Rattled by a spate of train accidents in which several lives were lost, Railways today said “enough is enough” and any “laxity on safety front is not acceptable” as it decided to seek Rs. 1 lakh crore funds from the Finance Ministry for safety upgrade.

Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu, expressing serious concern over the derailments in the recent past, asked general managers of all zones to “pull up their socks”.

“Negligence and carelessness will not be tolerated. Safety is not negotiable. There should be safety audits at all levels and action taken on the audit reports should be followed up and monitored regularly,” Prabhu is understood to have said at the GMs meet called specifically to review safety after the series of train mishaps.

Seeking “accountability” in case of safety failure, he also asked the GMs and Railway Board to fix the responsibility at every level.

While four persons including two foreign nationals were killed in two accidents last Saturday, there were twin derailments in Madhya Pradesh on August 7 in which 30 passengers died.

Mumbai suburban rail service also witnessed two derailments yesterday and today though there was no casualty.

Addressing the safety meeting, Minister of State for Railways Manoj Sinha took strong exception to the series of mishaps and said “Enough is enough. Now time has come for taking hard decisions.”

He asked GMs to make necessary changes, if necessary in safety drill. “If you want to make any changes in the safety functioning then do it. We are with you for it.”

He also asked for filling up safety posts on a priority basis.

Chairman Railway Board (CRB) AK Mital said Railways is finalising a safety plan at an estimated cost of about Rs 1 lakh crore. “We are preparing a comprehensive safety plan which include elimination of all level crossings, strengthening of the track and bridges among others and it would cost about Rs. 1 lakh crore,” Mital said.

We will approach Finance Ministry for the special safety fund to upgrade the safety in rail network, he added.

Four of the convicts in the Mumbai serial train blasts case examined witnesses in the trial court to show that they deserve only the minimum punishment.

The court, which convicted 12 accused in the case four days ago, is now hearing arguments on the quantum of punishment.

Most of the defence witnesses examined were relatives of the convicts. Under the law, convicts have the right to point out ‘mitigating circumstances’ and produce witnesses for this purpose.

Four of the 12 convicts examined witnesses in the court; at least two others will do it on Wednesday.

Nadeem Ansari, who deposed at the instance of the convict Ehtesham Siddiqui, said he himself was an accused in another bomb blast case and spoke about the hardships faced by the accused in the jail, drawing on his own experience.

Special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) judge Yatin D Shinde, on September 11, convicted 12 accused in connection with the July 11, 2006, serial bomb blasts in Mumbai local trains in which 188 persons were killed. The judge acquitted only Abdul Wahid Shaikh.

Those who deposed were the brother of the convict Dr. Tanvir Ahmed Ansari, brother of another convict Asif Khan, wife of the convict Mohammad Majid Shafi and jail-mate of Ehtesham Siddiqui.

Aziz Khan told the court that his brother Asif was an excellent person and had a very good academic record. “He was always helpful to others and in my opinion he could not have done it (the blasts),” Aziz told the court.

However, during the cross examination by prosecution, he said that Asif was also an accused in the 2006 Malegaon blast case and the Jalgaon blast case. There was also a case for inciting communal hatred against Asif, he admitted.

Stand-up comedy group AIB is set to launch its own television news comedy show.

The four-member group, which first hit headlines for conducting an expletive-laced show “AIB Roast” that involved Bollywood celebrities like Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor, took to Twitter to announce its new project.

“Super excited to announce our latest project. Our most ambitious one yet,” AIB tweeted alongwith a three-minute funny video that explained the concept of the show.

Tanmay Bhat is seen telling two fans of AIB that the upcoming show will be on the lines of famous American news satirical series “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” and “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”

The fans keep relating the show with the infamous January roast but the AIB men tell them the new project has nothing to do with the roast and though they do not reveal the details, they say their new work will be a “news comedy TV show”.

It will air on channels Star Plus and Star World and will be available on Hotstar.

The Bombay High Court said it would issue contempt notices to all those political parties, trusts and organisations which set up pandals during ‘Dahi Handi’ and Ganesh Chaturthi festivals without securing permission and flouted noise pollution rules.

“Looking at the personalities involved, there will be grave difficulties for the civic body to take action which is why the high court will have to step in. They (political parties) have taken law in their own hands. The law of the land says that permission has to be taken before erecting pandals and noise pollution rules should not be flouted. Now they all will face contempt action,” the high court said.

A division bench of Justices A S Oka and V L Achliya was hearing a bunch of public interest litigations on the issue of illegal pandals being set up across the state during Dahi Handi and Ganesh Chaturthi festivals and noise pollution rules being breached and inaction by the authorities.

The bench was informed by senior advocate Sanjeev Gorwadkar, appearing for one of the petitioners Mahesh Bedekar, that during Dahi Handi festival several pandals had flouted noise pollution rules but no action was taken against them by the concerned civic body.

According to readings recorded by Awaaz Foundation, the decibel level at several pandals set up by political parties like Shiv Sena (Shivaji Park), Congress (Worli) and MNS (Dadar and Thane) was way above the prescribed level.

“We are taking a serious view of the fact that civic body officers are not taking action against such pandals. We are going to direct the concerned corporation to give us a list of the names of all those pandals that have been erected without permission. We will initiate contempt proceedings against them. Apart from the pandals, the officers who failed to take action will also face contempt,” the court said.

In another petition filed against erection of a Ganesh pandal on Thane-Belapur road, the court asked the trust to submit an undertaking that it will not obstruct traffic and abide by noise pollution rules.