Gali Nagaraja

The pilot and co-pilot onboard a small plane were killed Saturday after the plane crashed in Indonesia’s Bandung airport following a failed manoeuver during an air show, Air Force spokesman Agung Sasongko said here.

The plane, owned by the Indonesian Aerosport Federation, went down and exploded, the spokesman said.

“The crash took place when the plane was performing a show. The two people on board were killed,” Agung told Xinhua by phone.

The crash took place as the plane flew too low after conducting five loop manoeuvers in Bandung Air show, the Metro TV reported.

Thousands of devotees hit the roads in this southern city Saturday as the annual Ganesha procession began amid unprecedented security.

Armed policemen kept a tight vigil at sensitive points along the procession route in the old city, as hundreds of trucks carrying idols began their journey from different locations towards Hussain Sagar lake in the heart of the city.

Over 30,000 policemen and personnel from the central paramilitary forces, the majority of them in the communally sensitive old city, have been deployed to maintain law and order.

Model-turned-actress Malaika Arora Khan, who has a string of successful item numbers like “Chhaiya chhaiya”, “Munni badnaam” and “Anarkali disco chali” to her credit, says she never wanted to be an actor, and so she doesn’t miss it at all.

“Except for some small roles, I have never acted so I can’t really miss it. I never wanted to do acting so it never really cropped up my mind. I love dancing and will continue to do till I can,” Malaika told IANS.

India’s first National Security Adviser, Brajesh Mishra, often referred to as India’s modern day Chanakya (ancient India’s master strategist and royal adviser), made a distinctive contribution in laying the foundation for the bold and proactive strategic and foreign policy initiatives undertaken by then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He chose to break eggs and dish up an omelette in a culture where walking gingerly on egg-shells was the preferred option.

Enraged by his father-in-law’s refusal to return cash and jewels that the he had handed over for safe-keeping, a man strangulated his wife to death and later hanged himself in Mungeli district, Chhattisgarh, police officials said Saturday.

Sub-divisional Officer of Police, Mungeli, J.P.N. Singh said, “Bodies of a young couple were found in the house of their relative. The deceased have been identified as Pramod Satnami (25) and his wife Tulsi Satnami (23). The incident occurred at Saragaon village, Lormi Tehsil, Mungeli district, about 100 km from the state capital.

Maharashtra Governor K. Sankaranarayanan Saturday accepted the resignation of Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, who also held the finance, energy and planning portfolios, an official said.

Pawar’s resignation, submitted to Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan last Tuesday, takes immediate effect.

In his place, the governor agreed to Chavan’s request to allocate the finance and planning portfolios to Jayant Patil, who also holds rural development, and the energy portfolio to Rajesh Tope, who is also minister for higher and technical education.

A missing British schoolgirl and her married maths teacher have been by police in France Friday, said media reports.

After Megan Stammers, 15, and her teacher Jeremy Forrest, 30, went missing, their parents appealed for them to get in touch, reported Xinhua.

Stammers had been taken into the care of French police and Forrest was arrested on suspicion of child abduction.

The pair have both spoken to their families, who have said they are relieved they were found safe and well, said a BBC report.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon received a prank phone call from a person posing as Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper during the UN General Assembly annual debate, his spokesman said.

Martini Nesirky, the UN spokesman, told reporters the Masked Avengers, a Quebec radio comedy team, reached Ban between sideline meetings Wednesday but said the secretary-general quickly realized it was a prank, adding the pranksters should improve their fake French accents.

Gang-rapes, ministers getting involved in murder conspiracies and suicides, honour killings, violent industrial disputes, kidnappings, murders, farmer agitations, community clashes – and much more. This is not from the crime file of a police station but just some of the incidents that have occurred during the present tenure of the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government in Haryana.

Less than three years into its second term that began in October 2009, the Hooda government seems nowhere in control as incidents of crime and community violence keep mounting.

Justice Altamas Kabir, the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court, was Saturday sworn in as the 39th Chief Justice of India.

He was administered the oath of the office by President Pranab Mukherjee.

Justice Kabir has succeeded Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia who demitted office Saturday. He will be the Chief Justice of India for nine months till July 18, 2013.

—-IANS

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday condoled the passing away of Brajesh Mishra, India’s first national security adviser (NSA).

In a message, Singh said he was “deeply saddened to hear of the passing away” of Mishra.

“Mishra was one of the most able and influential public servants of his generation. He was the first national security adviser of the country and brought to the job his breadth of strategic vision, diplomatic finesse and above all, a sense of India’s destiny and place in global affairs,” the prime minister said.

The cancellation of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s landmark visit to Pakistan has come as a shock, said a leading daily which warned that Islamabad would be making “a grave mistake if it omits Russia from its calculations.”

Putin has written to President Asif Ali Zardari that he could not attend the quadrilateral summit scheduled to be held in Pakistan among Russia, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan Oct 2-3.

Wealthy businessman Jose Habie was killed Friday when the helicopter he was piloting crashed in the Guatemalan capital, authorities said.

The 56-year-old Habie, who owned textile plants and a five-star hotel in Guatemala City, died of multiple injuries while trapped amid the wreckage of the chopper, paramedics told the media.

The helicopter went down near the offices of the Guatemalan bar association, in the southeastern part of the capital, apparently due to mechanical problems.

A 33.5-foot-tall statue of Jesus Christ, billed as the tallest in the country, is ready to be blessed Saturday at the campus of the Mar Baselios College of Engineering and Technology here.

Made out of a mixture of resin, catalysts, fibre and wax by popular Malayalam film art director Premachandran, the statue has been placed on a 22-foot-tall building in the college campus.

A day-long consultation on ‘designing a social inclusion plan for marginal and vulnerable communities such as sex workers and transgendered women’ will be organised here Oct 1.

The National Mission for Empowerment of Women (NMEW), Ministry of Women and Child Welfare, Government of India, is organising the consultation with technical support from the Centre for Advocacy and Research (CFAR).

According to the organisers, this is the first time that such an exercise is being held in India, with Andhra Pradesh taking the lead.

Computer firm Hitachi has developed a quartz glass-based storage system that will last for an unbelievable 100 million years.

The Daily Mail said that though developments in recent years in computer file storage have moved from the physical to the electronic, yet the problems of damage and loss still persist.

However, Hitachi has unveiled a new method of storing digital information on slivers of quartz glass that can endure extreme temperatures and hostile conditions without degrading, almost forever.

Spain’s troubled banks need roughly 59.3 billion euros ($76.3 billion) to shore up their finances, according to the results of an independent audit released Friday.

But in presenting the results of US management consulting firm Oliver Wyman’s report, Spain’s secretary of state for the economy, Fernando Jimenez Latorre, said the government may only ask its euro-zone partners for around 40 billion euros in assistance, less than half the amount approved this summer.

As part of its anti-pornography drive, Chinese authorities have shut down about 97,000 blog and microblog accounts for spreading pornography and lewd content.

According to State Internet Information Office, authorities closed the accounts over the past seven months, Xinhua reported.

To curb lewd content from spreading via the Internet and cellphones, authorities banned 164 pornographic publications, the office said.

A total of 287 Internet companies were probed and punished during the campaign, it said.

The office also said public security authorities have cracked 2,446 cases

As the traditional party of banias or traders, the BJP’s opposition to FDI in retail is not surprising. There is also an element of cogency is this stance of both the Left and the BJP.

While the comrades are motivated by their ideological aversion to anything linked to America, the BJP is guided by considerations of safeguarding one of its major support bases – the lower middle class trading community of orthodox Hindus.

Eyeing the growing number of Indian tourists, the Maldives flag-carrier will launch direct services from Mumbai, Chennai and Dhaka to Male, a top official here said.

Tourists can hop onto three flights a week from each of these cities to Male, Abdul Harris, managing director of Maldivian said late Friday.

To be operated by Airbus A-320, the first jet aircraft joining the Maldivian fleet, the Mumbai services shall be available Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, while the Chennai-Dhaka sectors will be available Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, he added.

The death of an Indian American student whose body was found in Wilmette harbour near the Northwestern University’s suburban Chicago campus has been ruled as a result of an accidental drowning.

However, the Cook County medical examiner’s office had no additional information about the circumstances surrounding student Harsha Maddula’s death, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Maddula’s family made a statement Friday morning that they do not believe their son killed himself or that his disappearance was related to a rare form of diabetes that he had, CBS News reported

Six Maoist militants were apprehended Friday in a forested pocket of Chhattisgarh’s restive Bastar region, police said.

The rebels, who are senior cadres of the banned outfit Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist), were arrested in a search operation in Bijapur district.

Himanshu Gupta, inspector general of police (Bastar region), told reporters that the guerrillas were arrested by a joint contingent of District Force and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) from Mirtoor police station area, some 500 km south of state capital Raipur.

The BJP Friday said it would go to the people to expose the government on the issue of coal block allocations, foreign equity in multibrand retail and capping the supply of subsidised cooking gas.

BJP president Nitin Gadkari told the party’s national council meeting here that he has asked the women’s wing to campaign Oct 12 across the country against the government’s decision to limit the number of subsidised cooking gas cylinders to six per family per year.

Sensing a big opportunity for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the next Lok Sabha polls, senior leader L.K. Advani Friday called upon party members to build a “credible” and “corruption-free” image.

Speaking at the concluding function of the BJP’s national council meet here, Advani said they needed to make an effort to be seen as a “credible alternative” to the Congress.

“Congress’s only escape in the present situation is to prove that all political parties are same, and corrupt,” Advani said.

BJP leader L.K. Advani Friday said the UPA government may fall before 2014 and asked his party to think of finalising its candidates for the Lok Sabha elections.

Speaking at the concluding function of the party’s national council meet here, Advani said some allies of the ruling United Progressive Alliance were willing to bring the government down.