Indian family goes missing during road trip in US, two found inside SUV submerged in river

Agencies
April 17, 2018

New Delhi, Apr 17: An Indian family went missing in the US last week while travelling from Oregon to California. According to The Washington Post, after a week-long search for them, bodies of two of the family members were found inside their SUV, which was submerged in Eel River, on Sunday.

The bodies were later identified as those of Sandeep Thottapilly and his 9-year-old daughter Saachi. Two days before the recovery of their body, the investigators had also found the body of Sandeep’s wife Saumya, reported The Washington Post. There is, however, no clue about the whereabouts of their son, Siddhant.

The report further said that a poster shared on social networking website Facebook suggested that the vehicle in which the family travelled was a 2016-make Honda Pilot, maroon or burgundy in colour.

"At approximately 11:30 AM a boating team noticed a gasoline smell emitting from the water approximately 1/2 mile north of the reported crash site (downstream). The searchers began to probe the water and located a vehicle submerged approximately 4-6 feet beneath the water," California's Mendocino County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

Soon thereafter, search divers entered the water and were able to feel what they believed to be a person inside of the vehicle. Visibility was extremely poor and divers noted the vehicle was encased in a large amount of sediment from the river current, a media release said.

Recovery efforts continued for several hours and at approximately 6:30 PM the vehicle was partially removed from the Eel River by use of a tow truck. This provided searchers the ability to conduct a visual inspection of the inside of the vehicle.

"Searchers subsequently recovered the bodies of Sandeep Thottapilly and Saachi Thottapilly from inside the vehicle," the Sheriff Office said adding that the autopsies are expected to be performed this week as part of the coroner's investigation into the incident.

According to the San Jose Police Department, the Thottapilly family was supposed to have arrived to visit a friend in the San Jose area on April 6 but did not make it as scheduled. The family was last heard from in the town of Klamath, Del Norte County, on April 5. Sandeep grew up in Surat in Gujarat and settled down in the US over 15 years ago.

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Agencies
August 7,2020

New Delhi, Aug 7: India's COVID-19 cases tally crossed 20 lakh mark with the highest single-day spike of 62,538 cases on Friday, said Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

The COVID-19 tally rises to 20,27,075 including 6,07,384 active cases, 13,78,106 cured/discharged/migrated and 41,585 deaths, according to the Ministry of Health.

Maharashtra with 1,46,268 active cases and 3,05,521 cured and discharged patients continues to be the worst affected. The state has also reported 16,476 deaths due to the infection.

Tamil Nadu has 54,184 active cases while 2,14,815 patients have been discharged after treatment in the state. 4,461 deaths have been reported due to COVID-19 in the state.

Andhra Pradesh with 80,426 active cases is the third on the list. There are 1,04,354 cured and discharged patients and 1,681 deaths reported from the state.

Delhi now has 10,072 active cases and 1,26,116 cured and discharged patients. 4,044 people have lost their lives due to the disease in the Union Territory so far. 

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News Network
January 13,2020

New Delhi, Jan 13: The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) has alleged that the varsity administration has blocked the registration of 300 students on the basis of 'fake Proctor inquiries'.

The union had on Saturday asked students of the university to pay their academic tuition fee but not the hiked hostel fee.

"Today the Vice Chancellor first blocked the fee payment portal and then blocked the payment of tuition fees. It is clear that the VC was lying through the teeth when he said students want to register but are not being allowed to by protesters," JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh said.

She said the VC has also blocked the registration of 300 students based on fake proctor enquiries which are not even completed.

"The truth is that it is the administration which does not want students to register and is blocking their registration," she said.

JNUSU vice president Saket Moon said that in the meetings held in HRD ministry, it was decided that the administration would take a lenient view on the students' protest and not take action against them.

He said many students, who opened the portal for registration found they had been academically suspended and could not register.

He said the JNUSU had softened its stand by saying that they would register by paying the old fees but that has been kept on hold.

On Sunday, the administration extended the date for the winter semester registration till January 15.

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Agencies
July 18,2020

Days after Twitter accounts of several billionaires were hacked to engineer a crypto scam, Twitter on Saturday said it is embarrassed, disappointed and, more than anything, sorry for what happened with some of its high-profile users as attackers successfully manipulated its employees and used their credentials to access internal systems, including getting through the two-factor protections.

In the first detailed summary of the "social engineering attack" via a crypto scam that hit at least 130 users this week, Twitter said for 45 of those accounts, the attackers were able to initiate a password reset, login to the account and send Tweets.

"We are continuing our forensic review of all of the accounts to confirm all actions that may have been taken. In addition, we believe they may have attempted to sell some of the usernames," the micro-blogging platform said in a statement.

For up to eight of the Twitter accounts involved, the attackers took the additional step of downloading the account's information via "Your Twitter Data" tool.

This is a tool that is meant to provide an account owner with a summary of their Twitter account details and activity.

"We are reaching out directly to any account owner where we know this to be true. None of the eight were verified accounts," said Twitter.

The company said the attackers were not able to view previous account passwords, as those are not stored in plain text or available through the tools used in the attack.

"Attackers were able to view personal information including email addresses and phone numbers, which are displayed to some users of our internal support tools," informed Twitter.

In cases where an account was taken over by the attacker, they may have been able to view additional information, Twitter added, saying its forensic investigation of these activities was still ongoing.

"We are actively working on communicating directly with the account-holders that were impacted".

The company said it will soon restore access for all account owners who may still be locked out as a result of the remediation efforts.

The New York Times reported on Friday that the Twitter crypto scam can be traced back to a group of hackers who congregate online at OGusers.com, a username-swapping community where people buy and sell coveted online handles.

The report said that the Twitter hack is not from Russian, Chinese or North Korean hackers but was done by a group of young people, "one of whom says he lives at home with his mother".

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