Portrait News

Pakistan’s version a story, a facade,’ says former IAF chief BS Dhanoa Former chief of the Indian Air Force, Air Chief Marshal (retd) BS Dhanoa, spoke to Hindustan Times close to one year after the Balakot air strike about the details of the operation, what it took to plan and execute, what it means for India’s future military equation with Pakistan, and the capabilities of the Rafale jets. Edited excerpts: Pakistan has tried to project the Balakot operation as a military and diplomatic victory — the Imran Khan government says it brought down an Indian Air Force jet and captured the pilot. It...

People may criticise us, but environment is top priority for Bhutan, says Lotay Tshering Last week, Bhutan’s government took two important decisions which could impact its regional ties, especially with India. The first was to end free entry for regional tourists from India, Bangladesh and Maldives, by levying a daily Sustainable Development Fee (SDF) on them for the first time. Indians make up about 1.8 Lakh of all 2.74 Lakh tourists who visit Bhutan each year. The other decision was to confirm that Bhutan will stay out of the proposed Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal Motor Vehicles Agreement (BBIN-MVA) that would allow for transit traffic between...

Even the Good News Is Bad for Ukraine’s President Zelenskiy Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is battling Russian-backed rebels in the east. He’s trying to zigzag around Donald Trump’s impeachment drama. Even what should pass for good news, the country’s flourishing economy, has a catch: The stronger Ukraine’s economic growth, the more an obscure debt derivative could punch a hole in its finances. The source of that trouble is a financial instrument that Ukraine granted in 2015 as it teetered on default. To compensate creditors who agreed to write off part of the country’s debt, the government granted so-called GDP warrants that...

PayU Cofounder Shailaz Nag’s Fintech Startup Dot Raises $8 Mn Seed Funding After months of speculations around the launch of Dot, serial entrepreneur Shailaz Nag has now announced that his new startup has raised $8 Mn in seed funding. Nag, cofounder of PayU India, is leading the offline-to-online (O2O) commerce and fintech platform along with two other former PayU employees— Gyanesh Sharma and Anurag Gupta. The seed round has been led by PayU, the payments and fintech business of Prosus (earlier Naspers), and Fosun RZ Capital with participation from Info Edge Ventures and other angel investors. Source: Inc42

Indian-origin Irish PM Leo Varadkar suffers bruising polls Ireland’s Indian-origin Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has suffered a bruising general election as his liberal-conservative Fine Gael party took a battering in the face of an unprecedented surge in the fortunes of the nationalist party Sinn Fein. As the poll results poured in overnight on Sunday, Varadkar’s party was pushed down to third place with Sinn Fein in the lead, followed by conservative Fianna Fail in second place.  Source: Hindustan Times

‘Glad that India was partitioned… Muslim League wouldn’t have allowed country to function’: Natwar Singh “I am glad that India was partitioned” or else the Muslim League would not have allowed the country to function and there would have been more “Direct Action Days”, veteran politician K Natwar Singh said on Sunday. The former foreign minister was speaking at the launch of Rajya Sabha MP MJ Akbar’s new book “Gandhi’s Hinduism: The Struggle Against Jinnah’s Islam”. It was released by former president Pranab Mukherjee at his residence. Source: The Indian Express

12-year-old Mumbai girl Kaamya Karthikeyan youngest in world to scale Mt. Aconcagua, South America’s highest peak A 12-year old Mumbai student, Kaamya Karthikeyan has set a record of becoming the youngest in the world to summit Mt. Aconcagua, the highest peak of the Andes Mountains in Argentina, South America, an official said here on Sunday. Kaamya is a Class VII student of Navy Children School, achieved the feat atop the 6,962 metres tall mountain on February 1 where she unfurled the Indian Tricolour. No stranger to tall mountains, Kaamya had summited Ladakh’s 6,260 metres Mt. Mentok Kangri II, under extreme...

Oscar winner Taika Waititi says Apple needs to fix its MacBook keyboards Apple’s Monday is going to start on a bad note. At a time when the company is trying to get behind its experiments with the MacBook keyboards this is why the new 16-inch MacBook comes with the older keyboard technology the company faced criticism from Taika Waititi, a celebrated director and writer who won an Oscar for his script of Jojo Rabbit. After his win at the 92nd Academy Awards, Waititi slammed MacBook keyboards, saying that it was impossible to write something on them. ’’Apple needs to fix...

Oscars 2020: Joker star Joaquin Phoenix breaks down on stage. Full speech Joaquin Phoenix has been making headlines with all the awards that he has been taking home for his performance in the film, Joker. His performance in the film is worthy of the awards, but there is something else as well that has been making headlines. His acceptance speeches. Phoenix always gets up on stage and talks about something that needs attention. Even at the 92nd Academy Awards, the actor won the Oscar for the best actor in a leading role but it was his acceptance speech that won...

Barack Obama’s production debut documentary ‘American Factory’ wins Oscar NEW YORK : The Oscar for best feature-length documentary has gone to “American Factory,” the first documentary released by Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company. The Netflix film is about an Ohio auto glass factory that is run by a Chinese investor. It explores many issues, including the rights of workers, globalization and automation. “American Factory” beat out “Honeyland,” “The Cave,” “The Edge of Democracy” and “For Sama.” Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, directors of “American Factory” acknowledged the work of their fellow nominees on Sunday. Source: Livemint