Al-Anzi and his entourage paid a visit to Esteghlal FC camp on Monday and held talks with the directors of the football club.
The Saudi ambassador and CEO of Esteghlal FC Ali Khatir discussed issues relating to football affairs.
Esteghlal FC is one of the oldest football clubs in Asia and has faced several teams from Saudi Arabia on different occasions.
MNA/IRN
An SJTA official said devotees will be required to wear “decent clothes” to enter the shrine. Devotees wearing half pants, shorts, torn jeans, skirts and sleeveless dresses will not be allowed to enter the temple.
Published Date – 04:53 PM, Mon – 1 January 24
Puri: The administration of Shree Jagannath Temple on Monday made dress code mandatory for devotees wishing to enter the 12th century shrine. It also put a complete ban on chewing gutkha and pan in the shrine premises and use of plastic and polythene from the New Year’s day of 2024.
An SJTA official said devotees will be required to wear “decent clothes” to enter the shrine. Devotees wearing half pants, shorts, torn jeans, skirts and sleeveless dresses will not be allowed to enter the temple.
With the rule coming into effect male devotees coming to the temple on the first day of 2024 were seen wearing dhoti and towels and women were clad in either sarees or salwar kameez as they thronged to have a darshan of the deity.
The Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) had earlier issued an order to the effect and the police were asked to enforce the restrictions. The official said the ban on gutkha and pan in the temple premises was being implemented to maintain its sanctity. Those who violate the restriction are being fined, he added.
Meanwhile, a large number of devotees have thronged the seaside pilgrim city to have a darshan of Lord Jagannath on New Year’s day. The temple doors reopened for the devotees, who have queued up at the Grand Road in front of it, at 1.40 am.
“More than 1,80,000 devotees have visited @JagannathaDhaam till 12 noon (on Monday). Along with ensuring hassle free darshan, police are ensuring facilitation of specially-abled devotees,” Puri police Samarth Verma said in a X post.
The SJTA and police have made elaborate arrangements for smooth darshan by the devotees. An air-conditioned tensile fabric structure built outside the temple was made functional for devotees from Monday morning.
Facilities such as drinking water and public toilets have been made available at the structure, which has also been equipped with CCTV cameras and public announcement system. Sitting arrangements have also been provided in them.
Inspector general of police of central range, Ashish Kumar Singh said “Nearly more than double the number of devotees compared to the same day last year have already visited the temple today. The darshan (of deities) began early at 1.40 am and is still going on. The darshan was halted for some time to hold the rituals connected with the deities.” There has been no hitches as yet and the devotees are entering the temple through the AC shed. Special arrangements have been made for senior citizens and people with disabilities. After visiting the temple, the devotees are exiting through the north gate, Singh added.
Traffic restrictions have been imposed in the town for New Year’s Day. The area between Market Chakka to Singhadwara (main gate) on Badadanda has been declared ‘no vehicle zone’, while vehicles have been banned on the beachside road from Digabareni to the lighthouse, officials said.
Consumption of pan and tobacco products has also been banned inside the Lingaraj Temple in Bhubaneswar from Monday.
Devotees found chewing tobacco or betel leaves are not being allowed to enter the premises of the 11th century Shiva temple. The use of polythene and plastics have also been banned in the temple as decided by the Lingaraj Temple Trust Board.
Israel’s assassination of a senior military advisor of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in Syria will in no way help the “wicked and fake” regime continue to survive, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman says.
Addressing reporters at his weekly press conference on Monday, Nasser Kan’ani condemned Tel Aviv’s assassination of Brigadier General Seyyed Razi Mousavi, who was serving as a military advisor in Syria, emphasizing that such acts will not benefit the Israeli regime in any way.
Mousavi was martyred in an Israeli airstrike in a Damascus neighborhood on December 27. He was a comrade of top Iranian anti-terror commander General Qassem Soleimani, who was also assassinated in a US drone strike in Iraq in January 2020.
The Iranian spokesman pointed out that Mousavi was on an advisory mission in Syria at the invitation of the Arab country, holding the Israeli regime’s officials accountable for the consequences of his assassination.
Iran reserves the legal right to respond to Israel’s move “at any time and place,” he asserted.
“According to the UN Charter, Iran has the right to respond to this criminal act” and has asked the Security Council to fulfill its responsibility vis-à-vis the maintenance of international peace and prevention of putting regional peace in jeopardy, he added.
Kan’ani further noted that any attack on Iranian advisors who are in Syria legally is a clear evil act and a blatant violation of the Arab country’s territorial integrity.
Such acts would only help terrorists and pose a challenge to regional peace, he warned.
General Soleimani’s assassination ‘international crime’
Elsewhere in his presser, the spokesman reaffirmed Iran’s resolve to pursue the US assassination of General Soleimani both inside the country and at international courts, stressing that “remarkable” measures have been carried out so far.
In any fair criminal court, General Soleimani’s assassination is definitely regarded as an international crime and its perpetrator must be brought to justice, he added.
General Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), and their companions were assassinated in a US drone strike authorized by then-president Donald Trump near Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020.
Both commanders were highly revered across the Middle East because of their key role in fighting the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria.
Positive atmosphere in Iran-Egypt ties
On the Tehran-Cairo rapprochement, Kan’ani said there is a positive atmosphere in the bilateral relations, which are advancing in accordance with a roadmap drawn up by the two countries’ foreign ministers.
“We are interested in the step-by-step development of relations between two important Muslim countries within the framework of the defined roadmap,” he added.
Egypt severed its diplomatic relations with Iran in 1980 after it welcomed the deposed Pahlavi ruler of Iran and also recognized the apartheid Israeli regime.
‘Tehran informed Moscow outright its stance on Persian Gulf islands’
Asked to comment on Tehran-Moscow ties, the Foreign Ministry spokesman said Iran explicitly informed Russia about its stance on the three Persian Gulf islands of Abu Musa, the Greater Tunb and the Lesser Tunb following the final statement of the 6th Arab-Russian Cooperation Forum in Morocco.
Kan’ani pointed to “constructive and advancing” relations between Iran and Russia in various fields in line with Tehran’s good neighborliness policy and said both sides have political will to expand ties.
However, he said, bilateral relations do not necessarily mean consensus on all international issues, explaining that countries have views on various topics based on their national interests.
He stressed the importance of observing mutual respect in relations among countries and said, “The good relations between Iran and Russia do not bar us from expressing our views on other issues.”
The three Persian Gulf islands of Abu Musa, the Greater and Lesser Tunbs have historically been part of Iran, proof of which can be found and corroborated by countless historical, legal, and geographical documents in Iran and other parts of the world. But the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has repeatedly laid claim to the islands.
The islands fell under British control in 1921 but on November 30, 1971, a day after British forces left the region and just two days before the UAE was to become an official federation, Iran’s sovereignty over the islands was restored.
US neither knows globe nor Iran’s weight
In a reaction to American officials’ call for Iran to be wiped off the map, Kan’ani said they either do not know the globe or do not know Iran’s weight.
The Iranian diplomat emphasized that such statements clearly show crazy thoughts among American officials
Deep devotion of some American representatives to the Israeli regime is the cause of such insane statements, Kan’ani said.
Former England pacer Stuart Broad said that though he could have played for a couple of years more, he wanted to finish at the top and has no regrets in his career. Broad retired from international cricket after the fifth and final Ashes Test at The Oval earlier this year, with 604 Test wickets in 167 matches and overall 847 international wickets in 344 matches.
“I do feel within myself that I could have played for another couple of years but I wanted to finish at the top, finish in an England shirt and to be able to control that myself. I had to try and go at the right time,” Broad told Sky Sports in an exclusive interview.
“I have had no regrets yet which I think tells me in my gut that it was the right decision. Because my teammates have not walked onto the field in their whites with the England cap on, I have not had a moment of realisation like, ‘wow, I won’t ever do that again’.”
“Every player I have spoken to, from different eras, has had that one moment of ‘I am not a professional cricketer any more’.”
“Whether that comes when England go to India or when Nottinghamshire take the field in April at Trent Bridge, I’m not sure, [but] I couldn’t have finished in a better way,” concluded Broad.
The pacer said that he loved walking off the field at The Oval, beating Australia and getting the two final wickets. He also said that he saw his family after winning the Test.
“If I played for another 10 years, I would never have been able to repeat that finish. I have no regrets about finishing,” said Broad.
“To have that emotion of running on for my final spell with people knowing it was my last-ever session of cricket gave me emotions that will live with me forever.”
“Winning the Test was the biggest thing for me – the emotion of the crowd and winning the game. It would have been devastating for me to walk off for the final time having lost a Test to the Aussies.”
“Walking off with the boxes behind us, seeing my mum, my dad, [partner] Mollie, [daughter] Annabella and friends, it just felt perfect. I wanted to go out loving the game and I succeeded in that,” he concluded.
England was down 2-0, but a run-out of Jonny Bairstow by Alex Carey in the second Test when he moved away from the crease following a leave lit a fire in the team enough to make them dominate Australia for the rest of the series and draw it 2-2.
At one point in the final Test during a 384 run-chase, Australia threatened to win the series 3-1, their first in England since 2001, but Broad stepped up, taking the final two wickets of Todd Murphy and Alex Carey to level the series.
Before taking the wickets, he swapped the bails of stumps at his end. Broad said that before his last-ever ball, his emotions got better of him and his legs went like jelly and started shaking.
“Stokesy (captain Ben Stokes) said it was my last over and he was going to bring Mark Wood’s extra pace on to try and get the game done. I knew it would be my last over in professional cricket,” said Broad.
“I think I got two plays and misses from the first five balls. I had not thought about changing the bails but I felt a bit unlucky, saw the stumps and thought, ‘I am going to change them again’.
“I did it, heard a bit of a cheer and started my walk back to my run-up. I had the realisation that this was my last-ever ball. I have to admit that my emotions got the better of me, my legs went like jelly. I started shaking them, thinking, ‘gosh, I have to get some feeling back’.
“I wanted my last-ever ball to be a good one, not a full toss that gets whacked for four. I changed my mindset and started chanting in my head, ‘hit the pitch, hit the pitch.”
“Then my body relaxed as I ran in. I stopped thinking about the emotions of the occasion and started thinking about delivering the skill I have time and time again. When I released it and Murphy nicked it, the emotion of that edge going through to Jonny (Bairstow) was [amazing].”
“Because everyone was on the boundary as we did not want to concede a four, when I turned I had no one within 50 metres of me. That is why I was running around jumping on my own,” he concluded.
Talking about his relationship with the home fans, Broad said that whenever the team needed a lift, he felt sure that the fans would get them moving. He also said that massive crowd support helped his bowling and energy as he is not consistent.
“I needed the crowd. If I felt the team needed a lift I would go to the supporters and they would get us moving. That almost became a bit of mickey-taking in our dressing room but ultimately when we were out Ollie Pope, Mark Wood, Zak Crawley would come to me saying, ‘I think it is time to get the crowd going’. Stokesy would bring me on and for say, ‘for three overs, think about the crowd,” said Broad.
“That helped me. The crowd noise helped my stride pattern, my energy, my drive [as] I am not one of these players that has been consistent. I watch Jimmy (Anderson) bowl and he is like a Rolls Royce, cruising around so smooth. I am more effort and need to be on top of my game all the time, super-competitive.”
“That’s why the crowd were so vital for me. I would lean on them a lot for energy. Seeing a lot of headbands on the final day [at The Oval] brought a lot of pride to me and smiles,” he concluded.
On that Bairstow run out in the second Test, Broad admitted that it frustrated him.
“That particular moment, in all honesty, I saw red mist for 10 minutes. I class myself, particularly in my 30s, as being really mentally strong. I had a lot of routines and techniques that looked after me,” said Broad.
“But I was frustrated with that dismissal. One of our great players out in that way when it felt… he was not trying to gain an advantage so it felt a really strange dismissal. I saw red mist and could not control myself for 10 minutes. I completely forgot there were TV cameras, and microphones. Anything with a green cap on, I was just targeting, having a go at.”
“After about 10 minutes, Stokesy came to me in the middle and said, ‘are you alright?’ I said, ‘yeah, I just got a bit emotional, the crowd were revving me up’. I said, ‘what do you want me to do?’ He said, ‘Keep going verbally at the Aussies, they are looking at the ground, they have lost their body language, lost their plan, they are bowling rubbish to me’.”
“So, after 10 minutes of red mist and petulantly going ‘in’ with my bat, it then became a targeted thing and me deliberately trying to get under their skin and take their mind away from the plan. We lost by 43 runs. Could Jonny have got 40-odd runs? It galvanised us, it galvanised our fans. It is what Ashes cricket is about. It had an edge to it,” he concluded.
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Applications have been invited from eligible In-service and Retired Electricity Officers with experience and knowledge in the respective disciplines.
Updated On – 04:42 PM, Mon – 1 January 24
Hyderabad: After appointing senior IAS officers as Chairman and Managing Directors (CMD) of TSGenco & Transco, TSSPDCL and TSNPDCL, the State government has started the exercise to appoint new directors for the State-run power utilities. Applications have been invited from eligible In-service and Retired Electricity Officers with experience and knowledge in the respective disciplines.
The selection committee headed by Principal Secretary (Energy) and Telangana Genco and Transco Chairman and Managing Director Syed Ali Murtuza Rizvi will interview the applicants and prepare a shortlist of three names for each director post and submit it to the government. In this selection committee, the Chairman and Managing Directors of the respective power utilities will be the conveners and an independent expert in the power sector nominated by the government will be the members.
The directors appointments will be made as per GO 18 issued by the Energy Department on May 14, 2012.
According to Energy Department officials, the persons applying for the post of Director should have a minimum 15 years of experience in relevant power department operations and a total of minimum 25 years of experience in Central, State Governments or Public Sector Undertakings. They should have worked as Chief Engineer, Chief General Manager, Executive Director or equivalent for at least three years, and age should not exceed 65 years as on notification.
As per the rules, the term of director is only two years, however, the tenure can be extended twice in a year with the recommendations of the Selection Committee on performance appraisal. Currently there are 27 directors including four in Transco, seven in Genco, 28 in TSSPDCL and eight in NPDCL.
Some of the directors have been in the posts since the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, while others have continued since the formation of Telangana. This has been going on for a long time as the previous government issued orders that they would continue as directors until further orders were issued.
“All countries (and) institutions need to take a united stand against the killing of innocent children and women in Gaza,” Erdogan said in his video message on New Year’s Eve, Anadolu Agency reports.
“We hold hope for a better future for humanity. So-called democratic, freedom-loving countries must stop supporting bloody terrorists for this to happen,” the president said.
Beginning with the war between Russia and Ukraine, he stressed, sincere attempts should be made to put an end to conflicts that cause suffering for people and waste national resources.
“We need to see that wealth of societies, which has been exploited for centuries, their dignity trampled upon, is used for their future, prosperity, security,” he added.
MNA/PR
Known for his hilarious out-of-the-box humor on social media, former India opening batter Wasim Jaffer on Monday wished fans a happy New Year 2024. Jaffer, who has now donned the hat of a cricket pundit, played 31 Tests for India during his career, scoring 1944 runs with the help of five hundreds and 11 half-centuries. As the world celebrated New Year 2024 on Monday, Jaffer came up with a hilarious wish for the fans. Taking to X (following Twitter), Jaffer hoped that people will have a 2024 similar to Australia captain Pat Cummins‘ 2023.
“Happy new year everyone! May your 2024 be as successful as Pat Cummins’ 2023,” Jaffer posted on X.
Happy new year everyone! May your 2024 be as successful as Pat Cummins’ 2023 #HappyNewYear2024
— Wasim Jaffer (@WasimJaffer14) January 1, 2024
Notably, Cummins silenced all his critics this year and showcased displays of calm nerves and pure class this year as a player and a leader. He completed the three-peat for Australia with the WTC title, the Ashes and the ICC Cricket World Cup title and shined in each of these key events.
Cummins ended this year with 59 wickets in 24 matches, with the best bowling figures of 6/91. 42 of these wickets came in Tests, while 17 came in ODIs.
Cummins also delivered some valuable performances with the bat during the Ashes and World Cup, scoring 422 runs in 28 innings this year at an average of 21.10. His 44* against England in an instant classic first Ashes Test and 12* in a double century stand with Glenn Maxwell against Afghanistan in the Cricket World Cup come to mind in an instant.
On the individual front, Cummins secured a Rs 20.5 crore bid from SunRisers Hyderabad ahead of the upcoming season of the Indian Premier League.
During the IPL 2024 Players Auction, Cummins became the most expensive IPL player ever at one point before his teammate Mitchell Starc beat him with a Rs 24.75 crore deal with Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR).
Cummins will now look to take Australia to 3-0 series sweep over Pakistan, with the hosts holding an unassailable 2-0 in the series with the final game starting in Sydney on Wednesday.
(With ANI Inputs)
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Israel says it has killed more than 8,000 Palestinian fighters. (File)
Jerusalem:
Israel is withdrawing some forces from Gaza to shift to more targeted operations against Hamas, and is partially returning reservists to civilian life to help the economy as the country enters the new year set for a prolonged war, an Israeli official said.
The official said the war will continue in the Palestinian enclave until the Islamist faction is toppled, adding that some of the troops withdrawn will prepare for a possible second front in Lebanon.
Since launching the Gaza offensive after the cross-border Hamas rampage of Oct. 7, Israeli officials have said they planned to wage it in three main stages. The first was intense shelling to clear access routes for ground forces and encourage civilians to evacuate. The second was the invasion that began on Oct. 27.
With tanks and troops having now overrun much of the Gaza Strip, largely asserting control despite Palestinian gunmen continuing their ambushes from hidden tunnels and bunkers, the military is moving to the third stage of the war, said the official, who could not be identified by name given the sensitivity of the issue.
“This will take six months at least, and involve intense mopping-up missions against the terrorists. No one is talking about doves of peace being flown from Shajaia,” the official told Reuters, referring to a Gaza district ravaged by fighting.
In addition to the 1,200 people killed on Oct. 7, Hamas took some 240 hostage. Israel is also determined to recover the 129 still held in Gaza. Qatari- and Egyptian-mediated truce efforts have raised the prospect of some of them being freed.
Israel drafted 300,000 reservists for the war – an estimated 10% to 15% of its workforce. Some were quickly discharged, but government sources have said between 200,000 and 250,000 were still serving and absent from jobs or universities.
The official said the withdrawal was focused on reservists and designed to “re-energise the Israeli economy”.
But the official said some of the troops pulled out of Gaza in the south would be prepared for rotation to the northern border with Lebanon, whose Hezbollah operatives have been exchanging fire with Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians.
Israel has warned that, if Hezbollah does not back down, a full-on Lebanon war looms. Both Hamas and Hezbollah are backed by Iran, whose allies in Syria, Iraq and Yemen have also been carrying out longer-range attacks against Israel.
“The situation on the Lebanese front will not be allowed to continue. This coming six-month period is a critical moment,” the official said, adding that Israel would convey a similar message to a U.S. envoy conducting shuttle missions to Beirut.
In Gaza, the Israel-Hamas war has inflicted unprecedented devastation, with the health ministry reporting almost 22,000 fatalities, many of them civilian. Israel says it has killed more than 8,000 Palestinian fighters – suggesting that, by its own accounting, Hamas retains core personnel. Pre-war Israeli assessment were that the group had around 30,000 fighters.
The Israeli military announced on Saturday it was sending some reservists home as part of what top commander Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevi has deemed a “reconfiguration” of forces.
“From the first moments of this war, we said it would take long,” Halevi told troops on Tuesday. “Will we ultimately be able to say there are no more foes around the State of Israel? I think that is overly ambitious. But we will deliver a different security situation – safe and, as much as possible, stable too.”
Israel has listed 174 soldiers – many of them reservists – as killed in Gaza fighting and nine on the Lebanese border.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Black holes are remnants of stellar deaths.
New Delhi:
India began the New Year with the successful launch of a new mission to solve the mystery of black holes. XPoSAT or X-ray Polarimeter Sat lifted off at 9:10 am on Monday with an advanced astronomy observatory meant to study black holes and neutron stars.
The scientists aim to learn how the universe functions with this latest mission, says Dr Varun Bhalerao – an astrophysicist at IIT-Bombay – in an interview with NDTV’s Science Editor Pallava Bagla, explaining the whys and hows of this complicated project.
Black holes are remnants of stellar deaths and India has been trying to study the cosmic activities using its AstroSat telescope launched eight years ago.
The method goes like – scientists try to learn about the spectrum (phenomenon where a ray of light breaks into a rainbow when passed through a prism) and how the brightness changes with time. Then they use physics or mathematical models to explain what is going on.
Unlike other science experiments, studying an object light years’ away isn’t as simple and requires massive observatories to collect the required data. Science too has come a long way and now the challenge is different.
“Now we are at a stage where we still have a few models left that can all explain what we observe. So how do we figure out which of those is the physics that governs this? The answer to this is in the study of X-ray polarization,” says Dr Bhalerao.
X-ray polarization helps in probing conditions very close to these objects. But these objects are so far away from earth, that even the most powerful telescopes fail in getting the desired data.
Here enters XPoSAT – which is India’s mission to study these objects and only the second in the world. The mission aims to study remnants of stars that have been even hundred times the size of the Sun.
These massive stars blow up in spectacular explosions called the supernova – which emits light as much as an entire galaxy at its peak. At its end, they leave behind neutron stars and black holes.
“A star that died millions of years ago – we are observing the scene of death from far away and using evidence from telescopes we are trying to piece together what happened during that moment. We are also observing the extreme environment that exists around the dead object or remnant,” says Dr Bhalerao.
“XPoSAT will help us understand things that have never been understood before because we never had the tools. Not just Indians, scientists from across the world will be trying to get the XPoSAT data,” he says.
India is not going to have any competition in this area for a very long time, says Dr Bhalerao.
In a novel initiative of its kind, officials and people in the district presented notebooks and blankets to Collector Rajiv Gandhi Hanumanthu as New Year gifts on Monday.
Published Date – 04:18 PM, Mon – 1 January 24
Nizamabad: In a novel initiative of its kind, officials and people in the district presented notebooks and blankets to Collector Rajiv Gandhi Hanumanthu as New Year gifts on Monday.
The Collector had earlier expressed the view during various programmes that people should present notebooks and blankets on New Year instead of bouquets and sweets so that they could be given to children in need. As per his wish, officials and people of the district who came to greet him presented a large number of notebooks and blankets.
Overjoyed with the gesture of the officials and people, the collector directed officials to hand over the notebooks and blankets to the authorities of SC, ST, BC and other welfare hostels to be distributed among students.
The decision of the collector to accept notebooks and blankets as New Year gifts was appreciated by the people of the district as it would benefit the students of the hostels.
