Priyanka’s heart goes out for slum girls

Priyanka Chopra has always been in to promoting girl child education but now that she’s officially associated with UNICEF she is planning to go a step ahead. As a brand ambassador, she believes if she can influence masses she should use her star power. So, she is now planning to go door to door to speak to various families in small towns and villages. She is also planning to conduct lectures for them. The actress also made efforts to go to slums and meet the girls to understand the problem from grassroots level. While sharing her experience she said that it is indeed sad to see so many girls being subjected to work or get married at tender age instead of seeking education.

She hopes that all the parents would think like her parent who have brought her up to become an independent woman but is disappointed to know that even affluent families in the city like Mumbai do not give importance to the education of their girl child.

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Mumbai ship collision: Captain blames Captain

The Captain of the MSC Chitra, the ship carrying oil and pesticide that collided with another close to the Mumbai harbour on Saturday, has been granted interim bail by the Sessions court.

Captain Mandeleno Ranjit Martin had said in his bail plea that the collision happened because of a navigational error which was caused by the failure of radio communication. He said there was no error on his part and pointed out that he had been a part of the industry for 18 years

Martin also said in his bail application that there was no point of sending him to police custody as there was nothing to recover from him.

He added that the MV Khalijia, with which his ship had collided, was not fit to sail at sea and that it was the Captain of this ship who was responsible for the accident.


The Chitra had collided with the Khalijia on Saturday and tilted dangerously. A leak in the ship caused its cargo of oil to start pouring into the sea, causing a huge oil spill. To make matters worse, some containers detached from the ship and started floating. There were fears that these contained hazardous material, but those 31 containers were later found secure in the ship's hold.

The oil leak was finally plugged on Tuesday, but 800 tonnes of oil was spilt, double of what was thought earlier. Both the Mumbai Port and Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) have been closed. The Mumbai Port may not open till Friday. It will take days to clean up the slick and could take up to six to eight months to refloat the ship and tow it away. (Mumbai oil spill: Clean up to take 45 days)

A Singapore-based company will conduct salvage operations from Friday. A crane mounted on a ship has been placed next to the Chitra and preliminary clearing operations have begun.
First, the ships containers will be removed and oil will be pumped out and only then will the ship be towed to the shore.

Images shot by us show that the oil slick is affecting marine life and the environment.

we travelled to Uran in Raigad district to find out the impact of the spill, and the situation is scary. A snake which came in from the sea was covered in oil, and the mangroves here are bearing the brunt of the accident.

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JK: Militants attack Army convoy

A group of militants opened fire at an Army vehicle carrying soldiers in the Rajouri district of Jammu Kashmir on Wednesday, Aug 11.

Buzz up!
Reports said a passenger bus was caught in the crossfire killing a woman and injuring 17 civilians and two jawans.


The report further added that the Army truck came under attack in the Deraki Gali area of Thana Mandi early this morning.

Army troops retaliated and a heavy gunbattle followed which continued till last reports came in.

The bus passengers have been evacuated and the injured are admitted to a local hospital in Rajouri.

This firing took place after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appealed citizens to end violence in the Valley.

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Oppn for more relief to Bhopal gas victims

Dubbing as "paltry" the relief announced recently for Bhopal disaster victims, the Opposition on Wednesday demanded a substantial increase in it and asked the government to become a party to a petition filed in a US court to extract compensation from American firm Dow Chemicals.

Initiating a debate in the Lok Sabha on the 1984 gas tragedy, Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj charged the then Rajiv Gandhi government with allowing Warren Anderson, then chief of Union Carbide in whose Bhopal plant the gas leak occurred, to "escape".

Demanding that Parliament pass a resolution scrapping the 1989 out-of-court settlement between Union Carbide and the government, she said what has been witnessed in Bhopal was "a case of corporate manslaughter" and not of "mere negligence".

She wanted India to take a cue from the Rs 90,000 crore compensation secured by the US from British Petroleum due to the recent oil spill in Gulf of Mexico to strengthen the case in a US court for more relief to the Bhopal victims.

India should become a party in the suit filed by some NGOs from Bhopal in the New York South court to get "thousands of crore as compensation" for the victims from Dow Chemicals, which now owns the assets of the Union Carbide, she contended.

In an hour-long speech, Swaraj said the victims of the tragedy have suffered "several betrayals" since the disaster struck 25 years ago and it was strange that some concerned judges, who handled the case, were "compensated adequately".

"One judge went on to become a member of the International Court of Justice, while another became head of several commissions and even a member of the Rajya Sabha. The gas victims were only deceived," she said.

She was also critical of former Chief Justice A S Ahmadi for a judgement that limited the punishment to the accused to only two years.

While a demand for compensation of Rs 3,900 crore was made, the government agreed for only Rs 615 crore in the 1989 settlement, Swaraj said.

Countering the charges, Manish Tewari (Cong) said the government had moved the US courts, which had ruled that the cases be pursued in India.

He charged the BJP with "doing politics over the dead bodies" of the victims of the tragedy.

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BJP seeks PM's explanation over J&K autonomy remark

Slamming Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Kashmir peace formula in the Rajya Sabha today, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said autonomy for the state will not be tolerated because it would mean a reversal of Kashmir's integration with India and sought an explanation. "We are not in favour of giving

independence to Kashmir under the garb of autonomy. We are against disintegration of Kashmir from India. Do you think autonomy is a step in the right direction?" BJP Spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

"Whatever is possible within the Constitution of India without compromising the sovereignty of India and without compromising on Kashmir being a part of India, BJP is open to discussion on any other issue," BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu said.

The principal Opposition party in Parliament targeted the Prime Minister to explain thoroughly the meaning of autonomy and termed the comment as unfortunate.

On Tuesday, during a meeting of representatives of different political parties from Jammu and Kashmir in New Delhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said, "If there is consensus among political parties on autonomy for the state, then it can be considered within the ambit of the Constitution."

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Observing Ramadan? There's an app for that

The most ancient traditions of Islam are going high-tech, with a slew of modern offerings for those observing the holy month of Ramadan, which begins this week.

Cell phone applications such as "iPray" or "iQuran" offer a beeping reminder of requisite prayer times, while the "Find Mecca" and "mosque finder" programs help the Muslim traveler in an unfamiliar city find the nearest place to pray.

"When I saw these applications for the first time, I thought: this is amazing," said James Otun, who has several Islamic applications on his Apple iPhone and iPad. "Whoever came up with this idea: God bless him or her."

The applications aren't just for Ramadan; there are Islamic-themed programs that help users find the nearest Costco offering foods prepared according to Islamic dietary rules, learn the correct Arabic pronunciations in a daily prayer, or count how many pages of the Quran they've read that day - all on a mobile phone.

There also are applications, or apps, for the holy books of several other religions, from the Catholic Holy Bible to the Bhagavad Gita, a sacred Hindu scripture.

The first time Sumeyye Kalyoncu heard the Adhan - or call to prayer - through surround-sound speakers on her iPhone dock, she was overcome with nostalgia for her native Turkey. Such applications are especially popular in the U.S., Kalyoncu said, as U.S. mosques do not broadcast daily calls to prayer from external loudspeakers, as they do in Muslim countries.

"These are traditions and these have been in our lives for ages, like almost 15 centuries, so they seem very old," Kalyoncu said. "I think this is like combining together the technology and the things that we do daily."

Kalyoncu uses an iPhone app called iPray Lite, keeping track of requisite daily prayers with a program that simulates the clicking sound of prayer beads or the turning wheel of a handheld metal counter Muslims use to keep count of prayer repetitions. Using headphones, the 24-year-old says she can now fulfill her daily spiritual obligations by counting prayers on her iPhone on the commuter bus to Manhattan from her Edgewater home.

Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller said the company doesn't track the more than 225,000 apps for its phones by category so she doesn't know how many are Islamic-themed. The programs aren't just offered by Apple; Nokia has a Ramadan suite for its cell phones that consolidates everything worshippers need to know to observe Islam's holiest month, in which Muslims worldwide observe daily daylight fasting.

Some apps are free. Those that are not generally range from about 99 cents to $2.99, although some are more expensive.

The dates of Ramadan still are determined by the lunar calendar, and calculations can differ among Islamic communities around the world. In North America, many Muslims will mark the first day of Ramadan on Wednesday.

But Islam never has been at odds with innovation, said Zinnur Tabakci, who runs an Islamic religious book and gift shop in Paterson, N.J..

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Solutions available on a country-to-country basis: RIM to US

Canadian company RIM, the manufacturers of BlackBerry device, has told the United States that there are solutions available on a country-to-country basis to address security concerns regarding its service.

Research In Motion (RIM) officials conveyed the message to the US State Department at a meeting on Monday.

Following the concerns being raised by countries like India, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, the United States is in discussion with both RIM officials and these countries on the security related issues and uninterrupted access to the BlackBerry devices by people across the globe.

"It was very helpful for RIM officials to help us understand their global perspective. They indicated that their services are offered in almost every country in the world. There might be a handful that they do not have a presence,"State Department spokesman P J Crowley told reporters at a daily news conference.

"So they were giving us that kind of global perspective on the issues that have been raised in negotiations with multiple countries. They did not go into details of any specific negotiation," he said.

"It was very useful for us and I think at the end of the meeting, their perspective was that they believe that there are, again broadly speaking, solutions available that on a country-by-country basis can satisfactorily address and balance the regulatory security and access issues that are at stake," Crowley said.

The US and RIM recognise that there were a range of interests and it is important to balance these competing interests, the senior official added.

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