Kochi, Aug 12: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh
today made an aerial survey of two rain-ravaged districts of Kerala and said the situation in the state was "very serious".
He assured the state government of all help from the Centre to meet the challenges posed by the unprecedented floods.
The minister was speaking to reporters at the airport here after conducting the aerial survey of Idukki and Ernakulam districts.
Jan 31: Twenty-three children aged between six months and 15 years, who had been taken hostage by a murder accused after inviting them to his daughter's birthday party, were rescued late on Thursday night after police killed their captor in a village here.
The hostage drama began at Kasaria village in the afternoon and continued for about eight hours.
"The accused was killed and there were about 23 children who were rescued safely," Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Awasthi told reporters at a hurriedly called press conference at 1.20 am.
"The accused had invited the children for the birthday party of his daughter and held them hostage. It started about 5.45 pm on January 30 and continued for about eight hours," Director General of Police (DGP) O P Singh said, adding that in the entire operation they had tried to "engage" the accused and were successful.
He said the accused, identified as Subhash Batham, had initially released a six-month-old girl by handing her over to his neighbour from a balcony.
Eyewitnesses said a restive crowd gathered outside the house where the children were kept with some women wailing and praying for their safe release.
The crowd broke open the door of the house to rescue the children, they said.
As the accused opened fire, the police retaliated killing him on the spot.
In the exchange of fire, the captor's wife was injured, but none of the children suffered any injury.
A man and two policemen also suffered bullet injuries.
The motive of the accused was not known immediately.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath monitored the situation in Farrukhabad, which is nearly 200 km from state capital Lucknow.
"The CM as soon as he got to know about the incident called a meeting of the crisis management group and personally monitored the situation and ensured children are rescued safely," Awasthi said.
Earlier, a team of NSG (National Security Guard) commandos had taken a special aircraft to reach Farukhabad, a senior security official in Delhi said.
Police said Batham, a murder accused, seemed to be mentally unstable.
Inspector-General of Police, Kanpur Range, Mohit Agarwal, said, "The man called the children for a birthday party and held them hostage in the basement of the house. He fired six shots from inside the building."
Batham initially wanted to talk to the local MLA, but refused to speak to the leader when he arrived, Agarwal said.
New Delhi, Jul 29: The new National Education Policy (NEP) approved by the Union Cabinet on Wednesday is set to usher in a slew of changes with the vision of creating an education system that contributes directly to transforming the country, providing high-quality education to all, and making India a global knowledge superpower.
The draft of the NEP by a panel headed by former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief Kasturirangan and submitted to the Union Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal when he took charge last year. The new NEP replaces the one formulated in 1986.
Some of the key highlights of the New Education Policy are:-
The policy aims to enable an individual to study one or more specialized areas of interest at a deep level, and also develop character, scientific temper, creativity, spirit of service, and 21st century capabilities across a range of disciplines including sciences, social sciences, arts, humanities, among others.
It identified the major problems facing the higher education system in the country and suggested changes such as moving towards multidisciplinary universities and colleges, with more institutions across India that offer medium of instruction in local/Indian languages, a more multidisciplinary undergraduate education, among others.
The governance of such institutions by independent boards having academic and administrative autonomy has also been suggested.
Under the suggestions for institutional restructuring and consolidation, it has suggested that by 2040, all higher education institutions (HEIs) shall aim to become multidisciplinary institutions, each of which will aim to have 3,000 or more students, and by 2030 each or near every district in the country there will be at least one HEI.
The aim will be to increase the Gross Enrolment Ratio in HEIs including vocational education from 26.3 per cent (2018) to 50 per cent by 2035.
Single-stream HEIs will be phased out over time, and all will move towards becoming vibrant multidisciplinary institutions or parts of vibrant multidisciplinary HEI clusters.
It also pushes for more holistic and multidisciplinary education to be provided to the students.
New Delhi, Mar 21: A couple was deboarded from a Delhi-bound Rajdhani train on Saturday after co-passengers observed a home quarantine seal on the husband's hand, the Railways said Saturday.
Officials said the Delhi-based couple boarded the Bangalore City-New Delhi Rajdhani at Secunderabad on Saturday morning.
When the train reached Kazipet in Telangana at 9:45 am, a co-passenger noticed the quarantine mark authorities are putting on suspected coronavirus cases on the husband's hand when he was washing his hands. Other co-passengers then informed the TTE onboard.
The train was briefly detained and the couple was taken to a hospital. The coach was completely sanitised in Kazipet and was locked, officials said.
The air conditioning was also switched off.
The train left for its destination at 11.30 am.
People fleeing quarantine has been a common problem reported from different parts of the country.
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