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".
President Donald Trump gave a new justification for killing Qassim Suleimani, telling a gathering of Republican donors that the top Iranian general was "saying bad things about our country" before the strike, which led to his decision to authorise his killing. "How much are we going to listen to?" Trump said on Friday, according to remarks from a fundraiser obtained by CNN.
With his typical dramatic flourish, Trump recounted the scene as he monitored the strikes from the White House Situation Room when Suleimani was killed. The president spoke in a ballroom at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, at a Republican event that raised $10 million for Trump's 2020 campaign.
The January 3 killing of Suleimani prompted Iran to retaliate with missile strikes against US forces in Iraq days later and almost triggered a broad war between the two countries. "They're together sir," Trump said military officials told him. "Sir, they have two minutes and 11 seconds. No emotion. Two minutes and 11 seconds to live, sir. They're in the car, they're in an armoured vehicle. Sir, they have approximately one minute to live, sir. Thirty seconds. Ten, 9, 8 ...'"
"Then all of a sudden, boom," he said. "They're gone, sir. Cutting off, I said, where is this guy?" Trump continued. "That was the last I heard from him". It was the most detailed account that Trump has given of the drone strike, which has drawn criticism from some US lawmakers because neither the president nor his advisers have provided public information to back up their statements that Suleimani presented an "imminent" threat to US.
Trump's comments came a day after he warned Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to be "very careful with his words". According to Trump, Khamenei's speech on Friday, in which he attacked the "vicious" US and described UK, France and Germany as "America's lackeys", was a mistake.
New Delhi, Feb 18: India emerged as the world's fifth-largest economy by overtaking the UK and France in 2019, says a report.
A US-based think tank World Population Review in its report said that India is developing into an open-market economy from its previous autarkic policies.
"India's economy is the fifth-largest in the world with a GDP of $2.94 trillion, overtaking the UK and France in 2019 to take the fifth spot," it said.
The size of the UK economy is $2.83 trillion and that of France is $2.71 trillion.
The report further said that in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, India's GDP (PPP) is $10.51 trillion, exceeding that of Japan and Germany. Due to India's high population, India's GDP per capita is $2,170 (for comparison, the US is $62,794).
India's real GDP growth, however, it said is expected to weaken for the third straight year from 7.5 per cent to 5 per cent.
The report observed that India's economic liberalisation began in the early 1990s and included industrial deregulation, reduced control on foreign trade and investment, and privatisation of state-owned enterprises.
"These measures have helped India accelerate economic growth," it said.
India's service sector is the fast-growing sector in the world accounting for 60 per cent of the economy and 28 per of employment, the report said, adding that manufacturing and agriculture are two other significant sectors of the economy.
The US-based World Population Review is an independent organisation without any political affiliations.
New Delhi, Jan 4: "Sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic" is how India is referred to in the preamble of the Constitution. However, J Nandakumar, a key RSS leader and All India Convenor Prajna Pravah, a Sangh offshoot, wants India to reconsider the inclusion of the word "secular", claiming secularism is a "western, Semitic concept".
In an exclusive interview to news agency, Nandakumar said: "Secularism is a western, Semitic concept. It came into existence in the West. It was actually against Papal dominance."
He argued that India does not need a secular ethos as the nation has moved "way beyond secularism" since it believes in universal acceptance as against the western concept of tolerance.
The RSS functionary on Thursday released a book here named "Hindutva in the changing times". The book launch event was also attended by senior RSS functionary Krishna Gopal.
Nandakumar, who has attacked the Mamata Banerjee government in his book for alleged "Islamisation of West Bengal", told IANS: "We have to see whether we need to put up a board of being secular, or that whether we should prove this through our behaviour, actions and roles."
It is for society to take a call on this, rather than by any political class, on whether the preamble to the Indian Constitution should continue to have the word "secular" in it or not, he added.
In between signing his books and obliging wannabe Hindutva cadres with selfies, Nandakumar said that the very existence of the word "secular" in the preamble was not necessary and how the constitution founders too were against it.
"Baba Saheb Ambedkar, Ladi Krishnaswamy Aiyaar -- all debated against it and said it (secular) wasn't necessary to be included in the preamble. That time it was demanded, discussed and decided not to include it," he said.
Ambedkar's opinion was, however, disregarded when Indira Gandhi "bulldozed" the word "secular", in 1976, said the head of the Prajna Pravah, an umbrella body of several right-wing think-tanks
As Nandakumar prepared to return to his base in Kerala, where, he emphasises, the RSS has its work cut out in the "fight against the Kunnor model", he said that the inclusion of "secular" was done with the intent to damage the concept of Hindutva.
"It was to demolish, destroy the overarching principle of Hindutva that binds us together", he said.
Asked whether the Sangh would pressurise the BJP, which has 303 seats in the Lok Sabha, to omit "secular" from the Constitution preamble, Nandakumar smilingly refused to reply.
Comments
Add new comment