Six more MMTS trains for the city

Hyderabad, June 13: With the increase in the number of commuters taking MMTS trains and demand from passengers, six more trains will be added to the MMTS fleet.

These trains will have more commuter-friendly features when compared to the existing ones, including an increase in seating capacity.

The MMTS project wing of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) ordered for the six trains recently from the Integral Railway Coach Factory, Chennai.

PM must make AP his first visit: YSR

Hyderabad, June 13: Andhra Pradesh is lucky for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, feels chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy. Firmly believing that the PM’s visit to AP, first to any state after assuming office in 2004, augured well for the party and the country, the chief minister has written to Manmohan Singh urging him to visit Andhra Pradesh first again in his second stint.

74-yr-old kills wife, grandchildren look on

Bangalore, June 13: A 74-year-old retired defence officer murdered his wife by assaulting her with a crow bar, even as she was playing with their
10-month-old grandchild and their seven-year-old granddaughter was crying.

Soon after assaulting Rosylin, 58, K V Benny drank phenyl and tried to commit suicide. He is now recovering in hospital.

Flavia Agnes on Muslim personal law

New Delhi, June 13: Flavia Agnes is a leading feminist scholar, women’s rights lawyer and social activist based in Mumbai. She has written and worked extensively on Muslim women’s issues, communalism and religion-based personal laws in India. In this interview with Yoginder Sikand, she talks about her work.

Q: Could you tell us something about your own background?

Delhi’s plan to modernize Madrasas

New Delhi, June 13: The National Capital Territory of Delhi is all set to modernise Madarsas to promote education among the Muslims. The Directorate of Education (welfare branch) under the local Government today invited proposals from the Islamic seminaries for their modernisation.

The scheme known as ‘programme for the modernisation of Madarsas’ is full financial backing of the union Human Resources Development ministry. According to the sources in the HRD ministry the scheme is a pilot project in Delhi and after response from here it would be implemented across the country.

2 held for raping 16-year-old

New Delhi, June 13: Two people from Ghittorni village on the Gurgaon-Mehrauli border were arrested for allegedly raping a 16-year-old girl. A case of rape has been lodged against accused Pramod (20) and Irfan (21). Both the accused are tailors and worked in a nearby shop.

Man held for eloping with minor

Pune, June 13: The Cantonment police on Thursday traced a 17-year-old girl from the city, who had gone missing, to Nashik. Her 23-year-old boyfriend, who went with her, after promising to marry her, has been arrested on charges of abduction.

Minor gangraped, filmed in car

Ahmedabad, June 13: The diamond city, considered one of the safest for women, woke up to a rude shock on Friday when a teenaged girl belonging to a well-known family was gangraped around daybreak. Two of the alleged rapists are sons of policemen.

The 17-year-old class XII student was going to tuition classes along with a friend when three people tricked her into a car near Civil Hospital crossroads at 5.30 am.

Worse, the entire crime was captured by the culprits on a cell phone, with the idea of blackmailing the victim.

West Indies stun India by 7 wickets

London, June 13: Let down by their much-vaunted top order, defending champions India flunked their first Super Eight test and sunk to a seven-wicket defeat against the West Indies in the Twenty20 World Cup on Friday.

Dwayne Bravo scalped four Indian wickets with the ball and then returned to hit an unbeaten 36-ball 66, studded with three sixes, to seal the match.

Earlier, Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s decision to bat first boomeranged as the Indian top order crumbled and it required Yuvraj Singh’s (67) 43-ball blitzkrieg and Yusuf Pathan’s (31) cameo to reach a competitive 153 for seven.

Snake served with mid-day meal, 55 kids fall ill

Kolkata, June 12: Fifty-five children were treated for shock and nausea in a children’s care centre in Birbhum district of West Bengal on Friday after they found a dead snake in their mid-day meal.

The food was prepared at the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) centre in Kabirajpara near Rampurhat. Hospital superintendent Himadri Halder said no symptoms of food poisoning had been found so far.

Anil flies in for Sonam’s birthday

Mumbai,June 12″ Anil Kapoor’s supply of energy seems inexhaustible. He flew 18 hours from Los Angeles, to Mumbai on June 8, only to fly to Macau a day later. The reasons were emotional and personal, as he flew in for daughter Sonam’s birthday and to work out the details of his next film, Shortkut – The Con is On’s release.

‘Tibetan medicine offers hope for cancer’

New Delhi, June 12: Tibetan medical science, a 2,000-year-old legacy of herbal and spiritual healing born in the Buddhist monasteries of high-altitude Tibet, offers cures for diseases like cancer and thalassaemia but is yet to be recognised by the Indian government, says one of its leading woman practitioners here.
“This system can contribute a lot to ease suffering. If it is recognised by the Indian government, students can carry on research because we have no country of our own,” Tsewang Dolkar Khongkar, a Tibetan doctor, told IANS.

Salman Khan not my boyfriend: Claudia Ciesla

New Delhi, June 12: German supermodel-turned-actress Claudia Ciesla, who is considering a Bollywood career, has rubbished rumours that she is dating Indian superstar Salman Khan and insists that Katrina Kaif is his girlfriend.

“Salman and I are just good friends. He is not my boyfriend, as has been reported here. Everyone knows that it’s Katrina Kaif who is his girlfriend and not me. I haven’t even been that long in India to start controversies,” Claudia, 22, told IANS in an interview.

She was in the capital to promote her film “Karma: Crime, Passion, Reincarnation”.

Mumbai terror probe: Witness recounts how her daughter died

Mumbai, June 12: A 25-year-old woman broke down in the Special Court as she narrated how her daughter – a victim of gunfire of the terror pair Mohammed Ajmal Mohammed Amir Kasab and Abu Ismail at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus – had collapsed before her eyes and died.

Nafisa Qureshi, a resident of Kurla here, could not hold back tears when she deposed Additional Sessions Judge M L Tahilayani, who is conducting the trial of the November 26-29, 2008 Mumbai terror attack.

After Indians, Sri Lankan students attacked in Australia

Melbourne, June 12: After Indians, a group of students from Sri Lanka have been allegedly attacked in Australia, with three men smashing the windows of their home and taunting them with “racist insults” in capital Canberra.

Police are investigating allegations of attacks against a group of Sri Lankan students at their home, ABC News reported.

It is alleged that three men smashed the front windows of the students’ house in Macquarie in north Canberra after an unsuccessful attempt to crash a party.

‘Married’ girls ready to die but not part

Nagpur, June 12: ‘Shayad, aasman bhi ro pada apne haal dekh ke!’ (Maybe, the sky too has started weeping on seeing our condition) said cupid-struck Rupali (name changed) seated beside her beloved ‘gharwala’ Rupa (name changed) at a non-descript eatery at Khaparkheda on Thursday evening.

45-yr-old woman accused of marrying minor

Kolkata, June 12: A middle-aged man marrying a much younger girl may only raise a few eyebrows. But when a 45-year-old married woman is accused of kidnapping a boy, whose father claims he is only 16 years old, it’s enough to create a sensation. And a court case.

Subhas Mondal, the father of the boy, moved a habeas corpus application before Calcutta High Court on Thursday, alleging that Chanchala Mondal of Biswanathpur village in Murshidabad has “kidnapped his minor son Arjun and married him”.

Docs discover 1 kg hair in girl’s gut

Vadodara, June 12: When this 13-year-old patient walked in the hospital complaining of abdominal pain and vomiting, doctors thought that she was suffering from some routine stomach disorder. Post-diagnosis, the rare ailment left the doctors stumped. Her reports revealed that the patient had a big lump of hair in her stomach measuring 50 cm.

Newly-married woman sets husband ablaze

Aurangabad, June 12: Hell indeed hath no fury than a woman scorned. A farmer was set ablaze by his wife barely a month into their marriage because of his incessant comparison of her with a woman friend.

In her confession to the police, the wife, Komal alias Manisha (18), said she killed her husband, Srihari Yadav (25), because of his frequent taunts that she was not as beautiful as his woman friend from Pune. He also allegedly threatened to abandon her as she had not brought a good dowry amount.

Man rapes minor sister, held

New Delhi, June 12: A day after a father was arrested for allegedly raping his daughter, another incident in which a brother allegedly raped his own
sister has come to light. The incident was reported from the Trilokpuri area in east Delhi late on Wednesday night. The 28-year-old accused, a small stall owner, has been arrested by the Mayur Vihar police. The victim, a 12-year-old girl, is undergoing treatment in a local hospital.

Nightclub guards held for tying up boys

Mumbai, June 12: The security guards of a posh nightclub in Belapur tied two teenaged boys to a fire hydrant for over six hours as a punishment for trying to steal some aluminium pipes and metal sheets kept there to renovate the restobar.

Alam Shaikh (13) and Mohammed Asif Idrisi (15) were illegally detained from 6 am to 12.30 pm on Thursday by two guards — Bageecha Singh Bhullar (43) and Ujwal Sharma (21) — of Indulge Restobar. Both the guards were arrested.

Minister offers Rs42cr crown at Tirupati temple

Hyderabad, June 12: Karnataka tourism minister and Bellary mine baron Gali Janardhan Reddy will probably be better known for something else: with

an offering of a diamond-studded crown worth Rs 42 crore, he became the biggest donor to Lord Venkateswara at Tirupati since the Vijayanagara

kings 400 years ago.

The 20-kg stunner was a “thanksgiving” gesture, the minister said. Sources added that 32kg of `aparanji (pure)’ gold went into its making,

CBI cracks down on India’s corrupt babudom

New Delhi, June 12: India regularly features in the list of most corrupt nations in the world and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has revealed just why. The agency’s countrywide drive against corruption by public functionaries threw up an arc of corruption — from forgery of caste certificates and data theft to bungling in purchases in the much-vaunted Indian Army.