Express Reading

NEW DELHI:

Sen Favourite Gopa Gets Extension as Nalanda V-C

Nalanda University Vice-Chancellor Gopa Sabharwal will spend some more time in office despite her term officially ending next month with the Centre taking time to find her successor. The university appointed former Singapore foreign minister George Yeo as the new chancellor in July. He succeeded Nobel laureate Amartya Sen. Sabharwal’s appointment as V-C was contentious as there were allegations that it was an arbitrary decision by Sen, who overlooked better-qualified candidates such as historian Ramachandra Guha and public policy commentator Pratap Bhanu Mehta. The governing board didn’t meet to give an extension to Sabharwal, but a proposal to that effect was last month circulated by Yeo among its members, who okayed the move. 

Rs 4-Lakh Fake Notes in Cash Seized in Rly Water Scam

CBI sources on Saturday said fake currency accounted for `4 lakh in the `27 crore the agency had recovered during its searches in connection with the railway drinking water scam. They said it took 15 hours, three counting machines and five officials to count the cash. Of the 27 crore, `20 crore was seized from Shyam Bihari Agrawal, his sons Abhishek Agrawal and Rahul Agrawal, who own RK Associates and Brandavan Food Products,  while `1 crore was recovered from their offices and `52 lakh from the house of one of their employees. Agrawal, who hails from Durg in Chhattisgarh, started as a small-time caterer in 2004 and expanded his business to all Shatabdi and Rajdhani trains.  

Russia Embassy Staffer Flies Helicam Near Parliament

A Russian embassy official was found flying a suspected helicam near the high-security Vijay Chowk intersection close to Parliament late on Saturday. Helicams are remote-controlled aerial devices fitted with cameras. It was a mediaperson who spotted a man operating a flying object which was hovering around 20-30 feet above the ground. When confronted, the foreigner fled in a car which the journalist said carried the diplomatic number plate of the Russian embassy. An official of the embassy said that the person in question was an engineer and that he was trying to show Parliament from above to his son. “It was a mistake. He did not know the rules,” the official told Express. However, the official said the embassy hadn’t been contacted by the authorities yet. The incident was caught on camera, and the footage in which the foreigner is seen sporting a white T-shirt and shorts has been handed over to the Parliament Street police station. DCP Jatin Narwal said that a special team was studying the video footage and further action would be initiated accordingly. Top police and intelligence officials reached the spot as the national capital is a no-fly zone and the India-Africa Forum Summit has been scheduled for October 26. Ahead of the Indo-African Forum Summit, one of the biggest gatherings of African countries outside Africa, security in Lutyens Delhi has been doubled with the deployment of around 10,000 police personnel, and the leave of all senior Delhi Police officers has been cancelled. 

kolkata

No Bar on Cell Phone Use by Bigwigs Behind Bars

Chit fund scamsters, terrorists, gangsters and high-profile prisoners lodged in the three main jails in Kolkata are using mobile phones. “We’ve discovered that chit fund company owners such as Goutam Kundu of Rose Valley Group, Pramathanath Manna of MPS Group and Anukul Maity of iCore, whose businesses are still running, are using mobile phones to contact their employees, lawyers and families from Alipore Central Jail,” a CID official said. In February this year, jail authorities conducted surprise raids and seized more than 350 mobile phones. Though frequent searches are conducted in jails, mobile phones are rarely seized because inmates get prior information about the raids from the wardens, who keep the handsets for them during the searches. The chit fund scamsters reportedly pay huge sums of money to the wardens in return for the help.

srinagar

21 Jawans, 13 Civilians Killed Outside Kashmir Since 2012

Militants have in the last couple of years been making concerted efforts to expand their sphere of influence to the Jammu region, which comprises 10 districts. “In 1997, they shifted their focus to the Pir Panchal region and now that our writ runs here, they are trying to shift their activities beyond Kashmir,” General Officer Commanding Lt Gen Satish Dua said in Srinagar. He said 21 security men and 13 civilians had been killed in militant violence in the Jammu region since 2012. On Thursday, two police deserters-turned-militants were killed in an encounter in Doda district, which hadn’t seen a major encounter for the past four years.

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