Month: August 2011

Mumbai, August 06: Shiv Sena leader and former Maharashtra minister Sureshdada Jain on Saturday called anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare a ‘Taliban Gandhi’.

Jain, who has filed a defamation case against Hazare, said in Jalgaon that “nobody can misuse the name of Mahatma Gandhi” in the manner the crusader is doing in his agitation on the anti-graft Lokpal bill.

“Everybody is against corruption. But we are a country of great institutions and they cannot be bypassed by using such pressure tactics,” Jain told IANS.

Dubai, August 06: Having been troubled by career-threatening wrist problems for four years, Indian number one Sania Mirza has no interest in wasting another second.

The 24-year-old has rarely missed a tournament this year as she claws her way back up the rankings after finally overcoming the right wrist problem that first surfaced in 2007.

“I started the year ranked 166 and if someone told me I would be top 75 in singles and top 11 (in doubles) right after Wimbledon, I would have taken it with both hands,” Mirza told Reuters at the San Diego Open on Friday.

Canberra, August 06: Chinese and Indian citizens dominated Australia’s border control blacklist, secret documents showed Saturday, with the majority of people singled out for national security reasons.

The closely guarded Movement Alert List, released to The Australian newspaper under Freedom of Information laws, includes 34,189 Chinese citizens 10 percent of the total 314,462 people who have been flagged by authorities.

Washington, August 06:Sending shock waves through America, credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s has downgraded its top notch credit rating, stripping the world’s largest economy of its prized AAA status. Obama administration officials called it “a facts-be-damned decision,” saying S&P admitted to an error that inflated US deficits by $2 trillion.

“We have lowered our long-term sovereign credit rating on the United States of America to ‘AA+’ from ‘AAA’,” S&P said Friday in a stunning blow to the country, that has enjoyed the top rating for 70 years, and its political leadership.

New Delhi, August 06:Five men accused of making fake degree certificates and marksheets of Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) and selling them for around Rs.50,000 each were arrested from south Delhi, police said Saturday.

Nimesh Pruthi, 29, Martin, 35 and Atif, 28 dealt with the clients and were arrested Aug 3 from New Friends Colony, south Delhi. Their partners, Rehan, 26 and Jitender, 24, who made the certificates, were arrested from a factory in south Delhi’s Okhla area few hours later, said police.

Gandhinagar, August 06:They looted for a living and raped – even sodomised – the victims to ensure silence!

Five of the nine-member gang that indulged in this activity are now behind bars and under interrogation as the cops seek to zero in on the remnants of what is loosely termed as the ‘devipujak’ (goddess worshippers) gang.

New Delhi, August 06:Filmmaker Prakash Jha Saturday said his house and office in Mumbai were attacked by political activists who wished to obstruct the release of his film “Aarakshan”, based on caste-based reservations in the Indian education system.

“Just heard that my office and home have been attacked by political activists who are against the release of ‘Aarakshan’,” Jha posted on his Twitter page Saturday evening.

The film is set to hit screens Aug 12.

Jha is currently in the capital, along with megastar Amitabh Bachchan and other cast members, to promote the movie.

Jalgaon (Maharashtra), August 06:Shiv Sena leader and former Maharashtra minister Sureshdada Jain Saturday called anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare a ‘Taliban Gandhi’.

Jain, who has filed a defamation case against Hazare, said in Jalgaon that “nobody can misuse the name of Mahatma Gandhi” in the manner the crusader is doing in his agitation on the anti-graft Lokpal bill.

“Everybody is against corruption. But we are a country of great institutions and they cannot be bypassed by using such pressure tactics,” Jain told IANS.

Ahmedabad, August 06: A court here Saturday reserved its order till Aug 8 on the bail applications of four accused in the 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts which killed 57 people, a lawyer said.

Additional Sessions Judge B.J. Dhandha was hearing the applications filed by Hasib Raza, Ummar Kabira, Naved Kadri and Salim Sipahi, accused of having links with Islamist terror group Indian Mujahideen.

“The order on the bail plea has been reserved till Monday,” said A.N. Alvi, a lawyer representing Kabira, Kadri and Sipahi.

Ahmedabad, August 06: A court here Saturday reserved its order till Aug 8 on the bail applications of four accused in the 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts which killed 57 people, a lawyer said.

Additional Sessions Judge B.J. Dhandha was hearing the applications filed by Hasib Raza, Ummar Kabira, Naved Kadri and Salim Sipahi.

“The order on the bail plea has been reserved till Monday,” said A.N. Alvi, a lawyer representing Kabira, Kadri and Sipahi.

—-IANS—-

New Delhi, August 06: Three people were killed and eight seriously injured early Saturday in an accident involving five vehicles, including a truck and a police patrol car, police said.

The accident took place in west Delhi’s Kirti Nagar area at around 5 a.m. when a speeding truck hit one of the cars from behind, causing a chain of collisions.

‘The injured were taken to Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital. Three were declared dead while eight are seriously injured,’ a police official said.

‘The truck driver is absconding,’ the official said.

—-IANS—-

Guwahati, August 06: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Nitin Gadkari Saturday called for the resignation of Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit after the government auditor indicted her government of irregularities in the Commonwealth Games.

Guwahati, August 06: Demanding Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit’s resignation after her reported indictment in the CAG report on Commonwealth Games scam, BJP president Nitin Gadkari on Saturday accused the Congress of “maintaining double standards and going on the overdrive to save her”.

“In Karnataka when the Lokayukta in his report (on illegal mining) indicted Yeddyurappa, the Congress demanded his resignation despite us asking him to resign,” Gadkari told reporters here.

New Delhi, August 06: A day after the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India directly pointed fingers at the Prime Minister and Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit’s offices in its report for the massive loss caused to the exchequer in the run up to last year’s Commonwealth Games, the Congress Core Group met here on Saturday to discuss its fallout.

The meeting, held at the PM’s residence 7, Race Course Road, discussed the report as well as its fallout for the UPA government and the Congress government in Delhi.

Hyderabad, August 06: While, all the Telangana Congress MPs who have resigned to their posts and boycotts Parliament proceedings and having series of meetings in K.Kesav Rao’s residence at Hyderabad with no particular aim, Sarvey Satyanarayana who until now bashed for not resigning to his post and showcased as the ‘Telangana betrayer’ has become Telangana hero overnight for giving an excellent representation during the Telangana debate that takes place in Lok Sabha on yesterday.

Hyderabad, August 06: The Ministry of Rural Development on Saturday agreed to release Rs 120 crore over the next three years for providing at least one job per household in the LWE districts as part of the Rajiv Education and Employment Mission of AP.

A host of proposals were cleared on Saturday during the visit of Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh to Hyderabad. Among these proposals cleared is the provision of Rs 10 crore from the MPLAD funds for improving the storage facilities in tribal areas of LWE districts of Khammam and Adilabad.

Hyderabad, August 06: The Telangana Flag will fly alongside the Tricolour on August 15, Independence Day, in the Telangana region, the Telangana Congress Steering Committee decided on Saturday.

Congress MLA and spokesperson of the Steering Committee Gandra Venkataramana Reddy told media persons outside the residence of Congress Rajya Sabha member K Kesav Rao, that a weeklong chart of agitational programmes has been finalized during the today’s meeting.

Hyderabad, August 06: The South Central Railways on Saturday said work on the parallel Road Over Bridge at Lakdi-Ka-Pul is progressing fast and the work will be completed by the end of the 90 deadline.

Work to expand the existing Road Over Bridge besides the old Lakdi-ka-pul, between Hyderabad and Khairatabad Railway Stations, began on July 15.

The existing 9.70 meter bridge caters to a huge density of vehicular traffic and sees a chaotic flow almost through the entire day.

Karimnagar, August 06: A bed-ridden 84-year-old Borukani Mallaiah, a resident of Dontapur village on the border of Karimnagar and Adilabad districts, has been facing harassment of a different kind from the police for the last six months.

The police have been asking Mallaiah to produce a death certificate’ of his son B Rajaiah to close the theft case pending against him. However, Mallaiah says his son has been missing for 23 years.

Beijing, August 06: In a bizarre incident, a nearly 80-year old man got infected with HIV virus due to ‘frequent unprotected sex’.

The case is the latest to support experts’ opinion that the HIV virus is spreading fast among elderly Chinese men who have been largely neglected in the country’s anti-AIDS campaigns, a media report said.

The man, whose identity has been concealed for privacy reasons, was admitted to Zhongnan hospital in the central Chinese city of Wuhan with a lingering fever. He was later found to be HIV positive, doctors said Friday.

Hyderabad, August 06: Student bodies call 48-hour Telangana shutdown Hyderabad: The Joint Action Committee (JAC), spearheading the movement for a separate Telangana, Saturday called a 48-hour shutdown on Aug 13-14 if the Andhra Pradesh government went ahead with a police recruitment test without deleting a government clause that treats Hyderabad as a ‘free zone’ for recruitment.

Jaipur, August 06: In a horrifying incident, a 35-year old woman who was branded as ‘witch’ by her in-laws, made to lie on embers and searing hot tongs were placed on her body , in Rajasthan’s Pali district, police said on Saturday.

The woman has been admitted to a hospital here with severe burns on her face, stomach and other parts of her body. Her husband, brother-in-law, sister-in-law and a quack have been arrested.

The incident took place in Keshavnagar.

Hyderabad, August 06: The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) Saturday reacted strongly to union Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s statement in parliament that political parties in Andhra Pradesh should arrive at a consensus on the demand for separate Telangana state.

TRS chief K. Chandrasekhara Rao termed the statement as “useless” and reminded the central government that the constitution has given it the right to carve out new states.

Muzaffarnagar, August 06: A 21-year-old youth has been asked by a village panchayat to pay a fine of Rs 10,000 for allegedly having an affair and eloping with a girl of the same village.

The diktat was passed in a community panchayat convened in Budhupura village, around 20 kms from here, on Friday where the youth was found guilty of having an affair and eloping with an 18-year-old girl, two members, Sharafat and Farman, who were part of the community panchayat, said.

The family of the girl had approached the panchayat as they were opposed to their affair.

Canberra, August 06: A Muslim man in Australia asked his daughter not to play with non-Muslim children, saying that it is ‘haram’.

The Federal Magistrates’ Court, sitting in Victoria, heard that the girl had refused to play with another, fair-haired ‘non-Muslim’ girl during a visit to a family counsellor.

The girl reportedly said, “Baba says it is haram”, as she explained to her mother that she was not allowed to play with non-Muslim children, the Herald Sun reports.