India

Mumbai, Dec 24 (IANS) TV actress Tunisha Sharma, who was on the cast of 'Ali Baba: Dastaan-E-Kabul', is no more. She was found dead on the sets of a TV serial in Vasai, Mumbai, on Saturday. According to media reports, she has committed suicide.

A police investigation has started but the reason behind this extreme step is still not clear.

The 20-year-old actress was active on social media hours before her death. She posted a picture of her with the caption: "Those who are driven by their Passion don't stop."

Tunisha started her career with 'Bharat Ka Veer Putra - Maharana Pratap' and later featured in shows such as 'Chakravartin Ashoka Samrat', 'Gabbar Poonchwala', 'Sher-e-Punjab: Maharaja Ranjit Singh', 'Internet Wala Love' and 'Ishq Subhan Allah'.

The young actress had featured in films like 'Fitoor', 'Baar Baar Dekho', 'Kahaani 2: Durga Rani Singh', and 'Dabangg 3'. She has also appeared in several music videos, notably 'Pyaar Ho Jaayega', 'Nainon Ka Ye Rona' and 'Tu Baithe Mere Samne'.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Dec 23 (IANS) Weeks after the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) election, the party on Friday announced candidates for the mayor and deputy mayor posts.

Shelly Oberoi, councillor from ward No. 86 of Patel Nagar constituency, has been named as the mayoral candidate, and Aale Mohammad Iqbal has been named for the post of deputy mayor.

Shelly Oberoi is a former Delhi University professor and a first-time councillor who won the Delhi civic body election from the BJP stronghold. Aale Mohammad Iqbal is the son of MLA and AAP leader Shoaib Iqbal from Matia Mahal constituency. He won by the biggest margin of over 17,000 votes.

The party has named four persons as candidates for the election of the standing committee members -- Mohammad Aamil Malik from Sri Ram Colony, Raminder Kaur from Fateh Nagar, Mohini Jeenwal from Sunder Nagri, and Sarika Chaudhary from Daryaganj.

"Congratulations n best wishes to AAP candidates @OberoiShelly n @AaleyIqbal Afor Mayor n Dy Mayor n AAP members Standing Committee members @SarikaSamar, @iRaminderKaur, @MohiniJeenwal n Aamil Malik. God bless u all to make our beloved Del clean," said Delhi Chief Minister in a tweet after the announcement.

At the first MCD meeting to be held on January 6, the 250 municipal councillors will take oath and elect the mayor and deputy mayor besides six members of the standing committee. The post of the mayor is reserved for a female councillor in the first of the MCD's five-year tenure.

However, the party's national secretary Pankaj Gupta said that Shelly Oberoi will remain on the post for three months only. After the mayor is elected on January 6, he will remain in office till April. The election of mayor will be held again in April.

The electoral college for the election of mayor includes 250 elected councillors, seven members of the Lok Sabha, three members of the Rajya Sabha and 1/5th of the members of the Delhi Assembly (13 MLAs) nominated by the Speaker by rotation every year.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Dec 23 (IANS) The Delhi unit of Congress is all set to receive the Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra as it enters the national capital through the Badarpur Border on Saturday.

The party has put all it's might to make it as a grand ceremony with the central leaders taking charge. Flags and hoardings have been put up along the route.

According to party sources, the Yatra will enter Delhi via Badarpur Border in the morning and reach Ashram at 10.30 a.m. After taking a morning break, the foot march will resume at 1.30 p.m. and proceed to Red Fort via Hazrat Nizamuddin India Gate.

At the Red Fort, the yatra will take a break with Rahul Gandhi paying tributes at Mahatma Gandhi memorial at the Rajghat.

The Yatra will break for a few days and resume from January 3.

Earlier, senior party leader Jairam Ramesh had said that there will be a break of nine days, to repair the containers and ready them for the harsh winter in the north.

"Also, many of the yatra participants will be able to spend time with their families after almost four months. The journey will resume on January 3, 2023."

The yatra will resume from Ghaziabad on January 3 and proceed towards Haryana and reach Sanoli Khurd at the Panipat border on January 6.

On the occasion, a massive rally will be organised the following day.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Dec 23 (IANS) The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a case on a complaint from Union Bank of India against a Kolkata-based private company, its directors and others for cheating a consortium of banks to the tune of Rs 4037.87 crore.

The Union Bank of India, the lead bank, declared the account of Corporate Power Limited as NPA on September 30, 2013 and subsequently, the other member consortium banks also classified the said account as NPA.

The accounts of Corporate Power Limited was declared fraud on October 25, 2019.

"Between 2009 and 2013, Corporate Power Limited had submitted manipulated project cost statements and also diverted the bank funds. The trade receivables mainly including transactions related to parties and funds were diverted to web of various companies who were dummy accounts, accordingly the borrower was able to siphon off the funds," the CBI said.

The officials said that searches were conducted at 16 locations including Nagpur, Mumbai, Ranchi, Kolkata, Durgapur, Ghaziabad, Vishakhapatnam which have led to the recovery of incriminating documents.

Further investigation in the matter is on.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Dec 23 (IANS) The Lok Sabha was adjourned sine die on Friday, six days ahead of schedule.

Before adjourning the House, Speaker Om Birla informed the members that 97 per cent of work productivity was clocked during the winter session.

During the session which got underway on December 7, a total of 13 meetings were held which lasted for 68 hours and 42 minutes, taking the productivity to 97 per cent.

Birla apprised that nine Government Bills were introduced of which seven were passed.

The members, he said, raised 374 matters of urgent public concerns and 298 matters under Rule 377.

A total of 43 statements were made by the ministers and 1,811 papers laid on the Table.

He thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Parliamentary Affairs Minister and leaders of all parties for their cooperation in the House proceedings.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Dec 23 (IANS) Former AICC president Sonia Gandhi's speech on "conflict with Judiciary" has drawn the ire of Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankar.

Quoting her speech, the Chairman on Friday said in the Upper House that he is being accused of "undermining judiciary". He said all the issues of bipartisan role should be settled within and assured that he will not look either way.

"I suffered the allegations of deligitimising the judiciary" he said.

When T. Siva of the DMK sought ruling on the issue that anything said outside the House should only be observed if there is any motion, the chairman said, "My level of reaction is at lowest level. "

Sonia Gandhi, in her speech on Wednesday, said, "A troubling new development is the calculated attempt underway to delegitimize the judiciary. Ministers -- and even a high constitutional authority -- have been enlisted to make speeches attacking the judiciary on various grounds. It is quite clear that this is not an effort to provide reasonable suggestions for improvement. Rather, it is an effort to reduce the standing of the judiciary in the eyes of the public."

--IANS
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Vadodara (Gujarat), Dec 23 (IANS) Twelve days after a Dalit youth was ruthlessly beaten on road in broad daylight in the Bhayli village of Gujarat's Vadodara, the police registered a case following a public outcry.

The incident caught public attention after Congress MLA Jignesh Mevani tweeted the video link questioning the state police on Thursday.

The youth dared to register the complaint only after getting assurance from the police and his friends and relatives.

Vadodara Rural Deputy Superintendent of Police (SC/ST cell) C.N. Chaudhary told the mediapersons on Thursday evening, that the said video was in circulation in the rural area for the last few days.

The moment police learned about the video, it started the search for the victim and approached him and after police persuasion, victim Alpesh Parmar gathered courage and lodged a complaint against seven unidentified accused with the Vadodara Taluka Police station, Chaudhary said.

The complaint was lodged on Wednesday evening, a day before Congress MLA tweeted about the incident, said the officer.

Now the police are searching for the accused, tracking their social media ID and doing a technical survey, as the victim is not knowing them, said Chaudhary.

Victim Parmar in his complaint stated that on December 11 afternoon, he was with his friend Surbhi Patel near Broadway building when seven youths approached him, started abusing, made casteist remarks, then beat him with a belt and kicked him several times.

He further alleged, "While beating me they were talking about my comment on social media. Before fleeing, they threatened to kill him and my family members if I lodged a police complaint. So I did not file a complaint against them.

Parmar got himself admitted to a private hospital for the injuries, where the doctor gave six stitches on his head.

Police officers told the mediapersons that the real reason for the atrocity will come out only after the accused were arrested and their statements recorded.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Dec 23 (IANS) Encrypted password manager LastPass has admitted that hackers were able to "copy a backup of customer vault data," in a recent data breach.

LastPass is a freemium password manager that stores encrypted passwords online.

In a statement, the company said that the threat actor "was also able to copy a backup of customer vault data from the encrypted storage container which is stored in a proprietary binary format that contains both unencrypted data, such as website URLs, as well as fully-encrypted sensitive fields such as website usernames and passwords, secure notes, and form-filled data".

It means that the threat actor may attempt to use brute force to "guess your master password and decrypt the copies of vault data they took".

The threat actor may also target customers with phishing attacks, credential stuffing, or other brute force attacks against online accounts associated with "your LastPass vault".

"In order to protect yourself against social engineering or phishing attacks, it is important to know that LastPass will never call, email, or text you and ask you to click on a link to verify your personal information," the company added.

The company recommended its users to never reuse master passwords on other websites.

"If you reuse your master password and that password was ever compromised, a threat actor may use dumps of compromised credentials that are already available on the Internet to attempt to access your account," said the company.

Earlier this month, Karim Toubba, the CEO of LastPass, admitted its systems were compromised for the second time this year.

The company detected unusual activity within a third-party cloud storage service, which is currently shared by both LastPass and its affiliate, GoTo.

The earlier security breach in August this year had allowed hackers internal access to the company's systems for four days until they were detected and evicted.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Dec 20 (IANS) A total of 18,19,104 grievances were received by all Ministries and Departments of which 15,68,097 PG cases were redressed in 2022, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions stated on Tuesday.

Of these 11,29,642 cases were disposed of by the Central Ministries and 4,38,455 cases were disposed by the States and UTs, the ministry said in a statement.

According to the ministry, the average disposal time of Central Ministries and Departments has improved from 32 days in 2021 to 27 days in 2022. As many as 1,71,509 appeals were received of which over 80 per cent were disposed of. Over 57,000 grievances have received the rating of "excellent and very good" from the citizens in the feedback conducted by the BSNL call centre during July-November.

Union Minister of State Personnel, Public Grievances, Jitendra Singh released the Annual Report of CPGRAMS for the year 2022.

A 10-step CPGRAMS reforms process was adopted for improving quality of disposal and reducing the time lines. It includes universalisation of CPGRAMS 7.0 - Auto-routing of grievances to the last mile, technological enhancements - automatic flagging of urgent grievances leveraging artificial intelligence, machine learning (AI/ML) and language translation among others.

In 2022, ministries or departments have disposed of 1.14 lakh PG cases in August, 1.17 lakh PG cases in September, 1.19 lakh PG cases in October and 1.08 lakh PG cases in November.

Officials said that this is the first time since inception of CPGRAMS that PG case redressal has crossed 1 lakh cases/month. The disposal in State PG cases on CPGRAMS portal has crossed 50,000 cases/month since September 2022. The total pendency in the Central Ministries is down to an all-time low of 0.72 lakh cases and in states to 1.75 lakh cases.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee of Ministry of Personnel, PG and Pensions in its 121st Report submitted to Parliament in December 2022, has appreciated the 10-step reform measures the department has taken to bring accountability in disposal of public grievances, appeal facility, mandatory action taken report, and feedback call centre.

--IANS
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BY VISHAL GULATI
Montreal, Dec 20 (IANS) In a first-of-its-kind unique initiative to bring action for biodiversity from sports worldwide, 23 sports organisations, including the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as a founding partner, and the Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games Paris 2024, have signed the Sports for Nature Framework.


Signatories to the Framework pledge to adhere to four key principles that will safeguard nature and contribute to the new global goals for biodiversity, which were later adopted by 196 countries under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at the 15th Conference of the Parties meeting (COP15) in Montreal.

Co-created by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), IOC, and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), in collaboration with the Secretariat of the CBD, the Sports for Nature Framework aims to deliver transformative action for nature across sports, by 2030 and beyond.

The Framework brings together sports federations, leagues, clubs and events in a commitment to protect and avoid damage to important species and habitats, restore key ecosystems, create sustainable supply chains, and educate and inspire the wider sporting community to take action for nature.

Signatories to the Framework commit to develop and implement action plans for each of the four principles, and report on their progress annually to an expert panel who will confirm that the actions undertaken are credible and effective.

On behalf of the founding partners, IUCN will lead on coordination with the signatories to the Framework and provide signatories with technical support, tools and training in partnership with Sails of Change Foundation, a foundation dedicated to the protection and regeneration of biodiversity.

"There is an urgent need to halt biodiversity loss by 2030 and everyone, including sports and recreation, must play a role. The Sports for Nature Framework is a step in the right direction. Thank you to the IOC, IUCN and UNEP for joining forces under the Convention on Biological Diversity in this ground-breaking initiative to bring action for biodiversity from sports worldwide," said the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Elizabeth Mrema.

"It is encouraging to see this level of commitment from sports federations, leagues, clubs, and events, and I challenge all sports organisations to follow suit by taking urgent action for biodiversity."

"The IOC believes everyone has a responsibility to care for the planet. As a founding partner of the Sport for Nature Framework, we want to help the sports community minimise any negative impacts on nature and inspire nature-positive action," said IOC member Tricia Smith, participating in the launch.

"This commitment builds on the success of the UN Sport for Climate Action Framework, and the IOC's own efforts to address the climate and biodiversity crises: reducing emissions by half by 2030, committing to a 'no-go' for any permanent Olympic construction within protected areas, setting high environmental standards for our food sourcing and creating an Olympic Forest to help restore degraded land in Mali and Senegal."

More than 100 representatives from international federations, national Olympic committees, regional and national associations, local teams and athletes, along with experts from academia, non-government organisations, science advisors and sports sustainability consultants, provided input on the Sports for Nature Framework.

This input was gathered during six formal consultations during November 2022, as well as through an online form and one-on-one consultations.

(Vishal Gulati can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in)

--IANS
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