The BJP was on Wednesday set to sweep the Delhi civic polls, leading in over 140 wards and has won six wards so far, according to the Delhi State Election Commission.

The Aam Aadmi Party, was at second spot, leading in 40 wards and has won one ward so far.

The Congress was at third spot, and was leading in 28 wards.

In the East Delhi Municipal Corporation, the BJP has won two wards — Ramnagar and Krishnanagar.

In the South Delhi Municipal Corporation, the BJP has won three wards — Janakpuri West, Janakpuri South and Vishnu Garden.

In North Delhi Municipal Corporation, the BJP has won Rajinder Nagar.

The AAP has won Shakurpur in North Delhi Municipal Corporation.

The norm of getting feedback from students which is followed in the UK may soon be adopted in India for quality assessment of universities and colleges. Student Satisfaction Survey is part of the Quality Indicator Framework that has been developed by National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC). Consultations are on regarding how it can be adopted.

NAAC will seek approval from the HRD Ministry to finalise the draft in July. A response from 84 higher educational institutions has been sought as a pilot study. Fresh accreditation of all autonomous colleges, universities and affiliated colleges will be done according to the newly developed methodology of accreditation.

This will be quantitative in nature and envisage accreditation of many more higher educational Institutions. At present 15,000 such institutions are eligible for accreditation. However, only 266 universities and 6316 colleges of these were accredited by NAAC in 2016.

A draft of the new norms prepared by the NAAC has been circulated among academicians for feedback. There are several new features in the new proposed norms of accreditation.

As part of the new methodology, feedback will be sought from teachers, alumni, employers, students and parents for making an assessment of the institution. For the first time, the Student Satisfaction Survey is also part of the draft framework that has been prepared for quality assessment of an educational institution. The survey will be based on emails sent to students and will be kept confidential. Fifty to 100 students from each institution will be chosen randomly and their feedback will be sought.

Prof Furqan Qamar, Secretary General of Association of Indian Universities, said this is an accepted practice in the UK but it is new in India.

There is also a provision for third party validation of data that is provided by the higher education Institutions for accreditation. But details of how this will be done will have to worked out through consultation. “We may float tenders to hire services of a third party. IITs and IIMs can help us by sparing their faculty members,” said NAAC director Prof D P Singh.

Institutional distinctiveness as part of the Institutional values and social responsibilities is also a new feature in quality assessment of the educational institutions.

India's first woman International Olympic Committee member Nita Ambani has made it to two important commissions of the global sports governing body, including the prestigious Olympic channel.

Besides the Olympic Channel, the 53-year-old Ambani has also been made a member of Olympic education Commission as IOC announced the composition of 26 commissions for 2017.

She is one of the 16 members of the Olympic Channel Commission headed by United States Olympic Committee Chairman Lawrence Francis Probst.

Ambani has replaced International Paralympic Committee President Philip Craven, who was a member of the commission till last year.

The Olympic Channel, ambitious brainchild of IOC President Thomas Bach, received the go-ahead from the full IOC in December 2015.

The digital channel, projected to cost about USD 600 million over the first seven years, was launched in August last year during Rio Games.

The Madrid-based channel is designed to promote Olympic sports and values year-round. It will be a mix of sports programming, Olympic archive footage, news and other material.

Ambani is also named in the 24-member Olympic Education Commission, which is headed by New Zealander Barry John Maister, an IOC member and a 1976 Olympic hockey gold medallist.

Ambani, the founder chairperson of Reliance Foundation, was elected as an individual member of International Olympic Committee last year and became the first Indian woman to join the body, which governs Olympic sports in the world.

She will serve the world sport's apex body till the age of 70.

Ambani was a member of IOC Commission for Public Affairs and Social Development Through Sports last year.

Another Indian, Olympic medallist shuttler Saina Nehwal continues to be in the IOC Athletes Commission. She was appointed in that position in October last year.

The new announcement of the composition of the IOC commissions for 2017 is marked by an increase of 70 per cent in female participation since September 2013. The commissions also reflect a broader geographical representation and include a number of new faces from this generation.

“Listening to youth, entrusting youth and empowering youth is needed more than ever in the world of sport,” said Bach in an IOC Statement.

“This will contribute to keeping tomorrow's sport and the Olympic Movement as a whole relevant, inspiring and impactful. We need to mentor and nurture the next generation of sports leaders. This recent move is a positive signal and message for the entire movement and world of sport,” he added.

Bach has significantly increased the number of women in the commission since his election, with 38 per cent of places now taken by women — a historic high.

In 2017, 29 more positions are held by women across the 26 IOC commissions than in 2016, and female members are present on each of them.

The changes to the function and composition of the commissions, which are effected by the IOC President working closely with the IOC Executive Board, also include increases in the number of members from America, Africa and Asia, thus guaranteeing a more global and diverse continental representation.

“These changes are aligned with the implementation of Olympic Agenda 2020 and show that a stronger participation of women and a more diversified continental representation are our top priorities,” said Bach.

“The diversity of members guarantees interesting and more inclusive discussions and reflects the Olympic Movement's commitment to universality.”

The first step was a Supreme Court panel recommending that all the northeastern states are entitled to full affiliation and voting rights in the Indian cricket board. Now, Mizoram Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla, whose love for sports is not new, has unveiled plans for a stadium fashioned on Australia's MCG — one of the world's largest — as a precursor to producing world-class players.

"Just close to the football ground in Sairang, there is a cricket stadium coming up, which is the size of the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) that can host 100,024 visitors," Lal Thanhawla, a five-time Chief Minister who had represented undivided Assam during his school and college days in both football and hockey, told IANS in an interview here.

Sairang is a 30-40 minute drive from state capital Aizawl.

The ultimate aim, Lal Thanhawla, 74, said, was to produce world-class cricketers, especially after his state along with the other northeast states, got the Supreme Court nod on the Justice R.M. Lodha panel's recommendations for full affiliation and voting rights.

"I have been fighting for full voting rights of Mizoram Cricket Association (MCA). The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) never did that but I am very happy that the Lodha panel has directed that all the northeastern associations are given full affiliation," said Thanhawla, who is also the President of the MCA.

Till now, only Assam and Tripura were affiliated to the board and could field teams for the Ranji Trophy and other BCCI-sanctioned tournaments.

"Right from Sharad Pawar's time in the BCCI, when Arun Jaitley was the chairman of the affiliation board, I promised them that in five years I will produce world-class cricketers if given affiliation," he added.

The Chief Minister said he had approached Pawar, the then BCCI President, on many occasions but had to return empty-handed every time.

But Lal Thanhawla felt the change in the national body's constitution has given a new ray of hope to hundreds of talented cricketers who are ready to showcase their potenitial.

Lal Thanhawla reiterated his stance on producing top class cricketers from the region, who according to him are gifted with a "big heart" and "courageous mind".

"We can produce the best class cricketers in the country. Mizo boys are born with a great physique and in fielding we are very courageous. I have been to many local tournaments where I am impressed with the kind of talent we have."

Known for speaking his heart out, the veteran politician alleged that many India players are so affulent that they do not want to risk themselves in the field.

"Indian cricketers are too rich, some are so much that they do not even want to throw themselves in the field. They are afraid of injuring themselves. You got to have a courageous mind."

"If you want to succeed in any area, be it sports or anything in life, you must approach it with a big heart. Mizo boys are courageous enough; they are not afraid of getting injured while fielding."

Commenting on the growing menace of age fraud in various sporting disciplines, he said: "I have directed the sports bodies in my state not to try to cheat. That's something very mean and cheap. You won't attain anything big by cheating."
 

Actress-filmmaker Soni Razdan, who has been in the industry for over three decades, feels that Indian films are moving ahead with new ideas but this can't be said about the country's TV shows.

The wife of filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt and mother of actress Alia Bhatt is returning to the small screen after a long time with the TV show Love Ka Hai Intezaar, which will also feature Sanjeeda Sheikh and Keith Sequeira.

She says the reason why she kept herself away from TV and did films and web series was she didn't find the right content.

Asked whether there is any change in the ideologies of TV shows, Soni told in an email interview: "Oh yes. Well isn't that obvious? We have regressed so much. What happened to aspirational TV shows or our intelligent shows? So few out there now.

"Today, films are moving ahead with new ideas. TV shows have gotten stuck in a bit of a rut. Earlier it was the opposite. Today in the West, the best writing is happening on TV."

Soni, best known for her roles in shows like Buniyaad, Saahil, Junoon and Aur Phir Ek Din, was last seen in Aisa Des Hai Mera in 2006.

"Daily soaps are just not my scene. And it's really hard for me to do things that I don't believe in. The fare on TV was a world that I'm not familiar with. 

"It's totally alien to me and I couldn't really imagine myself doing a role that has no depth. So I stayed away till this (Love Ka Hai Intezaar) came along as it looked interesting." 

Talking about her role in the upcoming Star Plus show, Soni said: "I play Rajmata in a very contemporary set up. The good part about her is that she is progressive yet holds a firm ground when it comes to traditional family values. It is a very positive and inspiring character we will get to see on television."

"At this point in life I'm just going with the flow. Sometimes it's just refreshing to do things that you normally don't do. To challenge yourself. To change the air around you. So, that's what I'm doing right now."

Soni admits there have been new content on Indian television, still she feels "we need more of it". 

"We need to take more risks and think more out of the box. Once an audience has choices, they will also watch more TV. I think the TRP game has messed up our TV shows more than anything else," she said.

She is also waiting to begin her next directorial venture Love Affair. She will star in director Danish Renzu's Pashmina alongside Suraj Sharma and Aditi Rao Hydari as well.

The so-called "diet" products containing low or no fat may have higher amount of sugar and consuming them regularly could make you fat, new research warns.

The sugar-laden "diet" foods could also lead to liver damage and brain inflammation, said the study published in the journal Physiology & Behavior.

"Most so-called diet products containing low or no fat have an increased amount of sugar and are camouflaged under fancy names, giving the impression that they are healthy, but the reality is that those foods may damage the liver and lead to obesity as well," said the study's principal investigator Krzysztof Czaja, Associate Professor at University of Georgia in the US.

Researchers found that rats fed a diet high in sugar but low in fat – meant to imitate many popular diet foods – increased body fat mass when compared to rats fed a balanced rodent diet. 

The high-sugar diet induced a host of other problems, including liver damage and brain inflammation.

"What's really troubling in our findings is that the rats consuming high-sugar, low-fat diets didn't consume significantly more calories than the rats fed a balanced diet," Czaja said. 

"Our research shows that in rats fed a low-fat, high-sugar diet, the efficiency of generating body fat is more than twice as high – in other words, rats consuming low-fat high-sugar diets need less than half the number of calories to generate the same amount of body fat," Czaja added.

Over a four-week period, researchers monitored body weight, caloric intake, body composition and fecal samples in three groups of rats. 

One group consumed a diet high in fat and sugar, another group was fed a low-fat, high-sugar diet and a third group was given a balanced or "normal" diet.

Both the low-fat, high-sugar and high-fat, high-sugar groups displayed an increase in liver fat and significant increases in body weight and body fat when compared to the balanced diet group. 

Facebook has removed a horrific video clip that showed a man putting a noose around his 11-month-old baby daughter’s neck and hanging her from the roof of an abandoned building in Phuket, following an uproar.

"This is an appalling incident and our hearts go out to the family of the victim. There is absolutely no place for content of this kind on Facebook and it has now been removed," Facebook spokesperson said in an official statement on Wednesday. 

Earlier in the day, the Public Health Ministry had urged the online giant to remove the video from the Internet.

The father committed suicide after the killing, but that act was not included in the Facebook Live broadcast.

Heartbroken family members were in tears yesterday as they retrieved the bodies of the man and his baby daughter for funeral ceremonies.

The clip, which lasted more than four minutes, shocked the public and left the family distraught. 

Ministry spokesman Taweesin Visanuyothin, who also heads the Somdet Chaopraya Institute of Psychiatry, said earlier in the day that Facebook had to remove the clip immediately as it could cause depression and could prompt copycat suicides. 

“If his family members have no access to his Facebook account, Facebook must take action. It’s Facebook’s responsibility,” he said. 

He said he expected that the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission would raise the issue with Facebook and encourage it to introduce features that would help to prevent a repeat of such incidents. 

“In the United States there are monitoring programmes to link suicidal people to help hotlines,” he said. “We should have such features in Thailand too.” 

The Phuket tragedy involved a 21-year-old man who was apparently angry over his wife leaving him. 

The father, whose name was withheld in accordance with the law, broadcast the tragic incident at about 5.45pm on Monday. The video remained online for approximately 24 hours.

The Facebook Live clip went viral and was drawn to the attention of the mother who rushed to seek help from police.

In the clip, the man was seen sitting with the baby girl on the rooftop of the multi-storey deserted building. He was seen looping plastic ties together and placing a noose around the neck of the infant, who is wearing only a diaper. He then dropped her down from the edge of the rooftop holding onto the plastic ties.

The baby is heard crying briefly before her father pulled her up and untied the knot. She is then heard crying briefly.

The mother said she had quarrelled with her husband because he suspected she had a relationship with another man. The woman said she left their house after he checked her phone and threatened to kill her at about 3am on Monday.

“I accompanied my younger sister when she collected her things from his home and tried to settle the issue with him. But he said he needed to run some errands and took his daughter with him,” said a male relative. 

The relative said he had no idea what was going on until he saw the clip on Facebook. 

The 21-year-old mother went to Thalang Police Station at about 6.30pm after learning about the clip.

Police searched the area for the deserted building that was shown on the video and eventually found it near a five-star hotel at Naithon Beach in tambon Choeng Thalay of Thalang district.

They found the father had hanged himself from a beam inside the building and the body of the baby girl was lying on the rooftop. 

Phuket Governor Norapat Plodthong said social workers would provide counselling to the baby’s mother. 

Facebook has previously admitted that broadcasts of murders and suicides have been an issue that it has taken steps to prevent. 

In reference to a previous video clip of a murder in Cleveland that was uploaded to Facebook, co-founder Mark Zuckerberg said: “We have a lot of work, and we will keep doing all we can to prevent tragedies like this from happening.” 

On April 16, a Cleveland man uploaded the video clip of him shooting and killing Robert Godwin Sr, a 74-year-old grandfather who was on his way home from an Easter meal with his family.

The News Broadcasting Council of Thailand yesterday released a statement to condemn media outlets that broadcast the baby killing and urged TV stations to uphold ethics in their coverage. 

A TV station was strongly criticised on Facebook for replaying the clip of the baby’s murder. A popular Facebook page, “DramaAddict”, said although the station blurred the faces, the baby was heard crying.

(The Daily Star)

Google Maps has introduced a new feature that will help you remember where you parked your car in case you forgot.

All that Android users have to do is tap the blue dot and then tap "Save your parking" to add their parking location to the map. 

This will show a label on the map itself identifying where you parked your car.

Users can add additional details about their parking spot by tapping the label to open the parking card. They can also save an image of their parking spot and send parking location to friends, Google said in a blog post late on Tuesday.

For iOS users, the steps are similar except that the after the tap on blue dot, the label will read, "Set as parking location" to the map itself. 

"This is in addition to the automatic parking detection you might have already noticed in Google Maps for iOS. If you connect to your car using USB audio or bluetooth, your parking spot will be automatically added to the map when you disconnect and exit the vehicle," the blog added.

The Border Security Force (BSF) has found an 80-metre-long tunnel being dug through a tea garden by suspected cattle smugglers near the Chopra- Fatehpur border outpost.

The tunnel was found in north Bengal adjacent to Kisanganj.

The Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of BSF, Devi Sharan Singh told reporters at the BSF's sectoral headquarters in Kisanganj yesterday that the smugglers were digging the tunnel under the fence in order to overcome the problem of smuggling cattle to Bangladesh due to fencing of the border.

The tunnel was being constructed through a tea garden allegedly by cattle smugglers for a long time in the darkness of night, the DIG said.

Singh said the BSF has enhanced patrolling along the border after the tunnel was discovered.

Bangladesh and India share a 4,096-km-long border.

Rio Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu defeated Dinar Dyah Ayustine of Indonesia to advance while Saina Nehwal bowed out of the Badminton Asia Championships after she was beaten by Japan's Sayaka Sato in the women's singles here on Wednesday.

In a relatively lop-sided affair, World No.3 Sindhu outplayed Ayustine 21-8 21-18 in just 31 minutes while the seventh seed Saina, who has two bronze medals from the continent's marquee event, was prevailed over 21-19, 16-21, 18-21 by her Japanese opponent in a match that lasted over one hour.

In mixed doubles category, it was end of road for Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N.Sikki Reddy as the Indian pair failed to climb the Chinese wall and thus got beaten by Zheng Siwei and Chen Qingchen in the opening round of the tournament.

Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) have extended the contract with Edinson Cavani to two years, keeping the Uruguayan striker until 30 June 2020, the Ligue 1 side announced.

"I'm very happy to extend my contract. It was always my goal to continue playing here," said Cavani after signing his new contract on Tuesday, reports Xinhua news agency.

Cavani, who joined the capital club in July 2013, has been regarded as one of the best strikers in the team's history. 

He has tallied 125 goals in 192 competitive matches for PSG, who are currently involved in a fierce battle against Monaco for the domestic title this season. 

Cavani has claimed 11 titles in his four-year spell at PSG, namely three Ligue 1 trophies, two French Cups, four French League Cups, and two Trophee des Champions.

"I'm confident in the club's potential to accomplish all of its objectives, and we will be more ambitious in the following seasons," Cavani added.

"The contract extension reaffirms Edinson Cavani's huge confidence in our project. He is making history at the club, not just about his goals, but also his commitment and ambition," commented the club's chairman and CEO Nasser Al-Khelaifi.

AAP leader and Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Wednesday alleged widespread tampering of EVMs to favour the BJP and said there was "no reason" for the people of Delhi to favour the BJP.

Addressing the media after the BJP was set to sweep the MCD polls, Sisodia said that a little percentage of difference in favour of the BJP would have been acceptable, but "this difference is unbelievable".

"Without EVM tampering it is not possible."

He said the Bharatiya Janata Party, which had earlier raised questions on the reliability of the Electronic Voting Machines, "are now declaring that the EVMs cannot be tampered with".

He said the BJP did "research" on tampering of EVMs in 2009, but now they are winning based on tampering of voting machines.

Sisodia said the Election Commission should answer the technical questions raised on the EVMS.

The ruling AAP was a distant second to the BJP in the Delhi civic polls.

Islamophobic incidents involving US Customs and Border Protection officials have risen by about 1,000 per cent since President Donald Trump took office in January, a Muslim activist group said.

According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations on Tuesday, preliminary data collected from its branches across the US found that instances in which officials were accused of profiling Muslims accounted 23 per cent in 2017.

Of the 193 Customs and Border Protection (CBP) cases in 2017, at least 181 were reported after the January 27 Muslim travel ban. In the first three months of 2016, the group reported 17 cases, The Independent said.

"These are incidents which are reported to us and which we examine," Corey Saylor, director of CAIR's group that monitors Islamophobia, told The Independent.

"We look at these very carefully. Around 50 per cent, we reject."

Saylor said allegations of Islamophobia being levelled at border officials was nothing new.

He believed that Trump's election and the executive order was behind the spike in incidents. "I have no doubt in my mind that these things are connected." 

In the aftermath of the travel ban, which have been halted by the courts, there were widespread reports of chaos at US airports, and people being turned away as they sought to board flights to the US at foreign airports.

Trump vowed during his election campaign that he would make it more difficult for people from certain countries to reach the US as party of tighter security, despite immigrants from countries such as Syria and Somalia already having to endure screening that can take several years.

Saylor said he appreciated the difficult job being faced by border officials, but asked that they did it without breaching the US constitution.

He cited testimony of a Customs and Border Protection official from a 2013 lawsuit, who said: "Look to the Muslim woman as an indicating factor. By the way she wears her hijab. If the hijab is a solid colour it indicates religiosity. If it's a patterned scarf, with colours, it's more likely that she is less religious."

BJP President Amit Shah on Wednesday said the party's win in the Delhi civic polls was a vote in favour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's three years in power and a vote against the "negative politics" of the AAP.

Addressing the media after the Bharatiya Janata Party was poised to sweep the Delhi civic polls, Shah said that the Delhi municipal poll win comes after the party won convincingly in the Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur assembly polls.

"The people of Delhi have showed that negative kind of politics will not win and only positive politics will win."

"This is a vote in favour of Modiji's three years in power."

He also thanked Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari and the party workers for the win.
 

Delhi Congress Chief Ajay Maken on Wednesday took moral responsibility for the party's defeat in the civic polls and announced he was resigning from his post.

"I will submit my resignation to the Congress President and Vice-President shortly," Maken told reporters.

The Congress was a distant third in the Delhi municipal corporation polls, after the BJP and the AAP.

After Sonu Nigam's comment on "forced religiousness" in India after being woken up by the azaan created a lot of controversy, the singer now says that there is no need to fuel the argument anymore.

Sonu on Tuesday night took to Twitter to ask people to look ahead and move on. 

"Guys, in favour of me and in opposition, let's agree to agree and disagree. No need to fuel this anymore. Look ahead and move on. Prayers," Sonu tweeted. 

Post his comment, Nigam offered to apologise if his controversial tweets were found to be 'anti-Muslim'.

The singer blew up a controversy when he lashed out at "forced religiousness" in India after being woken up by the azaan (Muslim call for prayer) from a mosque near his home.

He was trolled by Muslim community members and organisations with protests and some planning to move to court against him.

At least three men were sentenced to prison by a Swedish court for their involvement in a rape that was broadcast live on Facebook from an apartment in Uppsala, a media report said on Wednesday.

The court on Tuesday sentenced a 21-year-old man for two years and four months for rape and abetting rape, Xinhua news agency reported.

An 18-year-old was given one year jail term and a 24-year-old was sentenced for six months for serious slander and failing to report the rape.

The Uppsala District Court also determined that the woman was in a particularly vulnerable situation.

"She was so influenced by alcohol and drugs that she could not protect herself, and in a way the defendants must have understood. Despite this, two of them had sex with her," said Judge Nils Palbrant.

According to them, the woman consented to sex, but the judge said that did not matter.

The three convicted men pleaded not guilty. Stefan Wallin, who represented the 21-year-old, was surprised by the verdict.

"I think it is wrong and should be appealed. There was no proof that he committed a rape or that he abetted a rape. I have not spoken with my client but I am sure he will appeal," Wallin said.