Junior Digest

Biscuit major Britannia is planning to start the largest project in its history which would be a food park at Ranjangaon in Maharashtra.

“It would have the largest biscuit capacity we have anywhere having cakes, rusk, the croissant plant plus distribution depots, flour mill and a dairy plant having 700,000-litre a day capacity,” chairman Nusli Wadia told shareholders at the annual general meeting of the company.

Detailing Britannia’s plans for Ranjangaon, managing director Varun Berry said investments would touch about Rs 1,000 crore over a period of 4-5 years, which would also create employment for around 3,000 people.

“We are looking at a mega food park for which have made an application to the Maharashtra government. We already have 96 acres and plan to acquire another 48 acres,” Berry told reporters after the meeting.

Initially, Britannia would be having six biscuit lines and one each for cakes, rusks and the newly-planned croissant, with a capacity of 1.2 lakh tonne a year.

“It will eventually have a flour mill as well and our first dairy back-end,” he said.

Cricketer S Sreesanth today said he is “grateful to God” after the Kerala High Court lifted the life ban imposed on him by the BCCI in the wake of the 2013 IPL spot-fixing scandal.

Sreesanth said he has started preparations for playing the game and his aim was to find a place in the Kerala cricket team.

The Kerala Cricket Association said it would take a positive decision on Sreesanth’s bid to play in state cricket tournaments.

In his order, Justice A Muhamed Mustaque also set aside all proceedings against Sreesanth initiated by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

“It is to be noted that there are no incriminating evidence to pinpoint Sreesanth’s involvement in sport fixing deal,” the judge said.

All the 36 accused, including Sreesanth, Ankeet Chavan and Ajit Chandila were let off in the spot-fixing case by a Patiala House court in July 2015.

The BCCI, however, had refused to alter its disciplinary decision even after the verdict.

Mere chance may have caused humans to evolve into smarter, more advanced beings than our ancestors, according to a study which refutes the theory that our race originated in response to climate change. Many scientists have argued that an influx, described as a “pulse,” of new animal species appear in the African fossil record between 2.8 and 2.5 million years ago, including our own genus Homo.

Experts believe it takes a broad-scale event like global climate change to spark the origination of so many diverse new species. However, W Andrew Barr from George Washington University in the US said that it is possible the pulse of new species could have occurred by chance and might not be directly related to climate change. It is generally accepted that when major environmental changes occur, some species will go extinct and others will originate, which can create a cluster or pulse of new species in the fossil record.

However, there is no set definition of what is considered a pulse, so experts have disagreed about which clusters constitute meaningful events and which can be explained as random fluctuations. Barr used computer simulation to model what the fossil record might look like over time in the absence of any climate change and found clusters of species originations that were of similar magnitude to the clusters observed in the fossil record.

This means random patterns are likely under-credited for their role in speciation fluctuation, he said. Barr’s findings mean scientists may need to rethink widely-accepted ideas about why human ancestors became smarter and more sophisticated. “The idea that our genus originated more than 2.5 million years ago as part of a turnover pulse in direct response to climate change has a deep history in paleonthropology,” Barr said.

“My study shows that the magnitude of that pulse could be caused by random fluctuations in speciation rates. One implication is that we may need to broaden our search for why our genus arose at that time and place,” he said. He compared the pattern to flipping a coin. If you flip a coin 100 times, you would expect to record 50 heads and 50 tails. However, if you are only looking at 10 coin flips, you could see a greater imbalance, instead recording seven heads and only three tails. This would even out over time, but in the short-run, you could see clusters of these independent coin flips, he said. Similarly, fluctuations in turnover in Barr’s model are pronounced, but are caused purely by random processes.

“The idea the the origin of Homo is part of a climate- caused turnover pulse doesn’t really bear out when you carefully look at the evidence and compare it against other possible explanations,” Barr said.

Traits that make humans different from our ancestors, like larger brains and greater technological sophistication, could have arisen for a variety of reasons, he said.

Johannesburg, Aug 8:  South Africa’s parliament will vote by a secret ballot on a no-confidence motion brought against President Jacob Zuma tomorrow, a decision that could see some of his ruling party members voting for his removal.

The speaker of the parliament, Baleka Mbete, announced the move to hold a secret ballot this afternoon, ending weeks of speculation for the eighth motion of no confidence against Zuma.

Zuma, 75, and several of his Cabinet members have been accused of involvement in promoting “state capture exercises” that led to political upheaval, and due to which South Africa was downgraded to junk status by the ratings agency S&P Global in April.

After Mbete previously claimed she did not have the power to decide on a secret ballot, opposition parties approached the highest court in the land, the Constitutional Court, which decreed that the parliament speaker did have such authority.

Tensions have been simmering within the factions of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) for months now amid huge public protests calling for Zuma to be removed.

Several ANC members of the parliament who publicly stated that they would vote with the opposition for Zuma’s ouster received death threats, while others have said they would vote “with their conscience” on the day.

ANC leaders said any member who voted for the motion “would be disciplined”, prompting the call for a secret ballot to avoid such action and intimidation.

The allied opposition parties need a number of votes form the majority ANC members in order for the motion to succeed.

“Members of the parliament take an oath of faithfulness to the Republic of South Africa, and obedience to the Constitution and laws, and there is no constitutional obligation for a member to swear allegiance to his or her political party,” Mbete said in her announcement.

“Considerations of transparency and openness sometimes demand the display of courage and resoluteness to boldly advance the interest of those they represent, no matter the consequences; including the risk of dismissal for non- compliance with party instructions,” she added.

Describing the prevailing mood in the country as “highly charged”, Mbete said the outcome of the vote tomorrow “must be seen to be credible”.

With countrywide protests planned across the country tomorrow in a coordinated effort by a civil society coalition to get Zuma to step down, his removal will signal the end of his entire cabinet and the installation of a new leadership.

But analysts said the final test would be when voting takes place today.

Scientists have identified two previously unknown areas of the brain that may explain how we recognise familiar faces.

Researchers have long known that the brain contains a network of areas that respond selectively to faces as opposed to other kinds of objects.

They also knew that humans process familiar and unfamiliar faces very differently. For example, we excel at recognising pictures of familiar faces even when they are disguised by poor lighting or shot at odd angles.

Yet attempts at divining the neural basis for these differences between familiar and unfamiliar face perception in humans have proven inconclusive. Researchers at The Rockefeller University in the US turned instead to macaques, close evolutionary cousins whose face processing networks are better understood and more easily studied than our own.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, they measured the animals’ brain activity as they responded to pictures of other monkeys’ faces.

Those faces fell into three categories: personally familiar ones belonging to monkeys that the macaques had lived with for years; visually familiar ones whose pictures they had seen hundreds of times; and totally unfamiliar ones.

The researchers expected the macaque face processing network to respond in much the same way to the first two types of faces. However, the entire system showed more activity in response to the faces of long-time acquaintances. Faces that were only visually familiar, meanwhile, actually caused a reduction of activity in some areas.

“The whole network somehow distinguishes personally familiar faces from visually familiar faces,” said Landi. The faces of animals whom the macaques had known for years prompted the activation of two previously unknown face- selective areas.

One is located in a region of the brain associated with so-called declarative memory, which consists of facts and events that can be consciously recalled.

The other area is embedded in a region associated with social knowledge, such as information about individuals and their position within a social hierarchy – “a specific form of memory that is highly developed in primates, and certainly in humans, researchers said.

These findings will allow the researchers to further investigate the neural mechanisms that underlie face recognition and how the brain responds to different kinds of familiarity.

Since they reside in regions of the brain that are linked to different kinds of information, these novel areas should also provide an inroad to understanding cognitive and perceptual processes that go well beyond vision.

NASA’s Curiosity rover which found evidence that ancient Mars had the right conditions to support microbial life has marked five years of exploring the red planet. Curiosity, which landed near Mount Sharp five years ago, is examining clues on that mountain about long-ago lakes on Mars. On August 5, 2012, the mission team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, exalted at radio confirmation and first images from Curiosity after the rover’s touchdown using a new “sky crane” landing method.

Transmissions at the speed of light took nearly 14 minutes to travel from Mars to Earth, which that day were about 248 million kilometres apart, NASA said. Those first images included a view of Mount Sharp. The mission accomplished its main goal in less than a year, before reaching the mountain. It determined that an ancient lake environment on this part of Mars offered the conditions needed for life – fresh water, other key chemical ingredients and an energy source.

On Mount Sharp since 2014, Curiosity has examined environments where both water and wind have left their marks. Having studied more than 600 vertical feet of rock with signs of lakes and later groundwater, Curiosity’s international science team concluded that habitable conditions lasted for at least millions of years. With higher destinations ahead, Curiosity will continue exploring how this habitable world changed through time, NASA said.

New Delhi, Aug 14:  Resolution of bad loans in the banking system is on ‘right track’ and will ‘open the door’ to rapid credit expansion and growth, Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya has said.

Terming the non-performing assets (NPAs) or bad loans problem as a ‘legacy issue’, he said that even after three years of the NDA government taking charge, it has not gone away.

“Now we are on absolutely right track. Once we solve the NPAs issue, it will open up also the door to faster credit expansion. If this is done, this problem of twin balance sheet issue (over-leveraged companies and bad-loan-encumbered banks) will get addressed at the result of this.

“So banks will be better equipped to lend and on the sides of borrowers there will be greater appetite,” Panagariya told PTI.

The banking sector is saddled with NPAs of over Rs 8 trillion (Rs 8 lakh crore), of which Rs 6 trillion is with public sector banks (PSBs).

As part of its strategy to rein in the unacceptable level of NPAs, Reserve Bank of India recently identified 12 accounts for Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) proceedings with each of them having over Rs 5,000 crore of outstanding loans, accounting for 25 per cent of total NPAs of banks.

The 12 identified cases account for 25 per cent or about Rs 2 lakh crore of NPAs.

When asked about his view on merger of a weak bank with a strong bank, the outgoing Vice Chairman of Niti Aayog said that consolidation of public sector banks (PSBs) is necessary, also because the pool of talented people who have the specialisation of running the banking business is limited one.

“So if you have 25 PSBs, then you spread it over too many banks and everybody who is an expert says, we do not have good management, and so consolidation will also bring good management to the banks.

“Then need for number of competent people…would be smaller if number of banks is smaller,” he noted.

The finance ministry has sought help of NITI Aayog and global consultancy firms to examine the possibility of next round of consolidation of PSU banks with an aim to create a few lenders of global size and scale.

NITI Aayog’s report is expected to set the tone for consolidation roadmap.

Five associate banks and Bharatiya Mahila Bank (BMB) became part of SBI on April 1, 2017, catapulting the country’s largest lender to among the top 50 banks in the world.

Invoking the spirit of Quit India Movement, Parliament on Wednesday pitched for strengthening secularism and democracy amid Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for a determined effort by all sections to rid the nation of ills like communalism, casteism and poverty by 2022.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi, however, warned that the “forces of darkness” were trying to destroy the roots of democracy and the “clouds of the politics of division and hate” are hovering over the plural and egalitarian values enshrined in the Constitution.

Parliamentarians paid rich tributes to the freedom fighters and recalled their sacrifices as both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha took up a special discussion on the 75th anniversary of Quit India Movement launched on this day in 1942 by Mahatma Gandhi.

Leaders from all parties were unanimous in underlining the need for strengthening democracy and secularism even as some in the Opposition equated the current situation to that prevailing during the colonial days.

Some Opposition leaders contended that democracy and secularism was under threat today, with CPI(M)’s Sitaram Yechury warning against creation of “Hindu Pakistan”.

The prime minister, who initiated the discussion in the Lok Sabha, underlined that everyone would need to rise above political and ideological affiliations to rid the nation of ills like communalism, casteism, poverty, corruption and dirt.

He said ideological differences, which are there today, existed even during the freedom struggle and despite the different approaches, everyone had worked for the common goal of Independence.

Corruption, poverty, illiteracy and malnutrition are the greatest challenges that India now needs to overcome and to do that, there is a need to create the same spirit that existed between 1942 and 1947, he said.

Setting 2022, the 75th anniversary of the country’s Independence as the target year, Modi said people should take a pledge of ‘Karenge, Aur Kar Ke Rahenge’ (We will do and surely do).

“In 1942, the clarion call was ‘Karenge Ya Marenge’ (Do or Die) – today it is ‘Karenge, Aur Kar Ke Rahenge.’ The next five years should also be about ‘Sankalp Se Siddhi’, a resolve which will lead us to accomplishment,” Modi said.

He said in the next five years till 2022, India must try to bring positive changes so that it can become inspiration for many other nations.

India’s freedom from colonial rule was not only about India, but a defining moment in ending colonialism in other parts of the world too, the Prime Minister said.

He said from 1857 to 1942, the move towards freedom was incremental, but the years from 1942 to 1947, were transformative and delivered on the objective.

“In 1942, conditions internationally became favourable for India to get independence. Today again, the global conditions are favourable for India,” he said.

The prime minister hailed the role of freedom fighters, saying the struggle for independence saw participation of people from all sections, responding to Mahatma Gandhi’s clarion call in 1942 of ‘Do or Die’.

During his nearly 30-minute speech, he remembered the role played by different leaders in different period of times which include Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Jai Prakash Narayan, Ram Manohar Lohia, Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekar Azad and Raj Guru and Sukhdev.

Modi recalled that even as many senior leaders like Mahatma Gandhi were jailed at the beginning of the Quit India movement, a new generation of leaders emerged to fill the vacuum and take the movement forward.

“The Quit India movement marked the rise of a new leadership. They supported Mahatma Gandhi during the movement,” he said.

Modi said the recollection of movements such as the Quit India was a source of inspiration and the current generation has a responsibility of passing on the legacy of such movements to the future generations.

While talking about the success of collective efforts, he referred to the rollout of the GST and said it could not have been possible without the cooperation of all parties.

He said a similar approach would be required to resolve the problems of the country.

Speaking after Modi, Sonia Gandhi said, “It seems secular, democratic and liberals values are being endangered. The public space for debate and difference of opinion is shrinking…

“Have the forces of darkness emerged? Is there a fear about the existence of a sense of freedom? Are attempts being made to destroy roots of democracy which is based on equality, social justice, law-based system and freedom of expression?” She took digs at the BJP and its ideological mentor RSS, without naming them.

“We should not forget that there were people and organisations which had opposed the Quit India movement and had played no role in getting our country freedom,” she said.

BJP member Kirron Kher shouted “travesty, travesty”, as Gandhi made these remarks but was signalled from the treasury benches to remain quiet.

The Congress has often accused the RSS of playing no role in the freedom movement, a charge vehemently denied by it.

People have to fight for the India they believe in, which is loved by one and all and which was envisioned by the freedom fighters, Gandhi said.

“We can and will not allow the idea of India to be a prisoner to narrow mindedness, divisive and communal ideology.

If we have to preserve freedom, we will have to defeat the forces endangering it. We can’t and we won’t allow sectarian forces to succeed,” she said, asking people to defeat such “repressive” forces.

She also underlined the contributions of the Congress and Jawaharlal Nehru to the landmark episode in India’s struggle for independence, adding that her party’s workers had made countless sacrifices.

After about 4 hours of discussion during which leaders of all parties spoke, the Lok Sabha unanimously adopted a resolution, pledging to work tirelessly in the next five years to build a nation as envisioned by Mahatma Gandhi and other freedom fighters.

“We, the representatives of more than 125 crore people, resolve to take along every citizen in working towards building a nation as envisioned by Mahatma Gandhi and other freedom fighters by 2022 when we will celebrate 75th anniversary of our independence,” the resolution said.

The resolution, read out by Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, said, “We shall remain committed and dedicated to build a strong, prosperous, clean and glorious India which is free of corruption. We are committed to welfare of all sections and promote harmony and patriotism.”

In the Rajya Sabha, Leader of the House Arun Jaitley said it was the day to commit to make the country a strong, just and economically-progressive country.

He underlined the need for freeing the country from all kinds of violence, be it in the name terrorism, politics or religion.

Jaitley, who holds the portfolios of Defence and Finance, said the country still faces challenges to its security and sovereignty but the armed forces were capable to deal with these.

Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad targeted the ruling BJP by equating yesterday’s developments related to the Rajya Sabha polls in Gujarat to the events witnessed when the Quit India Movement was launched on this day in 1942.

After three hours of discussion, the Upper House also adopted a resolution pledging to build a strong, self-reliant, secular and democratic India.

Moving the resolution, Chairman Hamid Ansari said the House recalls that 75 years ago, Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi gave a clarion call to people for “do or die” to end the British Rule while asking the British to quit India.

He said the House observes “on the 75th anniversary of Quit India Movement that it is important to remember the heroic struggle of people, students, peasants, workers and government officials who defied the brutal oppression of the British Raj to launch mass Satyagraha that shook the very foundation of the British Rule.”

The House “solemnly takes a pledge to uphold and safeguard the values and ideals of the freedom movement and rededicate ourselves to build an India that is strong, self- reliant, inclusive, secular and democratic,” Ansari said.

New Delhi, Aug 11:  The Supreme Court  agreed to hear on Monday a plea of the Centre challenging the Tamil Nadu government’s decision to release the convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

The Centre had filed the plea in 2014.

A bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi considered the submission of Prabu Ramasubramaniam, the counsel for convict A G Perarivalan, that the case be heard as the convicts are in jail for the last two decades.

The lawyer said the matter had been listed quite a few times in the past, but it got deleted from the list.

Besides Perarivalan, six other persons–Murugan, Shantan, Robert Pais, Nalini, Jayakumar and Ravichandran–were convicted in the case.

The apex court had in 2014 stayed the Tamil Nadu government’s decision to release the convicts and had set up a five-judge Constitution Bench to deal with the issue relating to the power of states and the Centre to grant the benefit of remission and pardon to convicts.

The apex court had held that the state government cannot unilaterally determine remission of sentences in cases where the probe had been conducted by central government agencies.

The Constitution Bench, however, had said the issue — whether convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case can be granted remission or not — would be handled by a three-judge bench.

“The bench has been set up, but no hearing has taken place so far,” the lawyer said.

Out of the seven convicts, Nalini was awarded death sentence, which was later commuted to life imprisonment by the state government.

Three others, including her husband Murugan (Sriharan), were sentenced to death and the rest were given life term by the Supreme Court for their role in Gandhi’s assassination on May 21, 1991 at Sriperumbudur.

The apex court had later commuted the death sentence of the other three on the grounds of inordinate delay in disposal of their mercy petitions.

Scientists have developed a new artificial intelligence system that can monitor a person’s sleep using ambient radio waves, without sensors attached to the body.

The device analyses the radio signals around the person and translates those measurements into sleep stages – light, deep, or rapid eye movement (REM). Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Massachusetts General Hospital in the US have devised a new way to monitor sleep stages without sensors attached to the body.

“Imagine if your Wi-Fi router knows when you are dreaming, and can monitor whether you are having enough deep sleep, which is necessary for memory consolidation,” said Dina Katabi, professor at MIT, who led the study.

“Our vision is developing health sensors that will disappear into the background and capture physiological signals and important health metrics, without asking the user to change her behaviour in any way,” Katabi said.

Researchers had previously developed radio-based sensors that enable them to remotely measure vital signs and behaviours that can be indicators of health. These sensors consist of a wireless device, about the size of a laptop computer, that emits low-power radio frequency (RF) signals. As the radio waves reflect off of the body, any slight movement of the body alters the frequency of the reflected waves.

Analysing those waves can reveal vital signs such as pulse and breathing rate. “It’s a smart Wi-Fi-like box that sits in the home and analyses these reflections and discovers all of these changes in the body, through a signature that the body leaves on the RF signal,” Katabi said.

The approach could be useful for monitoring sleep, which is currently done while patients spend the night in a sleep lab hooked up to monitors such as electroencephalography (EEG) machines.

“We have this technology that, if we can make it work, can move us from a world where we do sleep studies once every few months in the sleep lab to continuous sleep studies in the home,” said Mingmin Zhao, an MIT graduate student. To achieve that, researchers had to come up with a way to translate their measurements of pulse, breathing rate, and movement into sleep stages.

Recent advances in artificial intelligence have made it possible to train computer algorithms known as deep neural networks to extract and analyse information from complex datasets, such as the radio signals obtained from the researchers’ sensor.

However, these signals have a great deal of information that is irrelevant to sleep and can be confusing to existing algorithms. The MIT researchers had to come up with a new AI algorithm based on deep neural networks, which eliminates the irrelevant information.

Using this approach in tests of 25 healthy volunteers, the researchers found that their technique was about 80 per cent accurate, which is comparable to the accuracy of ratings determined by sleep specialists based on EEG measurements.

“Our device allows you not only to remove all of these sensors that you put on the person, and make it a much better experience that can be done at home, it also makes the job of the doctor and the sleep technologist much easier,” Katabi said.

New Delhi, Aug 9:  The Supreme Court today sought the response of the Centre on a plea challenging the validity of Article 370 of the Constitution that grants special autonomous status to Jammu and Kashmir.

The petition challenged the April 11 order of the Delhi High Court rejecting a plea saying nothing survives in it as the apex court has already dismissed a similar prayer on the issue.

A bench comprising Chief Justice J S Khehar and justices Adarsh Goel and D Y Chandrachud issued notice to the Centre on the petition which also sought a direction to declare the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir as “void”, “illegal” and “ultravires” of the Constitution of India.

The bench asked the government to reply within four weeks.

In her petition, Kumari Vijayalakshmi Jha claimed that the high court had dismissed her plea by “wrongly following and misreading” the earlier judgement of the apex court.

She had contended in the high court that Article 370 was a temporary provision that had lapsed with the dissolution of the state’s Constituent Assembly in 1957.

The petition had said that the continuance of Article 370 even after the dissolution of the state’s Constituent Assembly and the J-K Constitution never getting the assent of the President of India or Parliament or Government of India, amounted to “fraud on the basic structure of our Constitution”.

Advocate Anil Kumar Jha, appearing for the petitioner, claimed that the high court considered only the first prayer and had not taken into account other prayers mentioned in the plea.

He said that earlier judgement of the apex court in 1969 was in a different context and, hence it could not have been relied upon.

“The high court kept the judgement reserved for about 13 months and on April 11, 2017 pronounced the verdict dismissing the writ petition without considering the merits/issues involved therein,” the petition said.

It also said the high court did not consider the judgment passed and ratio laid down by the apex court.

In July 2014, the Supreme Court had dismissed a plea challenging the special status granted to Jammu and Kashmir and had asked the petitioner to move the high court.

The legend of Vijender Singh continued to grow as the Indian boxing star out-slugged his Chinese opponent Zulpikar Maimaitiali in a close bout to retain the WBO Asia Pacific Super Middleweight title in Mumbai on Saturday.

It was double delight for the fans as Vijender also snatched the WBO Oriental Super Middleweight title from the Chinese, who is nine years younger to him.

It was the 32-year-old Beijing Olympic bronze medallist’s ninth successive win in his professional career.

New Delhi, Aug 6:  NDA nominee M Venkaiah Naidu was today elected as India’s next Vice-President, receiving an overwhelming two-third votes against opposition candidate Gopalkrishna Gandhi.

The 68-year-old BJP leader from Andhra Pradesh got 516 votes out of the total 771 votes cast while Gandhi could only manage 244 votes. Of the total 771 votes polled, 11 were found to be invalid.

Although 785 MPs were eligible to vote in today’s election, 14 MPs could not vote.

The strength of the electoral college comprising both elected and nominated MPs of the Rajya Sabha (RS) and the Lok Sabha (LS) is 790. There are two vacancies each in the LS and RS.

One BJP Lok Sabha MP is barred from voting following a judicial pronouncement.

“Coming from an agricultural background, I never imagined I would be here. Agriculture has no proper voice in Indian polity,” India’s vice president-elect told PTI.

“I am very humbled. I am also thankful to the Prime Minister and all party leaders for their support. I will seek to utilise the vice presidential institution to strengthen the hands of the president and secondly uphold the dignity of the Upper House,” he added.

Naidu will be the 13th person to hold the second highest Constitutional post. By virtue of being the vice-president, Naidu will also preside over the Rajya Sabha as the Chairman.

With today’s election, those holding the three top positions in the country –the president, the vice-president and the Prime Minister –come from the BJP.

Naidu will be the second BJP leader to become vice- president after Bhairon Singh Shekhawat (2002-2007).

A two-term BJP president, Naidu was also elected to the Rajya Sabha three times from Karnataka. He represented Rajasthan in the Upper House of Parliament before he was nominated to the vice president’s post by the NDA.

He was minister for information and broadcasting and housing and urban affairs in the Modi government and earlier held the Parliamentary Affairs portfolio.

President Donald Trump ratcheted up his rhetoric toward North Korea on Thursday, saying it should be “very, very nervous” if it even thinks about attacking the United States or its allies, after Pyongyang said it was making plans to fire missiles over Japan to land near the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam.

“The people of our country are safe. Our allies are safe. And I will tell you this: North Korea better get their act together or they’re going to be in trouble like few nations ever have been in trouble in this world,” Trump told reporters in New Jersey, where he was meeting with his national security team.

Far from toning down his words after saying on Tuesday that any threats by Pyongyang would be “met with fire and fury like the world has never seen,” Trump said those remarks may have not gone far enough. “Maybe it wasn’t tough enough. They’ve been doing this to our country for a long time, for many years. And it’s about time that somebody stuck up for the people of this country and for the people of other countries,” Trump added.

Asked if he would consider a pre-emptive strike against North Korea to deny it the ability to launch a nuclear attack against the United States, Trump said, “We’ll see what happens.” “If North Korea does anything in terms of even thinking about attack of anybody that we love or we represent or our allies or us, they should be very, very nervous. I’ll tell you what. And they should be very nervous. Because things will happen to them like they never thought possible,” Trump added.

North Korea’s army will complete the plans in mid-August to fire four intermediate-range missiles over Japan to land near Guam, when they will be ready for leader Kim Jong Un’s order, state-run KCNA news agency said, citing General Kim Rak Gyom, commander of the Strategic Force of the Korean People’s Army. The plans called for the missiles to land in the sea 30-40 km (18-25 miles) from Guam.