
Bangalore: A passport scam has now surfaced in Karnataka. The state Lokayukta has indicted six senior government officers of taking bribes in return for issuing verification on passports. Over 1,000 such verifications were issued over a period of five months.
The state anti-corruption unit in its report alleges that the senior officers, including a DGP-rank police officer and a retired IAS officer took bribes up to Rs 16,000 to verify a single passport. In total, the six officers gave certificates for nearly 1,000 passports over a period of just five months in 2012.
"We have recommended action against these officers under the Prevention of Corruption Act, Indian Passports Act and the Indian Penal Code. Now it is left to the passport officer to lodge a complaint or whether they want to conduct their own enquiry further," said HSN Rao, ADGP, Lokayukta Police, Karnataka.
The list of officers includes IPS officer Susant Mahapatra, DGP (Training), took bribes ranging from Rs 1,000 to Rs 16,000 for each passport. Under the Tatkal scheme, an applicant can get a verification certificate from an IAS/IPS (administrative) cadre officer instead of the regular police verification process. The officer concerned will certify that the applicant does not attract any provisions where the passport authority shall refuse him a passport....
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10:01 AM, May 22, 2013

Guntur: Kerala's KT Neena qualified for World Youth Championships after winning gold in 5000m race with a new meet mark of 25 min 13.95 sec on the third and final day of the 10th National Youth Athletics Championships here. The World Youth Championships will be held in Ukraine in July. Neena's team-mates AM Binsy and S Akshaya completed the other two places on the podium as Kerala pipped overnight leaders...

08:54 PM, May 20, 2013

Twenty-six-year old doctor Ruveda Salam has become the first woman from the Kupwara district in Kashmir to crack the IAS examination. Her name is now added to the small list of youth Valley icons like IAS topper Shah Faesal and cricketer Parvez Rasool. Dr Ruveda Salam joined IBNLive readers for an interaction on how she prepared for the examinations, what difficulties she faced and her message to the valley's youth....

06:48 PM, May 20, 2013

New Delhi: Indian paddlers got off to a good start with Soumyajit Ghosh, Harmeet Desai and Sanil Shetty winning their respective first rounds matches of the men's preliminary qualification event at the World Table Tennis Championships in Paris. Indian women paddlers too had an easy qualification group and they progressed to the preliminary round of the singles event. Mouma Das, K Shamini, Madhurika Patkar and Neha Aggrawal won their respective...

04:16 PM, May 14, 2013

Ahmedabad: Slamming the state government over the 2004 Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case, Gujarat High Court observed that it was apparently shielding the policemen accused in the case. The court made this comment after going through the progress report of the investigation in the case carried out by the CBI and which was submitted, in a sealed cover to the court on Thursday. The bench also questioned the intention of...

06:01 PM, May 11, 2013

New York: Even though photos of your ex on Facebook can be deleted with just a click, the proliferation of social networking sites has made forgetting after a break-up a bigger chore, a new study has found. "People are keeping huge collections of digital possessions," said Steve Whittaker, a psychology professor at UC Santa Cruz who specialises in human-computer interaction. "There has been little exploration of the negative role of...

11:52 AM, May 11, 2013

New Delhi: Achantha Sharath Kamal and Mouma Das suffered contrasting semifinal defeats in their respective singles as India rounded up its Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships campaign without a single gold medal, here on Friday. At least six of the eight semifinals, including doubles, featured host players but none of them could make the summit clash as India bagged nine medals, including two silvers. The most disappointing result for the hosts...

06:01 PM, May 10, 2013

New Delhi: The driver and helper of a South Delhi school were arrested on Thursday for allegedly molesting children on board and making them watch pornographic clips, the police said. Mohammad Shamim and Asgar Ali were arrested in Hauz Khas after a complaint was received that they made school children who travelled in the bus watch pornographic clips on mobile phones, the police said. The mobile phones of the duo...

08:11 AM, May 10, 2013

New Delhi: Soumyajit Ghosh and Mouma Das secured a silver in the mixed doubles at the Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships here Thursday, a day on which India made sure of at least six other medals. India's top player Sharath Kamal assured himself of a medal after edging past old Singapore rival Yang Zi 11-3, 11-7, 9-11, 9-11, 8-11, 11-8, 11-9 for a place in the semi-finals. Losing semifinalists across categories...

08:27 PM, May 09, 2013

Kuala Lumpur: Four-time champion Lin Dan of China will defend his World Championship title in August, courtesy a wildcard given by the the Badminton World Federation (BWF) Thursday. The BWF's Committee of Management (COM) for the World Championships voted unanimously to award the legendary men's singles player a wildcard for the Aug 5-11 event to be held in Guangzhou, his homeland. Exercising its prerogative to nominate a wildcard entry in...

04:25 PM, May 09, 2013

New Delhi: The international trailer of 'Captain Phillips' has been released. Directed by Paul Greengrass, the film stars Tom Hanks and Catherine Keener in the lead roles. The film is scheduled to be released on October 11, 2013. ...

02:28 PM, May 09, 2013

New Delhi: Indian men suffered a 0-3 thrashing at the hands of a much superior Singapore as the hosts settled for a silver medal in the team event at the 19th Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships here on Wednesday. The Indian paddlers displayed flashes of brilliance to create some excitement among the home supporters at the Thyagaraj Stadium here but the difference in class between the two teams proved decisive at...

08:45 PM, May 08, 2013

Turkey's national airline has barred female flight attendants from wearing red lipstick and nail polish, striking a nerve among secular Turks worried the country is becoming more Islamic. Turkish Airlines, Europe's fourth-biggest carrier, said the ban was aimed at keeping crews "artless and well-groomed with makeup in pastel tones", as a natural look improved communication with passengers. "As a consequence of our current cabin uniforms not including red, dark pink,...

12:19 PM, May 08, 2013

California: Intel Corp on Monday unveiled the most extensive overhaul of its Atom mobile processors, with improved performance that the PC chipmaker expects will help it challenge Qualcomm in smartphones and tablets. The new microarchitecture, code-named Silvermont, will be a key building block in upcoming Intel chips for mobile gadgets, microservers and car entertainment systems, Chief Product Officer Dadi Perlmutter told reporters at an event on Monday. "We have not...

10:18 AM, May 07, 2013

New Delhi: Indian paddlers continued to impress as both men's and women's teams assured themselves of at least two bronze medals by progressing to the semi-finals of the 19th Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships, here on Monday. Both teams have common rival in England in their respective semi-finals, to be played on Tuesday. Men paddlers topped their group by winning all the three matches while women finished second behind Singapore. Women...

10:16 PM, May 06, 2013

New Delhi: Indian women paddlers put up a brave fight before going down 1-3 to Singapore in a league match of the second stage at the 19th Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships, here on Monday. However, India made a positive start to their campaign overwhelming Scotland 3-0 in the opening match of the day. The eves will now take on Wales to seal a spot in the last four round. Against...

07:20 PM, May 06, 2013

New Delhi: Four people were arrested for using 57 fake credit cards to dupe a major bank of over Rs 40 lakh to support their lavish lifestyles, police said on Thursday. Mayank Jain, 28, Roshan Dass, 27, Kuldeep Srivastava, 23 and Ashok Ganwani,35 got the cards issued from Citibank on the basis of fake salary slips and identity cards of Air India. According to police, fathers of Jain and Das...

05:57 AM, May 03, 2013

Munich: Top-seeded Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia defeated Grega Zemlja of Slovenia 6-4, 6-2 to reach the quarter-finals of the BMW Open on Thursday. Third-seeded Tommy Haas overcame Ernests Gulbis 6-4, 6-7 (3), 6-2 to set up a quarterfinal with Florian Mayer. The sixth-seeded Mayer beat Marinko Matosevic 2-6, 6-4, 6-2. The 35-year-old Haas, a finalist in 2000, is bidding to win the title for the first time in his 10th...

11:11 PM, May 02, 2013

Ahmedabad: A Special CBI Court on Thursday ordered the issuance of arrest warrant against top Gujarat police officer PP Pande, an accused in the 2004 alleged fake encounter of Mumbai teenager Ishrat Jahan and three others. The 1980-batch IPS officer of Gujarat cadre is currently Additional DGP (Crime) and he was Ahmedabad's Joint Commissioner of Police at the time of the encounter. Judge Gita Gopi, while granting the prayer of...

06:34 PM, May 02, 2013

Islamabad: Pakistani squash players have vowed to win the title at the 17th Asian Championships to be held here next month. Pakistan's former national champion Farhan Mahboob on Wednesday said all the players were going through tough training sessions, Xinhua reports. "We have never gone through such hard training in our life before," said Mahboob during a practice session at the Mashaf Squash Complex here. "The camp helped me a...

02:44 PM, Apr 25, 2013