SC urged to review gay ruling

Lucknow, July 4: Students and teachers of Lucknow’s City Montessori School (CMS), the world’s largest school in terms of enrolment have appealed to the chief justice of India to review the Delhi High Court’s judgement on decriminalising homosexuality.

"On behalf of our 37,000 students and hundreds of teachers, we have forwarded a letter to Justice K G Balakrishnan, requesting him to urgently hold a sitting of the full bench of the Supreme Court (SC) to review the judgement," Jagdish Gandhi, founder manager of CMS, told reporters here onSaturday. The Delhi High Court’s judgement will strengthen the already disintegrating structure and fabric of Indian society and ethos, Gandhi said. Students and teachers of the school are of the view that champions of gay rights are only a microscopic minority in India. Law should be enacted and so interpreted as to ensure protection of culture and moral values of the vast majority, they said.

"Law is to maintain social issues and morality, but the unfortunate verdict of the High Court tends to mislead youth and it will cause break-ups in society and family and will tarnish the Indian culture and tradition," said Gandhi. The CMS is in the Guinness Book of Records for maximum enrolment of pupils. (IANS)

Railway Budget focuses on passengers amenities, new trains introduced

Date : Jul-03-2009 14:24

* Railways will develop multi-functional complexes with shopping malls, food stalls, medicines and variety stores in different parts of the country.

* Railways to develop cold storages for farmers to store vegetables and fruits.

* Infotainment services will be offered in main long-distance trains.

* In addition, on long distance trains one doctor will be posted.

* Railways to introduce 67 new trains all over the nation.

* Development and special facilities will be provided to 309 stations out of 375 across the nation.

* Unreserved ticketing terminals to be extended from 5000 to 8000. Automatic ticket vending machines will also be increased. Besides, there will be arrangement with Department of Posts for issuance of tickets.

* SMS updates to be offered for passengers to check train status and reservation status.

* Auto-vending machines to be installed in large and medium stations.

* High-capacity air-conditioned double-decker trains to be initiated on select inter-city routes.

* An Integrated Security System is being developed for 130 vulnerable stations to provide security to passengers.

* Seven nursing colleges will be started on railway land in places including Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai.

* With rail hospitals, Railway medical colleges to be developed on public-private partnership.

* E-ticket cancellation system to be simplified.

*18,000 wagons to be acquired during the present year.

* There will be aim to takeover of sick wagon manufacturing units like Burn Standards with Department of Heavy Industries.

* Railways will launch new policy for construction and operation of private freight terminals.

* Superfast parcel express trains to be started between Delhi and Chennai and Delhi and Mumbai on a pilot basis.

* A new coach factory to be set up at Kanchrapara in West Bengal with state-of-the-art facilities, entirely for manufacturing 500 coaches per annum. Work on coach factory in Rae Bareli to be speeded up.

* Railways to set up a 1000 MW power plant.

* Freight loading target for 2009-10 set at 882 million tonnes, rise of 39 million tonnes.

* In suburban trains, ladies'' specials to be initiated during peak hours.

* Railways will receive an additional budgetary support of Rs 5000 crore in the current year.

* Qazigund-Anantnag rail section in Kashmir planned be completed by August.

* Senior officials will be there to monitor execution of national rail projects to ensure their timely completion.

* Minimum Tatkal fee has been reduced from Rs 150 to Rs 100. Tatkal fee will be a percentage of the fair.

* Several new trains are planned will be started with objective to the increase in frequency of trains in key routes.

* ‘Turant’ trains to be introduced, which will be non-stop point-to-point non-air conditioned trains.

*‘Yuva’ trains for young generation to be introduced.

Adani Power IPO likely on July 21

Date : Jun-29-2009
New Delhi: Adani Power Ltd (APL) is planning to launch its initial public offering (IPO) on July 21 at a price of Rs 130 per share. As per the sources, APL is aiming to garner more than Rs 2200 crore through the IPO. Adani Power has submitted its draft red herring prospective with the SEBI and APL is expected to get the nod soon.

Adani Power is setting up its largest power plant of 4620 MW of capacity in Mundra with an investment of over Rs 20,000 crore. The project is expected to be completed by March 2012.The fund raised will be utilised for the development of Mundra project and the Tiroda power plant in Maharashtra, resulting in power generation of 6500 MW. The total capex is estimated at Rs 28,369 crore. Currently, Adani Group holds stake of over 85 per cent in Adani Power and after the public issue the promoter stake will be reduced to 73 per cent.

Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage toll climbs to eight

KATHMANDU: One more Indian has died during the Kailash-Mansarovar pilgrimage, taking the total number of deaths to eight, according to Indian Embassy sources.

63-year-old Devendra Nath Sharma from New Delhi, died on June 10 on his way back to Nepal from the holy Mansarovar yatra, the sources said.

Param Shivan Mohan, 57, from Madurai was the seventh pilgrim who died in the Nepal-Tibet border area on Friday.

The number of deaths between May 22 and June 12 has officially been confirmed at eight, according to the Indian Embassy.

Earlier, six Indian pilgrims, who got stranded in Purang in Tibet because of a local agitation in Nepal, died between May 22 to June 1 due to adverse climatic conditions and high-altitude sickness.

Hundreds of Indians had gone to Kailash-Mansarovar area via Nepal on the pilgrimage.

The Indian Embassy last week airlifted 50 pilgrims who were stranded near the Nepal-Tibet border for about four days due to the local disturbance.

They were taken to Nepalgunj from Halsa area and medical care was provided to them.

Source:TOI