Türkiye has welcomed the declaration of a ceasefire between Pakistan and India, calling it a significant opportunity to de-escalate tensions and promote lasting peace in South Asia.

In a statement released on Saturday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry urged both sides to take full advantage of the truce by engaging in “direct and healthy dialogue.”

“It is evident that dialogue mechanisms to prevent similar escalations, including in the field of counter-terrorism, need to be established to ensure sustainable stability in South Asia,” the ministry said.

Pakistan and India have agreed to a full and immediate ceasefire after days of deadly jet fighter, missile, drone and artillery attacks, the news was surprisingly announced by US President Donald Trump, who congratulated them on using “common sense”.

At least 33 people were killed and 62 others injured, according to the Pakistani army. Since the latest escalation began, at least 21 people were killed along the Line of Control by cross-border shelling in India-administered Kashmir, officials said.

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Thousands of Indian farmers prepared on Wednesday for a protest march to the capital, equipped with cranes and excavators, after talks with the government on guaranteed support prices for their produce failed to break a deadlock.
The action, watched by security forces clad in riot gear, came after farmers’ groups rejected a government proposal this week for five-year contracts and guaranteed support prices for produce such as corn, cotton and pulses.
The farmers, mostly from the northern state of Punjab, have been demanding higher prices backed by law for their crops. They form an influential bloc of voters Prime Minister Narendra Modi cannot afford to anger ahead of general elections due by May.
Authorities have thrown up barricades to keep protesters at a distance of nearly 200 km (125 miles) from New Delhi for more than a week, but police said the heavy machinery at Wednesday’s gathering was intended for use in damaging them.
“It is not right that such massive barricades have been placed to stop us,” said one of the farmer’s leaders, Jagjit Singh Dallewal. “We want to march to Delhi peacefully. If not, they should acede to our demands.”
Late on Tuesday, Haryana police’s chief ordered the immediate seizure of the heavy equipment to prevent its use by protesters in destroying barricades.
Sunday’s government proposal of minimum support prices to farmers who diversify their crops to grow cotton, pigeon peas, black matpe, red lentils and corn was rejected by the protesters, who wanted additional foodgrains covered.
Similar protests two years ago, when farmers camped for two months at the border of New Delhi, forced Modi’s government to repeal a set of farm laws.

Source: Reuters

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At least seven people have died and another 55 are feared to have been killed after a massive landslide in a remote area of the north-eastern Indian state of Manipur. 

“In all there were about 81 people. The chances of survival of the remaining 55 people are very thin considering the fact that the landslide occured around 2 am,” Haulianlal Guite, district magistrate of Noney district in Manipur, where the accident occurred, told Reuters by telephone on Thursday.

Rescue workers battled heavy rains and inclement weather to pull out nineteen survivors from the rubble after the landslide occurred at a railway construction site in the early hours of Thursday, but said the likelihood of finding any more was thin.

This month unprecedented rains have lashed India’s north-eastern states and neighbouring Bangladesh, killing more than 150 people. 

Millions have been displaced by the catastrophic floods in recent weeks, and in some low-lying areas houses have been submerged.

Army helicopters were on standby and assisting in rescue operations at the site of the landslide, a statement from the Indian army said.

“Army helicopters are on standby. The weather is very hostile and more landslides are hampering our rescue operations,” the statement said.

Source – TRT World

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India and China are to pull back troops from part of their disputed Himalayan border in what’s seen as a breakthrough following a deadly clash in June.

India’s defence minister said the move to withdraw troops in Ladakh was the result of “sustained talks” between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

His remarks came a day after a similar announcement from China.

Tensions have been high since the clash that left 20 Indian soldiers dead and a number of reported Chinese fatalities. Indian and Chinese troops have been facing off on the north and south shores of the glacial lake that lies in territory claimed by both sides.

The disputed 3,440km long de facto border – called the Line of Actual Control, or LAC – is poorly demarcated. The presence of rivers, lakes and snowcaps means the line can shift. The soldiers on either side – representing two of the world’s largest armies – come face to face at many points.

Adapted from original source: BBCnews

LT

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India on Monday scrapped the special provision granted to disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir. 

Speaking in the parliament, India’s interior minister Amit Shah tabled a proposed legislation “Constitution Applicable to J&K 2019” which removed Article 370 of Indian Constitution, granting special status to the region. 

Further, the minister also introduced another bill that the Indian administered Jammu and Kashmir is divided in two centrally administered regions.

The two units, which will be called “union territories”, will be ruled by two lieutenant governors. 

Since 1947, the Muslim majority Jammu and Kashmir enjoyed special provisions to enact its own laws. The special provision also protected its citizenship law that disallowed outsiders to settle and own land in the territory.

The proposed legislation was tabled in the parliament along with an official order issued by President Ram Nath Kovind which said the constitutional changes will be enforced immediately.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his election campaign earlier this year promised to remove special provision to India’s only Muslim majority state.

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Children in India are dying at an alarming rate due to suspected acute encephalitis syndrome (AES), with the death toll hitting 64 on Thursday, state-run media reported.

After detecting at least 143 cases of AES from 11 districts in India’s northeastern province of Bihar, local authorities deployed additional health personnel to check the spread of the fatal disease, according to a report by All India Radio.

AES is a severe case of encephalitis, the inflammation of the brain, transmitted by mosquitoes and characterized by high fever.

Eight children are reported to be in critical condition, it added.

The federal government had rushed a team of experts to the province on Wednesday to assess the situation with a deputy health minister scheduled to arrive the following day.

In 2012, more than 40 children died of the symptoms akin to AES, with young, malnourished individuals at particular risk of the illness.

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India evacuated hundreds of thousands of people to shelters along the coast in its western state of Gujarat as a cyclone gathering intensity over the Arabian Sea was expected to hit land on Thursday.

Weather officials said Cyclone Vayu, with wind speeds equivalent to those of a Category 1 hurricane, is set to cross the coast with sustained wind speeds of 145 kph to 155 kph (90 mph to 96 mph), and could gust as high as 170 kph (106 mph).

The state government said it had begun moving about 300,000 people from the most vulnerable areas into shelters.

“We have started evacuation in coastal districts today morning,” a Gujarat disaster management official said on Wednesday.

The state’s chief minister, Vijay Rupani, has asked India’s military and its National Disaster Response Force for help with rescue and relief efforts if the cyclone causes widespread damage and disruption.

The federal home minister, Amit Shah, also urged officials to ensure swift restoration of utilities such as power, telecoms and drinking water if they are disrupted by the cyclone.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) warned the cyclone could hold up the progress of annual monsoon rains, as the storm drew rain clouds from over the sea.

The monsoon was already about a week late in arriving at Kerala on the southern coast this year, and much of the country has broiled in a summer heatwave in recent weeks.

Gujarat is also home to large refineries and sea ports near the storm’s path.

India’s biggest oil refinery, owned by Reliance Industries, is in Gujarat, though a company official said the cyclone was expected to weaken by the time it reached the Jamnagar-based refinery.

“But in case the course changes or intensifies, the refinery is ready for any contingency,” he added, declining to be identified as he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Sikka Ports and Terminals, which handles crude oil and refined products for Reliance Industries, halted vessel berthing at a western port on Wednesday over a cyclone warning, according to a port notice.

The company’s ports also handle oil and refined products cargo for Bharat Oman Refineries, a subsidiary of state-run Bharat Petroleum Corp.

Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone is preparing to move employees at two ports it runs to safer areas, a spokesman said.

“Our Mundra and Tuna ports will be closest to the path,” he added. “All the necessary precautions are being put in place.”

Nayara Energy, owned by a consortium led by Russia’s Rosneft, said it was monitoring the situation and also taking precautionary measures at its Gujarat refinery.

In May, Cyclone Fani, the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane, killed at least 34 people on India’s eastern coast, destroying houses and ripping off roofs.

Authorities had evacuated more than 1.2 million people in advance of the storm, after an even more powerful cyclone in 1999 killed about 10,000 people and caused damage running into billions of dollars.

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India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking re-election, but he faces opposition from Rahul Gandhi of the Congress Party.

Five years ago, Modi made the election all about himself and what he would do if he won. And one of his main promises was overhauling India’s economy.

Unemployment is a major concern, with India suffering its worst rate in nearly half a century.

There are more than one billion people in the country – and about half are under the age of 25 and unemployed.

The needs of India’s farmers are also a priority.

About a quarter of the population works in agriculture, with many facing low crop prices and mounting debt.

Hate crimes are likely to be another issue.

There have been more attacks against religious minorities and marginalised communities since the last election.

And then there are questions about regional security after tensions between India and neighbouring Pakistan reached a high after a bomb attack in Indian-administered Kashmir in February.

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The captured Indian fighter pilot, who was attacked by a mob and then paraded on video by Pakistan’s army, will be released, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has said.

A senior Indian Air Force official welcomed the move on Thursday evening, but added that Islamabad was simply following international norms around prisoners of war.

“We have an Indian pilot. As a peace gesture, we will release him tomorrow,” Pakistan’s Khan told a joint sitting of parliament in capital Islamabad on Thursday.

Khan also said he had unsuccessfully tried to make a telephone contact with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on Wednesday night.

“Yesterday, I tried to call Narendra Modi,” Khan said. “I wanted to make it clear that we do not want any kind of escalation.”

India welcomed Pakistan’s decision to free the captured pilot, whose Mig-21 fighter was shot down during an aerial skirmish between the air forces of the two countries in the disputed region of Kashmir.

“We are extremely happy to have him back. We want to see him back,” India’s Air Vice Marshall RGK Kapoor told reporters in New Delhi.

“We only see it as a gesture which is in consonance with all Geneva conventions.”

Human face of the conflict
Following Pakistani villagers and soldiers filming his capture and captivity on Wednesday in video clips that have since gone viral on social media, the pilot – identified by Islamabad as Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman – fast emerged as the human face of the dangerous flare-up between the arch enemies.

Varthaman and the Indian Air Force (IAF) have been at the heart of the crisis between India and Pakistan after the latter claimed to have shot down two Indian fighter jets in response to the bombing of alleged “terror” targets inside Pakistan on Tuesday morning.

Tensions have flared between India and Pakistan since a suicide car bombing by Pakistan-based armed group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) in India-administered Kashmir killed at least 42 Indian paramilitary forces on February 14.

But the risk of an all-out armed conflict rose dramatically on Tuesday when India launched air raids on what it claimed was a JeM training camp near Jaba town in northern Pakistan.

As tensions rose between the nuclear-armed neighbours, the United States and China appealed for restraint.

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China sees “enormous potential” in Saudi Arabia’s economy and wants more high-tech cooperation, the Chinese government’s top diplomat said, as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman began a two-day trip to Beijing, Reuters reports.

The Saudi delegation, including top executives from Aramco, arrived on Thursday on an Asia tour that has already seen the kingdom pledged investment of $20 billion in Pakistan and seek additional investment in India’s refining industry.

The crown prince will meet President Xi Jinping, who has made stepping up China’s presence in the Middle East a key foreign policy objective, despite its traditional low-key role there.

Meeting Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, State Councillor Wang Yi said the main features of their ties were respect, understanding and support for each other, China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement late on Thursday.

“All countries in the world have the right to develop, and Saudi Arabia is an emerging market country with enormous potential,” the ministry paraphrased Wang as saying.

China supports Saudi’s efforts to diversify its economy and is willing to strengthen high-tech cooperation, Wang added.

Saudi Aramco, the world’s top oil exporter, will sign a pact to build a refinery and petrochemical project in northeastern Liaoning province in a joint venture with China’s defence conglomerate Norinco, three sources with knowledge of the matter said.

The investments could help Saudi Arabia regain its place as the top oil exporter to China, a position Russia has held for the last three years. Saudi Aramco is set to boost market share by signing supply deals with non-state Chinese refiners.

China has had to step carefully in relations with Riyadh since Beijing also has close ties with Saudi regional foe Iran.

On Wednesday, Xi told the speaker of Iran’s parliament that China’s desire to develop close ties with Iran would stay unaltered, regardless of the global situation.

China is also wary of criticism from Muslim countries about its camps in the heavily-Muslim far western region of Xinjiang, which the government says are for de-radicalisation purposes and rights groups call internment camps.

Wang said both countries face the threats of terrorism and extremism and should strengthen cooperation to safeguard security and stability.

China was not seeking to play politics in the Middle East, the widely-read state-run tabloid, the Global Times, said in an editorial on Friday.

“China won’t be a geopolitical player in the Middle East. It has no enemies and can cooperate with all countries in the region,” said the paper, published by the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily.

“China’s increasing influence in the Middle East comes from pure friendly cooperation. Such a partnership will be welcomed by more countries in the Middle East.”

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A swine flu outbreak in one of India’s biggest tourist hubs, Rajasthan state in the west of the country, has killed 76 people this year, government officials said on Wednesday.

Colder weather has worsened the seasonal outbreak of the H1N1 virus, with Rajasthan recording more than a third of all swine flu deaths in India, officials said.

Rajasthan’s cities, with their imposing fortresses and palaces, attract many overseas visitors, although officials said there no reports of any of them catching the virus.

More than 8,700 people in Rajasthan have been screened for H1N1 this year, and 1,976 had tested positive by Tuesday, a state health department spokesman told Reuters.

The worst affected area was Jodhpur district, which recorded 23 of the 76 deaths in the state so far this month.

Rajasthan reported 705 cases of swine flu and 53 deaths in the month of January last year.

A team from the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) arrived in Jodhpur on Tuesday and will spend two days to investigate the outbreak, the spokesman said.

Nationwide, 4,571 cases of H1N1 virus and 169 deaths were reported by Jan. 27, according to NCDC data.

Doctors said that the severity of the current outbreak in Rajasthan was partly due to colder than normal weather.

“It’s a seasonal disease and the weather is conducive to viral multiplication,” said Raman Sharma, senior professor at SMS Medical College in Jaipur, Rajasthan’s capital city.

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It’s that time of year again, when farmers across Haryana engage in stubble burning.

It’s a banned practice now for sure, but some just don’t have the finances to pursue other methods to clear their fields. And so, Delhi is suffocating again.

There’s been an onset of thick smog in the national capital region lately, thanks to smoke and particulate matter from these stubble burning incidents flowing down towards New Delhi and surrounding regions.

In fact, it’s so bad you can actually see the effects from NASA’s WorldView satellite feed.

Here’s what the area looked like on September 28

For those of you that don’t know, stubble burning is when farmers clear their fields of the crop stubble by, well, burning it.

The method has been outlawed by the government, but is still practiced in North India. Despite the amount of pollution it causes, even farmers aware of the damage may not be able to switch methods, purely because they don’t have the financial means to pursue other alternatives.

And the state governments in largely farming states like Punjab and Haryana say they don’t have enough aid from the Centre to compensate farmers that need to undertake more expensive measures. So each year, Delhiites are forced to tromp through fog that deteriorates their lungs with every breath.

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A primary school in India is being slammed for subjecting children to an “apartheid” regime amid allegations it is separating Muslims from Hindus during classes.

The school in the Wazirabad village in Delhi, in the National Capital Region, is facing scrutiny after it was reported that it’s assigning students to classes according to their religion.

According to attendance records analyzed by local news site the Indian Express, Hindu and Muslim pupils are being split up. Class IA, for example, has 36 Hindus while IB has 36 Muslims.

Singh Sehrawat, the teacher who has been directing the school since its principal was transferred in July, however, denied deliberately dividing children on the basis of their religion.

He said the “reshuffling” is “standard procedures” in all schools and aimed at ensuring “peace, discipline and a good learning environment” at the school. He claimed children “fought sometimes.” When asked if the fights were caused by religious differences, he said: “Of course children this young don’t know about religion, but they squabble over things.

“Some children are vegetarian, so there may be differences, and so on. We need to look after the interests of all teachers and students.”

But a source in the school told the Indian Express that the religion-based reshuffling only started when Sehrawat took over.

People took to Twitter to blast the reported segregation, with users saying “innocent” children should not be subjected to such divisive systems.

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Monkeys attacking tourists inside the Taj Mahal premises has become a matter of serious concern.

Authorities have not been able to curb the menace as tourists from India and abroad are being attacked by the monkeys at the Taj Mahal. The brand value of the world-famous monument of love and that of city of Agra is taking a hit.

Questions are being raised about the inability of the authorities and the management to secure the Taj Mahal properly.

President of Agra Tourist Welfare Chamber Prahlad Agarwal pointed out flaws in managing the Taj Mahal. He said that gangs of monkeys are roaming inside the Taj Mahal and there have been no efforts to clear the premises. Consequently, tourists are being attacked and injured by these monkeys.

Agra District Magistrate NG Ravi Kumar seemed to express his helplessness. He said that UP Tourism Directorate and the Principal Secretary of Tourism have been sent several reminders about this, but there has been no action till date.

Tourism Guild Chairman Arun Dang held the authorities responsible for the monkey menace. He said that attacks on tourists are indeed a serious matter.

He said that Archaeological Survey of India, UP Government, Agra administration and the Central Industrial Security Force are responsible for this mess.

He demanded immediate action as this was hurting tourism in the city.

Taj Mahal is earning a bad name because of the monkey attacks.

“If the news of monkey menace reaches international media, the number of tourists will fall sharply as not only the monkey bites are painful, but monkeys are carriers of diseases rabies, making the monkey attacks deadly as well,” said social activist Sameer.

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People in India’s flood-ravaged state of Kerala are facing a “great struggle to rebuild their lives”, local officials have warned, as high waters that have killed hundreds of people and displaced more than a million others start to recede.

Rescue teams searched throughout the southern state on Wednesday for survivors stranded during the area’s worst flooding for a century.

Torrential monsoon rains from the end of May onwards have forced an estimated 1.2 million people to shelter inside makeshift relief camps, according to government figures.

Rains subsided on Sunday after dramatically intensifying in the preceding two weeks, killing at least 238 people since August 8.

The death toll since the end of May has topped 380, while authorities say that dozens of people are still missing.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, State Relief Commissioner PH Kurian said that more than a million people remain in the camps.

“The exact number is not known, this is a dynamic figure,” he said on Wednesday.

As waters started receding over the past few days, authorities began taking stock of what is projected to be a months-long, if not longer, effort to rebuild the state’s devastated infrastructure and services.

Local officials estimate the floods caused $3bn of damage, with about 10,000km of Kerala’s roads and more than 100,000 houses needing to be reconstructed.

Several of Kerala’s predominant industries – including tourism as well as tea, rubber and spice plantations – have been hit particularly hard, with estimated losses totaling tens of millions of dollars.

Hotels and tour operators in several locations throughout the state have also witnessed cancellations approaching 80 percent of all bookings ahead of peak tourist season, which runs from September to March, according to Indian Association of Tour Operators figures reported by the Times of India.

On Tuesday, state Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan told reporters he had requested a $1.4bn loan from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to finance reconstruction efforts.

“Our aim is not merely a restoration of the state to pre-flood times, but the creation of a new Kerala,” Vijayan said.
Modi has pledged $71m of assistance to date, with more funding expected to be released by the central government in coming weeks, and deployed military units to help with recovery efforts.

“This is not going to be a 100-metre sprint, it is going to be a long marathon,” Unni Krishnan, a member of Save the Children’s emergency health unit, told Al Jazeera in reference to rebuilding efforts in the state, home to more than 33 million people.

Risk of disease
Medical officials and NGOs, meanwhile, warned of a heightened risk of waterborne disease outbreaks due to the flooding.

“Water sanitation and hygiene are very crucial at this time,” Ray Kancharla, Save the Children India’s humanitarian manager, told Al Jazeera.

Local health officials said earlier this week they were prepared to deal with any such emergence of disease and had distributed preventive medicines in a bid to avert an outbreak.

According to India’s central government health index, Kerala has the best performing public health system of any state in the country.

Save the Children officials told Al Jazeera that Kerala, one of India’s wealthiest states, was well positioned to avoid any major emergence of disease because of its strong public health system and a literacy rate approaching 100 percent.

“Health and education together is the definite antidote to stop disease outbreaks,” Krishnan said.
Schools throughout Kerala remained closed on Wednesday but are set to reopen next week, Krishnan added, following the conclusion of the state’s annual Hindu harvest festival.

“There are broken houses and damaged schools but along with that some of the invisible needs such as mental health and emotional care should also be a priority … [because] children will have questions like ‘why did this happen to me?'” he said.

“There is a lot of capacity in this state but what it lacks is the contextual experience because it has never dealt with a disaster of this magnitude before.”

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Restaurants around the globe are embracing technology in a big way to cater to the demands of its new generation customers.

The trend has reached India, too, where tech-savvy restaurants all over the country are trying to excel in delivering “unique and innovative” theme-based dining experiences and entertainment.

The rage for robot restaurants seen in countries like Singapore, Japan, China, Bangladesh and some western countries has prompted a team of youngsters in India’s Tamil Nadu to get into this enterprise.

Blending the latest technology with cuisine was witnessed in Tamil Nadu with two “robot restaurants” being launched, eight months apart, first in Chennai and later in Coimbatore recently.

In April last year, BoB – an Indian-designed robot prototype, was set up by VR Mall and demonstrated in many Bangalore restaurants as a precedent to explore the use of robots in food-serving techniques.

The “robot-restaurant” opened in Chennai in mid-November last year claims to be the first-of-its-kind in India. The restaurant earlier called MOMO was re-launched by co-owners Venkatesh Rajendran and Karthik Kannan in a robotic theme to deliver “novel and entertaining” experiences to their customers.

“I wanted to set up a restaurant different from others. So, I came up with an innovative concept of robots as waiters.

This robot-themed restaurant in Chennai utilizes four ‘robot waiters’ to serve 70 seated patrons,” Venkatesh Rajendra told Al Arabiya English.

Following the success of their pioneering venture, another franchise robot restaurant was opened in the textiles city of Coimbatore in July this year catering to 140 people and using 8 ‘robot waiters’.

All these robots are, however, imported from China and Japan where Venkatesh Rajendran also underwent robotic technical training to learn their operation, repair and programming.

Venkatesh calls the response to these restaurants “very enthusiastic”.

“The one in Chennai caters to Chinese, Indian and Thai cuisine while the Coimbatore one caters to multi-cuisine palate. There is a plan to open another franchise outlet in Bangalore in the coming months,” he said.

These “robots” are battery-operated and can be controlled by sensors. Each robot waiter is programmed to carry the food-trays from the kitchen to the designated customer table and to return the dirty dishes back to the kitchen.

These “robot waiters and waitresses” are elegantly attired and move on predetermined paths across the eateries; halting whenever obstacles are encountered.

Their eye sensors reflect annoyance when unnecessarily obstructed and they voice their request to keep their paths clear. These robots understand English and Tamil and are programmed to cheerfully greet the patrons at their tables.

Both the restaurants have an exotic dim-lit ambience with neon robotic figures painted on the walls all around the restaurants; complimenting their robotic-theme prominently.

Each table, allotted to a customer at these two restaurants has a phone tablet displaying the menu on which the customers can place their orders which are linked to the kitchen. The chefs in the kitchen prepare the orders and place them on the tray-laden humanoid waiters who take them to their respective tables.

Although the actual serving of the food at these tables and later their cleaning-up is done by human waiters, the customers are all excited and enraptured by their close encounters with the “robot waiters”. The human waiters hovering near the tables also explain the varied menu in detail as per customer request.

The “selfie corners” in both the restaurants are a major attraction and people from all age groups hover around here to capture their “selfie moments” with these unique waiters.

Frequently on the move but Coimbatore-based Z. Mohammed Nassar, co-founder and Director of E2E – Excite Marketing and Training Services, summed up his experience: “Technology is making eating out increasingly efficient and more entertaining. It is fun to experience having served by robots.”

With delicious food and reasonably priced menu coupled with the novel androids; these restaurants are running full houses and getting raving reviews. Prior reservations at these restaurants are strongly recommended to ensure seating and minimize the waiting period.

The resounding success of these restaurants could very well result in interactive robots and humanoids becoming a common sight at the food joints across India.

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India said on Monday it had excluded more than 4 million people from a draft list of citizens in the border state of Assam who could not produce valid documents, a move that has sparked fears about the future of thousands in the region.

Security has been tightened across the state, which borders Bangladesh, as thousands of Bengali-speaking Muslims worry about being sent to detention centers or deported, a Reuters witness said.

The tea-rich state of Assam has long been the center of social and communal tensions with locals campaigning against illegal immigrants, a fight that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist-led government has championed.

In 1983, scores of people were chased down and killed by machete-armed mobs intent on hounding out Muslim immigrants.

The government said the draft was not meant to drive people out and those struck out of the list would have a chance to re-apply.

“Based on this draft, there is no question of anyone being taken to detention centers or foreigners’ tribunal,” Sailesh, India’s census commissioner who uses only one name, told reporters in Guwahati, the state’s main city.

Hundreds of thousands of people fled to India from Bangladesh during Bangladesh’s war of independence from Pakistan in the early 1970s. Most of them settled in Assam, which has a near-270 km (165-mile) border with Bangladesh.

More than 30 million people had applied and 4,007,707 had been excluded from the list, Sailesh said.

To be recognized as Indian citizens, all residents of Assam had to produce documents proving that they or their families lived in the country before March 24, 1971.

Sailesh did not provide a breakup of people who had failed to make to the draft list.

Critics see the citizenship test as another measure supported by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) aimed at minority Muslims. The BJP denies any bias but says it opposes a policy of appeasement of any community.

Authorities in the state have previously said the citizenship test was crucial to protect ethnic Assamese, many of whom have demanded removal of outsiders they accuse of taking jobs and cornering resources in the state of 33 million.

The first draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), released on Dec. 31, confirmed the citizenship of 19 million people, leading to jubilation for some and heartbreak among others.

The NRC, however, told the Supreme Court this month that 150,000 people from the first list, a third of them married women, would be dropped from the next one, mainly because they provided false information or gave inadmissible documents.

“If the government has decided to brand us foreigners what can we do?” said Abdul Suban, 60, a Bengali-speaking Muslim, earlier.

“The NRC is trying to finish us off. Our people have died here, but we will not leave this place.”

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Samsung opened the world’s largest smartphone factory in India on Monday, a move Prime Minister Narendra Modi said would help transform Asia’s third-largest economy into a global manufacturing hub.

Modi and South Korean President Moon Jae-in inaugurated the giant assembling plant — an expansion of an existing Samsung facility — in the city of Noida on the outskirts of New Delhi.

“The Noida plant has now become Samsung’s largest smartphone manufacturing unit,” Moon said, as the company announced that it planned to eventually manufacture 120 million smartphones a year at the factory.

The decision by Samsung comes at a critical time for the South Korean electronics giant, which is facing a tough battle from Chinese competitors for the control of India’s massive smartphone market.

It is also a shot in the arm for Modi’s flagship “Make in India” campaign which is trying to attract foreign investment and drum up much-needed jobs in manufacturing.

Modi said the new factory would generate jobs in Uttar Pradesh, an impoverished state of roughly 220 million where his Bharatiya Janata Party won a crucial election last year.

“This is an important step towards making India a manufacturing hub,” the prime minister said of the $750 million factory investment.

“It is a matter of pride for India and Uttar Pradesh.”

President Moon will be formally received by India’s President Ram Nath Kovind on Tuesday before holding talks with Modi in the Indian capital.

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Their constant criticism of her cooking skills drove the young Indian woman to murder.

Pradnya Survase, a 23-year-old woman living in India’s Raigad district, allegedly mixed snake poison into a container of dahl which she served to guests at a house-warming party.

She’d reportedly been intending to kill her husband, mother-in-law, two sisters-in-law and her mother-in-law’s sister.

According to The Metro, Pradnya told local police she wanted to kill them because they relentlessly mocked her dark complexion and cooking.

“Pradnya claims that since her marriage two years ago, she’s been insulted regularly for her dark complexion and accused of not being able to cook well,” senior police inspector of Khalapur police station, Vishwajeet Kaingade, told the Hindustan Times.

So on 18 Jun, the 23-year-old invited 120 guests to her housewarming in Mahad village, about 75km from Mumbai.

A village cook was hired to serve food from 2:30pm to 11:30pm.Later during the festivities, some of the guests began experiencing nausea and stomach aches and some were vomiting.

The Hindustan Times reports that 88 people were rushed to hospital while four children – aged between seven and 13 – died, along with Gopinath Nakure (53). Two of the fatalities were relatives of Pradnya’s.

Vilash Thikrey, a 13-year-old survivor of the incident, told local media that the dhal tasted “bitter”, The Metro adds.

“We learnt that those who had eaten between 4:30pm and 6pm were suffering from nausea and other issues. We then found out who’d served the food during that time,” senior police inspector Vishwajeet Kaingade said.

Police then questioned those who had served the food but soon after Pradnya confessed, Mail Online writes.

A forensic analysis revealed pesticide was present and traces of poison were found near the house.

Pradnya faces charges of murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to murder. If found guilty, she could face the death penalty.

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In India there is a presumption that good, juicy dates are procured only in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Little do we know that similar quality dates can be grown in India too.

Though the Kutch region in Gujarat, Punjab and Rajasthan are two major date-growing states, with Gujarat alone home to 2 million date palm trees, Tamil Nadu in south India is fast catching up.

Despite India being the one of the largest importers of dates in the world – around 3.5 million metric tons every year – there is good market for homegrown dates both locally and abroad.

Farm-cum-nursery
Meet Nizamuddin S., who cultivates 32 varieties of the luscious fruit as well as date palms. His farm-cum-nursery at Ariyakulam in Dharmapuri district in western part of Tamil Nadu literally bears fruits of hard labor and innovation.

The dangling cluster of dates on date palms at his farm are feast for the eyes. Owner of Saliah Dates, Nizamuddin got the idea of cultivating dates while working in Saudi Arabia.

Finest Saudi dates
Responding to emails from Al Arabiya English, Nizamuddin said: “Saudi Arabia has the finest dates in the world. One fine day I thought why such dates cannot be grown in India? It seemed possible and I bought 100 plants for testing and the idea blossomed”.

There has been no looking back since then as his nursery-cum-farm now has more than 32 varieties of date palms. One of them is the Barhee dates, which costs Rs. 300 per kilogram. Barhee is the best variety and yields more than 200kg per plant.”

Tamil Nadu is an important state for dates in southern India. Here climate, soil and irrigation facilities in some coastal regions like Tirunelveli, Tuticorin and Ramanathpuram districts favor date palm cultivation.

Tissue culture technology
Over decades of cultivation practices followed in different regions, regenerating dates either by seeds or offshoots and trying different imported cultivars, have led to the present date fruits of great variations in size, shape, color, weight, taste and astringency.

Moreover, controlling date palm diseases using methods, which do not pollute soil, plant and products, has not been easy.

The obvious solution was to produce date palms by adopting tissue culture technology, which enables farmers to select only the best trees as every plant produced from the cut stem is genetically identical to the parent tree.

Transforming technology
Nizamuddin is aware that tissue culture can do wonders to the plantation. So he started to import tissue culture plants from abroad where such technologies have been developed.

“Twenty years ago first we tried seedlings. But there was an issue in the sense that we could not differentiate between a male and female plant. Only the female date palm can bear date fruits. But with tissue culture the plant is 100 percent female and we can get yield by 2 1/2 years”, says Nizamuddin.

“We import such plants from Abu Dhabi and sell all over India. We are soon planning to introduce new varieties.

Ajwa dates are our first priority. Depending on how successful the yield is we will go for further new varieties. On the anvil are making different types of food products with dates like date syrup, chocolates, etc.”

Source – Al Arabiya

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