UK rape convictions lowest in over a decade
London: The number of people investigated for rape and subsequently convicted in the UK has fallen to its lowest level since records began more than a decade ago, a new government report revealed on Thursday.
The annual Violence Against Women and Girls report showed that there were 1,925 convictions in 2018/19, a 27 per cent drop compared with 2,635 the year before, reports the BBC.
This was in spite of allegations of rape reaching a high of 58,000. The figures for England and Wales show the number of rapes claims that end in a conviction is around 3 per cent.
The report also said that the number of suspects charged with rape or another offence has fallen, from 2,822 in 2017/18 to 1,758 in 2018/19.
In 2007/8, when records were first compiled in the current way, 2,220 cases resulted in a charge.
Of those, 2,201 cases resulted in a conviction – although some would be for investigations started in previous years.
Following the publishing of the report, it was announced that the independent Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) watchdog, Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate, would review charging decisions in rape cases “to increase accountability and reassure victims of sexual offences”.
Campaigners have said that the CPS has changed its approach in rape cases. The CPS – whose budget has been cut by 25 per cent since 2010 – denied the claim and said it has worked hard to improve how it deals with sexual offence cases. (IANS)
Indians awarded in UAE for developing mobile app
Dubai: Two Indians have won an award in the UAE for social contribution by developing a mobile app that uses distance sensors to help people with visual impairment move around, according to a media report.
Developed by Nandujit Prathap and Visakh G.S, the app Ioptyc by Nexart is among the 10 winning projects in the social incubator programme of the Ma’an Authority for Social Contribution. The awards were announced on Wednesday, the Khaleej Times reported.
The duo will receive Dh 200,000 (USD 54,449) along with training, mentorship in business development. The prize money will be released at every successful milestone the participant reaches, the report said.
The mobile app uses distance sensors and visual recognition technology to assist visually-challenged people.
“Ioptyc utilises the power of Google Tensorflow Lite for visual recognition of objects in front of the user, who may be visually impaired,” Prathap was quoted as saying in the report.
“Once the object in front of the person is detected, the app sends an alert and announces the name of the object over the user’s headphone, with the help of Google natural languages package,” he explained.
The project also includes a glove that notifies the user through vibrations from the buzzer.
“The glove’s sensors are capable of detecting objects as far as two metres away, and the intensity of vibrations varies depending on how far the object is from the user,” Prathap said. (PTI)
China launches 3 new satellites
Beijing: China sent a resource satellite and two smaller ones into planned orbits on Thursday.
They were launched on a Long March-4B carrier rocket at 11.26 a.m. from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre in Shanxi province, Xinhua news agency reported.
The resource satellite, ZY-1 02D developed by the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), will provide observation data for natural resources asset management, ecological monitoring, disaster prevention and control, environmental protection, urban construction, transportation and contingency management.
One of the two small satellites launched on the same rocket belongs to Beijing Normal University, and is named BNU-1, and the other belongs to a Shanghai-based private space technology company. Both have an expected lifespan of one year. (IANS)