Press Trust of India Dubai-based social activist K.K. Sarachandra Bose will start a 14,000-km Bharat Yatra from Kerala’s capital Thiruvananthapuram to New Delhi Monday with a message against casteism and to try to root out the malady from the country.
Bose, a lawyer by profession, will be accompanied by a team of 34 volunteers, who would be with him throughout the journey which will end in New Delhi July 18, said a statement issued here Saturday.
Rubbishing reports that jungle safaris in the northern part of West Bengal are no longer operational, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Saturday slammed some media houses for “spreading lies”.
“Some media houses are spreading lies that jungle safari has been shut down in north Bengal. It is absolutely wrong. It is a deliberate attempt to malign…you can check the records,” she told reporters in Jalpaiguri district.
Banerjee, who is on an official trip to north Bengal, surveyed the areas where the government can develop tourism infrastructure.
Three police constables were suspended here Saturday for negligence after two people who were accused of theft escaped from police custody by digging their way out of the toilet at Anjuna police station, an official said.
According to police spokesperson John Aguair, police constables Sanjay Gaude, Nityanand Halarnkar and Gurunath Naik were on sentry duty when the duo escaped.
The incident ocurred in the wee hours of Saturday when Omkar Patil and Savlo Korgaonkar escaped from the toilet of the new model police station at Anjuna, 25 km from Panaji.
(IANS)
Police arrested a man, Fernando Dias, 26, for continuously winking at a woman while driving, an official said here Saturday.
Dias, a resident of upscale Miramar area in Panaji, has been booked for outraging the modesty of a woman, according to assistant sub-inspector Anant Gaonkar.
“The woman was driving when the accused drove alongside her. Dias then started driving parallel to her for some distance and kept harassing her by winking during that time,” Gaonkar said.
(IANS)
India’s foreign exchange (forex) reserves declined by $273.8 million to $312.38 billion for the week ended May 30, led by a sharp fall in overseas currency assets, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data showed.
This is the second consecutive time that the reserves have fallen in the last six weeks.
The reserves had fallen by $2.26 billion to $312.65 billion for the week ended May 23. Before that it had risen by $1.09 billion to $314.92 billion for the week ended May 16. For the week ended May 9, forex reserves had gained by $1.97 billion to reach $313.83 billion.
Britain-based Truefitt & Hill, one the oldest barber shops in the world, opened its first door in India here with a promise to introduce a new level of indulgence for the metrosexual man.
The store’s history began in 1805 during the reign of King George III. Its first store in India has opened at Khar, Linking Road, here.
Krishna Gupta, managing director of Lloyds Luxuries, the company that has acquired the master franchise license for India, Vietnam, Burma, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka from Truefitt & Hill. Ltd, will represent the brand here.
Germany forward Marco Reus was ruled out of the World Cup with a torn ankle ligament during Friday’s 6-1 friendly win over Armenia in Mainz.
The Borussia Dortmund winger twisted his left ankle just before the half-time break in Mainz and a scan Saturday revealed the extent of the injury. The player is expected to be out for six to seven weeks.
Reus left the ground in pain and had to receive medical treatment before being carried off just before half-time. Reus scored seven goals in 21 appearances for Germany.
Rubbishing claims that its West Bengal unit has merged with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Aam Aadmi Party Saturday said it would take legal action against state BJP president Rahul Sinha for making a false claim.
“We want to know on what basis Sinha has made the claims? The joining of a few members doesn’t mean the AAP has ceased to exist or it has merged with the BJP. We will be serving a legal notice to Sinha regarding his claims,” AAP national council member Prince Pathak said.
Pathak also said AAP members would hold demonstrations outside the BJP’s state office.
The first unit of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP) generated its rated capacity of 1,000 MW Saturday afternoon, said a senior official.
“The unit touched 1,000 MW at 1320 hours today (Saturday). There was no tension as we have been operating the unit at 950 MW in the morning,” R.S.Sundar, KNPP site director, told IANS over phone.
He said the unit will be operated at 1,000 MW for a couple of days following which further tests – technically called dynamic tests – would be conducted and the reports would be submitted to the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB).
A year has passed since the brutal rape and murder of a college student in West Bengal’s Kamduni village June 7, 2013 and the people of this hamlet are now pinning their hopes of getting justice on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
While Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had asserted “the rapists will be hanged within a month”, the Kamduni Pratibadi Mancha – a forum seeking justice – has decided to seek the central government’s intervention to expedite the meandering trial.
Nine people including the prime suspect are facing prosecution in the case which is being tried by a fast-track court.
Maharashtra’s first Metro Rail, scheduled to be inaugurated here Sunday, has become embroiled in a controversy over a proposed hike in passenger fares.
A visibly upset Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan Saturday expressed his strong reservation to the proposed hike in fares reportedly contemplated by RInfra, which has built the 11.40 km Metro Rail running east-west between Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar, at a cost of Rs.4,300 crore.
The results Friday at the French Open, the 13th day of the season’s second Grand Slam tournament at Roland Garros (prefix number denotes seeding), were as follows, according to Xinhua.
Men
Semi-finals
2-Novak Djokovic, Serbia, bt 18-Ernests Gulbis, Latvia, 6-3, 6- 3, 3-6, 6-3
1-Rafael Nadal, Spain, bt 7-Andy Murray, Britain, 6-3, 6-2, 6-1
Women Doubles
Semi-finals
1-Hsieh Su-Wei, Chinese Taipei/Peng Shuai, China, bt Garbine Muguruza/Carla Suarez Navarro, Spain, 6-2, 5-7, 6-2
As part of plans for Ganga’s rejuvenation, transport of passengers and goods between Varanasi and Hooghly on the Hindu holy river is being contemplated, an official statement said Friday.
Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari chaired a meeting to lay a roadmap for Ganga rejuvenation, the statement said.
The Pakistan High Commission here Friday issued visas to around 340 Sikh pilgrims to visit the Gurdwara Punja Sahib in Hassanabdal in Pakistani Punjab on June 8 to perform rituals.
The high commission, in a statement, said that the 341 Sikh pilgrims are travelling for the Guru Arjun Dev Jee Ajore Mela ritual to be held in Pakistan from June 8 to 17.
The pilgrims are travelling to Gurdwara Punja Sahib in Hassanabdal on June 8 to perform rituals in connection with the 408th death anniversary of Guru Arjan Dev, the fifth of the 10 Sikh gurus.
A portion of the newly-renovated office of Uttar Pradesh’s ruling Samajwadi Party collapsed here Friday night, officials and local residents said. Nobody was injured.
The party office at the posh Raj Nagar District Centre was renovated recently with ,its three rooms being converted into one big hall after removing the walls. A new balcony was constructed and it was this portion that collapsed.
Almost 10 months after submarine INS Sindhurakshak sank after an accident killing 18 sailors, it has been fished out of the water, official sources said here Friday.
The Russian-built Kilo-Class submarine was lifted out of its watery grave a couple of days ago using specialized equipment, hoisted on a barge and later towed for anchoring in a dry dock in the Naval Dockyard.
It will now undergo detailed investigations by naval experts to ascertain the cause of the Aug.15 early morning explosion and fire when it was undergoing some repairs.
The Nepal government has issued a certificate declaring as “dead/missing” West Bengal mountaineer Chhanda Gayen who went traceless during an expedition on Kanchenjunga last month, her brother said Friday.
“The Nepal government has a policy of issuing a death/missing certificate for persons who have been missing for three days while on expeditions. I have collected the certificate from Nepal,” Jyotirmoy Gayen told media persons here.
A court Friday convicted 17 out of the 18 Uttarakhand policemen accused of killing a 22-year-old MBA student in a staged shoot-out in Dehradun in 2009 for murder or conspiracy to murder.
Central Bureau of Investigation Special Judge J.P.S. Malik convicted 18 policemen in the case, including one acquitted of the murder charge but convicted for falsifying records.
Jaspal Singh Gossain, the head operator at city control room, was convicted under section 218 IPC (public servant framing incorrect record) and was granted bail on a personal bond of Rs. 50,000 and a surety of like amount.
Police Friday recovered the skeletal remains of a teacher, said to have been abducted by Maoists four years back, from a forested stretch in West Bengal’s West Midnapore district.
A police source said Ajit Giri, a para teacher in the Jhargram sub-division, was missing since July 2, 2010.
Following the arrest of a Maoist in 2012, and his sustained interrogation, Giri’s skeleton was unearthed in Aguiboni village. Giri’s wife and his father identified the skeleton as that of the missing para teacher from the tattered clothes.
IANS)
Karnataka Friday opposed Tamil Nadu’s demand for setting up the Cauvery Management Board, as appeals by all riparian states against the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal award were pending in the Supreme Court.
“The central government should wait for the Supreme Court verdict on the petition the state has filed against the Tribunal award on the sharing of the Cauvery river water, which was also challenged by Tamil Nadu and Kerala,” Chief Minister Siddaramaiah told reporters here.
A 23-year-old man has been booked for kidnapping three sisters from here, including two minors, police said Friday.
Mohit, a resident of Arjun Nagar, has been booked for kidnapping three sisters aged 19, 17 and 16 from sector 61 area. All are daughters of a shopkeeper in the area.
Two sisters were studying in a government polytechnic here while the youngest one was preparing for class 10 exams.
The accused was working in a private company in sector 61, when he came in contact with the shopkeeper and started visiting his house.
The Calcutta High Court Friday ordered a ban on plying of battery operated rickshaws in two districts of West Bengal.
Following a public interest litigation filed by teacher Sudipto Roy, who complained that the rickshaws neither had licence nor number plates and it was impossible to get compensation in case of accidents as the vehicles were uninsured, Justice Joymalya Bagchi ordered the Hooghly and Howrah district administrations to put a stop on their running.
State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) Friday unveiled a low-cost version of its smart phone, with e-governance applications for common man.
Branded as “Bharat phone”, the mobile device has a three-inch large screen display with provision for dual SIM card and has been priced at Rs.1,099 to make it affordable to common man.
“The low-cost mobile device will alter the Indian feature phone industry as it has been designed especially for e-governance applications and optimised for internet access to empower common man,” BSNL chairman R.K. Upadhyay said on the occasion.
The Karnataka government Friday decided to encourage increasing use of manufactured sand in construction activity to curb illegal sand mining across the state.
“To conserve riverbed sand and protect the environment, we will educate the people to use manufactured sand or robo sand from stone crushing in construction activity, as it has more silica than natural sand,” Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister T.B. Jayachandra told reporters here.
The opposition Meghalaya People’s Front (MPF) Friday attacked the Congress government on the deteriorating law and order situation and demanded President’s rule in the state.
Moving an adjournment motion in the assembly, MPF chief whip James Sangma, who is from the National People’s Party, demanded imposition of central rule in the state as the government has failed to tackle the law and order situation.