MONTH THAT WAS
A boy from nowhere
arrives on big stage
Thane: Son of a cycle shop owner from Boisar in Thane secured third rank in the state in UPSC civil services exam 2013, the result of which was announced on Thursday. Varun Baranwal, lost his father during his SSC exams in 2008, got 32nd AIR rank in the UPSC exams. Varun passed the SSC with 89 per cent marks and it was his mother who encouraged him to pursue Science stream. He later got a Bachelor’s degree Electronics and Telecommunications from MIT College, Pune and has been a gold medalist.
Self-defense training to girl students
Mumbai: Brihan-Mumabi Municipal Corporation (BMC) has proposed to continue judo and karate training of girl students for their self-defense. Due to increasing number of rape and eve-teasing incidents, the BMC had started imparting judo and karate training to girl students of standard 5th and 6th last academic year. On successful completion of this pilot project, BMC education officer Shambhavi Jogi said, “The civic body had made special provision in the budget for this pilot project. Now, we have proposed to continue these classes for standards 7th and 8th in BMC schools.”
Special girl makes it big
Bhubaneswar: It was sheer hard work and determination that paid off, says Odisha’s differently-abled Sarika Jain who cracked in her first attempt the coveted civil services examination
“Always think better and be positive. If you work hard and you have a strong determination, you will definitely achieve success,” Sarika told IANS in an interview.
A native of Kantabanji, a small business town in the backward Bolangir district, about 400 km from here, Jain was ranked 527th among the 1,122 candidates who cleared the three-stage civil service examination 2013.
Her father, 58-year-old Sadhuram Jain, is an undergraduate and a smalltime businessman who runs a grocery shop in the town. Her mother Santosh Devi is a school dropout and a homemaker.
The elder Jain has four daughters and one son. Sarika is his third daughter. “From the beginning, my aim was not to be an IAS officer because the infrastructure (to prepare for the exam) was not available here. I wanted to become a doctor, but the science stream was not available in the local college,” Jain said. “I studied commerce and obtained a bachelors degree from the local women’s college. Later I pursued chartered accountancy, studying at home, and got qualified,” she said.
That was when Jain decided she wanted to do something and chose to appear in the civil services examination. She went to Delhi in 2012 and received coaching at a institute for six months.
A HOUSE OF PRAYER!
Berlin: Christians, Muslims and Jews, all praying under the same roof –that’s the groundbreaking project of a pastor, a rabbi and an imam in Berlin.
Still a sand-strewn vacant construction site, St Peter’s square in the centre of the German capital will – God willing - by 2018 host a building that’s so unusual it doesn’t have an official term. Not a church, nor a synagogue, or a mosque as such, but a bit of all three, the centre known currently as a “House of Prayer and Learning” will be unlike any other religious venue in the world, its initiators say. The aim of the $60-million project, whose fundraising was recently launched but has been several years in the making, is not only to show the importance of multi-faith dialogue but to mirror multi-cultural Berlin.
“It seemed to us that there was a very strong desire for the peaceful coming together of the religions,” said Ronald Stolte, one of two Protestant representatives on the board of the association behind the project.
Not by coincidence, it will stand at a location with a strong and long religious significance.
In 2007 archaeological excavations unearthed the foundations of four previous St Peter’s churches that had stood on the site at different periods since the Middle Ages, Stolte told AFP in an interview.
The last one, which had a striking 100-metre-tall steeple and dated from the mid-19th century, was damaged in World War II and later demolished by the former East German communist state in the early 1960s.
A car park then occupied the site which the city authorities later handed back to the local Protestant community.
“We wanted to revive this place, not by building a church again but by constructing a place that says something about the life of religions today in Berlin,” Stolte said.
Nearly 19 per cent of Berlin’s 3.4 million residents described themselves as Protestant, according to 2010 official data.
Some 8.1 per cent said they were Muslim and 0.9 per cent Jewish, while more than 60 per cent said they did not adhere to any religion.
Pastor Gregor Hohberg said it had been crucial to also get the centre’s Jewish and Muslim partners involved right from the start, well before work got underway on building it.
LOAN DEFAULT – PROMOTERS TO LOSE PERSONAL ASSETS
arrives on big stage
Thane: Son of a cycle shop owner from Boisar in Thane secured third rank in the state in UPSC civil services exam 2013, the result of which was announced on Thursday. Varun Baranwal, lost his father during his SSC exams in 2008, got 32nd AIR rank in the UPSC exams. Varun passed the SSC with 89 per cent marks and it was his mother who encouraged him to pursue Science stream. He later got a Bachelor’s degree Electronics and Telecommunications from MIT College, Pune and has been a gold medalist.
Self-defense training to girl students
Mumbai: Brihan-Mumabi Municipal Corporation (BMC) has proposed to continue judo and karate training of girl students for their self-defense. Due to increasing number of rape and eve-teasing incidents, the BMC had started imparting judo and karate training to girl students of standard 5th and 6th last academic year. On successful completion of this pilot project, BMC education officer Shambhavi Jogi said, “The civic body had made special provision in the budget for this pilot project. Now, we have proposed to continue these classes for standards 7th and 8th in BMC schools.”
Special girl makes it big
Bhubaneswar: It was sheer hard work and determination that paid off, says Odisha’s differently-abled Sarika Jain who cracked in her first attempt the coveted civil services examination
“Always think better and be positive. If you work hard and you have a strong determination, you will definitely achieve success,” Sarika told IANS in an interview.
A native of Kantabanji, a small business town in the backward Bolangir district, about 400 km from here, Jain was ranked 527th among the 1,122 candidates who cleared the three-stage civil service examination 2013.
Her father, 58-year-old Sadhuram Jain, is an undergraduate and a smalltime businessman who runs a grocery shop in the town. Her mother Santosh Devi is a school dropout and a homemaker.
The elder Jain has four daughters and one son. Sarika is his third daughter. “From the beginning, my aim was not to be an IAS officer because the infrastructure (to prepare for the exam) was not available here. I wanted to become a doctor, but the science stream was not available in the local college,” Jain said. “I studied commerce and obtained a bachelors degree from the local women’s college. Later I pursued chartered accountancy, studying at home, and got qualified,” she said.
That was when Jain decided she wanted to do something and chose to appear in the civil services examination. She went to Delhi in 2012 and received coaching at a institute for six months.
A HOUSE OF PRAYER!
Berlin: Christians, Muslims and Jews, all praying under the same roof –that’s the groundbreaking project of a pastor, a rabbi and an imam in Berlin.
Still a sand-strewn vacant construction site, St Peter’s square in the centre of the German capital will – God willing - by 2018 host a building that’s so unusual it doesn’t have an official term. Not a church, nor a synagogue, or a mosque as such, but a bit of all three, the centre known currently as a “House of Prayer and Learning” will be unlike any other religious venue in the world, its initiators say. The aim of the $60-million project, whose fundraising was recently launched but has been several years in the making, is not only to show the importance of multi-faith dialogue but to mirror multi-cultural Berlin.
“It seemed to us that there was a very strong desire for the peaceful coming together of the religions,” said Ronald Stolte, one of two Protestant representatives on the board of the association behind the project.
Not by coincidence, it will stand at a location with a strong and long religious significance.
In 2007 archaeological excavations unearthed the foundations of four previous St Peter’s churches that had stood on the site at different periods since the Middle Ages, Stolte told AFP in an interview.
The last one, which had a striking 100-metre-tall steeple and dated from the mid-19th century, was damaged in World War II and later demolished by the former East German communist state in the early 1960s.
A car park then occupied the site which the city authorities later handed back to the local Protestant community.
“We wanted to revive this place, not by building a church again but by constructing a place that says something about the life of religions today in Berlin,” Stolte said.
Nearly 19 per cent of Berlin’s 3.4 million residents described themselves as Protestant, according to 2010 official data.
Some 8.1 per cent said they were Muslim and 0.9 per cent Jewish, while more than 60 per cent said they did not adhere to any religion.
Pastor Gregor Hohberg said it had been crucial to also get the centre’s Jewish and Muslim partners involved right from the start, well before work got underway on building it.
LOAN DEFAULT – PROMOTERS TO LOSE PERSONAL ASSETS
New Delhi: In a bid to crack down on corporate crooks defaulting after taking fat bank loans, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley may roll out the fast-track courts to tackle Rs 100 crore+ dafaults within a timeframe and provide for seizure and auction of the personal assets of the promoters for the recovery of money.
He is also examining other ways to be included in the budget he presents to Parliament next month to make promoters of industries and business enterprises accountable for defaults.
It may require changes in the company law that makes the liability of promoters limited to go scot free if their ventures fail.
Jaitley has already set up a special committee in the finance ministry to suggest other measures to deal with the high-value willful defaulters of the bank loans as the bad loans of the public sector banks that are called NPAs (non-performing assets) have shot up from 3.84 per cent in March 2013 to 4.44 per cent in March 2014. The committee has been asked to revisit recovery rules of banks to make them more effective.
Schools to be raided
without notice
London: British Prime Minister David Cameron today authorized a no-notice raids in UK schools to tackle threats of extremism, saying protecting children is one of the first duties of his government.
The move follows a report from the country’s schools inspectorate, the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted), into allegations of a plot by Islamist extremists to take over the running of some schools across Birmingham under a so-called ‘Operation Trojan Horse’.
The inquiry into 21 schools in the city has revealed that five did not do enough to protect pupils from extremism and put on shows of inclusivity during inspections.
“Protecting our children is one of the first duties of government and that is why the issue of alleged Islamist extremism in Birmingham schools demands a robust response,” Cameron said in relation to the official release of the inspection report today. “The education secretary will now ask Sir Michael Wilshaw (the head of Ofsted) to look into allowing any school to be inspected at no notice and stopping schools having the opportunity to cover up activities which have no place in our society,” he added.
The British Prime Minister is also due to call a special meeting of the government’s Extremism Taskforce to discuss the implications arising from the review. Ofsted typically warn schools of an inspection the day before an official visit.
INHUMAN: INDIAN STYLE !
PATNA: A man has sustained serious injuries in Bihar after a group of people chopped off his fingers and poured acid in his eyes over a minor dispute, police said, on Friday. The incident took place on Thursday night in Samastipur district. Vikas Kumar Yadav was attacked by six people, who have criminal background, after an altercation at Vanbhaur village under Bithan police station. Yadav, in his early 20s, was admitted to a state-run hospital. “Yadav was attacked, beaten mercilessly, his fingers chopped off and acid poured into his eyes by a group of six people over a dispute,” police official Sudhir Kumar Razak said. Razak said a first information report was lodged against six people. “Police have begun an investigation into the case and preliminary inquiry suggests that all accused have criminal background,” he said.
Death Row Convict
Doing PG
Nagpur: Death row convict Yakub Abdul Razak Memon, a key conspirator with Dawood Ibrahim in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case whose execution was stayed by the Supreme Court last week, is appearing for MA (Political Science) exam in the central jail here. Memon, a chartered accountant, is appearing for second year exams.
“He wrote his first paper on June 3 and another paper yesterday from his ‘Fasi Yard’ (high security ward where prisoners awaiting capital punishment are lodged) in the Nagpur Central Jail. Being a high-profile prisoner, he is not allowed to go out,” said I.G.N. Open University.
Competition Commission
slaps fine
New Delhi: Competition Commission has slapped a penalty of Rs 3 crore on British retailer Tesco for delay in filing notice related to its purchase of 50 per cent stake in Tata Group firm Trent Hypermarket. The watchdog, on May 22, cleared the Tesco Trent deal which is the first FDI transaction in multi-brand retail since the sector was opened up in 2012.
Under the Competition Act, any person or enterprise, who or which proposes to enter into a combination, shall give notice to the Commission, disclosing details of the proposed combination, “within thirty days of execution of any agreement or other document for acquisition”. Tesco should have filed the notice seeking approval within 30 days of its application to the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion and the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB).
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