Three-year-old girl dies after rape

Lucknow: A three-year-old girl died after she was allegedly raped by a youth in Hariparvat area in Agra district, police said today.


According to the victim's father Manoj Kumar, Sanjay alias Neeraj raped his daughter in Hariparvat area late last night when he had gone to attend a marriage.

The complainant said that the child later died while being taken to the hospital, police said, adding that Sanjay has been arrested.

Orissa: Maoists kidnap District Collector of Malkangiri district

Bhubaneswar: A senior IAS officer in Orissa's Malkangiri district has been kidnapped by the Maoists. District Collector R Vineel Krishna was kidnapped while he was returning after an interaction programme in Gumma block of tribal-dominated Malkangiri district.

The incident happened on Wednesday, just two days before Home Minister P Chidambaram's scheduled video-conference with the Collectors of 60 Maoist-hit districts.

Malkangiri Additional SP A Das said there has been no communication with the Collector since Wednesday afternoon. Thirty-year-old Vineel Krishna, an IIT-Madras graduate, joined administrative service in 2005. Krishna was posted as the District Collector of Malkangiri 16 months ago. He is known to be popular with the local people and interacts closely with them.

What is 2G spectrum scam?

New Delhi: From the time allegations of misappropriation during the bidding for allocation of 2G spectrum surfaced, till Telecom Minister A Raja's ouster, high drama charged both politics in Delhi and Tamil Nadu. So what exactly is the Spectrum Scam that led to all this?



WHAT IS SPECTRUM SCAM?
•2G licenses issued to private telecom players at throwaway prices in 2008
•CAG: Spectrum scam has cost the government Rs. 1.76 lakh crore
•CAG: Rules and procedures flouted while issuing licenses

WHAT ARE THE CHARGES ON FORMER TELECOM MINISTER A RAJA?
CHEAP TELECOM LICENSES
• Entry fee for spectrum licenses in 2008 pegged at 2001 prices
• Mobile subscriber base had shot up to 350 million in 2008 from 4 million in 2001
•Rules changed after the game had begun
•Cut-off date for applications advanced by a week
•Licenses issued on a first-come-first-served basis
•No proper auction process followed, no bids invited
•Raja ignored advice of TRAI, Law Ministry, Finance Ministry
•TRAI had recommended auctioning of spectrum at market rates

2G scam: Raja 5 days with CBI

New Delhi: The CBI today accused former Telecom Minister A Raja of causing a loss of Rs. 22,000 crore to the exchequer by favouring some telecom firms in award of the 2G spectrum licences and demanded his custody for five days, which a city court granted.


Raja, former Telecom Secretary Siddartha Behura and Raja's former Personal Secretary R K Chandolia, were produced before Special CBI Judge O P Saini a day after they were arrested in connection with the 2G spectrum allocation scam.

Wearing a grey safari suit, the 47-year-old DMK MP appeared cool and composed and greeted the judge with folded hands. His counsel Ramesh Gupta sought time for a privateconversation with Raja, which the judge allowed for ten minutes.

BSP MLA accused of rape goes missing

Lucknow: A day after Mayawati's government gave clearance to the Uttar Pradesh police to arrest BSP MLA Purushottam Naresh Dwivedi, accused of raping a minor girl, he went missing. The UP police admits the MLA is on the run. There is still no word on his whereabouts and arrest.



Chief Minister Mayawati summoned officials of the Crime Branch and CID who are investigating the case.


A preliminary inquiry by the CB-CID into the Banda rape case found that Dwivedi had raped the teenager and framed her in a false theft case. The girl is still behind the bars.


She appeared before civil judge junior division Ravi Kumar Gupta and had alleged in her statement that Dwivedi raped her twice while his aides teased her, prosecution sources said.


She also alleged that no action was taken against Dwivedi as police was conniving with the MLA and his aides. The girl had given a similar statement to a three-member team of National Commission of Women (NCW).

Policeman attacked on road, ministers stare from cars, don't help

A policeman, R Vetrivel, in Tamil Nadu lies on the road begging for help. The 44-year-old's legs have been chopped off by gangsters.

A government convoy passes by this part of Tirunelvelli. It includes two ministers  - for Sports and Health - in the Tamil Nadu government. The convoy stops.  Neither of the ministers step out of their cars. With them are bureaucrats - a Collector and a Health Secretary.

The Collector, M Jayaraman, finally gets out of his car after dithering for eight minutes. But nobody offers to take the wounded inspector to hospital. Finally, the Collector phones for an ambulance. It doesn't arrive.

Twenty minutes later, the cop is placed in one of the cars (the ministers still don't offer theirs). The policeman dies en route to the hospital.

Hungry on Children's Day

On Children's Day, India faces a grim fact that despite having 60 years of democracy and a high growth rate, almost half of the children under six years are malnourished.

The rate of childhood malnutrition in India is twice that of sub-Saharan Africa.

In Naxalite-infested Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh, a memorial has been erected to remember those 18 children who died of malnutrition five years ago.

This in a district, which is fertile and produces tonnes of coal, limestone and dolomite.

The children belonged to the acutely poor Ghasia tribal community in Raup village who are victims of internal displacement. But the administration seems reluctant to settle them.

Memorial or no memorial, the children have been forgotten.

Locked, tortured by father for 7 years

In a horrifying story from Vasai, 60-year-old Francis Gomes locked up his three daughters and his wife for over seven years, allegedly worried that his daughters would get corrupted or raped if they stepped out of the house. Karan Johar apologises for 'Bombay' Raj Thackeray's party workers stopped the screening of Wake Up Sid because Mumbai is referred to as Bombay in the film. Producer Karan Johar met Thackeray and apologised to him. Rakhi, Elesh kiss on camera Item-girl-turned-actress Rakhi Sawant, who is currently doing a reality show Pati Patni Aur Woh on NDTV Imagine, was caught lip locking with her fiance Elesh Parujanwala on camera.

Dalit man set on fire in Madhya Pradesh

Saturday September 19, 2009, Shivpuri, Madhya Pradesh

In a shocking incident, a Dalit was set on fire in Madhya Pradesh's Shivpuri district for refusing to give in to the demands of a moneylender and his supporters.

Narayan Singh Khangaar is battling for his life. The 56-year-old Dalit farmer has nearly 60 per cent burn injuries and was set ablaze, allegedly by a moneylender and some powerful members of his village.

Two years ago, Narayan had taken a loan of Rs 70,000 from the moneylender and mortgaged his land. He repaid the loan in due course and was demanding the loan papers back from the money lender

. Narayan's wife is dead and he has no heir.

The moneylender wanted to grab Narayan's two acres of land, as villagers allege.

"Narayan had mortgaged his land and taken a loan from the money lender. Meanwhile, the moneylender refused to give back the land and got it registered in his own wife's name when Narayan reiterated his demand for getting his land back. They burnt him alive," said Govind, a village guard.

A case of attempt to murder has been registered against four people, including the moneylender; all of them are on the run. The administration

says the guilty will not get away.

Shivpuri has a notorious record of crime against Dalits. This is the third such incident in the last year, and many fear this may not be the last.

School stampede: 5 dead, over 30 injured

Thursday, Sep 10, 2009 , India

Six of the injured children are in critical condition with serious head injuries. Stampede took place after parts of the school got flooded due to heavy rain.

 

Vidarbha farmer suicides on reel life

Saturday August 29, 2009, Nagpur

A young farmer dies in the arms of his friend. The friend screams Nandyaa. The wife, the son, the mother, sister, everyone starts crying. Another family loses their only earning member to farm debt, this time on reel life.
At a time when almost half of the country is battling drought and the lives of farmers across the nation is in question, zooming in on just how a family survives after their earning member commits suicide is a Marathi film running to packed houses in Vidarbha region.
'Goshth Chhoti, Dongraa Evadhi--A Small Story, as Small as a Mountain--is a recent Marathi release making headlines, as much for its story on farm suicides, as for bringing the farmers of Vidarbha region to the multiplexes.
One such man is Maruti Kambli, whose son Devendra killed himself last Diwali.
"He killed himself over a debt of Rs 23,000. Had he been given a government loan, he wouldn't have gone to a moneylender. He would have been alive today," Kambli said.
In the film, the hero abducts the agriculture minister and makes him witness their misery. But in reality, no minister found time to visit the Kamblis. They got no compensation because technically Devendra was not a farmer since he had no land to his name. His widow is now a daily wage labourer and the only earning member of the family.
According to Shyam Pethkar, a journalist, "We urban people consider the farmer a very small being. If he is dying, so be it. He must be crazy or drunk."
For Shyam, the story is a factual narration of a problem, as complex and self-contradictory as the title of the movie.
However, as art imitates life, for the people of Vidarbha, the film has struck an eerie connection and they have been coming literally for every show.

Girl paraded naked in school for not paying fees

Girl paraded naked in school for not paying fees

Ajit Sinha, Saturday August 29, 2009, Faridabad

A class three student was paraded naked on her school premises after her family failed to pay the school fees, in Faridabad, Haryana. The nine-year old girl is a student of Faridabad Model School in Sector-31. The victim's parents, who are entitled to a full-fee concession, had actively participated in an agitation against a fee hike by the school recently. "Since I didn't attend school on Thursday, I was forced to take off my T-shirt. When my teacher caught my skirt, I told her not to do that. When I asked why she was doing it, she said it was the principal's order. Then I was asked to stand half-naked for a long time and when I tried to cover myself, she asked me to stand straight," the girl said.

Jaipur: Student raped by school Principal

Reshma, a 13-year-old student of Jaipur's Maharaja Public School, is living a nightmare. She was raped by the Principal even as her classmates played outside during recess.

Saturday August 29, 2009, Jaipur

"Sir asked me to keep a bucket in his room, then he caught me and stuffed a cloth in my mouth so I could not scream. He shut the door and switched off the lights. He undo the drawstring of my salwar and then he hit me again and again," she said.
The principal, Ramesh Saini, even threatened to kill Reshma, but the horror was too much for her to bear. When he raped her again the next day in school, Reshma broke down.
As the news spread people in the area went on a rampage, attacking the accused. But other students from the school say the Principal probably abused other children as well.
"We heard from junior students that girls were too scared to go to his office as he used to misbehave," one of the students said.
"He used to make them sit in his lap, he used to call them to his room on some pretext or the other either to clean the room or make tea," another student said.
The school has been running for 12 years, but what's surprising is that no one spoke up before; the children perhaps were too scared to speak and the parents complicit by trying to cover up.