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Red sanders smuggling fame DMK office bearer celebrates birthday with 500 people in Thiruvallur district

By
The Commune
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The Tamil Nadu government has imposed complete lockdown in Chennai, Kanchipuram, Tiruvallur and Chengalpattu districts till June 30. New cases are getting reported in large number every day.

Despite the prevailing situation, a DMK man named Gunasekar has celebrated his 50th birthday two days ago with a grand party attend by gang of goons and rowdies known for red sanders smuggling.

Gunasekar is a member of DMK General Council and the Vice President of Gummidipoondi Union Committee. He is said to be the right-hand man of DMK Thiruvallur North District Secretary Gummidipoondi Venu. Six years ago, he was sent to prison in a red sanders smuggling case.

He had celebrated his 50th birthday two days ago in a private garden near Tiruvallur attended by close to 500 people. They had made merry with hundreds of bottles of liquor, biryani, chicken, mutton and other items getting served. A grand cake cutting ceremony had also taken place.

It is said that many DMK men, including the son of DMK Thiruvallur Northern District Secretary Venu, had attended the grand birthday party. Considering that all restaurants and TASMAC shops are closed, question has arisen as to how hundreds of bottle of liquor were available to the gang.

Following this, Gunasekar had tested positive for corona virus and 15 other rowdies and DMK office bearers. People of the area are now shocked and reeling under the fear of contracting the virus.

Reports have mentioned that FIR has been lodged against 50 persons in the Arambakkam Police Station, Thiruvallur.

Teddy Roosevelt’s statue to be removed from American Museum of Natural History

By
Vaibavi Jayakumar
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Theodore Roosevelt’s statue is to be removed from the American Museum of Natural History, following the removal of multiple other statues of personalities representing the country’s dark past. This was announced on Sunday after the Black Lives Matter movement has gained momentum all over the world.

This statue of the former president features him on a horse, surrounded by a Native American and an African American. This has reported being the reason why the statue has been facing the brunt of the protesters.

In San Francisco, on Friday a statue of another president, Ulysses S Grant, was among monuments pulled down in Golden Gate Park. Grant led Union armies to victory in the civil war and as president fought the Ku Klux Klan. But before defeating the slave-owning Confederacy he married into a slave-owning family and briefly owned a slave himself.

While talking about this, Ellen Futter, the president of the museum said, “Over the last few weeks, our museum community has been profoundly moved by the ever-widening movement for racial justice that has emerged after the killing of George Floyd.”

Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt was the President of the United States from 1901 till 1909 and was a hunting enthusiast. He actively contributed to much of the museum’s collection.

 

 

Defence Minister leaves for 3 days visit to Russia, will attend Victory Parade

By
The Commune
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Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will visit Russia to attend the Victory Parade on 24th June as part of the celebrations for 75th anniversary of Soviet Russia’s victory over Germany in the Second World War.

Mr. Rajnath Singh had tweeted that the 3 day visit would him an opportunity to hold talks on ways to strengthen India-Russia defence and strategic partnership.

The Defence Minister’s visit comes amidst India’s standoff with China.

The Parade is organized to honor the heroism and sacrifices made by the Russian and other friendly people.

Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu had invited Mr. Rajnath Singh to the Victory Parade. The Parade was earlier scheduled on 9th May but was postponed due to pandemic COVID-19. Apart from Mr. Rajnath Singh, a Tri-Service 75 – Member Indian Military Contingent has already reached Moscow to participate in the Victory Parade along with Russian contingent and other invited contingents. A major rank officer of the valiant Sikh Light Infantry Regiment will lead the Indian march in the Victory Day Parade.

The Regiment had fought with courage in World War II and has the proud distinction of owning four Battle Honours and two Military Cross amongst other gallantry awards. The Indian participation in the Victory Parade will be a mark of tribute to the sacrifices made by Indian soldiers in World War II.

The Indian forces will participate in the parade alongside the armed forces of 11 other nations including China.

Earlier Prime Minister had congratulated President Vladimir Putin and Defence Minister congratulated his counterpart through social media on the occasion of the 75th Victory Day.

Study explaining how brain maps interpersonal ties published

By
The Commune
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According to a recent study, the closer one feel to people emotionally, the more similar they represents them in their brain while people who feel social disconnection tend to have lonelier neural self-representation. These findings of the Dartmouth study have been published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

“If we had a stamp of neural activity that reflected your self-representation and one that reflected that of people whom you are close to, for most of us, our stamps of neural activity would look pretty similar. Yet, for lonelier people, the neural activity was really differentiated from that of other people,” said senior author Meghan L. Meyer, an assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences, and director of the Dartmouth Social Neuroscience Lab.

The study was carried out on 50 college students and community members ranging from age 18 to 47. Before carrying out for fMRI, the participants were asked to name and rank five people whom they are closest to and five acquaintances during the scan the participants were asked to make trait judgments about themselves, the people they are closest to and the acquaintances that they had just named, and five celebrities. Participants were asked to rate on scale 1 to 4 (from not at all to very much)

The results showed how the brain clustered representation in three cliques: oneself, one’s own social network, and well-known people. The closer participants felt to someone, the more similar their brain represented them throughout the social brain, including the Medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), the region associated with the concept of self.

In the case of people who are lonelier, they showed less neural similarities between themselves and others in the MPFC and the boundaries between the 3 cliques were blurrier. In other words, lonelier the people are, the less similar their brain looks when they think about themselves and others.

Udumalai Sankar Case: Father of girl acquitted by Madras HC

By
The Commune
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Chinnasamy, the father of Kausalya was acquitted by the Madras High Court on Monday by a bench comprising Justice M Sathyanarayanan and Justice M Nirmal Kumar in the Udumalai Sankar’s murder case. Sankar, the Dalit youth who married Gowsalya belonging to the Thevar caste was murdered in broad day light in Udumalaipet Bus Stand in 2016. The incident had sent shock waves across the state.

Sankar was left to die on the road while Kausalya sustained injuries. The incident was caught on a CCTV camera. Gowsalya’s father along with some of the family members was convicted by the district court and sentenced to death.

Of the 11 accused, Chinnswamy and 5 others were sentenced to death by the Tirupur District Sessions Court in December 2017. Her mother Annalakshmi, maternal uncle Pandi Thurai and a 16-year-old relative, were acquitted of all charges. Two other accused got lesser sentences.

The Madras High Court has now acquitted Kausalya’s father Chinnasamy while the death sentence of remaining 5 – Jagedesan, Manikandan, Selvakumar, Kalai Tamilvanan, Madan alias Michael has been commuted to life imprisonment of not less than 25 years.

“He was a father of a 19-year-old girl and he was angry with what had happened. At that point if he did not have people to execute the crime it may not have happened. He had reason to be angry,” the judge had said before giving the sentence.

Nepal’s CAB: Bill places 7 year threshold to get citizenship for foreign women marrying Nepali citizens

By
The Commune
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KP Sharma Oli. Post/Photo: Anish Regmi

On Sunday, the Nepal parliamentary committee voted in favour of amending the country’s citizenship act that would place a threshold of 7 years for foreign women marrying Nepali citizens to get Nepali citizenship.

Clause 5.1 of the Citizenship Act 2063 allows foreign women to get Nepali citizenship immediately after marriage while no such provision exists for men. So, foreign men have to spend 15 years in Nepal before becoming eligible to acquire Nepali citizenship.

The State Affairs and Good Governance Committee met on Sunday and endorsed the act with majority paving the way for the bill to get tabled in the parliament for discussion. The 27 member committee has the 16 members from the ruling Nepal Communist Party. Nepali Congress and Rashtriya Janata Party has 6 and 2 members respectively.

This follows the last week’s meeting of the ruling Nepal Communist Party secretariat where it had endorsed the proposal of having a threshold of 7 years for foreign women marrying Nepali citizens to get citizenship.

The committee has proposed to grant residence permit to foreign women married to Nepali citizen till they become eligible for getting citizenship through naturalization. It added that they can exercise social, economic, and cultural rights during the 7 year period.

The amendment also has a provision for allowing women to operate businesses, use or sell fixed and moveable assets or get involved in property transaction.

The Nepali Congress has decided to register a note of dissent and has expressed its dissatisfaction over the provisions. The Janata Samajbadi Party and Rashtriya Janata Party has also sided with the Nepali Congress calling the bill unconstitutional that went against the interim constitution of 2006.

The Nepal Majdoor Kisan Party which has 1 member in the committee called for even stricter provision of 15 years.

BJP and Congress question Pinarayi’s silence on Chinese aggression

By
The Commune
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Ramesh Chennithala, Congress leader and Leader of Opposition of Kerala, questioned the Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s silence over the Chinese aggression in Ladakh and said that the Communist Party’s ideology held it back from openly condemning China and that its ideological baggage makes it softer towards China.

The Leader of Opposition said,”Pinarayi has not said anything against China’s incursion, though he had paid homage to soldiers”. He why didn’t CM Pinarayi Vijayan respond to the issue and asked whether China is a bosom pal to the party.

“Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is holding a press briefing every day. He did not utter a single word about the brutal killing of our soldiers. Even party general secretary Sitaram Yechury’s words are subdued in this regard. We want the party to explain its position,” Mr. Chennithala said.

He said that the communist party’s youth wing carried out poster wars on many issues but was silent on this matter. “It seems the party is still soft towards China. We have many examples to cite to prove this point” referring to the communist party’s anti-India stance taken during the 1962 war.

BJP Kerala’s President K Surendran questioned the Chief Minister Pinrayi Vijayan’s silence saying “the CM reacts immediately, but this time he is totally silent. It shows the party’s true allegiance.”

Is Stalin off to London again?

By
The Commune
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An online Tamil news portal Minnambalam on Sunday (June 21) carried a story about DMK President MK Stalin making arrangements for leaving to London on a chartered flight. It had mentioned that the DMK leader was in touch with the Centre to get the necessary clearance for the same considering the restrictions in air travel in view of the pandemic. However, this story was later withdrawn and the portal carried a clarification article from the DMK spokesperson TKS Elangovan.

Since 2010, MK Stalin’s frequent trips to London make it to the headlines as a personal trip. Ask any person ranging from a commoner to those in moving closely with politicians about Mr. Stalin’s foreign visits, the unanimous response would be that the DMK leader goes for taking medical treatment. Every year, Mr. Stalin prepares to leave for abroad after the debate on demand for grants ends for the Budget session of the Assembly, Minnambalam had reported.

In 2017, Stalin left for London on August 12. Similarly, he went to London on July 9 in the year 2018. He did not go to London in 2019 but instead went to Singapore on June 14 of that year, the Minnambalam report said.

Minnambalam reported that even though the DMK President travelled in the months of July or August, Stalin’s team would start making arrangement 3 months in advance. They had made arrangements for this year too but the COVID19 pandemic that started spreading from China, Europe and now in India had suspended all international flights across the world.

The impact of the coronavirus has not diminished in the UK yet. As of now, the COVID alert level in the UK has been lowered from 4 to 3, which means that the virus is no longer judged to be “high or exponentially rising”. Though the curfew within the country is being gradually relaxed, restrictions on international travel have not been lifted yet.

On June 20, Union Minister of Civil Aviation Hardeep Singh Puri had stated that India can start international flights once domestic traffic reaches 50-60% provided other countries open up for international traffic. He mentioned of a calibrated opening once situation normalises.

As a result, Mr. Stalin’s international travel to London for medical treatment has been getting delayed. It was reported in Minnambalam that Mr. Stalin had got special permission from the hospital in London where he was to get treatment and that Mr. Stalin’s parties had requested the Centre to make arrangements for a chartered flight for the same.

Mr. Stalin is the Leader of Opposition of Tamil Nadu which is equal to the status of a Cabinet Minister of the State. It is on basis of this privilege that Mr. Stalin had written to External Affairs Minister Dr. Jaishankar for undertaking the trip to London on a chartered flight which has also gone to the attention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, the report said quoting DMK’s inner circles.

It said that the request is right now under the Centre’s review.

However, this report was later withdrawn and the news portal came out with a clarification article saying that the DMK spokesperson TKS Elangovan had reached out to Minnambalam with respect to the earlier story.

In the clarification article Mr. TKS Elangovan is quoted saying that the DMK President was to travel to London in February but got cancelled due to the prevailing international circumstances in view of the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown across the country. Since, then Mr. Stalin had reportedly been engaging in relief work to reach out to those affected by the pandemic and the lockdown and also giving pressure to the Tamil Nadu government on various issues, Mr. Elangaovan had said.

He also said that Mr. Stalin does not have any plans to go to London as of now and also rejected the claims of placing requests with the Centre for the same. “We reject the news about requests being placed with the Centre on behalf of DMK President Stalin as reported in Minnambalam”.

On International Yoga Day Sadhguru highlights the importance of Yoga

By
Gowtham Raj
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Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, Founder of Isha Foundation, called on humanity to embrace Yoga, “the technology of self-transformation” and “become joyful, wonderful and impactful human beings in this world.”  on the 6th International Yoga Day celebration.

To handle mental health, emotional balance and professional competence during the corona pandemic, Sadhguru has urged people to go for physical fitness and Yoga.

Sadhguru called on people to not only adopt the practices but to teach the practices to others around them as well. “I would like every one of you to experience this – not only experience this, be instruments of offering this to a large number of people.”

“Right now, a whole lot of studies are saying that during this moment of pandemic and post this pandemic situation, one of the biggest challenges will be the psychological crisis that human beings will face” he said.

The simple yogic processes that we are offering you for this International Yoga Day has the power to liberate you from this and also enhance your immune system in a significant way. There are enough studies to show this,” said Sadhguru.

He emphasized that Yoga is beyond religion, philosophies and ideologies and said that it is the technology for self-transformation.

Isha has been releasing several videos online since the lockdown that offer simple yogic practices said to have a profound impact on the human system.

Usually Isha conducts worldwide day-long programs for the Yoga day but this year it took it online due to COVID.

World Bank approves package to help Bangladesh’s economic recovery

By
The Commune
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World Bank has recently approved 1.5 billion dollars for Bangladesh’s 3 projects. This approval has been made to improve the quality and quantity of jobs in Bangladesh and to help the country fight back the pandemic.

This investment will also promote private companies to offer better jobs to the people of the country and help the country to bounce back in financial and economic aspects.

The first project called Private Investment and Digital Entrepreneurship (PRIDE) is worth a 500 million dollar and seeks to enhance the social and environmental standards of private companies. This project will create more than 1.5 lakh jobs. Among these jobs, a particular percent of jobs will be reserved only for women.

The project is also looking forward to establishing Dhaka’s first digital entrepreneurship hub that will take place in the Janata Software Technology Park and will help attract $2 billion of the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) for Bangladesh.

The Enhancing Digital Government and Economy (EDGE) Project worth $295 million is set to establish an integrated, cloud-computing digital platform for all government agencies and improve cyber-security to deliver critical public services for citizens and business in times of crisis. Around 1 lakh jobs and are expected to be created. 1 lakh youth will be trained in digital technologies and a digital leadership academy will be established. It is meant to prepare small and medium industries to prepare for the fourth industrial revolution.

The $250 million Second Programmatic Jobs Development Policy Credit will create fiscal space to support the government’s response to the COVID-19 crisis.

Bangladesh is reportedly having a current total of 13 billion dollars coming from the largest IDA program. From the Independence of Bangladesh, in 1971, World Bank has committed over 13 billion dollars to it without any grants, interests, and concessional credits.

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TheCommune
The Commune is a news and views portal focusing on social and political issues of the southern part of India with a focus on Tamil Nadu.
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