Singapore riot: Indian nationals withdraw judicial review plea

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Singapore: Four Indians, facing charges for their roles in Singapore's worst riot in four decades in December last year, have withdrawn their applications for judicial review proceedings against the government.

Three Indian nationals - Arun Kaliamurthy, Rajendran Mohan and Ravi Arun Vengatesh – had sought to quash certain conditions imposed on them pending their criminal trial related to the rioting.

The trio were required to report daily to the Immigration and Check Point Authority.

'Two separate judicial review proceedings against the Government, brought by individual charged in connection with the Little India's Riot, have been withdrawn by the individuals concerned,' Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) said in a statement on Friday.

Their lawyer M Ravi told The Straits Times that his clients had 'gotten used to the conditions' and had decided to drop their applications as the trial dates were drawing near.

Ravi had the proceedings cancelled on May 7 on behalf of the three. It was slated to be heard by a High Court Judge on May 12. The High Court granted the application, with costs amounting to SGD3,000 (USD 2,392) to be paid by the three applicants.

Ravi had applied to withdraw another judicial review application of Rajendran Ranjan, who had wanted to quash the stern warning administered by the police and the order of removal made by the Controller of Immigration. Rajendran also wanted to have his work permit reinstated.

'A few months have passed and he (Rajnedran) has since continued with his life in India,' Ravi was quoted as saying.

The High Court has imposed a fine of SGD1,000 on Rajendran, which would be paid by his uncle Arumugam Sivanathan.

Arumugam had authorised the proceedings on behalf of Rajendran who was given a stern warning by the police for his alleged role in the December 8 riot in Little India, a precinct of Indian-origin businesses, eateries and pubs.

The Controller of Immigration assessed the situation and decided Rajendran's presence in Singapore was undesirable. His visit pass was cancelled as a result and he was deported from Singapore on December 20 last year.

Twenty-five Indians were charged for the riot in Little India. Cases against 15 are pending while others have been dealt with.

Some 400 migrant workers from South Asia were alleged to have been involved in the riots in which 54 Singaporean officers were injured and 23 emergency vehicles damaged. PTI

Jet-propelled car to fly at 880 km per hour!

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New York: Fasten your seat belts. A jet car that flies at 880 km per hour is being conceptualised that would fly you from New Delhi to Mumbai in less than two hours - and it may use a highway as a runway to take off!

The concept vehicle, named GF7, is the brainchild of California-based engineers Greg Brown and Dave Fawcett from Airboss Aerospace - a design and engineering firm primarily dedicated to the aerospace industry.

To begin with, the jet-propelled car will carry four passengers.

It will have a highway cruising speed of up to 160 km per hour and a turbine engine with 3,500 pounds of thrust.

This means it will be able to fly to 38,000 feet and hit the speed of 880 km per hour.

'You can save jet fuel by using the electric motor to drive to the runway and start the turbine engine when you need it,' Brown was quoted as saying in a Gizmag report.

'The turbine engine produces plenty of extra electrical capacity to charge the batteries,' he added.

The prototype is expected to be ready in four years. IANS

Smoking rates fall among Indian men, rise for women

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New Delhi: While smoking rates have fallen among Indian men, they have risen among women. A factor, doctors say, that can be attributed to rising cases of infertility and higher risk of cancer among Indian women these days.

A study published earlier this year in the British Medical Journal and which was earlier carried by the The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) examined the prevalence of smoking and cigarette consumption in 187 countries between 1980 and 2012 and found that while cigarette smoking among Indian men has fallen from 33.8 percent in 1980 to 23 percent in 2012, it has risen from three percent to 3.2 percent among Indian women within the same time frame.

In absolute terms, the number of female smokers in India has more than doubled - from about 5.3 million to 12.2 million in that time frame.

Commenting on the trend, Nevin Kishore, consultant in Pulmonology at Max Hospital, said the changing lifestyles are leading to more women taking up smoking in the Indian scenario.

'The effects of smoking, like lung damage, do not show in a person who smokes about four-five cigarettes a day in the initial few years. Although tobacco does not discriminate on the basis of gender, women smokers are more at risk of infertility. They also face the risk of all kinds of cancer,' Kishore told IANS.

Agreed Sapna Nangia, oncologist at Apollo Hospital. 'There has been a rise in the number of women smoking cigarettes and there are two main reasons for it. The first is a carefully devised plan by the tobacco industry which has faced a lot of lawsuits in this regard in the west, and has therefore realised that instead of going on facing the difficulty of advertising their product there, it would be easier to encourage women in India and China to smoke under the pretext of making smoking a socially acceptable norm,' Nangia told IANS.

'If women in India and China started smoking in big numbers, the tobacco companies felt that they would no longer have to depend on the west. This, plus a mistaken notion that smoking denotes independence of women, has led to the numbers rising,' she added.

Nangia however stressed that the upward trend is only in the urban areas, because 'women in the rural areas have always consumed tobacco in high numbers'.

Kailashnath Gupta, pulmonologist at Columbia Asia Hospital, went on to say that the consumption rate of smokeless tobacco has also risen among women.

'Tobacco does not differentiate, but the effect of smoking on pregnant women and those in the reproductive age group of 22-40 can be detrimental to the foetus and on their fertility,' Gupta said.

He also said that while the overall number of smokers in India has increased, the percentage of smokers has come down 'since it's in relation to the size of our population. I also think that the younger generation today, those in the 20-25 age group, is smoking lesser than of the yesteryears,' Gupta added.

His words find resonance in the study which revealed that although the prevalence of cigarette smoking in India has dropped by over five percent over the last three decades, the number of smokers in India has risen from about 74.5 million in 1980 to 110.2 million in 2012.

However, as compared to 1980 when Indians used to smoke an average of 11.6 cigarettes a day, now they average 8.2 a day. The study used data from several multinational and national surveys, including the Global Adult Tobacco Survey.

India is the third largest producer of tobacco and the second largest consumer of tobacco products worldwide, the study said. A different study in 2012 further found that 42 percent of cancers in men and 18.3 percent cancers in women were related to tobacco consumption. Cardiovascular disease is also linked to it.

'The only way out of this health mess is for the government to implement the anti-tobacco laws more effectively. Increasing taxes, I feel, hardly discourages people, and it's only the government that benefits. Advertisements against tobacco usage like the ones in movie theatres is one of the best ways to make people aware and therefore discourage them,' Gupta said. IANS

. Rebels kidnap six officials in Philippines

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Manila: Suspected leftist rebels abducted six officials in Philippines, a military official said on Saturday.

The kidnapping allegedly perpetrated by New People's Army militants happened in Mindanao Friday, the official said.

The victims, sub-contractors of the department of environment and natural resources, were abducted by armed men when ther were conducting validation inspection of the town's compliance for the national reforestation programme, Xinhua quoted the official as saying. IANS

Kidnappers release Colombian police officer's daughter

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Bogota: The kidnappers who grabbed the 10-year-old daughter of a Colombian police commander released the girl hours later, authorities said.

The daughter of Inspector Victor Cantoñi, police chief in Padilla town, was freed Thursday night in the community of Toribio.

Alejandra Cantoñi was picked up by members of the Indigenous Guard taking part in the search along with police and army units, Mayor of Guachene, Francisco Paz, told radio stations.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos confirmed the release of the minor on his Twitter account and said an investigation is under way to find the perpetrators, though the army and authorities attributed the kidnapping to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

The minor was abducted by armed men Thursday morning at the entrance to Jorge Eliecer Gaitan School in Guachene.

The army blamed the kidnapping on a FARC guerrilla who goes by the alias of 'Mordisco'.

The FARC, concluded Wednesday a unilateral nine-day cease-fire it had declared so as not to disrupt the May 25 presidential election. In 2012, they had supposedly renounced kidnapping for ransom.

IANS

After worms in mid-day meal, court refuses to revive NGO's contract

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court, taking a stringent view of an incident of worms being found in a mid-day meal leading to illness of children in the capital, has refused to revive the contract given to an NGO which had supplied the cooked meals.

Justice Manmohan, passing the order, said: 'Since the presence of worms in the mid-day meal supplied by the NGO has been confirmed, this court is of the view that there is no patent error or illegality in the order passed by the government.'

The Delhi government Jan 4, 2103, cancelled the contract given to the People Welfare Society on account of contaminated supply of cooked meals to a government school here on Sep 5, 2011.

All students, who had taken the meal, had complained of stomachache and uneasiness as a consequence of which they were taken to hospital by the school for medical treatment. Eight students had suffered from food poisoning.

The city government, while cancelling the contract, said the NGO had a past history of supplying 'contaminated/unhygienic' mid-day meal as earlier also worms were found in the meals supplied by the society on July 18, 2011, and July 21, 2011, to another government school here.

After the incidents of illness of children due to the consumption of mid-day meals, FIRs were lodged against the NGOs which have been providing food in these schools, including the petitioner in the present case.

On the other hand, the NGO contended that the sample test report found the meal supplied by it to the school to be fit for human consumption and that the children had suffered only mild pain in their stomach.

It said though there were other instances where cockroaches and dead lizards were found in cooked food supplied by other NGOs, the government did not take any action against some of them.

In the recent order, the court said: 'This court is of the view that though it is correct that the report of Sri Ram Institute for Research states that the sample sent to it was fit for human consumption, yet it clearly states that the samples did not meet the requirement laid down for cooked meals.'

'A perusal of the paper book also reveals that the hospital where the eight students were admitted had opined that they suffered from food poisoning,' it added.

The court, however, clarified that the finding given by it in the case would not prejudice any of the parties during the criminal trial which is pending against the NGO. IANS

Indian Dentist in US tries to Extract 20 Teeth At Once, Patient Dies: Report

New York: The license of an Indian dentist was revoked in the US after he attempted to extract 20 teeth from the mouth of a 64-year-old woman in one sitting which led to her death.

The dentist, Doctor Rashmi Patel was performing the procedure on Judith Gan on February 17 when she lost consciousness.

The procedure included placing implants in the woman's mouth after removing the teeth, according to the New York Daily News.

The paper quoted Mr Patel's assistant as saying that he had requested him to stop the procedure before calling for the emergency services.

'He wanted to complete the placement of implants as the assistant begged Patel to stop working, and finally ran out and called 911, but the patient had already flat-lined,' the state Department of Public Health wrote in a report.

'The four count petition found, among an array of other misdeeds, that Patel deviated from standard of care in that he did not timely and properly respond to Gan's oxygen desaturation and/or respiratory distress and/or cardio-pulmonary distress,' state records reported.

'Gan did not have to die to receive this dental treatment and it is because of Patel's negligence that she died,' said a dentist who was asked to review the case for the Department of Health.

Mr Patel's license, issued in 2003, was suspended on April 21 pending a June 18 hearing in front of the state dental commission.

Mr Patel runs two clinics in Enfield and Torrington. 'Patel has been ordered to stay away from his patients after one died and another spent six days in the hospital,' the state health officials said.

The horror of Gan's botched procedure came after a December incident, when a 55-year-old man 'aspirated the throat pack' and was rushed to the hospital. The victim stopped breathing and spent six days in the hospital after suffering heart and lung damage.

Mr Patel was also sued for malpractice by a former employee in 2009 after he performed 'shoddy' dental work. Doreen Jasonis won nearly USD 500,000 from a jury in 2011, but the ruling was appealed and eventually ended with an out-of-court settlement.

The dentist's attorney says both clinics remain open and that Mr Patel will fight the charges.

Greed drive parents to sell two kids for Rs 3.25 lakh.

Sulaiman

Kanhangad: In a shocking incident, two children were found to be sold by parents, who aimed at making a decent earning over the deals.

The Hosdurg police have arrested the father of the kids, Sulaiman of Kanhangad South, and registered a case against their mother.

The incident, which happened nearly one year ago, came to light after the parents accidentally revealed the matter. On coming to know about the incident, the police registered a case under sections 370, 371 of the IPC without anybody lodging a complaint and made further inquiries.

Police said Sulaiman married twice and have eight and three children respectively from his first and second wives. He had sold the two younger children born to his second wife. At the time of sale, the elder of the two, a girl, was one-and-a-half year old the other one, a boy, was just six-month old.

A Mangalore-based woman lawyer acted as agent in the business. The first sale fetched Sulaiman Rs 1.75 lakh and the lawyer netted a commission of Rs 25,000. Two more intermediaries from Kanhangad were given a total of Rs 25,000.

The second sale was brokered by the lawyer alone and Sulaiman got Rs 1.5 lakh. In this deal also, she received Rs 25,000 as commission.

Sikh group challenges dismissal of 1984 case against Congress

New York: A Sikh rights group has challenged the dismissal of the 1984 rights violation case against Congress party before an appeals court here, saying the case 'concerns' the US and it has 'institutional standing' to seek judgment on behalf of the Sikh community.

The case filed by Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) was dismissed by Judge Robert Sweet of US District Court last month on the grounds that the group failed to show sufficient 'touch and concern' to the United States.

Swwet had, however, ruled that 'a corporate defendant can be liable under the Alien Torts Statute (ATS), assuming that the statute's 'touch and concern' requirements are adequately alleged'.

SFJ said the case sufficiently 'touches and concerns' the US and it has 'institutional standing' to seek 'declaratory judgment' on the November 1984 violence against the Sikh community.

Commenting on the appeal made by SFJ, Congress party's attorney Ravi Batra said on behalf of the party and its chief Sonia Gandhi, 'we look forward to arguing' in the apeeals court that 'justice was done, the law followed, sovereignty honored' when Sweet ordered the dismissal of the case.

SFJ said its appeal is based on grounds that the victims group claim is not barred under a US Supreme Court ruling as plaintiffs have already been granted refugee status by California Federal Court for being victims of violence allegedly committed by the Congress in India which proves 'touch and concern'and sufficient connection to America.

The SFJ appeal claims that federal law grants 'institutional standing' to human rights groups to seek 'declaratory judgments' by US courts.

SFJ is seeking judgment to declare November 1984 violence against the Sikh community as 'genocide'. PTI

400 children rescued from train

 Palakkad: In surprise check, police rescued 400 students from a train at Olavakkode railway station. 

Police, who received a tip off that children are being transported to Kerala for labour, carried out the search.

The male and female children, aged between three to 11 years, were found in a reserved coach in the train from Patna to Ernakulam. Two elders found with them have been arrested.

Majority of the rescued children belong to Muslim community and the arrested persons claimed they were taken for religious studies.

However, police said the arrested were transporting the children to engage them as child labourers