New Delhi, Nov 27,2020: Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Thursday said the farmers must leave their protests and come forward and talk with the government, to chalk out a solution to their problems.
Mr Tomar told reporters that the government wants to talk to the farmers with an open heart, stating that the government has invited the farmer organisations for talks on December 3.
He further said that there should be no politics over the farmers’ issues and they must not be provoked.
Mr Tomar said the improvements made in the agriculture laws were for the benefit of farmers, as they have been given the freedom to sell their produce wherever they want.
The Union Minster further said the Government is making every possible effort to increase the investment in Agriculture sector.
Mr Tomar said the government’s top officials and he himself spoke to the farmers earlier and have solved problems regarding several issues.
This time too, the government is ready and wants to talk to the farmers with an open mind, he added.
Various farmer organisations in the country are objecting to the new agriculture laws and protesting against
the same, while farmers from Punjab, Haryana and other states are marching towards Delhi, in response to the ‘Chalo Dilli’ call of the ryots, from across the country.
Nov 27,2020:ISLAMABAD – Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is reported to have approved “in principle” a new law on “chemical castration” and hangings of rapists.
Local media Wednesday reported the draft anti-rape legislation, approved by the federal cabinet the previous day, would require fast-track investigation and trial of suspected sexual assailants.
Pakistani Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari explained in a statement that a cabinet committee has been tasked wih finalizing the “badly needed” law and “it should become operational in the next few days.”
Mazari said the law, once enacted, would require establishing special courts to deal with the crime of rape and setting up anti-rape “crisis cells” for protection of both victims and witnesses.
Mazari touted the proposed legislation in a tweet Wednesday that she issued in connection with the International Day for Elimination of Violence against Women.
“Our anti rape law will be one more step forward. We are ensuring existing laws protecting women’s rights & protecting ag violence are implemented effectively,” she said.
Pakistan has experienced a spike in incidents of rape over the past few years.
A serial killer raped a 7-year-old girl in the eastern city of Kasur in 2018 before murdering her. The crime drew nationwide condemnation and demands for publicly hanging the rapist.
A court later sentenced the man to death and he was executed inside a high-security jail because existing Pakistani laws do not allow public hangings.
In September, two men gang-raped a woman in front of her terrified children after her car ran out of fuel on a deserted highway near the eastern city of Lahore. A police manhunt led to the arrest of the assailants.
That incident renewed the debate on the severity of punishment to prevent sexual assaults. In a television interview at the time, Khan himself called for public hangings and chemical castration of rapists to deter the crime.
Under existing Pakistani laws, a convicted rapist faces a sentence of up to 25 years in prison or the death penalty. A gang-rape is punishable by death or life imprisonment.
Nov 27,2020:Severe cyclonic storm Nivar, which made landfall early on Thursday at Marakkanam in Villupuram district, between Puducherry and Chennai, left three individuals lifeless and brought on appreciable injury to crops and fields, apart from leaving many areas inundated. The storm system is more likely to transfer northwestwards and weaken right into a low strain by Friday.
A number of inside areas similar to Ambur, Tiruvannamalai, Vellore and Arani skilled rain and robust winds of 50 kmph.
Gentle to reasonable rain could proceed over a number of locations in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Karaikal for the following 48 hours.
In keeping with the India Meteorological Division, Nivar, which crossed the TN coast as a really extreme cyclonic storm with wind speeds of 120 kmph and rain-filled, has moved inland and would progressively weaken by Friday.
The Indian Military of Dakshin Bharat Space Headquarters which had positioned 22 rescue groups in Puducherry, Chennai and Tiruchirappalli helped clear uprooted bushes on the arterial roads following landfall. The staff helped the Puducherry administration to renew regular actions with minimal lack of time, a press launch stated.
Onwards: Individuals wade by means of the water-logged streets of Consalpet in Vellore. 1000’s of individuals have been evacutated to storm shelters throughout Tamil Nadu as a consequence of warnings issued in reference to Cyclone Nivar.
Water, the nice equaliser: The historic Madras Warfare Cemetery in Chennai’s Nandambakkam was flooded following two days of rain. Right here, tombstones stand partially submerged on November 26.
Nov 25,2020:China has accused the United States of trying to “create chaos” in the Asia-Pacific, a day after US National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, on a visit to the Philippines, backed countries in maritime disputes with China and accused Beijing of using military pressure to further its own interests.
During his trip to Manila, O’Brien told the Philippines and Vietnam, both countries in disputes with Beijing cover the South China Sea: “We’ve got your back”. He also reiterated the US commitment to self-ruled Taiwan.
China said his remarks were “unreasonable” and exaggerated regional tensions.
BEIJING :25,2020: China resolutely opposes India’s measures to ban more Chinese mobile applications over national security concerns, its embassy in the South Asian nation said on Wednesday.
India banned 43 of the apps on Tuesday, including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s e-commerce app Aliexpress, in a new wave of web sanctions targeting China after the neighbours’ months-long standoff on their Himalayan border.
Chennai, Nov 25,2020: The severe cyclonic storm ‘Nivar’ over southwest Bay of Bengal moved west-northwestwards with a speed of seven kmph during past six hours and lay centred over southwest Bay of Bengal about 290 km east southeast of Cuddalore, about 300 km east southeast of Puducherry and 350 km south southeast of Chennai.
It is very likely to intensify further into a very severe cyclonic storm during the next 12 hours, a bulletin issued by the Met office said on Wednesday.
It is likely to move northwestwards and cross Tamil Nadu and Puducherry coasts between Karaikal and Mamallapuram around Puducherry during midnight of today and early hours of tomorrow as a very severe cyclonic storm with a wind
speed of 120-130 kmph gusting to 145 kmph.
Under its influence, fairly widespread to widespread rains and thunderstorm activity is very likely over coastal and north interior Tamilnadu, Puducherry and Karaikal, south coastal Andhra Pradesh and Rayalaseema for two days.
Isolated extremely heavy rainfall activity is also very likely over coastal and north interior Tamilnadu and Puducherry.
Nov 24,2020:Carbon dioxide levels hit new highs last year and are expected to keep growing in 2020, despite coronavirus-related restrictions that forced a global industrial slowdown.
The alarming patterns were published on Monday by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), crushing hopes that lockdowns across the world would have pushed emissions, the main driver to climate change, to a record low.
The United Nations agency said measures to curb the spread of the pandemic had indeed cut emissions of many pollutants and greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide.
But it warned the industrial slowdown due to the coronavirus crisis had not curbed record concentrations of the greenhouse gases that are trapping heat in the atmosphere, raising temperatures, causing sea levels to rise and driving more extreme weather.
The WMO said the change in carbon dioxide concentrations – the result of cumulative past and current emissions – is, in fact, no bigger than the normal year-to-year fluctuations in the carbon cycle and in the amount of carbon being soaked up by vegetation and oceans.
It said preliminary estimates indicate a reduction in annual global emissions of between 4.2 percent and 7.5 percent – a “tiny blip”, according to the WMO, with no bigger effect on global warming than the expected annual fluctuation.
“An emissions reduction this scale will not cause atmospheric CO2 to go down. CO2 will continue to go up, though at a slightly reduced pace,” the WMO said.
‘It’s getting worse’
In a video shared on social media, Patricia Espinosa, the UN’s climate change executive secretary, said” “COVID-19 hasn’t put climate change on hold.
“It’s getting worse and our window of opportunities is closing,” she added.
The annual report released by the Geneva-based agency measures the atmospheric concentration of the main gases – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide – that are warming Earth and triggering extreme weather events.
Levels of carbon dioxide, a product of burning fossil fuels, reached a new record of 410.5 parts per million (ppm) in 2019, it said.
The annual increase is larger than the previous year and beats the average of the past decade.
“Such a rate of increase has never been seen in the history of our records,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said, referring to a rise of 10 ppm since 2015, calling for a “sustained flattening of the [emissions] curve”.
WMO’s head of atmospheric environment research Oksana Tarasova said the magnitude of the increase in carbon dioxide levels during the past four years was comparable to changes seen during the shift from an ice age to more temperate periods but, back then, the transition happened over a much longer timeframe.
“We humans did it without anything, just with our emissions, and we did it within four years.”
Methane and nitrous oxide levels
The second-most prevalent greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is methane, emitted in part from cattle and fermentation from rice paddies, which is responsible for about 16 percent of warming.
In 2019, methane levels were at 260 percent of pre-industrial levels, at 1,877 parts per billion (ppb), with the rise from 2018 slightly lower than the previous annual increase, but still higher than the 10-year average, WMO said.
Concentrations of nitrous oxide, the third major greenhouse which is gas caused largely by agricultural fertilisers, meanwhile stood at 332 ppb last year, or 123 percent over pre-industrial levels.
Its rise from 2018 to 2019 was also lower than the observed from 2017 to 2018, but on par with the average annual growth rate for the past decade.
Nov 24,2020: On Monday, General Services Administration (GSA) chief Emily Murphy sent a letter to President-elect Joe Biden, officially authorizing the start of the presidential transition. Murphy issued the letter of “ascertainment” after weeks of delay, and amid increasing pressure from Democrats, and bipartisan pushback from national security and public health experts to start the process. Some Republican politicians had also begun to speak out, too.
The ascertainment will provide funding for the Biden-Harris transition, and most critically, give Biden’s team the opportunity to meet with their counterparts across federal agencies to prepare for the new administration to take over in January.
“As the Administrator of the U.S. General Services Administration, I have the ability under the Presidential Transition Act of 1963, as amended, to make certain post-election resources and services available to assist in the event of a presidential transition,” Murphy wrote in her letter to vice-president elect Biden.
“I take this role seriously and, because of recent developments involving legal challenges and certifications of election results, am transmitting this letter today to make those resources and services available to you,” she said.
Those “recent developments” most likely refer to Trump’s failed attempts in court to challenge the election, and battleground states, including Michigan and Georgia, officially certifying the votes for Biden’s win. In the past, most GSA administrators have made their judgments based on media projections, after which the losing candidate typically concedes. But Murphy had held off from doing so, despite Biden being declared the winner by all major US media outlets and Trump’s legal challenges largely going nowhere in court.
The GSA recognizing Biden’s victory, and the formal start if the transition process will likely quell some of the concern about Trump’s refusal to accept the election results. With Republicans backing away from their defense of the president, and the Trump’s legal avenues quickly closing, the reality Trump has tried to keep at bay for weeks is finally catching up to him. Biden will be president on January 20 — and now, at least, he can begin to properly prepare.
Nov 23,2020:Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has given forces in the northern Tigray region a three-day ultimatum to surrender before the military begins an offensive on the rebel-held regional capital of Mekelle.
“We urge you to surrender peacefully within 72 hours, recognising that you are at the point of no return,” Abiy said in a Twitter message on Sunday evening. There was no immediate comment from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which rules Tigray.
Abiy’s statement came hours after an Ethiopian military spokesman said the army plans to surround Mekelle with tanks and may attack it with artillery to end a nearly three-week war, urging civilians to “save themselves”.
Military spokesman Colonel Dejene Tsegaye told the Ethiopia Broadcasting Corporation the next phase of the operation was “to encircle Mekelle using tanks”.
“We want to send a message to the public in Mekelle to save yourselves from any artillery attacks and free yourselves from the junta … After that, there will be no mercy,” he said.