In the Nagpur Central Jail, a COVID-19 patient who has been complaining since the last 10 days of high fever, breathlessness, joint pain, cold and sore throat, is being treated in jail quarantine. The prisoner is Professor G N Saibaba, 90% handicapped, wheelchair-bound, with a damaged heart and pancreas; dependent on others even for his essential bodily functions.
'She seems to have disappeared off the face of the planet after telling different people different things.'
Saibaba, an assistant professor of English, was suspended after his arrest by the Maharashtra Police in 2014. His wife and daughters were receiving half of his salary since the arrest.
'Sanction serves the salutary object of providing safeguard to the accused from unwarranted prosecution and the agony and trauma of trial, and in the context of the stringent provisions of the UAPA, is an integral facet of due process of law.' If the report to the sanctioning officer for the first five accused in the case lacked the qualities required under the law, then for Professor Saibaba, the sanction came much after his trial had started!
There are hundreds of fan clubs -- in Jalgaon, Beed, Chennai, Kolkata, Akola, Yavatmal, Bengaluru, Sitamarhi, New York, Canada, Nigeria etc. Every Indian city/town or a major country has a fan club for the man whose fan base has been estimated at 3.5 billion by Time Magazine.
His spine, his heart, his pancreas -- one by one, all his organs have weakened, given the lack of medical treatment in jail, where he is kept in the notorious Anda cell. Continuous pain, frequent fainting spells, urinary problems, have all become part of his life.
'Saibaba has 19 ailments, including severe heart and kidney problems.' 'Even healthy persons find their systems failing after Covid.' 'What will happen to someone like Saibaba?', Professor G N Saibaba's wife asks Jyoti Punwani.
'Just waiting outside the prison gate, thinking that your mother is inside those walls even though you know she is innocent, affects your psyche.'
Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud's first 100 days in office saw the Supreme Court take a giant leap towards reforms, especially making courts more technology-friendly, and ensuring relatively fast judicial appointments including those of eight judges to the apex court.
'How can the police, especially the Gujarat police, earn their laurels if they stick to the rule book?' asks lawyer Susan Abraham.
'My father lived on minimum money and helped others.' 'What was he to gain personally? No name, fame like a politician who work for votes.' 'His sort believe all humans deserve better lives.'
'Thanks to them, I have enough money to run my house for three months at least.'
The aide said doctors have attributed the "spell of dizziness" to a strong dose of antibiotics the minister took on Wednesday for a throat infection.
Aggarwal, 62, who was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi and was on ventilator support since last week, died at 11.30 pm on Monday after a lengthy battle with Covid-19, according to the statement.
Jyoti Punwani reports on the strange case of Prashant Rahi, MTech, journalist, activist, now in solitary confinement in a Maharashtra prison.
Will the latest development see a marked break from the way the case has been going?
A Supreme Court bench of Justice M R Shah and Justice Bela M Trivedi in a special sitting on Saturday upheld the Maharashtra government's plea and suspended the Bombay high court order acquitting former Delhi University Professor G N Saibaba in a case relating to his alleged Maoist links.
With the fashion world blurring the lines between innovation, technology and reality, shopping is all set to be revolutionised.
'It's little things like these -- sharing medicines, consoling each other after a mulaqat (meeting) or a tearful phone conversation with your loved ones or when we would return, dejected, when our bails were rejected -- that made our time in jail bearable.'
Thackeray said an "atmosphere of fear" was being created with such actions.
'You are with each other 24x7, so how can you ignore someone crying next to you?' 'How can you not share a piece of chicken with someone who is sitting next to you and watching you eat it?' 'Of course, you will share.' 'And you become friends with the kind of people you never thought you'd even know.'
'People accused of mass murder and worse are let out on medical grounds.' 'Saibaba is now 100% handicapped, and has committed no murder, yet he is not allowed to come out.'
He attributed the episode to low sugar and low oxygen supply to his body as he was wearing convocation robes.
Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com reports from Shivaji Park and the MMRDA ground to sense the mood of Shiv Sena workers -- from the Uddhav Thackeray and Eknath Shinde camps.
The move comes even as India's drug regulator has extended Covishield's shelf life from six to nine months from its manufacturing date.
The bench suggested that the hearing be adjourned "sine die" (adjournment of proceedings with no date of resumption).
From carrying portraits of their sons and husbands who have committed suicide due to agrarian distress to picketing to doing sewa 24x7 at langars, women have shown a rare determination not to capitulate before the government.
Recently, the Bombay high court had set aside the lower court's order allowing extension of time to police to file its probe report against the rights activists in the violence case.
Saibaba, who was on bail till December 31, gave himself up to jail authorities on Friday night, prison sources said on Saturday.
'I was told to go to the next room and strip -- that's when it really hits you for the first time... that you are a criminal and you are being treated like one.' 'It comes as a shock when, instead of your name, you hear, "Yeh naya Maowadi aaya hai (A new Maoist has arrived)".'
'All that Maharashtra can give someone whose husband has died is a piece of cloth. That was extremely tragic for me.' 'If you go back historically there is no reference to Maharashtra whereas there is complete reference to Vidarbha.'
In the wake of 73 confirmed cases of coronavirus in India so far, the Union health ministry has made functional 52 laboratories for testing samples while 57 labs have been designated for helping in sample collection for Covid-19 to enhance capacity for diagnosis and detection of the disease. "Following the increase in load of screening samples from suspected cases with symptoms and travel history to the affected countries, the department of health research/ICMR has commissioned 52 laboratories for COVID-19 testing in India," an official said.
In the first dedicated mission of its commercial arm New Space India Limited (NSIL), the Indian Space Research Organisation on Sunday successfully launched Brazil's earth observation satellite Amazonia-1 and 18 other co-passengers, including five built by students, onboard a Polar rocket from the spaceport in Sriharikota.
Yakub Memon, the only convict in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case whose death sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Court recently , has been awarded a master's degree in English literature by the Indira Gandhi National Open University. Memon is currently lodged in the Central Prison in Nagpur. Seven other convicts, who are serving life-terms, were awarded IGNOU degrees.
Fifty-six months on, the government's record in implementing these schemes and projects has been mixed, report Arup Roychoudhury and Indivjal Dhasmana.
'We want Muslims to go about their work and business unhindered.' 'They should not get victimised and that will only come through the process of reconciliation.'
"In India, we derive our strength from tolerance, and respect our pluralism. We celebrate our diversity," he said.
CBI judge B H Loya, who was hearing the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case died in 2014 when he had gone to attend the wedding of a colleague's daughter. The reason for his death was said to be caridac arrest.
Confrontation has erupted over reinstatement of Delhi University professor G N Saibaba, who is out on bail in a case of alleged Maoist links.
'These Harvard University-educated people, with knowledge limited to the small states there, apply it in a huge country like India, which is not practical at all.'
