Nirmal Om newsline

UN chief Ban Ki-moon has slammed the use of violence to suppress anti-government protests in the Middle East, and asked the Arab leaders to instead "learn lessons and deliver bold reforms"."I will say it once again: the situation calls for bold reforms, not repression," Ban told reporters. Commenting on the violent police raid on pro-democracy protesters in Bahrain, the UN Secretary General said: "The reports from Bahrain overnight are deeply troubling. Here as elsewhere, violence should not be used against peaceful demonstrators and against journalists". "It must stop," he added, calling on those responsible to be brought to justice. He said the protests had been sparked by people's frustration at the lack of jobs and the lack of freedom of expression, assembly and communication and of not being able to participate in their country's political process."We have seen the wide (spread) demonstrations, outbursts of demonstrations and vo...

Cricket maestro Sachin Tendulkar and Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra will encourage people to be counted in Census 2011 when they appear in television spots.The television advertisements are part of a wider campaign that started on February 2 and will go upto February 28, the dates when the Population Enumeration Phase of the 15th Census will be held."Sachin is an icon and is very popular as far as young persons are concerned, and if he is spreading a message then everybody would like to follow. He's a star in himself, so is Priyanka," Chinmoy Chakravorty, Consultant to Registrar General of India, said.The two icons are not brand ambassadors in the traditional sense, but they will spread the message that everyone should make themselves counted and cooperate with enumerators or the foot soldiers who will ask questions and collect data from households, he added. The publicity campaign will be in 12 languages and has been built up with an approximate cost of Rs 38 crore for t...

India, Brazil, Germany and Japan, the G4 nations on Saturday said they would press for “urgent” reforms of the U.N. Security Council this year.External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna and the Foreign Ministers of three other nations met at the U.N. headquarters to step up their campaign even though there is no broad acceptance within the 192 U.N. members on how to reform the world body's supreme peace and security body. “Pressure is mounting here at the United Nations for the U.N. membership to finally face the challenge of addressing Security Council reform in a realistic manner, adjusting it to the current geopolitical realities,” said Brazil's Foreign Minister Antonio de Aguiar Patriota after the meeting. “The Ministers agreed to press ahead with all necessary steps to achieve at the earliest an expansion in both the permanent and non-permanent membership categories of the Security Council,” a joint statement said. “Towards this goal, the G4 countries reaffirmed their readines...