Nalini Gets Parole To Attend Father's Funeral

Nalini Sriharan, a convict in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, was on Wednesday granted a 12-hour parole to attend the last rites of her father. "She has been granted a 12-hour parole and will return to jail by this evening," a jail official of Women's prison here told PTI. She left the Vellore Central Prison (women's jail) under police escort by 6.50 am.

She is on her way to Chennai where she will attend the cremation of her father Sankara Narayanan. Nalini was sentenced to death by the trial court in the case on January 28, 1998. Her sentence was commuted to life term by the Tamil Nadu Governor on April 24, 2000.

In December 14 last year, she had moved Madras high court seeking a direction to Tamil Nadu government to consider her representation for premature release, saying she has undergone imprisonment for more than 24 years.

Chaos In Parliament Over JNU Row, Vemula Suicide

In its first hour of work in the Budget Session, the Rajya Sabha was adjourned thrice as opposition lawmakers shouted slogans against the government over the suicide of research scholar Rohith Vemula at a Hyderabad university last month.
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Mayawati raised the Rohith Vemula suicide in the upper house, demanding the government's response to allegations that the research scholar, a Dalit, was persecuted and two union ministers had a role in it.

Shouting slogans, her party members trooped into the well of the House, forcing repeated adjournments. They demanded the resignation of the two ministers - labour minister Bandaru Datatreya and education minister Smriti Irani.

"Have a discussion right away sir. Who uses a child as a political tool?" said Smriti Irani, who is a member of the Rajya Sabha. The government has said that it is willing to suspend all business and take up the discussion immediately.

Rohit Vemula's suicide is part of a debate scheduled for this afternoon in the Rajya Sabha. The upper house will discuss "the situation arising in central institutions of higher education with specific reference to Jawaharlal Nehru University and University of Hyderabad."

"The government is working fine and has a lot to show. The opposition is raking up non-issues like JNU and the party needs to debate and contest aggressively," Prime Minister Narendra Modi is said to have told the BJP's top leaders at a meeting in Parliament on Tuesday evening.

The Congress' Ghulam Nabi Azad will begin the Rajya Sabha debate, leading a united opposition in an attack on the government over students being charged with sedition for an event at JNU earlier this month where anti-India slogans were raised. "They misused the sedition clause," alleged Left leader Sitaram Yechury yesterday.

The government will defend the sedition charge against the students and its speakers are expected to quote a Supreme Court order on anti-India slogans amounting to sedition.

BJP chief Amit Shah and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, too, briefed party lawmakers on the JNU controversy on Tuesday. Mr Jaitley, a well-known lawyer, covered the sedition law and other legal aspects of the case, sources said.

The party's lawmakers were told to counter the opposition by citing the arrest of Kashmiri terrorist Muhammad Ghauri from JNU during the Congress-led UPA's rule. They have also been told to bring up how two Army officers were beaten up badly on the university campus.

Air India To launch Flights Between Kolkata To Port Blair

Travelers from Kolkata have got a reason to smile. According to a report by Travel Biz Monitor, Air India has announced the launch of weekly flights from Kolkata to Port Blair.
Starting its operations from February 25, 2016, the charter flight AI 3707 has been scheduled to depart Kolkata at 9pm, and will reach Port Blair at 11pm. The return flight has been scheduled to depart Port Blair at 11.40pm, and will arrive in Kolkata at 1.25am.
This move by Air India could prove beneficial not only for the residents of Kolkata, but travellers from all other parts of the country as it will be a major addition to direct connectivity between the Indian mainland and the Islands. This might also push up the number of tourist arrivals in the already-popular destination.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands have always been a traveler’s favorite, not only among Indians but the global tourists as well. The Islands are known to have pristine beaches, scenic landscapes with a lush vegetation, a rich coral reef ecosystem, and teeming wildlife all of this accompanied by a fine tropical weather.