Month: January 2013

Sania Mirza and her partner Bethanie Mattek-Sands had a superb start to the season as they lifted the WTA Brisbane International trophy with a come-from-behind win against Kveta Peschke and Anna-Lena Groenefeld on Saturday.

The second seeded Indo-American pair erased the first set deficit to down the fourth seeded rivals 4-6, 6-4, 10-7 in the summit showdown of the $1,000,000 event.

It was Sania’s first doubles title of the season while 15th of her career.

Sania and Mattek earned 470 ranking points each and shared $51,022 as prize money.

An 18-year-old girl was allegedly raped by three teenagers in Bemtara district of Chhattisgarh, police said today.

All the three accused, who allegedly committed the crime on Thursday night, were arrested today, said a top police officer.

“The accused Fusku Ram (19), Golu (18) and Kunal (19) attacked and robbed the victim’s male friend near a pond on the outskirts of Chakravai village on Thursday night when the duo were returning from a fair, and then took turns to rape her”, IG (Durg Range) Ashok Juneja told PTI/Bhasha today.

A minor girl was allegedly raped by a man at Amminbhavi, following which police arrested him today.

The accused sexually assaulted the nine-year-old girl last night when she was alone and fled, police said.

The minor girl is undergoing treatment in hospital, police said.

—PTI

One person was arrested on Saturday for allegedly raping a tribal girl in a tea estate in Assam’s Sibsagar district on December 25, police sources said.

The girl who worked at Bihubar Tea Estate in Nazira subdivision was allegedly raped by five men who threatened her parents not to go to the police, the sources said.

The parents, however, lodged an FIR following which one of the five men, Powel Topno, was arrested, they said.

Efforts are on to trace the remaining accused.

—PTI(Assam

A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader here was arrested for allegedly raping a woman, police said Saturday. The accused was produced in court and sent to two days police custody.

“Yogesh Attrey, 40, a member of the party’s Delhi Pradesh Working Committee, was arrested Friday from Rohini in north Delhi for raping a woman,” a senior police officer said.

The complainant, who lives in Vijay Vihar, told the police that Attrey had sexual relations since 2007 and threatened her with dire consequences if she disclosed their relationship, the official said.

Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi said his brother Akbaruddin Owaisi would return from London and “surrender before law” in the case of alleged hate speeches.

“He will come and surrender before law. We are not the ones to run away,” Asad Owaisi told a public meeting Saturday night in Ranga Reddy district.

Protests against the rape of a 23-year-old paramedical student in Delhi continued to find their echo in the UK with a number of organisations planning major demonstrations over the next few weeks.

Southall Black Sisters, a well-known ethnic minority women’s rights organisation based in west London, has planned a protest meet outside the Indian High Commission here on Monday.

—PTI

The body of a class IX student was recovered under mysterious circumstances from the railway track near Palli village here today, police said.

Kishan, who was staying here with his maternal uncle Ritesh Dwivedi at Sector Beta D block area, did not return home this afternoon after his school get over, they said.

Later, a passer-by informed his family members that the victim’s body was lying near the railway track.

The body has been sent for post-portem examination while the further probes are on, they added.

—PTI

The brother of the 23-year-old Delhi gangrape victim on Saturday said delay in providing medical assistance to his sister led to complications which perhaps led to her death. “She told me that after the incident that she had asked passers-by for help but to no avail and it was only after the highway patrol alerted the police that she was rushed to hospital but it had taken almost two hours”, her brother told PTI in their native village in UP.

The Delhi Police has issued a traffic advisory for the third India-Pakistan One-day International at Ferozeshah Kotla Sunday, asking match-goers to park only in designated areas and saying the public should avoid the roads around the area, an official said.

“There is very limited parking for labelled vehicles in the proximity of the stadium. There is no parking for general vehicles in the proximity of the stadium,” said Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Satyendra Garg Saturday.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J.Jayalalithaa Saturday announced the setting up of a high-level committee headed by Finance Minister O.Panneerselvam to assess the areas in the state to be declared as drought-affected so that compensation could be given to the farmers.

In a statement issued here, Jayalalithaa said: “The high level committee will assess the drought level and the crop loss and recommend to the state government the areas to be declared as drought-hit.”

She said that based on the committee’s recommendations, compensations to the farmers would be given at the appropriate time.

The BJP Saturday criticised the Delhi Police for registering a case against Zee News channel for broadcasting an interview of the gang-rape victim’s friend.

“Delhi Police cannot muzzle voice of citizens by lodging a case against the channel. People have a right to know the truth,” tweeted Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj.

Party general secretary Ravi Shankar Prasad said: “Such behaviour from the police is unacceptable. This is an attack on the freedom of the press.”

Delhi government Saturday gave in-principle approval to regularise over 200 unauthorised colonies which had sprouted on forest and ASI land, an official said.

The move would benefit around 15 lakh people. The decision was taken at a cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit.

While 157 colonies are located on the land belonging to Archaeological Survey of India, 48 have mushroomed on forest land.

Zee News editor Sudhir Chaudhary, whom police has sent notice to join investigations after the channel aired the interview of Dec 16 rape victim’s friend, Saturday moved court seeking his statement be video-recorded but the order was silent on his request.

The court asked the city police to proceed the case “in accordance with the law” and did not specially mention in its order whether Chaudhary’s statement would be recorded or not.

Three elephants were killed and two others seriously injured when they were run over by an express train in West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district Saturday, forest officials said.

“The herd of five elephants were mauled by the Jhajha-Guwahati Express near Rajabhatkhaoa around 6.45 p.m. Saturday,” said Buxa Tiger Reserve director R.P. Saini.

“Three of the elephants are dead. Two others are in serious condition,” he said.

—IANS

Ridiculing West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s claim that she would sell her paintings to collect funds for her Trinamool Congress’ panchayat poll campaign, the CPI-M Saturday demanded that she disclose the names of buyers and the prices they were paying.

Around 100 of Banerjee’s paintings are on display at the Town Hall here. The exhibition will continue till Jan 18.

Thousands here gathered Saturday to protest the 2009 gang-rape and murder of a private company executive Naina Pujari.

“In the backdrop of the agitations protesting the gang-rape and murder of ‘Nirbhaya’ in the (national) capital, it is befitting that we also remember that Naina went through the same ordeal,” a protestor said.

Her identity has not been revealed and she is being referred to by pseudonyms like ‘Nirbhaya’ and ‘Abhaya’.

Karnataka’s ruling BJP announced Saturday that Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar would lead the party in the assembly polls due in May, a move clearly aimed at blunting the caste advantage its former leader B. S. Yeddyurappa was hoping to benefit from.

The decision to go to the polls under Shettar’s leadership was taken at a meeting of party’s senior leaders here, party’s state general secretary and Lok Sabha member Prahalad Joshi told reporters.

The BJP and CPI-M Saturday criticised the Delhi Police for registering a case against Zee News channel for broadcasting an interview of the gang-rape victim’s friend.

“Delhi Police cannot muzzle voice of citizens by lodging a case against the channel. People have a right to know the truth,” tweeted Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, while Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Brinda Karat said that the Delhi Police had registered the case to protect themselves.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) general secretary Ravi Shankar Prasad termed it “unacceptable”.

Ten new ministers are expected to sworn into office in a cabinet reshuffle in Egypt on Sunday, reported Xinhua citing official news agency MENA.

The new ministers, according to MENA, include Mohamed Ibrahim as minister of interior, Basem Kamal as supplies minister, Al-Morsi al-Sayed Hegazi as finance minister, Atef Helmi as communication minister and Omar Mohamed Salem as parliamentary affairs minister.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will visit Egypt next Wednesday to discuss resuming talks with Islamic Hamas movement for achieving internal reconciliation and ending division between the Gaza Strip and West Bank, Palestinian officials said Saturday.

Abbas’ office said in a press statement that Abbas told Egypt’s ambassador to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) during a meeting held in Ramallah that he is looking forward to meet with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, reported Xinhua.

Unidentified culprits have murdered an aged couple at their farm house about 45 km from here, police said on Saturday.

The victims have been identified as Venkatesh (74), a retired engineer of the Irrigation Department and his wife Kamakshamma (65), police said.

The couple, residents of Vijayanagar in the city,had left for their farm house at Kallur Naganahalli yesterday and the murder came to light this morning, police said.

–PTI

A 22-year-old woman was found stripped and dead in Noida. The woman’s mother alleged that the girl had been raped and the rapists had killed her to destroy evidence.

Police said that whether or not the woman had been raped could only be established after a post-mortem.

The woman’s mother said that she had left home 8.30 a.m. Friday to attend to work at a call centre in Sector 63, where she had the 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. shift.

An earthquake measuring 7.7 on a Richter scale reportedly struck west of Alaska coast on Saturday, as per US government researchers. There are no reports of casualties yet.

Soon after the earthquake, a Tsunami warning for British Columbia and Alaska was issued, as per BBC report. But later after close examination the Tsunami danger was ruled out.

The epicentre of the earthquake was reportedly 102 kilometers (63 miles) West of Craig, Alaska.

An Iranian accused of violating sanctions against Tehran has been released after nearly three years in US custody, Press TV reported Saturday.

Amir-Hossein Seirafi was released from a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, and has flown back to Iran.

In January 2010, Seirafi was arrested in Germany over allegations of helping ship specialised vacuum pump equipment to Iran through a free trade zone in the United Arab Emirates.

The US authorities said the equipment could be used in Iran’s nuclear energy programme.