Private steel major Tata Steel was conferred the prestigious Certificate of Recognition by the Institute of Companies Secretaries of India (ICSI) for its excellence in corporate governance.

The steel giant, chosen among the top 5 companies in the country, was conferred the Certificate at a ceremony in New Delhi on Friday, a company release said on Saturday.

Chanakya Chaudhary, Group Director, Corporate Communications and Regulatory Affairs, Tata Steel, received the Certificate from Union Minister for Law and Justice Sadananda Gowda.

Earlier, Tata Steel had received the ‘2nd National Award for excellence in Corporate Governance’ issued by the Institute in year 2002.

It was such an honour to be at the St Elias School  Evolution Exhibition along with Principal Sister Philomena, Father Milton Gonsalves ,who were celebrating 175 glorious years . Amazing  creativity by the children of kindergarten, primary and secondary section was on display . The event was inaugurated by Shri Ashish Shelar  ,(MLA)Mrs Alka Kerkar (dy. Mayor of Mumbai),dignitaries and  guard of honour was given to the dignitaries .

Islamabad, Dec 20 (PTI) Pakistan forces have killed 28 militants in the restive north-western tribal region, intensifying the campaign against them after the Peshawar school massacre that left 148 people dead, mostly students.

A security official today said that jet fighters targeted militants in Tirah valley of Khyber, which killed 21 militants and destroyed their seven hideouts.

Private TV channels reported that Peshawar attack “mastermind” Umer Naray was also killed in the attack but it was not confirmed.

Separately, the security forces killed five terrorists in Darra Adam Khel near Peshawar in a targeted operation.

Also, the police and paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) attacked a Taliban facilitator Sayyar Khan in Machini area near Peshawar, leading to a gun battle with the militants.

Senior police officer Ijaz Ahmad told media that Khan and another militant were killed while a policemen and an FC soldier embraced martyrdom in the fight.

So far 152 militants have been killed in counter-terror operation since the Peshawar attack on Tuesday.

Army chief General Raheel Sharif last evening visited Khyber and met the troops on the front lines.

He also met with Special Services Group (SSG) soldiers or Commandos who are spearheading the targeted operations.

Army said Gen Sharif told the soldiers that fight against militants would continue till last of the rebel was eliminated.

The security forces have launched hunt for rebels after the Peshawar attack.

Army has vowed to take out Tehreek-e-Taliban chief Mullah Fazlullah nicknamed the “Radio Mullah”, who is said to be in contact with the Peshawar school attackers during the assault.

Pakistani security forces yesterday killed at least 67 militants in a countrywide swoop.

Indian-American Richard Rahul Verma has been sworn in as the US Ambassador to India by Secretary of State John Kerry.

46-year-old Verma is the first ever Indian-American to be the top US diplomat in New Delhi.

He is scheduled to arrive in India ahead of Kerry’s visit to Delhi next month. US President Barack Obama will arrive in late January to attend the Republic Day Parade on January 26 as the Chief Guest.

He was confirmed by the US Senate by a voice vote last week. Last week he met Obama at the White House.

Verma, who quietly played an important role in the Congressional passage of civil nuclear deal with India, had advocated for strong Indo-US ties when in the administration and recently started “India 2020” project at Centre for American Progress — a top American-think tank.

He will replace Nancy Powell, who resigned in March after a damaging row over the treatment of diplomat Devyani Khobragade over visa fraud charges.

The US Embassy in New Delhi is currently headed by a charge d’affaires, Kathleen Stephens.

Verma’s association with Obama goes back to 2008 when he worked on presidential debate preparations for the then Illinois senator.

His parents came to the US in the early 1960s.

“It is a day of celebration for Indian Americans,” said Dr Sampat Shivangi, national president of Indian American Forum for Political Education.

“Verma deserves this worthy appointment due to his dedication and well deserved respect he commands from President Obama and entire US Congress and the nation,” said Shivangi, one of the few Indian—Americans invited to attend the swearing in ceremony at the State Department yesterday.

The event was closed for the press.

CAIRNS (Australia): Australian police said on Saturday they had arrested the mother of most of eight children reportedly stabbed to death in the northern city of Cairns, as vigils were held to mourn the tragedy.

Officers have not revealed the cause of death of the children, aged between 18 months and 14 years, but said knives were found at the house where the bodies were discovered on Friday morning.

READ ALSO: Eight children found dead in Australia home
Flowers and teddy bears were laid near the crime scene and church services were held overnight in Cairns for the killings, which have shocked the community.

“The 37-year-old mother of several of the children involved in this incident has been arrested for murder overnight and is currently under police guard at the Cairns Base Hospital,” detective inspector Bruno Asnicar told reporters.

The woman, believed to be the mother of seven of the children and the aunt of the eighth, has not been charged, but Queensland Police said she was assisting them with their inquiries.

Flowers and stuffed toys are laid opposite the scene where eight children ranging from babies to teenagers were found dead in a house in the northern Australian city of Cairns early on December 20, 2014. (AFP Photo)

“She’s stable and being looked after,” Asnicar said, adding that the woman, who has stab wounds to her upper body, was “awake … lucid and speaking”. He could not say whether her wounds were self-inflicted.

“At this stage we’re not looking for anybody else. We’re comfortable that the community at large is safe,” he added.

The murders have rocked Australia, which is still reeling from a dramatic siege in a central Sydney cafe this week that left two hostages and a gunman dead and prompted a huge outpouring of emotion.

The dead children were reportedly discovered by the mother’s 20-year-old son when he arrived at the house in the Cairns suburb of Manoora on Friday morning.

The deaths have come as a shock to police, who said the house was not known as a “problem house”.

“This is just an ordinary neighbourhood,” Asnicar said. “A lot of good people, a lot of kids in the area and this is just something that has caught everybody by surprise. It’s absolutely tragic.”

Candlelit vigils and church services took place in Cairns overnight, and police said they are working closely with the indigenous Torres Strait Islander community to which the family belonged.

Torres Shire Council Mayor Pedro Stephen told Australian Associated Press that the entire region was grieving.

“It’s like a bomb has gone off,” he said. “Everyone is in shock.” Acting Assistant Police Commissioner Paul Taylor said the impact of the deaths would be felt across Australia.

“There will be people who have never, ever been to Cairns who will be touched by this tragedy,” he said.

Reports said a woman was heard screaming in the house on Thursday night, with Brisbane’s Courier-Mail saying she was heard to shout: “Don’t let them take away from us. God bless us. Forgive me for what I’ll do.”

One neighbour told the paper the woman was having “a bad night” on Thursday.

“I heard her fighting with someone this morning about 4:00 am” on Friday (1800 GMT Thursday), she said. “I last saw her about 6:00 am, then it was quiet.

“I saw her moving stuff out of the house yesterday. She was putting furniture and stuff out the front on the street, giving stuff away to family and friends.

“She said she was changing her life. She wasn’t well but she loved those kids.”

A 13-year-old girl who is friends with one of the children that lived in the house said she had walked her friend home on Thursday night after shopping and had met the mother, who had given her money for a taxi ride home.

“She was saying stuff about God and other stuff,” she told Australian Associated Press. “She said: ‘Papa God gave me the power to do anything’.”

Nagapattinam: An engineer was missing after a barge carrying 60 tonnes of essential commodities and diesel to a ship engaged in exploration activities off Nagapattinam coast sank in the sea, Coast Guard officials said.

The CG managed to rescue seven workers on board but the Engineer Ranjith Singh, who was in command of the barge, was missing.

They had set sail from Karaikal port on Thursday to ferry the items to the ship owned by a Mumbai-based firm, officials said.

Last evening, the barge developed a problem when it was off Nagapattinam coast with workers spotting an oil leak. When the engineer was trying to set things right, a glass pane of the barge broke and sea water started getting in following which it started sinking.

The seven workers managed to jump into the sea.

On information, Indian Coast Guard, Karaikal Station Commander Uddhal Singh deputed a vessel to the spot which rescued the workers struggling in the water and brought them to shore. They were given first aid and admitted to Karaikal Government Hospital last night.

However, the team could not trace the engineer, a native of Mumbai, Singh said, adding, search operations were still on.

DUBAI: A bomb blast in a Shiite village in Bahrain, the scene of simmering unrest since anti-government protests were crushed in 2011, has left three policemen slightly wounded, officials said.

The three were on patrol in the village of Bani Jamra when the blast occurred, the Gulf kingdom’s Interior Ministry said in a statement on Twitter posted late Friday.

It said that the three sustained minor injuries, describing the explosion as a “terrorist” blast and adding that “necessary steps are being taken,” without elaborating.

Witnesses said that the blast occurred late Friday and that security forces swiftly sealed off the village, which lies not far from the capital Manama.

They added that a young protester was also injured in clashes with police in another Shiite village, Sanabes, late Friday.

Attacks against security forces have intensified this year.

Two people, including a Jordanian policeman, were killed in the area last week.

It was the first deadly attack on security forces since parliamentary polls in November boycotted by the main Shiite opposition group, which is calling for democratic reforms in the Sunni-ruled kingdom.

The election was the first in the Gulf state since authorities quelled the 2011 protests.

Bahrain, home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, remains deeply divided three years after the month-long demonstrations.

Protests still frequently break out in Bahrain’s Shiite villages, sometimes sparking clashes with police.

Attacks on the security forces have increased this year, with three policemen – including an Emirati – killed in a bombing in a Shiite area on March 3.

Another policeman was killed in a bomb blast in a Shiite village in February during protests marking the third anniversary of the failed uprising.

With an aim of preserving and revitalising the soul of old cities, government will launch the Rs 500 crore heritage city development project early next year.

National Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY) will be launched for 12 selected cities early next year, Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu said at a workshop organised here for the project.

The cities selected for the HRIDAY project are Amritsar, Varanasi, Gaya, Puri, Ajmer, Velankanni, Mathura, Kanchipuram, Dwarka, Badami, Warangal and Amravati.

The cities selected under the scheme are symbolic of the broad diversity in the heritage prevalent in our country, in form of their cultural, regional and religious identities, he said, adding, “More cities will be identified in due course based on joint consultations between Centre and states.”

As per the plan of action, steps will be taken to tap the unlimited potential underlying in tourism and heritage sector unleashing the power of skillful artisans and traditional economy.

“Our aim is to preserve the rich heritage and showcase them to the next generation as the contribution or achievements of our ancestors,” he said.

The project with a time-frame of three to five years and an outlay of Rs 500 crores in Phase 1 is expected to be launched next year.

Naidu said the entire funding will be from the Centre and the cities will have to submit the detailed project report for this.

HRIDAY will have four themes – physical infrastructure, institutional infrastructure, economic infrastructure and social infrastructure for reviving and revitalising the soul of heritage city.

He said the project is also open to private participation. “If any organisation wants to join it then it is OK because citizens’ engagement shall be pivotal”.

“A liitle effort on our side can create transformational changes, which will make the past, the present and the future generations of the country and the world proud of India,” he said.

The United Nations has been talking to the Afghan Taliban on measures to limit the impact of the conflict on civilians, as it recorded the highest ever number of civilians killed and injured in Afghanistan in 2014.

UN’s top official in Afghanistan Nicholas Haysom told reporters here yesterday that the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) is continuing discussions with all parties, including the Taliban, to strengthen mitigating measures to limit the impact of the conflict on civilians.

“We think it is really important to engage all parties to the conflict on the question of civilian casualties…We have more recently engaged with the Taliban,” he said.

UNAMA continues to advocate and lobby all parties particularly “anti-government elements” to do much more to abide by their legal obligation under international law and under Afghan law to reduce civilian casualties and to not attack civilians either deliberately or indiscriminately.

Haysom highlighted the devastating impact of the conflict on Afghan civilians.

Civilian casualties in Afghanistan increased by nearly 20 per cent in 2014 compared to the previous year and are expected to rise to a figure over 10,000 by end of December for the first time since the UN mission in the country began keeping record in 2008.

UNAMA documented that from January 2014 to the end of November there were 9,617 civilian casualties which includes 3,188 civilian deaths and 6,429 civilian injuries.

“One of the measurements of the security situation has been civilian casualties,” the special envoy said.

“Civilian casualties are a particularly tragic and very prominent part, even benchmark, of the horror of the violence that ordinary Afghans face.”

As of November 30, UNAMA recorded more civilian deaths and injuries during 2014 than in any other year since it began its authoritative reports in 2009.

Civilian casualties increased 19 per cent overall from last year, Haysom said. These casualties resulted mostly from ground engagements between parties to the conflict, improvised explosive devices, and suicide and complex attacks.

Insurgents were responsible for at least 75 per cent of the casualties. Children casualties increased 33 per cent compared to 2013, with casualties among women up 12 per cent.

Georgette Gagnon, the Director of Human Rights at the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said current projections indicate that 2014 will be the first year that the civilian casualty count will pass 10,000 civilian casualties since it began its reports.