuel leaks disrupted countdowns and delayed a string of launches back in 1990.
Later in the morning, NASA also officials spotted what they feared was a crack or some other defect on the core stage — the big orange fuel tank with four main engines on it — but they later said it appeared to be just a buildup of frost in a crevice of the insulating foam.
Launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson and her team also had to deal with sluggish communication between the Orion capsule and launch control. The problem required what turned out to be a simple fix.
Even if there had been no technical snags, thunderstorms ultimately would have prevented a liftoff, NASA said. Dark clouds and rain gathered over the launch site as soon as the countdown was halted, and thunder echoed across the coast.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Amit Shah’s 1st Bihar visit since break with Nitish

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 04:39:40 +0000

[ad_1]

Union home minister Amit Shah will visit the Seemanchal region during his two-day visit to Bihar next month, his first after CM Nitish Kumar dumped BJP to form the grand alliance government with the support of RJD, Congress and others.
Aimed at rejuvenating BJP in the state, the Union minister’s visit will combine both official and political agenda. State BJP spokesman Prem Ranjan Patel said Shah will address a rally of party workers and BJP supporters from 11 districts of Seemanchal at Purnia on September 23.
The next day, he will hold an official meeting at Kishanganj concerning the Seemanchal districts. While seven districts of Purnia and Kosi divisions along or close to the Indo-Nepal border are strategically very sensitive from the point of national security, the four districts of Purnia, Katihar, Araria and Kishanganj have a significant chunk of Muslim population. These have been on the BJP’s political map for long owing to infiltration from Bangladesh. Recently, fears have also surfaced on the likely formation of sleeper cells of militant groups in the area.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Bianca Andreescu shrugs off wardrobe malfunction in US Open win

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 04:38:45 +0000

[ad_1]

NEW YORK: A hasty change of outfit worked wonders for Bianca Andreescu as she powered into the second round of the US Open on Monday.
The 22-year-old Canadian star, winner of the US Open crown in 2019, overcame Harmony Tan 6-0, 3-6, 6-1 to keep alive her dream of a second Grand Slam title.
However the victory was not without drama as a flustered Andreescu scrambled to change her clothing.
The former world number four arrived on court in a navy blue skirt, but with gusts of wind blowing her outfit around, she pleaded with the chair umpire to make a change.
“It’s not my fault, it’s Nike’s fault, this dress is so bad,” Andreescu could be heard complaining. “I need to go. This is so bad.”
She quickly returned to the court wearing shorts and a white top and set about navigating her way past Tan, who made headlines in June when she beat Serena Williams at Wimbledon.
Andreescu later explained her change of outfit after securing victory.
“It was just bothering me on some forehands. I just felt like it was kind of coming up a bit. Obviously the wind didn’t help,” she said.
She said she had pleaded with the umpire not to dock her a bathroom break — which he agreed to — and said she had not intended to criticise kit manufacturer Nike.
“He was very nice to say it was totally okay,” she said. “I could have definitely used a different choice of wording.
“So I apologize to anyone I disrespected. I love Nike and I hope I can be with them for the rest of my life.”

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

US Open 2022: Serena Williams says ‘staying vague’ on retirement plans

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 04:35:05 +0000

[ad_1]

NEW YORK: Serena Williams said she is “staying vague” over her expected retirement from tennis after reaching the US Open second round on Monday.
“I have been pretty vague about it, right? I’m going to stay vague because you never know,” said the 40-year-old after beating Danka Kovinic 6-3, 6-3.
Williams, a 23-time Grand Slam title winner, said earlier this month that she was “evolving away” from tennis and that “the countdown” was on for her retirement after 27 years as a professional.
Before Monday, the former world number one had won just one match on tour all year and seen her ranking slip to 605.
That kind of form prompted her to reveal that she was on the brink of retirement and hinting that this US Open would be her farewell.
However, the guessing game over her concrete plans over her future continued Monday with mixed messages delivered on court and then in her post-match news conference.
“It was such a hard decision,” Williams told her on-court interviewer when asked about her original announcement revealed in a essay for Vogue magazine.
“I think when you are passionate about something it is always hard to walk away,” she said.
“I have been trying to decide what to do. I love this game.
She added: “I think now’s the time. I have a family and there’s other chapters in life. I call it evolution.”
“It’s like Serena 2.0. I will still be crazy, I’ll still be intense. I’ll still be around. But I look forward to waking up and not having to run onto a tennis court.”
On Monday, Williams, who arrived on court in a diamond-encrusted black dress and jacket which sparkled under the lights, overcame a nervy first game for a hold of serve.
The American star brought the crowd to their feet with a break for 2-0, chasing down a net cord to hit a winner.
Kovinic, the world number 80, has enjoyed a solid year at the Slams, reaching the third round of the Australian and French Opens.
The 27-year-old hit back with a break of her own and edged ahead for 3-2.
However, Williams buried the error count — she served up six double faults in the opener — levelled and then raced away with the next three games to take the first set.
Another break for 3-2 arrived in the second set on the back of crunching drives from the back of the court.
A love service game gave the American a 5-3 lead and a final break of the night gave her victory.
She celebrated with a little jig on the baseline and a broad smile, much to the delight of a crowd which included the likes of tennis legend Martina Navratilova, ex-world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson and former US president Bill Clinton.
The crowd held up cards to spell out “Serena, we love you”.
Next up for Williams is second round clash against No.2 seed Anett Kontaveit of Estonia on Wednesday.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Biden to ask Congress for approval of USD 1.1 billion arms sale to Taiwan: Reports

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 04:32:16 +0000

[ad_1]

WASHINGTON: The Biden administration plans to ask Congress to approve a USD 1.1 billion arms sale to Taiwan that includes hundreds of missiles for fighter jets and anti-ship systems, according to media reports.
Sputnik News Agency reported that the sale would include 60 anti-ship Harpoon missiles, 100 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, and a surveillance radar contract extension.
China carried out its largest war games around Taiwan after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the self-governed Island earlier this month. This trip was the highest-ranking US official to visit the island in 25 years.
China responded by conducting military drills for multiple days near the island after she left.
Taiwan had proposed a budget of USD 17.3 billion in defence for 2023, a 14.9 per cent increase from this year’s total allocation, weeks after China started its military drill around the self-ruled island country post the visit of US House Speaker.
Responding to reports about a potential US arms sale to Taiwan, the Chinese Embassy in Washington said that the US must immediately stop selling weapons to the island.
“The US side needs to immediately stop arms sales to and military contact with Taiwan, stop creating factors that could lead to tensions in the Taiwan Strait, and follow through on the US government statement of not supporting ‘Taiwan independence,'” embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said, as per Sputnik News Agency.
The spokesperson also said US arms sales to Taiwan gravely violate the one-China principle and Beijing will continue to take resolute and strong measures to firmly defend Chinese sovereignty and security interests.
Meanwhile, two United States Navy warships entered the Taiwan Strait in the first such transit since China staged unprecedented military drills around the island.
On Sunday, the guided-missile cruisers USS Antietam and USS Chancellorsville were making their voyage “through waters where high seas freedoms of navigation and overflight apply in accordance with the international law,” the US 7th Fleet in Japan said in a statement as quoted in CNN.
A 110-mile strait is a stretch of water that separates the democratic self-ruled island of Taiwan from mainland China.Beijing claims sovereignty over Taiwan despite China’s ruling Communist Party never having controlled the island — and considers the strait part of its “internal waters.”

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

‘It felt like my insides were crying’: China Covid curbs hit youth mental health

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 03:56:44 +0000

[ad_1]

HONG KONG: Zhang Meng had a breakdown last December. The 20-year-old found herself sobbing on the stairs of her dorm, driven to despair by repeated Covid lockdowns of her university campus in Beijing.
The lockdowns had meant she was mostly confined to her room and unable to meet up with friends. There were also strict curbs on when she could visit the canteen or take a shower. Describing herself as someone who craves in-person social interaction, Zhang said the restrictions had “removed the safety net that was holding me up and I felt like my whole being was falling down”.
That month, she was diagnosed with major depression and anxiety.
Yao, also 20 and who asked that his first name not be used, had his first breakdown in high school where he was a boarder, unable to understand why lockdown policies were so tough. He said that one day he had to take refuge in a school toilet, crying so hard “it felt like my insides were crying.”
In early 2021 while at university in Beijing, unable to shake that depression and also unhappy he had not taken the courses he wanted to for fear of upsetting his father, Yao attempted suicide.
China has employed some of the world’s harshest and most frequent lockdown measures in its determination to stamp out every Covid outbreak, arguing it saves lives and pointing to its low pandemic death toll of around 5,200 to date.
It’s an effort it has shown little sign of abandoning, but the policy’s impact on mental health alarms medical experts and as Zhang’s and Yao’s experiences have shown, it is already taking its toll.
“China’s lockdowns have had a huge human cost with the shadow of mental-ill health adversely affecting China’s culture and economy for years to come,” argues a June editorial in the British medical journal the Lancet.
In particular, experts fear for the mental health of teenagers and young adults, more vulnerable because of their age and lack of control over their lives, and who have to contend with far greater education stresses and economic pressures than earlier generations.
The number of young people affected is potentially huge. Some 220 million Chinese children and young people have been confined for prolonged periods due to Covid restrictions, the Education Ministry estimated in 2020. It did not respond to a Reuters request for an updated figure and comment on the topic.
Kids under pressure
The Covid curbs have sometimes forced young people into extreme situations.
During Shanghai’s two-month draconian lockdown this year, for instance, some 15 to 18-year-olds had to isolate by themselves at hotels as they were not allowed to return home.
“They had to cook for themselves and didn’t have people to talk to so it was actually very hard for them,” said Frank Feng, deputy principal at Lucton, an international school in Shanghai, told Reuters.
While data examining youth mental health in China and the impact of lockdowns and the pandemic is sparse, what there is is grim.
Around 20% of Chinese junior and senior high school students learning remotely during lockdowns have experienced suicidal ideation, according to a survey of 39,751 pupils conducted in April 2020 that was published in the U.S. journal Current Psychology in January. Suicidal ideation is sometimes described as when a person thinks they would be better off dead, though the person may not have at the time intent to commit suicide.
More broadly across age groups, searches for “psychological counselling” on Chinese search engine Baidu more than tripled in the first seven months of 2022 compared to the same period a year earlier.
For many teenagers, Covid lockdowns have come during critical exam years. If the stigma of being infected is not enough, desperation to avoid missing a life-changing exam due to either catching Covid or, much more commonly, being considered a close contact has many families isolating for months ahead of exam periods, teachers said.
Exacerbating that academic pressure are dismal job prospects. While overall unemployment stands at 5.4%, the rate for urban youth has soared to 19.9%, the highest level on record, as corporate hiring withers due to the pandemic and regulatory crackdowns on the tech and tutoring sectors.
Most students are also only children due to China’s 1980-2015 one-child policy and are conscious they will have to help support their parents in the future.
According to a Fudan University survey of around 4,500 young people this year, some 70% expressed varying degrees of anxiety.
The pandemic and lockdowns are also thought to be fuelling disaffection with the intense pressure to get ahead in life, symbolised by the so-called “lying flat” movement that last year gained huge social media traction in China as many young people embraced the idea of doing the bare minimum to get by.
A two-decade toll?
For its part, the Education Ministry has launched a raft of measures to improve mental health for students during the pandemic, including the introduction of mandatory mental health classes at colleges and a drive to ramp up the country’s number of school counsellors, therapists and psychiatrists.
But mental health has gained attention in China only in the last 20 years and the ministry’s efforts to install counsellors in schools are relatively new. Most schools would not have had one last year. Guidelines it published in June 2021 call for a ratio of at least 1 counsellor per 4,000 students nationwide.
State media have also taken up the topic.
A June 6 article in the China Daily that focused on the mental health impact of Covid curbs on vulnerable groups including teenagers quoted Lu Lin, president of Peking University’s Sixth Hospital, as saying that Covid’s “toll on people’s mental health could last over two decades”.
Data from early 2020 shows that a third of residents who isolated at home had experienced conditions such as depression, anxiety and insomnia, he said.
Lu estimated most would recover after an outbreak subsides but 10% would be unable to completely return to normal, noting he had teenage patients who had developed gaming addiction, had trouble sleeping and continued to be downcast and reluctant to go outdoors.
For Zhang, lockdowns and her subsequent depression have completely shattered her worldview. Once satisfied with her plans to study Chinese language and literature, disillusionment with how lockdowns have been managed has sparked interest in studying abroad.
“I was quite patriotic when I graduated from high school…this feeling is slowly disappearing. It’s not that I don’t trust the government anymore, it’s more of a feeling that the smell of masks and sanitiser has penetrated deep into my bones.”

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

2 die, 5 injured in Phoenix shooting rampage; suspect dead

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 03:10:42 +0000

[ad_1]

PHOENIX: Two people were killed and five injured — including two police officers — when a man armed with a semi-automatic rifle and wearing tactical gear began a seemingly random attack in Phoenix on Sunday night before killing himself, authorities said.
Phoenix police identified the man on Monday as 24-year-old Isaiah Steven Williams. They said he was found to have a single gunshot wound to the head, consistent with a self-inflicted gunshot wound although the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office will determine the cause of death.
It wasn’t immediately clear Monday where Williams lived and if he had a criminal record.
Police said Williams was wearing a ballistic vest with steel plates in the front and back, a ballistic helmet, a gas mask and knee pads and was armed with a semi-automatic rifle along with several incendiary devices and multiple magazines for the rifle.
“Kevlar helmet, tactical vest, high-powered rifle – this individual was set on doing damage to our community,” Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams said Monday.
Police said they received a call about shots fired in the north-central part of the city around 8:30 p.m. Sunday.
As officers arrived, a man immediately opened fire on several fully marked patrol SUVs. Four patrol cars were riddled with bullets. One officer was struck by a bullet in the shoulder and a second officer was hit by shrapnel in multiple places including the face.
Police said the officer wounded by shrapnel was able to get out of his car and return fire before other officers came to his aid to remove him from the area for medical treatment. Other officers began evacuating nearby businesses and bringing community members to a safe place.
The officer shot in the shoulder was hospitalized in stable condition, according to police.
Other officers began evacuating nearby businesses and bringing community members to a safe place.
Police said preliminary investigative information, along with surveillance video from nearby businesses, showed the suspect leaving a room at a motel in the area and begin shooting at random. The man was seen firing his rifle into the motel then turning the rifle on a car pulling into the parking lot.
A man and woman inside that car died on the scene from gunshot wounds, according to police who have not released the victims’ names yet.
The suspect also was seen throwing a Molotov cocktail at a restaurant window. It did not ignite. It was about that time that officers began to arrive and were fired upon.
Surveillance video shows the suspect making his way through the parking lot and then falling to the ground.
Three bystanders in various locations around the shooting scene were injured by flying gunfire, treated at hospitals and released.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives announced it is assisting in the investigation of the shootings.
“Once again, this is another example of gun violence in our community,” police Chief Jeri Williams said. “How many more officers have to be shot? How many more community members have to be killed before those in our community take a stand? This is not a Phoenix police issue, this is a community issue. If not now, when?”

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

IMF board approves release of over $1.1 billion bailout funds: Pakistan finance minister

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 02:24:37 +0000

[ad_1]

ISLAMABAD: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) board on Monday approved the seventh and eighth reviews of Pakistan‘s bailout programme, the country’s finance minister Miftah Ismail said, which will release $1.17 billion in funds to the cash-strapped country.
“The IMF Board has approved the revival of our EFF program. We should now be getting the 7th & 8th tranche of $1.17 billion,” Ismail said on Twitter.
The IMF’s resident representative in Islamabad did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Now, Nitin Gadkari’s ‘use-and-throw’ remark stirs talk of barb at BJP

Editor — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 02:21:59 +0000

[ad_1]

NAGPUR: Union minister Nitin Gadkari‘s remark at an event in Nagpur last weekend about the importance of not adopting a “use-and-throw attitude” to relationships had the political grapevine linking it to his omission from BJP‘s top decision-making bodies.
“Human relationships constitute the biggest strength of a business, social work or politics…In your good or bad days, once you hold the hand of a friend, you should never let go of it,” he told a gathering of entrepreneurs at the Young Presidents Organisation’s newest South Asia chapter in Vidarbha.
The speech, a video of which has since been widely circulated, was punctuated with Gadkari’s trademark homilies. “Being successful and happy individually has no meaning. But being successful as a team is truly meaningful, because your co-workers of all ranks are a happier lot because of the collective success,” he said. While reminiscing about the old days with his friend and former Congress functionary Shrikant Jichkar, Gadkari said he had been offered an opportunity to join the party when he was a student leader, to which he responded by saying he would “rather jump into a well”.

News Courtesy: timesofindia.indiatimes.com