Month: September 2022

Taiwan military on Thursday said it shot down an unidentified civilian drone, which had entered its airspace over the restricted waters of Shiyu Island, just off the Chinese coast in the early hours today.

“The Jinmen Defense Command of the Army stated that at 12:30 p.m. today (1), an unidentified civilian aerial camera was found to enter the airspace over the restricted waters of Shiyu Island,” according to the statement released by Taiwan’s Defence Ministry.
“The Ministry of Defense will continue to search, monitor, and monitor closely to maintain the security of the defence area,” the statement reads.

A similar incident was reported on Tuesday where the Taiwanese military fired at a Chinese military drone after it entered the “restricted” air space over a Taiwanese-controlled island.

Since mid-August, a number of civilian drones have been spotted flying over the outlying island of Kinmen, 180 kilometres from Taiwan’s main island but less than 10 kilometres from China. On one occasion, on August 16, two Taiwanese soldiers wearing masks reportedly threw rocks at a Chinese drone when it flew above their military post.

The Kinmen Defence Command said two other Chinese drones were detected at Little Kinmen island and nearby Lion islet on Saturday and Monday respectively. The one that passed over Lion islet at around 4 pm was flying very low, only 30 meters from the ground, it said.

China has increased its antics in the Taiwan Strait post since the visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Infuriated over US Senator Marsha Blackburn’s visit to Taiwan, China had last week commenced military drills in the seas and airspace around the self-governed island.

According to information released by the Taiwan region’s defence authority, eight PLA Navy vessels and 35 PLA aircraft were detected around the island on August 26, with 18 of the detected aircraft (SU-30, J-11, J-16, and J-10) having flown on the east part of the median line of the Taiwan Straits and the island’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), the Global Times reported.

Meanwhile, US Arizona Governor Doug Ducey is the latest minister from America who arrived in Taipei on August 30 for a five-day trade mission to Taiwan and the Republic of Korea with a focus on strengthening Arizona’s well-established partnerships with the two Asian partners.

The governor’s itinerary included meetings with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen and other officials as well as discussions with the leaders of high-tech manufacturing companies. (ANI)

Chattisgarh minister Dr Premsai Singh Tekam is making rounds on social media, as two of his videos are going viral. In the two videos, the Congress leader can be seen making statements regarding liquor and road accidents.

In one of the videos, he can be heard saying that road accidents don’t take place where the road is bad but happens where the road is good.
“We get calls from people about the poor conditions of the road, but road accidents don’t occur on those roads. While, the places with very good roads, their people drive at full speed, and accidents happen there,” the minister can be heard saying.

In the other video, he can be heard talking about drinking alcohol. The user who tweeted the video claims that he was at the deaddiction programme.

“People talk about alcohol and the harms associated with it, but no one talks about the many benefits also attached to it. Also, when we talk about alcohol, we should remember the proper way of drinking it, there is dilution and there is a proper ratio in which alcohol should be diluted with water,” he can be heard saying at the event.

Ever since the video has been uploaded on social media it has created discussions on “social media” regarding the credibility of Tekam as an education minister.

Both the tweets were done by a user named Tanmay (@SakalleyTanmay). The exact location and timings of both videos cannot be confirmed as of now. (ANI)

United Nations on Wednesday (local time) accused China of actions that “may constitute international crimes, in particular, crimes against humanity” in its Xinjiang region for mass detention of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities.

A long-awaited report was released on August 31 in Geneva, minutes before Michelle Bachelet, the UN high commissioner for human rights, was set to leave office. She was come under fire for repeatedly postponing the report’s release with little explanation — baffling diplomats, and human rights advocates.
In December the spokesperson of Michelle Bachelet announced plans to publish the report within weeks, but it failed to appear, reinforcing perceptions of a United Nations leadership reluctant to stand up to China.

“The extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of Uyghur and

other predominantly Muslim groups, pursuant to law and policy, in context of restrictions and deprivation more generally of fundamental rights enjoyed individually and collectively, may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity,” the report stated.

The UN report further stated that the allegations of sexual and gender-based violence, including of rape, “appear credible and would in themselves amount to acts of torture or other forms of ill-treatment.”

UN human rights experts have raised serious concerns about the alleged detention and forced labour of Muslim Uyghurs in China, calling for unhindered access to the country to conduct fact-finding missions and urging global and domestic companies to closely scrutinize their supply chains.

Experts have raised concern over the plight of Uyghur Muslims and the support for the cause has found expression through calls to boycott Chinese products that are manufactured in Xinjiang.

A number of watchdogs have also come up with several reports with first-person accounts of affected minorities, which showed Beijing’s active involvement in the crime against humanity.

Several organisations have made global demands to boycott Chinese products as well as to announce a diplomatic boycott of events held by China.

Even in the face of mounting evidence, China refuses to deny all evidence and terms the claims as western propaganda. (ANI)

A group of school students in Jharkhand’s Dumka district tied their teachers to a tree and allegedly beat them up for giving them low scores which resulted in the students failing their exams.

The First information report (FIR) has been registered against the headmaster and 11 students, the police said.

“Teacher Suman Kumar and clerk Soneram Chaure complained that they were beaten up and tied to a tree on the instructions of the headmaster. An FIR has been registered against the headmaster and 11 students,” said Nityanand Bhokta, Gopikandar PS in-charge, Dumka.

When Dumka education officers arrived at the scene after the incident was reported, students complained that their teachers had given them very few marks in practicals and that they had not been given an explanation.

“We received info on the incident and held talks with all teachers. When we reached there, students said that they were given very less marks in practicals and they didn’t receive an adequate response from their teachers,” said Surendra Hebram, Block Education Extension Officer, Gopikandar, Dumka.

In a response to the incident, Kumar Suman a teacher said students called them under the guise of holding a meeting and complained that their results were spoiled.

“Students called us on the pretext of holding a meeting and said their results were spoiled. It happened because their practical marks were not included in the results. That was to be done by the headmaster. So we couldn’t have taken any step in this regard,” Suman said. (ANI)

Airline SpiceJet’s Boeing-737 on Thursday returned to Delhi after taking off from Indira Gandhi International Airport.

Reportedly, an aircraft VT-SLP of SpiceJet, that took off for Nashik in Maharashtra from New Delhi airport returned after experiencing a malfunction in the flight’s autopilot system informed the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) official.
“SpiceJet B737 aircraft VT-SLP, operating flight SG-8363 (Delhi-Nashik) on Thursday was involved in an air turnback due to an autopilot snag,” he said.

However, all the passengers including the cabin crew are safe as the flight landed back safely at the airport.

“On September 1, 2022, SpiceJet B737 aircraft scheduled to operate from Delhi to Nashik returned to Delhi after the flight crew experienced a malfunction with the AutoPilot system. The aircraft made a normal landing at Delhi and passengers disembarked normally,” said SpiceJet Spokesperson.

Meanwhile, SpiceJet has been going through a highly turbulent phase in recent times on account of several glitches and a non-adherence to mandated guidelines in regard to the training of some pilots.

It all started in April 2022 when the aviation watchdog the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) restrained 90 pilots of the airline from operating Boeing 737 Max aircraft, after finding they were not properly trained.

Those pilots were trained on a faulty simulator, and the aviation regulator asked the airline to retrain the pilots, besides slapping a fine of Rs 10 lakh.

Multiple incidents were reported this year when SpiceJet and other carrier’s aircraft either turned back to their originating station or continued landing at the destination with degraded safety margins

Civil aviation regulator DGCA has recently ordered SpiceJet to operate a maximum of 50 per cent of its flights for eight weeks after several of its planes reported technical malfunctions.

Upon having reported repeated snags, civil aviation regulator Director General of Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) Arun Kumar recently told ANI aircraft systems are reasonably robust and do have multiple redundancies but component failures do not imply that it is compromising the safety of the passengers. (ANI)