SOLD by her family as a bride to a Chinese man, Samiya David spent only two months in China. When she returned to Pakistan, the once robust woman was nearly unrecognisable: malnourished, too weak to walk, her speech confused and disjointed. “Don’t ask me about what happened to me there” was her only reply to her family’s questions, her cousin Pervaiz Masih said. Within just a few weeks, she was dead. David’s mysterious death adds to a growing body of evidence of mistreatment and abuses against Pakistani ..

INDIA, for the first time, ranks among the top 10 in this year’s Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) presented on Tuesday at the COP25 climate summit here. The current levels of per capita emissions and energy use in India, ranked 9th in the ‘high category’, are still comparatively low and, along with ambitious 2030 targets, result in high ratings for the green house gas (GHG) emissions and energy use categories, the report released here in the Spanish capital. However, despite an overall high ..

THE move was bananas... Or maybe the work was just too appealing. A performance artist shook up the crowd at the Art Basel show in Miami Beach on Saturday when he grabbed a banana that had been duct-taped to a gallery wall and ate it. The banana was, in fact, a work of art by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan titled “Comedian” and sold to a French collector for $120,000. In a video posted on his Instagram account, David Datuna, who describes himself as a Georgian-born American artist living in New ..

RUSSIA has been handed a four-year ban from all major sporting events by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), including next year’s Tokyo Olympics and the FIFA World Cup in 2022. Meanwhile , an official linked to WADA said Russia can participate in qualifying for the 2022 World Cup. After the development, the Russian flag and anthem will not be allowed at any major sporting event...

THREE youngsters from an Israeli school will travel to India next week to launch a satellite -- Duchifat 3 -- designed and built by them aboard PSLV C48 from ISRO’s Sriharikota launch site. Alon Abramovich, Meitav Assulin and Shmuel Aviv Levi, all 17 to 18 years old, are students of Sha’ar HaNegev High school in Israel’s southern region..

WASHINGTON SUNDAR Pichai, Google’s CEO will also become the chief of the parent company Alphabet after the Internet giant’s co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin stepped down from their executive roles, making the India-born tech wizard one of the world’s most powerful corporate leaders. Page and Brin are stepping down as CEO and President, respectively, of Alphabet, the company announced on Tuesday. Pichai, 47, the current CEO of Google and a longtime executive at the company, will take over as ..

IN A pleasant surprise to fellow passengers, visiting Swedish royal couple King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia arrived in India on board an Air India commercial flight from Stockholm, and carried their own bags after landing at the airport here on Monday. “Very Proud moment for Air India when we had a Special Guest onboard. His Majesty Carl Gustaf Folke Hubertus , King of Sweden and Her Majesty Silvia Renate Sommerlath travelled AI168 Stockholm to Delhi. Ms. Sangeeta Sanyal Country Manager Sweden ..

RESEARCHERS have developed an ultrasensitive detector based on black silicon that can be applied to identify the majority of explosives, or highly toxic pollutants for medical and forensic analysis. The study, published in the journal ACS Sensors, noted that the new device can detect trace amounts of nitroaromatic compounds which make up most of the explosives...

INDIA’S relationship with Japan is a key component of its vision for peace, prosperity and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday. He made the remarks at a meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and Defence Minister Taro Kono, according to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). The two Japanese Ministers are here to attend the first edition of Indo-Japan defence and foreign ministerial dialogue. In the meeting, the Prime Minister stressed ..

WASHINGTONTHE US and the Afghan Taliban have resumed peace talks, President Donald Trump has revealed as he made his first visit to the war-torn country on an unannounced trip to meet American soldiers for the Thanksgiving holiday.During the brief appearance at the sprawling Bagram Airfield, Trump served turkey to soldiers, posed for photographs and met Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. President Donald Trump addresses members of the military during a surprise Thanksgiving Day visit on Thursday ..

Centre asks security forces to engage with CBI, Customs and IB to root out entire nexusNEW DELHITO stop cross border smuggling in India, the Centre has directed the forces guarding the frontiers to take “ruthless action” against the smuggling syndicates and engage Central Bureau of Investigation, Customs and Intelligence Bureau to root out the entire nexus, sources said on Wednesday.    Further, to find gaps from where smugglers enter into India, the Ministry of Home ..

A 19-YEAR-OLD Indian-American student was sexually assaulted and then strangulated to death at a campus parking garage in Chicago by a man on parole, police said about a brutal murder that has shocked the community in the US. Ruth George, originally hailing from Hyderabad and an honours student at the University of Illinois, was found dead in the back seat of a family-owned vehicle on Saturday. The 26-year-old assailant, Donald Thurman, was arrested Sunday from a Chicago metro station. He is not associated ..

EARTH is known as the only habitable planet in the universe but a recent discovery about a place with no life on the planet might come as shock! It would be impossible to imagine a spot on Earth where there is an absence of life, but European researchers have confirmed the non-attendance of microbial life in hot, saline, hyperacid ponds in the Dallol geothermal field in Ethiopia. The infernal landscape of Dallol, located in the Ethiopian depression of Danakil, extends over a volcanic crater full of ..

THE US has extended its support to India’s opposition to China’s ambitious One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative, saying it shares New Delhi’s concern over the multi billion-dollar project while questioning the economic rationale behind it. ..

SRI Lanka’s Rajapaksa clan on Thursday tightened its grip on political power with President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa swearing-in his elder brother Mahinda as the Prime minister, amidst apprehensions among the minority Tamils and Muslims on the new dispensation’s policies. Mahinda Rajapaksa assumed duty in his new capacity on Thursday itself...

PRIME Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said co-chair of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, is contributing towards making the planet a better place. The Prime Minister made these remarks in a tweet after Gates called on him this evening. “Wonderful meeting with @BillGates. Always a delight to interact with him on various subjects...

BY SOLVING one of the key components of photosynthesis, scientists have made a discovery leading to the process being ‘redesigned’ to achieve higher yields and meet urgent food security needs, suggests a study. The study, led by the University of Sheffield and published on Monday in the journal ‘Nature’, reveals the structure of cytochrome b6f -- the protein complex that significantly influences plant growth via photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is the foundation of life on Earth providing the food, ..

PRIME Minister Narendra Modi held in-depth talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping here and the two leaders have agreed to maintain close contact on matters relating to trade and investment to further deepen and add new vigour to India-China relations. During the meeting held on the margins of the 11th BRICS Summit on Wednesday, Prime Minister Modi said that there was a ‘new direction and new energy’ in bilateral ties after their second informal summit in Chennai last month...

INDIA is the world’s “most open and investment friendly” economy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said here on Thursday as he urged the BRICS business leaders to invest in the country and take advantage of its “limitless” possibilities and “countless” opportunities. The five countries’ grouping has led to economic development despite the global slowdown, Prime Minister Modi said in his address to the BRICS Business Forum. “India is the most open and investment friendly economy in the world due to political ..

TECH giant Alibaba’s Singles’ Day sales has hit $26.38 billion and set to zoom past its previous year record holding high hopes for the Chinese economy which has slowed down in the wake of a global trade war. The total merchandise value (GMV) of $26.38 billion was reached at 12 pm on Monday...

THE Indian-American community on Saturday lauded the Supreme Court’s historic verdict in the Ayodhya case, saying the decision in the decades-old land dispute is equally a victory for both Hindus and Muslims. The Indian Supreme Court in a unanimous verdict on Saturday cleared the way for the construction of a Ram Temple at the disputed site at Ayodhya, and directed the Centre to allot a 5-acre plot to the Sunni Waqf Board for building a mosque. A State Department spokesperson said the US is following ..

PAKISTAN is among the worst 10 countries in the world for Internet and digital media freedom, according to a report by an Internet watchdog. The Freedom House, an international Internet rights group, on Tuesday released its ‘Freedom on the Net’ (FoTN) report for the year 2019, titled ‘The Crisis of Social Media’, recording an overall decline in global Internet freedom between June 2018 and May 2019. The watchdog in its report placed Pakistan at 26, out of 100 (100 being the worst) — one place down ..

MORE than four decades after beginning its epic journey, NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft has crossed the elusive boundary that marks the edge of the Sun’s realm and the start of interstellar space, scientists have announced. According to the researchers at the University of Iowa in the US, Voyager 2 has entered the interstellar medium (ISM), the region of space outside the bubble-shaped boundary produced by wind streaming outward from the Sun. This makes Voyager 2 the second human-made object to journey ..

PRIME Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday that India will not join the mega Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) deal as negotiations failed to address New Delhi’s “outstanding issues and concerns”. Prime Minister Modi made the announcement during his speech at the RCEP Summit here, which was attended by several world leaders. “The present form of the RCEP Agreement does not fully reflect the basic spirit and the agreed guiding principles of the RCEP. It also does not address satisfactorily ..

LED by India, South Asia is moving towards becoming centre of global growth and could contribute about one-third of the world’s growth by 2040, according to a latest research by the International Monetary Fund. Notably, under the IMF’s geographical division of the world, South Asia does not include Afghanistan and Pakistan. For IMF, South Asia includes India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and Maldives. Under a substantial liberalisation scenario, supported by stepped-up efforts to improve ..

THE 50th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) will honour superstar Rajinikanth with a special ‘Icon of Golden Jubilee’ award, Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javdekar announced on Saturday. The festival will be held in Goa from November 20 to 28 with close to 250 films from various countries being screened. “The festival’s steering committee had recommended a special icon award which will be conferred on legendary actor Rajinikanth...

BANGKOK INDIA has eliminated a big reason behind sowing of seeds of terrorism and separatism, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said here on Saturday, in a clear reference to abrogation of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir and reorganising of the State. Addressing the Indian diaspora here, Prime Minister Modi said his Government was working to fulfil those aims that seemed impossible. “You are aware that India has decided to eliminate a big reason behind sowing of seeds of terrorism and separatism,” Modi ..

THE international community should increase support for 16 countries in southern Africa, where a record 45 million people will be severely food insecure in the next six months, the UN World Food Programme (UNWFP) said on Thursday. “A record 45 million people across the 16-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) will be severely food insecure in the next six months,” the UNWFP said in a press release...

BRITISH Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office has defended his Brexit deal with the EU, after US President Donald Trump warned it would make it impossible for the two nations to strike a future trade agreement. The President, whose impeachment in the US has moved a stage closer following a key vote in Congress, waded into the British election campaign on Thursday to criticise Johnson’s divorce terms with the European bloc..

WASHINGTON THE Pentagon on Wednesday released short videos of the US forces’ raid in north-western Syria that resulted in the death of IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Releasing a few short videos of the strike, US Central Command Commander General Kenneth Mckenzie told reporters at a Pentagon news conference that after the raid, Baghdadi’s compound looks “pretty much like a parking lot with large potholes.” The compound was destroyed in a way to ensure that it would not be a shrine or otherwise memorable ..

PAKISTAN violated its obligations under the Vienna Convention in the arrest and detention of Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav, International Court of Justice (ICJ) President Judge Abduylqawi Yusuf told the UN General Assembly here. Jadhav, 49, a retired Indian Navy officer, was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of “espionage and terrorism” after a closed trial in April 2017. India has maintained that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring ..

AN Islamic State (IS) insider played a major role in the US operation that resulted in the death of terror leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The informer, a man of unknown nationality, provided detailed information about Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s final hideout, the ‘Daily Mail’ reported, citing a US daily. During the US operation, a “well-placed mole”, who was present inside Baghdadi’s Syrian compound, gave the precise interior layout as well as Baghdadi’s exact location...

A NEPALI mountaineer has created history by scaling the world’s 14 highest peaks in record 190 days after he climbed Mt Shishapangma in China on Tuesday. Nirmal Purja, 36, known as Nims, broke the previous record of a South Korean climber, Kim Chang-ho, who achieved the feat in 2003 to scale all the peaks higher than 8,000 metres in seven years, 10 months and six days. Mingma Sherpa, chairman of Seven Summit Treks, the agency handling Purja’s climb, told Efe news that the Nepali mountaineer reached ..

PRIME Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday called on Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and the two leaders exchanged views on working closely together to strengthen the bilateral ties. Before his meeting with the Saudi King, top Ministers of the Gulf nation called on Prime Minister Modi and discussed ways to further deepen bilateral ties in areas of energy, labour, agriculture and water technologies. “A relationship reflecting centuries-old ties! Prime Minister Narendra Modi was warmly welcomed ..

ABU Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the elusive leader of the dreaded Islamic State (IS) terror group, died like a coward, “whimpering and crying” in a US raid, American President Donald Trump said, adding that an “innocent man, woman or child” would never be harmed again. Baghdadi, who was in his late 40s and carried a bounty of at least $25 million, was one of the most wanted terrorists in the world. He presided over the brutal ‘Caliphate’ that he had set up in Syria and Iraq enforcing a fundamentalist code and ..