Delegation level talks between India and Russia underway,the ANI tweets
11122014
In #Pics: Russian President Vladimir Putin With PM @narendramodi For more Photos visit : http://goo.gl/cX3a4Z
Delhi: Delegation level talks between India and Russia underway
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Categories : Business, CSR, world News
Indian Cricket Team for Blind Wins the Blind Cricket World Cup, 2014
11122014
Union Minister for Social Justice & Empowerment, Shri Thaawar Chand Gehlot today met and congratulated the victorious Blind Cricket Team which returned from South Africa after winning the 4th ODI World Blind Cricket Tournament. Appreciating the achievement the Minister said the team has achieved a spectacular victory and he felt proud that the differently abled sports person are not lagging behind other athletes in bringing glory to the country.
The Minister further added that the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment has been actively supporting the cause of differently abled persons of all categories. The Indian Blind Cricket Team lifted the 4th ODI World Cup, 2014 for the Blind beating Pakistan in South Africa on 7th December, 2014 at Cape Town South Africa. Severn countries participated in the Tournament – India, Pakistan, Australia, Sri Lanka, England, South Africa and Bangladesh.
The Captain of the Indian Team was Shekar Naik & the highest scorer was Prakash J who scored 82 in 38 balls. The second best scorer Ketanbhai Patel from Gujarat scored 76 runs. He was also the Man of the Match & the Man of the Series. Cricket Association for the Blind India – promoted and supported by Samarthanam – organized the 1st T20 World Cup at Bangalore in 2012 which was won by India. Presently India is the champion of both formats. The second T-20 World Cup will be organized in India in 2016. Congratulating the team on the occasion were Minister of Youth Affairs & Sports Mr. Sarbananda Sonowal, Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Shri Vijay Sampla, Ms Stuti Kacker, Secretary, Department of Disability Affairs, , Shri Prasanna Kumar Pincha, Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities
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Categories : sports
Are solar billboards the future of city’s hoardings?
11122014
India’s first solar powered backlit hoarding Introduced in Ahmedabad by Ad Pulse Publicity.
Location: blind People’s Association Cross Roads, Vastrapur Ahmedabad
Ad Pulse Publicity have unveiled a Backlit hoarding in Ahmedabad that uses exclusive solar energy, thereby saving on electricity and avoiding load shedding problems.
Non productive use of precious power on outdoor hoardings has been a fiercely debated issue for a long time, both inside and outside the industry. Large advertising hoardings are a common sight in many cities, and these are illuminated throughout the night by high intensity lamps. Most hoardings utilize 4-12 lamps and consume a vast amount of power.
Ad Pulse Publicity, has come up with a solution – solar powered hoardings, which don’t use electricity at all!
According to Ad Pulse Publicity, the concept of solar powered hoardings is comparatively underused in India, despite its cost-effectiveness. Solar powered outdoor lighting can be maintained liberally unlike its traditional electrical counterparts, while eliminating the need for conventional halogen lamps, which tend to generate heat. It also has a battery back-up of 3 days in case of low sunlight or cloudy conditions, for four-five hours each day.
Basically this technology, Design & Developed by our consultant Mr. A. Bharucha, uses solar photovoltaic panels, Indigenously made Controller (Customized for this special purpose) making this a 100 % energy saving, electricity free concept. The solar panel converts sunlight into the electrical energy required to illuminate the hoarding with an automatic timer that switches the illumination on and off. Also, unlike halogen lamps, the light used for illumination produces cool light, and the zero carbon emission contributes to a cleaner environment.
“Banning of outdoor hoardings at night isn’t a solution,”
There may be few attempts done previously by few people for front lit hoardings but none has tried for backlit Hoardings. In its first initiative, Ad Pulse Publicity has put up a hoarding which uses solar energy in Andhjan Mandal, Vastrapur Cross Road, Ahmedabad this is a first of its kind Solar Backlit hoarding in India, says the company’s owner, Mr.Nirmal Parikh.
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Categories : Business, CSR
PARI website is both a living journal
11122014
The People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI) is delighted to invite you for a conversation with its founder, journalist P. Sainath, on December 17th, in Chennai.
The PARI website is both a living journal and an archive aimed at recording the everyday lives of everyday people; it will host and combine video, still photo, audio and text articles.The site will launch on December 20th, 2014.
The website is not-for-profit, free to view and all the contributors – journalists, writers, film-makers, editors, translators, techies, lawyers and accountants – are volunteers. It will be licensed under creative commons (version 4.0) which means the contents can be shared by others, as long as it is non-commercial. (The PARI website too is developed free of charge, by a global software company ThoughtWorks, at Ascendas tech park, Chennai.)
The website hopes to grow by public participation. Anybody can send us pictures, text articles, photo stories, films – as long as it fits our mandate – ‘the everyday life of everyday people’. Content on the site will be curated to ensure the maintenance of high standards. PARI hopes to function on crowd-funding. It will not be dependent on direct corporate or government funding.
You can read up more about the website here: http://www.ruralindiaonline.org/about/
PARI will be an important educational tool, and you can find out more about that here:http://www.ruralindiaonline.org/about/pari-teachers-students/
(Pls explore the site; the videos, however, will go live only on the 20th.)
(Pls explore the site; the videos, however, will go live only on the 20th.)
Kindly join us on the 17th, for the media meet.
Sainath will introduce PARI, and answer any questions you may have about the website.
Sainath will introduce PARI, and answer any questions you may have about the website.
We look forward to your support to help us spread the word about what is possibly the biggest initiative of its kind anywhere.
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Categories : Business, CSR, culture, Education
Third list of 10 AAP candidates for Delhi assembly elections
11122014
From: Media Cell AAP Wed, 10 Dec ’14 7:18p
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Show full Headers
Wednesday, 10 December, 2014
The Aam Aadmi Party has released its third list of 10 candidates for the coming assembly elections of Delhi. In the earlier two lists, the party had already released the names of 35 candidates.
With today’s list, the AAP has so far released the names of 45 candidates in the 70 member assembly.
Given below are the names of 10 candidates and their constituencies :
- Adarsh Shastri Dwarka
- Rituraj Jha Kirari
- Praveen Kumar Jangpura
- Nitin Tyagi Laxminagar
- SK Bagga Krishnanagar
- Shiv Charan Goyal Moti Nagar
- Sahi Ram Tuglakabad
- Kartar Singh Tanwar Chattarpur
- Ved Prakash Bawana
- Sharad Chauhan Narela
Thanks
AAP Media Cell
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Categories : Business, Politics
11122014
Menace of Black Money
Tap UK to bring back Nizam';s wealth
ASHOK B SHARMA
There is a lot of talk of bringing back black money of Indians stashed away in different tax havens abroad. The ruling BJP had made this an issue in the election campaign before coming to power. It had accused the then Congress-led UPA government of being unable to bring back the black money which according to its estimate ranges between $500 billion and $1,400 billion. A study by Global Financial Integrity put the current value of illicit money outflow to be $462 billion.
The UPA Government in Parliament that the CBI Director';s statement on $500 billion of illegal money was an estimate based on a statement made to Supreme Court in July 2011. Some reports claim a total of $1.4 trillion stashed away in Swiss bank, while the Swiss Bankers'; Association and the government have denied these reports as “false and fabricated”.
Such are the wild guesses about the quantum of black money stashed away in safe havens abroad. The BJP had earlier accused the Congress-led UPA government about its incapability to bring back the black money, while smaller countries like Vietnam and South Korea had taken firm steps and recovered their wealth.
The issue is what has the governments, past and the present, done to bring back the known amount of money stashed in the Royal Bank of Scotland about 66 years ago? The amount is estimated to be 30 million pounds or over Rs 3 billion. The tale of this money dates back at the time of Independence and partition of the country, when the seventh and the last Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Osman Ali Khan';s finance minister Moin Nawaz Jung transferred 10,07,940 pound sterling and nine shillings in the name of the then Pakistan High Commissioner in London HI Rahimtoola in the National Westminster Bank, which is now called Royal Bank of Scotland. Including the interest earned on the deposit, the amount now is estimated to be over 30 million pounds or Rs 3 billion.
India had raised objection to the transfer saying the Nizam was not an independent ruler and prevailed upon the bank to freeze the account. Since then the matter is hanging fire.
The UK';s House of Lords had later ruled that the account can only be unfrozen with the agreement between three parties – India, Pakistan and Nizam';s heirs. However, the amount deposited in the Royal Bank of Scotland has no will or trust deed.
The cultural advisor to the Nizam';s Trust, Muhammad Safiullah had estimated in 2008 that Nizam';s heirs may get 20% of the money, while the Indian government will get a major share. The last Nizam of Hyderabad had 18 daughters and 16 sons, out of which two sons and three daughters are still alive. Besides there are 104 grandchildren.
Nizam had refused to accede to India after the country got Independence from British rule in August 15, 1947. He wanted Hyderabad to remain as an independent princely state or join Pakistan. However in September 1948, Hyderabad had to join the Indian Union after an operation by Indian security forces. Nizam, who known as the richest man of his times, also financed Pakistan';s first national Budget.
In 2008 the UPA government, through a Cabinet decision, decided to pursue for an out-of-the court settlement after Nizam';s descendants met the then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and then Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. Mukherjee also went to Islamabad in 2008 and offered to settle the issue. But India-Pakistan dialogue process got derailed after the 26/11 terror attack in Mumbai. Again after revival the dialogue process again derailed after the Pakistani High Commissioner in India met the Kashmiri Hurriyat leaders just before foreign secretary level talks were slated to be resumed in Islamabad. Thus the matter still remains unresolved.
It is regrettable that the BJP and the Prime Minister Narendrabhai Damodardass Modi raised such hue and cry over the failure of the past government to bring back money, has not yet made any singular effort to bring back the wealth stashed away by Nizam in the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Of course Prime Minister Modi made some effort to set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to trace black money at the instance of the Supreme Court. He raised the issue of black money at the BRICS meeting at the margins of G20 in Brisbane and as well as in G20 Summit. The G20 Leaders'; Communiqe noted some transparency in tackling the menace of black money like dealing with base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) of multinational companies by deciding that “profits should be taxed where economic activities deriving the profits are performed and where value is created.” The leaders committed to finalising the work in 2015, including transparency of taxpayer-specific rulings found to constitute harmful tax practices. They welcomed the progress being made on taxation of patent boxes.
The G20 leaders also decided to begin a global common reporting standard for automatic exchange of tax information (AEOI) on reciprocal basis by 2017 or end-2018, subject to completing necessary legislative procedures.
The government has received some initial information of about 800 account holders with HSBC and is working on it to come to some conclusions. With an eye on the future the government is planning to modify the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements and other such agreements inked with several countries so as to make disclosures would be transparent. It is also thinking of inking new such agreements where disclosures would be transparent. But all these are matters of future concern.
But what is needed immediately is to take up the issue of known quantum of wealth stashed away in the Royal Bank of Scotland by the erstwhile Nizam';s finance minister. The amount is substantial at 30 million pounds or Rs 3 billion. The government';s coffer stands to gain substantially as this is the wealth of erstwhile Hyderabad state which rightly belongs to the Indian government after the merger of the princely state. Like Nizam';s state immovable property has become the property of the government after merger so also the erstwhile princely state';s coffer should be the wealth of the government. India should take up this issue with the UK government to unfrozen the account.
(Ashok B Sharma is an senior independent Columnist writing on strategic and policy issues in several national and international newspapers and magazines. He can be reached at ashokbsharma@gmail.com His mobile phone no 09810902204)
