5 saffron extremists including a Mangalurean are key suspects in Gauri Lankesh murder

Ottawa, Jun 25: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took his son out for ice cream on Wednesday in his first family outing since Canada started easing out of its pandemic lockdown.

It was also Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day in Quebec province.

Wearing masks, the Canadian leader and his six-year-old son Hadrien were cheered at Chocolats Favoris in Gatineau, Quebec.

According to a pool report, Trudeau said the shop tapped into a federal emergency wage subsidy and business loan in order to weather the pandemic, and "avoid being frozen out of the frozen treat market."

Hadrien is said to have bounced with excitement, settling on a vanilla cone with a cookie topping while dad bought a vanilla cone dipped in chocolate for himself.

Father and son then headed out to the patio, where they doffed their masks to eat their cones.

Canada's provinces and territories declared states of emergency mid-March, closing schools and non-essential businesses in response to the pandemic.

New Delhi, Jun 10: Petrol price on Wednesday was hiked by 40 paise per litre and diesel by 45 paise, the fourth straight daily increase in rates after oil PSUs ended an 82-day hiatus in rate revision. Petrol price in Delhi was hiked to Rs 73.40 per litre from Rs 73, while diesel rates were increased to Rs 71.62 a litre from Rs 71.17, according to a price notification of state oil marketing companies.

Rates have been increased across the country and vary from state to state depending on the incidence of local sales tax or VAT.

This is the fourth daily increase in rates in a row since oil companies on Sunday restarted revising prices in line with costs, after ending an 82-day hiatus.

In four hikes, petrol price has gone up by Rs 2.14 per litre and diesel by Rs 2.23.

Latest petrol, diesel prices in top cities:

New Delhi: Petrol ₹73.40. Diesel ₹71.62

Gurgaon: Petrol ₹72.86. Diesel ₹64.90

Mumbai: Petrol ₹80.40. Diesel ₹70.35

Chennai: Petrol ₹77.43. Diesel ₹70.13

Hyderabad: Petrol ₹76.20. Diesel ₹70b

Bengaluru: Petrol ₹75.77. Diesel ₹68.09

Kolkata, Jan 1: US-based Bangladeshi author and playwright Sharbari Zohra Ahmed feels that the people of the country of her origin are more alike than different from Indians as they were originally Hindus.

But Bangladeshis now want to forget their Hindu roots, said the author, who was born in Dhaka and moved to the United States when she was just three weeks old.

Ahmed, who is the co-writer of the Season 1 of 'Quantico', a popular American television drama thriller series starring Priyanka Chopra, rues that her identity as a Bengali is getting lost in Bangladesh due to the influence of right-wing religious groups.

"How can Bangladesh deny its Hindu heritage? We were originally Hindus. Islam came later," Ahmed said while speaking to PTI here recently.

"The British exploited us, stole from us and murdered us," she said about undivided India, adding that the colonialists destroyed the thriving Muslin industry in Dhaka.

Ahmed said the question of her belief and identity in Bangladesh, where the state religion is Islam, has prompted her to write her debut novel 'Dust Under Her Feet'.

The British exploitation of India and the country's partition based on religion has also featured in her novel in a big way.

Ahmed calls Winston Churchill, the British prime minister during World War II, a "racist".

"He took the rice from Bengal to feed his soldiers and didn't care when he was told about that.

"During my research, I learnt that two million Bengalis died in the artificial famine that was created by him. When people praise Churchill, it is like praising Hitler to the Jews. He was horrible," she said.

The author said her novel is an effort to tell the readers what actually happened.

"Great Britain owes us three trillion dollars. You have to put in inflation. Yet, they (the British) still have a colonial mentality and white colonisation is on the rise again," Ahmed, who was in the city to promote her novel, said.

The novel is based in Kolkata, then Calcutta, during World War II when American soldiers were coming to the city in large numbers.

The irony was that while these American soldiers were nice to the locals, they used to segregate the so-called "black" soldiers, the novelist said.

"Calcutta was a cosmopolitan and the rest of the world needs to know how the city's people were exploited, its treasures looted, people divided and hatred instilled in them," she said.

"Kolkata was my choice of place for my debut novel since my mother was born here. She witnessed the 'Direct Action Day' when she was a kid and was traumatised. She saw how a Hindu was killed by Muslims near her home in Park Circus area (in the city)," Ahmed said.

Direct Action Day, also known as the Great Calcutta Killings, was a massive communal riot in the city on August 16, 1946 that continued for the next few days.

Thousands of people were killed in the violence that ultimately paved the way for the partition of India.

'Dust Under Her Feet' is set in the Calcutta of the 1940s and Ahmed in her novel examines the inequities wrought by racism and colonialism.

The story is of young and lovely Yasmine Khan, a doyenne of the nightclub scene in Calcutta.

When the US sets up a large army base in the city to fight the Japanese in Burma, Yasmine spots an opportunity.

The nightclub is where Yasmine builds a family of singers, dancers, waifs and strays.

Every night, the smoke-filled club swarms with soldiers eager to watch her girls dance and sing.

Yasmine meets American soldier Lt Edward Lafaver in the club and for all her cynicism, finds herself falling helplessly for a married man who she is sure will never choose her over his wife.

Outside, the city lives in constant fear of Japanese bombardment at night. An attack and a betrayal test Yasmine's strength and sense of control and her relationship with Edward.

Ahmed teaches creative writing in the MFA program in Manhattanville College and is artist-in-residence in Sacred Heart University's graduate film and television programme.