2100 HRS

5th January , 2013

THE HEADLINES:

• A fast track court in Delhi takes cognizance of the chargesheet filed in the gang rape case; Asks the Police to produce the five accused on Monday.

• In Gujarat, a major fire destroys Indian Oil Corporation storage tanks at Hajira port in Surat.

• North India continues to shiver in severe cold wave; 11 more deaths reported from Uttar Pradesh.

• 80 thousand youth to be recruited in Jammu and Kashmir government service in the coming months, says Chief Minister Omar Abdullah.

• A 7.7 magnitude earthquake jolts Alaska coast of America.

• Sania Mirza and her American partner Bethanie Mattek Sands lift Brisbane International Tennis women's doubles title.

• India take on Pakistan in the third and final one dayer in Delhi tomorrow.

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The newly set up fast track court in Delhi has taken cognizance of the charge sheet filed by police in the December gangrape case.

The Metropolitan Magistrate took cognizance of the charge-sheet today and asked Delhi police to produce all the five accused - Ram Singh, Mukesh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma and Akshay Thakur - on Monday.

The Magistrate said Prima facie offence have been made out under sections for murder, attempt to murder, gangrape, unnatural offences, dacoity, destruction of evidence, conspiracy and other offences. The offences carry death penalty as the maximum punishment.

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Delhi Police has refuted the allegations made by the gang rape victim’s friend about the laxity on the part of the police personnel in assisting the victim. Briefing the media in New Delhi this afternoon, Joint Commissioner of Police, South Delhi Vivek Gogia claimed that the Police was prompt in handling the emergency call and rushing them to the Safdarjung hospital which is a multi speciality hospital designated for medico-legal cases.

Zebra 54, the other PCR Van, reached there at 10.29 PM. Zebra 54 left the spot along with the victim at 10.39 PM. Zebra 54 brought the victims to Safdarjung Hospital at 10.55 PM

Responding to the charge that the police squabbled over jurisdiction and took two-and-a-half hours to take them to hospital, he said PCR vans are connected to police control room and are not subject to jurisdiction of police station. He also claimed that the friend of the deceased girl was discharged within few hours after first aid. He was called to the police station only for recording his statement.

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The BJP has criticised the Delhi Police for filing a case against a news channel which aired the interview of the 23-year-old gangrape victim's friend. Party General Secretary Ravi Shankar Prasad said this is unacceptable and an attack on press freedom.

BJP condemns any efforts to initiate police action against the channel which aired interview of a friend of the 23 year old rape victim.

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Reacting to the new revelations, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said that he will comment only after gathering more information about the TV channel report:

We have police version of the incident with us. Regarding TV Channel's report, I will not comment till I find out more about it.

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Plain clothes Policemen will patrol the public transport system in Goa to help women in distress. A separate 24x7 desk would also be set up in all police stations across the state. The Superintendent of Police told reporters in Panaji the decision stems from the recent outrage over the Delhi gangrape incident. Goa has been witnessing an increase in number of rape cases.

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In Gujarat, a major fire broke out today at storage tanks of Indian Oil Corporation's terminal at Hajira port in Surat. Fire brigade personnel from Surat and nearby cities are trying to bring the fire under control. Local sources said, the blaze could be seen from far off. No casualty was reported immediately. All the staff members have been shifted out. Senior IOC officials have rushed to Hazira to supervise operations and an inquiry has been ordered to ascertain its causes.

Officials said the fire was reported around afternoon at one of IOC's five petrol storage tanks at the Hazira depot. The tank had almost 5,000 kilolitre of petrol, half of its capacity, when it caught fire. The Hazira terminal includes a deep water multi-cargo port, situated 25 km from Surat.

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In Andhra Pradesh, 3 persons were killed and more than 10 injured in a severe blast that occurred in a pharmaceutical company this evening. The incident occurred in Nakkapalli Village of Visakhapatnam district. The cause of the blast in the chemical mixing container of Hetero Drugs is yet to be ascertained. Our correspondent has filed this report:

According to first hand information the blast has killed THREE and injured more than ten workers. The severely injured five of the workers are being rushed to a city hospital in Visakhapatnam. The cause of the blast is being ascertained by the officials who have rushed to the spot which is cordoned off. The inspector of factories has also reached the company where the incident has occurred. The chief minister, N. Kiran Kumar Reddy expressing grief over the loss of lives has ordered for an inquiry and directed the district administration to extend immediately all possible help and medical relief to the injured workers. Henry/AIR News/Visakhapatnam

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In Chhattisgarh, security forces today destroyed a Maoist camp in naxal affected Sukma district. The camp was situated near Birapatti village. Security forces recovered arms, ammunitions and Naxal literature from the spot. Our correspondent Vikalp Shukla reports that a joint team of CRPF and state police raided the camp and seized four guns, two Naxal uniforms and detonators.

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Severe cold in North India today claimed 11 more lives in Uttar Pradesh, taking the death toll this winter to 140.

Officials in Uttar Pradesh said, six persons died in Barabanki district due to cold, four in Sultanpur and one in Etah district. Muzaffarnagar was the coldest place with a low of 0.3 degrees Celsius, followed by Najibabad in Bijnor district with 1 degree. Agra recorded a low of 1.1 degrees.

In Uttarakhand, districts located in the higher reaches including Almora, Tehri Garhwal and Pithoragarh recorded sub-zero temperatures.

Cold wave conditions prevailed over entire Kashmir Valley. However the severe cold is not dampening the spirits of Vaishnodevi pilgrims visiting the holy cave shrine situated in Trikuta Hills.

Himachal Pradesh was warmer in the day but became cold in the night as mercury dips very sharply immediately after sunset.

There is no respite from bone chilling cold wave in Punjab and Haryana and Chandigarh also as minimum temperature fell sharply by up to five degrees below normal, throwing life out of gear.

Many trains were running either late for several hours or cancelled, while morning flights from Chandigarh airport were cancelled due to poor visibility.

Rajasthan too remained in the grip of biting cold with the mercury in the famous hill resort of Mount Abu settled at minus 1 degrees, followed by Fatehpur, which shivered at zero degree Celsius.

Delhi continued to shiver at a minimum of 2.9 degrees, four notches below normal.

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In Jammu and Kashmir, 80 thousand youth are to be recruited in government service in the coming months . State Chief Minster Omar Abdullah announced fast track recruitment of the educated youth in government service in the coming months.

He was addressing a rally of panches and sarpanches in Srinagar today.

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Delhi Cabinet today gave its nod for regularization of over 200 more unauthorized colonies in the national capital. These colonies came up on forest and Archeological Survey of India land in the city. Talking to reporters after the cabinet meeting, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said that the Cabinet in principle agreed to regularize these colonies

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Union Information and Broadcasting Minister, Manish Tewari says, the Centre never discriminates against Non-Congress ruled State. He said UPA believes that the all round development of the country can make India to become a developed nation.

He was laying the foundation stone of a link road under Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojna at a village in Ludhiana district, today.

Tiwari alleged that due to wrong economic policies of the Punjab Government the State is under a burden of 75,000 crore rupee debt. This is the reason the state Govt. is even unable to pay salaries and pensions.

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A major earthquake of 7.7 magnitude shook an area in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of the US state of Alaska early today. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said a local and possibly destructive tsunami had been generated by the quake but this warning has been since cancelled. According to the United States Geological Survey, the epicentre of the quake was located at a depth of nine kilometres from Craig in Alaska. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

A similar magnitude 7.7 earthquake hit Canada's Queen Charlotte Islands, located just south of the current epicentre, last October. That quake did trigger a small Pacific tsunami which eventually reached the US state of Hawaii without causing any damage.

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Six Russian tourists died and two others were injured after their snowvehicle flipped over on a ski slope in north-eastern Italy. Italian media reports said, the four men and two women were killed when they were thrown into a deep ditch.

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Japan scrambled fighter jets today to head off a Chinese state-owned plane that flew near islands at the centre of a dispute between Tokyo and Beijing. A Japanese Defence Ministry spokesman said, the Japanese jets were mobilised after a Chinese maritime aircraft ventured some 120 kilometres north of the Senkaku islands, claimed by China

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Three explosions struck the central locations of the Pakistani city of Karachi today. According to police, a remote-controlled bomb containing two to three kilograms of explosives was planted outside the office of a political leader in Orangi. Three wheel carts were damaged but no casualties were reported. Police said a hand grenade was hurled at a police van in Mawaach Goth area that injured two personnel. Earlier in the morning, unidentified miscreants hurled crackers at a medical store in Metroville area of SITE and fled from the scene. The crackers caused a blast that was also heard in far off areas. The blast completely destroyed the medical store and two adjacent shops.

Meanwhile, in continuing violence in the city four more people lost their lives in different incidents of firing today.

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A legislation to award the prestigious Congressional Gold Medal to Malala Yousufzai, the Pakistani peace activist who was shot in her head by Taliban, has been reintroduced in the US Congress. Introduced by Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, the House Resolution calls to award Congressional Gold Medal to Malala in recognition of her devoted service to education, justice and equality in Pakistan. Malala, who was shot in her head last year by Taliban for her girl education campaign, was discharged from a British hospital yesterday.

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In Syria, the fighting between the Government troops and rebel forces has intensified for the control of the outer neighborhoods and suburbs of the capital city Damascus. Opposition activists reported that several rebel strongholds in the suburbs of Damascus were bombed by the Syrian forces. Although the capital Damascus has been under the control of Syrian regime, it has been hit by a series of bombings which appear to target government buildings.

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India's Sania Mirza and her American partner Bethanie Mattek Sands have lifted Women's Doubles title of the Brisbane International Tennis tournament in Australia today. They defeated German-Czech combination of Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Kveta Peschke 4-6, 6-4, 10-7.

American Serina Williams won Women's Singles title. She defeated Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the Finals 4-6, 6-1 and 6-2.

In the men's singles finals, Britain's Andy Murray will take on with Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria tomorrow.

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The third and final one-dayer between India and Pakistan will be played in New Delhi tomorrow.

With the series already out of their grasp, the Indians may experiment by giving a chance to some of their bench players in a day-night game which will start at noon .

All India Radio will broadcast live commentary on the match from 12.00 p.m. onwards.

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Serbia's Janko Tipsarevic has entered into the Men's Singles finals of Chennai Open Tennis tournament. He defeated Aljaz Bedene of Slovenia by 4-6, 6-2, 6-2.

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In Punjab, issues relating to South Asian vision of peace and the concept of open borders and open minds will be on the agenda of eighth South Asia Free Media Association- SAFMA meet beginning in Amritsar tomorrow.

The Second session of conference will be held at Lahore in Pakistan on 8th of this month..

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The eleventh Pravasi Bharatiya Divas gets underway in Kochi on Monday. Over 2000 delegates from different parts of the world are participating in the three day event.