Majority of Muslims want Ram temple in Babri Masjid land: UP deputy CM

New Delhi, Jan 17: A Delhi court Friday issued fresh death warrants for February 1, 6 am against the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case.

Additional Sessions Judge Satish Kumar Arora was hearing a plea by one of the four death row convicts in the case, Mukesh Kumar Singh, seeking postponement of the date of his execution scheduled for January 22.

Earlier in the day, the Tihar jail authorities sought issuance of fresh death warrants against the four convicts.

Public Prosecutor Irfan Ahmed told the court that Mukesh's mercy plea was rejected by President Ram Nath Kovind on Friday.

The 23-year-old paramedic student, referred to as Nirbhaya, was gang-raped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a moving bus in south Delhi by six persons before being thrown out on the road.

She died on December 29, 2012, at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.

New Delhi, Jul 24: Telecom companies lost 82.3 lakh subscribers during the COVID-19 lockdown period of April, data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Friday showed.

As per the reports received from 342 operators in April, TRAI said the number of broadband subscribers decreased from 68.7 crore at the end of March to 67.6 crore at the end of April with a monthly decline rate of 1.64 per cent.

Top five service providers constituted 98.98 per cent market share of total broadband subscribers with Reliance Jio Infocomm (38.9 crore), Bharti Airtel (14.4 crore), Vodafone Idea (11.1 crore), BSNL (2.1 crore) and Atria Convergence (16 lakh).

The number of overall telephone subscribers decreased from 117.7 crore at the end of March to 116.9 crore at the end of April, showing a monthly decline rate of 0.72 per cent.

The TRAI said total wireless subscribers (2G, 3G and 4G) decreased from 115.7 crore at the end of March to 115 crore at the end of April, thereby registering a monthly decline rate of 0.71 per cent.

Wireless subscription in urban areas decreased from 63.8 crore to 62.9 crore but increased in rural areas from 51.9 crore to 52 crore. Monthly growth rates of urban and rural wireless subscription were minus 1.42 per cent and 0.16 per cent respectively.

Wayanad, Mar 3: Anguished over the alleged delay in receiving flood relief from the Kerala government, a 42-year-old man committed suicide in Wayanad district, police said on Tuesday. Sanal Kumar, a native of Thrikaipatta in Meppadi near here was found hanging inside the temporary shelter built by his friends and local people on Monday. He was among the hundreds who had lost their homes in the August 2019 floods.

His home, built on a three cent plot, had been damaged partially in 2018 floods and completely in the 2019 deluge. Family members of the deceased alleged that it was due undue delay on the part of the authorities in allotting funds for rebuilding his house that drove Kumar to take the extreme step. Kumar was hoping to get a house under the Life Mission project, sources said.

A relative said Kumar had only 3 cent of land and had lot of debts. Even the Rs 10,000 assistance promised by the state government for the flood affected, had not reached him. Since the past two years he had filed several applications for assistance and apporached many revenue authroties for the promised government assistance, but it never came, the locals alleged.

According to K K Sahad, president of Meppadi Panchayat the deceased had some other financial issues and it was not the delay in rehabilitation that made him commit suicide. "It is true that he was not included in the first list of beneficiaries under the LIFE project as he had to have "pattayam" (land records) for his land.

However, he was included in the second list, thanks to the dilution in the norms that possession was enough for those who had no 'pattayam' for their property. The amount of Rs 4 lakhs was sanctioned for him, but was delayed a bit due to some technical issues."

Wayanad MLA C K Saseendran described it as an "extremely sad" development. As Kumar had some difficulties in producing the land recrods, the authroties had been unable to include his name in the LIFE housing scheme in the first phase.

The matter has been brought before the notice of the revenue authorities, he said. Vythiri Tahsildar, Abdul Hameed, visited Kumar's relatives this morning as the family members of the deceased wanted his presence before the body was taken for post-mortem.

"There was some technical issues with regard to the land as it falls within the adhivasi reserve. But they were occupying it for long. However, the issue has been sorted out and that his family members would be getting the eligibility amount of four lakhs," Hameed said.