Almaty, Dec 27: At least 14 people died when a passenger plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Almaty airport in Kazakhstan, the government said on Friday.
"There are 14 dead at the (crash) site," Almaty city government said in a statement via its official channel on the Telegram messenger app.
It added that a further 17 patients were being treated in hospital in a "serious condition".
Islamabad, Jun 24: A plane crash which killed 97 people in Pakistan last month was because of human error by the pilot and air traffic control, according to an initial report into the disaster released Wednesday.
The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane came down among houses on May 22 after both engines failed as it approached Karachi airport, killing all but two people on board.
"The pilot as well as the controller didn't follow the standard rules," the country's aviation minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan said, announcing the findings in parliament.
He said the pilots had been discussing the coronavirus pandemic as they attempted to land the Airbus A320.
"The pilot and co-pilot were not focused and throughout the conversation was about coronavirus," Khan said.
The Pakistani investigation team, which included officials from the French government and the aviation industry, analysed data and voice recorders.
The minister said the plane was "100 percent fit for flying, there was no technical fault".
The county's deadliest aviation accident in eight years came days after domestic commercial flights resumed following a two-month coronavirus lockdown.
Many passengers were on their way to spend the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr with loved ones.
Feb 29: The "Dadi of Shaheenbagh" on Friday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi does not understand the pain of losing children, as speakers at an anti-CAA rally here called on protesters to maintain peace and not give in to any provocation.
Tushar Gandhi, the great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, said that the battle is not for a day or two, but the protesters will have to be prepared to continue it for years to come.
Asma Khatoon, who has earned fame as the "Dadi of Shaheenbagh" in Delhi, asked how can a person take care of the whole country when he cannot maintain his own family.
"He would have realised how it feels to lose a child if he had his own children," she told a gathering at the Park Circus Maidan, which is being termed as the Shaheenbagh of Kolkata with women holding a sit-in for the last 53 days to protest the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, proposed nationwide NRC, and the NPR.
The death toll Delhi's communal violence has gone up to 42.
She said it is not biryani that has attracted women to the protest at Shaheen bagh while holding that such vilification campaigns will have no effect on the agitation.
State BJP president Dilip Ghosh has claimed that "uneducated men and women" are protesting at Delhi's Shaheen Bagh and Kolkata's Park Circus as they get money and biryani purchased with foreign funds.
"Home Minister Amit Shah has called 20 protesters to meet him, but I want to tell him that we are one lakh and I want him to mention the place where he wants us to go for the meeting," she said.
Tushar Gandhi said, "People should stay united and not give in to any provocation," he said.
Gandhi said that the people of West Bengal are lucky to have Mamata Banerjee as their chief minister.
"They will try to break her also and it is necessary that you continue to give her support," he said.
Gandhi claimed that no one can harm a country where its mothers and sisters come out to save it.
He claimed that the CAA is not about Hindus or Muslims, but will really affect the poor people, who will be made to run around to get their papers instead of earning for their basic and daily needs.
"It's a dichotomous government that we have at the Centre. On the one hand, they want us to provide documents to prove our citizenship, while on the other they refuse to accept the papers that one produces before it for the purpose," he said.
He claimed that the government is forcing its people to resort to lies and declare that they are political refugees from countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Gandhi claimed that time and again documents with the government like electoral rolls and land documents have been used to identify people of certain communities during riots.
"So it is dangerous to give too much information to the government," he said.
He called on the people to have faith in non-violence and asked them to maintain peace and harmony.
B R Ambedkar's great-grandson Rajratna Ambedkar claimed that it is the Adivasis who will also be affected by the CAA.
"I want to tell Modi and Shah that the country runs on the Constitution by Ambedkar and not M S Golwalkar (of RSS)," he said, adding that because of the rights conferred on people by the Constitution, those backward people who did not have the right to sit on a bullock cart are now flying jet planes.
He said that Modi and Shah committed an error by enacting the CAA as it has turned the people of the country into Indians only, instead of Hindus, Muslims, Christians or Sikhs.
"Every machinery of the country has been taken control of by the RSS. If one Modi or one Shah goes, they will bring in several more Modi or Shah," he said.
Kolkata, Jan 2: In what could spark fresh tensions between West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the BJP-led centre, the Union Ministry of Defence on Wednesday rejected her state's tableau proposal for the Republic Day parade on January 26.
"The tableau proposal of West Bengal government was examined by the expert committee in two rounds of meetings. The tableau proposal of the West Bengal government was not taken forward for further consideration by the committee after deliberations in the second meeting," the ministry said in its statement.
Twenty two proposals comprising 16 states and union territories and six ministries and departments have been shortlisted for the parade. The shortlist was compiled from as many as 56 tableau proposals - 32 from states and union territories and 24 from various ministries and departments - received by the central government.
"The expert committee examines the proposals on the basis of theme, concept, design and visual impact before making its recommendations. Due to time constraints arising out of the overall duration of the parade, only a limited number of tableaux can be shortlisted for participation in the parade," the statement read, adding that West Bengal was shortlisted for the 2019 Republic Day parade through a similar process.
"The rejection of the West Bengal tableau for the Republic Day parade is discriminatory. It has been done because West Bengal has been opposing the centre's CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) and the NRC (National Register of Citizens) plans," Trinamool Congress MP Saugata Roy told news agency.
"West Bengal is known to be living state as far as culture, including arts, music and other things are concerned. So obviously, this is a discriminatory step taken by the central government against West Bengal," Mr Roy added.
The Trinamool Congress-led Bengal government is at loggerheads with the central government over several issues, and the expanding presence of the BJP in the eastern state ahead of the 2021 assembly elections has further intensified their rivalry.
Mamata Banerjee has repeatedly said that she will not allow Bengal to be a part of the proposed nationwide National Register of Citizens, an assertion that the BJP claims is proof of her minority appeasement strategy. Last month, a four-member delegation of Trinamool Congress politicians that visited BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh to meet families of those killed in violent protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act were stopped by police personnel at the Lucknow airport.
The BJP leadership has now decided to launch a campaign blitzkrieg in West Bengal to counter what it claims is the Trinamool's "misinformation programmes" against the amended citizenship law and reach out to refugees. Protests across the country have currently put the party on the backfoot.
The Citizenship Amendment Act, for the first time, makes religion the test of citizenship in India. The government says it will help minorities from three Muslim-dominated countries get citizenship if they fled to India because of religious persecution before 2015. Critics say it is designed to discriminate against Muslims and violates the secular principals of the Constitution.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro will be the chief guest at the Republic Day celebrations.
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