The number of North Koreans defecting to South Korea dropped 21 per cent in 2017, its lowest level since Kim Jong-un came to power six years ago, according to official data released here on Friday.

A total of 1,127 North Koreans arrived in South Korea last year as compared to 1,418 in 2016, the Unification Ministry data showed.

The number of defectors peaked in 2009, at 2,914.

Experts believe that security has been bolstered especially since the second half of 2015, when more border controls and high-tension barbed wire fences were set up around the Tumen River, which separates China from northeastern North Korea.

Last year, the vast majority of defectors were women (83 per cent), thus maintaining the trend, as women make up 71 per cent of all North Korean defectors to the South.

A total of 31,339 North Koreans have managed to flee to the neighbouring country after the Korean War (1950-1953) ended with an armistice, but no peace treaty has ever been signed.

The tally surpassed 30,000 in November 2016.

Unable to cross into South Korea by land, majority of the defectors choose to cross the Amnok or Tumen rivers to reach China and from there to a third country – mainly Thailand and Mongolia – where they ask for asylum at South Korean embassies and consulates, something they cannot do in Beijing.

China wants to avoid mass migrations of North Koreans and does not consider them as refugees but as “economic migrants”.

If defectors are found in China they are forcibly repatriated to North Korea.

Title: The Beckoning Isle

Author: Abhay Narayan Sapru

Publisher: Wisdom Tree

Pages: 157

Price: Rs 245

The operation against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) by the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka in the 1980s may have been a doomed venture, but this riveting tale of rivalry between an Indian Special Forces officer and a battle-hardened LTTE commander based on realistic settings comes as a breath of fresh air in a market where war books are few and far between.

Abhay Narayan Sapru’s “The Beckoning Isle” is a gripping account of the IPKF’s operation versus the LTTE guerrillas and is his second book on war from a combat soldier’s perspective.

Sapru, who himself served in the elite Special Forces and now works in a private bank, makes it clear in the preface that while a plot has been interwoven, most of the incidents, places and experiences are factual.

While the book gives a peek into the history of that war, it also describes in graphic detail what the Indian soldiers had to contend with in what was essentially a peace-keeping venture.

“Untrained in fighting on the local terrain, ill-equipped and burdened with a conventional military mindset, it was the Indian Army’s Vietnam and by the time the IPKF pulled out, it was minus 1,200 men, cremated on a foreign soil and nearly 3,000-plus wounded,” Sapru states in the preface.

“In contrast to the Kargil conflict, which was covered extensively by the media, the military entanglement in Sri Lanka is a forgotten war — and was one even while it was being fought — with the last vestiges finally obliterated by the passage of time.”

The tale of the young and dedicated Captain Hariharan and LTTE commander Silvam criss-crossing each other’s paths takes the reader through the dank, humid, mine-infested dense jungles of Sri Lanka and brings to light the sheer intensity the Tamil Tigers brought to the conflict.

It is a tale of two men on opposing sides but fatalistic in their beliefs and shows human behaviour, politics and the intrigue surrounding the whole conflict.

The very fact that Silvam was trained by Captain Hariharan’s father at a cantonment town in the Himalayas shows that the Indian Army too should be given credit for having trained, at the instance of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) spy agency, 15,000 Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers from various political parties and turning them into what they were — giving no quarter and asking for none.

The circumstances under which Silvam, who worked as an accountant, took up arms and kept a cyanide capsule to avoid surrender, show how the Tigers were determined in their belief and individually fiercely dedicated to the job at hand.

Silvam’s fleeting trysts with his wife and son also give a glimpse into the personal life of a Tamil Tiger who puts cause over family. Towards the end of the book, one can feel the respect an Indian had for the enemy despite the intensity and sheer viciousness of the conflict.

“The Beckoning Isle” is an action-packed and fast-paced read.

The CBI has registered a corruption case against the Aligarh Muslim University’s former Vice Chancellor Naseem Ahmad for his alleged involvement in the illegal appointment of an official in the varsity in 2005.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) FIR said that Ahmad committed the offence when he was Vice Chancellor between 2002 and 2007.

Ahmad had resigned from his position after allegations of appointing Shakaib Arsalan as Assistant Finance Officer in 2005 was termed a violation of provisions of the AMU Act and rules.

The FIR mentions charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating and Prevention of Corruption Act against Ahmad, Arsalan (now Joint Finance Officer) and then Deputy Finance Officer Yasmin Jalal Beg.

The vacancy for the posts of Assistant Finance Officer and Deputy Finance Officer were advertised by the AMU on January 1, 2004 and 22 candidates had applied. The CBI preliminary enquiry found that nine of the 22 candidates were found to be eligible for the first post did not include Arsalan.

Arsalan submitted a representation that his Chartered Accountant degree was not being considered equivalent to a post-graduate degree in the shortlisting process whereas an AMU notification recognises these degrees as equivalent, it alleged, adding he had requested his consideration for the interview held on February 3, 2005.

Beg, now Finance Officer, allegedly in violation of laid down procedure, recommended the candidature of Arsalan for interview on the grounds that CA degree is the optimum qualification for any finance person and if a CA has applied for the position of the AFO, he will be an asset for the department.

“Beg had put the note even though the file was not marked to her,” the CBI FIR alleged, adding the note was forwarded through the Registrar and approved by the Vice Chancellor.

There was one more candidate with a CA degree with 60 per cent marks and several other candidates who had scored over 55 per cent marks in PG examination as per advertised eligibility conditions of the University, the FIR said.

Arsalan in his representation had concealed that he scored less that 55 per cent marks in CA examination and misled the officials by enclosing his part one marksheet which showed 55 per cent marks, it alleged.

Beg concealed that there was one more candidate with a CA degree and recommended Arsalan’s candidature as part of the “criminal conspiracy”, it alleged.

Based on the interview, Arsalan was one of the three candidates recommended for the position of AFO and this was approved by the Vice Chancellor on behalf of the Executive Council.

The CBI found that the Vice Chancellor can use special powers on behalf of the Executive Council but such decisions mandatorily should be reported to the Council which was not done in the meeting held on October 4, 2005, the FIR alleged.

“It has thus revealed that Ahmad, though not competent to relax the qualification, deviated from the advertised qualification and approved the candidature of Arsalan to be called for interview for the post of Assistant Finance Officer in AMU. Further the relaxation and deviation in the matter of appointment was not reported to the Executive Council and neither ratified from them,” the FIR alleged.

The Indian Premier League player retention 2018 was full of surprises. Before the mega event took place on 4 November at Mumbai, there were many speculations doing round on the internet about the retention and some of those speculation had also come true. For example, Mumbai Indians retained Rohit Sharma, while Suresh Raina and MS Dhoni reunited with Chennai Super Kings (CSK). Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) broke the bank to retain Indian skipper Virat Kohli and by doing so he became the most expansive player of the franchise in terms of the league fee.

However, amid all the reunion, it came as a shock to the fans of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) when the news broke that the Shah Rukh Khan-owned KKR franchise have opted not to retain Gautam Gambhir who had led the team to two IPL titles. Instead of Gambhir KKR opted to retain Sunil Narine for Rs 8.5 crore and Andre Russell for Rs 7 crore.

‘KKR may not retain Gambhir’, these speculation started a few weeks back when before the Ranji Trophy finale between Vidarbha and Delhi. Gambhir had said that if KKR would not retain him then he was willing to play for any IPL team.

“It is very surprising that I have not spoken to anyone (in KKR management). I don’t know about myself (future with KKR). We’ll probably sit and talk after the Ranji final,” Gambhir had said.

“You have achieved so much for KKR. You have done whatever you could. If things do not work out in future, the good part is that you are leaving a franchise on a good note, when it has become a successful franchise. Not when you were struggling,” Gambhir added.

However, the fans of the KKR are not happy with SRK owned franchise’s decision to not retain Gautam Gambhir and they took it to Twitter to express their anger for the same.

Jokes apart, @iamsrk has made a huge mistake by not retaining @GautamGambhir . His record in IPL is phenomenal and was instrumental in winning IPL titles for KKR both as batsman and as captain. Wonder if he paid the price of too much nationalism?

— The Skin Doctor 🇮🇳 (@theskindoctor13) January 4, 2018

Is this the reason behind SRK not retaining Gautam Gambhir? #IPLRetention #KKR pic.x.com/gbkHkfxBAR

— Abhishek 🇮🇳 #408 (@ImAbhishek7_) January 4, 2018

Why am I not surprised at Gautam Gambhir not being retained by KKR? He pissed a lot of pretentious losers in the recent times. Their veils are falling off slowly.

— Sonam Mahajan (@AsYouNotWish) January 4, 2018

What SRK did to Gautam Gambhir at #IPLRetention pic.x.com/ix8DTkJjS9

— Moody Motu (@MoodyMotu) January 4, 2018

Sad to see @KKRiders didn’t retain @GautamGambhir .. a person who has took the team to heights. A fighter captain and has Never Say Die spirit. If age factor is the reason, it is wrong. He has still cricket left in him. #IPLRetention #KKR @iamsrk

— Aditya Suresh Khadye (@khadye_aditya) January 4, 2018

Gautam Gambhir Fans Right Now.#IPLRetention 😉 pic.x.com/pVxfcEcULx

— Rohit Sardana (@Rohit_Sardana_) January 4, 2018

With Gautam Gambhir not in team anymore, chances of KKR winning the IPL title is same as that of SRK’s upcoming movie name.

— Bhaad me Jaa.. (@iAbhishek_J) January 5, 2018

Singer Camila Cabello says she always has a crush on somebody.

The 20-year-old believes she has never had a serious relationship because of her hectic schedule, but she does dream of finding her true love one day, reports rollingstone.com. “The way that I have worked makes it hard for relationships, on friendships, even health. I always have a crush on somebody. It’s just how I am! It’s boring without that. A girl’s gotta daydream,” Cabello said.

Cabello found fame with the Fifth Harmony band before departing the group in 2016. Although she’s gearing up to drop her debut solo album later this month, she likes to spend her free time pretending she is not famous.

“I do like to forget that I’m a singer or somebody that’s famous. In Los Angeles, it was hard to have people just look at me as a 20-year-old kid. It was like I didn’t really have a life outside of the studio,” she said.

The US President Donald Trump’s administration has announced plans to roll back a ban on new offshore drilling off the coasts of Florida and California and was considering over 40 sites for the leasing of natural gas and oil production, the media reported.

Thursday’s proposal comes just after the Interior Department issued a stop-work order on a National Academy of Sciences study reviewing the offshore oil and gas operations inspection program to enhance safety, reports CNN.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said that 47 proposed leasing areas could increase federal revenue by $15 billion.

“It’s better to produce energy here and never be held hostage by foreign enemy needs,” Zinke said, adding it was a “clear difference between energy weakness and energy dominance”.

The five-year proposal would increase drilling sites off the coasts of Alaska and in the Gulf of Mexico and it would reinstate leasing sites in Pacific and Atlantic waters.

The announcement was met with immediate concern from environmental groups and from Republican Florida Governor Rick Scott, who released a statement asking to have waters off Florida’s coastline removed from consideration, reports CNN.

Zinke, however, said the proposal would not move forward without the state, community and congressional feedback, but refused to say that states would have the power to veto drilling off their own shores.

“Certainly states and local communities have a voice, and Scott’s been a great governor,” Zinke said. “This is what’s available. We’re going to listen to the voices of all the stakeholders… This is going to be a dialogue of states and Interior and all the stakeholders.”

Lawmakers from New Jersey and Pennsylvania voiced concerns about the effects on tourism and coastal economies.

More than 140 municipalities have publicly opposed offshore drilling activities in the Atlantic, according to the environmental group Oceana.

Environmental groups call the plan “dirty” and “dangerous”.

The US Chamber of Commerce praised the move in a statement, saying it “would help cement America’s role as an energy superpower, creating jobs and contributing to our economy.

“For decades, our nation has needlessly limited our own ability to harness oil and gas resources. This new plan sets a much different course.”

Assistant coach Sanjay Bangar on Thursday said the conditions or oppositions don’t matter and India are confident of their preparation ahead of the first cricket Test against South Africa beginning here on Friday.

“We are very, very confident about our preparation because we got four-five days here before the first Test. And out of those days, we made sure we got plenty out of it. All the boys are in a positive state of mind,” the 45-year-old told reporters here.

“It is a Test match and it is no different from any other Test match that we play wherein the opposition skills are taken into account. We really focus on our own inward processes, how our mental approach is and how our mindset is in terms of batting rhythm where we stand.

“So the opposition doesn’t really matter nor do the conditions. What we are feeling as a batting group is what matters more and we work towards achieving that sort of level that we desire to,” Bangar added.

Bangar also said India might opt to play four bowlers or five batsmen in the first Test at the Newlands here which is expected to be a green-top wicket.

“Whenever the wicket suits, if it’s a bowling-friendly track then obviously we might go with four bowlers and if conditions are perceived to be batting-friendly we might opt for five bowlers,” the Indian said.

“Well, more or less that has been the pattern for the last 24 months or so wherein the team management has made the choices about the team composition.

“As of now, the conditions we found, we expect the ball to seam around a bit on day one. On days two and three, they are going to be very good batting conditions. We will take into consideration the extent of moisture tomorrow on the surface and we will take it from there,” Bangar added.

The former Indian all-rounder also hinted at batsman Rohit Sharma being picked up for the side ahead of Ajinkya Rahane.

“Again, it all depends on the team composition. All of them are batting really well. Rohit, on the back of his performances across formats, is in with a chance of playing,” the former all-rounder said.

“It boils down to the team balance and composition and we will take a call on the morning of the match who will get a nod,” Bangar added.

Explaining opener Shikhar Dhawan and all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja’s conditions, Bangar said: “Shikhar had a minor ankle niggle. He has been cleared and declared fit, and is available for selection. Jadeja is still under observation and yet to recover. His condition is still being monitored.”

A cold wave sweeping over Uttar Pradesh intensified on Friday as the Met forecast more harsh weather in the coming days. All schools upto Class 12 have been closed till Monday, an official said.

Lucknow, Agra, Bareilly, Kanpur, Varanasi and Allahabad district authorities have ordered the schools to close.

Many parts of the state have been hit by fog and poor visibility, with traffic on most state and national highways disrupted completely.

More than 30 trains were running behind schedule and the Shatabdi Express between New Delhi and Lucknow has been cancelled following its late arrival in Lucknow on Thursday.

At least four persons have been killed in fog related accidents in the state in the past 24-hours.

Regional Met Office Director J.P. Gupta said the maximum temperature in Lucknow was likely to hover around 13-14 degrees Celsius on Friday while the minimum temperature was recorded at seven degrees Celsius.

Allahabad recorded a low of 6.4, Jhansi (6), Kanpur (7.5) and Varanasi 6.4 degrees Celsius.

Icy winds blowing across the state was making life difficult and the sun has been playing hide and seek adding to the winter bite.

Conditions at many night shelters in the state continued to be dismal, despite instructions of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to ensure proper arrangements.

Adityanath had conducted a surprise inspection at two night shelters in the state capital here on Wednesday and made a brief stop over at night shelters in Varanasi on Thursday night.

He has directed officials to ensure that bonfires were lit at public places and that adequate blankets were distributed among the poor and the destitute.

A government spokesman informed that in pursuance of Adityanath’s orders till December 27, 2017, a total of 23,657 bonfires were lit across the state and 1,64,276 free blankets distributed to the needy and 708 night shelters were established in the state.

There have, however, been many complaints with regard to the bonfires as people alleged that most of the wood was being dropped outside or near the houses of Ministers and state officials, depriving the homeless and needy.

A correct diet rich in fruits is the way to go for an apt lifestyle. Fruits are a host of nutrients, vitamins, water, fibre and other health benefits. But, every fruit is not considered to be a healthy choice if consumed as the first diet of the day. The most significant thing is to be aware of those fruits that are good to be eaten on an empty stomach.

When you think of a healthy breakfast, a perfect picture should be there in your mind – which fruits should be incorporated as first food of the day in the morning.

Watermelon: Watermelon provides your body with a good amount of fluids that are much needed on an empty stomach. It also contains high levels of lycopene that’s good for your heart and eyes.

Blueberries: Blueberry is a healthy fruit to be eaten as first food in the morning. It regulates metabolism, blood pressure and even improves memory when eaten on an empty stomach.

Kiwi: The first thing in the morning on an empty stomach is the best time to eat kiwi fruit. It detoxifies the system of your body and the fibre in the fruit contains lots of minerals that will provide you with a day’s energy. An empty stomach will allow nutrient benefits of kiwi, the vitamins and minerals to be absorbed fully by your digestive system.

Papaya: Eat papaya on an empty stomach to reap full benefits of this fruit. Low in calories and high in fibre, it helps in reducing weight and cholesterol. The fruit also contains the digestive enzymes that clean your digestive tract relieving digestive problems like indigestion, bloating, constipation and upset stomach. Being rich in vitamin A and C, it helps boost your immune system. Papaya also helps remove toxins from the body. This super fruit is believed to promote improved cardiovascular health and protect from colon cancer.

Pomegranate: Taking pomegranate on an empty stomach in the morning would be best for anyone. It is a wonder fruit that is enriched with powerful antioxidants and numerous medicinal properties. This fruit can reduce inflammatory activities in the digestive tract and can help combat breast cancer, prostate cancer and colon cancer.

Plums: Consume eight to 10 plums as the first thing in the morning to cleanse your body. This fruit is good to control obesity, hypertension, arteriosclerosis and post-menopausal breast cancer. Plums are the best allies of the bowel both stimulating and normalizing bowel and liver volume, increasing the general body resistance. Loaded with vitamins and minerals, they help eliminate toxins from the body and combat fatigue and anaemia. Having energizing qualities due to the sugar content, they also improve cell activity in the muscular and nervous system.

Well, the right way is to make a wise choice between right fruits that are of utmost benefits on an empty stomach. Start your day with the diet filled with these super fruits and avoid few that can adversely affect your health in countless ways.

Besides the beautiful colour and great taste, these healthy fruits are recommended by nutritionists in morning diets as traditional herbal medicines as well!

Implementation of right knowledge is the secret of health.

The Indian cricket team on Thursday skipped the optional practice session ahead of the opening Test against South Africa, while skipper Virat Kohli also gave the pre-match press briefing a miss, a noticeable departure from convention for a bilateral engagement. India’s assistant coach Sanjay Bangar instead arrived to address the media, that too after a delay of over an hour. Early in the day, the team management declared the pre-Test practice session would be an optional one. However, it was surprising to see none of the players arrive for even a brief session. Even those, who are not expected to play a part in the Cape Town Test, didn’t come out for practice.

Only the support staff, including coach Ravi Shastri and chief selector MSK Prasad, showed up to take a final look at the match wicket.

A source in the team management outlined that nothing should be read into it “since it is only an optional practice session” ahead of a hectic series.

The bigger surprise though was the absence of Kohli from the media briefing. It is a general convention for the two skippers to address the press at the start of any series.

His predecessor Mahendra Singh Dhoni never missed a pre-Test briefing, especially when travelling overseas. Even in the West Indies last year or recently in Sri Lanka, Kohli was present in all pre-Test briefings.

The gathered local media in Cape Town expressed their displeasure with this turn of events.

The reasoning given for Kohli’s absence was his media briefing with Shastri on arrival in South Africa last week. Additionally, the Indian media manager confirmed that there was no word from Cricket South Africa either that the captain should be made available for the briefing.

After waiting for just over an hour, in a bid to express their displeasure at this development, two television crews walked off while Bangar’s press conference was still going on.

NASA has announced that it would launch two missions to explore a little-understood area 96 km above Earth’s surface.

The Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission will be launched aboard a commercial communications satellite in January 2018, and the designed spacecraft Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) will be launched later this year, the US space agency said on Thursday.

GOLD and ICON will team up to explore the ionosphere, a boundary area between Earth and the space where particles have been cooked into a sea of electrically-charged electrons and ions by the Sun’s radiation, reports Xinhua news agency.

These layers of near-Earth space are increasingly becoming a part of human domain as it is home to radio signals used to guide airplanes, ships and Global Positioning System satellites.

NASA said the two missions were complementary. ICON in low-Earth orbit, at 560 km above Earth, flies through and just above the ionosphere, like a close-up camera.

GOLD runs in geostationary orbit over the Western Hemisphere, about 35,398 km above the planet’s surface. It will build up a full-disk view of the ionosphere and the upper atmosphere beneath it every half hour.

The two missions can cooperate with each other when ICON passes through GOLD’s field of view and each mission can get a snapshot of the same region. This overlap in their data makes it easier to identify what caused a certain change to the upper atmosphere at a given time, NASA said.

One of the missions’ goals is to measure how upper atmosphere changes in response to hurricanes and geomagnetic storms.

“We used to think only solar wind could affect the ionosphere, and only the lower atmosphere was affected by terrestrial weather,” said Doug Rowland, ICON mission scientist at NASA.

“But now we’re going to get to see how that energy couples together.”

The solar wind is the Sun’s constant outflow of charged particles and magnetized material.

GOLD will also explore how the upper atmosphere reacts to geomagnetic storms, which are temporary disturbances of Earth’s magnetic field set off by solar activity.

During night-time, GOLD will examine disruptions in the ionosphere, which are dense, unpredictable bubbles of charged gas that appear over the equator and tropics, sometimes interfering with radio communications.

Parliamentary Affairs Ministers Ananth Kumar on Friday accused the Congress of doing injustice to the Muslim women by opposing the Triple Talaq Bill saying that they should learn from the past and let the legislation pass.

“They are not thinking about ensuring justice to the Muslim sisters. They are doing injustice the same way they did in the Shah-Bano case,” Kumar told reporters here in Parliament.

Condemning the Congress’s demand to refer the bill to the Select Committee, Kumar said: “Everyday they bring a new excuse and their demand to refer the bill to the Select Committee is just a trick to misguide all. I condemn this.

“The Congress should learn from history and allow the Triple Talaq Bill to pass.”

The BJP leader’s remarks came as the deadlock over the bill in the Rajya Sabha continued on Thursday with the government rejecting the opposition’s insistence on sending the bill to the Select Committee for detailed scrutiny.

The government has decided to put the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017, which seeks to criminalise instant divorce by uttering talaq thrice, for consideration on Friday — the last day of the winter session.

Do you feel old and wrinkled? Just 30 minutes of facial exercises which includes puckering and squeezing the cheeks daily can make you look three years younger, reveals a study.

Instead of undergoing anti-ageing skin treatments and care routines, middle-aged women undergoing this non-toxic method can have a younger appearance with fuller upper and lower cheeks and reduce some visible signs of ageing, the study further showed.

“Facial exercises that may be beneficial include those that entail puckering and squeezing the cheeks. There are many muscles that collectively allow movement of the cheeks, and our study showed that building these up makes the upper and lower cheeks look fuller,” said Murad Alam, Professor at the Northwestern University in Chicago, US.

“The exercises enlarge and strengthen the facial muscles, so the face becomes firmer and more toned and shaped like a younger face,” Alam added.

Fat pads present in between the muscle and the skin are responsible for providing firmness to the cheeks and keeping a toned shape of the face.

But as the skin starts ageing, the face pads too gradually becomes thinner.

The sagging of the pads makes the elasticity of the facial skin loose and fall down.

“But if muscle underneath becomes bigger, the skin has more stuffing underneath it and the firmer muscle appears to make the shape of the face more full,” noted Emily Poon, an assistant research professor at the varsity.

“Muscle growth is increasing the facial volume and counteracting the effects of age-related fat thinning and skin loosening,” Poon explained, in the paper published in the journal JAMA Dermatology.

The researchers studied over middle-aged women, aged between 40 to 65 years, who underwent face-to-face 90-minute training sessions from a facial exercise instructor. At home, they continued to do these exercises for a total of 20 weeks.

The US Treasury Department has announced sanctions against five Iranian entities. The Treasury Department said late Thursday the five Iran-based entities were subordinate to a key element of Iran’s ballistic missile programme and the US action targeted Tehran’s “destabilising weapons systems”, reports Xinhua news agency.

As a result, US citizens are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them.

Foreign financial institutions that knowingly facilitate significant transactions for, or persons that provide material or certain other support to, the designated entities risk exposure to sanctions that could sever their access to the US financial system or block their property and property interests under the American jurisdiction.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the US will continue to counter Iran with “additional sanctions”.

Last week, riots broke out in some Iranian cities in protest against price hikes and economic woes.

US President Donald Trump and a number of other American officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, have sided with the protesters.

Iran’s Ambassador to the UN Gholamali Khoshroo on Wednesday slammed the US government’s attempts to intervene in the domestic affairs of the Islamic Republic.

“The current US administration has crossed every limit in flouting rules and principles of international law governing the civilised conduct of international relations,” Khoshroo said in a letter to the UN Security Council and to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

Khoshroo added that Iran expects all states to condemn such dangerous statements and policies and urge the US government to act responsibly and adhere to principles of the UN Charter and international law.

Actor Sonam Kapoor feels there is a need for more films that revolve around women.

Her forthcoming film Veere Di Wedding, also starring Kareena Kapoor Khan, Swara Bhaskar and Shikha Talsania, is themed around a wedding. Kareena will play the part of a bride-to-be in the movie.

Veere Di Wedding looks so different. There should be more such films, this should be the norm,” Sonam told PTI.

“In Hollywood there are many female-oriented films that are such big blockbusters and are entertaining. We don’t have such films in India.”

The actor believes Hindi film industry is 20 years behind when it comes to making female-led commercial stories.

“Julia Roberts was huge in the ’80s and ’90s. Here it was about my dad (Anil Kapoor) and the other actors.The ’90s were about the Khans (Aamir, Shah Rukh and Salman). With our generation, we are atleast getting the opportunity to do that, but we are 20 years behind,” she said.

Sonam, 32, said working alongside a top female actor like Kareena, who also happens to be her good friend, for the first time in a movie was exciting.

“It is easy to communicate especially when it is a chemistry-driven film with four women. Since we are friends, it was a fun experience working with her.”

Directed by Shashanka Ghosh, the film is set for release on May 18.

The Neerja actor also reunites with Saawariya co-star Ranbir Kapoor for Sanjay Dutt biopic.

Sonam said the actor has not changed much over the years.

“I don’t think I have changed either. He is such a fine actor. We just have 10 years of experience. But it was fabulous working with him. We shot in ND studios for Saawariya and for this film we shot at the same place. So it was deja vu.”

Helmed by Rajkumar Hirani, the biopic on Dutt is scheduled for release in March.

Deployment of ‘Environment Marshals’ to check polluting activities and rationalisation of public transportation would be among the slew of measures taken to control pollution in the national capital region.

The decision was conveyed on Thursday by officials of different departments to Lt. Governor Anil Baijal during a review meeting here on combating air pollution.

Baijal also urged city municipal corporations to adopt one common mobile application for registering complaints regarding garbage and waste burning.

CPCB (Central Pollution Control Board) representative informed that SAMEER App of CPCB is functional on which complaints can be lodged. Complaints on this App were being forwarded to agencies concerned, an official statement from the Lt Governor’s office said.

Baijal also directed all agencies to strictly enforce pollution control measures and adhere to the timelines. “He stressed that the efforts must be intensified as considerable distance remains to be traversed before the battle against air pollution can be decisively won,” the statement read.

The meeting was attended by Environment Minister Imran Hussain and other officials.

Actor Nikitin Dheer, best known for playing a negative character in Shah Rukh Khan starrer “Chennai Express”, says such roles have a lot of layers which make them very challenging. Nikitin is currently seen playing Veer Pratap Chauhan, the main antagonist in “Ishqbaaaz”.

Talking about the Star Plus show, Nikitin said in a statement to IANS: “I am very proud to play this character in ‘Ishqbaaaz’. Veer is fun to play. It is very well written and the dialogues come out very well. My co-stars made me feel like one of their own. That made me very comfortable on the set since the first day.”

On doing a negative role again, he said: “I am here to do good work and with negative roles, one has a lot of varieties to bring to the character. Also, they have a lot of layers which make them very challenging and fun to play.”