A cleric seeks to establish his party in an alliance with the Left & the Congress The world of professional religious preachers is more competitive than pious in which the charismatic ones flourish, and the lesser mortals fade. Abbas Siddiqui’s Islamic discourses in Bengali pulled in massive crowds in the Muslim localities of south Bengal for years. This year, he himself is a convert. From religious sermons, he has transitioned to political combat. His new outfit, ambitiously named as the Indian Secular Front (ISF), is potentially a political platform for Muslims, who constitute more than one-fourth of the population of…
Author: Mike Harrison
National Conference (NC) vice-president Omar Abdullah and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday asked India and Pakistan to widen the scope of dialogue and address the Kashmir issue.“War is no solution. All issues can be resolved through dialogue. India and Pakistani leadership must move beyond the secret talks and join the table for an open dialogue,” Mr. Abdullah said at a function in Pulwama.Mr. Abdullah said the betterment of J&K “only rides on the Indo-Pak bonhomie”. “The positive shift in the relations augurs well for long-lasting peace and prosperity in the entire region. The engagement vindicates the…
An election official died on duty at the Salkathoni polling booth in Sonari constituency of Charaideo district on Saturday, hours after voting began for the first phase of elections. The official, identified as Tulsi Khanikar, was assigned polling station number 187. District officials said he was rushed to a hospital in Dibrugarh after he collapsed, and his health started deteriorating. But he passed away on the way to the hospital. The 47 seats in the first phase cover 12 districts of eastern Assam. Source
Patient developed moderately severe pneumonia despite her previous treatment and vaccination. Amid a sudden increase in the COVID-19 infections, a private hospital in Jaipur has successfully treated Rajasthan’s first case of re-infection, which occurred despite the patient having been given the first dose of the vaccine. The unusual case has caught the doctors here by surprise, as the 28-year-old patient had developed a good quantity of antibodies.The patient, a dental doctor, was admitted to the Rajasthan Hospital here on March 15 after developing moderately severe COVID-19 pneumonia for the second time, with the complaints of cough and high grade fever,…
Hundreds of people demonstrated outside a key mosque in the Bangladesh capital on Saturday, as the country braces for violence a day after deadly protests by hardline Islamists against a visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.The clashes, which began on Friday at the main mosque in the capital Dhaka, spread to several key districts in the the Muslim majority nation of 168 million, leaving five people dead and scores injured.Facebook has been restricted in the country, a company spokesman said, after users complained they could not access the site since late Friday afternoon as images and reports of the violence…
The signs on the ground indicate the Congress is heading for a landslide victory in Assam, senior party leader and Rajya Sabha member Mallikarjun Kharge said on Saturday. Elections were held across 47 of Assam’s 126 Assembly seats in the first phase on Saturday. Tea plantation workers, a majority of whom shifted loyalty from the Congress to the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2016, will be the deciding factor in 38 of these seats. “The first phase of polling has given clear signs of a landslide victory for the Congress in Assam. The guarantees of our party have visibly stumped the…
The Summit’s guest list is indicative of the priority the administration places on climate action and clean technology . U.S. President Joe Biden will host a virtual ‘Leaders Summit on Climate’ on April 22 and 23, with 40 world leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In the run up to this, U.S. Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry will visit India in early April in the run up to this meeting, sources told The Hindu .Other guests at the climate summit will include President Xi Jinping of China and President Vladimir Putin of Russia, both of whom have a challenging…
The contentious bill, which is currently going through Parliament, gives police stronger powers to restrict protests. Police in the English city of Bristol say they arrested 10 people during a third night of protest against a new policing law. Hundreds of demonstrators against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill staged a sit-down protest outside a police station in the southwest England city on Friday night, and some scuffled with officers in helmets and shields who tried to break up the gathering.The Avon and Somerset Police force said on Saturday that eggs, bottles and bricks were thrown at officers and…
The agreement comes amid a major push from China to back Iran which is reeling under the weight of U.S sanctions. China and Iran on Saturday signed what was described as a 25-year “strategic cooperation pact”, during Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s on-going six-nation tour to West Asia.The deal, which has been in the works for five years, was signed between Mr. Wang and his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif, Agence France-Press reported from Tehran. Mr. Wang is visiting Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, the UAE, Bahrain and Oman.The agreement comes amid a major push from China to back Iran, which counts…
Earlier, Myanmar’s military celebrated the annual Armed Forces Day holiday with a parade on Saturday. As Myanmar’s military celebrated the annual Armed Forces Day holiday with a parade Saturday in the country’s capital, soldiers and police elsewhere reportedly killed dozens of people as they suppressed protests in the deadliest bloodletting since last month’s coup.A count issued by an independent researcher in Yangon who has been compiling near-real time death tolls put the total as darkness fell at 93, spread over more than two dozen cities and towns. The online news site Myanmar Now reported the death toll had reached 91.Both…