Anna Hazare's demands met, to stay in Tihar jail till venue ready

After two nights in Tihar Jail and hard bargaining, Anna Hazare and government reached an agreement early this morning under which Delhi Police removed all restrictions and allowed him to carry out his hunger strike for a fortnight in the spacious Ramlila Maidan here.

The breakthrough in the battle of attribution between the two sides came in the wee hours of the day after top aides of Hazare met Delhi Police Commissioner B K Gupta and reached an agreement.

The deal marks a major climbdown from government and police's earlier insistence that the fast would be allowed at JP Park, a smaller venue, only for three days with maximum of 5,000 protesters besides a number of other conditions.

The agreement came more than 40 hours after Hazare's arrest of Tuesday and release the same night. However, the Gandhian refused to come out of the jail, continued his fast and carried out hard negotiations from Tihar through his emissaries.

Activist Kiran Bedi tweeted early morning that Hazare has accepted the Delhi Police offer of 15 days and announced that he will go to Ramlila Maidan after 3 pm.

However, another close aide of the 73-year-old Gandhian said this morning that it may not be possible for Hazare to launch his protest from the Ramlila Ground today as the venue was full of muck and needs cleaning up.

"I have just spoken to Commissioner of Municipal Corporation of Delhi (K S Mehra) who has promised me that a Deputy Commissioner would supervise the cleaning up operations at the Maidan," Arvind Kejriwal said.

He said Hazare going to the protest venue "looked difficult" as of now. "We can't give a time as to whether it would start today...if it is possible, (he may do it)."

Bedi had earlier said that Hazare would go to Rajghat before starting his protest in the Maidan after 3pm.

Confirming the deal, home secretary R K Singh said, "Delhi Police and Anna Hazare Team have agreed on the venue, duration, conditions etc."

"Delhi Police and the Anna Hazare team worked out between themselves this agreement. The Delhi Police has no problem in giving 15 days time and the 15 days also suits the Anna Team," he said.
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Sabarimala stampede: 104 pilgrims killed, 50 injured

At least 104 pilgrims have been killed and over 50 injured in a stampede near Sabarimala shrine in Kerala's Idukki district. The incident took place seven kilometres away from the shrine on Friday night.

Over 90 bodies have been recovered so far. Of these, 54 have been identified. The dead bodies have been taken to Vandiperiyar Hospital in Idukki. Some of the injured have been rushed to Kottayam Medical College (Kerala) and Theni Medical College in Tamil Nadu.

The tragedy struck home-bound pilgrims returning after Makaravilakku ritual in Sabarimala, after a jeep carrying devotees ran into a resting camp. Sabarimala's Special Commissioner, Rajendra Nayar, told NDTV that the stampede occurred after the jeep accident caused panic amongst the devotees. (Watch) Most of the victims hailed from Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

Reports suggest that the accident and the consequent stampede occurred in a hilly area, beyond the Sabarimala police protection area. The terrain hence made rescue and relief operations difficult.


"A jeep went out of control and went and hit the devotees who were there. People have been killed because of the crash and also because of the stampede. Most of the casualties happened because of the stampede according to preliminary reports." Kerala's Education Minister M A Baby told NDTV.

"Idukki is a hilly area. So naturally this is a distant place. The accident took place at about 8:15 pm. The Chief Minister, Home Minister, other administrative heads have contacted the district administration. We are totally focused on providing the best treatment, rescuing the injured, recovering the dead bodies. Most of those killed are from other states. Among those who have been killed, most of them are from Tamil Nadu," he added.

The state DGP and the Home Secretary are supervising the rescue, search and relief  operations. Frantic search is on for missing children. A special team of the National Disaster Response Force has left for the spot. The Kerala Chief Minister has called an emergency meeting on relief work.

The Prime Minister has expressed deep shock and sent his condolences to the bereaved families. He has sanctioned an ex-gratia of Rs. 1 lakh for the families of each of the deceased and Rs. 50,000 for those injured.

Defence Minister AK Antony has assured all possible help from the Army in rescue operations.

"I have never seen such a huge crowd at Pulmedu in my life. The flow of pilgrims returning was much more than anybody's expectations", said Aneesh, one of the early local rescuers to reach the spot. Officials also confirmed that the rush of pilgrims had been much higher than expected.

In a similar incident in 1999, a stampede at Pampa on way to the hill shrine had killed 50 people on the occasion of Makar Jyoti.

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Rama Prasad Banik dies at private hospital in Kolkata

Prominent theatre personality of Kolkata, Rama Prasad Banik died on Monday, the 27th of December night at a Kolkata city private hospital where he had been admitted on 25th night. The exponent of theatre in Kolkata was 56 and had been admitted due to severe respiratory problems. The actor suffered health problems
while giving a performance on stage in a place near Kolkata. He is survived by his mother, wife and two daughters.

The news about his demise came as quite a shock to most of his fans, who have been avid followers of theatre ever since this great personality began his career. The playwright, actor, director from Bengal was not only popular in India, but also abroad as he had traveled extensively with his theatre group in the US, Canada, and Britain.


Rama Prasad Banik reportedly began his career as a child actor. Then as he joined Sambhu Mitra’s theatre group named ‘Bahurupee’ he got to take part in many plays. Thus while being attached to this group he enacted several characters in plays like 'Putul Khela', 'Dasha Chakra', 'Cherra Tar', 'Char Addhyay' etc.

However it was his stellar performance in the film titled Jadi Arekbar that stole away all hearts. After his stint with the 'Bahurupee' group was over he came up with his own group called the 'Chena Mukh'.With his own group he came up with some great plays like 'Trata', 'Tempest' etc.

Throughout his life he had tried to propagate theatre into the mainstream of performing arts and he was a very prominent part of the Nehru Children’s Museum theatre classes where he has trained innumerable artists under his talented wings.

The great contributions by this talented personality have been recognized and thus he was given the national scholarship for contribution to theatre and received awards from All India Critic circle along with the Paschim Banga Natya Akademi.
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Abhishek Bachchan, Sonam Kapoor & Neil Nitin In A Twitter Conversation

Sonam Kapoor lost oodles of weight before entering Bollywood, but her taste buds are still very active and she is busy binging on Goan food along with her ‘Players’ co-star Neil Nitin Mukesh. And guess who is jealous? Abhishek Bachchan!

The actors are shooting in Goa for their upcoming film ‘Players’, which is the remake of hit Hollywood movie ‘The Italian Job’ that also stars Abhishek and Sikandar Kher.

Sonam wrote on microblogging site Twitter: ‘Eaten so so much at Mum’s Kitchen in Goa!! Nothing beats Goan food.’

Neil also tweeted: ‘Got the day off in Goa. With my father at baga beach @ britto’s. Great to see so many kids here. Lovely weather. Awesome place great food’.

To which Abhishek replied: ‘Will the two of you stop eating and get serious about your work please!! Start starving like the rest of us!!! These children are out of control!!!’

Neil, who calls Abhishek his big brother, then said: ‘When I have a big brother like you I know you won’t let me ! So please work harder than you already do for us.’

Abhishek said: ‘Good try!!!!! Not gonna happen.’ Sonam also joined in the conversation, saying that Abhishek was jealous.

‘You are just jealous!! Bwahhahahahahaha!!!’, she posted.

Abhishek then said: ‘Jealous?? We’ll discuss that when you see the rushes and both of you will be looking like the house we’re shooting in.’

Neil replied: ‘Ok this is what you give us on Children’s Day. Fine we will.

Source

Meet Vikram Seth's 'Suitable Girl' in 2013

Readers who loved 'A Suitable Boy' will soon have another Vikram Seth novel to munch on: 'A Suitable Girl'. The next magnum opus from the author of The Golden Gate will release in 2013.

Speaking at the first Indian edition of the Hay Literary Festival which began Friday, Seth said his new book would "revisit the family in A Suitable Boy".

"The story of 'A Suitable Boy' is 60 years old and many of the characters would obviously have grown old," he said, and explained that the new work will take this into account. However, Seth also pointedly said, ''I don't intend to fill all the gaps.''

Seth denied that socio-economic changes in India would seriously inspire the sequel. ''I don't think so. It may not include those items except indirectly,'' he said at an interactive session.

Asked what it was like to revisit 'A Suitable Boy', Seth said, ''I haven't read it. It's far too big. I think I will have to do it.''

He added that he hadn't stopped writing poetry, only publishing it.
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Sachin Tnedulkar’s run inspires me, says Ricky Ponting

Australia captain Ricky Ponting is inspired by the way Sachin Tendulkar is playing late in his career, and said he hopes to get better with age like the Indian maestro.

Ponting said the thought of retirement has not crossed his mind, but it would depend a lot on how he fares in the Ashes and World Cup. “Even at my age, we can find ways to improve and I think Sachin has been a great example of that,” Ponting was quoted as saying by the Sydney Morning Herald.

“I think he made nine international hundreds in the last year at 37 years of age, so hopefully I can do something similar in the coming years. If I play well through the Ashes and well through the World Cup, then I will continue to play. I want to play and if there are younger guys out there that I feel I am keeping out of the team, then I will step aside,” said the 36-year-old.

Ponting had missed the third one-dayer against Sri Lanka to be in better shape for the Ashes. Australia managed to win the game but lost the series 1-2 to the visitors.

Ponting said he and the team management chose to use the time to prepare for Tasmania’s Sheffield Shield clash with Queensland on Wednesday.

“All we are trying to do is give ourselves the best chance of winning the Ashes. If Cricket Australia and I and the rest of the team decided it was in my best interest not to play the game, then that is all we can do,” Ponting said.

“We are trying to do the best we can to manage all our players, giving them as much first class cricket as possible,” said Ponting. He said skipping the third one-dayer was already planned. “It was a tough decision to make, the guys had lost seven games in a row,” he said.

“I would have played the third game if it had been one-all, but as it was not, we were two-nil down, so I took the opportunity to come to Tassie ( Tasmania) and prepare for the Shield game.”

Kirsten, too, praises Sachin
India coach Gary Kirsten has called Sachin Tendulkar a batting “professor”. “I think he is a professor in his batting. He has got incredible knowledge about his own batting and basically uses me as a sounding board... He still wants to learn about his batting and still feels he needs someone to bounce ideas off. It has been a real privilege to have had that opportunity,” Kirsten told a cricket website.
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After Kareena, Madhur woos Aishwarya for ‘Heroine’

Mumbai: Exasperated by Bollywood sassy babe Kareena Kapoor’s repeated requests to tone down the steamy scenes in ‘Heroine’, Madhur Bhandarkar is left with no option but to find a suitable replacement of Bebo and what better than Aishwarya Rai Bachchan!

Given the fact that Kareena’s current work commitments make her busy for more than a year, Madhur recently had a covert meeting with Aishwarya to woo her for ‘Heroine’. Buzz has it that Madhur does not have much time as his producers want to start with the project – with or without Kareena. However, it’s Madhur who is desperately waiting for Kareena’s approval. Apparently, Kareena too wants to work for Madhur but is unable to adjust her jam-packed diary for ‘Heroine’.

However, given the gravity of the issue, Madhur downplayed the news of his meeting Aishwarya. Talking to a daily, Madhur said, “I`m still busy with my film and have no time to meet anyone. I will start meeting people soon.”

Meanwhile, a source said, “Ash has never done a movie in which she was a second preference. Let`s see what Madhur can do and who he can rope in if Kareena falls through.”

Who will be Madhur’s heroine – will it be Kareena or Aishwarya? Watch this space soon!
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