KOTA: The number of people presumed killed when a bridge collapsed in western India rose to at least 45 on Saturday, an official said, as rescue divers struggled to recover bodies pinned under water.
"At least 45 people are presumed to have died in the bridge collapse," senior police official Rajeev Dasot told foreign news agency, raising the estimated death toll from 17.
Dozens of labourers plunged into the water late Thursday when the bridge on which they were working gave way over the Chambal River on the outskirts of the city of Kota in Rajasthan state.
The bridge was being jointly built by South Korea's Hyundai Engineering and Gammon India. Two senior project managers, including a South Korean national, have been arrested on accusations of culpable homicide, Dasot said.
NEW DELHI: The Indian Government issued a terror alert in the cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), and Chennai. This comes after several militants claiming to be the Taliban allegedly sneaked into India to conduct suicide bombings.
According to one source, the terrorists are planning an attack on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
The Nuclear Plants across India received a similar alert, due to fears that terrorists would be targeting them. In addition, government offices and transportation facilities have received beefed up security.
NEW DELHI: The International Cricket Council has allowed the Indian cricket board 14 days for submitting an explanation over the dangerous pitch that led to the abandonment of the fifth and the final One-day International between India and Sri Lanka.
The members of the pitch and ground committee of the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) resigned taking moral responsibility over the abandonment of the fifth and final cricket one-day international (ODI) between India and Sri Lanka due to an unplayable wicket in Delhi on Sunday.
After a meeting of top DDCA officials, the committee chairman Chetan Chauhan, convener Sunil Dev and curator Vijay Bahadur Mishra stepped down.
Earlier during the day, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) disbanded its grounds and pitches committee with immediate effect.
The fifth and final ODI was abandoned as the wicket was deemed too "dangerous for play". The match was called off with Sri Lanka 83 for 5 in 23.3 overs after being put into bat by the home side.
JAIPUR/NEW DELHI: In a serious security lapse that revived concerns about counter-terrorism security measures, a stowaway on an Air India flight hid in the plane's toilet to fly to India. The lapse occurred on a special Haj flight operated by AI on the Medina-Jaipur sector on Friday, with 273 passengers on board. ( Watch Video )
Habib Hussain, a 26-year-old from Moradabad, had gone to Saudi Arabia six months ago and was employed as a loader by an agency providing services at Medina Airport. Habib went aboard for maintenance work in the Airbus A-330's loo and reportedly locked himself in there.
Eyewitnesses say he was detected 45 minutes after takeoff when he walked out and sat on a vacant seat. He easily stood out among the Haj pilgrims because he had his overalls on.
However, other sources said an airhostess reported to the chief purser that a toilet was locked for a very long time. "The cabin crew can open a toilet door from outside in case of an emergency like someone fainting inside or simply not knowing how to unlock. Once the door was opened, the stowaway was discovered," the source said.
Habib's story has sent alarm bells ringing in security circles as it has exposed how easy it is for someone to smuggle himself on board. Police say it was "criminal negligence" on the part of the flight crew which led to the incident. SP (East) Biju G Joseph told TOI that as per rules, before an international flight takes off, passengers and even crew staff take a headcount. A through check of the plane is also conducted. "The procedure was completely neglected," he said.
The negligence was such that the red-light above the toilet door, which is on when it is occupied, went unnoticed. "It must have been on even before the flight took off," Joseph said.
AI did not accept a security breach theory. "Only authorized personnel enter an aircraft for maintenance after clearing security checks in the sterile airport zone. Pilots announce before takeoff that all ground personnel must deplane. There is no practice of checking toilets or under seats to look for hidden passengers. The boarding card stub taken from passengers at the aircraft ladder is used to do a headcount with people seated inside. This is what airlines do," said AI spokesman Jitendra Bhargava. He said it was the airline's first stowaway incident.
The Bureau for Civil Aviation Security ordered a probe incident. "This is a very worrying aspect as it opens the door for undesirable elements to first get access to ground handling agencies and then hide in planes," said a top official.
Habib, a resident of Milaq Mohammad Jawapur village under Kundargi police station area in Moradabad district in UP, was a farmer who never went to school. He managed to get to Saudi Arabia with the help of an agent whom he paid Rs 1 lakh. The agent organized his passport and got him a job but Habib was unhappy as he was not being paid regularly. He wanted to get back but his passport had been kept by his employers, as is the practice in most Gulf countries. He told police that as a result he had little choice but to sneak into a plane and escape.
When he was detected, he told his sob story to the crew and showed them his I-card. He was frisked but he was carrying only his I-card and some currency. The crew realized he was not a security threat and the pilot decided to fly on to Jaipur and not return to Medina.
"The man had cleared airport security checks before entering the plane. He was very scared and the crew ascertained there was no threat from him. Had that not been the case, the aircraft would have returned to Medina," said Bhargava.
The crew alerted Jaipur Airport Authority and handed him over to the CISF and immigration officials soon after the plane landed at 9.45pm. The local police were informed around 2 am on Saturday.
Police plan to take action against Habib as well as Air India officials. "Habib is being booked under sections of the Passport (Entry into India) Act and legal action would follow against company officials. Arrests cannot be ruled out. Air India's director is reaching Jaipur on Sunday morning. We will talk to him," said SP Joseph.
"The President of India has accepted the resignation of Narayan Datt Tiwari as Governor of Andhra Pradesh and has appointed E S L Narasimhan, Governor of Chhattisgarh to discharge the functions of the Governor of Andhra Pradesh in addition to his own duties, until regular arrangements for the office of the Governor of Andhra Pradesh are made," the communique from Rashtrapati Bhavan said.
A day after his pictures in a sex romp were flashed in the media, the Centre got veteran Congressman N D Tiwari to step down as Andhra Pradesh governor, disregarding his claim that he was a victim of a frame-up.
An embarrassed UPA government decided to ask Tiwari to vacate Raj Bhavan after a high-level meeting held that pictures purportedly showing Tiwari in, to put it mildly, the "intimate" company of three women had rendered his continuation as governor untenable.
The Centre did not even wait for the report that it has sought from the Andhra Pradesh chief secretary Ramakanth Reddy. The decision was conveyed to the governor. For his part, Tiwari tried to argue that he had done no wrong and spoke of a conspiracy -- in line with the version put out by Raj Bhavan on Friday -- to malign him. He, however, gave in after realising that the leadership was in no mood to relent.
Curiously, in his resignation to the President, the stalwart cited "health grounds" as the reason for putting in his papers.
The quick action by the central leadership was designed to put a lid on the controversy which landed streams of women protesters at the gates of Raj Bhavan while triggering an avalanche of demands for his resignation from across the political spectrum.
Coming at a time when passions are running high in Andhra over the Telangana issue, the unsavoury controversy over the purported peccadilloes of the governor would have undermined the firefighting the Centre has been engaged in.
The media in Hyderabad had flashed purported pictures of the governor in a compromising position with three women, which created a furore. While Raj Bhavan denied it and secured a high court injunction against public airing of footage, it had stirred a controversy which Congress could not ignore.
A relieved Congress welcomed the resignation. AICC general secretary Janardan Dwivedi told reporters, "I think he has taken an appropriate decision keeping in view the high standards of public life. We welcome it."
While Tiwari has stepped down, the report of the chief secretary will determine whether there is need for any inquiry into the incident.
Tiwari's exit from the Raj Bhavan is being seen as an unsavoury end to a glittering career, which has seen him become the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh thrice and the first elected chief minister of Uttarakhand besides holding key positions in AICC and at the Centre.
His positioning as a "loyalist" became his calling card over the years. The gubernatorial assignment was a post-retirement arrangement for him after Congress lost elections in Uttarakhand.
Tiwari, hailing from Uttarakhand, is expected to proceed to his native Nainital soon. "The chances of him being rehabilitated elsewhere by Congress president Sonia Gandhi are very slim right now," said Congress sources. The party chief was said to be very embarrassed over the alleged episode and wanted to take immediate damage-control steps, the sources added. Tiwari had been rehabilitated in Hyderabad's Raj Bhavan to keep him away from Uttarakhand where he was working against the local Congress leadership.
His two-year stint as AP governor was largely quiet and non-controversial. "Tiwari confined himself to functions mostly at Raj Bhavan and would venture out only when absolutely necessary. He used to operate through his officer on special duty Aryandra Sharma whom he had brought along from Uttarakhand. Every file to Tiwari had to be routed through Sharma and this led to a lot of friction in the governer's secretariat," sources said.
Tiwari's successor is going to have his hands full because of the political uncertainty that has prevailed in the state since the death of chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy, with the Telangana agitation only aggravating the situation.
While Central rule in AP is ruled out at the moment, sources said the option would have to be explored if Telangana activists refuse to withdraw their stir and the administration remains paralysed. In such an event, the UPA has to look for a "political person" who can steer the administration in a tough situation.
Some experts believe that with 9/11 the prediction about the clash of civilizations came true this decade. Do you think this was the decade of clash between the West and Islam?
I think it's a simplistic way to look at the decade. There are many causes of tension in the world. Religion and civilization are one of the many such causes. In our neighbourhood, the most interesting geopolitical phenomenon is the clash between India and China and the way China is encircling India. In my travels in the past few months, I have noticed the deals the Chinese have been making with India's neighbours. The Chinese presence in all the neighbouring countries is increasing dramatically. India has to stop thinking about Pakistan as its big rival. It's nothing as compared to the potential danger that China can pose. The 9/11 attacks took place during the time when we had an ignorant administration in the US which did its best to make sure that Samuel Huntington's prediction came true. We are in much safer hands now with Obama who has more intelligent attitude towards the Islamic world. I do believe that a clash of civilizations, like any clash, can be engineered. Also, since 9/11, there has been a conflict within Islam — between the orthodox sects and liberal schools...
I don't think this churning began with 9/11. This has been a theological battleground for hundreds of years. In the 9th-century Baghdad, there were all kinds of conflict and debates between the orthodox and the heterodox and between the mystic and the madrassa. The real trouble began with the discovery of oil in the Gulf. Wahabi Islam, which was a tiny fringe sect till a few decades ago, now has a much larger influence because the Wahabis have been able to finance Wahabi-styled madrassas across the Islamic world. The accident of oil being discovered underneath the Wahabi soil has given them power.
In the past 10 years, India has undergone a huge change. How do you see the emergence of New India as compared to the old?
New things have taken place but old India continues too. It's not dying. If I look at City of Djinns, which I wrote in the late 80s, all the things I wrote about — the old calligraphy, the sufis, sadhus, etc — they are still there. But something new has happened too. You have got Gurgaon, techies, IT and new suburbs. India is changing but I don't think India is losing its soul or changing so fast that it's unrecognizable. You go a few kilometres outside Gurgaon and you can see a bullock cart.
But this transition has also led to some new social tensions like the Maoist insurgency. Do you think India is managing these conflicts in a sensible way?
I think the current government has been very sensible. After the Mumbai attack, it reacted with astonishing moderation. I think the Maoist insurgency is a big internal problem. And many of the government policies in the past 15 years, liberalization in particular, have aggravated this problem. Now the Naxalites have moved from a fringe phenomenon to a major force. Simply declaring a war on Naxalites is not the right response. There has to be more intelligent response to analyze why so many people have joined the Naxals. The transition in India is going on at amazing pace but the big problem is that the poor have remained poor. The Naxals are growing because the very poor have been left out of the development equation.
Some experts in the West believe that this decade belonged to India and China. Do you think in the next 10 years the centre of power will shift to Asia?
I have friends who believe that the recession and the economic crisis in the West over the last two years has hugely accelerated that process. The rise of India and China now seems to be a certainty. But it's China rather than India that seems to be reaping the benefits of this shift.
It's also leading to a clash between the soft power of the two countries...
In soft power, India is way ahead. At all levels, Indian culture is dominant. And the Chinese can't compete with that at all. But the hard economic power is with China at the moment. China is turning India's neighbours into its satellites. This is a lesson for India.
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NEW DELHI: The Indian Government issued a terror alert in the cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), and Chennai. This comes after several militants claiming to be the Taliban allegedly sneaked into India to conduct suicide bombings.
NEW DELHI: The International Cricket Council has allowed the Indian cricket board 14 days for submitting an explanation over the dangerous pitch that led to the abandonment of the fifth and the final One-day International between India and Sri Lanka.