 |
|
|
Malegaon Blasts
Another Indian student attacked in US
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Cyber cafés under scanner
Lalu playing petty politics, says
Nitish
Nitish plans film city for Bihar
Candidates queue up to get heart checkup
Chhattisgarh
Madhya Pradesh
Mizoram
2 planes escape collision in Goa
CJI: Intensify fight against human trafficking
Chandrayaan starts collecting data
See bright meteors today
CEO’s Murder
MHA presses for voting right to prisoners
Egyptian Prez arrives
|
|
Malegaon Blasts
Mumbai/Nashik, November 16 “At least three persons are still wanted in the September 29 Malegaon blasts case in which 10 persons have been arrested so far,” DGP A.N. Roy told PTI, adding investigations were not nearing an end in the case yet. Asked whether the ATS was investigating the possible role of those arrested in the Malegaon case in other blasts, apart from the 2004 Jalna and 2007 Samjhauta Express, Roy declined to comment. Eight of the arrested persons in the case are to be produced in a Nashik Magistrate’s court tomorrow as their judicial custody comes to an end. The eight to be produced include Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, former Army man Ramesh Upadhyay and Abhinav Bharat member Sameer Kulkarni. A case was filed against Purohit for obtaining an arms licence for a Pune resident using fake documents, the Pune police said. The case was filed at the Sarkarwada police station by Pune resident Shirish Yeshwant Date for allegedly obtaining an arms licence for him in 2005 using fake documents, it said. The complainant, who knew the arrested Army officer through his family, has alleged that he had paid Purohit Rs 20,000 in order to obtain the arms licence for his revolver, the police said. Purohit allegedly submitted documents showing that Date was living in the Devlali Army camp to obtain the licence for him, the police said. “After learning of Purohit’s involvement in the Malegaon blasts case, Date decided to check the authenticity of his licence obtained from Nashik and discovered that fake documents had been submitted. He then voluntarily came forward to file the complaint against Purohit,” the police said.
— PTI
|
|
BJP: Don’t politicise Pragya’s arrest
Raipur, November 16 “The Congress is raising the Sadhvi issue again on the eve of elections and the party did the same trick in the previous elections too”, Naidu said here yesterday. He said the alleged involvement of Sadhvi in the Malegaon blasts had turned into a national issue and the people would reply to this ‘conspiracy’ through ballots.
— UNI
|
|
Another Indian student attacked in US
Warangal (AP), November 16 Pulluri Shashank (22), an MBA student at University of Middle Tennessee, was fired at near his apartment in the varsity campus and is stated to be out of danger, his father Pulluri Sudhakar, a resident of Excise Colony at Hanamkonda here, said. The incident occurred when Shashank and his friends were going inside their flat after returning from an outing. Shashank went out to take his bag from the car when he was shot at by a man who is suspected to be an Afro-American, he said quoting Shashank’s friends. Shashank was rushed to a hospital and is stated to be out of danger, Sudhakar said. The student from Andhar Pradesh did his BE course from a private engineering college at Huzurabad in Warangal district and went to US one-and-half-year ago, said Sudhakar who is an officer in the state cooperatives department. The incident came hardly a fortnight after the murder of Arpana Jinaga, a Hyderabadi software professional at Redmont, Washington D.C. T. Soumaya, 23, who was doing MS in electrical engineering at the Southern Illinois University, and her cousin Vikram Eeddy, 27, a software engineer were found murdered in Chicago in September.
— PTI
|
|
Third blast in as many days, 2 girls hurt
Lucknow, November 16 Around 9.40 am, nine-year-old Rashida along with 12-year-old Nilima was sifting through garbage at a rubbish dump when the crude bomb, which was actually a tin box of a popular powder milk brand exploded injuring them and causing a noisy explosion. Panic-stricken residents of the crowded Aishbagh area ran helter-skelter fearing a terror attack. A large number of residents who had collected on the streets expressed their anger against this third explosion in the city in a row. SSP Akhil Kumar, however, completely ruled out any correlation between today’s explosion and the two blasts occurring inside toilets of the district court on Friday and Saturday. “None of these are terror attack or even suspected terror attack. Some criminal elements had hidden the bombs just to create a scare,” said Kumar. According to the police, the explosions on the court premises were caused by firecrackers. CO Bazarkhala C. Sinha said, “Prima facie the powder inside the desi bomb found in the garbage dump today appears to be sulphur. However, nothing can be confirmed till the Forensic Laboratory gives its report.” The girls suffered minor abrasions in legs and were discharged after first aid at the trauma centre of the Chatrapati Shahuji Maharaj Medical College here.
|
|
Cyber cafés under scanner
Guwahati, November 16 With jehadi threat allegedly lurking in this northeast corner of the country surrounded by different countries on all sides, the police in Meghalaya has decided to be extra-cautious to prevent major terrorists strikes like those rocked neighbouring Assam and Tripura recently. Persons visiting a cyber café or pursuing computer studies at any computer training centre (CTC) in Shillong are now under the police scanner. The police has issued certain directives that must be abide by owners of the cyber cafés and the CTCs. Tourist are also asked to provide proper identity proof to get a room in all guest houses and hotels in Shillong that receives highest number of tourists in the region from all parts of the country as well as abroad every year. As per the directive issued by the special branch of police, every visitor to a cyber café must produce an authenticated photo identity card (ID), including passport, college ID, PAN card, election card, driving license or office ID etc., and present full residential address. All this information is required to be recorded by the cyber café owners for submission to the police later. The cyber café owners have been asked to maintain a daily ‘in and out’ register having details about all visitors and also showing time of logging in and logging off for each of the Internet users. The police also asked the Internet joints to do away with the practice of setting up isolated cubicles. In case of the CTCs, all admission applications have to be properly verified with the help of the police before being considered for admission. Details about all students undergoing training have to be to submitted to the police. “The Tripura police has issued similar instruction to the cyber café owners all over the state where serial blasts the capital city, Agartala, on the night of October 1 last,” DIG of the Tripura police Nepal Das said.
|
Lalu playing petty politics, says
Nitish
Patna, November 16 Lalu, by making this announcement, may have thought that he would dilute the impact of JDU’s initiative to make all its five MPs quit the Lok Sabha over the same issue. And he did succeed in his mission to an extent by claiming that all his MPs and MLAs had put in their papers to him much before the deadline set by the JDU for resignation of its MPs. He also dared Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to follow suit by making all his legislators put in their papers. Notwithstanding Lalu’s utterances, the JDU went ahead with its programme and its MPs resigned formally from the Lok Sabha on November 7 and waited patiently for the RJD to keep up its promise. After expiry of the deadline set by the RJD, it is time for the JDU to go on the offensive against the RJD supremo charging him with backing out on his promises once again. Nitish Kumar, who had earlier compared his bete noire with Goebbeles, the propaganda in charge of Hitler, is now saying that there was nothing surprising in Lalu Yadav not keeping his promise. “He has religiously maintained his tradition of backing out,” Nitish commented. Recalling some other broken promises of Lalu Yadav, Nitish said before the demolition of Babri Masjid, Lalu Yadav the then Chief Minister of Bihar had gone to town saying that he would go to Ayodhya with one crore supporters from Bihar and frustrate any move to demolish the mosque, but at the time the Babri Masjid came under attack, Lalu was found fast asleep at his house. The news was given to him when he woke up from his sleep. Similarly, when Raj Thackeray criticised ‘Chhath Puja’ and said he would not allow its celebration in Mumbai, Lalu reacted by announcing that he would go to Mumbai and celebrate Chhath festival in front of the MNS chief’s house. But when the time came for celebrating the festival, he preferred to do it in Patna. Replying to a letter written to him by the RJD president with the advice that the former should break his ties with the communal forces like the BJP and the Shiv Sena and quit chief ministership over the Maharashtra issue and launch a joint agitation with the RJD for the honour of Bihar and its migrant people, Nitish has written to Lalu that it was time he should stop fooling the people of Bihar. “Please stop doing petty and cheap politics on Maharashtra issue. The people fully understand the drama being enacted by you in the name of resignation of all your MPs and Legislators. Had you ever been serious in this matter, the UPA government at the Centre would have taken effective and corrective measures against the MNS and people like Raj Thackeray would have been behind the bars.” He has also advised Lalu to stop treating the people of Bihar as stupid and utilise his left over energy for the welfare of the state and its people. Confronted by mediapersosns in Patna today, a visibly defensive Lalu said he would wait for another 10 days for Nitish and his MLAs to resign and then decide his future course of action on Maharashtra issue. Lalu claimed that it was only due to his pressure on the Centre that there was no untoward incident in Mumbai during the Chhath festival.
|
|
Nitish plans film city for Bihar
Patna, November 16 Announcing the plan to mediapersons here recently, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar clarified that the move had nothing to do with the developments in Maharashtra and was a part of Bihar’s development agenda. “We want to encourage film production in Bihar”, he said. He further indicated that the film city could be developed on a public-private partnership (PPP) module. Replying to a question that a proposal of film star and Rajya Sabha member from the BJP Shatrughan Sinha for setting up a mega film city in the state on the pattern of the one existing at Hyderabad was gathering dust in the state secretariat for the past couple of years, Nitish admitted that “Shotgun” had approached him with the proposal over a year ago but denied that the state government did not pay any heed to it. “It was at his suggestion that we had held an official meeting for establishing a film city in Bihar”, he said. The meeting resolved to revive defunct Bihar State Film Development Corporation first. In the second phase, the state government would invite interested private players through this corporation for setting up the film city, the Chief Minister informed. He also talked about seeking help from film personalities hailing from Bihar like Shatrughan Sinha, Prakash Jha, Manoj Tiwari, Manoj Bajpayee, Shekhar Suman and others in this connection. Nitish also emphasised his government’s plan to formulate a film policy and said he had already directed the officials to look for a suitable place either in Patna, Gaya or Rajgir (Nalanda) where a mega film city could be developed. The Chief Minister also admitted that Bhojpuri film star Manoj Tiwari had spoken to him recently with the suggestion to establish a film city in Bihar so that the Bhojpuri film industry could shift from Mumbai in the wake of the hate campaign against north Indians launched by the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) there. However, Nitish refuted the inference that his plans for a film city had any thing to do with the happenings in Mumbai. “We do not favour people living or working in other states leave their place of work out of fear or under pressure from any individual or group as it would be detrimental to national integrity”, Nitish said.
|
|
Candidates queue up to get heart checkup
New Delhi, November 16 There is a definite rise in the number of politicians wanting to get their cardiac health checked before the election campaign gains momentum, heart specialists believe. “Many of the candidates come just before elections, as they want to ensure they can take the rigours of the campaign,” said Ravi R.
Kasliwal, senior consultant Cardiologist, Apollo hospitals. It is best to get everything sorted out, from diabetes to blood pressure, before setting out on a campaign trail, he said. “Those who have established cardiac problems are very particular about getting an ‘election fitness certificate’ because campaigning requires a lot of effort and travel,” said Dr Purushottam
Lal, senior cardiologist at Noida’s Metro hospital. While in the pre-poll season, candidates who are preparing to jump into the fray visit heart specialists to get their fitness evaluated, those who end on the losing side post-poll, queue up to check stress and anxiety-related problems. “Post-election usually the ones who end up losing come with stress-related symptoms like uneasiness, palpitation other atypical problems, that call for
counselling,” Lal said. How one takes the election defeat also differs from person to person “on how sensitive or how thick-skinned you are”, said
Lal. Kasliwal, however, said the increase in the number of visitors is usually seen ahead of the poll rather than after the process is over.
— PTI
|
|
|
Chhattisgarh
BSP superemo Mayawati has the power to pull the crowd which demonstrated effectively at a rally in Bilaspur on Sunday.
The crowds waited patiently to see and hear ‘Behenji’ since morning for the rally that was to begin at 11.30 am. It is another matter though that Mayawati eventually arrived at 2.30 pm to deliver a speech, laced liberally with her list of achievements in Uttar Pradesh and criticism of rivals the BJP and the Congress. In all, Mayawati was at sprawling grounds of Science College here for precisely one hour. But for those 60 minutes that she spent here between her chopper landing and taking off, her party had gone all out to show that it was a rally befitting the status of the “future Prime Minister”, as the BSP now prefers to address their leader as. An impressive turnout requires an equally impressive set up. To ensure that the party had erected a stage that took almost two days in making. While two air-conditioners had been fitted on the stage to ensure that ‘Behenji’ delivers her speech in comfort, there was also a make shift, but a well appointed air-conditioned room with plush sofas and attached toilet to take care of her other needs. Altogether Mayawati demonstrated a good show of strength together with her second-in-command Satish Mishra at the rally with close to one lakh people in attendance in an area that has traditionally been the stronghold of the Congress. While Mayawati’s rally on Sunday is being termed as the biggest rally in the state during the current Assembly elections, it also appears to be an indication of things to follow. Satanamis, which is a Dalit community, are known to vote enmasse for the Congress. While one reason for Satnamis inclination towards the Congress is the presence of Ajit Jogi, who Satnamis regard to be their community leader, another factor is that the BSP has not been so strong in the region despite the party winning the Sipat seat in 1998. It is yet to be seen what in-roads ‘Behenji’ has made into the vote bank of the Congress but that she too has an appeal among the Dalits cannot be doubted. The upper castes, the trader community and even small businessmen are scared of re-emergence of Ajit Jogi at the helm of affairs. After BSP’s social engineering concept, for those looking for the third alternative besides the Congress and the BJP, the BSP is emerging as a good option. The BSP has distributed the seats smartly for the 90-member Assembly with 28 OBCs, 34 STs, 11 SCs, six brahmins, four thakurs, four vaishyas, one kayasth and two from minority community fighting elections on its tickets.
|
|
|
Madhya Pradesh
Bhopal, November 16 The verbal duel between the BJP and Congress leaders began when the latter issued an advertisement in the newspapers showing photographs of the satellite along with a flag in Congress colours. The Congress described the achievement as that of its own and put photographs of its leaders Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and general secretary Rahul Gandhi in it. Since the advertisement was released, BJP leaders, including the party general secretary in-charge of Madhya Pradesh Anant Kumar and spokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy, arranged press conferences to condemn the move. They also petitioned the Election Commission with a complaint that the moon mission is not an achievement of any particular government or the party, but of the entire nation. The BJP also pointed out that the flag in the advertisement is a national flag without the ‘Chakra’ (wheel) in it and thus the grand old party of the nation has disrespected the Tri-colour and demanded that the party should be prevented from using it for political gains. Anant Kumar said former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee named the mission ‘Chandrayaan-I’. “Initially ISRO had named the mission as ‘Somyan’, but Vajpayee rechristened it as ‘Chandrayaan’ to further motivate them to launch the moon mission,” Kumar claimed. — PTI
|
|
|
Mizoram
Aizawl, November 16 Z.D. Dengngura, an Independent candidate from Lunglei south seat, was the only candidate to have withdrawn nomination. Officials said while 72 candidates are in fray in Aizawl district, 30 candidates are contesting from Lunglei district. Champhai district has 24 candidates in the electoral race and Lawngtlai has 13 aspirants. Kolasib, Mamit and Serchhip districts, which have three seats each, have 18, 22 and 15 candidates respectively, while Saiha which has two seats has 11 contestants, they added. The ruling Mizo National Front was contesting 39 seats while its junior pre-poll partner, the Mara Democratic Front, had fielded one candidate.
— PTI
|
|
2 planes escape collision in Goa
Panaji, November 16 “The Moscow-bound plane’s right wing brushed the tail wing of the chartered aircraft when the former was taking a turnaround to take-off,” an airport official said. No casualty was reported although the Russian plane, which was taking off, had 356 passengers on board. The incident occurred at 1425 hours, when the Moscow-bound chartered plane was ready to take off on the runway. All passengers were evacuated as both the planes were grounded blocking incoming traffic at the airport, the official said. Outgoing flights managed to take off using the alternate runway. Meanwhile, a team of Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) will arrive in Goa tomorrow to probe the incident. Goa airport authorities have submitted a preliminary report of the incident while detailed investigation would be conducted by the DGCA team. “The team will see whether there was any lapse on the part of the pilots,” Goa Airport director D. Paul Manickam said. Following the incident, two bays remained occupied, decreasing the space at the already congested airport. Officials said the accident took place due to inadequate facilities existing at the airport. “They have problem to take turn in the parking bay,” Manickam said. Officials contended that Sunday is usually a busy day. The accident had flight operations delayed by half an hour during evening. “Ten flight operations were hampered while situation became normal by evening,” Manickam said. Both the aircraft will be inspected tomorrow by engineers who will certify whether they can fly or not. — PTI
|
|
CJI: Intensify fight against human trafficking
New Delhi, November 16 Trafficking was a complicated problem that required a coordinated and interdisciplinary response, covering human rights protection and gender justice, the CJI said while inaugurating a colloquium on justice delivery relating to the issue. Right from registration of cases to investigation and delivery of justice, the officials dealing with the menace need to be sensitive to the victims. The problem had social, economic and superstitious angles to it, he added. Releasing a resource book on the legal framework for checking the menace, the CJI said its publication was aimed at improving the efficiency of law enforcement officials and other stakeholders.
|
|
Chandrayaan starts collecting data
Bangalore, November 16 Scientists commanding the spacecraft through radio control from the Satellite Control Centre (SCC) of ISRO telemetry, tracking and command network (ISTRAC) at Bangalore today turned on the lunar laser ranging instrument (LLRI) aboard
the satellite. The LLRI, built by ISRO’s Laboratory for Electro Optic Systems in Bangalore, is slated to give data for generating an improved model of the lunar gravitational field. By sending pulses of infra-red laser rays on the lunar surface and capturing the reflected rays, the LLRI can determine the height of various features of the lunar surface and thus provide the scientists with the topographical details of both polar and equatorial regions of the moon. The data from the LLRI will also enable the scientists to have an understanding of the internal structure of the moon and how the surface features have evolved over the time. The LLRI was switched on when the spacecraft was passing over the western part of the moon’s visible side. It will work round the clock and is slated to take 10 measurements of the lunar surface every second. Earlier, three other payloads of Chandrayaan-1 -terrain mapping camera (TMC), radiation dose monitor (RADOM) and the moon impact probe (MIP) - have been made functional. Besides the above mentioned four, Chandrayaan-1 has seven scientific
payloads that will be turned on gradually from the ground command.
|
|
New Delhi, November 16 Leonids are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Tempel-Tuttle. The meteor shower is visible every year around November 17 when the Earth moves through the Leonid meteor stream, he said, adding that the stream comprises solid particles, known as meteoroids, ejected by the comet as it passes by the Sun. Leonids get their name from the location of their radiance in the constellation Leo. The Leonids are famous because their meteor showers or storms can be among the most spectacular. During a strong storm in dark viewing conditions, the sky can appear to be “raining stars”, Devgun said, adding that this year Leonids will be seen in its peak tomorrow night. Meteors are also called as "shooting stars", startling streaks of light that suddenly appear in the sky when a dust particle from outer space evaporates high in the Earth's atmosphere. Most visible Leonids are between 1 mm and 1 cm in diameter, Devgun said. For example, a Leonid meteor barely visible with the naked eye in a dark sky, is caused by a meteoroid of 0.5 mm in diameter and weights only 0.00006 gram. Just before they enter the Earth's atmosphere, Leonid meteoroids travel at 71 km per second, or 213 times as fast as speed of sound, Devgun added. Usually no sound is heard when a Leonid is passed by, however, a sonic boom is sometimes heard for very bright Leonid meteors, called fireballs, Devgun said. To watch a Leonid go to an area where light pollution is at its minimum, he said adding the best time would be around midnight. By then LEO constellation (radiant of Leonids) will be fairly high above the horizon. The hour or two before dawn should be best of all. However, this time they would not be as bright as expected because moon will be there while viewing Leonids. Only the bright could be easily seen this time. This year about 12to 15 Leonids are expected to be seen, Devgun added. — PTI
|
|
CEO’s Murder
Lucknow, November 16 In his ancestral house on the Jail road of Sitapur, a flood of shocked relatives and friends of Sid Agarwal have assembled to express their condolences. They talk in whispers about the city paying a heavy price for the US recession. Grief-stricken younger brother Pawan Agarwal regrets not being able to be there for his brother’s last rites. He recalls the last visit of his brother a year-and-a-half ago to attend the wedding of his son. His old mother Parvarti Devi is, too, stunned to react to the news. After completing his engineering in Electronics from the IIT, Kanpur, Sid Agarwal had shifted to the US to pursue a MS from Illinois University and MBA from Chicago University. Since then he had been working in leading companies like Adobe and Intel. In northern California Sid Agrawal, the chief executive officer of SiPort Inc, vice-president of operations Brian Pugh and an unidentified woman were killed when several rounds were fired on the premises of the company in Santa Clara on Friday. Police said investigators were searching for Jing Hua Wu (47) in connection with the shooting.
|
|
|
MHA presses for voting right to prisoners
New Delhi, November 16 The home ministry is in touch with the law ministry and other authorities concerned to make necessary amendments
in the law. "The MHA has asked the law ministry and is in constant touch with them to make necessary changes in the law to provide voting rights to the ones serving punishment in jails," a senior ministry official said. Section 62 (5) of the Representation of People's Act, 1951, disqualifies a prisoner from being a voter in election due to his being in prison. According to the Act, the accused who are on bail have the right to exercise their franchise in any election. However, those accused who are denied bail are not entitled to exercise this right under the provisions of the Act. A committee was constituted for preparing the draft policy paper on the strategy relating to prison reform and correctional administration under the chairmanship of former director-general of the Bureau of Police Research and Development N C Joshi.
— PTI
|
|
|
New Delhi, November 16 Mubarak was accompanied by his wife Suzanne and a strong delegation, which includes five senior ministers and top business leaders. Tomorrow, he will address a meeting of the captain of Indian industry here. On Tuesday, he will hold delegation level talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Several important agreements are expected to be signed between the two countries after the talks between the two leaders. He will also meet other top Indian leaders. — TNS
|
High alert in Kolkata Elephant deaths rising Samosa for Rs 2,500!
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
