Daily Times India

New Delhi, March 15 (IANS) Jewellery designer Farah Khan Ali’s addiction to micro-blogging site Twitter has paid off. She has been named the ‘Wills Twitter Face’ for the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week (WIFW) later this month to give live updates on the event.

Ali will be present at the venue on all five days – starting March 24 – to review the shows and tweet on the daily dose of fashion week news. And the designer is excited about the new tie-up.

“I am excited to be associated with Wills Lifestyle in this unique way. I promise to bring to my followers regular updates from the venue and to give them a glimpse of fashion’s grandest celebration,” Ali said in a statement.

As part of the tie-up, she will share her views on the ramp shows, upload pictures of the event and respond to tweets too.

Her name recently featured in the Top 10 Twitterers of India as compiled by india.twirus.com.

For the last season of WIFW, former Miss India Gul Panag had created quite a buzz as the Twitter face.

New Delhi, March 15 (IANS) The Rajya Sabha Monday revoked the suspension of four Samajwadi Party (SP) members, amongst the seven MPs against whom action was taken for their unruly behaviour before the debate on the women’s reservation bill last week.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal moved a motion recommending termination of action taken against Veerpal Singh Yadav, Nand Kishore Yadav, Amir Alam Khan and Kamal Akhtar after question hour in the Rajya Sabha.

The four SP MPs were suspended last week Tuesday along with Subhash Prasad Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Ejaz Ali of the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) and Sabir Ali of the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) following protests against the bill reserving 33 percent seats in the Lok Sabha and state legislatures for women.

After the motion was moved, Deputy Chairman K. Rahman Khan took sense of the house before announcing that the suspension of four members had been “terminated”.

The four SP members had last week met Chairman Hamid Ansari along with other party leaders.

Opposition parties have been demanding that the suspension of all seven members be revoked.

Thiruvananthapuram, March 15 (IANS) Over 1.3 million students of Classes 10, 11 and 12 in Kerala are appearing for the state school examinations beginning Monday, officials said.

All arrangements are in place for the smooth conduct of the exams for Class 10 and the Higher Secondary and Vocational Higher Secondary courses for Class 11 and 12, said Director of Public Examination A.P.M. Mohammed Hanish.

While the Class 10 examination is slated for the afternoon, the other two would be held in the forenoon.

More than 4.5 lakh students are to appear for the Class 10 exam, 3.84 lakh in Class 11 and 4.15 lakh in the Class 12 Higher Secondary exams. Close to 50,000 would answer the Class 11 and 12 Vocational Higher Secondary course papers, officials said.

Ahmedabad, Mar 15 (ANI): The Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) have taken into their custody a suspected militant of Hizbul Mujahideen terror outfit. (more…)

Kotkapura (Punjab), Mar 15(ANI): A memorial service for three-year-old Gurshan Singh, who was found dead near Australia’s Melbourne airport on March 4, will be held in his native village in Punjab’s Faridkot district on Monday. (more…)

Dhaka, March 15 (IANS) A scholarship from the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) and training at the Rabindra Bharati University in Kolkata has made Bangladeshi classical dancer Arpita Shome resolve that she will pass on the art to others.

“When I returned to Bangladesh from Kolkata in September, 2008 I came back as a different person. Now I have a responsibility to pass on what I had learned. That sense of duty is absorbed within me, and maybe will always be.

“Perhaps it is the reason why I will never give up teaching classical dance,” Arpita told The Daily Star newspaper.

Arpita began dancing as a six-year-old child in her hometown, Rajbari.

“It still feels funny and strange to think about it – how I lived without my mother for five years, mostly on my own, in a flat in Kolkata,” said Arpita.

“Perhaps this acceptance of the change of times and the determination to learn classical dance made it possible to do so.”

Arpita is one of the youngest and promising classical dancers of contemporary times, the newspaper said.

New Delhi, Mar 15(ANI): Bangladesh Army Chief General Mohammed Abdul Mubeen, who is on a five-day visit to India, was given a Guard of Honour in the national capital on Monday.

Earlier on Sunday, General Mubeen, who arrived with his wife and a four-member army delegation, was received by the Deputy Director General of Indian Military Intelligence Air Marshal S. C. Malhan at the Indira Gandhi International Airport. (more…)

Thiruvananthapuram, March 15 (IANS) An investors meet will be held next month for the proposed Vizhinjam port in Kerala and work on the project will start during the tenure of the Left government, Ports Minister M.Vijayakumar told the assembly Monday.

He said the meeting would help identify the investor for the proposed port.

“By November-December, we are confident that the investor would be identified and construction of the port will begin during the tenure of this government itself,” Vijayakumar said. Assembly elections are due in Kerala in May 2011.

The Vizhinjam port is to come up near the famed tourist destination of Kovalam and the proposed site has a natural depth at 24 meters, one of the deepest in the world and hence requires no dredging. It will be located close to a busy international shipping route, and is envisaged to handle 4.1 million containers annually.

The project has been hanging fire for nearly a decade.

It had got the necessary clearances for the second time last year but Hyderabad-based Lanco Kondapalli, which had won the bid to build the port, withdrew from the project, citing indefinite delays and possible legal tangles in the project.

The project cost was then envisaged at Rs.53.48 billion.

The state government has committed to develop the basic infrastructure, which includes rail and road connectivity to the port site, and has set aside Rs.450 crore for the purpose.

This would be undertaken by the government-run Vizhinjam International Sea Port Ltd.

New Delhi, Mar. 15 (ANI): The Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) today welcomed the order of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) that directed the Ministry of Defence, Government of India to pay a compensation of Rs. 50,000 each to two torture victims, namely Bhadrakanta Baruah and Ghana
Neog who were tortured in the custody of the 871st Field Regiment of the Army at Maibela camp in Sivasagar district, Assam on 31st January 2009. (ANI)

New Delhi, Mar. 15 (ANI): The UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) chairman, Dr R K Pachauri, today said that he would not resign over what he called ‘one mistake’ reported in the IPCC report. (more…)