SRINAGAR: After a gap of 32 years, Kashmiri Pandits from different parts of the country on Friday thronged the Regenya Mata Asthapan temple at the Badipora area of Chadoora in central Kashmir’s Budgam district and performed Maha Yagye (Hawan).
They expressed joy over returning to their native village after a long time and celebrating the festival. They said the event was a “symbol of hope and reconciliation” for all the communities in the valley.
Setting an example of communal harmony and brotherhood, the local Muslims came together to extend best wishes to Pandits and helped the devotees in the smooth celebration of the religious event.
‘’This event was held after 32 years and we received a lot of love from the local residents,” a local devotee, Bhushan Lal Koul said, adding that the love and warmth they received from the muslim brethren made us all emotional.
Deputy Commissioner (DC) Budgam S F Hamid also paid a visit to the temple and participated in the Hawan.
“Seeing Muslims and Pandits attending each other’s functions after a 32-year break is a testament to our community’s brotherhood and solidarity,” the DC said, adding, “This event showcased the changing ground realities in the region where Kashmiri Pandits are gradually returning to their homes and rebuilding their lives.” (KNO)
Nevada officials have identified remains found in Lake Mead as those of a Las Vegas man missing for 25 years, the latest development in a quest to identify a series of bodies discovered in America’s largest reservoir last year.
On three different days last summer, visitors at a beach on the lake discovered skeletal remains along the shoreline. The Clark county coroner’s office announced on Thursday that those remains belonged to the same person, now identified as as Claude Russell Pensinger, who disappeared on 14 July 1998 at the age of 52.
Pensinger is the third person the office has identified after several sets of remains emerged from the lake amid a devastating drought that has severely depleted the reservoir.
Water levels at Lake Mead, a popular recreation site that hosted more than 7 million visitors last year, have been at record lows due to a drought that has gripped the region for nearly two decades. The dry spell in the Colorado River basin, along with overextraction, extreme heat and decreased snowmelt, hasuncovered large swaths of the lake bed.
Beginning last spring, human remains surfaced at Lake Mead in quick succession: a body with a gunshot wound in a barrel in May, a jawbone in the sand the following week, and in July, partial skeletal remains encased in mud along the shoreline. In October, contractors working near a marina found more remains.
The back-to-back discoveries were not an indication of a serial killer, experts cautioned, but rather the consequence of the environmental disaster draining the lake and uncovering bodies that had once been lost to the water. Most are suspected to be accidental deaths but one case, the remains found in a barrel, is being investigated as a homicide. The local mob museum said a barrel was historically a mob method for disposing of bodies.
The coroner’s office team have identified two other sets of remains, both Las Vegas-area men who are believed to have drowned – Donald P Smith, a 39-year-old last seen in April 1974, and Thomas Erndt, a 42-year-old last seen at the lake in August 2002. All three identifications were made using DNA analysis.
The cause and manner of Pensinger’s death is undetermined, the coroner’s office said. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that Pensinger was fishing on the lake when he disappeared and his boat was later found running in circles in the water.
Pensinger’s brother said the pair were fishing together on the lake that day, in separate boats, when Pensinger failed to show up at a meeting point later, 8NewsNow reported. His brother reportedly described him as a good swimmer and a navy and coast guard veteran.
The remains of a man who died of a gunshot wound discovered in a barrel have not yet been identified.
Dealing with skeletal remains is particularly challenging, Melanie Rouse, the Clark county coroner, told the Guardian last year, due to the delay from the time of death to the time of recovery and the lack of key physical identifiers. But the office remains dedicated to investigating the cases and providing answers to families, she said.
“That’s one of the reasons why we continue to do what we do – being able to provide closure and being able to return these unidentified individuals back to their families and provide them with a name,” she said.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
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The cracks on the walls started to appear two days earlier. But despite the warning signs, Moushumi Begum still came to work on 24 April 2013. Moments later, she was buried under heavy rubble. “It all happened so quickly. I vividly remember every detail about that day, even though it was 10 years ago,” says Begum, who spent three hours trapped under Rana Plaza, the eight-storey building on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, that came crashing down.
That morning, garment workers and some factory managers had argued in the dusty courtyard outside the building, many reluctant to enter as they feared it was unsafe. Workers had been evacuated the day before because of those fears. Some say they were told they would not be paid that month’s wages if they did not go to work; others say that an internal gate was closed behind them.
In the 90 seconds it took to collapse, Rana Plaza became a symbol of global inequality. The final death toll was 1,134 people, with 2,500 injured. There were harrowing stories of survival, of people having their limbs amputated without anaesthetic to prise them from the rubble.
A new report by ActionAid Bangladesh has shed light on the devastating toll the disaster has taken on survivors a decade on, revealing that more than half (54.5%) of the survivors are still unemployed. The key reason is health conditions such as breathing difficulties, vision impairment and physical challenges, including not being able to stand or walk properly.
The report also assessed the safety of 200 current garment workers, with more than half feeling that initiatives taken by factory management were inadequate. Almost 20% of those interviewed reported that their factories lacked firefighting equipment, while 23% said emergency fire exits were not available.
Moushumi Begum, now 24, has been given a sewing machine by ActionAid Bangladesh to ease her path back to work. But she still does not dare enter a tall building.
Begum was just 14 years old. Now married with two small children, she has tried to move on, but her health continues to affect her daily activities. She suffers from acute respiratory distress syndrome, a life-threatening lung injury that makes it difficult for her to breathe. She takes regular pauses as she speaks.
Since the disaster, Begum has been too scared to step foot in another factory. “The memories of that day continue to haunt me,” she says. “I feel immense anxiety just standing near a tall building.”
Acute health conditions caused by the Rana Plaza disaster have left survivors dependent on medication.
“It has not been easy for anyone affected by Rana Plaza to return to a normal life,” says Begum, who receives counselling and financial support from ActionAid Bangladesh. The charity operates a workers’ cafe for garment workers through which Begum has acquired a free sewing machine to motivate her in returning to work. She remains reluctant: “I don’t think I’ll ever find the courage to work in one of those buildings again.”
‘How disposable we garment workers are’ … Husnara Akhtar lay for five hours under the rubble. After she was rescued, she learned her husband had died.
Husnara Akhtar, 30, remembers having breakfast with her husband, Abu Sufyan, before they went to work that day. Both worked in the Rana Plaza building, but in different factories.
As Akhtar went to her floor, she could tell something was wrong. “People were anxious; some of the workers were standing around, refusing to sit down. Someone said it wasn’t safe, but I saw the look on my manager’s face and quickly took my place on the denim line. The lights began to flicker and the floor beneath my feet shook. Within seconds, we were plunged into darkness.”
When Akhtar regained consciousness, she found herself wedged between two dead bodies. “I lay there for five whole hours unable to move,” she recalls. “It felt like a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. There was so much dust and so many dead bodies.”
Akhtar was eventually found by rescue workers and taken to a nearby hospital, where she discovered the extent of her injuries: concussion, cracked ribs and fractured arms that would make it impossible for her to work again.
Sufyan’s body was found a week later, crushed under a concrete pillar. “My husband was just one of the hundreds of workers that died that day,” says Akhtar tearfully. “I remember looking at his crumpled body and thinking how disposable we garment workers are.”
Safiya Khatun searched for 15 days for her son. On day 16, she found out he was dead.
Safiya Khatun cries whenever she thinks about what happened that day. She was in the Savar district of Dhaka when she heard a deafening sound. “It felt like the world was ending,” recalls the 66-year-old, who watched as people began to panic. “Someone said a bomb had exploded. Another said a building had collapsed. Then I heard the words Rana Plaza and my heart sank.”
Khatun rushed to the scene, where her 18-year-old son, Lal Miah, worked as a seamster on the third floor. She spent the next 15 days desperately searching for him. She carried a passport-sized photo of him and asked rescue workers at the site if they had seen him. On the 16th day, one recognised him.
A mother’s last hope: the photo of 18-year-old garment worker Lal Miah.
When Khatun saw her son’s body, she could barely breathe. “How could something like this happen to my precious son? The collapse of Rana Plaza left thousands of mothers like me empty-handed. It was a tragedy that could have been avoided if only the owners had listened to the workers’ concerns.”
The family now live in poverty because her son was the earner. Khatun lives in a small hut made from bamboo and metal scraps. “I was given land as compensation for the loss of my dear boy but nothing can compensate us for what we have gone through.” Many of the victims’ families were given land, but most cannot afford to build homes on it.
In Savar today, garment workers walk past an enormous pair of granite fists grasping a hammer and sickle – a monument erected in memory of Rana Plaza victims. Around the monument, on the land where Rana Plaza once stood, only weeds and litter mark the spot.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Italian authorities have announced the arrest of a top boss of the ’Ndrangheta mafia after he spent almost five years on the run.
Pasquale Bonavota, 49, who featured on the police’s list of most dangerous criminals, had been sought since November 2018 after escaping an arrest warrant for homicide and mafia association issued by a magistrate in Calabria, southern Italy.
He was arrested on Thursday morning in the northern port city of Genoa, carabinieri officers said. Local media said Bonavota was leaving the city’s cathedral when he was arrested and was carrying a fake ID.
Bonavota is considered the brains of the ’Ndrangheta’s Bonavota clan, which includes his two brothers, based in the Sant’Onofrio area of the Calabrian province of Vibo Valentia.
The clan also operates around Rome and in the northern regions of Piedmont and Liguria, which includes Genoa.
The ’Ndrangheta is Italy’s most powerful and wealthy mafia, controlling the bulk of cocaine flowing into Europe. It operates in more than 40 countries.
It has successfully expanded well beyond its traditional domains of drug trafficking and loan sharking, now using shell companies and frontmen to reinvest illegal gains in the legitimate economy.
Bonavota went on the run shortly after being sentenced by a lower court to life in prison for two murders committed in 2014 and 2004 of a lower-ranking member of his clan and a rival boss of a nearby clan.
That sentence was overturned in 2021 by a court of appeal while he was on the run. However, Bonavota was the last remaining fugitive suspect implicated in a massive case against the Vibo Valentia ’Ndrangheta that led to the 2021 maxi-trial against more than 300 alleged mafia members and their helpers. The trial is ongoing.
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In that indictment, Bonavota is described as being a leader who “took the most important decisions” along with other top ’Ndrangheta bosses, and “looked after the interests of the association in the Rome area and in the gambling sectors and drug trafficking”.
The arrest of Bonavota comes three months after the high-profile capture of the Sicilian mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro. The Cosa Nostra boss had been a fugitive for 30 years.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
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This is how long I’ve been wearing this dress: I thought about reproducing the older photo you see here when having my picture taken for this, but I couldn’t make it work because Alfie, the baby son I’m holding, is at university in a different city. Alfie is now 20; the dress is almost a year older.
The funny thing is that, when I bought it, I wasn’t at all sure I’d get much wear out of it. The year was 2002, Net-a-Porter had recently launched and “internet shopping” was an exciting new world. Diane von Furstenberg and her wrap dresses were enjoying a renaissance. Her New York fashion show that season was a headily glamorous scene, Ellen Barkin clinking champagne glasses with Paris Hilton. Also, I go weak in the face of leopard-print anything, always have done. I saw this dress, dropped a few heavy hints to my husband, Tom, about my upcoming 29th birthday and before I knew it I was lifting it out of layers of black tissue paper and putting it on for the first time for a birthday dinner at our local Italian.
But then – plot twist! – about a week later, it turned out that I was pregnant with Alfie. A wrap dress doesn’t really work without a waist, so within a couple of months this dress was relegated to the back of my wardrobe.
By the time Alfie was six months old, the dress was back in my life – as was the champagne, as you can see. (Yes, I was still breastfeeding – but it was the 00s, we did things differently.) And I’ve been wearing it ever since. I’ve worn it to two weddings and a christening. I’ve worn it to Ascot – with a dodgy asymmetric fedora hat, not its finest hour, with the benefit of hindsight – and to interview Von Furstenberg herself. (Never underestimate the power of sucking up to an interviewee.)
20 years ago … Jess Cartner-Morley with Alfie. Photograph: Suki Dhanda/The Guardian
I used to dry-clean it, but I’ve found that washing it on cold in the machine and letting it air-dry works just as well. It is pretty much as good as new. And it isn’t, actually, the oldest thing that I still wear – there is a Gap flippy black above-the-knee skirt, still a staple of my summer wardrobe, that I have had since I was a student. When I say “this old thing”, I mean exactly that.
This is quite categorically not intended to portray me as a saintly pioneer of sustainability. I am nothing of the sort. For many years I bought way, way too many clothes. In the glory years of the big Topshop at Oxford Circus, I sailed up those escalators laden with shopping bags on a Saturday afternoon in blissful ignorance, like a passenger on the Titanic knocking back the Moët even as the ship tilts. I overshopped, and I wish I hadn’t. I have a lifetime of buyer’s remorse, and more clothes than anyone could ever need. The least I can do now is keep wearing the clothes I already own, instead of buying more. A leopard doesn’t change his spots, after all. And I have no plans to change out of these ones.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
SRINAGAR: National Conference Tuesday expelled former MLA Ganderbal Sheikh Ishfaq Jabbar from basic membership of the party for six years over his anti-party activities.
Ishfaq Jabbar was an MLA from Ganderbal and was also the partie district president for Ganderbal.
JKNC on its official Twitter handle informed that the order was issued by party general secretary.
In a tweet, it said, “Sheikh Ishfaq Jabbar, Ex MLA R/O Ganderbal has been removed from the basic membership of JKNC for 6 years in view of his anti-Party activities and causing indiscipline. The order has been issued by the General Secretary JKNC,” JKNC tweeted.
Earlier in the day, NC president Dr Farooq Abdullah had said that there is no space for leaders in the party who are involved in anti party activitie and cause indiscipline in the party.
Hyderabad: The XIIth Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge, T Anitha, sentenced a man involved in a sexual assault case of a seven-year-old girl to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs. 2000
27-year-old Mohd Sajjad, a resident of Santoshnagar was arrested by the Santoshnagar police in June 2022 for sexually assaulting the victim girl aged seven years on the house’s terrace when the mother of the child went to work outside.
The girl complained to the mother after returning and the victim’s mother approached the Santoshnagar police who booked a case. The police arrested Sajjad who admitted to sexually assaulting the girl. The police booked a case under Sections 366, 376AB and Section 5 r/w 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012.
After the trial, the court found Sajjad guilty, sentenced him to 20-year rigorous imprisonment, and imposed a fine of Rs. 2,000. The case was investigated by T Vamshi Krishna, Inspector of Police Santoshnagar and K Sreenivas Reddy, ACP Santoshnagar.
Srinagar, 21,Apr:- A 60-year old man from central Kashmir’s Srinagar district has completed handwritten holy Quran along with translation in around five years.
Mohammad Shafi Bhat from Firdous Abad Batamaloo Srinagar completed hand written holy Quran along with translation on the occasion of Shab-e-Qadr this year.
Shafi who is by profession a business while talking to VOK said that in year 2018, when he was offering Zuhr prayers and some how started thinking about the day of judgement.
My father used to tell me Allah can love your any good work and on that basis I along with family decided to write the Quran, he said.
Everyday I used to give two hours in writing the Quran along with meaning and it took me around five years to complete it, he said.
On the occasion of Lailat-ul-Qadr, I completed this work and it consists of 550 pages, he said and everything whether it is binding or something else, I myself completed its whole process.
“I have used different colours to beautify the writing with meaning with an aim so that we can understand what the Quran teaches us, he said.
I was expecting that this process will be completed by Eid ul Azha but then my family members told me that Quran was revealed on Lailat-ul-Qadr and it must be completed on that very day, so I worked hard for one month to complete it, he said.
Our youth have started indulging in immoral activities and if anyone wants to get success in both worlds he must learn Quran and follow the path of Quran, he added.( VOK)
