Washington: The US on Friday slapped sanctions against two Indians, including a brother of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, and a Pakistan-based paper company for their ties with D Company. Designation of two long-time members of D Company, Shaikh Anees Ibrahim Kaskar (Anees Ibrahim), the brother of Dawood Ibrahim, and Aziz Moosa Bilakhia (Bilakhia), comes less than a fortnight before US President Barack Obama’s visit ot India. Anees is known to […]

AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi has stirred a controversy with remarks that every child is born a Muslim as he locked horns with right-wing Hindu outfits over their ‘ghar wapsi’ programme. “Every child is born a Muslim. His parents and society convert him to other religions,” Owaisi said, apparently in a tit-for-tat to hardline Hindu organisations which have been claiming that ancestors of all Indians were Hindus. “Islam is the real […]

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s comments in October, that Lord Ganesha was the product of plastic surgery, has prompted the Indian History Congress, attended by over 2000 professional historians in Delhi, to pass a resolution that says “genuine historians would stand by the values of their profession and resist interested distortions of our past.” The resolution, adopted during its Platinum Jubilee meet on Tuesday, mentions the Prime Minister’s statement and also […]

Washington: Scoffing at Russia’s plummeting economy in the aftermath of a host of sanctions imposed on it, US President Barack Obama has suggested that what the Russian leader Vladimir Putin did (with Crimea) was a “strategic mistake”.   In a wide-ranging interview given to NPR News, shortly before the President was to leave for Hawaii for his annual vacation, Obama said that how Russia’s falling economy had disproved those (his […]

Paris of the East of yore — Karachi, commercial capital of Pakistan –, was primarily a Hindu controlled city prior to the 1947 Partition Holocaust. The city roads were not only swept but was washed each morning by the municipality, my parents, now deceased, used to tell me. Arts and culture flourished in the peaceful city. My late mom fondly remembered a great Hindu dancer Vishnu Jagdesh. She was a […]

Leaders of opposition parties on Friday strongly criticised the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha’s views regarding Mahatma Gandhi’s assassinator Nathuram Godse and the Centre’s silence regarding the same, urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take a stand on the matter. The Hindu Mahasabha has requested land from the Centre to erect a statue of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin in the national capital. The views within the Congress party were conflicting, with some […]

 President Barack Obama Friday named Ashton Carter, a former Pentagon second-in command, who once described India as destined to be America’s security partner, as his new defense secretary in place of ousted Chuck Hagel. Announcing the nomination of the Rhodes Scholar, with a doctorate in theoretical physics from Oxford University and a degree in medieval history from Yale, in the Roosevelt room of the White House, Obama described him as […]

Beijing:  A rare Siberian tiger released into the wild by Russian President Vladimir Putin raided a farm in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province and killed 15 goats. The beast named Ustin has killed 15 goats in the farm in Fuyuan county on Sunday and Monday, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. Zhu Shibing, a wildlife protection expert from the Northeast Forestry University said footprints and other traces left near the goat house […]

New Delhi: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj met her Canadian counterpart John Baird here on Tuesday for a discussion on Canada-India relations to strengthen bilateral economic ties between the two countries. Baird also commemorated the International Day of the Girl Child at a school in New Delhi. India and Canada were expected to discuss the bilateral issues at the meeting, including matters related to security, defence, counter-terrorism, space and nuclear […]

  One of India’s most colourful and controversial politicians, Jayaram Jayalalitha, has been sentenced to jail for four years on corruption charges in a case that has lasted for 18 years. The chief minister of the southern state of Tamil Nadu was found guilty of amassing wealth of more than $10m (£6.1m) which was unaccounted for. She has to pay a 1bn rupee ($16m; £10m) fine and resign as chief […]