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MMS clips: police to use the records for nailing the culprits of rape

A teenager, Namrata ( name changed) was gangraped by her boyfriend, Parag, and his four friends on May 14 in a Vasai hotel.
Even as the victim screamed for help, Parag filmed the sexual act on his mobile phone. After the gangrape, Parag dropped Namrata home on his motorbike and threatened to make the MMS public if she spoke about the incident.
Parag did not speak to her after that but on June 6, she received a call from Parag’s brother, Pankaj, who threatened her with the MMS and demanded she come to the same hotel. Mortified, she went, and was raped again — this time allegedly by Pankaj and a friend of his. Fearing she would be pursued again, Namrata decided to tell her parents, said Jha. The accused have been booked under Section 376 (2)(g) of the Indian Penal Code for gangrape and have been remanded in police custody till June 29.

Mumbai Teenager Raped and blackmailed, MMS scandal

A 19-year-old college girl was gangraped twice after her boyfriend and his friends circulated an MMS clip they shot of their first assault. The first rape happened last month and the second two weeks ago — this time by the boyfriend’s brother and his friends who had seen the original MMS clip and blackmailed the victim into coming to a hotel. The victim initially kept silent after the boys threatened to make the MMS public but later told her family.
A case was registered with Mira Road police on Friday night and three of the alleged rapists — brothers Parag Mhatre (20) and Pankaj Mhatre (22) and their friend Hiren Patil — were arrested. The accused are students of a Vasai college. Police have seized the MMS clips, which were shot on a cellphone and are looking for four more suspects. The arrested trio will be in police custody till June 29.
Parag befriended Namrata (name changed), a second-year BA student about seven months ago. According to sub-divisional police officer Maithili Jha, Namrata fell in love with Parag who had introduced himself under a false name, Ritesh Patil. On May 14, Namrata had sex with Parag in a Vasai hotel. Later, four of his friends arrived and forced themselves on her.

HIV positive woman Paraded by Nurses in Jamnagar

An HIV positive woman was branded as one at a government hospital in Jamnagar on Saturday and paraded through the wards to warn other patients about her status.
Nurses at the Guru Govind Singh Hospital stuck a label that read ‘HIV Serum positive’ on her forehead. Labels are pasted on foreheads of dead bodies after postmortem examination.
For the woman in her mid-20s, who is a resident of Jamnagar, the trauma came immediately after the shock of getting to know that she is HIV positive and then going through an abortion so that her baby is not born with the deadly virus.
The woman had come to the gynaecology department for a check-up on Wednesday. Tests confirmed that she was HIV positive and doctors advised her to terminate the pregnancy, which was done.
On Saturday, she met the gynaecology department head Dr Nalini Anand. After going through her reports, the doctor told her to stay away from other patients and told the nurses about her health condition.
The nurses pasted the label on her forehead and took her around the hospital campus. It was mid-way through the parade that volunteers of ‘Jamnagar District Network of People Living With HIV’ noticed her. They immediately took up the matter with hospital superintendent Dr Arun Vyas.
Expressing shock over the incident, health minister Jay Narayan Vyas told TOI that he had instituted an inquiry and asked two doctors and a nurse to proceed on leave till completion of the inquiry.
TOI has learnt that the two doctors under scrutiny are Nalini Anand and Dipti Joshi and the nurse is Prafula Parmar.
The NGO took the victim out of the hospital and she is at present with her husband, who is also HIV positive. “She is traumatised and told us she does not want to live any more now that everyone knows the truth,” said the NGO’s head Preeti Chavda.

Bangalore University Question Papers Leaked

Commerce students heading to their exam centre on Saturday morning were in for a rude shock after rumours of an alleged paper leak of the BCom annual scheme started doing the rounds. They didn’t quite know what to do next.
This correspondence course exam (financial accounting II of 1997-98 batches) was scheduled for Saturday. An hour before the exam began, a TV channel broke the news that the question paper was available for a price. A tout and a staff member of Mewa College, Jayanagar, were caught red-handed selling the
paper for Rs 3,000. They revealed that one-third of this was to be given to the college principal.
A stung Bangalore University decided to file a criminal case against the college. V-C N Prabhu Dev said the college would be blacklisted from conducting exams. Registrar (evaluation) and the officer on special duty (exams) submitted a report on the episode.
The university decided to conduct the last examination due on Monday in the same private college under the direct supervision of squads from Bangalore University to prevent hardship to students. The varsity will soon notify the rescheduled date for this exam.

Trinamool Links in Lalgarh: Claim by the CM of West Bengal

It seems that another showdown is inevitable in West Bengal as chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee accused Trinamool Congress of having links with Maoists in West Midnapore. The chief minister had made statement that PCPA leader Chhatradhar Mahato is a member of Trinamool.
Mamta Banerjee has given 48 hours to CPM to withdraw the allegation, failing which she would demand the sacking of the state government. The railway minister also clarified that Mahato had once been a member of Trinamool, but was expelled two years ago.

Private Universities are getting very high number of Students

Despite higher education being vital to a rapidly developing country like India, the government’s share in higher education—in terms of the number of institutes and student enrolment—has dwindled over time. Simultaneously, academics note, the stake of profit-seeking politicians in the higher education business has risen.
In 2001, when private unaided institutes made up 42.6% of all higher education institutes, 32.89% of Indian students studied in them. By 2006, the share of private institutes went up to 63.21% and their student share went up to 51.53%. In other words, every second student in India had by then signed up with a private institute.
Globally too, the private sector has seen opportunities in higher education, but there have been fewer takers in comparison to India. For instance, although there are 39.1% private higher education institutes in China, merely 8.9% of students study in them. In the US, private universities constitute 59.4% of higher education institutes, but only 23.2% of American students pursue their education in them.
“It does signify that higher education in these countries is predominantly a public service,’’ noted Ved Prakash, vice chancellor of the National University of Education Planning and Administration. Academics in India have researched how public spending by the Union and provincial governments has fallen.
In his work, Prakash notes that between 2002 and 2006, deemed universities—or “doomed universities’’ as one wag described them—grew by a whopping 96%. In the same time span, central and state universities grew by a modest 11% and 22% respectively.

Study points to ‘rampant malpractice’ at pvt varsities

Mumbai: The unabated growth in the number of private institutes of higher education without any quality check forced some academics from Harvard University to scrutinise this sector and note, “The rapid expansion of capitation fees colleges came about as a result not of great middle-class pressure or demand, but rather the entrepreneurial activities of politicians.’’
Even the Supreme Court recently expressed its concern about the quality of education in private institutes and the corruption that is rampant there. Within private higher education, the professional streams have seen the maximum growth.
Private engineering colleges, which accounted for just 15% of seats in 1960, now account for over 85% according to data from the All-India Council for Technical Education, the regulatory body for professional technical education. From a tiny base in 1970, medical colleges in the private sector have grown by an eye-popping 900%. The private sector now accounts for over 45% of medical colleges in the country.
In 2006, Sanat Kaul in his paper ‘Higher education in India: Seizing the opportunity’ highlighted instances of a single politician running more than 100 educational institutes. “There are rampant cases of malpractice in the form of illegal charges for allocating seats from the management quota. Income tax raids have revealed that seats are sold for cash, and a medical seat can fetch as much as Rs 25 lakh. The black money involved runs into thousands of millions of rupees,’’ Kaul observes in his study funded by the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations.
But none of this has elicited any action from the government. And naturally so. In their 2004 paper, ‘Indian higher education reform: From half-baked socialism to half-baked capitalism’, Devesh Kapur and Pratap Bhanu Mehta, both fellows of Harvard College, argued that politicians who had been sugar and liquor barons had turned to higher education as an industry because of its high returns.
“Even as political parties rail against de jure privatization, de facto privatization continues unabated,’’ they noted. Kapur and Mehta acknowledged that while there was no statistical data, “there is little doubt that a majority of private institutions have been supported or made possible by the direct involvement of politicians.’’
Arun Nigavekar, former chairman of the University Grants Commission, said private institutes have been granted recognition without a sense of responsibility. “Time and again, the HRD ministry has failed. There is a need for a surgical process to undo certain decisions taken by it,’’ he said.
Echoing Nigavekar, academics say that minister for science and technology Kapil Sibal will not only have to untangle some policies set by his predecessor, but also work to ensure high quality in public higher education.

Andhra Cricket Association Scandal, Purnima Rau Quits

According to Purnima Rau, former India captain and coach of Andhra Pradesh women team the sacking of the suspended secretary of the Andhra Cricket Association, Chamundeswaranath, is not justified. In what tantamount to giving a clean chit to the ACA secretary, Purnima said allegations should not be levelled without basis. “I am shocked that the players have complained against the secretary when there was no question of
his involvement in the affairs of women’s cricket,” she said.
“If women cricketers were subjected to such treatment, I would have been the first person to condemn those people, no matter who they are,” Purnima said.
“I have decided to quit as the players questioned the very process and the criteria of team selections,” she said. However, the veteran player will remain with the under-19 team that is undergoing a camp here till June 30. According to senior players Keerthi, Kavitha and Sneha and under-19 players M Bindu and Polamma, Chamundeswaranath was a permanent fixture at all women’s camps and that the main criterion for selection to the team was one’s closeness to this zonal coordinator.
“Players close to her routinely found berths in the team. They were always sure of their place in the team despite injury or bad performance,” said Keerthi. Bindu, an under-19 player, said the secretary used to hang around the nets and take players he fancied to the gym for “exercises.”

Maytas Infrastructure is out of Hyderabad Metro Project

Putting to rest the uncertainty surrounding the Rs 12,000 crore Hyderabad Metro Rail project, CM Y S Rajasekhara Reddy said on Friday that the Maytas Metro consortium was not in a position to implement it.
State government sources were, however, mum on how they intended to revive the project. Officials have hinted that the prequalified bidders (of the last tender) may be shortlisted to eliminate the time-consuming technical evaluation process. Or the other option could be to change the equity pattern of Maytas Metro with the induction of another strategic partner. “But this will be difficult because the new partner may not agree to implement the project without financial support from the government. The Rajus had not sought funds but agreed to pay the government as they had a different game plan in mind),” an analyst said. “The project may end up as a joint venture between the central and state government with funds from Japanese development banks that are already financing many projects in India,” the analyst said.
Earlier, the CM refused to be drawn into the controversy between DGP S S P Yadav and chief electoral officer I V Subba Rao over the top cop’s removal as DGP for poll code violation. However, Rajasekhara Reddy had told the media on Thursday night after his arrival in the national capital that the chief secretary had been instructed to sort out the matter.
On other issues, the CM said that AP would be a big beneficiary of the Centre’s largesse as it has contributed 33 Congress MPs, the largest from any state. “All the ministers whom I met clearly acknowledged the need to assist the state in reciprocation to its contribution to UPA,” he said.

Andhra Pradesh Judge implicated in dowry harassment case

A father and son, both judges, found themselves on the other side of the law on Friday. The entire family, including the elder judge’s wife, has been arrested in a dowry harassment case.
   While the father, T Narasimha Rao, is additional district judge and special judge for SC & ST (prevention of atrocities Act) cases in Mahbubnagar, the son, T Kiran Kumar, is a junior civil judge at Raidurgam in Anantapur district.
   The Central Crime Station (CCS) acted on a complaint lodged by the daughter-in-law, Shashikala (28), accusing her husband, father-in-law and mother-in-law Narayanamma of harassing her for dowry since her marriage on Feb. 17, 2005. The couple has a 3-yearold son.
   Shashikala, who is from Madhuranagar in Secunderabad, had alleged in her complaint lodged on August 8, 2008, that despite a dowry of Rs 5.5 lakh and gold over 150 gm, her husband’s family kept demanding more and wanted a house in Madhuranagar to be transferred in their name. She also accused them of bribing cops to arrest and torture her brother. The CCS is also investigating charges of dowry harassment against three more persons — V Jyotsana Devi, B Bharati and B Ellappa.
   After a prima facie case was found against the accused, cops registered a case under section 498-A (subjecting a married woman to cruelty), and sought permission from registrar of high court to proceed. The three were arrested after getting the clearance.