Rains
in Andhra, Orissa claim 30 lives
Hyderabad:
At least 30 people have died due to the unprecedented
rains triggered by cyclonic storm, which crossed the coast
at Kalingapattanam in the north coastal area of Andhra Pradesh
on Monday. Torrential rains, accompanied with gale force
winds with a speed of 70 to 80 kms per hour left approximately
25,000 people homeless in the most affected areas of the
state, like Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, east
and west Godavari, Krishna, Khammam and Warangal district.
According
to official sources, more than 10,000 people have been evacuated
to safer places and 126 relief camps have been opened to
help the victims. IAF choppers have been were pressed into
service to rescue people stranded in marooned villages in
Khammam and East Godavari districts. The life has come to
standstill for the past two days in the state. The raised
level of Godavari river, which crossed the third warning
level of 53 ft at the temple town of Bhadrachalam in Khammam
district, disrupted the rail transportation in Delhi- Chennai
rout on Tuesday. The railway track between Vijaywada and
Warangal has been breached at a number of locations. At
least, 21 trains from Hyderabad have been cancelled. The
National Highway nine, which connects Hyderabad to Vijaywada,
Visakhapatnam, Chennai and Kolkata, is still closed. Several
flights to and from Visakhapatnam also have been cancelled.
Meanwhile, the meteorological department on Tuesday has
predicted more rains and strong winds in the state. Officials
said they were bracing for more rain in the region though
the storm had substantially weakened.
Six-year
imprisonment for 11 in Bihar fodder scam case (Go
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by Girija Shanker Ojha
Ranchi:
A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court
on Wednesday announced a six-year imprisonment and fine
of Rs 30,000 (684 dollars) for each of the eleven accused
in one of the sixty-four cases connected with the 1995-96
Bihar fodder scam. Hearing the petition filed in March,
1996, the court held the eleven accused, including Kashi
Nath Singh, son-in-law of Congress leader and former Union
Minister Ram Lakhan Singh, responsible for fraudulent withdrawal
of Rs 20 lakhs from Hazaribagh treasury. The CBI has, so
far, filed charge sheets in 64 fodder scam cases, out of
which 53 are being tried in the courts at Ranchi and seven
in the capital of Bihar. Meanwhile, the CBI on September
26 will be filing another charge sheet against Rashtriya
Janata Dal chief and Union Railway Minister Lalu Yadav in
connection with the same case. The CBI had already filed
two chargesheets against Lalu. Earlier in May, 2005, the
CBI court had framed charges against Lalu in another fodder
scam case alleging him of fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 3.13
crore from Dumka treasury between December 1995 and January
1996. The first charge was framed on April 25 this year,
against Lalu and 69 others in a case relating to fraudulent
withdrawal of Rs 37 crore in 1996 from Chaibasa treasury.
The fodder scam, which amounts about Rs 950 crore, was unearthed
in Bihar in 1996. The then Chief Minister of the State Lalu
resigned in 1997 after a court issued an arrest warrant
against him in one of the cases.
100
crore loss for bank in Agra (Go
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Agra:
A major fire broke out in the Indian Overseas Bank in
Agra on Tuesday (September 20) causing a loss of crores
to the bank with the entire branch along with the ATM (Automated
Teller Machine)completely gutted. Bank officials say the
fire originated from a short circuit in ATM causing a loss
worth crores of rupees in Indian Overseas Bank in Agra.
"A short circuit in ATM caused the fire in the bank and
before the firemen could extinguish the fire, it spread
quickly throughout the structure. It took at least two hours
to douse the fire," said R.C. Jain, Manager of Indian Overseas
Bank. Many important documents, including computers, have
been damaged. However, no loss of life has been reported
in the fire. "We took more than one hour to douse the fire.
At least four fire brigades were in use to extinguish the
fire flames. We borrowed some water from the nearby hotel.
It's a very huge building but there is no provision for
the fire extinguishers," said Aman Sharma, Fire officer.
Even after spending nearly around two hours in extinguishing
the blaze, a loss of 100 crores is said to be reported.
Four
children die after being treated by quack in Ludhiana (Go
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Ludhiana:
At least four children died and two others were hospitalised
after being treated by a quack doctor in Ludhiana on Tuesday.
The children took medicines from a quack who ran a small
dispensary in the locality. According to relatives, the
children were suffering from minor ailments. "She came back
from school. She was coughing a little and was given a medicine
from a nearby clinic. She started vomitting and then died
soon. We had bought the medicine from the nearby clinic.
Four children have died so far and two are admitted in the
hospital," said Dheeraj, the brother of one of the dead
children. The Police have closed dispensary after taking
samples of medicines. However, the quack could not be arrested.
"We have checked the dates of the medicine and found that
their dates had expired. We have sealed the dispensary.The
quack has escaped the public pelted stones at her. Yes,
it seems she was a quack-doctor.We shall come to know about
more only when we make the arrests," said Shamsher Singh,
police official. In the past, wrong medication by quacks
has left several people crippled and many dead. Investigating
the registration of every doctor has always been very difficult,
especially, in small towns where such quacks usually find
a safe haven. According to Government records, there are
more than 6,000 quacks in Punjab. In April 2001, the Supreme
Court of India passed an order banning the quacks and unqualified
doctors from medical practice. But, despite the Apex Court's
orders sevearl unqualified doctors are still continuing
in many parts of the country.
Godhra
carnage committee's tenure extended (Go
To Top)
New
Delhi: The tenure of Justice U C Banerjee Committee,
which is probing the 2002 train carnage at Godhra town in
Gujarat, was extended till December four, 2005 by the Centre
on Wednesday, an official release said. The one-man committee
was formed in September 2004 by the Union Railway Minister
Lalu Prasad Yadav. Justice Banerjee, the lone member of
the committee, is a retired Supreme Court judge. The committee,
in January this year, had submitted a report before the
Railways Ministry, saying the train burning, in which 59
Hindu pilgrims were burnt alive, was an accident, and not
a conspiracy as earlier assumed. The report had said that
the fire originated from inside the compartment and no external
substance was used to set fire to the train. The pilgrims
were burnt alive at the Godhra rail station on February
27, 2002, blamed on a suspected Muslim mob. Thousands were
later charred to death, mainly Muslims, in reprisal attacks
which followed the Sabarmati Express carnage.
BJP
general secretaries meet at Advani's residence (Go
To Top)
New
Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) general secretaries
are meeting at party president Lal Krishna Advani's residence
here today. According to the party sources, the meeting,
which is being attended by senior leaders including V K
Malhotra, Pramod Mahajan and Arun Jaitley, was called mainly
keeping Bihar assembly elections in the view. The leaders
would also discuss party's strategies over some issues like
KGB revelations by former Soviet secret service agent, Vasili
Mitrokhin about money regularly being paid to the Congress
Party and CPI. This is the first meeting after announcement
about the Advani's resignation as party President. Advani,
during party's national executive in Chennai, had said that
he will lead his party through the Bihar elections and then
resign after that at the BJP plenary in Mumbai.
Three
police officials lynched in West Bengal's Siliguri District (Go
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by Pallav Basu
Siliguri
(West Bengal): Tension prevailed in West Bengal's Siliguri
District on Wednesday, a day after five people, including
a senior police officer and two women constables were killed
in an attack by demonstrators demanding statehood for tribal
areas of the state. Police claimed that the agitating mob
of about 4,000 people turned violent at around noon on Tuesday
after supporters of the Greater Cooch Behar People's Association
tried to break through barriers, using women to lead the
charge, set up on the town's outskirts. An attempt by the
police to restrain them resulted in three of them being
lynched. Two of them died on the spot and Mushtaq Ahmed,
an Additional Superintendent of Police, succumbed to his
injuries in a hospital in Siliguri District.
Cursed
`Eye of Brahma' diamond to go on public display (Go
To Top)
London:
The Natural History Museum in London is to publicly
display a rare black diamond said to have been cursed when
it was removed from a Hindu idol in India two centuries
ago. This is the first time that so-called Black Orlov or
"Eye of Brahma" stone will be on display in Britain. It
will be showcased along with other world-famous gems like
the De Beers Millennium Star and the Steinmetz Pink in an
exhibition on diamonds, reports The Independent. The Black
Orlov is being lent as a late addition to the exhibition
by Dennis Petimezas, a diamond dealer from Pennsylvania,
who bought it for an unspecified sum last year. The diamond
was discovered in India in the early 1800s, when it weighed
195 carats. It was allegedly cursed - as were all its future
owners - when a monk removed the gem from the eye of the
idol of Brahma at a shrine near Pondicherry in India.
At
least three former owners have apparently killed themselves.
In 1932, JW Paris, the diamond dealer who imported the stone
to the United States, jumped to his death from one of New
York's tallest buildings shortly after concluding the sale
of the jewel. And 15 years later, a pair of Russian princesses,
Nadia Vyegin- Orlov and Leonila Galitsine-Bariatinsky, leapt
to their deaths within a month of each other. In an attempt
to escape the curse, the diamond was re-cut into three separate
stones, which have since been in the possession of a succession
of private owners. The 67.5car stone known today as the
Black Orlov is set in a 108- diamond brooch suspended from
a 124-diamond necklace. When the diamonds exhibition closes
in February, the necklace will travel to California where
a star, whom Petimezas refused to name, will wear it to
the 2006 Oscars ceremony. Black diamonds are very rare and
get their colour from the presence of tiny mineral traces,
mainly the iron-oxide minerals magnetite and haematite.
Only one in 10,000 diamonds mined is coloured.
Sachin
Tendulkar opts out of Super Series in Australia (Go
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by Sushil Parikh
Mumbai:
Batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar on Wednesday announced
his non-availability for the Super Test and one-day Series
to be played between World X1 and Australia next month,
declaring himself unfit for the event. Tendulkar, who has
been away from the cricket field since the end of the India
and Pakistan one-day series in April, is said to have submitted
a letter to the offices of the Board of Control for Cricket
in India (BCCI) here, saying that he had been advised to
skip the Super Series to enable him to recover from his
tennis elbow surgery and return to full match fitness. Tendulkar,
who underwent the surgery in London in May this year, was
then advised rest fro 14 to 16 weeks. This resulted in him
missing out on the one-day series in Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe,
as well the ongoing Test series in Zimbabwe. Earlier on
September 14, the International Cricket Council (ICC) had
given him (Tendulkar) time till September 21 to prove his
fitness for the Johnnie Walker Super Series ties between
Australia and the Rest of the World XI. The ICC's Manager
of Cricket Operations, Dave Richardson, had then said in
a teleconference from Dubai (the headquarters of the ICC)
that though Tendulkar was keen to play the series in Australia,
he would take a reasonable decision on his availability
for the event. Richardson also said then that the lack of
competitive cricket would be a factor that could go against
Sachin, and added that Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq could
be a replacement for the six-day one-off Super Test. This
was something that did not go down well with the Pakistan
Cricket Board (PCB) or Inzamam. The latter is said to have
expressed his ire over his exclusion from the initial line-up,
and said that he would not also attend the Captains Conference
being held on the sidelines of the matches.
