MONTH THAT WAS

Bizarre elevator accident

HYDERABAD: In a bizarre incident, that brought back memories of the tragic end of Syeda Fatima Jaffri, a 4-year-old girl at a play school in Dilsukhnagar in November 2015, a cab driver was found hanging upside down from an elevator, with his leg caught between the wall and elevator door at an apartment in Jubilee Hills.

Mahesh (27), the cab driver, went through an ordeal of lifetime, hanging precariously from the elevator on the third floor for nearly three hours. While one could see his leg protruding from between the wall and the elevator on the third floor, he was hanging upside down with his head reaching close to the elevator gate on the second floor.

The incident occurred at Venkateswara Nilayam apartments at Gayatri Hills near Road Number 10, Jubilee Hills in the city.

While fire and rescue service personnel widened the gap between the elevator and the wall using cutters to pull out Mahesh, residents had to hold him up to stop him from falling.

The incident occurred a little after 10 pm when Mahesh was returning after visiting a flat on the fifth floor to ground floor. Inmates of the apartment who noticed the screams of the youngster alerted the fire services control room at 10.25 pm. Though the fire brigade from the Jubilee Hills fire station arrived in a short while, they didn’t have the required equipment to rescue the man. Later, a ‘rescue tender’ was brought from Moula Ali, around 20 km away. The entire operation took about three hours. “Usually we come across incidents where someone is stuck in the lift due to power disruptions. We have seen a number of cases where people were caught with their body outside and leg stuck inside. Here the leg was visible from third floor and the body was hanging from the elevator”, said Mohan Rao, station officer at Jubilee Hills fire station.

According to him, they had to make a small hole on the wall using use spreaders and cutters to widen the gap between the elevator and the wall to rescue Mahesh. “There is no clarity as to how the incident has happened. He was not in a position to explain anything. There are minor gashes on his leg and he has been shifted to a hospital,” said Rao.

No Circumcision without consent 

United Kingdom: A British Muslim father of Algerian descent has lost a court battle with his England-born wife on whether to circumcise their sons according to Islamic principles. The boys, aged six and four, had been the subject UK high court dispute after their parents disagreed over whether to have them circumcised.Their father, who has lived in England for 15 years, argued that it would be in the children’s best interests to circumcise them in accordance with his “Muslim practice and religious beliefs”. Their mother, however, wanted to wait until the boys were “competent to give consent”.

“First and foremost, this is a once and for all, irreversible procedure. There is no guarantee that these boys will wish to continue to observe the Muslim faith with the devotion demonstrated by their father,” Justice Roberts said in her ruling. The details of the case emerged after a ruling by Roberts. The judge said no one involved could be identified, but she said the man and woman were both in their mid-30s and now separated. The couple met in 2006 and lived together in London.They went through an Islamic ceremony for marriage in 2009 before the boys were born. But then in July 2012 the mother fled the flat with the boys following violent attacks on her by the father, according to reports. “Just as the father is passionate in his cause and the reasons for circumcision, the mother is resolutely opposed to it at this point,” the judge said, adding that she was simply “deferring” the decision until the boys can make their own choice.

School Bags to become lighter

Mumbai: After perusing the compliance report filed by the State government, the Bombay High Court directed officers of the education department to visit the schools in the month of June and submit a report on whether the schools are adhering with the government resolution of reducing the weight of school bags.

A division bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice Prakash Naik who were hearing the public interest litigation (PIL) filed by activist Swati Patil, was informed that the State government has asked schools to install water coolers and students are told not to carry water bottles so that the schools can implement the resolution. The court observed that the children should not bear the brunt of the dispute between the parents and schools. The court pulled up the government and asked it to not insist on educational institutions to direct students not to carry water bottles even if the water coolers are installed.

SC/ST Leader shocks Congress

NEW DELHI: Months after RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat stirred controversy over reservations on the eve of the Bihar Assembly elections, senior Congress leader P L Punia (71) has announced that the 4th National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC), a constitutional body he heads, will consider why the prosperous Dalits should not give up their claim on quota in favour of the less privileged.

His contention came as a rude shock to the Congress opposed to any dilution of the reservation policy. It even surprised the BJP and the government as Prime Minister Modi had only recently vowed not to tinker with the reservations.

He said: “Dalits who have prospered as a result of reservation should cede their claim in favour of those who have not. This they should do as a social responsibility. We at the National Commission for SCs will consider this matter and see what can be done about it. We will consult stakeholders.”  It is like eliminating the creamy layer of the OBCs from enjoying benefit of reservations, he contended. The NCSC was set up through the 89th Constitution amendment in 2004 with BJP leader Suraj Bhan as the first chairman and former union home minister Buta Singh of Congress as the second chairman. Dr Punia headed third as well as the current fourth commission. The NCSC comprises a 5-member body with a tenure of three years. The basic task of NCSC is to protect interests of the Scheduled Castes (Dalits). The present commission set up by the previous Manmohan Singh government has also Congress leaders on it: Punjab MLA Raj Kumar Verka as vice-chairman, Gujarat’s ex-MP Raju Parmar.

Perform or Perish

Cracking the whip on non-performing officials, the government for the first time has prematurely retired 33 tax officers including seven Group 'A' officers.

In a statement issued, the Finance Ministry further said 72 officers have been dismissed including six Group 'A' officers in other departmental/disciplinary actions in the last two years.

"There is a general perception that no action is taken against the defaulting tax officials for their non-performance as well as in case of harassing the tax assesses among others," it said. "The present government has taken various steps to change this perception."

For the first time, 33 officers/officials of the Revenue Services, including seven Group 'A' officers, have been prematurely retired for non-performance under Rule 56(j) of CCS (Pension) Rules, the statement read.

Kejriwal: The most attacked politician

New Delhi:  For Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, shoe attack on him was perhaps the first such attack. However, the AAP supremo has been the victim of numerous attacks, including physical assault and ink attacks, ever since he joined active politics.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief appears to have become the most attacked politician of late. Following is a list of attacks on Kejriwal. In November 2013, a man who claimed to be a supporter of Anna Hazare attacked Kejriwal and other AAP leaders with ink. In March 2014, while campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections in Varanasi, an unidentified group of men threw ink and eggs on Kejriwal, reports IANS.

He escaped unhurt. In April 2014, while campaigning for Delhi assembly elections, he was punched on his back by a man in Dakshinpuri. Again in April 2014, four days later, Kejriwal was slapped by an auto-rickshaw driver in Delhi’s Sultanpuri area. Earlier in January this year, Kejriwal was slapped by Bhavana Arora, a member of the Aam Aadmi Sena, in an event held to celebrate the success of the first phase of Odd-Even vehicular scheme in the national capital. In February 2016, his car was attacked by a group of men in Punjab while he was in the state for campaigning.

Bikaner: No open defecation district

New Delhi: Bikaner, the fourth largest district in the country, has made Rajastan proud to be listed at the top in the Swatch Bharat (Grameen) priority programme of Prime Minister Narendra Modi by becoming a completely outdoor defecation free district.

 The credit goes to its woman collector Arti Dogra who concentrated on not just construction of toilets but also on behavior change and price and used WhatsApp on mobile for monitoring. She is among ten bureaucrats expected to be selected for the PM’s awards for excellence in public administration to civil servants on the Civil Services day. The Prime Minister is to confer these awards at the Vigyan Bhawan here to select 10 from among 71 districts shortlisted this year. 

The awards were instituted to recognize and reward the extraordinary and innovative work done by the central and state officers for the welfare of common citizens. Four new priority programmes, including Swatch Bharat, Swachh Vidyalaya, PM Jan Dhan Yojana and soil Health Card were added to the awards this year. In the PM’s Jan Dhan Joyana, the winner is Nagaon district in Assam that increased the number of account holders by nearly 250% from 2.79 lakh to about 7 lakh, though also shortlisted in this category are two Uttar Pradesh district of Moradabad and Azamgarh. The civil servants of all 71 districts shortlisted will be participating in eight panel discussions on the replication of the four priority programmes. Each panel will be chaired by a union minister.

British Asian Trust fund for Indian farmers

London: Prince Charles has unveiled plans for a new dedicated fund, likely to be worth millions of pounds, to be created to help farmers in India break out of poverty.

The heir to the British throne announced the plan in his capacity as the Founder and President of the British Asian Trust (BAT), which works towards empowering lives in South Asia by harnessing the strengths of the South Asian diaspora in the UK. “An area of work that I was particularly excited to see get underway in recent months is my trust taking a more in- depth look at the issues faced by rural farmers in India with the aim of establishing a dedicated fund to implement the kinds of intervention that the research clearly points out is needed,” the 67-year-old royal said at BAT’s gala annual dinner at Natural History Museum.

Describing agriculture as a “vitally important” sector of the economy and “one that nearly half the rural houses in India rely on as the principle means of livelihood”, Charles said the trust’s focus will be on farmers with small holdings, reports PTI. “These small holder farmers often realise only a small proportion of the value of their products and can get caught in a poverty trap with no obvious way out. By making real inroads into helping the sector upscale, the fund will increase productivity in a sustainable way and make a staggering difference to so many lives,” he said.

Overbearing IMF

Mumbai:  In a veiled criticism of IMF getting influenced by monetary policies of the developed world, Reserve Bank Chief Raghuram Rajan has said that the policy innovations from emerging markets are more likely to be seen by it as “crankiness of the Governor or the government”.

The outspoken Governor, who himself has served in the past as Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund, said the multilateral institution is more likely to find innovations in developed market economies as “appropriate”.

On the other hand, IMF tends to find policy innovations from emerging markets as “crankiness of the Governor or the government rather than based on a well thought-out policy given the political and the economic environment,” Rajan rued.

Asked whether monetary policies of developing and emerging markets like India come under greater scrutiny by IMF, than do the advanced economies like the US, he said, “I don’t think it is a practice that these are scrutinised more than others”.

“What I would say is that the Fund is probably more influenced by innovations in industrial country policies and is more likely to believe those innovations are appropriate, while innovations from emerging markets are more attributed to the crankiness of the governor or the government rather than based on a well thought-out policy given the political and the economic environment.

“So there is a greater willingness to believe this is the right policy under the circumstances, and less willingness to believe that circumstances justify the policy as well,” Rajan said in a podcast uploaded on the website of IMF itself.

In the past also, Rajan has been critical of the IMF on various issues, especially about its neglect of the accommodative monetary policies adopted by the developed world since the 2008 global credit crisis.