Pak group demands highest gallantry medal for Bhagat Singh

Karachi, Jun 29: Four heavily-armed militants attacked the busy Pakistan Stock Exchange on Monday morning, killing four security guards and a police sub-inspector before being shot dead in an exchange of fire, media reports said.

The unidentified militants opened indiscriminate fire and lobbed hand grenades at the main gate of the building as they tried to storm it, Geo News reported.

Police said that all the terrorists have been killed while five persons injured in the attack.

Four security guards and a police sub-inspector were also killed in the attack.

"An unfortunate incident took place at the Pakistan Stock Exchange. They made their way from our parking area and opened fire on everyone," said Abid Ali Habib, Director of Pakistan Stock Exchange.

The firing by militants caused panic among the people in the building.

Sindh province Governor Imran Ismail condemned the incident.

"Strongly condemn the attack on PSX aimed at tarnishing our relentless war on terror. Have instructed the IG & security agencies to ensure that the perpetrators are caught alive & their handlers are accorded exemplary punishments. We shall protect Sindh at all costs," he said on Twitter.

Police and rangers have arrived on the spot and surrounded the area.

Washington, Jan 2: The number of people killed in large commercial airplane crashes fell by more than 50% in 2019 despite a high-profile Boeing 737 MAX crash in Ethiopia in March, a Dutch consulting firm said on Wednesday. Aviation consulting firm To70 said there were 86 accidents involving large commercial planes - including eight fatal incidents - resulting in 257 fatalities last year. In 2018, there were 160 accidents, including 13 fatal ones, resulting in 534 deaths, the firm said.

To70 said the fatal accident rate for large airplanes in commercial passenger air transport was just 0.18 fatal accident per million flights in 2019, or an average one fatal accident every 5.58 million flights, a significant improvement over 2018. The fatality numbers include passengers, air crew such as flight attendants and any people on the ground killed in a plane accident

Large passenger airplanes in the study are aircraft used by nearly all travelers on airlines worldwide but excludes small commuter airplanes in service, including the Cessna Caravan and some smaller turboprop airplanes, according to To70.

On Dec. 23, Boeing's board said it had fired Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg after a pair of fatal crashes involving the 737 MAX forced it to announce it was halting output of its best-selling jetliner. The 737 MAX has been grounded since March after an October 2018 crash in Indonesia and the crash of a MAX in Ethiopia in March killed a total of 346 people.

To70 said the aviation industry spent significant effort in 2019 "focusing on so-called 'future threats' such as drones." But the MAX crashes "are a reminder that we need to retain our focus on the basics that make civil aviation so safe: well-designed and well-built aircraft flown by fully informed and well-trained crews."

The Aviation Safety Network said on Wednesday that, despite the MAX crash, 2019 "was one of the safest years ever for commercial aviation." The 157 people killed in March on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 accounted for more than half of all deaths last year worldwide in passenger airline crashes.

Over the last two decades, aviation deaths around the world have been falling dramatically even as travel has increased. As recently as 2005, there were 1,015 deaths aboard commercial passenger flights worldwide, the Aviation Safety Network said.

Last week, 12 people were killed when a Fokker 100 operated by Kazakh carrier Bek Air crashed near Almaty after takeoff. In May, a Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft caught fire as it made an emergency landing at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, killing 41 people.

The figures do not include accidents involving military flights, training flights, private flights, cargo operations and helicopters.

New Delhi, Feb 17: Four death row convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder will be hanged on March 3 at 6 am a Delhi court said on Monday.

The Patiala House Court on Monday issued fresh death warrants against four convicts while hearing a petition by the state and Nirbhaya's parents.

Earlier, Delhi High Court on February 5 granted a week's time to the four convicts to avail of all legal remedies available to them and said that the convicts cannot be hanged separately since they were convicted for the same crime.

A Delhi Court had earlier issued a death warrant against the four convicts -- Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta, and Mukesh Singh -- on January 7 and they were scheduled to be executed on January 22 at Tihar Jail. Later, the execution was suspended indefinitely by a Delhi court.