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Goonda Act invoked against mutt manager, junior seer's brother

     Kanchipuram: Junior Pontiff Vijayendra Saraswati's brother R Raghu and Kanchi mutt manager Sundaresa Iyer have been detained by the special investigating team probing the Sankararaman murder case under the Goondas Act. The move comes a day after chargesheet was filed against the two Kanchi Sankaracharyas in the case. While the senior pontiff is out on a bail, the junior is behind the bars. The SIT has already detained eight other people, namely, Kathiravan, Chinna, Ambikapathy, Mattu Basker, Meenakshisundaram, Anandkumar, Anil Kumar and KS Kumar under the Act.

     The latest move takes the number to ten. By now a total of 24 persons, including Kanchi seer Jayendra Saraswathi have been arrested in connection with the Sankararaman murder case. Kanchi seer Jayendra Saraswati was, however, granted bail on January 11 last. Initially there were 25 accused, but after one of the accused Ravi Subramaniam desired to become an approver, he has become a prosecution witness. According to the provisions of the Goondas Act, it is invoked against those who have a series of cases against them. In police parlance only "habitual offenders" are detained under the Act. People arrested under the Act cannot seek bail but can only approach a review committee for relief after three months of their detention. They can then approach the committee through their advocate to challenge the detention. Then the investigating officer produces all the relevant documents to the committee. Thereafter if the committee feels that the detention was not legal, it could order the release.

Chargesheet in Radhakrishnan case to be filed soon (Go To Top)

    Kanchipuram: The Special Investigation Team (SIT), which filed the final report in the Shankararaman case, is all set to submit the chargesheet in the ex-mutt associate and auditor S Radhakrishnan attempt-to-murder case. Kanchi Sankracharya Acharya Jayendra Saraswati is an accused in the case. According to the SIT chief and District Superintendent of Police K Premkumar, the chargesheet in the attempt-to-murder case would be filed by the end of this month. ''All the arrests have been made and the preparations with regard to filing the chargesheet are on,'' he added. It would not take much time as the same people, who were involved in the Sankararaman murder case, had allegedly committed the crime. The Kanchi seer is at the moment out of the jail on bail. He was released on bail on Januray 11, exactly two months after he was arrested.

Bush invokes god more often than other Presidents in his speech (Go To Top)

     London: George W. Bush probably is far more god- fearing than any other presidents or so it seems for a new study conducted by researchers at the University of Washington and the University of Illinois suggests that no president has invoked God as often as George W. Bush. The researchers led by David Domke and Kevin Coe analyzed more than seven decades of inaugural and State of the Union addresses and found that Bush referenced a higher power 10 times in his first inaugural four years ago, and another 14 times in his three State of the Union addresses. No other president since Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933 has mentioned God so often in his inaugural or State of the Union speeches. "In these ritualized occasions, any religious language becomes fused with American identity. In placing so much emphasis on God, Bush is making clear his view that the nation has a divinely created place in the world," Domke said.

     The closest to Bush's average of six references per major address is Ronald Reagan, who averaged 4.75 in his comparable speeches. Jimmy Carter mentioned God only twice in four addresses while Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson were at 1.69 and 1.5 references per speech, respectively. The researchers found that Bush also talks about God differently than most other modern presidents. His pronouncements position him as a prophet, issuing declarations of divine desires for the nation and world. For example, Bush said in 2003 that "the liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity." "This is not a request for divine favor, it is a declaration of divine wishes. It's one thing to state that there is a God and that Americans should listen to Him, which is what presidents have generally done. In contrast, Bush speaks as if he knows exactly what God wants," Domke said.