TDP demands ‘Bharat Ratna’ for late NT Rama Rao

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May 28, 2014

Paying tributes to its founder-president and former Chief Minister N T Rama Rao on his 91st birth anniversary, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) on Wednesday urged the Centre to confer Bharat Ratna, the country’s highest civilian honour, on him.

A resolution to this effect was unanimously adopted at the TDP’s two-day annual conclave Mahanadu at Gandipet.

“It is the desire of all Telugus to see Bharat Ratna conferred on NTR. I will request Prime Minister Narendra Modi to honour NTR with the highest civilian award. I will pursue the issue till the end,” TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu announced, while moving the resolution.

He said NTR was the doyen of Telugu cinema and later carved out a niche as a political leader of tall order not only in Andhra Pradesh, but also in the country.

Chandrababu said he would also pursue the issue of renaming Hyderabad International Airport after NTR.

“The old (Begumpet) airport bore NTR’s name, but the Congress unceremoniously removed it. Now that the Union Civil Aviation Minister (Ashok Gajapathi Raju) is our man, I will pursue the issue and get the Hyderabad airport named after NTR,” Chandrababu said.

NTR’s son and MLA-elect Nandamuri Balakrishna, Chandrababu’s son Nara Lokesh and senior party leaders paid tributes to NTR on the occasion and recalled his services to people.

Earlier in the day, Chandrababu, Balakrishna and members of their family visited NTR Ghat here and offered floral tributes at the samadhi.

Facebook group moderators questioned in anti-Modi comment case

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Afternoon Voice

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May 28, 2014

Goa Police, investigating anti-Narendra Modi comments uploaded by a Goan Facebook user, have already questioned moderators of a popular Facebook group where the controversial comments were first posted.

According to a senior police official, the depositions yet to be recorded are those of Facebook legal team and accused 31-year-old Devu Chodankar, who is being suspected of a conspiracy to trigger communal hatred in the state.

“Statements of the complainant Atul (Pai) Kane and several Goa-based moderators from the Goa+ group have been recorded. What is left is the communication from Facebook’s end and Devu’s statement. We expect to get both these recorded in the first week of June,” the official said.

The official said the accused, a shipbuilding professional, had established contact with the police and expressed his availability in the first week of June.

Rohan Govenkar, one of the admins of Goa+, a Facebook forum with over 40,000 members where Chodankar uploaded his allegedly hateful comments first, told a meet on Wednesday that he has been called for questioning by police.

Six Policemen Arrested for Allegedly Beating Man to Death

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Afternoon Voice

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May 28, 2014

A 30-year-old man, Manoj Kumar, was allegedly beaten to death by six policemen in Delhi.

A head constable and five other constables allegedly went to interrogate Manoj in connection to a case of illegal celebratory firing at a wedding.

When Manoj denied the allegations, he was allegedly beaten and forced to admit that he used an illegal pistol at the wedding.

“They put him in a rickshaw and took him away. They started beating him as soon as they caught him. I’m not the only one, many people saw it happen,” said a witness.

Footage captured by CCTV cameras outside Manoj’s house from last week shows three people, only one of them in uniform, entering his house.

Manoj’s mother has claimed they entered without her knowledge or permission and threatened to kill her son.

One week later, Manoj was taken to a secluded area in Bindapur and thrashed to death.

Manoj died around noon yesterday, soon after which officials of Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital called the police to inform them that the body of a man had been left inside the hospital premises by a few men.

The CCTV footage of the hospital revealed that Manoj’s body had been dumped there by the policemen after he was killed.

The accused are now in police custody.

The six policemen have been arrested and a case of kidnapping and murder has been registered against them. All of them have been suspended.

The Station House Officer has been transferred and a judicial inquiry has been initiated in the case.

Waiting for ‘acche din’: Graduates give railway porter exams

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Afternoon Voice

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May 28, 2014

Owing to lack of employment opportunities, MA and BA pass students decided to appear for porter tests at Udaipur railway station on Tuesday.

“I have an MA degree but still couldn’t find jobs. When I learnt about porter vacancies, I thought why not give the exam. We need jobs,” said Ranvir Singh.

Majority of those who came to enroll themselves for the test on Tuesday were college pass-outs. A few of them said they didn’t mind working as a porter part-time.

Out of the 26 candidates, 10 who cleared the exam had successfully carried 40 kgs each on their shoulders.

Jan adalat imposes Rs 5,000 fine on four persons for voting in LS polls

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Afternoon Voice

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May 28, 2014

A jan adalat in Dhanbad imposed a penalty of Rs 5,000 each on four villagers, including a couple, for casting their votes in the Lok Sabha elections.
The villagers of Raja Basti in Sindri township, which is around 28 km away from the district headquarters, organised the adalat on Sunday night and imposed the penalty on Rameswer Marandi, Subir Kumar Dan, his wife Jhumu Dan and Rajesh Kumar for casting votes at booth number 301 of the Sindri assembly segment despite a poll boycott called by the villagers.
The adalat also announced that if they failed to deposit the amount they would be tonsured and made to move around the village without clothes.
The residents of Raja Basti had given the boycott call demanding that the two wards – ward no 55 and ward no 12 – be separated from the Dhanbad Municipal Corporation limits.
The villagers demanded that the wards be merged with the panchayat, however, the four villagers defied the boycott call and cast their votes on April 24.

Best wishes for Modi’s cabinet

By

Mahendra Singh

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May 28, 2014

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has finally formed a cabinet which has started functioning. Our good wishes are with the cabinet for delivering the agenda of the government. The government must speed up the decision making process but it should not get into any pressure to deliver. Pressing the nuclear button against our neighbour is very easy but its consequences are terrible. The need of the hour is to note down priorities and find ways to accomplish them.

The top priority is to take steps for controlling human population. Providing clean drinking water to the citizens will be the next step. This task should be followed by electric power generation (various methods should be considered including solar and wind power) and its distribution by acquiring the latest technology. The job of HRD ministry is to select capable youth and provide them top class technical skill training with the assistance of foreign experts. The youth may not be willing to learn new skills and might opt for MBA degree and land up a lucrative job with a yearly package of 24 crores. We need to inform them that they have been found eligible for undergoing training. If they fail to join immediately then other candidates will be selected instead of them.

We notice that the IAS personnel head to foreign universities for acquiring post graduate qualification in political science which has no utility. Modi and Amit Shah do not possess such a degree but they have proved to be good practical political administrators.

The word politics is to be replaced with “desh seva”. Politics has been considered by many as a dirty word which is not worthy of learning and pursuing. Food processing work has to be undertaken on a priority basis.

We must work for the welfare of farmers and work towards increasing the yield per acre and what support we can offer them in addition to steps which are already being taken with reasonable success. We have good agricultural universities; we only need to make them more accessible to farmers. The new government must set up an “Amul” plant on the outskirts of Varanasi. Horticultural ventures should be set up alongside with industrial units on the Lucknow-Unnao-Kanpur road ( as an example) on the lines of road from Alexzandria to Cairo. Let us seek the assistance of Israel in developing our “ banjar” land.

The dark side of Mumbai

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Afternoon Voice

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May 28, 2014

Our Saturday night meeting turned into a sightseeing event pertaining to some of the dark places which continue to exist in Mumbai. While we were discussing about the Mumbai’s future and our personal lives, one of my friends started narrating about his encounter with a prostitute in Juhu.
I had visited Kamathipura and have taken interviews of women; frankly speaking those interviews were never genuine. For instance, a question which I asked Akka was “Do you still manage to earn money in the manner you earned before, when there were no call girls or high class escorts?”

I was sure that these women including their leader or landlord aka Akka (who provides accommodation for pleasure to these newly joined prostitutes, pimps in Kamathipura had supplied her girls in the past) will conceal the truth. As the interview progressed one of the women offered me tea. She asked the tea vendor to deliver special chai for guests from media. Akka was wearing large number of gold ornaments. She might have worn around ten heavy rings in each ear, and wore nice devdas style bangles and three pairs of necklaces. She was ready for giving an interview and initially she thought that I am working with a news channel.

So, when I inquired about her earnings she said that these days the business is declining as rich people seldom visit Kamathipura. More over the population of Kamathipura too has reduced drastically. She said, “We all are undergoing tough times. Nowadays, old women sell their bodies for twenty rupees an hour while the youngest and happening girls don’t charge beyond fifty rupees as everything depends upon luck. All the pimps are busy escorting call girls rather than clients at Kamathipura”. She earns approximately twelve thousand rupees per month.
I knew that she was lying and also tried twisting my questions. However, I learnt that they know how to handle the media as many other media houses who had visited the place for interviewing them. Finally, tea arrived.
Akka removed fat bundles of money from her bosom while paying bills to the tea vendor. Then I asked her that she might be earning lumpsum money. She replied that it’s her three months saving and she was planning to visit the bank for depositing money. I realised that they were lying and they have mastered the art of handling media personnel.

Later, we decided to understand about the mode of function of these girls. But I rarely know about the location from where they conduct their business. However, one of my friend was aware about the places from where these girls used to operate. Thus we visited a bar and restaurant located at a corner and it was difficult to believe that huge prostitution racket was operating there.

First of all the area was really a pathetic but still I took an initiative to visit it. After entering the permit room I was surprised to find women belonging to various age group and physical statistics. I found extremely young and beautiful girls and it will difficult for me to term them as call girl. On the other hand, I found several ugly women huge, fat, D shaped with loud mouth and erring speech. I was surprised to notice several female pimps there.

Uddhav’s Gujarati Bahu?

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Afternoon Voice

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May 28, 2014

Post about Aditya Thackeray’s affair with Gujarat CM Anandiben Patel’s granddaughter Sanskruti Patel has gone viral on social networking sites.

Do you know why Shiv Sena had criticised Sanjay Raut for his anti-Gujarati remarks in the Sena mouthpiece Saamna? According to posts mentioned in social media Aditya Thackeray, head of Shiv Sena’s youth wing Yuva Sena is having a relationship with Sanskruti Patel granddaughter of Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel. The post pertaining to affair between Aditya and Sanskruti has gone viral on social networking sites. Anandiben is the first woman chief minister of the state and succeeded Narendra Modi. Sanskruti owns a fashion store Sans selling fashionable garments. Aditya Thackeray was also present in the swearing-in ceremony of Anandiben Patel at Mahatma Mandir in Gandhi Nagar in the presence of her predecessor Narendra Modi. Patel was chosen unanimously by the BJP MLAs as their leader after PM-designate Narendra Modi resigned as the chief minister.

Earlier Sanjay Raut had penned down and published an edit piece targeting the Gujarati community for failing to observe the Maharasthra Day. He criticised Gujarati’s for using the city and its infrastructure for their personal gains. Raut’s edit received flak from Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray as he distanced himself from the article. Later Aditya Thackeray too issued a clarification regarding Raut’s edit. He had mostly covered the Gujarati belt of the city and campaigned for candidates like Arvind Sawant from South Mumbai and Gajanan Kirtikar in Vile Parle and Juhu . With

“As stated in a personal statement by Shiv Sena party president Uddhavji Thackeray, we seek or make no difference between us and the Gujarati community of Mumbai, nor endorse such views by anyone as being those of the official party or the leadership” posted Aditya Thackeray on facebook.

He issued clarification on twitter twice. His second clarification also found space in Saamna itself. Many Sena supporters too came forward in support of Aditya Thackeray and wanted them to resolve this issue. Later, the party appointed Subash Desai and Leeladhar Dake to monitor the edit of Sanjay Raut. Raut will continue with his job as editor but his pieces will be monitored prior to publishing. Thus Sena clipped the wings of Raut.
With an eye on assembly election Shiv Sena has already started wooing the Gujarati community. Uddhav Thackeray and his son Aditya Thackeray will be extensively campaigning in the Gujarati dominated areas like Borivali, Ghatkopar, Vile Parle and other suburbs.

When we tried to contact Aditya Thackeray he remained unavailable for comments.

Two security men shot dead in Mumbai Air Force station

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Afternoon Voice

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May 27, 2014

Annoyed at being harassed and sidelined, an on duty Defence Security Corps constable at an Air Force station here allegedly gunned down his two colleagues, including his senior, and injured two others in the wee hours today, police said.

The incident took place at around 1.30 AM when the accused R H Yadav (49) shot dead his two colleagues – H K Singh (52) and Somdutt (53) – and left two others seriously injured after he fired seven rounds from his self-loading rifle at the Air Force station in suburban Santacruz, said Sudhir Jambhavdekar, senior inspector at Nirmal Nagar police station.

Singh was his guard commander who prepared duty charts, police said.

“Yadav was harassed by his colleagues and he was not on good terms with them. He was frustrated because of which he opened fire,” Deputy Police Commissioner Namdev Chavan said.

The injured, identified as C B Thapa (46) and Bheem Singh (51), were undergoing medical treatment, police said.

Yadav was arrested from suburban Goregaon while he was trying to escape in an autorickshaw.

According to police, Yadav was aggrieved with his colleagues who used to make fun of him.

“Even after he was scheduled to do day duty, his schedule got changed to night duty, making him to lose his cool. Many a times, he expressed his dissatisfaction to his seniors but in vain. Moreover, staff members used to make fun of him for no reason,” said another police official.

At about 1.30 AM, he walked into the guard rest room where he shot Singh and Somdutt in their chests, killing them on the spot, police said.

Press Freedom a Must, No External Regulation: Prakash Javadekar

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Afternoon Voice

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May 27, 2014

Narendra Modi’s government believes in freedom of the press, acknowledging it as the essence of democracy and no “external” regulation has worked in media, Information and Broadcasting minister Prakash Javadekar said on his first day in office.

“We believe that press freedom is the essence of democracy. And to make democracy a success, we require this press freedom because it gives people the choice in a rainbow of differing opinions,” the Minister said.

He recalled restrictions imposed on media during the Emergency and said that he was among those who had opposed it.

“There is no external regulation which works in media”, he said.

“In 1975, the media freedom was trampled with, but we fought against it. The people fought against it and I personally was very active on this front because I belong to a family of journalists and therefore we fought and were in jail for sixteen months,” he said.

Mr. Javadekar said that dissent has its place in democracy and added that the government would welcome constructive criticism.

The I&B minister said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been saying that to run a government, a majority is needed, but to run the country, cooperation of all is required.

Speaking to the media, Mr. Javadekar said that it is a joint mission to see that India prospers to its potential by 2025 and progresses much further by 2030.

“These will be important landmarks,” he said.

When asked about remarks reportedly made by his predecessor Manish Tewari, that the I&B ministry belonged to a past era, Mr. Javdekar replied that an institution can be brought to an end quickly but it takes time to nurture the work culture in an institution.