1. 25 CRPF Men Killed by Maoists in Sukma
In the biggest Maoist attack on CRPF personnel in the region in the last seven years, 25 jawans were killed and six others injured in an ambush in the Burkapal area of Sukma in Chhattisgarh on Monday afternoon, officials said. Senior police officers said the ambush took place after personnel from the 74th battalion of CRPF had emerged from their camp to secure an under-construction road in a Maoist stronghold in south Sukma.
The attack comes a little over a month after 13 CRPF jawans were killed in a similar ambush on a road opening party on the Injeram Bhejji road, around 60 km from Monday’s ambush spot. In 2010, 76 CRPF personnel were killed in Sukma in a Maoist attack.
Senior police officers told The Indian Express that “a massive number” of Maoists ambushed the road-opening party a kilometre away from the Burkapal CRPF camp.
(Source: The Indian Express)
2. Students Clash with Cops in Srinagar, Two Dozen Injured
Around two dozen people were injured as protesting students clashed with police in various parts of Srinagar on Monday as colleges in the Valley opened after a five-day shutdown. In the morning, students from SP College and SP Higher Secondary Institute tried to take out a march on Maulana Azad Road, one of the two main arteries of Srinagar city. The police tried to push the students back inside the campus, triggering clashes. Water cannons and tear smoke shells were used to disperse the students.
The clashes intensified as people from other parts of the city joined the protesting students. The police resorted to tear smoke shells, chilly and PAVA shells to disperse them.
Students as well as policemen were injured in the clashes, which lasted throughout the day at Lal Chowk and surroundings areas. Three photojournalists suffered minor injuries. Shopkeepers downed shutters and traffic was temporarily suspended in some areas.
(Source: The Indian Express)
3. Mehbooba's Vajpayee Nudge to Modi
Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti on Monday appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to pick up from where Atal Bihari Vajpayee had left off, advocating talks with all sections in Kashmir and betraying unease with any confrontational attitude but taking care not to antagonise the Centre.
The chief minister's appeal came on a day students in Kashmir unleashed fresh waves of protests and girls were increasingly seen at the forefront of stone-pelting phalanxes – a nightmarish scenario for security forces if the trend strikes root.
"Talks are the only option. How long can you have a confrontation?" Mehbooba told reporters after a 20-minute meeting with the Prime Minister at his residence in New Delhi.
(Source: The Telegraph)
4. ‘Dhinakaran Admits to Knowing Sukesh’
The Delhi Police on Monday said that after days of denial, both public and during questioning by the police, AIADMK (Amma) faction leader TTV Dhinakaran had admitted that he knew alleged middleman Sukesh Chandrasekar.
As Mr Dhinakaran’s questioning entered the third day, he purportedly made the admission that he had, in fact, met Sukesh once. In that meeting, said an officer, Sukesh allegedly posed as a High Court judge.
“We have been interrogating Mr Dhinakaran since 22 April when he arrived here. In the past couple of days, we confronted the duo; they had contradictory versions about knowing each other. While Sukesh repeatedly claimed that he had met and spoken to Mr Dhinakaran several times before he was arrested, Mr Dhinakaran had flatly refuted this, claiming he was a complete stranger,” said the officer.
(Source: The Hindu)
5. Tough Question? Learn to Cope
Complaints from students about tough or out-of-syllabus questions in their Class XII board papers will not fetch them any extra marks, beginning from this year's exams.
All the country's 30-odd national and state school boards today decided to junk the decades-old practice many of them followed of artificially inflating scores through what they called "moderation".
At the meeting, organised by the human resource development ministry, the boards also agreed to adopt the science and mathematics curricula and textbooks of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT).
Such uniformity, board officials and school principals said, would prepare students better countrywide for national-level competitive exams.
(Source: The Telegraph)
6. Cows to Get Unique Identification Numbers, Tags with Details of Horn, Tail: Centre’s Proposal to SC
The central government will soon approve tamper-proof identity tags for all cattle in the country that will document a range of data, including a unique number and the type of their horn and tail, solicitor general Ranjit Kumar told the Supreme Court on Monday.
A government-appointed panel headed by a joint secretary of the Union home ministry came up with the idea as part of efforts to prevent illegal transportation of cattle and livestock to Bangladesh.
The panel’s report was submitted on the top court on Monday, and Kumar told the bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar that the government backed the suggestions.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
7. Army Canteens Withdraw Patanjali Amla Juice; Company Blames Uttarakhand Dept
The Canteen Stores Department (CSD), the retailing entity selling consumer goods to the armed forces, has suspended the sale of a batch of Patanjali Ayurveda’s amla juice after it “failed” to clear a laboratory test.
The Haridwar-based ayurveda firm, promoted by yoga guru Ramdev, however, blamed an Uttarakhand government department for the fiasco.
Defence ministry sources said a show cause notice has been served on the company after the juice “failed” the test carried out at West Bengal Public Health Laboratory in Kolkata.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
8.Nearly 70% of Snag-Prone Neo Engines with Indian Carriers Changed
As many as 73 percent of the snag-prone Pratt & Whitney (PW) engines powering the 26 Airbus A-320 new engine option (Neo) currently with Indian carriers have been replaced by the US aerospace company.
Top aviation sources say PW has changed 38 engines in India so far on planes of IndiGo and GoAir – which use the combination of A-320 Neo and PW engines – due to a spate of technical snags in the equipment since last year.
IndiGo and GoAir currently have 21 and five A-320 Neos, respectively. IndiGo – Airbus' biggest customer of the A-320 Neo with 430 of these planes on order – and GoAir did not comment on the massive engine replacement by PW.
(Source: Times of India)
9. SC Draws Line on Police Shift
The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that a state's police chief cannot be transferred just like that as it directed the Kerala government to reinstate an IPS officer who was shunted out a week after the state's new rulers assumed charge last year.
The court also referred to an earlier judgment that had laid down that a director-general rank officer, who heads a state's police machinery, should have a secure two-year term in office, while making it clear that such officers couldn't be used as a "pawn in a game".
(Source: The Telegraph)
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