| Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Result 1july and 15 july Posted: 26 Jun 2011 02:28 AM PDT |
| Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Result 1july and 15 july Posted: 26 Jun 2011 02:30 AM PDT |
| No Bangladesh, Zimbabwe in India Posted: 25 Jun 2011 10:40 AM PDT 
The draft of the Future Tour Programme (FTP) for 2012 to 2020 has a clear division among the Test playing countries, with England, Australia and India scheduled to play the most Tests, followed by Sri Lanka and South Africa. The FTP is to be finalised at the ICC's annual conference in Hong Kong next week. A working draft of the programme, which ESPNcricinfo has obtained, contains an official window in September for the Champions League Twenty20 each year, and also leaves space for an unofficial IPL window in April and May, making it possible for players from most nations to participate in the league. According to the draft of the FTP, India will not host Bangladesh or Zimbabwe for either Tests or ODIs until 2020. India have not hosted Bangladesh in a bilateral series despite them getting Test status in 2000. England are also not scheduled to host Bangladesh for Tests in the programme and their only series against Zimbabwe - in February-March 2017 - has no venue specified, though it is unlikely it will be in England that time of year. The FTP divisions in Test cricket are clear: England will play 99 matches over the next eight years, Australia 92, and India 90. Sri Lanka and South Africa are at the next level, with 76 and 74 Tests scheduled. They are followed by West Indies and New Zealand, with 66 Tests each, and Pakistan with 65. Bangladesh and Zimbabwe bring up the rear with 42 and 41 matches. These are draft options, though, and the final numbers could be different. Apart from England and Australia playing five-Test Ashes, India's tours to England in 2014 and 2018 will also contain five Tests. No other team will be involved in five-Test contests. All of India's other bilateral series are between two and four Tests. West Indies and Sri Lanka, however, have nothing longer than three-Test series, while Bangladesh and Zimbabwe are limited to two. The one-day internationals are more evenly distributed. India will play the most with 166, 89 of which are away games. Zimbabwe have the fewest, 64, of which 37 are at home. All other countries will play between 100 and 160 games. The Twenty20 format has the fewest games, with most teams scheduled to play between 30 and 55 matches. Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, however, have just 11 each. India have a comfortable window for the IPL in most years but in 2014 they are scheduled to tour Bangladesh for three ODIs in May, and then start a five-Test series in England in the second week of June, leaving a three- week gap for the seven-week tournament. England are the only country without a clear IPL window for most of the years, potentially continuing the trend of their players rarely featuring in the tournament. Australia have made space in their calendar to allow their players to take part, while New Zealand are a mixed bag, with tours scheduled in some years and a gap in others. West Indies have series that potentially clash with the IPL as May and June are part of their home season. A two-week window has been cleared for the Champions League in September, though, so that teams can pick their best XIs. Among other details in the draft of the FTP, Pakistan are scheduled to tour India in March- April 2013 but beyond that particulars of series between the two countries are vague, with neither the host nation nor the number of games specified in the programme. There will also be two Ashes series in 2013 - one during the English summer and the other in Australia at the end of the year - in order to avoid a clash with the 2015 World Cup. |
| US lawmakers rebuke Obama over Libya Posted: 25 Jun 2011 09:40 AM PDT 
Washington: In a symbolic but scathing rebuke to President Barack Obama, the US House of Representatives on Friday rejected a resolution authorising US military action in Libya for one year. Lawmakers defeated the measure with 295 voting against and only 123 for, and moved to take up a companion resolution aimed at sharply reducing the US role in Nato-led, UN-mandated operations against Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi' s forces. It was the first time that the House has voted against authorising US military action since April 1999, when it rejected then-president Bill Clinton' s air campaign against Serbia in the conflict over Kosovo. Seventy of the White House' s Democratic allies broke with Obama to defeat the measure after a bitter debate shaped by the US public' s deep war- weariness after a decade of overseas conflicts, notably in Afghanistan and Iraq |
| 20 never-tried-before tips for sizzling sex Posted: 25 Jun 2011 09:39 AM PDT 
Main opposition BNP and its alliance partners are planning to wage tough movement unitedly after June 28 against the government' s move to scrap the caretaker government system. "After concluding the ongoing agitation programmes, BNP and its allies will simultaneously announce fresh spell of anti- government movement including hartal," a senior leader of BNP told daily sun on Friday. The ongoing programmes of the BNP and its allies will conclude on June 28 with the staging of demonstrations across the country. "Leaders of the BNP-led four- party alliance will sit in a meeting in a day or two with BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia to discuss next course of anti- government movernment," party' s standing committee member Goyeshwar Chandra Roy said. The BNP will take hard line as BNP chairperson' s younger son Arafat Rahman Coco was on Thursday sentenced to six years in jail in a money laundering case, party insiders said. A section of BNP' s senior leaders, including standing committee members, however, are opposed to launching tough anti-government right now, they said. If the party takes hard line, its programmes will not be successful due to massive intra- party feud in the grassroots and even in the central levels, the party insiders said. According to the party' s senior leaders, time is yet to come for waging tough movement against the government, they added. Leaders of BNP' s allies Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, Islami Oikya Jote (IOJ) and Bangladesh Jatiya Party (BJP), are waiting for BNP' s decision about the next course of anti- government programme. Goyeshwar said the opposition' s agitation programme may include countrywide dawn-to-dusk hartal as they are determined to compel the government to hold next general elections under the caretaker government system. "Our alliance partners and like- minded political parties have total support to our chairperson' s proposal of discussion on the caretaker government system," he mentioned. Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain, another standing committee member of BNP, said there is no alternative to massive movement to foil the ruling Awami League' s design to scrap the constitutional provision of the caretaker system. "At Tuesday' s standing committee meeting, we all members requested our chairperson to sit with our alliance partners. We hope that she will sit with them in a day or two," he added. Jamaat Acting Secretary General ATM Azharul Islam said they continue to discuss ways of united anti-government movement on the caretaker government issue. "As part of ongoing movement, we are staging demonstrations and rallies across the country. When our current programmes will end, we will announce fresh agitation programmes through a press conference," he said. Replying to a query about the outcome of the BNP' s standing committee meeting, the Jamaat leader said they are waiting for BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia' s call in this regard. "Under the leadership of Khaleda Zia, we are planning to wage united movement to get rid the nation of the misdeeds and misrule of Awami League-led alliance government," he said. He, however, said they will continue their agitation programmes separately. IOJ leader Moulana Mohammad Ishak said that they are yet to receive any message from the BNP chairperson regarding the planned united movement. "But we are united and ready to join united movement under the leadership of BNP chairperson," he said. BJP chief Andalib Rahman said that his party leaders and workers are ready to take to the street in protest against the government' s move to scrap caretaker system. "We are yet to get any guideline from BNP. Even, we know nothing about what decision will be taken by a big political party like BNP. If BNP chief wants, we will exchange views with her on the issue," he added. Jatiya Ganotantrik Party, National People' s Party, National Democratic Party, Bangladesh National Awami Party, National Awami Party (NAP Bhasani), Bangladesh Muslim League, Labour Party and Islamic Party have also extended support to BNP for launching tough movement. |
| New York passes gay marriage law Posted: 25 Jun 2011 09:34 AM PDT 
ALBANY, NEW YORK: Governor Andrew Cuomo made same-sex marriages legal in New York on Friday, a key victory for gay rights ahead of the 2012 presidential and congressional elections. New York will become the sixth and most populous US state to allow gay marriage. State senators voted 33-29 on Friday evening to approve marriage equality legislation and Cuomo, a Democrat who had introduced the measure, signed it into law. "This vote today will send a message across the country. This is the way to go, the time to do it is now, and it is achievable; it's no longer a dream or an aspiration. I think you're going to see a rapid evolution," Cuomo, who is in his first year of office, told a news conference. "We reached a new level of social justice," he said. Same-sex weddings can start taking place in New York in 30 days, though religious institutions and nonprofit groups with religious affiliations will not be compelled to officiate at such ceremonies. The legislation also gives gay couples the right to divorce. "I have to define doing the right thing as treating all persons with equality and that equality includes within the definition of marriage," Republican Senator Stephen Saland said before the bill was passed. He was one of four Republicans to vote for the legislation. Cheers erupted in the Senate gallery in the state capital Albany and among a crowd of several hundred people who gathered outside New York City's Stonewall Inn, where a police raid in 1969 sparked the modern gay rights movement. "It's about time. I want to get married. I want the same rights as anyone else," Caroline Jaeger, 36, a student, who was outside the Stonewall Inn. But New York's Catholic bishops said they were "deeply disappointed and troubled" by the passage of the bill. "We always treat our homosexual brothers and sisters with respect, dignity and love. But we just as strongly affirm that marriage is the joining of one man and one woman," the state's Catholic Conference said in a statement. New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, an advocate for gay marriage who lobbied state lawmakers in recent weeks, said the vote was an "historic triumph for equality and freedom." "Together, we have taken the next big step on our national journey toward a more perfect union," he said in a statement. Election issue President Barack Obama, who attended a fund-raiser in New York on Thursday for Gay Pride Week, has a nuanced stance on gay issues. Experts say he could risk alienating large portions of the electorate if he came out strongly in favor of such matters as gay marriage before the 2012 elections. During the 2008 election, Obama picked up important support from Evangelicals, Catholics, Latinos and African-Americans, some of whom oppose gay marriage, which has become a contentious social issue being fought state-by-state. In California a judge last year overturned a ban on gay marriage, but no weddings can take place while the decision is being appealed. It could set national policy if the case reaches the US Supreme Court. Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and the District of Columbia allow same-sex marriage, and Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois and New Jersey approved civil unions. The first legal same- sex marriages in the United States took place in Massachusetts in 2004. But gay marriage is banned in 39 states. In New York a recent Siena poll found 58 percent of New Yorkers support gay marriage, while nationally the U.S. public is nearly evenly split, with 45 percent in favor and 46 percent opposed, according to a Pew Research poll released last month. New York City's marketing and tourism group NYC & Company said it was gearing up to turn the city into "the gay weddings destination." "The new legislation is good news for the City's $31 billion travel and tourism industry," said NYC & Company Chief Executive George Fertitta. New York's Democrat-dominated Assembly voted 80-63 in favor of gay marriage last week and passed the amended legislation on Friday 82-47. A key sticking point had been over an exemption that would allow religious officials to refuse to perform services or lend space for same-sex weddings. Most Republicans were concerned the legal protection was not strong enough, so legislative leaders worked with Cuomo to amend his original bill. "God, not Albany, settled the definition of marriage a long time ago," said Senator Ruben Diaz Sr., a Pentecostal minister and the only Democrat to vote against the measure. However, fears of a slew of litigation arising from a possible religious exemption to New York's proposed same-sex marriage law are not borne out by experience with similar laws in other states, legal experts say. |
