Supreme Court of India

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday junked a plea seeking a “fact-finding inquiry” into the history of the Taj Mahal and the “opening of 22 rooms” on the monument’s premises, terming it “publicity interest litigation”.

 A bench of justices M R Shah and M M Sundresh refused to interfere with the Allahabad High Court order that had dismissed the plea.

“The high court was not in error in dismissing the petition, which is more of a publicity interest litigation. Dismissed,” the bench said.

The high court had, on May 12, said petitioner Rajneesh Singh, who is the media in-charge of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Ayodhya unit, had failed to point out which of his legal or constitutional rights were being infringed.

It had also pulled up the petitioner’s lawyer for filing the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition in a “casual” manner and said it could not pass an order under Article 226 of the Constitution in the matter.

The article empowers a high court to issue orders or writs to any person or authority in the area under its jurisdiction to enforce fundamental rights.

Several Hindu right-wing outfits had claimed in the past that the Mughal-era mausoleum was a temple of Lord Shiva.

The monument is protected by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).

The petition had also sought the setting aside of certain provisions of the Ancient and Historical Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains (Declaration of National Importance) Act, 1951 and the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958, under which the Taj Mahal, Fatehpur Sikri, the Agra Fort and Itimad-ud-Daulah’s tomb were declared historical monuments.

Itanaga: An Army helicopter crashed at Migging in Upper Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh on Friday morning, a defence official said.

The advanced light helicopter, carrying Army personnel, was on regular sorties, he said.The incident took place at 10.43 am, and search operation is underway, the official said. Upper Siang SP Jummar Basar said the crash site is a mountainous region, and it would take time for the search and rescue team to reach the spot.

This is the second incident of an Army helicopter accident in the state this month. A Cheetah helicopter crashed in Tawang district on October 5, killing one of the two pilots onboard.Another Cheetah chopper crashed in March near the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. The pilot died in this incident, too.

Ghaziabad: The police on Thursday dismissed as “fabricated” a Delhi woman’s claim that she had been gang-raped and brutalized by five men here.

Police claimed that the entire “conspiracy” was hatched over a property dispute. Three associates of the woman have been arrested, police said, adding that they have been identified as Azad, Afzal and Gaurav.

The police had on Wednesday said four people had been taken into custody in connection with the case. Asked if a clean chit will be given to the four of them, Inspector General, Meerut, Praveen Kumar told reporters, “We have not got any evidence against them…Prima facie, in this case, no such incident has taken place. So, there is no question of getting evidence.”

Asked whether the woman was kidnapped or illegally confined, the officer said,” No. She had gone to a designated place at her own will. Chats analysed by us also show that money was also paid to individuals to publicise the case”, he said.

The woman had claimed that she was raped by five men for two days. Following the incident, the Delhi Commission for Women chief Swati Maliwal also claimed that the 36-year-old woman was found wrapped in a jute bag, with her hands and legs tied, and an iron rod was inserted in her private parts.

Maliwal had said the incident reminded her of the Nirbhaya case. She was referring to the brutal gang-rape and assault of a 23-year-old paramedic student on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a moving bus in south Delhi by six people before being thrown out on the road.

The DCW has also issued a notice to Ghaziabad police in connection with the case. The senior officer said during investigation, it was found that Azad’s phone was switched off around the time the woman purportedly disappeared.

Azad is the main conspirator, the vehicle used belonged to Gaurav and the help of the woman’s associate Afzal was also taken, police said. In her statement to the police earlier, the woman had said she had been to Ghaziabad to celebrate her brother’s birthday, a day before the incident.

Police had earlier said that the victim’s brother dropped her back and some people, who were known to her, picked her up from there. The woman had earlier alleged that she was forced to get into the car at gunpoint.

The senior police officer said the dispute was about a small property. “A woman named Sameena gave the property to Azad in 2021 who in turn gave its power of attorney to a man named Deepak Joshi. There was talk about giving this property to the Delhi woman. The case regarding this was going on in the court, the officer said.

Authorities at the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital had on Wednesday said the woman’s condition is stable and no internal injury has been found yet.

Nipun Agarwal, Superintendent of Police (City-I) Ghaziabad, on Wednesday had said the victim claimed that after raping her, the accused had inserted an iron rod in her private part but when the police tried to get her medically examined at a Meerut hospital, she refused.

“Doctors then referred her to the Meerut Medical college for treatment but she refused to go there as well. The woman was then taken to a Delhi hospital,” the SP had said.

Dr. Soumya Swaminathan

Pune : Chief scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO) Dr.Soumya Swaminathan on Thursday said the death of children in Gambia, potentially linked to four Indian-made cough syrups, was a serious issue.

Swaminathan was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the annual general meeting of the Developing Countries Vaccine Manufacturers Network (DCVMN) here. A WHO report has linked the death of 66 children in Gambia to four Indian-made cough syrups.

“Certainly, the government is in touch with WHO as WHO actually provided the report based on the investigation which was done to prove that it was because of the diethylene glycol contamination. It is a very serious issue and it has to be taken very seriously,” said Swaminathan.

In India, there are central as well as state-level drug regulators and there is a need to harmonize their operations, she said.

“There are no mechanisms where regulators of different states can actually work together, do the inspections on each other’s products,” she said. For India to remain a leader in generic medicines and vaccines space, it is important to prove that “we have a very strong regulatory system,” she said.

Amaravati: The Andhra Pradesh leg of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra concluded on Friday as he once again crossed into neighbouring Karnataka.

After an overnight stay, Rahul Gandhi resumed his foot march at Mantralayam on Friday morning.

He crossed the AP border at Raichur and returned to Karnataka.

The Wayanad MP’s yatra passed through Anantapuramu and Kurnool districts in two legs, the first one for a few hours on October 14 and the next for four days from the October 18.

Huge crowds enthusiastically lined up to greet the Congress leader.

Rahul Gandhi himself observed that the Yatra drew “tremendous response” in AP, and pointed out that his party leaders were also “quite surprised at the enthusiasm and response that we have had.”

He saw the Bharat Jodo Yatra as “a very good starting point” to build the Congress in the state.

Post the bifurcation of erstwhile united Andhra Pradesh for the creation of a new Telangana state, the Congress has lost its moorings in AP. But, during the course of his yatra, Rahul Gandhi observed that there was a huge distress among farmers, labourers and poor people in AP that gave the Congress a lot of room to grow.

Pune: Chief scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr Soumya Swaminathan, on Thursday said some countries may see “another wave of infections” with the XBB subvariant of Omicron, a variant of COVID-19 virus.

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of the annual general meeting of the Developing Countries Vaccine Manufacturers Network (DCVMN) here, she clarified that as of now, there was no data from any country to suggest that these new variants are clinically more severe.

“There are over 300 subvariants of Omicron. I think the one that is concerning right now is XBB, which is a recombinant virus. We had seen some recombinant viruses earlier. It is very immune-evasive, which means it can overcome the antibodies. So slightly that we may see another wave of infections in some countries because of XBB,” she said.

Swaminathan said they are also tracking derivatives of BA.5 and BA.1, which are also more transmissible and immune-evasive.

As the virus evolves, it is going to evolve more and more transmissible, she said.

“As of now, there is no data from any country to suggest these new subvariants are more clinically severe,” she clarified.

Suggesting the measures that need to be taken, Dr Swaminathan said monitoring and tracking are the key steps.

“We need to continue to monitor and track. We have seen that testing has gone down across countries, the genomic surveillance has also gone down over the last few months. We need to maintain at least a strategic sampling of genomic surveillance so that we can keep tracking the variants as we have been doing and studying,” she said.

According to her, the Director General of the WHO has said that COVID-19 continues to be a public health emergency of international concern.

She added that 8,000 to 9,000 deaths are being reported every week worldwide due to the infection.

“So we have not said that the pandemic is over, which means that all precautions and tools continued to be used. Good thing is that we have now many tools and the most important thing is vaccines,” Dr Swaminathan said.

“As far as vaccine coverage is concerned, our goals are 100 per cent of people over the age of 60 and 100 per cent of health care and frontline workers. Then we have a goal of achieving 70 per cent of the country, but subgroups are more important because they are most likely to face morbidity and mortality,” she said.

She said that a number of deaths from elderly groups were seen when Omicron spread as they were not fully vaccinated.

“The full vaccination schedule is actually three doses. The primary two doses plus booster in the next four to six months. But in many countries, including India, the uptake of the booster is low. So we really encourage people to take the third dose,” she said.

She advised continuing to use masks for protection from infection.

“While vaccines are still protecting us from severe disease and hospitalization, the risk of long COVID conditions seems to increase with each infection. So it is not benign. We should not be too casual by saying that it is okay to get the infection.

“Many people just think that it is just like the flu or any other respiratory infection, but more and more data is coming out on how COVID is affecting all organ systems and not just the respiratory route. It also affects the cardiovascular system and the inflammatory environment. So we have seen the risk of diabetes doubling, we have seen the risk of heart attacks…and other neurocognitive problems,” Dr Swaminathan added.

Cairo: Two Sudanese officials say that tribal clashes in the country’s southern province of Blue Nile have killed 170 people over the past two days.

The officials say the fighting erupted on Wednesday. They spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media.

The clashes are the latest in inter-communal violence across Sudan’s neglected south. Fighting in Blue Nile that erupted in July had killed 149 people by early October and last week, renewed clashes there killed 13, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA.

OCHA had no confirmation of the latest surge and casualties but said the violence has displaced at least 1,200 people.

Senior Congress leader Shivraj Patil

New Delhi: Senior Congress leader Shivraj Patil on Thursday claimed that the concept of jihad was not just in Islam but also in Bhagavad Gita and in Christianity.

The BJP hit out at the Congress over Patil’s remarks and accused it of playing vote bank politics.

Speaking at the launch of Congress veteran and former Union minister Mohsina Kidwai’s biography, the former Lok Sabha Speaker and Union minister Patil stated that it is said there is a lot of discussion of jihad in the religion of Islam. The concept comes to the fore when despite having the right intentions and doing the right thing, nobody understands or reciprocates, then it is said one can use force, he said.

“It is not just in Quran, but in Mahabharata also, the part in Gita, Shri Krishna also talks of jihad to Arjun and this thing is not just in Quran or Gita but also in Christianity,” he claimed in his remarks in Hindi.

“If after explaining everything, people are not understanding, they are coming with weapons then you cannot run, you cannot call that jihad and you cannot call it wrong, this is what must be understood, there should not be this concept of making people understand with weapons in hand,” the 87-year-old leader said.

Patil further said Mohsina Kidwai’s book also talks about respecting all religions while following your own. He also said there is a need for peace in the world.

Hitting out at the Congress over Patil’s remarks, BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said in a tweet, “After AAP’s Gopal Italia & Rajendra Pal, not to be outdone in Hindu hatred & votebank politics, Congress’ Shivraj Patil says Shri Krishna taught ‘Jihad’ to Arjun!

“Congress coined Hindu/Saffron terror, opposed Ram Mandir,Questioned Ram JI’s existence, said Hindutva=ISIS,” Poonawalla tweeted.

In his speech, Patil also said he voted for Mallikarjun Kharge in the Congress presidential polls. He, however, mistakenly referred to Kharge as Khandelwal a couple of times in the speech.

Patil spoke at length and talked about disparate topics in his address.

Mumbai: The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad has arrested four activists of the proscribed Popular Front of India (PFI) from Panvel in neighbouring Raigad district, an official said on Thursday.

Those arrested include a local member of the banned outfit’s state expansion committee, a local unit secretary and two other workers, he said.

The ATS had specific information about a meeting of two functionaries of the PFI and few workers in Panvel, even as the organisation has been banned by the Government of India, the official said.

Accordingly, an ATS team conducted a search in Panvel, located about 50 km from Mumbai, and apprehended the four PFI activists, he said.

After questioning, all the four were placed under arrest in a case registered at the Kalachowki unit of the ATS in Mumbai under section 10 of the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, the official said.

Further probe into the case is on, he added.

The government had last month banned the PFI and several of its associates for five years, accusing them of having “links” with global terror groups like ISIS.

More than 250 people allegedly linked with the PFI were detained or arrested in raids across multiple states last month.

New Delhi: Newly elected Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge will take over his new assignment at a function at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters on October 26.

The certificate of his election to the post will also be presented to him at the function on the day and he will assume his new role from then on.

The Congress on Wednesday elected ‘loyalist’ Mallikarjun Kharge as its new president, the first non-Gandhi to head the 137-year-old party in 24 years and succeed long-time chief Sonia Gandhi.

The 80-year-old Kharge trounced his 66-year-old rival, Shashi Tharoor bagging over 84 per cent of the votes in the presidential election. Kharge polled 7,897 Pradesh Congress Committee delegate votes out of 9,385, while Tharoor bagged 1072.

“Function for the presentation of the certificate of election to the newly elected Congress President Shri Mallikarjun Kharge will be held on Wednesday the 26th October 2022, at 10.30 am at AICC Headquarters, 24 Akbar Road, New Delhi,” AICC general secretary K C Venugopal said on Twitter.

Kharge was the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, a post from which he resigned soon after filing his nomination for the top post in the Congress. He was earlier the Leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha. He has been a Union minister for almost a decade.

Though Kharge has been a nine-time legislator in Karnataka, he could not become the chief minister of the state.

He hails from a humble Dalit family and has reached the top position in the party from the grassroot level.