Tag: odishanews

(UNI) At least 21 people have died in one of the worst cold snaps to hit the US Midwest in decades.

The temperature reached -17C (0F).

Some 250 million Americans overall have experienced the “polar vortex” conditions, a report in BBC said.

Hospitals have been treating patients reporting frostbite as parts of the country ground to a halt.

Temperatures are expected to swing to above average over the weekend.

The polar vortex descended on the United States on Tuesday, freezing much of the Midwest and New England region and affecting over 50 million people.

“The majority want peace, the country wants stability,” said Luis Gonzalez, a student at the Central University of Venezuela.

Venezuela has been mired in difficult economic and political situations after opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself interim president and was recognized by the United States and some other countries, arousing fear of foreign military intervention.

Gonzalez said he hoped that foreign military intervention would not happen. “You take history as an example, the consequences are not usually positive for the people of the invaded country,” he said.

His attitude reflects that of many local residents from different walks of life. Facing political strife and an unfavorable economic situation in Venezuela, many stand firm that they reject foreign intervention.

“It would be like being in my own home and some person came and gave orders, that’s something no citizen will allow, not here or in any country in the world. We have to ensure respect for our home,” said Alexis Ramon Maiz, a vendor in the crowded Plaza Bolivar in Caracas.

“We want peace,” he told Xinhua, hoping all Venezuelans can live peacefully like brothers.

At the entrance of a popular Caracas market, retired attorney Milagros Rodriguez said she was worried about the country’s economic policies but still opposed the idea of an armed conflict.

She said she has cousins and nephews in the army who might be involved if an armed invasion takes place. “It will be a terrible conflict, I can’t even imagine it.”

For his part, Kilian Cairo, a 62-year-old retired government supporter, said he doesn’t believe an armed foreign intervention would happen. “If it happens, we are ready to resist,” he said.

“Since we have defeated the Spanish by losing half the population for independence, we are ready for anything for the second independence,” he noted.

On Friday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro visited the headquarters of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) here, calling for strengthening intelligence and preventive work. The visit was part of preparation for the large military exercises scheduled for Feb. 10-15.

While Maduro has announced willingness to talk with the opposition, the opposition leader’s biggest supporter the United States has refused the offers from Mexico, Uruguay and the Vatican to mediate.

Venezuela is “a country of warriors, of fighters,” a woman who works as a tour guide in the central part of Caracas said to Xinhua on condition of anonymity. “We can resolve our economic and political problems.”

“The situation will be resolved and we can move forward,” she said, smiling.(UNI)

Renowned YouTuber and TV host Sahil Khattar is all set to reprise the role of former Indian cricketer Syed Kirmani in Kabir Khan’s ’83.

After, announcing the other two actors, Punjabi star Ammy Virk and South star Jiiva, Sahil Khattar is the latest addition to the cast of the film ’83.

Syed Kirmani was a well-known wicket keeper who played for the Indian cricketer team who’s also awarded as the best wicket keeper for his stellar performance at the 1983 Cricket World Cup.

The former Indian cricketer Syed Kirmani was a lower order batsman, the team India would rely upon. Sir Kirmani’s unbroken 126 partnership for the ninth wicket with Kapil Dev against Zimbabwe in the 1983 World Cup contributing 26 was one of the critical moments in the history of cricket.

Tracing the historic victory of 1983 world cup, Kabir Khan’s upcoming directorial will star Ranveer Singh as the former captain of the Indian Cricket Team Kapil Dev. The film ’83 would be Ranveer Singh’s first trilingual film to be made in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu.

There has been immense excitement amongst the audience to witness the magnificent event to be recreated on the silver screen.

Earlier, the makers hosted an event to announce the film along with the entire former team that lifted the world cup in 83.

Directed by Kabir Khan, the sports film will bring to light one of the most important event in Indian cricket history. The film will be shot at real locations and will be going on floors early next year.

Shouldered by the then captain Kapil Dev, who led the Indian cricket team to it’s maiden World Cup win, 1983’s World Cup stays to be one of the most etched events in the minds of the cricket fans.

While Ranveer Singh will play the lead, the film will be backed by a powerful support cast. The casting of the other cricket players will be announced soon.(UNI)

Bollywood actress Kriti Sanon aces the cover of Grazia’s February issue and she is effortlessly sporting a chic look.

Wearing a printed shirt, cropped jeans, stone ring and a metal bracelet, Kriti looks strikingly attractive in the cover picture.

Kriti as an actor always been grounded and doing things comfortably. Her beauty regime is simple yet, extremely effective. Regarding her busy schedule, Kriti has got the busiest time of 2019.

Kriti has a hectic schedule ahead with her four films releasing this year along with multiple brand shoots on which the actress is working on simultaneously.

Recently, Kriti clocked 17 million followers on Instagram and the actress thanked her fans and followers for their love and support.

Only four films old, Kriti has an exciting film line up to look forward to with projects like ‘Housefull 4’, ‘Luka Chuppi’, ‘Panipat’ and ‘Arjun Patiala’.

The young actress is leaving no stone unturned to treat her fans with her versatile performances in varied genres of films.(UNI)

Two leading fact-checking agencies have ended their partnerships with Facebook, striking a significant blow to the network’s efforts to fight fake news.

The social network had paid the Associated Press and Snopes to combat its misinformation crisis but both firms confirmed they stopped checking articles at the end of 2018, and will not renew their contracts, a report in BBC said.

Facebook said it was committed to fight fake news and said it would expand its efforts in 2019.

“Fighting misinformation takes a multi-pronged approach from across the industry,” a Facebook spokeswoman told the BBC.

“We are committed to fighting this through many tactics, and the work that third-party fact-checkers do is a valued and important piece of this effort,” she added.

Goa Town and Country Planning (TCP) Minister Vijay Sardesai on Saturday said that he had never said that Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar was a Jesus and alleged that Congress was attempting to twist a metaphor into a weapon of hate.

In a statement,   Sardesai, who is also President of Goa Forward Party (GFP), a coalition partner of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state, said, ‘I never said Parrikar is Jesus! Congress is attempting to twist a beautiful metaphor into a weapon of hate !If V say V should build bridges and not walls,r V equating ourselves to Jesus?But if anyone is hurt because of the deliberate spin given by Congress, I seek pardon for them.’

On Friday Congress had alleged that   Sardesai had equated   Parrikar to Jesus Christ while speaking on a congratulatory motion moved by BJP MLA Rajesh Patnekar for the Chief Minister for constructing a new bridge ‘Atal Setu’ across River Mandovi near the city.

Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) Chief Spokesperson Sunil Kawathanker had claimed that the statement made by   Sardesai had hurt sentiments of the people of the state and demanded apology from the minister.(UNI)

Tripoli, Feb 2 (Xinhua) Libyan security forces on Thursday arrested a senior Islamic State (IS) leader in the city of Sirte, said an official on conditions of anonymity on Friday.
Khalifa Barq was taken from his home by a special security force, the official of Sirte security department told Xinhua.
“The operation was based on intelligence information about presence of Barq in central Sirte. Immediately, the security forces moved, as he is a dangerous person and one of the founders of IS in Sirte who is wanted by the Attorney General,” the official said.
Sirte, located some 450 km east of Tripoli, had witnessed months of fighting between forces allied with the UN-backed government and IS militants, which ended in December 2016 with the government forces taking over the city.
The government said that IS remains a threat to national security, despite its defeat in Sirte.

Imphal, Feb 2 (UNI) Manipur police and activists managed to rescue about 101 trafficked girls and detained six suspected human traffickers in a day long operation on Friday.
Police were still continuing to check movement of people in the border areas .
Manipur police, alerted by the activists from Nepal and the state, found16 girls at the Integrated Check Post (ICP) Moreh border.
Hotels in the border town were raided and about 40 girls in Moreh alone were rescued.
The operation continued the whole day and another 61 girls were rescued from Hotel Junction located at Imphal.
The suspected traffickers were found in different hotels at Imphal and Moreh.
Police suspected that all were to be used for illegal activities in the neighbouring countries.
One Rajiv Sharma, Sunauli town, Nepal was suspected of sending them, according to Tengnoupal police.
Montu Ahanthem, convener of Manipur Alliance for Child Rights (MACR) who was involved in the operation, said activist from Manipur now in Delhi alerted about the matter.
The activists in Manipur were in touch with Maiti Nepal, a Nepal-based NGO.
All the girls were kept at Ujjwala Home and they will be deported after the procedure.

Kolkata, Fev 02 (UNI) Starting from the next financial year, that is, 2019-20, the West Bengal Government has decided to pay the full amount of the premium to farmers for the crop insurance scheme, Bangla Fasal Bima Yojana (BFBY).
The full premium includes the Centre’s share, the State’s share and the farmers’ share.

This was announced recently by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Till now, the Bengal Government used to pay 80 per cent of the premium, that is, the State Government’s share and the farmers’ share. Now, the State Government has decided that it would no longer take the help of the Centre as, despite paying the lion’s share, the Centre used to take all the credit by making it mandatory for the prime minister’s picture to be there on all promotional and other materials for the scheme.

The State Agriculture has already completed the procedures required for the new structure of the scheme.
The State Government has also brought in certain changes to the scheme to make it more attractive for farmers so that more and more of them opt for it.

Farmers would now be able to get their crops insured against less earnings due to loss in production as a result of unfavourable weather or damages due to heavy rain, fire, lightning, storms, cyclones, typhoons, tornadoes, hailstorms, floods, droughts, and damages by insects and organisms like fungi, bacteria, viruses, etc.

In recent years, among the help provided by the State Government to farmers include paying almost 30 lakh farmers about Rs 1,200 crore for damages to their crops due to floods and droughts, waiving off of the agricultural tax and mutation fee, and the latest, introduction of the Krishak Bandhu Scheme.

Besides the recent announcements of the Krishak Bandhu Scheme and the full payment of subsidies for crop insurance by the State Government, and the earlier announcements of the waiving off duties on mutation and of agricultural tax, another announcement has been made – pension for farmers.

The pension amount would be Rs 1,000 per farmer, and the rules are as follows :
Minimum age should be 60 years, and for differently-abled farmers, 55 years, must be a resident of the state for the preceding ten years, to be a farmer, must own a maximum of one acre, and to be a bargadar, must own a maximum of two acres, or can be a landless labourer, should not have any other source of income or not have anyone to take care of and should not be drawing any emolument or pension through any other scheme of either the State or the Central Government.

Srinagar, Feb 2 (UNI) The Kashmir valley remained cut off from the rest of the country for the third consecutive day on Saturday following closure of 300-km-long Srinagar-Jammu due to landslides and shooting stones, triggered by rain and snow.

Meanwhile, the national highway, the only road linking Ladakh region with Kashmir and historic 86-km-long Mughal road remained shut since December last year due to accumulation of snow and slippery road conditions.

Traffic on the national highway, the only all weather road connecting Kashmir valley with the rest of the country, was suspended again on Thursday morning due to fresh snowfall on both sides of the Jawahar tunnel, Shaitan Nallah and Banihal and rain in Ramban area.

There were landslides and shooting stones at more than 7 places between Banihal and Ramban due to fresh snowfall and rain since Thursday, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) traffic national highway Naveen Choudhary said this morning

The situation on the highway is uncertain as nobody known when there will be landslides or shooting stone, he said adding the concerned authorities National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and Border Roads Organisation (BRO) are doing round the clock operation to put through the road.

Landslides and shooting stones were removed at least five places, he said adding work to clear the road from stones and earth was going on at Batery Cheshma and Penthal. But, Mr Choudhary said when the road is cleared suddenly more landslides occurred. We cannot take risk and allow traffic due to almost continuous shooting stones.

The SSP said we are allowing vehicles to move immediately after getting information about road clearance. However, fresh landslides and shooting stones again force us to shut the highway, he said adding nobody can help it.

However, he said, only stranded vehicles will be allowed to move towards their respective destinations before allowing fresh traffic from Jammu or Srinagar.

There is no passenger vehicle stranded on this side of the Jawahar tunnel, official sources told UNI from Qazigund.

However, they said large number of Jammu bound trucks, mostly carrying fruit, are stranded at Qazigund and other places.

The truckers alleged that they are not being allowed to move towards Jammu for the past about a week. There is no arrangement of water and food and fruit and other products loaded in the trucks are getting damaged, the drivers and conductor said.

The truckers held a demonstration on Friday against the continuous closure of the highway at Qazigund, gateway of Kashmir. However, they suspended their agitation after SP traffic highway assured them that they will be allowed to move once the landslides and shooting stones are cleared.

However, SP informed them that due to below freezing temperature, the road has become very slippery. The truckers appreciated the local residents who are arranging free langar for them (truckers).

Several thousand Kashmir bound passengers, including women and children, are stranded at Jammu bus stand and Udhampur for the past four days.

Reacting to the interim budget for 2019-20 presented in Parliament by Finance Minister Piyush Goyal, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday termed the Union Government’s announcement to give economic support to farmers as an ‘insult’ to farmers. In a post on social media,  Gandhi said,’Dear NoMo, 5 years of your incompetence and arrogance has destroyed the lives of our farmers.

Even as the singing of Vande Mataram commenced in a novel form on Friday in the Madhya Pradesh capital, Chief Minister Kamal Nath mounted another offensive on the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party by saying that an entity – whose not even a solitary member participated in the nation’s struggle for independence – is attempting to “teach us” a lesson in patriotism.
“Nationalism is in our blood and we do not require a certificate from anybody; when we announced that a creative aspect would be lent to the rendering, the BJP started ‘tutoring’ us,” he told the press here.

Earlier, hundreds of commoners and government officials accompanied the police band from Shaurya Smarak to Mantralaya where the national anthem and the national song were sung.

“It is shameful that not a single person owing allegiance to the BJP was observed at the gathering,” Congress state media Coordinator Narendra Saluja averred in a statement.

During the predecessor BJP dispensation, Vande Mataram was performed at regular intervals in front of Mantralaya(UNI)

(UNI) The Government on Friday proposed to launch a mega pension yojana namely ‘Pradhan Mantri Shram-Yogi Maandhan’ for the unorganised sector workers with monthly income of up to Rs 15,000 in addition to the health coverage provided under ‘Ayushman Bharat’ and life and disability coverage provided under ‘Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana’ and ‘Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana’.
Presenting the Interim Budget 2019-20 in Parliament, Union Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said, ”Past five years have seen massive scale up of health care. Earlier, a poor man used to be in a dilemma whether to fulfil daily needs of the family or save the life of an ailing member,” he said.
Mr Goyal said, ”This situation has deeply pained our Prime Minister. We launched the world’s largest healthcare programme, Ayushman Bharat, to provide medical treatment to nearly 50 crore people. Under this scheme, till date treatment has been provided to nearly 10 lakh patients which would have cost them Rs 3,000 crore through free treatment made available under the scheme.”
Lakhs of poor and middle class people are also benefiting from reduction in the prices of essential medicines, cardiac stents and knee implants, and availability of medicines at affordable prices through Pradhan Mantri Jan Aushadhi Kendras.

Traders’ community expressed disappointment with the budget presented on Friday.

“The Union Budget though seems to be overall good has utterly neglected the trading community and it has highly disappointed seven crore traders of the country who were hoping very high from the budget,” said Confederation of All India Traders in its release.

CAIT national president BC Bhartia and Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said that every other section of the economy has been given relief in the budget except the trading community which is the backbone of the economy. The budget makes us to feel that trading community is like an unwanted community in the country.

After renaming DIPP as Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade and giving no extension to FDI policy in e-commerce, the traders were hopeful that they will get due attention in the Budget but with totally left out from the Budget, the traders feel aggrieved.

However, the CAIT has said that it will send a fresh memorandum to Prime Minister and Finance Minister urging them to take care of the trading community.

Dismissing the claim of the Government of having made highest ever allocation of Rs three lakh crore in the Defence sector in the Interim Budget 2019-20, senior Congress leader and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Friday said that there was nothing extraordinary in the allocation.
Addressing the press conference here at Congress headquarters, Mr Chidambaram said that every year there is 10 percent increase in the Defence sector which was common practice in past too.
“It is not a big deal. It is a normal increase of 15 lakh crore to previous allocation of 2.85 lakh crore which crossed the figure of three lakh crore. Sometimes back, it crossed two lakh crore”, Mr Chidambaram said.
He said the Budget failed to include measures to boost ‘education’ and ‘jobs .
“On the 10 point vision document, nothing was said on these two issues,’’ he further said.(UNI)

Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Friday slammed the union budget saying it was a bundle of lies in which there was everything except truth.

“What will you do by bringing this budget when every sector in the country has decreased,”   Yadav made these comments on his Twitter handle.

He said in this budget the government made false promises. “There is no relief for the landless farmers and labourers,” he said.

“After five years’ pain and atrocities, the farmers, traders, unemployed youths, all want to get rid of the BJP,” the SP president said.

“The government has tried to project good things but people of the country are fed up with this BJP Government and its fake promises. Now they will not change their minds with these sops announced in the union budget,” the SP president claimed.(UNI)

Communist Party of India (CPI) National General Secretary Suravaram Sudhakar on Friday demanded the Centre to increase cash support to small and marginal farmers from Rs 6000 to Rs 12000 per year. In a bid to provide relief to the distressed farm sector, the Centre has announced Rs 6000 per year cash support to small and marginal farmers that will cost the exchequer Rs 75,000 crore annually. It was announced by the BJP led NDA government at the Centre in its annual budget 2019-20.

Under the scheme called Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi, Rs 6000 will be transferred into the bank accounts of farmers in three installments, each installment of Rs 2000 who holding below five acres of agriculture land.
At a press conference here,   Reddy welcomed the scheme for announcing it to only below five acres of land farmers.
Reddy said that there was no use with the Pradhan Mantri Kisahan Samman Nidhi scheme once after cud-down by the other subsidies like seed, fertilizers and other existing subsidies to the farmers.

“ If they have firm on farmers, the Centre should implement Swaminathan Committee recommendation. It is the only solution for the farm sector which is in distress state now”, the CPI leader said.(UNI)