Latest news with #Arif


New Straits Times
a day ago
- Sport
- New Straits Times
Keirin fate hangs in the balance ahead of September 1 deadline
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian track cyclists will have to wait until early September before knowing whether the men's keirin, team sprint and team pursuit events will be included at the Thailand Sea Games (Dec 9-20). September 1 is the deadline for rider registration for the games and each event needs to have riders from at least four nations registered to be able to run. An event will be scrapped if there are less than four nations competing. Malaysia National Cycling Federation (MNCF) secretary Arif Astaman admitted that the national body is waiting "with bated breath". "At the moment, the fate of these events still hangs in the balance," said Arif when contacted recently. "On a positive note, these events are included in the technical handbook for the games, but whether they will actually be held depends on the registration numbers. "We have been engaging our regional counterparts (to encourage participation in these events). "(Verbally) their response has been positive but there is no guarantee they will actually register their riders. "We have a good chance of winning gold in these events so we are definitely waiting for September 1 with bated breath." MNCF president Datuk Amarjit Singh Gill had earlier in May said the three events are at risk of being scrapped due to a lack of interest from other nations. While road cycling is included in every edition of the Sea Games, track cycling is often left out as many Southeast Asian countries do not have suitable velodromes. Malaysia has world class track sprint riders in both the men's and women's and categories and events such as the keirin, individual sprint and team sprint events are essentially goldmines for Malaysia when they are held at the Sea Games. As a result, other Southeast Asian countries have been reluctant to compete in these events.


NDTV
3 days ago
- NDTV
4-Year-Old Girl Raped In UP, School Van Driver Arrested: Police
Lucknow: A van driver employed by a private school was arrested in connection with the rape of a four-year-old girl, a police official said on Sunday. The accused was identified as Arif (25), the police said. A case was registered on Friday against both the driver and the school manager, Sandeep Kumar, under several legal provisions, including Sections 65(2) (committing rape on a woman under 12 years of age), 352 (intentional insult with the intent to provoke a breach of peace), and 351(2) (criminal intimidation) of the BNS, as well as the POCSO Act and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Indiranagar Police Station SHO Sunil Kumar Tiwari said that the driver owned the vehicle, which was affiliated with the school. When asked about any action taken against the school administration, Tiwari mentioned that the child's mother included in her complaint that she had informed the school authorities about the driver, but no action was taken in response. He further noted that no staff from the school administration have been arrested so far. Meanwhile, the driver has been remanded to jail, and further investigation is ongoing.


News18
3 days ago
- News18
Lucknow: 4-year-old girl raped, school van driver held
Lucknow, Jul 20 (PTI) A van driver employed by a private school was arrested in connection with the rape of a four-year-old girl, a police official said on Sunday. The accused was identified as Arif (25), the police said. A case was registered on Friday against both the driver and the school manager, Sandeep Kumar, under several legal provisions, including Sections 65(2) (committing rape on a woman under 12 years of age), 352 (intentional insult with the intent to provoke a breach of peace), and 351(2) (criminal intimidation) of the BNS, as well as the POCSO Act and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Indiranagar Police Station SHO Sunil Kumar Tiwari said that the driver owned the vehicle, which was affiliated with the school. When asked about any action taken against the school administration, Tiwari mentioned that the child's mother included in her complaint that she had informed the school authorities about the driver, but no action was taken in response. He further noted that no staff from the school administration have been arrested so far. view comments First Published: July 20, 2025, 17:00 IST Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.


Time of India
4 days ago
- Time of India
UP horror: 4-year-old 'digitally raped' in Lucknow; accused arrested
Representative Image LUCKNOW : A four-year-old girl was allegedly 'digitally raped' by her school van driver in Lucknow, according to a complaint filed at Indiranagar police station, news agency ANI reported. The incident took place on July 14. Police have arrested the accused driver, identified as Mohd Arif. According to the FIR, Arif also allegedly threatened the child's family with death if they approached police. The school manager, Sandeep Kumar, has also been named as a co-accused. Police have invoked sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, and the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The child's mother told me that her complaints to the school were ignored and that both the driver and school officials tried to suppress the incident. "The school had provided me with the van. My child complained of pain in her private parts. On examination, I found that she had suffered an injury. I complained to the principal, who said she would talk about it. When I took the child to the doctor, the doctor said that whatever the child had said was done to her and something was inserted in her private parts," she said. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Do you have a mouse? Play this for 1 minute and see why everyone is crazy about it. Play Game Undo "The school said that complaining would ruin the child's future and the school's reputation, after which they suggested of collectively complaining about the driver. I waited for two days but no action was taken by the school and the driver called again to pick the child for school. When we confronted him, he harassed us in front of the school and made casteist remarks. We were threatened with abduction, even the school also asked us not to complain. I have all the proof. Police has registered an FIR and a medical test of my child was conducted. The case will be heard in the high court today," she added further. What is digital arrest? Digital rape refers to the non-consensual insertion of fingers or toes (referred to as "digits") into person's private.


New Statesman
7 days ago
- Politics
- New Statesman
Thought experiment 14: The box that can change the past
Illustration by Marie Montocchio / Ikon Images In front of you are two boxes. In the first, Box A, there is £1,000. The box is transparent. You can see the money. The second box, Box B, is opaque and may or may not contain £1,000,000. You have a choice. You can either take Box B (and Box B only), or you can take both boxes. Whatever money is in the boxes is yours. But here's the catch: you have been told that there is a very good predictor, let's call her Meg, who is almost always right. And if Meg predicted that you'd take both boxes, she'll have left Box B empty. If she predicted you'd only take Box B, she'll have stuffed it with that million quid. So, what would you do? Take one box or two? I've long been a two-boxer. But the puzzle divides people. Back in 2016, Brexit referendum year, I debated it in the pages of the Guardian with a one-boxer, the Cambridge philosopher Arif Ahmed. Since then, he's been appointed free speech tsar for the Office for Students (the higher education regulator), and has declared that university education should be 'the intellectual equivalent of stepping into a boxing ring'. But from boxing rings back to boxes. The Guardian ran a poll and 31,854 readers voted. I moaned at the time that, as with Brexit, a slight majority (in this case, 53.5 per cent) had got it badly wrong – ie they were one-boxers and sided with Arif. I'd failed to convince readers with the following argument: by the time you're faced with the choice, Meg has already made her prediction. You cannot influence a decision made in the past by making a decision in the present. Meg has either put £1m into Box B or she has not. So you have nothing to lose by taking both boxes. Think of it this way. Imagine that Box B has transparent glass on the far side – the side you can't see. Suppose a friend on this far side, looking into Box B, was permitted to communicate with you. What would their advice be? Surely to take both boxes. If the £1m is there, and you choose both boxes, it won't disappear in a puff of smoke. It is irrational to take only Box B, because, in comparison, taking both boxes will always enrich you by an extra £1,000. On the other hand, if Meg foresees that you'll take both boxes, it appears you'll miss out on a financial bonanza. If the choice is between being rational and being rich, Arif wrote, 'I'll take the money every time.' Newcomb's paradox, just described, is named after William Newcomb, an American theoretical physicist who devised the problem in 1960. But it only gathered prominence when the Harvard professor Robert Nozick resurrected it in an article in 1969. Nozick had heard about it at a party – 'the most consequential party I have attended'. Over the years, he posed the problem to many people. 'To almost everyone it is perfectly clear and obvious what should be done. The difficulty is that these people seem to divide almost equally on the problem, with large numbers thinking that the opposing half is just being silly.' Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe We don't face Newcomb's paradoxes in real life. But it has a similar structure to a more familiar problem in theology. The 16th-century pastor John Calvin thought that God has predetermined who would and who would not ascend to heaven. There's nothing any of us can do about this. But Calvin also maintained that the best predictor of whether you're to be saved is that you live an honourable, virtuous life. So, how to conduct yourself? On the one hand, if you don't live your life in a righteous manner, it is almost certain you won't be saved. On the other hand, since either you're saved or you're not, there isn't much incentive to behave. In the year Nozick was writing about Newcomb's paradox, the Northern Ireland footballer George Best trialled behavioural restraint. 'In 1969 I gave up women and alcohol', he said. 'It was the worst 20 minutes of my life.' For two-boxer Calvinists, George Best's approach to life might make sense. In fact, through conversations with the Australian philosopher Huw Price, I've had a rethink. My key assumption was that cause has to precede effect. You can cause things to happen in the future, but not the past. However (and mind-bending though this idea is), it turns out that our best understanding of quantum mechanics requires, or is at least compatible with, backwards causation, with things in the past being altered by things in the present or future. If that's right, the paradox dissolves. 'Everyone agrees that if we can affect what the predictor did, we should one-box,' says Price. As for the charge that causation can only work forwards: 'To an old pragmatist like me, causes are just means to ends. If you want B, and doing A gets you B, then A counts as a cause of B. I want the predictor to put the £1m in the opaque box, and one-boxing gets me that. So it counts as a cause!' I could never have predicted it, but I've changed my mind about Newcomb's Box. Haven't changed my mind about Brexit, though. [See also: Thought experiment 13: The comet that destroys the Earth after our death] Related