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Gautam Goswami surrenders in Patna court

     Patna: Former Patna District Magistrate and Bihar flood relief scam accused Gautam Goswami surrendered before a special court in Patna a couple of hours ago. Accompanied by his lawyer Tuhin Shanker, Goswami surrendered before the designated Vigilance Judge Jitender Mohan Prasad. Only yesterday the Patna High Court had rejected his anticipatory bail application in connection with the case. Goswami, who was declared "wanted" by the State Vigilance Investigation Bureau that is probing the multi-crore fraud case, had been on the run since the Vigilance Court issued a non- bailable arrest warrant against him and eight others on May 31. Goswami had moved the Patna High Court for bail on June 13 after a local vigilance court had rejected his anticipatory bail application on June 6.

Tourists evacuated from Himachal Pradesh (Go To Top)

     Rampur/Surendra Nagar/Jammu: Air Force helicopters continue to evacuate stranded tourists from Himachal Pradesh, which has been hit by the flash floods due to bursting of Sutlej river. No deaths have been reported but dozens of homes, roads and bridges have been washed away. Thousands of people have fled their homes after the breach, which local scientists say, may have been caused by a swollen lake in neighbouring China. The water level has receded and officials said the "worst could have been over". The army has moved into the mountainous region since the Sutlej river rose on Sunday, moving an estimated 5,000 people to safe houses on higher ground besides restoring road and telecom links. Officials said their priority was to evacuate tourists stranded at places cut off by road. "There are over 300 tourists stranded, we have evacuated about 100 people since yesterday and very soon the job would be completed," said D.K. Rattan, Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Rampur. Officials suspect an artificial lake in neighboring Tibet, which was formed last year after a landslide blocked the Pareechu river, a tributary of the Sutlej, could have breached resulting in the sudden gush of water and are awaiting confirmation from satellite imagery. There has been no comment from Chinese authorities, however.

Over 25,000 evacuated from flood-hit Gujarat, Orissa (Go To Top)

     Ahmedabad/Bhubaneswar: Over 25,000 people have been evacuated from several flood ravaged areas of Gujarat and Orissa, evan as these states continued to be lashed by heavy rains for the fifth straight day. Official reports confirmed that at least three districts in Orissa have been inundated by the surging waters of the River Baitarani, leaving 100,000 people stranded at different locations. In Gujarat, 40 pople died and the coastal district of Valsad remains on high alert after rains pounded Vadodara, Bharuch, Ahmedabad, Narmada and Kehda districts where the maximum deaths occurred. Power lines in over 2,500 villages have snapped. The rains also affected rail and road traffic. While rail traffic moved at a snail's pace, road traffic in several parts of the state, including national highways, have been disrupted. Heavy downpour has also affected more than 500 roads in the state as also two national highways connecting Surat. Emergency services and disaster management teams were still at work to evacuate thousands of people living in low- lying areas of Sabarkundla and Surendranagar district after excessive rain water caused flooding. All major dams across the state are reported overflowing with the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Narmada district flowing over 116 metres. Songadh in Surat district received the maximum 546 mm of rainfall, Dharampur, Kaprada 394 and Pardi 331 (all in Valsad district), Khamba in Amreli district 335 mm, Gandevi 47 and Vansda 437 (both in Navsari district). Meanwhile, flood water from the River Baitrani, which was flowing above its danger mark at two points, has affected life in 20 panchayats (local self-government blocks) of Orissa's Jajpur District, putting the administration on high alert. The met office at Bhubaneswar today warned that heavy rains were likely at a few places with very heavy falls at isolated places over North Orissa till Friday.

Left opposition to UPA policies 'minor hiccups': Manmohan (Go To Top)

     New Delhi: Reiterating his government's commitment to accelerate the pace of domestic reform and to integrate the Indian economy at the global level, Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh on Thursday said that the Left's objections to the fuel price hike and divestment policy on BHEL were just "minor hiccups" that could be overcome. Dr. Singh said he was hopeful about finding an effective solution to it. "These are minor hiccups. No coalition is totally free of these things. I think we will find an effective solution," he said during in an interview with the Straits Times when asked about the increasingly strident tone of the Left towards some of the UPA Government's policies and this week's street protests against its decision to increase prices of petrol and diesel.

Delhi police nab top poacher Sansar Chand (Go To Top)

     New Delhi: Delhi Police on Thursday arrested Sansar Chand, one of the most wanted poachers in the country, whose name cropped up in connection with disappearance of tigers from Sariska Reserve in Rajasthan. Chand, wanted in several cases under the Wildlife Protection Act, was arrested by the Crime Branch in the capital's Patel Nagar area, police sources said. The notorious poacher was on the run for a long time and his name had even cropped up with regard to disappearance of tigers from the Sariska reserve in Rajasthan. Sansar Chand has been associated with wildlife crime virtually all his life. He was first arrested in September 1974 in a case involving a tiger skin. He was 16 years old. He was convicted in April 1982, and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for one-and- half-years by the Metropolitan Magistrate. However, Chand appealed to the Delhi High Court and got bail. He returned to jail in 1994 because of a NGO/Wildlife Protection Society of India petition. He then appealed to the Supreme Court, which fined him Rs.10,000 but allowed his release after he had served 6 months on the grounds that he was underage at the time the crime was committed. Since then, Sansar Chand had been connected to, implicated, or named in, about 21 wildlife cases throughout India. Many of these have been religiously followed by WPSI.

     On 29 April 2004, Chand was sentenced to five years rigorous imprisonment by the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate of Ajmer in Rajasthan. This is the highest punishment ever awarded under The Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972. Chand, implicated in over 30 cases of wildlife smuggling, had been on the run for over a year, and several members of his family are in prisons in Delhi and Jaipur. Poachers in Sariskafour of them are behind bars have confessed to 10 separate incidents of killing of tigers and leopards in the sanctuary. They showed the investigators the precise spots where 10 tigers and four leopards were killed between June 2002 and July 2004. Investigations reveal the Sariska tigers were caught in steel traps and then shot. Chand belongs to the Gihara tribe of hunters. Arrested over a dozen times, he has been convicted only twice. Once in Ajmer in 04, got five years rigorous imprisonment for smuggling two leopard skins. Got bail in three months, jumped it. At least 30 members of Chands family work with him. His wife Rani, son Akash and niece Ritu are behind bars. Confessions of the arrested Sariska poachers point to Chands role. One of the poachers, Heera Lal Khatik, told the investigators about his sale of tiger skins directly to Sansar Chand. Khatik confessed to selling a tiger skin to Chand for Rs 79,000 in October 2004.

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