Indian woman jailed for reckless driving, killing baby in Australia

Melbourne, September 6

A 32-year-old Indian woman in Australia has been sentenced to over two years in jail after a court found her guilty of "wanton disregard of the law" which led to a car crash with a pregnant woman whose baby died.

Dimple Grace Thomas, a former nurse and personal carer, will have to serve 15 months before she is eligible for parole and also faces deportation to India after her release, Herald Sun reported.

The court heard that Thomas should have turned left onto South Gippsland Highway when leaving a car park after a gym workout, but instead drove across three lanes in an attempt to enter a gap in the central median strip and turn right,the report said.

She collided with the driven by a 28 weeks pregnant woman Ashlea Allen on the highway at about 60kmh last August.

Allen suffered severe abdominal pain and underwent an emergency caesarean in hospital but her daughter, Melarniah, died two days later.

Thomas's lawyer described her as an inexperienced and nervous driver and told the court she was confused about the intersection and had thought a car at the median strip was making space for her to turn right.

The Judge James Parrish found the design of the intersection was "unambiguous" and made it clear that cars leaving the car park had to turn left.

The court heard that Thomas had been at the intersection many times previously and had always obeyed the law and turned left but last year's attempt would have meant a quicker trip home.

"I'm satisfied beyond reasonable doubt you were acting in wanton disregard to the law," he said, adding "The consequences of your driving have caused the death of a young baby girl. Such offending is serious."

Thomas wrote letters to Allen but prosecutors submitted they were sent in an attempt to minimise her culpability rather than a sign of remorse.

Parrish accepted there were signs of remorse, and that her physical and mental wellbeing had deteriorated since the crash. —PTI

Post note ban, 21,000 people disclosed Rs 4,900 cr black money under PMGKY

The scheme was launched in Dec last year by the govt to enable people with black money to come clean

Press Trust of India | New Delhi Last Updated at September 8, 2017 01:49 IST





Photo: Shutterstock


Black money worth Rs 4,900 crore was disclosed by 21,000 people under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojna (PMGKY), the stash money declaration window announced by the government post demonetisation, an official said on Thursday.

The Income Tax Department, a top government official told PTI, has collected a tax of Rs 2,451 crore till now from these declarations.

"21,000 people disclosed Rs 4,900 crore of black money under the PMGKY scheme that closed on March 31 this year. These are now the final figures," the official said, adding that the I-T department is now following up the legal processes with the declarants in few cases.

The scheme was launched in December last year by the government to enable people with black money to come clean by paying tax and penalty of 50 per cent. It closed on March 31 this year.

The scheme was announced after Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared the demonetisation of two high-value currency notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 on November 8 last year.

Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia, after the closure of the PMGKY window, had said that the response to the scheme has "not been so good."

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said that the PMGKY was preceded by similar schemes and hence the response to it by the public should not be seen in isolation.

"Keep in mind that PMGKY in that financial year was not an isolated scheme. You first had the IDS, then you had people depositing cash in banking system knowing it would incur a tax liability and PMGKY was over and above that.

"When you look at the total amount of disclosures made, you have to look at all three of them collectively," the minister had said.

The government had also termed the PMGKY as the one last window for black money holders to come clean by paying tax and penalty on their undisclosed illicit wealth.

The scheme provided for payment of 49.9 per cent tax, surcharge and penalty.

Also, a mandatory deposit of 25 per cent of the black money was to be made in a zero-interest bearing account for four years.

The PMGKY was preceded by the Income Declaration Scheme (IDS), between June 1, 2016-September 30, 2016, where 71,726 declarations disclosing undisclosed income of Rs 67,382 crore were made by black money holders.

The government has collected over Rs 12,700 crore tax under the IDS till now.

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Blue Whale: Bombay HC asks how government can check if children are playing online game

The petition also seeks directions for scrutiny of all online games available in India by the Cyber Cell, Maharashtra, to verify if they are lethal and take time-bound action to stop the availability of games that are found to be life threatening.

By: Express News Service | Mumbai | Published:September 8, 2017 2:01 am

Questioning if parents could not keep a check on whether their children were playing the Blue Whale game, which has led to several suspected suicides across the country, the Bombay High Court Thursday asked how the government could be expected to do so. The court was hearing a Public Interest Litigation filed by an NGO, Citizen Circle for Social Welfare and Education, seeking directions to the state government and the state police to stop online availability and circulation of the “lethal online game the Blue Whale”.

The court asked if the Union of India had issued any direction in the matter and was informed that it had asked social media platforms and search engines to immediately remove links of the game. The matter has been kept for hearing next week.

The petition also seeks directions for scrutiny of all online games available in India by the Cyber Cell, Maharashtra, to verify if they are lethal and take time-bound action to stop the availability of games that are found to be life threatening.

It has also sought for a commission to be set up for assisting the court in the matter besides setting up a 24×7 helpline.

Abu Salem gets life in jail, two sentenced to death in 1993 Mumbai blasts case

Tahir Merchant and Firoz Khan were sentenced to death, while Karimullah Khan got life imprisonment and Riyaz Khan was handed a 10-year jail term.

MUMBAI Updated: Sep 08, 2017 00:38 IST

Presley Thomas

Hindustan Times, Mumbai

Abu Salem, who was convicted by a special TADA court in 1993 Mumbai blasts case, being produced in court.(PTI File Photo)

A court on Thursday sentenced two men to death and two more, including gangster Abu Salem, to life in jail for the 1993 Mumbai serial bombings that killed 257 people.

A fifth convict, Riyaz Siddiqui, was given 10 years in prison.

The verdict came 24 years after the dozen blasts in India’s financial capital and nearly 80 days after they were found guilty by the Special Tada Court.

The 50-year-old Salem was spared the gallows because of an extradition treaty with Portugal, where he was hiding before being brought to India.

Salem and his former actress-girlfriend Monica Bedi were arrested by Interpol in Lisbon in 2002 and were handed to Indian agencies in November 2005.

An important clause in the Indo-Portuguese treaty for the fugitive gangster’s extradition was an assurance by New Delhi that he would not be sentenced to death.

“The extradition treaty says the maximum sentence permissible to him is 25 years, since life imprisonment and death penalty are banned in Portugal,” special public prosecutor Deepak Salve said.

“The government will take a decision … whether to commute the life sentence to 25 years.”

Co-convicts Firoz Khan and Tahir Merchant were free from such constraints. Special TADA court Judge GA Sanap sentenced them to death for the dozen explosions that wounded 713 people and destroyed property worth ₹27 crore.

Karimullah Khan, a close aide of India’s most wanted man Dawood Ibrahim, was awarded life imprisonment.

Dawood had ordered the attacks to avenge the demolition of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya by a Hindu mob a year before, which triggered large-scale religious riots.

The court in June convicted six people, including fellow mastermind Mustafa Dossa and Salem.

Dossa died of a heart attack in Mumbai’s JJ Hospital a few days after his conviction.

The men were arrested between 2003 and 2010. Another suspect, Abdul Qayoom Karim Shaikh, was acquitted for lack of evidence.

The accused gathered to “take revenge against the government of India and against members of the Hindu community” after the riots in 1992, the court said.

The court said Salem was one of the conspirators and was close to Anees Ibrahim Kaskar, Dawood’s brother, and Dossa. He brought arms and ammunition to Mumbai.

The attacks also embroiled Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt, who served time for buying weapons from gangsters accused of orchestrating the bombings before walking free last year.

Salem had delivered three AK-56 rifles, ammunition and hand grenades to the actor.

On a quiet afternoon of March 12, 1993, the coastal megapolis was shattered by a 12 coordinated blasts in quick succession. The prime targets included the Air India building, Bombay Stock Exchange, Zaveri Bazar, and five-star hotels SeaRock and Juhu Centaur.

Legal proceedings against those accused of being involved in the bombings resulted in more than 100 convictions, most of which are still winding their way through the legal system because of appeals and commutations of sentences.

One suspect in the case, Yakub Memon, was hanged in 2015.

The court held that Merchant was among the conspirators. He worked with Tiger Memon, another fugitive conspirator, participated in several meetings in Dubai.

“The role of Tahir in the conspiracy is prominent. He is one of the initiators of the conspiracy,” the court said in its ruling on June 16.

The court had rejected Firoz Khan’s defence of mistaken identity. He claimed that he was not Khan but Hamza.

The prosecution proved that he was a trusted member of the Dossa gang, and participated in all the “landings” of weapons by Dossa brothers in Raigad district, the court held.

(with agency inputs)

Fill up 2,500 asst civil surgeon posts: HC

Sep 7, 2017, 01:07 IST

Madurai: The Madurai bench of Madras high court on Wednesday lifted its earlier stay on the Medical Services Recruitment Board's move to fill 2,500 vacancies of assistant civil surgeons in the state and directed it to make the appointments.

Justice T Raja who had granted the stay on a petition filed by A Sagaya Panimalar from Virudunagar said "Stay is vacated and accordingly the respondents are directed to make appointments from the reserve list of qualified candidates, more particularly to meet the urgent need of doctors to face the spread of dengue."

The petitioner had said that the MSRB without following procedure of issuing advertisement and conducting examination commenced the recruitment drive to fill up 2,500 posts of assistant civil surgeon. It had started certificate verification based on the notification issued on November 10, 2016 to fill up 1,223 vacancies including 144 backlog vacancies for the physically challenged people. The MSRB was not supposed to hold recruitment drive, the petitioner said.

She said she was unable to apply for the post on the earlier occasion since, as per the condition given in the 2016 November notification of MSRB, a candidate had to get his/her name registered with the Tamil Nadu Medical Council before the issuance of the notification. Following this, the petitioner was eagerly waiting for fresh notification for filling assistant civil surgeon post. Like her, there were many people to apply for the post of assistant civil surgeon. Hence, she prayed to restrain MSRB from taking further steps to fill the vacancies and direct it to make recruitment following due procedure.