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Church helps people identify the dead

     Velankani (Tamil Nadu): The famous Velankani church in Tamil Nadu has displayed photographs of those who perished in the tsunamis to facilitate their identification. Large number of people are thronging the church, 365 kilometres from state capital Chennai, in the hope of finding some information about the missing people. In Velankani and nearby places, a number of dead bodies were heaped and a mass burial was held to avoid the spread of epidemic. The church has 400 photographs of the dead. P. Xavier, Rector of the Velankani church said, that the move was aimed at helping relatives in getting the much-needed death certificates. "These photos we keep here, people come and the identify their relatives. After identification, FIR is filed. Then we give away the death certificates for all these people and in case we are not able to identify even after seeing the photos, we see whether there is any kind of identification from the photos, which they bring along with some kind of certificate from their place. Keeping that in mind, the missing people are also confirmed as dead. Then we go ahead to give them the death certificate. That way it's very helpful for us to get the record," said Xavier. Needless to say, the photographs are of great help to relatives of the victims in identifying the dead and approaching the church administration for a printout of the photo, which they produce, to the police for issuance of death certificate.

Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp raise funds for tsunami victims (Go To Top)

    London: Hollywood stars seem to have joined hands to help raise money for victims of the Asian tsunami. According to Femalefirst, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp and Renee Zellweger were joined by a galaxy of movie and music stars on a US TV benefit show appealing people to donate money to help those left devastated by the disaster. Nicolas Cage, Clint Eastwood and Diana Ross were the other celebrities who made a personal plea for cash to help re-build the ravaged region and all manned phones to take pledges from people all across the US. The event was organised by George Clooney and opened by Madonna who recorded a version of John Lennon's classic hit 'Imagine' in London especially for the telethon. Other artists who performed included Sir Elton John, Norah Jones, Stevie Wonder and Eric Clapton.

Court reserves decision on handing over Jr Sankaracharya to SIT (Go To Top)

     Kanchipuram: Decision on whether to hand over the junior seer to Special Investigation Team for interrogation or not has been reserved by a Kanchipuram court. The junior seer, Vijayendra Saraswati is currently lodged in the Chennai central prison. His bail plea which came up in a Chingalpet court on Monday, has been posted for January 19. Earlier during the hearing of the bail petition of the junior seer, Vanangamudi, the judge of the Kanchipuram fast track court, acting in the absence of the session's judge, adjourned the case to Jan 19 after hearing the views of the prosecution and the defence counsel. Adjourning the case, the judge said, Vijayendra Saraswati's plea would be taken up along with the bail petition of the two other accused in the case, his brother Raghu and the manager of the mutt N. Sundaresa Iyer, which would also come up for hearing Jan 19. Vijayendra was arrested Jan 10 in connection with the murder of temple official A. Sankararaman, and was remanded in judicial custody till Jan 24. He was subsequently lodged in the Chennai Central Prison.