MONTH THAT WAS

Thai Deputy PM charged over export of 100 tigers to China

Bangkok : A Thai deputy prime minister was charged in connection with the export to China of 100 tigers, an endangered species protected by international law, the attorney general's office said.
Plodprasod Suraswadi approved the export of tigers from Sriracha Tiger Zoo - a popular tourist attraction a few hours from Bangkok - to a Chinese breeding firm in 2002. He was the head of the forestry department at the time.

312 hectare land turns green

Bhopal: People of a small village Takhla Khurd in Barghat Janpad of Seoni district have done a work in a short period what other people take years to do. Tall trees instead of weed now stand in 312.66 hectare area in the village as a result of hard work, dedication and willpower on the part of total 15 persons. Small and big wild animals are also thriving in this man-made forest. Now, people of the village have also started cultivation of lac in this forest. These villagers have earned net income worth Rs. 3 lakh 41 thousand from sale of about 4,300 lakh kilogrammes of lac grown by them from May 3 to November 12. Presently, three self-help groups are undertaking lac cultivation here.
People have also constituted a Forest Protection Committee in the village, which is situated in Amagarh Forest Range of South Seoni General Forest Division.

Expired noodles kills child

A five-year-old girl died while other family members were taken seriously ill after they consumed a packet of expired noodles in south Kashmir's Kulgam district, PTI reported quoting police. 

Superintendent of Police (SP), Kulgam, Muhammad Shafi Mir said Abroo, daughter of Nisar Ahmad Chak of Manzgam village, along with her parents and three siblings, fell unconscious after consuming the noodles, which had expired in the year 2007. The SP said the pack of noodles was brought from the shop owned by the family and run by Chak and his brother Gulzar Ahmad Chak. 

Ad council raps 15 firms

New Delhi: The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) pulled up 15 companies, including GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare, Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) and Max Life Insurance, for misleading claims in their advertisements. While GlaxoSmithKline was asked to withdraw the commercial for its energy drink Horlicks, Hindustan Unilever was asked to pull out the commercial for its toothpaste brand Pepsodent Expert Protection. In May, ASCI, along with AdEx (a TAM Media Research entity), had formed the National Advertising Monitoring Services (NAMS). It has taken action against 205 allegedly misleading advertisements against which complaints were received between May and October. In 2011, ASCI had upheld 177 advertisements.

 Toxic cough syrup kills 40 in Pak

Lahore: At least 12 more men have died after drinking adulterated cough syrup in Pakistan's Punjab province, taking the death toll since November to 40, officials said on Saturday. The total number of deaths this week has risen to 20, health officials said.

Eighteen deaths occurred in Gujranwala and Toba Tek Singh districts and the remaining in the provincial capital of Lahore. Another 40 men are being treated in several hospitals. Twenty men, a majority of them drug addicts, died in Lahore in November after drinking the Tyno cough syrup.

The latest deaths involved a cough syrup named Dextromethorphan, Punjab Health Secretary Arif Nadeem said. The deaths in Gujranwala and Toba Tek Singh were very similar to those in Lahore, he said.

Nadeem said an excessive dose of the active ingredient in cough syrups had resulted in the deaths. 

Dalit beaten with slippers for sitting on bench!

Chennai : Even as some politicians in Tamil Nadu have been campaigning against girls of upper castes falling in love with Dalits and marrying them, a man was beaten up with slippers by Caste Hindus for sitting on a bench.

The shameful incident occurred in Vanakankadu village in Pudukottai district in central Tamil Nadu (nearby the famous Thanjavur). The victim Annadurai is the husband of a Dalit Panchayat chief Kalaimani. Incidentally, Kalaimani was in the news recently when she  defied the diktat of Caste Hindus and fought for her right to hoist the national flag on Independence Day at the Panchayat office premises.

According to police, Annadurai had gone to the office of Village Administrative Officer and was sitting on a bench. A few members of the Caste Hindus took this as an affront to their caste hegemony and rudely asked him to get up from the bench. When Annadurai refused to listen to their orders, the Caste Hindus removed their slippers and began beating him. They also attacked him with wooden logs until he was rescued by some onlookers.

An injured Annadurai was then admitted at the Pudukottai Government Hospital and the Vadakadu police have registered a case. However, no arrests have been made yet.

Ironically, his wife, who was elected Panchayat president last year, was not allowed to hoist the national flag during this year’s Republic Day celebrations at the Panchayat office. However, during the Independence Day, she stuck to her position and ignoring warnings unfurled the tricolour, which had angered members of the upper castes.

New intelligence unit to detect coporate frauds: Pilot

New Delhi: Faced with a growing number of financial frauds, the Corporate Affairs Ministry is setting up a new intelligence unit that will delve into 'data mining' from all possible sources to detect any wrongdoings by the companies and their promoters at the earliest possible stage. "In the Ministry, we are setting up an intelligence unit. It is at a nascent stage. We would be putting technical people with lot of experience and expertise on the job and these would be the people who can mine the data," Corporate Affairs Minister Sachin Pilot told PTI. "The idea is to have a set of people to do the data mining, collection and checking of records that is available on various platforms, and them link them with the inputs from investigating agencies," Pilot said. Meanwhile, worried over fraud in the health insurance sector, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority plans to build an advanced detection and prevention system to check fraudulent claims. In order to reduce the cost of insurance inflicted by fraud, Irda said it is proposing to build advanced detection and prevention systems at industry level to identify fraudulent claims before payment occurs and to improve the accuracy of fraud detection.