Jr NTR meets Rishab Shetty, Prashanth Neel; shares ‘Bangalore Diaries’ pictures

Mumbai: Telugu superstar NTR Jr., whose historical fiction film ‘RRR’ swayed people across the globe, recently met Kannada star Rishab Shetty and director Prashanth Neel of ‘K.G.F.’ fame in Bengaluru.

The actor took to his Instagram recently and shared several pictures from his meeting with them.


In the pictures, NTR Jr. can be seen wearing a striped blue shirt.

Rishab donned a checkered blue shirt while Prashanth kept it casual with a beige coloured t-shirt.

The other pictures in the carousel also showed producer Vijay Kirgandur of Hombale Films.

Additionally, Rishab Shetty’s wife Pragathi Shetty, Prashanth’s wife Likitha Neel, and Lakshmi Pranathi were also seen in the pictures.

NTR Jr. wrote in the caption: “#Bangalorediaries”.

The pictures from the meeting hint at a possible collaboration between the gentlemen.

Earlier, NTR Jr. was spotted at the Hyderabad airport leaving for Bengaluru. He was seen with his ‘RRR’ co-star Ram Charan, as they made their way to the airport terminal to board their flight.

World Birth Defects Day: WHO highlights need to raise awareness

We are reminded that every journey matters and the journey of health indeed begins before birth, Saima Wazed, WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia said

Published Date – 2 March 2024, 03:05 PM


World Birth Defects Day: WHO highlights need to raise awareness


New Delhi: On the eve of the World Birth Defects Day 2024, the World Health Organization on Saturday highlighted the need to raise awareness about birth defects and accelerate actions to prevent, detect and manage congenital anomalies which occur during intra-uterine life of infants.

“We are reminded that every journey matters and the journey of health indeed begins before birth,” Saima Wazed, WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia said in a statement.


A regional guidance document on screening newborns for three conditions — hearing impairment, eye abnormalities, and neonatal hyperbilirubinaemia — is being released on this occasion to facilitate capacity-building of member states, Wazed said.

She pointed out that the contribution of congenital disorders to death is increasing globally among children aged below 5 years.

Between 2000 and 2021, the contribution of birth defects to child mortality increased in our WHO South-East Asia Region from 4 per cent to 11 per cent, and globally from 4.6 percent to 8 per cent, she said.

“Birth defects are sadly now the third most common cause of death among under-5 children in our Region, accounting for 11 per cent of the total. This is equivalent to the deaths of 300 under-5 children every single day,” Wazed said.

Birth defects not only have a profound impact on individuals but also place a considerable burden on families, friends, the community and health-care systems.

The WHO regional director said while genetics plays a major role in their aetiology (study of the causes of a disease), many birth defects are preventable through addressing environmental factors. These include exposure to pollutants, lifestyle choices and socioeconomic conditions that affect pregnant women and fetuses.

Since 2014, WHO has supported all our member states to drive rapid and sustained reductions in maternal, newborn and child mortality, which includes targeted action to prevent, detect, manage and care for birth defects, Wazed said.

An integrated approach has been adopted to implement interventions for the prevention and treatment of birth defects in existing national programmes, she said.

“Guided by the Regional Strategic Framework, all our member states have national plans for prevention and control of birth defects,” she added.

Accelerating prevention, management and care for birth defects is a priority, and we as a region have issued a “call for action” in five key areas, Wazed highlighted.

First, countries need to place birth defects high on their agenda and expand commitment and leadership at both the policy and programme levels, along with commensurate financial allocations, she said.

Secondly, the new regional document and videos on universal newborn screening of three conditions — hearing impairment, eye abnormalities and neonatal hyperbilirubinaemia — provide guidance on how simple bedside tests can be integrated within the existing health system, she added.

Third, focus should be laid on improving the coverage and quality of preventive interventions such as rubella immunisation, food fortification and quality pre-conception and antenatal care.

“Fourth, our Member states must work together with community-based networks, platforms and organisations, to recognize the challenges, hard work and perseverance of parents, caregivers and families of children with birth defects, and to empower them to access services and support, including social protection,” Wazed stated.

Finally, member states must sustain and expand surveillance of birth defects, with a focus on improving coverage and quality of surveillance with regular data analysis and application.

The results of data analysis must be used for mobilising commitment and resources, along with improving programme implementation, the regional director said.

Aligned with the 76th World Health Assembly resolution WHA76.9 in 2023 on food fortification, our member states need to plan, implement and monitor large-scale food fortification programmes, Wazed said.

“On World Birth Defects Day 2024, WHO reaffirms its commitment to accelerate actions to prevent, detect and manage these conditions — aligned with the “survive, thrive and transform” agenda of the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health (2016′?2030),” she added.

The World Birth Defects Day, observed on March 3 every year, was launched in 2015.

Iran defeated by Singapore at 2024 IIHF World C'ship

In the fifth match of the sporting event, Team Melli was defeated by Singapore, which resulted in their elimination from the tournament.

Prior to this match, Iran had already lost to Bosnia (3-0), the Philippines (14-2), North Korea (9-4), and Hong Kong (11-3).

Host Bosnia and Herzegovina has qualified for Group A.

The Group A tournament is scheduled to be held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan from March 10th to March 16th, while the Group B tournament took place at Skenderija Sports Arena in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina from February 23rd to February 29th.

AMK/IRIB4169082

BCCI Chief Selector Agarkar Was Furious With Iyer For This Reason: Report

File photo of India cricket team star Shreyas Iyer© AFP

Since the last one week, the one news which has made a lot of noise is the exclusion of Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer from the BCCI’s latest annual contract list. The two stars have been strongly in BCCI scheme of things in the past one year. They were part of important events and till very recently played in the Indian cricket team. Ishan Kishan was last part of the squad that toured South Africa before he went on a break while Iyer was part of the first two Tests against England, before he was dropped.

The reluctance of the duo to play domestic cricket is being seen as a reason behind their exclusion. Kishan after going on break trained with Hardik Pandya but missed Ranji Trophy matches for his state team Jharkhand. Shreyas Iyer missed a Ranji Trophy game for his state team Mumbai and claimed he was unfit. However, according to a report in Indian express, the NCA report on him was contradictory.

Several reports have claimed that Iyer attended a Kolkata Knight Riders pre-IPL camp during this time. Iyer is the skipper of KKR. According to a report in the Revsportz, BCCI chief selector Ajit Agarkar was “furious” when he came to know about this development that Iyer was attending an IPL camp despite complaining of a back problem. It is the BCCI selectors who recommend about the final contract list.

“Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan were not considered for the annual contracts in this round of recommendations,” the BCCI said in its release while announcing the Annual Player Contracts for Team India (Senior Men) for the 2023-24 season (October 1st, 2023 to September 30th, 2024).

“The BCCI has recommended that all athletes give precedence to participating in domestic cricket during periods when they are not representing the national team,” it added.

Out-of-favour India batter Shreyas Iyer will be motivated to prove a point and serve a timely reminder of his skillset as he gets back to domestic action when the record 41-time champions Mumbai take on Tamil Nadu in the Ranji Trophy semifinal in Mumbai on Saturday. Dropped from the Indian Test side and discarded from BCCI’s list of contracted players after he did not make himself available for the Ranji Trophy quarterfinal due to groin and back trouble, Iyer has recovered completely to join Mumbai for the key clash.

Iyer would be key in Mumbai’s scheme of things specially against Tamil Nadu’s quality spin bowling, which has been one of their key weapons this season.

With PTI inputs

Topics mentioned in this article

Drone attack damages apartment building in St Petersburg, Russia state media says

Six people received medical help after the explosion rocked the building, the agency said, citing the press service of the city’s health care committee.

Updated On – 2 March 2024, 02:39 PM


Drone attack damages apartment building in St Petersburg, Russia state media says


Moscow: A drone attack damaged an apartment building in St Petersburg Saturday morning, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

Six people received medical help after the explosion rocked the building, the agency said, citing the press service of the city’s health care committee.


The Mash news site said that the apartment building was hit by a Ukrainian drone. The Associated Press could not verify this claim.

The site published videos appearing to show the moment the apartment building was struck, showing a strong flash of light engulfing one side of the building and fragments of debris flying into the air. Another video showed car alarms going off.

Russia’s Defence Ministry has not commented on the incident.

Decolonization in action: Hezbollah forces thousands of settlers to flee


By Shabbir Rizvi

“If the enemy thinks of waging a war on Lebanon, we will fight without restraint, without rules, without limits, and without restrictions.” 

These are the words of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, General Secretary of the Hezbollah resistance movement.

Since the launch of Palestinian resistance operation Al Aqsa Storm (or Al Aqsa Flood) against the Israeli occupation, the Lebanese Islamic resistance group has been unfailingly raining down rockets and anti-tank missiles on Israeli targets in the occupied north, destroying critical military infrastructure and forcing thousands of illegal settlers to run for cover. 

In fact, the Lebanese resistance group marked its impressive 1000th operation early in February by targeting an Israeli occupation force training camp in the occupied Golan Heights with 30 rockets.

Hezbollah is often able to carry out multiple critical operations in a single day, for example executing 13 different rocket attacks across the occupied northern regions in a matter of a few hours. 

In response, the Tel-Aviv regime has resorted to bombing civilian infrastructure in southern Lebanon and using cowardly drone operations to assassinate Hezbollah commanders.

However, despite the outcry from northern settlers who are now displaced, the occupation regime has refused to go to war against Hezbollah, though threatening several times to do so since October.  

The threats and assassinations have not deterred Hezbollah. Almost daily, the resistance group posts videos of missiles striking sensitive Israeli military surveillance sites, training barracks and other outposts.

The successful resistance operations have forced the Tel Aviv regime to admit a full-scale evacuation of the northern occupied area and concede that a military zone is being established where settlers once lived and worked.

Fleeing settlers

Tens of thousands of settlers from the north are reckoning with a grim reality: the land they stole cannot be protected by those who promised them protection. Hezbollah’s intervention and military solidarity with the Palestinian cause have challenged the very security – and future – of all northern settlements.

Five months into being bombed nearly daily, the Zionist occupation has yet to inflict any substantial damage on Hezbollah. Resistance rockets continue to hit critical military infrastructure as the security zone expands deeper into occupied Palestine, forcing more settlers to flee. 

Zionist NGO founder Aviva Klompas took to social media platform X on February 25, writing:  “60,000 Israelis living in northern Israel will be told that they can’t return home before July at the earliest because Hezbollah is now firing rockets every day and agitating for war.”

The admission was stunning: typical Zionist strategy is always to downplay the reality of resistance. This is partially true for this admission: 60k settlers gone is an extremely conservative figure.

One report estimated that the number of evacuated settlers was 70,000 shortly after the launch of the unprecedented resistance operation on October 7. Reuters, meanwhile, confirms that 96,000 have evacuated from the northern border as of mid-January.  

The statement from Klompas also underscores the growing frustration with the Tel Aviv regime’s incapability to stop Hezbollah.

Military zones have now been established between southern Lebanon and northern occupied Palestine border, where the Israeli military is not allowing settlers to return to their own homes and businesses.

Israeli media outlet “Haaretz” concedes that 14 entire communities have been evacuated in order to give the regime’s army room to operate.

As the Zionist regime historically downplays its losses, it is fair to assume that at least 100,000 settlers have fled the northern region alone.

The trajectory of the resistance operations and their frequency indicates that the Zionist occupation will have no choice but to keep expanding the security zone. So much so that Avigdor Lieberman, former military affairs minister of Israel, admits that “the war cabinet lost the north.”

There is no plan to return the settlers to the occupied region, as thousands live in hotels or have fled. On social media, many have expressed a wish not to return at all.

Economic uncertainty

The northern occupied lands are primarily agricultural, along with tourist spots and tight communities with small businesses.

Thus, the sudden, unexpected and unprepared population drop has shocked the economy.

In November, the Bank of Israel estimated that the absence at work of 144,000 evacuated settlers, about 40 percent of whom fled the north, “had cost Israel’s economy about 590 million shekels, or $158 million, each week.”

Hezbollah’s decolonial resistance isn’t just destroying Zionist targets and forcing settlers to flee, it is ravaging the Zionist economy.

Entire businesses, farms, and even wineries have been abandoned. Some figures estimate that as many as thousands of businesses are closed. On the agricultural front, products that take precious months to nurture and develop will now grow stale and rot.

With regard to commodity production, small-time to large-scale factories that produce goods are out of commission. These products first and foremost serve the domestic economy – therefore forcing the Zionist regime to rely more on imported goods, which cost significantly more. 

Take this into consideration as Yemen enforces a crippling and very effective blockade in the Red Sea and has successfully shut down Israel’s third busiest port – the port of Eilat. 

Spending is also at an all-time low, with credit card usage below 70 percent of the norm.

Abandoned houses, stores, and other infrastructure are used by Zionist forces as the security zone expands – only to become military targets for Hezbollah to destroy.

Many settlers will have nothing to come back to – should they be foolish enough to return.

What is more humiliating for Israel is how effective Hezbollah is at draining their pockets. For example, a single Katyusha rocket costs $300 whereas a single interceptor from Israel’s “Iron Dome” can cost up to $20,000 on a conservative estimate, and $100,000 on a more liberal one.

A volley of Katyusha rockets, which isn’t even Hezbollah’s intermediate advanced rocket, depletes the Iron Dome to the tune of millions of dollars per week.

All while Hezbollah often uses Katyusha rockets as a “cannon fodder” rocket for cover – and sneaks in guided missiles such as the mighty Burkan to destroy its intended target.

Political catastrophe

Since Hezbollah’s resistance began, Zionist officials have made a point to focus solely on the aggression on Gaza, despite the deteriorating situation for them on the Lebanese border.

The success of Hamas’ October 7 operation has permanently defaced Israeli society, and Netanyahu’s regime cannot enjoy support and legitimacy from the settler population if they do not deliver a military victory. Five months into the aggression, they have failed to meet their objective of destroying Hamas. 

However, Hezbollah is a completely different variable. Hezbollah’s resistance is a direct challenge to Zionist aggression against Palestinians – so if Zionists pursue their genocidal goals in Gaza, they will be met with resistance from the Lebanese south.

If the Tel Aviv regime pursues offensive measures against Hezbollah, the political and military scenario would be a completely different equation – the Zionist regime needs American backing, politically and financially, for all-out war. 

Zionist outlet “Jewish News Syndicate” hosted a webinar with Israeli military commander Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi. The webinar, titled “The Uncertain Fate of Israel’s Northern Border,” covered the ineffectiveness of Israel to deter Hezbollah politically and militarily, and how critical the situation is for the Tel Aviv regime. 

Zehavi begged the question “How much support will we get from the United States” in a hypothetical scenario where Israel declares war on Lebanon. The United States, despite being the main financier and political backer of the Gaza genocide, has publically disapproved of any support for a war against Lebanon or Hezbollah, warning of the dangers of a regional spillover of war. 

Because of this, the Zionist military officer criticized the US – suggesting that the US refusal to back Israel in this scenario is a sign of its global hegemony deteriorating – and that this sends a message to its rivals such as Iran, Russia, and China. 

Earlier this week, White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby told reporters they are going to “continue our conversations with our Israeli counterparts, continue our conversations with Lebanese counterparts as well, about not letting the tensions up there [the northern occupied border] boil over to the point where it truly does deepen and widen the conflict in a way that could alleviate any kind of pressure on Hamas.”

The grim reality for the Israeli regime is that Hezbollah has not been deterred even for a second and that its promise from day one to the people of Gaza has not been broken.

Shortly after Kirby’s statement, missile sirens rang throughout “Shlomi” in northern occupied Palestine, where Hezbollah has struck several targets in the past five months. 

All the Zionist regime must do to stop the rockets from raining down on settlements is cease its aggression on Gaza and allow for humanitarian aid to come in.

However, even if they go through with this, it does not erase a concrete reality: Israel has simply failed to deter Hezbollah – and only more settlers will flee based on the current trajectory of escalation. 

Shabbir Rizvi is a Chicago-based political analyst with a focus on US internal security and foreign policy.

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV)

S Korea Woman Suffers Cardiac Arrest After Bungee Jumping, Dies On Spot

South Korea Woman Suffers Cardiac Arrest After Bungee Jumping, Dies On Spot

The woman, whose name hasnt been disclosed, was in her 60s. (Representative pic)

A  woman in South Korea suffered a cardiac arrest and died on the spot after falling from a bungee jumping platform. According to The Independent, the incident took place on February 26. The woman, whose name hasn’t been disclosed, was in her 60s. She fell from a height of eight metres from the platform onto a concrete floor after she tried the bungee jump at a sports facility at the Starfield Anseong Mall in Gyeonggi province. 

The Gyeonggi Nambu Proncincial Police believe that the bungee cord detached because of a defective carabiner cable, which connects the rope to a beam or cane. The cops are still investigating the case and more details are expected to emerge soon. According to the outlet, the police are focusing on whether safety measures were implemented.

At the time of the incident, the woman had safety gear on. However, a carabiner, a kind of safety hook, was not secured. She was taken to a hospital immediately and doctors tried to resuscitate her. But, unfortunately, she did not survive and was pronounced dead one hour after she fell. 

The sports facility at the Starfield Anseong Mall in Gyeonggi province also offers various other experiences, such as climbing.

Also Read | Director Who Was Working With Heath Ledger Shares New Details About Actor’s Death

Meanwhile, last year in December, a Japanese tourist died after jumping from one of the tallest bungee jump platforms in the world in China. The tourist died just a few hours later after becoming unconscious. The 56-year-old took the 764-foot plunge from the Macau Tower in the Municipality of Macau which resulted in shortness of breath. 

In 2019, a man fell to the ground after his harness snapped during a 330 feet bungee jump in Poland. The fall left the 39-year-old with spinal injuries. The accident occurred at a theme park in Gdynia. Distressing footage of the incident captured the moment the man’s bungee rope snapped, sending him hurtling to the ground after he jumped from a platform. 

Spanish Woman On Bike Tour With Husband Gang-Raped In Jharkhand: Police

Spanish Woman On Bike Tour With Husband Gang-Raped In Jharkhand: Police

The police said that three people have been arrested in the case

New Delhi:

A Spanish tourist on a bike tour with her husband was allegedly gang-raped in Jharkhand’s Dumka district, the police said on Saturday.

The incident occurred late Friday night in the Hansdiha area of Dumka when the couple stopped at a deserted place to spend the night at a makeshift tent.

Three people have been arrested in the case, the police said.

“The incident of gangrape occurred on Friday night,” Jarmundi Sub Divisional Police Officer Santosh Kumar told the news agency PTI.

The tourist couple was going towards Bihar’s Bhagalpur via Dumka and had stopped near the Hansdiha market to spend the night in the tent.

They reportedly reached Dumka from Bangladesh on the two-wheeler and were en route to Nepal via Bihar.

They were also beaten by the men who allegedly raped the woman.

The victim is currently undergoing medical tests at the Phulo Jhano Medical College Hospital in Dumka and further investigation is underway, the police said.