A special court in Gujarat Wednesday convicted 32 people, including a former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) minister, for the massacre of 97 people in Naroda Patiya locality during the 2002 riots.
Former minister and then BJP legislator Mayaben Kodnani and Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi were amongst those held guilty.
The court also acquitted 29 people in the case.
On Feb 28, 2002, a total of 97 people were killed in the industrial locality of Naroda.
The Supreme Court Wednesday upheld the death sentence of Ajmal Kasab, the only Pakistani terrorist caught alive after the 26/11 Mumbai strike that claimed 166 lives.
“We are constrained to hold that the death penalty is the only sentence that can be given in the circumstances of the case,” the apex court bench of Justices Aftab Alam and C.K. Prasad said.
The Supreme Court Wednesday upheld the death sentence of Ajmal Kasab, one of the 10 Pakistani terrorists who launched the 26/11 Mumbai carnage that claimed 166 lives.
“We are constrained to hold that the death penalty is the only sentence that can given in the circumstances of the case,” the apex court bench of Justices Aftab Alam and C.K. Prasad said.
Kasab, the only Pakistani caught alive after the Nov 26-29 mayhem, had moved the apex court challenging the death sentence by a trial court, which was later upheld by the Bombay High Court.
Stepping up their campaign on ongoing power crisis in Andhra Pradesh, the main opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) on Tuesday held a protest on the premises of state assembly here.
TDP MLAs and MLCs, who organised a protest in the assembly premises, demanded that the Congress government gave seven-hour power supply to farmers as promised by the ruling party.
Congress had promised to provide seven hours of uninterrupted power supply to the farmers but did not give even three hours putting them in trouble, they said.
The death of a white supremacist who killed six Sikh worshippers during a shooting rampage at a US Gurdwara has been declared a suicide.
However, the police investigators are yet to determine the reason for the crime, which shocked the entire Sikh community not only in the US and India, but also globally.
Michael Wade Page, 40, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head after he killed six worshipers and wounded three others as they prepared for Sunday services at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek on August 5.
At least seven people were killed and around 80 injured in a head-on collision between two buses on a highway in Pakistan’s Punjab province early Wednesday, media reports said.
The accident took place around 12.30am in Dera Ghazi Khan district, Xinhua reported citing Urdu TV channel
Dunya.
The two buses hit each other on the Indus Highway near Kara area of Dera Ghazi Khan.
One bus was heading for Karachi, while the other was heading for Rawalpindi, and then for Peshawar.
The cause of the accident was not known.
An apparent voyeurism session ended in disaster in Ukraine, when a man allegedly spying at a nudist beach was brutally killed.
The body of the unnamed 35-year-old factory worker was found next to a nudist beach in Donetsk region with 15 holes in his skull, a rope around his neck and binoculars next to him, the Profi-News website said.
The man was apparently dragged behind a motorboat for at least one km, police said.
The Komsomolskaya Pravda daily said he could have been killed first and then tied to the boat.
India is more opportunity than threat, said a Pakistani daily that noted the thaw in ties between Islamabad and New Delhi.
“Today, India is more opportunity than threat, and we can both be the richer as a result,” the News International said in an editorial Wednesday, a day ahead of an expected meeting between President Asif Ali Zardari and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who are in Tehran to attend the NAM summit.
(Siasat News)Assistant Commissioner and Excise superintendent, Yerroju Gopala Krishna Murthy of the commissionerate of Prohibition and Excise, Khammam, sought money to permit consumption of Indian Made Foreign Liquor in a shop was caught red-handed while accepting a bribe of Rs. 25,000.
—Siasat News
Claiming that Sikhs were being shown in a bad light in the film “Son of Sardar”, the All India Sikh Students Federation (AISSF) has urged the clergy to take action against actor-producer Ajay Devgn.
In a letter to Akal Takht head Gurbachan Singh, AISSF president Karnail Singh demanded action against Devgn for hurting the religious sentiments of Sikhs.
The Akal Takht is the highest temporal seat of the Sikh religion.
Karnail Singh Tuesday said the film, to be released in November, had blasphemous remarks against Sikhs.
(Siasat News)State government on Tuesday decided an upper cap on the fee reimbursement. The government decided to provide a scholarship of Rs.35, 000 irrespective of the fee of the college in which student taken admission.
However this decision will not create problem to the student who want to take admission in 578 colleges where the fee is Rs.35, 000 but the student whose rank is good and can get seat in good engineering college where the placement and infrastructure is good will be forced to take in the 578 college if they financially not strong.
The worst energy crisis is being witnessed in the State. This is the worst of its kind in the past 12 year. No industry in the State had to suffer this kind of situation. The local industry also suffered due to this crisis. Almost all the political parties have failed to find out a solution to resolve energy crisis. They have not been able to make any suggestions.
As Mitt Romney officially clinched the Republican presidential nomination, the party declared India a “geopolitical ally and a strategic trading partner”, much like the current occupant of the White House, Democrat Barack Obama.
Indicating the bipartisan support that US-India relationship enjoys, the party platform released Tuesday at its national convention in Tampa, Florida, said: “We welcome a stronger relationship with the world’s largest democracy, India, both economic and cultural, as well as in terms of national security.”
The Director-General of Police is investigating into the charges leveled by IPS officer and additional SP of Police, Rampachodavaram, in East Godavari District, against the Superintendent of Police, Trivikrama Varma.
This was stated here today by the Home Moinster Sabita Indra Reddy. Speaking to the media, she said that action would be taken on receipt of the enquiry report.
Dr. Mohammed Ilyas Rizvi Vice Chairman and Managing Director, of A.P. State Minorities Finance Corporation has informed that very few applications have been registered on behalf of the candidates for Govt. of India’s Pre-matric scholarships, although, the last date of registration is 30th September 2012, early registration of applications would facilitate the staff of the corporation to process them earlier.
The less number of applications received in the office has caused worries among the officials of Finance Corporation.
The Taliban has said it was not involved in the beheading and shooting of 17 people in Afghanistan, and called the accusation “baseless propaganda”.
The Afghan interior ministry and NATO Monday said civilians — 15 boys and two girls — where beheaded by the Taliban for dancing and listening to music.
“The mujahedin were not aware of the incident, and we were informed about it through the media,” Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said Tuesday.
Hurricane Isaac made landfall in the US state of Louisiana, bringing high winds, soaking rains and posing the first test for the costly flood-protection system built after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina that killed over 18,000 people in 2005.
Isaac, which was upgraded from tropical storm to Category 1 hurricane Tuesday and was packing maximum sustained winds of 130 kilometers per hour, lashed the area with heavy rains and strong winds, as residents hunkered down.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who arrived in the Iranian capital Tehran on Tuesday, will hold talks with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday.
PM Singh is here to attend the 16th NAM summit but will use the opportunity to hold bilateral talks with the top Iranian leadership and firm up ties.
Apart from Ahmadinejad, Singh will also hold talks with Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The visit is the first in a decade to Iran by an Indian Prime Minister after Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited the country in 2001.
Tension gripped many parts of Assam, including the troubled Bodoland Territorial Areas Districts (BTAD), following fresh incidents of violence Tuesday in which at least one person was killed and six people were injured.
A 12-hour dawn-to-dusk Assam bandh called by the All Assam Minority Students’ Union (AAMSU) and other groups under the banner of the United Movement for Peoples’ Rights also added to the tension.
The bandh was called to demand scrapping of the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) that runs the administration in four districts of BTAD.
The opposition Syrian Support Group has called on the US to immediately establish a no-fly zone over Syria.
The group, which represents the rebel Free Syrian Army in Washington, claimed that Syria’s ruling authorities have intensified use of air strikes to attack cities held by rebels.
Louay Sakka, co-founder of the Syrian Support Group, said: “This is right now the time for a no-fly zone to take place. We need to stop the fixed-wing and helicopters from attacking. The regime cannot hold ground without air power or heavy artillery.”
India has been the victim of divisive-sectarian violence for more than a century, more particularly after the British implemented their policy of ‘divide and rule’ and encouraged communal formations to flourish. These communal formations, mainly Muslim and Hindu, in turn spread hatred against other religious communities and violence in the name of religion came to be a tragic part of our nation. Millions of innocents lives have been in this violence, which is instrument in the hands of communal forces.
Republican Mitt Romney is all set to challenge incumbent Barack Obama after the party nominated the former Massachusetts governor as its candidate for the Presidential elections in November this year.
Romney won the nomination as he crossed the support of necessary 1,144 delegates during the ongoing Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida on Tuesday.
The convention also approved Congressman Paul Ryan as his Vice Presidential running mate.
Mumbai-based pilots of near-bankrupt Kingfisher Airlines have decided to strike work indefinitely from Wednesday over non-payment of salaries.
“Mumbai-based pilots have decided to go on a strike from tomorrow (Wednesday) onwards due to management’s failure to keep its commitment on March salary payment,” a source in the airline told PTI.
The proposed strike by a section of pilots could hamper the private airline’s flight schedule “in a big way”, he said.
Governor ESL Narasimhan here on Tuesday said the government would strengthen the handloom cooperative societies by providing adequate assistance. He also called upon the DWCRA women to avail of the benefits under several welfare programs launched by the government.
Minister for Child Welfare, Women Development and Disabled Welfare Sunitha Laxma Reddy on Tuesday said that the State government was committed to the welfare of handicapped.
Speaking to the media here, Sunitha alleged that the Opposition parties were politicizing the issues of the handicapped. She said that the government would not compromise on pensions, education and reservations to the handicapped. The government was also striving for protecting rights of the handicapped.