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Saturday 25 April 2015

Indian Army Recovers 18 Bodies from Mount Everest Base Camp...

An Indian army mountaineering team has found 18 bodies on Mount Everest after a the earthquake in Nepal unleashed an avalanche on the mountain, according to an army spokesman.

Nepal's tourism ministry could only confirm 10 deaths, but spokesman Gyanendra Shrestha said that the death toll could rise, and that the avalanche had buried part of the base camp.


A powerful earthquake, epicentred in Nepal, today shook northern and eastern parts of India, killing 34 people and injuring about 100 others as houses and buildings collapsed or were damaged.

States such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal were the worst affected parts of India and massive rescue and relief operations were initiated on war-footing basis with Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself monitoring the situation and issuing directives.

Union Home Secretary L C Goyal told a press conference here in the evening that 34 people had died due to earthquake in various parts of the country. Of them, 23 died in Bihar, eight in Uttar Pradesh and three in West Bengal, he said. Nearly 100 people were injured in these states.

A powerful earthquake flattened houses and buildings in Nepal on Saturday, killing nearly 1,500 people as the worst temblor in 80 years destroyed the iconic Dharhara tower and renowned Darbar Square in the heart of the capital.
The quake measuring 7.9 on Richter scale, which was followed by 16 aftershocks of magnitude 4.5 or greater, killed 876 people including over 250 in Kathmandu and left several thousands injured and hundreds missing across the country.
The earthquake around 11:56 am with epicentre at Lamjung, around 80 kilometers northwest of Kathmandu, had its impact in several cities in Bihar, West Bengal and UP and tremors were felt across vast stretches of east and northeast India.
It was also felt in Southern and Western parts of India, China, Bhutan and as far as Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Miraculously the famous 5th century Pashupatinath temple here was undamaged, while a number of old temples were razed. Several buildings, most of them old, in the densely-popu
At least 180 bodies have been retrieved from the debris of two-century old nine-storey landmark Dharhara tower in the centre of the capital.
Kathmandu's Darbar Square, a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation World Heritage site, was completely damaged in the quake which was the worst to hit Nepal and surrounding regions after the earthquake of 8.4 magnitude which occurred along the Nepal-Bihar border in 1934.
The army, the police and emergency workers were pressed into service for rescue of those trapped and rushing injured survivors to hospitals. Many of the injured could be seen suffering bleeding injuries covered in dust from the debris.
The daughter of a local employee in the Indian embassy died and his wife suffered serious injuries when a house in the mission complex in Kathmandu collapsed during the quake.
Nearly 125 people from Maharashtra and Telangana are stranded in Nepal after the earthquake. Around 80 people from Nashik had gone to Nepal for pilgrimage while 15-20 people were on a trekking expedition. 
Twenty-five tourists from Hyderabad, who are in Kathmandu, are safe. "Now, all of us are safe in an open ground, close to the Pashupatinath temple in Kathmandu," Gowrishankar, who took the tourists, said.
Hospitals were over-crowded with injured, with many of them being treated in the open outside the hospitals. An emergency cabinet meeting has announced 29 districts as crisis zones, the Home ministry said.


Friday 24 April 2015

The Man Who Can Find Disappeared Malaysian Airline MH370!


An aviation expert has claimed that he has identified the wreckage of the missing MH370 Malaysia Airlines plane which went missing in March last year.
Andre Milne, who is investigating the disappearance independently, insists that he has located the wreckage between India and Malaysia in the Bay of Bengal. But he says he would need £1.3 million to find it, and hopes to crowdfund a project with supporters pledging  £6.70 each.
In a video appeal, Milne said, “This area is not being searched. I need your help in order to verify one way or another whether this is in fact MH370.”
Flight MH370 had disappeared on March 8 last year while enroute from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board. There were five Indians on the flight. The plane is believed to have ended its journey in the southern Indian Ocean.
A year-long, Australia-led search effort in the southern Indian Ocean where the aircraft is believed to have crashed has so far yielded no sign of the plane.


Monday 20 April 2015

India Navy Launched its Largest Destroyer INS Visakhapatnam.....

India Navy's new stealth destroyer, Visakhapatnam, designed indigenously and fitted with advanced features, was launched in Mumbai on Monday, boosting the maritime force's firepower capability.
The Kolkata-class warship, the first of P15-B stealth destroyers, was launched by Minu Dhowan, wife of Chief of Naval Staff Admiral R K Dhowan, at Mazagaon Docks Ltd.
The ship, weighing approximately 3,000 tons during the launch, is slated to be christened as 'INS Visakhapatnam' on commissioning.
The 163-metre-long vessel will be propelled by four gas turbines, and is designed to achieve a speed of over 30 knots at a displacement of approximately 7,300 tons.
The indigenously designed stealth destroyer will have state-of-the-art weapons, sensors, an advance Action Information System, in Integrated Platform Management system, sophisticated Power Distribution System and a host of other advanced features.
It will be fitted with supersonic surface-to-surface missile system. The system enables the ship to engage shore-based and naval surface targets at long range, making it a lethal platform for strike against enemy targets. The ship's air defence capability, designed to counter the threat of enemy aircraft and anti-ship cruise missiles, will revolve around the vertical launch and long range surface to air missile system.
Four 30 mm rapid-fire guns will provide the ship with close-in-defence capability, while an MR gun will enable her to provide effective naval gunfire support.
Indigenously developed twin tube torpedo launchers and rocket launchers will add punch to the ship's anti-submarine capability. The vessel is follow-on of P15A Kolkata-class destroyers with enhanced features.
The indigenisation content in P15-B class destroyers is a notch above her illustrious predecessors in line with the 'Make in India policy' of the Government.
The P15-B stealth destroyers have been designed by the force's in-house unit - Directorate of Naval Design. The design of Project 15B destroyers is testimony of the Navy's firm commitment towards achieving indigenisation by using high-end technology in the field of weapons/sensors/machinery and stealth.

Mazagaon Docks, the country's premier warship building yard, is engaged in producing sophisticated world-class warships and submarines. At present four destroyers and six submarines are under various stages of construction at MDL.

Sunday 19 April 2015

Obama writes"warm profile" Poverty to Prime Minister for Narender Modi ......

US President BarackObama has written a "warm profile" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi 
For Time Magazine, The profile, titled "India's reformer-in-chief", is part of the publication's list of the 100 most influential people in the world. After coming to power last year, Mr Modi promised to start the reforms process to take India to "new heights of economic development".
Mr Obama admires the rise of Mr Modi from a tea-seller to India's prime minister in the profile. Mr Modi had spoken about his humble roots during his election campaigning last year.
"As a boy, Narendra Modi helped his father sell tea to support their family. Today, he is the leader of the world's largest democracy, and his life story - from poverty to Prime Minister - reflects the dynamism and potential of India's rise,
The News papersays "Mr Obama has described Mr Modi's life story 'from poverty to prime minister' as one that reflects the dynamism and potential of India's rise".
Mr Modi, meanwhile, thanked the US president for his kind words. "Dear @BarackObama your words are touching & inspiring. Thanks," the paper quotes Mr Modi's Tweet.
The US president and the Indian prime minister have developed bonhomie in recent months with both leaders visiting each other's countries. Mr Modi visited the US in September last year and Mr Obama was present as the chief guest during India's Republic Day celebrations in January this year.
But his ties with the US and its leaders have not always been smooth. The US repeatedly denied him visas when he was the chief minister of the western state of Gujarat due to his controversial role in the riots in the state in 2002.


Wednesday 8 April 2015

Who is fighting whom? In Yemen .......


In recent months Yemen has descended into conflicts between several different groups, pushing the country "to the edge of civil war", according to the UN's special adviser.
The main fight is between forces loyal to the beleaguered President, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, and those allied to Zaidi Shia rebels known as Houthis, who forced Mr Hadi to flee the capital Sanaa in February.
Yemen's security forces have split loyalties, with some units backing Mr Hadi, and others the Houthis and Mr Hadi's predecessor Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has remained politically influential. Mr Hadi is also supported in the predominantly Sunni south of the country by militia known as Popular Resistance Committees and local tribesmen.
Both President Hadi and the Houthis are opposed by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which has staged numerous deadly attacks from its strongholds in the south and south-east.
The picture is further complicated by the emergence in late 2014 of a Yemen affiliate of the jihadist group Islamic State, which seeks to eclipse AQAP and claims it carried out a series of suicide bombings in Sanaa in March 2015.
After rebel forces closed in on the president's southern stronghold of Aden in late March, a coalition led by Saudi Arabia responded to a request by Mr Hadi to intervene and launched air strikes on Houthi targets. The coalition comprises five Gulf Arab states and Jordan, Egypt, Morocco and Sudan.
What happens in Yemen can greatly exacerbate regional tensions. It also worries the West because of the threat of attacks emanating from the country as it becomes more unstable.
Western intelligence agencies consider AQAP the most dangerous branch of al-Qaeda because of its technical expertise and global reach. The US has been carrying out operations, including drone strikes, against AQAP in Yemen with President Hadi's co-operation, but the Houthis' advance has meant the US campaign has been scaled back.
The conflict between the Houthis and the elected government is also seen as part of a regional power struggle between Shia-ruled Iran and Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia, which shares a long border with Yemen.
Gulf Arab states have accused Iran of backing the Houthis financially and militarily, though Iran has denied this, and they are themselves backers of President Hadi.
Yemen is strategically important because it sits on the Bab al-Mandab strait, a narrow waterway linking the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden, through which much of the world's oil shipments pass. Egypt and Saudi Arabia fear a Houthi takeover would threaten free passage through the strait.
In short, after months of tightening their hold, the Houthis have formally seized power. In January, the group said it would dissolve parliament and announced plans for a new interim assembly and five-member presidential council, which would rule for up to two years.
The move filled a political vacuum which had existed since President Hadi, the prime minister and cabinet resigned earlier that month after the Houthis placed President Hadi under house arrest and detained other leading figures.
But the Houthis are minority Shia from the north, and their declaration has not been recognised by Sunni tribesmen and southern leaders, threatening Yemen with a further descent into chaos.
President Hadi, who is recognised as Yemen's legitimate leader by the international community, managed to escape to Aden, which he declared the de facto capital.
The Houthis are members of a rebel group, also known as Ansar Allah (Partisans of God), who adhere to a branch of Shia Islam known as Zaidism. Zaidis make up one-third of the population and ruled North Yemen under a system known as the imamate for almost 1,000 years until 1962.
The Houthis take their name from Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi. He led the group's first uprising in 2004 in an effort to win greater autonomy for their heartland of Saada province, and also to protect Zaidi religious and cultural traditions from perceived encroachment by Sunni Islamists.
After Houthi was killed by the Yemeni military in late 2004, his family took charge and led another five rebellions before a ceasefire was signed with the government in 2010.

In 2011, the Houthis joined the protests against then President Saleh and took advantage of the power vacuum to expand their territorial control in Saada and neighbouring Amran province.
They subsequently participated in a National Dialogue Conference (NDC), which led to President Hadi announcing plans in February 2014 for Yemen to become a federation of six regions.
The Houthis however opposed the plan, which they said would leave them weakened.
In recent years Yemen has seen violent conflicts largely caused by underlying problems of unequal access to power and resources.
There have been six rounds of fighting between the state and the Houthis in the north; separatist unrest in the south; frequent attacks by AQAP; and power struggles between tribal and military factions.
For much of the 20th Century, Yemen existed as two separate countries - the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) in the north and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) in the south. In 1990, the countries chose to unify and create the Republic of Yemen. However, southerners soon began complaining of political and economic marginalisation by the government in Sanaa, and fought a civil war in 1994 in a failed attempt to reverse the unification.
Instability and large-scale displacement, as well as weak governance, corruption, resource depletion and poor infrastructure, have hindered development in the poorest country in the Middle East.


Tuesday 7 April 2015

Rahul Gandhi Returning Back After Long Holiday.....



Rahul Gandhi Returning from Holidays on April 19 .....

India's main opposition Congress party vice president Rahul Gandhi is preparing to return to politics after a leave of absence of nearly two months.A senior party leader said Mr Gandhi would speak at a meeting of farmers in Delhi on 19 April.

Mr Gandhi's break from politics created a stir on social media and the BJP government accused him of "holidaying" while parliament was in session.Mr Gandhi led his party to its worst performance in May's general election. He took leave on 23 February because he wanted time to think, his party said.

The decision came days after his party failed to win a single seat in state polls in Delhi. Party officials had said he wanted to assess his role and the party's future. Mr Gandhi will now appear on 19 April at a rally of farmers to protest against the government's controversial land acquisition bill, Congress leader Digvijay Singh said.

Opponents of the bill, including the Congress, say it will be bad for farmers. Mr Gandhi, 44, is from the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty that has dominated Indian politics for decades. The Congress party has suffered a series of election setbacks since it lost power in May last year.

Some Congress leaders have suggested that Mr Gandhi formally take over from his mother, party president Sonia Gandhi.
Other say he remains aloof from party workers, and have called for his sister Priyanka Gandhi to take a more prominent role in politics. However, Ms Gandhi has shown no inclination to join the party.

Read More ............ 

Wednesday 1 April 2015

PM tells Railways to ensure trains run on time ...


Punctuality of trains has shown a decline, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken note of and the Railway Ministry has been asked to tone up the system.

According to railway data, the month of March last year saw punctuality of 84.43 per cent while the figure for the same month now stands at 79 per cent on a nationwide basis. 

It is learnt that Modi has taken note of the deterioration of the punctuality rate in train services due to late running of important trains. 

PMO has also received several complaints from MPs, ministers and passengeres about trains running way behind schedule. Some complainants have questioned why punctuality could not be maintained when it could be done during the Emergency.

In view of this, instructions have been given to all concerned to make an all-out efforts for running of trains as per schedule and prevent late arrival and departure, said a senior Railway Ministry involved with the monitoring of passenger train movement. 

Railway Board Member (Traffic) Ajay Shukla, however, maintained that it is a routine exercise. 

"We constantly monitor train movement as it is our job. We also regularly send details to PMO," Shukla said.