Beyond Layoff

During a hearing that has shocked many, the Indian Supreme Court bench asked a rape accused “Are you willing to marry her (the victim)?” The man refused saying he was already married. A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde was hearing a plea filed by the accused, Mohit Subhash Chavan, a technician in Maharashtra State Electricity Production Company. “You should have thought before seducing and raping the young girl. You are a government servant. We are not forcing you to marry. Let us know if you will, otherwise you will say we are forcing you to marry her,” the Chief Justice said.   “I had initially asked for marriage... Right now, I cannot marry her... I am married,” Chavan's lawyer reported back his client's statement to the court.  Chavan was accused of raping a minor girl in 2014-15. He was allegedly 17-years-old at the time. The victim, who was a distant relative of his was in the ninth grade when she was repeatedly molested by Chavan.   The accused had...

The wife of one of the world's most notorious drug kingpins, Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, was arrested Monday for allegedly helping her husband run his multi-billion dollar international drug cartel and for aiding in his 2015 escape from a Mexican prison. The 31 years old Emma Coronel, who married Guzmán when she was a teenage beauty queen, was arrested at Washington’s Dulles airport. The California-born, dual U.S.-Mexican citizen, was arrested on Monday. She faces charges for participating in a conspiracy to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana for importation into the U.S., according to the Justice Department. After Guzmán was re-arrested in Mexico in January 2016 following his first prison escape, he was extradited to the U.S. in 2017. He was convicted of ten criminal counts in federal court in New York in 2019 and is currently serving life in prison. According to Wall Street Journal, "Ms. Coronel attracted media attention during the 2019 N...

103 people from an apartment in Bommanahalli in Bengaluru (India) tested positive for Covid-19 after a recent party in the complex. According to media reports, a party was held at the SNN Lake View apartment on February 4 and it was attended by most of the apartment residents. Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Commissioner N Manjunath Prasad confirmed to the media that 103 people out of 1,052 residents of the apartment tested positive. “We have tested 1,052 residents of the apartment; one person is admitted in the hospital and others are in quarantine. The BBMP had put in place various measures, including isolating and quarantining those who had tested positive and we have intensified contact tracing,” Prasad said. The BBMP has also sent samples to the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences(NIMHANS) to find the variant of the virus. “The Samples have been collected and sent for genome sequencing to the NIMHANS laboratory to ascertain the virus variant,” he said,...

LAHORE: In a shocking incident, a doctor sold a newborn baby as the couple failed to pay the hospital bills. According to local police, a poverty-stricken woman gave birth to a boy at a private hospital in Tulamba in Punjab. The couple was unable to clear the medical bills and the doctor allegedly asked the couple to sell the newborn to settle the bills.  Despite the couple's refusal, the doctor found a local buyer and forcibly took the baby from the mother. The couple approached the local police and filed a complaint against the doctor.  The local police acted quickly and arrested the doctor while the hospital administration tried to persuade the couple against taking legal action.  While many around the world were shocked by this news, doctors in poverty stricken areas of rural Pakistan are known to resort to such extreme measures to recover their bills. Some even operate hand-in-glove with criminal gangs that abduct and sell newborn babies to desperate childless ...

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani police arrested at least 31 people in overnight raids after a Hindu temple was set on fire and demolished by a mob led by hundreds of supporters of a radical Islamist party, officials said Thursday. Meanwhile, dozens of Hindus rallied in the southern port city of Karachi to demand the rebuilding of their place of worship. The temple’s destruction Wednesday in Karak, a town in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, also drew condemnation from human rights activists and leaders of Pakistan’s minority Hindu community. Local police said they detained 31 people overnight and Thursday’s raids and more raids were underway to arrest radical cleric Maulana Shareef and other individuals who participated or provoked the mob to demolish the temple. The attack happened after members of the Hindu community received permission from local authorities to renovate the temple. According to police and witnesses, the mob was led by Shareef and supporters of Pakist...

After recent 'warnings' from China, the US President Donald Trump signed a bill into law that calls for building an American consulate in Lhasa and checks Beijing’s interference in selecting the reincarnated new Dalai Lama. Amid recent discussions on stimulus and defense spending bills that were approved by US congress and went to US president for his signature was the Tibetan Policy and Support Act of 2020 (TPSA) . The new law bars the United States from opening new consulates in China until it is allowed one in the Tibetan capital Lhasa and authorizes funding to groups that promote cultural preservation, education and environmental sustainability in the Himalayan region. The law also calls on United States tol impose sanctions on officials "who directly interfere with the identification and installation of the future 15th Dalai Lama of Tibetan Buddhism".  This is a significant move as America undergoes political transition and a new president and his administrat...

Indians are getting ready to file their Income Tax Returns. After extensions, the last date for filing individual tax returns for AY20-21 filing is 31st December 2020, and most likely it won't be extended again. Some Indian Income tax payers are eligible to receive a "Certificate of Appreciation" from the Income Tax Department.  This initiative of the Modi government is a step towards acknowledging the contribution of taxpayers.   Taxpayers are eligible to  receive a certificate of appreciation based on the amount of tax they paid.  Depending on the amount of tax paid, the four categories identified by CBDT for individual taxpayers are: Platinum: For those taxpayers who have contributed Rs 1 crore and above as tax  Gold: For those taxpayers who have contributed between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 1 crore as tax  Silver: For those taxpayers who have contributed between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 50 lakh as tax  Bronze: For those taxpayers who have contributed b...