Press Trust of India

A flower petal that was found on the body of Mahatma Gandhi after his assassination, a piece of rock from the moon, gold-plated ceremonial chairs used by the British colonial rulers, Edwin Lutyens’ rough sketches of a grand sandstone structure that took the shape of what is now Rashtrapati Bhavan — such invaluable artefacts are part of a museum to be inaugurated by President Pranab Mukherjee at the presidential palace Friday.

The Himachal Pradesh government will soon impose a ban on sale of loose cigarettes and also enhance value-added tax (VAT) on tobacco products, Health Minister Kaul Singh said Thursday.

“The state is making concerted efforts on tobacco control for which an institutional mechanism has been created. An enforcement squad has been notified,” Singh said at a conference on tobacco control organised by health department of government of Karnataka here.

A coach attendant has been sentenced to five years in jail for sexually assaulting a minor girl onboard a train.

Additional Sessions Judge Pawan Kumar Jain sent to jail 20-year-old Vinod Kumar, who was working as a bed roll boy in the Brahmaputra Mail.

The court also slapped on him a fine of Rs.2,000.

“Convict (Kumar) was working as a bed roll boy in the AC IInd class coach in Brahmaputra Mail… being the coach attendant, it was his duty not only to serve the passengers but also to protect them from any danger,” the court said in its ruling Tuesday.

DMK president M. Karunanidhi Thursday asked Press Council of India chairman, Justice Markandey Katju, to disclose details of his assets while wondering why the former apex court judge shouldn’t have shared all facts while making a serious charge.

In a statement issued here, Karunanidhi, referring to Katju’s response to a journalist, asked: “When a charge is levelled should not the full details and proof be shared.”

Star Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal Thursday said she is “hurt and sad” that she is yet to receive the Rs.50 lakh cash award promised by the Andhra Pradesh state government for winning the bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics.

The 24-year-old, who has skipped the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, congratulated tennis star Sania Mirza for being named the brand ambassador of India’s 29th and newest state Telangana.

Saina’s comments came after Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao Tuesday announced a Rs.1 crore cash grant for Sania towards her training.

Minority Affairs Minister Najma Heptula Thursday said several schemes were under consideration to help minority communities in all states.

She said her ministry was considering schemes called “Ustaad”, “Hamari Dharohar” and “Nai Manzil”.

“Ustaad aims at upgrading skills and training in preservation of traditional ancestral arts/crafts of minorities, while Hamari Dharohar aims to preserve the rich heritage of minority communities. Nai Manzil is a course to bridge the academic and skill development gaps of Madrasa passouts,” Heptulla said in the Lok Sabha.
(IANS)

The Supreme Court will hear a plea by Sahara group chief Subrata Roy and its two other directors to be shifted to an outhouse within the Tihar Jail premises to facilitate the sale of the group’s domestic and overseas properties to raise Rs.10,000 crore as a part payment of investors money collected by two group companies in 2008-09.

A bench headed by Justice T.S. Thakur said a copy of Roy’s application be served on Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar as senior counsel K.T.S. Tulsi mentioned the matter before the court Thursday.

UN officials probing human rights violations in Sri Lanka must be given visas to visit India, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa said Thursday.

Jayalalithaa urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure that visas were granted to the UN officials.

In a letter to Modi released to the media Thursday, she said she was surprised to see media reports indicating that India had refused visas to members of the UN Investigation Committee.

US Secretary of State John Kerry will visit India July 30-Aug 1, the external affairs ministry said Thursday.

“External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will host US Secretary of State John Kerry in New Delhi from July 30 to Aug 1. Sushma Swaraj and Kerry will co-chair the fifth India-US Strategic Dialogue July 31,” a ministry statement said.

This will be Kerry’s first visit to India since the inception of the new government and his first meeting with Sushma Swaraj since the two leaders assumed office.

A total of 18,645 drunk drivers have been prosecuted in the national capital till July 15, while 9,941 vehicles have been impounded and 6,235 people arrested, police said Thursday.

Of the 18,645 prosecuted drivers, 11,028 were motorcycle riders, while 5,468 were driving cars.

A total of 2,149 drivers – including from 23 chartered buses and six school buses – were prosecuted on charges of drunk driving.

There was a huge embarrassment for India Thursday when para-powerlifter Sachin Choudhary had to be pulled out of the Commonwealth Games and sent back home for failing a drug test conducted by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) last month.

Choudhary quietly left Glasgow for India citing his father’s ill-health even as his doping report was made public. He was tested out of competition. Choudhary was a surprise inclusion in the paralympic squad since he was not a medal prospect.

At least 16 people were killed and dozens injured when Israeli army tanks shelled a UN-run school in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahia Thursday even as the toll in the coastal enclave in the ongoing offensive hit 750.

Witnesses, who were in the school, run by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), said Israeli tanks fired four shells at the school, killing or wounding dozens of people, Xinhua reported.

In a major setback to 16 private universities and an equal number of private technical institutes in the state, the Himachal Pradesh High Court has refused to intervene in the state’s mechanism to regulate their admission process.

Dismissing petitions of the Himachal Private Universities Management Association and the Private Technical Institution’s Association, a division bench of Chief Justice Mansoor Ahmad Mir and Justice Tarlok Singh Chauhan Wednesday said: “The impugned measures providing for admission on the basis of combined entrance test (CET) are reasonable.”

Political parties across the spectrum Thursday stepped up their attack on BJP Telangana leader K. Laxman who objected to Sania Mirza – whom he termed “daughter-in-law of Pakistan” – becoming the new state’s brand ambassador even as the tennis star underlined her connection with Hyderabad and asserted she will “remain an Indian until the end”.

The Congress was in the forefront condemning Laxman’s “bizarre” statement while even Laxman’s party sought to distance itself from his remarks.

Congress MP Renuka Chowdhury said that Mirza is a “youth icon who has brought glory to the country.”

Visiting UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Thursday called for the formation of a “thoroughly inclusive” government in Iraq as the country grapples with increasing violence and chaos.

“Iraq is facing an existential threat but it can be overcome through the formation of a thoroughly inclusive government,” Ban told a joint press conference after his meeting with Iraq Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

The toll from the twin bomb attacks in Nigeria’s Kaduna State Wednesday has risen to 110, with more injured victims being rushed to hospital for treatment, a humanitarian aid official said Thursday.

Abubakar Zakari Adamu, a spokesperson for the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) told reporters that 13 out of the severely injured victims succumbed in the hospitals.

A Xinhua reporter in the state learned that hundreds of people travelling through the north central state have been stranded following the 24-hour curfew imposed Kaduna city.

Myanmar’s House of Representatives or lower house of parliament has decided to discuss application of proportional representation (PR) system to elect parliament representatives in the next general election in 2015, parliament sources said Thursday.

Despite objections by 42 members of parliament (MPs) including those representing the opposition party and a walk-out by 23 MPs representing some ethnic parties, the proposal for discussion was passed with a majority of 263 votes, mostly from the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Nepal Aug 3-4, Foreign Minister Mahendra Pandey announced Thursday.

The visit follows an invitation from Nepal’s Prime Minister Sushil Koirala, Pandey told IANS.

Koirala Thursday approved the dates for the trip by Modi, the first Indian prime minister to make a bilateral visit to Kathmandu after I.K. Gujral in 1997.

Then Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee came to Nepal during the SAARC summit in 2002.
(IANS)

Former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Thursday urged students of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM)-Shillong to emerge as creative leaders to bring about the required change in the country.

“I want to see all of you as creative leaders to bring about the required change,” Kalam said, while delivering a lecture “Dimensions of National Development” at the prestigious B-school.

The “missile man”, as Kalam is also known due to his background in aerospace engineering and his role in India’s indigenous missile development, is one of the visiting faculty members in IIM-Shillong.

At least eight civilians died and 28 were injured Thursday when a bomb planted on a motorcycle exploded in a market in northern Afghanistan, an official said.

The bomb, activated by remote control, went off in the crowded market in Khwaja Ghar district in Takhar province, police spokesperson Abdul Khalid told Efe news agency.

The province is not a usual scene of insurgent activities.

In a horrific repeat of the Badaun rape-and-murder case in Uttar Pradesh, the body of a seven-year-old girl was found hanging from a tree at Rajnagar village in West Bengal’s East Midnapore district Thursday.

The CBI Thursday registered two fresh cases against private companies based in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh in its ongoing investigation into the coal block allocations from 1993 to 2005 and 2006 to 2009.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) conducted raids at three places in Ranchi and New Delhi.

The agency registered the cases against the two companies based in Ranchi (Jharkhand) and Raipur (Chhattisgarh) on charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating and criminal misconduct.

Directors and promoters of these companies have been named in the first information report.

India Wednesday expressed concern at the UN Security Council and at the 21st special session of the Human Rights Council over the steep escalation of violence between Israel and Palestine.

At the Security Council, India raised the issue during an open debate “Situation in the Middle East, including the Palestine question”, said a statement from the external affairs ministry.

The black box recorders from the crashed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 have arrived in Britain for data downloading and analysis, the British Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said Wednesday.

The flight recorders, commonly know as black boxes, from MH17 have been delivered by the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) to the headquarters of AAIB in Farnborough, Hampshire, for downloading, Xinhua reported citing the AAIB announcement Wednesday on its Twitter feed.

The Delhi government Wednesday released Rs.200 crore for the projects of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC).

“The Delhi government has released an amount of Rs.200 crore as contribution to equity as a first instalment in the current year of 2014-15,” a government statement said.

The DMRC is a joint venture between the central and Delhi governments.
(IANS)