37 killed as 3 blasts rock Malegaon

A crime against humanity, the terrorists have killed innocent people and this is shameful act.

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GRIM TASK: An elderly man searches for the body of his relative among the bodies of people killed.
New Delhi/ Mumbai/ Nashik: At least 37 people were killed and 56 were seriously injured when three bombs concealed on cycles went off near a mosque in Maharashtra’s Malegaon town when people were coming out after Friday afternoon prayers.
The blasts occurred near the Hamidia Mosque in the Bada Kabristan area of the communally sensitive town just after Friday prayers.

Thousands of people were out on the streets on Friday for Shab-e-Barat, a festival during which people offer prayers to dead relatives.
The first blast occurred at 1345 hours IST and two more explosions follow in two minutes. Police suspect a timer device could have been used to trigger off the explosions.
A curfew was imposed in the textile town after the blasts.
Maharashtra Police sounded a statewide alert and had mobile networks jammed in the town to prevent rumours.
"The situation in Malegaon is tense but under control," said Maharashtra Director General of Police P S Pasricha. ''The motive appears to be to create panic and make people fight with each other,” he said.

Reservation buttresses social justice: Expert

MADURAI: Reservation is not an isolated issue and it should been seen
against the backdrop of the larger plan of imparting social justice,
said P S Krishnan, former member secretary of National Backward
Classes Commission and National SC/ST Commission. He was delivering
the inaugural address at a seminar on reservation organised by the
Doctors' Forum for the People here, on Sunday.

"Reservation is only one of the means to attain social justice. So the
question, 'what has Tamil Nadu achieved from its reservation policy?'
does not hold water," he asserted. Elaborating on the need to continue
with reservation policy, Krishnan said, though social inequality is
prevailing in many countries across the world, India's case attracts
special mention because of caste-based segregation pursued in the
nation.

The oppressed people, he said, are also there among the upper castes,
but their number is comparatively very small. Reeling out statistics,
he pointed out that the reservation is a much needed measure in the
state while taking the national average on several criteria including
agricultural labourers in rural area and casual labourers in urban
area.

He also insisted for reservation in private sector as many of the new
employment opportunities are emerging there and not in the public
sector as was the case earlier. He also suggested that the term
'creamy layer' is deceptive and the better alternative is 'socially
advanced persons/section'.

Speaking on the occasion, CMD of Tamilnadu Urban Finance and
Infrastructure Development Corporation, Christhudoss Gandhi, said that
though Tamil Nadu is the forerunner in the reservation issue, there
are around 300 schools in the state that have no single SC/ST student
in their roll.

"Chennai alone has 150 such schools and if this is the situation in
Tamil Nadu, what would be the situation in other states," he wondered.

CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Varadharajan asserted that reservation
issue should not be viewed on caste basis and urged the oppressed
classes including SC, ST and OBC to lead a combined fight.

The seminar dealt with several topics related to reservation including
'Women and Reservation', 'Dravidian Movement and Reservation', 'Law
and Reservation' and 'Cultural Aspects to Reservation'.

The seminar was attended by ex-MLC and former principal of Mannar
Thirumalai Naickar College B Parthasarathy, general secretary of
Periyar Dravida Kazhagam Viduthalai Rajendran and head of the
Sociology department at MKU L Dharabhai.