Indian Tourism Ministry launches a mobile app to help users explore 16 Indian cities

New Delhi:  The Ministry of Tourism has launched a mobile application to enable its users to independently travel and experience 16 cities in the country.

The self-guided tour application 'Incredible India Walking Tours' was launched by the Ministry in collaboration with Genesys International Corporation and will cover 16 Indian cities including Agra, Amritsar, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi, Coastal Goa, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Patna, Pune and Surat.

The facility will be extended to 36 cities by December, 2015.

The app enables users to sightsee free of cost at their own pace and convenience, with the help of walking tours curated by travel experts.

"We are extremely excited about this because it is the first time an app can enable users to discover India on their own. It's free, easy to use and, most importantly, comes with 360 degree street views and information put together by a panel of experts. It's like having a local take you by the hand and show you his city, at your convenience," Tourism Minister Sripad Naik said.

The application, however, is only available on Blackberry mobile handsets. It runs on all BlackBerry 10 handsets including the Z3, Z10, Z30, Q5 and Q10 phones.

An Android version of the free application is also in the works and is expected to be announced in coming weeks, said a senior Tourism Ministry official.

Two Punjabi murdered in Philippines

NRI Sabha Canada: Two Punjabi murdered in Philippines: ਕਪੂਰਥਲਾ , 17 ਜੂਨ - ਫਿਲਪਾਈਨਜ਼ ਗਏ ਕਪੂਰਥਲਾ ਜ਼ਿਲ੍ਹੇ ਨਾਲ ਸਬੰਧਿਤ ਦੋ ਨੌਜਵਾਨਾਂ ਦੀ ਮਨੀਲਾ 'ਚ ਗੋਲੀਆਂ ਮਾਰ ਕੇ ਹੱਤਿਆ ਕਰਨ ਦਿੱਤੇ ਜਾਣ ਦੀ ਦੁਖਦਾਈ ਖਬਰ ਮਿਲੀ...

Two Punjabi murdered in Philippines

NRI Sabha Canada: Two Punjabi murdered in Philippines: ਕਪੂਰਥਲਾ , 17 ਜੂਨ - ਫਿਲਪਾਈਨਜ਼ ਗਏ ਕਪੂਰਥਲਾ ਜ਼ਿਲ੍ਹੇ ਨਾਲ ਸਬੰਧਿਤ ਦੋ ਨੌਜਵਾਨਾਂ ਦੀ ਮਨੀਲਾ 'ਚ ਗੋਲੀਆਂ ਮਾਰ ਕੇ ਹੱਤਿਆ ਕਰਨ ਦਿੱਤੇ ਜਾਣ ਦੀ ਦੁਖਦਾਈ ਖਬਰ ਮਿਲੀ...

Helicopter Jailbreak: 3 Inmates Escape Orsainville Detention Centre in Quebec

MONTREAL -The search has widened for three Quebec inmates who used a helicopter to escape from jail on Saturday evening.

Quebec provincial police say they have alerted authorities across the province and elsewhere.

Sgt. Ann Mathieu says police are reluctant to provide many details about their investigation for fear the escapees could be monitoring media reports.

Audrey-Anne Bilodeau, another police spokeswoman, said Saturday police were working with surrounding airports and Quebec’s Valcartier military base to help track down the chopper.

The men fled from the Orsainville Detention Centre in suburban Quebec City shortly before 8 p.m. with the help of a green-coloured helicopter,  Quebec provincial police said.

For the second time in just over a year, inmates used a helicopter to make a brazen escape from jail in Quebec.

Audrey-Anne Bilodeau, a police spokeswoman, said the helicopter flew west from the provincial detention centre, perhaps toward Trois-Rivieres or Montreal.

"We (are working with) a few partners like the airports of Quebec City and surrounding areas, the military bases and, of course, there's a ground search in the event that the helicopter is located," Bilodeau said late Saturday.

Provincial police Sergeant Ann Mathieu said the chopper put down in a courtyard of the detention centre then quickly took off again heading west.

Mathieu, however, said police were reluctant to reveal much else about their investigation for fear the escapees could be monitoring media reports.

The escapees were identified as Yves Denis, 35, Denis Lefebvre, 53, and Serge Pomerleau, 49.

The three men were being held at the detention centre waiting to stand trial, it was not immediately clear what charges they were facing.

Police released photos of the three men on social media and appealed to the public for help, but warned anyone who spotted them not to approach and immediately contact police.

The Orsainville Detention Centre, about 10 kilometres from the centre of Quebec City, can hold up to 710 offenders.

In 2010, it was the scene of a fire and a violent skirmish that ended with two inmates dead and another six rushed to hospital.

It was also the scene of a riot in February 2008, which was apparently triggered by a smoking ban at the facility.

Saturday's helicopter escape had similarities to another bold jailbreak last year.

Two inmates made a similar jailbreak from a St-Jerome, Que. prison in March 2013.

A helicopter pilot was forced at gunpoint to fly to the prison on a Sunday afternoon.

Two inmates at the facility, which is about 60 kilometres from Montreal, climbed a rope ladder into the hovering helicopter and fled.

The two escapees and the two men accused of hijacking the chopper were picked up by police in Mont-Tremblant, about 85 kilometres away, within a few hours of the escape.

Sikh hotelier Sant Singh Chatwal pleads guilty to U.S. campaign contribution scheme

New York, June 3 - Indo-American hotelier Sant Singh Chatwal, who has pleaded guilty to illegally donating thousands of dollars to American political campaigns, has requested a US court to adjourn the sentencing date to October from July to prepare necessary legal brief.

In a submission before US District Judge I Leo Glasser, lawyer Jonathan Sack yesterday requested an "adjournment of the sentencing" from July 31 to around October 23, citing the need for more time to gather relevant information for Chatwal's pre-sentence report and sentencing submissions on his behalf.

Sack said Chatwal has lived in India, Ethiopia as well as the US and "gathering information about his background and substantial activities at those locations has proved time-consuming." Sack said the alternative date in October was agreeable to federal prosecutors.

Chatwal, 70, a Padma Bhushan awardee and major fund raiser for former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, had pleaded guilty in April to conspiring to violate the Federal Election Campaign Act by making more than $180,000 in federal campaign donations to three candidates through straw donors who were reimbursed and to witness tampering.

Chatwal is free on a $750,000 bail and has surrendered his passport.

Prosecutors also said Chatwal tampered with a witness in June 2012, more than two years after a grand jury investigation had been launched.

"Mr. Chatwal deeply regrets his actions and accepts full responsibility for the consequences," said Lesley Bogdanow, a spokeswoman for Chatwal. "He looks forward to resolving this personal matter."

Bogdanow and Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch declined to identify the candidates who received the improper donations.

Chatwal was released on $750,000 bail. Glasser scheduled the sentencing for July 31.

The case is U.S. v. Chatwal, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York, No. 14-cr-00143.

India’s 29th state Telangana is born, KCR to be sworn in as first CM

HYDERABAD: Today is a new dawn in the history of the Indian Union. For the first time — outside the Hindi- and Bengali-speaking areas — two states speaking the same language have been created. Both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, the two successor states to Andhra Pradesh, that come into existence on Monday, swear by Telugu.

This knocks down the basis on which the internal map of the Indian Union was redrawn in the first decade after Independence. With the linguistic basis of states — language being assumed as the indicator of a homogeneous culture — being challenged, there is scope for another exercise to redraw the internal map of India. Whether this will happen or not is a moot point but the question is why did this "Telugu state" break down. And what are the lessons for the future?

Although there was a demand for a composite Telugu state from before Independence, the Nehru-led government created Andhra Pradesh due to Congress's political interests. History has thus come full circle. In Andhra state (which was carved out of the Telugu speaking areas of then Madras state in 1953), the Congress was facing a tough electoral contest from the Communists.

So it was decided to merge Andhra with the Telugu speaking areas of the dominion of the deposed Nizam of Hyderabad. This would create a larger entity where the communists could be defeated.


(People celebrating the birth of Telangana as India's 29th state near the Charminar in Hyderabad)

The exercise created a monopoly In the 1977 post-Emergency elections, the Congress was soundly thrashed nationally but won 41 of the 42 seats in AP! The following year, Indira Gandhi romped home to the Lok Sabha from Medak.


(Preparations are under way at the official Telangnana Formation Day celebration venue at Parade Grounds in Hyderabad)

The second unstated reason was that the Nehru government, chastened by the experience of the integration of Kashmir, did not want to leave the territories of the Nizam as they were. Therefore, while the Telugu-speaking areas went to Andhra Pradesh, the Marathi and Kannada speaking areas went to Bombay and Mysore provinces.



But the Congress chief ministers did little to promote rural empowerment or land reforms. The only chief minister who tried — Narasimha Rao — faced opposition from vested interests and was axed. Growing rural angst led to Maoism striking deep roots.

The Congress was replaced in 1983 by the Telugu Desam Party, whose founder NT Rama Rao gave a clarion call to "Telugu pride" His son-in-law Chandrababu Naidu became the first chief minister anywhere in India to latch on to economic reforms. Soon capital Hyderabad became swanky with Microsoft and others setting shop. But the countryside was neglected and farmers' suicides increased. In Telangana region, which had been bearing the burden of the Nizam's feudal rule earlier, the situation was worse.

(A view of the illuminated gate of the public garden near the assembly on the eve of the Telangana Formation Day celebrations in Hyderabad)

Soon a separate state movement caught on: the people of Telangana believed that they would be better off as a separate state. Naidu lost power and was replaced by Congressman YS Rajasekhara Reddy in 2004 who started a regime of "free-ships" (free power, fee reimbursements to students, free houses, free medical treatment et al).

These moves taxed the exchequer but translated into heavy electoral gains for Congress, enabling it to form a government in New Delhi in 2009. After the sudden death of YSR, the Congress was in a tizzy even as the separate state movement gathered steam.

Then on the eve of the 2014, to beat the nationwide anti-incumbency and cash in on perceived political gain, Congress bosses passed a bill to divide the state. Unfortunately for the Congress, the move failed to reap it political dividends and it was soundly rejected in both regions.

As K Chandrasekhar Rao of Telangana Rashtra Samiti and N Chandrababu Naidu of the TDP take the reins of office today, they would do well to remember that instead of indulging in gimmckry, the best way to ensure they have a bright future is to provide it to the people of their states — both in rural and urban areas.