Month: December 2012

In the wake of the gruesome gangrape of a 23-year-old girl here, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde is writing letters to all political parties seeking their suggestions on the issue of changing the law pertaining to rape.

Sources said Shinde will ask the political parties to send their suggestions on the matter to the Justice J S Verma Committee, which has been constituted for reviewing the present statute so as to provide for speedier justice and enhanced punishment in cases of aggravated sexual assault.

A clutch of Indians and issues related to India occupied news space in the world this year with names like Savita Halappanavar, Jacintha Saldnha, Rajat Gupta and Sunita Williams hogging front page news headlines, even as crimes against Indians like the Gurudwara shootings triggered global outrage in 2012.

The fag end of the year saw a 31-year old woman arrested and charged with hate crime murder for shoving an Indian immigrant to death onto a subway train track in New York.

Actor-filmmaker Arbaaz Khan loves to watch cricket, especially when the teams in question are India and Pakistan. He feels that the teams must play often as bilateral relations improve.

On Sunday, Pakistan beat India by six wickets in the first One-Day International (ODI) between the two sides at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.

“It was great to see India and Pakistan battle it out on the cricket field. It would be wonderful to see these two nations play cricket often,” tweeted Arbaaz.

One of the key accused in the 2006 Malegaon bomb blasts case, Manohar Singh, had confessed to his role in the conspiracy, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) today claimed in a special court here.

Singh, arrested from Hatod in Indore district of Madhya Pradesh yesterday, was produced before the special NIA court here.

It was the first arrest in connection with Maharashtra’s 2006 Malegaon bombing after the role of right-wing groups came to the fore.

Special public prosecutor Rohini Salian told the court that Singh has provided many important leads in connection with the blasts.

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today said that the state government will soon announce a Sports policy.

Flagging off the torch relay for the third Khel Mahakumbh (2012-13), a state sport event, here, Modi said, “the state government will soon come up with a Sports Policy to encourage youth participation in sports and to develop a vibrant sports culture in the state.”

Khel Mahakumbh is a programme initiated by the state government in 2010 to encourage participation of youngsters,

The US sent a special nuclear response team trained to handle nuclear accidents and terrorism to Japan soon after the outbreak of the March 2011 nuclear disaster, but Tokyo was slow to make use of radiation data from the unit, according to a media report.

This was the first dispatch of the Consequence Management Response Team (CMRT) for an emergency outside the United States.

Agro-chemicals manufacturer Insecticides India today said it has launched a new product to control variety of pests like termites and ants.

The effective chemical composition helps in controlling variety of pests like termites, ants and other domestic bugs,” company’s Managing Director Rajesh Aggarwal said in a statement.

He said that the product will also used to protect wood from termites and borers.

Looking to the success in the foreign countries, this product has been launched in India. This has greater soil

Flying out of Delhi would become cheaper from Tuesday, with the development fee (DF) charged by the operator of IGI airport here being reduced by Rs 100 for domestic and Rs 700 per international passenger.

The decision of GMR-led Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) to slash the charges followed a directive by Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) for charging Rs 100 and Rs 600 per embarking domestic and international passenger respectively from January one.

The Delhi government today announced financial aid of Rs 15 lakh for the next of the kin of the 23-year-old gangrape victim and offered a job to a family member of the girl, who died two days ago.

The decisions were taken at a Cabinet meeting presided over by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit.

The phsyiotherapy student was brutally gangraped and assaulted in a moving bus in south Delhi on December 16.

She breathed her last in a Singapore hospital on Saturday morning and her mortal remains were cremated here yesterday.

—————PTI

The government will roll out its ambitious scheme of transferring cash to beneficiaries of select schemes in 20 districts on Tuesday, but food, fertiliser and fuel subsidies will not be covered in the initial phase.

Announcing the roll-out plan, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said that more and more districts and schemes would be covered under the scheme during the course of 2013.

In yet another shocking incident, a 16-year-old girl was murdered by a youth in Andhra Pradesh’s Ranga Reddy district. She was suspected to have been raped by the accused before killing her.

The girl, a student of Class 10, was found hanging from a tree Sunday evening in a farm in Dasarlapally village in Ranga Reddy district, about 100 km from here.

According to police, the girl, a student of a school at Kandukur, came to the village on a holiday and went to the field for some work. A few hours later, her body was found hanging from a mango tree.

YSR Congress party spokesperson Vasireddy Padma slammed the central government for its failure to save the life of Delhi gang rape victim and raises suspicion over shifting the rape victim to Singapore through plane. She questioned why the girl was shifted to Singapore in such a deteriorating condition. She demanded that the central government convene a special parliamentary session to discuss security of women in the country.

Siasat news

A tour bus careened through a guardrail along an icy highway and 100 feet down a steep embankment, killing nine people and injuring more than 20 others, authorities said.

The charter bus carrying about 40 people lost control yesterday around 10:30 am on snow- and ice-covered lanes of
Interstate 84 in a rural area of eastern Oregon, according to the Oregon State Police. The bus crashed near the start of a 7-mile section of road that winds down a hill.

The bus came to rest at the bottom of a snowy slope and landed upright, with little or no debris visible around the crash site.

A wave of bombings and shootings killed 12 people today as Iraq grappled with anti-government protests and simmering political crises ahead of major Shiite Muslim commemoration rituals.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks in eight towns and cities that also wounded more than
40, but Sunni militants such as Al-Qaeda’s front group in Iraq regularly target officials in a bid to destabilise the government, as well as Shiite pilgrims.

The violence comes after anti-government protesters blocked a key highway to Syria and Jordan, amid political

Central Board of Secondary Education will announce schedule of 10th and 12th class exams in the 1st week of January. Last year CBSE had announced the schedule on January 4. This year too it is likely to announce the schedule on January 4.

Exams are likely to begin from March 1st and end till 9th April.

Siasat news

Congress president Sonia Gandhi will not celebrate the New Year as a tribute to the 23-year-old rape victim who died Saturday. She has also asked all her well-wishers and party members not to wish her on the occasion, a Congress leader said Monday.

“Sonia Gandhi has appealed to the party members and well-wishers against coming to her to extend New Year greetings in the wake of the gang-rape incident,” party general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi told reporters here.

The National Human Rights Commission Monday issued notice to Karnataka Police for not arresting two people who allegedly raped a five-year-old girl in Bidar district.

“The National Human Rights Commission has taken suo motu cognizance of a media report that a five-year-old girl was raped by two men in Bidar and who were yet to be arrested,” said an NHRC official.

Notice has been issued to the superintendent of police, Bidar, calling for a report on the mid-December matter within four weeks.

Reiterating its demand for a special session of parliament, the BJP Monday said that 2013 should be used to strengthen all laws related to crimes against women and that action would be the “real tribute” to the young gang-rape victim who died Saturday.

The Delhi government Monday announced a compensation of Rs.15 lakh to the family of the gang-rape victim who died Saturday.

The decision was taken at a cabinet meeting presided over by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, said an official.

The woman was brutally raped Dec 16 and died Saturday in Singapore. She was cremated here Sunday morning.

—IANS

Mourning the death of the Delhi gang-rape victim, the US embassy has said it was time to change “attitudes and (end) all forms of gender-based violence”.

“We are deeply saddened to learn that the victim of a horrific assault in New Delhi Dec 16 has died,” an embassy statement said.

“As we honour the memory of this brave young woman, we also recommit ourselves to changing attitudes and ending all forms of gender-based violence which plagues every country in the world,” it said.

—IANS

Maulvi Abdul Aleem Farooqui Imam and Khateeb Masjid Abideen narrated the history of 31st December and said that the revelry and indecent activities carried out by our society thinking it to be the New Year is wrong. This is not our new year. Our new year starts with Moharramul Haram. Due to lack of knowledge we think that January is our new year. Our youngsters indulge in drinking and dancing and mingle freely with opposite sex, which is condemnable. He appealed the Muslim youth of Nizamabad to shun these immoral activities and also save others from it.

Siasat news

Political uncertainty, turmoil and unrest dominated the State during the year which has seen chaos in political, social, entertainment and sports canvas which has seen bureaucrats, politicians and entrepreneurs going to jail while CBI and legal terminology getting a wide coverage in the media.

South Africa will begin the New Year by aiming to strengthen their No.1 status in the ICC Test Championship Table, when they play a two-match series against New Zealand from Jan 2 at Cape Town.

South Africa currently lead the rankings with 123 rating points and have a five-point lead over second-placed England. Graeme Smith’s side retained the Test Championship Mace in December 2012 after it defeated Australia 1-0.

Extremists blew up an all-girls school in Pakistan’s Khyber Agency, a tribal area, leaving one person killed, Geo News reported Monday.

The extremists had planted explosives inside the government school and the blast destroyed the school building, according to security forces. The man killed in the incident was the school watchman.

Over last four years, more than 70 educational institutions have been destroyed in Khyber Agency which lies in the country’s Federally Administered Tribal Area comprising eight tribal areas.

—IANS

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has not even stepped down and there is already constant speculation as to whether she”ll run again for the White House.

While no decision from her on any future bid for president is expected in 2013, but if she eventually changes her mind and decides to run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, a new national survey indicates that the vast majority of Democrats would consider backing her as their party’s nominee.