Ahmedabad: Virat Kohli finally ended his Test century drought as he slammed an outstanding ton to put India in a commanding position on Day 4 of the ongoing fourth Test match against Australia here at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Sunday.
At the time of tea break, India’s score read 472/5 with Kohli (135)* and Axar Patel (38)* unbeaten at the crease. The hosts still trail by just 8 runs.
Kohli ended his Test century drought as he slammed his first Test century since November 2019.
After lunch, Indian batsmen Virat Kohli and Srikar Bharat opened their hands and slammed Australian bowlers at regular intervals for boundaries.
Cameron Green was on the receiving end with Srikar Bharat smashing him for 21 runs with the help of two boundaries and two sixes in an over.
Srikar Bharat’s blistering stint at the crease came to an end as he was dismissed by Nathan Lyon for 44. The left-handed batter Axar Patel then came out to bat at the crease.
Kohli ended his Test century drought as he slammed his first Test century since November 2019. The former India captain brought up his much-needed hundred in 241 balls. It was the most-awaited ton as his last century came against Bangladesh in November 2019. With this century, he took his international century tally to 75.
Kohli continued his blistering form and slammed Mitchell Starc for brilliant two boundaries collecting 9 runs. Kohli along with Patel took India’s total beyond the 400-run mark in the 140 overs of the game.
The duo of Kohli and Patel stitched up their 50-run partnership stand –the 6th consecutive 50-run partnership for Team India.
The Indian pair remained unbeaten as the visitors ended the session at 472/5.
Earlier, Kohli and Srikar Bharat showed remarkable skill and determination to frustrate the Australian bowling attack in the opening session of Day 4.
The batting pair of Ravindra Jadeja and Virat Kohli were decisive in their approach and made the Australian bowlers toil hard making merry of the excellent batting conditions on offer.
Australia skipper Steve Smith introduced Cameron Green into the attack in the very first over of day 4 and the bowler concede just 4 runs. Australia started with spin with Nathan Lyon and Todd Murphy bowling in tandem from both ends.
The duo of Jadeja and Kohli took India’s total beyond the 300-run mark in the 102nd over of the game. However, the 64-run partnership stand was broken by Murphy who dismissed Jadeja for 28 runs. Srikar Bharat then came out to bat.
The Indian batters rotated the strike brilliantly, not allowing the Australian bowlers to settle down while whacking the loose balls on offer.
Kohli and Srikar Bharat both were aggressors of the batting pair, smashing boundaries regularly. The duo stitched a solid 50-run partnership for Team India.
The Indian pair took India’s score beyond the 350-run mark as the first session ended.
Brief Score: Australia 480 (Usman Khawaja 180, Cameron Green 114; Ravichandran Ashwin 6-91) vs India 362/4 (Virat Kohli 135*, Shubman Gill 128; Todd Murphy 2-64). (ANI)
Mumbai: Bollywood star Ranbir Kapoor underwent an intensive training to achieve a well-chiseled body for his latest release ‘Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar’.
The actor’s fitness trainer Shivoham took to Instagram to praise Ranbir for showing dedication and discipline towards achieving a ripped look for Luv Ranjan’s directorial.
Ranbir’s fitness trainer took to his Instagram to share two shirtless pictures of the actor flaunting his washboard abs.
He wrote: “What you see is truly an example of a disciplined lifestyle, dedication and a lot of hardwork. It’s a team effort and results like this cannot be achieved by half hearted involvement.”
ranbir kapoor.(photo:Instagram)
“The nutrition, the supplements, the training but more than anything the WILL to wake up and do what is necessary is the number one reason why you achieve your goals and this is what sets you apart from the rest. 4am training sessions, 11:30 p.m. training sessions or even sometimes finding the time in between shoots, Ranbir has done it all.”
“Balancing his personal life along with his professional life. All these things cannot be learned from reading books, these are values that are imbibed in you and conditioning that you pick up from your parents and the company you keep.”
His trainer said that he is proud of Ranbir and “cannot wait to show the world ‘THE ANIMAL’ look next.”
On the work front, Ranbir will next be seen in ‘Animal’ alongside Rashmika Mandanna and Bobby Deol.
On Friday, however, Adams praised the idea, putting him in agreement with Holmes and at odds with Sewell.
“There are those who critique: Why would you bring Cardi B because she was arrested?” Adams said. “The same reason why you brought Cardi B is why people voted for me, because I was arrested. You don’t discard people.”
Holmes had also butted heads with Sewell after nixing a timed fitness requirement for recruits, according to a report in the New York Post. While Sewell first shot down the idea, Holmes later went directly to Adams and got the change approved.
On Friday, the mayor praised Holmes’ 35 years in the NYPD and said she was the right person to lead the probation department, in part because of her forgiving nature.
“This is the best fit: someone that understands that you don’t throw people away,” the mayor said. “And I think it’s reflected with what she did with Cardi B.”
Holmes’ departure is part of a broader shakeup in the department. Multiple chiefs have left this year as the NYPD settles under the new leadership of Sewell and Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Philip Banks, an Adams confidant who also exerts influence over the department.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Man accused of illicit relationship puts on ‘Agni Pariksha’
Hyderabad: In the Mulug district of Telangana state, the elders of a tribe in a village ordered a man Gangadhar who was accused of being in an illicit relationship with a married woman to undergo ‘Agni Pariksha’ to prove his innocence.
The condition of Agni Pariksha was that, if the hands of the man get injured while removing the ember, he will be considered as guilty and a fine of Rs 11 lakh will be imposed. If the hand is not injured, he will be declared innocent.
This condition was accepted by Gangadhar. As per the order, Gangadhar reached Govindraopet Mandal near the pond in Laknavaram, where he was kept on the Agni Pariksha, the elders of the tribe were also present. After taking bath in the pond, Gangadhar removed the embers of the burnt fire with the soaked body with his bare hands.
However, Gangadhar, who went through the trial, imposed a fine of Rs 11 lakh despite not being injured and a set up a panchayat to resolve the issue. The incident took place in District Mulug. According to the police, Gangadhar of Mulugu was accused of having an illicit relationship with a married woman.
However, Gangadhar approached the police and lodge the complaint. Acting on the complaint police have registered a case against nine persons for harassment.
The decades-old rule that the U.S. would not use countries’ past behavior against them when deciding to sell has also been abandoned.
“It’s not that we will only decide against arms transfers if they meet that new lower bar of ‘more likely than not,’” said the official, who asked not to be named in order to discuss the policy ahead of its release. “We are going to be looking at and making risk assessments on every arms transfer on a case-by-case basis.”
The official declined to go into details when asked about specific countries, including whether those with long histories of human rights abuses such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and Nigeria would be in jeopardy.
The Biden administration had already tweaked its arms sales policy by refusing to sell Saudi Arabia offensive missiles and bombs after the regime used U.S. weapons to strike civilian targets in its war in Yemen.
Sales of defense weapons to Riyadh continue, however, including air defense and air-to-air missiles.
The new strategy also lays out several areas including competitive financing, exportability, technology security and working with the defense industry to sell equipment not used by the U.S. military.
The government wants to ensure that “even if the United States military is not procuring a certain system, that we can be able to identify the needs of our partners and work with industry to be able to act,” the official said.
“If you can use a country’s past behavior as an indicator for future behavior, that’s a win because the Trump administration said you couldn’t do that,” said Rachel Stohl, director of the Conventional Defense Program at the Stimson Center.
Yet a strategy paper isn’t an end in itself, Stohl added.
“The actual implementation of this is going to be a real test, not what’s on the piece of paper,” she said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
“Pete Buttigieg has taken a lot of bullets for the president on this,” one senior Democrat said Wednesday, insisting on anonymity to talk about a crisis that the person was not authorized to discuss.
Still, Buttigieg acknowledged in a CBS News interview Tuesday that he “could have spoken sooner about how strongly I felt about this incident, and that’s a lesson learned for me.”
For Buttigieg, a former Indiana mayor and one of the Biden administration’s most avid political communicators, what began as a rail and ecological calamity has mushroomed in just 20 days into his most serious test yet as leader of the sprawling Department of Transportation.
Three people in Buttigieg’s orbit admit to being exasperated by the furor, saying nobody asked him about the derailment in any of the 23 media interviews he conducted during the first 10 days after the accident. Then critics lambasted him for not speaking sooner.
Since then, conservative media outlets have used images of the Feb. 3 wreck — including the flames, plumes of black smoke and piles of dead fish — to lambaste his oversight of rail safety. They’ve also criticized his failure to visit the crash site, a chorus of “Where’s Pete?” that didn’t let up even after he announced he would be visiting East Palestine on Thursday.
The “effort by Fox News and Republicans” to use the pain of the East Palestine community “as a political weapon is both enraging and demeaning,” the senior Democrat said.
Buttigieg first tweeted about the disaster on Feb. 13, when he said he continued to be “concerned about the impacts” to those living in the area. He pledged to use all “relevant authorities to ensure accountability and continue to support safety.”
The White House said Wednesday night that it’s standing behind Buttigieg, rejecting calls from some GOP lawmakers for him to resign or be fired. It also echoed Buttigieg’s criticisms of past Republican actions that rolled back Obama administration rail safety regulations.
“These are bad faith attacks from Republicans who have been in lockstep with the rail lobby to unravel safety protections,” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said.
The Ohio derailment comes after a series of other transportation-related snarls that have happened on Buttigieg’s watch, including a threatened nationwide rail strike, airline scheduling meltdowns and a Federal Aviation Administration computer failure that grounded flights nationwide. These have brought him unsparing criticism from GOP lawmakers and conservative media outlets, which have portrayed him as overwhelmed by or detached from the job — and mocked his interest in issues such as racial justice and climate change.
Fox News’ prime-time coverage of the derailment on Tuesday included a Photoshopped image portraying him as a suit-wearing bicyclist grinning in front of the wreckage. Former President Donald Trump weighed in during a visit to East Palestine on Wednesday, telling reporters, “Buttigieg should’ve been here already.”
That criticism could just as easily be aimed at other Biden appointees, the senior Democrat who discussed the attacks on Buttigieg said. Those could even include Environmental Protection Agency chief Michael Regan, who first visited the disaster site last week — the first trip there by any of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet-level leaders.
Regan, whose agency is overseeing the cleanup of toxic chemicals in East Palestine, returned to the village Tuesday. There, he sipped tap water with Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Rep. Bill Johnson to reassure residents that it’s safe to drink. On Wednesday night, he appeared during a CNN town hall about the disaster.
Employees of both DOT and EPA were at the scene within hours after the derailment, as were crash investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board. The heads of DOT’s Federal Railroad Administration and the department’s hazardous materials agency visited East Palestine on Wednesday, though their trip was upstaged by Trump’s appearance.
Still, “there’s a plume, and there’s a chemical spill. If anyone should have been there right away, it’s Regan,” the senior Democrat said. “But he’s not a political target. And so what’s happened here is they’ve picked a political target. And they’ve just beaten that drum as often as they can, despite facts.”
Bates, the White House spokesperson, also called it misguided for Republicans to expect Buttigieg to personally rush to the site of a train wreck.
“It’s like them pretending they think the State Department takes point on rescuing people in the water during hurricanes instead of the Coast Guard,” Bates said. “Case in point, under the last administration EPA was also in the lead on similar derailments.”
Buttigieg’s critics include Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who has accused him of being “m.i.a. on the derailment” and urged Biden to fire him last week.
“For two years, Secretary Buttigieg downplayed and ignored crisis after crisis, while prioritizing topics of little relevance to our nation’s transportation system,” Rubio wrote.
During his visit to East Palestine on Thursday, Buttigieg plans to meet with community members, NTSB officials and DOT employees.
“During the initial response phase, I’ve followed the norm of staying out of the way of the independent NTSB,” he tweeted Wednesday. “Now that we’re into the policy phase, I’ll be visiting.”
The department separately announced a series of policy actions the department planned to take in response to the disaster as well as calls for railroads and Congress to make their own changes. “[W]e hope this sudden bipartisan support for rail safety will result in meaningful changes in Congress,” DOT said in a statement.
Buttigieg also sent a scathing letter to the CEO of Norfolk Southern, the railroad involved in the disaster, for what he called the “vigorous resistance by your industry to increased safety measures.”
Buttigieg’s supporters have accused Republicans of showing only newfound interest in rail safety, noting that Trump’s administration had shelved an Obama-era rule that would have required faster brakes on trains carrying highly flammable materials. (The rule would not have applied to the train that derailed in Ohio, NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy wrote on Twitter last week.) Trump’s DOT also ended regular rail safety audits of railroads and killed a pending rule requiring freight trains to have at least two crew members.
More than 1,000 train derailments happen in the U.S. during a given year, and Transportation secretaries don’t normally go to the scene. Rail safety veteran Bob Lauby said that in his 23 years at the NTSB and the Federal Railroad Administration, he remembers just one time when a secretary visited the site — and it was 30 years ago, when the deadliest incident in Amtrak’s history killed 47 people near Mobile, Ala.
But the East Palestine disaster has generated a much fiercer, longer-lasting backlash than usual.
A senior DOT official said department leaders were satisfied during the days after the derailment that the situation was in good hands, with a dozen staff members assisting the NTSB investigation, as well as officials from EPA and other government agencies.
Buttigieg was prepared to speak about the incident if asked, according to the DOT official — but for 10 days, no interviewer asked him.
Then on Feb. 13, “we started to see a large uptick in mentions on the secretary’s social media accounts, particularly on Twitter,” said a spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe behind-the-scenes events. “That afternoon we began to see stories on television and get inquiries about the DOT and secretary’s role in this derailment.”
It has kept going since then.
On Tuesday, a Daily Caller reporter approached Buttigieg while he was out walking with his husband, Chasten, and asked him about the derailment. Buttigieg referred her “to about a dozen interviews I’ve given today” and suggested she contact his press office. The exchange generated even more headlines in conservative media.
A host of factors could explain why the Ohio wreck has stayed in the headlines long past the point when national media have lost interest in similar disasters, including those with equally striking footage of smoke and flames and equally valid fears of contamination.
For one thing, the derailment comes months after last year’s threatened rail strike, which put freight rail on the front pages given a work stoppage’s potential to kneecap the U.S. economy. An incident Feb. 8 in which police arrested a reporter covering a DeWine news conference in East Palestine also stoked more headlines about the derailment’s aftermath — despite conspiracy theories on social media accusing news organizations of covering up the disaster.
Beyond that, “anytime air and water are involved, communities feel extremely anxious and vulnerable, for good reason,” said former FRA Administrator Sarah Feinberg, who dealt with several high-profile derailments during the Obama era.
Relatedly, she said, “we are in an era of severe corporate and government distrust.” So when Norfolk Southern or EPA tell communities the air and water are safe, people don’t believe them.
That skepticism hasn’t kept Regan, the EPA chief, from getting the warm welcome from Republicans that has eluded Buttigieg. Those include DeWine and others who have met Regan during his two trips to East Palestine.
“Thank you, administrator, for this partnership,” DeWine told Regan at a news conference Tuesday.
Alex Guillén contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
New Delhi: France’s TotalEnergies, one of the largest foreign investors in billionaire Gautam Adani’s business empire, said it has put on hold participation in the Indian conglomerate’s USD 50 billion hydrogen project pending results of an audit launched following allegations by a US short-seller.
While the partnership with Adani group was announced in June last year, TotalEnergies has not yet signed a contract, the French group’s chief executive Patrick Pouyanne said at an earnings call.
As per the June 2022 announcement, TotalEnergies was to take 25 percent equity in Adani New Industries Ltd (ANIL) – the Adani Group firm that is investing USD 50 billion over 10 years in a green hydrogen ecosystem that includes an initial production capacity of 1 million tonnes before 2030.
“Obviously, the hydrogen project will be put on hold until we have clarity,” Pouyanne said.
TotalEnergies, which has an exposure of USD 3.1 billion in the Adani group, will wait for the result of an audit launched by the conglomerate in response to allegations of accounting and financial fraud leveled by Hindenburg Research.
Adani group has vehemently denied the allegations, calling them malicious and an “attack on India”.
“It was announced, nothing was signed. It doesn’t exist,” Pouyanne said, referring to the hydrogen venture. “Mr Adani has other things to deal with now, it’s just good sense to pause things while the audit goes forward.”
Hyderabad: Taking a shot at the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government over the 2023-24 union budget that was released on Wednesday, the ruling BRS here put up posters targeting the Centre.
Targeting Modi and the Centre, a big poster stating ‘TELANGANA GETS ZERO IN UNION BUDGET’ was put up in Hyderabad on Thursday. Images of the same were shared on social media sites by Bharata Rashtra Samithi (BRS) members in the city.
BRS workers last year did something similar as well, when they put up ‘money heist’ posters targeting Narendra Modi when he had come to Hyderabad during the BJP’s national executive. The BRS has upped its social media game them by even putting up pink balloons near Modi’s public meeting venue.
‘Money Heist’ gang protesting in Hyderabad last year. (Image: Twitter)
As part of its ‘money heist’ campaign, BRS workers held hoardings and protests silently, which diverted attention of many on social media away from the BJP’s national executive, which was in the spotlight last year in July.
On the final day of the BJP’s national executive, just hours ahead of PM Narendra Modi’s rally at Parade Grounds in Secunderabad, pink balloons with the BRS slogan ‘Jai Jai KCR’ were positioned outside the venue, such that those were prominently visible from the venue of BJP’s National Executive meeting.
TRS balloons filling up the Secunderabad sky.
IT rebate up to Rs 7 lakh of no use to Telangana: Kavitha
After the union budget was released, BRS MLC K Kavitha Kalvakuntla on Wednesday said that the income tax rebate on income up to Rs 7 lakhs (as announced by union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman) in the new tax regime is of no use to the people of Telangana.
“This budget mathematical confirmation of the failure of Modi govt. This seems like a budget for few states. We hoped tax rebate of up to Rs 10 lakhs. In Telangana, we pay good salaries to people so this rebate is of no use to us,” she said speaking to ANI.
New Delhi: Members of the Hindu Sena on Sunday allegedly put up anti-BBC placards outside the UK-headquartered broadcaster’s office on Kasturba Gandhi Marg here over its documentary on the 2002 Gujarat riots.
Placards reading “BBC is a threat to India’s Unity and it should be Banned” and “BBC stop tarnishing India’s image. BBC leave India” were put up outside the main gate of the BBC office amid a row over the controversial documentary.
The placards were removed by the police.
Hindu Sena members also accused the media organisation of conspiring to tarnish and malign the image of both India and Prime Minister Modi.
The BBC is a threat to the unity and integrity of the nation and the channel should be banned in India immediately, Hindu Sena chief Vishnu Gupta said.
He recalled that the BBC was banned in India during the tenure of Indira Gandhi as prime minister. The ban was lifted after the organisation submitted an apology, Gupta claimed.
When asked, a senior police officer said, “Our patrolling team, which was present nearby, spotted the placards outside the BBC office and removed those.
“Some of them (Hindu Sena members) were still trying to display the placards elsewhere but they could not due to police presence and fled.”
Legal action has not been initiated as no complaint was received, he said.
Students from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi University and Jamia Millia Islamia held protests here during the past week after the varsity authorities refused to allow screening of the documentary.
The government had last week directed Twitter and YouTube to block links to the documentary titled “India: The Modi Question”. The Union Ministry of External Affairs has called the documentary a “propaganda piece” lacking objectivity and reflecting a colonial mindset.
However, opposition parties have slammed the government’s move to block access to the documentary.
SRINAGAR: In a move to allow incumbent commissioners of Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) and Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) to continue at their current places of posting, the Jammu & Kashmir government has put in abeyance a legal provision that mandated 15 years’ service experience for officers to be posted as administrative heads of J&K’s two biggest municipal bodies.
In a notification, a copy of which is in possession of news agency KNO, the Housing & Urban Development Department has done away with the statutory requirement of 15 years of service experience for officers to be posted as commissioners in SMC and JMC.
As per sub-section (1) of section 45 of the Municipal Corporation Act, 2000, the government shall, by notification, in the government gazette, appoint a class 1 officer of the government having a service of not less than fifteen years, as the commissioner of the Corporation.
The Jammu and Kashmir Municipal Corporation (Removal of Difficulties) Order, 2023 states that the government may appoint any suitable officer as commissioner of the Corporation, irrespective of his service experience, for the smooth functioning of the Corporations.
The legal requirement of 15 years of experience has been put on hold by invoking section 427 of the Municipal Corporation Act, which empowers the government to remove difficulties in the implementation of the Act. “If any difficulty arises in giving effect to the provisions of this Act or by reasons of anything contained in this Act to any other enactment for the time being in force, the Government may, as occasion requires, by order direct that this Act shall during such period as may be specified in the order but not extending beyond the expiry of two years from the commencement orders have effect subject to such adaptations whether by way of modification, addition or omissions as it may deem to be necessary and expedient,” reads the provision.
According to the notification , the Jammu and Kashmir Municipal Corporation (Removal of Difficulties) Order, 2023, shall deemed to have come into force w.e.f 01.01.2023 and shall remain in force for a period of two years or till it is revoked by the Government, whichever is earlier.
The incumbent SMC commissioner Athar Aamir Khan is 2015-batch IAS officer while his Jammu counterpart Rahul Yadav is 2014 -batch officer.
