Junior Digest

Israel says Putin apologised for foreign minister’s Hitler remarks

May 06,2022: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday apologized to Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett for Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s claims earlier this week that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was partially Jewish and that Jews themselves are some of the worst anti-Semites, according to the Israeli government, comments that sparked an outcry from Israeli leaders who accused Lavrov of blaming Jews for the Holocaust.
During a phone call with the Russian leader, Bennett accepted Putin’s apology and thanked him for “clarifying” Russia’s attitude toward the Jewish people and the Holocaust, the Israeli government said in a statement.

A readout of the meeting from the Kremlin does not mention an apology from Putin, but says Russia recognized the significance of Isreeli Independence Day, which the country celebrated on Wednesday and Thursday, and noted that 40% of the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust were citizens of the USSR.
The phone call comes after several Israeli politicians, including Bennett and Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, slammed Lavrov after he told an Italian TV show Sunday that some of the “worst anti-Semites are Jews” in an attempt to justify Russia’s claims it is trying to de-Nazify Ukraine, a country with a Jewish president.

In a response, the Russian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday accused Lapid of supporting the “neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv.”
CRUCIAL QUOTE
“This is an unforgivable and scandalous comment, a terrible historical error and we expect an apology. Hitler was not of Jewish origin and the Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust. The lowest form of racism against Jews is blaming the Jews themselves for antisemitism,” Lapid said in response to Lavrov’s remarks.

Barbados set to become a republic, ditching British Queen

Nov 30,2021:Barbados is set to become a republic, replacing Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state and severing centuries-old ties with the British crown on the 55th anniversary of the Caribbean nation’s independence from the United Kingdom.

Prince Charles, the UK’s heir to the throne, arrived in Barbados late on Sunday as the country prepares to replace the Queen with Sandra Mason, a former governor-general who will become the island’s first president.
The move will not have major effects on the country’s international relations, as the queen’s position as head of state has been symbolic.

The role that Mason, who was elected last month by a joint session of the country’s House of Assembly and Senate, takes up will also be largely ceremonial, behind Prime Minister Mia Mottley.
But supporters of the transition say removing the British queen as Barbados’s head of state sends a powerful message – and further distances the island from its colonial past.

“Tonight’s the night!” read the front-page headline of Barbados’ Daily Nation newspaper.

Mason is due to to be inaugurated just after midnight, coinciding with Barbados Independence Day on Tuesday.

“This is more of an emotional, historic, symbolic decision than a practical one,” said Al Jazeera’s Latin America Editor Lucia Newman, who is at the celebrations in the capital, Bridgetown.

The move to republicanism – which local leaders described as the “next logical step toward full sovereignty” – was announced last year during the annual Throne Speech.

“The time has come to fully leave our colonial past behind,” said Mason, who delivered the speech on behalf of Mottley in her then-role as governor-general. “Barbadians want a Barbadian head of state.”

In Bridgetown, Barbadians have been preparing celebrations for their new republic, with Prince Charles expected to deliver a speech stressing that warm relations between the island and the UK would continue despite the constitutional change.

Barbados will remain a republic within the Commonwealth, a grouping of 54 countries across Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe.

But its withdrawal from the monarchy will bring the number of Commonwealth realms – countries that continue to have the queen as their head of state – to 15, including Jamaica, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.

The last country to ditch the crown was the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius in 1992.

Punjab Students’ Union, Naujawan Bharat Sabha begin indefinite protest against facelift of Jallianwala Bagh

Amritsar (Punjab), September 30 ,2021: Punjab Students’ Union and Naujawan Bharat Sabha on Tuesday started an indefinite protest against the facelift of the historic Jallianwala Bagh.
Hardeep Kaur, a protester of the Punjab Students’ Union said that the protest will continue until they restore the historical monument back to its original form.
“Changing the outlook of the historic monument also changes the narrative of history; It had only one gate previously, now it has two. For the ones visiting it for the first time will question that if there were two doors, why did people jump into the well instead,” she said.
Alleging a political agenda, she added, “After the face-lift, the entry looks like people are going to a fair. A lotus, the symbol of BJP, has also been placed on the door. Why not use any other flower? The names of Muslims who died here have been cut off. Why? Is it an agenda?”
Adding to it, Ranbir Singh Randhawa a protester of Punjab Students’ Union said, “The look has been changed entirely. When you enter, there are statues of people dancing. The place does not feel like it has seen a struggle like the one it did. The well has also been covered.”

Further, he alleged, “The struggle at the Jallianwala Bagh was an Anti-imperialist one but the BJP has turned it to a nationalist one. When they present it like that, they show that the Muslims were anti-national. They have tried to change the narrative of the history of Punjab, but the youth here won’t allow it.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated the renovated complex of Jallianwala Bagh Smarak to the nation through video conferencing on August 28.
As per the PMO, four Museum galleries have been created through adaptive reuse of redundant and underutilised buildings. The galleries showcase the historical value of events that unfolded in Punjab during that period, with the fusion of audio-visual technology, including projection mapping and 3D representation, as well as art and sculptural installations.
A ‘Sound and Light’ show has also been set up to display the events that happened on April 13, 1919.
Multiple development initiatives have been undertaken at the complex. Elaborate heritage restoration works have been carried out in sync with the local architectural style of Punjab. The Shaheedi well has been repaired and restored with a redefined superstructure. The heart of the Bagh, the flame monument, has been repaired and restored, the water body rejuvenated as a lily pond, and the pathways made broader for better navigability.
The Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place on April 13, 1919, when troops of the British Indian Army, under the command of Colonel Reginald Dyer, fired machine guns into a crowd of unarmed protesters and pilgrims who had gathered in Jallianwala Bagh in Punjab’s Amritsar on the occasion of Baisakhi.
The crowd had assembled peacefully at the venue to condemn the arrest of two national leaders — Satya Pal and Saifuddin Kitchlew — when they were fired at indiscriminately by General Dyer and his men.

Stone Age axe dating back 1.3 million years unearthed in Morocco

Jul 29,2021: Archaeologists in Morocco have announced the discovery of North Africa’s oldest Stone Age hand-axe manufacturing site, dating back 1.3 million years, an international team reported on Wednesday.

The find pushes back by hundreds of thousands of years the start date in North Africa of the Acheulian stone tool industry associated with a key human ancestor, Homo erectus, researchers on the team told journalists in Rabat.

It was made during excavations at a quarry on the outskirts of the country’s economic capital Casablanca.

This “major discovery … contributes to enriching the debate on the emergence of the Acheulian in Africa”, said Abderrahim Mohib, co-director of the Franco-Moroccan Prehistory of Casablanca programme.

Before the find, the presence in Morocco of the Acheulian stone tool industry was thought to date back 700,000 years.

New finds at the Thomas Quarry I site, first made famous in 1969 when a human half mandible was discovered in a cave, mean the Acheulian there is almost twice as old.

The 17-strong team behind the discovery comprised Moroccan, French and Italian researchers, and their finding is based on the study of stone tools extracted from the site.

Moroccan archaeologist Abdelouahed Ben Ncer called the news a “chronological rebound”.

He said the beginning of the Acheulian in Morocco is now close to the South and East African start dates of 1.6 million and 1.8 million years ago respectively.

Earlier humans had made do with more primitive pebble tools, known as Oldowan after their East African type site.
‘Richest Acheulian assemblages’

Research at the Casablanca site has been carried out for decades, and has “delivered one of the richest Acheulian assemblages in Africa”, Mohib said.

“It is very important because we are talking about prehistoric time, a complex period for which little data exists.”

Mohib said the study also made it possible to attest to “the oldest presence in Morocco of humans” who were “variants of Homo erectus”.

In 2017, the discovery of five fossils at Jebel Irhoud in Morocco, estimated at 300,000 years old, overturned evolutionary science when they were designated Homo sapiens.

The Moroccan fossils were much older than some with similar facial characteristics excavated from Omo Kibish in Ethiopia, dating back about 195,000 years.

Over 200 people march in Taipei ahead of 228 incident

Taipei [Taiwan], February 24 ,2021: More than 200 people marched in Taipei ahead of the 74th anniversary of the 228 incident, wherein about 20,000 people were massacred in Taiwan in a crackdown that began on February 28, 1947.
The rally held on February 21 was the fifth in a series of annual demonstrations first organized in 2017 by the Tsai Jui-yueh Dance Research Institute and the Nylon Cheng Liberty Foundation and Memorial Museum, according to a report by Taiwan Times.
The groups that participated in the rally included Taiwan Association for Human Rights, Covenants Watch and the 228 Memorial Foundation.
The demonstrators, most of whom were dressed in black, began their march from Rixin Elementary School in Datong District and walked past the Tianma Tea House, the Taipei branch of the Tobacco Monopoly Bureau and the former site of the Taiwan Broadcasting Station, before stopping at the Executive Yuan.
This year’s event was led by the Provisional Office of the Formosa Youth Council and the National Taiwan University Written Taiwanese Society themed on ‘Burying Authoritarianism’ and ‘Making Formosa’.

During the march, the names of the people who were massacred during the 228 incident were read aloud.
The purpose of “remembering the past is to move towards a better future,” Taiwan Times quoted Nylon Cheng Liberty Foundation and Memorial Museum director Cheng Chu-mei as saying before the march began.
She further said, “We should continue to speak while we still can”.
On February 28, 1947, the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime had launched a crackdown on the anti-government protesters, during which the security personnel at the Governor-General’s Office in Taipei (now the site of the Executive Yuan building) opened fire on the civilians. The protesters were demanding the arrest of the people responsible for the killing of a bystander the previous day.
According to Taiwan Times, the bystander was part of a crowd that had gathered outside Taipei’s Tianma Tea House on Nanjing W Road to challenge Tobacco Monopoly Bureau officials after one of them struck Lin Chiang-mai, a woman selling cigarettes illegally.
Following the crackdown, martial law was imposed that began on May 19, 1949, and lasted till July 15, 1987. During this period, the political dissidents were suppressed and several were killed.

British Jews condemn Uyghur persecution in China on Holocaust Remembrance Day

London [UK], January 28 ,2021: On the International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Wednesday, prominent Jewish figures spoke out over China’s state-run campaign against its minority communities including Uyghurs in the Xinjiang province.
Notable people in the British Jews community have warned the world as they drew parallels in the events occurring in Xinjiang province with other historic tragedies, Al Jazeera reported.
Mia Hasenson-Gross, executive director of the Jewish human rights organisation Rene Cassin, said Bejing was effectively attempting to “eradicate” the culture of Uyghurs.
China has been rebuked globally for cracking down on Uyghur Muslims by sending them to mass detention camps, interfering in their religious activities and sending members of the community to undergo some form of forcible re-education or indoctrination.
Beijing, on the other hand, vehemently denied that it is engaged in human rights abuses against the Uyghurs while reports from journalists, NGOs and former detainees have surfaced, highlighting brutal crackdown on the ethnic community.
“Rather than allowing this to escalate to the point where the Uighur will become another people whose genocide we remember in [the] future, we have the opportunity now to prevent that from happening,” said Hasenson-Gross, as quoted by Al Jazeera.
“Holocaust Memorial Day is designed to remind us of the atrocities that can happen and the important lessons we need to learn from the early stages of indifference and complicity that enabled these final acts of physical destruction,” she added.
During the first commemoration in memory of the victims of the holocaust, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the “universal revulsion at this crime” was one event leading to the UN’s founding and drawing up of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
“But it did not end,” he said. “Indeed, today antisemitism is resurgent in many places around the world”.

Centre approves research project on ancient Ram Setu

New Delhi , January 15,2021: Union Culture and Tourism Ministry has approved a research proposal on the ancient Ram Setu. Union Culture and Tourism Minister Prahlad Patel on Thursday said that excavation work at ancient Ram Setu will do no harm. He added that scientific research should take place on the site.
The Central Advisory Board on Archaeology, a body under the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), approved the proposal by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)-National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, (NIO) last month.
“NIO had made the request on three points– first is nature, the second is the formation of Ram Setu and third is the about the area which will be affected by it. ASI had given permission to them,” Patel told ANI.
Ram Setu is believed to have been built in the Treta-Yuga.
“We believed that Ram Setu is an ancient location. Ram Setu should not be tampered with. Central government has earlier submitted an affidavit for the same. I think that scientific research should be done on it. The excavation will do no harm,” the BJP leader added.
The underwater exploration project to determine the age of the Ram Setu, a chain of shoals between India and Sri Lanka, and ‘how’ it was formed will begin this year.

Junior Digest

Israel says Putin apologised for foreign minister’s Hitler remarks

Barbados set to become a republic, ditching British Queen

Punjab Students’ Union, Naujawan Bharat Sabha begin indefinite protest against facelift of Jallianwala Bagh

Stone Age axe dating back 1.3 million years unearthed in Morocco

Over 200 people march in Taipei ahead of 228 incident

British Jews condemn Uyghur persecution in China on Holocaust Remembrance Day

Centre approves research project on ancient Ram Setu

PM Modi unveils Rs 100 coin, stamp at RSS centenary

PM pays tribute to Syama Prasad Mookerjee on 125th birth anniversary

UP CM Yogi Adityanath unveils statue of Maharaja Suheldev in Bahraich

Telangana CM pays rich tributes to Jyotirao Phule on his birth anniversary

SC orders status quo on demolition drive near Krishna Janmabhoomi in Mathura

National seminar on Sri Aurobindo on Mar 9

Chidambaram slams ICHR for omitting Nehru from ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’ poster

India’s boundaries are defined by culture and not by war or agreement: Amit Shah

Shivaji Maharaj’s birth anniversary celebrations in Agra Red fort is historic : CM Shinde

Stories of valour against tyranny suppressed: PM Narendra Modi

President Ram Nath Kovind dedicates to nation General Thimayya Memorial Museum

Odisha govt finalises draft plan for beautification work of Konark temple

Merkel calls for standing against antisemitism with utmost determination

UK and world bids final farewell to Queen Elizabeth II

Last member of Brazilian Indigenous community found dead

Modi inaugurates centenary observance of Chauri-Chaura incident

Tributes to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose on his 125th birth anniversary