Modi justifies his policies, says Dharmasthala Heggade proved Digital India is possible

Newsroom, Apr 2: Mohammad Sirajul Hasan, former chief (ameer) of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, passed away today at a private hospital in Karnataka’s Raichur. 

The 87-year-old was suffering from old age related diseases for past few years and he was staying with his elder son in Raichur. 

He was the Karnataka (then Mysuru) unit chief of the JIH from 1st August,1958 to 6th April, 1984. Afterwards, he was appointed as the national secretary of the organization and held this post till he elected ameer for the term 1990-94. Previously, he also served the Jamaat as its Acting Ameer for about half a year. He was re-elected Ameer of the Jamaat for the terms 1995-99 and 2000-04. 

He had also served as the vice president of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board for several years.

An orator and scholar, Sirajul Hasan was known for his scholarly lectures in Urdu and Hindi.

Singapore, Mar 23: Oil prices fell at the open in Asia on Monday after a trillion-dollar Senate proposal to help the coronavirus-hit American economy was defeated and death tolls soared across Europe and the US.

US benchmark West Texas Intermediate initially tumbled more than three percent but then pulled back some ground to trade 1.5 percent lower, at $22 a barrel.

Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell 4.9 percent to $25 a barrel.

Prices have fallen to multi-year lows in recent weeks as lockdowns and travel restrictions to fight the virus hit demand, and top producers Saudi Arabia and Russia engage in a price war.

The latest drop came after a trillion-dollar Senate proposal to rescue the US economy was defeated after receiving zero support from Democrats, and with five Republicans absent from the chamber because of virus-related quarantines.

The bill had proposed funding for American families, thousands of shuttered or suffering businesses and the nation's critically under-equipped hospitals.

Coronavirus deaths soared across Europe and the United States at the weekend despite heightened restrictions.

The death toll from the virus -- which has upended lives and closed businesses and schools across the planet -- surged to more than 14,300 Sunday, according to an AFP tally.

AxiCorp chief markets strategist Stephen Innes said that "total demand devastation" had set it.

"Oil markets collapsed out of the gate this morning as prices react... to stringent containment lockdown measures," he said.

Alappuzha, Jan 9: The houseboat of Nobel Laureate Michael Levitt was blocked in the backwaters here for some time by trade union activists, who were on a nationwide strike against the Centre's "anti-labour" policies on Wednesday.

Michael Levitt, an American-British-Israeli biophysicist and a professor of structural biology at the Stanford University in the United States, said the incident sent a bad message to tourists.

Levitt, who was in Kerala as a state guest, also said he felt as if a bandit had stopped his wife and him at gunpoint. Police said Levitt, who received the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, was in Alappuzha with his wife and they were stopped by the protesters near Kainakary.

"Being stopped by criminals on the backwaters sends a very bad message to tourists. It is as if a bandit stopped us at gunpoint and delayed us under the threat of force for one hour," Levitt wrote in an email to his tour agent at Kottayam.

In the email, which was later released to the media, he also said the person who blocked them "ignored all arguments that tourists were exempted" from the strike.

"This person, who did this, ignored all arguments that tourists were exempted and that I am a VIP guest of the Kerala government. He was obviously acting, knowing that he was safe from prosecution. Sadly, this makes me fear that India is sinking into lawlessness," Levitt wrote in the email.

The police registered a case after the houseboat owners filed a complaint in this regard.

Reacting to the incident, state Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran said the government would take strong action. "Strong action will be taken against those anti-social elements who stopped the boat. Levitt was here as a guest of the state government. The government had made it clear that the tourism industry was exempted from the strike," he said.

Trade union leaders had also announced that the strike would not affect the tourism industry.

Ten trade unions, including the INTUC, the AITUC and the CITU, had called for the nationwide strike to protest against the labour reforms, FDI, disinvestment, corporatisation and privatisation policies of the Centre and press for a 12-point demands of the working class, relating to minimum wage, among others.