HAPPY BIRTHDAY BELOVED MOTHER…WHEREVER YOU ARE!
26 August 1910 – Mother Teresa, Macedonian-Indian nun and missionary, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1997) was born.
Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, MC,commonly known as Mother Teresa (26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), was a Roman Catholic religious sister and missionary who lived most of her life in India. She was born in what is today Macedonia, with her family being of Albanian descent originating in Kosovo.
Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic religious congregation, which in 2012 consisted of over 4,500 sisters and is active in 133 countries.
Mother Teresa was the recipient of numerous honours including the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize. In 2003, she was beatified as “Blessed Teresa of Calcutta”.

By Suraj Mani Pradhan

After a mammoth rally organised by Gujarat’s economically and politically powerful Patel community demanding reservation in government jobs and education, the police cracked down on the organisers, briefly detaining 22-year-old Hardik Patel, the spearhead of the agitation, while severely beating up his supporters and media persons.

In a late-night operation, the police swooped down on the agitators led by Mr. Patel who were sitting on an indefinite fast after the rally, which had already turned violent with several incidents of group clashes and stone-throwing across the city.

“He has been arrested because the organisers had not taken permission to hold the fast. The police permission was only for the rally and the gathering during the day,” a senior police official told The Hindu.

The arrest sparked violence in the city, with Patel community members clashing with police and six buses being torched.

During the day, the police resorted to baton-charge and tear-gas as clashes broke out between members of the Patel community and local residents in several parts of the city.

Earlier, over half a million Patels thronged the Gujarat University ground for the rally, bringing the entire city to a standstill. “The lotus will not bloom in 2017 if the demand [for quota] is not heeded,” Mr. Patel warned the BJP government, which depends on support from the community.

Watch: Hardik Patel goes on hunger strike post ‘lathi charge’

Rally galvanises Patel community

Launched at a rally in Visnagar town of North Gujarat on July 6, the agitation of the Patels for OBC status has become a mass movement as thousands of people in Surat, Vadodara, Mehsana and in Ahmedabad filled the streets pressing the demand for quotas.

The movement appears as much against the government as against the established leaders of the community who are dominating the show in the ruling BJP. The Chief Minister, top seven Ministers, State party chief, half a dozen MPs and more than three dozen MLAs of the party belong to the Patel community, considered as affluent and influential in Gujarat.

After the rally, government spokesperson Nitin Patel said that except for a few untoward incidents, the entire rally was peaceful. However, the government did not say whether Chief Minister Anandiben Patel would go to meet Mr. Hardik Patel as demanded by his outfit, the Patel Andolan Anamat Samiti (PAAS).

In Gujarat, 146 castes including over a dozen castes from the minority community, are identified as socially and educationally backward castes, also known as OBCs, and enjoy 27% quota in the government jobs and education.

Rift comes to the fore

PTI reports:

A rift between the two major groups of the Patel community seeking reservation came out into open on Tuesday with the Sardar Patel Group (SPG), led by Lalji Patel, distancing itself from the decision to go on a hunger strike by Mr. Hardik Patel, who is spearheading the agitation.

The SPG is the biggest Patel community social group in the State which had earlier supported Hardik’s Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti for organising Tuesday’s mega rally in support of their demand for inclusion of the community in the OBC category for reservation.

Mr. Hardik Patel had earlier on Tuesday said that he would sit on a hunger strike after the rally at the venue till Chief Minister Anandiben Patel came to accept a memorandum from them.

“Hardik’s decision of sitting on a hunger strike until the Chief Minister comes and takes memorandum from him is his individual decision, which is not supported by others,” Mr. Lalji Patel said.

When asked if his group was ready for talks with the government, he said, “We are always ready for it and we will go if the government invites us.”

Mr. Hardik Patel had earlier said that Patels would not hold any talks with the government.

Tuesday’s rally was marked by the young leader’s speech whereas Mr. Lalji Patel did not address the gathering.

Asked why he was not allowed to speak at the rally, Mr. Lalji Patel said, “The programme was planned by Hardik and his team and I don’t want to make any comment on this.”

Another leader of the SPG, Vinod Patel, termed Mr. Hardik Patel’s decision to sit on a hunger strike as “kiddish” and said his remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Chief Minister were “improper”.

Mr. Vinod Patel said they would make a representation to the State OBC Commission over the issue while Mr. Hardik Patel in the rally had said the decision of hunger strike was taken unanimously by the community and that he would stick to it.

Meanwhile, Mr. Hardik Patel said that he had the support of the people who want him to go ahead with the hunger strike.

“Some people (referring to Mr. Lalji Patel), who are separately addressing press conferences, must know that lakhs of people here (at GMDC ground) told us to sit on a hunger strike until our demand is fulfilled and until the Chief Minister comes and takes our memorandum of demands,” he said

NEW DELHI: Fresh details have emerged adding a bizarre twist to the alleged murder of Sheena Bora.

On Wednesday, it was revealed that Sheena was the daughter, and not the sister of Indrani Mukerjea, wife of top TV honcho Peter Mukerjea. Mikhail Bora, Sheena Bora’s brother speaking to TV channels confirmed he and Sheena were Indrani’s children. He told CNN IBN, “Have no doubt my mother Indrani killed my sister Sheena Bora.”

“Whenever I asked Indrani about my sister, she would tell me that she was abroad and too busy to speak to me,” he added.

Peter Mukerjea, Indrani’s husband, also spoke to CNN IBN. “Sheena was having affair with my younger son and Indrani did not approve of their relationship,” he said.

Cops have arrested Indrani Mukerjea, wife of one of India’s most high-profile broadcast media executives, for the murder of Sheena in a case that is sensational for at least two reasons: the dramatis personae involved and the way in which the alleged killers covered their tracks and escaped all suspicion for three years.

The case would have remained one more of Mumbai Police’s unsolved cases had an informer not tipped off the cops about the murder that occurred three years ago. He told cops that he had information about the murder of Sheena Bora that occurred in 2012 and could also lead them to the murderer and the victim’s body.

Khar cops picked up Mukerjea’s driver a few days ago based on this information and started grilling him and he confessed to having murdered Bora at Mukerjea’s behest. He also told the cops that he dumped Bora’s body in the forests of Raigad. Mumbai cops then got in touch with their counterparts in Raigad, who confirmed that the remains of an unknown woman were found from the same spot.

Khar police then arrested the driver and then, based on his confession, asked Mukerjea to present herself for questioning on Tuesday. She was arrested after a three-hour grilling session.

Both of them were produced in the Bandra Metropolitan Magistrate’s court on Tuesday and cops got their custody till August 31. Both have been booked under Sections 302 (murder), 363 (kidnapping) and 201 (destroying evidence) of the Indian Penal Code.

Mhow, (MP), Aug 25 (PTI) BJP MLA from Dhar, Kalu Singh Thakur, was allegedly manhandled by employees of a toll booth following which five employees have been booked by the police in Indore district, police said today.

Trouble started last night when employees of the toll booth under Manpur police station limits refused to let Thakur’s vehicle pass the toll gate without paying the tax.

An altercation took place between the two sides in which the MLA was allegedly manhandled, Manpur police station inspector Kamlesh Sharma said.

Public representatives, including MLAs among others, are exempted from paying the toll tax, he said.

A case under IPC sections 294 (obscene act or words) and 323 (causing hurt) and relevant sections of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 has been registered against five persons by Manipur police, Sharma said.

Three accused have been identified as C P Upadhyay, Santosh Dixit and Chetan.

A manhunt has been launched to nab the accused, the police inspector said.

This is for the second time that employees of the toll booth in Manpur have been booked following complaint by a legislator.

Piror to this, Dhar district’s Kukshi constituency Congress MLA Honey Singh Baghel, also a tribal legislator, had lodged a police case against this toll booth’s employees when they allegedly misbehaved with him in 2014.

He moved HC through 2 sisters, seeking protection of assets in event of his demise

For almost a decade, the Mafatlal family fought bitterly for the family heirloom but it was the last suit filed by Ajay Mafatlal’s two sisters on his behalf that is perhaps the most poignant.

The suit was filed on August 13 and the liberal use of the phrase “upon his demise” or “immediately thereafter” raises one important question. Was Ajay Mafatlal preparing for the worst? Ajay passed away on August 22 at Breach Candy Hospital in Mumbai.

The suit in question was filed in the Bombay HC by Gayatri Jhaveri and Malavika Taktawala, who were “on his side” in the war within the family. The siblings on the other side are Ajay’s brother, Atulya, and sister, Kunti Shah.

The suit seeks “protection of” Ajay’s assets in the house he always lived in — second floor of the Mafatlal Bungalow at Altamount Road. Only Atulya Mafatlal — Ajay’s only brother — lives on the same floor, which was divided between the family because of the internal dispute. Ajay stayed with his mother Madhuri in one half and Atulya stayed with his now estranged wife Sheetal in the other, with both the “factions” sharing a common living area. The suit filed by Jhaveri and Taktawala as “heirs of Ajay Mafatlal” is directed against Atulya and Kunti — a resident of Mayfair building at Malabar Hill.

It reads, “The plaintiffs are constrained to prefer the present proceedings against the defendants (Atulya and Kunti), their agents, servants and employees since the plaintiffs apprehend that pending the hospitalisation of Ajay Yogindra Mafatlal, or immediately thereafter, the defendants their agents, servants and employees would take forcible possession and occupation of the movable and immovable assets of Ajay Yogindra Mafatlal.”

The suit continues, “The plaintiffs submit that Ajay Mafatlal never intended and would never intend that even a small fraction of his said suit assets be enjoyed by the defendants in any manner whatsoever during his life time or upon his demise.”

It later on adds, “The only desire is that the said suit assets of Mr Ajay Mafatlal be protected for his use and enjoyment during his lifetime and in a worst case scenario upon his demise be put to use and enjoyment by any person/legal entity whom Mr Ajay Mafatlal may have chosen by making his last will and testament or in its absence by the law of succession governing him.”

The suit and an application seeking urgent relief ask for a court receiver or court commissioner to be appointed, after which Jhaveri and Taktawala be accepted as agents of the court receiver/ commissioner so that no one disturbs the belongings valued at about Rs 1.10 cr in the suit. It provides a detailed list of cases between the two factions to spell out the acrimony.

The suit says that after he was hospitalised (on July 30), Ajay instructed Jhaveri and Taktawala to post guards in his portion of the house to protect his assets as well as belongings, since there was no one occupying that portion. On August 4, three people in plainclothes, claiming to be from the Mumbai Police’s crime branch, visited the Breach Candy Hospital, making enquiries about the whereabouts of Ajay Mafatlal and in fact managed to reach his bed outside the usual visiting hours of the ICU, allegedly without any documentation from the hospital.

The suit further alleges that later on August 9, Atulya made a “false and frivolous complaint” with the Gamdevi police station about the presence of security guards inside the bungalow and asked for removal of those guards “through police” though they were posted “only to protect the movable and immovable assets of Ajay in the house”.

New Delhi, Aug 24 (IANS) Col. Pushpender Singh (retd), one of the three ex-servicemen on a fast-unto-death here on the One Rank One Pension issue, was on Monday rushed to hospital after his health deteriorated on the eighth day of the indefinite fast.
United Ex-Servicement Front spokesman Col. Anil Kaul (retd) told IANS that the armed force veteran was taken to Rockland hospital in south Delhi.
Retired Havildar Tej Singh replaced Col. Pushpender Singh. The health of the other two veterans, Major Singh and Ashok Kumar Chauhan, both retired havildars, is fine, Col. Kaul added.

Kathua (JK), Aug 24 (PTI) Police today arrested one person and recovered 280 kilogram of a rare banned medicinal herb Nag Chatri from his possession at Lakhanpur inter-state toll plaza.

“A joint team of police, excise and forest department Lakhanpur seized 280 kilograms of rare forest herb Nag Chatri from a truck during checking at Lakhanpur toll plaza today and arrested Sabzar Ahmed of Bijbehara in South Kashmir”, a police officer said.

Acting on a tip-off, the truck which was on its way to Delhi from Kashmir was subjected to checking and 280 kg of Nag Chatri packed in gunny bags was recovered, Deputy Commissioner of Excise at Lakhanpur toll post, Rajesh Sharma said.

A case has been registered in this regard and investigation is underway, he said.