BJP accuses govt. of trying to shield Nirbhaya convicts

20/01/2020, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT,NEW DELHI

The BJP on Sunday attacked the AAP government for allegedly delaying justice in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case and trying to shield the four convicts.

At a press conference at the BJP headquarters here, the national president of the party’s women’s wing and Rajya Sabha MP Saroj Pandey said lawyer Indira Jaising had appealed to the victim’s mother to forgive the convicts, who are on death row.

Ms. Pandey said Ms. Jaising had been “connected with AAP” and should have “thought not once but a 1,000 times before making such a statement”.

Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari said the government’s responsibility was to inform the convicts of their punishment when it was handed out by the court in July 2017. He said the government only informed the convicts after two years, delaying the process of them filing mercy petitions.

“Deputy CM [Manish Sisodia] said they don’t have the police under them so they could not do it. But the prison department is with the State government, in Delhi also. It has nothing to do with the police,” he said.

Delhi BJP vice-president Shazia Ilmi, who had been a member of AAP before joining the BJP in 2015, said Ms. Jaising had been “close to AAP” and represented the government in court. She asked how the government was able to amend the jail manual two years ago if it did not have jurisdiction over prisons. Mr. Sisodia had said on January 16: “The BJP-led government and the Home Ministry directs and controls the police and is responsible for law and order in Delhi and for the administration of Tihar Jail. The D-G of Tihar reports to you and then you blame us for the delay?” He added: “Bring the Delhi Police under our jurisdiction for two days, we will ensure execution of Nirbhaya’s culprits.”

AI reinstates pilot found guilty of harassment

Airline said it had imposed a penalty

20/01/2020, PRESS TRUST OF INDIA,NEW DELHI

A senior Air India pilot who was suspended in May last year after being accused of sexual harassment by a woman colleague and was found guilty by an internal committee of the airline has been reinstated recently, senior officials said.

The committee had imposed a “major penalty” on Captain Sachin Gupta, who has now appealed to a higher authority against the punishment, they said.

According P.S. Negi, Regional Director (Northern Region), Air India, “The Internal Complaints Committee [ICC] of Air India conducted the inquiry proceedings and found Captain Sachin Gupta guilty of the charges of misconduct.”

The immediate competent disciplinary authority had imposed a “major penalty” as per the company’s service regulation that is applicable to Captain Sachin Gupta, he said. “Captain Sachin Gupta has now appealed to the next higher authority/CMD [Chairman and Managing Director] against the punishment awarded,” he added.

Another senior Air India official, on the condition of anonymity, said that he had been “reinstated as an instructor”.

PF benefits should extend to contractual employees: SC

Judgment came on a petition filed by a govt. company

20/01/2020, LEGAL CORRESPONDENT,NEW DELHI

The benefits of the provident fund should be extended to contractual employees, the Supreme Court has held in a recent judgment.

A Bench of Justices U.U. Lalit and Indu Malhotra has held that employees who draw wages or salaries directly or indirectly from a company are entitled to provident fund benefits under the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) Act.

The judgment came on the basis of a petition filed by M/s Pawan Hans Limited, a government company which provides helicopter support services to the oil sector for its offshore exploration operations, services in remote and hilly areas, and charter services for the promotion of tourism.

Company versus union

The company had filed the petition against its employees’ union, the Aviation Karmachari Sanghatana, which sought uniformity in service conditions among employees.

Of a total workforce of 840 employees, the company had engaged 570 employees on regular basis, while 270 employees were engaged on “contractual” basis.

The company implemented the PF Trust Regulations only with respect to the regular employees, even though the term “employee” had been defined to include “any person” employed “directly or indirectly” under the PF Trust Regulations.

The contractual employees have been seeking parity with the regular employees, who are covered under the Pawan Hans Employees Provident Fund Trust Regulations.

Book fair gets over 1 lakh visitors on Sunday

Works translated into Tamil have been a huge draw at the event this year, says publisher

20/01/2020, STAFF REPORTER,CHENNAI

For all ages: Visitors throng the 43rd Book Fair held at Nandanam on Sunday. B. Velankanni Raj

For over 1 lakh people, all roads led to the 43rd Chennai Book Fair at the YMCA grounds in Nandanam on Sunday.

Organised by the Booksellers and Publishers Association of South India (BAPASI), the fair saw large turnouts through the weekend. The organisers said several families with children visited the fair as the long break on account of Pongal was ending.

S. Neelagandan, who was at the fair with his family, said that most of them came to buy books for children.

“Not just story books in Tamil in English, but we’ve also been interested in comics, activity and puzzle books,” he said.

Books translated into Tamil have been a huge draw at the fair this year.

“We are selling volumes of Sherlock Holmes translated into Tamil as well as new books such as Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari in Tamil, which many readers have been interested in,” said Vijay Prakash from Tamil Annai Publishers.

In a new addition this year, the book fair also hosted a short film festival, which drew to a close on Sunday evening. “Nearly 55 short films and 2 documentary films were screened through the last 10 days. Aspiring film makers were asked to submit short films with a social message and several visitors to the fair joined us every evening for the screenings,” said Arun Prakash, who had organised the festival.

R.S. Shanmugam, President, BAPASI, said that compared to the previous year they had seen nearly a 20% increase in footfall.

“In total, we have had over 10 lakh people visit the fair since it began. The exhibition on Keeladi in particular has been very well received. It was an informative experience that we decided to give the visitors this year,” he added.

On Monday, the book fair will be open from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Learn how to spot fake news with TOI

TIMES NEWS NETWORK  20.01.2020

Being educated is no guarantee against falling prey to fake news. Are you really sure those apparently sound bits of medical advice you received as forwards would pass muster with your doctor? Yet, we do often forward these in the belief that we are doing a good deed to our friends and relatives.

Clearly where you get your news from matters, since you can’t possibly be expected to yourself verify and authenticate every bit of ‘news’ you receive. This is where the print medium has an edge over other media. A newspaper once printed is for posterity, lakhs of its copies available to the public for as long as they wish to preserve it. That means we can’t – unlike other media – just erase our mistakes and pretend they never happened. So we check every bit of news we put in the paper, because credibility is the currency we deal in.

The Times Group and Dainik Bhaskar Group have launched Kaun Banega, Kaun Banayega, to ensure you don’t fall prey to the fake news malaise.

Commenting on the initiative, Sivakumar Sundaram, President – Revenue, BCCL, said, “Fake news is a modernday malaise brought on by social media. It ranges from the silly to grave ‘forwards’ having repercussions that affect the social, economic and cultural fabric of nations. As gatekeepers of the truth and as a leading newspaper company, The Times of India takes on the responsibility of educating people on the need to follow real news and not forwards. This is being done in an engaging and humorous manner through a series of films titled, Kaun Banega, Kaun Banayega. We are happy to partner with the Dainik Bhaskar Group to jointly drive this initiative.”

Girish Agarwal, Promoter-Director, Dainik Bhaskar Group, said , “Sharing a common responsibility, two of the largest media houses in the country have decided to come together to spread awareness on the menace of fake news. We will continue to work together on this issue and others of citizen and national importance.”


Scan this QR code to watch Kaun Banega Kaun Banayega videos

Masjid in Kerala sanctifies a mangalasutra

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Alappuzha:20.01.2020

The over 100-year-old Cheravally Jamaat Masjid in Kayamkulam on Sunday hosted a Hindu wedding on its premises, complete with a vegetarian feast — including two payasam — for 4,000 people. People cutting across religions attended the event, while the jamaat committee met all its expenses.

Sarath Sasi of Kappil Kizhakku, Kayamkulam, and Anju Ashok Kumar tied the knot on the mosque premises, with a Hindu priest leading the rituals. The couple later entered the mosque and sought the blessings of chief imam Riyasudeen Faizy.

Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the wedding was an example of unity from Kerala. “Congratulations to the newlyweds, families, mosque authorities and people of Cheravally,” he said in a tweet.

“The committee also gave Anju 10 sovereign gold and ₹2 lakh as wedding gift, besides home equipment like TV and fridge,” said Nujumudeen Alummoottil, secretary of Cheravally Muslim Jamaat Committee.

Nujumudeen said Anju is also the first woman to enter the mosque. “All religions teach people to love and care for others. Those lessons led to this wedding,” he said.

He had received an application from Bindu, wife of late Ashok Kumar, seeking help to conduct the wedding of her 24-year-old daughter Anju in October last. “When I shared the application with committee members, all of them came forward to arrange facilities for the wedding. Bindu is staying in a rented house with her three children. We decided to conduct the wedding as per Hindu rituals on the mosque premises,” he said.

Full report on www.toi.in

HINDU WEDDING IN MOSQUE: Sarath and Anju tie the knot on the premises of the Cheravally Jamaat Masjid in Kayamkulam on Sunday

WhatsApp faces outage in India, Twitter abuzz

New Delhi:20.01.2020

WhatsApp users in several parts of the world, including in India, on Sunday took to Twitter to report several issues with the mobile messaging platform.

Millions of users were unable to share videos, photos and GIFs, audio and stickers and several of those said they were even unable to view WhatsApp status feature.

According to Downdetetector.com, the problem started in the evening around 4pm and alive outage map showed users in India, Europe, Brazil and in Southeast Asia were affected by the outage.

“WhatsApp is restoring the service. The server issue should be fixed now,” said WABetainfo-.com, a fan website that tracks WhatsApp. “2 min silence for the peoples who talked about the updates on last post,” tweeted one user. “Stickers can be sent now, the service should be restored completely soon,” tweeted another.

WhatsApp was yet to notify users about how the problem began. People rushed to Twitter to report the issue. “Me waiting for my WhatsApp status update to actually upload. #whatsappdown,” tweeted a user.

Another joined: “RIP WhatsApp. Impossible mandate file multimedia.”

#whatsappdown trended on twitter with 8,246 Tweets as a large number of reports from users stated that WhatsApp is currently down or not working. IANS