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On Tuesday, February 6, the Uttarakhand government tabled the much-awaited Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in the state assembly. The bill included various provisions, including a complete ban on polygamy and child marriage, a standardised marriageable age for girls across all faiths, and a uniform process for divorce. These proposals, geared towards promoting gender equality and social harmony, will be discussed during the ongoing special four-day assembly session, which commenced on Monday and will run until Thursday. The draft of the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) covered a wide range of aspects of civil life. It includes suggestions regarding inheritance rights, compulsory...

DUBAI — An estimated 1.7 million Internet users in the UAE have been affected by the recent undersea cable damage, an expert said yesterday, quoting recent figures published by TeleGeography, an international research Web site. Internet data was majorly affected as it is the biggest capacity carried by the undersea cables. However, all voice calls, corporate data and video traffic were also affected. Two du experts yesterday briefed the media on the current methods being undertaken by the telecom provider to re-route the Internet traffic to provide normalcy to the users. Quoting TeleGeography and describing the effect the cuts had...

Kash Patel an Indian-American whose parents trace their roots to Gujarat and migrated to the US from East Africa during Idi Amin’s rule in Uganda Washington: Kash Patel is a senior advisor to former US President Donald J Trump, the most likely nominee for the Republican ticket for presidential elections this year. Patel served in senior positions in the National Security Council and other government agencies and eventually became the chief of staff to the Department of Defence during the Trump presidency. He also travelled with Trump to India in 2020. An Indian-American whose parents trace their roots to Gujarat...

In June 2022, two Centennial Elementary School students in Olympia, Wash., disappeared. Their parents, Indian immigrants, had quietly driven them out of state, to Oregon, before they eventually decided to fly back to their former home country. No one in Olympia has seen the children since. “My daughter mentioned that Tia had been gone from school for a couple of weeks,” said Jess Davis, whose daughter was a classmate of Tia’s, one of the family’s children. (I have changed most of the names in this report to respect requests for anonymity.) “We were at an ice cream social that our...

Five of the six countries invited to join the BRICS bloc of developing nations from Jan. 1 have confirmed they are joining, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Iran and Egypt, South African foreign minister Naledi Pandor said on Wednesday.

Movie trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6amIq_mP4xMIt seems the average movie-goer is much more patriotic than Hollywood seems to believe. Few other reasons would explain the phenomenal box-office success of the Bollywood film “The Fighter,” which was released on Thursday, coinciding with India’s Republic Day on Friday. Directed by successful Bollywood director Siddharth Anand and starring famous Bollywood actors Hrithik Roshan, Deepika Padukone and Anil Kapoor, Variety reported that the film, which “revolves around the Indian Air Force,” achieved a worldwide gross revenue of $25.1 million it’s opening weekend. Of that $25.1 million, Variety reported that $20.8 million of that gross came from the...

CAPE TOWN — Presidents Putin and XI and other leaders from the Brics bloc of developing countries will hold a virtual meeting on the Israel-Hamas war on Tuesday, with Secretary General Guterres also participating. The leaders of fellow Brics members Brazil, India, and South Africa, as well as of Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates, which are set to join the bloc in January, will also take part, according to the office of President Ramaphosa of South Africa. Mr. Ramaphosa will chair the “extraordinary meeting” because of South Africa’s position as current chair of Brics,...

India has signaled it will distance itself from Russian weapons, threatening further Russia's role as a major global arms supplier amid the ongoing war in Ukraine. The development was reported by Reuters on Monday, citing four government sources, including a recently retired senior security official, who all spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive subject. The sources said India is gradually pivoting away from Russia and shifting toward the West for its arms supplies. Russia is the second-largest global arms exporter behind the United States. Over the last two decades, Russia supplied India with 65 percent of its...

Balochistan can be freed if US stops supporting Pakistan, feels Baloch activist Ahmer Musti Khan who earlier heckled Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif speech."I must assure you our Baloch people are so confident of victory that they believe that once US stops supporting Pakistan, we can force them out of Balochistan," Musti Khan said in an exclusive interview with ANI....Musti Khan demanded freedom of Balochistan provinces where Pakistani army has been engaged in torture and killings of Baloch people demanding freedom. The activist also called Sharif a 'friend of al-Qaida founder Osama Bin Laden.'

Protest in France has tapered off since the Yellow Vests mass demonstrations in late 2018 and early 2019 but this week a spirited nationwide protest by farmers emerged. Larg conglomerates and global businesses the target of farmers anger since their policies threaten the ability of French farmers to make a living... French political leader Florian Philippot ("Les Patriots") saying that deal with the South American countries: "will kill our agriculture"... As the protests spread to highways in the Paris area Friday Prime Minister Gabirel Attal appearing at a cattle farm. He announced measures including the cancellation of a planned tax...

Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X, "Deeply shocked by the news of terrorist attacks in Israel. Our thoughts and prayers are with the innocent victims and their families. We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour." Deeply shocked by the news of terrorist attacks in Israel. Our thoughts and prayers are with the innocent victims and their families. We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour. — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) October 7, 2023 The US on Saturday "unequivocally" condemned the attack by "Hamas terrorists" against Israel, the White House said in a statement. "The United...

Tragedy struck in India when a five-year-old boy diagnosed with terminal cancer was drowned as his family tried to cure him with water from the River Ganges. Police say the child, who had leukemia, died after his parents submerged him in the river flowing through northern India in a superstitious bid to cure him. The family had reportedly travelled from their home in Delhi to Haridwar on Tuesday to perform the ceremony and pray for the unnamed victim. Their taxi driver said the child was accompanied by his parents and a female relative identified as his aunt by local media....

NASA recently revealed that a laser beam was fired from its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) at a spacecraft on the Moon’s surface, in a technological first that could pave the path toward new methods of precision target location. The American space agency says a laser beam was transmitted from the LRO’s laser altimeter instrument at a tiny device on the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) Vikram lander on December 12, 2023. The transmission occurred while the LRO was more than 60 miles away as it passed over the lunar South Pole when it fired a series of laser pulses at...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugurated a grand temple to Hindu god Ram in the flashpoint city of Ayodhya. He said it heralded "a new era" for India - the temple replaces a 16th-Century mosque torn down by Hindu mobs in 1992, sparking riots in which nearly 2,000 people died. Top film stars and cricketers were among guests at the event in Ayodhya. But some Hindu seers and most of the opposition boycotted it, saying Mr Modi was using it for political gain. General elections are due in India in the next few months and Mr Modi's political rivals...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi today opened a controversial Hindu temple built on the ruins of a historical mosque in the flashpoint city of Ayodhya. The temple, which is still under construction, is dedicated to the Hindu god Lord Ram and fulfils a long-standing demand by millions of Hindus who worship the revered deity.

Three days after a 19-year-old pregnant woman was found brutally stabbed with a shaving blade and screwdriver in East Delhi’s Mayur Vihar, police Saturday arrested her 20-year-old boyfriend. According to police, the accused claimed he wanted to give her abortion pills but she refused as she wanted to marry him. The accused, Yogesh Dhedha, is a first-year student at an open college and lives with his mother and sister in Chilla Village. He was traced after police scanned almost 100 CCTVs around the area, since the crime scene was not covered by security cameras, and questioned 50 witnesses, including shopkeepers....

A tech boss has plunged to his death during his firm’s celebrations as horror footage captured his final moments alive. Sanjay Shah, CEO of US-based company Vistex, was making a grand performance in an iron cage before part of the chain supporting the structure snapped. The freak accident took place at Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad, India, during the company’s silver jubilee on Thursday evening, The Sun reports. Sanjay, accompanied by his colleague Raju Datla, entered an iron cage on stage intended to be lowered from a height. But one side of the iron chain supporting the cage broke, dropping...

[Musk] wrote: 'Suspending the Twitter account of a major news organization for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate.' Musk was referring to the suspension of the New York Post's account for its exclusive about Hunter Biden's laptop in the run-up to the 2020 election. Initially dismissed as 'misinformation' by liberal outlets and social media networks, the laptop and its contents have since been verified by many of the same publications. Gadde - who's described as Twitter's 'moral authority' - broke down in tears on Monday, Politico reported. She did so while briefing her team via videolink on the...

An organizer reads excerpts from a sacred Zoroastrian text at one of the Kurdistan Region's fire temples in Darbandikhan, Aug. 8, 2019. (Photo: Kurdistan 24/Karwan Yara) A local organization dedicated to the Zoroastrian religion and philosophy on Thursday held a special ceremony at one of the group's fire temples located in the Kurdistan Region.Members of the Basna Organization, whose efforts usually focus on preserving local archaeological sites, performed the rite in Sulaimani province’s town of Darbandikhan.During the event, participants observed a number of the religion's rituals and read some of the faith's texts and core doctrines aloud to attendees. Organizers...

The Buddha statue depicts Siddhartha Gautama, who lived in South Asia around 2,550 years ago. Born a prince, he would later renounce his worldly wealth and seek out enlightenment, eventually becoming the Buddha, a Sanskrit-derived word that means "the enlightened one," according to Buddhist tradition...The newfound statue dates to between A.D. 90 and 140, said Steven Sidebotham, a history professor at the University of Delaware who is co-director of the Berenike Project, told Live Science in an email.The 28-inch-tall (71 centimeters) statue shows the Buddha standing and holding parts of his robes in his left hand, representatives from the Egyptian...