India

In yet another first, the country’s largest prison Tihar Jail has now got its very own FM radio station.

Director General of Prisons Vimla Mehra today launched the ‘TJ FM Radio’ at Central Jail No 4 in the Tihar complex.

“The FM Radio has been established to meet the twin objectives of entertainment and training of prisoners as Radio Jockey (RJ). The prisoners can engage themselves in creative activities and also get trained as Radio Jockey (RJ),” Tihar Jail spokesperson Sunil Gupta said.

Sixty-five Indian fishermen in nine trawlers have been detained by the Sri Lankan Navy for allegedly violating the international maritime border.

Naval spokesman Commander Kosala Warnakulasuriya has said that 34 of them in five trawlers were arrested off the coast north of Point Pedro in the north, yesterday.

While another 31 were arrested east of Mullaithivu along with four vessels.

“The arrest came last night and the fishermen have been handed over to the authorities in Point Pedro in the north and the eastern port district of Trincomalee” he said.

In yet another first, the country’s largest prison Tihar Jail has now got its very own FM radio station.

Director General of Prisons Vimla Mehra today launched the ‘TJ FM Radio’ at Central Jail No 4 in the Tihar complex.

“The FM Radio has been established to meet the twin objectives of entertainment and training of prisoners as Radio Jockey (RJ). The prisoners can engage themselves in creative activities and also get trained as Radio Jockey (RJ),” Tihar Jail spokesperson Sunil Gupta said.

Alarmed by death of 23 children after eating poisonous midday meal in a Chhapra school, the state government today decided to build kitchen shed in 7225 schools, including in Saran district.

A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of state cabinet presided by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

A sum of Rs 1.5 lakh has been approved for building each kitchen shed, an official sources said.

Out of this, state would have major share of investment Rs 90,000 per kitchen shed while Centre contribution would be Rs 60,000, they said.

As Mamnoon Hussain was declared the new president of Pakistan Tuesday evening, residents in Agra, the city of Taj Mahal, erupted in jubilation.

Hussain was born in Agra March 3, 1940.

As the news reached localities of this old city, particularly Nai ki Mandi area, Mantola, and Dholi Khar residents began celebrating the occasion by bursting firecrackers and distributed sweets.

Also, groups of people came on the streets with drums and greeted one another.

Gujarat Chief Minister and Chairman of the BJP National Election Committee Narendra Modi told state BJP workers today to effectively use the media to spread the message ‘development’ and ‘good governance’ to the masses.

“Today, when people are frustrated with this corrupt and direction-less Congress-led government, we have to spread the message of development and good governance to the masses by effective and positive use of the media,” Modi said during his address to the BJP state-level media workshop at Gandhinagar.

India and Pakistan fears that any instability in the war-torn Afghanistan following the withdrawal of US troops could result in “surplus terrorism” in both the countries, a top US official has said.

At the same time he added that the US believes both India and Pakistan will play significant roles in Afghanistan in the coming years.

“I think both Pakistan and India will play and ought to play very important, significant roles going forward in Afghanistan” said Peter Lavoy, Acting Assistant Secretary of Defence for Asia Pacific Security Affairs.

Maharashtra government will install CCTV camera systems, scanners and jammers in state prisons under an ambitious modernisation plan, state home minister R R Patil said here today.

The minister who reviewed security and management in jails, ordered speeding up of ongoing modernisation work in several prisons and an increase in manpower as early as possible.

The ratio of prisoners-to-guards is low and must be brought to a guard each, for at least six prisoners, he said.

North Indian cities account for 31 per cent of doctors in the country, but only 28 per cent of the country’s population resides there, highlighting the extent to which these cities are over-served by the healthcare system, a report said.

On the contrary, East and South India have a significantly lower density of GPs (non-MBBS) compared to the Indian average, the IMS Health Physician and Chemist Census report said here.

Welcoming the life sentence given to Batla House convict Shahzad Ahmed, the BJP Tuesday said the Congress should “apologise” for calling the shootout fake.

“The BJP welcomes the court verdict in the Batla House shootout case. If we have to win the war against terror, then strong punishment will have to be given to terrorists,” Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said Tuesday.

He slammed Congress leaders, including Digvijaya Singh and Salman Khurshid, who had expressed doubts if the shootout was real or staged.

It may have been at loggerheads with the Mamata Banerjee regime, but the West Bengal State Election Commission Tuesday said it got cooperation from the state government in conducting the panchayat polls.

“No election can be conducted without the cooperation of the state government and we did get cooperation to some extent. I can say we received cooperation from the state government. Beyond that I won’t comment any further on that,” State Election Commissioner Mira Pande told media persons here.

Medical students across the country Tuesday said they will launch a stir against the government’s decision to make one year rural posting for doctors mandatory.

The Indian Medical Association (IMA), along with Association of Healthcare Providers India (AHPI) and representatives of medical students across the country, demanded that rural posting be made part of the internship and post graduate training.

Actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha Tuesday said Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is prime minister material and praised him like never before.

“Nitish Kumar is certainly PM material,” the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Lok Sabha member from Patna Saheb in Bihar told the media at Patna airport here.

Shatrughan Sinha said Nitish Kumar was a nice human being and a man of principles. “He is a mature politician and a good man.”

Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday assured a delegation of party MPs opposed to creation of Telangana that their concerns would be taken care of when a decision on separate statehood is taken.

Gandhi’s assurance to the leaders came hours before crucial meetings of UPA and Congress Working Committee to take a final decision on the issue, as Union Ministers and MPs from Seemandhra region of Andhra Pradesh met her.

“She (Sonia) said that your issues are very much under consideration,” K Bapiraju, party MP from Seemandhra, said after the meeting.

Amid talks that a decision on separate Telangana is on the cards, demand for carving out Vidarbha state out of Maharashtra was made by senior Congress leader Vilas Muttemwar on Tuesday.

In a letter to party chief Sonia Gandhi, Muttemwar, MP, said: “now when the Telangana state has been agreed to be carved out of Andhra Pradesh, people of Vidarbha will have genuine resentment if their similar demand for creation of separate Vidarbha state is not (not) simultaneously agreed to.”

Terror infrastructure across the Line of Control (LoC) is “intact” and there are a number of terrorist camps there, but the force has an effective counter-infiltration grid to thwart any such attempts, a top Army commander in Kashmir Valley on Tuesday said.

“The terrorist infrastructure across the LoC, around the LoC and in the hinterland is intact, but we have a very effective intelligence network and counter-infiltration grid,” Lt Gen Gurmit Singh, General Officer Commanding of Srinagar based 15 Corps, told reporters here.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday commenced hearing on a petition filed by jailed former Youth Congress leader Sushil Sharma challenging his conviction and death sentence in the 1995 Naina Sahni murder case, which became famous as the ‘tandoor’ case.

The arguments began before a bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam, five years after Sharma filed the appeal against the Delhi High Court judgement confirming the conviction and death penalty awarded to him for murdering his wife Naina on suspicion that she was having an extra-marital affair.

Describing terrorism as ultimately a war against India, he said the crimes committed by terrorists are extraordinary crimes.

The main Opposition demanded that Congress should apologise to the nation as its leaders had made comments about the encounter which were demoralising for the police.

“They had raised doubts about the martyrdom of M C Sharma. Digvijay Singh had visited the homes of the terror suspects. Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid had even said that when he narrated the encounter to Congress President Sonia Gandhi she had cried,” Javadekar said.

The mother of the stunt biker who was shot dead by Delhi Police Monday has demanded a CBI inquiry into her son’s death.

“I want a CBI inquiry to be conducted because I do not believe in the investigation being conducted so far,” Manju Pandey, mother of the deceased Karan Pandey, told IANS Tuesday.

Karan Pandey was cremated Tuesday at the Malviya Nagar crematorium in south Delhi.

“The policeman who fired at my son should be arrested as he took his life without any reason,” she added.

Two militants were killed Tuesday in north Kashmir when the army foiled a second infiltration bid in two days from across the Line of Control (LoC).

Lieutenant General Gurmeet Singh, commander of the army’s Srinagar-based 15 Corps said: “Today (Tuesday) morning, five to six terrorists tried to infiltrate in Machil sector. Two of them have been killed and the rest have run back across the LoC.”

In a setback to Udhampur-Katra rail link project, the work on the 25-km-long stretch has been slowed down after the unrest in Jammu and Kashmir over the BSF firing incident at Ramban.

The Katra line was expected to be operational by the end of August as work was going on full throttle. But now it is further delayed and likely to be commissioned in October this year.

Weighed down by a weak rupee, the Reserve Bank today chose to keep all key interest rates unchanged and asked the government to take urgent steps to reign in the high current account deficit.

Lowering the GDP growth projection for the current fiscal to 5.5 per cent from 5.7 per cent, the central bank said the external sector is the “biggest threat” to economic stability.

Fluctuating temperatures are to blame for Buddha statues with missing heads in Beijing’s famous Summer Palace park, officials said, dismissing speculation that they were vandalised.

Photos of Buddha statues, heads of which were missing, went viral on the internet over the weekend, sparking speculation that they may have been decapitated by vandals.

But the park’s management said temperature changes caused the heads to expand and contract, eventually loosening them from the statues.

With a three-day bandh beginning in Darjeeling today, Gorkha Janmukti Morcha chief Bimal Gurung said if the Centre announced a Telengana state then it should also declare one for Gorkhaland.

‘Our demand for Gorkhaland is older than the demand for Telengana. If the Centre announces a Telengana state then it should also declare a Gorkhaland state,’ Gurung told a press conference here.

The GJM president said that the bandh would be extended indefinitely till the Centre acceded to the demand.

Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit today welcomed Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission’s observation that CAG should audit the finances of all three private power distribution companies in the national capital.

“We never opposed CAG audit of accounts of the discoms. In fact we had also said that there should be CAG audit (of discoms’ accounts),” Dikshit said.

The Chief Minister was asked about DERC chairperson P D Sudhakar’s comment that the accounts of the discoms should be audited by the CAG so that actual financial position of the private companies is known.