Author: News Desk

A Taliban truck bomb killed at least 20 people and wounded 95 when it exploded near a hospital in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, a provincial official said, with casualties expected to rise as rescuers sift the rubble. The Taliban, who have been carrying out nearly daily attacks since the collapse of peace talks with the US this month, said the target was a nearby building of the government’s intelligence department in Qalat, the capital of Zabul province. “The bomb was huge and it was carried by a mini-truck,” said a senior defense ministry official in the capital, Kabul, speaking on…

A US drone strike intended to hit an Islamic State hideout in Afghanistan killed at least 30 civilians resting after a day’s labor in the fields, officials said on Thursday. The attack on Wednesday night also injured 40 people after accidentally targeting farmers and laborers who had just finished collecting pine nuts at mountainous Wazir Tangi in eastern Nangarhar province, three Afghan officials told. “The workers had lit a bonfire and were sitting together when a drone targeted them,” tribal elder Malik Rahat Gul told Reuters by telephone from Wazir Tangi. Afghanistan’s defense ministry and a senior US official in…

The Kerala High Court ruled on Thursday that the right to access the Internet using mobile phones is a fundamental right under the Constitution. Justice P.V. Asha, in a landmark judgment, also said it was part of the right to privacy and the right to education. The court passed the verdict in a petition filed by Faheema Sherin, a third-semester student of B.A. (English) of Sree Narayana College, Chelannur, Kozhikode, challenging her expulsion from the college hostel for violating the restrictions on using the mobile phone from 6 pm to 10 pm. every day. The petitioner challenged the restriction on…

 Workers of Ramavarappadu panchayat near Vijayawada used lethal injections and sticks to kill 60 stray dogs, moved their dead bodies in Swacch Bharat van, and then dumped them in a pit. Their excuse? Increased dog bites in the Sai Model village under the panchayat. Outraged by this mass cruelty, animal welfare board member Avanigadda Nagamani complained to the police, which was reluctant to file a case until activist (and Member of Parliament) Menaka Gandhi’s office intervened. Nagamani, with the help of locals, stopped the mass culling of dogs by the panchayat staff. The staff abandoned the injections and the van…

The massive asteroid, 1998 FF14 will zoom past Earth on September 24 around 12.57 pm IST. The asteroid has been classified as a Near-Earth Object by NASA’s Centre for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS). It also falls under the Potentially Hazardous category as it is bigger than 460 feet (140m). PHO’s are not objects that will collide with Earth but rather, objects that might cause massive devastation on collision. The asteroid is currently on an evasive path, moving away from the Earth, as it is being tracked by the CNEOS. The 1998 FF14 was first detected on 20th March 1998 and is almost…

The US President Donald Trump on Wednesday named a special envoy for hostage affairs Robert O’Brien as the new National Security Adviser to replace John Bolton, who was fired last week. O’Brien, who has been serving as the special envoy for hostage affairs at the Department of State, has been chosen for the role, Trump tweeted. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1174312984522309633?s=20 “I am pleased to announce that I will name Robert C. O’Brien, currently serving as the very successful Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs at the State Department, as our new National Security Advisor. “I have worked long & hard with Robert. He will…

Since the 1990s, our planet has lost nearly three million square kilometers of wilderness areas – parts of the world where human impact has been absent or minimal, according to a study which found that conserving such regions can cut the Earth’s extinction risk by half. The research, published in the journal Nature, found that more than 10 percent of the planet’s wilderness has been destroyed since the 1990s – an area about the size of India. The authors of the study, including those from, the University of Queensland in Australia, cautioned that only less than 20 percent of the…

In another setback in its attempts to raise the Kashmir issue at the global level, Pakistan could not file any resolution on the issue at the ongoing UN Human Rights Council meeting here. Thursday afternoon (1 p.m. local time) was the deadline for filing resolutions at the UNHRC’s 42nd meeting, which began on September 9 and goes on till September 27 and no Pakistani resolution was filed so far. India and Pakistan had faced off earlier this month at the meeting. On the second day of the meeting, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who was leading his country’s…

Sindh Province Police claimed to have arrested at least two suspects in connection with the death of a Hindu medical girl student Nimrita Kumari, who was found dead in a hostel room under mysterious circumstances at the Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Medical University (SMBBMU) in Larkana a few days ago. According to reports in the Pakistani media, both suspects are Kumari’s classmates. They have been identified as Mehran and Alishan. They were arrested on the basis of Kumari’s phone call records. They were questioned separately but gave different versions of the story. The police said it has seized the victims’…

 British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said he was not embarrassed after being filmed lying to the father of a sick child angrily confronting him during a hospital visit on Wednesday. Johnson was stopped by the dad, whose daughter was being treated at the London facility, to hear complaints about cuts to health funding and criticism that he was using the visit as a “press opportunity”. The British leader could then be heard telling the father that “there’s no press here” despite media standing nearby filming the incident. “What do you mean there’s no press here who are these people?” the…