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Tag: India

  • Seven children missing after vehicle falls into canal

    Seven children missing after vehicle falls into canal

    No fewer than seven children went missing on Thursday after a vehicle carrying 29 people fell into a canal in northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, police said.

    According to the police, 22 people were rescued from the canal and search for the missing ones was underway.

    The accident took place in the morning in Nagram area on the outskirts of Lucknow, the capital city of Uttar Pradesh.

    “Early this morning a vehicle carrying 29 people fell into Indira canal,” a senior police official said. “The passengers in the vehicle were returning from a wedding when the driver lost control over the vehicle before plunging into canal.”

    The police official said immediately after the accident, locals carried out rescue efforts and informed police.

    “So far 22 people mostly adults were rescued alive but as per the information seven children aged between four and nine years are still missing,” the official said.

    “A team of national disaster response force (NDRF) has been deployed for rescue operations and divers are searching inside the canal.”

    Rescuers said the strong flow of water in the canal was hampering the efforts.

    Officials fear that the children might have died inside the canal.

    “It has been several hours and there is no trace of the children, there is possibility they might have died,” the police official said. “We have directed the official in districts downstream to put nets into the canal so that if the children had been swept away by the currents, they could be recovered.”

    Deadly road accidents are common in India, often caused due to overloading, bad condition of roads and reckless driving.

    An official report says on an average, 400 deaths take place every day in India due to road accidents.

  • 370 people die of swine flu

    Over 12,000 swine flu (H1N1 virus) cases have been reported across India so far this year with a total of 377 people feared to have died of the disease, local media reported on Tuesday.

    According to official data released by the National Center for Disease Control (NCDC), swine flu continues to spread.

    “As the total number of cases have risen to 2,278 this year alone, out of which over 700 cases were reported in the past 10 days.

    “All state-run hospitals have enough stock of medicine and beds to deal with patients,’’ Delhi government officials said.

    Swine flu, which originated in pigs but is spread primarily from person to person, is said to be a self-limiting viral and air-borne contagious disease.

    Symptoms of swine flu may include body ache, headache, fatigue, chills, diarrhoea and vomiting with blood-stained sputum.

  • India central bank cuts interest rates to boost economy

    India’s central bank on Thursday unexpectedly lowered interest rates and, as anticipated, shifted its stance to “neutral” from “calibrated tightening” to boost a slowing economy after a sharp fall in the inflation rate.

    The monetary policy committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India cut the repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.25 per cent, as predicted by only 21 of 65 analysts polled by Reuters.

    Most polled respondents expected the central bank to only change the stance to neutral.

    Four of six members of the MPC voted to cut the rates, while all six voted for a change in the stance.

    “Investment activity is recovering but supported mainly by public spending on infrastructure. The need is to strengthen private investment activity and buttress private consumption,” the MPC said in a statement.

    Indian shares pared gains while 10-year bond yields slid 5 basis points after the surprise rate cut.

    The Indian rupee weakened to 71.69 to the dollar immediately after the announcement but strengthened soon after to 71.42.

    India’s last rate cut, to 6.00 per cent, was in August 2017.

    Thursday’s cut is welcome news for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which wants to boost lending and lift growth as it faces elections by May.

    The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is already in an election mode. In its budget on Feb. 1, the government doled out cash to farmers and tax cuts to middle-class families, at the cost of a wider fiscal deficit and larger borrowing.

    Economic growth fell to a worse-than-expected 7.1 per cent in the July-September quarter from 8.2 per cent, dragged down by slower consumer spending and farm growth, below analysts forecast for a 7.4 per cent increase.

  • 42-year-old woman cuts off 25-year-old stalker’s genitals

    A middle-aged Indian woman attacked her alleged stalker and cut off his genitals before rushing him to hospital to save his life, police said on Thursday.

    The accused woman on Tuesday asked two men to lure the 25-year-old to an isolated place in the suburbs of Mumbai where the three of them assaulted him.

    The woman then used a kitchen knife to cut off his genitals, police said.

    In a statement to police, the 42-year-old woman said the victim was her neighbour and had several times harassed her.

    “She decided to “teach him a lesson”, a police inspector told Reuters.

    But the woman realized he could die and rushed him to hospital.

    Both the knife and the genitals have been recovered, police said.

    “He is on ventilator support and is still critical,” said a doctor at the hospital.

    The woman and her two alleged acquaintances are in police custody while investigations continue.

    Sexual violence and harassment of women have been a growing concern in India in recent years.

    The police and governments have been criticised for failing to keep the streets of major cities safe.

     

  • 11 die, 90 fall sick after eating temple food in India – Police

    11 die, 90 fall sick after eating temple food in India – Police

    The police said on Saturday that 11 people including two children died and more than 90 were hospitalised after consuming a religious food offering at a temple in the southern Indian state of Karnataka.

    The police said two people have been questioned in connection with the incident on Friday, after devotees fell ill when they ate tomato rice at a Hindu temple.

    Many people are still being treated for vomiting, diarrhea and respiratory diseases.

    Media reports in India said the suspected food poisoning was the result of pesticide contamination but police said it was too early to draw conclusions about the cause.

    “We have sent the organs of the dead people and the poisoned food to the forensic laboratory,” Geetha MS, a senior police officer in the Chamarajanagara district where the temple is located, told Reuters.

    “Only after receiving the report can we say what went wrong.”

    Geetha said that several crows and dogs were also found dead after eating the food.

    In 2013, 23 school children died in the eastern state of Bihar in one of the worst outbreaks of mass food poisoning in the country.

    Police had suspected that it was caused by cooking oil that had been kept in a container previously used to store pesticide.

    The Karnataka government would provide financial assistance of 500,000 rupees (6,953 dollars) to the families of each of the dead, according to media reports.

  • Indian govt meets with WhatsApp to trace fake news – Source

    Indian tech ministry officials met with senior WhatsApp executives to ask the Facebook Inc (FB.O) unit to start tracing the origins of misinformation spread through its messaging platform, a senior government official said on Friday.

    WhatsApp has been working to curb the circulation of what technology minister Ravi Prasad termed “sinister” content in India, the firm’s biggest market where it boasts over 220 million users.

    Such misinformation has led to the lynching of over 30 people since January last year, according to data portal IndiaSpend, prompting Prasad to call on WhatsApp to trace its origins.

    WhatsApp has previously declined to trace the origin of messages, citing security issues.

    “We have been asking them for traceability,” said the official at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, declining to be identified as the meeting was private.

    “They (WhatsApp) are non-committal on it but we are forcing this issue.”

    Officials said WhatsApp was represented by Director & Associate General Counsel Brian Hennessy and one other executive, and said it was working on measures to prevent the spread of misinformation.

    “WhatsApp regularly engages with the Government of India to discuss our commitment to maintaining a private and safe platform for people to communicate with one another,” the firm said in a statement.

    “We look forward to continued discussions on how we can work together toward these common goals.”

    WhatsApp maintains that building traceability into its messaging service would undermine its private nature and end-to-end encryption, creating the potential for misuse.

    It has also said it will not weaken the privacy protection it provides.

    The firm has since launched print, radio and television advertising campaigns to educate users on the dangers of misinformation.

    It is also conducted roadshows in partnership with mobile phone network provider Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd.

    WhatsApp has held digital literacy training for community leaders and law enforcement as well as introduced features on its app such as limits on message forwarding and labels for forwarded messages.

  • India unveils world’s tallest statue celebrating independence hero

    India on Wednesday unveiled the world’s tallest statue in the western state of Gujurat in celebration of her unity.
    Towering at 182 metres, the Statue of Unity is a tribute to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, a hero of India’s freedom struggle and the country’s first deputy prime minister.
    Patel, a Gujarati, was known as the ‘Iron man of India’ as he went about persuading all the princely states to join the Indian union after independence from British rule in 1947.
    Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who also hails from Gujarat, dedicated Patel’s statue to the people of India on the 142th birth anniversary of the statesman’s birth.
    The record-breaking monument, which towers over the Narmada River, was built at a cost of 29.89 billion rupees (430 million dollars).
    Based on award-winning sculptor Ram Sutar’s creation, the statue was built by engineering firm Larsen and Toubro.
    The bronze statue, which depicts Patel wearing the traditional Indian attire of a dhoti and a shawl, took 33 months to build and involved 250 engineers and 3400 workers, according to the Press Information Bureau of India.
    “To build this statue, [hundreds of thousands) of farmers from all over India came together to donate their tools, portions of their soil and a mass movement developed around the statue,” Modi said in his speech.
    Thousands of policemen guarded the venue during the inauguration, as local tribal people have been holding protests in recent months claiming the project had destroyed natural resources, the Times of India newspaper reported.
    The 128-metre Spring Temple Buddha in China had previously held the record for tallest statue.

  • Actress who helped trigger India’s #MeToo movement ‘inspired by God’

    Bollywood actress Tanushree Dutta poses for photographs outside an entertainment channel’s office in Mumbai, India, October 12, 2018.
    Tanushree Dutta, Bollywood actress who helped trigger the #MeToo movement in India challenging sexual harassment and abuse sees it as part of her religious education.
    She said her action was triggered after a 10 years experience of sexual harrasment effectively ended her career.
    “I feel God used me to start something which had to happen,” Dutta told Reuters.
    “All these women had this buried deep in their hearts out of shame.”
    Dutta, who said she was inspired by Christianity, Buddhism, yoga and the #MeToo movement in the United States, said last month that prominent actor Nana Patekar had sexually harassed her on the set of a movie in 2008.
    Patekar has denied wrongdoing.
    Dutta said Patekar, 67, had demanded she do intimate dance steps with him in one song in the Hindi-language romantic comedy “Horn OK Pleassss”. When she refused, she said, members of a far right-wing Hindu group attacked her car while she was in it, including jumping on the roof and trying to smash the windscreen.
    Dutta, who walked out of the movie, went public with the allegations the same day, but was threatened with legal action by the Hindu group and felt so shamed by those questioning her story and by the way the Indian media treated her that she left Bollywood altogether and went to live in the United States.
    Other than a few bit parts, she hasn’t worked in a movie since.
    “All of that disgusted me – it took my faith and confidence from the industry,” she said in an interview. “I didn’t want to work here. I still kept in touch and did some work which needed short-term commitments.”
    Rajendra Shirodkar, Patekar’s lawyer, has sent Dutta a legal notice asking her to apologize to Patekar or face further legal action. He hasn’t specified what that action would be.
    The far-right group, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), this month filed a complaint with the police against Dutta for comments she made about their chief. The police in turn filed a defamation case against Dutta, currently under investigation, based on the MNS complaint.
    Dutta, on holiday in Mumbai, said she hadn’t intended to bring up the issue in public again until she was asked by a reporter whether the #MeeToo movement would ever come to India.
    “My answer was that if what happened to me 10 years ago hasn’t been addressed and hasn’t been brought to justice, then how can any movement happen here?” Dutta said. She then repeated her allegations from 2008.
    The subsequent story on the Zoom TV channel set off a barrage of other stories in the Indian media about her allegations.
    This time, though, she didn’t back off.
    “I knew I had to keep the dialogue going … and other women would speak out. I was in it deep – there was no way out. I was not going to cow down – not the second time for sure,” she said.
    Within days of her story hitting the headlines, a wave of allegations largely against figures in the media and entertainment industries – has swept across social media in India.

  • Four Nigerians arrested with 600 grams of heroin in India [Photos]

    As part of the special campaign, to check drug trafficking and such misdemeanours, Khanna Police, Ludhiana district of Punjab, India has nabbed four Nigerian nationals in the last few weeks.

    The latest suspect identified as Traurare Yakubu was arrested on Wednesday, August 21. Ub Inspector Davinder Singh along with a police party stopped the suspect, frisked him and found drugs in his possession.

    The police recovered from him 100 grams heroin worth Rs one crore and also confiscated seven grams of cocaine. He was arrested immediately. An FIR No. 196, 21.08.18 U/S 21/61/85 NDPS Act has been registered against the accused.

    Police also arrested two Nigerian men and recovered 100 gms of heroin from them at Rara Sahib PS Payal. An FIR No. 111/18 U/S 21 NDPS Act PS Payal has been lodged against them.

    Continuing the drive against Drug Smuggling, Khanna Police achieved a major success, arrested a Nigerian man and recovered 400 gms heroin from his possession.

    In this regard, a case FIR has been registered under NDPS Act PS Machiwarra Sahib. Further investigation is on in this case.

    Khanna Police under Senior Superintendent of Police, Dhruv Dahiya started a special campaign against drug trafficking and it is proving to be a success.

    Almost everyday the cops are able to nab drug traffickers.

     

  • Breaking: Monsoon floods claim 39 lives

    Floods in India’s Southern State of Kerala have claimed 39 lives and caused a loss of 1.1 billion dollars, officials said on Monday.

    This is as the region braces for more rains during one of its worst monsoon seasons in a century.

    As many as 33,372 people evacuated from villages in low-lying areas were housed in 305 state-run relief camps, officials in the state disaster management control room said.

    The death toll had climbed to 39 since the heavy rains hit the state on Aug. 8, with the fatalities reported in accidents like drowning and landslides.

    Officials said that five more people were still missing.

    The heavy rains have ravaged the state, destroying highways and crops across over 1,000 hectares of farmland.

    State Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, said Kerala was in the midst of the “second worst flood after 1924,’’ with 10 out of 14 districts severely affected and authorities forced to release water from 27 major dams.

    “The impact of the disaster is likely to be felt for a long time.

    “Preliminary assessment indicates [sic] that nearly 20,000 houses have been fully damaged and nearly 10,000 kilometres of state roads damaged,’’ his office said on Twitter.

    It put preliminary costs as a result of the severe weather at 80.3 billion rupees.

    The rains eased on Sunday but state agencies were on high alert as the weather office has forecast “heavy to very heavy’’ rainfall till on Wednesday in many parts of Kerala.