The actor has apparently been asked to shed 20 kilograms to play Manya Surve in the film, based on the 1982 incident in which the infamous gangster was shot dead in Mumbai.

Abraham is on a strict diet of fish, sushi, protein shakes, juices and soups to achieve the look, which will be seen in the first half of the film. But he will appear in a more muscular build towards the climax. "Manya Surve has to look really lean in the first 20 minutes of the film, till he gets into jail and starts working out. So there is an actual physical transformation that my character goes through in the film," said Abraham.

The 39-year-old is taking training from Vinod Channa.

Article continues below

Toronto, Canada – A mandatory Quebec school program focusing on the historical significance of various religions and creeds does not harm the religious freedoms of parents and their children, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Friday.

Resolving an important test of Charter of Rights values, the Court firmly sided with the province and a school board whose right to administer the plan had been challenged by angry parents.

Far from shoving religious views down the throats of children, the program opens them to a wide variety of viewpoints and beliefs, Madam Justice Marie Deschamps wrote for the majority.

“Exposing children to a comprehensive presentation of various religions without forcing the children to join them does not constitute an indoctrination of students that would infringe the freedom of religion of L and J,” Judge Deschamps said, referring to the children of the litigants.

“Furthermore, the early exposure of children to realities that differ from those in their immediate family environment is a fact of life in society,” she said. “The suggestion that exposing children to a variety of religious facts in itself infringes their religious freedom or that of their parents amounts to a rejection of the multicultural reality of Canadian society and ignores the Quebec government’s obligations with regard to public education.”

The contentious program, known as the Ethics and Religious Culture program, was made mandatory in Quebec schools in May, 2008.

Its stated purpose was to expose children to a range of cultures, creeds and religious traditions such as Judaism, aboriginal spirituality and other religious traditions. The goals of the program specified that an emphasis would be placed on the historical significance of French culture and the role Catholic and Protestant Christian traditions.

The parents behind the constitutional challenge, a Catholic couple who reside in Drummondville, Que., argued that the program was at odds with guarantees in the provincial Education Act.

They alleged that the program could expose their two children to harm and disruption, “caused by forced, premature contact” with beliefs that are incompatible with those held by the parents. They said that the program could also have an adverse effect on the religious beliefs the children were being taught in their home.

Judge Deschamps asserted that an individual cannot simply claim that their religious rights were infringed without showing some objective proof of actual interference.

“It is not enough for a person to say that his or her rights have been infringed,” she said. “The person must prove the infringement on a balance of probabilities.”

Judge Deschamps also said that the litigants did not go beyond claiming that the program damaged their ability to pass on their Catholic precepts to their children – there was no evidence to prove the allegation.

Two judges – Mr. Justice Louis LeBel and Mr. Justice Morris Fish – agreed with their seven colleagues on the crux of the decision but said that documentary evidence furnished to the court of the program’s aims and specific teaching was sketchy.

“The state of the record does not permit to conclude that the (program) and its implementation could not, in the future, infringe the rights granted to L and J and persons in the same situation,” they said.

The parents cannot be identified because of a publication ban on the names of their children. One of the children was in Grade one and had not yet had the course. The other was part way through secondary school and had completed the program.

The local school board – the Commission scolaire des Chênes – refused to grant the children an exemption from the program based on a directive from the province that stated there would be no exemptions.

Both the school board and the Quebec government were respondents in the challenge.

At trial, a Quebec Superior Court judge refused to grant the children an exemption, ruling that the mandatory program did not violate their Charter right to religious freedom. Their appeal was rejected in 2010 by the Quebec Court of Appeal.

The case necessitated the Supreme Court delving into a key portion of the Charter guarantee of religious freedom – the intersection of provincial education priorities and the independence of school boards.

The case had echoes of a previous case heard by the Ontario Court of Appeal, in which it held that an Ontario regulation imposing mandatory prayer sessions violated the Charter because it forced students to adopt a religious practice.

The Ontario Court of Appeal warned against the imposition of educational material that amounts to indoctrination of students.

In legal arguments in the case before the Supreme Court, lawyers for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association asked the judges to strike a balance between freedom of conscience and religion of parents while, at the same time, protecting the “ultimate interests of the child.”

The CCLA said that courts need a flexible legal test they can apply to future cases in order to gauge whether an attempt by government to intervene in education violates the freedom of conscience or religion of either the parents or their children.

It suggested that in many cases, the needs of both sides can be accommodated. For example, exempting students from part or all of an educational program might be reasonable, provided the educational objectives of the program are achieved by other means in the home or at school.

The CCLA argued that any legal test should involve consideration of the moral and intellectual needs of children – even if they conflict with their parents’ perspective.

Legal intervenors in the case included the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and an umbrella group representing the Association of Catholic Parents of Quebec, Faith and Freedom Alliance, the Catholic Civil Rights League and the Coptic Christian Association of Greater Montreal.

Releasing the committee's report, chairman and Lib Dem MP Sir Alan Beith said: "We do not agree with government ministers who claim the system is working 'adequately'.

MPs acknowledge that legislation relating to the affairs of missing people would only affect a limited number of people but say it would allow families in "extremely difficult emotional circumstances" to resolve the financial and legal affairs of missing relatives.

"We believe the time is long overdue to extend to English and Welsh families the protection that is available to Scottish and Northern Irish families," they say.

The report says that in the 34 years since Scotland brought its Presumption of Death Act into force only one person has reappeared. "We believe this shows the Scottish legislation provides for a robust and effective process," they say.

Under the report's recommendations, families would only be able to apply for a presumption of death order seven years after someone went missing.

It says "guardianship orders" based on those in some Australian states should be introduced to allow families to maintain the missing person's estate four years before that.

The committee says relatives of missing people have found lawyers to be unfamiliar with the existing laws surrounding presumption of death and the cost of legal proceedings "difficult to predict".

"Many of these problems appear to be due to the piecemeal nature of the relevant law, and the fact it is to be found in many different statutes as well as the common law," the report says.

"This complexity, as well as the rarity of these cases, means that people find it difficult to obtain reliable information. They may also have to pursue multiple proceedings before everything is resolved."

The charity Missing People has welcomed the MPs' report.

Chief executive Martin Houghton-Brown said: "It is now time for the Ministry of Justice to step forward and end this suffering once and for all, with a commitment to a Bill in the coming Queen's Speech."

Ann Coffey, chairwoman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Runaway and Missing Children and Adults urged the government to act quickly.

"No family should have to go through such an emotionally exhausting and confusing legal process in addition to having to cope with the loss of a loved one," she said.

The Ministry of Justice said it recognised "the emotional and practical difficulties faced by those whose loved ones are missing and thought to be dead".

"We are already working to improve guidance relating to Coroners' powers where a person is missing and presumed dead and will look at other areas where guidance could be improved," a spokesperson said.

Appearing before the committee in November 2011, Vicki Derrick, whose husband Vinny went missing in Manchester in August 2003, called for wholesale change.

She told MPs after her husband disappeared she was suddenly a single mum and expected to "get on with it".

In Mrs Derrick's case, the High Court recognised her husband was dead and dissolved her marriage but her mortgage remained in joint names because her mortgage provider could not recognise the death without a death certificate.

Vinny Derrick's remains were found earlier this month.

Peter Lawrence, whose daughter Claudia went missing from York in 2009, told the inquiry families had no simple way to deal with unresolved practical issues because they could not prove whether a missing person was dead or alive.

"We are thrilled about the number of passengers using Metro. There were doubts whether Metro will be conceived by residents as a mode of transport, but now those concerns have all vanished," Adnan Al Hammadi, CEO of the RTA’s Rail Agency, said.

“
We started off with 50,000 passengers daily, which has now crossed 320,000 — and 360,000 on weekends

Adnan Al Hammadi, CEO of the RTA’s Rail Agency

"We started off with 50,000 passengers daily, which has now crossed 320,000 — and 360,000 on weekends."

Emiratis using the Metro add up to about 12 per cent of all commuters, reflecting the demographic make-up of the city, he said.

Article continues below

The Sendero Luminoso or “Shining Path” leader was not actually found until Feb. 12, with a badly injured and infected hand.

“It is without a doubt a very important capture, but the drug trafficking industry will continue operating,” Nobel Panduro, an experienced radio journalist says.

“Artemio forged strong ties with the coca growers and the trafficking ‘firms’, but his imprisonment will not prevent them from finding someone else to protect their operations, whether a member of Sendero Luminoso or anyone else who has an armed group.” Panduro interviewed Artemio in 2001, 2003 and 2006.

“Sendero Luminoso received ‘cupos’ (war tax payments) from the drug traffickers to make sure drug production continued unimpaired, which is why the Maoists attacked the antinarcotics forces and the teams tasked with ‘eradicating’ coca crops (by hand). With Artemio in prison, anyone who can offer the mafias security will replace him,” he added.

Artemio was born in 1961 in Camaná, a coastal town in southern Peru. After completing his compulsory military service, he joined Sendero Luminoso at the age of 20. The rebel group was founded in 1970 by Abimael Guzmán, who was captured in 1992 and is serving a life sentence at a naval base.

The 50-year-old Artemio quickly rose up in the ranks of Sendero; thanks to the military commando training he received in the army.

In a 1988 meeting, Artemio is seen sitting next to Guzmán and the rest of the group’s top leaders, which confirmed his status in the organization, where he was in command of the Huallaga Regional Committee where the main trafficking organizations active in the flourishing drug trade were based.

When Guzmán was captured in 1992 and declared the end of the armed struggle against the Peruvian state, Artemio refused to surrender. The Sendero remnant he led survived the governments of presidents Alberto Fujimori, who served until 2000, Alejandro Toledo who served until 2006 and Alan Garcia’s second term that lasted until 2011.

“The drug traffickers have lost a major source of support with Artemio’s capture. But the armed apparatus that he headed remains intact,” reporter Felipe Páucar says.
 
© 2012, Catholic Online. Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.

Thinspace’s market leading product portfolio and software solutions bring significant cost, security and environmental benefits to businesses. It is an ideal solution to enable secured access anytime from anywhere, with enterprise level remote management capabilities. Founded in 1979, Mantech Computers is the longest established computing company in Bahrain, and provides hardware, software and security solutions.

Committed to providing users in Bahrain and GCC countries with innovative and state-of-the-art IT solutions, Mantech and Thinspace share similar strategic visions in a post-PC era.

Hassan Bader Kaiksow, Managing Director of Mantech said, “We’ve been dedicated to providing our customers with the best IT services and solutions since 1979. The partnership with Thinspace enables us to further embrace the next generation computing model, and assist in taking Bahrain’s Cloud computing to the next level.”

Thinspace will leverage Mantech’s leadership position in Bahrain to target industries and large enterprise customers, including financial, healthcare, education and government sectors.

Lisa Layzell, CEO of Thinspace said, “We are delighted to partner with the best. Mantech has a long standing reputation and the right infrastructure to effectively deliver the unique benefits of our Cloud Client solutions to all major industry sectors in Bahrain, as well as a wide range of partners in the GCC region.”

This strategic partnership was brought together by consultancy firm Curved Theory, with high level support from the Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB) and the Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus (DSIC). The initial relationship was developed during a UK roadshow led by the EDB in October 2011, which focused on direct outreach activities across a number of key sectors including IT and technology.

Paul Abley, Managing Director of Curved Theory commented “I am very pleased that the agreement has been finalised between Thinspace and ManTech. ManTech are ideally placed to maximise the benefits that the Thinspace product suite offers and will be able to represent Thinspace in a new and exciting market. I would like to thank both the Bahrain EDB and Daresbury teams for the assistance with the Bahrain Springboard program and look forward to other commercial agreements being finalised in the near future.”

Shaikh Mohammed bin Essa Al Khalifa, Chief Executive of the Bahrain Economic Development Board said, “Bahrain boasts one of the Middle East’s most liberal and advanced information, communications and technology infrastructures and policy approaches, with amongst the highest mobile and internet penetration rates in the region. Given this, it makes clear sense that Thinspace and Mantech Computers are partnering to take a leading role in implementing Cloud Client computing technology in the Kingdom. I am delighted that the EDB was able to play a role in bringing these likeminded businesses together.”