Oppn debates factories act

The government’s push for amending the Factories Act to allow more overtime for workers found resistance from Opposition parties in the Lok Sabha on Monday.

Initiating the debate , senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel said, “... It just favours capitalists, industrialists and their friends.”

CPI’S D Raja said that the proposed law clearly shows the government failed to create jobs.

Patel too, took on the government over its promise to create 2 crore fresh jobs in the country.

He claimed that in 2015-16, only 1.03 lakh people got employment.

“Why are you bringing such laws? Why are we thinking only about industrialists? We are not against the industry but why such actions against workers”, he asked.

The bill seeks to double the overtime working hours to 100 in a quarter for factory workers.

CPI(M)’S Tapan Sen said that any increase in overtime is injurious to interest of workers.

The vice president of AIMPLB (All India Muslim Personal Law Board) has said the board will end the practice of triple talaq in one-and-a-half years, so the government should not interfere in the matter.

Kalbe Sadiq also advised Muslims against eating beef. He was speaking to reporters at the residence of the District Civil Bar Association president.

The Shia scholar said the triple talaq system was unfair to women but it was a personal affair for the community and they would solve it themselves within one to one-and-a-half years.

On the issue of beef consumption, he said in religious books, eating beef is not advised and Muslims should not have it.

Sadiq said if the government enacts laws banning cow slaughter and beef eating in the country, the Muslims would welcome it. He condemned the unlawful activities of cow vigilantes and demanded that it be stopped.

On the Ram temple issue, he said the dispute should end now and Hindus and Muslims should yield some ground to each other so that a compromise could be reached. He added that Muslims should not insist on making a mosque at the site where the temple would be built.

The successor to Dharamshala-based 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso will be chosen in the traditional way by drawing lots from a sacred urn at the Jokhang monastery in Lhasa, followed by the mandatory approval from the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC), Beijing has said.

When the time comes, the succession rules will follow Buddhist religious rituals to be performed at the Jokhang temple and regulations set by CPC, ministry of foreign affairs (MFA) told HT. “The reincarnation of the Dalai Lama must be conducted according to religious rituals and historical conventions, including drawing lots from the Golden Urn in front of the Shakyamuni (Buddha) statue at the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, which embodies the Buddhist spirit,” the MFA said, adding: “(and) not by what the 14th Dalai Lama has said”. The primary rules of naming the successor will follow the “Regulation on Religious Affairs and Management Rules of Tibetan Buddhism Reincarnation,” ministry said.

The emphatic statement from the Chinese government comes

Three Indians are among 90 Gates Cambridge scholars selected from nearly 6,000 applicants from around the world for postgraduate study at the University of Cambridge from the academic year beginning later this year.

The three Indians in the list are Yaikhomba Mutum, Saloni Atal and Akhila Denduluri, the university announced on Monday.

The 90 scholars, including 35 from the US, together represent 34 nationalities.

Atal will study PHD in Psychology, amid the ongoing Sino-indian diplomatic spat over the Dalai Lama’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims is part of southern Tibet with links to Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).

On Tuesday, The Dalai Lama, is learnt to have left Arunachal Pradesh and Tawang, leaving in his trail a seething controversy between India and China.

Last week, the Dalai Lama had said it was up to the Tibetan people whether the “institution of Dalai Lama should continue or not” and that he wanted to start “some sort of preliminary discussion” on his succession .

For China, it is important that the 15th Dalai Lama is chosen from a Tibetan area within the country so as to nip in the bud exploring innovative and culturally appropriate solutions to tackle the problem of gaps in access to mental healthcare in India.

Denduluri’s PHD research in Chemistry will focus on developing biophysical tools to better understand and elucidate the protein chemistry and associated toxicity in neurodegenerative diseases.

Mutum will pursue a PHD Biological Science at the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit, looking at the mechanism of active proton transport in Complex I, an enzyme involved in making energy rich ATP molecules. any future for the movement for greater Tibetan autonomy.

Calling the Dalai Lama a “political exile” who has had a “disgraceful” influence on the India-china border dispute, the MFA said he is not a “purely religious person” who has been engaged in anti-china separatist activities for years.

“He is active in disputed area in Sino-indian border which itself is a major political event,” the ministry said about the visit.

It emphasised that “no matter what the Indian government has arranged in disputed areas, and no matter what the Dalai Lama’s speech in “Arunachal”, it will never change the fact that there is a controversy in eastern part of the border, nor it will change China’s position on this issue.”

The new scholars include Leena Dahal from Nepal who will pursue an Mphil in Modern South Asian Studies to explore specifically how social media helped or hindered nuanced discussion of nationalism and identity in response to the 2015 unofficial border blockade between Nepal and India.

Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said: “Gates Cambridge Scholars come from all over the world, but they have some important things in common: great leadership potential, a commitment to improving the lives of others and an unparalleled passion for learning.”