Modi govt’s minister Giriraj Singh booked in land grabbing case

Sydney, Jan 8:  Authorities in Australia will begin five-day campaign to kill thousands of camels in the country as they drink too much water amid the wildfires.  The government will send helicopters to kill up to 10,000 camels in a five-day campaign starting Wednesday, The Hill reported citing The Australian.

Marita Baker, an Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) (large, sparsely-populated local government area for Aboriginal Australians) executive board member, said that the camels were causing problems in her community of Kanypi.

"We have been stuck in stinking hot and uncomfortable conditions, feeling unwell, because the camels are coming in and knocking down fences, getting in around the houses and trying to get to water through air conditioners,'' she said.

The planned killing of the camels comes at a time the country is ravaged by wildfires since November. The disaster has killed more than a dozen people and caused the displacement or deaths of 480 million animals, according to University of Sydney researchers.

New Delhi, Jan 16: The Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government on Thursday rejected the mercy plea of Mukesh, one of the convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya case.

The mercy plea was then forwarded to Lieutenant Governor, who has now sent it to Union Ministry of Home Affairs.

The convicts were sentenced to death for raping a 23-year-old woman in a moving bus in the national capital on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012.

The victim, who was later given the name Nirbhaya, had succumbed to injuries at a hospital in Singapore where she had been airlifted for medical treatment.

Lucknow, Jan 6: Undeterred by the large scale protests that claimed as many as 20 lives in the state, Uttar Pradesh government has started the process of implementing the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act.

According to sources in the government, the district magistrates have been directed to identify the migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, who have been living in their districts.

Sources said that the state home department has given oral instructions to the district magistrates. ''No written orders have been issued,'' said a senior official here preferring anonymity.

The official said that the district magistrates would be preparing a list containing names of those minorities, who had migrated from these countries following their persecution and had been living without obtaining the citizenship of India.

According to sources, the government expected that the migrants, who could be eligible for the Indian citizenship in accordance with the CAA, could be more in number in the districts, including Rampur, Ghaziabad, Shahjahanpur, Lucknow and some others.

''The list will be sent to the union home ministry,'' the official added.

Sources said that the state government will also inform the centre about the ''illegal Muslim migrants'' for their ultimate deportation to their countries of origin.

Different parts of UP had witnessed large scale violence last month during the protests against the CAA. At least 20 people, mostly youngsters, were killed allegedly in police firing and many others were injured. The state government had denied the charge. 

Alleged police excesses during and after the protests triggered a nationwide outrage with several rights organisations and activists slamming the BJP government and demanding a high-level probe into the allegations.