New Taliban leader tells U.S. to end Afghan 'occupation' in first message

New Taliban leader Haibatullah Akhundzada tells U.S. on Saturday to end its "occupation" of Afghanistan in his first message since being appointed the militant group's chief in May.

"Admit the realities instead of useless use of force and muscle... and put an end to the occupation," Akhundzada said in a speech on the eve of Eid-al-Fitr, the Muslim festival marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.

"Our message to the American invaders and her allies is this: the Afghan Muslim people neither fear... your force nor your stratagem. They consider martyrdom in confrontation with you as a cherished goal of their life," Akhundzada added.

"You are facing... not a group or faction but a nation. You are not going to be a winner [if Allah willing]."

The message is the first by Akhundzada since his predecessor Akhtar Mansour was killed during a U.S. drone strike in neighbouring Pakistan in May.

The leader's statement comes two days after twin Taliban bomb blasts killed at least 32 Afghan policemen and wounded 78 others on the edge of Kabul.

"Our message to the supporters of the invaders is that it might have been dawned on you during the past 15 years that you are being used for realisation of American goals," Akhundzada said, adding that "your support and siding with invaders is like the work of those abhorrent faces who in our past history supported the Britons and the Soviets," he added.

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Hillary’s automatic green card proposal to benefit Indian students

Indian science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) students in the U.S could be the biggest beneficiaries of a proposal in Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s ‘Initiative on Technology and Innovation’ released this week.

Ms. Clinton has promised automatic ‘green card’ or permanent residency to students who complete a master’s degree or a PhD from a U.S university.

Indian students mostly in STEM

 There are 1,32,888 Indian students in the U.S currently, second only to the Chinese. There are 3,04,040 Chinese students. Indian students are mostly graduate students, and mostly in the STEM category. Of all the international undergraduate students, 30 per cent are Chinese, where as Indians make only three per cent of the pool.

Immigration experts who are familiar with the trends approximate that as high as 80 per cent of the Indian students could be in the STEM category and therefore in a position to benefit from Ms. Clinton’s policy.

Proposal around for a while 

Automatic green card for STEM graduates has been a proposal that has been around for a while, and Republican Mitt Romney promised it during his presidential campaign in 2012.

For decades, foreign students who come to the U.S on F-1 visas could be employed in the country under what is called the Optional Practical Training (OPT). In 2008 the Bush administration allowed STEM students to stay as long as 29 months, and in 2015, the Obama administration extended it to 36 months.

 “Indian students stand to benefit a lot if this policy [Ms. Clinton’s] comes through. As of now, a STEM graduate can continue to stay in the U.S. for a maximum of three years after the course. If they have not got an H-1B visa by then, they either go back to India or go back to a student visa. This uncertainty leaves them in a state of flux immediately after graduation,” said Aparna Dave, an immigration lawyer based in Washington.

Always in demand

Applications for H-1B visas exceed the stipulated quota by several times every year. For several years now, annually, there are 65,000 H-1B visas that are in the general category and an additional 20,000 meant for STEM graduates from American universities under the category ‘advanced degree exemption.’

Ms. Dave pointed out that while IT companies are aggressive in using the H-1B visas, companies in other sectors are usually lukewarm to the programmed. “Many companies that are not primarily in IT are averse to getting involved in the immigration process,” she said. As a result, a mechanical, chemical or environmental engineering graduate has lesser chances to continue in the U.S, even if a corresponding job may be available with a company. If STEM graduates are automatically eligible for a green card, they could compete in the open job market and companies will find it easier to fill vacancies or expand with fresh talent, said Ms. Dave.

Move to tap top talent

Ms. Clinton explains her policy proposal as a move to “attract and retain the top talent from around the world.”

“As part of comprehensive immigration reform, Hillary would “staple” a green card to STEM masters and PhDs from accredited institutions, and support visas that allow top entrepreneurs from abroad to come to the U.S., build companies, and create jobs for American workers,” the document said.

Controversial topics, in poll year

But OPT and the number of extra STEM talent that the American job market requires every year remain controversial topics, more so in an election year. Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, has made vague remarks about retaining international students who come to the U.S, but his politics remain anti-immigration.

“The STEM OPT extension program masquerades as a mentoring and training program for foreign graduates with STEM degrees from U.S. universities; in practice it is a large temporary work-visa program for foreign workers with virtually no rules …There are no enforceable wage standards or protections for the foreign students in the OPT program or for the U.S. workers with whom the OPT workers compete. Employers are permitted to deeply undercut locally prevailing wages for jobs in STEM fields. Employers are not required to first recruit U.S. workers or even publicly advertise jobs to them before hiring OPT workers, meaning that employers do not have to establish the existence of a labour shortage before hiring workers through OPT,” Ronil Hira, Associate Professor of Public Policy at Howard University, Washington DC told the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year.  Automatic green cards to STEM graduates is not a proposal that will go unchallenged.

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IS hackers publish U.S. military ‘hitlist’ with a call to supporters

Islamic State (IS) hackers have published a “hitlist” of over 70 U.S. military personnel who have been involved in drone strikes against terror targets in Syria and asked their followers to “kill them wherever they are.”

According to The Sunday Times, the hackers have links with Britain and call themselves ‘Islamic State Hacking Division’ and circulated online the names, home addresses and photographs of more than 70 U.S. staff, including women and urged supporters: “Kill them wherever they are, knock on their doors and behead them, stab them, shoot them in the face or bomb them.”

Mole in U.K. Defence Ministry?

The group also claimed that it might have a mole in the U.K.’s Ministry of Defence and threatened to publish “secret intelligence” in the future that could identify Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) drone operators.

The new hitlist features the IS flag above the heading: ‘Target — United States Military’ and the document, circulated via Twitter and posted on the JustPaste website, states: “You crusaders that can only attack the soldiers of the Islamic State with joysticks and consoles, die in your rage!

Your military has no courage

“Your military has no courage, neither has your President as he still refuses to send troops. So instead you press buttons thousands of miles away in your feeble attempt to fight us.

“A nation of cowards that holds no bravery as you resort to sending your remote-controlled unmanned Reaper and Predator drones to attack us from the skies. So this is for you, America.

“These 75 crusaders are posted as targets for our brothers and sisters in America and worldwide to hunt down and kill.”

‘Secret intelligence in next leak’

The group also warned: “In our next leak, we may even disclose secret intelligence the Islamic State has just received from a source the brothers in the U.K. have spent some time acquiring from the Ministry of Defence in London as we slowly and secretly infiltrate England and the U.S. online and off.”

At the bottom of the IS document is an image of the Statue of Liberty with its head cut off.

British woman a IS foot-soldier

The IS hacking division was previously led by Junaid Hussain, a former British Muslim computer hacker from Birmingham who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Syria last August.

His wife, Sally Jones, a Muslim convert from Kent in the UK, is still believed to be involved in the organisation, which in the past has urged “lone wolf” attacks against RAF bases in the U.K.

All 70 names are genuine

Inquiries made by The Sunday Times found that the names on the American hitlist are genuine.

However, the information published by IS does not appear to be the result of a leak or genuine hack.

Instead, the group seems to have painstakingly gleaned the names of Reaper and Predator drone operators from news articles and military newsletters, before matching them to addresses, photos and other personal details from publicly available sources on the internet.

Some of the information appears to have been taken from social media sites, including Facebook and LinkedIn.

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Raid the kitchen for new medicines

The kitchen cabinet may be the lab of the future. Over the years, evidence is slowly accumulating that plants such as turmeric and gooseberry may not just be useful for healthy skin or tempering an upset stomach but be harnessed to solve globally intractable diseases such as malaria.

According to an estimate last week by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, malaria kills 7,25,000 people annually, making mosquitoes the “world’s deadliest animal”. Artemisinin, the mainline drug now used to treat malaria — and itself a plant extract — works by destroying the malarial parasite. Growing evidence from East Asia, however, suggests that the malarial parasite has found ways to beat artemisinin. That leads to recrudescence, or parasites lurking within the body and then launching a fresh infection, which is increasingly becoming a hallmark of malarial infections across the world.

Turmeric, a new weapon

Turmeric has been known for millennia as a spice and herbal medicine but chemical analysis suggests that it is rich in curcuminoids, molecules that are now known to be a potent source of anti-inflammatory compounds. Govindrajan Padmanabhan, 78, a former director of the Indian Institute of Science and biochemist at the institute, holds that curcumin — the main curcuminoid in turmeric and responsible for its yellow colour — has an as-yet-unexplained way of triggering the body’s immune system to produce antibodies (or ammunition) that can buffer damage by the malarial parasite.

Artemisinin is always administered in combination with older malaria drugs to delay resistance. Dr. Padmanabhan, based on decades of work, has found that curcumin, combined with artemisinin, can prevent malarial recrudescence. His team has tested this combination on animals and noted 100 per cent recovery in all those artificially infected in the lab with cerebral malaria. “Curcumin alone can’t save them but we found that the animals recovered with only half the artemisinin now present in standard dosage,” says Dr. Padmanabhan.

The true test will begin late this year, he says, when nearly 100 patients will be part of a study. This will make it one of the rare full-fledged trials to follow the clinical drug-testing regime for testing a herbal extract in India.

All eyes on gooseberry

Turmeric — also being tested as a potential treatment for cancer and other ailments — is not the only potential herbal anti-malarial weapon. The C. Abdul Hakeem College, Melvisharam, International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), New Delhi and Vellore Institute of Technology University have been studying various medicinal plants and are zeroing in on gooseberry leaves. Crude extracts of leaves of Phyllanthus acidus and Phyllanthus emblica (variants of the gooseberry family) showed “significant anti-plasmodial potency and the extracts are being characterized and standardized for bioactive constituents,” says a report of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT)-funded project.

Later this week, India pharma major Sun Pharma will formally announce a partnership with ICGEB to test a herbal drug that can potentially treat dengue, another mosquito-borne disease. The drug has been developed from Cissampelos pareira, a plant that is well known in Ayurveda and Chinese herbology.

K. Vijay Raghavan, Secretary, DBT, says the interest in plant trials comes from a more lenient view, in terms of the kind of tests required to prove a drug is safe and effective, by drug regulators towards plant-derived chemicals. Better technology over the last few decades also means well-known compounds can be tested more widely for their use as potential drug. “That gives a significant incentive for companies to patent and invest in developing drugs based on plant compounds,

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No takers for brand Kingfisher, trademarks

Auction of brands and trademarks of Kingfisher Airlines turned out to be a damp squib today as lenders failed to attract a single bidder for sale of these pledged assets at a reserve price of Rs. 366.70 crore in their efforts to recover unpaid loans from beleaguered Vijay Mallya.

This is the second failed attempt by the 17-bank consortium led by state-run behemoth SBI to recover some money from Mr. Mallya, after an earlier auction of Kingfisher House — the erstwhile headquarters of the long-defunct airline — met with a similar fate, with no bidder coming forward.

The items on sale during today’s e-auction included the Kingfisher logo as also the once-famous tagline ‘Fly the Good Times’ The other trademarks on sale included Flying Models, Funliner, Fly Kingfisher and Flying Bird Device.

Reserve price

The reserve price for the trademarks was kept at Rs. 366.70 crore, which is not even one-tenth of the price at which it was pledged as a collateral for the loan. Sources, however, said the reserve price was “too high” for any bidder to come in.

“There were no bids, possibly because the reserve price was considered very high. Though the reserve price was set much lower than its original valuation at the time of taking the brand as collateral, people still found it to be high,” a banking source said.

The online auction began at 11:30 a.m. and lasted for an hour without any success. It was conducted by SBICAP Trustee Company on behalf of lenders under the Sarfaesi Act.

The Kingfisher brand itself was valued at over Rs. 4,000 crore by Grant Thornton when the airline was at its peak.

In its annual report for 2012-13, KFA said that at its peak, it was the largest airline in India, with a five-star rating from Skytrax. The airline’s brand had been registered separately from the Kingfisher beer trademarks.

"Better to start a new airline company"

A senior banker said, “The interest for this auction could have been from existing airline operators, but no one will come. It is better to start a new airline company than to buy this brand and revive it.”

In a previous attempt at recovery of dues, which have ballooned to over Rs. 9,000 crore after taking into account the interest component, the banks had conducted an auction of Kingfisher House last month, but did not find any takers at a reserve price of Rs. 150 crore.

Sources said the lenders might now try to lower the reserve price in both the cases in their future efforts to sell these pledged assets.

The Kingfisher House property has a built-up area of over 17,000 square feet in posh Vile Parle near domestic airport here.

Mallya in London

Mr. Mallya, who left India on March 2 and is currently in London, has a non-bailable warrant against him in a money-laundering investigation. His passport has also been revoked. Earlier this week, the government said it has written to the British government seeking Mr. Mallya’s deportation.

In an interview to the Financial Times, the liquor baron, however, said he is in a “forced exile” and has no plans at the moment to return to India where things are flying at him “fast and furious”.

“I definitely would like to return to India. Right now, things are flying at me fast and furious. My passport has been revoked. I don’t know what the government is going to do next,” he said.

Mr. Mallya said he wanted a “reasonable” settlement with creditor banks for his defunct airline, but they “are not getting any money” by taking his passport or arresting him.

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Barack Obama is funny, charming: Priyanka Chopra

Indian actress Priyanka Chopra is glad to meet U.S. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as she attended the White House Correspondents’ Dinner here.

The 33-year-old “Quantico” star, who is currently shooting in the U.S. for the bigscreen “Baywatch” reboot, dazzled the last evening’s affair in a deep-cut, black and sheer-stripe gown.

Ms. Priyanka took to Twitter to share about her meeting with the Obamas.

“Lovely to meet the very funny and charming @barackobama and the beautiful @flotus. Thank you...,” she wrote along with a picture.

At the Washington-insider event, attended by journalists, celebrities, politicians and advertisers, Mr. Obama did not hold back and he took jibes at Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, CNN’s Jake Tapper among others.

The 2016 White House Correspondents’ dinner, which was President Obama’s last in office, was hosted by comedian Larry Wilmore.

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Rajinikanth's 'Kabali' teaser is out

The much-awaited teaser trailer for superstar Rajinikanth's Kabali was released on Sunday morning.

Within minutes of the teaser hitting YouTube, it had garnered nearly 50,000 views. The hashtag #KabaliTeaser immediately started trending and kept inching up the Worldwide trend list.

Sporting a smart beard and in a sharp three-piece suit, the actor emerges with the neruppu da (he is fire).

When there's Rajini, can a punch dialogue stay behind? When Kishore, presumably playing Rajini's opponent, asks who is this Kabali, the superstar responds in style: I'm not that typical Kabali, playing villain Nambiar's sidekick. This is the Kabali. Kabali da.

And at another place, the superstar comes up with his trademark laughter when someone asks him why he became a gangster.

The surprise element seems to be Radhika Apte. In the single shot she was seen in, she looked very demure and traditional in a saree.

There were also glimpses of what looked like the 1970s right at the end of the trailer. The superstar walks out of a restaurant, flipping his hair back — reminding us of the good old Rajinikanth days.

The release date of the movie, directed by Pa. Ranjith, is not out yet. Besides Radhika Apte, the film also stars Kishore, Kalaiarasan, Dhansikaa, Dinesh and Ritwika.

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