The important news in front page for today is: –
- Terror:Haji Akhtar Hussain, a ‘Naik’ (a military rank in the NCO cadre in Indian Army) in the Indian Army working as army driver, who retired in 1992, was arrested on 13th Jan’09 on charges of providing Shafiqul, 32- a Bangladesh national and accused of smuggling men and RDX in India through Murshidabad boarder- shelter and helping him set up a tire shop in Siliguri from where the Bangladeshi was keeping track of army movement in North Bengal. The ‘Naik’ was arrested just at the completion of the marriage ceremony of his daughter when the bride and the groom have left but guest were still being entertained.
- Wildlife: A female hoolock gibbon named ‘Siloni’ who was found chained in a temple at Silonijan in Assam province in 2002 was purchased at Rs.500 by the Director of Kaziranga Wildlife Sanctuary S.N.Buagohain and raised her in the precincts of his quarters for a year before being handed over to Kaziranga authorities for training her to live in the wild.
She learnt the ways of wild very quickly while kept in a big enclosure, which resembled a forest. The enclosure was shifted in the Panbari Reserve Forest in 2007 and eventually she was released in the said forest on 25th May’09 to freedom where she found her mate, a male gibbon. Unfortunately she was found dead on Monday morning (12th Jan’09) at the base of a tree. She was a little over six years old and at the dawn of her youth when she died. The Wild Life authorities are investigating the cause of her death. Hoolock gibbons are considered as endangered species.
3. Satyam Scandal: Some fifteen groups of Andhra state CID personnel spanned out in Hyderabad, on 13th Jan’09, to the residences of executives and offices of several Satyam directors, in a ‘search and seizure’ operation, to gather evidences in the Satyam case, where more than 7000 crores were misappropriated. The most stunning of all these search and seizure operations was the raiding of the office of India’s No-1 Audit Firm, ‘Price Waterhouse Coppers.’ According to the police sources, documents, hard disks, and laptops were collected from the offices of the audit firm in an effort to unearth the extent of involvement of auditors in the misappropriation.The raids were carried out in Hyderabad’s posh locality of Jubilee Hills, Banjara Hills, Emaar Villas and Chartered Accountant’s Colony, all through the day.
4. Satyam Bail Out: Amid all these raids and investigations, the government was readying a line of credit of about 500 crores to meet working expenses of Satyam from financial institutions including banks. It appears that at the initiative of the government, the state owned BSNL has awarded a Rs.2000 crores contract to Satyam.