GUWAHATI: A bus carrying 28 passengers from both India and Bangladesh met with a minor accident on Saturday in Brahmanbaria while the vehicle was travelling towards Dhaka from Agartala. There was no causality. Officials said that the Dhaka-bound bus owned by Shyamoli Paribahan of Bangladesh carrying 28 passengers -- 17 Indian and 11 Bangladeshi nationals -- left Agartala on Saturday morning. When the bus reached Ashuganj (in Brahmanbaria), 31 km from the Agartala-Akhaura Integrated Check Post, a goods-laden truck tried to overtake it and the bus collided with an auto-rickshaw, leading to a commotion among the local people, the official said. Of the 17 Indian passengers were supposed to go to Kolkata by another bus from Dhaka. Tripura Transport and Tourism Minister Sushanta Chowdhury in a social media post said that local residents of Brahmanbaria threatened the Indian passengers travelling on the bus and raised anti-India slogans, made derogatory remarks and even threatened the passengers onboard. Marketing Performance Marketing for eCommerce Brands By - Zafer Mukeri, Founder- Inara Marketers View Program Web Development Master RESTful APIs with Python and Django REST Framework: Web API Development By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Office Productivity Microsoft Word Mastery: From Beginner to Expert By - CA Raj K Agrawal, Chartered Accountant View Program Marketing Future of Marketing & Branding Masterclass By - Dr. David Aaker, Professor Emeritus at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, Author | Speaker | Thought Leader | Branding Consultant View Program Artificial Intelligence(AI) AI and Analytics based Business Strategy By - Tanusree De, Managing Director- Accenture Technology Lead, Trustworthy AI Center of Excellence: ATCI View Program Web Development Advanced Java Mastery: Object-Oriented Programming Techniques By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Office Productivity Excel Essentials to Expert: Your Complete Guide By - Study At Home, Quality Education Anytime, Anywhere View Program Marketing Modern Marketing Masterclass by Seth Godin By - Seth Godin, Former dot com Business Executive and Best Selling Author View Program Web Development A Comprehensive ASP.NET Core MVC 6 Project Guide for 2024 By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Office Productivity Mastering Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and 365 By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Web Development Java 21 Essentials for Beginners: Build Strong Programming Foundations By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Finance Crypto & NFT Mastery: From Basics to Advanced By - CA Raj K Agrawal, Chartered Accountant View Program Office Productivity Advanced Excel Course - Financial Calculations & Excel Made Easy By - Anirudh Saraf, Founder- Saraf A & Associates, Chartered Accountant View Program Finance AI and Generative AI for Finance By - Hariom Tatsat, Vice President- Quantitative Analytics at Barclays View Program Artificial Intelligence(AI) Generative AI for Dynamic Java Web Applications with ChatGPT By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Web Development Intermediate C++ Skills: Master Pointers, Structures and File Stream By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Web Development C++ Fundamentals for Absolute Beginners By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Leadership Business Storytelling Masterclass By - Ameen Haque, Founder of Storywallahs View Program Leadership Boosting Startup Revenue with 6 AI-Powered Sales Automation Techniques By - Dr. Anu Khanchandani, Startup Coach with more than 25 years of experience View Program Office Productivity Zero to Hero in Microsoft Excel: Complete Excel guide 2024 By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Data Science SQL Server Bootcamp 2024: Transform from Beginner to Pro By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Strategy ESG and Business Sustainability Strategy By - Vipul Arora, Partner, ESG & Climate Solutions at Sattva Consulting Author I Speaker I Thought Leader View Program "The Indian passengers became frightened due to the unpleasant situation," the Tripura Minister said and strongly condemned the incident and called for immediate intervention by the Bangladeshi authorities to ensure the safety of Indian travellers. After a bilateral agreement, Agartala-Dhaka bus service was introduced in 2003 and a direct bus service from Kolkata-Dhaka-Agartala was started in 2015. The bus service was suspended in March 2020 after the outbreak of Covid-19 and the restrictions imposed on cross-border movement, and it resumed in June 2022. (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel )
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LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers’ signing of Blake Snell became official Saturday, adding the two-time Cy Young Award winner to front a starting rotation stocked with question marks. Snell, who will turn 32 next week, agreed to a five-year, $182 million contract that includes a $52 million signing bonus and $65 million in deferred salary. That deal was pending a physical which Snell passed. The 2018 American League Cy Young Award winner with the Tampa Bay Rays, Snell won the National League Cy Young in 2023 after going 14-9 with a 2.25 ERA for the San Diego Padres. He became a free agent last winter but stayed on the market well into March looking for a long-term deal that never materialized despite his Cy Young history. The Dodgers were involved with Snell at one point before he signed a two-year, $62 million contract with the San Francisco Giants that included an opt-out clause. He exercised that opt-out after going 5-3 with a 3.12 ERA in an injury-interrupted season with the Giants. He had 145 strikeouts and just 44 walks in 104 innings. But he made just 20 starts due to two trips to the injured list with a groin injury (likely related to his late signing affecting his preparation for the season). The 20 starts were his fewest in a full season since his rookie year in 2016 (19 starts). Snell goes to the front of a rotation that includes a number of players returning from injury and/or surgery. Shohei Ohtani is expected to return to pitching after undergoing his second Tommy John surgery in September 2023. But his return to the mound will be delayed by surgery on his non-throwing shoulder following the World Series. Yoshinobu Yamamoto finished the 2024 season healthy but missed three months with a rotator cuff strain. Neither he nor Ohtani will be asked to pitch on less than five days of rest and the Dodgers are planning to go with a six-man rotation in 2025. Tyler Glasnow’s 2024 season ended early with an elbow injury and his status for 2025 is uncertain. Tony Gonsolin will be returning from Tommy John surgery. Dustin May did not pitch in 2024 while recovering from his own elbow surgery and a torn esophagus. Emmet Sheehan is expected back at some point in 2025 after his Tommy John surgery. Clayton Kershaw is expected to re-sign at some point. But he underwent foot and knee surgeries in November and is not likely to be available for a full season. Walker Buehler and Jack Flaherty are free agents. The Dodgers will start the 2025 season early again with another trip to Asia. They are scheduled to open the regular season with two games against the Chicago Cubs on March 18 and 19 in Tokyo.NEW YORK — A Marine veteran who used a chokehold on an agitated subway rider was acquitted on Monday in a death that became a prism for differing views about public safety, valor and vigilantism. A Manhattan jury cleared Daniel Penny of criminally negligent homicide in Jordan Neely ‘s 2023 death. A more serious manslaughter charge was dismissed last week because the jury deadlocked on that count. Penny, who had shown little expression during the trial, briefly smiled as the verdict was read. While celebrating later with his attorneys, he said he felt “great.” Both applause and anger erupted in the courtroom, and Neely’s father and two supporters were ushered out after audibly reacting. Another person also left, wailing with tears. “It really, really hurts,” Neely’s father, Andre Zachery, said outside the courthouse. “I had enough of this. The system is rigged.” The case amplified many American fault lines, among them race, politics, crime, urban life, mental illness and homelessness. Neely was Black. Penny is white. There were sometimes dueling demonstrations outside the courthouse, including on Monday. High-profile Republican politicians portrayed Penny as a hero while prominent Democrats attended Neely’s funeral. Penny’s attorneys argued he was protecting himself and other subway passengers from a volatile, mentally ill man who was making alarming remarks and gestures. Penny “finally got the justice he deserved,” one of his lawyers, Thomas Kenniff, said while celebrating the outcome with him at a downtown Manhattan pub. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat whose office brought the case, said prosecutors “followed the facts and the evidence from beginning to end” and respect the verdict. The anonymous jury, which had started deliberating Tuesday, was escorted out of court to a van. Penny, 26, served four years in the Marines and went on to study architecture. Neely, 30, was a sometime subway performer with a tragic life story: His mother was killed and stuffed in a suitcase when he was a teenager. As a younger man, Neely did Michael Jackson tributes — complete with moonwalks — on the city’s streets and subways. But Neely also struggled with mental illness after losing his mother, whose boyfriend was convicted of murdering her. He subsequently was diagnosed with depression and schizophrenia, was repeatedly hospitalized, and used the synthetic cannabinoid K2 and realized it negatively affected his thinking and behavior, according to medical records seen at the trial. The drug was in his system when he died. Neely told a doctor in 2017 that being homeless, living in poverty and having to “dig through the garbage” for food made him feel so hopeless that he sometimes thought of killing himself, hospital records show. About six years later, he boarded a subway under Manhattan on May 1, 2023, hurled his jacket onto the floor, and declared that he was hungry and thirsty and didn’t care if he died or went to jail, witnesses said. Some told 911 operators that he tried to attack people or indicated he’d harm riders, and several testified that they were afraid. Neely was unarmed, with nothing but a muffin in his pocket, and didn’t touch any passengers. One said he made lunging movements that alarmed her enough that she shielded her 5-year-old from him. Penny came up behind Neely, grabbed his neck, took him to the floor and “put him out,” as the veteran told police at the scene. Passengers’ video showed that at one point during the roughly six-minute hold, Neely tapped an onlooker’s leg and gestured to him. Later, he briefly got an arm free. But he went still nearly a minute before Penny released him. “He’s dying,” an unseen bystander said in one video. “Let him go!” A witness who stepped in to hold down Neely’s arms testified that he told Penny to free the man, though Penny’s lawyers noted the witness’ story changed significantly over time. Penny told detectives shortly after the encounter that Neely threatened to kill people and the chokehold was an attempt to “de-escalate” the situation until police could arrive. The veteran said he held on so long because Neely periodically tried to break loose. “I wasn’t trying to injure him. I’m just trying to keep him from hurting anyone else. He’s threatening people. That’s what we learn in the Marine Corps,” Penny told the detectives. However, one of Penny’s Marine Corps instructors testified that the veteran misused a chokehold technique he’d been taught. Prosecutors said Penny reacted far too forcefully to someone he perceived as a peril, not a person. Prosecutors also argued that any need to protect passengers quickly ebbed when the train doors opened at the next station, seconds after Penny took action. Although Penny told police he’d used “a choke” or “a chokehold,” one of his lawyers, Steven Raiser, cast it as a Marine-taught chokehold “modified as a simple civilian restraint.” The defense lawyers contended Penny didn’t consistently apply enough pressure to kill Neely. Contradicting a city medical examiner’s finding, a pathologist hired by the defense said Neely died not from the chokehold but from the combined effects of K2, schizophrenia, his struggle and restraint, and a blood condition that can lead to fatal complications during exertion. Penny did not testify, but relatives, friends and fellow Marines did — describing him as an upstanding, patriotic and empathetic man. The manslaughter charge would have required proving that Penny recklessly caused Neely’s death. Criminally negligent homicide involves engaging in serious “blameworthy conduct” while not perceiving such a risk. Both charges were felonies punishable by prison time. During the criminal trial, Neely’s father filed a wrongful death suit against Penny. ———