New Google app to help you write freely

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New York: Google has designed a new app to test your on-screen penmanship. Called Google Handwriting Input, the app allows the users to 'write' on a smartphone or tablet screen.

It automatically interprets letters from 82 languages and transforms them into standard digital text. The users can use their fingers as well to write.

Developed by the company's research team, Handwriting Input can identify both cursive and print handwriting, and accepts emojis, reported CNET.

'Using handwriting as an input method can allow for natural and intuitive input method for text entry which complements typing and speech input methods,' Google's research team wrote in a blog post recently.

Google's handwriting app is not entirely new though.

Windows Journal, an app built into Microsoft's operating system, similarly allows users to input their handwriting.

The app then interprets each letter and provides a standard digital text version.

But Google Handwriting Input supports both on-device processing of handwriting and a cloud-based version.

According to Google, when users decide to put their handwriting through its web-based servers via the cloud feature, it 'will usually produce more accurate results' than the offline version that doesn't send handwriting recognition out to the web but rather uses the features built into the app to recognise letters.

Google Handwriting Input is available now as a free download in the Google Play marketplace. The app requires Android 4.0.3 and up in order to work.

IANS

Sexual abuse in church: Court seeks govt’s stand

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KOCHI: Kerala High Court has sought the stand of the government on the anticipatory bail submitted by Fr Edwin Figarez in connection with a case in which a 16-year-old girl was "sexually abused" by the church priest.
 

Justice C T Ravikumar was considering the petition filed by Advocate Ranjith Shankar and Advocate Shiju Abraham.

The complaint regarding the incident was lodged on April 1 by the mother of the ninth standard student. The complaint was filed against Lourde Matha Latin Catholics  priest under Kottapuram Catholics church. After the complaint was lodged, the priest had gone into hiding and he later moved a plea for anticipatory bail even as the probe was going on against him.
 

In the bail plea, the priest has alleged that the parents of the girl had personal grudge against him and even  a few church insiders conspired to trap him in some case.

Airport official held for harassing passenger, gets bail

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 New Delhi: An immigration officer who has allegedly harassed a woman passenger at the airport here by asking objectionable questions has been arrested, police said on Thursday.

Immigration officer Vinod Kumar was released on bail a few hours after his arrest here on Wednesday. The arrest came a week after police recorded the woman's statement in Bengaluru.

Vinod Kumar allegedly harassed the Bengaluru-based passenger, who took a flight to Hong Kong from Delhi on March 18.

He was arrested for assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty, police said.

'The immigration officer was arrested yesterday (Wednesday), but he got bail a few hours after his arrest as the section imposed on him was bailable,' Deputy Commissioner of Police (Indira Gandhi International Airport) M.I. Haider told IANS.

The woman claimed Vinod Kumar harassed her by asking 'several uncomfortable personal questions' at the immigration counter and he even followed her at the escalator between the domestic and international transfer.

Former Nepal PM Surya Bahadur Thapa dead

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 Gurgaon: Former Nepalese prime minister Surya Bahadur Thapa died at Medanta - The Medicity hospital here late Wednesday night, a doctor said on Thursday. He was 87.

The five-time prime minister was suffering from cancer and was admitted to Medanta hospital on March 29.

'His stomach, liver, pancreas, oesophagus and intestines were affected,' a doctor told IANS.

His family members arrived in the hospital on Thursday.

'Thapa was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit. He breathed his last around 11 p.m. on Wednesday. We handed over Thapa's body to his brother-in-law Sanjay Bahadur Thapa at 11.20 a.m. on Thursday,' the doctor said.

Family sources here said the body of Thapa was being taken to Kathmandu where it will be kept at his Maligaon residence prior to the last rites scheduled for Friday.

On Friday morning, the body will be kept at the party office of Thapa's Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) for paying of last tributes to the departed leader. The body will then be taken to Dasharath Stadium for the public to pay their final tributes.

The body of the late RPP leader will be taken to Pashupati Aryaghat for the final rites, RPP general secretary Deepak Bohara told media persons in Kathmandu.

Thapa had served as Nepal prime minister five times (1963-64, 1965-69, 1979-83, 1997-98 and 2003-04), under three kings in a political career spanning almost six decades.

IANS

2018 FIFA World Cup qualifiers at Thiruvananthapuram too

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Thiruvananthapuram: The Greenfield Stadium at Karyavattom will host two of India's 2018 FIFA World Cup football qualifyinground matches. This will be the first match hosted by the Greenfield Stadium which is built at an outlay of Rs 240 crore.

Rest of the two home matches will be played in Mumbai.

India has been included in Group D along with Asian stalwarts Iran and Oman. Turkmenistan and Guam are other contenders. India's first home match has been scheduled for June 11 against Oman. India will play Iran on September 8, Guam on November 12 and Turkmenistan on March 24, 2016.

This is the second time Kerala is hosting world cup qualifiers. In 2003, India had played Oman in Kochi and lost the match by 5 goals.

Three killed as bus overturns in Kozhikode

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KOZHIKODE: Three persons were killed after a bus carrying pilgrims collided with a lorry while they were returning from the Kollur Mookambika temple. The incident happened early Tuesday morning at 2.30 am at the Ramanattukara Airport Road Bypass Junction. The bus overturned after colliding with a goods lorry. The dead has been identified as Chandrasekharan (55), Anu (30), both from Nedukandam in Idukki and Jayalakshmy (11) of Ochira. The condition of one out of the 41 injured is stated to be serious. Eyewitnesses said the tourist bus proceeding to Idukki from Mookambika overturned after colliding with the lorry going to Kannur from Palakkad. In the impact, a woman slipped and fell out of the bus. The other two got stuck underneath the bus. The team left for Mookambika from Idukki on April 10th in two buses.

Congress MLA arrested for alleged links to countrywide car theft racket

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Guwahati: Assam Congress lawmaker Rumi Nath was today arrested in connection with her alleged links with a pan-India car theft racket.

'We have arrested her from the MLA hostel at around 7 AM. At present, she has been kept at Dispur Police Station. During the day, we'll produce her in court and seek police remand,' Assistant Commissioner of Police Suprotive Lal Barua said.

She was arrested in connection with her alleged 'links with a car theft gang' under sections 120(B), 420, 212 of the IPC, which stands for criminal conspiracy, cheating and harbouring offender, he said.

Yesterday, the Congress MLA had appeared before the press and said that she was not absconding.

'I am not absconding. I am innocent. Seeking anticipatory bail does not mean, I am guilty. If I am proved guilty, I am ready to go to prison', she had said at the press conference. Earlier, the Gauhati High Court had rejected her two anticipatory bail applications in connection with a case registered at Dispur police station and another at Azara police station.

She had filed for anticipatory bail on April 9 following the arrest of her estranged second husband Jacky Zakir.

Zakir was arrested on April 8 from his house in Badarpur in Karimganj district, while Nath's Personal Security Officer (PSO) Bedabrata Barpatra Gohain was caught from the Special Branch headquarters in the state capital.

During investigations, it was found that the alleged car theft gang leader Anil Chauhan, who was arrested by Guwahati Police and was wanted in a number of cases in Delhi and Mumbai besides other states, was issued Assam Assembly car passes on the recommendation of Nath.

Following this, the Assembly Secretariat issued a notice asking her to explain why she recommended issuance of car passes to the alleged car lifter, to which Nath responded by saying that she had signed the car pass application form of Chauhan's wife who is a Congress worker.

'I have no connection with Chauhan, but only know his wife who was also a Congress worker. This is just a political conspiracy to defame me... I have full faith in the law of the land and will cooperate with the police at every step,' Nath had said yesterday.

Assam Congress President Anjan Dutta too issued a showcause notice to Nath for her alleged involvement with the notorious car lifter.

The controversial MLA had married Zakir in 2012 by converting to Islam and without divorcing her first husband.

The duo was subsequently assaulted by a mob at a Karimganj hotel in July 2012. They parted ways last year and are living separately since then.

US Senate panel passes bill over n-deal with Iran

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 Washington: A Senate panel approved a bill demanding a congressional review of any nuclear deal the Obama administration inks with Iran by the end of June.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday voted 19-0 to pass an amended version of the bill, which will advance to the full Senate for a vote, Xinhua reported.

The new bill, while blocking President Barack Obama from lifting the sanctions on Iran during the review period, reduces the period to 52 days from the original 60 days, and allows the president to submit the accord after the June deadline for concluding the negotiations.

Obama, who has threatened to veto the draft bill, was willing to sign the new one, White House spokesperson Josh Earnest said on Tuesday.

'The president would be willing to sign the proposed compromise that is working its way through the committee today,' Earnest told reporters at a daily news briefing.

The US, Britain, China, France, Russia plus Germany are set to resume talks with Iran soon over a final deal after reaching a framework pact early this month, and the Obama administration has repeated opposition to any interference in the negotiations.

During his closed-door briefings on Capitol Hill Monday and on Tuesday, Secretary of State John Kerry urged lawmakers to give the administration more space to seal a deal with Iran.

House Speaker John Boehner on Tuesday once again accused the Obama administration of pursuing a deal with Iran 'at any cost,' reiterating a call for congressional review of any agreement reached.

IANS

India's secularism is strong, it will not shake: Modi

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Berlin: India's secularism is strong and it will not shake, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his address to the Indian community in Berlin.

Addressing a community reception hosted by the Indian ambassador, the prime minister said: 'India's secularism is not so weak that it will crumble. Our secularism is strong, and it will not shake; our self confidence should also not shake,' he said.

He also said that India will set the agenda for the climate change summit in Paris this year.

Modi said that Indians have always traditionally followed the principle of reuse and recycle, and never believed in wasting nature's resources. India worships mother nature, he said.

'Reuse and recycle -- we have been doing for years, but the world is using it now. But we never highlighted this aspect of ours, of reuse and recycle. Now the world is telling us to reuse and recycle. Those who damage the environment are today asking us to pay. They are asking us to reduce carbon emissions.'

'We are those who pay respect to environment, we call rivers mother, worhship trees, and nature, it is part of our culture, and we should go the world with this,' Modi said.

'We should stand with confidence, that we can show the world the way. We will set its agenda, I want to assure you. India will set the agenda for the climate change summit, and on the basis of our values; we are not those to take from world, but give,' he said to loud applause.

He also assured the diaspora that the country will always be there for them and maintain its ties with the diaspora.

At 65, Woman Pregnant With Quadruplets: Reports

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This photo taken on December 11, 2005 shows then 55-old Annegret Raunigk (1st row, 2ndL), posing with her youngest daugher Lelia (on her knees) and other children and grand-children in Cologne.(AFP)

A 65-year-old Berlin woman who already has 13 children is pregnant again with quadruplets, German media reported Sunday.

The Russian and English teacher's pregnancy follows several attempts abroad at artificial insemination over the last year and a half, German RTL broadcaster said.

The woman, Annegret Raunigk, decided to try to have another child because her youngest daughter, who is nine, wanted a little brother or sister, RTL said on its website.

The TV channel will broadcast an interview with the expectant mother, who has seven grandchildren, on Monday evening.

It said the pregnancy had so far been without any major complications and that if everything went well, the babies were due in the summer and that Raunigk would be the world's oldest mother of quadruplets.

Mass circulation newspaper Bild am Sonntag also reported the four-baby pregnancy, quoting the mum-to-be as saying the news had initially come as a shock.

'After the doctor discovered there were four, I had to give it some thought to begin with,' Bild quoted her as saying, adding however she had not considered it an option to reduce the number of embryos.

Asked about the moral implications, RTL quoted her as saying: 'I think, one must decide that for oneself.'

Bild also reported on Raunigk 10 years ago when she gave birth to her 13th child and quoted her at the time as saying she had only initially envisaged having one. AFP