Fauja Singh, 101 year old, Will Sunday be his last marathon ?
Watch the BBC video below !
Harjinder Singh
Man in Blue
Here’s a link to a video I have made for the BBC News website on Fauja Singh, the amazing 101-year-old Sikh marathon runner.
He runs his final marathon this Sunday. He is a truly remarkable guy and deserves a lot of recognition for his achievements.
Below the link to the video
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17765170
Dil Neiyyar
Reporter BBC
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, April 19. The Khalra Mission Organisation today demanded a thorough probe into the fake encounters that took place in the state between 1978 and 1995, while referring to the recent Supreme Court verdict in this regard.
It said the Supreme Court had on April 13 sought the stand of the Centre and all state governments on a plea for an independent probe into all cases of alleged killing by the police in staged shootouts in the past 10 years in the country.
Paramjeet Kaur Khalra and Harmandeep Singh Sarhali, the organisation’s patron and chief, respectively, in a letter to the Chief Justice of India, said the state witnessed “large -scale human rights violations between 1978 and 1995 and, therefore, the Supreme Court should order an investigation into the killing of innocent people in Punjab during this period.
“We appreciate the SC ruling of April 13 … but in case of Punjab we feel it has deprived us of justice once again,” reads the letter. The organisation also sent the Chief Justice the names of 36 women “tortured to death” during the dark days of militancy.
Harmandeep Singh Sarhali said they would soon file a petition in the Supreme Court, pleading that all cases of “fake” encounters and human rights violations in the state from 1978 to 1995 be probed.
Deepkamal Kaur, Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, April 19. It’s almost a similar survival tale of two teenaged friends from Bihar who were together minutes before tragedy struck the Shital Fibres building at Jalandhar Focal Point around 11:30 pm on Sunday. Both saw death from very close as they lay trapped under the rubble — a few metres away from each other.
While Sanjiv was saved around 51 hours after the mishap at 1:20 am on Tuesday, the Almighty blessed Nitesh with a “new life” at 12:30 am on Wednesday, 73 hours after the illegal blanket-manufacturing factory building came down like a pack of cards.
Now, the friends lie united again. They are receiving treatment at the same hospital — their beds are at a distance of a few metres. Like Sanjiv, Nitesh too hid under a cutting machine and both survived with minor bruises. Both are finding it hard to believe they were taken out alive even as several of their colleagues weren’t so fortunate. Nitesh recalls his ordeal: “There was some noise and a few seconds later, the building came down. I hid below a cutting machine.”
Though unusual, he says, he neither felt thirsty nor hungry for three days. “I had finished my dinner minutes before the mishap… The only thing that bothered me was the tremendous heat. Rats were moving around, but they didn’t trouble me much.” One thing that he missed the most was his cellphone. “My friend Amarjit, who too has survived, took my mobile phone half an hour before the disaster. Had I got it, I would have easily contacted my friends.”
In frustration, Nitesh tore all the currency notes, totalling around Rs 9,000, he had in his purse. He had received his salary hours that day. “I had lost all hopes. I tore the entire bundle of notes at one go and then kept on toring them into smaller bits. As I did all this, I only had one thing on my mind: If at all the Almighty gives me a chance to live, he may even bless me with more money,” he remembers while laughing at his foolishness. Nitesh would be receiving Rs 40,000 as relief from the Punjab Government.
It was around 10 pm yesterday that Nitesh heard the rumbling of machines. “I heard some noise and shouted for help. The response came and I kept on answering whatever the rescue team asked me….They finally reached me after around two-and-a-half hours,” he narrates.
Asked if he tried to collect the bits of currency notes when he saw help coming his way, he says, “I was so excited to come out that I did not even for once want to return into the hell hole.”
Nitesh says he and his father Suresh Yadav, who came from Bihar after learning about the incident, sat down weeping for around an hour. “I am eager to see my mother and younger brother in Bihar. I am not really sure whether I will ever return to work in Punjab,” exclaims Nitesh, his face beaming with joy.
Death toll rises to 19
The death toll from the Jalandhar building collapse incident has risen to 19 while the count of those rescued from the rubble has touched 62. The number of casualties may further rise as the debris of the ground and first floors of the four-storeyed building was yet to be cleared. Deputy Commissioner Priyank Bharti said nine bodies had been extricated till Wednesday while one more was pulled out from the debris on Thursday.
Besides, the Army and National Disaster Response Force personnel had spotted nine bodies inside, which were yet to be pulled out. Bharti said the administration would confirm the deaths of these nine workers only after their bodies were extricated.
Shital Vij’s remand extended
The police remand of Shital Vij, owner of the collapsed factory, has been extended by four more days by a city court today.
Shital was produced in the court of illaqa magistrate Tripatjit Kaur, who remanded him to police custody for four more days till April 23. The police had requested the court to extend the remand for at least seven more days for procuring the record, including the register of the employees working in the factory and getting other relevant information from him.
Staff Reporter
Kolkata, 19 April 2012. After her caution last month that a time may come when she will dictate to the public which newspapers they should read, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday advised people on what television channels they should watch.
Addressing a gathering at Basirhat in North 24 Parganas district, she asked the congregation to desist from watching “two, three television news channels,” alleging that they were sponsored by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), and suggested that the people, instead, watch entertainment channels.
“There are two-three television channels of the CPI(M) you should not watch. Listen to songs on other channels,” she said, referring to names of certain channels which people should watch.
While certain steps by her government led to criticism in a section of the media, Ms. Banerjee remained unperturbed.
“Nothing will be achieved by spreading canards and making false propaganda against me,” she told the gathering.
Ms. Banerjee said she did not want to hang on to power, adding the day the maa, mati, manus (mother, land and people) of the State wanted her to go, she would leave.
Earlier, on several occasions, Ms. Banerjee criticised a section of the media for being biased and presenting her government in a bad light.
Last month, the government restricted the subscription of newspapers to a prescribed list in the government-run, aided and sponsored libraries. The initiative, which, the State government claimed, was to promote small newspapers and spread free thinking, was widely criticised as an attack on the right of the freedom of speech and expression.
I was meant to attend a meeting in Den Haag on Saturday 24 March, but it was cancelled at the last moment. I decided to go to Den Haag anyway to pay a quick visit to my family members there.
Den Haag Holland Spoor
I left on the 14.27 to go to Antwerpen
Den Haag Holland Spoor
I keep taking pictures of this beautiful station
Antwerpen Centraal
Austrian rolling stock on hire to NS (Netherlands Raiways)
Antwerpen Centraal
Austrian rolling stock on hire to NS (Netherlands Raiways)
Antwerpen Centraal
DMU to Neerpelt
To see more Belgium and Netherlands public transport pictures :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12445197@N05/sets/72157622685920411/
More Belgium pictures to follow
Harjinder Singh
Man in Blue
R Sedhuraman, Legal Correspondent
New Delhi, April 19. The Supreme Court today reserved its judgment on Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar’s plea for commuting to life imprisonment the death penalty awarded to him for the September 10, 1993, bomb attack on the then Youth Congress president MS Bitta.
A Bench comprising Justices GS Singhvi and SJ Mukhopadhaya passed an order to the effect at the conclusion of pleadings that Bhullar be spared from the gallows as he had virtually undergone life sentence due to the long delay in the rejection of his mercy plea. The Centre, however, opposed the plea.
During the arguments today, the Bench asked the Central Government to have a timeframe for deciding mercy petitions.
Additional Solicitor-General Haren Raval sought three months’ time for getting the government’s response to the suggestion.
The impact of death sentences was getting lost due to the long delays in dealing with the mercy petitions, the Bench pointed out. Further, people’s faith in the government’s ability to maintain law and order depended on such matters, the court reasoned.
“It is troubling us that some cases have political overtones,” the Bench said. The court said it wanted to know whether the mercy pleas of those with political connections were being treated differently.
In this connection, the Bench sought details of the mercy petitions filed by convicts who did not have any support from outside quarters.
Raval said in the case of Nalini, sentenced to death in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, as many as 8,000 mercy petitions had been received. Ultimately, she was granted pardon.
Bhullar, his wife Navneet Kaur and the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Managing Committee (DSGMC) had approached the SC seeking commutation of the death sentence on several grounds, including Bhullar’s mental ailment. The 1993 bomb attack in Delhi had killed nine security personnel and 25 persons, including Bitta, were injured. Bhullar is lodged at the Tihar Jail here.
About 26 mercy petitions are pending before the President, some of them since 1992.
A molecular biologist who was arrested in India’s West Bengal state for allegedly participating in a protest, has been freed after 10 days in jail.
Partho Sarathi Ray was arrested on 8 April for protesting against a slum eviction drive in Calcutta.
He says he was not even in the city on 4 April, the day of the protest.
More than 50 activists and academics from India and abroad wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking him to intervene.
A well-known scientist, Prof Ray’s work has been published in respectable journals around the world.
Police charged him with assaulting policemen during the protest, but he denies the charge.
His lawyers say he was at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Nadia district to attend a faculty meeting on the day. They say he stayed there for the night and did not leave until the next day.
‘Clear message’
His arrest was condemned by scientists and academics who wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking him to intervene to secure Prof Ray’s release.
“There seems to be a clear message to others not to raise voices of dissent,” said the letter, signed by activists and academics including Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey, Noam Chomsky, Mrigangka Sur, Abha Sur and others.
“This has implications for not only this series of events in Calcutta but also for democracy,” the letter said.
The state government, led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, has attracted a lot of negative publicity recently for cracking down on its critics.
Last week, police arrested a professor in Calcutta for allegedly posting on the internet cartoons ridiculing Ms Banerjee.
Professor Ambikesh Mahapatra, who teaches chemistry at Jadavpur University, was later released on bail.
Ms Banerjee came to power in 2011 bringing to an end the state’s 34-year-old Communist rule.
