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Non-stop rain paralyses Mumbai
by Sushil Parikh

     Mumbai: Continuous heavy rains in Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra have paralysed normal life in the state completely, even as thousands of people are making a valiant bid to recover from the natural calamity. Though there are no reports of fresh deaths so far, other services like transport continue to be in a critical sate of inactivity. Road traffic on the Eastern and Western Express highways has been affected by the rains since Sunday. Suburban rail services on the Central and Harbour routes running between Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and Kurla, but suspended on other routes. The trains are running at a slow speed because of flooded tracks. Meanwhile, around 2000 people living in low lying areas along the banks of Mitha and Mula rivers in Pune have been shifted to safer places as a red alert has been declared in the city. Five thousand families in 35 villages along the Krishna river in Sangli district have also been evacuated. Ninety per cent of the state's electricity supply, which was cut off over the last two days due to heavy rains, has been restored by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.

     A heavy downpour has slowed down relief efforts. Floods closed key roads and delayed train services in the sprawling metropolis of more than 15 million people, but there were no reports of new casualties or serious damage in the area. Army and navy were called in to rescue people from the heavily affected areas of Kalina. "As and when we got information that few people in the slums were still inside their submerge houses, we rescued them and gave them food and shelter. We also rescued 300 children who were at the Air India building which was nearly submerged," said Racchpal Singh, an Indian army personnel. Three columns of the Army have been brought from Pune and deployed in affected areas of Patan, Karad, Sangli and Kolhapur. About 5,000 families in 35 villages along the Krishna river in Sangli district have been evacuated to safer places, following a rise in the water level of the river. Heavy rains in the region, coupled with the release of 70,000 cusecs of water from the Koyna dam has led to an alarming rise in the water level. In Satara, 55 villages continue to remain cut off, even as authorities plan to release more water from the Koyna dam.

     Officials have said 600 medical teams had been dispatched around the state to help treat the injured and cremate the dead. Financial markets were open and operating normally, though volumes were fairly thin, as traders could not get to work. Schools were shut and police urged people to stay off the roads. Disease remained a serious threat as dead bodies and animal carcasses were still strewn around the city from last week's floods. Clean water was scarce in parts of the city after burst sewage pipes polluted supplies. In one area, residents rescued each other and took shelter in a mosque. The residents said they have not received any help from the government. Weather officials believe the heavy rain could spread to Gujarat state to the north, which was hit by floods last month that killed more than 200 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless. A TV news channel reported that flooding in Indore, a city 150 km east of the Gujarat border, killed nine people. Even before the renewed downpour on Sunday, there were angry protests in the parts of the city where people have been without electricity and water since flooding started last Tuesday. A spokesman for Reliance Energy, which supplies power in some eastern and northern suburbs, said fresh flooding was hindering restoration work and more shutdowns were possible. Filmmakers in the city, home to India's prolific movie industry, said they would start legal action against the state government over its handling of the floods, newspapers reported. Meanwhile, members of the Rajya Sabha are slated to take up discussion of the flood situation in Maharashtra.

Gujarat on red alert for rains and floods (Go To Top)

     Gandhinagar: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday put the state machinery on high alert to meet any eventuality after the state Meteorological Bureau issued a warning of very heavy rainfall across the state in the next 48 hours. Modi order after a high-level meeting with the top revenue and flood control department officials here. During the meeting, Modi had reviewed the rainfall and dams position in the last 24 hours. He had also instructed the Health Department to be prepared to meet the medical facilities and prevention of epidemics, if in case the state gets heavy flood in the second spell of the monsoon. In the first spell of monsoon, almost entire Gujarat was heavily flooded resulting into killing of over 200 people and property and business loss worth over Rs 10,000 crores. Meanwhile, a report from Rajkot said drought-prone Saurashtra and Kutch regions had received good amount of rainfall in the last 12 hours, as a result all the dams and water reservoirs were either filled to their full capacities or over-flowing at many places. Rajkot city has received good amount of rainfall in the last 12 hours resulting into water-logging in many low-lying areas. The highest rainfall of 60 mm was recorded in Rajkot tehsil while lowest 12 mm in Tankara tehsil of Rajkot district. In Surendranagar district four dams -- Morsal, Triveni, Dholi Dhaja and Dhari were over-flowing. While in Jamnagar three dams - - Kankavati, Khodapipar, Dami and Und-III, in Rajkot district -- Moj-I, Machhu-I & II, Dondi-I, Bhadar-II, Nayari-I & II, Bangawadi, Haji-II & III and Lalpari were said to be overflowing.

Teresa's charity says it tied retarded kids for safety (Go To Top)
by Ajitha Menon

     Kolkata: A charity founded by Mother Teresa said on Tuesday that disabled children at one of its homes in India were restrained for their own safety, after a British television reporter filmed children tied to their beds. Britain's Five said it had uncovered "serious shortcomings" at a care center run by the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata. The channel claims that It secretly filmed many of the 59 children -- aged six months to 12 years -- living at the Daya Dan shelter tied by their ankles to their cots at night, restrained while being fed and left for up to 20 minutes on the toilet by their carers. In a statement, Five News said it began investigating the home after hearing complaints from international aid workers. The global order of nuns has denied wrongdoing say its charitable homes only tied children when absolutely necessary. "I don't think that anyone is so terribly in favour of restraining the children but if we feel that if there is a need for restrainingit has been done very infrequently in the past," Paula Marie, sister in charge of Daya Dan, said. Five News reporter Donal MacIntyre in an interview has said there are strategies for looking after disabled children that minimize stressful situations but as a result of poor training and lack of resources, the staff at Daya Dan are resorting to inhumane practices. Five News has said the shocking footage reveals that despite receiving millions of pounds in donations every year, there is little evidence of its investment at the centers. Sister Marie says the practice was not inhuman but aimed at teaching the children as the missionaries are not in favour of using unwarranted medication. The nun narrated the case of a hyperactive child Binoy who had hurt himself because of his often-violent movements mostly before bedtime but slowly learnt to sleep calmly after the sisters tied him to his cot for small hours. "For instance at night a sister was restraining Binoy (a child at Daya Dan) by tying one ankle with a sheet, loosely tying with a sheet and when he fell asleep then releasing and he stays in bed. Now he has learned to stay in bed so it is no longer necessary to restrain him. He was trained in that way. There may be other ways, what is his name Mr. Maclntyre (Five News reporter Donal MacIntyre) can suggest those ways to us. Medication, we are not using, hyper activity medication we don't use. That might be one way but we are not using it," sister Marie said. Daya Dan was set up in 1998, a year after the death of Mother Teresa, who adopted Kolkata as the centre of her global charitable order that now runs more than 750 centers across the world. The Missionaries of Charity, famous for working among the sick, destitute and dying, said it was committed to serving the ideals of Mother Teresa and improving the quality of care in Daya Dan. Nobel Peace Prize winner Mother Teresa, who founded the order in 1950 in Kolkata, died in 1997 at the age of 87.

Hizb commander among four killed in encounter (Go To Top)

    Srinagar: A top commander of pro-Pakistan Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) and a woman were among four people killed in encounter with another militant group in Jammu and Kashmir's Anantnag District today. HM commander Mushtaq Ahmad Khan alias Shahnawaz was killed in inter group clash at Kachwari Kokernag. Militants shot at and critically wounded one Bashir Ahmad Wani at Kakpora in Pulwama district. He was shifted to hospital where he died. Militants entered the house of one Abdullah and shot dead his wife Aisha Bi at Sanglow in Surankote while one Sain Gujjar was kidnapped and later killed by militants at Tar Nallah in Doda district. Security forces recovered three hand grenades, 50 detonators, one telescope and 80 rounds of ammunition in the frontier district of Kupwara. However, no one was arrested.

BJP-TDP six-year old alliance in Andhra Pradesh ends (Go To Top)

     Hyderabad: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) on Tuesday formally announced a parting of ways after six years. Both parties simultaneously announced that they had decided to contest the upcoming municipal elections separately. "We have decided to go it alone in the ensuing municipal elections as the TDP is pursuing with its opportunist politics by supporting Muslim Reservations Bill," state BJP vice president S V Seshagiri Rao said today. The move has cheered the rank and file of both parties in the state, though their leaders wasted no time in trading charges over the reasons for the split. While the TDP said that the BJp had decided to move away in a bid to win the minority Muslim vote, the BJP said that it was not just depending on the Muslim vote to win the polls. The BJP also said that it had always resented the big brother attitude of the TDP when it came to the issue of seat sharing before polls. The next State Assembly elections are due in 2009.

Delhi HC directs CBI to probe housing scam (Go To Top)

     New Delhi: The Delhi High Court today ordered the Director of the Central Bureau of investigation (CBI) to form a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the multi-crore housing scam in Indian capital. According to reports, the government has lost approximately 3,000-4,000 crore rupees because of this land scam. A two-member bench comprising Justices Vijender Jain and Manju Goel asked the CBI to submit report by August 31. "This scam has occurred in connivance with officials of DDA, Registrar of Societies and Builders," the bench said, adding "the report should include the names and profession of the office bearers of these societies to find out whether they were contractors or sub-contractors." The court also directed the Secretary, Department of Personnel and Delhi's Chief Secretary to provide adequate staff to the CBI in the wake of CBI SP Piyush Anand telling the court that the agency needed adequate personnel for the investigation and verification of documents seized on Monday. The court, however, said that the CBI should not take any help from any officer linked to the Registrar of Co-operative Societies (RCS). "If you want you can seek the help of Satya Gopal, the Registrar himself," the court said. The Bench has asked advocate K C Mittal to assist it in the matter. Earlier, the CBI had submitted a report of the raids that iot had conducted in the capital on Monday. Raids were carried out at at least 70 places in connection with the alleged misappropriation of land in the name of co- operative group housing societies (CGHS). During the searches, the CBI claimed that it had recovered a large number of documents relating to irregularities in recommending allotment of land and issue of blank stamp papers. "There are a number of people involved in the scam, including Narayan Diwakar, former head of registrar of co-operative societies (RCS) and a retired IAS officer of AGMU cadre, other public servants, several builders and agents," a CBI spokesman said.

     Approximately 135 fake group housing societies have been detected, out of which 80 are being investigated by the CBI. The apex investigating agency had registered four cases relate to the UNI, Taz, Sartaz and Rajeshwari housing societies in this connection on Friday. According to it, Some people used to form a fake executive body and claim land under CGHS scheme in which prices are one-tenth that of the market rate. Later, flats were constructed on the same land and sold at very high rates. The CBI report says many CGHSs were registered in Delhi between 1970 and 1980. out of which, Some of them became defunct either because of non-operation or non-submission of documents, mandatory under the Delhi Co-operative Societies Act, 1972. During the process of developing plots for allotment to about 80 housing societies in 2003, some builders and others conspired with the then registrar, assistant registrars and other c- operative officials to fraudulently revive the co-operative group housing societies on the basis of false and forged documents and recommend them to the DDA for allotment of land, the CBI said. As per the report, these persons removed the original files of these housing societies and created new fictious ones by accepting bogus and forged records from the so-called office- bearers of these societies.

References: Rain paralyses Mumbai Gujarat red alert flood, Mother Teresa charity retarded kids Kolkata, Hizb commander Kashmir militants, BJP TDP Andhra Pradesh alliance, Delhi high court CBI housing scam, opposition walkout parliament Sikh riots report, election commission Bihar transfer officials, Karnataka deputy chief minister sack, king Fahd Saudi Arabia dead, Kashmir infiltration 1965, India, India News, Newspaper, Indian, News, Travel News, India Travel Times, Travel,Tourism, Tour, Tourist, India, Times, News, Hotels, Airlines, Ayurveda, Yoga, Hindu, Taj Mahal, Cuisine, Festival, Temple, Trekking, Hindu, Bharatanatyam, Kathakali, Odissi, Dance, Shimla,Varanasi, Kullu, Manali, Dehra Dun, Mussourie, Mussoorie, Haridwar, Hardwar, Rishikesh, Nainital, Delhi, Goa, Kovalam, Darjeeling, Bodh Gaya, Kancheepuram, Kanchipuram, Thekkady, Badrinath, Amar Nath,Vaishno Devi, Tirupati, Sabarimala, Guruvayoor, Kanyakumari, Kodaikanal, Ooty, Chennai,

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