BJP to stage protests across Karnataka against fuel price hike today
The Karnataka government on Saturday hiked sales tax on fuel which will make petrol and diesel costlier. Petrol prices have gone up by Rs 3 per litre and diesel by Rs 3.5 per litre.
NEET-UG result row: Kapil Sibal criticises PM Modi, says accept ‘corruption prevalent in country’
Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal has criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his “silence” on the issue and urged him to accept that “corruption is prevalent” in the country.
Americans believe US should focus more on domestic issues, but support leadership on world stage: poll
A majority of Americans believe the U.S. should focus more on issues at home and withdraw from foreign affairs, despite an increasing number of Americans believing the U.S. should be more engaged and take the lead when it comes to international events. Just under two-thirds of Americans, 62%, believe the U.S. would be “better served by withdrawing from international affairs and focusing more attention on problems here at home,” according to the results of the Ronald Reagan Institute’s 2024 summer survey, which was shared exclusively with Fox News Sunday. Despite that finding, the percentage of Americans who believe it’s important for the U.S. to be more engaged and take the lead in international events is on the rise, up 12 points in the last six months. A majority, 54%, expressed support for a more engaged U.S. foreign policy, up from 42% in November. The latest figure includes 66% of Democrats and 49% of Republicans. ZELENSKYY APPEALS FOR AID, INVESTMENT IN ENERGY SECTOR AT UKRAINE RECOVERY CONFERENCE IN BERLIN “From this year’s Reagan Institute summer survey, we’re seeing an uptick in the numbers of Americans who really want to see and are seeking policies that reflect American leadership in the world, that reflects President Reagan’s principles of leadership, of strength on the global stage when it comes to the chaos and conflict that we’re seeing around the world,” Rachel Hoff, the policy director at the Ronald Reagan Institute, told Fox News Digital. “The number of Americans seeking American leadership and engagement is at a five-year high,” she added. Most Americans also said they believe U.S. involvement in international events is beneficial for both the United States (57%) and the world (61%). Over three-fourths, 78%, of respondents indicated they agree that U.S. leadership and engagement in international affairs is “essential” for boosting the economy and securing favorable trade arrangements. A similar amount of Americans, 77%, indicated they believe it is important for the U.S. to stand up for human rights and democracy around the world, while 86% indicated it was important for the U.S. to maintain a strong military that can maintain peace and prosperity both at home and around the world. The poll comes amid continued debate over how involved the U.S. should be in defending Ukraine amid its war with Russia, with some arguing that the billions of dollars spent equipping the Ukrainian military would be better spent on domestic issues. Down two percent since the same Reagan Institute survey last summer, 57% of Americans said they support sending military aid to Ukraine, compared to 32% who oppose it. Another 11% indicated they were unsure. Americans also believe it is in the best interest of the U.S. that Ukraine win its conflict against Russia, with 75% saying it is important Ukraine win compared to 17% who indicated it was unimportant. There was no change in those percentages compared to last year’s survey. Hoffman said the Reagan Institute’s data on Ukraine has stayed “remarkably consistent over time.” “So we started asking questions about Ukraine, about American support and military aid for Ukraine’s efforts in their war against the Russian invasion, and those numbers have not shifted at all since 2022,” she said. “Even with all the debate and discussion that we’re seeing in the media and on Capitol Hill about aid to Ukraine and the really important conversations that policy leaders are having, it’s really important to remember and recognize that the American people, in the middle of all those conversations, have made clear that they want to continue supporting America’s allies and our friends around the world that are standing up against aggression… and they want to do that by sending U.S. military aid to Ukraine.” ISRAELI-DEPLOYED AI IN GAZA LIKELY HELPS IDF REDUCE CIVILIAN CASUALTIES, EXPERT SAYS The survey also found that Americans believe Israel — a war-torn country that responded forcefully to the October 7, 2023, invasion by Hamas militants — should be supported by the U.S. “Both Republicans and Democrats, in large numbers, want to support Israel in its fight against the Hamas terrorists in the Middle East,” Hoff said. A majority of Americans, 56%, said they support sending aid to Israel, compared to 35% who said they oppose the effort. Another 68% said they support the U.S. sending missile defense systems to Israel to “help it defend against” drone or missile attacks. “I think the more we drill down into what the American people want our government to be doing to support our allies and friends around the world, to push back on tyranny and terrorism and to support those fighting for freedom and democracy, those numbers only rise,” Hoff said. Fifty-five percent of those surveyed also said they would support an Israeli counterattack against continued Iranian aggression, while 31% said they would oppose it. Three-quarters of Americans, 75%, said they were concerned about humanitarian conditions in Gaza. Seventy-four percent said they believe Israel’s war with Hamas matters to U.S. security and prosperity, compared to 73% who said the same for Ukraine’s war with Russia. Americans also indicated concern over Chinese military build-up, with 82% saying they are “extremely” or “somewhat” concerned. Other findings related to China included concern over the communist nation’s human rights violations (83%), technology theft (83%), overtaking the U.S. as the world’s superpower (75%), and the isolation of Taiwan (68%). Based off previous Reagan Institute surveys, Hoff said public opinion on China “has been moving and shifting significantly over time” and that there’s an increasing number of Americans who are “seeing China as an adversary.” “They’re concerned about, technology theft, economic practices, human rights abuses, abuses of the Chinese Communist Party, and they’re concerned about the Chinese military buildup,” she said. A slim majority, 51%, said they believe the social media app TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese company that is closely connected to the Chinese government, should be banned in the U.S. Another 39% percent said they oppose a ban of the app, while 10% said they were unsure.
England, Serbia fans clash ahead of Euro 2024 football game
England play Serbia in Group C of the UEFA European Football Championship in Germany. Police have rushed to separate brawling football fans ahead of the match between England and Serbia at the Euro 2024 football tournament in Germany. On Sunday, social media footage showed men throwing chairs at each other outside a restaurant festooned with Serbian flags in the western city of Gelsenkirchen. One group beat a hasty retreat as riot police arrived and wrestled at least one man to the ground. A Serbian fan told The Associated Press that a group of people had thrown glasses and stones at the area outside a downtown bar where he and others were sitting together drinking beer. “There was a clash and we are fine. So that’s it, we are going to the game, we hope we will win. This is about football,” said the man, who identified himself only as Vladimir and said he was from the Serbian capital Belgrade. Reporters who arrived shortly after the incident found the street littered with broken glass and tables as several dozen police officers stood by. The match on Sunday evening between England and Serbia has been tagged “high risk” by police over concerns over potential fan violence. “So far what ‘high risk’ means practically is that lower-alcohol drinks will be sold and no alcohol at all can be drunk inside the stands in the stadium,” Al Jazeera’s Dominic Kane said, reporting from Munich. Only low-alcohol beer is being served in the Gelsenkirchen stadium in an attempt to reduce the potential for problems. “One complicating factor is that UEFA, the parent organisation of these championships, has said that the barriers inside the stadium have to be removed … that suggests the English and Serbian fans could be intermingling inside the stadium,” Kane noted, adding that the German police have been putting in a lot of effort to prevent such hooligan scuffles. About 20,000 England fans and 10,000 from Serbia are expected to converge on the city for the game. The match will be played at Arena AufSchalke and starts at 9pm local time (19:00 GMT). Adblock test (Why?)
Netanyahu opposed to Israeli military ‘tactical pauses’ for Gaza aid
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is opposed to plans announced by the military to hold daily tactical pauses in fighting along one of the main roads into the besieged and bombarded Gaza Strip to facilitate aid delivery into the Palestinian enclave. The military had announced the daily pauses from 05:00 GMT until 16:00 GMT in the area from the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing to the Salah al-Din Road and then northwards. “When the prime minister heard the reports of an 11-hour humanitarian pause in the morning, he turned to his military secretary and made it clear that this was unacceptable to him,” an Israeli official told the Reuters news agency. The military clarified that normal operations would continue in Rafah, the main focus of its ongoing assault in southern Gaza, where eight soldiers were killed on Saturday. Israel forces razed homes in the area and attacks there continued on Sunday, despite it being the first day of Eid al-Adha, the most important Muslim celebration of the year. An Israeli attack on two homes in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza killed nine people, including six children, according to the Palestinian state news agency Wafa. Meanwhile, at least two Palestinians in Rafah’s western Tal as-Sultan neighbourhood were killed in another Israeli attack, which the military followed up by targeting an ambulance trying to reach the victims, according to Al Jazeera Arabic’s correspondents on the ground. The Israeli military also announced the death of three soldiers, two of them reservists, in fighting on Sunday. Divisions among government, army Netanyahu’s opposition to the tactical pauses underlined political tensions over the issue of aid coming into Gaza, where international organisations have warned of a growing humanitarian crisis and looming famine. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who leads one of the far-tight nationalist religious parties in Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, denounced the idea of a tactical pause, saying whoever decided it was a “fool” who should lose their job. Far-right government ministers want to slash aid coming into Gaza further, even though it has been largely cut since Israel took over the vital Rafah border crossing. And for months, right-wing Israelis have been protesting and blocking roads to prevent aid shipments from reaching Gaza, further straining the flow of desperately needed aid to the territory. Prior to the May 6 seizure of the crossing, there was already an inadequate flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, especially into northern Gaza where famine has already taken hold. The spat was the latest in a series of clashes between members of the coalition and the military over the conduct of the assault on Gaza, now in its ninth month. It came a week after centrist former general Benny Gantz quit the government, accusing Netanyahu of having no effective strategy in Gaza. The divisions were laid bare last week in a parliamentary vote on a law on conscripting ultra-Orthodox Jews into the military, with Defence Minister Yoav Gallant voting against it in defiance of party orders, saying it was insufficient for the needs of the military. Religious parties in the coalition have strongly opposed conscription for the ultra-Orthodox, drawing widespread anger from many Israelis, which has deepened as the war has gone on. Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevi, the head of the military, said on Sunday that there was a “definite need” to recruit more soldiers from the fast-growing ultra-Orthodox community. Despite growing international pressure for a lasting ceasefire, an agreement to halt the fighting still appears distant, more than eight months since October 7, when Israel unleashed its most ruthless offensive in Gaza following Hamas attacks into southern Israel. Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 37,300 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health ministry figures, and destroyed much of the enclave. Although opinion polls suggest most Israelis support the government’s aim of destroying Hamas, there have been widespread protests attacking the government for not doing more to bring home around 120 captives who have been held by Hamas in Gaza since October 7. As fighting in Gaza has continued, a lower-level conflict across the Israel-Lebanon border is now threatening to spiral into a wider war as near-daily exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and the Iran-backed Hezbollah group have escalated. In a further sign that fighting in Gaza could drag on, Netanyahu’s government said on Sunday that it was extending until August 15 the period it would fund hotels and guest houses for residents evacuated from southern Israeli border towns. Adblock test (Why?)
Al-Qaeda affiliate claims responsibility for June attack in Burkina Faso
The attack on June 11 was one of the deadliest suffered by the West African nation’s army. An armed group linked to al-Qaeda, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), has claimed responsibility for what it said was an attack on June 11 that killed more than 100 Burkina Faso soldiers in the Mansila area near the border with Niger, the SITE Intelligence Group said. On Sunday, SITE quoted a JNIM statement as saying that five days ago “fighters stormed a military post in the town, where they killed 107 soldiers and took control of the site”. Several videos shared online by JNIM showed raging gunfire around the army base. Another video showed a display of ammunition and dozens of weapons, and at least seven captured Burkina Faso soldiers. June’s reported attack has been one of the deadliest suffered by the West African Sahel nation’s army. Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel programme at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, told Al Jazeera that the government is trying to fight the armed groups but has not recruited professional soldiers to do so. “They recruited 50,000 volunteers, many of whom got only a short period of training. So they’re kind of vulnerable to losses and it is not very efficient, unfortunately. Almost every day now, there are incidents like this,” he said. “Right now you have 50-60 percent of [Burkina Faso’s] territory which is outside government control … The government is trying hard, they’re buying weapons, they have a military partnership with Russia but they’re not very successful.” Niger and Mali are also struggling to contain fighting linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS). The unrest is also threatening the stability of the Sahel region as the armed groups, who control swathes of territories in Burkina Faso and Mali, use them as bases to target southern coastal countries. Laessing noted that while Mali and Niger have similar problems, their countries are much bigger. “Burkina Faso is the smallest of the three and very densely populated … Whenever the army attacks, you have many more civilian victims, that makes it so brutal,” he said. Over more than a decade, armed groups have killed thousands and displaced more than two million in Burkina Faso. Moreover, the country has topped the recent Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) list of the world’s most neglected displacement crises. The violence killed more than 8,400 people last year, double the number of deaths from the previous year, according to the NRC. About two million civilians were trapped in 36 blockaded towns across Burkina Faso by the end of 2023. Adblock test (Why?)
Centre’s strict warning to its employees on tardiness, suggests live location detection system for…
It said half a day’s Casual Leave (CL) should be debited for each day of late attendance. Check details below:
Trump resurrects Biden’s ‘devastating’ 1994 crime bill as he courts Black Detroit voters: ‘Super predators’
Former President Trump courted Black voters in Detroit Saturday, when he raised President Biden’s authorship of the 1994 crime bill, which remains a sore point after three decades. Headlining a roundtable discussion at the predominantly Black 180 Church as his campaign was announcing the launch of a Black voter coalition, Trump noted that rising crime rates hurt his audience’s community the most. “Look, the crime is most rampant right here and in African American communities,” Trump said Saturday in Detroit. “More people see me, and they say, ‘Sir, we want protection. We want police to protect us. We don’t want to get robbed and mugged and beat up or killed because we want to walk across the street to buy a loaf of bread.’” Trump took aim at Biden and the Biden-Harris campaign during his remarks, recalling how Biden, as a senator in 1994, authored the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which Biden has since called a “mistake.” BIDEN CALLS SUPPORTING 1994 CRIME BILL A ‘MISTAKE’ DURING ABC TOWN HALL “Biden wrote the devastating 1994 crime bill, talking about ‘super predators.’ That was Biden. You know, he walks around now talking about the Black vote. He’s the king of the ‘super predators,’” Trump said during the event. Biden authored the Senate’s version of the bill when he served as a senator from Delaware. Signed into law by President Clinton, the bill has been blamed for mass incarceration that disproportionately affected the Black community. BIDEN’S SENATE RECORD, ADVOCACY OF 1994 CRIME BILL WILL BE USED AGAINST HIM, EX-SANDERS STAFFER SAYS The bill’s passage came on the heels of the crack cocaine epidemic that throttled Black communities in the 1980s and early 1990s. BIDEN, IN 1992, TOUTED CRIME BILL DOES ‘EVERYTHING BUT HANG PEOPLE FOR JAYWALKING’ Biden had a long history of authoring legislation viewed at the time as tough on crime but now seen as controversial and contributing to the spike in America’s incarceration rates. As the consumption of crack cocaine spiraled in the 1980s, for example, Biden co-sponsored another bill that soon became controversial, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. That legislation, which was signed into law by President Reagan, established harsher sentencing penalties for possession of crack cocaine than the drug’s powder form. Crack cocaine and cocaine have a similar chemical makeup, but Black Americans disproportionately used crack cocaine compared to their White counterparts, leading to an outcry that the bill unfairly targeted Black Americans. Biden has since distanced himself from the 1986 and 1994 legislation, saying of the 1986 drug bill that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions,” The Washington Post reported in 2019. He added ahead of the 2020 election that the 1994 crime bill was a “mistake” due to its effect on the Black community. DETROIT PASTOR WELCOMES TRUMP REACHING OUT TO BLACK VOTERS, SAYS BIDEN ‘HAS FORGOTTEN WHY HE’S IN OFFICE’ Trump in his comments suggested Biden referred to criminals in the 1990s as “super predators.” Biden did refer to criminals in that era as “predators” who were “beyond the pale,” but the specific phrase “super predators” was not used by Biden. Instead, first lady Hillary Clinton used the phrase in 1996 while speaking favorably of the legislation signed into law by her husband in 1994 and has since apologized for the phrase. ”Just as in a previous generation, we had an organized effort against the mob. We need to take these people on,” she said at the time. “They are often connected to big drug cartels; they are not just gangs of kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids that are called super predators. No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel.” NEW POLL REVEALS DEMS ARE LOSING SIGNIFICANT SUPPORT FROM THESE 2 KEY DEMOGRAPHICS: ‘ESPECIALLY CONCERNING’ Amid Clinton’s failed bid for the White House against Trump in 2016, a Black Lives Matter activist confronted her about the phrase, prompting the former secretary of state to walk back the comment. “Looking back, I shouldn’t have used those words, and I wouldn’t use them today,” Clinton told The Washington Post in 2016. TRUMP ENLISTS PROMINENT BLACK REPUBLICANS TO APPEAL TO THEIR PEERS: ‘FISHING WHERE THE FISH ARE’ Trump’s pitch to Black voters in Detroit comes as polling indicates Trump is gaining popularity among the voting bloc. Last month on CNN, a data analyst appeared stunned as the network explained Trump’s support among Black voters more than doubled to 22% compared to 2020, while Biden saw a 12% drop. Overall, Biden still holds a strong lead over Trump among Black voters. Biden won Michigan by three points in the 2020 election, but recent New York Times polling conducted in six battleground states last month found Trump leading in a handful of key states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada. The poll, published last month, found Biden holds more favorability in one battleground state — Wisconsin. BIDEN CAMPAIGN ‘RATTLED’ AS PRESIDENT ‘HEMORRHAGES VOTES’ IN BLACK COMMUNITY TO TRUMP, SAYS REP. HUNT Following the roundtable discussion, the Biden-Harris campaign hit back that the 45th president’s audience at the church was “noticeably empty and white” and that his “eleventh hour” outreach to Black voters “isn’t fooling anyone.” “Donald Trump thinks the fact that he has ‘many Black friends’ excuses an entire lifetime of denigrating and disrespecting Black Americans, but Black voters know better — and Trump’s eleventh hour attempt at Black ‘outreach’ isn’t fooling anyone,” Biden-Harris 2024 Director of Black Media Jasmine Harris said in a press release. “Black voters haven’t forgotten that this man entered public life calling for the death penalty for the innocent Central Park 5 and entered political life spreading racist conspiracy theories about Barack Obama. We haven’t forgotten that Black unemployment and uninsured rates skyrocketed when Trump was in the White House. And we sure haven’t forgotten Trump repeatedly cozying up to white supremacists and demonizing Black communities to his
Pentagon shoots down concerns over Chinese solar panels
The Department of Defense is rejecting recent concerns that a project to install solar panels on the roof of the Pentagon and other installations would use Chinese materials. The Pentagon pushback came after Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin penned a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin last week expressing concerns that a $104 million, taxpayer-funded plan to add solar panels to the Pentagon and other installations would make use of Chinese materials, which the governor warned would have “significant implications for U.S. national security.” “The DOD will not be installing Chinese-manufactured solar panels on the Pentagon,” a Pentagon spokesperson told Fox News Digital. “The Department adheres to the requirements of the Buy American Act in making clean energy, energy efficiency, and clean energy procurement decisions.” YOUNGKIN CALLS OUT PENTAGON’S PLAN TO GIFT CHINA MILLIONS WITH ROOFTOP SOLAR PANELS Youngkin’s letter came in response to a January Department of Defense announcement on the planned project, which the Pentagon said was part of the Biden administration’s effort to promote clean energy and “reestablish the federal government as a sustainability leader.” In addition to the Pentagon, 30 other Defense Department sites were slated to receive the panels, including military installations like the U.S. Army Garrison in Wiesbaden, Germany. Youngkin shared his concerns with that plan, noting “companies highly influenced or controlled by the CCP dominate the global solar supply chain,” making it necessary the U.S. “require that military procurements for solar panels must come from verified domestic manufacturers with trusted supply chains.” PENTAGON TO INSTALL SOLAR PANELS ON ROOFTOP AS PART OF BIDEN CLEAN ENERGY PUSH But the Pentagon made clear in its response that it would be following the Buy American Act, telling Fox News Digital it has a “rigorous and extensive oversight process to ensure compliance with the law, domestic preference and trade agreement partner statutes implemented by the Federal Acquisition Regulation and for DOD, the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement.” “Looking to the future, the Department is leveraging its considerable purchasing power to support the ability of the U.S. carbon pollution free energy industry and related allied commercial supply chains to rapidly grow and provide resilient, diversified, clean energy generation to support our warfighters,” the Pentagon spokesperson said. A spokesperson for Youngkin’s office welcomed the news, saying the governor is “pleased that Secretary Austin will follow his recommendations to adopt the ‘Made in America’ requirements for procuring Chinese solar panels.” “It’s essential that we recognize China’s objective to dominate the world at America’s expense, and it’s critical for America to decouple its renewable energy sector from China and achieve energy independence to safeguard our national security,” the spokesperson said.
NEET-UG 2024 exam row: Bihar Police recovers 6 post-dated cheques ‘issued for question paper facilitators’
The EOU has so far arrested 13 people, including four examinees and their family members, in connection with the alleged NEET-UG 2024 paper leak case. All accused belong to Bihar, said the DIG.