YEH MERA INDIA
Techie thieves
Nagpur: As power distribution companies intensify their drive against power theft, pilferers are adopting the latest technology to outsmart them.
Spanco Vigilance officials detected power theft at a hotel on Central Avenue. The device used to tamper with the meter shocked officials, as it was highly sophisticated and even veterans said they had never come across anything like this.
The power pilferage was found at Shivraj Hotel, which had two meters in the name of Jagdish Gupta. The total theft assessment was Rs 7.87 lakh. Spanco officials suspected power theft because power consumption at the hotel had reduced suddenly two years ago.
The most shocking aspect of the device is that it does not leave any evidence of theft. Several cases of power theft using remote controlled devices have come to light of late, but to use the remote you have to install a sensor in the electricity meter by tampering with it. The earlier electrostatic meters could be manipulated even with a magnet, but electronic meters are immune to them.
The device found generated an electrostatic discharge. It was the size of a compass box used by school students. The user could keep it anywhere and only when he wanted to tamper with the meter does he have to fit a wire loop and place the devices and the loop near the meter.
The device has an electronic circuit and a coil, which get activated on pressing a small button. The device produces high voltage and high frequency discharge, which creates a small spark in the meter. The meter gets “hanged” and does not record electricity consumption. When the user wants the meter to function normally, he reactivates it using the same method.
Man acquitted after 20 yrs in jail
Mumbai: A man, who spent two decades in jail serving a life sentence on charges of murdering his son, has been acquitted by the Bombay High Court on the ground that evidence against him “did not inspire confidence and was not at all free from doubt”. Laxman Gangaram Zinna, hailing from Andhra Pradesh, was ordered to be released from Yerwada prison in Pune.
Who will pay for his 20 years lost!
Poor Bengal mom sells her child for Rs 2,000!
Kolkata: Unable to take care of her seven-month-old child due to extreme poverty, a mother in West Bengal’s Nadia district sold her infant to a meat seller for Rs 2,000, reports media.
Rinku Das, a recently widowed mother of two from Krishnanagar in Nadia district which is some 105 km from Kolkata, said she was compelled to sell her second child – a girl – as she found it difficult to take care of her.
“I do not have a livelihood. Whatever I had, is already sold. It had become very difficult for me to feed myself and the children. So, I sold my younger child for Rs 2,000,” said Das.
Das sold the child to Madhav Saha, her neighbourhood and a meat seller. Saha, who is childless, was very happy to accept the child.
“Yes, I bought the baby for Rs 2,000. I do not have a child and I am very happy to get her,” Das said.
Though police have not arrested them, they called both Das and Saha and asked the mother to take back the child.
“It is illegal to sell the baby. We know it is difficult for the mother to take care of the child. But for the welfare of the baby, it is necessary that she stays with her mother,” said an officer of Krishnangar police station.
“Though Das was willing to take back her child, Saha been reluctant and coaxing us to allow him to keep the baby,” the officer added.
“Officer is sold out” – Court shocked
Mumbai: The Bombay High Court while hearing a habeas corpus filed by a grandmother seeking custody of her grandchildren, expressed shock over the callous attitude of the police and the Child Welfare committee (CWC) and reunited five minor children with their guardians after they were kept in a remand home for over two months and ordered an enquiry into the matter saying,” this conduct (of police) indicates that the officer is sold out.”
The petitioner Sushila Jain, alleged in the petition that her stepdaughter, Smita Modi, filed a false trespassing case to first get her and her daughter, Suneeta Sharma, arrested and while they were getting a bail, Modi forcibly took the children to Azad Maidan police station and the police later sent them to Dongri remand home. The six children, Jain’s maternal granddaughter (4), paternal grandson (13), two children of her uncle’s son (12, 10) and two children of her deceased servant (7, 5), had came to Mumbai to celebrate Christmas. Jain said, “They were here on vacation but were snatched from us and we were made to run from pillar to post to produce evidence that they were ours.” Sharma said, “After over a month I could only free my four-year-old biological daughter and they asked me to apply for legal guardianship for all the other children.” The children who had come from Bangalore with Jain’s daughter Suneeta Sharma have been in her custody and care, however not legally adopted.
The division bench of justices V M Kanade and P D Kode remarked, “We don’t believe that policemen can act in such a heartless manner... A lady brings six small children to you, what steps do you take to check the guardian of the children or the intention of the lady?”
The court also rapped the CWC and asked them what authority the police had to send children to CWC without checking for their guardian. Justice Kode remarked, “We are surprised that the CWC representative is still vehemently justifying their stand.” The court said, “How could the police send the kids to a remand home without proper investigation, this is absolute high-handedness. We are going to direct the government to take action against the investigating officer.”
Women power in Mumbai Fire BrigadesMumbai: For the first time in its history of 125 years, the Mumbai Fire Brigade has admitted women officers. These three women officers will not only fight fires but also handle the administration of their respective fire stations.
Four months ago, women had already broken into the fire brigade, when six women cleared the rigorous physical and theoretical tests to become entry-level, firemen.
The appointment of these female officers, though, marks the entry of women into the men-only, macho officers’ club.
Assistant Station Fire Officers Shwetambari Jadhav (24), Sunita Patil (25) and Shubhangi Mandale (24) received their postings in April this year.
The three proud female officers credit their families for encouraging them on their difficult journey. Shwetambari Jadhav and Sunita Patil of Nerul are the first from their respective families to work in firefighting, but Shubhangi Mandale has an uncle working in the field.
These officers have gone through six months of training. The training was conducted from 7 am to 5 pm at the fire brigade facilities in Wadala. From their faraway residences, commuting to the training grounds in the early hours must have been almost as grueling as the physical training. The women recruits learned how to climb down in ladder with a wounded colleague on their shoulders, how to douse a fire with standard equipment, and how to keep themselves fit with daily exercise.
The women officers received the same training given to their male counterparts, said Krishna Yadav, Station Fire Officer, Byculla, presently their boss.
12-yr-old boy clears XII after cracking IIT-JEE!
Patna : After cracking the highly competitive Indian Institute of Technology-Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE), Satyam Kumar, the 12-and-half-year-old boy from Bihar has now passed Class 12 with 85 percent marks, reports media. WE ARE LIKE THIS ONLY
Satyam has become the youngest in the country to clear the Class 12 Central Board of secondary Education (CBSE) examination, family sources claimed.
Satyam, a resident of Bakhorapur village in Bhojpur district, cleared IIT-JEE from the Mumbai zone with an all-India rank of 8,137. He has been the youngest yet to crack what is considered to be the toughest qualifying exam in the country.
Satyam is currently studying in Rajasthan’s Kota town, well known for its IIT-JEE coaching centres. He stays with his younger brother and uncle. Satyam had also done his Class 10 from Modern School in Kota.
“We are happy and celebrating his rare success. After all, it is a matter of pride for the family, village and the state,” Satyam’s uncle Rampukar Singh told media over telephone.
Singh said, “’CBSE officials informed us that Satyam is the youngest to clear Class 12. The entire village is upbeat because he has become a role model for others.”
The village celebrated his success by bursting firecrackers and consuming sweets when he cracked IIT-JEE on May 18.
Satyam is busy preparing for next year’s IIT-JEE. After cracking IIT-JEE this year, he made it clear that he would not join IIT because of his poor rank. He will attempt next year for a better rank.
Kumar’s father, Sidhnath Singh, a farmer, is proud of him. He said his son was intelligent since early childhood.
Maharashtra Housing & Area Development Authority or MHADA has been in the news for a long time for its lottery draw to allot flats it has built for citizens in and around Mumbai. It has, reportedly, 2517 flats in different locations, for different income groups. Income groups are, Higher known as HIG, Middle known as MIG and Lower known as LIG. Reportedly it is a very transparent process of allotment based on specific qualifications like number of years of stay in Maharashtra and of course, the income stipulation. In its attempts to be transparent, MHADA had reportedly uploaded the list of all eligible applicants on its website. That certainly eliminates influence peddling. But as usual had left a little window ajar. No reference to the receipt number was given to locate the applicants' details. Since there were reportedly, 140,868 candidates applied and eligible, it would be indeed very herculean to go through it, except by down loading the details and taking a printout, which also could be a huge effort.
However, what is interesting is the eventual elimination and rejection of 11,179 applications. Surely, it must have been quite a task for MHADA officials to screen this over 1.50 lakh applications to arrive at this staggering number of rejection.
Very interesting dimension of this exercise has been the reasons for rejection of these applications. Details published by MHADA shows the usual mindset of most Indians, if not all. Applications were rejected on following grounds. There were 6385 applications who applied under different income groups. The idea is to hit the jackpot, any one is fine, since these MHADA houses are less costly as compared to private builders or developers. Then there were 3995 applicants, with different names but with same bank account numbers. PAN was another detail in 177 applications, where it was repeated. Also 688 candidates had more than one application in same category. Of course there were 4 genuine applicants rejected because the names in Demand Draft and application were not same.
Of course for the record, these obvious discrepancies are supposedly criminal offenses to be persued against applicants. Reportedly MHADA soft pedelled the criminal angle for the sheer size of rejected applications.
Thus it was an Indian psyche on display, dishonesty writ large. Why are we like this or is it we are like this only? - J Shriyan
Nagpur: As power distribution companies intensify their drive against power theft, pilferers are adopting the latest technology to outsmart them.
Spanco Vigilance officials detected power theft at a hotel on Central Avenue. The device used to tamper with the meter shocked officials, as it was highly sophisticated and even veterans said they had never come across anything like this.
The power pilferage was found at Shivraj Hotel, which had two meters in the name of Jagdish Gupta. The total theft assessment was Rs 7.87 lakh. Spanco officials suspected power theft because power consumption at the hotel had reduced suddenly two years ago.
The most shocking aspect of the device is that it does not leave any evidence of theft. Several cases of power theft using remote controlled devices have come to light of late, but to use the remote you have to install a sensor in the electricity meter by tampering with it. The earlier electrostatic meters could be manipulated even with a magnet, but electronic meters are immune to them.
The device found generated an electrostatic discharge. It was the size of a compass box used by school students. The user could keep it anywhere and only when he wanted to tamper with the meter does he have to fit a wire loop and place the devices and the loop near the meter.
The device has an electronic circuit and a coil, which get activated on pressing a small button. The device produces high voltage and high frequency discharge, which creates a small spark in the meter. The meter gets “hanged” and does not record electricity consumption. When the user wants the meter to function normally, he reactivates it using the same method.
Man acquitted after 20 yrs in jail
Mumbai: A man, who spent two decades in jail serving a life sentence on charges of murdering his son, has been acquitted by the Bombay High Court on the ground that evidence against him “did not inspire confidence and was not at all free from doubt”. Laxman Gangaram Zinna, hailing from Andhra Pradesh, was ordered to be released from Yerwada prison in Pune.
Who will pay for his 20 years lost!
Poor Bengal mom sells her child for Rs 2,000!
Kolkata: Unable to take care of her seven-month-old child due to extreme poverty, a mother in West Bengal’s Nadia district sold her infant to a meat seller for Rs 2,000, reports media.
Rinku Das, a recently widowed mother of two from Krishnanagar in Nadia district which is some 105 km from Kolkata, said she was compelled to sell her second child – a girl – as she found it difficult to take care of her.
“I do not have a livelihood. Whatever I had, is already sold. It had become very difficult for me to feed myself and the children. So, I sold my younger child for Rs 2,000,” said Das.
Das sold the child to Madhav Saha, her neighbourhood and a meat seller. Saha, who is childless, was very happy to accept the child.
“Yes, I bought the baby for Rs 2,000. I do not have a child and I am very happy to get her,” Das said.
Though police have not arrested them, they called both Das and Saha and asked the mother to take back the child.
“It is illegal to sell the baby. We know it is difficult for the mother to take care of the child. But for the welfare of the baby, it is necessary that she stays with her mother,” said an officer of Krishnangar police station.
“Though Das was willing to take back her child, Saha been reluctant and coaxing us to allow him to keep the baby,” the officer added.
“Officer is sold out” – Court shocked
Mumbai: The Bombay High Court while hearing a habeas corpus filed by a grandmother seeking custody of her grandchildren, expressed shock over the callous attitude of the police and the Child Welfare committee (CWC) and reunited five minor children with their guardians after they were kept in a remand home for over two months and ordered an enquiry into the matter saying,” this conduct (of police) indicates that the officer is sold out.”
The petitioner Sushila Jain, alleged in the petition that her stepdaughter, Smita Modi, filed a false trespassing case to first get her and her daughter, Suneeta Sharma, arrested and while they were getting a bail, Modi forcibly took the children to Azad Maidan police station and the police later sent them to Dongri remand home. The six children, Jain’s maternal granddaughter (4), paternal grandson (13), two children of her uncle’s son (12, 10) and two children of her deceased servant (7, 5), had came to Mumbai to celebrate Christmas. Jain said, “They were here on vacation but were snatched from us and we were made to run from pillar to post to produce evidence that they were ours.” Sharma said, “After over a month I could only free my four-year-old biological daughter and they asked me to apply for legal guardianship for all the other children.” The children who had come from Bangalore with Jain’s daughter Suneeta Sharma have been in her custody and care, however not legally adopted.
The division bench of justices V M Kanade and P D Kode remarked, “We don’t believe that policemen can act in such a heartless manner... A lady brings six small children to you, what steps do you take to check the guardian of the children or the intention of the lady?”
The court also rapped the CWC and asked them what authority the police had to send children to CWC without checking for their guardian. Justice Kode remarked, “We are surprised that the CWC representative is still vehemently justifying their stand.” The court said, “How could the police send the kids to a remand home without proper investigation, this is absolute high-handedness. We are going to direct the government to take action against the investigating officer.”
Women power in Mumbai Fire BrigadesMumbai: For the first time in its history of 125 years, the Mumbai Fire Brigade has admitted women officers. These three women officers will not only fight fires but also handle the administration of their respective fire stations.
Four months ago, women had already broken into the fire brigade, when six women cleared the rigorous physical and theoretical tests to become entry-level, firemen.
The appointment of these female officers, though, marks the entry of women into the men-only, macho officers’ club.
Assistant Station Fire Officers Shwetambari Jadhav (24), Sunita Patil (25) and Shubhangi Mandale (24) received their postings in April this year.
The three proud female officers credit their families for encouraging them on their difficult journey. Shwetambari Jadhav and Sunita Patil of Nerul are the first from their respective families to work in firefighting, but Shubhangi Mandale has an uncle working in the field.
These officers have gone through six months of training. The training was conducted from 7 am to 5 pm at the fire brigade facilities in Wadala. From their faraway residences, commuting to the training grounds in the early hours must have been almost as grueling as the physical training. The women recruits learned how to climb down in ladder with a wounded colleague on their shoulders, how to douse a fire with standard equipment, and how to keep themselves fit with daily exercise.
The women officers received the same training given to their male counterparts, said Krishna Yadav, Station Fire Officer, Byculla, presently their boss.
12-yr-old boy clears XII after cracking IIT-JEE!
Patna : After cracking the highly competitive Indian Institute of Technology-Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE), Satyam Kumar, the 12-and-half-year-old boy from Bihar has now passed Class 12 with 85 percent marks, reports media. WE ARE LIKE THIS ONLY
Satyam has become the youngest in the country to clear the Class 12 Central Board of secondary Education (CBSE) examination, family sources claimed.
Satyam, a resident of Bakhorapur village in Bhojpur district, cleared IIT-JEE from the Mumbai zone with an all-India rank of 8,137. He has been the youngest yet to crack what is considered to be the toughest qualifying exam in the country.
Satyam is currently studying in Rajasthan’s Kota town, well known for its IIT-JEE coaching centres. He stays with his younger brother and uncle. Satyam had also done his Class 10 from Modern School in Kota.
“We are happy and celebrating his rare success. After all, it is a matter of pride for the family, village and the state,” Satyam’s uncle Rampukar Singh told media over telephone.
Singh said, “’CBSE officials informed us that Satyam is the youngest to clear Class 12. The entire village is upbeat because he has become a role model for others.”
The village celebrated his success by bursting firecrackers and consuming sweets when he cracked IIT-JEE on May 18.
Satyam is busy preparing for next year’s IIT-JEE. After cracking IIT-JEE this year, he made it clear that he would not join IIT because of his poor rank. He will attempt next year for a better rank.
Kumar’s father, Sidhnath Singh, a farmer, is proud of him. He said his son was intelligent since early childhood.
Maharashtra Housing & Area Development Authority or MHADA has been in the news for a long time for its lottery draw to allot flats it has built for citizens in and around Mumbai. It has, reportedly, 2517 flats in different locations, for different income groups. Income groups are, Higher known as HIG, Middle known as MIG and Lower known as LIG. Reportedly it is a very transparent process of allotment based on specific qualifications like number of years of stay in Maharashtra and of course, the income stipulation. In its attempts to be transparent, MHADA had reportedly uploaded the list of all eligible applicants on its website. That certainly eliminates influence peddling. But as usual had left a little window ajar. No reference to the receipt number was given to locate the applicants' details. Since there were reportedly, 140,868 candidates applied and eligible, it would be indeed very herculean to go through it, except by down loading the details and taking a printout, which also could be a huge effort.
However, what is interesting is the eventual elimination and rejection of 11,179 applications. Surely, it must have been quite a task for MHADA officials to screen this over 1.50 lakh applications to arrive at this staggering number of rejection.
Very interesting dimension of this exercise has been the reasons for rejection of these applications. Details published by MHADA shows the usual mindset of most Indians, if not all. Applications were rejected on following grounds. There were 6385 applications who applied under different income groups. The idea is to hit the jackpot, any one is fine, since these MHADA houses are less costly as compared to private builders or developers. Then there were 3995 applicants, with different names but with same bank account numbers. PAN was another detail in 177 applications, where it was repeated. Also 688 candidates had more than one application in same category. Of course there were 4 genuine applicants rejected because the names in Demand Draft and application were not same.
Of course for the record, these obvious discrepancies are supposedly criminal offenses to be persued against applicants. Reportedly MHADA soft pedelled the criminal angle for the sheer size of rejected applications.
Thus it was an Indian psyche on display, dishonesty writ large. Why are we like this or is it we are like this only? - J Shriyan
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