Sanand/Ahmedabad, June 02: The Tata’s are mulling more investments in Gujarat, group Chairman Ratan Tata indicated here Wednesday.
He said Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi had asked him about his future plans for Gujarat. “I told him that it will be a surprise.”
Tata was speaking at the inaugural function of Tata Motors’ new Nano plant here.
Raipur, Jun 02: Don’t be deterred or demoralised by the criticism from human rights activists, political parties, media or anybody else. Just enforce law and hold your head high.
This is the morale-boosting message from Home Minister P Chidambaram to the security forces which often come under attack while dealing with the problems of naxalism and terrorism.
New Delhi, June 02: Former Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan is likely to be appointed as Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission with a Parliamentary committee clearing his name for the prestigious post.
Sources in the Ministry of Home Affairs said that the high-level committee headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recommended the name of the former CJI for his appointment as the NHRC Chairperson in its meeting yesterday.
Lucknow, June 02: Four policemen in Uttar Pradesh’s Shahjahanpur district were suspended Wednesday after they were caught in a sting operation accepting money from family members of a man arrested in a robbery case, an official said.
“The four suspended are an inspector, a sub-inspector and two constables,” Superintendent of Police Krishna Mohan told reporters in Shahjahanpur, some 150 km from here.
Kolkata, Jun 02: The West Bengal government today said ongoing CID probe into the Jnaneswari Express derailment would continue till the notification from the Centre about its decision for a CBI inquiry into the disaster was received.
“Our Chief Secretary (Ardhendu Sen) has received a phone call from (Union Home Secretary) G K Pillai informing him about the CBI inquiry. But, we have not received any formal notification yet,” Home Secretary Samar Ghosh told newsmen.
New Delhi, Jun 02: Law Minister M Veerappa Moily today hinted that the government may consider amending the Constitution to change the existing procedure for appointment of members of the higher judiciary.
“We will take the legislative course,” he said adding that the need for such a situation would not arise as the government believed in “taking the judiciary on board” on such issues.
Jaipur, Jun 02: Calling upon newspapers to bring out truth before the society, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said here today that the media has always played key role as the fourth pillar of the democracy.
Inaugurating a fortnightly newspaper ‘Sindhu Gaurav’ here, Gehlot said that mission of journalism should be carried forward with an aim to maintain credibility.
“Media today is playing vital role as fourth pillar of democracy. During the struggle for independence, newspapers had also played important role,” Gehlot said.
Vatican City, June 02: A Vatican document leaked Tuesday calls the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories a “political injustice,” Italy’s ANSA news agency reported.
The occupation is a “political injustice imposed on the Palestinians,” the Vatican says, according to extracts quoted by ANSA.
“The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories makes daily life difficult for freedom of movement, the economy and social and religious life,” the text says.
Raipur, June 02: Home Minister P. Chidambaram Wednesday held a meeting with Chief Minister Raman Singh and state Home Minister Nankiram Kanwar here to discuss rising Maoist violence in the state.
Informed sources said Chidambaram stressed the need to step up co-ordination between the state police and central paramilitary forces in the Maoist strongholds.
He also asked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government to strengthenp police presence in remote areas.
Mumbai, Jun 02: A senior citizen who allegedly tried to collect extortion money from a doctor at the behest of a person claiming to be an aide of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim has been arrested, police said today.
Acting on a complaint of the doctor, 63-year-old Merchant Abdul Hamid Suleman was nabbed near Saifi Hospital at Charni Road last night when he arrived to collect Rs 5.3 lakh extortion money, a Crime Branch official said.
Ambala, June 02: Six members of three Delhi-based families on way to Dharmshala for a vacation were killed and six others injured when a mini bus they were travelling in collided head-on with a truck near here early today.
The families of Gulshan Arora, Harminder Singh Sachdeva and Kamal were on the way to Dharmshala when they met with the accident in which four adults and two children were killed.
Bangalore, Jun 02: The Art of Living Foundation today claimed that the bullet was fired in the direction of its founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s car and slammed Union Home Minister P Chidambaram and the state police for their versions about the shooting incident at its ashram on Sunday.
Police remained tight-lipped about the incident and the probe’s progress amid continuing controversy and conflicting reports about it.
Taking strong exception to Chidambaram’s statement on the incident, the AOL described it as “hasty and damaging”.
Chandigarh, Jun 02: A Punjab police team visited the residence of Ruchika Girhotra family lawyer Pankaj Bhardwaj to arrest him in a 2007 cheating case in Amritsar even as he today claimed that the move was aimed at pressuring him to withdraw from certain cases involving high ups.
The police team from Amritsar had descended at his residence yesterday to arrest him but could not find him, police said today.
Hyderabad, June 02: Telangana Jagruthi president K Kavita has demanded that the state government all revaluation of the answerscripts of all Intermediate students hailing from the Telangana region free of cost. She has also urged the government to direct the Board of Intermediate Education (BIE) to take stringent action against those who were careless in evaluating the Intermediate students’ answerscripts.
Hyderabad, June 02: Thirteen ministers of the state government have made a vain attempt to convince the media that there was no failure on the part of the government in handling the Odarpu Yatra of Congress MP YS Jaganmohan Reddy peacefully last week.
They tried hard to defend chief minister K Rosaiah and to drive home the point that the there were no differences between the ministers and the chief minister, and the decisions were collective.
Visakhapatnam, June 02: The Congress government in the state will continue all the welfare schemes which were introduced by former chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy notwithstanding the hurdles posed by the economic slowdown, Union minister of state for human resource development D Purandeswari has said.
Speaking with mediapersons after laying the foundation stone for various works at Dandu Bazar here today, Purandeswari said that some political leaders were spreading rumours that the Congress government would disband all the welfare schemes.
Hyderabad, June 02: Telugu Desam Party (TDP) president N. Chandrababu Naidu’s brother-in-law N. Harikrishna has warned him against ignoring party leaders and nominating the rich industrialists for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls.
Harikrishna, who is also a member of upper house of parliament, Wednesday asked Naidu to field only those who were working hard for the party.
Harikrishna, son of TDP founder and former chief minister N.T. Rama Rao, met Naidu and urged him to ignore industrialists and businessmen lobbying for Rajya Sabha tickets.
New Delhi, June 02: Congress on Wednesday said the issue of Y S Jaganmohan Reddy’s ‘Odarpu’ yatra and the party’s stand on it was a “domestic affair” which the party was capable of handling.
Law Minister M Veerappa Moily, who is also the party in charge of Andhra Pradesh, today refused to get drawn into the controversy over Jagan’s claim yesterday that he had given him a go ahead to continue with his yatra.
“I don’t want comment anymore on Jagan….” Moily told reporters here.
Batala, June 02: A 3-year-old girl fell into a borewell at Dheera village in Gurdaspur district on Wednesday, official sources said.
Dinnaj Kaur, a resident of Dairywal village, had come to her maternal village Dheera where she accidentally slipped into the borewell while playing near the spot with other children, Deputy Commissioner Gurdaspur Prithi Chand said.
The owner of the borewell had covered it with a gunny bag after its electric motor stopped functioning a few days back.
Sydney, June 02: Smokers are more than twice as likely to have symptoms of depression as compared to non-smokers, research says.
A study by University of Otago involved over 1,000 people, who were asked at ages 18, 21 and 25 years about their smoking habits and whether they had symptoms of depression.
Sophisticated statistical analysis of results found that smoking increases the risk of developing depressive symptoms, rather than the other way round, says an Otago release.
Washington, June 02: Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has said he was disappointed with India but insisted he can never be a hawk vis-a-vis New Delhi.
‘I’m a little disenchanted with India. I expected the largest democracy in the world to behave much more maturely. We are facing a threat on the eastern and western borders,’ Zardari told Newsweek in an interview.
The president spoke in response to a question on Islamabad’s call to extradite the lone surviving 2008 Mumbai attacker, Pakistan’s Ajmal Amir Kasab.
New Delhi, June 02: He may be an ace on the pitch but cricketer VVS Laxman is no match to Bollywood beauty Neha Dhupia when it comes to online gaming.
The two were in the city to promote an online gaming championship when they were pitted against one another to play a car racing game.
Though Dhupia did not seem quite confident in the beginning as she announced she is a “lousy driver”, the actress raced ahead of Laxman in no time and won the contest.
Israel, June 02: Israel vows to continue its naval blockade of the Gaza Strip, after launching a bloody attack on an international aid convoy which had aimed to break the siege.
The Israeli security cabinet said in a statement on Tuesday that it was “a clear act of self defense” for Tel Aviv to maintain the restrictions at sea, Reuters reported.
The Israeli siege of the strip also includes cutting Gaza off from the land and aerial routes which reach the coastal sliver. It took effect in mid-June 2007, reinforcing the limitations Tel Aviv had already put in place.
Hyderabad, June 02: Four Indian Navy officers were injured when their helicopter crashed near the coastal city of Visakhapatnam, police said.
The Chetak helicopter, deployed at INS Dega, crashed into a stream at Ankapalle near Visakhapatnam, which is the headquarters of the Eastern Naval Command.
A police officer at the scene of the crash told reporters that the chopper, which was flying low, crashed into the Sharda Nadi stream after it entangled in high tension electricity wires.
The helicopter was on a routine training sortie.
——IANS—
Chandigarh, June 02: Lawyer Pankaj Bhardwaj, a key player behind former Haryana police chief S.P.S. Rathore’s conviction in the Ruchika molestation case, Wednesday claimed that a lobby had conspired for the Punjab Police raid on his house here Tuesday.
A special team from Amritsar city in Punjab raided Bhardwaj’s house Tuesday to arrest him, in connection with a multi-crore-rupee land scam, but they did not find him there.
Bhardwaj Wednesday appeared in the high court and argued on Rathore’s bail plea in the Ruchika case.