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Tohra put on life support again

          Amritsar: Ailing Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) president Gurcharan Singh Tohra was put on life support once again late on Sunday night after his condition deteriorated. Family sources were quoted as saying that the doctors attending to Tohra decided to put him back on the life support system again after his internal organs malfunctioned. According to a Monday morning radio report, Dr Naresh Trehan, the chief cardiologist at Escorts Heart Hospital in New Delhi, has recommended that Tohra be immediately shifted to the Indian Capital for further investigations and treatment. The SGPC chief was admitted to the Escorts Hospital here on March 25 following a massive heart attack.

Religious fervour marks Ashtami celebration (Go To Top)

          Varanasi: Hundreds of devotees prayed on the banks of the Ganga in Varanasi, to celebrate Ashtami, the penultimate day of "Navratra" festival. The nine-night festival is observed twice a year, once in the beginning of the summer and the other in the beginning of the winter. The festival lasts for nine days in honour of the nine manifestations of Goddess Durga. Durga is depicted as a powerful goddess, riding a raging lion, holding aloft ten war weapons in her ten hands. Her trident is plunged into the side of a monstrous buffalo, out of whose body emerges the dreadful demon.

          Legend has it that "Asuras" or demons from the nether world invaded heavens after a hundred years of war. The Hindu trinity of Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu created goddess Durga, the most powerful of all gods and goddesses to vanquish the demons. All the time during the period of Navratras, the devotee must keep his mind, body and thoughts pure. "Kashi (Varanasi) is the land of salvation. It is written in our holy scriptures that those who follow the fast of the Navratras and then pray on the banks of the Ganga will definitely attain salvation," a devotee said.

          On Asthami, which is the eighth day of the festival, young girls are regarded as "devis" or the goddesses and are invited to many homes in the morning. As part of the celebration they are served a special offering of black gram and sweets. A small gift in the form of some money along with red bangles and a red scarf is also given to the girls. During the festivities Hindus eat only vegetarian food and some even fast for all the eight days.

Jehanabad caste clash claims three lives (Go To Top)

          Jehanabad (Bihar): Tension has gripped Jehanabad district of Bihar after a private army of upper caste people allegedly shot dead three lower caste men. The assassins, believed to be members of the notorious upper caste private army, "Ranvir Sena", attacked a settlement of low caste villagers at Bishunbigah village in Jehanabad on Sunday. "At 5.30 pm in the evening the incident occurred. The police was a mute spectator. We want that the picket be removed from here. We should be given appropriate compensation and strict action should be taken against the culprits," Awdesh, an eyewitness, said. The Ranvir Sena has often clashed with supporters of the predominantly lower-caste Communist Party of India (Marxist- Leninist), mainly over land disputes.

Chinese Defence Minister meets chiefs of armed forces (Go To Top)

          New Delhi: Chinese Defence Minister Cao Gangchuan met the chiefs of Indian armed forces in New Delhi on Monday. India and China will look for ways to promote military relations and bury distrust during the first visit by a Chinese defence minister in a decade. Gangchuan, on a three-day official visit, met Indian navy chief Admiral Madhvendra Singh, air force chief Air Chief Marshal S. Krishnaswamy and army chief General N.C. Vij on Monday.

JKLF withdraws from Hurriyat (Go To Top)

          Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) announced on Monday its withdrawal from the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) and said it will boycott the forthcoming elections, days after the umbrella group agreed to resume peace talks with India. The JKLF decision weakens further the moderate wing of the APHC, which is due to begin talks with the Indian government in June in a bid to end 15 years of revolt in the Himalayan region. The JKLF decision comes after newspapers reported that the Hurriyat may not give a call for boycott of national elections due in April-May.

Sex racket husted in Meerut, 13 arrested (Go To Top)

          Meerut: An inter-state prostitution racket has been busted in Meerut with the arrest of 13 people, including four women. Officials said they used a decoy customer to nab those running the flesh den in town, after receiving complaints from locals. The women are lodged at an all-women police station where they were being interrogated for further leads. "Four girls and some men have been arrested. They are being charged with propagating flesh trade. They are being interrogated," Arvind Singh, city superintendent of police, said on Sunday.

          Kamal Jahan, one of the arrested women, alleged that she was a victim of political conspiracy at the behest of the Bharatiya Janata Party as she was Congress worker. "It is the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is targeting me. I am a worker of the Congress," Jahan said. Meanwhile the women -- all in their early 20s - - say they were forced into flesh trade because of poverty.

24 killed in Poonch bus mishap (Go To Top)

          Jammu: Twenty-four people, including five policemen, were killed and 17 injured when a passenger bus skidded off the road and fell into a deep gorge in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir on Monday, official sources said. The bus was on its way from Poonch town to Loran area when the driver lost control of the vehicle at Bracher which rolled down into 400 feet deep gorge killing 24 people on the spot, the sources said. Of the killed passengers, five were policemen, they said, adding four of them have been identified. Police and army personnel rushed to the spot. The injured were admitted in two hospitals in Mandi and Poonch.

Rumsfeld: Pak Army in nuke black-market (Go To Top)

          Washington: Senior officers of Pakistan's armed forces may have had a significant hand in promoting a nuclear blackmarket operation internationally, claimed US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Sunday. Speaking on the subject during the course of an interview on the ABC programme 'This Week', Rumsfeld said that while he had no reason to suspect President Pervez Musharraf's involvement in the scam, he could not rule out the complicity of other Pakistan defence establishment officers. "I do not believe that there's any evidence or any suggestion that President Musharraf was involved," Rumsfeld was quoted by the News, as saying.