Infinity Social Updates

India’s government was seeking to expand the size of parliament by two-fifths to increase the representation of women lawmakers, but opposition parties have cried foul, saying it would benefit the ruling party. “We’re set to take historic steps to empower women,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, ahead of the special sitting of parliament on Thursday, to debate constitutional amendments to both expand seats for women and the overall size of parliament to over 800. The bill proposes fast-tracking implementation of a 2023 law in the world’s largest democracy of 1.4 billion people, reserving 33 per cent of seats for women. Increasing the number of women in parliament has, in principle, broad cross-party support. “We are all united to give rightful positions to women in India,” Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said on Thursday. Women currently account for just 14pc of India’s 543 members of the Lok Sabha , the lower house of parliament. To achieve the expansion, t...

KARACHI: The subcontinent might witness a subdued monsoon this summer as the warming El Niño wea­t­her phenomenon is expected to form later this year, according to a weather expert. “We are expecting El Niño in the coming summer and it is expected to become ‘super El Nino’ by the end of August to September,” Pakistan Meteorological Department’s (PMD) spokesperson Anjum Nazir Zaigham told Dawn . He noted that El Niño suppresses the summer monsoon in the subcontinent. El Niño and its cooler sister La Niña are climate patterns in the Pacific Ocean that can affect weather worldwide. El Niño and La Niña events occur every two to seven years, on average, but they do not occur on a regular schedule, according to the United States’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ( NOAA ). Last month, NOAA noted there was a 50- to 60-per cent chance of El Niño developing during the July-September period and beyond. The last El Niño occurred in 2023-2024, contributing to making 2023 the s...

North Korea is showing a “very serious increase” in its ability to produce atomic weapons, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday on a visit to Seoul. The diplomatically isolated north is believed to operate multiple facilities for enriching uranium, a key step in making nuclear warheads, South Korea’s spy agency has said. They include one at the Yongbyon nuclear site, which Pyongyang purportedly decommissioned after talks but later reactivated in 2021. “In our periodic assessments, we have been able to confirm that there’s a rapid increase in the operations” of the Yongbyon reactor, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi told reporters in Seoul. The agency also observed a rise in operations at Yongbyon’s reprocessing unit and light-water reactor, as well as the activation of other facilities, Grossi said. “All that points to a very serious increase in the capabilities of (the) Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in the area of ...

On Andy Corriher’s farm in North Carolina, planting and preparations are underway for his corn and soybean crops — but fertiliser costs have surged on war in the Middle East, and orders he placed weeks ago have yet to arrive. The 47-year-old is among US farmers facing a double whammy of soaring fertiliser and diesel prices after US-Israeli strikes on Iran triggered Tehran’s blockage of the Strait of Hormuz , a critical waterway for such shipments. “This time of year is when the majority of fertiliser is put out in this country,” Corriher told AFP . “We got hit at the worst possible time, because we’re trying to buy fertiliser when it skyrockets and when the supply also gets cut.” Andy Corriher examines his wheat crop at his farm in China Grove, North Carolina, on April 10, 2026. — AFP The cost hikes strike at a major support base for US President Donald Trump, who won 78 per cent of the 2024 vote in farming-dependent counties, said news service Investigate Midwest . Trump bl...

An ex-student opened fire at his former high school in Turkiye on Tuesday, where school shootings are rare, wounding 16 people, including students, before killing himself, officials said. Special security forces were deployed to the school in southeastern Turkiye’s Sanliurfa province, where students were evacuated, the local governor, Hasan Sildak, told reporters. The former student, 19, used a rifle during the attack, after which those wounded were rushed to a hospital in the Siverek district, Sildak said. Twelve of the wounded were still in the hospital. Local media reported that most of the wounded were students. Television footage showed ambulances standing by outside the school as students fled the building in panic. “He took his own life when cornered by police,” the governor said. “We have evacuated the school and will carry out a thorough investigation into this tragic incident,” he added. from Dawn - Home https://ift.tt/pJZwAKm

Hungarian youths danced and sang in the early hours of Monday in central Budapest to celebrate the end of nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s 16-year “illiberal” rule following a resounding electoral drubbing . Strangers high-fived each others, cars honked, and youths ripped down government and ruling party anti-Ukraine billboards as many said they felt “liberated”. “At long last it feels so good to be Hungarian. It’s like a weight lifted off our shoulders,” Csilla Bekesi, 25, told AFP , celebrating with others on Budapest’s grand boulevard. “I still have goosebumps. My wildest dream came true,” said another youngster, 22 year-old student Andras Szabo, who came back to vote from Berlin. “For as long as I can remember, I have known Orban only as the leader, it was great he left at once,” he said, adding he felt a “novel sense of pride”. Orban, a defender of “illiberal democracy”, conceded defeat to conservative pro-European Peter Magyar, whose party won a two-thirds parliamen...

Israel “cannot live without an enemy” and its government is now trying to portray Turkiye as one, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Monday. “After Iran, Israel cannot live without an enemy,” Fidan said in a televised interview with Anadolu Agency . “We see that not only Netanyahu’s administration but also some figures in the opposition — though not all — are seeking to declare Turkiye the new enemy,” he said. “This is a new development in Israel… turning into a state strategy,” he added. Turkiye, a fierce critic of Israel, had joined diplomatic efforts with Pakistan and Egypt aimed at de-escalation during the US-Israeli war on Iran. Tensions between Turkiye and Israel have steadily escalated since the latter’s war on Gaza erupted following Hamas’s Oct 7, 2023 attacks. Netanyahu ‘described as the Hitler of our time’: Turkiye The dispute entered a new phase over the weekend after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned his US counterpart Donald Trump of “possible p...