YEH MERA INDIA

For stealing food kids paraded naked

Thane: Two minor boys were stripped and paraded with garlands of slippers for allegedly stealing a food item from a sweet shop, police said on Sunday. The shop owner and his two sons were arrested after the shocking incident that took place in Prem Nagar area of Ulhasnagar township, they said.

The children, aged 8 and 9 and hailing from different families, went to the neighbourhood shop where they picked up a packet of ‘chakli’ (a snack) without the owner’s permission and ate it. This angered the shop owner, Mehmood Pathan (69), police said.Mehmood, with help from his sons, caught hold of the duo and chopped off their hair. Not stopping at that, they allegedly stripped the minors, made them wear garlands of slippers and paraded them on the street as punishment. Annoyed over the humiliation and mistreatment of the children, their parents, who reside in the same locality, lodged a complaint with the Hill Line police.

Based on the complaint, Mehmood and his sons Irfan (26) and Salim (22) were arrested around midnight, police said. The trio was booked under IPC Sections 355 (assault or criminal force with intent to dishonour person), 500 (defamation) and 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), and also under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, they added.

BMC yet to repair over 200 roads

Mumbai: Brace yourself for more traffic jams this month as Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is yet to finish the road repair work of over 200 roads across the city. The deadline to finish the Rs 1000-crore repair work of around 900 roads is May 31.

The civic officials are carrying out repair work in full swing to meet the deadline. A senior civic official said, “The shutting down of stone quarries led to a delay in the entire road repair project. However, we are confident we will finish the repair work before time.”

The civic body’s road repair work was recently stalled after several stone quarries were shut in Navi Mumbai which was a major source of supplies for the construction or repair of road and bridges work. The official added that the department is under pressure to finish the repair work and officials have not taken a single leave in the month. “We have no other option than completing the work before monsoon.”

Previously, commencement of the road repair work which was delayed due to required traffic permissions since taking up the repair work of all roads will inconvenience citizens as well as the corporation. Ashish Negi, Chembur resident, said, “The BMC took seven months to finish 700 roads then how can we expect them to finish over 200 roads in 10 days?”

The project had involved the repairing of 881 roads and 123 junctions across the city. Altogether, the repair works of 444 roads in western suburbs, 262 roads in the island city and 298 roads in eastern suburbs were taken up on October 2016. Last year’s monsoon revealed the shoddy work done by the civic body; this can be easily seen with a rise in the number of potholes in the city.

When Toppers failed to answer basic questions

In a development reminiscent of last year’s topper Ruby Rai pronouncing political science as ‘prodikal science’, Bihar’s Humanities topper this year, Ganesh Kumar, who scored 83% in music, struggled to explain the meaning of sur and taal and could not hold a note when asked to sing a song.

Mr. Kumar was a student of Ramnandan Singh Jagdeep Narayan (higher secondary school) in Samastipur’s Chhakhabib village, around 120 km from Patna. He studied here for two years before emerging as the State topper.

Mr. Kumar, who hails from Giridih in neighbouring Jharkhand some 250km from Samastipur, was caught on camera defining sur and taal in his own way. “Sur woh hota hai jise gana gaate samay jor se khicha jata hai…aur taal jo sur me milake gaya jaata hai” (Sur is what we drag forcefully while singing and taal is what we mix in sur to sing a song), explained Mr. Kumar to a local TV journalist on Thursday, three days after the publication of the Intermediate results.

When asked to sing a song, Mr. Kumar sang two lines of a popular Bollywood number from the film Coolie No: 1: Jab dil na laage dildar humari gali aa jana. He was unable to name a popular singer from Bihar or any of the musical gharanas. Though he had scored 92 out of 100 in Hindi, Mr. Kumar could not explain the terms ‘Gadya’ (prose) and ‘Padya’ (poem).

Mr. Kumar’s date of birth as per the Intermediate records is June 2, 1993. But a school mate of his from Giridih said he and Mr. Kumar had cleared the Class 10 board exams from a school in Giridih in 1990. Mr Kumar has the appearance of a middle-aged man, with a paunch, and a weathered but clean-shaven face. He said that he belonged to Giridih but came to Samastipur and worked hard as a hawker before deciding to study in order to be able to apply for a government job.

Officer in judicial custody for over 60 days. Govt not sanctioning prosecution

Bengaluru: The state government is sitting over the file seeking prosecution sanction order (PSO) against an administrative officer at the Directorate of Prosecution in connection with irregularities in the recruitment of 197 assistant public prosecutors (APPs). 

The accused Narayanaswamy, arrested by the Lokayukta police early this year, meanwhile filed a fresh application for bail since the police could not file a chargesheet. Narayanaswamy is still in judicial custody.

The Lokayukta police completed the investigation into Narayanaswamy’s role in the case. The Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) had confirmed the handwriting of Narayanaswamy in the fudged answer sheets. The police had arrested Narayanaswamy in March 2017. 

After receiving the FSL report, the police sent a request to the government seeking PSO four weeks back. However, the file is pending with the Home Department. 

An official said that since Narayanaswamy has already spent 60 days in judicial custody, he is entitled to move an application seeking bail.

The police had sent as many as 75 answer sheets, suspected to have been manipulated after the examination. A source said that the FSL report stated that a senior judicial officer's signature was forged by Narayanaswamy. The report not only confirmed the handwriting but also pointed out to different type of stapler pins used in the fudged answer scripts. The Lokayukta police had started the investigation in 2014. The notification calling for applications for the post of APPs was issued in 2012 and later the written examination was held. The allegation was that the answer sheets were manipulated and the final list too was fudged. Main accused Chandrashekhar Hiremath, former director of prosecution, had allegedly tampered with the answer sheets. In a subsequent search at his house, the Lokayukta police had seized blank answer sheets.

MMRDA officials suspended for forgery, But govt says no case

Mumbai: Even after flouting norms by issuing fake work experience certificates to help a private contractor bag a contract worth Rs 70 crore, Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority has no plans to lodge a First Information Report against its engineers that were recently suspended.

The engineers, AK Pahal and PK Veni, were suspended for forgery. According to the probe report, the suspended engineers had helped contractor, NA construction, by giving fake certificates to bag a storm water drain project in Haryana. The authority is currently probing the matter at its departmental level. Officials said that all certificates issued by the suspended engineers will also be scrutinised to ascertain their involvement in other projects.

Interestingly, both the engineers have accepted their involvement in the forgery act. A senior MMRDA official on condition of anonymity told, “We are conducting a departmental inquiry and will take further action on basis of the conclusion of the inquiry report. We are not planning to lodge an FIR but the officials will be thrown out of service.”

Activist Sulaiman Bhimani, who has filed numerous complaints of corruption against AK Pahal, alleged that Pahal used NA constructions as a proxy contractor for his son.

He said, “This tender process was just an eyewash as the actual person who was supposed to carry out the project work was Pahal’s son. He had also attended the pre-bid meeting. Moreover, Veni is junior to Pahal and have signed the certificates on the latter’s orders.” Bhimani added that Haryana, where the storm water project was supposed to be carried out, is the home town of Pahal.

“I fail to understand the authority’s denial in filing a police complaint and is still conducting a department inquiry despite of the fact that the engineers have already pleaded guilty,” Bhimani said.