The BJP "sold dreams" to win Uttar Pradesh and voters would soon realise when the party fails to deliver on its election promises, Congress leader Tom Vadakkan said Saturday.

"The BJP won elections in UP because of selling dreams and the reality will come soon when they fail in delivering these dreams," Vadakkan told.

His comments came as the Bharatiya Janata Party was all set to win power in the country's most populated state, leading in over 300 seats in the 403-member Uttar Pradesh assembly.

He said the example of BJP's failure to deliver lay in Goa where the party was running neck and neck with the Congress.

"The BJP lost the election in (Goa) because it failed to deliver what it had committed to people there," he said.

On the Congress party's humiliating defeat in Uttarakhand, Vadakkan said the core section of the Congress had joined the BJP, which "really affected us".

The BJP made a complete sweep in Uttarakhand and appeared winning 57 out of the 70 assembly seats. The Congress could manage leads in only 11.

The Congress leader also attacked the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), saying it could not manage to win in Punjab because of its "bad performance" in Delhi.

"Punjab people would have surely observed the AAP's work in Delhi and decided accordingly," Vadakkan said.

Reacting to the emerging victory of the Congress in Punjab, cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu on Saturday said that the results are a reflection of revival of the Congress and it is just the beginning.

"This is the revival of the Congress, it is just the beginning. Congress will spread from here, the former cricket commentator said.

"Punjab results are a defeat of Akali Dal's arrogance," he added.

From being a firebrand cricketer to a cricket commentator and from being a comedy show judge to a political leader, Navjot Singh Sidhu has been a source of passion and energy.

As per the emerging results, Sidhu is leading over AAP candidate by a margin of 2691 votes from Amritsar-East segment. The Congress is leading on 74 seats, AAP on 22 seats and SAD-BJP alliance limping behind at 19 seats

Kashmir remained cut off from rest of the country as the Srinagar-Jammu national highway was closed for the fourth consecutive day, owing to heavy rain and snowfall which brought the mercury below freezing point at most places in the valley.

Efforts to restore the nearly 300-km highway, the only all-weather surface link between Kashmir and rest of the country, was hampered by continuous rain and snowfall in Ramban-Banihal-Qazigund sectors, forcing authorities to suspend traffic on the arterial road for the fourth day today, a spokesman of the Traffic department said.

He said the heavy snowfall at Jawahar Tunnel and Patnitop areas and continuous rainfall at various places along the highway gave tough time to the agencies concerned in carrying out the restoration work at full-scale.

Consequently, the road at Battery Cheshma, Anookhi Fall, Panthyal and Digdol areas could not be made traffic worthy despite hectic efforts.

"The agencies concerned are working round-the-clock and making all out efforts in clearing the road," the spokesman said, adding over two feet of snow had accumulated on the ground at Jawahar Tunnel, one feet at Zig and four inches in Qazigund town.

However, the real problem is continuous landslides and shooting of stones triggered by incessant rains in Ramban sector.

"Big boulders and slides have totally blocked the highway at various places between Banihal and Ramban axis," he said.

Meanwhile, the downward trend of the mercury continued as the minimum temperature at most places in the valley including Srinagar settled below freezing point.

Srinagar recorded a low of minus one degree Celsius – four degrees below normal during this part of the season, a spokesman of the MeT department said.

He said the famous ski resort of Gulmarg, which experienced over two feet of fresh snow during this week, continued to be the coldest recorded place in the state with a low of minus 7.4 degrees Celsius, two notches down from the previous night.

Pahalgam hill resort in south Kashmir, which serves as the base camp during the annual Amarnath yatra, also witnessed a fall of two degrees in the night temperature which settled at minus 2.0 degrees Celsius, the spokesman said.

He said Kokernag hill resort in south also recorded a low of minus one degree Celsius.

The minimum temperature in Leh town of Ladakh region was minus 6.9 degrees Celsius, while the nearby Kargil town marked an improvement in the night temperature, which settled at minus 4.2 degrees Celsius against the previous night's minus 5.2 degrees Celsius, the spokesman said.

The MeT has predicted improvement in the weather conditions from this evening. It said the weather will remain mostly cloudy with isolated rain or snow at a few places during the next 24 hours.

Another major leak of top secret materials has again put America's top spies in hot water — while delivering a coup for anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.

The group left the Central Intelligence Agency heavily bruised with the publication Tuesday of nearly 9,000 documents it said were only part of a huge trove of records, plans and malware code in its possession — purportedly the entire CIA hacking arsenal.

Adding insult to injury, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange scolded the agency as extremely careless to have lost control of the materials — WikiLeaks said they got access to it via the circle of private contractors to US intelligence.

"This is a historic act of devastating incompetence, to have created such an arsenal and then stored it all in one place," Assange said.

President Donald Trump said the leak shows the agency's operations are "outdated" — and notably did not criticise WikiLeaks for baring US secrets.

It was the fourth major leak of top secret materials from US spy agencies in less than four years.

The CIA's sister spy body, the National Security Agency, was rocked in 2013 when contractor Edward Snowden released documents showing how it secretly raked up data on Americans' telecommunications and spied on US allies.

Early last year, a secretive hacking group called the Shadow Brokers offered for sale online a batch of hacking tools stolen from the NSA.

And in late 2016, the NSA discovered that another contractor, Harold Martin, had removed to his home an estimated 50 terabytes worth of data and documents, including reportedly sensitive hacking tools.

So far, there is no evidence that Martin's cache left his control, and the government charged him only with removing classified materials in violation of his contract.

The result, said security consultant Paul Rosenzweig, is "the continuing erosion in trust of and damage to the reputation to the American intelligence community." 

"Within the community now, everybody's looking over their shoulder," he said.

"Outside the community, frankly, if I were the British intelligence or French intelligence or Israeli intelligence…

I'd think twice before giving anything to the Americans." 

The WikiLeaks release has set off an intense probe into how the materials — which detailed how the CIA focuses on breaking into personal electronics like smartphones — got away from the agency.

The investigation could focus on whether the CIA was sloppy in its controls over private contractors it hires to help do work like creating and testing hacking tools.

Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi on Saturday called up Punjab Congress president Captain Amarinder Singh to congratulate him on his party’s landslide victory in the state assembly elections. PM Modi spoke to Captain Amarinder on telephone to convey his regards and extend his government’s full support for the development of Punjab.

He told the Punjab Congress president, under whose leadership the Congress has recorded a sweeping victory in the state, that the central government would do its best to ensure that Punjab’s development agenda is on track and the state progresses under the stewardship of Captain Amarinder. Earlier, speaking to reporters Captain Amarinder had expressed the hope that the Modi government would work with the state government to bring about the much-needed development in the state

Once a poster girl for Dalits, Behenji as BSP Supremo Mayawati is known as, seems to have lost her 'Midas Touch'. At least, the Elections Results 2017 have reflected so. Despite fighting the election on the poll plank of providing a Goondagardi free governance in the state( with an obvious reference to the outgoing SP's government), BSP was only able to win 20 seats as compared to 60 which her party had won in 2012 elections.

So what went wrong this time? While the BSP has always staked claim on the Dalit votes in Uttar Pradesh, this time around, there was no connect with the voters on the ground. Her campaigning rhetoric  was all about criticizing PM Modi and Akhilesh Yadav- Rahul Gandhi tie-up.  Poll observers believe she failed to gauge-in other key factors such as employment opportunities for the youth. Perhaps, BSP failed to understand that even Dalit youth too want employment and educational opportunities apart from just the caste card.

Another failure on BSP 's part was the old style campaigning.  All this while, the BJP was busy in adapting to new tools of campaigning such as social media etc, Mayawati stuck to her old ways of campaigning, giving technology and its advantages a complete miss. Thus she visibly failed to establish a lively connect with the young voters.

Mayawati kept harping on the old tunes of Dalit politics. Many Dalit youths, who attended her rallies, averred that despite their elders supporting Mayawati in the past, they will support whoever promises them development and jobs.

Modi cashed in on their aspirations and the same was very evident in all his campaigning and election rallies which connected with the youth.

Nevertheless with Maywati losing her voter base as was evident in previous two elections as well as now, could this be the end of the road for her political career?

The world is facing its greatest humanitarian crisis since 1945, the UN has announced, issuing a plea for help to avoid "a catastrophe", the media reported on Saturday.

UN humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien said that more than 20 million people faced the threat of starvation and famine in Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan and Nigeria, the BBC reported.

"We stand at a critical point in history," O'Brien told the Security Council on Friday. 

"Already at the beginning of the year we are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the UN."

Unicef has already warned 1.4 million children could starve to death this year.

O'Brien said $4.4 billion was needed by July to avert a disaster. 

"Now, more than 20 million people across four countries face starvation and famine. Without collective and coordinated global efforts, people will simply starve to death. Many more will suffer and die from disease," he added.

According to the UN, a child dies every 10 minutes in Yemen from a preventable disease, while half-a-million children under five are suffering from severe acute malnutrition.

Some 19 million people — or two thirds of Yemen's population — are in need of some sort of humanitarian help. 

In South Sudan, 4.9 million people — or 40 per cent of the country's population — are "in need of urgent food, agriculture and nutrition assistance", BBC quoted the UN as saying.

The UN has described the unfolding disaster in north-eastern Nigeria as the "greatest crisis on the continent". Estimates in December showed that there were 75,000 children at risk of starving to death. 

Another 7.1 million people in Nigeria and the neighbouring Lake Chad area are considered "severely food insecure".

The last time a famine was declared in Somalia — just six years ago — nearly 260,000 people died.

At the beginning of March, there were reports of 110 people dying in just one region in a 48-hour period, the UN added.

Actress Pooja Gor, best known as Pratigya from the 2009 show "Mann Kee Awaaz Pratigya", says she is not closed to the idea of exploring a reality TV show.

"I don't mind (doing reality shows). I can do a dance reality show, but for something like a 'Bigg Boss', I dont know," Pooja told.

The actress says she feels nervous thinking about "Bigg Boss".

"I don't know whether I can be in constant surveillance and without my entertainment or phone… I can't think about being in a 'Bigg Boss' house," she added.

Pooja, who is often seen hosting the crime-drama series "Savdhaan India", was last seen in a TV show in 2015 in the medical drama "Ek Nayi Ummeed – Roshni".

Two legislators of the opposition TDP were on Saturday suspended from Telangana assembly for disrupting the governor's address.

Revanth Reddy and S Venkat Veraiah of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) would remain suspended from the house for the rest of the budget session, Speaker Madhusudhana Chary announced.

During Governor ESL Narasimhan's address to the joint session of both the Houses of the state legislature on Friday, the opposition legislators had raised slogans.

The TDP members alleged that the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government made the Governor speak lies about the state's development.

The Speaker said disciplinary action was taken against the two members for disrupting the Governor's address.

Protesting the Speaker's action, main opposition the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) staged a walkout.

The opposition parties later held a meeting with the Leader of Opposition K Jana Reddy to chalk out their action plan.

Meanwhile, TRS defended the decision taken by the Speaker. TRS leaders demanded that TDP legislators should apologise to the house for their behaviour. They said opposition should change their attitude.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday congratulated winners in the assembly polls and advised the losers to not lose heart.

"Congratulations to winners in different states. Congratulations to the voters for making their choice. To the losers, don't lose heart. In a democracy, we must respect each other because some will win, some will lose. Trust the people," Banerjee said in a tweet.

The Congress was set to return to power in Punjab, after being out of power for a decade, while the Aam Aadmi Party was set to be the main opposition. It was also leading in Manipur.

The BJP was set to sweep back to power in Uttar Pradesh after 15 years, as well as the neighbouring hill state of Uttarakhand.

The situation is not clear yet in Goa where the Congress and the BJP were neck and neck.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) which faced a humbling defeat in the Punjab election against the Congress has admitted defeat and have seemingly embraced their loss.

AAP leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal took to Twitter and said that the AAP’s struggle would continue.

“We respect the people’s decision. I thank all the party workers for their hard work. The struggle will continue,” said the AAP chief.

Earlier in the day, AAP leader Ashutosh had said that they were hoping to form government in Punjab but were disappointed with the result.

“We were hoping to form a government in Punjab,” Aam Aadmi Party leader Ashutosh said, adding, “We were disappointed with the result.

He said all the AAP leaders needed to introspect where the party’s assessment of taking power in the border state with more than 100 of the 117 seats went wrong.

Going by reports, Captain Amarinder Singh-led Congress party has scored 78 seats, ahead of AAP and the SAD-BJP alliance. AAP has scored 20, while SAD-BJP alliance has scored 16.

Pankaj Singh, Union Home minister Rajnath Singh's son, is ahead of his nearest rival by a margin of over 66,000 in the Noida seat by noon.

Going by the counting of votes till noon, Singh polled 99,530 votes, while Samajwadi Party candidate Sunil Choudhary got 32,623 votes. BSP candidate Ravi Kant was way behind with 14,964 votes.

Around 1,178 voters used NOTA. The Rashtriya Lok Dal candidate Brijesh polled just 248 votes while Shiv Sena candidate Jayaram Bansal polled 200 votes.

Although age has been an important risk factor of breast cancer, a study said post-menopausal women who used a hormonal intrauterine device were at 52 per cent increased risk of the disease, when compared to those who used copper a device.

The findings showed the use of other hormonal contraceptives was associated with 32 per cent higher breast cancer risk among women under 50 when compared to those who did not use hormonal contraceptives.

Further, women who dyed their hair also had an increased risk of 23 per cent compared to those who did not, researchers said.

"The biggest risk factor in breast cancer is high age, and known lifestyle-related risk factors include late age at first birth, small number of children, high alcohol consumption and sedentary lifestyle," Sanna Heikkinen from the University of Helsinki in Finland, said in her dissertation.

In addition, women who undergo opportunistic mammography screening — the process of using low-energy X-rays to examine the human breast — were also found to be at risk of developing breast cancer.

In the study, more than 60 per cent of participants reported having had a mammography screening before the age of 50.

"Women should be more extensively informed of the harms of opportunistic mammography, such as accumulating radiation burden and the potential consequences of false positive or negative findings," Heikkinen said.

For the study, the team analysed self-reported survey data from 8,000 breast cancer patients and 20,000 controls from Finland.

Amid the Congress party in Punjab heading for a win, its chief ministerial candidate Captain Amarinder Singh has termed the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal a ‘summer storm’.

Amarinder was addressing a press conference at his Chandigarh residence with party leaders Harish Chaudhary and Asha Kumari. He assured to fulfill all the promises made by his party manifesto. Setting a deadline of four weeks, Capt Amarinder said that his party will take up all the issues related to drug menace, unemployment, health, education and agriculture within the four weeks after formation of government.

He also promised to launch investigations on sacrilege incidents. "Arvind Kejriwal is a lost case now. He was a summer storm which comes and goes. Punjab's people have taught a lesson to the 'arrogant' AAP chief," said, Capt Amarinder. Congress chief ministerial candidate, who turns 75-year today, said, "Punjab's people have given me the best birthday gift. I will put my best efforts to fulfill their issues". Meeting of Congress Legislative Party (CLP) is going to be held on Sunday afternoon during which the party leaders will discuss about the government formation. Captain Amarinder has maintained that the stand over deputy chief minister's post will be cleared by Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi.

Holi, the festival of colours, is just round the corner. It’s the time to indulge in fun, feasting and joy. Throw beautiful, vibrant colours on each other and exchang traditional Gujiyas made of dry sweetened condensed milk and rich dry fruits. Every Holi, it is customary to make Gujiyas. Here's a easy Gujiya recipe you can make and treat your family and friends.

Serves: 4

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Cooking time: 15-20 minutes

Ingredients:

Refined flour 200 grams

Pure ghee 50 grams

Khoya 200 grams

Cashewnuts 25 grams

Raisins 25 grams

Green cardamom 10 grams

Powdered sugar 200 grams

Ghee for brushing

Method:

Grate khoya, chop the cashew nuts and process sugar and cardamom in powder form.

Mix 50 grams of ghee in refined flour and knead a tight dough adding little warm water as required.

For filling mix khoya, raisins, cashews, powdered cardamom and sugar altogether.

Divide the dough into equal portions. Roll out thin rounds of the dough. Place them on the gujiya mould. Brush the edges with plain water.

Place a spoonful of filling in the middle of the mould..

Press together the edges of the mould.

Remove the extra dough coming out of the mould.

Open the mould and take out the gujiya.

Pre heat the air fryer at 180 degree c for five minutes.

Brush the gujiyas with melted pure ghee.

Arrange the gujiyas in the air fryer and cook for 25 to 30 minutes (or till they turn golden brown) turning upside down once in between.

You may also deep fry the gujiyas if you don’t have an air fryer at home, but they contain high amount of calories.

Holi is about having lots of fun. The combination of colours and this sweet will bring back wonderful memories. Have a safe and great Holi.

The much awaited theatrical trailer of SS Rajamouli's "Baahubali 2" will be released on March 16, the makers announced on Saturday.

In a Facebook chat, Rajamouli and producer Shobu Yarlagadda confirmed the trailer will be released between 9 am to 10 am on March 16 in theatres across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

The trailer will be released online at 5 pm on the same day.

"This is the same fashion we followed for the trailer of the first part. We had released it across theatres in Andhra and Telangana. We are following the same approach for the second part as well," Rajamouli said.

The makers also confirmed that the film will hit the screens worldwide on April 28.

Starring Prabhas, Rana Daggubati, Tamannaah Bhatia, Anushka Shetty, Ramya Krishnan and Sathyaraj, the second part will have a simultaneous release in Telugu, Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam.

The heat traces left on the smartphone screen after typing the PIN or swiping a pattern could give away your secret code, warn researchers.

All one needs to steal the code is a thermal-imaging camera as thermal images reveal what parts of the screen were tapped, even after it is left untouched for 30 seconds, The Atlantic reported. 

At an upcoming conference on human-computer interactions to be held in the US in May, researchers from the University of Stuttgart and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany will present in a new study how PINs or patterns can be extracted from the heat signature left on the user's smartphone screen.

"PINs and patterns remain among the most widely used knowledge-based authentication schemes. As thermal cameras become ubiquitous and affordable, we foresee a new form
of threat to user privacy on mobile devices," the researchers said. 

Thermal cameras allow performing thermal attacks, where heat traces, resulting from authentication, can be used to reconstruct passwords.

The researchers said that while PINs remain vulnerable even with duplicate digits, overlapping patterns significantly decrease successful thermal attack rate.

If the thermal image is taken within 15 seconds of a PIN being entered, it is accurate nearly 90 percent of the time. At 30 seconds, it is about 80 per cent accurate. But at 45 seconds or more, the accuracy drops to 35 per cent and below, the report said.