SRINAGAR: Two vehicles skidded off the road and rolled down the cliff after a snow avalanche came barreling down on the Srinagar-Kargil highway at Zojila Pass, Police said.
The incident occurred near Panimatha Captain Mode at Zojil Pass.
The ill-fated vehicles were on their way to Kargil from Srinagar.
Station House Officer, Police Station Sonmarg, Fayaz Ahmed said that a passenger vehicle (Xylo) and a Camper rolled down after a snow avalanche hit them near Panimatha area on Zojila Pass.
“Rescue teams including a police party rushed to the spot and retrieved the passengers, however, vehicles could not be retrieved due to the inclement weather,” he said adding that it is still snowing on Zojila Pass.
The police officer further informed that after the incident, the Srinagar-Kargil highway has been closed to traffic.
“We turned back all the vehicles that were heading for Kargil from Sonmarg,” he added. (KNT)
Saharanpur: An 18-year-old NEET aspirant on his way to an exam centre was killed after his motorcycle was hit by a truck in Sarsawa area on Sunday, police said.
The National Entrance cum Eligibility Test (NEET) was conducted on Sunday.
Ruchit Kamboj, a resident of Mohalla Durga Colony, was travelling to Deoband with his friend when the accident occurred, Superintendent of Police (Rural) Sagar Jain told PTI.
Kamboj sustained serious head injuries while his friend escaped with minor injuries, he said.
A police team took Kamboj to a hospital where the doctors declared him brought dead.
The driver of the truck abandoned the vehicle and fled, police said, adding that the body has been sent for postmortem.
SRINAGAR: In the Kashmir division of the UT, cases of cybercrime and online fraud have been surging with great intensity, causing distress to not only individuals but also organizations and sectors.
In a shocking incident, 11 tourists from Gujarat were apprehended in Gulmarg, the globally acclaimed ski resort located in North Kashmir, as they attempted to sneak through the cableway Gondola using counterfeit and altered tickets.
The authorities were previously stunned when they caught 28 tourists from Mumbai in April, who were found with bogus Gondola tickets in Gulmarg. It was later revealed that these tourists were provided with fake tickets by their tour operator in Mumbai.
In an official statement, a spokesperson of Jammu and Kashmir Cable Car Corporation (JKCCC) said that the ticket scanning team of Gulmarg Gondola Project caught a group of 28 passengers from Mumbai at the scanning point of Gulmarg Gondola station. “These passengers were carrying edited fake tickets through their tour Manager Makrand Anand Ghanekar S/o Anand Ghanekar of Mumbai,” reads the statement.
Miscreants sell fake Gondola tickets aiming to ruin the reputation of the tourist site, affecting citizens involved in Gulmarg tourism. Locals now want the ticketing system converted back to offline mode to limit illegal sales.
President Guide Association Gulmarg, Manzoor Lone, said that online tickets affected 80 percent of the livelihood of tourist guides in Gulmarg. Lone said that online ticketing has hampered their ability to support themselves. People working as tourist guides in Gulmarg and at ticket counters, who were accommodated by offline ticketing, are now facing the consequences.
“Earlier we used to have 30% of the quota, but when the system was switched to online mode, the quotas were removed, which resulted in many problems,” he claimed, “that when the system was converted to online one, we were not taken into account.”
Presently, there are 918 people who are all enrolled members of the Gulmarg Guide Association. “As of now, offline ticketing is also happening, although Gulmarg officials have been referring to it as VIP quota. There are 400 offline ticket reservations. Due to their inability to cope up with the situation and make a living out of it, some guides have been compelled to engage in black marketing of tickets, though we are against them and don’t support such acts,” stated Lone.
Manzoor claimed that though this issue has been discussed with the higher authorities of the J&K UT, no action was taken.
A tourist guide, on grounds of anonymity, said, “I and many other guides like me, we are facing the brunt of the online ticketing system, and we want the government to look into this matter as soon as possible.”
Despite multiple calls, Ghulam Jeelani Zargar, CEO of the Gulmarg Development Authority and Managing Director of the JK Cable Car Corporation, did not respond.
SRINAGAR: A four-year-old boy died on Friday after he was hit by a truck in the Batamaloo area of Srinagar.
According to an official, the incident occurred in the Tengpora area of Batamaloo, resulting in serious injuries to the boy. He was immediately rushed to JVC Hospital in Bemina, but was declared dead upon arrival.
The boy has been identified as Uzair Ahmad, son of Mohammad Arif Choudhary of Hamdania Colony in Bemina.
The police have taken cognizance of the incident.(KNO)
Mumbai: Salman Khan and Aishwarya Rai’s tumultuous relationship is still a topic of interest among many Bollywood fans, even though the two parted ways on a sour note. The actors began dating in the late 1990s but their relationship ended in the early 2000s after Aishwarya accused Salman of physical abuse. Over the years, both Salman and Aishwarya have been asked about the break-up and recently, an old video has resurfaced where Salman can be seen reacting to Aishwarya’s allegations.
In the video, the interviewer asked Salman Khan whether he had hit Aishwarya physically or not? Bhaijaan replied that Aishwarya’s ‘abuse claims’ are false. He is seen saying in the video, ‘If I hit her, she wouldn’t survive.’
He can be seen saying in the interview, “Now, the woman has said that I have, what to say.” When the reporter asked Salman if he did not want to get into that, the actor responded, “A journalist, who asked me this a long time ago and I just banged the table and he got startled if the table really broke.”
“I said, ‘Now if I hit somebody, it’s obviously going to be a fight. I’m going to be angry. Forget whack, I’m going to give her my best shot. I don’t think she’ll survive it. So no, it’s not true and I don’t know for what reason that was said,” the clip quotes Salman as saying.
The duo started dating each other during their 1998 film Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. The relationship between the two ended in 2002.
After the break-up, Aishwarya poured her heart out. She told the Bombay Times at that time, “I stood by him enduring his alcoholic misbehaviour in its worst phases, and in turn, I was at the receiving end of his abuse (verbal, physical, and emotional), infidelity, and indignity. That is why like any other self-respecting woman, I ended my relationship with him.”
Anantnag, May 01: Perfect for the region’s cold climate, Mushkbudij, an aromatic rice variety of Kashmir valley, is all set to hit foreign markets as the agriculture department is expanding the cultivation area in the valley due to its huge demand.
Mushkbudji, an aromatic variety of rice grown only in the Valley which has gained GI tag and conservation of the rice variety has been appreciated at state and central level by awarding a cash prize of Rs. 10 lakh as “Genome Saviour Community Award”.
As per news agency—Kashmir News Observer, 30 years back, the Mushkbudji rice variety of Kashmir was grown on a large scale. However, its cultivation took a back seat when exotic varieties, which were giving more returns to farmers, were introduced in the valley.
The revival programme started way back in 2007 with the survey of niche areas where these strains could be traced out through different sources. Under the revival programme village Sagam in Kokarnag belt and adjoining villages were identified for demonstration on purified Mushk Budji. In the process of popularizing variety among farmers in mid belts of district Anantnag an excellent example of coordination between SKUAST-Kashmir, department of agriculture and the farming community could be seen.
Figures accessed by KNO reveal that there was around five thousand quintal production of Mushkbudij rice in the last three years in Kashmir valley. “Mushkbudij rice production in Anantnag, Ganderbal and Baramulla district in 2020 was 14.54 quintals, in the year 2021 it was 17.45 quintals while in 2022 it was 17.38 quintals”, figures said.
Figures state that Anantnag district in south Kashmir alone produces 44.86 quantals. “Besides Anantnag, Baramulla and Ganderbal, the cultivation of Muskbudji rice will be expanded to Kulgam and Kupwara districts also”, the date shows
It shows 244 hectares of land under cultivation of Muskbudji rice in 2020, 248 hectares in 2021 and 280 hectares in 2022. “For next five years the proposed plan for expansion of Muskbudji rice in Kashmir valley is 999 hectares of land”, the data states.
Talking to KNO, Dr. Tasneem Mubarak, Chief Scientist Agronomy MRCFC—SKUAST-K said that Mushkbudji was a traditional crop in Kashmir but due to blast disease and new varieties with high yield and disease resistance, people abandoned it.
Leaf blast affected the production following which SKUAST-K started a programme for its revival and all strains were collected, screened and identified varieties for revival. “All aspects have been identified to standardize and demonstrate it in Sagam area of Kokernag belt and presently farmers have been cultivating it well there,” he said.
He said that all such areas are being identified where the environment is favourable for it so that it can be cultivated in other areas but in plains it gets affected. “University developed a blast resistant version of Mushk Budji that can be tried in plain areas but it is still under testing. Demand for it is growing with each passing day,” Tasneem.
Director Agriculture Kashmir Chowdhary Muhammad Iqbal told KNO that Muskbudji rice has got GI tagging and more and more areas are being brought under cultivation. “There is a demand for the same in the international market,” he said. Iqbal said that there were 120 hectares under it and we have taken it to 500 hectare and efforts are on to increase it to 1000 hectares, he said. He said that it costs around Rs 15,000-20,000 per quintal.
Hyderabad: The city receives another bout of massive rains on Sunday night coupled with thunder and lightning.
The rains have caused traffic jams and water logging in many parts of the city.
Following a massive storm in the city which led to the washing away of many vehicles, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) Disaster Response Force (DRF) retrieved 19 bikes from city nalas on Sunday.
For assistance from the DRF, citizens may dail 040-29555500
Citizens online have shared videos of the heavy downpour from various parts of the city. Some said even said that the weather looks apocalyptic.
Residents are advised to stay alert and take necessary precautions. It is recommended to avoid travelling during the heavy downpour and stay indoors if possible.
Looks like Hyderabad is getting a little taste of the end of the world! The rain is coming down so hard that I wouldn’t be surprised if Noah starts building an ark any minute now. And get this: it’s only April. #HyderabadRains
Mumbai: Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Nick Jonas, one of the most admired couples in the entertainment industry, have won the hearts of millions of fans worldwide. The couple got engaged in Mumbai in 2018 and exchanged wedding vows in the same year. They have cemented their status as one of the most powerful couples in both Bollywood and Hollywood.
However, speculations about the status of Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas’ marriage have been making rounds on social media once again. The latest rumour stems from a tweet by Umair Sandhu, a film critic and member of the overseas censor board, who claimed that the couple had a fight over personal issues.
Sandhu’s tweet, which was posted on Friday, reads: “BREAKING NEWS 📰: #PriyankaChopra & her husband #NickJonas fought badly in Rome, Italy 🇮🇹. As per insiders, Nick Jones is having secret affair & Miss Chopra caught him. Everything is not going well between them.”
Neither Chopra nor Jonas has responded to the rumours, and it’s unclear whether there is any truth to the claims made by Sandhu. However, this is not the first time that the couple’s relationship has been subject to such speculations.
In 2021, Priyanka took everyone by surprise after she removed ‘Jonas’ from her social media user names. Many started speculating that the actress is planning to divorce her husband Nick Jonas. However, the couple rubbished the separation rumours.
It’s worth noting that Sandhu’s tweet should be taken with a grain of salt, as the film critic has previously been accused of spreading false rumours about celebrities. Moreover, it’s not uncommon for public figures to face baseless rumours and gossip about their personal lives.
The Bundesliga leaders Borussia Dortmund’s title chances suffered a serious blow on Friday after they stumbled to a 1-1 draw at struggling Bochum.
Dortmund are on 61 points, two points clear of second-placed Bayern Munich with four matches remaining, who will move top if they beat bottom club Hertha Berlin on Sunday.
The visitors went 1-0 down after five minutes following Anthony Losilla’s thunderous strike from just outside the penalty area. Yet Bochum’s joy only lasted two minutes as the unmarked Karim Adeyemi tapped in at the far post.
The equaliser failed to inject any urgency into Dortmund’s performance, however, despite the coach Edin Terzic urging them on from the sidelines.
Their best chances in the second half only came after the introduction of Marco Reus in the 73rd minute, with the midfielder setting up Youssoufa Moukoko, but his effort was parried by the Bochum goalkeeper Manuel Riemann.
Riemann pulled off a better save in the 76th to deny Jude Bellingham before Donyell Malen, who had scored in the previous five games, put the ball just wide with a backheel.
With Terzic booked for dissent after the 90-minute mark, Dortmund ran out of time, and will have to wait for Sunday’s result in Munich to find out how their title chances look.
In Italy, meanwhile, Napoli fans preparing to celebrate the club’s first league title since 1990 have been told to steer clear of Mount Vesuvius, the volcano that overlooks the southern city of Naples.
National park authorities became concerned at reports that Napoli’s fans plan to set off flares to light up Vesuvius should the team clinch the title on Sunday.
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Runaway leaders Napoli will secure the club’s third Serie A crown if they beat visitors Salernitana, and second-placed Lazio drop points against Internazionale at San Siro.
“We are all pleased for Napoli’s success which will bring honour to our region and great joy for people,” said the Vesuvius park commissioner, Raffaele De Luca. “But the celebrations must remain within the limits of civil behaviour.”
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#Borussia #Dortmunds #Bundesliga #hopes #hit #draw #struggling #Bochum
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Drug-related deaths surged by 41% in San Francisco in the first quarter of this year – with one person dying of an accidental overdose every 10 hours, as the fentanyl crisis continues to ravage the US west coast.
San Francisco saw 200 people die of overdoses in the past three months compared to 142 in the same months a year ago, according to reports by the city’s medical examiner.
Those living on the streets were particularly hard hit – with twice as many unhoused people dying of overdoses between January and March compared to a year earlier.
Fentanyl was detected in most of the deaths. The city’s minority populations were particularly hard hit. A third of the overdose victims were Black, despite Black people making up only 5% of the city’s population.
“It’s a crying shame that a city as wealthy as San Francisco can’t get its act together to deal with overdose deaths,” said Dr Daniel Ciccarone, a professor of addiction medicine at the University of California San Francisco, who said the city’s increasingly punitive approach to handling drug users has only heightened their overdose risks.
“We’re a politically divided city between the people who have a lot of money and want the streets swept and those who think a compassionate, science-based, health approach is appropriate,” he said.
In most of San Francisco’s 200 overdose deaths, fentanyl was detected. Twice as many unhoused people died of a drug-related death as last year. Photograph: Balazs Gardi/The Guardian
The spike in deaths began in December and was particularly apparent in January, when 82 deaths put the city’s overdose fatalities at an all time high. This came just after the city government closed a key outreach center, where drug users were using with medical supervision, and increased policing in San Francisco’s drug-plagued Tenderloin district.
Last summer, voters recalled the city’s liberal district attorney and the San Francisco mayor London Breed appointed a new district attorney, Brooke Jenkins, who vowed to take a law-and-order approach to the problem and has since stepped up arrests of drug dealers.
Then in December, Breed closed the Tenderloin Center, a facility designed to provide daytime shelter for the unhoused, along with housing referrals, food, addiction treatment and health services. The center had unofficially allowed drug use in a supervised outside area. Attendants used Narcan to reverse more than 330 opiate overdoses in the 11 months the center was open, according to city data.
The center, which served more than 400 people daily, was opposed by some in the community, who said it was drawing drug users to the already-impacted neighborhood.
Breed said in December she had been disappointed by the low number of visitors at the center who ultimately accepted help to get off of drugs. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, fewer than 1% of visits resulted in someone getting connected to addiction treatment services.
Chart of overdose deaths in San Francisco over time
Since closing the center, Breed has sought $25m to increase police overtime with the priority of arresting drug dealers.
“We are dealing with multiple serious public safety challenges locally, from a fentanyl-driven overdose epidemic, open-air drug dealing, property crime in our residential and commercial neighborhoods, increasing gun violence and prejudice-fueled incidents,” she said in a March letter seeking more federal help in policing and prosecuting cases.
Last week, the California governor, Gavin Newsom, promised to send in resources and personnel from the national guard and the California highway patrol to bolster policing.
Gary McCoy of HealthRIGHT 360, the nonprofit that ran the drug overdose prevention portion of the Tenderloin Center, said the government’s law-enforcement focused approach is backfiring and is instead pushing drug users into isolation, where they are more at risk of overdose deaths.
“Something that has been sold to folks as a strategy that is going to work and help tackle the overdose crisis is having the exact opposite effect,” said McCoy, adding that the police tactics create dangers that go beyond the fact that health officials no longer have the chance to witness and reverse overdoses at the Tenderloin Center.
“When people don’t have a safe place to go, when they’re using in doorways and public places and they’re afraid of getting caught and put in jail, they tend to rush and use more substance,” he said. “And when they rush, there’s a higher risk of overdose.”
The Tenderloin Center served more than 400 people daily before it was closed by the city. Without the center, drug users have been pushed into isolation. Photograph: Balazs Gardi/The Guardian
Ciccarone said other safe use centers around the world, including one in Melbourne Australia that opened five years ago, have shown to reduce overdoses, bring drug use off the streets and help get addicts into treatment. But he cautioned it takes far longer than 11 months to see the results.
“People expected too much from it too soon,” he said of San Francisco’s center. “It gave the outward appearance that people were congregating to consume drugs. But here we have it closed for three months and the first three months show a tremendous rise in overdose deaths.”
The city’s supervisors have pushed to replace the Tenderloin Center, which was designed as a temporary measure, with 12 smaller “wellness hubs” around the city. These would provide health and shelter services, as well allowing supervised drug use to prevent overdose deaths.
But last summer, Newsom vetoed legislation that would have allowed supervised drug use centers in three California cities, including San Francisco. And the plan for the wellness hubs stalled, after San Francisco’s city attorney raised the objection that the city could wind up bearing significant legal liability.
Breed has said she supports the wellness hubs.
“These are difficult situations because this involves legal advice, significant criminal liability which we cannot just ignore,” said the mayor, according to KTVU news. Nonprofits are now seeking a way to fund the overdose prevention portions of their operations without city funding.
In a statement, the San Francisco Department of Health (SFDPH) said it has undertaken a host of measures to prevent overdoses, including adding hundreds of new beds for addiction recovery treatment, expanding neighborhood street care teams and making Narcan and medication-assisted addiction treatment options more available.
“SFDPH recognizes that any overdose death is one too many and mourns the loss of each of these lives,” the department said. It added the department is also looking for legal ways to open supervised use clinics. “These deaths drive us to find more ways to prevent overdoses and reduce the harms caused by fentanyl.”
San Francisco city supervisors have pushed to replace the Tenderloin Center with ‘wellness hubs’ that would provide health and shelter services. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Breed and the new district attorney have touted increased arrests and jail time for drug dealers. In a April blog post, the mayor said police made 162 arrests for drug possession for sales in the last three months of 2022, an 80% increase, and are seizing dozens of kilograms of narcotics.
“These enforcement actions will continue, while our street outreach teams continue to go out and offer services and treatment,” wrote Breed.
But Alex Kral, an epidemiologist at the independent nonprofit research institute RTI International, who led an evaluation of the Tenderloin Center, said the drug dealing arrests actually make the drug supply more dangerous by forcing users to go to people they don’t know for their drug supply and forcing users into hiding.
“You’re making an unpredictable drug market even more unpredictable,” he said.
“We’ve spent the last 50 years trying to arrest our way out of this and it’s clearly not working. The conditions on the streets are getting worse, the drugs are becoming more dangerous and the health of the community is much, much worse with increased policing.”
According to San Francisco supervisor Hillary Ronen, who has championed the idea of wellness hubs, the city has failed to come up with any new tactics to deal with a “horrific crisis”.
“We closed the Tenderloin Center with no plan in place to replace it,” she said. “Fentanyl is corrupting every part of the drug supply and all the social problems that underlie the drug addiction crisis continue – widespread poverty, trauma with no access to mental health care, inequality, and homelessness.”
“What did we expect to happen?”
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#Overdose #deaths #San #Francisco #hit #months #crying #shame
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
