PM Modi celebrates Diwali in Kashmir, Nawaz Sharif, daughter indicted by court: Top stories | Latest News India - Hindustan Times
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PM Modi celebrates Diwali in Kashmir, Nawaz Sharif, daughter indicted by court: Top stories

Hindustan Times | By
Oct 20, 2017 07:13 AM IST

A digest of important news stories in the last 24 hours.

1- PM Narendra Modi celebrates Diwali in Kashmir, calls jawans ‘his family’

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the jawans of the Indian Army and BSF, in the Gurez Valley, near the Line of Control, in Jammu and Kashmir, on Thursday.(PTI Photo)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the jawans of the Indian Army and BSF, in the Gurez Valley, near the Line of Control, in Jammu and Kashmir, on Thursday.(PTI Photo)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi celebrated Diwali with the jawans of Indian Army and BSF in Gurez Valley near the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday. Modi offered sweets and exchanged greetings with the jawans. In his address, the Prime Minister said that like everyone else, he too wished to spend Diwali with his family, and had visited the jawans whom he considers “his family”. This is the fourth successive Diwali that the Prime Minister has celebrated with jawans on the border.

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2- Ousted PM Sharif, daughter Maryam indicted by Pakistani anti-corruption court

A Pakistani anti-corruption court on Thursday indicted ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter over allegations linked to ownership of London properties, opening a trial that could see the former leader jailed. The Sharifs have called the corruption proceedings against them a conspiracy, hinting at intervention by the powerful military, but opponents have hailed it as a rare example of the rich and powerful being held accountable. Sharif, 67, resigned in July after the Supreme Court disqualified him from holding office over an undeclared source of income, but the veteran leader maintains his grip on the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party.

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3- Delhi airport gets call about bomb on plane on Diwali, turns out to be hoax

Security agencies at the Delhi airport had a nervous moment on Thursday after they received a hoax call about a bomb on a Mumbai-bound flight. A call centre of the airport operator received the call from a mobile phone at about 2pm. The caller said in Hindi, “Delhi-Bombay flight mein bomb hai” (there is a bomb on a Delhi-Mumbai flight), a senior official engaged in airport security said. A meeting of the designated bomb threat assessment committee was immediately convened at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA), he said, adding that at about 3.15pm, the call was declared to be a hoax.

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4- Indian-origin guard loots 7 mn pounds from own cash vehicles in UK, jailed

An Indian-origin security guard and his accomplice have been sentenced to over six years in jail by a UK court for their role in a 7-million-pound staged robbery from their own vehicles transporting cash. Ranjeev Singh and fellow security guard Mohammad Siddique were jailed for conspiracy to steal at Kingston Crown Court in south-west London. They have been jailed for six-and-a-half years each. The duo, both employees of European cash handling company Loomis, claimed they had been robbed to cover their tracks after they stole 26 bags of cash on March 14 this year.

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5- Darul Uloom Deoband fatwa bans Muslims from posting photos on social media

The Darul Uloom Deoband in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur has issued a fatwa prohibiting Muslim men and women from posting their or their families’ photographs on social media sites. In the fatwa issued on Wednesday, one of the largest Islamic seminaries in India has said that posting photos of self or family on social media sites such as Facebook, WhatsApp is not allowed in Islam. The edict was issued by the fatwa department of the Darul Uloom Deoband after a man approached it recently asking if posting photos on social media sites was allowed in the religion.

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6- Trekking, shopping and to the opera: Varsities overseas work hard to welcome students

In the 2000s, if a student wanted to go abroad to study, they’d consider the USA, UK, Canada and perhaps Australia. And who could blame them? The nations had English-speaking populations, highly developed industry and their cultures were easy to understand. Between 2010 and 2011, nearly two lakh Indian students went abroad to study, says a report by the UNESCO Institute of Statistics and the Institute of International Education. Over the last few years, however, countries like China, Germany and Denmark have been emerging as attractive destinations in which to get a degree. For students, this is undoubtedly a richer experience but it comes with worries. How do you settle into a land when you don’t speak the language? How do you live in towns where the food is unfamiliar, and the people known to be standoffish? How do you find your bearings when the neighbourhood is not what you’ve prepared for?

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7- Afghanistan opposes Pak plan for chicken-wire border fence to keep out militants

Pakistan is betting that a pair of nine-foot chicken wire fences topped with barbed wire will stop incursions by Islamist militants from Afghanistan, which opposes Islamabad’s plans for a barrier along the disputed frontier. Pakistan plans to fence up most of the 2,500 km (1,500 mile) frontier despite Kabul’s protests that the barrier would divide families and friends along the Pashtun tribal belt straddling the colonial-era Durand line drawn up by the British in 1893. Pakistan’s military estimates that it will need about Rs56 billion ($532 million) for the project, while there are also plans to build 750 border forts and employ high-tech surveillance systems to prevent militants crossing.

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8- At Brussels summit, Theresa May urges EU to break deadlock in Brexit talks

Prime Minister Theresa May urged the European Union on Thursday to break the deadlock and move forward with Brexit talks, asking the bloc’s leaders to respond with “urgency” on easing the fears of their citizens living in Britain. Arriving at a two-day summit in Brussels with other EU leaders, May sought to lower any remaining expectation that she could win a breakthrough in the talks to unravel more than 40 years of union. Instead, she turned the focus to making progress in the coming weeks, particularly on citizens’ rights. Weakened by losing her Conservative Party’s majority in a June election and failing to rally support at an ill-fated party conference, May cannot move on the EU’s insistence on increasing her pay offer for the divorce agreement.

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9- Asia Cup hockey: India hammer Malaysia 6-2 in Super 4 encounter

Following an average performance against South Korea where they drew 1-1, India came out with all guns blazing to hammer Malaysia 6-2 in Asia Cup hockey in Dhaka on Thursday. Six Indians scored a goal each to better their chances of qualifying for yet another final of the Asia Cup. India maintained most of the possession in the first quarter but despite creating chances, they failed to capitalise. The Malaysian defence stood strong and denied the Indian forwards from taking the lead in the match. And yet it was the two-time champions who managed to take the lead in the final minute of the first quarter when Akashdeep Singh sneaked one in.

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