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Around 40% of the Indian Army’s ammunition will not last more than 10 days in a war, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India said in a report released Friday. The CAG report presented in Parliament said that the military does not have the minimum required stock of 55% of the 152 types of arms it uses for operational preparedness in case of war, reported NDTV . The CAG report also noted that a Defence Ministry plan chalked out in 2013 to meet the deficit in the Army’s artillery by 2019 had not been implemented yet. Some of the Army Headquarters’ requests for ammunition, which date back to 2009, have not been acted on yet either, it added. The audit also found deficiencies in the performance of the Ordnance Factory Board, which manufactures 90% of military equipment, and that the functioning of its factories had not improved since 2013, reported ANI . The report further said that there was a dearth of high-calibre ammunition and artillery, such as fuzes, which are fitted to art

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis believes that Islamic State head Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is still alive, news reports said on Saturday. Despite various reports saying he was dead, Mattis told Pentagon reporters, “I think Baghdadi’s alive… and I will believe otherwise when we know we’ve killed him,” according to AFP. On July 11, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said al-Baghdadi had been killed. The militant group also confirmed the news then and had said it would soon announce a successor. Earlier in June, Russia’s military had said that it was investigating if Baghdadi had been killed in one of its airstrikes outside Raqqa, Syria’s de facto capital, on May 28. Mattis added that he thinks that Baghdadi still had a role in the Islamic State, while other Pentagon officials said he was no longer in charge of the organisation’s day-to-day activities, The New York Times reported.

Kashmir Police officials said that a group of soldiers in civilian clothes beat up six to eight policemen including an assistant sub-inspector in Ganderbal district of Jammu and Kashmir. The policemen allegedly stopped the soldiers at a barricade in Gund when they were returning after the Amarnath Yatra on Friday night. They were stopped because no civilians are allowed to travel at night, especially after the recent terror attack on Amarnath pilgrims in which eight civilians died. A group of more than 30 soldiers of the 24 Rashtriya Rifles in civilian clothes were travelling in four vehicles, The Indian Express reported. After they were denied passage through the barricade set up by the Sonmarg police, they beat up the officials manning the barricade. They also ransacked the police station and official records, the report said. The injured were admitted to a hospital, and an FIR was registered, Hindustan Times reported. However, Hindustan Times also quoted the Army spokesperson

US legislation renewing and tightening sanctions on Russia, stalled in the House of Representatives, was not passed before the US and Russian presidents met at the G20 summit in Hamburg. The proposed bill had already received criticism not only from Russia but also from Germany and Austria about the impact sanctions may have on Europe’s gas supply. Europe and the United States need not worry: energy markets have undergone significant transformation in favour of importers, and Russia’s tough talk warning against sanctions is little more than posturing. Russia needs Europe as a market for its oil and gas. The proposed sanctions bill – if passed by the House of Representatives and not vetoed by President Donald Trump – would put into law sanctions previously established under former President Barack Obama as well as expand them, targeting various companies and sectors of the Russian economy, including the energy sector. The sanctions, renewing earlier sanctions for Russia’s annexatio

The shooting of Australian woman Justine Damond (pictured above) in Minneapolis in the United States has led to chaos in the city. Police chief Janee Harteau was forced to resign and protests erupted in some places, The Guardian reported on Saturday. Mayor Betsy Hodges said, “I’ve lost confidence in the chief’s ability to lead us further,” The Guardian reported. “And from the many conversations I’ve had with people around our city, it is clear that she has lost the confidence of the people of Minneapolis as well.” Hodges’ conference later in the day was interrupted by protesters chanting “Bye, Bye Betsy,” the report added. Around 11.30 pm on July 15, life coach Justine Damond, originally from Sydney, was shot dead by two US police officers. Reports said she had called 911 after hearing a noise near her house. The officers – Matthew Harrity and Mohamed Noor – were driving behind her house, when they were said to have been startled by a loud noise. When Damond approached the drive

The Centre on Friday told the Supreme Court that it will come out with regulations to protect user data. The government made the statement in a submission to the bench examining the WhatsApp privacy policy case, reported PTI. Additional Solicitor General PS Narasimha told the court that user data was integral to the right to life and personal liberty granted under the Constitution. “Data of users is connected to the personality, and it is an integral part of Article 21,” he said. “If any contractual obligation impinges upon that, it will have ramifications. We will come out with regulations on data protection.” The Supreme Court bench observed that platforms like WhatsApp cannot impose conditions that violate the rights of citizens. It said there should be a distinction between where data can be used and where it can be misused. WhatsApp users allege privacy breach A five-judge Constitution bench is hearing a petition filed by two WhatsApp users, who alleged that WhatsApp had viol

France’s military chief resigned on Wednesday after a debate with President Emmanuel Macron over defence budget cuts. Pierre de Villiers said he could no longer guarantee the “robustness of the defence forces” given the financial restrictions. Macron has accepted the resignation, the 60-year-old head of the armed forces said. “In the current circumstances I see myself as no longer able to guarantee the robust defense force I believe is necessary to guarantee the protection of France and the French people, today and tomorrow, and to sustain the aims of our country,” de Villiers said. The development is a new obstacle for the recently elected president. De Villiers is believed to have used foul language while criticising Macron’s € 850 million cut in the defence budget. Macron had made his displeasure of de Villier’s opposition public. “I have made commitments, I am your boss,” he had said during his address at an Army event.

In just over six months, hit single Despacito has become the most streamed song of all time. With 4.6 billion streams across all platforms since January this year, Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s original song, as well as the remix featuring Justin Bieber, have bested the previous record-holder – Bieber’s 2015 song Sorry. Subsequently, Luis Fonsi called streaming “a connector for audiences worldwide” that has “helped my music reach every corner of the planet”. He added that the song’s new record was “truly an honour.” The Puerto Rican said what has happened to his song is “just insane,” according to the BBC . “I just wanted to make people dance,” he said. “I come from Puerto Rico and live in Miami. We’re living in an interesting time right now when people want to divide us.” He added that people want to build walls, and, “for a song to bring people and cultures together, that’s what makes me proud.”

Uttar Pradesh Excise Minister Jai Pratap Singh said the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government will not impose a complete ban on liquor sale, PTI reported on Wednesday. The Chief Minister Adityanath government said a ban on the sale of alcohol would be impractical for the state and lead to illicit liquor sale. “The revenue from excise is used in public welfare and developmental schemes of the state,” Singh said while replying to a query posed by Congress MLA Ajay Kumar Lallu in Assembly. “Banning liquor sale will indirectly promote illicit liquor sale and people will start purchasing from illegal sources which will adversely affect their health.” Parliamentary Affairs Minister Suresh Kumar Khanna criticised the Congress for discussing the possibility of a liquor ban. “We are not in favour of liquor, but it is not practically possible to ban its sale,” Khanna said. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had urged the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government to impose prohibition in st

Two new Harry Potter books will be released in October as part of a British Exhibition to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Bloomsbury announced on Wednesday, reported AP. Harry Potter: A History of Magic - The Book of the Exhibition will cover all the subjects studied at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and Harry Potter – A Journey Through A History of Magic will touch upon Potterverse elements such alchemy, unicorns, and ancient witchcraft. Both the books will be published in October. The exhibition, being organised by the British Library, will open in October and run through February 2018.

The four Arab nations that had severed diplomatic ties with Qatar on June 5 are no longer insisting that the country comply with the list of 13 demands they had presented in June, AP reported on Wednesday. The Saudi Arab-led bloc now wants the Gulf nation to accept six broad principles to “combat terrorism and extremism” and put an end to “acts of provocation”. Abdallah Al-Mouallimi, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United Nations, told a group of UN correspondents that their foreign ministers had agreed to the six principles at a meeting in Cairo on July 5, which, he said, should be easy for the Qataris to accept. Qatar is yet to comment on the matter. On June 5, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt had severed diplomatic relations with Qatar accusing it of backing terrorism. Other countries in the region had followed. US President Donald Trump had initially praised Saudi’s move to isolate Qatar. However, the US had later signed an agreement with Qatar on measur

The United States government has listed Pakistan among nations that provide “safe haven” to terrorist groups. In its ‘ Country Reports on Terrorism ’ for 2016, the US State Department claimed that groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed continued to hold rallies, raise money, recruit and train people in Pakistan. The report said that India continued to experience attacks, “including by Maoist insurgents and Pakistan-based terrorists”, in 2016. It also acknowledged that India blamed Pakistan for terrorist attacks in Jammu and Kashmir. The State Department report further claimed that the Pakistani military conducted operations against groups that conducted attacks within the country, such as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. But it accused Islamabad of not taking “substantial action against the Afghan Taliban or Haqqani [Network]”. Even though it claimed that the country did not put in enough efforts to “substantially limit their ability to threaten US interests in Afghani

The United States Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected an attempt by the Donald Trump administration to include grandparents and other relatives of US citizens in a travel ban from six Muslim-majority countries, reported Reuters . However, the court allowed the US government to enforce a ban on refugees from these nations. On July 13, a federal court in Hawaii had said that close relatives of US citizens included grandparents, thus removing the prohibition on their entry into the US. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court said it will “not disturb” the lower court’s decision that expanded the definition of close family ties, reported The Washington Post . However, it granted the government’s request to put on hold the Hawaii court order that could have allowed 24,000 refugees working with resettlement agencies to enter the US. The US Supreme Court will hear arguments against Trump’s travel ban on October 10.

A short video clip is at the centre of a vigorous online debate and outrage in Saudi Arabia. A model named Khulood posted a Snapchat video of herself touring a historic fort in Ushayqir village, in the desert region of Najd, dressed in a short skirt and a crop top. The outcome: she has been arrested, according to Saudi state television. The video was widely shared on Twitter and Instagram, with commentators calling for her arrest because she apparently broke the country’s dress code. Saudi Arabia is known to have some of the most restrictive laws on women in the world, where women must only wear loose-fitting, full-length robes known as abayas in public, as well as a headscarf. One person tweeted: “People who don’t respect the kingdom’s rules, don’t deserve to live in it,” The Evening Standard reported. Another said: “What she did doesn’t fall under ‘personal freedom’. It’s clear that she wanted to provoke people and go against the country’s social rules and norms. She must be pu

It’s hard to resist the charms of the chubby, confused bear Winnie the Pooh. In China, however, the loveable bear has been banned – without an official explanation. Typing the bear’s name in the comments section of a thread leads to the message: “This content is illegal”. GIFs and illustrations of the bear have also been taken down from the popular messaging site WeChat. Why would China have a problem with AA Milne’s immortal creation? Apparently trouble started brewing in 2013, when an image of Chinese President Xi Jinping walking in front of former US President Barack Obama was compared with an image of Winnie the Pooh with his friend Tigger, and circulated widely on social media. The cartoon stirred up a controversy again in 2014, when a picture of Pooh’s shaking hands with Eeyore was likened to an image of Xi Jinping’s awkward handshake with Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The most censored image in China in 2015 – it got more than 65,000 shares on social media site Wei

Four men were arrested from Gujarat’s Banaskantha district for allegedly killing a cow, PTI reported on Wednesday. The Gujarat Police booked the men under the Gujarat Animal Preservation (Amendment) Act 2017, under which an accused can be sentenced to life for slaughtering a cow. The accused were identified as Aiyub Vagadiya, Jamaluddin Vagadiya, Arif Vagadiya and Israilbhai Vagadiya from the district’s Maanpur village. They were arrested after a resident of Kansa village Raghabhai Bumadiya filed a complaint, alleging that they had killed one of his cows after it entered their cattle shed. “The accused attacked one of the cows in a fit of rage and killed the animal using sticks, choppers and an axe,” Sub-Inspector AR Vala said. The four men have denied the allegations, saying they found the cow dead near their cattle shed, The Times of India reported. The incident comes a week after the first case under the new law was registered in Gujarat’s Dahod district. On July 13, two broth

An Australian woman due to get married next month was shot dead by a US police officer after she called 911 to report a possible assault outside her home. Justine Damond, 40, went outside in her pyjamas after police arrived and was shot through the door of a squad car by an officer seated inside the vehicle, it was claimed. The officer's body camera was not turned on at the time, raising questions from the woman's family and Minneapolis' mayor. Ms Damond was killed outside the home she shared with her fiance, Don Damond, and was preparing for their wedding in August. The bride-to-be, who used her fiance's surname despite not yet being married, wrote online that she was working as a spiritual healer and meditation coach, but was also a trained veterinarian. Ms Damond was fatally shot in an alley behind her home at about 11.30pm on Saturday night. Dressed in her pyjamas, the woman was talking to an officer in the driver's seat of the police car when the officer i

A beer-loving Australian man has managed to check-in a can of lager as his only luggage on a domestic flight, with the brew arriving safely thanks to courteous baggage handlers. To the amusement of ground staff at Melbourne airport, the can of Emu Export Lager was tagged and made its way along the conveyor belt to the plane as the only check-in item for passenger Dean Stinson on Saturday. The high-flyer said he concocted the plan with a friend who worked at the airport "just for a laugh", adding he was pleasantly surprised that his precious cargo survived the four-hour journey to Perth. "I thought it was bl**dy great!" he told AFP about the safe arrival of the beer. "And it was in perfect condition."

A huge study using data from people’s smartphones has identified both the laziest and the most active countries in the world. Scientists at Stanford University in the US looked at 68 million days’ worth of steps from more than 700,000 people using a special app. Hong Kong had the highest number of average daily steps with 6,880, eclipsing the global average of 4,961. At the other end of the rankings was Indonesia, where researchers recorded just 3,513 steps on average per day. The most active countries (Based on average steps per day) Hong Kong 6,880 China 6,189 Ukraine 6,107 Japan 6,010 Russia 5,969 Scott Delp, a professor of bioengineering and one of the researchers, told the BBC: "The study is 1,000 times larger than any previous study on human movement. "There have been wonderful health surveys done, but our new study provides data from more countries, many more subjects, and tracks people's activity on an ongoing basis. "This opens the door to new ways of

India on Monday conveyed a stern message to Pakistan that it reserves the right to retaliate appropriately against any incident of ceasefire violation along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir. The message came as a reaction to the LoC firing in the Poonch and Rajouri districts that killed an Indian Army jawan and a nine year old girl. According to a PTI report, the director general of military operations (DGMO), Lt. Gen. A.K. Bhatt, in a telephonic conversation said that India was sincere about maintaining peace on the LoC. Army spokesman Lt. Col. Aman Anand said, "India is sincere in its effort of maintaining peace and tranquillity along the LoC provided there was reciprocity." He also told that the conversation was initiated by Pakistani commander, Maj Gen Sahir Shamshad Mirza. He raised the issues of targeting of Pakistani army troops and the death of four Pakistani soldiers and one civilian in the Athmuqam Sector of PoK facing the Indian Keran Sector in Kupwara District la

Police in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district are searching for two women who allegedly left town last week after asking their sister to report that they drowned in a local canal while taking a selfie. On Friday morning, 16-year-old Sophia Masih accompanied her 21-year-old sister Lovepreet and 18-year-old cousin Nisha Masih to a local canal near their village of Sathiali. Hours later Sophia returned home and told the family that her sisters drowned while clicking a selfie. The family then informed local police who launched a search operation but could not trace the “bodies” of the two women, even after stopping the flow of water into the canal. Army divers too failed. Under interrogation, Sophia then changed her statement and said the two women fled with unidentified persons in a car, for a “lavish life” in Mumbai, police said. “We are working on various theories,” said BS Virk, senior superintendent of police (SSP), Gurdaspur. “Sophia, the lone eyewitness, is changing her statements time

A woman from Pune was arrested by the city police for allegedly pouring hot oil on her husband after getting drunk with him on Saturday night. A case was filed under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Section 324, according to Police Sub-Inspector Jaywant Hansathe of Wanowrie police station. Jaya Arjun Shersia (38) had been drinking with her husband Bharat Arjunram Shersia (26) on Saturday night. When he went to sleep, Jaya poured hot oil on his torso, inflicting burns on him. PSI Hansathe said that both of them were under the influence of alcohol and the police have not been able to ascertain the reason behind such a move. Jaya was produced in the Lashkar court on Monday. The police have asked for her custody for seven days, the officer said. While Bharat works in Chembur, Mumbai at a mobile store, Jaya is a saleswoman working in Pune, he said. Bharat used to visit her in Pune once or twice a week, the police said. He filed a complaint on Sunday after which he was taken to the Sassoon Gener

Veteran rally driver, Rosemary Smith, has become the oldest person to drive a Formula One car, at the age of 79.To help celebrate 40 years of Renault Sport, the team put Smith into a 2013 Lotus-Renault E21, with some word of advice from racing driver, Jolyon Palmer. With full race gear, painted finger nails and makeup, Smith handled the 596kW race car with care around the Circuit Paul Ricard in Southern France."I didn't think I would ever get the opportunity to do it. I was nervous and terrified - I had to go ahead with it," Smith said. Smith had owned a Dublin dress shop before she had the chance to be a rally navigator in the '60s. But she soon realised she'd rather be behind-the-wheel."My passion in life is driving fast, very fast. If I'm competitive, I'm going out to win", Smith reminisced. Before too long, she won events like the Canadian Shell 4000, and racked up many more podium finishes and class wins throughout her racing career.Now

Serena Williams has been documenting her pregnancy on social media since April, and she’s only looking more radiant as her due date grows near. The tennis champion, 35, showed off her growing baby bump in a new Instagram post on Sunday. She wore a sleeveless grey dress as she posed for a couple of mirror selfies in a bathroom. Williams left the images without a caption, but fans had plenty to say. “Beautiful as always !! You have that glow !!” one commenter said, as others guessed whether she’s carrying a girl or a boy. The mom-to-be and her fiancé, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, are expecting their first child together this fall. Williams and Ohanian opened up about the pregnancy, and their sweet love story, in a headline-making cover story for Vanity Fair‘s August issue. In the article, Williams revealed that she took six pregnancy tests and handed them all to Ohanian in a paper bag to break the news to him. “If you would have told me last year in October or November that I w

You can plan your holiday until your heart’s content, but if you leave it up to the computer you could end up with a pretty bad seat on the plane. Your bags are packed, passport is ready to go but the fear of picking your seat on the plane is real. However it looks like there is a perfect way to make sure you’re happy. KAYAK.ie teamed with the author of Confessions of a Trolley Dolly to figure out where’ the best place to sit. According to their research if you’re flying with Aer Lingus you want to get up at the front with the window seat on your right being the best seat. The Airbus A320 which is used by Aer Lingus best seat is A1 as it has an unobstructed view, extra legroom as well as being served first by the air host. It’s also the quietest seat on the plane making it very popular. However it is one of the colder seats on the plane so passengers should wrap up! It also allows people to leave the plane first when it lands. So if you’re travelling on an Airbus choose from rows

When Kristi’s son was moving up from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts, she decided that the special occasion called for a special treat. She wanted to create something memorable, something that her son’s whole troop could enjoy. And did she deliver! The name of her son’s troop was the Cobra Den, so she decided to bake and decorate a cake that looked like a cobra. And she did—but she went way above and beyond. She got up at 5:00 in the morning, baked five separate Bundt cakes, and arranged them to create a six-foot-long slithering snake cake. Cutting the Bundt cakes in half, she put the halves end to end to make them look like a curving snake body. She used multiple batches of Rice Krispie Treat mix (which she also made) to sculpt the hooded head and pointy tail. Here are 12 baking mistakes you didn’t know you were making. With the cake put together, it was time for the frosting, which she also made herself. But she didn’t spread the frosting on the cake—she covered the whole thing with ti

Passengers of an Air Canada flight and four other airplanes waiting to take off had a very close shave when the Air Canada flight almost landed on the four passenger airplanes waiting to take off on July 7th at the San Francisco International Airport (SFO) in San Francisco, California. Air Canada Flight 759, which had taken off from Toronto in Canada, was about to land on a parallel taxiway instead of the runway. According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), had the aircraft landed on the taxiway the resulting incident would have been 'the greatest aviation disaster in history'. As per the FAA, the Air Canada Airbus 320 had been given permission to land at Runway 28R shortly before midnight (local time), the pilot instead of approaching the runway started approaching Taxiway C which is parallel to the runway, according to Fox News. Ross Aimer, a former United Airlines pilot and the CEO of Aero Consulting, told The San Jose Mercury that had the A320 landed on the

Warren Buffett's contributions to charities led by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation climbed past $27 billion after a record 2017 gift. The 86-year-old chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. gave 18.6 million B shares to five foundations in his latest round of donations, according to a statement Monday. That's worth about $3.17 billion. Buffett's 2006 decision to commit most of his wealth to the foundation was described by his children as the "big bang," the billionaire wrote in a letter to the Gateses late last year. In the message, he urged the couple to write their own explanation of how they measure their work and "would like the final scorecard to read." The couple responded with what they called "a story about the stunning gains the poorest people in the world have made over the last 25 years." They wrote about efforts to promote family planning, counter malnutrition and deliver vaccinations to kids. "Children

Card cloning is one of the more infuriating annoyances of the 21st century. Gone are the days of losing your wallet and having to worry if some nefarious individual picks it up before you can cancel your card. Now, your plastic can be safely tucked in your pocket while someone runs riot with your bank account. The technology is startlingly simple, cheap to operate and (most of the time) almost invisible to the untrained eye. Explained simply; a small card scanning device is added to the card slot of an ATM. This typically resembles the regular card slot to not arouse suspicion. When you slide your card past it, you're in fact sliding it through a counterfeit reader, which scans the information for storage or transmission via Bluetooth / Wireless to someone nearby. To gain full access to your account, the scammer will then need your PIN number - they get this by using small strategically placed cameras (that's why you should always cover your PIN) or a fake keypad, placed o

The United States on Monday said that the demands put forth by Saudi Arabia and its allies for restoring diplomatic relations with Qatar are “unrealistic”, The Guardian reported. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who is currently in Kuwait, will spend the rest of the week shuttling between Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to resolve the diplomatic crisis. Addressing the reporters on Monday in Istanbul before Tillerson left for Kuwait, his communications adviser RC Hammond said even though some of the demands were not viable, others were worth discussing. Hammond, however, said that not only Qatar, but Riyadh and its other Arab allies also need to take steps to stop terror financing. “It is a two-way street,” Hammond said, according to The Washington Post . “There are no clean hands here...The president [Donald Trump] has been very clear that his number one goal is to have all Arab nations to do more on the financing of terrorism.” The US’ statement following Qatar’s rejection of

Australian journalist Chris Uhlmann’s scathing review of US President Donald Trump at the G20 summit in Hamburg went viral overnight. Uhlmann, the political editor at Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), spoke on the network’s Insiders programme, calling Trump “the biggest threat to the West” with “no desire and no capacity to lead the world”. It was a savage demolition. Uhlmann critiqued the President’s foreign policies, his use of Twitter, and his responsibility in the “decline of the United States as a global leader”. “The President of the United States has a particular skill set: that he’s identified an illness in Western democracies, but he has no cure for it and seems intent on exploiting it. And we’ve also learned that he has no desire and no capacity to lead the world,” said Uhlmann. He addresses Trump’s failure to condemn North Korea at the summit to rally other world leaders, as well as his scripted speeches. Watch video here “He’s the one man who has the power to

Ian Johnson’s latest book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao has rekindled a conversation that started almost a century ago: what’s the spiritual status of the Chinese people? A hundred years ago, China’s humiliating defeat on the world stage kicked off a painful round of soul-searching within the country’s intellectual elites, many of whom blamed it on the nation’s backward state of mind. Since then, campaigns, movements and revolutions have been waged to reform and reshape the soul of the Chinese people; some have advocated the complete abolishment of traditional Chinese beliefs while others have insisted on their reinforcement. Johnson’s book documents a new phase in this history of self-examination. By following various Chinese groups, including pilgrims in Beijing, Daoists in Shanxi and Christians in Chengdu, he depicts “a great awakening of faith that is shaping the soul of the world’s newest superpower”, which many outside China are either unaware of

A tiny village deep in Tiruvanamalai district has become the newest pilgrimage site for the Hindus in Tamil Nadu. For over a month now, Korakottai, home to about 400 households, has witnessed hundreds of people thronging its narrow streets. They are coming to see Perumal Salai, or the God Rock. At the end of a mud road lined with brambles in Korakottai lie two giant charnockite rocks propped up on piles of stone slabs and wooden logs. On the bigger rock, 66 feet long, is sculpted the Hindu god Vishnu. The smaller 30-foot-long rock is to be sculpted into a seven-headed snake that will be placed on Vishnu’s head. The two monoliths, one weighing 380 tonnes and the other 260 tonnes, will eventually be taken to the Kothandaramaswamy Temple in Bengaluru, more than 300 km away. Together, the rocks will form a nearly 100-foot statue of the deity. It all began with a doctor’s dream. B Sadanand, the main trustee of the temple, had long harboured the desire to carve a statue for the shrine

Venus Williams takes her role as big sister very seriously. It is, she says, the most important role she has ever played. But it cannot be easy being big sister to the most famous tennis player in the world, and to arguably the greatest athlete of her generation. She was the first Williams sister to turn pro, the first to reach a Grand Slam final, and the first to become world number one. And yet, over the years she has been forced to play a supporting role. In a world dominated by Serena Williams, it is easy to forget that in the beginning there was Venus. Venus began playing professional tennis back in 1994, when she was just fourteen. This week, at thirty-seven, she is aiming to become the oldest Wimbledon singles champion since 1909. Astonishingly, she is the only former champion remaining in the ladies’ draw. Even more impressive is the fact that she is not just a sentimental favourite but actually has a realistic chance to lift the Venus Rosewater Dish – so aptly named – for

On July 8, local dailies and magazines in Kashmir were filled with stories about Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, who had been killed by the security forces on the same day last year. His death had triggered months of protest and bloodshed. Kashmir Ink, the weekly attached to the daily, Greater Kashmir, featured the slain militant on the cover, in an issue titled “Kashmir, A Year After Burhan’s Death”. But when the magazine posted the cover on Facebook, it was removed by the social media website, Greater Kashmir reported. On July 8, the publication’s Facebook page was also blocked for a day. It received a standard message from Facebook: “You’re temporarily blocked from posting. This temporary block will last for 24 hours, and you won’t be able to post on Facebook until it’s finished. We removed the post below because it doesn’t follow the Facebook Community Standards.” In an email statement, Majid Maqbool, executive editor of Kashmir Ink,said the social network’s actions w

At least 16 people were killed after a United States military plane crashed in Leflore County, Mississippi, on Monday evening, local time. None of the passengers on the aircraft survived, CNN reported, quoting Fred Randle, the county’s emergency management director. The KC-130 plane, which is used widely in the US military, was part of the Marine Corps’ squadron. A spokesperson for the Marine Corps said the “plane experienced a mishap”, but it is unclear what led the aircraft to crash. Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant called the incident a tragedy, though he did not provide any further details.