Sunday, November 10, 2013

from The Hindu, Saturday, November 9, 2013


Typhoon Haiyan kills over 1000 in Philippines
Manila One of the world’s strongest typhoons was feared to have killed more than 1,000 people in the Philippines, where it displaced hundreds of thousands and caused widespread devastation before blowing out towards Vietnam on Saturday.


The Commonwealth Secretariat will assist Sri Lanka in setting up a National Inquiry on Torture, its Secretary-General Mr. Kamalesh Sharma said in an interview to The Hindu at the Secretariat headquarters at Marlborough House on the eve of his departure to Colombo to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. To be set up under the aegis of the Sri Lanka National Human Rights Commission and to be assisted and monitored by the Commonwealth Secretariat, the inquiry will investigate all allegations of torture committed by government agencies or arms of the state from 2009 (the final stages of the civil war) to the present, he said.


A day after the Gauhati High Court quashed the Union Home Ministry’s resolution by which the Central Bureau of Investigation was constituted in 1963, Union Law Minister Kapil Sibal on Friday said the Centre would file an appeal.


Congress leader Sajjan Kumar on Friday sought to declare “illegal” the probe and charge sheets filed by the CBI in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case against him in the wake of the Gauhati High Court judgment holding the setting up of the investigating agency “unconstitutional.”


Pressure mounted on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday from within the Congress’s leadership to stay away from the Commonwealth meeting in Colombo, with senior leaders hinting that domestic considerations outweighed strategic interests.


India and Kuwait on Friday held talks in the areas of investment, trade, and security, and of joint ventures in the energy sector, to take their relationship beyond the present buyer-seller partnership. As Kuwait holds over $350 billion in surplus funds and accounts for 10 per cent of India’s oil imports, talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Kuwaiti counterpart Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah centred around these two aspects. As many as five pacts were signed in the presence of the two leaders.


The Goa police on Friday disclosed that 39 of the 52 Nigerians presently in judicial custody did not have valid documents while 12 had Photostat copies of visas and only one had produced original documents. The 52 Nigerians are in two main jails of the State for their involvement in the violent ruckus at Parra and later at Porvorim in north Goa on October 31, protesting against the murder of their compatriot.


The destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons production and mixing equipment may have been completed ahead of schedule but its problems remain far from resolved.


By taking the moral high ground on the Sardar Patel statue issue, the Congress has conveniently forgotten that it was among the earliest to take to statues in a big way.


Following Indonesia’s vigorous counter-terrorism operations of the last decade, terrorists are once again concentrating on fighting the state and its symbols with a local, rather than global, agenda.


Scientists have published the most complete picture yet of the devastation caused by the meteor that exploded over the city of Chelyabinsk in Russia this year.


The story of the Indian Mujahideen tells us that communal violence and jihadist terrorism are intimately enmeshed. Rahul Gandhi deserves credit for addressing inconvenient truths, however clumsily.


Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary Vaiko has demanded that Sri Lanka be suspended from the Commonwealth and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting be called off.


Registering land documents and marriages has become hassle-free: apply online for appointment and head to the office at specified time.


Tata Motors, on a consolidated basis, reported a 71 per cent jump in its net profit at Rs.3,542 crore for the second quarter ended September 30, 2013, against Rs.2,074 crore in the same period last year. This was primarily due to a better-than-expected performance of the company’s Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) unit despite a setback in the company’s India business, which was hit by an overall slowdown, it said.


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