12-year-old boy dies of dengue, first fatality in Delhi: MCD

NEW DELHI: A 12-year-old boy has succumbed to dengue, the first reported death due to the vector-borne disease in the city this season, municipal authorities said on Monday.

"The boy, identified as Nitish Kumar, hailed from Bihar and was residing in Safdarjung area in south Delhi. He died at the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital," South Delhi Mayor Kamaljeet Sehrawat told .

This is the first dengue death reported this year in the national capital, which is battling the sting of malaria and chikungunya too.

Authorities at the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital said, "The boy was brought to the hospital on July 30 and died due to dengue haemorrhagic fever on August 1."



At least 657 people have been affected by dengue this season, according to a municipal report released on Monday. At least 153 cases of the disease have been reported this month till August 19.

Of the 657 dengue cases, 325 affected people were residents of Delhi while the rest of the cases diagnosed were traced to other states

Read More

28-year-old kills boyfriend over who will cook

NEW DELHI: An argument over who would cook dinner took an ugly turn in southwest Delhi's Uttam Nagar on Saturday evening, with a 28-year-old woman allegedly stabbing her boyfriend to death. The victim, 30-year-old Eezu — a Nigerian — died of multiple stab wounds, police said. The accused, Elvi Ujumma, was arrested and booked for murder.

Police said Ujumma had asked Eezu to come over to her house in the afternoon, but soon a violent argument ensued between them. The two calmed down after neighbours intervened. However, the fighting resumed when they left. Ujumma told police that the fight started over who would prepare dinner. She claimed that it was Eezu who hit her first.

To scare him away, she got a knife from the kitchen and asked him not to touch her. But when he again tried to attack her, she stabbed him repeatedly, police said. Angry, Eezu claimed, she locked herself in another room. Half an hour later, she went to check on him. "I got scared on seeing him bleeding badly and called my friends. Together, we took him to hospital. Doctors, however, declared him dead on arrival," a police officer quoted her as saying.

Police said once she got to know that Eezu had died, Ujumma returned home and locked herself in a room. Informed about the incident, police made inquiries and arrived at the residence. They broke open the door and arrested the woman.

Vijay, caretaker of the house, said: "Eezu had been staying here for three months. Her boyfriend often visited her, but I had never received any complaint against them."



Prabhjot, a neighbour, said he heard the two loudly arguing over something in the evening. "The man often came to the house, but I had never heard them fighting like this. After some time, I saw the woman and her friends hailing an autorickshaw and taking the man to hospital. He was bleeding badly," he said.

Read More

Banks stare at union strike on Tuesday, services may be hit

NEW DELHI: Services at public sector banks may take a hit on Tuesday as all unions under the aegis of UFBU have threatened to go on strike against the government's proposed consolidation move besides raising a host of other demands.

Most banks have already informed their customers that functioning of branches and offices will be impacted if the strike takes off.

Operations at private lenders like ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank are expected to be normal except delay in cheque clearances.

The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) is an umbrella body of nine unions, including All India Bank Officers' Confederation(AIBOC), All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) and National Organisation of Bank Workers (NOBW).

"As the conciliation meeting before the Chief Labour Commissioner failed, unions are left with no other option but to go on strike. There was no assurance from the government and the management of banks," AIBOC General Secretary D T Franco said.

All attempts to hammer out solutions to the demands raised by the unions bore no fruit and hence, UFBU decided to proceed with the proposed strike on August 22, he said.

Other demands include no write-off policy for non- performing assets (NPAs) of corporate loans, declaring wilful default of loans as criminal offence and implementation of recommendations of Parliamentary Committee on recovery of NPAs, AIBEA General Secretary C H Venkatchalam said.

He also suggested that banks should not pass on the burden of corporate NPAs on bank customers by hiking charges.

Venkatchalam said the government should abolish the Banks Board Bureau and ensure stringent measures to recover bad loans and accountability of top executives.

UFBU, which claims membership of nearly 10 lakh across banks, also requested the government for cost reimbursement of demonetisation to banks.

As many as 21 public sector banks control 75 per cent of the total business.

Read More

Woman Dies While 'Laughing Too Hard' In US

Washington: 

 A US school teacher died after she accidentally fell off a rooftop balcony while laughing during a vacation in Mexico, according to a media report.

Sharon Regoli Ciferno, 50, a teacher at Charles A Huston Middle School in the US state of Pennsylvania, was with her daughter at a friend's house in Mexico on Monday when she sat on a deck ledge that doubled as a bench. 

"She started laughing very hard and when she put her head back she lost her balance and fell back," her brother David Regoli was quoted as saying by the Fox News.

"She suffered multiple injuries to her body and brain," he said.
"Alcohol was not a factor. The building code standards in Mexico are not as stringent as in the US. Unfortunately, there was no back on the deck," her brother said.

Regoli Ciferno was taken to a hospital where she died of her injuries. "This was a tragic accident that has devastated our very close-knit family," he said.

The tragedy happened just as her students were getting ready to return to school from summer break.

Regoli Ciferno was married and a mother of two

Read More

Utkal Express train derails in UP’s Muzaffarnagar, 6 coaches topple, 5 feared dead and 34 injured

At least five passengers were feared dead and 34 injured after six coaches of Kalinga-Utkal Express train derailed near Muzaffarnagar in western Uttar Pradesh on Saturday. (LIVE UPDATES)

Officials said that six coaches of Utkal Express, travelling from Puri in Odisha towards Hardwar in Uttarakhand, jumped the tracks near Jagatpur colony of Khataulli – 40 kms from Meerut town – at 5:45 pm.

Officials said that a team of railway officials and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) were rushed to the spot from Meerut and Muzaffarnagar for rescue operations. Additional director general of police (Meerut), Prashant Kumar is also on his way to the accident site, they said.

“We have received reports casualties in the accident. The exact number is not known yet. The rescue teams have rushed to the spot.,” said a railway official.

Authorities say several are feared trapped in the debris, and the death toll could rise.

Train traffic on the route has been affected and will be resumed only after clearing the tracks, officials said.

On March 30, six people were injured after eight coaches of the Mahakoshal Express, derailed in Kulpahar Mahoba district of Uttar Pradesh.

Read More

GST portal stops functioning, fails to resume after ‘scheduled downtime’

The GST website for filing returns is facing “issues” and services to the website has not been restored, throwing into disarray the return filing processes for some business. For a section of the business the last date to file return remains August 20.

It is not clear what has caused the issue, but a tweet from GST Tech says it is facing issues and that users will have to try after some time.

It may be the case that the huge volume of users trying to log in as the due date approaches led to the site giving up, but earlier in the day many individuals who wanted to file returns talked about the site working intermittently.

Subsequently, the site was taken down at 2 pm to “enhance services on the site”, and the scheduled downtime was to be till 2 30p. However, the site is still not up.

“It is experiencing problems and keeping the tax payers anxious over the weekend before the first deadline is drawing to a close tomorrow. The good news is the Government got the tax, as last day happens to be Sunday and the taxpayers already paid off their July GST liability,” says KPMG India, Partner, Priyajit Ghosh.

The GST site is going through its testing time, even over the return filing of GSTR 3B, which is in a summary format and only of two pages. “One is wondering, is this a precursor to even a bigger challenge when transactional level details are supposed to be updated by more than 8 million tax payers in just about two weeks time from now. It will be prudent to extend the timeline for 3B from 20 Aug to 31 Aug for all taxpayers in the interest of a truly smooth rollout sans anxiety. Load testing is a tricky area in the IT space. Considering the magnitude of data and the number of taxpayers, the Government should reassess the deadline for the detailed filing,” says Ghosh.

Earlier in the days news agency IANS quoted Prateek Jain, chairman, Assocham Special Task Force on GST, saying, "The GST site has been working intermittently since 12 noon. It is creating a lot of confusion among traders. Many of our clients have called up saying they can't file returns. If this continues the government might need to extend the last date of filing by another couple of days at least.”

Read More

New Rs 50 note to hit market soon, old note to continue

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will soon release Rs 50 denomination banknotes in the Mahatma Gandhi (New) Series, having signature of Governor Urjit R. Patel, the central bank said in a release on Friday.

The base colour of the new note is fluorescent blue. It has a motif of Hampi with Chariot on the reverse, depicting the country's cultural heritage.

The note has geometric patterns aligning with the overall colour scheme, both at the obverse and reverse. Dimension of thebanknote will be 66 mm x 135 mm. RBI had said in December last year that it would issuenew currency notes of Rs 50 and Rs 20.

However, RBI clarified that all the Rs 50 banknotes in the earlier series will continue to be a legal tender.



The announcement came after images of the new note started doing the rounds on social media.

The image and salient features of the new Rs 50 note are as under:

1. See through register with denominational numeral 50.
2. Denominational numeral in Devnagari.
3. Portrait of Mahatma Gandhi at the centre.
4. Micro letters 'RBI', BHARAT in Devnagri, 'INDIA' and '50'.
5. Windowed demetalised security thread with inscriptions 'BHARAT' in Devnagri and RBI.

6. Guarantee Clause, Governor's signature with Promise Clause and RBI emblem towards right of Mahatma Gandhi portrait.

7. Ashoka Pillar emblem on the right.

8. Mahatma Gandhi portrait and electrotype (50) watermarks.

9. Number panel with numerals growing from small to big on the top left side and bottom right side.

Read More