Inter-University folk festival

PATIALA: A two-day Inter-University folk festival by the department of Youth Welfare, Punjabi University began here today in Guru Teg Bahadur Hall of the University.

Dr SS Khaira, Dean Academic Affairs, Punjabi University inaugurated the festival. While inaugurating the festival Dr. Khaira said that we are drifting away from our cultural heritage, therefore it becomes utmost necessary to organise such kind of festivals to propagate and promote the language, literature and culture in our society and Punjabi University is committed for the same.

On the first day of the folk festival in the morning session folk arts like Sammi, folk music, malwai gidha were performed.

Dr. Jamsheed Ali Khan, Dean Colleges of the University presided over the session. Evening session will be presided over by Dr. Paramvir Singh, Coordinator, NSS of the University. Dr. Devinder Singh, Director, Planning & Monitoring of the University presided over the morning session in the kala bhawan where traditional folk songs were presented. On the same day folk sports like Lunh Miani, Pithu, Rassakashi were played at the Sports Complex of the University. A Nukkad Natak was also played at the university campus.

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

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Palestinian Civilian Toll Climbs in Gaza

The Palestinian civilian death toll mounted Monday as Israeli aircraft struck densely populated areas in the Gaza Strip in a campaign to quell militant rocket fire menacing nearly half of Israel's population.

An overnight airstrike on two houses belonging to an extended clan in Gaza City killed two children and two adults, and injured 42 people, said Gaza heath official Ashraf al-Kidra.

Shortly after, Israeli aircraft bombarded the remains of the former national security compound in Gaza City. Flying shrapnel killed one child and wounded others living nearby, al-Kidra said. Five farmers were killed in two separate strikes, al-Kidra said, including three who had been identified earlier by Hamas security officials as Islamic Jihad fighters.

Civilian casualties began to shoot up on Sunday, after Israel said it was stepping up attacks on the homes of suspected Hamas activists. After that warning, an Israeli missile flatted a two-story house in a residential area of Gaza City, killing at least 11 civilians, most of them women and children.

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It remained unclear who the target of that missile attack was. However, the new tactic ushered in a new and risky phase of the operation, given the likelihood of civilian casualties in the crowded territory of 1.6 million Palestinians. The rising civilian toll was also likely to intensify pressure on Israel to end the fighting. Hundreds of civilian casualties in an Israeli offensive in Gaza four years ago led to fierce international condemnation of Israel.

In all, 87 Palestinians, including 50 civilians, have been killed in the six-day onslaught and 720 have been wounded.

Three Israeli civilians have died from Palestinian rocket fire and dozens have been wounded. An Israeli rocket-defense system has intercepted hundreds of rockets bound for populated areas.

Monday's air assault in Gaza City reduced two houses to rubble on either side of a street where residents stepped over piles of cinderblocks and twisted metal. Relatives said Ahed Kitati, 38, had rushed out after a warning missile was fired to try to hustle people to safety. But he was fatally struck by a falling cinderblock, leaving behind a pregnant wife, five young daughters and a son, they said.

One of his daughters, Aya Kitati, clutched a black jacket, saying she was freezing, even though the weather was mild. "We were sleeping, and then we heard the sound of the bombs," she said in a whisper, then broke down sobbing.

Ahed's brother, Jawad Kitati, said he plucked the lifeless body of a 2-year-old relative from the street and carried him to an ambulance. Blood stains smeared his jacket sleeve.

Another clan member, Haitham Abu Zour, 24, woke up to the sound of the warning strike and hid in a stairwell. He emerged to find his wife dead and his two infant children buried under the debris, but safe.

Clan elder Mohammed Azzam, 61, denied that anyone in his family had any connections to Hamas.

"The Jews are liars," he said. "No matter how much they pressure our people, we will not withdraw our support for Hamas."

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Israel, Gaza fighting rages on as Egypt seeks truce

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel bombed Palestinian militant targets in the Gaza Strip from air and sea for a fifth straight day on Sunday, preparing for a possible ground invasion while also spelling out its conditions for a truce.

Palestinian fire into Israel subsided during the night but resumed in the morning, with rockets targeting the country's commercial capital Tel Aviv for a fourth day. The two missiles were shot down by Israel's Iron Dome air shield.

Speaking shortly after the attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was ready to widen its offensive.

"We are exacting a heavy price from Hamas and the terrorist organizations and the Israel Defence Forces are prepared for a significant expansion of the operation," he said at a cabinet meeting, giving no further details.

Some 51 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, including 14 children, have been killed since the Israeli offensive began, Palestinian officials said, with hundreds wounded. More than 500 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel, killing three civilians and wounding dozens.

Israel unleashed intensive air strikes on Wednesday, killing the military commander of the Islamist Hamas movement that governs Gaza and spurns peace with the Jewish state.

Israel's declared goal is to deplete Gaza arsenals and press Hamas into stopping cross-border rocket fire that has bedeviled Israeli border towns for years and is now displaying greater range, putting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in the crosshairs.

Air raids continued past midnight into Sunday, with warships shelling from the sea. Two Gaza City media buildings were hit, witnesses said, wounding six journalists and damaging facilities belonging to Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV as well as Britain's Sky News.

An employee of Beirut-based al Quds television station lost his leg in the attack, medics said.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the strike had targeted a rooftop "transmission antenna used by Hamas to carry out terror activity". International media organizations demanded further clarification.

Three other attacks killed three children and wounded 14 other people, medical officials said, with heavy thuds regularly jolting the small, densely populated coastal enclave.

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi said in Cairo, as his security deputies sought to broker a truce with Hamas leaders, that "there are some indications that there is a possibility of a ceasefire soon, but we do not yet have firm guarantees".

Egypt has mediated previous ceasefire deals between Israel and Hamas, the latest of which unraveled with recent violence.

A Palestinian official told Reuters the truce discussions would continue in Cairo on Sunday, saying "there is hope", but that it was too early to say whether the efforts would succeed.

At a Gaza news conference, Hamas military spokesman Abu Ubaida voiced defiance, saying: "This round of confrontation will not be the last against the Zionist enemy and it is only the beginning."

SYRIAN FRONT

Israel's military also saw action along the northern frontier, firing into Syria on Saturday in what it said was a response to shooting aimed at its troops in the occupied Golan Heights. Israel's chief military spokesman, citing Arab media, said it appeared Syrian soldiers were killed in the incident.

There were no reported casualties on the Israeli side from the shootings, the third case this month of violence that has been seen as a spillover of battles between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces and rebels trying to overthrow him.

With tanks and artillery poised along the Gaza frontier for a possible ground operation, Israel's cabinet decided on Friday to double the current reserve troop quota set for the offensive to 75,000. Some 30,000 soldiers have already been called up.

"If there is quiet in the south and no rockets and missiles are fired at Israel's citizens, nor terrorist attacks engineered from the Gaza Strip, we will not attack," Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon wrote on Twitter.

Israel's operation so far has drawn Western support for what U.S. and European leaders have called its right to self-defense, but there was also a growing number of appeals from them to seek an end to the hostilities.

Netanyahu, in his comments at Sunday's cabinet session, said he had emphasized in telephone conversations with world leaders "the effort Israel is making to avoid harming civilians, while Hamas and the terrorist organizations are making every effort to hit civilian targets in Israel".

Israel withdrew settlers from Gaza in 2005 and two years later Hamas took control of the slender, impoverished territory, which the Israelis have kept under blockade.

PRESSURE ON SIDES TO "DE-ESCALATE"

British Prime Minister David Cameron "expressed concern over the risk of the conflict escalating further and the danger of further civilian casualties on both sides", in a conversation with Netanyahu, a spokesperson for Cameron said.

Britain was "putting pressure on both sides to de-escalate," the spokesman said, adding that Cameron had urged Netanyahu "to do everything possible to bring the conflict to an end."

Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama, said the United States would like to see the conflict resolved through "de-escalation" and diplomacy, but also believed Israel had the right to self-defense.

Diplomats at the United Nations said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was expected to visit Israel and Egypt in the coming week to push for an end to the fighting.

A possible move into the Gaza Strip and the risk of major casualties it brings would be a significant gamble for Netanyahu, favored to win a January election.

The last Gaza war, a three-week Israeli blitz and invasion over the New Year of 2008-09, killed 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died in the conflict.

The current flare-up around Gaza has fanned the fires of a Middle East ignited by a series of Arab uprisings and a civil war in Syria that threatens to spread beyond its borders.

One significant change has been the election of an Islamist government in Cairo that is allied with Hamas, which may narrow Israel's maneuvering room in confronting the Palestinian group. Israel and Egypt made peace in 1979.

In attacks on Saturday, Israel destroyed the house of a Hamas commander near the Egyptian border.

Casualties there were averted however, because Israel had fired non-exploding missiles at the building beforehand from a drone, which the militant's family understood as a warning to flee, witnesses said.

Israeli aircraft also bombed Hamas government buildings in Gaza on Saturday, including the offices of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and a police headquarters.

Israel's "Iron Dome" missile interceptor system has destroyed more than 200 incoming rockets from Gaza in mid-air since Wednesday, saving Israeli towns and cities from potentially significant damage.

However, one rocket salvo unleashed on Sunday evaded Iron Dome and wounded two people when it hit a house in the coastal city of Ashkelon, police said.

(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan and Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Crispian Balmer and Mark Heinrich)

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The staying power of "Gangnam Style"

SEOUL: President Obama, the mayor of London, China's top dissident artist and Madonna -- every time someone signals the death of "Gangnam Style", up pops another high-profile figure to keep the phenomenon alive.

In the four months since the music video by South Korean rapper Psy went viral on YouTube, it has been name-checked and imitated by an impressive roster of global notables from world leaders to sports stars and business tycoons.

And the public has joined in with tens of thousands turning out for giant flashmob performances of Psy's horse-riding dance in cities like Paris and Rome.

While many believe Gangnam Style will ultimately prove to be a one-hit wonder, the song has shown surprising staying power and an unlikely ability to penetrate international corridors of power.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called it a force for world peace. On the morning of the US presidential election, Barack Obama told a local radio station that he was confident he could match Psy's dance moves.

"But I'm not sure that the inauguration ball is the appropriate time to break that out. Maybe (I will) do it privately for Michelle," he said.

British Prime Minister David Cameron and London Mayor Boris Johnson performed a joint Gangnam Style dance spectacular for their wives in September during a private gathering in the premier's country retreat Chequers.

Johnson went on to reference the event in his keynote speech to the ruling conservative party's annual conference.

If politicians have appropriated the song in an effort to boost their populist credentials, others have used it to drive home an anti-establishment message -- most notably renowned Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei.

Banned from traveling abroad, Ai posted a Gangnam Style dance parody on YouTube, during which he brandished a set of handcuffs in a clear reference to Beijing's efforts to silence his outspoken views.

The video was removed by China's Internet censors, prompting the Indian-born British sculptor Anish Kapoor to gather 250 art world luminaries at his London studio this week to film their own Gangnam video in support of Ai.

"Yes, it is desperately silly, but what is the paradigm of the artist? The artist does stupid things with serious intent," Kapoor said.

Silly or not, Psy's influence has spread to some of the world's most famous academic institutions.

Earlier this month, the 34-year-old rapper was invited to follow the likes of Ronald Reagan and the Dalai Lama in addressing the 189-year-old Oxford Union club at Oxford University.

And a Gangnam Style video parody made by students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, featured cameos by Eric Lander, one of the principle leaders of the Human Genome Project, and Noam Chomsky.

"Oppan Chomsky Style," the 83-year-old father of modern linguistics deadpanned into the camera while sipping a cup of coffee.

For some commentators, it has all become a bit too much.

"Can anyone kill Gangnam Style?" Britain's Guardian newspaper asked recently.

After Google chairman Eric Schmidt gave a rather awkward horse-riding performance during a visit to Seoul, Time magazine declared the Gangnam Style craze "officially over" -- but that was way back in September.

If anything, Psy has since gone from strength to strength -- gaining the ultimate showbiz accolade this week by performing a mash-up of Gangnam Style with pop icon Madonna during her concert at New York's Madison Square Garden.

- AFP/xq

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Bal Thackerey's funeral procession gets massive live TV coverage

NEW DELHI: At best, Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray, who died in Mumbai Saturday, was a regional leader. But his charisma and the controversies he was involved in for nearly six decades brought his funeral procession the kind of massive live TV news coverage not witnessed for any other regional leader.

All the big guns of TV journalism were there to anchor the coverage of a funeral, which was nothing but a vicarious treat of a public spectacle for a Sunday audience.

All television channels competed with each other to give the best shot of the funeral procession of the leader who was the militant flag-bearer of Hindu nationalism and who did not hesitate to resort to mob tactics to have his will enforced. Thackeray was 86.

Since early morning, TV channels zoomed live footage of the procession that brought Mumbai to a standstill into the drawing rooms and bedrooms of tens and millions of TV viewers.

Interestingly, Times Now had seven camera crew covering the funeral process, while NDTV had at least three crew out in the field.

But his death deserved such a frenzy, said media watcher and Centre for Media Studies chairman N. Bhaskara Rao.

First and foremost, according to Rao, was the "emotional connect" that many in Mumbai have with the senior Thackeray, whose political journey began and ended with the megalopolis and for the Maharashtrian population of the country's financial capital.

"Thackeray had a distinct personality. He did not fall into the usual categories of politicians that we see in Delhi. He was far apart from all of them and was unambiguous in his political views. He had been in politics for long and has got entangled in many controversies. All these are a good story to tell at a time when he is no more," Rao told IANS.

For this reason alone, he "deserves" the kind of coverage he got, Rao said, noting that television channels have a lot of footage from all these years of his political life that they would like to flaunt at this hour.

"It is quite tempting for any TV channel to bring out those footage and show it to their viewers. This is one compulsion that the new media has," he noted.

Another reason Rao could cite was the day of the funeral being Sunday and not much pan-India news breaks happening on account of the weekly holiday.

"Mumbai is a big market for all the television channels. Anything big in such a market is big for the channels too," he added.

And last, but not the least, the political story that the demise of Thackeray has kicked up -- the future of his Shiv Sena itself under son Uddhav and if there is a possibility of merger with the breakaway Maharashtra Navnirman Sena of cousin Raj.

"All these factors and elements add up to a good, massive coverage. The funeral procession and the political message suits the television medium," Rao added.

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

Read More..

Israel's Iron Dome Proves Effective Defense

Israel said that it will install a fifth "Iron Dome" battery before the end of the year, adding another installation to the country's missile defense system, which has proven itself this week, intercepting more than 150 rockets fired from the Gaza Strip.

The missile defense system, which can identify enemy rockets, determine if they pose a threat to populated areas, and destroy them within a matter of seconds, has been praised by Israel's leaders for saving hundreds of lives.

The system, however, comes with a steep price. Each interceptor missile, which includes a radar guidance system, costs $40,000. Israel has not disclosed how many missiles are required to take down an enemy rocket or how many interceptors it has fired, but experts estimate the country has fired $8 million worth of missiles in the past three days.

The Israelis are only trying to shoot down about a third of the rockets fired by militants, those on a trajectory towards populated areas, said Ben Goodlad, a senior aerospace and defense analyst at IHS Jane's. But of the rockets Iron Dome has targeted, the system is between 87 and 90 percent successful in destroying.

"That is an incredibly high success rate for the system," he said. "What isn't clear is how many interceptor missiles are fired. There may be two, three, or four fired at a one time to take down a rocket."

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Palestinian militants working out of the Gaza Strip, a ribbon of coastline controlled by Hamas, have for years been stockpiling short- and medium-range rockets, built at a fraction of the cost of the Iron Dome missiles and then stored in highly populated areas near hospitals and schools.

Hamas is considered by the U.S. and Europe Union as a terrorist organization.

Militants this week fired rockets further into Israel than ever before, targeting the country's two largest cities, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, but there were no casualties in those cities. Three Israelis were killed by rockets elsewhere in Israel.

"We are very pleased with the interception rates," aerial defense commander Brig. Gen. Shachar Shochet told reporters on Thursday. "We have intercepted dozens of Grad and Qassam rockets fired by Hamas and other groups, and prevented serious harm to our civilians."

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the country the system had saved lives.

"No other country in the world has technology like the Iron Dome," Barak said. "Had the system not existed, many civilians would be in harm's way. However, the system is not a 100 percent foolproof defense, and does not absolve citizens of their duty to closely follow instructions given by Homefront Command."

The system is not perfect, and can be breeched by a large volley of rockets fired at once, a problem of "saturation," said former White House counterterrorism adviser and ABC News consultant Dick Clark.

Israel, therefore, plans to target the rocket stockpiles rather than continue to shoot down individual missiles. Israel has called up more than 60,000 reserve soldiers and appears to be planning a ground strike in Gaza soon.

Currently four mobile batteries equipped with sophisticated radar technology and missiles and on-board radar, are combined to create a shield over the country.

In 2006, 4,000 rockets were fired at Israel during a war with Lebanon that left 44 civilians dead. In response, the Israeli Defense Forces and Israeli defense manufacturer Rafael Advanced Defense Systems began developing Iron Dome.

In 2010, after tests proved effective, the United States began funding the program in part. Earlier this year, Congress authorized $600 million for the program, with instructions that the U.S. would eventually begin co-production of the system.

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