Delhi's prisons, including Tihar, accommodate 14,132 undertrials and convicted prisoners as against their total capacity of 7,818, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Wednesday.

Replying to a question in the Upper House, Minister of State for Home Affairs Hansraj Gangaram Ahir said the prisons were crammed with large number of undertrials.

“As on March 15, Delhi Prisons were accommodating 14,132 prisoners as against the full capacity of 7,818,” he said.
Both undertrials and convicted prisoners are lodged in different barracks in Tihar Jail and there is no congestion for the latter, whereas the former are in large numbers, he said.

The minister also said 10 incidents of violence were reported in the prisons during the last three years besides citing reasons behind a clash that broke out in Tihar in March this year.

“Some prisoners in Special Security Ward inflicted self- injuries and damaged government property when they were not allowed to come out of their ward at night,” Ahir said.

Delhi Prisons have two prison complexes, one at Tihar with nine central prisons and another at Rohini Prison Complex with one district prison.

Pakistan's army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Wednesday met Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, two days after a military tribunal sentenced Indian national Kulbhushan Jadav to death on charges of spying.

Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Bajwa and Sharif discussed matters pertaining to professional preparedness of army, the current security and border situation at their meeting held in Islamabad, Radio Pakistan reported.

General Bajwa also apprised the prime minister about the progress made in the ongoing operation Radd-ul-Fasaad, a terror operation launched by the Pakistan Army to eliminate terrorism.

It was the first direct interaction between the army chief and the prime minister.

The meeting between General Bajwa and Sharif comes two days after the Pakistan's army chief approved the execution of Jadhav after a military court sentenced him to death for “espionage and sabotage activities”, evoking a sharp reaction from India which warned Islamabad to consider the consequences on bilateral ties if he is hanged.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj yesterday made a statement in both the Houses, asserting that India will go “out of way” to ensure justice to Jadhav who is an “innocent kidnapped Indian”.

Jadhav's execution will be taken by India as a “pre-meditated murder” and Pakistan should consider its consequences on bilateral relations, if it proceeds on this matter, Swaraj warned.

She said the charges against Jadhav, who was doing business in Iran and was kidnapped and taken to Pakistan, are “concocted” and the trial against him was “farcical”, leading to an “indefensible verdict”.

Continuing its upward trend, India's Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation or retail inflation rose to 3.81 per cent in March from 3.18 per cent during the previous month, official data showed on Wednesday.

The retail inflation was 3.65 per cent in February and 3.17 in January.

Amid upward expectation of inflation the Reserve Bank, last week, kept key repo rate or lending rate unchanged at 6.25 per cent but hiked reverse repo rate by 25 basis points (bps) to 6 per cent.

The RBI has warned of a looming inflation threat over the next 6-12 months.

A higher inflation rate is an indication a pickup in demand and stronger economic activity.

Tourists visiting Nainital for summer vacation this time will find some change in the lake city. The visitors will locate many modified posters of old Hindu films at this popular hill station communicating message about sanitation. Bollywood characters like Veeru (Sholay), Babumoshai (Anand), Sherkhan (Zanjeer), etc, have joined the Swachata Abhiyan here!  

The Nainital Municipal Corporation has started this unique campaign. Posters of popular Hindi movies like Sholay, Zanjeer, Anand, Deewar, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ), Coolie, etc. have been edited and displayed in various parts of the city. If Simran is telling Raj Malhorta of blockbuster Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge  to construct toilet for bride, Vijay Verma of Deewaar is appealing for public participation for keeping the city clean. So, the posters are full of drama! 

Rohitash Sharma, executive office of Nainital Municipal Corporation, says, “We are using film posters to attract attention of public. We have fixed such posters at about two dozen places in the city. Many tourists have approached us and appreciated the campaign.”

Nainital is a major tourist destination in Uttarakhand. Annually thousand of visitors tour the city, especially during summers. Only one cinema hall operates here and the big number of modified posters have also taken the local by surprise. 

Local resident Virendra Bisht says, “I saw two posters and when I closely monitored it was amazed. The experiment is impressive.”

The Nainital Municipal Corporation used the film posters for attracting attention and spreading message about cleanliness. All the onlookers who gets hooked to the poster ends up smiling. 

Juventus captain Gianluigi Buffon has warned the Italian football giants that they should not take FC Barcelona for granted despite a 3-0 lead in the first leg of their Champions League tie.

Paulo Dybala's first-half brace and a Giorgio Chiellini header in the second half gave Juventus a 3-0 win on Tuesday at the Juventus Stadium.

But Buffon, 39, has asked his teammates to keep their feet on the ground ahead of second leg in Barcelona next week as they were aware of Barcelona's 6-1 victory over Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) after going down 0-4 in the French capital.

"The feelings are positive. This was no fluke result today. We deserved it and we have no reason to fear anyone," Buffon told Juventus' website.

"We played our game and showed what we're capable of but you only have to look at the PSG match to remember that we must be careful. We're happy, but we're not through yet," he added.

The match-up was a repeat of 2015 Champions League final where Barcelona prevailed over Buffon-captained Juventus in Berlin.

Juventus, who last time won the European crown in the 1995-96 season, have been trying to ensure that they return to being an elite club in the continent.

"Since 2015 we have more belief, we are more at ease with the ball and with certain environments, whereas in the past we were almost a little nervous against some teams," he said.

"One thing's for sure: we're not afraid of playing on the biggest European stages," Buffon thundered.

Buffon also heaped praises on Dybala, saying the 23-year-old is one of the best players in the world. "Paulo has improved enormously over the last two years. He could well be up there among the top five players in the world," the veteran captain said.

Ace Juventus defender Giorgio Chiellini also echoded Buffon's opinions: "We approached the game the right way and tried to press them high up the pitch so that we could gain a few yards. Obviously you're never going to keep superstars like that lot completely quiet but fortunately we had Super Buffon in goal to save the day.

"We're pleased tonight but we know there's still a long way to go. It will be a different game at Camp Nou (stadium in Barcelona). Mind you, if someone had offered me this result yesterday, I think I'd have ripped his arm off."

Foreign hackers may have attacked the voter registration website for the Brexit referendum in June last year, a group of British MPs said on Wednesday.

The website had crashed on registration deadline day, June 7, weeks before the referendum on Britain's membership of the 28-nation bloc European Union (EU) on June 23.

At the time, the UK government had attributed the crash to high demand and extended the registration deadline.
However, MPs on the House of Commons Public Administration Committee said in a report on Wednesday that a foreign cyber-attack could not be ruled out.

The report did not name the countries that may have been responsible for the crash.

“We do not rule out the possibility that there was foreign interference in the EU referendum caused by a DDOS (distributed denial of service attack) using botnets, though we do not believe that any such interference had any material effect on the outcome of the EU referendum,” the report said.

“Lessons in respect of the protection and resilience against possible foreign interference in IT systems that are critical for the functioning of the democratic process must extend beyond the technical,” it said.

The UK Cabinet Office, which ran the website, stressed that it did not suspect any “malign intervention”.

“We have been very clear about the cause of the website outage in June 2016. It was due to a spike in users just before the registration deadline. There is no evidence to suggest malign intervention. We conducted a full review into the outage and have applied the lessons learned. We will ensure these are applied for all future polls and online services,” a Cabinet Office statement said.

According to evidence submitted to the committee from the Association of Electoral Administrators, the electoral registration system “could not cope with the demand… and any contingency measures were wholly inadequate”.
The committee called on the government to set up a new Cyber Security Centre to monitor and contain potential attacks on UK elections and referendums, particularly foreign attempts to influence public opinion and disrupt the democratic process.

“The US and UK understanding of 'cyber' is predominantly technical and computer-network based,” said the report.
“For example, Russia and China use a cognitive approach based on understanding of mass psychology and of how to exploit individuals.

“The implications of this different understanding of cyber-attack, as purely technical or as reaching beyond the digital to influence public opinion, for the interference in elections and referendums are clear,” the report said.

In its report, the committee has also criticised then prime minister David Cameron's “questionable” motives for calling a referendum in the first place, saying it had been done to “call the bluff” of his critics and shut down “unwelcome” debate.
It urged future governments to think carefully before promising nationwide votes on controversial issues, particularly if they are not prepared to implement an outcome they do not like.

“There was no proper planning for a Leave vote so the EU referendum opened up much new controversy and left the prime minister's credibility destroyed,” the report added.

Do you remember the song of long ago, The Lamp Lighting Time by Marty Robbins?

There's a lamp shining bright in a cabin
In a window it's shinin' for me
And I know that my mother is prayin'
For the boy she is longing to see…

The song takes you to an old wooden cabin far away, somewhere in the cold mountain, cosy and quiet, where a mother whispers a sweet prayer for her son in the solace and dim light of a small lamp. She waits wishfully for him who, perhaps, wandered away, to return home.

Towards the end, this meaningful song talks about the light of the lamp that will guide the boy wherever he goes.

Quiet, soothing and nostalgia, such is the feel and effect that the light of a lamp gives to the souls around.

But a lantern or a lamp are things of the good old days, though they are often used in traditional interior designs. Today, we live under bright lights, and we use electrified lamps as luxury items to beautify a place. It not only beautify a place, small or big, it also provides a soothing effect to the eyes and mind. Not only living houses and hotels, many work places too have them.

Today, as designs and luxury take over modern living, the market is flooded with beautiful lamps and shades in various sizes, patterns, makes and designs.

Do up your house with designer lights and shades. Look for the ones that will suit your decor. Place those lampshades in a corner of your living room or on the bedside tables. Or, go for the wall shades. Turn out the bright lights and switch on the lamps. Sit back or lie low and enjoy the beauty and healing effects it gives. Let the dim rays be your guiding light as you relax or kneel down to pray in the shade of the lamp. Sleep peacefully and dream beautiful dreams.

To avoid any inconvenience to the patients, the state’s premier hospital Indira Gandhi Medical College (IGMC), will remain functional on April 14.

IGMC senior medical superintendent Ramesh Chand said, “We have decided to keep the hospital functional on April 14, to minimise impact on the patients owing the approaching three day holiday, besides the fourth day Sunday. All hospital services including operations will be performed as any working day.”

Six people including a local BJP leader were arrested here for allegedly participating in a Hanuman Jayanti rally with arms and trying to inflict tension in the communally-sensitive region, police said on Wednesday.

"Six people were arrested from Chitpur area on Tuesday night for carrying sharp weapons in the Hanuman Jayanti rally and trying to inflict violence in the region that has a mixed bag population," said a senior officer from Chitpur police station.

Police said they have started a case against these people under the Arms Act, 1959.

"The six accused were produced before a court which sent them to judicial custody till April 19," the officer added.

Filmmaker Aarti Chabria is back with her latest short film, Mumbai Varanasi Express.

This short film portrays how the quest for success and material desires takes a toll on our health.

Mumbai Varanasi Express embarks on a journey of living life king-size and teaches why it is important to enjoy every moment of it.

Starring Darshan Jariwala, Shekhar Shukla and Vivek Singh, Mumbai Varanasi Express is a short film about many of us who work too hard to reach a level of success where we can enjoy luxuries and provide our families with a comfortable life. However, in the very magnetic web of wanting to do better and better, we drive ourselves to a point that when the time comes to enjoy the success, our health doesn’t allow. The film takes us through the journey of a trying to find the meaning of life. It portrays that life is made of little yet significant moments which count for more than what money can give us. It talks about life beyond all things materialistic and beyond all that’s known to us. 

Talking about the film, director, Aarti Chabria said “The story of Mumbai Varanasi Express is a depiction of our lives today where we are constantly running in the rat race trying to be successful, but in the process we forget to live our lives and enjoy it. I am sure the audience will be able to relate to this film. As a filmmaker it is very important to be able to showcase your work freely and I believe Royal Stag Barrel Select Large Short Films is a great platform that lets you be as creative as possible.”

Former Australia pacer Brett Lee is impressed with the current lot of Indian fast bowlers and has praised young pacer Jasprit Bumrah, among others, for his ability to bowl effective yorkers.

“They have got some great fast bowlers in the Indian line-up. Bumrah as well, a bowler who has shown good promise to me, bowls good yorkers,” Lee told PTI here on Wednesday.

“Ishant Sharma has got the experience of 70 Test matches underneath his belt. Umesh Yadav has got pace, just to mention a few. So Indian cricket has some good bowling stocks coming through,” he said.

Batting legend Sachin Tendulkar had remarked recently that the more Yadav bowls, the better he will become, a view shared by Lee who spoke on Wednesday.

“I agree 100 per cent with Sachin Tendulkar. The more he (Umesh) bowls, the better off he is going to be. Bowling is defined by momentum and rhythm and that comes by bowling and bowling and bowling,” Lee said.

He was also gung-ho about his countryman Pat Cummins saying, “He has got so much to offer. He is the most exciting bowler going around.”

India, led by Virat Kohli, had won 10 of the 13 Tests played while winning four home rubbers this season against New Zealand, England, Bangladesh and Australia.

Lee agreed with the view that the real challenge for Kohli and his men will be to replicate this superb performance outside the sub-continent.

“Any challenge is when you tour different countries, but that's why winning in someone else's country is such a challenging and exciting proposition,” the 40-year-old former player said. 

Individuals' different social networking profile on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn stem from a desire to fit within the distinctive culture or etiquette of each site, say researchers, including one of Indian-origin.

The findings showed that users are not explicitly modifying their profile, but rather subconsciously adapting the behaviour modelled to fit in.

"Despite our best efforts, we do still fit stereotypes of gender and age in the way we tailor our persona," said Nishanth Sastry, Senior Lecturer at King's College London.

For instance, a photo of someone's colourful Starbucks drink may be popular on Instagram, but the same image post to LinkedIn would be frowned upon. 

"The users tend to portray themselves differently in these different worlds," added Dongwon Lee, Associate Professor at the Pennsylvania State University.

The findings will be presented at the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM) in Canada.

For the research, the team compiled information on over 100,000 social media users by utilising About.me — a site that acts as a social media directory — where users volunteer their own profiles, making it an extremely reliable dataset.

Upon analysing the profile pictures and biography information provided by these users, the team also found some surprising differences in how different demographics portray themselves. 

The results showed that women were less likely to wear corrective eyewear, like reading glasses, in their profile pictures and users under the age of 25 were less likely to be smiling in their profile picture.

"Social media consumes an increasingly large portion of our lives. Therefore, understanding how we interact with each other on social media is important to understanding who we are in the online world, and how we relate to each other in virtual but still meaningful ways," Sastry added. 

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday termed the Unemployment Allowance Scheme that was announced by Congress government in Himachal Pradesh as political stunt and the party was trying to gain political mileage ahead of assembly elections in the state.

State BJP chief spokesperson and Nahan MLA Rajeev Bindal said the Congress party came into power on the promise of unemployed allowance and the scheme was announced by the government by making meager budgetary allocation.

“The government has not fixed the number of unemployed youth or category as per educational qualifications and amount which would be provided to them. While the Congress leaders, ministers and Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh are busy in issuing misleading statements every day,” he said.

Bindal said the Transport Minister G S Bali is claiming that over 1 lakh youth would be provided with unemployed allowance. While the fact is that around 12 lakh unemployed youth should be provided with allowance for 5 years. 

“It means each unemployed youth was supposed to get Rs. 60,000 per year as allowance. But by the statement of Congress minister, it leads us to believe that 1 lakh youth would get allowance for a period of 5-6 months,” he said.

He said the Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh had earlier denied about giving unemployment allowance to anyone earlier but then he announced the scheme to give benefits to youth on political basis. “However, the people of the state would not fall for such misleading schemes and would throw congress party out of power in upcoming assembly elections in the state,” he added.

Jeff Cook, the guitarist and fiddle player of iconic country rock band Alabama, is stepping away from touring with the band due to his struggle with Parkinson's disease.

Cook, made the announcement publicly for the first time in a video statement for The Tennessean after originally being diagnosed four years ago, reported Entertainment Weekly.

“This disease robs you of your coordination, your balance, and causes tremors. For me, this has made it extremely frustrating to try and play guitar, fiddle, or sing.

“I've tried not to burden anyone with the details of my condition because I do not want the music to stop or the party to end, and that won't change no matter what. Let me say, I'm not calling it quits, but sometimes our bodies dictate what we have to do, and mine is telling me it's time to take a break and heal,” Cook said in his statement.

The musician is still set to play a concert with the band on May 27 and a fan event in June.

Alabama founders Randy Owen and Teddy Gentry said there is always a place for him when he feels healthy enough to drop in.

“We could hire 10 people, but we can't replace Jeff Cook in the group Alabama. Like Jeff said, when this is all you've ever known and you love the music, you want to see it go on as long as possible.

“Alabama has surpassed what any of us ever dreamed of, but I still love to play more or as much as I did (yesterday), and I know Jeff does, too,” said Gentry.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has said the bank accounts that were opened between 1 July 2014 and 31 August 2015 and being used for cross-border transactions will require submission of self-certification form.

The self-certification should be done besides updating the know-your-customer (KYC) data, sources said.

“All bank accounts that were opened between 1 July 2014 and 31 August 2015 will require submission of self certification forms,” the CBDT said, adding that “the form should be submitted by 30 April 2017”.

“Account holders are informed that, in case self-certifications are not provided till 30 April 2017, A/Cs would be blocked,” the Income-Tax Department said in a tweet.

The notice was issued as per the Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA).

The IGA with USA for implementation of Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) entered into force on 31 August 2015.

“As per Rule 114H(8) of the Income-tax Rules, 1962, financial institutions need to obtain self-certification and carry out due diligence in respect of all individual and entity accounts opened from 1 July 2014 to 31 August 2015,” according to a statement by the I-T Dept.

However, “The transaction by the account holder in such blocked accounts, may, thereafter, be permitted once the self-certification is obtained and due diligence completed,” it added. 

The Daily Mail newspaper here has agreed to pay damages to settle a libel claim brought against it by US First Lady Melania Trump over false claims about her work as a professional model, a media report said.

The newspaper had reported allegations that Melania once worked as an escort, but later retracted its article, reported the Guardian on Wednesday.

It was published during the US election campaign last year.

Melania accepted damages and an apology at London's High Court on Wednesday but the amount was not disclosed.

An agreed statement on behalf of both parties was read out in court.

The statement said the article published in a double page spread and online last summer included "false and defamatory claims about [Melania] which questioned the nature of her work as a professional model and republished allegations that she provided services beyond simply modelling".

The statement, read out by solicitor John Kelly, added: "The article included statements that Melania denied the allegations and Paulo Zampolli, who ran the modelling agency, also denied the allegations and the article also stated that there was no evidence to support the allegations."

The original Daily Mail story was published on August 20, 2016, under the headline "Racy photos and troubling questions about his wife's past that could derail Trump".

The statement added: "The allegations strike at the heart of the claimant's personal integrity and dignity. The claimant has not acted as alleged. The suggestion that such allegations even merit investigation is deeply offensive and has caused a great deal of upset to the claimant."

Catrin Evans QC, for the Daily Mail owner Associated Newspapers, told the court that everything in the statement was accepted by the newspaper. 

The allegations have been retracted and withdrawn, she added.

Childhood cancer incidences worldwide increased by about 13 per cent in the last decade, with annual cases reaching 140 per million children aged 014 years, according to a new WHO report.

Part of this increase may be due to better, or earlier, detection of these cancers, the report said.

Based on information collected globally on almost 300,000 cancer cases diagnosed in 2001-2010, the study showed that leukaemia is the most common cancer in children younger than 15 years, making up almost a third of childhood cancer cases.

Tumours of the central nervous system ranked second (20 per cent of cases), and lymphomas accounted for 12 per cent of cases, according to the study by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World Health Organisation (WHO).

In children younger than five years, a third of the cases were embryonal tumours, such as neuroblastoma, retinoblastoma, nephroblastoma, or hepatoblastoma.

The report also, for the first time, shows cancer occurrence in adolescents aged 1519 years. The annual incidence rate was 185 per million adolescents, based on records of about 100,000 cancer cases.

The most common cancers were lymphomas (23 per cent), followed by the cases classified as carcinomas and melanoma (21 per cent).

“Cancer is a significant cause of death in children and adolescents, in spite of its relatively rare occurrence before the age of 20 years,” said IARC Director Christopher Wild.

“This extensive new set of information on the pattern and incidence of cancer in young people is vital to raise awareness and to better understand and combat this neglected area of health early in life,” Wild said.

Data for the study was collected by 153 cancer registries in 62 countries, departments and territories, covering about 10 per cent of the world's population of children.

However, results reported are based on child population coverage of almost 100 per cent in North America and western Europe and of five per cent or less in Africa and Asia.

Incidence rates, which indicate the number of new cases per population at risk per year, are the first piece of information needed to start fighting this disease.

In low-resource settings, cancer may go undiagnosed, because awareness is lacking or diagnostic equipment is unavailable.

Also, social factors may explain the unexpectedly low rates reported particularly for infants or for girls in certain low-resource countries.

“This study provides the essential data we need to offer early detection, treatment, and care programmes and services for children with cancer,” said Tezer Kutluk, from the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC).

“It is very important that we improve global monitoring of cancer in children and address the gaps in surveillance data across regions,” said Kutluk.

The research was published in The Lancet Oncology journal.