All Nirbhaya Wanted - Was A Government Job

A mother mourned in the silence of an intensive care unit at a government hospital. The storm within her was evident on her face, wrinkled with the memories of the trauma of a daughter brutalized by rapists and condemned to a slow and painful death.

Her attendant in this hour of grief was a 23-year-old woman, who had been to school with Nirbhaya, remembered by the neighborhood as "bright, intelligent and focused on achieving her dreams".

Just before the cremation, the mother lost consciousness. Her admission in an ICU led to concern being raised over her condition but sources said it was a precautionary measure. Doctors said she was on her way to recovery but the scars will take time to heal.

The mother had been with the victim all through her agonizing journey of 13 days. She was suffering from recurrent bouts off fainting. Besides being affected by stress, she appeared to have not eaten properly for the past two weeks. The hospital discharged her at 6.30pm.

Neighbours said the mother, despite the financial odds, had focused on her children's education and Nirbhaya, a top scorer both in school and college, had given the family hope. She was a mentor to her two brothers - the younger in Class Xth and the elder a student of engineering - a pillar of support to her father and life of the family. She knew she had to claw her way up and she was willing to wait. She would never fail to smile and was a A neighbour who has known the role model for the kids in the neigh- family for over 15 years said his bourhood. daughter and Nirbhaya went to school together. Nirbhaya was the intelligent one and took up science at the plus two level. She was ambitious and determined to make a mark. To supplement the family income - her father is a loader at the airport and had sold off his land to fund her education - she gave tuitions to children in the area.

She went on to complete a professional course in physiotherapy from a Dehradun institute. "She had returned to Delhi just a little over a month ago and was waiting for her final results. She was hoping to get a good job in a government hospital after her internship. Bahut saral ladki thi. Padhne ka shauk tha (She was very simple and enjoyed her studies a lot)," a close family friend said.

Now that family members and neighbours are piecing together her life, one can understand the origin of her zest for life. Studying hard, she took pleasure in small things, waiting for her moment. That's why while slowly inching towards death, she never gave up.

In a neighborhood marked by poverty and illiteracy, education of children is seen as a route to a better life. That Nirbhaya's intelligence is remembered by most as her striking characteristic is no wonder. She was a simple girl who pursued her aspirations quietly.

Hence, she has become a symbol of the simple dreams, many struggles and aspirations of lakhs of young women trying to rise above the odds. The brutal assault that ended her life has given a voice to all Indian women.

Second Rape Victim of INDIA

 

The teenage girl was kidnapped from Baras village in the Patiala district of Punjab during Diwali on November 13, by two men. 

She was then taken to the nearby village of Brahamanmajra where she is alleged to have been drugged and repeatedly raped in a well.

It came as the Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh responded to days of violent protest at the attack by promising better action to protect the nation's women.

Her family said despite reporting the attack it took two weeks for police to take any action. 

The victim's older sister told India Today she had lost hope the case would be brought to justice when she suffered intimidation from the accused.

She said the victim had approached the police at Badshahpur village: 'On some occasions, the policemen would take her to the police station in late evening hours. 

They would seek her to narrate the incident. They also tried to force her to withdraw her complaint.'

She said the accused men had threatened the family too and all had been forced to go into hiding at another family member's house at Samana - a town near Patiala - on November 29. However, the accused intimidated them there too.

Teenage Rape Victim Commits Suicide

Second Indian gang rape victim 'committed suicide' after police took two weeks to take any action.

The teenage girl was kidnapped from Baras village in the Patiala district of Punjab during Diwali on November 13, by two men. 

She was then taken to the nearby village of Brahamanmajra where she is alleged to have been drugged and repeatedly raped in a well. 

• It took police in Punjab 14 days to register the case and a further 30 days to make an arrest.
• The girl is believed to have been harassed and intimidated by her alleged attackers after she reported the crime.
  
• The news comes after days of violent protests against rape in New Delhi following the brutal rape of another girl.
  
  
• The girl 'consumed poison' at around 5pm on Boxing Day before she was rushed to Rajindera Hospital at Patiala, but she died later that night. 
  
  The accused men were named in a 'suicide note' left by the girl. 
  
  Patiala police have now ordered an investigation and said police would be 'dismissed from their job if negligence was proved'.
  

1.27- Crore Gold Shirt Adds Sheen To Opulent Pune Man

In Photo - Burnished: Datta Phuge 

Seema Phuge, NCP corporator from Pimpri-Chinchwad in Pune, has literally got a man in a shining armour after her husband Datta Phuge acquired a shirt made of 3.5 kg of gold for Rs 1.27 crore.

Now popularly referred to as the ‘Gold Man’, 42-year-old Phuge said he was attracted to gold since he was 20 and has acquired gold ornaments since then. Though Seema doesn’t share his yearning for gold jewellery, she sees his craze for gold as a wise investment.

Phuge, who has a significant land bank and runs a co-operative credit society and non-banking financial institutions, said his jeweller suggested the dazzling idea of a gold shirt.

“The idea came up during a chat with Tejpal Ranka of Ranka Jewellers from Pune on doing something different in gold as I already had several gold chains, rings and bracelets. I wanted something which no one would have. Ranka suggested a gold shirt and I liked the idea but was sceptical about how it could be made,” said Phuge.

Ranka Jewellers engaged 15 goldsmiths from West Bengal who toiled f0r over 18 hours a day for two weeks to get the shirt ready. The shirt sports 14,000 gold spangles that were interwoven on specially imported velvet with the help of 1 lakh gold rings. As ordinary buttons would be out of question for such a shirt, the jeweller used Swarovski crystals instead. The ensemble comes with a 325 gram gold belt.
With this gold shirt, Phuge has about 7 kg in gold assets, which include three chains of 700 gram each, six bracelets, 25 rings, a pen, and wrist watches.

Famed Vocalist Nithyasree’s Husband Committed Suicide

 

In Photo - Mahadevan and Nithyasree during happier times. 

 

Classical singer Nithyasree’s husband Mahadevan (45) committed suicide on Thursday afternoon by jumping into the Adyar River after parking his car on the Kotturpuram bridge. Police officers attributed it to depression.

According to police, around 12.15 pm, Mahadevan sat behind the wheel of his luxury sedan and started driving with his driver Suresh alongside. Midway through the bridge, he pulled over and parked the car. After both alighted, Mahadevan locked the car, put the key in his pocket, walked across the sidewalk to the parapet wall and jumped into the Adyar River around 12.30 pm, police said. It all happened in a flash and the driver couldn’t respond.

While passersby alerted police and Fire and Rescue Services personnel at Kotturpuram, driver Suresh called up Nithyasree, who rushed to the spot. As she was sobbing inconsolably, the police advised her to go back. She then left for her home at Vellaiyan Street in Kotturpuram.

Around 1.30 pm, Mahadevan’s body was fished out of the river and taken to a private hospital where doctors declared him ‘brought dead’. Kotturpuram Police Inspector N Elangovan told Express that Mahadevan was being treated for his depression at a multi-specialty hospital for the past five years.
“Mahadevan’s mental condition worsened after his mother Shanthi passed away in April. When he stopped the car in the middle of the bridge, his driver thought Mahadevan wanted to take a leak, but he jumped into the river,” he said. Nithyasree is the grand-daughter of legendary Carnatic vocalist D K Pattammal. Mahadevan was an engineer with a private firm. They have two daughters — Thejasree (8) and Thanujasree (6). 

Brain Swelling Led To Death Of Gang-Rape Victim

Serious swelling in the brain resulting from the cardiac arrest she suffered a few days ago was an "important cause" that led to the death of 23-year-old gang-rape victim who fought for her life with "great fortitude and courage".

Cerebral edema, a condition characterised by excess accumulation of water in the intracellular or extracellular spaces of the brain, proved fatal in the case of the paramedic student who was airlifted to Singapore on Wednesday night for specialised treatment.

The young girl suffered a cardiac arrest on Tuesday night which caused severe injuries to her brain as well.

Complications in brain along with multi-organ failure took the life of the victim at the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.

"Brain injury is an important cause for the death. She suffered a cardiac arrest at Safdarjung Hospital on Tuesday.

This could have caused the brain injury and she also suffered from multi-organ failure," Dr Yatin Mehta, Chairman Institute of Critical Care and Anaesthesiology at Medanta Medicity, told PTI.

He said that in such cases the death is finally due to cardiac arrest.

Mehta, who was by the side of the girl in the air ambulance in which she was airlifted to Singapore, said the girl's blood pressure was normal and her heart was pumping blood till last evening when he had left Singapore for India.

"Her lungs were infected slightly yesterday but her blood pressure was normal," he said, adding that she was an "extremely brave girl" and a "role model" who fought back after suffering grievous injuries.

Cerebral edema is a serious medical condition where there is way more fluid in the skull than there should be causing swelling in brain which compromises its own blood flow.
About the nearly six-hour journey to Singapore, Dr Mehta said the victim's blood pressure dipped very low for a few minutes but it was brought to normal level immediately.

"It was just for a temporary period. She responded quite well. In fact, she responded better than what I was expecting.

Till yesterday, her blood pressure was normal and she took the treatment very well," he said.

Maintaining that the girl was air-lifted only with an aim to get best of the treatment for her, the doctor paid rich tributes to her courage.

"She was an extremely brave girl. She is a role model for everyone. She fought back," he said and noted that it was time for action.

"As a society we should unite and fight against such crimes. It is not just enough that people shed artificial tears and forget. We should work hard," he said.

Rape Victim Dies In Singapore - Entire Nation Mourns

Workers from a Hindu Casket service unload the body of the young woman who was gang-raped in Delhi, to be embalmed on Saturday in Singapore. (Photo) 

The unnamed and unidentified gang-rape victim who became the face of courage against savage odds died in a Singapore hospital Saturday, leaving all of India stunned and shaken with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Pranab Mukherjee echoing millions in saying her death should not be in vain.
In the dying days of the year, the young physiotherapy intern lost her battle for life far away from home in a Singapore hospital - 13 days after a trip to a south Delhi mall to see a film with a friend ended in her being brutally tortured and raped by six men in a moving bus.

She was left, stripped and bloody, virtually for dead on that cold December night, so grievously injured that her intestines had to be taken out. Now she is dead.

The six accused, including one suspected juvenile, are in jail and all of society in the dock. All six will now face murder charge.

The woman, only 23, passed away peacefully at 4.45 a.m. with her family and Indian diplomats by her side, Singapore's Mount Elizabeth Hospital official Kelvin Loh said. The trauma was "too severe for her to overcome", he said.

Eight specialists had struggled to save the doughty woman, whose father had to sell his ancestral land to fund her education.

"She had suffered from severe organ failure following serious injuries to her body and brain," Kevin said. "We are humbled by the privilege of being tasked to care for her in her final struggle."

"The girl of course was unconscious... I must say they (the family) bore the entire process with a great deal of fortitude and a great deal of courage," added India's High Commissioner to Singapore T.C.A. Raghavan.

Questions also arose on why she was shifted to Singapore when her health was so precarious. And the government was the target. For lax policing that led to the incident and for taking the risky decision to move her.

The body will be flown back Saturday evening in a special aircraft.

Details of the funeral rites for the woman, who united the entire nation in anguish and grief, were not revealed.

As introspection continued on the vulnerability of women, the legal framework to prevent aggravated sexual assaults and ways to stem such crimes, there were tears and protests. From politicians, celebrities, students and domestic workers. Men and women, everybody was a stakeholder.
Calling the young woman -- who had been communicating with her family till almost the end and said she did not want to die -- "a true hero", the president said she "symbolizes the best in Indian youth and women".


Though there was a virtual lockdown in Delhi's city centre, protesters gathered at Jantar Mantar area close by. A policeman had died in one angry protest in the capital and Delhi Police was clearly taking no chances.

But the mood was more sombre this Saturday morning. A stunned silence had taken over as people gathered in their hundreds to show their solidarity with the woman who had fought so long and hard. There was the realisation that this could have been any of them, or their friends, sisters and mothers.
And it not just in Delhi. In Lucknow, in Mumbai and in Bangalore, where a mother tried to hold back her tears: "I have a daughter and I don't want this to happen to her."

Was this India's wake-up moment?

Girl Gang - Raped Twice In Mangalore

 An 18-year-old girl working as a domestic help at an apartment in Falnir area, was allegedly gang-raped twice by a group of eight people in a span of 24 hours.

According to sources, Ayisha (name changed) of Kanyana in Dakshina Kannada, had come to the city seeking a job. When she secured a job as a domestic helper, she came in contact with a Kerala-based youth through her mobile phone. The youth asked her to meet him and took her to a lodge at Pandeshwar along with four other friends and raped her on December 23.The group left her at Kumble bus stand.

The next day, autorickshaw driver Ganesh (24) noticed the girl crying and wandering around the bus stand.He promised to take her home, but instead called three other friends and took her to a distant place, where all of them raped her. They abandoned her at the Kumble bus stand. On Tuesday, when the girl was in an unconscious state at the bus stand, some passengers informed the police. Following a complaint by the girl, Kumble police arrested auto driver Ganesh. Seven other accused are absconded, sources said.

No Logic In Shifting Gang-Rape Victim To Singapore - Says Delhi Doctors

 

As the 23-year-old gang-rape victim struggles for life in Singapore's Mount Elizabeth Hospital, doctors in the national capital said moving her abroad in such a condition was "unusual". There was "no logic" behind it, they said.
"I can't understand the logic behind it, or rather it is unusual to transfer the girl from Delhi to Singapore when the patient has suffered a cardiac arrest, as I have been informed by the media," Samiran Nundy, chairman, department of surgical gastroenterology and organ transplantation, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, told IANS.

The 23-year-old victim was brutally beaten and raped by six men on a moving bus in Delhi Dec 16. She now fights for life with severe multiple intestinal, abdominal and other injuries. She was flown to Singapore's Mount Elizabeth Hospital late Wednesday night.

"My suggestion would have been to stabilise her in India and get her out of the crisis; then do her intestinal transplant later. One cannot think about intestinal transplant at this moment. First, the infection spreading in her should be stopped, then one can think about transplant," Nundy said.

Another senior doctor from the trauma centre of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, requesting anonymity, said: "Maybe it was politically logical to shift the patient. But as a doctor, I would say it is totally insensitive to shift the patient with her infection spreading. Shifting now, that too within a few hours of cardiac arrest, is thoughtless."

Mount Elizabeth Hospital, where the woman is being treated, Thursday confirmed that she had a cardiac arrest in the early hours of Wednesday.

Nundy also said that in case of intestinal transplant, chances of survival are five years in 60 percent of cases, and one year in 80 percent.

Meanwhile, doctors treating the woman at the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore have said she had suffered "significant brain injury" and continued to be in an "extremely critical condition".

Besides a prior cardiac arrest, the woman also had infection in her lungs and abdomen, "as well as significant brain injury", Kelvin Loh, the hospital's chief executive officer, was quoted as saying by the Straits Times.

"The patient is currently struggling against odds, and fighting for her life," he said.
He said a multi-disciplinary team of specialists has been working round-the-clock to treat her since her arrival Thursday. They were "doing everything possible to stabilise her condition over the next few days", he added.

Rajini Is Very Humble: Deepika

 

"I definitely consider myself lucky to get an opportunity to work with him," says Deepika

 Actress Deepika Padukone considers herself lucky for getting a chance to work with superstar Rajinikanth in "Kochadaiyaan". She says she hasn't seen a more humble and passionate person than him.

"I've finished shooting with Rajnikanth. Different people praise him in different ways. But I feel one will truly realise what he is only if you meet him. He is extremely humble and passionate about his work. I've never seen a person as passionate as him about work," Deepika told IANS.

"I definitely consider myself lucky to get an opportunity to work with him," she added.

"Kochadaiyaan", a Tamil period film, is currently in its post production. It is directed by Rajinikanth's daughter Soundarya.

As of now Deepika says she has no new southern project on mind at least for the next six months, but she believes "actresses have enough scope to prove themselves down south". The actress says her journey in showbiz has been great so far.

"Sometimes I feel it was like a dream come true but I have really worked hard to be where I am today. I am happy with the kind of films that are lined up for me," said the 26-year-old, who made her Bollywood debut with "Om Shanti Om" in 2007.

'Vishwaroopam' To First Release On DTH

Kamal, 58, has written and directed "Vishwaroopam", which stars himself alongside Andrea Jeremiah, Pooja Kumar, Rahul Bose, Shekhar Kapur and Jaideep Ahlawat. It is releasing Jan 11 next year. 

Actor-filmmaker Kamal Haasan has confirmed his upcoming magnum opus, bilingual film "Vishwaroopam" will be released on Direct-To-Home (DTH) platform a few hours before the theatrical release of the film.

"My film ('Vishwaroopam') will have a release via DTH before it hits the theatres. It will be a one time show and I'm certain that it will help the producers find a new revenue stream. The cost of watching the film on DTH will be approximately Rs.1,000," said Kamal in a press statement.

He says compared to the population that watches films in theatres, people who own DTH in Tamil Nadu are miniscule.

"If only three percent of population in Tamil Nadu use DTH services, then how much loss can one show of my film possibly cause the producers or theatre owners? In fact, to telecast the film on DTH will serve as a teaser to attract more audiences to cinemas," he said.

Kamal, 58, has written and directed "Vishwaroopam", which stars himself alongside Andrea Jeremiah, Pooja Kumar, Rahul Bose, Shekhar Kapur and Jaideep Ahlawat. It is releasing Jan 11 next year.

Meanwhile, the actor will meet a group of producers to discuss and debate the trend. "Releasing movies over DTH is being criticised because it's a new trend in the cinema industry. On the contrary, DTH releases will only strengthen business," he added.

Samantha in Love ?

Samantha, whose performance in Neethanae En Ponvasantham has been well received, says she connected the incidents in the film with those that happened in her life as well as in the lives of her friends. “I have seen a lot of my friends undergoing such situations and stole them for the film. I could relate to some of them with my own experiences, as well.”
So, has Samantha fallen in love before? “Of course! I can’t say I never fell in love, but it was not during my school days as shown in the film,” disclosed the actor. However, she clarified that she is only partly like Nithya — her character in the film — as far as her real life is concerned. “Like Nithya, I am focused on what I should do, but I can never stoop very low for a guy. A guy can never be the centre of my life,” she said.
While her next Telugu film, Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu, is getting ready to hit screens, she is part of few more projects in Tollywood. Her next film in Tamil is expected to be announced soon.