Bilkis Bano at a press conference. (Express File photo: Anil Sharma/File)India Top News Live, August 17: Eleven convicts serving life imprisonment in the Bilkis Bano gangrape case from the 2002 Gujarat riots were freed from the Godhra sub-jail on Monday after a state government panel approved their application for remission of sentence, according to senior officials. A day later, when contacted by The Indian Express, Bilkis said: “Please leave me alone… I have offered duas (prayers) for the soul of my daughter Saleha”.
As the Chinese ballistic missile and satellite tracking ship Yuan Wang 5 arrived Tuesday morning at Hambantota port, a strategically important deep sea port in southern Sri Lanka, Tuesday, China said the activities of its vessel will not affect the security of any country and should not be “obstructed” by any “third party” – a reference to India and its security concerns. Asked about Delhi’s concerns and the delay in the visit of the Chinese ship, Qi Zhenhong, Beijing’s envoy in Sri Lanka, who was present at the Hambantota port during the ship’s arrival, told reporters, “I don’t know, you should ask the Indian friends… I don’t know. Maybe this is life.”
Militants lobbed grenades and escaped security forces’ cordon in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir, police said on Wednesday. Security forces launched a cordon and search operation in the Kutpora area of Shopian Tuesday night following information about the presence of militants there, they said.During the operation, militants lobbed grenades at the search party and the fire was retaliated. However, the militants escaped due to darkness, a police spokesman said.
For the first time ever, in recognition of International Tiger Day (July 29) and World Lion Day (August 10) and the impending arrival of cheetahs to Kuno, DiJ got the “big four” members of the cat family to share their views on the matter.
Edited excerpts:
DiJ: We start with the cheetahs — they will soon be our guests after all. So, Speedy are you looking forward to you sojourn in India?
Cheetah: Man, I don’t know. You shot all of us the last time our species were here… That is not good for blood pressure, no?
Leopard (grinning evilly): Yes, and they have no recent experience of India… By the way, five or six of us have already sneaked into Kuno and are waiting to welcome them with garlands.
Tiger: Hmm… I believe they’ve stocked the place with good venison. Might be worth a look — and if we like it, Speedy here will have to chase chickens and goats. Read more.
THE DELHI Police, which has used facial recognition technology to identify those accused in major clashes that have taken place in the capital over the past two years, considered a match to be “positive” if there was an accuracy rate of 80 per cent, according to records obtained by digital rights group Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) under the Right To Information (RTI) Act.
The records, shared under two RTI requests and reviewed by The Indian Express, throw light for the first time on how the Delhi Police uses facial recognition matches during investigations.
Facial recognition technology essentially maps, analyses and confirms the identity of a face in a photograph or video, typically using computer-generated filters to transform images into numerical expressions that can be compared. The key parameters include distance between the eyes and that from forehead to chin. Read more.
The swearing-in of 31 ministers in Bihar on Tuesday reflects the Rashtriya Janata Dal’s (RJD) attempt at implementing its “MY (Muslim-Yadav)-plus” strategy while the Janata Dal (United) has stuck to its reliable OBC-EBC-Dalit-Upper caste combination.
Of the 31 ministers in the new Nitish Kumar-led Council of Ministers, 16 are from the RJD, 11 are from the JD(U) — all from the previous administration retained — two belong to the Congress, one is from the Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) and one is an Independent MLA. The Bihar government can have a maximum of 36 ministers, including the chief minister and the deputy CM, but now has 33.
While, as expected, the chief minister retained the home ministry, the JD(U) also took control of the finance ministry. By entrusting Vijay Kumar Choudhary with the key portfolio, Nitish Kumar has marked him out as the most important leader in the party after him at the moment. Bijendra Prasad Yadav, the Yadav face in Nitish’s camp, has to make do with the Energy portfolio that he already held. Read more.
Visiting a bakery, coffee shop or movie theatre seemed like a far-fetched idea for 74-year-old Prithwis Datta, who lives alone in Mumbai.
However, over the last six months, these outings have become a part of his life, thanks to a “grandpal”, who got introduced to him through Goodfellows, a start-up that helps senior citizens find empathetic young companions.
Based on the idea of making grandpals by nurturing fulfilling friendships between young graduates and senior citizens – through a fellowship aimed at providing meaningful companionship to senior citizens who live alone – the Goodfellows start-up was launched in Mumbai on Monday by Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons.
The start-up has been founded by Shantanu Naidu, a close mentee of Tata and a general manager in his office. Tata has even provided seed capital for the start-up.