Month: February 2013

The US-based iconic bike company Harley-Davidson now aims at tapping the women as potential customers, considering the global trend of women taking to bike-riding.

“Women riders on Harley-Davidson are not unusual. It was unusual years back, when I used to ride it. But now it’s common,” said Karen Davidson, the great-
granddaughter of Harley Davidson co-founder William Davidson and Creative Director of Harley-Davidson company, talking to PTI here.

As much as a quarter of registered motorcycle owners in US are women, she said.

Congress will face the 2014 general elections under the leadership of its newly appointed Vice President Rahul Gandhi, Union Minister Sachin Pilot said.

“Congress will go to the people under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi in 2014 general elections and the UPA will again
form the government,” he told reporters last night.

There was an intense infighting within BJP among a dozen leaders for the Prime Minister’s post and that had affected
its NDA partners, he said.

The Minister denied that there was factionalism in Congress.

A 19 year-old girl was allegedly gangraped by three unidentified persons in Kadogondanahalli area, police said.

Police said they were awaiting the medical report to confirm the rape.

The girl’s father, who lodged a complaint with police, said the incident occurred last night while she was on her way to her sister’s house nearby.

A nine-year-old girl was allegedly raped and murdered by her father’s friend at Surgaon Joshi village, about five km away from here, police said today.

The incident took place on Wednesday, they said.

According to police, the victim, daughter of a watchman had gone to a nearby shop for some work, where the accused,
identified as Anokhi (22) was also present.

After she left the place, he followed her, investigating police officer Manokamna Prasad told reporters.

The girl went missing after that and when she did not return home at night, her father approached the police.

One more BJP lawmaker submitted his resignation from the assembly Friday, pushing the Jagadish Shettar ministry into a precarious position ahead of the budget session beginning Feb 4.

“I have submitted my resignation from the assembly to Speaker K.G. Bopaiah’s office as he was not present,” D.S. Suresh, who represents Tarikere constituency, about 250 km north of Bangalore, told reporters here.

BJP today decided to boycott all public programmes of Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde and not respond to any communication from him to the party top brass in his capacity as Leader of the House in Lok Sabha to protest
against his Hindu terror remarks till he tenders an apology.

The decision was taken in the first Core Group meeting of BJP after Rajnath Singh took over as party President on
January 23.

The union cabinet Friday approved an ordinance to amend and make stronger existing laws to curb crimes against women as suggested by the Justice Verma Committee, government sources said.

“The cabinet has approved the ordinance,” a cabinet minister told IANS after the two-hour meeting.

According to the sources, the ordinance will deal with amendments cutting across different laws relating to crimes by juveniles, rapes and the Indian Penal Code itself.

Weeks before hostilities erupted between Indian and Pakistani troops in the Kargil sector in 1999, Gen Pervez Musharraf crossed the Line of Control in a helicopter and spent a night at a location 11 km inside Indian territory, a former aide to the military ruler has said.

Col (retired) Ashfaq Hussain, who was a senior officer in the Pakistan Army’s media arm, said Musharraf flew across the LoC on March 28, 1999 and travelled 11 km into the Indian side.

Congress tonight regretted BJP’s plans to boycott all public programmes of Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde to protest against his Hindu terror remarks, saying the opposition party should not politicise the issue.

Party spokesman Rashid Alvi said Congress has already clarified that it was its firm belief that terrorism does not
belong to any religion. “Terrorism is just terrorism,” he said, adding Shinde himself too has clarified the matter.

He said that inspite of this, if BJP is planning such protest action it is “unfortunate”.

Acting on a tip-off, police officials in Jammu and Kashmir along with a squad of Special Operations Group (SOG) on Friday, recovered ample quantity of ammunition and explosive after busting a militants’ network in Poonch sector.

The joint operation was conducted based on inputs from informers and intelligence reports.

In the wake of the Justice Verma Committee report, the Union Cabinet on Friday recommended to the President to issue an ordinance to effectively deal with crimes against women.

Union Law Minister Ashwani Kumar informed the reporters about the decision soon after the Cabinet Committee meeting held on Friday night at the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s residence.

Delhi Government today rejected as “totally baseless” Arvind Kejriwal’s allegations of restraining the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) from passing an order in 2010 to slash tariff by 23 per cent.

“The allegations are a bundle of lies,” Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit’s office said.

Kejriwal alleged that power distribution companies in the capital “fudged” their records and “committed fraud” to show losses in their revenue while actually making profits.

Concerned over crimes against women, Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar Friday said the state has evolved a special set-up to monitor the trials of cases of sex crimes.

Among measures to ensure speedy justice, Parrikar said his government has already issued instructions to courts to ensure daily hearings.

“We are working out a separating monitoring set-up which will keep an eye on certain cases relating to sexual harassment of women in buses, sexual harassment at workplace, molestation, rape, etc,” he said.

Research capabilities at the New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) have got a boost after the institute received the most advanced supercomputer in the UAE.

The NYUAD’s high-performance computer (HPC) cluster is named “BuTinah”.

BuTinah is connected to Ankabut, the UAE’s national research and education network, supporting high-speed connectivity between educational, research, and non-profit organisations in the country.

The equipment was built by Hewlett-Packard.

Police today took into custody a resort manager in connection with alleged rape of a South Korean woman at Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve.

“Resort manager Deepak Vishwakarma has been taken into custody and the room where the alleged rape took place has been sealed,” police said here.

Police took Vishwakarma into custody from Mandla village near Khajuraho. The resort belongs to BJP MLA Nagendra Singh’s son Dushyant Singh.

-PTi

A Delhi court Friday asked the city police to file a report detailing the action taken on a complaint seeking registration of an FIR against union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde for his remarks linking the BJP and the RSS to “Hindu terrorism”.

Metropolitan Magistrate Viplav Dabas directed police to file an action taken report by Feb 6 on a complaint filed by Right to Information (RTI) activist Vivek Garg seeking registration of FIR against Shinde for his remark against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS).

The Delhi Police Friday filed a supplementary charge-sheet in the Feb 13 Israeli embassy car blast here, which mentions details of the vehicles used by the suspects and their telephonic calls.

Filing the charge-sheet before Additional Sessions Judge Asha Menon, police gave details of vehicles used in the blast and details of over 4,000 mobile phone calls.

The supplementary charge sheet contains verification report from the transport authorities of the vehicles used by Iranian suspect Houshang Afshar Irani to recce the Israeli Embassy and to plant the bomb on the vehicle of diplomat.

A day after former minister and Congress MLA P Shanker Rao was picked up in connection with a land encroachment case, police today booked him for allegedly “threatening and abusing” the Neredmet Station House Officer.

On a complaint lodged by Neredmet Circle Inspector P Srinivas, a case was registered against Rao under sections 353
(assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of IPC by the Musheerabad police.

Etihad Airways, the national airline of the UAE, has launched daily flights between Abu Dhabi and Brisbane via Singapore.

James Hogan, president and chief executive officer of Etihad Airways, said the new daily service would add an extra 1,048 seats a week to the Abu Dhabi-Singapore-Brisbane route.

“The additional capacity puts Etihad Airways in a stronger than ever position in the Singapore and Australian markets. It enables us to compete on a more level playing field than in the past,” he said.

Armed robbers struck at the house of a businessman here today and allegedly decamped with cash and valuables to the tune of Rs 55 lakh.

The police, however, managed to arrest one of the robbers and recovered some of the looted items, including cash.

The burglars, who were known to the family members, entered the house of hosiery manufacturer Rajesh Jain on the
pretext of inviting them for marriage, police said.

Taking advantage of the businessman’s absence, they held his son hostage and attacked his wife and servant.

Trinamool Congress MP Sultan Ahmed on Friday called Salman Rushdie a “satan” and said West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee had done the right thing, if she indeed blocked the writer’s visit to Kolkata.

“I have no knowledge of what actually happened. But if the chief minister has indeed ordered the police to block Rushdie’s entry to the city, then she has done the right thing. We don’t have anything to learn from Rushdie,” Ahmed said.

Congress today said consultation process with regard to separate Telangana demand is on at various levels, but refused to set any time-frame for arriving at a decision.

Union Minister Vayalar Ravi, who has been holding talks with agitated Congress leaders from Telangana region for nearly a year now, said the issue was still under discussion and the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and PCC chief would be called here for talks.

Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy today directed the Director General of Police to order a high-level inquiry headed by Krishna Prasad, Additional Director General of Police, CID to go into all facts and circumstances in Police handling of Dr P. Shankar Rao, MLA during the course of investigation into a case registered against him at Neredmet Police Station of Cyberabad Commissionerate and take follow-up remedial measures based on the findings of inquiry report.

–Agencies

The Alwal Deputy Commissioner of Police has said Cantonment MLA Dr P. Shankar Rao had not only failed to cooperate with the police during investigation but also obstructed the policemen from performing their duties. He said because of his hostile attitude, they have registered a criminal case against the MLA. He also claimed that Shankar Rao was not at all arrested. He said police would start investigation after Shankar Rao’s health improved. Police had served notices on the MLA thrice in a land dispute case, he added.

Minister Prasada Kumar has said Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy felt very bad about the way the police misbehaved while arresting the Cantonment MLA Shankar Rao.

Prasada Kumar and Deputy Chief Minister Damodara Rajanarasimha today met the Chief Minister here on Friday and complained about the atrocious behaviour of the police towards Dr Shankar Rao.