A 26-year-old woman allegedly committed suicide by jumping into a well with her three children in Maharashtra’s Sangli district, police said on Friday.
The incident took place in Jat tehsil, a police official said.
Radhika Koli, the woman, left home with her three children — Prajwala (5), Aradhya (3) and Harsh (4 months) — after a quarrel with other members of the family Thursday night, as per the preliminary probe.
Their dead bodies were spotted floating in a well in the village on Friday morning, the official said.
Police retrieved the bodies and sent them for autopsy.
The Bombay High Court on Friday said the Pune police shall not take any coercive action against activist Gautam Navlakha and professor Anand Teltumbde, both accused in Koregaon-Bhima case, till next week.
A division bench of Justices R V More and Bharti Dangre said it will hear petitions filed by Navlakha and Teltumbde urging the court to quash the case on October 26.
Additional public prosecutor Aruna Kamat-Pai told the court Friday that Navlakha was protected from arrest till October 26 by an order passed by the Supreme Court.
The high court then posted the petitions for hearing on October 26 and said, “No coercive steps (such as arrest) shall be taken till the next date of hearing.”
Pune police in August this year lodged a case against Navlakha, Teltumbde and four other activists.
Navlakha, prominent Telugu poet Varavara Rao, activists Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves and trade union activist Sudha Bharadwaj were arrested. Teltumbde was not arrested but his house was searched.
Navlakha and Teltumbde moved the Bombay high court this month, seeking quashing of the First Information Report (FIR) lodged against them claiming there was no evidence and they were being falsely implicated.
After the arrest of Navlakha and four others by Pune police, the Supreme Court ordered that they be placed under house arrest.
The apex court, later, refused to interfere in the case and said the Pune police could go ahead with its investigation.
Earlier this month, the Delhi High Court freed Navlakha from the house arrest, saying the Supreme Court had given him the liberty to approach the appropriate forum within four weeks to seek further relief.
Pune police had claimed that they seized documents and emails exchanged between the accused which allegedly revealed their links with Maoist leaders and their roles in facilitating supply of weapons and funding.
The five activists were arrested on August 28 in connection with an FIR lodged following the Elgar Parishad conclave in Pune on December 31 last year which allegedly triggered violence at Koregaon-Bhima in Pune district the next day.
Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray on Friday inaugurated the National Urban Health Mission’s mobile medical unit service here.
Each of these mobile medical units will have a doctor, a nurse, lab technician, pharmacist apart from the driver and will tour remote areas of the cities in which they will be deployed.
Under the initiative, 13 such units would be pressed into service, five each in Mumbai and Nagpur and one each in Panvel, Kolhapur and Aurangabad.
Speaking on the occasion, Thackeray said, “When we toured remote areas like Melghat and Gadchiroli, we were in the opposition. Now, I don’t know where we are.”
He, however, did not elaborate on the comment, which comes against the backdrop of criticism the Sena has faced for acting like an opposition party despite being a constituent of the BJP-led governments at the Centre and in Maharashtra.
Thackeray stressed the need for proper medical care to prevent the outbreak of diseases like dengue post monsoon.
Thackeray borrowed an opening line often used by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and started his address by asking the gathering “Bhaiyo aur behno, kaise ho”.
Navi Mumbai Police rescued Anirban Blah, who is the co-founder of celebrity management firm Kwan Entertainment and has been accused by some women in the #MeToo movement, before he could allegedly attempt suicide by jumping off a bridge, police said on Friday.
On Tuesday, Blah was asked to “step aside” by the firm, which handles the work of several top Bollywood stars, after he was accused of sexual harassment by four women.
Senior Inspector Anil Deshmukh of Vashi police station said traffic cops spotted Blah on the old Vashi creek bridge at around 11:30 pm on Thursday.
Having received a tip off, police moved in and detained him before he could do anything, Deshmukh said.
A team of the Vashi traffic police, led by senior inspector Satish Gaikwad, then brought Blah to the Vashi police station, he said.
His relatives and friends were called to the police station and Blah was allowed to leave around 2 am on Friday after he was counselled, he said.
Kidambi Srikanth defeated the legendary Lin Dan for the second time in his career to set up an all-Indian quarterfinal against Sameer Verma at the Denmark Open.
World number six Srikanth bounced back to beat the world number 14 from China 18-21, 21-17, 21-16 in the second round clash played on Thursday night.
Dan, a two-time Olympic gold medallist and five-time world champion, is not the player he used to be but is still a force to reckon with. It was a fifth meeting between Srikanth and Dan and the Chinese great won the last time they played, in the quarterfinals of the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Srikanth had famously scored his maiden win over Dan to win the 2014 China Open.
After a tough match against the Chinese, Srikanth will have to play fellow Indian Verma in the quarterfinals to be held later on Friday.
World number 23 Verma had beaten 2018 Asian Games gold medallist, Jonathan Christie of Indonesia, in his second round match.
Saina Nehwal will also play her women’s singles quarterfinal against eighth seed Nozomi Okuhara later on Friday and so will the women’s doubles pairing of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy, who take on top seeds Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota of Japan.
The Congress in Kerala on Friday alleged that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was responsible for the present tense situation at Lord Ayappa temple in Sabarimala.
Attacking Vijayan, who is in UAE, Kerala PCC president Mullapally Ramachandran said “Vijayan is like the Roman emperor Nero who fiddled while Rome burned.”
“The chief minister is holidaying in the Gulf along with his family.. he has failed to perform like a vigilant administrator,” he said.
Ramachandran asked the state government to find a solution to the crisis in Sabarimala or else there would be “a disaster.”
Making it clear that the party would stand behind believers, Ramachandran alleged that the CPI-M-led LDF government and police were trying to destroy the customs and traditions of the temple.
Hitting out at the BJP and RSS, he alleged that the sangh parivar was trying to create an “Ayodhya-like issue out of the Sabarimala issue.”
“All should realise the attempt of the sangh parivar to convert Sabarimala into another Ayodhya,” he said.
The Sabarimala temple complex witnessed tense moments when devotees blocked two young women and a police team escorting them at Valiya Nadappandhal, the queue complex that leads to the sanctum sanctorum.
The tension was defused after the women agreed to abandon the idea of entering the shrine as the state government had said it did not want to use force against the protesters.
The state has been witnessing protests against allowing girls and women of menstrual age into the temple since the government had said it would abide by the ruling of the supreme court allowing their entry.
The agitation intensified since the shrine was opened for the five-day monthly pooja on October 17.
The Patiala House Court on Friday dismissed the bail plea of Ashish Pandey, son of former Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MP Rakesh Pandey, and sent him to judicial custody till Monday, in connection with a Delhi hotel brawl case.
On Thursday, the court had sent Ashish to one-day police remand.
After hearing the arguments, the court said that the arrogance and high handedness of Ashish can clearly be made out from the contents of the FIR. After dismissing the bail plea of Ashish, the court sent him to judicial custody till October 22.
Ashish was formally arrested by the Delhi police following his surrender before Patiala House Court on Thursday. The police had sought for a four-day custodial remand for him.
The Delhi police produced him before the Duty magistrate Sumit Anand and sought a remand of two more days to determine if there were any financial transactions that took place between Ashish and the three women who accompanied him in the car.
The police said they need to find out who all Ashish met and helped him during the period when he was absconding.
Counsel for Ashish said that the incident happened at the spur of the moment and he is entitled to keep a weapon for the safety of the people around him and himself. “Ashish Pandey only brought the weapon from the car because he felt threatened and for the safety of the women around him, and Ashish had enough self control not to use the weapon while he argued,” the counsel added.
Counter arguing the remand application, Ashish’s legal counsel had said that while his client is ready to cooperate and deposit the pistol, the hype created by the media owing to his father’s political stature has become a cause of concern for him.
“This matter is politically motivated,” Ashish’s lawyer had earlier stated in the court.
Earlier on Thursday, Ashish had claimed that he did not brandish his gun in the premises of hotel Hyatt Regency and carried it for safety purposes.
On Wednesday, Delhi’s Patiala House Court had issued a non-bailable warrant against Ashish, following a brawl with Kanwar Gaurav, son of former Congress MLA Kanwar Karan Singh.
Over 50 people, including Ashish’s father, uncle and 12 employees of hotel Hyatt Regency were interrogated in the matter and search was underway in all known hideouts, offices and residences of Ashish, his family members and friends in Lucknow and in eastern Uttar Pradesh.
Former prime minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Rahul Gandhi and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Friday visited the residence of former Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand chief minister ND Tiwari, who passed away on Thursday at the age of 93, and offered their last respects.
Congress senior leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Ahmed Patel also paid their last respects to the veteran Congress leader.
Tiwari, who was the only politician to have served as the chief minister of two states, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, passed away in a hospital in south Delhi on his 93rd birthday on Thursday. He was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Max Hospital in July following kidney infection and multiple organ failure.
Shortly after his demise, President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modihad expressed their condolences.
“Sad to hear of the passing of veteran political figure and former Union minister Shri N.D. Tiwari. As chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and later Uttarakhand, he contributed much to the development and public welfare. My condolences to his family and associates,” President Kovind had tweeted.
Terming him as a “towering leader who was known for his administrative skills,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also twitted, “He will be remembered for his efforts towards industrial growth and working for the progress of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, a state he steered in its initial days.”
Born on October 18, 1925, Tiwari served as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh thrice – from 1976-77, 1984-85 and then from 1988-89. He was also the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand from 2002 till 2007.
In 1986-1987, he worked as the Minister for External Affairs in the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s cabinet. He was appointed as the Governor of Andhra Pradesh in 2007, a position that he continued to hold till 2009.
The telecom department is considering to allow only data services initially in flights and water vessels within Indian territorial boundaries, an official source said.
Under the proposed in-flight connectivity guidelines, both voice and data services would be provided to passengers on flights and maritime transport within the national boundaries.
“DoT will initially seek application for data services under IFC (in-flight connectivity) guidelines. There are some issues around gateway for voice so that will not start immediately,” a Department of Telecom official told agencies.
In-flight connectivity service is available in most of the developed markets.
While mobile phone use will still be restricted during takeoff and landing, the Telecom Commission has approved lifting the ban on the use of mobile phones and internet services at cruising altitudes.
Globally, many airlines are offering wi-fi for passengers, but they have to switch off the facility when they enter Indian airspace.
AirAsia, Air France, British Airways, Egypt Air, Emirates, Air New Zealand, Malaysia Airlines, Qatar Airways and Virgin Atlantic are among 30 airlines that are already allowing mobile phone use on aircraft but not in Indian airspace.
The DoT is likely to approach the Law Ministry next week for the review of these guidelines before notifying them.
Two militants were on Friday killed by security forces in Baramulla district of Jammu and Kashmir, police said.
The militants, travelling in a car, were asked to stop at Kraalhaar but they opened fire at the security personnel, a police official said adding, that the duo was killed in retaliatory fire.
Some arms and ammunition were recovered from the scene, he said. Further details were awaited.
