New Delhi, Jan 10 (IANS) UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who arrives here later Saturday on a four-day official visit, will first head to Gandhinagar to attend the Vibrant Gujarat Summit as the guest of honour.
Ban will be accompanied by his wife Madam Yoo Soon-taek and a team of officials.
He will be the keynote speaker at the Seventh Vibrant Gujarat Summit Sunday, and will also meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the summit.
Ban will tour the Sabarmati Ashram and inaugurate a 10 MW canal-top solar power plant in Vadodara.
A solar power plant in Vadodara's Sama area is a showcase project set up by the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd.
In New Delhi, Ban will call on President Pranab Mukherjee, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar.
He will also deliver the 13th Sapru House Lecture on "India and the United Nations in a Changing World" at the Indian Council of World Affairs Jan 12.
Islamabad, Jan 10 (IANS) As many as 7,655 people were killed in Pakistan in terror attacks, sectarian violence, targeted killings, security operations and drone strikes in 2014 compared to 5,687 in 2013, an official report here has revealed.
The number of deaths witnessed a three-time increase because of security operations but fatalities from the militant attacks, terror and targeted killings decreased by 15 percent, Dawn reported Saturday.
However, 35 percent increase in the overall deaths was recorded during the year.
The statistics were revealed at Islamabad's Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) during the launching ceremony of a "Conflict/violence report for the year 2014".
"The major increase in violence was observed in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), where fatalities doubled from 1,457 in 2013 to 3,399 in 2014," a CRSS official said.
"The reason for the increase in deaths in FATA is the military-led operation "Zarb-e-Azb" in the North Waziristan Agency," he said.
"The second largest increase was in Punjab where deaths from violence rose from 120 in 2013 to 309 in 2014. A part of the increased figures may be attributed to the Nov 2, 2014, bombing at the Wagah border which killed 60 people," the official added.
The report also said that the Khyber Pukhtunkhwa region witnessed a decrease in violence-related deaths -- 945 in 2014 compared to 1,031 deaths in 2013.
Gilgit-Baltistan saw the largest decrease in violence-related casualties from 20 in 2013 to just three in 2014.
A total of 133 women and 270 children were also killed in violence of one form or another. About 40 schools and three colleges were also bombed while 26 principals, professors and teachers as well as 143 students were killed.
The highest fatalities -- 2,029 were witnessed in Karachi while North Waziristan Agency and Khyber Agency witnessed 1,825 and 1,187 deaths respectively. As many as 431 people were killed in Peshawar city and 170 in Quetta city.
Seoul, Jan 10 (IANS) At least three people were killed and 97 injured Saturday in a fire that broke out in a 10-storey building in South Korea.
The fire erupted in the building in Uijeongbu, Yonhap News Agency reported.
According to officials, five of the injured are in critical condition.
The flare-up began from a car parked on the ground floor of the building and moved to two other buildings next to it, Xinhua reported.
The building is located near a subway station and in a narrow street, making it difficult for firefighters to approach.
Most of the residents have been evacuated, but some are awaiting rescue on the roof as the fire blocked off the main entrance.
Mumbai, Jan 10 (IANS) The Maharashtra government Saturday rejected Sanjay Dutt's application to extend his furlough by 14 days, an official said.
"His application has been rejected. He will return to jail today itself," his lawyer Hitesh Jain told IANS.
Dutt's latest furlough of 14 days ended Thursday, but he did not return to Yerawada Central Jail in Pune as a decision on his extension application of Dec 27 was pending.
Islamabad, Jan 10 (IANS) At least eight people were killed and 20 others injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a religious centre in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi Friday.
The explosion occurred when a congregation was going on in the religious centre (Imambargah) located in the Chitian Hatian area of Rawalpindi, Xinhua reported.
An official in the city said that the suicide bomber reached the site on a motorbike and exploded his jacket near the main gate of the religious centre.
According to an eyewitness, the bomber arrived at 9.20 p.m. amid darkness caused by a power cut in the area.
ARY News reported that the injured people including two policemen were shifted to a nearby hospital and several of them were in critical condition.
Rescue teams rushed to the blast site, while the authorities put two major hospitals in the city on high alert.
Police and security forces cordoned off the area for a search operation.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack yet.
The attack was carried out soon after jail authorities in the city Friday, hanged a terrorist, convicted of being involved in the failed assassination attempt on former president Pervez Musharraf in 2003.
Local Shia group Azadari Council condemned the attack and announced a three-day mourning across the country.
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, reiterating his resolve to eliminate terrorism from the country, condemned the blast and has sought a report from the concerned authorities.
