NEW DELHI: The absence of former Congress president Rahul Gandhi and other top leaders would not affect the party’s floor management or strategies in the upcoming winter session of the Parliament, said Congress MP and Lok Sabha chief whip Kodikunnil Suresh. The winter session of the Parliament will commence on December 7 (tomorrow) and will continue till December 29. It will have 17 sittings spread over 23 days.

The Lok Sabha MP also said that the party’s strategy will be to intervene positively and avoid disruptions to ensure the smooth functioning of the House. The party will also try to reach a consensus with its allies on the issue of reservation for economically weaker sections (EWS) before discussing it in the House, he said.   

Besides Gandhi, Congress’ Rajya Sabha chief whip Jairam Ramesh and senior leader Digvijaya Singh too, will be mostly away from the winter session on account of the Bharat Jodo Yatra which entered Rajasthan on Monday. Deputy Leader of Congress in the Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi told this paper that he will be joining the winter session only in the second week of December as he is leading a ‘yatra’ in his home state Assam.

Speaking to this newspaper, Suresh said that the absence of Rahul Gandhi and other leaders wouldn’t be felt much as Lok Sabha floor leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and other senior leaders Manish Tewari and himself will be handling the floor management, debates, and coordination with other opposition parties.  

In RS too, party whips Naseer Hussain and Chaya Verma will pitch in for Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge, he said.  Rajya Sabha chief whip Jairam Ramesh may also give the winter session a miss for Bharat Jodo Yatra. “MPs Rajeev Shukla and Pramod Tiwari will also help Kharge with floor management and coordination,” said Suresh. 

Congress has decided to continue with Kharge as the LoP till the winter session of the Parliament, said the leader adding that a new leader will be chosen in the Plenary session in February. The party wants to avoid a washed-out session, he said. “We will not disrupt or stall the House unless it’s very critical,” he added.

The top brass of the party, in a meeting last week, decided to corner the government on three main issues — rising inflation, the border standoff with China, and the weakening of constitutional institutions. The party said that it will also ask the government to rethink the issue of EWS. 

MUMBAI: A 42-year-old woman was allegedly gang-raped by three persons who entered her home, attacked her with a sharp weapon and gave her burn injuries on her private parts with cigarettes, a Mumbai police official said on Sunday.

The incident took place in Kurla in the early hours of Wednesday, the official said, adding the accused and victim stay in the same locality.

“The accused raped her one by one and also performed unnatural sex. They singed her private parts with cigarettes and attacked her with a sharp weapon on the chest and both arms. One of the accused videoed the incident and threatened to circulate it if she approached police,” he said.

The woman narrated her ordeal to neighbours, who got in touch with an NGO and an FIR was registered, the Kurla police station official said.

The trio has been charged under Indian Penal Code sections 376 (rape), 376D (gang rape), 377 (unnatural sex), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapon) and other offences and efforts were on to nab them, he said.

KOLKATA: Hours before leaving for Delhi to attend Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s G20 meet, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee hit out at the BJP after Rs 94 lakh was found stuffed in the stepney (spare tyre) of a Guwahati-bound vehicle in Jalpaiguri district on Monday.“Money, hooligans and arms are being transported for the BJP. I would like to request the BJP to take care of it. Let us fight politically,” she said.
Police intercepted a vehicle in which five persons were travelling in a SUV with registration number issued by Bihar transport authorities and found cash of Rs 94.38 lakh.

“We had a specific tip off about transportation of the cash. A check-post was in place at Banarhat and we were checking all the suspected vehicles. We intercepted the SUV and started searching the vehicle. Initially, nothing was found. We picked up the spare tyre and realised its weight was abnormal. We decided to engage a mechanic to open the tyre,” said Biswajit Mahato, the superintendent of police, Jalpaiguri district. The police said the stepney was stashed with 94 bundles of currency notes in denominations of Rs 500 and RRs 200.

By Express News Service

BENGALURU: Well-known singer Lucky Ali has alleged that his property in Kenchenahalli near Yelahanka is being encroached upon by the land mafia, and has dragged the name of IAS officer Rohini Sindhuri and her family members. Rebutting the allegations, the IAS officer’s brother-in-law Madhusudan Reddy has alleged that it is Ali (64) who is troubling his family and Rohini Sindhuri has nothing to do with this, as the property belongs to him

The dispute is related to the land located in Kenchenahalli, which Maqsood Mahmood Ali — aka Lucky Ali, son of late Bollywood actor Mehmood Ali — claims to be belonging to a trust, while Madhusudan Reddy has stated that the three-acre property was purchased from Lucky Ali’s brother Mansoor M Ali in 2012. On Sunday night, Lucky Ali posted on Facebook that he had filed a complaint with the Director General & Inspector General (DG & IG) of Police, Praveen Sood, and was bringing the same to publ i c attention. Stating that he is currently in Dubai for work and hence it was urgent, the singer stated that his farm, which is a Trust Property, was being encroached upon illegally by IAS officer Rahini Sindhuri’s husband, Sudhir Reddy, and his brother Madhusudan Reddy, alleging them to be from “the Bangalore Land Mafia”.

Local police backing encroachers, alleges singer

Ali has accused: “With the help of his (Sudhir Reddy) wife who is an IAS officer by the name of Rohini Sindhuri, they are misusing state resources for their personal gain. They are forcibly & illegally coming inside my farm and refusing to show the relevant documents. My legal counsel is informing me that this is totally illegal and they don’t have the court order to come inside the property as we are in possession, and living there since the past 50 years.”

He further states in his post, “I wanted to meet you (DGP) before I left for Dubai, but since you were unavailable, we filed a complaint with the jurisdictional ACP. I have not had any positive response as yet. My family and small children are alone at the farm. I am getting no help from the local police, who are in fact supporting the encroachers and are indifferent to our situation and the legal status of our land.” He then appealed for the state police chief’s help to stop the alleged illegal activity.

He also mentioned that the final court hearing on the case is on December 7 and he had no choice other than making the developments public. Rubbishing the allegations, Madhusudan Reddy issued a statement in which he stated that his father G Narayana Reddy had purchased the said land in 2012. “As there were incidents of trespassing, we approached the court which issued injunction orders in 2016. I was in the US for 20 years and returned three months ago as my father passed away and it is ridiculous that Ali is calling us a mafia. After my father’s death, I went with my mother to the land when Masood Ali and his associates threatened us by wielding loaded guns. It was done at the behest of Lucky Ali,” Reddy alleged.

Madhusudan insisted that the property belonged to him, and that it was ridiculous that Ali was dragging his sister-in-law’s name into the matter. “I own this property and she (Rohini Sindhuri) has nothing to do with this. Just because he is a celebrity, he is trying to get public sympathy,” Reddy alleged. Meanwhile, he also shared a copy of the FIR registered against the Ali brothers in Yelahanka New Town police on November 30, booking them for assault and criminal trespass. Ali, on his part, has alleged that it was Madhusudan who had illegally entered his property with 35 people and a bulldozer and had threatened his family members recently. Ali had then rushed to Amrutahalli police station where he was assured that the issue would be resolved. But the police did not help, he alleged.

PATNA: In a shockingly similar case to the Shraddha Walker murder in Mehrauli, Delhi, a 45-year-old woman was killed and her body parts chopped off near a bridge in Pirpaniti, Bhagalpur district in Bihar, on Sunday

The woman’s breast, hands, feet and ears were cut off with a sharp-edged weapon. The accused along with his accomplice also made an attempt to cut her leg as well, but they fled in fear of getting caught. When the local people found the woman in a pool of blood, they informed the police and she was rushed to Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College where she succumbed to her injuries. Doctors attributed her death to the excessive bleeding.

Both the accused and victim are from different communities. Police said that  the woman had borrowed some money from the main accused, Shakeel, and was refusing to return.

NEW DELHI: Symptoms of long Covid experienced by children and young people may change over time, according to the largest study published in The Lancet Regional Health — Europe.For the study, researchers asked children aged 11 to 17 years about their health six months and 12 months after taking a PCR test between September 2020 and March 2021. They also asked them to recall their symptoms at the time of taking the test. 

They noted that the symptoms experienced changed over the course of a year. And while some of the children’s original symptoms declined, new symptoms were reported.The data of 5,086 children, 2,909 of whom tested positive for Covid-19, and 2,177 of whom tested negative were examined. None of the children initially invited to participate in the study had been hospitalised.

Children and young people were asked what they had experienced from a list of 21 symptoms, including shortness of breath and tiredness, as well as using validated scales to assess quality of life, mental health, wellbeing and fatigue.It was found that, at time of testing, health issues were more common in children and young people who had tested positive for the virus compared to those who tested negative.

BHOPAL: Days after a  viral video showed a cow strolling and feeding on medical waste at the intensive care unit (ICU) of the Rajgarh district hospital, a new video of stray dogs having a field day on patients’ beds of a health centre in Jabalpur district has gone viral.

While two stray dogs can be seen sleeping and comforting on beds meant for patients at the Shahpura community health centre (CHC), another viral video of the same key government health facility shows pathetic state of cleanliness and sanitation near the operation theatre (OT) further narrates the state of affairs there.

The twin videos were possibly shot by Shahpura (Jabalpur) resident Siddharth Jain, who had gone to the same CHC for a medical check up of pregnant wife, but remained shocked to find the canines comforting on empty patients’ beds and pathetic state of cleanliness and sanitation.

Besides these shocking scenes, all Jain could find was just one nurse on duty and no doctor or other paramedical or security staff on duty. Meanwhile, the Jabalpur district administration has taken cognisance of the matter after the twin videos went viral.

“The Block Medical Officer (BMO) Dr CK Atraulia has been showcaused and asked to reply within 24 hours.Based on his reply, action will ensue. We’ve seven CHCs in Jabalpur district, but the incident has been reported from one of them, which means that the monitoring authority (the BMO) isn’t monitoring the affairs adequately;otherwise such repeated mess wouldn’t have been reported from there. There are sufficient staff there, but still if such mess is prevailing then the BMO owes a reply. If the reply is found unsatisfactory, suitable action will be taken,” Jabalpur district chief medical and health officer Dr Sanjay Mishra said on Monday.Earlier, in September, a video of a dog sleeping on a hospital bed in Ratlam in Madhya Pradesh went viral on social media, inviting criticism from the opposition Congress.