A strange case of malrotated kidney has been reported from Balrampur hospital in Lucknow.
Doctors treating the patient Samshad said that it’s a very rare disease and is called ‘Malrotated Kidney’. This disease is found in one out of a lakh people, doctors added.
Samshad, aged 24 is suffering from the same problem. Both of his kidneys are on the same side and one is below another.
Former Indian cricketer Mohammad Kaif is making his political debut with the Lok Sabha elections on a Congress ticket. Kaif, who is contesting from Phulpur seat in Uttar Pradesh, says, “I’m here to play a Test match innings so as to connect with the people.”
Even though Kaif could not play much international cricket for India, he had some match-winning innings to his credit and aims for the same in his political career. He says, “It’s an honour for me to contest on a Congress ticket and make a difference in people’s lives.”
Kaif sounded confident of his victory from the Phulpur seat even though the Congress has failed to win the seat since 1984. The seat assumes significance as it was represented by former Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in 1952. Kaif says, “People here are frustrated as there is no development and are looking for a change. And the Congress party is a combination of both the youth and development.”
Congress candidate Mohammed Kaif is contesting elections from Phulpur, a seat which the party has not won since 1984.
On his decision to contest the Lok Sabha polls, Kaif says, “I had an opportunity and it was the right time to do so.” Terming the elections as the biggest in India, he adds, “Since I was born and brought up in this area, it gives me an edge and I can easily connect with the people.”
Kaif, who joined the Congress even when there is a seemingly BJP wave, says, “There is a big difference in ground reality and what is being shown in media. The Congress is a secular party and it has proved its work. Just like the Indian cricket team, people from different religion are in the party.”
He adds that the Congress is the only party which is working for the youth of the country. “I am thankful to Sonia Gandhi and Rahul for giving me the opportunity. Rahul Gandhi can guide India in the right direction.”
Being a political debutante, Kaif faced many challenges while campaigning. He says, “Unlike cricket where one gets time to rest after playing a match, one has to work continuously in politics. It is a full time and door-to-door job.” He also plays cricket with the people as part of his campaign.
Kaif hopes to change the face of his constituency. Vouching for the sport, he says, “I will open International academies, stadiums, bring coaches and give all the facility to the youth.”
Our Shankaracharyas are spiritual guides and not political guides.
There were reports that Puri and Dwarka Shankaracharyas will proceed to Varanasi for campaigning against BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. There are also reports that JD (U) will support AAP in Varanasi. Is it not laughable that an older party like JD(U) will play second fiddle and support AAP which is a newly formed outfit. This only shows jealousy on the part of Nitish Kumar, who was thinking to be the PM some months ago, ending up marching behind AAP today.
Shankaracharyas are our spiritual anchors and we expect an injection of spiritual wisdom from them rather than inform us who is sinner and who is not, whom to vote and whom not to vote. Just as the boiler water tends to get acidic and needs timely water treatment, in the same way, our spiritual strength diminishes with the time and we regain our goodness by coming in touch with the saints.
Shankaracharyas should take up the work of teaching Sanskrit to our children. Even we have forgotten Sanskrit to a large extent and we will approach our gurus to refresh our knowledge. I sincerely pray to our gurus to kindly take up this work.
Many people already exist who pass their judgements about Modi and we don’t need more. Agreed, that Modi might not be the ideal candidate to lead the nation but there is dearth of suitable candidates in our country.
Congress has made this election purely one sided by not announcing a prime ministerial candidate from the party. Leaders like Jairam Ramesh, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Salman Khurshid’s name could have been announced and then one could have looked forward to some sort of contest. In the present circumstances, Modi is the right choice but it is very important that most of us from the civil society must get ready to become watch dogs against any wrong path that he may decide to tread on.
This sort of vigilance by the Editors, University professors and other experienced citizens from business and industry is very necessary now. It should have been there right from the beginning but that was not so and hence the situation has deteriorated. It is my and your duty to remain concerned, vigilant and prevent any wrong decisions which are likely to be taken at the national level. If we (the citizens) become negligent, unconcerned and lethargic, we are bound to suffer irrespective of whether Modi becomes prime minister or not.
Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Friday sought Gujaratis’ support, a day after criticising them, to win the Maharashtra assembly elections later this year.
Thackeray said in a statement here that late party supremo Bal Thackeray always used to say that if the Marathis and Gujaratis stood united, they could create wonders.
The voting in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections has shown this wonderful “miracle” is about to happen, he said.
“Now, wait and watch what happens further. The unity of the Gujarati-Marathi communities will not crack or break…In all the future elections, they (Marathis and Gujaratis) must display this unity and help achieve Bal Thackeray’s dreams. Let us unfurl the Hindutva flag on parliament and the state assembly,” Thackeray appealed.
The statement came a day after an editorial in the party’s mouthpiece “Saamana” asked whether the Gujaratis, who had supported the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, would rally behind the Shiv Sena-led Grand Alliance in the 2014 state assembly elections.
The editorial went to the extent of alleging that the Gujaratis and other non-Marathi businessmen have extracted a lot from Mumbai, virtually using it like an “attractive prostitute” to construct their own Dwarkas (cities of gold).
It said the Gujaratis have no love for the city, which gave them so much. They were now deciding which government should come to power in Delhi and who should be kept out on the basis of their wealth.
The editorial asked the Gujaratis whether they were prepared “to give back to the state” from where they have earned so much wealth and fame, and wondered if the community would support the Shiv Sena in the assembly elections.
On Thursday evening, senior Sena leader Subhash Desai worried about the fallout of the editorial, and sought to distance himself from the views.
Pleading that the editorial should not be misconstrued, Desai said it only attempted to convey that unity was imperative to ensure Mumbai’s development.
The Bombay High Court on Friday rejected an application made by scam-tainted Adarsh Housing Society opposing the title suit filed by Ministry of Defence claiming ownership on the land in South Mumbai. The Ministry in December 2012 had filed a title suit in the High Court stating that the land in Colaba where the 31-storey Adarsh building is constructed belongs to them (Defence Ministry) and possession should be handed back to them.
The Defence Ministry alleged that the Adarsh building has been constructed “illegally and unlawfully”. It also states that MoD is the sole owner of the land and that the land was transferred to Adarsh Society by fraud, collusion and connivance on the part of the society members, ministers and bureaucrats of the state government.
The Society had, however, filed an application opposing the title suit on the ground that only the Defence Estate Officer (DEO) can file title suits on behalf of the Defence Ministry. It relied on an order passed by the General Governor Council and the Government of India in 1930.
“The Society also relied on the military land manual which says that only the defence estate officer is authorised to file and conduct a title suit in court on behalf of the Ministry of Defence,” the Society’s lawyer Saket Mone from Vidhi law firm argued.
The Defence Ministry refuted the argument and said that the ministry is empowered to file and conduct title suits. Justice Roshan Dalvi on Friday heard arguments from both sides and rejected the Society’s application.
Meanwhile, in a related development, a division bench of Justices PV Hardas and A S Gadkari refused to hear a public interest litigation filed by former journalist Ketan Tirodkar alleging that CBI has failed to arraign as accused family members of several politicians who own flats in the society under benami names.
A local court has issued a non-bailable warrant against Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) president Raj Thackeray for not appearing before the court for a long time.
The next hearing is scheduled on May 8, Thursday.
According to the charges, MNS workers allegedly pelted stones at a Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) bus on the Jalna-Aurangabad road on October 20, 2008, near the Shekta village in Maharashtra.
Later, a complaint was lodged by bus driver Ibrahim Shaikh with the Karmad police, after which a case was registered against Raj and six others. The police had filed chargesheets against all the accused.
However, Raj refrained from being present before the court since then and had also filed an application before Judicial Magistrate First Class Ashok Soni, requesting permission to abstain from being present in court, since he is busy campaigning for elections.
Noting that elections in Maharashtra got over on April 24, the magistrate rejected his plea and ordered issuance of a non-bailable warrant against him.
An RTI activist has written to the Maharashtra Chief Minister, urging him to exercise his special powers to dissuade Reliance Infra’s arm Mumbai Metro One Pvt Ltd (MMOPL) from implementing an almost two-fold steep hike in fares of the soon to be launched suburban railway service.
In a letter addressed to the Chief Minister in Mumbai on Friday, Anil Galgali, an RTI activist and chairman of the Mumbai-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) Athak Seva Sangh said that when an agreement was signed between the Maharashtra state government and MMOPL in 2006, there was no such provision in the Metro Act.
The letter said that as per Maharashtra government’s notification, the minimum fare ought to be Rs 9, while the maximum fare ought to be Rs 13, during the initial year of operations.
As per norms, fares could be increased by 11 per cent after every four years, but the MMOPL has sought a steep hike of minimum fare at Rs 22 and maximum fare at Rs 33, citing a near doubling of costs.
Galgali said that Mumbai’s citizens are being made to suffer for no fault of theirs and that it is the Maharashtra state government’s responsibility to act against MMOPL.
“The Maharashtra state government should use its special powers and stop the new fares from being implemented. The delay in project and increase in cost is not the fault of Mumbai’s citizens. It is the responsibility of the Maharashtra state government to act against MMOPL’s demands,” Galgali’s letter said.
“Under the initial agreement, between the state and MMOPL, the state had the power to fix the fares and it was one and a half times as compared to BEST bus fares. It is now high time for the government to act against MMOPL which is blackmailing the government and playing with citizens,” his letter said.
The Bombay High Court allowed actor-director Amol Palekar and his wife Sandhya Gokhale to intervene in a public interest litigation seeking re-election in Pune Lok Sabha constituency where a large number of voters found their names missing during the 17 May Lok Sabha poll.
Palekar and Gokhale found their names deleted from the voter list on 17 May and could not vote. Their application points out that both had voted in the Municipal Corporation elections earlier when their names were on the list.
The bench headed by Justice Abhay Oka allowed them to intervene and asked the petitioner Arun Bhatia’s lawyer to amend the petition. The court will hear the matter on 6 May. Bhatia, a former IAS officer who contested Lok Sabha election from Pune this time as a nominee of People’s Guardian Party, has contended that several genuine voters were denied their right to vote.
Many had voters’ identity cards and had voted in the past, but found their names missing on 17 April. “The very nature of this error, i.e. wrongful deletion of previously registered voters, showed that the voters’ list has grave and extensive errors. These deleted voters have also not changed their residence,” the PIL says.
It demands a summary revision of the electoral rolls followed by a total or partial re-election. The petition also seeks a direction to the authorities to produce the record and details of advertisements about enumeration or listing of voters ahead of the elections.
Two other similar petitions, one about missing names from voter list in Mumbai and another in Pune, have been filed in the High Court.
A witness in the 2002 hit-and-run case, involving Bollywood actor Salman Khan identified articles seized by police from the accident spot but denied during cross-examination that he was tutored by police to draw the ‘panchnama’.
“I am able to identify them as the articles which were seized by police from the spot where the car had met with an accident”, said Samba Gowda, a tea vendor who had drawn the ‘panchnama’ after the mishap.
The witness was being examined by public prosecutor Jagannath Kenjalkar. He is the first one to depose in the re-trial of this case.
Among the articles seized by police after the mishap were broken glass pieces, some parts of vehicle’s bumper, blood-soaked soil and a portion of the shop’s shutter.
On September 28, 2002, the actor had run over his Toyota Land Cruiser on a group of persons sleeping on a footpath outside a bakery in suburban Bandra, killing one and injuring four others.
During cross-examination by defence lawyer Srikant Shivade, the witness denied that he was tutored by police.
“It would be wrong to say that police had not taken me to the accident spot and that later I was asked to sign the panchnama,” the witness said.
To another question, the witness said, “I do not know whether the car was taken away by a crane before or after the panchnama was drawn.”
Gowda further said that the papers of the car were not seized and also police did not open the door of the car.
However, when he was confronted with the ‘panchnama’ which made a mention of these things, the witness could not say as to why the police had recorded this.
To another question by advocate Shivade, the witness said, “I do not know who wrote the panchnama”. He later said “police wrote it and I signed it”.
“I did not personally supervise or note down the measurement taken by police of the distance between the shutter of the shop and the car”, said Gowda, who hails from Karnataka.
A day after making controversial comments that Muslims who do not vote for his party are not “true Muslims”, Samajwadi Party leader Abu Asim Azmi today said true Muslims cannot vote for BJP.
“BJP has always been cruel and unjust towards Muslims. Then how can a true Muslim vote for the BJP? When Mulayam Singh was the chief minister, he saved the Babri Masjid from getting demolished,” Azmi told over phone.
“There was a time when the madrasas in UP were termed as dens of the ISI. But after the SP government came in power, they got justice. Now no one dares to relate madrasas to the ISI,” he said.
He said the BJP’s claims of Muslims joining the saffron outfit are untrue.
“When there are public meets by the BJP and its prime ministerial candidate, burqa clad women and men with beard are being made to sit on stage with BJP leaders to give a false impression that Muslims are supporting the saffron party. But these are duplicate Muslims,” Azmi alleged.
Meanwhile, BJP spokesperson Shaina NC said such statements are made only to play vote-bank politics.
“The BJP condemns his statement. He is a regressive human being who has humiliated women in the past and is now humiliating his own party. The voters should give him a befitting reply…Enough of regressive thoughts and votebank politics,” Shaina said.
Congress spokesperson Sanjay Jha alleged that the Samajwadi Party government failed to protect Muslims in UP during the Muzaffarnagar riots.
“The state(UP) government has been caught napping and has been proved ineffectual in stopping the riots. And that by itself is a manifestation that SP has failed to protect minorities, particularly the Muslims,” Jha said.
