TEHRAN, Dec. 02 (MNA) – A senior member of the Supreme Political Council of Yemen says the Arab nation’s guns are aimed at the Zionist regime, which he called the “real enemy”.
NIA raids 4 states, busts fake currency racket seizing fake notes
The anti-terror agency carried out these searches in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Bihar
Published Date – 06:42 PM, Sat – 2 December 23
File Photo
New Delhi: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) searched four states on Saturday and busted fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN) rackets being carried out in various parts of the country by seizing fake notes, currency printing paper, printer and digital gadgets.
The anti-terror agency carried out these searches in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Bihar as part of its investigation into a case registered on November 24 this year under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
“The case relates to a larger conspiracy hatched by suspected individuals for the trafficking of FICN across borders and for promoting its circulation across various states of India,” said the NIA.
Based on credible information, the NIA teams cracked down at the premises of accused Rahul Tanaji Patil alias Javed in Kolhapur district of Maharashtra, Vivek Thakur alias Aditya Singh in Shahjahanpur district of Uttar Pradesh, Mahendra in Ballari district of Karnataka, and suspects Shiva Patil alias Bhimrav in Yavatmal district of Maharashtra and Shashi Bhushan in Rohtas district of Bihar.
The searches led to the seizure of FICN of a face value of Rs 6,600 (in denominations of Rs 500, Rs 200 and Rs 100), along with currency printing papers, from the house of Vivek Thakur. He, along with Shiva Patil and others, used to procure fake currency and its printing accessories from the bordering countries for circulation across India, said the NIA.
NIA investigations further revealed that Rahul Tanaji Patil was using fraudulently obtained SIM cards to take payments by promising to supply fake currency notes, said the agency, adding that “the search at Mahender’s house led to the seizure of a printer meant to be used for FICN.”
More demonstrations for Palestine held in Italy
Aquino Squadron bags Commandant’s Banner at AFA Dundigal
According to a press release, the ‘Commandant’s Banner’ is conferred to the Squadron, based on overall performance in various Inter-Squadron competitions.
Published Date – 07:00 PM, Sat – 2 December 23
Hyderabad: Aquino Squadron bagged the Commandant’s Banner at Air Force Academy (AFA), Dundigal on Saturday. According to a press release, the ‘Commandant’s Banner’ is conferred to the Squadron, based on overall performance in various Inter-Squadron competitions including sports, debate, quiz, cross country, drill and academics that are conducted as part of the training of Flight Cadets during the term.
The winning Squadron is called the ‘Champion Squadron’ and the Cadets of this Squadron have the privilege of wearing a lanyard on the right shoulder over the uniform during the next semester.
Air Force Academy (AFA), the premier training establishment of the Indian Air Force (IAF), is the cradle of training for cadets of flying and ground duty branches and technical officers of IAF.
The Autumn Term 2023 commenced in July this year and the Flight Cadets were divided into six squadrons. In order to foster the spirit of camaraderie, leadership and sportsmanship, various competitions are organized throughout the training period.
The Inter-Squadron Drill competition marks the culmination of these competitions the Flight Cadets, in their smart uniforms presented a spectacular March-Past in synchrony with ‘Martial’ tunes played by the IAF Band.
Air Marshal S Shrinivas, Vishisht Seva Medal, Commandant, AFA presented trophies to the winners of various competitions and the coveted ‘Commandant’s Banner’ for Autumn Term 2023 to Prachi Sharma, the Squadron Cadet Adjutant (SCA).
Lionel Messi opens up on his retirement plan, says anything can happen before next ‘Football Fiesta’
I’m not thinking about the World Cup and I’m not saying 100 per cent that I won’t be there because anything can happen. Because of my age, the most normal thing is that I won’t be there. Then we’ll see, said Messi
Published Date – 07:00 PM, Sat – 2 December 23
File Photo
Buenos Aires: Argentine superstar Lionel Messi opened up on his chances of playing in the upcoming FIFA World Cup 2026 and said that anything can happen before the next ‘Football Fiesta’.
While speaking in an interview with Argentina’s Star+, the eight-time Ballon d’Or said that he is not currently thinking about the World Cup.
The 36-year-old added that at his age the normal thing will be not taking part in the forthcoming prestigious tournament, but still, he will see.
“I’m not thinking about the World Cup and I’m not saying 100 per cent that I won’t be there because anything can happen. Because of my age, the most normal thing is that I won’t be there. Then we’ll see,” Messi said.
The World Cup-winning captain accepted that the next Copa America 2024 will be difficult. He added that he will contribute to ‘La Albiceleste’ till the time he feels well.
“Maybe we’ll do well at the Copa America and everything will work out for us to continue. Maybe not. Realistically it’s difficult. As long as I feel I’m well and can continue to contribute, I’m going to do it. Today all I’m thinking about is getting to the Copa America. After that, time will tell if I’m there or not,” he added.
The Inter Miami footballer further spoke up on his retirement plans and said that he wants to be with the team more than ever after winning the previous World Cup with Argentina.
“I’m going to arrive at an age that, normally, doesn’t allow me to play in the World Cup. I said I don’t think I’m going to be there. It looked like after the World Cup I was retiring and it was the opposite. Now I want to be there more than ever,” he further added.
Earlier, Messi was crowned with the prestigious Ballon d’Or award for the eighth time in his decorated career, an award that serves as a reminder of his brilliance as he reaches the final moments of his career.
Pakistan Selector "Was Locked Up For Match Fixing": Ex-PCB Chief On Butt
The Pakistan cricket team has seen several changes in the last few weeks after a disappointing Cricket World Cup 2023 campaign. Skipper Babar Azam resgined from his post while Shan Masood was named as the new Pakistan cricket team Test captain. Pacer Shaheen Afridi has taken over the reins of the T20I Team. There have been change of personnel too with a new selection panel in place.
Former Pakistan pacer Wahab Riaz was named the chief selector and former Pakistan captain Salman Butt, along with Kamran Akmal and Rao Iftikhar Anjum, were named as consultant member to the selection panel.
The appointments have left former Pakistan captain and Pakistan Cricket Board chief Ramiz Raja unimpressed.
“It’s insane…” he told Cricbuzz after the appointments. “It’s insane to have a selection committee consisting of a member whose decision can be termed as a display of filial affection or non-affection and another who was locked up for match fixing.”
Salman Butt, along with Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif, earlier served lengthy suspensions for being involved in spot-fixing.
According to a PCB release: “The three have assumed their responsibilities in the selection panel with immediate effect. Their first assignment as consultant members to the chief selector includes the upcoming five-match T20I series against New Zealand, set to commence on 12 January 2024 following the conclusion of the Test tour to Australia.”
Ramiz recently didn’t mince words while slamming Pakistan bowlers’ show at the Cricket World Cup 2023 and the Pakistan Cricket Board.
“Jab naye ball pe aap out nahi karenge, jab aap expensive se expensive hote jayenge toh Babar Azam kya khaak kapataani karega (When bowlers would not take wickets with the new ball and start getting more and more expensive, how would Babar Azam do captaincy then?),” Ramiz said on his YouTube channel.
“And then they (PCB) would gather some ex-cricketers and ask them how to fix cricket? Who put them in charge (of the board)? Is their job just to huddle together and change the captain and the coaching staff and think they have taken a major step?” asked Raja.
Ramiz (61), a former Pakistan captain and a former PCB chairman, said.
Topics mentioned in this article
Nagarjuna Sagar row: Jal Shakti Ministry to hold high-level meeting on Dec 6
The meeting convened by the Secretary, Department of Water Resources, will be held virtually with the Chief Secretaries, Irrigation Secretaries and DGPs of Telangana and AP along with representatives of the CWC and KRMB
Published Date – 06:54 PM, Sat – 2 December 23
Hyderabad: A high-level meeting will be held by the Ministry of Jal Shakti on December 6 to discuss issues over sharing of Krishna river waters and management of joint projects of the States of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in the basin including Nagarjuna Sagar and Srisailam.
The meeting convened by the Secretary, Department of Water Resources, will be held virtually with the Chief Secretaries, Irrigation Secretaries and DGPs of Telangana and AP along with representatives of the Central Water Commission and Krishna River Management Board.
The Secretary of Water Resources, Debashree Mukherjee, who had reportedly asked for reports from the stakeholder agencies on the situation prevailing at the Nagarjuna Sagar Project following its occupation by armed forces deployed by AP, wanted to have the first round of talks with the officials of the two States in the day.
But the Chief Secretary of Telangana, A Santhi Kumari, has requested for rescheduling the meeting after December 5, since she and her officials had a hectic schedule in the day because of preparations in progress for counting of votes due on Sunday. Mukherjee however had talks with the Chief Secretary of AP, Jawahar Reddy and reviewed the developments.
In a last minute intervention, Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla had a video conference with officials of the two States on Friday and discussed the fall out of the dam occupation by AP forces . His message was loud and clear on the issue. He wanted AP to withdraw its forces making way for deployment of the CRPF at the dam. He also directed officials of both the states to help restore status quo as on November 28 to restore normality. Endorsing the stand of the Home secretary, the Secretary for Water Resources assured AP that she would help resolve all issues to end the stalemate. She wanted both the states to exercise restraint.
KRMB meeting on Dec 4
On the water indent given by AP seeking additional releases, Secretary of Water Resources directed the KRMB Chairman Sivanandan to hold a meeting of the Board on December 4 to take call on the indents of both the states. She assured the riparian states that the Central government would help resolve all issues related water sharing and ensure justice to both sides.
All set for CRPF deployment
Two battalions of the CRPF reached the project site on Saturday morning and two more battalions were on the way, according to the project officials. Despite the directions of the Home Secretary for the immediate withdrawal of the AP Police from the dam, they continued to be in possession of vantage points of the project including the right canal head regulator till late in the evening .
The AP government had lodged a complaint against officials of Telangana State who were in operational control of the Dam. The complaint was viewed as a tit-for-tat reaction of AP authorities in response to the complaint lodged by Telangana officials against AP police who went on the rampage destroying the CCTV cameras and other equipment at the dam office before their forcible occupation of the dam on November 29.
More details:
TS seeks rescheduling of high level meeting after Dec 5
KRMB to meet on December 4 to discuss fresh water indents
Stage set for deployment of four battalions of CRPF at the dam
AP lodges complaint with police against TS officials
Secretary water resources urges TS and AP for restraint
Iran decries US green light for renewed Israeli war on Gaza
In a post on his X account on Saturday, Nasser Kan’ani deplored the renewal of Israel’s “brutal military attacks” on Gaza, which have killed around 200 people and injured 600 others during only 24 hours after a week-long ceasefire.
He said the Israeli strikes, which have resumed with the green light given by the US, add to an endless litany of war crimes, infanticide and genocide that have resulted in the gruesome killing of over 16,000 Palestinians during 48 days.
“This amounts to a major moral scandal for the US government and has shown the true face of American human rights to the world,” Kan’ani stated.
The Israeli regime has renewed the bombardment of Gaza, hitting areas across the enclave after the end of a week-long truce.
UN humanitarian chief has again called for a ceasefire in Gaza, saying Palestinians in the besieged territory are “surrounded by disease, destruction and death”.
More than 15,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7.
SD/TSN
Israel Hits Over 400 Targets In Gaza After Truce Ends, 240 Killed
Israel and Hamas have blamed each other for the breakdown of the truce
Palestinian Territories:
Israel brushed off international calls to renew an expired truce Saturday and pushed on with its devastating bombing campaign against Hamas in densely-inhabited Gaza.
Smoke again clouded the sky over the north of the Palestinian territory, whose Hamas government said 240 people had been killed since a pause in hostilities expired early Friday and combat resumed.
According to the United Nations, an estimated 1.7 million people in Gaza — around 80 percent of the population — have been displaced by eight weeks of war.
Fadel Naim, chief doctor at the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, told AFP that his morgue had received 30 bodies since the morning, including seven children.
“The planes bombed our houses: three bombs, three houses destroyed,” Nemr al-Bel, 43, told AFP, adding that he had counted 10 dead in his family and “13 more still under the rubble”.
The population is short of food, water and other essentials, and many homes have been destroyed. UN agencies have declared a humanitarian catastrophe, although some aid trucks did arrive Saturday.
After the truce between Israel and Hamas expired on Friday, Israel had told NGOs not to bring aid convoys across the Rafah border crossing from Egypt, the Palestine Red Crescent Society had said.
But on Saturday, in a social media post, the charity said its Egyptian colleagues had managed to send over a number of trucks.
Both sides blamed each other for the breakdown of the truce, which had enabled the release of 80 Israeli hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
During an unprecedented attack on October 7, Hamas fighters broke through Gaza’s militarised border into Israel, killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 240 Israelis and foreigners hostage, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel vowed to eliminate Hamas in response and unleashed an air and ground campaign that has killed more than 15,000 people, also mostly civilians, the Hamas authorities who run Gaza say.
Since the end of the pause, Israel’s air, naval and ground forces have attacked more than 400 targets in Gaza, the army said on Saturday. The figure is roughly in line with the daily average number of strikes prior to the pause, according to military figures released previously.
Warplanes hit “more than 50 targets in an extensive attack in the Khan Yunis area” of Gaza’s south, the military added.
Separately, members of an Israeli armoured brigade “eliminated terrorist squads and directed fire against terrorist targets in the north of the Gaza Strip”, the military said.
Since the truce expired, Hamas has fired rockets from Gaza towards Israel.
International leaders and humanitarian groups condemned the return to fighting.
“I deeply regret that military operations have started again in Gaza,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on X, formerly Twitter.
“Today, in a matter of hours, scores were reportedly killed and injured,” UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said. “Families were told to evacuate, again. Hopes were dashed.”
Fighting also resumed on Israel’s northern border.
The Lebanese group Hezbollah, which like Hamas is backed by Iran, said two of its members were killed Friday in Israeli strikes on Lebanon, as its fighters resumed attacks against Israeli targets following the end of the truce.
Israel’s military said its artillery struck the sources of “launches” from Lebanon.
Syria said Israel carried out air strikes near Damascus on Saturday. A British-based war monitor said the strikes on “Hezbollah sites” killed two Syrian pro-Hezbollah fighters.
Hamas in October last year said it had restored relations with Syria’s government. Israeli attacks on targets in Syria have intensified since the Israel-Hamas war began.
Despite the resumption of deadly fighting, efforts to reach another truce went on.
“We’re going to continue to work with Israel and Egypt and Qatar on efforts to reimplement the pause,” United States Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Friday.
The week of hostage-prisoner exchanges yielded tearful reunions of Israeli families with their released relatives and jubilation in the streets of the Israeli-occupied West Bank as Palestinians walked free from Israeli jails.
Twenty-five other hostages, mostly Thais, were also freed in separate arrangements.
The Israeli army said Friday that five more captives had died, bringing the total number to seven, and 136 were still being held, including 17 women and children.
The end of the pause meant bitter disappointment for the families of those still not freed.
“We saw a chance for people to come out, be reunited with their families and resume their old lives,” said Ilan Zharia, the uncle of Eden Yerushalmi, 20, one of the women still not freed.
Romania said it had been told by Israel that a Romanian-Israel hostage had died in Gaza.
In Khan Yunis on Saturday, the morgue at Nasser hospital was full again, and among the dead was Jumana Said’s son Mohammad, 19. Said grieved along with her daughter, Joan.
“Why was my brother, who had nothing to do with militant groups, killed?” Joan cried. “What did we do? They want Hamas? What does that have to do with us?”
Thousands of children had been killed in Gaza before the truce.
The Israeli military published a map of “evacuation zones” in Gaza that it said would enable residents to move “from specific places for their safety if required”.
Residents in various areas of Gaza were sent SMS messages on Friday warning that “a crushing military attack on your area” was coming, with the aim of eliminating Hamas.
But the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) questioned the usefulness of the map, which it said does not specify where people should go.
“It is unclear how those residing in Gaza would access the map without electricity and amid recurrent telecommunications cuts,” OCHA added.
Among those killed on Friday were three journalists, Gaza’s Hamas rulers said.
Turkey’s Anadolu state news agency confirmed the death of cameraman Muntassir al-Sawwaf and two others whom it did not name.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Senior Maoist couple arrested in Mancherial
An accused sympathizer, Chippakurthi Srinivas from Penchikalpet mandal in Kumram Bheem Asifabad, was still at large, the Commissioiner said.
Published Date – 06:37 PM, Sat – 2 December 23
Commissioner of Police Rema Rajeshwari briefs details of the arrests to pressmen in Ramagundam on Saturday
Mancherial: A senior Maoist couple was arrested at Indaram village in Jaipur mandal on Saturday. Fake Aadhar cards, bank account books, an ATM card, two mobile phones and cash of Rs 1.57 lakh apart from documents relating to Maoist meetings were allegedly seized from them.
Ramagundam Commissioner Rema Rajeshwari said Donga Gangadhar Rao (80) alias Narsanna alias Bakkanna alias Vengo Dada and his wife Bhavani (60) alias Sujata alias Shayamala alias Laxmi, both from Delta Gannavaram mandal of Ambedkar Konaseema district were apprehended by a special team, following a tip. Gangadhara Rao was a member of the technical wing of the CPI (Maoist) Dandakarnya Special Zonal Committee.
An accused sympathizer, Chippakurthi Srinivas from Penchikalpet mandal in Kumram Bheem Asifabad, was still at large, the Commissioiner said. The couple were allegedly involved in Maoist activities in Telangana, Chattisgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand with the help of Srinivas, as per instructions of central committee member Chandranna, she said, adding that Gangadhara Rao was a manufacturer of weapons, while Bhavani was in Indaram to strengthen the outfit, raise funds and so on.
The couple, who allegedly created fake Aadhar cards and constructed a small house in Indaram a few months back, had occasionally participated in meetings of the party in Sironcha of Maharashtra, the police said.
Rao joined the party in 1980 and the couple has a daughter. A search was launched to nab Srinivas.
