Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir State Accountability Commission (SAC) has ordered a regular enquiry into the alleged role of Deputy Chief Minister Tara Chand in the illegal appointments in urban local bodies. A Division bench of the Commission, comprising chairman Justice (retd) YP Nargotra and Justice (retd) Hakim Imtiyaz Hussain, on Monday directed for a regular enquiry into the allegations of misuse of official position by Chand in the illegal recruitments carried out during his tenure as the Urban Development Minister.
Since the commission does not have any investigating officials at present, the Bench requested Advocate General of the state MI Qadri to assist the SAC in the enquiry. The commission also issued a notice to the deputy chief minister with the direction to respond to allegations within six weeks.
The case has been listed for hearing on July 8. Thousands of illegal appointments in urban local bodies across the state came to the fore in 2012. The appointment letters were issued by executive officers or presidents of the municipal committees of various areas in the state in violation of the rules.
A complaint was filed before the SAC by one Saaqib Mushtaq who alleged that Chand had "misused his official position and by means of corruption, favouritism and nepotism and appointed scores of people in public employment." The Bench, in its order, observed that Chand had not denied the charges in statement but had claimed to have taken cognisance of the illegal appointments and ordered two inquiries....
12:58 PM, May 14, 2013
NASA chief Charles Bolden has advice on how to handle a large asteroid headed toward New York City: Pray. That's about all the United States - or anyone for that matter - could do at this point about unknown asteroids and meteors that may be on a collision course with Earth, Bolden told lawmakers at a US House of Representatives Science Committee hearing on Tuesday. ...
10:36 PM, Mar 20, 2013
In what is being seen as a "semi-final" before Assembly elections due in May, polls to urban local bodies in BJP-ruled Karnataka will be held on Thursday. ...
07:01 AM, Mar 07, 2013
Suspecting foul play, relatives of those killed while allegedly making bombs in the proposed Posco steel plant area of Jagatsinghpur district in Odisha on Monday refused to take the three bodies. ...
05:40 PM, Mar 04, 2013
In a barbaric and daring new tactic employed by the Naxals in Jharkhand, the bodies of some CRPF personnel who had been killed in an encounter with the rebels were found to be implanted with IEDs. The startling discovery was made on Thursday when doctors conducting the autopsy of CRPF troopers at a government hospital in Ranchi found a 1.5 kg unexploded bomb stitched inside the abdomen of one of...
06:47 PM, Jan 10, 2013
Chennai: Bodies of all five sailors, who went missing after an oil tanker ran aground off the city beach hours before cyclone 'Nilam' made landfall on November 1, have been recovered. While four bodies were recovered on Friday, one more was found washed ashore near Minjur coastal area early on Saturday morning, police said. The five went missing after their lifeboat capsized in choppy waters while 16 were rescued by...
12:02 PM, Nov 03, 2012
I love The Tudor Era in British History. There is so much that it offers in terms of plots, narratives and what actually took place. Henry VIII has always been a personality that has been elusive in history. Writers and biographers have tried hard to document everything about him and his six wives, and most of it has been brilliant stuff. To add to this Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel...
12:37 PM, Oct 19, 2012
London: British writer Hilary Mantel won the prestigious Booker literary prize for a second time Tuesday with her blood-soaked Tudor saga 'Bring Up the Bodies,' which the head of the judging panel said had "rewritten the book" on historical fiction. Mantel, who took the 50,000 pound ($82,000) award in 2009 for 'Wolf Hall,' is the first British author, and the first woman, to achieve a Booker double. 'Bring Up the...
03:07 AM, Oct 17, 2012
London: Judges are choosing the winner of Britain's most prestigious literary trophy from a shortlist that includes novels set in the court of King Henry VIII and the opium dens of Mumbai. Hilary Mantel is favored to win the 50,000 pound ($82,000) Booker Prize with "Bring Up the Bodies," a tale of Tudor treachery which follows the fates of the king's right-hand man, Thomas Cromwell, and the monarch's second wife,...
04:56 PM, Oct 16, 2012
New Delhi: The Man Booker Prize winner for 2012 will be announced today, as some are calling it "the book world's equivalent of Oscars night". India's Jeet Thayil is also in the running for his debut book Narcopolis, a prize worth 50,000 pounds. Indian writer Jeet Thayil's first novel 'Narcopolis', described as a compelling tale of Mumbai's hazy world of opium addiction, has made it to the six-author shortlist for...
11:14 AM, Oct 16, 2012
London: Indian writer Jeet Thayil's first novel 'Narcopolis', described as a compelling tale of Mumbai's hazy world of opium addiction, has made it to the six-author shortlist for the Man Booker Prize 2012 announced today. Apart from 53-year-old Kerala-born Thayil, authors on the shortlist are Deborah Levy, Hilary Mantel, Alison Moore, Will Self and Tan Twan Eng. The winner will be announced on October 16 at Londons Guildhall during a...
05:37 PM, Sep 11, 2012
Kolkata: Criticising civic bodies run by both her Trinamool Congress as also the opposition Left Front for negligence in combating dengue, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday used a central team report to pull up private hospitals for conducting "haphazard" blood tests. Quoting the report of a visiting team of the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP), Banerjee said: "They have mentioned that there is haphazard use...
01:34 AM, Sep 08, 2012
Nellore: After an agonising wait for four days, the families of three persons, who perished in the fire on the Tamil Nadu Express, received the mortal remains of their loved ones at last on Thursday when the DNA tests confirmed the identification of the deceased. Since the tragic mishap occurred on Monday, the bodies of 24 of the 32 passengers who died have been identified and handed over to their...
12:36 PM, Aug 03, 2012
Rajahmundry: Some families which lost their family members in Gowthami Express fire mishap could not perform their final rites as they are yet to receive the remains of the deceased even after four years. The disaster took place four years ago, on July 31, at K Sumadram in Warangal district. The railways failed to handover the remains of the deceased to their family members. The remains of Dr B Ravi...
01:14 PM, Aug 02, 2012
Bangalore: The final destination of life is the time when people known and unknown show immense respect to the dead. Forgetting every wrong done, the relatives and those harmfully effected by the dead forgive. But there are many dead who do not have this privilege. They are dead bodies without any identity. They, are what the US call John or Jane Doe. In India, the known name given to such...
01:27 PM, Jul 31, 2012
Chennai: Each day last year, around 12 unidentified dead bodies piled up in government-run morgues around the states. At least, thats what the statistics compiled by the National Crime Records Bureaus Crimes in India would have us believe. Out of the 37,193 unidentified dead bodies that were recovered across the country, Tamil Nadus share was 4,479. If the number in itself is alarming, then its rise when compared to the...
12:54 PM, Jul 02, 2012
HYDERABAD: The bodies of two persons from the city, who died in the Nepal plane crash, were brought here on Wednesday night. The deceased are: 67-yearold G Venkatramana, a retired AG Office employee from Padmanabha Nagar in Mehdipatnam, and 32-year-old Mumbai ISKCON temple priest Krishna Chaitanya from Indraprastha Colony near Diamond Point in Secunderabad.Venkatramanas nephew Phani accompanied the bodies.A group of 20 pilgrims from the city, including Venkatramana, his wife...
11:46 AM, May 17, 2012
Monterrey (Mexico): Forty-nine bodies with their heads, hands and feet hacked off were found Sunday dumped on a northern Mexico highway leading to the Texas border in what appeared to be the latest carnage in an escalating war between Mexico's two dominant drug cartels. Local and federal authorities discovered the bodies before dawn scattered in a pool of blood at the entrance to the town of San Juan, on a...
09:29 AM, May 14, 2012
Chennai: One of the three police special teams investigating the case of the headless body found in a trunk on a train, will soon leave for New Delhi to gather reports and video footage of a similar case reported there. Another team will soon be travelling to places in other states where the train had travelled. Railway police said that out of the three police teams formed, one would soon...
10:06 AM, Mar 20, 2012
