August 30, 2019 - meraapnabihar

Teen girl gang raped before having her head shaved and being paraded through her village

Source: news.com.au

Police in India have arrested seven men in connection to the brutal gang rape and public shaming of a 15-year-old girl.

The child was allegedly attacked by a group in the Gaya district in the country’s northeastern Birah state on August 15, a police official told CNN.

She was in a relationship with one of the men arrested, telling investigators she had agreed to join him and friends for a walk.

The victim was gang raped by the men, police allege.

The next morning, her mother went to village seniors to inform them of the attack but they accused the teen of lying.

It was then that villagers shaved her head and paraded her around the community as a punishment for making “false accusations”, the girl told police.

“Out of the six accused of gang rape, three have been arrested. All four people allegedly involved in shaving her head have also been arrested,” police official Raviranjana Kumari told CNN.

The investigation was ongoing and further arrests could be made, he said.

India has been plagued by a spate of horrific and violent attacks on young girls and women over recent years, which have made international headlines.

Official figures show there were 18,862 reported cases of child sex attacks in 2016, equating to more than 50 every day.

Last week, a little girl was playing outside when she was allegedly lured away by two brothers who raped her and strangled her to death in Uttar Pradesh in India’s north.

The six-year-old’s body was allegedly hidden by the perpetrators’ mother. The brothers, aged 12 and 15, admitted to the horrific attack, local police said.

Earlier in August, a three-year-old girl was raped and beheaded after being kidnapped from a train station in the eastern state of Jharkhand.

In January, a 16-year-old girl was gang raped and murdered in the Gaya district, before being murdered. Her mutilated body was found near her home.

That incident occurred just days after the body of another girl, also 16, was found in the same area, having been raped and murdered.

Those incidents sparked public outcry and widespread demonstrations.

India’s government has introduced tougher rape laws, including the introduction of the death penalty for cases where the victim was a child.

Bihar CM Nitish Kumar bats for the girl child

Source: indiatoday.in

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has a clear message to those who get happy only when a son is born in the family. “Beti Paida hone par bhi khush hoyiye (Be happy also when a daughter is born in the family). The government is here to take care,” he said.

Indeed, Nitish Kumar is willing to walk the talk. “The government will provide a grant of Rs 2,000 at the birth a girl child in the family. Another Rs 1,000 would be provided once the girl’s Aadhaar registration is done. It will be followed by another incentive of Rs 2,000 after completion of all immunisation procedures of the girl. This is in accordance with Mukhya Mantri Kanya Utthan Yojana (Chief minister’s scheme for development of girls),” said the Chief Minister.

The scheme, a brainchild of Nitish Kumar, is applicable to all irrespective of caste, family income or religion. In addition to this, the girls clearing intermediate examination (+2) and who are not married would get a one-time incentive of Rs 10,000 from the government.

Another Rs 10,000 will be provided as incentive to a girl if she acquires a graduation degree. Nitish Kumar’s total package announced for a girl child in Bihar is Rs 25,000. This is in addition to the raise in the government’s allotments for uniforms, cycles and sanitary napkins.

Though Nitish Kumar’s government has already approved the proposals in an earlier Cabinet decision, the Chief Minister once again drove the message across recently on the occasion of Independence Day celebrations.

Although the Chief Minister did not mention the falling sex ratio of Bihar, it is surely a cause of concern for the state. The jarring irony is that while Bihar has highest birth rate (26.4 for state against India’s average of 16.8 in urban regions to 21.8 in rural regions), the state has a declining sex ratio. Bihar’s sex ratio has gone down from 910 per 1000 males in 2011, to 900 now.

It is even worse in urban Bihar where only 865 girls are per 1,000 males. Proportionately speaking, Bihar has fewer girls than what it had a decade ago. It leads to another shocking observation: more girls are allowed to born in villages, and not in cities of Bihar, where ironically, the educated and elites stay.

Birsa airport ready for more planes

Source: telegraphindia.com

Ranchi airport will throw open six additional parking bays from next month enabling passengers to board or alight from 11 aircraft at a time, the expansion mirroring a surge in air travel that the state capital has seen in the last four years.

“We received an approval from Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) this month for operating six additional parking bays at Birsa Munda Airport. We will start using these within a week in September,” Ranchi airport director Vinod Kumar Sharma told The Telegraph on Thursday.

Currently, the airport also uses two aerobridges that allow passengers to board aircraft directly from the terminal waiting area. These were introduced in 2013 when the new international terminal building was opened.

Sharma said two more aerobridges were being planned, but these would take another six months to come up.

“The work to install two more aerobridges was delayed due to technical reasons. We are in the final phase of awarding tenders for construction of aerobridges. Construction would be completed in the next six months. We hope to make these operational in 2020,” he said.

Sharma said marking and installation of lights for the additional parking bays, or apron area, had been completed in February-March. Subsequently, DGCA officials conducted an inspection. Its approval reached Ranchi earlier this month.

As of now, the apron area of Ranchi airport can accommodate three Airbus (A-320) and two 19-seater ATR planes. The new apron facility can accommodate five Airbus and one ATR plane at one time.

This means, as many as eight Airbus and three ATR planes can be parked at one time at the airport.

As per data shared by the transport department, while there were only 11 flights carrying 6 lakh passengers annually in 2014, 2018 saw 30 flights operating out of Ranchi.

The number of passengers is estimated to touch 22 lakh during 2018-19.

“With the airport witnessing increasing passenger footfall it was necessary to provide facilities for accommodating more planes. Once the new apron area functions, we expect more planes to serve Ranchi which, in turn, would lead to greater passenger flow. The new apron would make it possible for nearly 80 flights to operate from the airport in a day,” said a senior official in the Ranchi Airport.

Ranchi airport, spread over 1,568 acre, handled 6 lakh passengers in 2014-15. But the number increased to 10 lakh in 2015-16, 13 lakh in 2016-17 and 16 lakh in 2017-18.

Jharkhand minister who introduced traffic tracker, fined Rs 100 by same system

Source: indiatoday.in

Law takes its own course and it treats all at par. The same was proved right when the transport minister of Jharkhand, C P Singh, was fined for violating the traffic movement tracking system he had introduced once.

Singh’s car was caught violating traffic rules and the minister had to shell out Rs 100 as penalty.

Interestingly, the system introduced by him found he was at fault when his car jumped a red light.

The minister was on his way on June 23 when his car was caught jumping a signal at the Sarjana Chowk in Ranchi by the red light violation detection system (RLVD).

The automatic number plate reader (ANPR) sent a challan to the minister’s residence and the matter came to light when his driver went to settle the penalty amount.

When contacted, the minister said he has paid the fine. He accepted that he has paid a penalty a few times before as well during his tenure as an MLA. He added that if the government wants people to follow the rules, then the ministers will also have to abide by them.

The Jharkhand minister further explained that time and again he had had a bitter experience on the road at traffic junctions.

He had been witness to confrontation between public and traffic constable a few times. Traffic constables chasing the violators lead to accidents, which prompted him to opt for a transparent system to rule out any arguments or scuffle at traffic posts.

The automatic number plate reader and red light violation detection system were introduced after this. The system has ensured hassle free traffic system and those commuting are also forced to abide by the rules.

Few years ago, the Ranchi traffic police penalised cricketer and former India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni for a similar violation of traffic rules. His car was spotted with black film on its car windows at the Firayalal Chowk and once he motorbike bike was found not displaying a proper registration number.

Patna High Court withdraws judicial work from senior judge

Source: thehindu.com

The Patna High Court has withdrawn all judicial work from a sitting senior judge of the court Rakesh Kumar who had in the course of hearing a corruption case against a former IAS officer on Wednesday highlighted the state of corruption in the judicial system. A 11-judge bench also suspended Justice Kumar’s order and ruled that no action ordered by him would be taken.

“All the matters pending before Hon’ble Mr. Justice Rakesh Kumar, sitting singly including tied up/part heard or otherwise stand withdrawn with immediate effect,” read a notice issued by the chief justice of the Patna High Court on August 28. “The registrar will implement the order forthwith subject to further orders with regard to the formation of the bench,” the bench said in the notice, which came into the public domain on Thursday. The bench also observed that their fellow judge had no “jurisdiction to pass such an order on a case that had been closed”.

“The registrar (list) will inform as to how and in what manner Cr. Misc. No. 4117 of 2018 that had been disposed of finally earlier was listed on Thursday at Sl. No. 1 under the heading ‘To be mentioned – Tied up’ before Justice Rakesh Kumar,” the bench said in the notice.

The Bihar Advocate General Lalit Kishore told journalists in Patna that the bench had also made strong observations and expressed serious concern over the long order passed by Justice Kumar in which he had raised questions over the majesty of the court and integrity of judicial system.

Before his elevation as a judge, Justice Kumar had served as a CBI counsel in the Patna High Court during hearings on the multi-crore fodder scam case against the then chief minister and RJD chief Lalu Prasad . On Wednesday, while hearing a corruption case against retired IAS officer K. P. Ramaiah, Justice Kumar in his 20-page order had questioned how the former officer was granted bail in a corruption case when the High Court as well as the Supreme Court had earlier rejected it. Mr. Ramaiah was accused of financial misappropriation of ₹5 crore in the Bihar Mahadalit Vikas Mission when he was its CEO. “A corrupt officer like K. P. Ramaiah secured bail as a vacation judge heard his case in place of the regular judge of the Vigilance Court,” Justice Kumar said in his order.

“In normal course, I would not have passed such order, but since last few years, this Court is taking notice of the fact that in Patna Judgeship, things are not going in its right perspective,” Justice Kumar observed, while adding that the manner in which Mr. Ramaiah was granted bail required a deeper probe as it had raised questions about the judiciary. Justice Kumar also ordered an inquiry to be conducted by the District Judge, Patna, to check the veracity of a news report. Further while calling for a report within four weeks, he also ordered an inquiry into whether on the date of granting bail to Mr Ramaiah, the regular vigilance court judge was on leave due to a genuine cause or had gone on leave in a calculated way. The District Judge was also asked to examine the record of cases disposed of by the in-charge judge in the last six months.

In his order, Justice Kumar also raised questions about the judiciary and said that the full bench of the Patna High Court had taken a lenient view every time the case of any judge from the lower judiciary came up. “Despite my opposition, a judge facing serious charges was let off with minor punishment instead of exemplary punishment,” Justice Kumar said in his order. He also made scathing remarks about taxpayers’ money being spent on renovation of judges’ homes. “There were instances of crores of the taxpayers’ money being spent on renovation and furnishing bungalows of judges as well as nepotism,” he said in the order. Further, Justice Kumar ensured that a copy of his order be sent to the Chief Justice of India, the Prime Minister’s office and the Union Law ministry.