Australia too recognises West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital

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.

Wuhan, Jan 31: The World Health Organization declared a global emergency over the new coronavirus, as China reported Friday the death toll had climbed to 213 with nearly 10,000 infections.

The UN health agency based in Geneva had initially downplayed the threat posed by the disease, but revised its risk assessment after crisis talks.

suspended or reduced service to China include British Airways, German flag carrier Lufthansa, American Airlines, KLM and United.

Chinese efforts to halt the virus have included the suspension of classes nationwide and an extension of the Lunar New Year holiday.

All football matches across the country also will be postponed, the Chinese Football Association said on Thursday, including games in the top-tier Chinese Super League.

World stock markets tumbled again Thursday on fears that trouble in the "world's factory" would upset global supply chains and dent profits.

Toyota, IKEA, Starbucks, Tesla, McDonald's and tech giant Foxconn were among the corporate giants temporarily freezing production or closing large numbers of outlets in China.

Volkswagen announced Thursday its China joint-venture plants would not start production again before February 9.

US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the coronavirus posed a fresh risk to the world economy.

Throughout China, signs of paranoia multiplied, with residents of some Beijing residential compounds erecting makeshift barriers to their premises.

In one of many similar photos posted online, a man wearing a surgical mask and brandishing a traditional martial arts weapon squatted on a barricade outside a Chinese village, near a sign saying: "Outsiders forbidden from entering".

The crisis has caused food prices to spike, and the central government on Thursday blamed this partly on overzealous preventive measures, issuing a directive banning any roadblocks or other hindrances to food shipments.

New Delhi, Mar 20: The four men convicted of the gang rape and murder of a Delhi woman on December 16, 2012 were hanged in the darkness of pre-dawn on Friday, ending a horrific chapter in India's long history of sexual assault that had seared the nation's soul. Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) were executed at 5.30 am for the savage assault in an empty moving bus on the 23-year-old physiotherapy intern who came to be known the world over as Nirbhaya, the fearless one.

This is the first time that four men have been hanged together in Tihar Jail, South Asia's largest prison complex that houses more than 16,000 inmates. The executions were carried out after the men exhausted every possible legal avenue to escape the gallows. Their desperate attempts only postponed the inevitable by less than two months after the first date of execution was set for January 22.

They were hanged at 5.30 am, Director General of Prison Sandeep Goel said.

After raping and brutalising the woman, the men, one of whom was a juvenile at the time, dumped her on the road and left for dead on the cold winter night. Her friend who was with her was also severely beaten and thrown out along with her. She was so severely violated that her insides were spilling out when she was taken to hospital. She died in a Singapore hospital after battling for her life for a fortnight.

Six people, including the four convicts and the juvenile, were named as accused.

While Ram Singh allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail days after the trial began in the case, the juvenile was released in 2015 after spending three years in a correctional home.

The road to the gallows was a long and circuitous one, going through the lower courts, the High Court, the Supreme Court and the president's office before going back to the Supreme Court that heard and rejected various curative petitions.

The death warrants were deferred by a court thrice on the grounds that the convicts had not exhausted all their legal remedies and that the mercy petition of one or the other was before the president.

On March 5, a trial court issued fresh death warrants for March 20 at 5.30 am as the final date for the execution.