Law Breaking News

F or many years of my childhood, my imagination associated with trains ran parallel to its rails, never to meet at a point to realise it! In my district known for its hills and terrains, the rail tracks never made it till there but the fascination associated with rails ran undiminished! Very vaguely I remember the first journey in a push-pull train that ran between the neighbouring districts. I still remember the excitement and the joy of sitting beside the window or peeping out of the door enjoying the gush of wind on the face. The warnings from our parents about the dangers of standing at the door only would bring us back to our senses. For many years from that first journey, I preferred bus travels even to places well connected by train, just for the comfort that the frequent bus travels had brought in! In the later years, I had to take up train travels to very remote parts of central, northern and eastern parts of India which were connected only by trains. Those travels … [Read more...] about Rails of fascination

The North East Cyber Crime Police on Saturday arrested a 32-year-old labourer from Raichur who had cheated a retired government servant on the pretext of helping him withdraw money from the ATM. The accused, Mallinath Angadi, took the senior citizen’s debit card and handed over a duplicate card while retaining the original card. M.G. Ramakrishne Gowda, who went to generate the PIN for his newly issued debit card at the Canara bank ATM in Yelahanka New Town on May 21, was helped by an unidentified person who also helped him withdraw ₹40,000. Mr. Gowda returned home with the card handed over by the unidentified person and retuned to the ATM on June 13 to know that the entire saving of ₹8.5 lakh had been withdrawn and the debit card he had with him was fake. Based on the complaint, the police tracked down the accused by analysing footage from over hundred of CCTV cameras and arrested Mallinath, a native of Raichur and resident of Attur layout, and recovered 75 gram of gold valuables … [Read more...] about Conman arrested for duping senior citizen at ATM

In the fall of 2012, an ailing Bal Thackeray, founder and patriarch of Maharashtra’s then dominant right-wing party — the Shiv Sena (Army of Shivaji) — had appealed to his Shiv Sainiks to stand by his son Uddhav and grandson Aaditya Thackeray. In what would be his final address to his party workers, Bal Thackeray, in his pre-recorded speech at the party’s annual Dussehra rally in Mumbai’s Shivaji Park, called upon the Marathi manoos (Marathi-speaking sons-of-the soil) to remain united and smash the Congress. The speech, three weeks before the 86-year-old Thackeray’s death in November that year, also had an implied appeal to his estranged nephew, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray, to join forces with the Shiv Sena. A decade later, while the prospects of the Sena and the MNS uniting have completely evaporated, a bleaker question facing Mr. Uddhav and his son today is whether ordinary Sainiks will stand by them after the recent rebellion of 40 MLAs led by Eknath … [Read more...] about Shiv Sena | The Maratha tiger in its labyrinth

“They cannot file a complaint against me for writing a story because we have facts with us in our stories,” Mohammed Zubair, the co-founder of fact-check website Alt News, said in an interview in October 2021. “They cannot attack us on the story that we’ve written, so they are looking to attack me for any other unrelated tweet.” A Twitter sensation with over half-a-million followers, Mr. Zubair was both loved and loathed on the social networks. While many applaud the efforts by Alt News, the website he co-founded with Pratik Sinha, to debunk disinformation and misinformation campaigns, his critics, mainly those in the right-wing online ecosystem, have repeatedly targeted him. On June 27, the 39-year-old journalist was arrested by the Delhi Police , based on a complaint from an anonymous Twitter handle that alleged that Mr. Zubair hurt religious sentiments over a tweet he sent out four years ago and that he should be prosecuted for the same. The tweet was of an image from a … [Read more...] about Mohammed Zubair |  The man who chased facts

A series of strong earthquakes rocked southern Iran on Saturday, killing at least five people, injuring over 90 others and reducing an entire village to rubble. The quakes, including two of magnitude 6.0, struck west of the major port city of Bandar Abbas in Hormozgan province, the US Geological Survey said. The first rattled an area north of the town of Dezhgan shortly after 2 am (2130 GMT), before a 5.7 tremor hit two hours later followed quickly by the second 6.0 magnitude quake, the USGS said. Five people were killed, Hormozgan governor Mehdi Dousti said, quoted by official news agency IRNA . Dousti told state television that the village of Sayeh Khosh, close to the epicentre, had been “completely destroyed”. “Ninety-three people were injured, of whom only seven are still in hospital for treatment,” national emergency services spokesman Mojtaba Khaledi told state television. The broadcaster showed footage of residential buildings reduced to rubble in Sayeh Khosh, which was … [Read more...] about Iran: 5 Killed, Over 90 Injured as Strong Quakes Strike Major Port City; Two of Magnitude 6.0, Says USGS

When you groggily roll out of bed and make breakfast, the government edges up to your kitchen table, too. Unlike you, it's perky. It's an unseen force in your morning. The government makes sure you can see the nutrients in your cereal. It fusses over your toast, insisting that the flour it comes from has no more than 75 insect fragments and one rodent hair per 50 grams. The government also tends to your coffee, mandating that no more than 10% of your beans be moldy. Its satellites inform the weather forecast on your phone for the day ahead. The government weighs in on the water consumption in your bathroom and controls the fluoride in your toothpaste. That’s all before you leave home. The government is going to be hanging with you on and off, mostly on, until you turn off the lamp last thing at night — no new incandescent bulbs, please, under a new rule. The world of federal regulation seems both boundless and microscopic. It touches what you touch. It lends a helping … [Read more...] about From AM to PM, the fickle force of government is with you

China’s top diplomat on Saturday arrived on his first visit to Myanmar since the military seized power last year to attend a regional meeting that the government said was a recognition of its legitimacy and opponents protested as a violation of peace efforts. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will join counterparts from Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam in a meeting of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation group in the central city of Bagan, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The grouping is a Chinese-led initiative that includes the countries of the Mekong Delta, a potential source of regional tensions due to an increasing number of hydroelectric projects that are altering the flow and raising concerns of ecological damage. China has built 10 dams along the upper stretch of the Mekong, the part it calls the Langcang. Military government spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told a news conference in the capital Naypyitaw on Friday that the attendance of the foreign ministers at the … [Read more...] about China’s top diplomat visits Myanmar amid opposition protest

Pride in London has returned to the capital for the first time since 2019, celebrating 50 years since the very first march took place in 1972. More than one million people are expected to descend on the capital for the parade, which begins from 12pm on Saturday (2 July). According to the organisers, 30,000 people have registered to join the march from more than 600 LGBT+ community groups. The parade is an “opportunity for expression of celebration, joy and triumph but also the voice to rightly express the continued fight for those injustices and inequalities that exist among us,” Pride in London said. Those marching today will be calling on the UK government to ban conversion therapy for all LGBT+ people, reform the Gender Recognition Act, and provide equal protection for LGBT+ communities against hate crime. Recommended Pride in London unveils official 2022 theme Pride in London: What is the history of the annual parade? Pride … [Read more...] about Pride in London – live: March gets underway as thousands celebrate in the capital

Halfway through the second episode of The Midwich Cuckoos I found myself wishing I didn’t have a science degree. For those unfamiliar with Sky ’s show, the source novel by John Wyndham, or one of the pair of movie adaptations, after the village of Midwich mysteriously falls asleep for a day, all the women of childbearing age suddenly find themselves to be pregnant. The resulting children have some disturbing features and abilities. They are the cuckoos of the title. The Sky adaptation seeks a female perspective to the story, which is very much in its favour. It’s mostly the men whom we see trying to deal with the problems presented by the cuckoos in the book, which is perhaps its biggest flaw given they’re not the ones who have to deal with being used as human reed warblers (a favoured cuckoo host in Britain). But modernising it clearly presented the makers with some challenges. Abortion is legal today . It wasn’t in 1957 when the book was published. And then … [Read more...] about Why do writers and filmmakers keep using lazy science?

A 10-year-old rape victim in Ohio was denied an abortion, sparking outrage online as many Republican-led states strip away reproductive rights following the Supreme Court 's overruling of Roe v. Wade . Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Indianapolis, received a call last Monday, three days after the Court's ruling, from a child abuse doctor in Ohio who had a 10-year-old girl in their office who was six weeks and three days pregnant, and therefore ineligible to receive an abortion in the state, according to a report from The Indianapolis Star . The child was unable to receive an abortion in Ohio because the state bans the procedure after six weeks when fetal cardiac activity may be detected. Some Republican-led states banned abortions at that point, claiming that a heartbeat can be detected within that timeframe. However, these so-called "fetal heartbeat" bans on abortion have faced criticism from medical experts , many of whom argue there is no heartbeat … [Read more...] about “She’s 10”: Child rape victim’s abortion denial sparks outrage on Twitter