Top stories on 7 June in a capsule

No penalty on excess baggage: Railways

6 days after announcing a new penalty on passengers with excess baggage, Indian railways decided to drop the plan on Thursday. The national transporter had launched a six-day drive from June 1 to check for excess baggage but the decision to strictly enforce the rule to fine passengers up to six times the stipulated luggage weight had led to widespread criticism with people taking to social media to denounce the move. According to railway ministry spokesperson Rajesh Bajpayee, the drive was merely to make people aware of how carrying excess luggage causes inconvenience to other travellers. "It was felt that in the heavy summer rush, passengers carrying excess luggage cause much inconvenience to fellow passengers. Hence, a special education-cum-awareness drive was launched," he said.
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Lightning, heavy rainfall kills seven across Rajasthan in two days

At least seven people were reportedly killed as strong winds and heavy rainfall lashed across Rajasthan on Thursday. Of the seven, three killed when a portion of a house collapsed due to strong wind and rain on Tuesday evening while the others were struck by lightning on Wednesday and Thursday. The India Metrological Department (IMD) has earlier warned that ‘thunderstorm and gusty winds’ are likely to hit the state within hours. The tragedy comes in continuation of the rain-related incidents that have been affecting in Rajasthan since the last two months. In April, 20 were killed and 100 were injured due to thunderstorm.
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Air India seeks urgent short term loan of Rs 1000 cr

National carrier Air India on Thursday announced that they are seeking a short term loan of Rs 1,000 crore on an urgent requirements, after it has failed to provide employees with salary for the third time in a row. "Air India is inviting bids for Government Guaranteed INR STL totalling to Rs 1,000 crore to meet its urgent working capital requirements," the airline said in a tender document issued on June 5. The loan will be drawn in June, with the airline asking banks to present their financial bids by 13th if this month. Due to financial crisis and with no private player willing to give a helping hand to the government, the airline had borrowed Rs 6,250 crore from various banks between September last year and January this year for working capital requirements and other needs.
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Second NEET related suicide within a week jolts Tamil Nadu

Days after a 19-year-old girl suicided in Tamil Nadu’s Villupuram allegedly took her life over her low scores in the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET), similar case was reported on Thursday. Deceased Subasri had only scored 24 marks in the exam, crushing her dreams of joining a MBBS course. “scored only 907 marks out of 1200 in the Class XII exam, but was hopeful of clearing the NEET as she had attended coaching classes. But, the poor marks in the NEET shocked and saddened her,” news reports quoted the police saying. State Transport Minister M R Vijaya Baskar visited Subasri’s family and expressed his grievance.

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Hatred, intolerance will break India's identity: Pranab Mukherjee at RSS event

The 'nation, nationalism and patriotism' were the issues on which former President and Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee addressed the audience at  Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's Tritiya Varsha event (RSS) on Thursday.with a crowd of over 100 RSS cadres and Chief Mohan Bhagwat sharing the same stage, Mukherjee said, "hatred and intolerance will only lead to dilution of our national identity," which highlighting that elements of non-violence, both physical and verbal are affecting the society. While, the ex president emphasised more on the basis of formation of India, using history as an example, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat too delivered a surprising take when he stressed the Sangh is for all, and there is no discrimination against people with another ideology. He also said 'meaningless'  controversy was created around his visit.  Meanwhile, the Congress party made a U-turn with its comments against Mukherjee. Spokesperson Randeep Surjewala he'd a press conference right after the RSS event and hailed Mukherjee for showing a 'mirror of truth' to the  RSS. Earlier the party had shunned its veteran leader for attending the event
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Abu Salem gets sentenced to 7 years in extortion case

Jailed gangster Abu Salem was awarded 7 years imprisonment by Delhi’s Tis Hazari court on Thursday for demanding money from a businessman in an extortion case in 2002. The underworld member had asked businessman Ashok Gupta and his son Abhishek for 5 crores as ‘protection money’, from other ‘gangsters.’ As per news reports, Salem ‘threatened that he would eliminate their family members if the demand was not fulfilled'. All the other accused in the case - Chanchal Mehta, Majid Khan, Pawan Kumar Mittal and Mohammad Ashraf were acquitted and Sajjan Kumar Soni passed away. Salem is currently lodged in Mumbai’s Arthur Road jail under charges related to the 1993 Mumbai blast case.
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Centre sets up panel to overcome racial discrimination against North East

The Centre on Thursday set up a three-member committee for recording the grievances and redressal of the alleged racial discrimination cases faced by the people from the Northeastern region of India, residing in different parts of the country. The Ministry Home Affairs (MHA) has inducted Satyendra Garg joint secretary (Northeast) in the ministry, Alana Golmei, secretary of Northeast Support Centre and Mizum Nyodu, Law Assistant professor in Delhi University. The Home Ministry took the decision after Supreme Court had ordered the government to create an ‘effective monitoring mechanism’ in consideration of the various racial discrimination cases by people from the Northeastern region.
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Doctors perform last rites of Nipah victims as families stay away

Going out of the way, Kerala doctors are performing the last rites of the Nipah victims as scared families decided to stay away from the mortal remains, media reports said on Thursday. Dr RS Gopakumar, Health Officer of Kozhikode Corporation, took the responsibility of handling 12 bodies, whose final journey was supervised by him, the report added. Nipah virus has claimed 17 lives, 14 in Kozhikode and 3 in neighbouring Malappuram since its outbreak. Secretion and excretion from a deceased person are considered equally infectious like that of a living infected person. As part of the standard procedures, the bodies should not be sprayed, washed or embalmed and personnel handling remains have to wear protective equipment like gloves, gowns, masks, eye protection shield and shoe cover.
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400 Indian railway stations have wifi: Google

Tech giant Google on Thursday said that it has rolled out free public WiFi at 400 Indian railway stations in collaboration with RailTel. Launched as a key initiative under Digital India programme, the service was started from Mumbai Central station in January 2016, and Dibrugarh in Assam has become the 400th station to go live on Thursday. “With over 8 million monthly unique users connecting to the network, this is a lighthouse project for India, the company said. The service, which offers thirty minutes of free access to the internet, saw users consuming about 350 MB of data per session on an average. RailTel is the telecom arm of Indian Railways.

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