Man Held For Smuggling Gold Worth Rs 65 Lakh
The Air Intelligence Unit of Mumbai Customs arrested a man at the Mumbai International Airport for trying to allegedly smuggle gold worth Rs 65.61 lakh into the country.
Arshit Narula was nabbed soon after he arrived from Hong Kong in the early hours of Tuesday, Customs officials said.
Based on specific intelligence inputs and profiling, the AIU intercepted Ashit Narula after he crossed the green channel on arrival from Hong Kong on a Cathay Pacific flight CX 663.
“On searching him, we found that he was wearing a waist belt normally used for back pain. When the belt was inspected, we found four redcoloured rolls of gold weighing 1,338 grams, one gold chain weighing 99 grams, and a hollow flex tube of gold and square wire weighing 661 grams,” said a Customs official.
The gold – of 14 KT to 18 KT purity –weighed a total of 3.4 kg. Narula confessed to the crime and admitted to possession, carriage, concealment and smuggling in gold without paying Customs duty. “We have arrested him under the provisions of the Customs Act, and further investigations are on,” the official said.
(Source: Mumbai Mirror)
TTI Pockets Rs 50 Lakh Fine Collected From Commuters
The Central Railway (CR) has suspended a Travelling Ticket Inspector (TTI) for pocketing Rs 50 lakh he collected as fine and differential fare from commuters over the past five years.
The CR during preliminary inquiry found that the accused, R Vaidya, was misappropriating public money since 2012. The Railways are now probing if he had been doing it for a longer period.
As per railway rules, a TTI needs to deposits the money collected from the passengers at booking counters in the rail account. After depositing the money, the TTI gets a receipt with a proper serial number, which is recorded in the monthly statement. This statement along with the receipt is to be deposited at the Divisional Ticket Checking Office on a monthly basis.
Vaidya would keep the money with him and enter fake serial numbers in the monthly statements, said a CR officer.
Sources said that the Divisional Checking Office has hundreds of ticket checkers under its jurisdiction, and according to the earlier system adopted by at the divisional office, not all account statements were matched with receipts. Only random checking was conducted. Vaidya took the advantage of the negligence of some of the employees at the divisional ticket checking office, two of whom have been issued penalty charge sheets. They include chief ticket inspectors DS Pawar and SN Patil and head travelling ticket examiner VS Kitake. Another employee, whose name has yet not been disclosed, is also being questioned for his possible role in the misappropriation of fund.
(Source: Mumbai Mirror)
Three More Hospitals Get Approval For Anti-TB Wonder Drug Treatment
A year after the successful trial of a wonder drug used in the treatment of drug-resistant Tuberculosis, the health ministry has given its approval to three more centres in the city to conduct the procedure.
Till now, 180 test subjects have responded well to the Bedaquiline treatment regimen. As a result, under the revised national tuberculosis control program (RNTCP), the health ministry gave its go-ahead to three more centres in Mumbai apart from KEM Hospital.
Now, Nair hospital in Byculla, LTMG Sion hospital, Shatabdi hospital in Govandi have been authorised for the wonder drug treatment.
The medication will be administered to a select group of patients – those diagnosed with multi-drug resistant (MDR) and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) strains of the bacteria.
Bedaquiline, manufactured by Belgian pharma major Janssen, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, received safety and effectiveness clearances from US Food and Drug Administration in December 2014 after multiple trails worldwide and is recognised by the World Health Organisation as an “essential drug” in treating TB. A sixmonth course of the medication will cost the government Rs 2 lakh per patient.
In 2016, under the RNTCP programme the health ministry had started Bedaquiline trials at six public health facilities — namely the National Institute of Research in Tuberculosis (NIRT), Chennai; the National Institute of TB and Respiratory Diseases (NITRD), New Delhi; Rajan Babu Institute for Pulmonary Medicine and Tuberculosis, New Delhi; Sewri Hospital, Mumbai; BJ Medical College & Hospital, Ahmedabad and Government Medical College, Guwahati to treat 600 patients. In Mumbai, so far, 180 drug resistance patients have benefited under the supervision of KEM Hospital doctors.
(Source: Mumbai Mirror)
Kangana Ranaut's Director Sai Kabir Enters Rehab After Help Falls To Death From 7th Floor
No one knows exactly what happened at Rajdoot Apartments, Yari Road, on January 31. But in the days since, there have been hushed whispers in Bollywood about how filmmaker Sai Kabir (Revolver Rani) was committed to rehab just hours after his domestic help mysteriously fell to his death from his seventh-storey apartment. One thing colleagues agree on is that while Sai is a talented writer and director, he was struggling with depression and substance abuse after one of his films didn't take off.
When mudslinging begins, stars make a run to keep their image pristine. But despite all the noise around Sai Kabir, a renowned celebrity manager, who was professionally well-acquainted with him, tells mid-day, "He took very good care of his servant. Raju had been working with him for many years, and Sai was protective of him. We met Raju when we went over to Sai's place for work. He was family to him, so it is highly unlikely Sai could kill him. But, you never know what happens behind closed doors."
However, the celebrity manager's recollections are from over a year ago. Several members of the film industry have confirmed that over the past couple of years, Sai had cut off from everyone and mostly kept to himself.
(Source: Mid-Day)
Nine Friends Rape 15-Year-Old For A Year By Blackmailing Her With Video Clip
The Vile Parle police arrested six friends from a group of nine, on charges of sexually assaulting a minor, on Saturday. The 15-year-old survivor, who resides in Vile Parle, had been facing the torture for a year. She is in class X and her parents are daily wage earners. In her statement she told police that she had approached one of the accused regarding a personal matter about a year ago, seeking his help in resolving it.
She later got into a relationship with the man, who to her horror, made a video clip of their intimate moments and circulated it among eight of his friends. Soon after, each of them started blackmailing her, and taking advantage of her sexually. She did not reveal this to her parents or anyone else, as she was afraid that the accused would harm her family members.
Police said she knows all the accused as they live in the same vicinity as her. The harassment was revealed when the survivor could not bear it any further and told her mother about it. She took her to the Vile Parle police, who, based on the survivor’s statement, nabbed six of the accused, while the remaining three are on the run. The accused live with their families and are labourers.
(Source: Mid-Day)
Bombay High Court Stays IT Notices To SRK, Juhi
The Bombay High Court has stayed the showcause notices issued to actors Shahrukh Khan and Juhi Chawla by the I-T department over alleged undervaluation of shares. In an interim order passed last Friday, Justices M S Sanklecha and R I Chagla held that the notices were prima facie not based on any concrete evidence or finding. In March 2017, the I-T department issued notices to Knight Riders Sports Pvt Ltd (KRSPL) and its directors Shah Rukh Khan, his wife Gauri and Juhi Chawla.
The bench, however, noted that in 2013, an assessing officer of the I-T department had looked into the allegations and, after being satisfied of no wrongdoing, had closed the case. However, the department issued fresh notices in 2017 after going through a change of opinion and deciding to re-open the case.
(Source: Indian Express)
₹7,000 Cr Allocated For Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet Train In Union Budget; Another ₹778 Cr For MUTP
A provision of Rs7,000 crore has been made for the ambitious Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed bullet train project in Union Budget 2018, railway officials revealed at a press conference in Mumbai on Tuesday. Another Rs778 crore has been allocated for the city’s transport projects, including the new Mumbai Urban Transport Project-3A (MUTP-3A).
Budget documents released by the railway ministry on Tuesday show that Rs7,000 crore has been allocated for the bullet train project through “extra-budgetary resources”.
The bullet train is expected to cover the 504-km distance between the two cities in less than three hours. The Indian Railways is planning to complete the project by 2022.The foundation stone for the project was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, on September 14, 2017.
As per the documents, the railways has also made a provision of more than Rs600 crore for different phases of the MUTP — Rs169.61 crore for the ongoing MUTP-2 and Rs519.05 crore for the MUTP-3 projects.
A token provision of Rs1 crore has also been made for the newly proposed MUTP-3A, which bundles together all of Mumbai’s major future projects. The total cost of MUTP-3A is estimated to be Rs55,000 crore.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)