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Two Air India pilots have been grounded by the airline after getting into an apparent physical altercation in the cockpit. The Times of India, which first reported the story on Sunday's incident, quoted an unnamed source saying: "The commander told his co-pilot to take down critical take off figures for the flight. This involves writing critical facts like number of passengers on board, takeoff weight and fuel uptake on a small paper card [trim sheet] that is displayed in front of the pilots for the entire duration of the flight. The co-pilot took offence at this and reportedly beat up...

The Robopocalypse for workers may be inevitable. In this vision of the future, super-smart machines will best humans in pretty much every task. A few of us will own the machines, a few will work a bit — perhaps providing "Made by Man" artisanal goods — while the rest will live off a government-provided income. Silicon-based superintelligence and robots will dramatically alter labor markets — to name but one example, the most common job in most U.S. states probably will no longer be truck driver. But what about right now? If you're unemployed or working part-time instead of full-time, or...

Miao, India, Apr 3, 2015 / 04:29 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In the Diocese of Miao, located in India's northeasternmost state of Arunachal Pradesh, Bishop George Pallipparambil is not staying quietly in his cathedral for Holy Week, but is rather holding services across the diocese in an effort to better serve his people. “What we're trying to do is to reach to as many places as possible. I'm not confining myself to the main church in Miao,” the bishop told CNA April 1. “I'll be there only for the Easter Sunday Mass.” “I finished today in one place, tomorrow I'll be...

The logical flaw in the indictment of a looming “very bad” nuclear deal with Iran that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered before Congress this month was his claim that we could secure a “good deal” by calling Iran’s bluff and imposing tougher sanctions. The Iranian regime that Netanyahu described so vividly — violent, rapacious, devious and redolent with hatred for Israel and the United States — is bound to continue its quest for nuclear weapons by refusing any “good deal” or by cheating. This gives force to the Obama administration’s taunting rejoinder: What is Netanyahu’s alternative? War? But the...

While the world focuses on the dangers that a nuclear-armed Iran could present in the Middle East, a potentially more dangerous and unstable nuclear proliferation is occurring in the Indian Ocean. In the coming years India, Pakistan, and perhaps China will likely deploy a significant number of nuclear weapons at sea in the Indian Ocean. This could further destabilise already unstable nuclear relationships, creating a real risk of a sea-based exchange of nuclear weapons. Observers have long seen India-Pakistan nuclear rivalry as the most unstable in the world, and South Asia as the most likely location of nuclear conflict. This...

The Defence Acquisition Council has approved the ‘Maitri’ project for the co-development of a Short Range Surface-to-Air Missile (SR-SAM) by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) with MBDA of France, Navy officers said on Monday. “The DRDO has been directed by the government to engage Original Equipment Manufacturer for joint development,” a Defence Ministry official said. The project has been in the works since 2007 to meet the requirements of the Army and the Air Force. MoU with MBDA The DRDO had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with MBDA in 2013, but there has hardly been any progress because...

It is great sorrow and a heavy heart that His Beatitude Mar Aprem, Metropolitan of India and Patriarchal Vicar, in unison with all the members of the Holy Synod of the Assyrian Church of the East (absent were Mar Aprim Nathniel and Mar Narsai Benyamin due to visa difficulties), announce the falling asleep in the Lord of His Holiness Mar Dinkha IV, Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East. The late Patriarch passed at 10:04 am, this morning (Thursday, March 26, 2015) at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota. His Holiness was surrounded by the prelates, clergy and family members....

more than two weeks, public debate in South Africa has been dominated by a statue. Students at the University of Cape Town have been demonstrating to have the bronze figure of British colonialist Cecil Rhodes removed from its central position on campus. Rhodes bequeathed the land on which the university was built, but he also slaughtered Africans by the thousands in colonial conquest and helped lay the foundations of apartheid in South Africa.

Narendra Modi in Mahe, Seychel On February 18, the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) formally cleared India's single-largest defence project: a joint Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)-Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC)-Navy project to build six nuclear-powered attack submarines or SSNs for roughly $12 billion (Rs.74,400 crore). This mammoth 'Make in India' project, nearly the size of the budget allotted this year to the three services to buy hardware ($15 billion), was not an isolated policy decision. Less than a month after he chaired the CCS, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Indian Ocean littoral countries of Seychelles, Mauritius and...

In a breakthrough, the CID today arrested two persons, both Bangladeshi Muslim nationals, one from West Bengal and the other from Mumbai, in connection with the gangrape of a 71-year-old nun at a convent school in Nadia district that caused a nation-wide outrage. ... The nun of Jesus and Mary Convent School was gangraped at Gangnapur in Nadia district of West Bengal in the early hours of March 14 which caused an outrage in the country and abroad

The EFF on Wednesday condemned President Jacob Zuma's alleged "anti-black" remarks made in a speech to the SA Local Government Association. "The Economic Freedom Fighters condemns the racist anti-black and self-hating remarks of President Zuma that poor South Africans are lazy particularly because whites are not in control," spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said. Speaking in Midrand on Tuesday, Zuma related an anecdote of a visit to an unnamed African country during the liberation struggle. "I got there and people were working very slowly, they were not in a rush, and I asked the comrade who was taking me, 'What's happening?' "He...

The 'new' Mirage 2000, redesignated the Mirage 2000 I, is almost incomparable with the original jet courtesy a host of new systems onboard. NEW DELHI: 16 years ago, I flew onboard Mirage 2000s of the Indian Air Force over Tiger Hill within days of India handing Pakistan a humiliating defeat in the Kargil war. It remains, what I consider, the biggest exclusive in my career as a journalist. I had actually been cleared to fly in an operational sortie during the war by the then Defence Minister George Fernandes, but in July 1999, Pakistani forces were shell-shocked by wave after...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s most explicit warning of the dangers of a “bad deal” with Iran are not that Iran would immediately get the bomb, but that other countries in the region might accelerate efforts to catch up with Tehran. According to Emily B. Landau of the Institute of National Security Studies, whose expertise lies in nuclear proliferation and armament, all eyes are on Saudi Arabia. Following Iran, “Saudi Arabia is the #1 contender to get nuclear weapons because there is a perceived relationship there with Pakistan. Saudi Arabia has financed Pakistan’s ballistic missile program and there might be some...

About 600 high school students in eastern India have been expelled for cheating on pressure-packed 10th grade examinations this week, education authorities said Friday. The incident has received widespread attention after Indian television footage showed parents and friends of students scaling the outer walls of school buildings to pass cheat sheets to students inside taking exams.

Hillary’s ride to 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue just got bumpier. A judge on Friday ordered the State Department to turn over passenger manifests to Citizens United as a result of a FOIA request that State had ignored. The quick ruling appears to show that judges patience for stonewalling by the Obama administration has reached it’s limit and they no longer feel like giving them the benefit of a doubt. Those manifests could bury Hillary 2016 before it even starts. There seems to be a connection between donors to the Clinton Foundation and contracts from foreign countries receiving favorable treatment from the...

NEW DELHI (AP) — A British documentary. A YouTube comedy clip. A book on Hinduism. Each offended some segment of Indian society, and each was banned or suppressed as a result. Over the last year, at least two books and two films have become off-limits in India. "The Satanic Verses" has been forbidden since the 1990s. And the film censor board has issued a list of unacceptable words. India is the world's largest democracy and has made huge economic leaps in the last few decades to become a key Asian power. And yet, as its official and unofficial bans show,...

Link only per AP rules.

An Indian bride walked out of her wedding ceremony after the groom failed to solve a simple math problem, police said Friday. The bride tested the groom on his math skills and when he got the sum wrong, she walked out. The question she asked: How much is 15 plus six? His reply: 17.

NEW DELHI (AP) — An Indian bride walked out of her wedding ceremony after the groom failed to solve a simple math problem, police said Friday. The bride tested the groom on his math skills and when he got the sum wrong, she walked out. The question she asked: How much is 15 plus six? His reply: 17.

Rajendra Pachauri, one of the world’s most famous climate officials, is being investigated under three sections of the Indian Penal Code relating to sexual assault, harassment, and stalking. He has resigned as longtime chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), resigned from the Indian Prime Minister’s climate council, and has been disinvited from speaking at a conference at Harvard University. Currently on leave from The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), the New Delhi-based entity he has led for three decades, Pachauri has been banned by the courts from entering TERI facilities and from contacting anyone who works...