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Mayawati blames SP for making Dalits’ life tough
Unable to pay bribe, woman delivers baby at bus stand
Brother-in-law held for acid attack on Shamli sisters
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Posters appear seeking ‘armed struggle’ for Telangana
Ajit on fast to 'repent' for urine remark
Brakes put on demolitions at Mumbra
After sexual torture, Chhattisgarh woman faces mental test
Tempers run high as water crisis deepens in Gujarat
DRDO sets up poultry farm in Ladakh
Cong announces second list
Indian-origin woman, 2 daughters found dead in UK
Six Indians hurt in CAR brought to Delhi hospital
N-E terror victims call for boycott of ultras, families
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Mayawati blames SP for making Dalits’ life tough
Lucknow, April 14 Speaking at the Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar Samajik Parivartan Sthal in Gomti Nagar on Ambedkar’s 122nd anniversary, Mayawati was clearly in her element. "When the BSP was in power, it had distributed land to Dalits. But the Samajwadi Party supported goons have forcibly encroached upon these lands. I assure you that when there is a change in regime and the BSP is voted back to power, we will thrash (SP goons) black and blue... so much so that they will never think of doing such things ever again," Mayawati angrily declared. Accusing the SP government of political vendetta, the BSP supremo substantiated her charge by pointing out that the large number of hoardings set up by BSP workers near the Dalit memorial on the occasion of Ambedkar Jayanti had been pulled down by state government officers on the directions of SP leaders. “In Lucknow, we took permission from the local body to install these hoardings near the venue. On Saturday night, all hoardings within 3 km of the venue were pulled down on the directions of SP leaders," she charged. Attacking the Akhilesh Yadav government for the worsening law-and-order situation, she asserted that there were over 100 cases of communal strife during the past one year. She compared the present regime to her “riot-free” rule when even at the time of the Ayodhya verdict, there was no communal incident anywhere in the state. "Things are particularly bad for women all over the country under the rule of the Congress, BJP and other parties. Things are worse in Uttar Pradesh where women are
so insecure that they dread stepping out of the house,” said Mayawati citing as proof the Supreme Court notice to the Uttar Pradesh Government for illegal confinement of a minor Dalit rape victim at the mahila police station
in Bulandshahr.
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Unable to pay bribe, woman delivers baby at bus stand
Salem (TN), April 14 The 24-year-old woman, a labourer hailing from Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh, had come to the hospital with her husband and two children, aged five and two years, after she experienced labour pains this morning. Some nursing staff allegedly demanded Rs 1,000 for her delivery, Dr Vallinayagam, Hospital Dean, said. The woman was reportedly forced to go out of the ward when she could not pay the money. When she reached the Salem old bus stand, walking for about a km from the hospital, she delivered a baby boy, the dean said, adding that two women passers-by assisted her. Local residents immediately called an ambulance and rushed her to the same government hospital. Vallinayagam said a three-member team headed by him would conduct an inquiry into the incident tomorrow.
— PTI
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Brother-in-law held for acid attack on Shamli sisters
Lucknow, April 14 The deplorable incident occurred on April 2 in which four schoolteacher sisters of Shamli in western Uttar Pradesh were attacked by motorcycle-borne culprits when they were returning from invigilation work at their school. Shamli SP Abdul Hamid claimed to have cracked the case with the arrest of two persons, Babar Akhtar and Javed Iqbal, from Kandhla in Shamli. Babar is married to the victims’ sister Sana who is also a teacher in Delhi. The accused was reportedly having an extra-marital affair with the youngest sister-in-law who had threatened to bring it out in the open precipitating the acid attack. The concerned sister-in-law was the most severally burnt in the attack and had partially lost her vision and had been rushed to the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in Delhi where her vision has since been restored after a high tech procedure. The accused has confessed that he meant to harm only her while accidentally hurt the other three sisters as well as they were all returning home from work together. After the attack, Babar, a laboratory assistant at a private clinic in Delhi, tried to mislead investigators by rushing to be with the victim at the Delhi hospital where he remained by her side all along. However, from phone records the police found out that Babar had been in constant touch with the youngest sister-in-law and summoned him to Kandhla for interrogation where after sustained grilling he spilled the beans.
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Posters appear seeking ‘armed struggle’ for Telangana
Hyderabad, April 14 Believed to be the handiwork of Maoist sympathisers, the posters have added to the worries of the police who have been grappling with the frequent outburst of violence on the campus by the pro-Telangana activists. The sprawling university in the heart of the city has seen several incidents of violence and clashes between the agitators and the police during the last few years. Over 200 posters, exhorting the youth to take to armed struggle, were put across the campus. With a red background and a sketch of a person holding a rifle, the posters said “Lobbying will not help us secure separate statehood, only a militant struggle will.” They are signed by a largely unknown outfit called “Telangana People’s Liberation Front”, believed to be the offshoot “Jana Shakti” group of Naxalites. The police suspect the hand of Maoists behind the posters, similar to the ones that had appeared in Tarnaka colony near the university campus last month. The police have detained an operator of a computer centre who was believed to have helped in taking the print-outs of the posters and a search is on for the student leader Kota Srinivas of the Telangana Vidyarthi Sangam. “We suspect that the posters were pasted by the Jana Shakti group of Ultra Left wing extremists. They are among the four groups - CPI (Maoists), New Democracy, Pratighatana and Jana Shakti - supporting the Telangana movement. We suspect the Maoists also had a hand in it,” a police officer said.
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Ajit on fast to 'repent' for urine remark
Mumbai, April 14 Pawar sat on a day-long fast this morning near the 'samadhi' of veteran Maharashtra leader YB Chavan in the town of Karad in Sangli district. "We all make mistakes and we should have the courage to admit and rectify those," Ajit Pawar told reporters. Admitting that he had shot off his mouth, Pawar said he would be more responsible in his speech. "Henceforth, I will make sure that I choose my words and language more responsibly," Pawar said. Calling his fast 'aatma klesh' or turmoil of his soul, Pawar said he wanted people to realise that he was truly sorry for his remarks. NCP spokesman Nawab Malik said Pawar went on a fast because he felt the pain of his remarks. "He has a large heart so he admitted his mistake," Malik said. He added that the matter should be treated as closed. The Opposition parties, which have been disrupting the functioning of the state Assembly for a week, are however having none of this. "He is not really sorry. His words of apology are simply hollow. Ajit Pawar must resign from the Assembly," Shiv Sena spokesperson Neelam Gorhe said. Farmers’ organisations are demanding that criminal charges be filed against Ajit Pawar in connection with the irrigation scam. "Ajit Pawar is directly responsible for the suicide of more than 10,000 farmers following the irrigation scam," Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS) president Kishor Tiwari said in a statement today.
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Brakes put on demolitions at Mumbra
Mumbai, April 14 No security personnel were reportedly provided to the demolition squad from the Thane Municipal Corporation. “We had deployed our men on bandobust duty, so there was no one to spare,” a spokesman of the Thane police told this reporter. In the past few days, politicians from outfits like the NCP, the Samajwadi Party and other outfits have mobilised a large number of citizens to carry out protests so that the civic authorities do not carry out demolition of illegal structures. Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan had ordered the local administration to pull down illegal buildings following the crash. On Friday, political parties enforced a bandh across Mumbra and some parts of Thane city to protest the new demolition drive.
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After sexual torture, Chhattisgarh woman faces mental test
New Delhi, April 14 An independent medical probe ordered by the Supreme Court later revealed the presence of stones in Sori’s private parts. Fresh evidence now shows that Sori, currently under trial at Raipur Central Jail, is being subjected to psychiatric evaluation to determine her “psychological health”. The examination took place recently on the orders of the Chhattisgarh Government which says it simply acted on the statement of National Commission for Women (NCW) member Shamina Shafiq who advised psychological counselling of Sori after meeting her in jail last December. Members of the women’s movement fear that the Chhattisgarh Government might use medical evidence to force Sori into a mental asylum and finally challenge the veracity of her statements against the police. National Federation of Indian Women president Annie Raja, who was part of the NCW team that visited Sori in Raipur jail last December, said, “Sori is mentally sound and her statements lucid. She needs justice and not a psychiatric evaluation.” The Tribune inquiries reveal that NCW has taken a serious note of these developments and written to Chhattisgarh Chief Secretary seeking a clarification on Sori’s psychiatric evaluation. Shamina Shafiq, the NCW member who had advised psychological counselling of Sori and other women inmates of Raipur Jail after the 2012 visit, said, “The NCW has written to the state demanding an explanation. Members of the women’s movement have met me and conveyed their apprehensions that Chhattisgarh may send Sori to an asylum if they are subjecting her to psychiatric examination. My statement in this respect seems to have been taken out of context. We won’t let injustice be done.”
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Tempers run high as water crisis deepens in Gujarat
Ahmedabad, April 14 Though much of the crisis was caused by shortage of monsoon in the last season, the Opposition Congress and the ruling BJP are blaming each other for “converting the natural problem into a man-made crisis.” While the Congress attacked Chief Minister Narendra Modi for “day-dreaming” to become the Prime Minister and squandering away much of his time in “wooing” his own party leaders to nominate him for the coveted post instead of paying any attention to sort out water crisis, the ruling BJP is blaming the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre for the delay in sanctioning further constructions to complete the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada. The BJP said if the Narmada dam was in place, Gujarat could have overcome the crisis facing the state due to inadequate rainfall. The tempers run so high on the issue that Opposition and ruling party members in the Junagadh Municipal Corporation in the Saurashtra region came to blows at the general body meeting on Friday. A woman member from the Opposition threw a shoe at a ruling party member and the clothes of many of the members from both sides got torn in the fisticuff that followed. A Division Bench of the Gujarat High Court has taken the authorities to task for their alleged laxity in taking administrative measures to deal with the water crisis. Hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) on the issue, the Bench gave the authorities one week to come back with details about the steps being taken to deal with the crisis. The PIL sought the high court’s intervention alleging a Rs 320-crore grant sanctioned by the Centre for the water crisis facing the state had not been properly utilised. Even the guidelines given by the court had not succeeded in “waking up” the state government, it said. Modi chaired a Cabinet meeting to take stock of the situation and the state government decided to increase supply through the Narmada canal-based pipelines from 80 crore litres to 120 crore litres per day. The step aims at improving drinking water supply to about 6,000 villages and 80 towns in the Kutch-Saurashtra and the north Gujarat regions.
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DRDO sets up poultry farm in Ladakh
Chandigarh, April 14 Called "Multitier Thermally Controlled High Altitude Poultry Rearing Facility", it was inaugurated by Dr RB Srivastava, Director of DRDO's Leh-based Defence Institute of High Altitude Research (DIHAR), a statement issued here today said. The facility was conceptualised and designed by Col Vasant R Ballewar, head of DIHAR's, Animal Science Division and Dr Vijay K. Bharti, the Project Officer, where day old chicks will be kept in specially designed four-tier cages installed with automatic drinking, lighting, controlled medication and litter removal mechanisms under thermally-controlled hygienic environment using solar energy. In this system, drinking water come from an insulated water storage system and warmed automatically through an online water heating system fitted with a thermostat for achieving the desired water temperature during severe winters. Here, all the chicks are reared under controlled photoperiod and ambient temperature in a cage fitted with a conveyer belt for periodical automatic removal of litter and droppings. Hence, the common problems of high altitude rearing like ammonia toxicity, dumpiness, disease transmission and inoculation of salmonella, as is prevalent in deep litter systems, are minimised. Compulsive poor ventilation in high altitude causes dumpiness and accumulation of ammonia in semi-underground housing that leads to respiratory problem and poor growth and survivability of birds. Therefore, this facility will enable DRDO in production of hygienic meat.
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Cong announces second list
Bangalore, April 14 Even though only three days have remained for filing of nominations, the party is yet to decide on candidates for seven seats. Two other major players in the fray - the ruling BJP and the opposition Janata Dal (Secular) - have also, respectively, announced 140 and 122 candidates only so far. The Congress list announced today included the name of Ajay Singh, son of Lok Sabha member and former CM Dharam Singh, and Priyank Kharge, son of union minister Mallikarjun Kharge. While Ajay Singh will try his luck from Jewargi in Gulbarga district, Priyank Kharge will contest from Chittapur, also in Gulbarga district. Union Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Minister K H Muniyappa, however, failed to secure the party ticket for the Kolar Gold Field seat for his daughter Roopa
Sasidhar.
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Indian-origin woman, 2 daughters found dead in UK
London, April 14 Heena Solanki, 34, was found dead along with Prish, 4, and Jasmine, 9, at their home in Midcroft, Ruislip on Friday evening. The spokesman: "The police was called at approximately 6.40 pm on Friday. The deaths are being treated as unexplained at this stage. We are still awaiting the post-mortem report". "No arrests have been made and the Homiside and Serious Crime Command Team is investing into the case," he said. Moments after paramedics and the police arrived at the house, the police ordered neighbours to close all their doors and windows, saying that there had been a "chemical incident" there, according to a report. Witnesses said the police had also taken away what appeared to be a suitcase and a series of tubes. Heena lived with her 42-year-old husband Kalpesh's parents who had been on a holiday when the incident occurred. Meanwhile, contradictory reports emerged in the local media with some saying Kalpesh made the grim discovery of their bodies when he returned home while some claiming neighbours called the police fearing a gas leak. Heena worked at a secondary school and would have known how to brew a killer concoction of chemicals. Last night an evidence bag marked 'caution health hazard' was removed by officers, the Mirror reported. Heena's Facebook page states she studied at South Gujarat University until 2002. Some media reports claimed that Heena poisoned her daughters before killing herself in what the police is terming a "toxic chemical reaction". Shocked friends and neighbours gathered outside the house yesterday that has been cordoned off and a probe is on. "I saw these people go into the house in chemical suits. I couldn't believe what was going on. They were a happy family and the children were lovely little kids", a neighbour said. — PTI
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Six Indians hurt in CAR brought to Delhi hospital
New Delhi, April 14 Official sources said the Indians, transferred straight from the air force station to AIIMS where arrangements were made to keep them under medical supervision, are not reported to be facing any serious medical issue at this stage. A team of doctors and paramedics from AIIMS was present at the airport and ensured their smooth transfer from the airport to the hospital. Officials of the Ministry of External Affairs visited the patients and discussed their status with the doctors. French troops had killed two Indians and wounded six others last month when they opened fire on vehicles approaching the airport in the capital of the strife-torn Central African Republic. French President Francois Hollande had expressed regret over the tragic incident.
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N-E terror victims call for boycott of ultras, families
Guwahati, April 14 It has also called for the boycott of militants’ immediate families so that no youth from the state joins the ranks of militant outfits that have caused misery to thousands of innocent families. This development has taken place when the Government of India, in coordination with state governments of the insurgency-hit North-East, is holding peace talks with different militant groups from the region to find a solution to the problem. “Lots of innocent blood has been spilt in the state because of extremist violence. It is time for society as a whole to rise against militancy and disallow family members of militants from entering into social and religious institutions,” said Dhananjoy Saikia, president of the forum. Saikia is the son of journalist Kamala Saikia who was murdered by ULFA militants in Sivasagar district in eastern Assam in 1991 for writing against the outfit. None of his killers has been arrested so far. Referring to peace talks being held with various militant groups in the region, Saikia said that militants groups follow a trend vis-à-vis peace overtures by the government, while one faction agrees to hold talks, another splinter group of the same outfit continues to indulge in violence and unlawful activities. In a peace convention against terrorism organised by the forum in Jorhat in eastern Assam, a large number of victims of militancy, including children who were orphaned by the gun culture in the state, broke down while narrating the hardship and pain that they had to face after their near and dear ones were killed in extremists’ violence.
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Jantar Mantar
When the Capital was convulsed by angry protesters last December following the brutal gangrape of a paramedical student, Telecommunications and IT minister Kapil Sibal had announced that the government would facilitate the manufacture of a GPS-backed wrist watch which can send distress signals or messages to the nearest police station and other pre-programmed numbers either at the push of a button or a voice command. It is four months since this announcement was made, but work on the wrist watch, meant to ensure women's safety, is moving ahead but slowly. Although the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) was initially sceptical about the project, a team of experts is now on its way to Russia to brainstorm with their counterparts about their expertise in this field. It is being hoped that once the paperwork over technology transfer is through, the government will be able to issue licences for the manufacture of the much-awaited watch within the next six months. Tharoor takes party advice
Alvi and his ‘yamraj’ remark
Congress spokesperson Rashid Alvi had a reason to feel pleased with himself when he was recently invited by the party's Maharashtra unit to give a talk at a special training programme it had organised for its spokespersons. Alvi was to give them tips on the issues they should highlight and how they should avoid getting into controversies. Considering that he has always been considered an outsider (he was with the BSP earlier), Alvi believed that this invitation demonstrated that he had finally been accepted by the cadres. However, Alvi was soon brought down to earth when he was pulled up last week for having overstepped his brief when he referred to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as "yamraj" or the god of death while replying to questions at the party's daily press briefing. The Congress was unhappy with his remarks as it has exercised great caution in its references to Modi's "communal taint" after party president Sonia Gandhi's description of the BJP leader as "maut ka saudagar" in the 2007 Gujarat assembly poll campaign boomeranged. It does not want to give Modi another opportunity to polarise the electorate. |
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Lucknow, April 14
After lying low following his controversial exit from the UPA government, former UN bureaucrat-turned-politician Shashi Tharoor is once again in the news now that he has been reinducted as a junior HRD minister. Being an engaging speaker, Tharoor has a hectic schedule as he is inundated with invitations for lectures, seminars and book releases. His glamorous wife Sunanda Pushkar has not lagged behind in sharing the spotlight with him. According to the grapevine, Tharoor has been told discreetly that it might be a good idea if his wife were to keep a low profile. The minister appears to have taken this advise seriously, and as a result, Pushkar is not so visible as she was when he rejoined the Cabinet. Tharoor had lost his place in the external affairs ministry two years ago following allegations of payment of sweat equity to Pushkar in the auction of the IPL Kochi team. With the Lok Sabha election due next year, the Congress is taking no chances and wants to avoid any further controversies.