Month: October 2012

After failing to make it to the semifinals of the ICC World Twenty20 for the third time in a row, some serious introspection is required by the BCCI as far as identifying right players for the shortest format of the game is concerned.

With the team failing to make an impact again, the new selection committee under the chairmanship of Sandeep Patil will have to think seriously whether they want a complete overhaul of the T20 side or focus on easing out some of the senior players from this particular squad.

Two passengers who got out of New Delhi-bound Air India’s Dreamliner plane after taking pictures of the aircraft’s
interior here were arrested Wednesday, police said.

Ameer Tawah, 35, and Mansoor, 24, hailing from Kerala, boarded the flight set to take off at 11.30 a.m. and took pictures of the plane’s interior with their mobile phones. Claiming ill-health the two then got out.

This raised suspicion and they were handed over to the Central Industrial Security Force at the airport.

In a reversal, Mike Tyson has been denied entry to the country whose indigenous Maori people he says inspired his facial tattoo.

New Zealand authorities on Wednesday cancelled an entry visa for the former heavyweight boxing champion and convicted rapist, days after the prime minister spoke out against his planned visit.

The Las Vegas celebrity had earlier been granted an exemption to New Zealand immigration rules to speak at a November charitable event, “Day of the Champions.” Tyson’s 1992 rape conviction would have normally made him ineligible to enter the country.

A group of lawyers today moved the Delhi High Court seeking a direction to Centre to ensure that Google India removes from You Tube trailers of a controversial film deemed offensive to Islam that has sparked protests in several parts of the world.

Responding to the plea, Government’s counsel Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Rajeev Mehra submitted that various courts in India have also passed orders on the same issue and the government has taken action against the websites.

Investigation into the sale of a baby boy by his mother in Odisha’s Jajpur district has revealed curious details — the money was used to buy a mobile phone and a pair of jeans among other things.

“Rakhi Patra of Mundamala village who sold her 17 month-old son for Rs 5,000 purchased a new mobile phone, a pair of jeans, few new tops (to go with the jeans) and memory cards for her mobile with the money,” Jajpur superintendent of police Deepak Kumar said on Wednesday.

Over 500 Indian students whose future has been hit by the closure of three colleges in Australia will be placed in alternative course or refunded any unspent tuition fees, the Australian High Commission here has assured.

Australia’s vocational education regulator, the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA), decided to shut down three non-compliant vocational education and training colleges — Ashmark Group Pty Ltd, G Plus G Global Trading Pty Ltd. Melbourne in Victoria, and Ivy Group in New South Wales.

State-owned oil companies have hiked price of non-subsidized cooking gas (LPG) by Rs 127 per cylinder to Rs 883.5 on account of increase in international oil prices.

Last month, the government had decided to restrict supply of subsidized domestic LPG cylinders to six per households in a year. Any requirement over and above this will have to be bought at market rate, which is almost double the subsidized price of Rs 399 for a 14.2-kg cylinder in Delhi.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi today avoided Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s attack on her and the Centre demanding details of expenses on her foreign travels and said she was not bothered about personal attacks on her.

“Whenever we have taken steps in the interest of the nation, there have been all kinds of attacks against us…Neither have we bothered earlier, nor will we worry about them in future,” she said launching the party’s poll campaign in Gujarat at a farmers’ convention here.

A huge mob of more than 2000 people torched ten vehicles, including two police vehicles today, after a protest against an anti-Islam film made in the USA, turned violent in the old city area here, police officials said.

Ten policemen were also injured due to stone-pelting, while one police vehicle and a motorcycle were torched in the
incident, as the mob went berserk, they said.

Police fired more than 20 rounds of tear gas shells and resorted to a lathi charge to quell the mob.

President Barack Obama marked 20 years of marriage to his wife Michelle today with a romantic tweet sent to the first lady — and to his 20 million followers on Twitter.

Twenty years ago today, I married the love of my life and my best friend. Happy anniversary, Michelle. -bo” read the message sent by the president from his @BarackObama Twitter account.

The Obamas were married exactly 20 years ago Wednesday, on October 3, 1992.

A youth who was evading arrest for two months after alleging raping a minor in Mawlaingut village in Meghalaya’s East Khasi Hills district, was arrested today, officials said.

The youth, Shabarli Mawlong, was on the run after allegedly raping a 14 year-old relative on June 4.

An FIR was lodged on August 7 after an influential women NGO, the Civil Society Women Organisation (CSWO) took up
the case.

A court of the Autonomous District Council had granted him a one month’s interim bail on August 10 before cancelling it on September 19 after which he moved the high court.

Angry with the reopening of a foreign liquor shop in their locality, hundreds of women here took up the cudgels and ransacked it today.

The women attacked the liquor shop at Tankapani Road and destroyed a large number of liquor bottles, police said.

As the women vastly outnumbered the shop attendants, they did not put up any resistance, the police said adding no case was registered.

Apart from consolidating its defence trade with India, the US is now moving towards technology sharing and co-production, a top Pentagon official said today.

“We’re moving well beyond purely defence trade with India, towards technology sharing and coproduction,” Deputy Secretary of Defence, Ashton Carter, told a Washington think-tank.

Early this year, Carter was entrusted by Defence Secretary, Leon Panetta, to remove bureaucratic hurdles in
defence trade with India.

We’re deepening our security cooperation, technology sharing and defence trade with India, another state so

Parvez Tak, stepfather of starlet Laila Khan, was today chargesheeted for murdering her and five of her family members.

The 924-page chargesheet was filed in the metropolitan magistrate court by Crime Branch against the Kishtwar-based
contractor for killing Laila (30), her mother Shelina (51), elder sister Azmina (32), twin siblings Zara and Imran (25) and cousin Reshma.

The starlet and her family had gone missing from Mumbai in February 2011. A case of kidnapping was registered at the Oshiwara police station here on July 3 on a complaint by her biological father Nadir Patel.

Syrian shells killed five people and wounded nine others when they exploded today in a town inside southern Turkey, local authorities said.

Five people, including a mother and her three children, were killed. We also have nine wounded,” said Abdulhakim
Ayhan, mayor of Akcakale, where the shells landed from Tall al-Abyad just across the border in Syria.

It was the third time shells from Syria had hit Turkey but the first time they caused fatalities as fighting rages
between troops loyal to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and the rebels for control of Tall al-Abyad.

Two British men have been banned from an “all-you-can-eat” restaurant for beating everyone to the food and eating too much. The manager said the pair were “a couple of pigs”.

George Dalmon, a former rugby player, and Andy Miles were banned from the restaurant Gobi in Brighton, the Telegraph reported.

The men would each eat five bowls of stir-fry during their regular meals at the Mongolian barbecue.

Customers can request meals as many times as they wish for 12 pounds.

The manager, who did not want to be named, said the two friends were eating him out of business.

The Delhi High Court Wednesday awarded a compensation of Rs.8.5 lakh to a minor girl, who became partially paralysed after getting injured during swimming practice at her school here in 2007.

Riya Gupta, an eighth class student, had suffered injuries to her spine in the swimming pool at a school in Rohini area here on the morning of Sep 5, 2007. She got paralysed below her waist and there were remote possibilities of her recovery.

Swapna Shah, who died here aged 66, was the fourth generation of a family that provided educational services to the blind in the US and India for over a 100 years.

Swapna, in the first 19 years of her life, lived on the campus of one of the first schools for the blind in Asia, which had been founded by her great-grandfather, L.B. Shah, her brother, Amit Shah, said.

An elderly Indian man fell to his death from a fifth floor balcony of a building in Sharjah, the Gulf News reported.

The incident took place in Al Nahda area Monday. A witness saw the victim leap from the balcony, the daily quoted police as saying.

The victim was identified only as TMTR.

Two earthquakes of light intensity hit Himachal Pradesh for the second consecutive day Wednesday, triggering panic among people. However, no loss of life or damage to property was reported.

“Tremors measuring 3.8 on the Richter scale were felt for some seconds at 10.04 a.m. Another quake of 3.6 magnitude was recorded at 4.19 p.m.,” Meteorological Office director Manmohan Singh told IANS.

He said the epicentre of both the quakes, like Tuesday, was at the border of Chamba and Lahaul and Spiti districts, bordering Jammu and Kashmir.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said he owns 20 identical grey T-shirts, and that was why it seems he wears the same thing every day.

In a TV interview, the 28-year-old millionaire also revealed he does not get much closet space at home, and the space is mainly used by wife Priscilla Chan, the Daily Mail reported.

It was long suspected that he owns multiple T-shirts of the same colour, so that he does not have to worry about what to wear.

Asked if he owns 12 of the same T-shirt, Zuckerberg said it was more like 20.

Congress will not project any chief ministerial candidate in the Assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

Party spokesman P C Chacko replied in the negative when asked at the AICC briefing if the party would project any CM candidate in the polls.

Generally, Congress refrains from naming a chief ministerial candidate in any state maintaining that the newly elected party MLAs in consultation with the high command would decide the issue.

The last time Congress named a CM candidate was Amarinder Singh in Punajb in January this year, but the move did not succeed.

Two earthquakes of light intensity hit Himachal Pradesh for the second consecutive day Wednesday, triggering panic among people. However, no loss of life or damage to property was reported.

“Tremors measuring 3.8 on the Richter scale were felt for some seconds at 10.04 a.m. Another quake of 3.6 magnitude was recorded at 4.19 p.m.,” Meteorological Office director Manmohan Singh.

He said the epicentre of both the quakes, like Tuesday, was at the border of Chamba and Lahaul and Spiti districts, bordering Jammu and Kashmir.

A week after a political crisis threatened to bring down the Maharashtra government due to a rift with NCP, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi Wednesday and discussed issues concerning the state, official sources said.

Singh and Chavan met for an hour and they discussed various “developmental issues concerning the state,” an aide to the chief minister said in Mumbai this evening.

Former governor of Sikkim Kedar Nath Sahani died following a heart attack here Wednesday. He was 86.
The veteran Bharatiya Janata Party leader had also served as governor of Goa, and been Mayor of Delhi.
BJP president Nitin Gadkari, in his condolence message, described Sahani as a disciplined and dedicated leader who laid the foundation of the then Jana Sangh and later the BJP in Delhi.

Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit condoled the demise of the veteran leader. Describing him as a simple and straightforward personality, Dikshit said Sahani’s contribution to policy was enduring.