A mother-son duo were killed when their car rammed into a stationary truck due to dense fog in Sarojini Nagar area, police said here.

Abhishek Shukla (40) and his mother Urmila (62) were seriously injured when the car in which they were travelling rammed into the truck last night due to fog near Daroga Khera, they said.

They were rushed to a hospital where doctors declared them dead, police said.

Holding that FIR is a public document and should not be kept out of public domain, Himachal Pradesh High Court today issued directions to police to upload the FIRs on its website within 24 hours from January 26, 2015.

The court was hearing the plea of a 70-year old man, retired Assistant Excise and Taxation Commissioner, who had appeared in person in the court complaint that he was not being supplied the copy of the FIR as the matter pertained to senior police officer.

Single Bench consisting of Justice Tarlok Singh Chauhan observed that the accused was entitled to get a copy of the FIR at the earliest under Section 207 of the CrPC.

“The copies of FIR, unless reasons recorded that the offence is sensitive in nature, should be uploaded on the Himachal Pradesh Police website within twenty-four hours of lodging of the FIR so that the accused or any person connected with the same can download the FIR and file appropriate application before the court as per law for redressal of his grievances,” Justice Chauhan directed.

The bench further directed that, “The decision not to upload the copy of the FIR on the website shall not be taken by an officer below the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police and that too by way of a speaking order. A decision so taken by the DSP shall also be duly communicated to the Area magistrate.”

Further the word ‘sensitive’ apart from the other aspects which may be thought of being sensitive by the competent authority would also include concept of privacy regard being had to the nature of the FIR.

In case the copy of the FIR is not provided on the ground of sensitive nature of the case, a person grieved by the said action, after disclosing his identity, can submit a representation with the Superintendent of Police who shall constitute a committee of three high officers and to deal with the said grievance within three days from the date of receipt of the representation and communicate it to the grieved person, the order said.

BMW has agreed to demands from the government to replace driver’s-side air bags across the entire US.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been pushing companies to recall older cars with air bag inflators made by Takata Corp. They can explode with too much force and spew shrapnel at drivers and passengers. At least five deaths have been blamed on Takata inflators.

The decision affects 140,000 BMW 3 Series cars made between January 2004 and August 2006. It says no problems with BMW vehicles have been reported.

Earlier this year the company recalled 574,000 cars in the US.

Several automakers have been slow to expand the recall.

Ford Motor Co joined the list last week, and was quickly followed by Chrysler.

BMW is the last automaker to agree to replace air bags in all affected cars nationwide. About 15 million cars have been recalled in the US in total. Initial recalls were limited to states with high levels of humidity, as the NHTSA says the air bag inflator propellant, ammonium nitrate, can burn faster than designed if exposed to prolonged airborne moisture.

When that happens, the propellant can blow apart a metal canister meant to contain the explosion.

Takata has refused the agency’s request for a nationwide recall of driver’s side inflators, about 8 million in total, and it says it has tested more than 1,000 air bag inflators from other regions without a single failure. But the company will still make replacement parts for the automakers that are expanding their recalls. It hasn’t been decided whether Takata or the automakers will pay the extra costs involved.

In total, 10 automakers have models with Takata driver and passenger air bags. There could be as many as 30 million with the air bags nationwide.

(This article was published on December 23, 2014)

A record 17,000 anti-Islamic protesters rallied for their tenth demonstration in as many weeks in eastern Germany, celebrating the rise of their far-right populist movement by singing Christmas carols.

Germany has for weeks grappled with the emergence of the “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident” or PEGIDA, whose ranks in the city of Dresden have swelled rapidly from just a few hundred in October.

About 4,500 counter-demonstrators marched through the city yesterday under the slogan “Dresden Nazi-free”, warning that there was no space for racism and xenophobia in the country that perpetrated the Holocaust.

Most PEGIDA followers insist they are not Nazis but patriots who worry about the “watering down” of their Christian-rooted culture and traditions. They often accuse mainstream political parties of betraying them and the media of lying.

Braving cold and wet weather, they gathered outside the historic Semperoper concert hall for their pre-Christmas recital. Police put their numbers at about 17,500, up from the previous high of 15,000 a week earlier.

The management of the opera house signalled its distaste by turning the building’s lights off and flying flags outside that read: “Open your eyes”, “Open your hearts”, “Open doors” and “Human dignity is sacrosanct”, the first line of the national constitution.

The Protestant bishop of Saxony state, Jochen Bohl, said the PEGIDA followers, by singing Christmas carols, were seeking “to exploit a Christian symbol and a Christian tradition” for political purposes, German news agency DPA reported.

Former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, of the centre-left Social Democrats, called for concerned citizens to launch a “rebellion of the decent” against the anti-foreigner movement, saying “that’s the kind of public reaction we need now”.

PEGIDA, born in a city that was part of communist East Germany until the fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years ago, has spawned copycat groups in western areas which have failed so far to attract similar crowds.

Smaller clone groups rallied yesterday in the western cities of Bonn, Kassel and Wuerzburg, but they only drew up to 200 followers each and were all vastly outnumbered by counter-demonstrations that drew 20,000 nationwide.

Police reported no major violence but said eight people were temporarily detained after confrontations in Kassel, reported DPA.

The biggest anti-PEGIDA march was held in the southern city of Munich, where at least 12,000 rallied under the banner “Make space — Refugees are welcome”.

Hyderabad: Three students were killed and 14 others, including an autorickshaw driver, sustained injuries when their three-wheeler collided with a school bus in Andhra Pradesh’s Nellore district on Monday, police said.

The accident occurred in Chilakur town of Nellore at 8.40 am when the autorickshaw carrying 15 students to the school collided head-on with a school bus which was on its way to pick up students, DSP B Srinivas said over phone.

“In the mishap, two children died while undergoing treatment at a hospital while three other students were seriously injured. Eleven others, including the auto-driver, sustained minor injuries,” the DSP said.

The deceased children were identified as D Vamsi. M Venkateshwarlu and Pavan, all aged 7 and students of second standard, another police officer said.

A probe was on into the mishap, police added.

State-owned CIL said that it is ready for the conciliation even as employees’ unions of the coal PSU have threatened to go on five-day strike beginning January 6.

“As and when the (notice of strike) is received, we shall go for conciliation process,” Coal India (CIL) said in a filing to BSE.

CIL said that it has learnt from the newspaper reports that four trade unions–Indian National Mineworkers Federation (INMFW), Hind Khadam Mazdoor Federation, AITUC-controlled Indian Mine Workers Federation and Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh– have decided to go on strike from January 6-10.

However, CIL added that it has yet to receive an official notice from the unions.

Employee unions of state-owned CIL and SCCL had on December 17 threatened to go on strike.

The strike call comes at a time when the country is grappling with coal shortages and as many as 43 thermal power plants are facing significant fuel deficit.

The charter of demands include stopping or withdrawing “process of denationalisation of coal sector” and stopping “disinvestment, restructuring of CIL” (Coal India) among others.

The demands also includes extending National Coal Wage Agreement (NCWA) wages and other benefits to existing and prospective captive coal workers and lifting the ban on general recruitment.

Regularising contract workers engaged in mining jobs in underground as well as open cast mines is another demand.

Earlier, the proposed strike on November 24 by CIL employee unions was deferred after a meeting between Coal Ministry officials and trade unions.

As per latest data from the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), 43 thermal power plants had coal available for less than seven days as on December 18.

GUWAHATI, India (AP) — An explosion in the parking lot of a bus station early Sunday killed three people and wounded five others in India’s remote northeastern state, where several separatist groups operate, police said.
The homemade bomb went off in Imphal, the capital of Manipur state, killing three construction workers, said police Superintendent Ibomcha Singh.
Five other men were hospitalized.
No one has claimed responsibility for the blast.
Imphal is about 550 kilometers (340 miles) southeast of Guwahati, the biggest city in the region.
At least 17 separatist groups are active in Manipur state and often stage hit-and-run attacks on government forces. Their demands range from greater autonomy for the state to an independent homeland for the people of Manipur.

More than 30,000 suspects have been arrested in a two-month long crackdown on porn and gambling activities in China’s south Guangdong Province.
The province has so far arrested 3,014 people and more than 5,000 others were put under criminal detention in the campaign, the Guangdong Provincial Public Security Department said.
In one case, police cracked down an online gambling gang in Huizhou City on November 24.
The gambling activities involved funds totalling 30 million yuan, (USD five million), state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday.
Police said they will continue to crack down on the illegal activities to prevent them from rebounding.
Earlier this year, police in the province had captured 3,033 suspects in a prostitution crackdown launched after a February media exposure of sex services offered at hotels in the city of Dongguan, which is notorious for its illegal sex trade.

STANBUL: A Turkish court on Friday remanded in custody the head of a national TV network and three ex-police officers on terrorism charges, in a case linked with a top foe of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that has strained EU ties.

Prosecutors also asked an Istanbul court to issue an arrest warrant for Fethullah Gulen, a US-based Turkish cleric who Erdogan regards as his top enemy, also on terrorism charges.

Samanyolu TV chief Hidayet Karaca was placed under arrest on charges of forming a terrorist group, after being detained with over two dozen others in weekend raids on journalists, scriptwriters and police accused of plotting to overthrow Erdogan.

The court however ordered the release of Ekrem Dumanli, the editor-in-chief of the Zaman daily which has repeatedly accused Erdogan of running a corrupt regime and who was arrested in the same raids last Sunday.

Both the Zaman newspaper and the STV channel are linked to Gulen, a one-time ally of Erdogan whom the Turkish strongman has now vowed to crush without mercy.

Dumanli defiantly told hundreds of supporters outside the court after his release that “the press cannot be silenced, media will never succumb to intimidations”. Seven other suspects in the case were ordered released by the court in Istanbul while three more — all ex-police officers — were also remanded in custody.

Erdogan accuses Gulen of running a “parallel state” and being behind sensational corruption allegations against his inner circle that broke on December 17 last year.

According to Zaman’s website, Karaca raised his hands after the decision was announced and said: “No need to be worried, God helps”. “Just as this is an arrest order for a fictional scenario, this is a fictional ruling”.

Gulen, who is believed to have millions of followers in Turkey and runs private crammer schools around the world through his Hizmet (Service) group, has vehemently denied all the allegations against him.

The prosecutors asked the court for the warrant to arrest Gulen for leading a “criminal” group acting against the “rules and laws in media, economy and bureaucracy,” the state Anatolia news agency reported.

According to a copy of the request published in Turkish media, Gulen is charged with setting up and directing an “armed terrorist organisation” as well as using intimidation to deprive a person of their freedom.

The United States has so far paid little attention to repeated requests from Turkey for Gulen’s extradition from his secluded compound in the state of Pennsylvania.