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It has been reported by the Victorian Police website that a 3 year old child went missing from his home and his body was found near the airport in Melbourne.

Australian police are on the hunt for a child killer after the body of a missing toddler was found 20 km away from where he had disappeared six hours earlier on Thursday.

The Indian boy, Gurshan Singh Kaurchanna, 3, who was on a three-month holiday in Australia with his parents, vanished from a relative’s house in Lalor at about 1.10 pm on Thursday, while his mother was having a shower. (more…)

In a fresh incident of racial violence  against Asians in Australia, a Sri Lankan man and his wife were attacked and racially abused by a group of drunken men at their home in Melbourne. A group of 25 drunken thugs bashed up 60-year-old Ranjit Sahasranaman, who is married to Indian-origin Agalya Sahasranamn, outside his own home in Carrams Down suburb on Sunday morning.   
 
Australia’s Opposition leader Tony Abbot had said at Melbourne a week ago that the streets of Melbourne were not safe for Indians. He had re-terated  that the Australian government should spend more on policing with an attempt to prevent racial attacks on Indians and thereby improve relations with India.

His  remarks came in the wake of government’s expensive arrangements in spending to arrange accommodation for a team of Indian journalists touring Australia. (more…)

Another ‘Uphaar’ type tragedy happened in Bangalore where ‘Carlton Towers’, a seven storey building caught fire at around 4-00 pm Tuesday. Nine people, including three women, died and 90 others were injured, 19 of them are reported to be serious, as on Wednesday morning, after the major fire spread to the third, fourth and fifth floors of the building. 

Three persons died due to suataining fatal injuries after jumping from the top floors of the building while six lost their lives due to severe burns and asphyxiation, sources at Manipal Hospital where they were rushed, said. 

Carlton Towers’ has offices of various business houses and has a total of seven floors.  (more…)

 Two sikh gentlemen named Jaspal Singh and Mahal Singh, were killed by the Taliban in Peshawar. Jaspal’s  cousin,  Arvinder Singh was  on a visit to India and is now on his way back to Pakistan, told media that the conditions in Pakistan were not conducive for Sikhs to live peacefully. “Sikhs are not treated well. Jaspal Singh, who was killed, is my cousin and now we want Indian citizenship,” he said. 

Special prayers were held  in Gurudwaras across Punjab on Monday morning and there was outrage at the abduction and brutal beheading of Sikh youths in Pakistan’s Peshawar by the Taliban. 

The Shiromani Gurudwara Parbandak Committee (SGPC) has appealed to the Government of India to take up the matter with Pakistan saying they will not tolerate any more incidents like this in future. The SGPC is trying to establish contact with Sikhs in Pakistan to find out more about their condition.  (more…)

The date for bilateral talks between the foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan has been fixed on 25th Feb 2010. The likely venue is New Delhi and they will discuss the issues at hand regarding the infiltrators in the LOC as well as the terror front. But, no one is going to take the responsibility of the bloodshed that has occurred in Mumbai as well as Pune.

The blast in Pune was not unexpected, as this city had been mentioned in the speeches held in POK during the recent congregation of a number of terrorist outfits held there. (more…)

The Indian Premier League on Saturday decided to move all of Deccan Chargers’ home games from Hyderabad and Vizag, home ground of the Deccan Chargers, due to political unrest over the Telangana region to Mumbai because of security fears due to the  agitation.

Deccan Chargers, the defending champions of IPL 2 will not be playing on the home ground, which they are very keen to do. If they play on the home-turf, they will have the moral support of the crowd as well as it will be a crowd-puller and money-spinner for their State.

The Andhra Pradesh capital was to host five matches, excluding the tournament opener on March 12, but the organizers have decided to move out. (more…)

Despite various denials, Australia on Monday acknowledged that some of the recent violence against the Indian students there  had clearly been racially motivated and vowed to punish the guilty as stipulated in the provisions of law.

Stating that the attacks had considerably damaged the nation’s reputation, Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told the Parliament that “if any of these attacks have been racist in nature – and it seems clear that some of them have – they will be punished with the full force of law”.

Smith said the attacks which have included robberies and beatings are “inexcusable” and were being taken very seriously by the government.

In a childish advice, the Victorian Police Simon Overland told International students  not to display their valuable watches, hide their ipods and not to display their valuable jewellery. The Indian government as well as the Indian public has critically reacted to this comical advice. Gautam Gupta, the spokesperson for the Federation of Indian students in Australia has ridiculed this advice and has stated that Indians don’t need to look poor for their own security. I wonder how would Overland like to dress himself if he visits India? (more…)

 
On the Republic Day of India, even as Indian and Australian flags go up, two Indian students were allegedly assaulted by a group of people in Melbourne. Eight persons, described as being of Asian appearance, have been arrested after several hours of the incident and were being questioned, police said in a statement.

The 18-year-old Indian man suffered wound on his left ear from a sharp edged weapon, police said.  A 22-year-old student was also punched to the ground and suffered minor abrasions. The accused had allegedly made comments to the duo before one of the students was pushed to the ground and kicked just two days ago in central Melbourne.

A couple of days ago, I had stated in my blog that Australian Government should wake up to the situation and address the truth that the attacks on Indians there, are racially motivated and act accordingly but to no avail. (more…)

Melbourne.  Despite various assurances given by the Australian government, the attacks on Indians go on unabated. Two more Indian youth, including a taxi driver, have been attacked which takes the total to seven attacks in a week. A 25 year old youth was attacked and looted in the Macgregor area of South Brisbane while talking on a phone and his purse was snatched.

Students or taxi drivers of Indian origin have found themselves being targeted in both Melbourne and Sydney, sparking allegations of widespread racism in Australian society and a failure by the law enforcement authorities to act.

Australian envoy to India Peter Varghese admits that the continuing attacks on Indian nationals in his country have the “potential to impact on the broader relationship” between the two sides. (more…)

As many as 200,000 people have died in the earthquake that devastated Haiti and three-quarters of the capital, Port-au-Prince, will need to be rebuilt.

Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime told media that “We have already collected around 50,000 dead bodies. We anticipate there will be between 100,000 and 200,000 dead in total, although we will never know the exact number.”  Some 40,000 bodies had been buried in mass graves, said Secretary of State for Public Safety Aramick Louis.

Haiti Presidential Palace

If the casualty figures turn out to be accurate, the 7.0 magnitude quake that hit impoverished Haiti on Tuesday would be one of the 10 deadliest earthquakes ever recorded.

Three days after it struck, gangs of robbers had begun preying on survivors living in makeshift camps on sidewalks and streets strewn with rubble and decomposing bodies, as quake aftershocks rippled through the hilly neighborhoods.

Looters have broken into UN food ware-houses in Haiti’s capital. (more…)