Month: November 2012

Leaders cutting across political parties paid rich tributes to Bal Thackeray this evening, with BJP veteran L K Advani describing the late Shiv Sena chief as “a rare, unique and original” leader. “I have seen a lot of leaders. I am in politics since the first general elections in 1952. But I have not seen anyone like Balasaheb. He was a rare, unique and original leader,” Advani said. The former Deputy Prime Minister was speaking at an all-party condolence meeting at the Shanmukhananda Hall here.

Disgruntled over his seat being allotted to NCP as per the seat-sharing pact in the forthcoming Gujarat elections, Congress MLA Lalsinh Vadodia, who represents Umreth Assembly constituency, today crossed over to BJP. Vadodia joined the ruling party in the presence of BJP vice president Kaushik Patel at the party headquarter along with his supporters. Vadodia had joined Congress ahead of Assembly elections in 2007. He contested from Umreth seat in Central Gujarat and won defeating his BJP rival.

A CRPF jawan on duty at the disputed site of Ram Janam Bhoomi-Babri Masjid here committed suicide tonight, a senior police official said. N.Rajgopalan, a jawan of Central Reserve Police Force deputed to man the “no-entry” security cordon at the disputed site, shot himself using his service AK-47 rifle at around 9pm, Faizabad Superintendent of Police Subhash Chand Baghel said. The jawan was declared brought dead at the government hospital, he added. No motive could be immediately ascertained behind the jawan’s action and Baghel merely said “we are probing the incident”. PTI

Insurgents launched attacks against security forces and civilians in central and northern Iraq today, killing at least 30 people and wounding dozens, officials said. Shiite mosques in Baghdad were main targets, along with a city claimed by squabbling ethnic groups in a disputed northern region. The conflicts threaten the stability of Iraq following the final pullout of US military forces nearly a year ago. Car bombs exploded near three mosques shortly after nightfall in the capital, killing 21.

CBI today sought lifting of stay on criminal proceedings against former state Home Minister Amit Shah in the Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounter case in the Supreme Court which said it cannot pass the order without hearing the parties.

“We cannot vacate the stay.

–Agencies

Two senior journalists of Zee news channel were arrested here today on charges of trying to extort Rs 100 crore from Congress MP Naveen Jindal’s group for not doing news reports on coal scam linking his firm.

The arrests on charges of extortion came following the registration of a case about 45 days ago on a complaint filed by Jindal’s company with Delhi Police’s Crime Branch.

–Agencies

A Shiv Sena leader Tuesday gave a new twist to the demands for a Bal Thackeray memorial at the Shivaji Park in the heart of the city, claiming that the late party chief’s cremation site is “as holy as” the Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya.

The party’s Rajya Sabha member and spokesperson Sanjay Raut said this when asked about the demands from various quarters for a memorial to Thackeray who died Nov 17 and was cremated the next day at Shivaji Park with lakhs attending the state funeral.

At least 19 people died and 72 others were injured in three car bomb attacks Tuesday near Shia religious sites in Baghdad, police said.

In the deadliest attack, eight people died and 21 others were injured when a car bomb exploded near a Shia mosque in al-Shu’ala district of Baghdad.

In the second attack, six people were killed and 32 others injured near a Shia mosque in Qureat area, a police officer told Xinhua requesting anonymity.

Curfew, imposed in eight localities under Belbagh and Omti police station limits in the city following a clash between two groups, has been extended till tomorrow, police said Tuesday.

The curfew was clamped after people opposed setting up of an arch in front of Golgala Square area, which resulted in the clash.

“The curfew was extended after a review of the situation today,” SP H N Mishra said, adding 40 people have been arrested so far in this connection and the situation is under control.

Tremors of a light intensity earthquake were felt in Himachal Pradesh’s capital Tuesday evening.

However, no loss of life or damage to property has been reported.

Tremors were felt for some seconds at around 5.45 p.m. in and around Shimla, an official at the state Meteorological Office here said.

It is getting ‘crowded’ inside the ‘Bigg Boss’ house. After the inclusion of some of the evicted members in the ‘padosi’ house, comedian Bharti Singh is all set to make an entry into the ‘Bigg Boss’ house.

The stand-up comedian will be entering the house only for a day on Wednesday and will be seen playing pranks on the inmates.

As a part of a task, the inmates will have to ignore Bharti’s antics while the comedian is expected to break a few things and create chaos inside the house.

A scorpion stung a passenger on a flight from Costa Rica to Spain, which forced the sealing of the Iberia airlines Airbus 340 at Madrid’s Barajas International Airport, said aviation sources.

The incident took place last Thursday aboard Flight 6316 from San Jose to Madrid.

The pilot told the Barajas control tower that a scorpion had stung a passenger; the airport’s medical service was subsequently notified, the sources told EFE Monday.

The state of education in Pakistan’s Sindh province can well be imagined as the government has failed to appoint over 18,000 school teachers under a $300-million World Bank project.

Thousands of candidates had applied for 18,248 posts of primary, junior and high school teachers in the Sindh Education and Literacy Department, the Daily Times reported.

The project was launched in May-June, but the candidates are still waiting for response from the government for appearing in a written test. The department has received over 700,000 applications.

As many as 17 percent of working women in India have experienced sexual harassment at their workplace, according to a survey released Tuesday.

The survey was conducted in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Durgapur by Oxfam India and the Social and Rural Research Institute.

“About 17 percent of working women in India feel that they have experienced acts of sexual harassment at workplace, indicating a high incidence of sexual harassment among working women from both the organised and unorganised sectors,” the survey found.

Couples who have regular sex have a better chance of having a healthy baby, say scientists.

A study found women had a better chance of having a healthy baby if they had repeated exposure to their partner’s sperm before they conceived.

This was because it gave their immune systems time to build up a tolerance to the foreign fluid and so support a pregnancy, the Daily Mail reported Tuesday.

Suspended from the BJP, Ram Jethmalani Tuesday again hit out at party president Nitin Gadkari, and party leaders in parliament Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj and declared he was ready to face expulsion from the party.

The Rajya Sabha member and noted lawyer also told the media that he has sent a letter to Gadkari that he would not be able to reply within 10 days to the show-cause notice served on him and sought time till Dec 31.

The Supreme Court Tuesday refused to revoke suspension of proceedings against Gujarat’s former minister Amit Shah in the Tulsiram Prajapati killing and fixed Jan 15 next year for the final hearing.

As senior counsel Vivek Tankha, appearing for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), pressed for the vacation of stay on the proceedings, the apex court bench of Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice B.S. Chauhan said no purpose would be served by continuing the stay or vacating it.

British globetrotter Graham Hughes has become the first person to visit all 201 countries in the world – without using a plane, the Daily Mail reported.

The 33-year-old adventurer from Liverpool used buses, taxis, trains and his own two feet to travel 160,000 miles or 2,56,000 km in 1,426 days – all on a shoestring budget of just $100 a week.

After arresting the father, brother and an uncle for the rape of a 13-year-old in Kerala, police say more people may be taken into custody.

The girl would have met a horrid fate, like her elder sister two years ago, if not for her teacher and a Congress activist, Suma Balakrishnan.

Speaking to IANS, Suma said the distraught girl told her teacher that she would commit suicide like her sister. The teacher took up the matter with the headmaster, and the matter finally reached police.

The condition of former prime minister Inder Kumar Gujral Tuesday worsened as he fell unconscious and his urine output was blocked, a doctor said Tuesday.

“His condition Tuesday worsened as he fell unconscious, medicines too are not showing much effects, urine output system also stopped working…” a senior medical consultant, who did not wish to be named, told IANS.

“He is not showing any sign of improvement,” he added.

Gujral, 93, was admitted to the Medicity Medanta Hospital in this Delhi’s suburban town in Haryana with a lung infection on Nov 19, and is still on the ventilator.

TDP has received yet another blow when former union minister and respected Kapu community leader Ummareddy Venkateswarlu has joined the YSR Congress party here on Tuesday.

Ummareddy who met Y S Jaganmohan Reddy in the Chanchalguda jail, drove to his Lotus Pond residence and joined the YSR Congress, in the presence of the party’s honorary president Y S Vijayamma.

APCC general secretary G Niranjan has expressed concern over the “indiscriminate demolition” of the newly constructed residential buildings at the T. Anjaiah Nagar in Serilingampally and Siddiqui Nagar by the GHMC officials on Sunday.
In a letter addressed to Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy on Tuesday, Niranjan stated that construction of ground plus two or more floors cannot escape notice of GHMC authorities concerned as such constructions might have taken more than six months. He alleged that the GHMC officials were also equally responsible for laxity and inaction.

Pradesh Congress Committee spokesperson and 20-Point Chairman Dr N Tulasi Reddy asked TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu to bring more clarity to the promises that he been making with the people.

Hundreds of students and their parents led by Azampura Corporator Amjedullah Khan on Tuesday took out a rally from Imblibun Bus Depot to Chaderghat Circle in protest against the Hyderabad District Collector’s orders to vacate the school buildings for the Metro Rail Project.

Gearing up for the next general elections, scheduled in 2014, the Congress Tuesday termed its big-ticket plan to directly transfer cash to various social welfare beneficiaries as “game-changer” and “politically revolutionary” step for UPA-II.

“It will be a game changer,” Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said at a press conference at the Congress headquarters here.

“It is a politically revolutionary step. It was a promise we made in the 2009 manifesto,” added Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh, who accompanied Chidambaram.