Archives for 2022

PALAKKAD: Nine persons including 5 students died after a tourist bus on a school tour from Mulanthuruthy in Ernakulam hit a KSRTC bus at Vadakkancherry in Palakkad in the early hours of Thursday.

The other victims included a school teacher and three passengers of the KSRTC bus.

The tourist bus was taking 41 students of Baselios Vidyanikethan Senior Secondary School, Mulanthuruthy on a school trip to Ooty. The tourist bus hit the Kottarakkara-Coimbatore superfast bus from behind at Vadakkancherry after midnight Wednesday.

Initial reports indicate that the tourist bus was overspeeding before the driver lost control and crashed into the KSRTC bus from behind.

Transport Minister Antony Raju blamed the driver of the tourist bus for the tragedy.

The deceased were identified as Vishnu V K (33), Anjana Ajith (17), Immanuel C S(17), Chris Vinter Born Thomas (15), Diya Rajesh (15) and Elna Jose (15).

The deceased KSRTC passengers were identified as Rohith Raj (24), O.Anoop (22) and Deepu (25) from Thrissur.

The driver of the tourist bus, Jomon, who went missing from the spot surrendered at the police station in Vadakkencherry, Palakkad. He said that in the impact of the crash, he was thrown off the bus and fell outside. He was later admitted to a hospital as he was injured.

NEW DELHI: As many as 820 students are said to have benefitted from the hacking by Russian national Mikhail Shargin of the iLeon software platform, the CBI told a Delhi court on Tuesday

Shargin, 25, was  arrested at IGI Airport late Monday night. Following his production in court, Shargin, who was described as a “professional hacker”, was remanded to two-day CBI custody.

The students who took advantage of the hacking, which aided them to cheat in last year’s JEE (Mains) exam, is now suspected to be more than the number earlier estimated, the CBI said to have found in the course of its interrogation of Shargin who was detained by sleuths after he alighted from a plane from Almaty. 

When Shargin told the court that the CBI could access his electronic devices in his presence, the agency sought the court’s direction for the Russian national to share his usernames and passwords. The CBI is not ruling out the possibility of other foreign nationals being involved in the hacking.

The JEE(Mains) is taken by aspirants seeking admission into top engineering colleges, including the IITs. Sources said “teachers” and “coaches” outside test centres were able to take charge of aspirants’ computers and solve questions.

HYDERABAD: The Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) is likely to be renamed as ‘Bharata Rashtra Samiti’ (BRS) and the state government’s welfare schemes would be showcased across the country to help it emerge as a national force, ruling party sources said here on Tuesday.

TRS president and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is expected to announce the new name for the party on Wednesday, considered auspicious in view of Vijayadasami.

The rechristening exercise and the plan to reach out to people by pitching its “Telangana good governance model” is part of party’s efforts to foray into national politics and effectively take on the BJP.

The TRS general body meet, scheduled to be held on Wednesday at ‘Telangana Bhavan’, the party headquarters here, would pass a resolution effecting the name change, sources said.

The Election Commission would be apprised of the change as per the Representation of the People Act and relevant rules.

In its outreach initiative, the party would focus on welfare schemes being implemented in Telangana like ‘Rythu Bandhu’ support scheme for farmers and ‘Dalit Bandhu’ (Rs 10 lakh grant to every Dalit household to start any business or trade).

Similar schemes are not devised and implemented at the national level and the BJP has also dubbed welfare initiatives as “freebies.”

Electricity has not been provided in all the villages, across the country and all such aspects would be taken up in the campaign to expose the ruling party at the Centre, they said.

The name change would be conveyed to the Election Commission through e-mail and later in person on October 6, the sources said.

In September, the party had said that “very soon, the formation of a national party and formulation of its (national party) policies will take place”.

Recently, Rao, also known as KCR, had announced that free power would be supplied to farmers across the country, if a “non-BJP government” was voted to power in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Rao, during his recent meeting with his Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar, called for a “BJP Mukt Bharat” (BJP-free India) blaming the national party’s government at the Centre for the “many ills plaguing the country.

“The TRS, in its foundation day event in April this year, had resolved that the party should play a key role in national politics in the interest of the country as the BJP was “exploiting communal sentiments,” for its political convenience.

Meanwhile, senior JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy and several party MLAs, arrived in Hyderabad this evening to attend the TRS’ general body meeting.

The JD(S) delegation was received at the Begumpet airport here by TRS Working President K T Rama Rao, son of Chief Minister Chandrasekhar Rao, TRS sources said.

TRS MLC Padi Kaushik Reddy tweeted that he received Tamil Nadu’s VCK leader Thol Thirumavalavan in Hyderabad.

NEW DELHI: Minister ST Somashekar, IAS officer Dr G C Prakash (then Commissioner of the BDA) and K Ravi, proprietor, 37th Crescent Hotel, Bengaluru have approached the Supreme Court against Karnataka HC’s order of directing the Lokayukta police to investigate into the allegations of accepting bribe to get a project for Ramalingam Construction Company Private Limited from Bangalore Development Authority.

The plea challenging HC’s September 7 order where it had also  restored the privatecomplaint filed by activist TJ Abraham in the graft case is listed beforethe bench led by Justice Chandrachud on October 10.
While allowing Abraham’s plea who had challenged lower court’s order of dismissinghis private complaint, Justice S Sunil Dutt Yadav of Karnataka HC said thatthe rejection of sanction for prosecution would not come in the way of continuance of proceedings.

“The rejection of such request is liable to be ignored, as such request was not made either by the police officer or an officer of investigation agency or other law enforcement authorities; nor pursuant to the order of court as contemplated under first proviso to Section 19 of the PC Act,” the HC said.

Exactly one week after the HC’s order, a special court on 14th September referred the private complaint to the Lokayukta police to conduct investigation into the allegations and submit a final report by November 2, 2022.

SRINAGAR: Former Chief Minister and PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti on Wednesday alleged that she has been placed under house arrest but police denied her allegations saying no restrictions were placed on her movement

“While HM is going around Kashmir beating drums of normalcy, I am under house arrest for simply wanting to visit Pattan for a worker’s wedding. If an ex-CM’s fundamental rights can be suspended so easily, one can’t even imagine the plight of a commoner (sic),” tweeted Mehbooba Muft

Mehbooba was among the three former Chief Ministers and mainstream leaders arrested and booked under stringent PSA after Article 370 revocation on August 5, 2019. She was later released in October 2020 and since her release, she has been placed under house detention on a few occasions.

Police, however, denied Mehbooba’s allegation that she was denied permission to travel to Pattan in north Kashmir and placed under house detention.

“It is clarified that no restriction of any kind travel to Pattan, travel to Pattan was at 1 pm as intimated to us. The picture tweeted by her is of inside of the gate with own lock of residents who stay in the bunglow. There is no lock or any restrictions. She is free to travel (sic),” tweeted Srinagar police.

NAGPUR: RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on Wednesday said India should have a population policy prepared after comprehensive thought and be applicable to all communities equally.

Speaking at the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s Dussehra rally in Nagpur, Bhagwat said community-based population imbalance is an important subject and should not be ignored.

Population imbalances lead to changes in geographical boundaries, he said.

The new population policy should be applicable to all communities equally to strike a balance, he said.

“There has to be a balance among the communities in this country,” he added.

Pointing out at China’s ‘One family one child’ policy, Bhagwat said, “While we are trying to control the population, we should see what happened in China. That country went for the one child policy and now it is getting older.

“With 57 crore youth population in India, we will remain a young nation for next 30 years,” Bhagwat said.

“However, what will happen to India after 50 years? Will we have enough food to feed the population,” he added.

Bhagwat also stressed on people starting their own businesses and not relying solely on government jobs.

“All government jobs put together, only 30 per cent population will be covered. Rest of the population will have to start their own businesses to create more employment,” he said.

The RSS invited mountaineer Santosh Yadav as the chief guest for the event. She is the first woman in the world to climb Mount Everest twice.

Mysore: Congress president Sonia Gandhi arrived in this historic town on Monday afternoon for the party’s ongoing Bharat Jodo Yatra in Karnataka.

She will participate in the Yatra on Thursday morning when it resumes after a two-day break.

Sonia Gandhi had not campaigned for the party during elections in the recent past due to health reasons.

It will be after a long time that Gandhi will participate in the party’s public event where a large number of Congress workers are participating.

The Bharat Jodo Yatra entered the 26th day of its almost five-month journey from Kanyakumari to Kashmir.

Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi will undertake the entire 3,570 km Yatra.