Archives for February 2023

Bengaluru: Police on Monday arrested seven students of the Jain University in connection with the Ambedkar skit row that has triggered nationwide controversy.

The arrested students have reportedly been booked under the SC ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and Sections 153a, 295a, and 149 of the Indian Penal Code.

The students were earlier suspended by the college for allegedly insulting Dr. BR Ambedkar and the SC community on February 8, during a skit.

A video clip of the skit had gone viral on social media, drawing criticism and the registration of many FIRs across the state and other places.

Mangaluru: Sri Rama Sene Chief Pramod Mutalik who is aspiring to contest Karnataka Assembly Elections from Karkala Constituency, on Monday said of the 109 cases registered against him so far, several were registered against him were filed during the BJP rule in the state.

Speaking at a press conference on in the city, Mutalik took a dig at the BJP adding that he was obstacled the most by his own people for his views on Hindutva. 

He further added that he was confident of contesting the polls from Karkala and that he wouldn’t step back from contesting the polls.

“I don’t know how to play politics. I wear my heart to my sleeve. If I had licked the boots of the BJP and would’ve supported the BJP’s fake Hindutva, I would’ve achieved a lot by now.” he said.

“I will contest as an independent candidate and I am not pressurized by anyone. Instead, I have received support from several people.” He said expressing confidence of winning the upcoming elections.

“What we are fighting for is the real Hindutva. We are also fighting against corruption in the state. By looking at how much the wealth of Karkala MLA Sunil Kumar’s has increased since he first contested elections, we can figure out the extent of corruption that has gripped the constituency.” Mutalik further added.

“I don’t have anything, I don’t even have a bank account, I stay in a rented house. I don’t have money and that’s why I am not scared.” He added.

New Delhi: Over 69,000 cases are pending in the Supreme Court while there is a backlog of over 59 lakh cases in the country’s 25 high courts, Rajya Sabha was informed on Thursday.

Citing details available on the SC website, Law Minister Kiren Rijiju said in a written reply that 69,511 cases were pending in the top court as on February 1.

“There are 59,87,477 cases pending in the high courts across the country as per the
information available on National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) on February 1, 2023,” he said.

Out of these, 10.30 lakh cases were pending in the Allahabad High Court — the biggest high court of the country.

The Sikkim High Court has the least number of 171 cases.

The government, Rijiju said, has taken several initiatives to provide “suitable environment” for expeditious disposal of cases by the Judiciary.

Subramanian Swamy

Chennai: Former Union minister and senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has said he wants the Centre to nationalise the assets of Adani Group, which has faced scrutiny after its stocks tumbled following a report over its financial deals and a ruckus was created in Parliament by opposition parties over it.

In an interview with PTI here, Swamy spoke about how his recent tweet on being “sorrowful” regarding the demise of former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf which has received a lot of criticism online.

He also spoke about how Union Budget 2023-24 presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman alleging it lacked either objectives or strategies and said the allocation for defence is low at a time when China is aggressive on the border issue.

Excerpts from the interview —

Question: How do you think the BJP government has handled the Adani Group issue, while opposition parties are demanding action against the beleaguered conglomerate?

Answer: I would like to see the Prime Minister nationalise all the assets of Adani Group and then auction it for sale and out of that money, help people who have lost this way. As if Congress didn’t have deals with Adani. I know many of them who had lots of deals with Adani but I don’t care for the Congress. I want the purity of the BJP to be established. The general public opinion is that (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi has something to hide and now it is the job of the government to punish it.

Q: Your recent tweet on being “sorrowful” about ex-Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has been widely criticised on social media even by members of BJP. What do you have to say about it?

A: A lot of criticism on me, saying that Pervez Musharraf was a butcher who killed Indians in the Kargil war. But in the Kargil war, Pervez Musharraf was commander-in-chief for the Pakistan Army. I mean, he didn’t go around shooting people. He asked the army to shoot. Now, how can you be called a butcher and so on when the Prime Minister of Pakistan was Nawaz Sharif during the war (in 1999).

Now, I believe PM Modi is the one who broke all protocol, went to Pakistan and had lunch with him… Why didn’t they talk about the real man who was behind the attack on Kargil, that is Nawaz Sharif. I know Musharraf because I have met him several times. I met him in Pakistan, and in India. He had at that time become president by a coup. When he started wearing civilian clothes, he gave up the commander-in-chief position. He said, I would like to work with India. And he was also the person who helped the United States to finish the Taliban, at least temporarily.

So, these (netizens) are funny people. If they want to question me on that, the first question I have is why did Modi go to Nawaz Sharif’s place, who is the real architect of Kargil war? They won’t do that…

Q. The appointment of Justice Victoria Gowri as an additional judge of Madras High Court has received criticism and outcry by a section of lawyers. Senior advocates say the decision by the Supreme Court on dismissal of the petitions will be challenged. Your comments?

A: In a democracy, anyone can challenge anyone. What she said, as an individual, as a member of RSS, as a member of BJP cannot be assessed unless she became a judge and then behaved the same way. Secondly, as the Chief Justice has correctly noted, she is an additional judge at the moment. And after two years, there’ll be a review… So she has to act according to the law.
We have other judges which I don’t want to name, we have made them judges and they have been “fanatic Muslims” before becoming a judge. So, I think this hounding and hunting people just like that, because they held some views. Why didn’t you prosecute her at that time? When she expressed those views. You could have easily done it. One could have filed a PIL like I do all the time. Go and file a case against her if you want. This is the selection made by the Government of India and supported by the judges of the Supreme Court. So, I think it’s a bogus campaign against her.

Q. You have been a critic of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman from the time she has taken up the portfolio. What is your view on this year’s budget?

A: It is a bogus budget. Budget must have four pillars. What is your (government) objective? No objective was seen in this budget. She said India will grow at six and a half percent next year. What about last year? What happened from 2019 to today, we have only grown at 3 per cent or 4 per cent per year. How is it going to work at 6 per cent?

Regarding the priorities, is agriculture a priority? or is industries a priority or services a priority? Nothing about that. On the question of strategy. What is your (government) strategy? Do you have a strategy for government control? or do you have a strategy for encouraging people to save more? What is the strategy? Nothing. Finally, where are we going to get the resources from? They have cut down the resources for defence, a minuscule amount when China is threatening you. We are cutting our defence allocation. We have got so many essential sectors. So, what she should do is tell us what happened.

Rishikesh: Police on Thursday found a half-eaten body of a missing woman in the buffer zone of Corbett Tiger Reserve.

Body of 38-year-old Kamala Devi was found near Badangarh canal by forest guards, Chief Conservator of Forest, Kumaon Prasanna Kumar Patra said.

Kamala Devi was missing since Wednesday evening from a village in Salt area of Almora district, he said.

It is not clear whether she was killed by a tiger or leopard, Patra said.

Kolkat : A 31-year-old woman from Kuwait who had arrived in India for treatment and went missing from Kolkata last month has been spotted in neighbouring Bangladesh this week, a police officer said here on Thursday.

After a thorough investigation, the Kolkata Police informed the Kuwaiti Embassy that the woman, along with a man, has crossed the international border to enter Bangladesh.

“It was then the Kuwaiti Embassy sought the help of Bangladesh and the woman was found from a house in that country on Monday. The police there have handed her over to the Kuwaiti authorities,” the police officer said.

The woman came to Kolkata with her younger brother on January 20 and put up at a five-star hotel in East Kolkata. She was getting treatment for some skin-related problems in a private hospital.

After a tour of other tourist attractions of Kolkata, she along with her younger brother had gone to Alipore zoo on January 27 from where she went “missing”, the officer said.

Her brother then went to Alipore police station and informed the officer “in broken English” about what had happened.

As her mobile phone containing a Kuwaiti sim could not be tracked, the police started examining CCTV footage.

“CCTV footage showed that she got into a yellow taxi with a man wearing a suit, a cap and a mask. So, identifying him was tough. We spotted the taxi driver and got to know that they got down near Marquis Street (in central Kolkata),” the senior police officer said.

From there, they took another taxi and reached the Bangladesh border near Bangaon in the neighbouring North 24 Parganas district.

“Then they could not be spotted anywhere inside the Indian territory. Based on the description and after scanning hundreds of CCTV footage, we got a photograph of the man who is probably a Bangladeshi national,” he said.

A red alert was issued against the man. The staff of the Alipore Police Station and Anti-Rowdy Section of Kolkata Police talked to their sources and after it was clear that they have crossed the international border, they informed the Kuwaiti Embassy in New Delhi.

The embassy has sent an appreciation letter to the Kolkata Police lauding the role of its officers in helping them rescue the woman, the officer added.

No details on what happened to the man who apparently is her beau, nor the location in Bangladesh from where the Kuwaiti citizen was found were shared with the media.

Kollam (Ker): A 68-year-old man allegedly died by suicide by lighting his own funeral pyre at Puthur in this district, police said on Thursday.

Vijayakumar, a native of nearby Maranad, was found charred to death in his ancestral property.

The deceased had been suffering from some ailment and could not go for work for some time, police said.

His sister, who is living alone in a house on the property, noticed a blaze at midnight and thought that wood might have caught fire accidently.

She also doused it with the help of another relative living in the neighbourhood. In the morning, they found the body, they said.

A suicide note, allegedly written by Vijayakumar, was recovered by the police.

In the letter addressed to his friend, the deceased man said he was ending his life as he was unable to work anymore due to his health condition, they added.

Bengaluru: The Indian Space Research Organisation, along with Indian Navy, carried out initial recovery trials of Crew Module in the Water Survival Test Facility (WSTF) as part of preparations for the Gaganyaan mission.

A Crew Module Recovery Model (CMRM) that simulates the mass, center of gravity, outer dimensions, and externals of the actual Crew Module at touchdown was used for the trials at WSTF of Navy at Kochi in Kerala, the space agency said.

The trials were part of the preparation for crew module recovery operations for the Gaganyaan mission that will be carried out in Indian waters with the participation of Indian Government agencies, the overall recovery operations being led by Indian Navy.

The sequence of operations required for the recovery of the Crew Module were carried out as part of the trials.

Gaganyaan project envisages demonstration of human spaceflight capability by launching crew of three members to an orbit of 400 km for a three-day mission and bring them back safely to earth, by landing in Indian sea waters, according to ISRO.

“As the safe recovery of the crew is the final step to be accomplished for any successful human spaceflight, it is of paramount importance and it has to be carried out with the minimum lapse of time”, an ISRO statement said.

“Hence the recovery procedures for various scenarios need to be extensively practiced by carrying out a large number of trials. The Standard Operating Procedures (SoP) for recovery of Crew and Crew Module need to be finalised. The recovery trials will be initially carried out in a closed pool followed by trials in a harbor and in the open sea”, it said.

The operations carried out on Tuesday form the initial recovery trials of Crew Module in a closed pool. Different phases of recovery trials starting with the recovery of the Crew Module to the flight crew training are planned at WSTF.

WSTF is a state-of-the-art facility of the Indian Navy that provides realistic training of aircrew for escape from a ditched aircraft under varied simulated conditions and crash scenarios, the statement said. WSTF simulates different sea state conditions, environmental conditions, and day/night conditions.

These trials assist in validating the SoP, and training recovery teams as well as the flight crew. They provide valuable inputs for the utilisation of recovery accessories, ISRO said.

The feedback from the recovery team/trainers helps improve the recovery operations SoP, design various recovery accessories, and finalise the training plan, it was noted.

Meanwhile, ISRO said in order to enable booster stage recovery in future launch vehicle configurations, the first Throttling demonstration hot test of the Vikas engine was successfully accomplished for a targeted 67 per cent thrust level throttling for a duration of 43 seconds.

Vikas engine has been the workhorse engine for the launch vehicles of Bengaluru-headquartered ISRO.

The engine with a nominal thrust of 80 ton is powering the second stages of PSLV & GSLV, liquid strapons of GSLV and the core liquid stage of LVM3.

Liquid engines that support throttling of the engine thrust facilitate booster stage recovery in launch vehicles.

Throttling of the engine was achieved by a closed loop thrust regulation system and the engine had been successfully throttled from the chamber pressure of 58.5 bar in steps of 50 bar, 45 bar & 40 bar, with dwelling at each pressure level for seven seconds. In addition, the Vikas engine was also throttled down to 45 per cent for the last three seconds before the engine shut down.

The results of the first hot test of Throttleable Vikas Engine on January 30 indicate stable combustion and subsystem performed in accordance with the prediction, ISRO said.The overall performance of engine sub-systems, control systems & test facility systems were as expected, it added.

Yadgir: In what has come as a surprise for many, a BJP leader from Yadgir has requested former Karnataka CM and senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah to contest the upcoming Karnataka Assembly Elections from Yadgir.

Chandraya Konkal, a local BJP leader has also stated that he would give one crore rupees for Siddaramaiah’s campaigning if he decides to contest the polls from Yadgir.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Konkal said Yadgir was lagging in development and the local BJP MLA was an inefficient administrator.

“The hospitals here have no doctors nor have they been developed. Only if Siddaramaiah comes here can Yadgir witness any progress.”

He added, “Although I am a member of the BJP, all my family members always supported Siddaramaiah. I have even sold my 7-acre land for the sake of Siddaramaiah.”

Udupi: The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO), Fast Track Court in Udupi sentenced a youngster to life imprisonment for sexually abusing a minor girl about three years ago in Karkala.

The court under Udupi’s District Additional and Sessions Court pronounced the judgment on February 7, Tuesday.

According to the reports, the accused, Radhakrishna (26) of Venur in Belthangady taluk had befriended the victim girl on the popular social media platform Instagram before sexually harassing her.

A case in this regard was registered three years ago at Karkala Rural Police Station and court proceedings were underway.

According to the police investigation, Radhakrishna entered the house of the minor girl when she was alone at home and induced the girl with his prate and sexually abused her later. The case was also lodged against the accused under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

Judge Srinivasa Suvarna, who examined 18 witnesses, opined that the allegations against the accused are valid and sentenced him to life imprisonment along with an Rs. 10,000 fine. Y.T. Raghavendra, the Public Prosecutor, argued for the prosecution.