Indian flights take Pakistan, Iran routes to reach Qatar

NEW DELHI: Passengers flying on Indian carriers to Qatar will face increased travel hours as airlines have been forced to take longer routes over Pakistan and Iran, amid airspace curbs in the Gulf region.

Jet Airways, Air India Express and Indigo are now operating flights to Qatar’s capital Doha through Pakistan and Iran airspace following restrictions imposed by the UAE.

Apart from longer flying hours, the airlines would see a spike in costs for operating these flights due to higher fuel burn and the need for having additional human resources.

In a major diplomatic faceoff in the Gulf region, Saudi Arabia and various other countries have severed their ties with Qatar, accusing the latter of extending support to extremists. The development has impacted flight operations in the region with airspace restrictions in place and the UAE imposing curbs on flights to and from Doha using its airspace.

As per official data, little over 28 lakh passengers flew to and from Indian cities and Doha in 2016.

Air India Express CEO K Shyam Sundar said its flights to Doha have started taking the alternative route following restrictions in the UAE airspace. “The duration of our flights to Doha will increase by an hour and a half or so in either direction. We will have to avoid the UAE airspace and fly over Pakistan and Iran instead,” Sundar said.

An Air India Express flight takes nearly three hours and 30 minutes to complete MumbaiDoha flight while the duration is around four hours for the flight between Kozhikode and Doha. Air India Express, part of Air India group, has 14 flights from Kozhikode, Mangalore and Mumbai.

A spokesperson for Indigo -- which operates a flight each from Delhi and Mumbai to Doha -- said it is now operating through Pakistan and Iran airspace.

“We have tactically altered our routes from today pending future course of action by UAE... Flights originating from Mumbai will be extended by 30-40 minutes and from southern cities it will be even more. Flights from Mumbai will now have to fly over Karachi (Pakistan), Bandar Abbas (Iran) to Doha,” the spokesperson noted.

The airline also plans to introduce flights to Doha from Chennai and Kozhikode.

A Jet Airways spokesperson said all its scheduled flights to and from Doha would operate on the alternative northern route via Iran avoiding the UAE airspace. CHENNAI: A Tamil author has approached the Madras High Court for quashing a government notification banning his book. Justice M Duraiswamy, before whom the petition filed by Kulandairaj, author of ‘Madurai Veeran Unmai Varalaru’ (The real history of Madurai Veeran) came up today, directed the Home Secretary to file reply within a period of six weeks. The book is about the true story of Madurai Veeran and speaks about his bravery.

The book was published by Adhi Tamizhar Peravai in Tiruchirappalli and 2000 copies were sold but the state home department issued an order on August 18, 2015 banning the book stating that it contained disparaging remarks against certain communities and is likely to cause disharmony, feeling of enmity, hatred and ill-will between them.

The petitioner contended that the work is a result of historical research done by him and there was nothing abusive about other communities.

The ban on the book brings humiliation to his creative writing and also to his reputation, the petitioner submitted. NEW DELHI: Students with benchmark disability can get increased quota in higher education from this academic session as the government will notify rules for the Disability Act in a week’s time, Union minister Thaawar Chand Gehlot said on Friday.

With the passage of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill last year, reservation in government jobs for persons with benchmark disabilities has been increased from three per cent to four per cent.

In higher education, the quota has been raised from three per cent to five per cent. Also, every child between the age group of 6 and 18 years with benchmark disability shall have the right to free education.

“The Disability Bill was passed by Parliament last year.

We are hopeful that its rules will be notified in a week’s time,” the Union social justice minister said at a event on Inclusive India organised by the National Trust.

“The department of empowerment of persons with disabilities is in the final stages of drafting the rules for the Disability Act and very soon it will be notified,” Secretary N S Kang said at the event.

We are hopeful that students with disabilities can avail benefits of higher quota from this session only, he said. ALLAHABAD: A move is afoot to replace textbooks meant for Uttar Pradesh Secondary Education Board students with the ones published by the NCERT, following a direction to this effect from the Yogi Adityanath government in the state, a senior official said here on Tuesday.

“We received a communication in May from Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma, who also holds the secondary education portfolio, with the direction to introduce NCERT books into our curriculum,” Additional Secretary (Administration), UP Board, Shiv Lal told PTI.

He said the changes, which will bring the curriculum of UP Board at par with the CBSE, “are likely to come into NEW DELHI: Does a woman forfeit her right to her parent’s property because she converted from Hinduism to Islam? That’s the question before a Delhi court which is hearing a civil suit from a 33-year-old woman claiming a share of the property purchased by her deceased father. Her two brothers say she no longer has any right to it.

The woman, who converted to Islam in 2013 when she married a Muslim man following the death of her first husband, a Hindu, in 2011, is seeking the court’s direction to declare her one-third owner of the property in Shahdara, Ashok Nagar, in east Delhi.

However, her brothers say she cannot claim any right in the property belonging to a Hindu family after she converted.

Additional District Judge Ravinder Singh has fixed August 26 for hearing the case.

The woman, in her suit filed through advocate Amit Kumar, says her brothers played fraud with her and executed a false deed of her share in the property in their name.

When their father and mother died in 2010 and 2008 respectively, the three siblings became joint owners of the undivided property worth Rs force with the academic year 2018-19.

“This implies that those writing their Class X and Class XII exams in 2019 will comprise the first batch of students to be facing their tests under the new system.”

Only subjects like Krishi (agriculture) for both High School and Intermediate Vyavsayik (business studies) for Intermediate will not have NCERT books since there is a considerable difference between the UP Board and the CBSE when it comes to syllabuses for these subjects, he said.

“The process will be set in motion soon with meetings of our committees on textbooks and curriculum.

Millions of students appear for Class X and Class XII exams conducted by the UP Board every year. 20 lakh as on date, she says.

She claims in the suit that her brothers in 2012 took her to the office of sub-registrar under the pretext of getting the property divided into three equal shares and she blindly signed the documents in good faith.

Initially, she was getting her share of the rent collected from tenants of the property. However, after her second marriage, this became infrequent on one pretext or the other. Later, they stopped giving her any money at all, she says.

In August 2015, the brothers denied her share in the property. And in July last year, they allegedly illegally tried to sell the property, she claims.

In their response to the suit, the two brothers say their sister was disqualified from inheriting any portion of the property under the provisions of the Hindu Succession Act as she has converted to Islam after marrying a Muslim man and has a child from this marriage.

They have sought dismissal of the suit as she ceased to be a Hindu now and claim that they have committed no fraud.

The woman has also filed a criminal complaint against her brothers in the Karkardooma court for alleged offences of cheating, criminal conspiracy and forgery. HYDERABAD: With the successful launch of its heaviest rocket, ISRO now needs to focus on human space flight mission, further development of semi-cryogenic engine and recoverable and reusable launch system, the space agency’s former chief G Madhavan Nair said.

“Couple of launches of GSLV Mark III have to be done so that we prove our reliability, and parallelly start the programme for our manned mission (human space flight) and then of course semi-cryogenic project,” Nair said.

“If you want to have an ecofriendly rocket, more efficient rocket system for the future, from that point of view semicryogenic is very important,” Nair said.

“Semi-cryogenic engine should become a replacement for some of the boosters in the days to come,” he said.

According to ISRO officials, the space agency has been working on some critical technologies in recent years for the human spaceflight mission.

They said the semi-cryogenic project envisages the design and development of a 2,000 kn semi-cryogenic engine for a future heavy-lift launch vehicle. This engine uses a combination of liquid oxygen and a propellant-grade kerosene, which are eco-friendly and cost- effective propellants.