Lucknow: Thirteen children were killed and eight others injured when a train rammed into their school van at an unmanned railway crossing in Uttar Pradesh’s Kushinagar area, around 50 km from Gorakhpur, this morning, a railway official said.

The children, students of Divine Public School, were killed on the spot when the Thawe-Kapatanganj passenger train crashed into the van at the unmanned crossing gate at Behpurva, said Railways spokesman Ved Prakash.

The train was on way to Gorakhpur from Siwan.

There were at least 25 passengers, including children who were below the age of 10, in the van, the official said.

“It was an unmanned level crossing gate at Behpurva, with Gate Mitra (rail volunteer) deployed there. He tried to stop the van but the unfortunate incident happened at unmanned gate 45 near Dudhi station in Banaras division,” the spokesperson said in New Delhi.

An accident relief medical train from Gorakhpur has been dispatched to the site, he said.

Expressing condolence, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh for the families of the victims and directed the Gorakhpur commissioner to conduct an inquiry into the accident, according to Principal Secretary (Information) Awanish Awasthi.

He said the chief minister was rushing to the accident site for an on-the-spot assessment.

Railway Minister Piyush Goyal announced a compensation of Rs 2 lakh each for the kin of the deceased.

“I received the unfortunate news of the death of school children. I have asked senior officials to conduct a probe into the incident. Railways will give a compensation of Rs 2 lakh to the kin of the dead over and above the aid announced by the Uttar Pradesh government,” he said in a tweet.

(IANS)

Thane: A special NDPS court here has ordered attachment of properties of former Bollywood actor Mamta Kulkarni, who is one of the key accused in the multi-crore drug racket case unearthed by the Thane Police in 2016.

Special NDPS court judge, H M Patwardhan, last week ordered the attachment of three plush flats owned by Kulkarni in various areas of Mumbai, after she failed to appear before the court in connection with the drug case.

The present value of these flats is said to be around Rs 20 crore.

Special Public Prosecutor Shishir Hirey said the court directed for attachment of the three properties of Kulkarni after the prosecution moved an application for it.

The court has declared Kulkarni as absconding as she failed to appear before it in connection with the nearly Rs 2,000 crore drug bust case.

Kulkarni was two years back named as the prime accused in the drug racket linked to drug baron Vicky Goswami, with the police claiming that she was actively involved in illicit activities.

A senior Thane police official had then said that they would initiate the process for extradition of Kulkarni and Goswami, who were said to be in a relationship and based in Kenya in Africa.

On June 6 last year, Goswami and Kulkarni were declared as proclaimed absconders by a Thane court and the police had subsequently moved the court to attach the actor’s properties.

Hirey said the application seeking attachment of properties was kept pending and an opportunity was given to both the accused to appear before the court.

However, since later it became apparent that they were not likely to appear before the court, the judge directed for attachment of Kulkarni’s properties.

The drug racket came to light when police seized around 18.5 tonne of ephedrine, worth approximately Rs 2,000 crore, after raiding the premises of Avon Lifesciences Ltd in Maharashtra’s Solapur district in April 2016.

According to the police, ephedrine, which is a controlled drug, was allegedly being diverted from the Solapur unit of Avon Lifesciences and sent abroad after processing.

Ephedrine powder is used for sniffing and to produce the popular party drug methamphetamine.

Just before the racket was unearthed, 100 kg of ephedrine was manufactured at Avon Lifesciences’ premises and dispatched by air to Kenya.

The payment for the same was sent by Goswami to Mukesh Jain, a director of the company, through hawala (an informal channel for transferring funds), the Thane police had said.

Jain had gone abroad several times to meet Goswami, according to the police.

(PTI)

The All Indian Mahila Empowerment Party (MEP) has alleged that five of their candidates were denied filing nominations on Tuesday, ending their prospects of entering the political fray.

Party President Dr Nowhera Shaikh told Nasheman.in, that her candidates were denied entry into the nomination centres for hours, making them unable to file their nominations on time.

Tuesday was the last day of filing of nominations.

Dr Nowhera Shaikh alleged that there is a conspiracy to disrupt MEP’s political prospects from other political parties since MEP is a strong contender to win the upcoming Karnataka assembly elections.

Dr Shaikh said that she has raised a complaint with the Election Commission in this regards.

The candidates, who were denied nominations were: Asifa Khanum from Kanakpura, Nazia Shivapur from Hukkeri, A S Chandrashekhar from Tumkur, Veeresh from Sira and SA Raheem from Malur.

“Innovate in India for Inclusiveness Project”

A Loan Agreement for International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) credit of US$ 125 million for the “Innovate in India for Inclusiveness Project” was signed with the World Bank in New Delhi.

The Loan Agreement was signed by Sameer Kumar Khare, Joint Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs on behalf of Government of India and Hisham Abdo, Acting Country Director, World Bank (India) on behalf of the World Bank.

The Objectives of the project is to nurture indigenous innovation, foster local product development and accelerate commercialization process by bridging critical skill and infrastructure gaps to promote affordable and innovative healthcare products generation for inclusive development and increasing competitiveness in India.

The project would support consortia of public, private, and the academic institutions to overcome the key market failures currently holding back the development of an innovative biopharmaceutical and medical devices industry in India.

The project consists of the following parts:

(i) Strengthening of pilot-to market innovation ecosystem
(ii) Acceleration of the pilot –to-market process for specific products and
(iii) Project Management and monitoring and Evaluation.

The closing date of Innovate in India for Inclusiveness project is 30 June, 2023.

Hindusthan Samachar/Shri Ram Shaw

Says, a stronger India-China ties, which is not in any direct confrontation with the US, is the need of the hour

“The proposed meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping on April 27-28 in Wuhan is an opportunity for both the countries to discuss a roadmap for not only resolving the bilateral issues, but also the steps to ease pressure on the world trade due to the protectionist measures, especially by the US,” said Rashesh Shah, President, FICCI.
While China’s increasing dominance in world trade has made its role extremely significant in defusing the possibilities of a global trade war, India has shown in the last few months that it can play the role of a facilitator for serious dialogues on this issue, he added.
“It is quite encouraging that China has already indicated that positive results are expected on globalisation and the threat of rising protectionism from the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping,” said Shah.
The very realisation of the fact that both the countries being the emerging markets with large population have common interests in world trade and they must work together to ensure that trade protectionism doesn’t prove to be a dampener in the global economic recovery can go a long way in bringing together the nations with diverse interests to work on moves that facilitate a stable world trade order, added Shah.
“Along with the understanding to work together in furthering global trade, PM Modi must also discuss with President Xi the greater opening of the Chinese markets for the Indian products,” he said.
A stronger India-China ties, which is in the interest of the world trade, but not in any direct confrontation with the US, is the need of the hour, and FICCI is highly optimistic about the positive results from the meeting between the two leaders, he added.

Hindusthan Samachar/Shri Ram Shaw

That some 2.37 crore people have applied as the Indian Railways kicked off the process of filling up over 88,000 posts is clearly indicative of the “jobless growth” the country is experiencing.

But the exercise has a positive side – by taking the recruitment process online, the Railways is estimated to have saved 7.5 crore paper sheets, or the equivalent of “10 lakh trees”, according to a senior Railway Ministry official.

The state-run transporter has replaced bulky, multi-lingual question booklets with online tests for its recruitment process for various positions — ranging from assistant loco pilot to technician, trackman, gateman and pointsman.

“There are 62,000 posts involving track inspection crews and others related to improving safety, while more than 26,000 posts relate to engine drivers and technicians; for these, more than two crore people have applied,” said the senior official, who is involved with the recruitment process.

The examination will be conducted online at about 300 centres and the Railways is currently working out details.

“One applicant generally requires three-four paper sheets of A4 size to write the examination. So with the whole exercise going online, the Railways has saved a significant quantity of paper sheets,” the official said.

Describing the exercise as a “largest online recruitment drive in the world”, the official said “it is not only providing thousands of jobs, the whole process has also resulted in saving about 7.5 lakh paper sheets and 10 lakh trees approximately”.

The fee has been kept at Rs 500 and Rs 250 to keep out non-serious applicants who apply but fail to appear for the test. For general candidates, the examination fee is Rs 500, of which Rs 400 will be returned to the candidate after he or she appears in the examination.

The fee is Rs 250 for SC/ST, women, those who are physically challenged, applicants from economically weaker sections, ex-servicemen — and the full amount will be returned to the candidates after appearing in the examination.

“We are expecting maximum number of applicants to appear and only about 5-10 per cent absent at various centres this time,” the official said.

Railway, which currently employs 1.3 million people, has made special arrangements to ensure that the website does not crash during the examination. The site was earlier able to handle the traffic of the online application process.

Earlier, recruitment examinations used to be conducted manually, but the Railways had to abandon the system and opt for online mode after a few alleged incidents of question paper leaks.

The online test has resulted in substantial saving of time and resources while at the same time bringing transparency in the recruitment process, the official said.

(IANS)

Bangalore Apartments’ Federation (BAF), a Federation representing the interests of hundreds of apartment complexes and lakhs of apartment residents across Bangalore, organized a Political Debate on an Apartment Residents Charter on Sunday, 22nd April 2018 at Chowdiah Memorial Hall in Malleshwaram. The event was organized in the form of a panel discussion attended by representatives from political parties and moderated by Shri. V. Ravichandar, Chairman & MD of Feedback Consulting.

Shri. K. J. George, Bengaluru Development Minister represented Congress, Dr. Ashwath Narayan, MLA from Malleshwaram, represented BJP, Shri. Tanveer Ahmed, National Spokesperson, represented JDS and Shri. Prithvi Reddy, National Spokesperson & State Convener represented AAP.

The political debate was organized to make the political class aware of issues that apartments have been facing, including discriminatory tariffs, lack of civic services in many areas, services not being provided against cesses like garbage cess, sanitation cess etc. About 750 apartment residents from across Bengaluru thronged the venue to witness the panel discussion.

The issues assume significance in light of the fact that about 40 – 50% of the city’s population could be living in apartments & high-rise buildings in the next 10 – 15 years. All the politicians concurred that the issues raised by BAF were very relevant and were indeed discriminatory / penalizing against apartments. They assured that these issues would be looked into and potentially included in the manifestos of the respective parties.

It was also pointed out by some of the panelists that it was very important for citizens to vote and demand accountability from the elected representatives. Low voting turnouts in the past from apartment residents were cited as a reason why politicians did not take apartment residents or their issues seriously.

R. Balasubramanian, President of BAF, said, “We are very happy that senior representatives from all the major political parties were present and our issues have been taken into account.”

Srikanth Narasimhan, General Secretary of BAF, said, “We are in daily communication with more than 2 lakh residents and the summary of this discussion will be shared with them too.”

Vikram Rai, Treasurer of BAF, concluded, “This is the first step for us in our engagement with the political class and we are expecting that we will get a resolution to all our issues fairly soon. We will also ensure that apartment residents come out and vote in big numbers during the upcoming elections and thereafter too.”

The 6th edition of Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) and Conclave of Chiefs is being hosted by Iran at Tehran from 23 to 25 April. The Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Sunil Lanba is leading a four member Indian delegation for the event.
The IONS was conceived by the Indian Navy in 2008. The forum seeks to enhance maritime cooperation among navies of the littoral states of the Indian Ocean Region by providing an open and inclusive forum for discussion on regionally relevant maritime issues that would lead to common understanding on the way ahead.

The inaugural edition of IONS was held in February 2008 at New Delhi, with Indian Navy as the Chair for two years. This was followed by UAE from 2010 – 2012, South Africa from 2012 – 2014, Australia from 2014 – 2016 and Bangladesh from 2016 – 2018.

The IONS Charter of Business was agreed upon by the Conclave of Chiefs and brought into effect in February 2014. A relatively young forum, barely in its 10th year of existence, it has grown into a formidable organisation with 23 members and 09 observers. As the founder nation, India will also be conducting commemorative activities in November 2018 at Kochi, for celebrating its 10th Anniversary this year.

The visit of the Chief of the Naval Staff is also aimed at consolidating bilateral naval relations between India and Iran and to explore new avenues for naval cooperation. Admiral Sunil Lanba will also hold bilateral discussions with the Commander IRI Navy, and other participating ‘Chiefs of Navy/ Head of Maritime Agencies’.

Hindusthan Samachar/Shri Ram Shaw