Foreign Secretary on 3-day US visit
New Delhi: Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale on Monday began his three-day visit to the US to carry out bilateral consultation and strategic security dialogues with American President Donald Trump’s administration. The Foreign Secretary will meet US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other US Congress leaders in Washington D.C.. Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said: ‘Gokhale will be consulting with his US counterparts Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale and Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Andrea Thompson, respectively, during the bilateral Foreign Office Consultation and Strategic Security Dialogue.’ Kumar said that these were regular high-level dialogue mechanisms to review bilateral relations, exchange views on major foreign policy and security-related developments and coordinates respective positions on issues of common interest. (IANS)
6-yr-old drowns in water tank
Jammu: A six-year-old boy drowned in a water tank inside the premises of a government school in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district, police said on Monday. Aahil Mirza, a resident of Ujjan village, accidentally fell into the water tank while playing on Sunday evening, they said. His body was recovered from the underground tank and handed over to his family for the last rites after the completion of legal formalities, the police said. (PTI)
Seven injured in leopard attack
Nashik: A total of seven people were injured in the leopard attack, here, forest officials said on Monday. Six persons were injured on Sunday when a leopard attacked them in Ashakiranwadi in Igatpuri taluka of the district. They are being treated in civil hospital, officials said. Seeing the leopard, residents of Ashakiranwadi informed the panchayat samiti member Somnath Joshi, who called the forest department and informed them, when they went out for search, the leopard attacked six of them. In an another incident, when a farmer was working in his farm, the leopard attacked him on Saturday at Nagtembhi near Girnare village in Nashik tehsil. He was rushed to the civil hospital, they added. (UNI)
Japan announces Rs 22 lakh for Kolkata museum
Kolkata: The Japanese government on Monday announced a donation of some Rs 22 lakh ($31,800) to the Rabindra Bharati Museum here in a bid to strengthen historical and cultural ties with India. To refurbish the Japan Gallery of the museum, a MoU will be signed between the Consul General of Japan in Kolkata, Masayuki Taga, and the Vice Chancellor of Rabindra Bharati University, Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury, on Wednesday. The renovated and refurbished Japan Gallery in the Jorasanko Thakurbari campus of the University will go a long way to commemorate Rabindranath Tagore’s contribution in the Japan-India relations, the statement issued by the University said. Tagore, Asia’s first Nobel Prize recipient, visited Japan in 1916, 1924 and 1929, renewing relations between the countries as India’s leading cultural ambassador. (IANS)
Over 3 lakh items of clothing donated, creats world record
Udaipur: A campaign by a member of the erstwhile royal family of Udaipur has received over 3 lakh items of clothing, creating a Guinness world record for the largest collection of clothes for donation, a press release claimed. Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar, a descendant of Rajput ruler Maharana Pratap, received the certificate from an official of the Guinness Book of World Records-UK at Udaipur on Sunday, it said. He started the ‘Vastradan’ campaign under which over 3,29,250 pieces of clothing from over 76,000 donors were collected and distributed to the needy, the release said. The campaign reached out to over 120 schools, 15 colleges and around 30 NGOs, it said. “I started the campaign as an innovative exercise in giving. I could have asked some organisations to fund the same, but I wanted the citizens, young boys and girls of the city to show what a large heart they have,’ Mewar said. (PTI)
One-way traffic moves on
Jammu-Srinagar highway
Jammu: One-way traffic from Srinagar to Jammu was allowed on Monday even as it started raining lightly along the Jammu-Srinagar highway, a traffic official said. No vehicle would be allowed to move in the opposite direction to avoid congestion along the 300-km road, he added. The Met has forecast rain and snow in Jammu and Kashmir for the day. The Ramsoo-Ramban stretch is prone to landslides and shooting stones whenever it rains. (IANS)
LS poll clashes with exams, 2 Maha varsities defer schedules
Mumbai: The Lok Sabha election schedule in Maharashtra has forced two universities to postpone some of their examinations overlapping with polling dates, officials said on Wednesday. Elections will be held in the state in four phases on April 11, 18, 23 and 29, as per the Election Commission. In view of this, the BA and and BCom exams of the Mumbai University scheduled on April 22, 23, 24, 29 and 30 have been postponed, an official from the varsity’s examination department said. “The new examination schedule will be uploaded on the university’s portal soon,” he said. A similar communication has been issued to students by Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University in Aurangabad district of the state. The examinations scheduled by the university on April 18 and 23 will now be held on some later dates, the details of which will be declared soon, an official from the institution said. (PTI)
‘Exams first, marriage later’ motto wins Maha student praise
Aurangabad: A Class XII student of Aurangabad in Maharashtra presented a commendable example of commitment to education by answering her Economics exam even as her groom waited at a wedding hall. Twenty-year-old Renuka Pawar, a resident of Harsul village near here, was to wed Shankar on Saturday at a mass marriage ceremony, the same day as her Class XII exams. Pawar said she had insisted that the wedding would have to be scheduled in such a way that it did not clash with her exams. Hailing from a poor family which fell on still harder times after the death of her father, Pawar said education was important to her and she had worked hard to ensure it did not suffer a break. As soon as she entered the wedding hall at around 2:15pm Saturday, the people gathered there for three marriages welcomed her with a round of applause after being told the reason for her absence since morning and hurried entry. (PTI)