Month: March 2011

Ahmedabad, March 05: Special judge PR Patel, who on March 1 sent 11 convicts to gallows and 20 to jail for life in the Godhra train carnage case, explained on Friday in his 825-page judgment the logic behind upholding the conspiracy theory.

As per the order, the Sabarmati Express train massacre in which 59 kar sevaks were burnt alive would not have been possible without pre-planning. The court observed that Godhra is known for its history of communal riots and this was not the first incident where Hindus were burnt alive.

Lucknow, March 05: When BJP MP Varun Gandhi arrives in Varanasi for his wedding to be held on Sunday morning, chances are there would be more securitymen in his barat procession than friends and relatives.

The temple where the nuptials are to be conducted would turn into a veritable fortress with securitymen in uniform and in plain clothes covering almost every square feet of space.

Mumbai, March 05: The Shiv Sena has urged the ministry of human resources development to undertake reforms in the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) by allowing entrance examination to be written in regional languages to facilitate meritorious students from rural areas get admission to the IITs.

The issue was raised by the Shiv Sena MP Bharatkumar Raut in the Rajya Sabha. The government remained non-committal as regional parties across north and south India rallied around the Sena.

Mumbai, March 05: Forty-year-old Grace John is the mother of an 18-year-old son. However, Grace is addressed as ‘mummy’ by nearly 1,500 children.

Grace is a savior to the hundreds of abandoned or orphaned street children, who call the various railway stations across the central and western lines their home.

She earns just Rs10,000 a month but still manages to support the street. An outreach supervisor at Shelter Don Bosco, Grace seems to have lost the count of the number of children she healed on the streets or brought to the shelter for rehabilitation.

Cuttack, March 05: The Orissa High Court today directed the state government to file an affidavit within two days detailing steps taken to replace stocks of rotten pulses in Anganwadis and for supply of mid-day meal to school children.

A division bench comprising of Chief Justice V Gopal Gowda and Justice B N Mohapatra granted two days time to state advocate general Ashok Mohanty to come with concrete proposal as to how good quality pulses would be supplied to all 9,543 Anganwadi centers of the state.

Bhubaneswar, March 05: Three Maoists, two of them minors, Friday surrendered to the police in Orissa’s Keonjhar district, an officer said.

Sadhu Mahakud (16), Mahendra (15) and Sangit (38) were members of the outlawed Communist Party of India-Maoist, Superintendent of Police Ashish Kumar Singh told IANS.

They handed two crude firearms, important documents and Rs.50,000 cash, he said.

All the three were wanted for several crimes, including blowing up a police station, burning and ransacking liquor shops, attacking police and villagers, and damaging private and government vehicles.

New Delhi, March 05: The Congress Friday mourned the death of veteran party leader Arjun Singh, terming it a big blow to the nation.

“It’s a big setback to national politics and the Congress party. He was a sincere politician and qualifies as a statesman,” party general secretary Janardan Dwivedi said.

Singh, a former union minister, chief minister and governor, who made a strong bid to become prime minister in the mid-1990s, died of cardiac arrest in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Friday evening.

Mumbai, March 05: Lamenting growing corruption, the RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat today said courts will have to take a proactive role to set things right.

“Courts have to speak out… till then nobody bothers,” he said in an apparent reference to Supreme Court’s orders in CVC Thomas case, 2G spectrum scam, etc.

He also regretted that the image of politicians has been sullied in the recent years.