BHOPAL: A six-year-old boy fell into a borewell at a village in Madhya Pradesh’s Betul district at around 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, officials said

The local police and the administration were informed about the incident, following which a rescue operation was launched which is presently underway.

Betul District Collector Amanveer Singh Bains said a camera has been inserted into the borewell to monitor the child’s movement.

Provisions have been made for oxygen supply in the borewell and a tunnel is being dug parallel to the borewell with the help of two JCB machines.

Besides the District Collector, SP Simala Prasad along with other officials are monitring the situation.

The Chief Minister’s Office informed that CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan is personaly monitoring the situation and taking review form the Collector.

The rescue operation was underway till the time of filing this report.

BARGARH: Setting an example for Non-Resident Indians (NRIs), a 38-year-old man living in Oman for more than a decade, came back to his hometown Padampur to exercise his franchise in the bypoll on Monday.An engineer by profession, Umesh Panigrahi of Padampur town arrived at his native place on Sunday. After casting his vote, he left for Oman on Monday evening. Panigrahi has been working at a smelter in Oman for the last 12 years.y 

“I became eligible to vote 20 years back but could not exercise my franchise during my stay here. Later, I went to Oman to work. I tried coming back to participate in the past elections but circumstances weren’t favourable. When I came to know that by-election is being held in my hometown, I tried my best to make it this time. I applied for an emergency leave and was lucky to get flight tickets on time. Fortunately, everything worked out in my favour and I could exercise my franchise for the first time,” said a visibly-elated Panigrahi.

For Panigrahi, the whole experience of going to the polling booth and voting for his choice of candidate was new and different. “More than a constitutional right, voting should be seen as a responsibility. I was following all the updates on the by-election. With my limited knowledge about the background of the candidates in poll fray, I exercised my franchise. As a voter, I want the civic problems of Padampur to be addressed. The schools and colleges of the region should also be developed,” he added.

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.