January-2015

VOLEUM-24 NO. 11

PHONE-510-677-4488

WWW.FIJISUN-USA.COM

Email : fijisun@gmail.com

FIJI IDOL NIGHT AT GOLDEN PEACOCK

CONVICTED CRIMINALS CANNOT STAND FOR ELECTIONS IN FIJI

Much shoulders you rub with the Fiji Prime Minister. In addition to residency
requirement, you must also have a clean record with criminal or felony conviction.
SUVA-FIJI. According to new
Fiji Constitution there are several requirements for fighting
a general elections in Fiji
regardless of how important
you are and how much shoul-

ders you rub with the Fiji

Prime Minister. In addition to
residency requirement, you
must also have a clean record
with no criminal or felony conviction. For example if you

entered your neighbors

house with a cane knife and
threatened to butcher them
and got arrested and charged
by any US Police agency and
spent some jail time and

served a probationary period,

thats considered a criminal
record.
ALS will provide full information to the Fiji Government
if anyone attempts to file his

or her nominations in Fiji with

this kind of criminal record.
ALS will also file formal
papers in the Fiji Courts to
keep the criminals out of the
elections.

ROCKY ALI BUKSH ON ONE YEAR RESTRAINING ORDER, READ REPORT P5

Chef of the month

ALBIR SINGH of
Hoshiarpur, Punjab
is honored as Chef
of
the
month
by
Restaurant Guide hitting
the market late January
2015.For
we'll
over
20years in the food industry, BALBIR SINGH is well
known in the Bay Area for
kitchen expertise and passion for Indian/Pakistani
cuisine.
He began his career
with then Silver Spoon
restaurant. He has been
the hallmark ever since he
joined a most famous
CHANDNI RESTAURANT
on Mowry School Rd.,
Newark. Here he leads a
group of dedicated assistants and kitchen staff to
provide a wide variety of
dishes for every day buffet
lunches and dinners and
for huge wedding and

India news
Pak boat carrying explosives
blows up off Gujarat coast

A
birthday parties.
What brings back thousands of customers back
to CHANDNI is the food
quality, consistency in
taste and appeal for which
BALBIR is directly responsible.
Restaurant Guide is
proud to declare him asu
he Chef of the month.

terror plot eerily reminiscent of the 26/11

Mumbai
attacks
ended in flames minutes into
the New Year after India,
armed with intelligence from
a spy plane, drove an explosives-laden Pakistani boat to
blow itself up near Gujarat.
All four crew of the fish
trawler that was intercepted
by the Indian Coast Guard
and exploded 200 nautical
miles (371 km) off Porbandar
are suspected to have died in
the tense 16-hour-long
drama in the Arabian Sea
early Thursday. Neither the
boat nor its crew could be
recovered due to rough
weather. It (the boat) was on

a suicide mission. The consequences would have been

disastrous had the boat
slipped past our defences, a
top navy official told HT.
Defence minister heaped
praises on the coast guard
and those involved in the
operation. I congratulate the
coast guards for timely action
of intercepting a boat carrying suspected terror groups
with surgical precision, he
tweeted late Friday.
A defence ministry official
said the trawler stopped only
after the coast guard fired
shots, but the crew had by
then set it on fire, triggering a
major explosion that sank the
vessel. (Conitinue on p-10)

Pakistan news
Pak offsets Lakhvi detention suspension, arrests him for abduction
ISLAMABAD: Lashkar-e-Taiba
(LeT) terrorist and 26/11 plotter
Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi was
arrested on Tuesday in an unrelated case a day after a local
court suspended his preventive
detention. Pakistan had been
forced to put Lakhvi under
detention after an anti-terrorism
court granted him bail in the
Mumbai attacks case on
December 18.
Lakhvi (54) was arrested in an
abduction case and shifted to an
Islamabad police station from
Rawalpindi's Adiala jail, where
he has been lodged since he
was booked for his role in the
Mumbai carnage in 2008. A
fresh First Information Report
was registered against him for

kidnapping one Anwar Khan at

Islamabad's Golra police on
Monday night hours after the
Islamabad high court suspended his detention under the
Maintenance of Public Order.
But he was lodged at Shalimar
police station in Islamabad's
posh F-10 sector for security
reasons. On Tuesday, he was
produced before a local court in
Islamabad amid tight security.

January-2015

FIJI SUN USA

PO BOX 4549
Hayward, CA 94544

510-677-4488
FIJI SUN
EDITORIAL
STAFF

EditoRiAl

www.fijisun-usa.com

FIJISUN

Editor M H Koya (JD) now has Juris Doctorate

With more than 240 college credit and over 20 years litigation in criminal and working for the
Superior Court of California, the editor more than enough credentials for a JD program.
the editor is also a member of AbA, American bar Association. Former royal Police College lecturer
in Criminal law, Court procedures, local laws, management studies and law of evidence, Koya

All rooteD in HiS oUtStAnDing PoliCe bACKgroUnD

H. Koya (Phd)
Editor-Publisher

With over 30 years of police and law experience. Dr. H. Koya stands out with an impressive academic
record and work experience. He was the first police officer to have been awarded a University of
South Pacific civil service scholarship and first Fiji Police officer to accomplish an Australian
Diploma in Criminology. Dr. Koya also won Commissioner of Police Cadet Award in 1973.
R M Matthers
ABC Reporter

Robbie Michaelsons
Contributing writer

www.fijisun.org
Email: fijisun@gmail.com

Ali Freelance
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510-423-2335

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Dr. Vijay Tiwari leads DayaSumirta Education Society

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January-2015

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bussiness news

January-2015

Rocky Buksh case backfired : he Real Estate Agents Needed

is on one year restraining order T

he owner/operator of
less than 1500 copies
US FIJI TIMES is
reported to be on one year
restraining order when
counter sued by the party
Buksh sought to prosecute.
According to some
reports, the newspaper
operator cried before the
court complaining that his
defendant professed to be a
CHP Officer. Rocky produced an old copy of Fiji
Sun to make his point. Court
ignored his cry on the
issue.
It is said that ROCKY
BUKSH in his moving
papers did not mention any
witness named SNEH
CHAND who it is believe
was not even present at the
first hearing date. But all of a
sudden in last weeks continuation of the trial, SNEH
CHAND appeared as a surprise witness.
According tosome witnesses SNEH CHAND was
nowhere near an alleged
incident that is said to have
taken place at last years
FIJI FESTIVAL. Fiji Sun is

investigating the truth of the

matter. During the one year
period, parties are ordered
to stay 30 yards away from
one another.
In the meantime Rocky
Buksh has made over 1000
blocked calls to Dr. H.
Koya(FIJI SUN editor/publisher) annoying and abusing him and his family.
Last night, at Norfolk
Strikers 9th New Years
party at the Hayward-based
Golden Peacock restaurant,
Rocky routinely followed,
harassed and threatened
Dr. H. Koya and his wife his
took pictures threatening to
publish in 1500 copy newspaper.
PoofTer voice
He used a poofter voice
to curse, abuse, annoy and
cause mental and emotional
distress to Dr. H. Koya.
(please see the post on
Facebook.)
Select FANA officials,
TISI Sangam, Norfolk and
Shimon Kanahi appear to be
providing Rocky Buksh
enormous impetus as was
seen recently and last night

where Rocky Buksh hung

out with some of them specially Shimon Kanahi suggestive of protective privilege. It is believe Shimon
gets free AD and routine
exposure in Rockys less
than 1500 copy newspaper.
Printer looking for Rocky
Buksh for owing large sum
of money
Our current printers
reveal that they are looking
for the where about of
Rocky for owing them large
amount of money. The printers also said, they will never
print his papers at their location.
My aTTorney is a forMer fBi, Tagline
In many of his communications Rocky Buksh has
insinuated that his attorney
Mr. David Washington is a
former FBI agent so he can
fic anyone. We have been
told that Mr. Washington is
not a former FBI, even if he
who gives a .to it. It
might interest you to know I
meet him occasionally in the
courts and it is easy for me
to exchange information.

AMRIK CHAND , CPA

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fiJi news

January-2015

www.fijisun-usa.com

FIJISUN

Fijis flight into aviation history

T

HERE were some

real 'cowboys of the
air' in the early days
of flying in the Pacific
islands. Some had little, if
any, flying experience
before jumping into primitive aircraft and islandhopping with fare-paying
passengers. The poor old
passengers had never
been in a plane before, so
they wouldn't have known
they were taking their lives
into their hands. A bloke
called Fleming - no one
knows much about him,
not even his Christian
name - was the first. He
built the plane himself in
1922 - in his backyard in
Suva. The good Mr
Fleming is believed to
have crashed out very
early in his aviation career.
Then, at the start of the
1930s, a ships captain
turned aviator, Gordon
Fenton, had a British-built
Simmonds
Spartan
biplane shipped to Fiji by
sea. Its assembly was

haphazard and apparently

at first the wings were put
on back-to-front.
It took Fleming some
time to work out why it was
having trouble getting airborne.
A friend checked the
assembly
instructions,
worked out the mistake,
and Captain Fenton was
off and flying. He would fly
the
180
kilometres
between the capital Suva
in the southeast and
Lautoka in the west in one
hour and 35 minutes.
Local
businessmen
were
impressed
and
began using Captain
Fenton regularly. He reckoned he was on a gold
mine. He set up the first Fiji
Airways in 1933, but fell
victim to the Great
Depression and the airline
soon folded.
Like with so many larger-than-life South Pacific
figures, stories abound
concerning
Captain
Fenton. One is that he

would test pilots looking for

jobs by asking them to fly
under the 'Penny-farthing'
Bridge on the Rema River
near Suva ? at high-tide.
There was not a lot of
room and only the most
daring of airmen would
even attempt such a feat.
About the same time as
the airline was being set
up, another local enthusiast, building contractor Alf
Marlow, imported the first
of three 1922 Dormier
Libelle flying boats from
Germany. There were
many stories told about
Marlow, too.

Fiji Retailers welcome fuel drop

T

he Fiji Retailers
Association has
welcomed the latest
government
announcement in the significant drop in fuel
prices. The Association
President Himmat Lodhia
says this is a great relief
for all Fijians as the spiraling effect will have a
net positive impact on all
sectors. Retailers and
businesses will greatly
benefit as there will be a
surplus in liquidity by significant net savings on
peoples personal fuel
expenditure.
The
Association adds that the
Fiji Electricity Authority
will now be in a better
position considering the
huge amount spent on
fossil fuels. It has also
requested the government that fuel price drops
should be announced on
a more regular basis.
However, the Finance
Minister Aiyaz SayedKhaiyum says the new

It was said that sometimes he would get tired of

flying the route from Suva
to Lautoka and would land
his aircraft on top of a train
owned by the Colonial
Sugar Refinery, taking
cane from Sigatoka.
A seaplane? As the
proverb says - pigs might
fly but they are very unlikely birds. But then along
came a bloke who actually
knew what he was doing.
He was a brilliant pioneer Australian aircraft
navigator, Harold Gatty,
who was given a tickertape parade in New York

Fiji Airways
surpasses 1 million international
passenger mark

template of reviewing
fuel price has come early
following an agreement
with fuel companies that
a review will be conducted every three months.
Should there be any significant decrease that is
15 cents a litre, then a
review can be done
much earlier than the
quarter itself. Those of
you following the price of

fuel, the next review is

due in January but
because the price of fuel
has dropped significantly
we then asked the
Commerce Commission
to have a look at the fuel
pricing so were happy to
announce the price of
fuel will drop from tomorrow. The next review will
be
conducted
next
month.

iji Airways has

announced that it
has surpassed the
1 million international
passenger mark for the
first time in its 63 year
history. CEO and
Managing
Director
Stefan
Pichler
said that
the airline
is delighted to hit
the one
millionth
passenger mark for the
first time. He said that the
achievement is a great
reflection of the hard
work that everyone has
put in to increasing passenger numbers and revenue. He has also highlighted that next year they
will be offering nearly 1.4
million seats on Fiji
Airways to accommodate
1.3 million guests to and
from Fiji.

Fiji's Role In Latest UN Resolution Recognised

SUVA,
Dec
20
(Bernama) -- Fiji's efforts
in leading the passage of
a latest United Nations
resolution have been
recognised, the Fijian government said Saturday.
A new resolution on
"Capacity Building for the
Evaluation
of
Development Activities at
the Country Level" was
adopted by the UN
General Assembly earlier
this week, Xinhua news

agency reported.
Fiji's permanent mission to the UN led the passage of the resolution,
which invites entities of the
UN development system
with the collaboration of
national and international
stakeholders to support
efforts
to
strengthen
capacity of nations for
evaluation of development
activities."With the adoption of the resolution, the
chair of UN Evaluation

Group Deborah Rugg

thanked the Fiji permanent mission for leading
the process through many
informal and formal meetings at the drafting stages,
and negotiations and presentations in the 2nd
Committee," said Fiji's
Department
of
Information.During introduction of the draft resolution at the UN's 2nd
Committee in New York
last month, Fiji's perma-

nent representative to UN
Peter Thompson said:
"This resolution is
aimed at strengthening
the role the international
system can play in providing the necessary support.
"As the global community
moves into the Post-2015
Development Agenda, for
lasting success to be
achieved it is essential
that countries have appropriate capacity for evaluation," he said.

City in 1931 with another

intrepid aviation trail-blazer, Wiley Post, for their
record
round-the-world
flight. In a Lockheed Vega
they flew around the globe
in 8 days, 15 hours and 15
minutes, beating the previous record by more than
12 days. The following
year the US Congress
passed a special bill so the
Australian could be awarded
America's
Distinguished
Flying
Cross. Another measure
was passed to allow
President Herbert Hoover
to appoint Gatty to a senior
government role after the
aviator had refused to give
up his Australian citizenship and become an
American.During the war
he worked under General
Douglas MacArthur as
director of Allied transport
in the South-West Pacific
before being transferred to
the US Navy to work on
polar navigation. After the
conflict ended, Gatty set-

tled in Fiji. Gatty's airline

started out as Katafanga
Estates Airways as its
headquarters was on
Katafanga island which
Gatty had bought on the
eastern Fijian coast. But
the name was soon
changed to Fiji Airways.
Its first flight was on
September 1, 1951, with a
seven-seater De Havilland
Dragon Rapide flying
between Nausori and
Lautoka. There was a further name change to Air
Pacific, but in May 2012
the company reverted to
the former name of Fiji
Airways. And, as the clich
tells us, the rest is history.
This year, for the first
time Fiji Airways will carry
more than one million passengers on international
flights in a calendar year.
Tomorrow one passenger
flying out of Nadi Airport
will be feted as the millionth, and lavished with
special souvenirs of the
occasion.

Huge relief for

mother of two
H

OUSEWIFE
Loraini Qiokata
could never be
more happy to learn of
the drop in fuel prices.
To her, it means she
can
spend
more
money on buying other
stuff they need this
Christmas.
She described the
announcement by the
Government as a huge
relief, especially on
kerosene, which her
family
needs.
Yesterday, The Fiji
Times team met her
nine-year-old
son
Sefanaia Vakacegu on
his way to the shop to
buy a litre kerosene, a
two days supply for their
family.
When they heard of the
drop in prices, Mrs Qiokata
smiled and said: "Sa dua
na vakacegu levu (This is a
huge
relief)."
She
explained any drop in the
price of kerosene was
always welcome by their
family.
The 31-year-old mother
of two of Wailea settlement
in Vatuwaqa said even

though there was only four

of them in the family, they
struggled daily to make
ends meet. With the high
cost of living, she said any
drop in price, especially on
anything to do with family
needs,
was
good
news.Another Wailea resident Graham Joseph
shouted out from his
house: "I'm happy to hear
that, we use kerosene for
our daily living."

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fiji news

www.fijisun-usa.com

January-2015

Cause of bus garage fire still being determined

T

NFP calls
for inquiry
into Fiji TV
sackings
The chief executive
and the head of content were both dismissed this week.
The Chairman of
Fiji TV has said the
sackings were done to
ensure the company
had a better chance of
getting its six-monthly
licence renewed.
The NFP leader
Biman Prasad says
the implication is concerning.
"That's a very serious admission. That is
what we are saying,
that it suggests interference in the way in
which the management and the board of
Fiji TV has been able
to operate. No commercial enterprise
should be dictated to
by government on the
basis of them withholding a licence to
operate." Biman
Prasad says the Prime
Minister must take
decisive and swift
action. Last year,
FijiTV sacked a veteran reporter after the
regime leader reportedly told the station to
choose between keeping the reporter or
keeping its licence.

he National Fire
Authority is now working with the Fiji Police
Force to try and establish the
cause of the fire which led to
12 buses of S. Nair Transport
Limited sustaining major damages. National Fire Authority,
CEO, John OConnor said
that they have already started
with their initial investigation
but they are now working with
police to determine several
other issues. The 12 buses
were involved in a fire at the
Nair Transport Ltd garage at
Wainibuku at 3am yesterday.
The estimated cost of damage is more than $1 million.

Buses burnt
out in Fiji

Senior citizens of
Pearce Home hosted T
to Christmas lunch

even senior citizens

of
the
Pearce Home in
Suva were all smiles
today when they were
hosted to an early
Christmas lunch by its
staff and management
today. Pearce Home
Manager Ruci Kama said
this is a symbol of showing how much they love
these senior citizens who
have been part of the
Home for so many years.
She said some of the relatives of these senior citizens are away overseas
but they do visit the
Home when they come
back to Fiji. 76-year-old
former Miss Hibiscus
Liebling Marlow sid she
loves the environment
and the hospitality as it is
close to the city. The senior citizens were entertained by the Fiji Police

AGRICULTURE SUPPORTS
NEW POULTRY FARM IN BA
The Fijian Government is
committed to ensuring food
security for the nation, raising
rural income levels and creating more employment to
combat poverty.
The
Minister
for
Agriculture,
Rural
and
Maritime Development and
National
Disaster
Management, Honourable
Inia B. Seruiratu made the
statement during the launching of the Vueti Au CoOperative Poultry Farm at
Waiwai, Ba. The Minister said
the occasion marks the new
Poultry project owned by
Vueti Au Cooperative in partnership with Government and
Rooster Poultry. These initiatives with government and
the private sector are workable and beneficial to the

lives of rural communities.

He added the initiative is a
testimony to hard work, dedication and planning by a
group with a common goal to
fulfill their dream of owning a
profitable enterprise and
helping themselves meet
church fund obligations.
With the total of 115 members of which 52 are males
and 63 are females with
about 90% of them unemployed, this poultry project
now employs five fulltime Cooperative member wage
earners. He said the farm is
a 100% owned by members
of the Ba United Pentecostal
Church who have gone out of
their way to establish their
business arm and identify
means of gaining returns on
resources that they own.

Band
with
their
Christmas carols earlier
today. The Suva based
Pearce Home is a retirement residence for long
and short term stayers.

GIFT TREATS FOR

SENIOR CITIZENS
AT GOLDEN AGE
HOME
The Hon. Minister for
Women,
Children
and
Poverty Alleviation Rosy
Sofia Akbar recently met
with senior citizens at the
Golden Age Home in
Lautoka. Minister Akbar paid
a visit to the Home for senior
citizens and presented gifts
to the 40 senior citizens living there. The Golden Age
Home superintendent Ms
Tara Naresh commended
the Ministry officials for the
timely visit. Most of these
senior citizens are not visited by their families, so such
visits by the Madam Minister
and her team really bring
smiles and happiness for
these senior citizens. They
need the compassion and
care, especially during festive seasons they look forward for such visits.

he head of a Fiji bus company says 14 of his buses

have been engulfed by fire
at a terminal in Nasinu early on
Friday morning. Nair Transport's
general manager Ritesh Nair
says he was able to drive some
of the newer buses away from
the flames saving part of his forty
bus fleet but 14 are badly burnt.
He says security footage shows
the fire started at just after 3am
and appears to have begun in
the roof of one of the buses
before it quickly spread suggesting overhead powerlines may be
linked to the blaze. "There was a
fire in about something close to
14 of my buses. The reasons for
the fire are still unknown, the
police are still investigating, and
we are waiting for their report,
probably they will come back
and give me an answer by
Monday. Personally we think it's
because of a powerline issue,
that one of the powerlines fell on
one of our buses that runs overhead." Ritesh Nair says he
hopes his insurance will cover
the loss and bus services will not
be interrupted as most of the
destroyed buses are used for
school transport and it is now the
holiday season.

Fiji information minister

in 'mother of all conflicts'
- opposition
The Fiji opposition
chief whip Ratu Isoa
Tikoca has called on the
Prime Minister to act on
what he calls a mother of
all conflicts involving a
senior minister.
Ratu Isoa says Frank
Bainimarama should tell
Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum to
step down as information
minister or ask him to terminate the position of his
brother as Chief Executive
of the Fiji Broadcasting
Corporation. He says the
continuing conflict of interest involving the SayedKhaiyums is intolerable
and against all the rules of
good governance. Ratu
Isoa questions where else
can a government minister have cabinet responsibility for a portfolio that
included his brother as
CEO of a major public
enterprise. He says it cannot be allowed to contin-

ue. The opposition whip

says the prime minister
should remember that a
former prime minister
Laisenia Qarase was sent
to jail for a year for an
alleged conflict of interest
nearly 20 years ago.

Competition winner looking

forward to Fiji trip
M

ICHELE
Archay
won a trip to Fiji
yesterday after her
one entry was plucked out
of a hat of 200. The helloworld Gladstone competition gave the lucky winner a
return flight from Brisbane
to Fiji, three nights' accommodation and daily breakfast for two adults. Michele
was looking forward to
relaxing by the pool. "I can
just swim up to the bar and
try this cocktail and that
cocktail," she said. "I'm just
going to relax and enjoy the
friendly, smiling happy
faces." It was the first time
she had won anything
major in her life. "Only thing
have ever really won is
$14.55 on lotto which is just

Carmen Ward from helloworld Gladstone presenting Michele Archay with her free holiday to Fiji.
enough to go again," she
said. "This is about a $2000
holiday for free," Helloworld
Gladstone's Carmen Ward
said Michele should look
forward to a good time. "It's

one of our most popular

destinations for couples,
weddings, families and
friends," she said. "It's only
a 3 hour flight and you're
in another world."

08

INDIA

January-2015

1. Journey to Mars to
return of Red menace
The Indian democracy
witnessed several watersheds in 2014. While some
of them marked opportunities for a new beginning,
others pointed a finger at
the challenges India was
faced with. Here are the
achievements that held our
head high and also the
challenges that cry for
quick solutions.
1) Mangalyaan
India scripted history on
September 24 by becoming the first country to succeed on its first Mars mission
when
Isros
Mangalyaan slipped into
Martian orbit after a few
nail-biting moments. The
country joined the United
States, European Space
Agency and the former
Soviet Union in the elite
club of Martian explorers
with the Mars Orbiter
Mission,
affectionately
called MOM. Mangalyaan,
which relies on homegrown technology, is a
remarkably
low-budget
mission of about $75 million.
Nasas
Mars
Atmosphere and Volatile
Evolution mission, or
Maven, which reached its
position around the Red
Planet has a price tag of
$671 million nearly nine
times that of MOMs.
Mangalyaans
scientific
goals include using five
solar-powered instruments
to gather data that will help
determine how Martian
weather systems work and
what happened to the
water that is believed to
have once existed on Mars
in large quantities. It will
also search Mars for
methane, a key chemical
in life processes on Earth
that could also come from
geological processes.

Mars

India year in

Review
lakh crore in current
exchange rates) in overseas tax havens between
1948 and 2008.

5) Coal block verdict

Kashmir
The court, however, clarified its verdict pertained
only to eunuchs and not
other sections of the society such as gays, lesbians
and bisexuals, who are
also considered under the
umbrella term, transgender.

2) Nobel man Satyarthi

Indias Kailash Satyarthi
was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize this year,
along with Pakistans
Malala Yousafzai in what
is being seen as a highly
symbolic push to end a
decades-old
rivalry
between the nucleararmed rivals. Satyarthi has
been heading a more than
three-decade long campaign for child rights, pushing for their education and
fighting against child trafficking and bonded labour.
Satyarthis organisation,
the New Delhi-based
Bachpan Bachao Andolan,
has created domestic and
international
consumer
resistance to products
made by bonded children
as well as with direct legal
and advocacy work. The
father-of-two, who is an
electrical engineer by training, has rescued some
80,000 children sold to pay
their parents debts, and
helped them find new
lives.

3) Third gender
Transgenders, ridiculed
for their different sexual
identity and orientation,

www.fijisun-usa.com

4) Black money list

Satyarthi
were granted the status of
third gender by the
Supreme Court in April, in
a landmark ruling that will
entitle them to benefits of
the Centre and state government welfare schemes.
Upholding their right to
decide their self-identified
gender, a bench of justice
KS Radhakrishnan and
justice AK Sikri directed
the Centre and the state
governments to treat them
as socially and educationally backward classes of
citizens and provide them
reservation in admissions
in educational institutions
and government jobs.
About 2 million transgenders live in India, where
the term hijra is commonly
used to describe eunuchs,
transgender people, transsexuals, cross-dressers
and transvestites. Most of
them face discrimination
and abuse in the society.

In October-end, the
government submitted a
list of 627 Indians holding
accounts in HSBC Bank,
Geneva, to the Supreme
Court, which directed its
special investigating team
(SIT) to examine them and
take appropriate action.
Earlier, the Centre had disclosed eight names in an
affidavit - including those
of Dabur India promoter
Pradip Burman, a bullion
trader and the directors of
a Goa mining company, all
facing prosecution. Prime
Minister Narendra Modis
government had set up the
SIT comprising regulators
and ex-judges to identify
illicit fund-holders and
repatriate money on the
first day in office, as part of
a wider clampdown on corruption that he promised
during his election campaign.
While there are no official estimates, Global
Financial Integrity (GFI), a
Washington-based thinktank, has estimated that
Indians had salted away
$462 billion (about Rs. 28

In a major verdict, the

Supreme
Court
in
September cancelled all
but four of the 218 coal
blocks that it declared illegal. The court said all coal
block allocations between
1993 and 2010 were done
in an unfair, arbitrary and
non-transparent manner
without following any
objective criteria. The coal
blocks allocated to private
companies between 2004
and March 2010 are situated
in
Jharkhand,
C h h a t t i s g a r h ,
Maharashtra,
West
Bengal,
Odisha
and
Madhya Pradesh. The top
court has been monitoring
the CBI probe into the
scam. Following the ruling,
the government promulgated an ordinance to
allow for e-auctions of coal
blocks.

6) Kashmir on the boil

Twenty-one
people,
including 11 security men,
were killed in a string of
militant strikes in Kashmir
on December 5, days
ahead of Prime Minister
Narendra Modis visit to
campaign for the assembly
elections. In the deadliest
attack, heavily armed militants stormed an army
camp in the border town of
Uri, killing three policemen
and eight army men,
including a lieutenant
colonel.
In 2014, India also saw
repeated crossfire violations by Pakistan on the
International Border and
LoC, and the tension
between the two nucleararmed rivals escalating.

7) Red rage
At least 14 Central
Reserve Police Force

Shadow of terror
(CRPF) personnel were
killed and about a dozen
wounded in an encounter
with
Maoists
near
Chintagufa
in
Chhattisgarhs Sukma district on December 1,
resulting in the biggest
loss of lives in anti-Maoist
operations after the NDA
government
assumed
charge in May.
Earlier in March, a large
group of Maoist rebels
ambushed a team of security forces in Sukma, leaving 11 CRPF jawans, four
district policemen and a
civilian dead. During the
Lok Sabha elections,
Maoists ambushed a
Cobra squad, killing three
of its personnel in Sukma.
Despite being on the back
foot, Maoists gave a tough
time to security forces in
Bihar and Jharkhand as
well.
In April, three polling
officials and five policemen
returning from election
duty were killed by suspected
Maoists
in
Jharkhand. Security personnel have fallen prey to
Maoist ambush in Bihar as
well.

8) Crimes against
women
A 25-year-old woman
was allegedly raped by an
Uber cab driver in north
Delhis Sarai Rohilla in the
first week of December,
underlining the Capital is
not a safe place for women
despite tough anti-rape
laws that came into being
after the 16/12 gang rape
of a woman on a moving
bus.
India reported several
shocking sex crimes in
2014. Protests gripped
Bangalore in December
after the alleged rape of a
nursery student in a city
school. The incident was a
grim reminder of the
alleged rape of a six-yearold girl in an upscale city
school in July and cast a
shadow
on
security
arrangements in such institutions in the Karnataka
capital.
In August, reports of an
eight year-old girl being
allegedly sexually assaulted by her 63-year-old
teacher inside her school
premises again in
Bangalore had triggered
a flutter as well.

9) Racist India

FIJISUN

An 18-year-old college
student died in Januaryend after being allegedly
beaten up mercilessly at a
marketplace in Delhi, triggering
widespread
protests in the Capital.
Nido Tania, the son of
Arunachal
Pradesh
Congress legislator Nido
Pavitra, was attacked after
an altercation broke out
between him and a shopkeeper over his hair colour.
The
incident
pronounced the fears of the
30,000-odd students from
the northeast in Delhi who
face harassment almost
every
day.
Tanias death underlined
breaking out of certain
stereotypes was proving
next to impossible for a
section of India. In
October, Bengaluru police
arrested three men who
reportedly assaulted a
Manipuri student with
rocks for not speaking the
local language. The incident once again triggered
a storm across the country.
But, in an indication that
no lesson was learnt, the
34-year-old daughter of
former police commissioner of Bengaluru and ex-MP
HT Sangliana was allegedly racially abused in
December by two women
who told her to go back to
China at a mall in
Bangalore in December.

10) Shadow of terror

When 46 Indian nurses
returned from ISIS (also
known as IS) captivity in
Iraq, little did India know
some of its own will travel
to West Asia to join the
Sunni militants.
Areeb
Majeed and three other
young men - Fahad
Shaikh, Saheem Tanki and
Amaan Tandel - from
Kalyan in Maharashtras
Thane district went to Iraq
in May to join the jihadi
group. Six months later,
22-year-old
Majeed
returned from West Asia
and was arrested by the
National
Investigation
Agency(NIA).
In
December, a young engineer behind a popular proIslamic State (IS) Twitter
account was arrested at
his
one-room
rented
accommodation in an
upscale Bengaluru neighbourhood,
triggering
pledges to free him by
those subscribing to the
terror groups alarming
agenda.
In another major challenge, al Qaeda chief
Ayman
al-Zawahiri
announced of launching a
new branch of the global
Islamist extremist movement in September to reinvigorate and expand its
struggle in the Indian subcontinent.
In a video spotted in
online jihadist forums by
the SITE terrorism monitoring group, Zawahiri said
the new force would crush
the artificial borders dividing Muslim populations in
the region. He added
Qaedat al-Jihad would
take the fight to India,
Myanmar and Bangladesh.

FIJISUN

www.fijisun-usa.com

INDIA NEWS

January-2015

09

strong medicines and probably alcohol. An investigation was ordered by the

Sub-Divisional Magistrate to
examine the cause of poisoning and to ascertain if it
was murder or suicide. Her
body was cremated at Lodhi
Crematorium in South Delhi.

ferguson unresT

narendra modi
Proving
his
mettle
against the opposition from
both outside and inside his
party, Narendra Modi delivered BJP's best results ever
in the Lok Sabha election
2014, giving it more than the
272 seats needed to form a
government. The stunning
numbers provided undeniable evidence of the "Modi
wave" that the country was
experiencing for months.
His core team carefully constructed a presidential-style
campaign powered with
social media and technology
ensuring his victory. In a
first, he invited the leaders
of SAARC countries to his
swearing-in ceremony for
taking office as Prime
Minister, to strengthen
India's diplomatic and business ties.

India year in

Review

The year 2014 saw people, places and evenTs being

in The news -- some for The righT reason, some for
The wrong -- buT all of Them made a significanT impacT
on our lives and ideas. here's a look...

swachh bharaT abhiyan

Prime Minister Narendra
Modi launched the Swachh
Bharat Abhiyan on October
2, Gandhi Jayanti, with a
vision for a clean India by
October 2, 2019, the 150th
birth
anniversary
of
Mahatma Gandhi. Not only
did he wield the broom to
clean a road in New Delhi,
but also nominated nine personalities from various
walks of life, including
Sachin Tendulkar, Salman
Khan, Priyanka Chopra and
Anil Ambani to propagate
the campaign. Amitabh
Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan,
Vivek Oberoi, Paresh Rawal
and Tamannaah Bhatia are
among the several other
celebrities who took up the
challenge and helped in
spreading awareness about
the cleanliness initiative.

Terminal 2 (T2)
The swanky Terminal 2 at
Mumbai International Airport
was opened for operations
on January 10. The terminal
is spread over 1400 acres
and has been constructed
using over 18000 metric
tonnes of steel. It will cater
to an estimated 40 million
passengers annually and
double aircraft parking
stands to more than 100,
besides having 188 check-in
counters, 60 departure
immigration desks (up from
38), 72 arrival immigration
desks (up from 40), 52
boarding gates (up from 20),
10,900 seats, 102 toilets. It
has 161 elevators, escalators and travelators, 16
lounges, a day hotel, a transit hotel, and 10 baggage
carrousels.

trollers, increase safety and

overall capacity at the airport. The new ATC has a
capacity of handling 46 flight
operations per hour, including around 750 take-offs
and landings, and controlling other air traffic movements like international air
traffic in a 24-hour cycle
making it among the busiest
in the country.

india's TallesT
aTc Tower
India's tallest Air Traffic
Control tower, the height of
a 30-storey skyscraper, was
commissioned at Mumbai's
Chhatrapati
Shivaji
International Airport on
January 1st. The tower
stands at 83.8 metres, over
20 metres higher than the
existing structure and was
built at a cost of around Rs
125 crore. It gives an uninterrupted five-mile 360degrees view of the surroundings for better navigation
and
surveillance.
Spread over a 2,800 square
metre area and equipped
with the latest technology in
communications, navigation
and surveillance (CNS) systems, it includes electronic
flight strips which will lessen
the workload of the con-

als ice buckeT

challenge
This unusual fund-raising
drive for patients of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
had gone viral the world
over in July-August and
Bollywood celebrities were
quick to take up the challenge. Akshay Kumar,
Sonakshi Sinha, Bipasha
Basu, Riteish Deshmukh,
Abhishek
Bachchan,
Sidharth Malhotra, Neha
Dhupia and Dia Mirza are a
few among the many BTown stars to have supported the cause.

ebola virus epidemic

The Ebola outbreak in
West Africa was first reported in Guinea in December
2013 and has rapidly
become the deadliest disease. As of 10 December
2014, the World Health

Organisation (WHO) and

respective governments has
reported a total of 18,232
suspected cases and 6,990
deaths in six countries i.e.
Liberia, Guinea, Sierra
Leone, Nigeria, the United
States and Mali. Although
the WHO believes that this
substantially understates
the magnitude of the outbreak. The initial infection is
believed to have occurred
after an Ebola virus was
transmitted to a human by
contact with an infected animal's body fluids and
human-to-human transmission occurs only via direct
contact with blood or bodily
fluids from an infected person. Pharmaceutical giants,
governments, foundations
and multilateral agencies
have contributed funds to
support development of an
Ebola vaccine.

godman rampal
Godman Rampal was
arrested on Nov 19 from his
Satlok Ashram near Barwala
in Hisar district of Haryana
after a stand-off and clashes
between his supporters and
security forces. Police
investigations
have
revealed a multi-million
rupee empire of the sect
leader spread in Haryana
and other states and investments worth millions made
by Rampal, his key aides
and his sect in real estate,
transport business and
other areas in recent years.
Police have recovered arms
and ammunition which were
used by his private commandos and supporters to
give a stiff resistance to
security forces to prevent
them from entering the
ashram complex. Inside
Rampal's luxury world,
authorities also found bulletproof enclosures, SUVs,

swimming pools, tonnes of

rations that could sustain
hundreds of people for
months, gym equipment,
flat-screen TVs, split airconditioners, massage therapy beds and big personal
lockers.

devyani khobragade
incidenT
Devyani Khobragade,
then the Deputy Consul
General
of
Consulate
General of India in New York
City, was charged by U.S.
authorities on December 11,
2013 with committing visa
fraud and providing false
statements in order to gain
entry to the United States
for Sangeeta Richard for
employment as a domestic
worker for Khobragade in
New York. Khobragade was
arrested the next day, subjected to a "strip search",
presented to a judge and
released the same day. Her
arrest
and
treatment
received a lot of media
attention, particularly in
India, and led to a major
diplomatic standoff between
the two countries. A week
later, Khobragade was
transferred by the Indian
government to the UN mission in New York to entitle
her to full diplomatic immunity. On January 8, 2014,
the U.S. issued Khobragade
the G-1 visa that granted
her full diplomatic immunity.
As per standard procedure,
the US requested her departure and the next day she
left for India. That same day
she was indicted with visa
fraud and making false
statements. On March 12,
2014,
Judge
Shira
Scheindlin ordered that all
charges
against
Khobragade be dismissed
because she had diplomatic
immunity. Two days later,
Khobragade was re-indicted
on the same charges.

Michael
Brown,
an
unarmed
18-year-old
African-American teenager,
was shot to death on August
9 after an altercation with
Darren Wilson, a white
police officer in Ferguson, a
suburb of St. Louis,
Missouri, US. Brown was a
suspect in a strong-arm robbery committed minutes
before the shooting. The
shooting prompted protests
that roiled the area for
weeks. On November 24,
the St. Louis County prosecutor announced that a
grand jury decided not to
indict police officer Wilson.
The announcement set off
another wave of protests.
Along
with
peaceful
protests, there was looting
and violent unrest in the
vicinity of the original shooting. According to media
reports, there was police
militarization when dealing
with protests in Ferguson.

vladimir puTin
The TIME Person of the
Year 2014 Runner-Up,
Russian President Vladimir
Putin has been striving to
restore his countrys lost
prestige. His decision in
March to invade and then
annex the region of Crimea
from Ukraine saw his
approval ratings in Russia
skyrocket, reaching a peak
of 88% in October. The 62year-old wants to position
Russia as a superpower and
is using the outpouring of
nationalistic pride to fuel this
mission. Putin hopes his
deals with Turkey, China
and India will keep Russia at
the heart of global trade. It
remains to be seen if he
succeeds in this mission.

sunanda
pushkar deaTh case
Sunanda Pushkar, wife
of Congress leader Shashi
Tharoor, was found dead in
the Leela Palace hotel in
Chanakyapuri, New Delhi,
on January 17. However,
the cause of death was
unclear. While initial reports
said that Sunanda was suspected to have committed
suicide, later reports stated
that the cause of death was
unnatural. The autopsy at All
India Institute of Medical
Sciences (AIIMS) indicated
that she died of drug overdose, most likely a combination of sedatives, other

rohiT sharma's
hisToric 264
Indian batsman from
Mumbai created headlines in
the cricket world as he
smashed a record-breaking
264 runs against Sri Lanka in
the fourth ODI at Eden
Gardens. Rohit Sharma, thus,
carved his name in the history
books to post the highest individual score ever in an ODI,
eclipsing Virender Sehwag.
He also became the only
cricketer in history to score
two double centuries in ODIs.

10

iNdiA NewS

January-2015

www.fijisun-usa.com

FIJISUN

Cold kills 31 in north India, 200 trains delayed

At least 31 people have
died across Uttar Pradesh
due to the intense cold and
three more were killed in
road accidents because of
dense fog, officials said on
Tuesday.
The cold wave, accompanied by heavy fog, has
disrupted road, rail and air
traffic across northern
India and minimum temperature has dipped below
normal at many places.
Eight people died in
eastern UP because of the
inclement weather since
Monday. Six died in the
Avadh region, two each in
Meerutand Kanpur, seven
in Moradabad and six perished in Aligarh as the cold
wave continued unabated.
A mother and her son
were killed when their car
hit a stationary truck in
dense fog in Sarojini
Nagar area of Lucknow,

police said.
Abhishek Shukla, 40,
and his mother Urmila, 62,
were seriously injured
when their car rammed
into the truck on Monday
night due to fog near
Daroga Khera, they said.
They were rushed to a
hospital where doctors
declared them dead, police
said.
Another man was killed
and six others were injured
when a SUV hit a car due
to dense fog at Yamuna
Expressway in Mathura.
The incident took place on
Monday night when the
driver of the SUV, on his
way to Agra, dashed into
the car after colliding
head-on with a roadways
bus. The SUV driver could
not see the bus coming
from opposite direction
due to dense fog and hit
the car, police said. In the

mishap,
SUV
driver
Rajesh, a resident of a
Kanpur village, died and
six persons from both the
vehicles were seriously
injured. The Met Office has
said the cold wave condition would continue in the
coming days.

A drop in the mercury

accompanied with a dense
fog delayed trains, railway
officials said.
In Lucknow, more than
150 trains were delayed
due to fog and poor visibility. Trains such as Punjab
Mail,
Saryu-Yamuna

Gurbani row :
Akal Takht
receives apology
from Navjot Sidhu
Cricketer-turned-politician
and former BJP MP Navjot
Singh Sidhu on Monday tendered a written apology to Akal
Takht, the top Sikh temporal
seat, over the Gurbani row,
saying his religion was the most
sacred to him. Confirming the
receipt of the apology, Akal
Takhts head Gurbachan Singh
said, We have the receipt of
apology sent by Sidhu through
one of his supporters. Sidhu
in his apology said, If he had
committed any blasphemously
act knowingly or unknowingly
hurting the sentiments of anyone, he felt apology with folded
hands not even one time, but
even repeatedly. Singh said,
the fate of his written apology
is to be decided in the next
meeting of Sikh High priests
which is yet to be fixed. Few
days ago Sidhus cavalcade
was attacked by a mob in
Jammu during an election drive
while he was campaigning in
favour of Gandhi Nagar
Assembly candidate Kavinder
Gupta at Bhor camp area.
Window panes of vehicle were
broken while Sidhu escaped
unhurt.

Express,
New
DelhiJalpaiguri Express, KotaPatna
Express,
Sadbhavna
Express,
Kumbh Express, Vaishali
Express, besides others,
were delayed by 10-12
hours, a railway official told
IANS. A state government
spokesperson told IANS
that all government aided
and private schools in the
state have been asked to
remain shut till December
28. Delhi experienced a
chilly and foggy Tuesday
morning that affected at
least 65 trains, arriving and
departing from the city.
An official of the
Northern Railway said at
least 54 trains coming to
the city were running late,
while 11 trains departing
from Delhi were rescheduled due to dense fog.
According to the Met
Office, the visibility at

8.30am was 400 metres

and humidity was 91%.
The minimum temperature
settled two notches below
the seasons average at 6
degrees Celsius. The Met
office has forecast a chilly
day ahead in the Capital.
The sky will remain
clear throughout the day...
Light fog will return in the
evening, said an official of
the India Meteorological
Department.
The days maximum
temperature is likely to
hover around 17 degrees
Celsius.
Monday was the coldest
December 22 in five years
in Delhi as the minimum
temperature dipped four
notches below the seasons average to 4.2
degrees Celsius, while the
maximum settled at 15.8
degrees Celsius, six notches below the average.

Govt. sets up committee

to form SIT to reinvestigate 1984 riot cases
A

head of Delhi
Assembly polls,
government
on
Tuesday set up a committee to examine the
possibility of constitution
of a Special Investigation
Team (SIT) for reinvestigation of the 1984 antiSikh riot cases.
The Committee, headed by former Supreme
Court Judge Justice
(retired) G.P. Mathur, will
submit its report within
three months, a Home
Ministry official said. BJP
had earlier demanded
reinvestigation into all
cases related to the 1984
riots which had broken
out after the assassination of the then Prime
Minister Indra Gandhi.
The Justice Nanavati
Commission had recommended reopening of
only four of 241 cases
closed by police but BJP
wanted the reinvestiga-

tion of all the other 237

cases. Supreme Court
lawyer H.S. Phoolka,
who has been fighting
the anti-Sikh riot cases,
had in an open letter to
then Law Minister Ravi
Shankar
Prasad,
demanded that an SIT be
set up to probe the 1984
riot cases.
Mr. Phoolka said that
of the 241 related cases,
only four were reopened
and reinvestigated by
CBI. In two of the cases,
CBI
had
filed
a
chargesheet and in one
of the cases five persons, including a former
MLA, were convicted.
The committee will
also oversee the implementation of the payment
of enhanced compensation of Rs. 5 lakh per person killed during the
riots, as approved by the
Union
Cabinet
on
December 10, 2014.

Bird flu scare spreads

Pak boat carrying explosives blows up off Gujarat coast

continue on page-1
T he Indian Coast Guard ruled
out the explosion being an accident, saying the men on the boat
sped away because they were
hiding "something really serious". "If they weren't doing anything wrong, then they had no
reason to run, to set the boat on
fire. Why would anyone set

(themselves) on fire?" said KR

Nautiyal, deputy inspector general of the ICG. A top government source told HT it all began
around 9am on December 31,
after the National Technical
Research Organisation (NTRO)
issued an intelligence alert that a
suspicious Pakistani fishing boat
from Keti Bunder near Karachi

was headed towards India. The

conversations between the crew
and their handlers in Pakistan
were intercepted and intelligence
authorities suspected that a terror strike was being planned.
With the NTRO providing the
exact coordinates of the trawler,
the ICG scrambled a Dornier
plane at 11am to locate it.

fter a dead duck in

the Sukhna lake here
was found carrying
the H5N1 Avian virus and
over a hundred water birds
were culled last week, the
bird flu scare has spread
across Haryana.
Death of crows in large
numbers was reported from
Pinjore and Jagadhari and
10 migratory Bar-headed
geese in the plains of Jind.
The State has sounded an
alert for Avian flu. These
developments come at a
time when a large number of
migratory birds are visiting

Haryana and the nearby

States. According to experts,
some species of migratory
birds in the State are notified
as those known to carry the
virus. While these birds may
not themselves die of it, they
can pass on the virus to
other species. Haryana
Health Minister Anil Vij on
Monday said a team had
been sent to Jind to take
stock of the situation.
Assam: Bodo militants kill 34
in Kokrajhar and Sonitpur At
least 34 people have been
killed, several of them
women and children, when

heavily armed NDFB(S) militants launched an almost

simultaneous attack on
Adivasi settlers in four locations spread in two districts,
Kokrajhar and Sonitpur on
Tuesday evening. The casualties are likely to rise.
Confirming this Assam DGP
Khagen Sarma told The
Indian
Express
that
NDFB(S) militants attacked
Adivasi settlers in four
places, with the casualty
reported to be highest in the
Pabhoi reserved forest in
Sonitpur district bordering
Arunachal Pradesh.

FIJISUN

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PAKISTAN NEWS

January-2015

11

Inside Peshawar school: Eerie silence

and the stamp of Taliban brutality
A

n eerie silence
hung over the
shattered, bloodspattered corridors and
classrooms of the Army
Public
School
on
Wednesday the silence
of 132 dead Pakistani children, their lives cut short
by Taliban gunmen.
Instead of the shouts of
excited teenagers echoing
down the schools hallways and in the crisp winter air of its manicured
grounds, only the crunch
of soldiers boots could be
heard.
As the death toll from
Pakistans deadliest ever
terror attack rose to 148,
the full horrifying aftermath
of Tuesdays eight-hour
was revealed.
In the schools plush
auditorium, which saw
some of the worst of the
carnage, were pools of
blood on the floor.
Books, ties, sweaters,
notepads, spectacles
the normal trappings of a
day at school lay scattered, drenched in the
blood of children who will
never use them again,
never go to school again,
never laugh or cry again.
They had assembled for
a lecture, preparing them
for a future that more than
100 of them would never
see as they were cut down
in a hail of bullets fired by
the .
It was in this hall that
16-year-old saved his own
life by playing dead after
being shot in both legs
stuffing his tie into his
mouth to stifle his screams
of pain.
My body was shivering.
I saw death so close and I
will never forget the black
boots approaching me I
felt as though it was death
that was approaching me,
he told AFP. Total devastation. Around the modern,
well-built school, desks lay

upended in classrooms,
walls were sprayed with
blood and pockmarked
with bullet holes.
The schools administration block was a scene
of total devastation.
It was here that the
some Tehreek-e-Taliban
Pakistan (TTP) militants
holed up for their last stand
against the commandos
sent to end their rampage.
Once-tidy office rooms
were buried under a chaotic mess of broken glass,
bullet casings, plaster,
masonry and smashed-up
computers.
The names on a wooden honours board were
illegible under the spray of
blood,
shrapnel
and
debris.
In one room the smell of
burning lingered, the acrid
aftermath of the killing of
the
school
principal.
Principal Tahira Qazis
body
was
retrieved
overnight from the debris.
Qazi was inside her office
when the militants made
their way into the administration building, some 20
meters (yards) from the

Pak Taliban release

photo of fighters
behind Peshawar
massacre

auditorium. She ran and

locked herself into the
bathroom but the attackers
threw a grenade inside,
through a vent, and killed
her, army spokesperson
Asim Bajwa said.
Elsewhere, a pair of
bare, white feet could be
seen, along with shreds of
human flesh and every-

where splatters of
blood. In a corner lay a pile
of trophies and medals, a
poignant reminder of the
achievements of young
lives now gone.
On a billboard, an indicator of the schools military connections: photographs of students with the
inscription: We love our

brave soldiers.
The
,
starting
Wednesday. Some of the
critically wounded adults members of the school
staff - died overnight, and
authorities raised the overall death toll to 148.
Another 121 students and
three staff members were
wounded in the assault.

n an email on
Wednesday,
Pakistani Taliban
spokesperson
Mohammad Khurasani
claimed the attack on
a school in Peshawar
that killed 148 people,
mostly children, was
justified because the
Pakistani army has
allegedly long been
killing innocent children and families of
their fighters. He
vowed more such militant attacks and told
Pakistani civilians to
detach themselves
from all military institution. The Pakistani
Taliban also posted
photographs of six
Islamic fighters they
said took part in the
Peshawar assault. In
one photo, the militants are seen wearing
army fatigues, standing with a local Taliban
leader in what the
statement claimed one
of the Pakistani tribal
regions.

Peshawar attack mastermind is Umar Mansoor, father of 3

he most hated man in
Pakistan is a 36-year-old
father of three and volleyenthusiast nicknamed

ball
Slim.
His real name is Umar
Mansoor and the Pakistani
Taliban say he masterminded
this weeks massacre of 132
children and nine staff at a
school in Peshawar - the deadliest militant attack in Pakistans
history. A video posted on
Thursday on a website used by
the Taliban shows a man with a
luxuriant chest-length beard,
holding an admonishing finger
aloft as he seeks to justify the

December 16 attack. The caption identified him as Umar

Mansoor. If our women and children die as martyrs, your children will not escape, he said.
We will fight against you in such
a style that you attack us and we
will take revenge on innocents.
The Taliban say the attack, in
which gunmen wearing suicidebomb vests executed children,
was retaliation for a military
offensive carried out by the
Pakistani army. They accuse the
military of carrying out extrajudicial killings.The accusation is not
new. Many courts have heard
cases where men disappeared

from the custody of security

services. Some bodies have
been found later, hands bound
behind the back and shot in the
head, or dismembered and
stuffed into sacks. Some security officials say privately the
courts are so corrupt and afraid,
it is almost impossible to convict
militants. You risk your life to
catch terrorists and the courts
always release them, said one
official. If you kill them, then
they dont come back. The
country is so inured to violence
that the discovery of such bodies
barely rates a paragraph in a
local newspaper. Despite this,

the school attack shocked a

nation where traditionally,
women and children are protected, even in war. Six Pakistani
Taliban interviewed by Reuters
confirmed the mastermind was

Mansoor. Four of them said he is

close to Mullah Fazlullah, the
embattled leader of the fractious
group who ordered assassins to
kill schoolgirl activist Malala
Yousafzai. He strictly follows
the principles of jihad, one said.
He is strict in principles, but
very kind to his juniors. He is
popular among the juniors
because of his bravery and boldness. Mansoor got a high
school education in the capital,
Islamabad, two Taliban members said, and later studied in a
madrassa, a religious school.
Umar Mansoor had a tough
mind from a very young age, he

was always in fights with other

boys, said one Taliban member.
Mansoor has two brothers and
spent some time working in the
city of Karachi as a labourer
before joining the Taliban soon
after it was formed, in late 2007,
said one commander. His nickname is nary, a word in the
Pashto language meaning
slim, and he is the father of two
daughters and a son, said
another commander. (Mansoor)
likes to play volleyball, said one
of the Taliban members. He is a
good volleyball player. Wherever
he shifts his office, he puts a volleyball net up.

12

PAkIstAn

January-2015

www.fijisun-usa.com

FIJISUN

Pakistan troops kill 77 Talibans near Afghan border

Pakistani
warplanes
and ground forces killed at
least 77 militants in a
northwestern tribal region
near the Afghan border,
officials said Friday, days
after - most of them children - in a school massacre.
Meanwhile, a Pakistani
prosecutor said the government will granted to the
main suspect in the 2008
Mumbai terror attacks - a
decision that outraged
neighboring India and
called
into
question
Pakistans commitment to
fighting militancy.
The violence at a school
in Pakistans northwest
earlier this week stunned
the country and brought
cries for retribution. In the
wake of the mass killing
the military has struck targets in the Khyber tribal
region and approved the
death penalty for six convicted terrorists.

The military said its

ground
forces
late
Thursday killed 10 militants while airstrikes killed
another 17, including an
Uzbek
commander.
Another 32 alleged terrorists were killed by security
forces in an ambush in
Tirah valley in Khyber on
Friday as they headed
toward the Afghan border,
the military said.
On Friday morning,
troops killed 18 more militants during a cordon and
search
operation
in
Khyber, the military said.
The military said the
army chief, Gen. Raheel
Sharif, was traveling to
Khyber Friday to meet with
troops taking part in the
ground operation.
Khyber agency is one of
two main areas in the
northwest where the military has been trying to root
out militants in recent
months. Khyber borders

Pakistan was warned

about Peshawar school
attack in August

overnment departments in Pakistans

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
province were warned of an
imminent attack on the Army
Public School months before
the carnage unfolded in
Peshawar on December 16.
The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
Home Ministry stated that the
Taliban commander Khaksar
in Orakazi, a part of the
Federally Administered Tribal
Areas (FATA), along with two
other terrorists, Bilal and
Obaidullah, planned to carry
out attacks at educational institutions under the Army, Geo
News reported, citing alert
number 802 of the written
warning issued on August 28.
Bilal and Obaidullah, with
their accomplices, had also
conducted reconnaissance of
the targets. The warning stated
that the intention of terrorists
was revenge and they wanted

to kill as many children of Army

officers as possible.
The written warning had
called for security measures to
be made in advance to avoid
any untoward incident, and
copies were circulated to the
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief
Minister, the Home Minister
and law enforcement agencies. On December 16, terrorists carried out one of the most
barbaric attacks in the history
of Pakistan. Tehreek-e-Taliban
Pakistan (TTP) terrorists brutally killed more than 140 students and teachers at the
Army Public School in
Peshawar. Following the
attack, the government and
political parties expressed a
renewed resolve to fight terrorism in the country. Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif also lifted the moratorium on the
death penalty in terrorism
cases.

to death by military courts,

the army said.
It was unclear when the
military planned to hang
the six men, but authorities
generally move quickly
once death warrants are
signed. Such executions
are usually carried out at
prisons under the supervision of army officers and
then the bodies are handed over to relatives for burial. There was no information on the men or the
crimes for which they were
convicted. Prime Minister
Nawaz
Sharif
on
Wednesday announced
that he would lift a moratorium on executions in terrorism-related cases. The
government has not yet
carried out any executions.
The lifting of the moratorium was aimed at demonstrating the governments
resolve. But the decision
by an anti-terrorism court
on Thursday to grant bail

Peshawar, where the

school massacre happened, and militants have
traditionally attacked the
city before withdrawing to
the tribal region where
police cant chase them.
The other area is North
Waziristan, where the military launched a massive
operation in June. In the
southern
province
of

Baluchistan,
Pakistani
security forces killed a
senior Pakistani Taliban
leader along with seven of
his associates in three
separate pre-dawn raids,
said a tribal police officer,
Ali Ahmed. The Pakistani
army chief late Thursday
signed the death warrants
of six hard core terrorists
convicted and sentenced

Al Qaeda bursting with pain

over Pakistan
school attack

Pak plans to execute 500

terror convicts: Officials

Al-Qaedas
regional
branch on Sunday said its
hearts were bursting with
pain over the Talibans
massacre at a Pakistan
school and urged the militants to target only security
forces.
The attack on Tuesday
killed 149 people mostly
children in the northwestern Pakistani city of
Peshawar.
Our hearts are bursting
with pain and grief over this
incident,
Osama
Mehmood, spokesman for
Al-Qaeda South Asia chapter said in a four-page
emailed statement.
There is no doubt that
the list of crimes and atrocities of the Pakistani army
has crossed the limit and it
is true that this army is
ahead of everyone in
Americas slavery and
genocide of Muslims... but
it does not mean that we
should seek revenge from
oppressed
Muslims,
Mehmood said.

Pakistan plans to execute

around 500 militants in coming
weeks, officials said Monday,
after the government lifted a
moratorium on the death penalty
in terror cases following a
Taliban school massacre.
since Friday amid rising
public anger over Tuesdays
slaughter in the northwestern
city of Peshawar, which left 149
people dead including 133 children. After the deadliest terror
attack in Pakistani history, Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif ended the
six-year moratorium on the
death penalty, reinstating it for
terrorism-related cases. Interior
ministry has finalised the cases
of 500 convicts who have
exhausted all the appeals, their
mercy petitions have been
turned down by the president
and their executions will take
place in coming weeks, a senior
government official told AFP on
condition of anonymity. A second
official confirmed the information. Of the six hanged so far,
five were involved in a failed
attempt to assassinate the thenmilitary ruler Pervez Musharraf

in 2003, while one was involved

in a 2009 attack on army headquarters.
Police, troops and paramilitary Rangers have been
deployed across the country and
airports and prisons put on red
alert as the executions take
place and troops intensify operations against Taliban militants in
northwestern tribal areas. Sharif
has ordered the attorney generals office to actively pursue
capital cases currently in the
courts,
a
government
spokesman
said.
Prime
Minister has also issued directions for appropriate measures
for early disposal of pending
cases related to terrorism, the
spokesman said without specifically confirming the plan to execute 500. Pakistan has
described Tuesdays bloody
rampage as its own mini 9/11,
calling it a game-changer in the
fight against extremism. The
decision to reinstate executions
has been condemned by human
rights groups, with the United
Nations also calling for it to
reconsider.

to the main suspect in the

Mumbai attacks, Zaki-urRahman Lakhvi, called into
question that commitment.
Lakhvi is one of seven
people on trial in Pakistan
for the assault, but the trial
has produced no results so
far. It has been closed to
the media. India reacted
with outrage to news of
Lakhvis pending release.
Special public prosecutor Abu Zar Peerzada said
he would appeal to the
High Court to cancel the
bail and said Lakhvi had
not yet been released.
In
schools
across
Pakistan, special classes
were held Friday, with
schoolchildren chanting
prayers in memory of the
victims of the Taliban
slaughter. In mosques
throughout the country,
worshippers also offered
special prayers for the
massacred innocents in
Peshawar.

More than 300 terror

suspects held in Islamabad
Pakistans security forces
have arrested more than 300
terror suspects, including foreigners, in a crackdown against
militants in the capital
Islamabad. Pakistan has
launched a countrywide crackdown on militants after the
Peshawar school massacre
which killed 148 people, most of
them students, last week.
Six teams of sniffer dogs,
armed personnel carriers, bomb
disposal squads and commandos participated in the operations in the capital yesterday,
the Dawn reported. Officials of
Capital
Territory
Police,
Pakistan Rangers, and intelligence agencies also recovered
arms and ammunition. These
were intelligence-based operations conducted in view of the
fresh threats from militants after
the execution of two convicted
terrorists, the paper said, citing
a police official. Afghan refugee
settlements, bus terminals and
under-construction buildings
were also searched for terrorists. Officials said that educational institutions were now targets, forcing the authorities to
close all school and colleges in
the capital from tomorrow.

Pak fails to act on Lakhvis bail, court vacations begin

akistan government on
Tuesday again failed to
file a plea challenging the
bail to Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi,
the key planner of 2008 Mumbai
attacks, on the last working day
for courts ahead of a two-week
winter break, citing that the judge
has not released the copy of the
order.
The prosecution, which was
supposed
to
challenge
Islamabad Anti-Terrorism Courts
decision to grant bail to Lashkare-Taiba operations commander
Lakhvi in the high court, could
not do so as it failed to get a copy
of the ATCs order for the second

day.
The winter holidays of courts
mean the government may not
file the plea against Lakhvis bail
till January 8, a court official told
PTI.
The court, however, may take
up cases of very important
nature, he said.
Tuesday was the last working
day of the high courts and the
apex court. The high courts and
the Supreme Court of Pakistan
will observe winter holidays till
January 8.
The official expressed surprise over the Islamabad anti-terrorism courts reluctance to

hand over the copy of the bail

order to the government while it
wasted no time to provide the
release order of Lakhvi to the
Adiala Jail Rawalpindi administration a day after it granted him
bail on December 18.
On Tuesday, we again
approached the court to get the
copy of the order but we failed to
get it because of the unknown
reasons. We are utterly surprised over it, prosecution chief
Chaudhry Azhar told PTI.
I cannot say with certainty
that the government would be
able to file the appeal challenging Lakhvis bail till January 8 as

the courts will start observing

winter vacation from tomorrow
(Wednesday), he said.
ATC Islamabad Judge Kausar
Abbas Zaidi on December 18
had granted bail to Lakhvi citing
lack of evidence against him, but
before he could be released from
the jail, the government detained
him for three more months under
Public Maintenance Order in
Adiala Jail where the trial is
being held.
The decision to grant bail to
Lakhvi, 54, drew sharp criticism
from India and surprised many
for its timing, just days after
Taliban massacred 148 people,

mostly school children, in

Peshawar.
Lakhvis lawyer has filed a
petition in the high court here
challenging a trial courts decision to make the Pakistan
Judicial Commissions record a
part of evidence in the Mumbai
terror attack case.
Lakhvi and six other accused
- Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal,
Hamad Amin Sadiq, Shahid
Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and
Younis Anjum were allegedly
involved in planning and executing the Mumbai attacks on
November 26, 2008, that left 166
people dead.

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bollywood

www.fijisun-usa.com

That
awkward
moment
Cine stars had their share of bloopers
this year when they didnt think twice
before putting their thoughts across

January-2015

19

Varun Dhawan
Prior to the release of his Humpty
Sharma Ki Dulhania, the young actor
was rumoured to be dating his co-star
Alia Bhatt. And even if it were true,
havent you heard love is blind? At
times, it is dumb too. And when
Varun heaped a loaded praise on Alia,
comparing her to a Hollywood legend, we couldnt help but cringe.
QUOTE UNQUOTE: Alia is the
Robert
De
Niro
of
our generation.

Anil Kapoor
A daughter is generally the apple of
her fathers eye but that doesnt mean
the latter should lose sight of the happenings around him. Unfortunately,
this veteran star did.
QUOTE UNQUOTE: Fawad was
already
a
star
before
Khoobsurat. Now hes a
superstar. Sonam is very lucky for her
heroes; Ranbir Kapoor became a star
after Saawariya. Dhanush and
Farhan Akhtar went to the
next level in their careers
after Raanjhanaa and
Bhaag Milkha Bhaag.
Now its Fawad.
Arjun Kapoor
this Bong beauty, who has been struggling to make a comeback, took it a
Known as one of the little too far by giving herself a
most mischievous young grand title.
QUOTE UNQUOTE: I have been
actors around, he made
acting in films since the past 14
more news for the broyears and I have a large filmogmance with his friend
and co-star, Ranveer raphy. Yes, I have done a huge
Singh, than for his number of horror films and people
chemistry with actress- call me the Horror Queen Of Hindi
Film Industry rightfully.
es this year.
QUOTE UNQUOTE:
Me and Ranveer
will get married
when
the
law Dont we know of a particular kind of
changes (sic).
carpenters which always blames his
tools? This actor, who has had a notso-successful career in films, decided
to blame it on some wrong choices he
Self-praise is a good has made.
QUOTE UNQUOTE: My films
way to keep oneself
didnt justify my talent.
motivated.
But,

Arjun Kapoor

GAURAV DUBEY and

SHILPI SAMPAD
hitlist@mid-day.com

WHO doesnt know the feeling of saying the wrong thing at the wrong
time? Well, everyone including
Bollywood stars, who so fluently and
impeccably deliver elaborate lines onscreen. But the fact that every word
and action of theirs is documented,
given the constant media scrutiny,
makes it only worse. Be it during film
promotions, at public appearances or
chat shows, a few actors found themselves way off the mark while putting
their thoughts into words. hitlist
gives you a lowdown on some of the
weirdest statements made by B-Town
folk this year.

Zayed Khan

Anil Kapoor

Bipasha Basu

Sonam Kapoor
She is famously known as Bollywoods
fashion icon and infamously as
Bollywoods motor mouth. On many
occasions, Sonam tried injecting
humour into her comments or be
too concerned but it often backfired. The statement below takes
the cake.
QUOTE UNQUOTE:
People (who) make socalled art films,
why do you have
to take like notnice-looking
people? Like
why? Doesnt
make sense,
and just that
they
dont
look good does not
mean they are
good actors!

Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt

Sonam Kapoor

Mika to do a song with Rakhi soon

ollywood singer Mika

Singh, who scorched the
headlines after his kissing controversy with Rakhi
Sawant in 2006, says he will
soon do a song featuring the
item girl. The duo, who parted
ways after the kissing controversy, are back together. Mika and
Rakhi were spotted together at
the trailer launch of upcoming
movie "Mumbai Can Dance
Sala", which stars Rakhi, here

Monday. When asked about

working with Rakhi in the future,
Mika said: Yes, whenever we
get a chance, we would definitely do a song together in future.
But for now, we both are busy in
our work. Apart from Rakhi,
Mumbai Can Dance Saala
would also see Ashima Sharma,
Prashant Narayan, Aditya
Panscholi and Shakti Kapoor in
its cast. The film will hit the
screens Jan 3, 2015.

Zayed Khan

Sanjay Dutt gets 14-day leave from jail

ollywood actor Sanjay

Dutt has been sanctioned
a 14-day leave from
Pune's Yerwada jail. The actor's
lawyer Hitesh Jain said, "He has
been sanctioned a 14-day furlough and should be in Mumbai
on afternoon of December 24."
So, will the actor be applying for
extension? Jain said they will
think about it later. The last time
Sanjay came out of prison was
in December last year when he

was granted a month-long

parole. It was extended by 30
days in January on account of

his wife Manyata's illness. Prior

to that, he was on a month-long
leave of furlough on medical
grounds in October 2013. His
prolonged stay out of prison had
triggered a controversy, forcing
the government to order an
inquiry. The actor is amidst serving a 42-month sentence at
Pune's Yerwada jail after he was
convicted for illegal possession
of weapons in the 1993 Mumbai
serial blasts case.

20

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January-2015

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FIJISUN

Shah Rukh and Salman bury the hatchet

The two warring
Khans hugged each
other, chatted the
night away and got
emotional while talk

ing to each other.

Will 2015 pave way
for their growing
friendship?

heir friendship
had suffered a
major blow on July
16, 2008 when they had a
public fall-out at Salman's
ex-flame, Katrina Kaif's
birthday party. But Arpita
Khan's pre-wedding ceremony set the stage for
one of the most epic filmi
reunions when Shah Rukh
dropped by at her residence to bless her. The
two warring Khans
hugged each other, chatted the night away and
got emotional while talking to each other. Will
2015 pave way for their
growing friendship?

Gauahar
Khan's slapgate incident

Arpita Khan's star-studded wedding: When

Aayush Sharma and
Arpita Khan decided to
get married, little did
they know that their knotty affair would end up
being the wedding of the
year. Bollywood's top
stars turned up for the
nuptials in Hyderabad
where a lot of filmi drama
took place. Most talked
about was Salman Khan
addressing his ex-flame
Katrina Kaif as a 'Kapoor'.
The Khans gifted the

newly-weds a plush flat

off Carter Road, which is
close to their Galaxy

Apartments in Bandra.

In a shocking act of
moral policing, a 24year-old man slapped
actor and anchor
Gauahar Khan threefour times during the
shooting of the finale of
'India's Raw Star'
allegedly because he
felt her clothing was
indecent. The accused,
identified as Akil Malik,
said in his statement
that he had slapped
Gauahar to teach her a
lesson so that she
would never wear short
skirts in her life again.
Gauahar said she was
'hurt and shocked' by
the attack but the incident has made her
stronger.

SRK, AAMIR AND SALMAN COME

TOGETHER FOR KHAN KI ADALAT
Bollywood's superstar Khan trio Shah Rukh, Salman and Aamir
came together for the 21st anniversary celebrations of television talk
show, 'Aap Ki Adalat' in New Delhi. The special episode was called Khan
Ki Adalat. Shah Rukh introduced Salman as the country's 'biggest superstar' which was greeted by the audience with applause and wolf whistles.The Khans not only poked fun at each other, but also imitated
Salman's famous towel dance besides grilling show host Rajat Sharma.

LUNGI DANCE
Hollywood star
Kevin Spacey did
the lungi dance
with Shahid
Kapoor and
Deepika
Padukone at the
2014 IIFA
Awards held in
Tampa, Florida.

SUNNYS STRIP DANCE

SHWETA BASU PRASADS
ALLEGED SEX SCANDAL

n August 31, actress

Shweta Basu Prasad
was arrested by the
Hyderabad police for her
alleged involvement in a
high-profile prostitution racket. The actress, who won the
National Film Award as a
child artist for Makdee
(2002), was said to have
admitted to the charges dur-

ing police interrogation. But

the actress later clarified that
her so-called statement
about getting into prostitution
to support her family and
some other good causes was
a rogue scribe's attempt to
malign her and her family.
Shweta is now a script consultant for Anurag Kashyap's
production house.

Earlier in the
year, the social
media went crazy
over what were
apparently pics of
Sunny Leones
strip dance at a
private party at a
venue on the
MumbaiPune
highway. Rumours floating around suggested Sunny got
richer by Rs 40 lakh after the event. The expornstar took
to Twitter to deny being present at any private party and
rubbished the pictures as being fake.

FIJISUN

BOllywOOD

www.fijisun-usa.com

January-2015

21

Bollywood Hits and Misses

Bollywood had its share of surprise hits and obvious misses at the box
office in 2014. we take you through the films that were a roaring success and the ones that put up a disastrous show this year

Holiday

kshay Kumar jumped, ran and fought goons with such ease
that everything seemed utterly believable. The action
sequences will make you forget about the popcorn in your
hand and blow your mind away. The smart and suave baddie,
Freddy Daruwala, matched shoulder to shoulder and bicep to
bicep with Akshay Kumar. If only AR Murugadoss had cut down
on those unnecessary songs which served no purpose except
showing Sonakshi Sinhas existence and her outfits.

kick

Salman Khan film isn't about the plot. It's about

Salman Khan. 'Kick' shifts track incessantly from a
cold love story to underwhelming action to cheesy
melodrama, but Salman admits in the film, "Mere baare
mein itna mat sochna. Dil mein aata hoon, samajh mein
nahin." Critics might have given the film a thumbs-down,
but people swarmed the theatres to watch Salman play a
desi Robin Hood anyway. So much so that the film became
the highest grossing Bollywood movie of 2014 in India.

Director: AR Murugadoss Cast: Akshay Kumar,

Freddy Daruwala, Sonakshi Sinha, Govinda Release
Date: June 6, 2014

ek Villain

Director: Sajid Nadiadwala

Cast: Salman Khan, Jacqueline Fernandez,
Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Randeep Hooda
Release Date: July 25, 2014

nspired from the Korean film I Saw The Devil, the films
first half kept the curiosity alive but the second half
digressed into a no-win kind of a mess. What stood out
was the top-notch performance from its leads. Riteish
played a middle class man with a dark side brilliantly.
Sidharth, as the new-age angry young man, captured your
attention with his intense portrayal. - See more at:
http://www.mid-day.com/photos/2014---a-recap-bollywoodhits-and-misses/8282/86795#sthash.pWNOiucK.dpuf
Director: Mohit Suri Cast: Sidharth Malhotra,
Shraddha Kapoor, Riteish Deshmukh Release
Date: June 27, 2014

Jai Ho

Main Tera Hero

S
Happy new year

hy do we walk into a movie theatre to watch a

film? To be entertained. Farah Khan does just
that in 'Happy New Year' with grand locations,
top-notch star cast, vibrant song-and-dance sequences,
self-referential rumour and action scenes. Can visual
extravaganza compensate for lack of content? Yes, if
the box-office collections of the film are anything to go
by. The film went on to be the highest grossing
Bollywood film of 2014 worldwide. -

alman Khan played a Good Samaritan whose only

mission in life was to help those in trouble. If you are
not a Salman Khan fan, youd have spent most of the
time playing a game of spotting as many actors in the
background as possible. If you are one, youd have spent
most of the time cheering and whistling as he bashed the
hooligans. It does not matter if the direction was immature,
writing was haphazard
and editing was shoddy,
because all the bhai
fans hit the theatres
anyway and had an
entertaining time, buoying its box office collection.

Director: Farah Khan Cast: Shah Rukh Khan,

Deepika Padukone, Abhishek Bachchan, Boman
Irani, Sonu Sood, Vivaan Shah Release Date:
October 24, 2014 -

Bang Bang!

gorgeous couple. Beautiful

backdrop of Prague, Shimla
and Dehradun. Thrilling action
sequences. Remember the one
where Hrithik does this never-donebefore flyboarding stunt on the
ocean? This official remake of Knight
and Day was high on glamour, low
on story, but sent the cash registers
ringing loud and clear nonetheless.

Director: Siddharth Anand Cast:

Hrithik Roshan, Katrina Kaif,
Danny Denzongpa, Jaaved Jaaferi
Release Date: October 2, 2014 -

avid Dhawan attempted the tried-and-tested

formula with 'Main Tera Hero'. He played with
the same old cards, albeit with a new Joker.
Varun replaces Govinda. Varuns 'hero-giri' in the film
earned it a good show at the box office. A typical
David Dhawan masala entertainer, the film was loved
for its comedy
and Varuns
performance.
Director:
David
Dhawan
Cast: Varun
Dhawan,
Ileana D'Cruz,
Nargis Fakhri
Release Date:
April 4, 2014

Director: Sohail Khan

Cast: Salman Khan,
Daisy Shah Release
Date: January 24,
2014

SingHaM reTurnS

ajirao Singham took on a corrupt politician and a God man

this time. The story was
sneaked to fill the gaps between two
cars blowing to pieces. The absence
of a plausible plot was made up for
with the adrenalin-pumping, fighting
against gravity, whistle-worthy action
sequences.
Director: Rohit Shetty Cast: Ajay
Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan,
Amole Gupte, Anupam Kher
Release Date: August 15, 2014

22

CONtINUES FROM
LaSt ISSUE

HINDUISUM

January-2015

nlike the Vedic

world of ritual
exchange
between humans and
gods, the Upanishads
present a philosophically speculative worldview. They put forward
the idea that the material world is not, in fact,
"real," but only an illusion that is created by
ignorance. What is real
is an abstract divine
principle, Brahman. The
Upanishads focused on
how to free oneself
from the bonds of
material attachments,
and thereby attain a
state of oneness with
Brahman. What is
sometimes called "classical" (or "Epic")
Hinduism emerges
sometime after the
Upanishads. In this period, which begins
around 500 B.C.E., the
major gods and goddesses of Hinduism
Vishnu, Shiva, Krishna,
Parvati, Lakshmi
develop their "personalities" through a vast corpus of myths.
Innumerable new gods
and goddesses emerge,
as do a multitude of ritual many based on the
earlier Vedasand
forms of veneration.
Devotional traditions
also emerge, in which
the strictly ordered
world of sacrifice is supplanted by loving devotion to individual gods
and goddesses.
Hinduism is a perpetually evolving collection of
an astounding array of
philosophical and ritual
and devotional traditions. There is no
founder, and although
historians may attempt
to assign an historical
"beginning," really there
is no moment of origin.
Indeed, Hindus often
refer to their religion as
"sanatana dharma"
the timeless, eternal
truth.

www.fijisun-usa.com

The

HINDUISUM
INFLUENCES

he earliest manifestation of what we now

call Hinduism seems
to be the product of the
melding of two religious and
cultural influences: the
Indus Valley Civilization that
was located in what is today
northwest India and eastern
Pakistan and that dates to
between 2500 and 1500
B.C.E.; and the Aryan culture and religion that arose
between 1500 and 500
B.C.E. Although there has
been considerable scholarly
(and political) debate about
the relative influence of
these two cultures, it seems
clear enough that Hinduism
emerged out of a complex
combination of elements of
each of these religious cultures.
Indus Valley Civilization
fertility figurineRelatively little is in fact known about the
details of the religious world
of the Indus Valley civilization. Based on archaeological remains, however, it
seems that this was a religious world that was particularly focused on ritual
bathing and animal sacrifice, elements that may be
the
source
of
later
Hinduism's attention to the
purifying qualities of water
and the centrality of sacrifice. Furthermore, a great
many female figurines have
been discovered in the ruins
of the cities that date to this
period. These seem to have
been goddesses, and may
have been particularly associated with fertility rituals.
Title: Vishnu, Hindu god of

vEDIC tEXtS
tHE RIgvEDa: HyMNS
(for the chief priest to recite)
the Yajurveda: formulas
(for the priest to recite)
the Samaveda: formulas
(for the priest to chant)
the Atharvaveda: collection of stories, spells, and charms

INFLUENCES ON HINDUISM
Jainism:
*challenges
sacrifice

Buddhism:
*challenges
sacrifice

islam:
*wandering

Christianity:
*wandering

*advocates
renunciation

*advocates
renunciation

sufi
ascetics

*missionary
practices

sustenance Scholars have

speculated that these figures are origins of the many
goddesses who populate
the vast Hindu pantheon.
Male figures have also been
found on stone seals. Some
of these seals depict a seated figure surrounded by a
variety of animals, including
bulls. These images lead
some scholars to label these
"proto-Shiva" figures, since
the great god Shiva is generally associated with ani-

mals (he is sometimes

called "Pashupati," the Lord
of the animals) and more
particularly linked with the
bull, which later becomes
his special "vehicle."
title: An Indus Valley
seal with the seated figure
termed pashupatiIn recent
years, there has been a
tremendous amount of
debate about the influence
of the Aryans. Part of the
debate has been about who
these people really were.
Over one hundred years
ago European scholars
speculated that the Aryans
were invaders who came
from northeastern Europe,
and were a warlike, highly
mobile people engaged in
herding and breeding animals who brought with them
a new, "foreign" religion that
supplanted the indigenous
Indus Valley Civilization.
Many scholars, both in India
and in the West, have seen
in this explanationthe
"Title:
Indus
Valley
Civilization well and bathing
platformsAryan
Invasion
Thesis"a western, colonialist agenda at work, one
that wants to see all that is
good in India as having its
ultimate source in Europe.
These scholars have argued
that the Aryans were not in
fact outsiders, and that they
did not invade and supplant
the Indus Valley Civilization,
but instead blended with it.
The generally held scholarly
position is somewhere in the
middle: that there was a
migration of Aryan people
and a diffusion of Aryan culture into South Asia, but not
a single invasion (if there
was an "invasion" at all).

FIJISUN

Regardless of who the

Aryans were or where they
came from, it is clear that
their religious world focused
on ritual sacrifice, particularly sacrifice involving fire.
They also worshipped a
variety of gods, many of
them linked to natural
forces. These religious rituals and myths were eventually formulated as the
Vedas, a genre of orallytransmitted texts that would
come to form the foundation
of Hinduism. In the 6th (or
5th) century B.C.E., two
important veins of religion
emerged in India that had a
tremendous influence on the
formation of Hinduism:
Jainism and Buddhism.
Although these did not necessarily begin as "new" religions, they formulated new
ideas that significantly challenged the religious status
quo. In particular, both
Buddhism and Jainism challenged the religious efficacy
of sacrifice, rejecting it as
too materialistic. They
instead advocated detachment from the physical
worldrenunciationas the
ultimate religious path.
Classical Hinduism absorbs
the ideals of renunciation
and asceticism, not supplanting but supplementing
the Vedic practices and
ideals of sacrifice. Hinduism
has also been influenced by
two distinctly foreign religions: Islam, which arrived
in India sometime around
the 8th century C.E. and
dominated substantial parts
of India with the rise of the
Mughal Empire in the 16th
century; and Christianity,
which arrived in India with
the Portuguese in the 15th
centuryalthough there had
been small Christian communities in South India even
before the Portugueseand
held considerable sway with
the rise of the British Raj in
the 18th century.
continue in next issue

FIJISUN

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January-2015

23

A non-profit (80G) organization declared by Government of India

Supported by Daya Sumitra Decuational society Inc, usa

A non-profit (501 c3) organization decared by Federal Government, usa

vision statMent
EVERY GRADUATING STUDENT WILL ADD VALUE TO HIS OR HER
FAMILY AND COMMUNITY LOVINGLY AND SELFLESSLY.
The realization of this apparently simplistic vision is a huge challenge. Globalization and the Internet have significantly enhanced the
reach and competitiveness for every citizen of the world. The current and future generation will be full of inspiration and innovation with
an attitude of can do, will do, and must do. Positioned as world citizens by default unlimited opportunities across international boundaries
and cultures beckon them. Amidst such a challenging and complex environment it is very easy to be afflicted by Short Sightedness to the
students own first circle of influence (the family and community). Therefore, DSETs vision will be to keep in focus, maintain, strengthen,
and add value to that very foundation (family and community) of the student with love and selflessness.

Mission stateMent
The DSET community consisting of students, teachers, and everyone associated with the institution will perform and deliver standards
that match and exceed international expectations. The students will be model citizens of the world with international fame.
DSET considers its contribution to the students during their formative years as a moral responsibly with high accountability. It also has a
strong conviction that the students environment is an inherent and inseparable partner in this endeavor. Therefore, its mission has been
thoughtfully crafted to address the students, teachers, parents, and community effectively:
To kindle, inspire, support, and evolve the

latent scholarship potential of each student towards a habit of lifelong learning,

self-reliance, and peak performance
To provide a knowledge base in the realms
of arts, literature, science, and technology
that is always current and highly relevant
to the students intellectual growth and
pursuit
To prepare each student with a broad base
of soft skills at the physical, mental, and
intellectual level to face any challenge
harmoniously and cheerfully
To peak the awareness of the obligatory contribution of each student to their family
and community with a sense of importance, urgency, love, and selflessness

Vinay Tiwari (Manager)

Location: Varanasi, India

Phone : 01191-97948-62900

To nurture an environment with key values

such as respecting creativity (ideas), free

expressions, discoveries, critical thought,
teaming, pursuit of excellence with a
cooperative productive spirit, and to
assume responsibility for the consequences of personal actions
To partner with teachers who have a passion to make a difference and enlighten
the formative scholarship potential of students with selfless love
To kindle, inspire, support, and evolve
teachers to be a Guru by encouraging
them to explore their traditional and nontraditional approaches of tutoring
To nurture a highly ethical and encouraging
environment for teachers to enhance their

Suresh Pandey (Office Manager)

Location: Ballia, India

Phone : 080524-45471

self worth and invaluable contribution by

appropriate recognition and rewards
To create, sustain, and manage a joint ownership with parents to accomplish the tactical scholarship objectives of the student
To be a preferred partner with parents of
each student for the betterment of their
family and community
To be the principal scholarship beacon for
the community in generating, disseminating, and preserving the knowledge base
To create, maintain, and manage an everlasting partnership with the community to
address the dynamic challenges and contributing to the betterment of human kind
passionately, creatively, and effectively

Vijay Tiwari, MD FACP (Founder)

Location: San Jose, CA, U.S.A.

Phone : 001-408-807-3199

24

BANGLADESH NEWS

January-2015

www.fijisun-usa.com

FIJISUN

2015 will be year of democracy, says Khaleda

Claiming sure victory in their
ongoing
movement,
BNP
Chairperson Khaleda Zia yesterday night hoped that 2015 will be
the year of democracy and
development, reports UNB. The
current government is unelected,
illegal and unrepresentative one.
It has snatched peoples voting
and basic rights. The country is
now on the verge of destruction
as killings, forced disappearances and looting are the main
principles of the regime, she
said. Khaleda further said, Now
we all must get united to get rid
of it. If we can wage a united
movement we believe our victory
is certain, Insallah, as people are
with us. The BNP chief came up
with the high hope while
exchanging greetings with members of the Christian community
marking the Xmas Day and com-

ing New Year 2015 at her

Gulshan office. Depicting the
countrys sorry state, Khaleda
said there is no peace and security of people of any community
in the country. Were going
through a very hard time. No one
will be able to realise in what terrible condition were passing
days, she said adding that 59
cases were filed against BNP
Acting
Secretary
General
Fakhrul Islam Alamgir alone.
So, democracy must be
restored to ensure peace and
prosperity for people, the former
Prime Minister added. Khaleda
said they want peace and unity
among people to take the country forward and ensure its development. Claiming that her party
values the people of religions
equally, she said they will do the
same if BNP is voted to power.

Mamata keen to visit

Dhaka in February
W

est
Bengal
Chief Minister
M a m a t a
Benerjee is likely to visit
Bangladesh in February
next year, reports UNB
from Kolkata. President
Abdul Hamid invited
Mamata to visit Dhaka
and the CM has reportedly accepted the invitation, reports The Times
of India quoting unidentified sources and mentioned that she is likely to
visit Dhaka in February.
Mamata had skipped her
visit to Bangladesh in
September 2011 with
then
Indian
Prime
Minister
Manmohan
Singh. Governor Keshari
Nath Tripathi on Monday
hosted a dinner for
Bangladesh President
Abdul Hamid at Raj
Bhavan, the TOM report

said. It was also attended by chief minister

Mamata
Banerjee,
tourism minister Bratya
Basu, urban development minister Firhad
Hakim and panchayat
minister
Subrata
Mukherjee. Quoting a
source, the report said
Mamata was very informal during a chat with
the President. No serious topics, like the
Teesta
water-sharing
issue, came up for discussion. Earlier, Mamata
showed her keen interest to visit Bangladesh
when Abida Islam, the
then Bangladesh deputy
high commissioner to
India, extended an invitation of Foreign Minister
AH Mahmood Ali to her
in a meeting at the state
secretariat Nabanno.

Meanwhile, the BNP yesterday

expressed concern that party
chief Khaleda Zia would not get
fair trials in the two trust graft
cases and feared that a conspiracy was on keep the BNP chief
away from politics.
We will take to the streets and
launch a movement if Zia
Charitable Trust and Zia

3 to die for killing

electrician Rubel
Rubel was slaughtered
by the three in a hotel room
in Johnson road area of
Sutrapur on June 6, 2010
A Dhaka Court has
handed down death sentence to three persons for
killing one electrician Rubel
in Old Dhaka.
Judge Md Rezaul Islam
of Fifth Special Judge
Court passed the order in
presence of the convicts
on Tuesday morning.
The death sentenced
convicts are Md Rubel, 21,
Md Rumman, 20, and
Rony Bishwas , 20.
Rubel was slaughtered
by the three in a hotel room
in Johnson road area of
Sutrapur on June 6, 2010.
Being informed, Moron
Mia, brother of the
deceased,
identified
Rubel's head and filed a
murder case in this connection. The three convicts
concealed his body and
claimed extortion from the
hotel manager showing
Rubels head. The Dhaka
court framed charges
against the three on
September 21, 2011.

Orphanage Trust corruption

cases are not withdrawn, BNP
acting secretary general Mirza
Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said at a
press conference at the partys
Naya Paltan headquarters in the
capital. In one hand, we will
carry out the legal battle showing
respect to the law of the land but
on the other hand, we will continue our movements on the streets
over the issue, he said. He also
criticised the government for
changing the judge of the special
court that has been dealing with
the two cases. The transfer of
special court judge Basudev Roy
before the disposal of a writ petition filed in this connection
proves there is a political motive
behind it, he said. Terming the
cases against Khaleda Zia false
and baseless, Mirza Fakhrul
said the government is desper-

Mob assaults policemen in capital

Three police personnel
and one of their sources
were allegedly beaten by a
mob in Dhanmondi area of
the capital on Sunday when
the law enforcers tried to
harass and arrest an
employee of a private company putting Yaba tablets in
his pocket.
However, the police
denied the allegation and
said there was only a misunderstanding.
According to sources,
Shahin Miah, 35, an
employee of Meghna Group
and
a
resident
of
Dhanmodhi area, went for a
morning
walk
near
Dhanmodhi Lake and when
he reached near Road-12/A
around 6:50am, police
source Sajib forcibly put
some Yaba tablets in his
pocket.
The incident was preplanned as a mobile team of
police led by SI Lal Miah
immediately reached the
spot and tried to arrest
Shahin for possessing the
contraband drugs, the
sources added.

Road crash kills10 in Jhalakathi

At least 10 people were
killed and 30 others injured
when a speeding bus veered
off the road and plunged into
a roadside ditch on the
Barisal-Khulna highway at
Biswasbari in Rajapur upazila
of Jhalakathi district yesterday afternoon.
Elsewhere across the
country, eight other people,
including a local Juba League
leader, were killed in separate
road accidents at Meherpur,
Mymensingh,
Chittagong,
Rangpur and Noakhali districts yesterday. Witnesses
and police said the fatal accident at Biswasbari occurred
when the Barisal-bound bus
from Khulna skidded and fell
into the ditch after its brakes
apparently failed around
4:45pm. The bus was carrying over 58 passengers. Local
people rescued the injured
passengers, and recovered

seven bodies, including those

of five men and two women,
from the scene. Three other
passengers later died of their
injuries. Police rushed to the
site and cordoned off the
area. Meanwhile, three units
of the fire service were trying
to lift the wreckage of the bus
from the ditch till the writing of
this report yesterday evening.
Md Masuduzaman, officerin-charge of Rajapur police
station, said the driver of the
bus fled after the incident.
The seven bodies recovered from the accident site
were sent to Rajapur upazila
health complex, the officer
added. Seventeen seriously
injured passengers were first
taken to Rajapur upazila
health complex. Nine of them
were later referred to the
Sher-e-Bangla
Medical
College Hospital (SBMCH) in
Barisal, Dr Mahbub Rahman

of the health complex said.

Three of those transferred to
the SBMCH succumbed to
their injuries, hospital sources
said. Meanwhile, three of the
victims were named as Md
Sawan and his wife, Jharna
Aktar, of Lebukhali village in
Patuakhali, and Abul Kalam
Azad of Mehendigang in
Barisal district. The other
deceased passengers could
not be identified immediately.
Several survivors alleged
that the driver ignored their
pleas and drove roughly from
the start, and lost control of
the vehicle when he tried to
overtake another bus.
Our Meherpur correspondent reports: A passenger of a
nosimon died yesterday
when the three-wheeler was
knocked down by another
vehicle on the MeherpurMujibnagar highway near
Monakhali village. The victim,

ately trying to complete the trials

quickly despite the huge backlog
of cases now pending with the
courts. If there is justice in the
country, such cases would not
have been running, he added.
Also present, BNP standing
committee member Barrister
Rafiqul Islam Miah said it is
understandable that the transfer
of the special court judge is a
government move to interfere in
the judiciary. It is a direct interference in the judiciary and contrary to the rules and regulations
of the judiciary. It appears that
the possibility of getting justice
for Khaleda Zia from courts is
becoming slimmer, he said.
BNP standing committee membersMK
Anwar
and
Goyeshwar
Chandra
Roy,
among others, were also present
on the occasion.

Aminul
Islam
of
Chalkshamnagar village, was
taken to Meherpur General
Hospital where he died. Our
Mymensingh correspondent
adds: A man was killed and 30
others were injured in two
separate road accidents on
the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway at Bhaluka upazila yesterday. Police sources said a
Dhaka-bound truck ran over
Bachchu Miah, 32, a mill
worker, as he was crossing
the road in Seed Store area.
In another accident at
Mehrabari, at least 30 people
were injured when two buses
collided around 8am yesterday, police sources said. Five
of the injured were admitted
to Mymensingh Medical
College Hospital in critical
condition, while the others
were treated at Bhaluka
Upazila Health Complex, the
sources added.

Many pedestrians came

to Shahins aid when he
started shouting for help
sensing a conspiracy. After
learning the incident, people, who gathered on the
spot, became angry with the
police team and assaulted
SI Lal Miah along with constables Kamrul Islam and
Abu Sayeed. On information, additional police force
came to the spot and rescued the policemen from
the mob, a police constable
told this correspondent on
condition of anonymity.
When contacted, Inspector
Helal Uddin, offcer-incharge (Investigation) of
Dhanmodhi Police Station,
however, said one of their
teams conducted a raid to

arrest drug-peddler Sajib, a

resident of Alibagh of Mirpur
area.
Sensing police presence,
Sajib tried to evade arrest
by placing Yaba tablets in a
pedestrians pocket around
6:50am in the Dhanmondi
residential area, Helal
added.
The police team was
momentarily confused when
they found Yaba tablets in
the pedestrians pocket.
However, the police later
arrested Sajib and seized
17 more Yaba tablets from
his possession the OC
said.
A case was filed against
Sajib and he was produced
before a Dhaka court yesterday with a five-day
remand plea. When contacted, duty officer SI Al
Amin of Dhanmondi Police
Station denied the fact that
any of their personnel was
assaulted by a mob. When
this correspondent called SI
Lal Miah on his mobile
phone, he did not receive
the call and the phone was
later found switched off.

In a stern warning to
prison authorities against
illegal activities by criminal
from jails, Prime Minister
Sheikh Hasina yesterday
said if anyone of them is
found assisting militants,
terrorists and drug peddlers, he or she will face
harsh punishment as her
government does not want
to see any indiscipline in
jails, reports UNB.
I would like to warn
you, if anyone of you is
found assisting militants,
terrorists and drug peddlers, he or she will face
tough punishment, she
told the inaugural programme of Jail Week in
Kashimpur.
The Prime Minister said
every member of jail
authorities must perform

his or her duties with due

responsibility and sincerity
as no one is above law.
So, punitive actions will be
taken against the lawbreaker, or else the programmes that have been
taken for prison development will turn futile, she
said. Hasina also said the
security system in prisons
across the country will be
modernised so that the militants and top terrors cannot continue their evil
activities from jails. For
ensuring the security of the
country and the nation, the
security system in the
countrys jails will be modernised so that militants
and top terrors cannot run
their militant activities and
terrorist acts from jails,
she said.

Jail security system to be

modernised, says Hasina

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DESTINATION SOUTH
PACIFIC TRAVEL
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David Maharaj

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25

26

Career Guide For 2015

January-2015

SAGITTARIUS

his year shall be really very tough

for professionals, since you shall
have to take up new challenges, be
on par with your colleagues, and also try
your best to surpass all other peers in
your workplace. Hence you should
update yourself with all the latest happenings related to your industry.
Moreover, learning the latest technologies should be your topmost priority, feels
Ganesha. In case you are reporting
directly to your boss, you shall especially
face difficult times, since you may have
to meet tight deadlines and also improve
your efficiency and effectiveness.
Anyway, you shall feel relaxed, as the situation shall start improving from the
beginning of August this year, since the
benevolent planet Jupiter will transit in
the 10th House from your Sign.
Thereafter, your workload is likely to
reduce significantly. As a result, you shall
feel very comfortable and also enjoy your
work. Moreover, you can now look forward to a considerable rise in your salary,
as you shall be rewarded for all the strenuous efforts done in the past months.

he chances of getting another

job opportunity this year are slim
for you. So if youre looking for a
change, you will have to wait till the
stars become more favourable. If you
do get a better offer, you should grab
it. In your current job, Ganesha advises you to be very careful while interacting with your superiors. Do not
speak too much, do not boast, and
be straight-forward and to-the-point.
If you feel that it is high time for you
to change your job, the favourable
period would be between August and
mid-September. Before you switch
jobs, make sure it will serve your
long-term interests. Your work in your
current job will fetch you recognition
from August onwards, but if you
change your job, then you will have
to patiently work with full dedication
till you have proved your worth. It
may also take time to adjust to the
new environment.

TAURUS

JUNE 22-JULY 23

APR 21-MAY 21

reshers shall likely get interesting

career opportunities this year. But
be prepared to face new challenges and give your best performance
at every level, advises Ganesha. If your
job demands that you put in extra efforts
to achieve the set targets, willingly do it.
If you get a transfer for short period,
accept it too. Individuals who are already
employed and are actively looking out for
a job change may also likely witness
more opportunities coming their way;
however, you shall have to be patient.
With Saturn transiting through the 8th
Sign from yours, in all likelihood, you
may not be satisfied enough from your
current position or job. You will strongly
desire for a change for better prospects.
To bring about a change in your career
profile, you need discover new avenues,
and get ready to accept new challenges.
This may also bring about some drastic
change in your job responsibilities.

OCT 24-NOV 22

he year ahead shall be very

challenging for you on the professional front. The planetary
transits suggest that you will have to
work very hard, and deal with tricky
issues tactfully. You may have a
tough time concentrating on your
work because there are likely to be
many distractions. Also, you may find
it difficult to meet the expectations of
your superiors. Pull up your socks to
work really hard to keep up with the
competition. As the year progresses,
the work pressure will only increase
on you. The planetary transits indicate that from the mid of June you
will have to be very careful about
meeting deadlines, or else you may
get into trouble. Regardless of the
work pressure you may have, you
shall have to stay cool and calm
because if you lose your temper, it
will not only spoil the atmosphere but
will also adversely affect your own
productivity. Some respite will come
only after September.

PISCES

LIBRA

FEB 20-MAR 20

AUG 24-SEPT 23

CANCER
uring the year's 1st quarter, professionals can anticipate for job
switch over, as the period is quite
opportune for introducing any type of
change at the career front. In case you
stick with your current job profile and
employment, even then you shall witness
substantial increase in your income. New
assignments shall come quite comfortably for those who are fresh pass outs and have just completed their college
education. Nonetheless, you shall have
to put in hard work to prove your ability
and establish a good rapport with your
higher ups and colleagues. During the
period of June to July 2015, you shall
experience a huge amount of work pressure and at times, you shall feel that
dealing with your higher ups is a difficult
task. However, the period from
September-mid looks less stressful on
the career front, feels Ganesha.

he year 2015 spells testing

times for professionals. As a
working professional, you will
have to work harder to prove your
worth this year. You will experience
a lot of work pressure plus an
added burden to stay updated with
the latest technological advancements. Dealing with your immediate
superiors is not going to be a cakewalk and this can add to the stress.
Thus, Ganesha advises you to keep
these aspects in mind and work
towards them so that you do not
feel neglected. Make sure you
maintain a cordial relationship with
your immediate superior or it will be
difficult for you to get an acknowledgement for your hard work. But
you will get a respite on the commencement of the new financial
year, i.e. March-April 2015. This is
an opportune time to get recognition
for your work from your seniors.

SEPT 24-OCT 23

n the beginning of the year, you

will be full of energy and optimism. This enthusiasm will
impress your seniors and they may
entrust you with additional responsibilities. Because your equation
with your co-workers will be cordial
for most part of the year, it will
help you stay motivated and give
100 percent to your work. If you
are looking to switch jobs, the year
ahead is favourable. However, you
need to stay focussed and cautious in your present job from midMarch to end of July as overlooking minor details could get into a
soup. If you are a freelancer, you
may be over burdened with work
and will have to work extra hours
to meet deadlines. However, this
will be rewarding in the end. In
short, you will have a satisfactory
year on the career front.

GEMINI

ARIES

MAR 21-APR 20

rians, rejoice as career-wise the

year 2015 is going to be a wonderful year! Showcase your ability to handle complicated situations and
to perform under pressure. The efficient manner in which you manage the
situations at work will prove successful
for your career. Additionally, ample
opportunities will come your way but
you need to pick the ideal one so that
you can successfully deliver. The time
period upto mid-March 2015 is
favourable but the road ahead may not
be as smooth. You will feel that something is holding you back. Still, you
need to be calm and patient, maintaining your cool all the time to deal with
temperamental issues tactfully. Avoid
getting into any ego clashes with your
seniors or your colleagues at your
workplace. Your favourable time starts
from August 2015 as you will get a
better hold of your work routine.

FIJISUN

SCORPIO

JAN 21-FEB 19

otwithstanding an Aquarians
natural ability to succeed, they
need to brace themselves for
difficult times lying ahead. Yes, in
2015, they will have to keep up the
hard work to ensure a brighter future
as there is no alternative to hard
work! If you are trying for a job
change or considering a new offer, the
first six months of the year appear to
be very suitable in this matter. You
must be ready to undertake new challenges and accept higher responsibilities. But if you plan to stick to your
existing job, you will receive satisfactory rewards. Nevertheless, Ganesha
suggests that you will have to shoulder extra responsibilities. The third
quarter in 2015 will be important for
such changes. You will be in harmony
with your colleagues for most part of
2015. However, in the third quarter,
you need to be diplomatic and cautious in your interactions with your
seniors. Avoid careless and ambiguous replies in your communication
with your superiors.

VIRGO

DEC 23-JAN 20

JULY 24-AUG 23

reshers need to stay strong

as they will face many obstacles when looking for jobs.
However, you are likely to get a
fairly good offer in the month of
February until March. Ganesha
advises you to grab this opportunity as not many offers will come to
you this year. You will get a second chance when Jupiter changes
its Sign to enter Virgo from 12th
August onwards. The phase
between September to October
2015 will be favourable for a job
change. For you those who are
working but looking to switch their
jobs, they should avoid doing so in
the first half of 2015. To improve
your chances, you should utilise
the first half of the year to be more
productive, improve your skill sets
and knowledge to be prepared for
better opportunities that will arise
in the later part of the year. Be
pro-active in your job search from
June onwards.

CAPRICORN
isharmonious relations with your
immediate superior shall lead to
constant discontentment at your
workplace. As a result, you may
remain unhappy throughout the year.
Moreover, you shall feel depressed.
However, you shall control yourself
and take care that this feeling of dissatisfaction does not have a negative
impact on your performance. Besides,
you shall also try to maintain your efficiency. You may feel like changing
your job, however do not get lured by
a better paying job. Ganesha suggests that although you are upset, it is
better to carry on with your current
job, as the planetary positions are
unfavourable. Just keep in mind that it
is advisable to continue the existing
job till you get a better one. Further,
you shall have to work very hard since
the North Node (Rahu) is transiting in
the 10th House from your Sign.

AQUARIUS

LEO

NOV 23-DEC 22

www.fijisun-usa.com

MAY 22-JUNE 21

et ready to deal with monotony

at work as the first quarter is a
going to be slow, boring and
unfavourable to introduce any kind of
change on the career front! Moreover,
in your particular field you may not
come across good opportunities during
this phase. Hence, Ganesha advises
you to aim for a career option that has
stood the test of time, which can be
taken up at any time as well as can be
continued for a longer duration.
Second half of 2015 seems favourable
for changes that you have been looking forward to. Yet, you need to be
cautious and make sure you take up
an offer that will benefit you monetarily
as well. Mid August to mid October is
a favourable time to bring about the
required changes. But Ganesha advises you to investigate thoroughly the
new career opportunity before taking
any decisions.

FIJISUN

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AFGHAN NEWS

January-2015

27

Nato ends combat operations in Afghanistan

After 13 years of war, Nato
formally ended its combat operations in Afghanistan on Sunday,
leaving the Afghan army and
police in charge of security in a
country plagued by continued
fighting, a ferocious insurgency
and a rising tide of both military
and civilian casualties. Against a
backdrop of violent clashes in a
number of provinces and several
weeks of deadly attacks on the
capital, military leaders lowered
the flag of a mission conceived in
2001, and hoisted the colours of
a new one under which Natos
role will largely be restricted to
training, advising and assisting
the local army and police.
Our Afghan partners can and
will take the fight from here, said
General John F Campbell, the
commander of the International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF)
at a ceremony in the capital. As
insurgent attacks have increased
in many parts of the country in
2014, Afghan forces have

already been leading the fight in

recent months but at a high
price.
More than 5,000 local security
forces have been killed this year
alone, the highest toll since the
war began. In comparison, the
international coalition has suffered a total of 3,485 deaths
since 2001. The Afghan national
security forces had to suffer losses this year that are too high,
ISAFs deputy commander
Lieutenant General Carsten
Jacobson said, speaking to
reporters after the ceremony.
Now that [the Afghan forces]
have taken over the tactical fight,
losses lie on them. Between
17,000 and 18,000 international
troops will remain in Afghanistan
after 2014, of which 12,000 including approximately 470
British troops - will form part of
the new Nato mission, named
Resolute Support. An additional
5,500 US soldiers will perform
different roles, including countert-

errorism and logistical assistance. At their peak in 2011, international forces numbered close
to 150,000. The international
coalitions biggest achievement
has been to help build a 350,000strong security force in
Afghanistan from scratch. But
they are still ill-equipped, particularly when it comes to air support
and intelligence gathering. In the
future, US troops will continue to
provide air support in what they

call extreme situations. In the

past year, Afghan troops have
asked for aerial assistance
approximately 400 times, but
received it in 30 cases. Sundays
ceremony took place at the headquarters of ISAF, which has
increasingly turned into a fortress
as the security situation in Kabul
has deteriorated. In the wake of
the recent elections and uncertainty over the military transition,
insurgents have unleashed a

Three civilians killed in US air strike

An airstrike by US-led
coalition forces on Friday
killed three Afghan villagers who were heavily
armed but not part of the
Taliban insurgency, an
Afghan official said.
The governor of eastern
Logar province, Neyaz
Mohammad Amiri, said the
coalition had told local
authorities the dead were
Taliban insurgents, but that
villagers in the remote Ab
Josh area disputed that
claim, saying the dead
were civilians who were
protecting their land from

nomads.
The reason the coalition forces fired on them is
that they were heavily
armed, Amiri said. Of
course it was a mistake by
the coalition forces, but at
the same time I blame the
villagers for carrying the
heavy weapons. He said
Afghan security forces had
been deployed to Ab Josh
two days ago to mediate a
clash between the villagers
and Kuchi nomads, who
have a reputation for violence and are often armed
with machine guns and

heavier weapons.
Security in Logar has
deteriorated in recent
months as the insurgents
have spread across the
country and taken control
of some remote regions.
But the war has also provided cover for local feuds,
violent property disputes
and organised crime. The
13-year US-led combat
mission in Afghanistan will
officially end on New
Years Eve. Around 13,000
US and Nato troops will
remain to provide training
and battlefield support.

Elsewhere in the country, a

woman and two men,
members of the same family, were killed in southern
Helmand province when
the motorcycle they were
sharing hit a roadside
bomb, said provincial governors spokesman Omar
Zawaq. In neighbouring
Kandahar, four members
of the intelligence service
and a civilian were killed
when their vehicle hit a
roadside bomb in Dund
district, provincial police
spokesman Zia Durrani
said.

wave of attacks on the capital.

2014 was not only the bloodiest
year of the war for Afghanistans
security personnel, but also for its
civilians. According to a recent
UN report, close to 10,000 civilians have been killed or wounded. There is a lot of concern for
the rise in civilian casualties,
said Hadi Marifat, a Kabul-based
analyst with the Centre for
Civilians in Conflict. The more
territory the Taliban tries to occupy in the coming years, the more
civilian casualties there will be
because of military confrontations.But, despite the ever-intensifying war, optimism prevailed at
ISAF headquarters. We now
enjoy considerable momentum,
as we enter 2015, said
Campbell, citing higher life
expectancy, education and more
women in the workforce as tangible evidence of Natos contribution. There is no turning back to
the dark days of the past.
Another challenge facing the

Afghan security forces is gaining

trust of the people. The Afghan
forces have long been criticised
for heavy-handed methods
against civilians. And with Nato
withdrawing from the battlefield,
there will be less monitoring of
their methods, and of civilian
casualties, said Marifat.Foreign
troops have gradually learned
how to limit civilian casualties
over the past 13 years, said
Marifat. The key issue for ISAF
now is to transfer those lessons
learned to the Afghan national
security forces, so they dont
repeat them, he said. The signing in September of two security
pacts between the Afghan government, Nato and the US
brought renewed optimism to the
country. But since the formation
of the national unity government
at around the same time, all political decisions in Afghanistan
have been put on hold due to the
governments inability to form a
cabinet.

Afghan police claims 151 Taliban

fighters killed in 12-day battle
At least 151 Taliban fighters
have been killed by Afghan
government forces during 12
days of fighting in the volatile
east, near the border with
Pakistan, the police chief of
Kunar province has said.
General
Abdul
Habib
Sayedkhaili said on Tuesday
that at least another 100 insurgents had been wounded in the
fighting in Dangam district. He
said the Pakistani Taliban and
Lashkar-e-Taiba the group
responsible for the attacks on

Mumbai in 2008 in which more

than 160 people were killed
were also taking part in the battle. That 17 foreign fighters
were killed during the battle
prove[s] that foreigners are
supporting local insurgents in
the area, he said. As Dangam
is so close to the border, it is
very easy for them to cross the
border into Afghanistan and
help the insurgents here, he
said. We are very careful with
conducting our operations to
prevent civilian casualties.

Obama heralds formal end of war in Afghanistan after 13 years

P

resident Barack Obama

said on Sunday the
longest war in American
history was coming to a responsible conclusion. Obama was
welcoming the end of US combat
operations in Afghanistan, which
was marked with a ceremony in
Kabul.
Obama, who is on vacation in
Hawaii, said in a statement that
the international effort in
Afghanistan had devastated alQaidas core leadership, brought
justice to Osama bin Laden and
disrupted terrorist plots. He said
US troops and diplomats had
helped Afghans reclaim their
communities and move toward
democracy.
We honor the profound sacrifices that have made this
progress possible, said Obama.
We salute every American military and civilian, including our
dedicated diplomats and development workers who have
served in Afghanistan, many on
multiple tours, just as their families have sacrificed at home.
Obama honored the more
than 2,200 Americans who have
died in Afghanistan since the war
started 13 years ago. Obama
said those years had tested the
US and its military. From a peak
140,000 troops in 2010, the US

and Nato plan to leave just

13,500 behind.
These past 13 years have
tested our nation and our military, Obama said. But compared to the nearly 180,000
American troops in Iraq and
Afghanistan when I took office,
we now have fewer than 15,000
in those countries. Some 90% of
our troops are home. The insurgency such troops fought for 13
years, however, remains as ferocious and deadly as at any time
since the 2001 invasion that
unseated the Taliban regime following the 11 September
attacks.
Sundays ceremony marked
the end of the US-led
International Security Assistance
Force (Isaf), which will transition
to a supporting role starting on 1
January.
General
John
Campbell, commander of Isaf,
rolled up and sheathed the green
and white Isaf flag and unfurled
the flag of the new international
mission,
called
Resolute
Support.
Resolute Support will serve
as the bedrock of an enduring
partnership between Nato and
Afghanistan, Campbell told an
audience of Afghan and international military officers and officials, as well as diplomats and

journalists. He paid tribute to the

international and Afghan troops
who have died fighting the insurgency, saying: The road before
us remains challenging but we
will triumph. The new mission
will provide training and support
for Afghanistans military, with
the US accounting for almost
11,000 members of the residual
force. Later on Sunday the
defense secretary, Chuck Hagel,
released a statement in which he
heralded the US effort in
Afghanistan and announced the
name of the US mission which
will replace Operation Enduring
Freedom.
In Operation Freedoms
Sentinel, Hagel said, the
United States will pursue two
missions with the support of the
Afghan government and the

Afghan people. We will work with

our allies and partners as part of
Natos Resolute Support mission
to continue training, advising,
and assisting Afghan security
forces. And we will continue our
counterterrorism mission against
the remnants of al-Qaida to
ensure that Afghanistan is never
again used to stage attacks
against
our
homeland.
President Ashraf Ghani, who
took office in September, signed
bilateral security agreements
with Washington and Nato allowing the enduring military presence. The move has led to a
spike in violence as the Taliban
have claimed it as an excuse to
step up operations aimed at
destabilizing his government.
Isaf was set up after the US-led
invasion as an umbrella for the

coalition of around 50 nations

that provided troops and took
responsibility for security across
the country. It ends with 2,224
American soldiers killed, according to an AP tally, out of a total of
some 3,500 foreign troop
deaths. The mission peaked in
2010 with a surge ordered by
Obama to root the insurgents out
of
strategically
important
regions, notably in the southern
provinces of Helmand and
Kandahar, where the Taliban had
its capital from 1996 to 2001.
Obama recently expanded the
remit of the US forces remaining
in the country, allowing them to
extend their counter-terrorism
operations to Taliban, as well as
al-Qaida, and to provide ground
and air support for Afghan forces
when necessary for at least the
next two years.
Afghans have mixed feelings
about the drawdown of foreign
troops, many believing that with
the deteriorating security situation their presence is needed to
back up the Afghan effort to bring
peace after more than three
decades of continual war.
At least in the past 13 years
we have seen improvements in
our way of life freedom of
speech, democracy, the people
generally better off financially,

said 42-year-old shop keeper

Gul Mohammad. But we do
need the foreign troops to stay
here at least until our own forces
are strong enough, while our
economy strengthens, while our
leaders try to form a government, he said. Nato secretary
general Jens Stoltenberg has
said that Afghanistans 350,000strong security forces are ready
to take on the insurgency alone,
despite complaints by officials
that they lack the necessary
assets, such as air support,
medical evacuation and intelligence. In a statement on
Sunday, Stoltenberg said Isafs
mandate was carried out at
great cost but with great success. We have made our own
nations safer by denying safe
haven to international terrorists.
We have made Afghanistan
stronger by building up from
scratch strong security forces.
Together we have created the
conditions for a better future for
millions of Afghan men, women
and children, he said.As Afghan
forces assume sovereignty, the
country is without a cabinet,
three months after Ghanis inauguration, and economic growth
is near zero due to the reduction
of the international military and
aid juggernauts.

28

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January-2015

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LEGAL CENTER
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islam today

January-2015

29

Ansar: 40plus Muslims

HISTORY OF MAJLIS
ANSARULLAH, USA

azrat
KhalifatulMasih
II (may Allah be
pleased with him)
formed a number of
auxiliary organizations
to promote the spirit of
moral excellence of
members of
Ahmadiyya Muslim
Community. These
organizations were
established to provide
a specific framework
for the ethical and reli-

gious education and

training of different
groups based on age
and gender.
MajlisAnsarullah
(helpers of Allah) was
formed by Hazrat
KhalifatulMasih II (may
Allah be pleased with
him) in 1940; its members comprise all male
Ahmadi Muslims over
the age of 40. (Click
here to see a PDF document that describes
significance of the flag
of MajlisAnsarullah)
Hazrat

KhalifatulMasih II (may
Allah be pleased with
him) outlined goals for
the auxiliaries in these
words (Al-Fazl, October
11, 1944):
We have to reform
the whole world. We
have to bring the entire
world to bow before
God Almighty. Bring
the entire world under
the fold of Ahmadiyyat.
Establish the kingdom
of God all over the
world. But this grand
task cannot be performed until all mem-

2014 ijtema SceNe

iN waShiNgtoN Dc

bers of our community

children, youth, or
elderly organize
themselves internally
and follow this code of
conduct day and
night... For this internal
improvement and completion of organization,
I have established the
auxiliary organizations
of
KhuddamulAhmadiyya,
Ansarullah, and
AtfalulAhmadiyya."
Originally, the
AnsarullahMajalis
(chapters) all over the
world were under the
supervision of Sadr
MajlisAnsarullah with
its head offices at the

Center, first in Qadian

and then in Rabwah.
The Head of Ansarullah
in each country was
called Nazim-i-Ala or
Za'im-e-Ala. Hazrat
KhalifatulMasih IV (may
Allah have mercy on
him), announced in his
Friday Sermon delivered on November 3,
1989, that in the future,
KhalifatulMasih would
himself supervise all
auxiliary organizations.
He also mentioned that
all over the world and
at the national level, the
heads of the auxiliary
organizations would be
designated as Sadr
(President).

ROOTed IN THe
eARLY HISTORY
OF ISLAM

he creation of
Ansarullah is
rooted in the
early history of Islam.
Remember the time the
Prophet of Islam had to
immigrate to Mediba
the Muslims who welcomed him and gave
him the most support
were called ANSAR. In
the Quran Allah calls
upon as and says,
Who among you would
like to be the helpers
of Allah ?

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30

January-2015

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FIJISUN

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gallery

FIJI IDOL SHOW

TISI SANGAM NIGHT

January-2015

31

32

January-2015

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Fijis Hazrat Muhammad vows to revive Ghazal

Night held at MEHAR RESTAURANT, HAYWARD

TISI SANGAM ANNUAL DINNER HIGHLIGHTS