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HIMALAYAN TSUNAMI An ITBP jawan rescues a flood victim near Badrinath. — PTI |
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Scouts’ pleasure trip turns into humanitarian mission
Rajeev Sharma, HQ Commissioner of Bharat Scouts and Guides, Uttarakhand, (2L) and an evacuated tourist (R) at a helipad in Uttarakhand. Tribune photo: Pradeep Tewari
Don’t force people to walk long distances, SC tells U'khand
Locals’ dreams swept away by the waters
Rescue copter makes hard landing at Harsil
Govt justifies increase in price of natural gas
Union ministers P Chidambaram and Veerappa Moily at a press conference in New Delhi on Friday. — PTI
Bengal panchayat polls to be held in 5 phases, says SC
Injured Abu Salem being taken to a hospital near Navi Mumbai on Thursday. — PTI
IN GOOD HANDS: A caretaker feeds a rescued rhino
calf at Kaziranga in Assam. — PTI India takes up visa bond proposal with UK They (UK) have said they are mulling it over. Let us wait how and in what format the issue will be discussed
— Syed Akbaruddin, MEA spokesman
Raja Bhaiyya booked for fraud on complaint of former PRO
Malaysia deports BKI militant
Munde claims he spent
Rs 8 cr on campaign
Khurshid to meet Chinese FM on margins of ASEAN
Sikh group offers reward to serve notice on Badal
China ready to ‘break new ground’ with India
IPL spot-fixing: Key bookie held
Key bookie held, 29th arrest in IPL scam
Army to get first woman ADC to a Commander Flick on CBI
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Central health team, IAF to stay back after rescue
op
Dehradun, June 28 Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, Army Chief General Bikram Singh and Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna laid wreaths on the bodies of the martyrs and gave a ceremonial salute. Union Tourism Minister Chiranjeevi and National Disaster Management Authority member VK Duggal, former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Maj Gen BC Khanduri, several state ministers and senior defence officials from the Army, Air Force and NDRF also laid wreaths on the mortal remains of the bravehearts. Addressing mediapersons, Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde announced that bodies of the martyrs would be taken to the nearest airport at the place of their residence. He said that after the completion of the rescue operation, the Indian Air Force would remain stationed for 15 more days to provide rations in villages of Uttarakhand where roads have been completely washed off. Underlying the need to take precautions so that an epidemic does not take place, Shinde said a Central team would remain in Uttarakhand to assist the state Department of Health and Family Welfare. Union Tourism Minister Chiranjeevi, who accompanied the Union Home Minister, announced a special package of Rs 100 crore for the state.
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Scouts’ pleasure trip turns into humanitarian mission
Rishikesh, June 28 As attention remains focused on the armed forces and paramilitary personnel employed for the Herculean task of rescuing thousands of stranded people, these scouts and guides - away from public gaze - are quietly helping out the affected people in the area. The youngsters (16-25 years), including 25 girls, have set up camp in villages away from the road and are helping in cooking and distributing food and relief material to affected villagers and other stranded people. “We have a group of 70 scouts and guides at Gaurighat, about 15 km from Joshimath, and another group of 45 at Barkat near Yamnotri,” said Narendra Shah, Uttarakhand state organiser of the Bharat Scouts and Guides. “Our task is very challenging because we are not located on road heads, but have moved into villages in the interior,” he added. The scouts had arrived on June 12 and were supposed to return on June 21 after trekking in the area and visiting areas like the famous Valley of Flowers, but nature had something else in store for them. In their endeavour to study nature, they got more than they bargained for - getting a firsthand experience of two extreme facets of nature: its tranquillity and beauty; and its ferocity and devastating power. Besides this, teams of scouts and guides from the state have also been deployed in other areas. In addition to a team at the Dehradun helipad, there is a 10-member team each at Haridwar, Rishikesh, Joshimath and Dharchula. Another team of 25 scouts is as Asiganga in Uttarkashi. The oldest member of the team is 55 years old. While many of the team members are students, some are employed or are officials of the scouts movement. “We are all volunteers and ready to provide any assistance,” Rajeev Sharma, Headquarters Commissioner, Uttarakhand, said. “We are distributing food packets, helping in carrying the injured, guiding people and assisting relatives of the missing,” he added. Saviours that God sent
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Don’t force people to walk long distances, SC tells U'khand
New Delhi, June 28 The state government assured the apex court that rescue operations would be over by tomorrow. It said that at present 1,000 pilgrims are in Badrinath in a safe condition and there is no shortage of water, food materials there. The Bench, after going through the report of the state government, posted the case for hearing on July 3. The Bench was hearing a PIL filed by lawyer Ajay Bansal, who has sought the apex court's directions to the Centre and state government to rescue people stranded in the flood hit areas in Uttarakhand. Earlier, on June 20, the court had directed the Centre and the state to make all-out efforts to rescue thousands of people stranded there and to provide them food and drinking water. It had also directed the governments to deploy sufficient number of helicopters to rescue flood-affected people in the state. The Bench had also asked the Centre and National Disaster Management Authority to provide all required resources to the state government and to file action-taken reports.
— PTI |
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Locals’ dreams swept away by the waters
Dehradun/Chinyali Saur, June 28 According to local residents, about 80 buildings in Joshiyara, located in Uttarkashi district, were swept away by the waters. There are several others that are in a state of immense disrepair. Tomorrow, revenue officials in Uttarkashi district will start surveying the land lost by the residents due to the floods. There are several villages near Chinyali Saur (a town in Uttarkashi district) where agricultural plots were washed away. Locals said that there
are about 40 villages near Chinyali Saur where crops such as dal and rice are grown. “Farming is the main livelihood of the villagers. The villages have their main market in Chinyali. They are unable to reach here as a road starting from Chinyali to Dharasu to a village called Jogat has been broken during the floods. “Even in the local markets, there is a shortage of rations and water because the roads to Chinyali are broken,” said Vinay Bhatt, a lecturer at the Srimati Manjira Devi College in Chinyali Saur. |
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Rescue copter makes hard landing at Harsil
There were two pilots and an Uttarakhand Police constable in the Pawan Hans Dauphin N3 helicopter. They are reportedly unharmed. The main pilot, Captain Andrew J. Manchanda, told The Tribune, “The crash was mainly due to the weather problem. There was a sudden gust of wind and at 9,000 feet, the rotors started slowing down. So the rate of the descent increased. Then I had to make a forced landing to cushion the impact. We landed at the helipad in Harsil. From the nose of the aircraft to the compartment, where the passengers sit, the copter is undamaged. The tail boom, which is the rear section of the copter, broke into two.” However, sources said the helicopter crashed from 10 feet above the ground on a grassy patch at the helipad. The pilots of the Pawan Hans helicopter had made two landings at Harsil from Dehradun today to evacuate the stranded. The incident took place on the third sortie from Dharasu to Harsil. An Advanced Light Helicopter of the Army Aviation Corps transported the pilots from Harsil to Dehradun, where it landed at a temporary helipad at a golf course. |
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Govt justifies increase in price of natural gas
New Delhi, June 28 The decision to raise gas prices was cheered by the stock markets with Sensex shooting up more than 520 points as ONGC and Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) led the rally. Rupee also strengthened by nearly 80 paise today. Finance Minister P Chidambaram said the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) yesterday approved pricing of all domestic gas as per a formula suggested by a panel headed by Prime Minister’s Economic Adviser C Rangarajan to boost investments without which domestic production of gas would have declined and imports gone up. “The power and fertiliser ministries have raised the issue. We can look at fixing the input costs for these sectors. The issues will be addressed in due course of time,” he said without elaborating. Chidambaram said the CCEA had decided on the output price of natural gas for five years to boost investment as imports had been rising with promoters investing abroad. He said the input prices of user industries would be decided later as these needed to remain affordable. Some mechanism would be worked out to do that, he said. The new price will apply uniformly to all producers, be it state-owned firms such as Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) or private sector Reliance Industries, and will come into effect from April 1, 2014, just when RIL’s KG-D6 formula of $4.2 unit runs out. CPM Politburo strongly opposed the Cabinet decision to double the price of natural gas and said this would have a cascading effect in terms of increasing prices and burdening common people, while the main benefit would accrue to a single corporate house. Crisil Research said in a note that higher gas prices to would benefit upstream players, but hit discoms and urea producers. The variable cost of power generation would go up by around Rs 2 per unit in 2014-15, it said.
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Bengal panchayat polls to be held in 5 phases, says SC
New Delhi/Kolkata, June 28 A Bench of Justices AK Patnaik and Ranjan Gogoi directed that the election be held on July 11, 15, 19, 22 and 25. The poll was earlier scheduled to be held in three phases from July 2. The apex court directed the state government to provide on an average 35,000 security personnel for each phase of the election and the rest of the requirement of security forces would be provided by the Centre. "We have now rescheduled the election from July 11 to 25 to be held in five phases", the Bench said adding that "all other consequential notifications are to be done by the concerned authorities as per the order". The court passed the order on a petition filed by the state Election Commission which had approached the apex court seeking its direction to the state and the Centre to provide adequate security personnel for the election. The election body had contended it was not possible to hold violence-free polls in the prevailing
circumstances as enough security personnel were not available. The Supreme Court had on July 26 issued notices to the Centre and West Bengal Government seeking their responses on how to meet the requirement of security personnel for the conduct of the panchayat elections in the state. With this judgment, the four-month-long tussle between the state
government and the state Election Commission came to an end. The EC had stressed on the need for Central forces to ensure free, fair and peaceful elections. This was objected to both by the Chief Minister and the state Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee. Instead, they decided on a three-phased poll that would be conducted under the security provided by the state police. The matter went to the Calcutta High Court which endorsed the state EC’s stand and affirmed its supremacy in conducting state elections. Governor MK Narayanan also stood by the EC and advised the Chief Minister to allow the deployment of Central forces during the poll. However, Mamata did not agree. The issue then went to Chief Justice AK Mishra’s Division Bench at the high court. But the Bench also failed to deliver any judgment agreeable to both the parties. Finally, on July 26, the state EC took the matter to the Supreme Court.
Long tussle
To ensure free, fair and peaceful elections, the state Election Commission sought the deployment of Central forces along with state forces Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and state Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee opted for a three-phased poll from July 2 that would be conducted under the security provided by the state police SC has directed the state government to provide 35,000 security personnel for each phase of the election. The remaining requirement will be provided by the Centre
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Attack on Salem: Cops suspended, probe ordered
Mumbai, June 28 ADG (Prisons) Meeran Borwankar who will hold the inquiry has ordered the suspension of four police personnel on charges of dereliction of duty. These include jailor Sanjay Sable, and constables Chandrakant Pathare, Nitin Sawant and Gitesh
Randhive. The three constables were responsible for security at the prison gate and were supposed to check the prisoners entering or leaving the facility to attend court. Devendra Jagtap, who shot Salem, had appeared in court on Thursday and had apparently smuggled in the firearm while being brought back to jail. Jagtap, also known as ‘JD’, is accused of killing TADA detenue-turned-lawyer Shahid Azmi who defended those arrested under terror laws. The police said Jagtap opened fire on Salem with a country-made revolver shortly after 8 pm on Thursday when the two came face to face in the jail. Salem ducked when he saw Jagtap pull out the gun but was hit with a bullet in the right hand. Jagtap fired two more shots but missed Salem. Salem was taken to the prison hospital where he was treated. He was brought back to the cell this morning, the police said. It is unclear who contracted Jagtap to open fire on Salem. A newspaper claimed Dawood Ibrahim gangster Chhota Shakeel called its reporter to claim responsibility for the shooting. The caller allegedly told the newspaper that Salem was being punished for turning against his former mentor, Dawood. But some police officers said the shooting could have been orchestrated by Salem and his masters in the Dawood gang. The police said they were questioning Jagtap for his motive behind attacking Salem. Salem’s defence team said they would plead for Salem’s repatriation to Portugal as the Indian authorities had failed to guarantee his security. Abu Salem and his former girlfriend Monica Bedi were extradited from Portugal after the Indian Government guaranteed that he would not be given the death sentence for his crimes in India. “The authorities here have failed to protect Abu Salem. The guarantee given to the Portuguese government has been violated. So we will seek the intervention of the Portuguese government to get him repatriated to Portugal,” Salem’s lawyer Saba Quereshi said.
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Kaziranga rhino calf joins an orphan at Manas park
Guwahati, June 28 “We have been rescuing rhino calves at Kaziranga and most of them are being successfully hand-raised at the
CWRC. In due course of time, these calves will be released into the wild,” says NK
Vasu, chief conservator of forest and director, Kaziranga National
Park. Purabi was separated from her mother during the 2012 floods in
Kaziranga, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. She was rescued by the Assam Forest Department and local people in the Haldibari area and relocated to the
CWRC. She has since been taken care of at the CWRC located near
Kaziranga. The CWRC was set up in 2002 in a joint initiative of the Assam Forest Department and International Fund for Animal Welfare-Wildlife Trust of India
(IFAW-WTI) partnership. The other calf, Dwimalu, a male, was just a few weeks old when it was rescued. The calf is being hand-raised by the forest department assisted by the IFAW-WTI in the Manas National Park in western Assam since April. Both calves will be hand-reared together for a couple of years at Manas before being released into the wild. “We welcome this move of shifting another rhino calf from the CWRC to
Manas. We are committed to restoring Manas’s glory with such initiatives,” says Anindya
Swargiary, field director, Manas Tiger Reserve. “It is always advisable to hand-raise orphan calves together in the initial stages of their rehabilitation process to avoid stress,” says Dr Rathin Barman, deputy director,
WTI, and in charge of the CWRC, Kaziranga. The IFAW-WTI has been assisting the forest department and the Bodoland Territorial Council authorities to repopulate Manas with rhinos as part of their ‘Bringing Back
Manas’ (to its former glory) initiative. The process of reintroducing rhinos in Manas began after a female rhino,
Mainao, was rescued from the floods and rehabilitated there in 2006. The entire population of rhinos was wiped out in Manas during civil unrest that ended in early 2000s.
Rehab move
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India takes up visa bond proposal with UK New Delhi, June 28 Briefing reporters here, MEA spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said the matter had been taken up both at the political level as well as the diplomatic level. “During both these conversations, the response we got is that it’s a work in progress.’’ He said India had proposed that the matter be discussed at the India-UK consular forum meeting to be held in the second part of July. The UK has accepted New Delhi’s proposal. Akbaruddin said London was well aware of India’s concern in the matter. “They (UK) have said they are mulling it over. Let us wait how and in what format the issue will be
discussed.’’ The UK Home Office has announced a pilot scheme under which select visitors from six Afro-Asian countries, including India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nigeria, will be required to furnish a £ 3,000 bond (about Rs 2.7 lakh) for a six-month visit visa, which they will forfeit if they overstay in Britain. The latest policy decision puts India in the ‘high risk’ category of illegal immigrants. UK’s senior politicians across party lines and the Indian Industry have called the scheme, “unfair and discriminatory”. Discussion in July
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Raja Bhaiyya booked for fraud on complaint of former PRO
Lucknow, June 28 The other five accused in the case are the minister’s wife Bhanvi Kumari Singh, his driver Rohit Singh,
his wife Monica Singh, and the bank manager Bashiullah Sarwar. According to IG
(STF) Ashish Gupta, the complainant had alleged that he held an account in Allahabad Bank for which the cheque and passbook were in the possession of Raja Bhaiyya and his wife. Raja
Bhaiyya, his wife, driver and his wife had forged his signature to withdraw Rs 11, 000 from his account to open an account in another private bank, he alleged. Yadav has also charged the bank manager of the private bank of having connived with the former minister to do this. The bank officials even refused to entertain his complaint, Yadav alleged. Gupta said cases had been registered against the
five accused under Sections 419, 420, 467, 468 and 471 of IPC. He said that
investigations were on and action would be taken accordingly. Yadav had worked with the minister from 2004
to 2008 while Raja Bhaiyya was Minister for Food in the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party
government from 2003 to 2007. It was during this period that a multi-crore rupee food scam happened in which foodgrain meant for PDS and other schemes found its way
into the open market. The scam is being investigated by the CBI under the court’s supervision. Incidentally, Raja Bhaiyya and his associates have also been charged with criminal conspiracy
in the murder of Kunda DSP Zia-ul Haq by the slain DSP’s wife Parveen
Azad. He is facing a CBI is investigation and had undergone a lie detection test last week.
Case files
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Malaysia deports BKI militant
Kuala Lumpur, June 28 Satpal Singh Raghvir Singh, 41, was arrested
in the suburb of Cheras for immigration offences on January 4 and
deported to India yesterday. "We believe he is part of a Sikh
militant group called Babbar Khalsa International (BKI)," said
Special Task Force (Operations and Counter Terrorism) Director Mohamad
Fuzi Harun. "He had been supplying the group with fake travel
documents and using our country as a transit point for the group's
activities," Harun said in a statement here. He said Satpal had
forged documents for several BKI members who were involved in a series
of bombings in India in 2006. The police apparently tracked down the
suspected militant, who has been in the country since 2006, following
the arrest of four BKI members. The four included restaurant operator
Amarjit Singh Jasvir Singh, music teacher Daljit Singh Ajaib Khalsa and
construction contractor Kawal Singh Soundh, who were all arrested on
August 4, 2011. Another, named Daljeet Singh Tarsem Singh, was detained
on May 13. Satpal and the four, who have also been deported, are
awaiting trial in India. “We will continue to work closely with our
counterparts in other countries to detect and eliminate such militant
elements from within our borders,” Harun added. — PTI
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Munde claims he spent
Rs 8 cr on campaign
Mumbai, June 28 The BJP's deputy leader in the Lok Sabha went on to demand that only state funding could check blackmoney in the election process. Munde's claims have drawn flak from the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party. Maharashtra's Home Minister RR Patil said the Election Commission should decide on allowing such candidates to contest in future. "The EC should take the statement seriously. They should decide whether such candidates should be allowed to contest elections again," Patil said. The Congress demanded a probe into the expenditure on elections declared by BJP candidates. "The EC should scrutinise the expenditure claims made by other BJP candidates as well,” a spokesperson said.
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Khurshid to meet Chinese FM on margins of ASEAN
New Delhi, June 28 Khurshid will start from here on Sunday for the tiny oil-rich country to attend the India-ASEAN ministerial meeting, the 20th ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) Conference and the third East Asia Summit Foreign Ministers’ Meeting to be held on July 1 and 2. The minister will also utilise the opportunity to chair a meeting of Indian heads of missions in Asia and the Pacific during his visit to Brunei. He will later travel to Singapore for a bilateral visit on July 4 and 5. Briefing reporters here today, MEA spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said the Indian minister would hold bilateral meetings with many of his counterparts on the sidelines of ASEAN engagements. The meetings with the foreign ministers of China, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Australia and Brunei had already been fixed. The focus would obviously be on Khurshid’s meeting with his Chinese counterpart. This will be their second meeting. Khurshid had met Wang in Beijing in May, just days after the tense three-week stand- off between the two countries over the Chinese incursion in Ladakh ended. The two ministers are likely to take stock of the bilateral relationship as well as discuss the expectation from the coming visit of Defence Minister AK Antony to Beijing. Manmohan Singh is also expected to visit Beijing later this year as a follow-up to Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s visit to India in May. Developments in Afghanistan, the Korean peninsula, the South China Sea and West Asia are expected to figure prominently at the ARF meet. Growing Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea has been a source of worry for most ASEAN countries as well as India. During his address at the ARF meeting, Khurshid is likely to reiterate India’s stand that there should be freedom of navigation in international waters for all countries and any maritime dispute between individual countries must be settled through peaceful talks in accordance with international laws. Issues like counter-terrorism, organised crimes, maritime security and disaster management would dominate the discussions at the ARF meet. On agenda
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China ready to ‘break new ground’ with India
Beijing, June 28 Meeting for the first time after the May incident, the special representatives of India and China today held the 16th round of boundary negotiations looking to accelerate settlement of the dispute. National Security Adviser and India's designated Special Representative Shivshankar Menon held the first round of the two-day talks with his new Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi in a "cordial and friendly atmosphere". "I stand ready to work with you to build on the work of our predecessors and break new ground to strive for the settlement of the China-India boundary question and to make greater progress in the China-India strategic and cooperative partnership in the new period," Jiechi said. Menon said the talks focussed on strengthening mechanism to keep peace and tranquility at the border in the backdrop of the incursion by Chinese soldiers. The BDCA would be discussed further during the next week (July 4 to 7) visit by Defence Minister AK Antony.
— PTI
Border talks
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IPL spot-fixing: Key bookie held New Delhi, June 28 The police had sought 10-day custody of the accused on the plea that he was one of the main bookies in the case and was allegedly part of a syndicate that functioned under the command of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and his aide Chhota Shakeel. The court, however, granted only four-day custody of the accused. According to the police, Jitendra originally belonged to Ahmedabad. He had been on the run since the day when the IPL spot-fixing case became public. The police came to know about his involvement in the scandal while going through the transcripts of tapped phone conversations with cricketers Sreesanth, Ajit Chandalia and Ankit Chavan. According to the transcripts, the police claimed, Jitendra was in constant touch with Chandresh Patel, alias Chand, and was fixing deals ahead of every cricket match. According to the police, Singh was sponsoring travel and other activities of other bookies who provided him with an access to all three cricketers. The police claimed his arrest might provide fresh leads into the murkier scandal that rocked the sporting extravaganza. This is the 29th arrest in the spot-fixing case by the Delhi Police.
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Key bookie held, 29th arrest in IPL scam
New Delhi, June 28 Sources said the Delhi Police were looking for Jitu Tharad since three players of IPL team Rajasthan Royals -- S. Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan -- were arrested in Mumbai on May 16. The police claim to be in possession of telephonic transcripts proving Jitu Tharad was in constant touch with two other arrested bookies, identified as Chandresh Patel alias Chand, and Manan.
— IANS
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Border Police and National Disaster Response Force, who were killed in the Mi-17V5 helicopter crash in Kedarnath valley on June 25, were given a guard of honour at GTC helipad in Dehradun today.
Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, Army Chief General Bikram Singh and
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna laid wreaths on the bodies of the
martyrs and gave a ceremonial salute.
They came from all over India on a excursion to study nature, but ended up battling its fury. For 115 scouts and guides who had come on a camping trip to the upper reaches of flood-ravaged
Uttarakhand, their pleasure trip turned into a humanitarian mission. Cut off from the world due to flash floods, they got down to rendering assistance to pilgrims and local villagers.
New Delhi, June 28
New Delhi, June 28
New Delhi, June 28
Dehradun, June 28