'Harry Potter' creator JK Rowling dines with Obama in London

President Barack Obama went from Shakespeare to Harry Potter during his visit to London. The boy wizard’s creator, J.K. Rowling, was among guests who were dining with Mr. Obama at the U.S. ambassador’s London residence on Saturday. Earlier the President visited Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre to mark the 400th anniversary of the playwright’s death. Ms. Rowling spokeswoman Rebecca Salt confirmed on Sunday that the author attended a private...

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At Windsor Castle, Queen forced Obama to halve his accompanying helicopters

Barack Obama may be the world’s most powerful man but Queen Elizabeth II forced him to slash by half the number of choppers his Secret Service can land on the Windsor Castle lawns when the U.S. President came over for dinner with the 90-year-old monarch. The Queen called Mr. Obama’s bevy of choppers “over the top,” meaning the Secret Service had to rethink their plans to land about six aircraft in the 300-year-old gardens of her main residence. “It...

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CJI Thakur’s emotional appeal to Modi to protect judiciary

Breaking down several times in his half-hour speech addressed directly at Prime Minister Narendra Modi present on the dais at the Annual Chief Ministers and Chief Justices Conference on Sunday, Chief Justice of India, Tirath Singh Thakur, launched a scathing attack on government inaction, squarely blaming the Centre for stalling appointment of judges to the High Courts. He also blamed the Centre of doing nothing to increase the number of courts...

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Uddhav targets BJP government over Hardik, Kanhaiya

In a veiled attack on the Narendra Modi government, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday said instead of guiding the youth in the right direction, it has “given birth” to Rohith Vemula, Hardik Patel and Kanhaiya Kumar, the youth figures who have been in news in the last few months. "India has a big population of youths. Instead of giving them proper guidance and directions, the government is misleading them," he said and cited the examples...

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50 U.P. districts in the grip of drought

Only two dozen students turned up at the upper-primary school in Kahla village on Saturday. Apart from the scorching April heat, the students had a valid reason for staying away: the only hand pump in the school has been non-operative for four months. This has not only deprived them of drinking water but also rendered the school toilet non-functional. While girls have been discouraged from attending school, boys who turn up are told to use the...

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Solar-powered plane completes journey across Pacific Ocean

A solar-powered airplane landed in California on Saturday, completing a risky, three-day flight across the Pacific Ocean as part of its journey around the world. Pilot Bertrand Piccard landed the Solar Impulse 2 in Mountain View, in the Silicon Valley south of San Francisco, at 11-45 p.m. following a 62-hour, nonstop solo flight without fuel. The plane taxied into a huge tent erected on Moffett Airfield where Mr. Piccard was greeted by project’s...

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Trump mocks Indian call centres

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump used a fake accent to mock a call centre representative in India. At the same time, he described India as a great place. The billionaire from New York said he called up his credit card company to find out whether their customer support is based in the U.S. or overseas. “Guess what, you’re talking to a person from India. How the hell does that work?” he told his supporters in Delaware. “So I...

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Indian workers worst to understand, says Maine’s Republican Governor

Indian workers are the “worst” and the “hardest” ones to understand, Republican Governor of U.S. State of Maine Paul LePage said, stirring another controversy by his party members in this election cycle. In his address to the Maine Republican convention, where the party selected its delegates for the July national convention, Mr. Page alleged that foreign workers are being used in local restaurants. Mr. LePage said workers from India are “hardest”...

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IT dept launches tax calculator; e-filing begins this week

With the new Income Tax Return (ITR) forms notified recently for assessment year 2016-17, filers can do an easy check and obtain their annual tax liability on a computer-based calculator hosted by the IT department. The ‘tax calculator’ is an online computer-based programme hosted on the official website of the department and is meant to help taxpayers or filers assess their tax liability. The calculator works once a filer correctly feeds...

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Rail, road connectivity to top Board of Trade agenda

The issue of better rail and road connectivity from export clusters to ports and airports at the state-level is expected to top the agenda during the April 6 meeting of the Board of Trade (BoT), headed by Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, officials said. The board is meeting to evolve steps to boost India’s exports and will discuss the recent cutback in government aid for export marketing under the Market Access Initiative...

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Revisiting the EPF rollback

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s Budget 2015-16 promised to set up a Public Debt Management Agency to bring the government’s external borrowings and domestic debt under one roof. While the government claims to be committed to creating such an office, in April 2015, while introducing official amendments to the Finance Bill, it withdrew the minister’s promise. A Debt Management Office was first announced in the 2007-08 Budget, but the idea has...

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Understanding the Islamic State

After every fresh outrage claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (IS) — like the recent terrorist attacks in Brussels and the suicide bombing of a football stadium near Baghdad, which killed dozens and injured hundreds — a standard debate ensues: does Islam condone these atrocities against civilians? With its extreme violence and nihilistic mindset, the IS seems a death cult bent on senseless destruction. But the group justifies its...

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Death by overwork on rise among Japan's vulnerable workers

Japan is witnessing a record number of compensation claims related to death from overwork, or 'karoshi', a phenomenon previously associated with the long-suffering “salary man” that is increasingly afflicting young and female employees. Labour demand, with 1.28 jobs per applicant, is the highest since 1991, which should help Prime Minister Shinzo Abe draw more people into the workforce to counter the effect of a shrinking population, but lax...

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Trump predicts “very massive recession” in U.S.

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump predicted that the United States is on course for a “very massive recession,” warning that a combination of high unemployment and an overvalued stock market had set the stage for another economic slump. “I think we're sitting on an economic bubble. A financial bubble,” the billionaire businessman said in an interview with The Washington Post published on Saturday. Coming off a tough week on...

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‘Human rights concerns should not impair India-EU relations’

Geoffrey Van Orden, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from the British Conservative Party, said that he would like to see a more practical and realistic relationship between India and the EU, in an interview with The Hindu last week. “I think many of our [EU] countries view the relationship with India as enormously important and significant.”, Mr. Van Orden said in response to a question on whether India’s relationship with the EU as...

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Panama papers leak: data shows offshore accounts of the rich and the famous

An international coalition of media outlets on Sunday published what it said was an extensive investigation into offshore financial dealings of the rich and famous, based on a vast trove of documents provided by an anonymous source. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalism, a non-profit organisation based in Washington, said the cache of 11.5 million records detailed the offshore holdings of a dozen current and former world...

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NIA officer shot dead in Uttar Pradesh

An Inspector of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the counter-terror investigation agency formed after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, was shot dead by unidentified motorcycle-borne assailants in front of his wife and children in Bijnore, western Uttar Pradesh, in the early hours of Sunday. Tanzil Ahmad, 45, died on the spot, while his wife Farzana was taken to a hospital in Noida, where she is in a critical condition. His daughter (14) and...

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Tanzil Ahmed: a friendly neighbour, devout Muslim

Mohammed Tanzil Ahmed was always more a friendly neighbour than a cop for them but the timing of and circumstances surrounding the NIA official’s death earned him the title “martyr” from the residents of Shaheen Bagh. It is in this area where the Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP)-rank officer spent the last two decades of his life which was suddenly cut short in the early hours of Sunday. In one voice — distant relatives, friends and neighbours...

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GST will happen soon, Modi tells entrepreneurs in Saudi

Highlighting fast-evolving bilateral priorities, India and Saudi Arabia on Sunday agreed to diversify more bilateral trade and investment into the non-oil sector. In a bid to boost confidence of Saudi investors in India’s economy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a select group of Saudi entrepreneurs in Riyadh during the last day of his visit that India will increase ease of doing business and bring in the long awaited Goods and Services Tax...

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Dadri tense as accused demand forensic report

Amid the demands from Dadri village to release the 18 accused, who have been charged with lynching Mohammad Akhlaq, his family on Sunday alleged that the forensic report of the meat recovered from their house might be manipulated to justify the lynching that shook the country. Family members told The Hindu that they were “apprehensive” about the possibility of the forensic report being tampered with because the “Hindutva brigade was looking...

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Cigarette makers threaten to halt production

India’s key tobacco manufacturers have threatened to halt production claiming “ambiguity” over the government’s policy on health warnings displayed on tobacco packs. The Tobacco Institute of India (TII), a lobby group that represents 98% of India's cigarette industry, said in a statement that they have “unanimously decided to shut all their cigarette factories with effect from April 1 owing to ambiguity on the policy related to revision of...

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Despite military opposition, bill to give Suu Kyi a powerful government role gets parliament nod

Myanmar’s upper house of parliament approved a bill on Friday that gives Aung San Suu Kyi a powerful government role, despite opposition from the military on the second day of her party’s new administration. The bill creates the post of state counsellor and would allow the Nobel laureate to coordinate Ministers and influence the executive. It would help Ms. Suu Kyi circumvent a constitution written under the former junta that prevents her...

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Trump doesn’t know much about foreign policy: Obama

US President Barack Obama has questioned Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s foreign policy credentials, saying he doesn’t “know much” about the world. “They tell us the person who made the statements doesn’t know much about foreign policy or nuclear policy or the Korean Peninsula or the world generally,” Mr. Obama told reporters on Friday at the conclusion of nuclear security summit in Washington. He said Mr. Trump’s recent statements...

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Obama, Xi vow to sign Paris accord

U.S. President Barack Obama and President Xi Jinping of China said on Thursday that they would sign the Paris Agreement on climate change on April 22, the first day the UN accord will be open for government signatures. Officials cast the announcement as a statement of joint resolve by the world’s two largest greenhouse gas polluters, even though there are doubts about whether the U.S. can meet its obligations under the agreement. In February,...

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