Prof Suhas Joshi is new director of IIT-Indore
Professor Suhas S Joshi, a faculty member at the department of mechanical engineering, Indian Institute of Technology- Bombay, took over as the second regular director of IIT-Indore on January 31. A Rahul Bajaj Chair Professor, Dr Joshi worked as a post-doctoral researcher at Georgia Tech, USA in 2002 and served as a visiting faculty at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA from 2005 to 2006. He was head of the mechanical engineering department at IIT Bombay during 2014-17. Prof Joshi has been a faculty at IIT-Bombay since 2009. Dr Joshi did his bachelor’s in engineering from Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute in Bombay.
MP Pragya Thakur latest victim of blackmailing racket
Controversial BJP MP from Bhopal Pragya Thakur has become the latest victim of a nude call-blackmailing racket. In her complaint, the first-time MP has alleged that on February 6 she received a video call on her WhatsApp. A woman who made the call took off her clothes, after which the MP disconnected the call. Later, she received a call from another number in which the person at the other end demanded money and threatened to make the video of the MP’s interaction with the woman go viral if she failed to pay the amount. Based on the MP’s complaint, Bhopal police has registered a case against unidentified persons. Police said their initial probe suggested that it could be the work of an inter-state gang of cyber criminals operating from Jharkhand.
Music academy in memory of legend
Bharat Ratna Lata Mangeshkar’s birthplace Indore will have a music academy and music college in memory of the illustrious singer. A day after the legendary singer breathed last in Mumbai, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan made a slew of announcements in memory of the legendary singer. “A music academy and a music college will be started in Indore in Lata Didi’s memory to enable promising singers to shape their talents,” he announced. “A music museum preserving all songs sung by Lata Didi too will be built,” he added. A statue of the doyen would be installed in her birthplace.
Red-ink letter triggers fear of dacoits
Three months after the last surviving inter-state dacoit in Madhya Pradesh, Gauri Yadav, was gunned down by police in UP’s Chitrakoot district, a threatening letter dangling outside the gram panchayat building of Khohi village in Satna district has triggered fears of dacoits still operating in the forests along MP-UP border. The letter written in red ink demanded Rs 5 lakh each from the gram panchayat office-bearers and the contractor of the Jal Jeevan Mission project in the area. While Satna SP Dharamveer Yadav has assured that the police would soon trace the culprits, villagers are living in constant fear as Khohi village is part of once dacoit-infested area.