Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) president Avtar Singh Makkar said that members of a Sikh organization recently attacked the office of a music channel MTV at Mumbai as the channel has hurt the sentiments of Sikhs by put up a defamatory poster.

Talking to media persons on Tuesday after flagging off an ambulance and inaugurating CCTV cameras at Gurdwara Sri Fatehgarh Sahib, Makkar said that no one has right to hurt sentiments of Sikhs. He said it was not first time when the sentiments of Sikhs were hurt. He said in past such incidents happened several time and the SGPC had repeatedly request the Union government to induct representatives of SGPC in censor board or any other organization which could check the contents of pictures or serial related with Sikh community and stop any violation.

When asked, “Will he justify the attack on MTV office by group of Sikhs”, he replied it was not attack. He said it was only protest of Sikhs.

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British voters would back radical moves to negotiate a new, looser relationship with the European Union, a survey has shown.

The ICM opinion poll for Global Vision, the Eurosceptic campaign group, found that among people who want to remain in the EU, a majority would like Britain to opt out of political and economic union, and restrict itself to links based on trade and co-operation.

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Banking stocks on Wall Street bore the brunt of a brutal sell-off across the equity market in New York last night on fears that the United States was facing a 1970s-style stagflation crisis triggered by record oil prices.

The Dow Jones industrial average suffered one of its worst trading days this year, closing down 394.60 points – a 3.13 per cent slide – to close at 12209.80. But banking stocks fell more steeply, Morgan Stanley by 9 per cent and Lehman Brothers by 5 per cent.

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Children should no longer be taught traditional subjects at school because they are “middle-class” creations, a Government adviser will claim today.

Professor John White, who contributed to a controversial shake-up of the secondary curriculum, believes lessons should instead cover a series of personal skills.

Pupils would no longer study history, geography and science but learn skills such as energy- saving and civic responsibility through projects and themes.

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The US came under intense criticism yesterday for its policy of promoting biofuels, which a senior UN official claimed was diverting food away from the hungry “to satisfy a thirst for fuel for vehicles”.

The biofuel issue quickly emerged as the most contentious at a summit on the global food crisis being held in Rome. American claims that its subsidies for the production of corn ethanol were not playing a significant role in sharp increases in the price of food triggered an angry response during a closed-door meeting, and was contradicted by UN figures.

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From Egypt to the Philippines, from Scotland to China, the Guardian has this week highlighted the dramatic effect of spiralling food prices. But what can be done to tackle the crisis? Julian Borger looks at the options, ahead of next week’s world food summit.The world food crisis is a tragedy frequently and passionately foretold. For years, food experts warned that chronic under-investment in agriculture in developing countries, by governments and donors alike, would one day spell disaster.More…

ROME (Reuters) - It has been described as a global crisis pushing 100 million people into hunger, threatening to stoke social and political turmoil and set the fight against world poverty back by seven years.

Now, the food price crisis will be tackled by world leaders who meet in Rome next week to seek ways of reducing the suffering for the world’s poorest people and ensure the Earth can produce more food to sustain an ever growing population.

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Today, thanks in no small part to £32 billion in EU grants, it is the second richest per capita (after Luxembourg).

.So the result of a referendum on June 12 on whether to consolidate EU powers by ratifying the Treaty of Lisbon must surely be a foregone conclusion.Think again. 

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The era of cheap and plentiful food was declared at an end yesterday as a key international report issued a warning that high world food prices will continue for at least a decade. 

Much bigger family food bills will remain an everyday fact of life for consumers across the West, while for poor nations permanently dearer food will spell widespread hunger, famine and civil conflict, the study from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said. 

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A judge has provoked controversy in Australia by ruling that a 12-year-old girl could begin the first phase of a sex change.

The unnamed girl has begun hormone treatment to block puberty after a judge accepted an application from her mother for her to begin to reassign her gender.

A family court judgment said it was important to act quickly to prevent the onset of puberty as the girl dreaded the prospect of menstruation and developing breasts, and had threatened self-harm.