A jet carrying ruling Congress Party chief Sonia Gandhi and Finance Minister P Chidambaram made an emergency landing because of a technical problem, an official said. Gandhi and Chidambaram were flying from the capital New Delhi to the southern city of Coimbatore, but the private jet had to touch down in Bangalore, 250km short of its destination. Gandhi was to address a public meeting in Erode. She was to land in Coimbatore and drive down to Erode. KARACHI, Pakistan The number of mobile phone users in Bangladesh has increased to 44.8 million, adding about 14.4mn new customers in the last one year. According to state-run Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), there were 32.37mn customers of six mobile phone operators till 2006 July. But the number reached 44.8mn in July this year. Of the six operators, official sources said, Grameenphone(GP) maintained its solo lead in terms of customer acquisition by adding 5.11 million subscribers in the last one year. The number of GP users is now 20.84mn. COLOMBO, Sri Lanka Sri Lanka’s Chief Justice Sarath Silva refused bail for a Buddhist monk and slammed fellow clergymen for not showing respect to the judiciary. The chief justice pulled up dozens of monks for not showing respect to judges as they entered the court house to hear a bail application by Pannala Panyaloka, a monk accused of sound pollution. The monks refused a request from the chief justice to leave the court and re-enter after showing due respect by bowing their heads, a court official said. PATNA India At least 32 people, including 18 children, have died of diarrhoea in flood-hit Bihar's Supaul and Saharsa districts, giving rise to the fear of an epidemic among those affected by the calamity. Officials engaged in relief and rescue operations said that diarrhoea was an outcome of people drinking contaminated water. International aid agencies and NGOs had earlier warned of a likely outbreak of epidemics in the flood hit areas. The floods have claimed 50 lives, according to official estimates. Over 2.5 million people and 925,000 cattle have been affected. GUJARAT, India A district court has sentenced a man to two years' rigorous imprisonment for bestiality. According to the prosecution, the man was caught sexually assaulting a calf by a widow on Aug 22, 2007. When the woman objected, Thakore threatened to kill her if she told anyone about it and continued with the act. According to legal sources, the case was of "rarest of rare" kind in the state. NEW DELHI, India Expressing grave concern over increasing incidence of rape and killing of young girls, the Supreme Court of India has confirmed death sentence to a former Pune school teacher for raping and killing a 9-year-old girl. Shivaji, a married man and the father of three children, had in January 2002 taken his maidservant's daughter - of the same age as that of his own daughter - to Manmodya hills in Pune and killed her after raping her. "A large number of cases, involving rape and murder of young girls, coming in recent times before this Court, is a matter of concern," said the bench, while expressing concern over the increasing instances of rape and killing of young girls. NEW DELHI, India Nearly 50 000 schools, colleges and educational institutions run by Christian organisations and individuals across India shut down last week to protest continuing violence against Christians in the eastern state of Orissa. At least 11 people have been killed in Hindu-Christian clashes that erupted in Orissa after a Hindu leader was killed on August 23. Hindu activists attacked Christians and torched churches alleging that Christians killed Saraswati, the Hindu leader, because he was opposing religious conversion in the state. Christian organisations denied the allegations. Businessman Sanjeev Nanda was sentenced to five years in jail for running over and killing six people, including three police officers, in 1999 in New Delhi. Nanda, 30, was found guilty by a city court after a nine-year trial, which saw most witnesses turn hostile. Nanda belongs to an influential business family. His grandfather was chief of the Indian Navy, and his father is an international arms dealer. Most of the people mowed down by his car were poor people. India has seen at least three verdicts against scions of wealthy or influential families in the past few yearswith the media and social activists playing a pro-active role. MUMBAI, India Indian megastar Shah Rukh Khan is to tour his live show, Temptation Reloaded 2008, through Germanystarting with a performance in Berlin Oct 17. The Bollywood actor, 42, gave Germans a foretaste of his charisma in February during a visit to promote the movie "Om Shanti Om" at the Berlin Film Festival. Five other Bollywood leading names are to join him on the German tour. Comedian Kaya Yanar will make the audiences laugh during the tour, which also includes Munich on Oct 18 and Frankfurt Oct 19. LUDHIANA, Punjab A woman gave birth to a boy on board a flight from Hong Kong to Australia, a news report said Thursday. Parmajit Kaur, 29, was returning from a visit to her family in India. She went into labour on the last leg of a journey back to Adelaide, where she lives. Kaur, who was 34-weeks pregnant, gave birth to a healthy 2.7- kilogramme boy with the help of four doctors who were on board the flight. Unfortunately for Kaur's son, the belief that babies born on a flight are entitled to a lifetime of free air travel is just an urban myth, the airline said.
Pakistan said its inquiry into the so-called honour killing of five women in the south-western province of Balochistan would be made public shortly. Pakistan is the focus of an international outcry over the alleged “buried alive” deathsin July of five women who married men of their own choice in the country’s conservative heartland. Police said women were buried the same clothes they were wearing at the time of their deaths. About 50% of the 170mn population of Pakistan are illiterate and honour killing by male relatives is rampant in countryside if they have even the slightest suspicion that their women have broken family nobility codes.
Afghanistan’s top anti-drug judge had received phone calls and text messages before he was murdered warning him to acquit a suspected drug dealer or face death. Judge Alim Hanif, chief judge of the Central Narcotics Tribunal appeals court, was leading a campaign to bring influential drug traffickers to justice when he was shot dead on his way to work in Kabul. Afghanistan produced some 90% of the world’s supply of opiumlast year, mostly in the south where the Islamist Taliban are most active. Illegal drugs are estimated to be worth more than $3billion a year to the Afghan economy.
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