Dilip Kumar’s ancestral home in Pakistan at risk of collapse
Peshawar: Bollywood legend Dilip Kumar’s ancestral home here, declared a national heritage by the Pakistan government, is at risk of collapse after two storeys of the dilapidated building caved in and the rest in shambles.
Residents of the Khudadad neighbourhood of the fabled Qissi Khawani Bazar have called on the government to take immediate steps to prevent the loss of the national heritage. Kumar’s property was declared a national heritage in last year, giving a reason to the people of Peshawar who have looked up at the five marla three storeys house with pride to celebrate.
Kumar, who turned 92 yesterday, is a recipient of Nishan-i-Imtiaz, Pakistan’s highest civilian honour. The house, spread over 130 square metre, was even declared a protected monument and the government planned to convert it into a museum but so far nothing has been done. “It is in terrible condition and could cave in anytime which would be disastrous as it is a national heritage,” said Shah Hussain, who lives close to the ancestral home of Kumar.
“Two storeys have already collapsed in places and the building could cave in anytime. It speaks of the federal and provincial governments’ apathy towards national and cultural heritage,” Hussain said. He said Qissa Khawani Bazaar or the storytellers’ market, where Kumar’s house is located, was the hub of cultural exchange between Central Asia and the Indo-Pak region. It was a pity that successive governments over the decades have failed to preserve its cultural diversity and that of Peshawar, Hussain added. Kumar was born Yusuf Khan in Peshawar and spent the first seven years of his life here. In the late 1930s, his family relocated to Mumbai. Social activist Raskhinda Naz said the government should move to convert Kumar’s property into a cultural museum. “It can be a big centre of attraction for visitors from India and Pakistan as Dilip Kumar is a household name,” she said. Naz said the museum would stand as a symbol for peace between the people of Pakistan and India. Many portions of the structure have already collapsed with old furniture strewn around on the ground floor and inside the compound of the house, photographs published in the media here showed. (PTI)
UN declares June 21 as ‘International Day of Yoga’
United Nations: Less than three months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi proposed the idea, the UN General Assembly today adopted an India-led resolution declaring June 21 as ‘International Day of Yoga’, recognising that “Yoga provides a holistic approach to health and well-being.”
The resolution on ‘International Day of Yoga’ was introduced by India’s Ambassador to UN Asoke Mukerji today and had 177 nations joining as co-sponsors, the highest number ever for any General Assembly resolution. It is also for the first time that such an initiative has been proposed and implemented by any country in the UN body in less than 90 days.
Through the resolution, adopted under the agenda of ‘Global Health and Foreign Policy,’ the 193-member General Assembly decided to proclaim June 21 every year as the ‘International Day of Yoga’. It recognised that Yoga “provides a holistic approach to health and well-being” and that wider the dissemination of information about benefits of practising Yoga would be beneficial for the health of the world population.
In introducing the resolution, Mukerji quoted Modi’s UNGA address in which he had asked world leaders to adopt an international Yoga day, saying that by changing lifestyle and creating consciousness, it can help us deal with climate change. “Yoga embodies unity of mind and body; thought and action; restraint and fulfilment; harmony between man and nature; a holistic approach to health and well being,” Modi had said. In suggesting June 21 as the International Day of Yoga, Modi had said that the date, one of the two solstices, is the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere and has special significance in many parts of the world. Mukerji said the vision articulated by the Prime Minister was warmly welcomed initially by a small yet committed corpus of nations. “The very fact that today in the UN General Assembly, this draft resolution has garnered a record number of co-sponsors, including the vast majority of member states of all the regional and sub-regional groups of the General Assembly, as well as all the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, is a testimony to the enthusiastic cross cultural and universal appeal that Yoga enjoys amongst members of the United Nations,” Mukerji said. (PTI)
Man survives 12 days adrift in small boat
Los Angeles: After surviving 12 days on raw fish in a small boat, a 67-year-old Hawaii fisherman has been located by US coast guards when his family and friends were preparing for his funeral. Ron Ingraham had been missing at sea since early Thanksgiving Day, when he placed two distress calls saying his 25-foot sailing boat, Malia, was taking on water and in danger of sinking 46 nautical miles west of Oahu. He had gone fishing alone Thanksgiving morning, headed toward Manele Bay on the island of Lanai when he went missing.
“We are happy that he was found. We are very excited that we are able to provide some positive closure,” said Coast Guard official Scott Carr. “Our crew arrived in the area within an hour but could not find Ingraham or the Malia,” he was quoted as saying by Los Angeles Times. “It was a really tough decision to suspend the search,” he said. This Tuesday, the Coast Guard picked up an eight-second mayday call from Ingraham, about 64 nautical miles south of Honolulu from where he was traced. The meeting this Wednesday marked the end of a mystery for friends and family who had been planning a funeral for Ingraham this weekend. “Crew members reached him within hours and said he was weak, hungry and dehydrated,” he said. The crew provided him with food, water and a shower. They also attempted to fix the outboard engine aboard Malia, which was inoperable. Despite his ordeal, he looked good when he arrived on land on Wednesday. (PTI)
Nigerian girl, 13, arrested wearing explosives vest
Kano:, Dec 11 (AFP) Nigerian police arrested a 13-year-old girl wearing an explosives-packed vest in the northern city of Kano hours after an attack by two female suicide bombers, a security source and a witness said on Thursday. The girl turned up at a clinic on the outskirts of Kano hours after a double bombing at a market in the city. “The people there called the attention of security personnel who found explosives primed for a suicide attack on her,” said the security source, who requested anonymity, in an account confirmed by a nurse at the clinic. (AFP)
Australian photographer image sold for record $6.5 million
WELLINGTON: Australian photographer Peter Lik’s picture titled Phantom has been sold for 6.5 million dollars setting a new world record.
The photograph shows a shaft of light cutting through a monochromatic Arizona landscape and the price it has been sold for is reportedly the most ever paid for a photograph, a website reported. Lik’s other images titled Illusion and Eternal Moods were also acquired for 2.4 million dollars and 1.1 million dollars, respectively. Lik now holds four spots out of the top 20 most expensive photographs ever sold. The Australian photographer has now joined the list of some of the world’s most-established photographers, including Andreas Gursky, Cindy Sherman and Jeff Wall. (IANS)
Giant Chinese water diversion starts to flow
Beijing: A multi-billion-dollar man-made river to divert water from China’s south to its parched north started to flow on Friday, officials said. The central route of the controversial South-North Water Diversion Project, one of the most ambitious engineering projects in Chinese history, will carry water from central China to quench the thirst of Beijing and other areas.
The waterway “officially starts to flow today”, an official with the Office of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project Commission of the State Council, who declined to be named, told AFP.
A total of 9.5 billion cubic metres of water — or one sixth of the supply of the Yellow River, China’s second biggest waterway — will flow north every year from the Danjiangkou reservoir in Hubei province, state broadcaster China Central Television reported.
The route’s network of pipelines, canals and waterways is more than 1,400 kilometres long, and the official said the first flows are expected to reach Beijing in around 15 days. (PTI)