1. Ryan School Murder: Juvenile Accused of Killing Pradhyumn Thakur to Be Tried as Adult
The 16-year-old juvenile accused in the Ryan school murder case will be tried as an adult, the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) ruled on Wednesday. The Class 11 student of Ryan International School, Bhondsi, is accused of slitting the throat of 7-year-old Class 2 student Pradhyumn Thakur in the school toilet on 8 September.
Delivering the verdict for the board, principal magistrate Davender Singh said the offence allegedly committed by the accused was “heinous”.
Transferring the case to the special children’s court, Gurgaon, the board held that the circumstances show the teenager was “mature enough” to understand the consequences of his alleged act and to think of ways to escape from lawful punishment.
While the boy’s family expressed disappointment over the order, the victim’s family and their counsel Sushil Tekriwal said they were satisfied, adding they were fighting to set a precedent so that murders by children would stop.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
2. Pakistan Grants Visas to Kulbhushan Jadhav's Mother and Wife
Pakistan on Wednesday granted visas to jailed Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav's mother and wife, the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said.
The visas were granted by the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi for the pair to visit Islamabad.
The neighbouring country had on Saturday announced that it had received the visa applications and was processing them.
“Visa applications of mother and wife of Commander Jadhav received for their visit on humanitarian grounds. Being processed,” Dr Mohammad Faisal, the ministry’s spokesperson, had tweeted.
Earlier this month, Pakistan had given Jadhav's mother and wife permission to meet him on 25 December, in the presence of an Indian high commission official.
(Source: The Times of India)
3. 2G Scam Case Verdict Likely Today: Here's What It Is All About
A special court in Delhi will on Thursday likely pronounce the verdict in the 2G spectrum allocation case, nearly seven years after the first arrest was made by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in 2011.
The 2G spectrum case is not only important due to the Rs 1,76,000 crore notional loss it caused to the public exchequer but also for its high-profile accused, including a former cabinet minister, bureaucrats, lawmakers and businessmen.
The 2G spectrum case is basically a combination of three cases – two registered by the CBI and one by the Enforcement Directorate.
The first case concerns prosecution launched by the CBI against former Union telecom minister A Raja and others for criminal conspiracy and misuse of official position by public servants.
The second CBI case is the Essar-Loop case against Essar and its promoters.
The third is a Rs 200 crore prevention of money laundering case registered by the ED against Raja and other individuals and companies.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
4. Vyapam Scam CBI Chargesheet: General, SC/ST Students Had to Pay Different Rates
The CBI chargesheet on the Vyapam scam has said that three officials of the examination board in Madhya Pradesh in coordination with three racketeers helped hundreds of students cheat their way through competitive medical college exams between 2009 and 2012.
As part of the racket, which was busted during the PMT in 2013, general, OBC, SC and ST students were charged differently, the CBI chargesheet said.
While the candidates belonging to general and OBC categories shelled out Rs 20 lakh for a seat, their SC and ST counterparts paid Rs 12 lakh and Rs 6 lakh, respectively.
The racketeers got Rs 50,000 from students for every roll number altered by Vyapam officials to ensure that scorers — who were accomplished medical college students — and candidates sat one after another in the examination hall.
The scorers were from Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Maharashtra and Delhi and they were paid about Rs 3 lakh for every candidate they helped cheat in the examination. The names of racketeers Jagdish Sagar, Sanjiv Shilpakar and Santosh Gupta have come to the fore in the chargesheet. Sagar and Shilpakar are post-graduates in medicine.
(Source: Indian Express)
5. Bill Giving 3-Year Jail Term for Instant Triple Talaq in Lok Sabha Soon
A proposed new law to ban instant triple talaq has been circulated among members of Parliament on Wednesday, indicating that the Narendra Modi government may table the bill in the Lok Sabha this week.
As reported by Hindustan Times on 2 December, the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill 2017 criminalises instant triple talaq, or talaq-e-biddat, and imposes a prison term of up to three years on husbands who violate the law.
It also makes a provision for alimony for the woman on whom instant triple talaq has been pronounced and grants her the custody of her children.
In a historic judgment on 22 August, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court struck down instant triple talaq as illegal.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
6. CBI to Probe Delhi's Ashram Where Women Were Kept 'Like Animals'
Aghast at revelations that more than 100 women and minor girls were locked up behind metal doors in "animal-like conditions" — with many being sexually exploited for years — inside a fortress-like ashram, the Delhi high court on Wednesday ordered a CBI investigation against the organisation Adhyatmik Vishwa Vidyalaya and its founder, Virender Dev Dixit.
A bench of acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar asked the CBI director to immediately set up a special investigation team (SIT) to investigate FIRs lodged in Delhi and case records relating to complaints of missing girls, commission of sexual offences and even a case of suicide in the ashram.
The HC's directions came after it was informed about the state of the ashram by the court-appointed inspection panel, consisting of lawyers Nandita Rao, Ajay Verma and Delhi Commission for Women chief Swati Maliwal. The court issued its order following a hearing that lasted nearly four hours.
(Source: The Times of India)
7. First Time, Indian Science Congress Put off Over Fears of Protests
For the first time in its over 100-year-old history, the Indian Science Congress (ISC), an event that is on the Prime Minister’s calendar in the month of January, has been postponed.
Anticipating protests from students of Osmania University, where the 105th edition of the event was to be held from 3-7 January, the university expressed its inability to host due to “disturbances on its campus and other reasons”.
The ISC’s postponement was conveyed in a communique from the Ministry of Science and Technology, based on information received from Dr Achyut Samanta, General President of the Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA). The Science Congress is the largest annual congregation of Indian scientists.
It is learnt that security officials anticipated protests from students of Osmania University against Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the issue of Dalits and minorities, and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao over lack of government recruitment in the newly formed state.
(Source: Indian Express)
8. RK Nagar Bypoll Eve: EC Stops Telecast of Jaya Hospital Video
A day ahead of the RK Nagar bypoll, the Election Commission on Wednesday stepped in and prevented the telecast of a video, released by an MLA of the AIADMK’s TTV Dinakaran faction, purportedly showing late chief minister J Jayalalithaa in a hospital here.
The 20-second video, distributed to the media by disqualified AIADMK MLA P Vetrivel, a trusted aide of VK Sasikala and a backer of her nephew Dinakaran, purportedly shows Jayalalithaa on a bed listening to an old Tamil melody number. Vetrivel said the video was shot by Sasikala when the former chief minister was undergoing treatment at the Apollo Hospital in Chennai, between September and December 2016.
Vetrivel, who surprised the media in the morning, said he shared the footage to counter the allegations of AIADMK’s ruling faction that Sasikala was allegedly behind Jayalalithaa’s death.
He appeared to suggest that he had acted on his own. “Even if Dinakaran didn’t want me to release this, I had no other option but to put it out now,” Vetrivel said.
(Source: Indian Express)
9. Rein in MRP or Govt Will Do It, NPPA Tells Syringe Makers
In response to a series of revelations on the huge margins charged by hospitals on medicines and consumables, the NPPA is learnt to have told syringe manufacturers that they could either voluntarily limit the margins and MRP or the government would have to step in to regulate them.
In a meeting held on Monday, domestic syringe manufacturers suggested a cap of 75 percent on trade margins between ex-factory or import prices and the MRP.
The MRP in several cases was found to be as much as 20 times higher or 2000 percent over the price to hospitals.
In the meeting with importers and manufacturers of disposable hypodermic syringes and needles, the NPPA chairman sought details of market dynamics and product categorisation and suggestions from manufacturers. Syringes are notified as drugs under the Drug Price Control Order (DPCO) 2013.
(Source: The Times of India)
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