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Mumbai, Feb 26 (IANS) Dharmendra may be counted among the 'veteran' Hindi cinema stars, but he has just shown that he's very much 'with-it'.

In a recent Instagram post, Dharmendra gave an AI spin to an image he shared with his fans and followers.

In the image, a younger version of Bollywood’s 'He-Man', reminiscent of the days when he was famous for his macho good looks, can be seen lounging in a convertible car dressed in denim pants and jacket paired with a crisp white shirt. He did not share any caption for the picture.

Dharmendra, who was most recently seen in Karan Johar's 'Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahaani', also shared a picture of his grandson Karan Deol, where he is smiling ear-to ear.

The 88-year-old star captioned it: "Love you Rock, for your new charisma looks. Jeete raho."

Karan is the elder son of actor Sunny Deol and his wife Pooja. He made his acting debut in 2019 with 'Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas'. Last year in June, Karan got married to his longtime lady love (and filmmaking legend Bimal Roy's granddaughter) Drisha Acharya.

The reception was attended by the who's who of Bollywood such as Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan and Ranveer Singh, among many others.

--IANS

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Chennai, Feb 26 (IANS) The DMK, which aims at a clean sweep in the upcoming general elections, will conduct seat sharing talks with its alliance partners on Monday.

The Dalit political party, Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), the left parties, CPI and CPI-M and Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) leaders will hold talks with the DMK leadership led by former Union Minister T.R. Baalu at the DMK headquarters in Chennai.

The DMK leadership will also hold a similar meeting with the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) leadership on Tuesday.

The DMK is adamant on not allocating the Coimbatore Lok Sabha seat to the CPI-M for the upcoming general elections.

Sources said that the DMK has told CPI-M leaders that they can contest from Madurai and another seat but not from Coimbatore. The CPI-M State Secretary K. Balakrishnan has however said that the party is keen to contest from Coimbatore.

The CPI is likely to get the Nagpattinam and Tiruppur, the two seats it is representing since 2019.

The DMK has also been holding discussions with Tamil super star and President of Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) Kamal Haasan. The DMK leadership is keen that Kamal Haasan should contest the elections along with its alliance from either Coimbatore or from one of three seats in Chennai.

Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) will be contesting on two seats. Party founder Thol Thirumavalan and General Secretary C. Ravikumar -- sitting MPs are likely to be fielded again from these seats.

In the 2019 general elections, DMK led Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA) won 38 of the 39 seats from Tamil Nadu. The party is expecting a clean sweep in the upcoming election by winning all the 39. The party leadership is conducting several layers of screening before finalising on the seat distribution among allies.

--IANS

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Bengaluru, Feb 26 (IANS) Three persons died and six people were injured after the tempo they were travelling in overturned when one of the tyres burst on the national highway in the outskirts of Davanagere city in Karnataka on Monday

The injured persons were being treated at the KIMS Hospital in Hubballi city.

According to police, the condition of one of the injured persons was critical. Police said the injured hailed from Singarajanahalli in Andhra Pradesh's Kurnool district.

The incident took place on the Bengaluru-Pune National Highway 48 near Punjabi Dhaba in the outskirts of Davanagere.

The victims were transporting Byadagi chillies from Karnataka's Haveri district. The identity of the deceased and injured persons are yet to be ascertained.

The police have taken up further investigation.

More details are yet to emerge regarding the incident.

--IANS

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Panaji, Feb 26 (IANS) Goa's Social Welfare Minister Subhash Phal Dessai said on Sunday that performance and intelligence are not linked to any specific language.

Minister Phal Dessai was speaking during an educational programme in South Goa's Ponda.

"We send our children to 'big schools' only because they teach them to speak good English; we have a misunderstanding that mere speaking good English makes students expert. If they speak good English, it doesn’t mean that they may be good in performance and intelligence. So don't link intelligence with language," he said.

He said that "our intelligence is not related to any specific language and hence parents need to imbibe 'Sanskars' in them".

"We need to identify the talent they possess and encourage them in that field," the minister added.

"People of my age will admit that we did our primary education in Government Primary school in Marathi language and then in fifth standard, we started learning the basics of English. To learn this we spent around six months of our academic year. We struggled to learn English. But today we can communicate in English," he said.

Minister Phal Dessai urged parents to not take the stress of getting their children admitted to big schools just to make them speak good English.

He said that along with academics other things should also be taught to the students.

--IANS

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Srinagar, Feb 9 (IANS) In a proverbial cheat vs. cheat style, two groups of cheats trying to dupe each other were arrested by police in J&K’s Ganderbal district on Friday.

Twelve people of two groups of thugs planning to dupe each other were arrested on the spot by police in Ganderbal district when one group was selling a fake ‘magical stone’ claimed to bring fortune and the other group was buying it with fake currency notes.

Sandeep Gupta, SSP (Ganderbal) said that at least 12 persons were arrested in the Kangan area of Ganderbal district while selling a fake ‘magical stone’ and others buying it with fake currency notes.

“An information was received by Police Station Kangan through reliable sources that some persons are moving in a suspicious manner at Kijpara, behind Dumping Park.

“Acting swiftly, a special Police team was constituted under the supervision of SDPO Kangan, Muzaffar Jan led by station house officer Kangan, Turk Zahoor that raided the spot and apprehended 12 persons who were roaming in suspicious conditions. Among the arrested persons is one policeman identified as Riyaz Ahmad Mir.

“During the search of apprehended persons, 30 bundles of Rs 50,000 each, which constitutes a total Rs 15,00,000 fake currency notes of Children Bank & total cash of Rs 56,600 (Indian currency) were recovered from their possession,

“Further, five vehicles used by the accused in the commission of crime have also been seized on the spot.

“A case under FIR number 08/2024 under relevant sections of law has been registered in Kangan police station”.

--IANS

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Kolkata, Feb 9 (IANS) Border Security Force on Friday said that they have seized smuggled snake venom worth Rs 12 crore from an Indo- Bangladesh bordering pocket at Hili in South Dinajpur district in the northern sector of West Bengal.

BSF said that one accused was arrested from whom the crystal jar containing the snake venom was seized. He has been handed over to the state forest department officials.

The arrested person has been identified as Tapan Adhikari (51).

It is learnt that the special crystal jar containing the snake venom consignment was made in France. State Forest Department sleuths suspect that in all probability the consignment was brought there to be smuggled to China via Nepal.

The Ranger of Balurghat forest division Sukanta Ojha said that the person was arrested with the snake venom consignment by 61 Battalion BSF.

“He is a resident of Trimohini which falls under Hili Police Station. He will be presented to a lower district court on Friday only. The seized consignment is being sent to Mumbai for examination purposes,” he said.

Sources said that this is the third incident of seizure of smuggled snake venom consignment in the last 14 months.

In September 2022, the officials at the forest sector in Jalpaiguri district seized snake venom worth Rs 13 crore.

In October 2022, the officials had seized smuggled snake venom of estimated market value of around Rs 30 crore from Ghoshpukur forest range area at Phansidewa community development block in the plains of Darjeeling district.

--IANS

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Hyderabad, Feb 9 (IANS) Legislators of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) arrived in autorickshaws to attend the Budget session of the state legislature on Friday.

Members of the Assembly and Council belonging to the main opposition party travelled in three-wheelers to reach the Assembly building to draw the government's attention to problems faced by autorickshaw drivers due to implementation of Mahalakshmi scheme under which women are allowed to travel free in TSRTC buses.

The MLAs and MLCs were carrying placards demanding the government to come to the rescue of autorickshaw drivers.

After reaching the Assembly in a three-wheeler from MLA Quarters, former minister and Siddipet MLA T. Harish Rao told media persons that 6.5 lakh autorickshaw drivers were literally on roads due to the Congress government’s scheme.

He demanded that the government provide monthly financial assistance of Rs 10,000 each to autorickshaw drivers.

The BRS legislators also demanded Rs.15 lakh ex-gratia each to the families of autorickshaw drivers who committed suicide after implementation of the scheme.

There was tension at the Assembly gate as BRS legislators were prevented by security personnel from entering the Assembly building with placards. This led to an argument between both sides.

The MLAs and MLCs attended the session wearing black scarves to show solidarity with autorickshaw drivers.

Earlier, the BRS MLAs staged a protest at MLA Quarters Hyderguda. They raised slogans, demanding the government to allocate funds in the State Budget for autorickshaw drivers.

--IANS

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Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 9 (IANS) Following a huge backlash from the opposition parties and within the Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Front, the proposal in the state Budget presented in the Assembly that batted for privatization in the higher education sector has been put on hold.

On Monday, state Finance Minister K.N. Balagopal while presenting his fourth straight budget said the doors have been opened for private and foreign universities to open their campuses. As the first step towards this, he said four international educational conclaves will be held outside the country.

He said experts hailing from Kerala and those working in the higher education sector abroad will be drafted for taking forward this idea. To fast track this idea, special packages will be introduced in the field of higher education. Balagopal had pointed out that all these changes were being made to ensure to attract foreign students to Kerala besides helping students from here presently going abroad for higher studies.

But no sooner had the budget presentation got over, the Congress-led UDF opposition and the BJP went hammer and tongs on this major shift in the ideology of the Left, who have all along been against any sort of privatisation.

State Higher Education Minister R. Bindhu also was seen expressing her displeasure and the only ones who batted for it was the Chief Minister himself, state CPI(M) party secretary M.V. Govindan and Balagopal.

Meanwhile, according to sources, CM Vijayan, who returned from Delhi on Friday, has been directed by the party general secretary Sitaram Yechury not to take it further in view of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. As this is a major deviation from the CPI(M) ideology, no further action should be taken, Yechury has said, as per the sources, adding that the Congress and BJP will attack the Left during the election campaign.

All along the CPI(M)-led Left in Kerala had staunchly opposed the entry of the private sector in the education sector. The Left led huge protests when the K. Karunakaran government in the '90s planned to open up a few professional courses in the medical sector and also when the A.K. Antony-led government in 2001 opened up the professional education sector in the self-financing mode.

Incidentally, the present lot of CPI(M) state Ministers, including Balagopal, P. Rajeeve (Industries) M.B. Rajesh (Local Self Government) Saji Cherian (Fisheries) P.A. Mohammed Riyas (Tourism) and V. Sivankutty (Education) were all in the forefront of protests in the nineties whenever the Congress-led state governments tried to revamp the higher education sector.

--IANS

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Patna, Feb 9 (IANS) Delhi's Rouse Avenue Court on Friday granted interim bail to former Chief Minister Rabri Devi and her two daughters -- Rajya Sabha MP Misa Bharti and Hema Yadav -- in the IRCTC land-for-job case.

The court gave them the interim bail on Rs 1 lakh bail bond each. The next hearing of this case is scheduled on February 28.

Earlier, Rabri Devi, Misa Bharti and Hema Yadav appeared in the Rouse Avenue court on Friday morning after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) filed a charge sheet against them in the case.

Earlier, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had questioned Lalu Prasad Yadav for 10 hours, Tejashwi Yadav for eight hours, Rabri Devi and Misa Bharti for three hours each in Patna after the government changed in Bihar.

Rabri Devi, Misa Bharti, Hema Yadav, Amit Katyal, Hridayanand Choudhary and others are facing charges of money laundering of Rs 600 crore.

Lalu Prasad Yadav as the Union railway minister between 2004 to 2009 had given the jobs to several people in Group D after allegedly taking their lands.

--IANS

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Chennai, Feb 9 (IANS) Dalit activists have taken up the case of a 37-year-old Dalit man being asphyxiated to death while cleaning a septic tank in an apartment building at Kannabiraman street in Coimbatore.

Activist and leader of Dalit rights movement Meenakumari Sunil told IANS that manual scavenging is against the law.

“It is against law and we will take those who engaged the man for manual scavenging to the court,” Meenakumari said.

Mohanasundaralingam (37) was engaged in cleaning the sewage tank of an apartment in Kannabiraman Mill road near Sowripalayam in Coimbatore on Thursday.

While Mohanasundarlingam was supervising the cleaning, two of his accomplices, Raju and Guna went inside the sewage. Ramu fell inside the sewage tank and Mohanasundarlingam also entered the tank to save Ramu; while Ramu was pulled out to safety, Mohanasundarlingam collapsed and was immediately taken to the local hospital where he was declared brought dead.

Mohansundaralingam hails from Thiagi village in Ramanathapuram and the Dalit organisations in the area took up the cause of his death.

Meenakumari said that manual cleaning was abolished by law long back and added that those engaging people for this inhuman act must be brought to book.

She said that the activists including a group of advocates have met the family members of the deceased Mohanasundaralingam at Coimbatore General Hospital where his postmortem will be conducted on Friday and assured them that they would take legal recourse and stand with the family of the deceased person.

The Dalit rights activist told IANS that as per the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavangers and their Rehabilitation Act and the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, those who have engaged the deceased and his accomplices for manual scavenging will face stringent legal action.

--IANS

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