Seven children die of viral infection in Bengal

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Kolkata: As many as seven children in West Bengal's Malda district have died due to the litchi syndrome, a viral infection leading to sudden death, in the last five days, an official said Saturday.

The deaths of the children aged between two to four years were reported at the state-run Malda Medical College and Hospital.

'From June 3, till 8 a.m. in the morning June 7, seven children have died. The viral syndrome occurred last in 2012 and can be called rare,' M.A. Rashid, hospital's vice principal-cum-superintending officer, told IANS.

The virus, found in litchi fruit, affects the brain causing swelling. It is said to originate in China. In India, it is seen in the summer months in some parts of north India, Rashid said.

Rashid said: 'The parents noticed fever and spells of vomiting which intensified and culminated in convulsions, leading to death in five to six hours.'

'The symptoms were sudden. A team of specialists from the School of Tropical Medicine in Kolkata and a team from Indian Council of Medical Research will visit the area today (Saturday),' he added. IANS

BSNL unveils 'smart phone' for common man

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Bangalore: State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) Friday unveiled a low-cost version of its smart phone, with e-governance applications for common man.

Branded as 'Bharat phone', the mobile device has a three-inch large screen display with provision for dual SIM card and has been priced at Rs.1,099 to make it affordable to common man.

'The low-cost mobile device will alter the Indian feature phone industry as it has been designed especially for e-governance applications and optimised for internet access to empower common man,' BSNL chairman R.K. Upadhyay said on the occasion.

Visiting Mauritius President Rajkeshwar Purryag was present on the occasion with Karnataka Governor H.R. Bhardwaj and state Higher Education Minister R.V. Deshpande.

Designed and developed by Pantel Technologies Ltd, a pioneer in the low-cost tablet PC market, the voicephone's large screen and proprietary Java operating system are suited for other user applications such as mobile banking, tele-healthcare delivery and streaming data delivery.

'As the phone is pre-bundled with attractive voice plan, the mobile handset offers common man the power of internet access at an affordable price and will benefit a wide section of society,' Upadhyay said.

According to Pantel managing director Vijender Singh, the phone has facility to browse, e-mail, to check Facebook and download music, video and Java games.

'Besides facility for dual SIM card, the phone is equipped with 1.3 mega pixel rear camera, Bluetooth for quick sharing of files, a lithium-ion battery with eight-hour charge and 15 days standby, 64MB random access memeory (RAM) and 64MB of internal storage, SMS scheduler, multimedia gaming and mobile tracker,' Singh said. 

Malaysian woman raped in Jaipur, man held

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Jaipur: A 30-year-old man was arrested here on charges of raping a Malaysian woman Friday, an official said Saturday.

'We have arrested (the man) on charges of raping a Malaysian woman Friday. (He) is a resident of Bhilwara,' Amandeep Singh, DCP (Jaipur East), told IANS here.

The woman in her complaint said she came to Jaipur three days back on a business trip and met the man.

Both of them had food in a five star hotel Thursday night from where he drove her to an isolated place and allegedly raped her in the car after offering her a drink laced with some drugs. He then left her in front of the hotel where she was staying.

The woman managed to reach a police car near the Jawahar Circle area in the city and lodged a complaint. The man was arrested within three hours.

'We have registered a case and are interrogating him,' Singh said. IANS

Over 100 killed in Afghanistan rain, floods

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Kabul: More than 100 people were killed and dozens of houses washed away when heavy rain and floods hit northern Afghanistan, an official said Saturday.

'Powerful wind, heavy rain and hailstones caused floods in Gazargah-e-Noor district of Baghlan province Friday night killing more than 100 people and injuring around 100 others within an hour,' Xinhua quoted the official as saying.

All roads leading to Gazargah-e-Noor district have been destroyed or badly damaged, the official said.

He also added that the local residents are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

IANS

Germany beat Armenia 6-1 in World Cup warm-up

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Berlin: Germany wrapped up a 6-1 win over Armenia thanks to six second half goals at an outsold Coface-Arena in Mainz.

Joachim Loew's men controlled the proceedings for most of the time Friday, yet the 'Nationalelf' had to wait until the second half to start their goal fest against the resilient visitors, reports Xinhua.

Lukas Podolski played a key role in the victory thanks to his goal and three assists.

'In the first half we lacked in chance conversion but due to our shape we were able to increase the pace in the second half. We still need a few training sessions in Brazil to get used to the temperatures,' Germany coach Loew said.

Germany depart Saturday from Frankfurt for Brazil where Loew and his 23 men will be staying in a recently built resort 'Campo Bahia' in Santo Andre before they face Portugal in their first group game in Salvador June 16.

IANS

Petro Poroshenko sworn in as Ukrainian president

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Petro Poroshenko

London: Petro Poroshenko was sworn in as the new Ukrainian president Saturday amidst hopes of an end to the tensions in the country.

Former acting President Oleksandr Turchynov began the swearing-in proceedings with a speech welcoming the dignitaries, BBC reported.

Ukraine's former President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted in Feb this year which gave rise to escalating tension in the country brought about by pro-Russian separatists. Also in March, the Black Sea Peninsula of Crimea joined Russia which deepened the crisis.

The swearing in ceremony took place at the parliament in Kiev.

Poroshenko, owner of Ukraine's Roshen chocolates group, took the oath of office and is expected to enunciate his plans for ending the current crisis.

The 48-year-old tycoon won the presidential election which was held May 25.

Dignitaries attending the ceremony include US Vice-President Joe Biden.

Poroshenko on Friday briefly met Russin President Vladimir Putin during the D-Day celebrations in Normandy, France.

Poroshenko said that the meeting could be the start of a dialogue.

A billionaire businessman, Poroshenko served as the minister of foreign affairs from 2009 to 2010 and as the minister of trade and economic development in 2012.

From 2007 until 2012, he headed the Council of Ukraine's National Bank. IANS

No role in house attack, says Pinarayi

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New Delhi: CPI-M state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan on Saturday ruled out any role of the party in the attack on the residence of newly elected RSP MP N K Premachandran in Kollam.

“The incident is unfortunate. The CPI-M has no role in it. It is not an approach of the party to attack its political foes,” said the Marxian, who is in Delhi to attend the politburo meeting.

Unidentified persons pelted stones at the house of Premachandran, damaging windowpanes early morning Saturday. None were injured in the attack as the MP and his family are in Delhi.

Locals told police that a group of 10 persons came to the spot late yesterday night, pelted stones and also pasted posters, accusing the MP of 'deceiving' the Left Democratic Front (LDF) for power and position.

Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) had severed its ties with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) led LDF on the eve of the April 10 Lok Sabha polls and became a partner in the ruling Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF).

Premachandran had defeated CPI-M politburo member and former state Minister M A Baby in the polls.

RSP is stated to merge with RSP (Bolshevik), which is already a partner in the ruling front, at a "re-unification" conference here on June 10.

RSP state secretary A A Azeez and State Labour Minister and leader of RSP(B) Shibu Baby John visited the house and requested the state government to take serious note of the incident.

UP policemen thrashed by mob for not registering rape complaint

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Lucknow: Policemen were attacked and senior district officials roughed up in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar late on Friday for refusing to lodge a complaint about the rape of a mentally-challenged woman. The situation was brought under control only on Saturday, an official said.

The victim was raped on Tuesday near Basi village graveyard, but her family learnt about it only on Friday. The victim's brother went to lodge a complaint with the police but the station house officer (SHO) of Dulhera allegedly refused to do so.

Incensed at the SHO's refusal to lodge a complaint, hundreds of villagers from Palda, Rasoolpur Jatan, Mukandpur, Kutba-Kutbi, Kamalpur, Shahpur and Kakda villages protested at the Shahpur police station.

They also manhandled the SHO who was chased on to the road and beaten up.

When the news reached the district administration, top officials, including District Magistrate Kaushalraj Sharma and Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) H.N. Singh, rushed to the spot.

The SSP was also not spared by the mob and his uniform was torn.

The crowd was angry that the police not only refused to register a case, but also refused to send the victim for a medical examination.

Sensing that the situation might get out of control, the DM ordered a medical examination of the woman.

The state government also intervened midnight and suspended six policemen, including circle officer (CO) of Shahpur.

The situation was brought under control Saturday, though additional police force has been deployed, an official told IANS.

Muzaffarnagar in western Uttar Pradesh was the scene of communal riots in September 2013, leaving 63 dead and thousands homeless.

The riots had started after the police let off some youths accused of molesting a girl. When the brothers of the girl protested, they were shot dead. IANS

Indian-origin scientist makes breakthrough in laser technology

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New York: Your personal computer may soon become more compact and energy efficient as laser could replace the mesh of wires.

Scientists at University of Michigan, led by an Indian American Pallab Bhattacharya, have found a new and more efficient way to make a coherent laser-like beam.

The 'laser-like' beam is made up of precarious particles called polaritons that are part light and part matter.

This polariton laser is fuelled by electrical current and works at room temperature, rather than way below zero.

Those attributes make the device the most real-world ready of the handful of polariton lasers ever developed.

'This is big. For the past 50 years, we have relied on lasers to make coherent light and now we have something else based on a totally new principle,' said Pallab Bhattacharya, professor of engineering at University of Michigan.

The work could advance efforts to put lasers on computer circuits to replace wire connections, leading to smaller and more powerful electronics.

It may also have applications in medical devices and treatments among several other things.

Today lasers are used in the fibre-optic communication that makes the Internet and cable television possible.

'The new prototype requires 1,000 times less electricity to operate than its conventional counterpart made of the same material,' Bhattacharya concluded. IANS

With 41 million obese, India third after US, China: Report

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Kolkata: India, with 41 million obese people, ranks third after the US and China in having the highest number of overweight people in the world, says a study.

Together, India and China represent 15 percent of the world's obese population.

The 'Global, regional, and national prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adults during 1980-2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013' report highlights nearly one-third of the world's population is obese or overweight.

The study, that was released May 29, spanned 33 years and 188 countries.

It also states the number of overweight and obese individuals globally increased from 857 million in 1980 to 2.1 billion in 2013.

The analysis was conducted by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington and published in The Lancet May 29.

One in five Indian men and women are either overweight or obese.

However, these rates are lower than Bhutan and Pakistan, but higher than Nepal and Bangladesh.

Although the prevalence of obesity has increased over the course of the 33-year study in India, only 3.7 percent men and 4.2 percent women were obese in 2013.

In the last 33 years, no country has successfully reduced obesity rates.

'In the last three decades, not one country has achieved success in reducing obesity rates, and we expect obesity to rise steadily as incomes rise in low and middle income countries in particular, unless urgent steps are taken to address this public health crisis,' said Christopher Murray, director of IHME and a co-founder of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study in a statement. IANS