Digest year-ender for domestic stories for month of October,2018

Oct 17: New Delhi, Oct 17 (PTI) Minister of State for External Affairs M J Akbar stepped down Wednesday in the face of mounting pressure following a spate of allegations of sexual harassment against h

Oct 17: New Delhi, Oct 17 (PTI) Minister of State for External Affairs M J Akbar stepped down Wednesday in the face of mounting pressure following a spate of allegations of sexual harassment against him by several women journalists, who welcomed his resignation as a “vindication”.

Oct 18: New Delhi: A Delhi court Thursday agreed to hear the criminal defamation case filed by M J Akbar against journalist Priya Ramani, who has accused him of sexual harassment around 20 years ago, and will record the statement of the former union minister on October 31.

Oct 19: Amritsar, Oct 19 (PTI) At least 61 people were killed and 72 injured Friday evening after a crowd of Dussehra revellers that had spilled onto railway tracks while watching burning of Ravana effigy was run over by a train near here, officials said.

Oct 20: Amritsar: The police gave a no objection certificate’ for the Dussehra event here but the organisers held it without seeking the required permission from municipal authorities, officials said Saturday, a day after a train mowed down at least 59 revellers.

Oct 21: New Delhi: In an unprecedented move, the CBI has booked its Special Director Rakesh Asthana for allegedly receiving bribes from middlemen to give relief to a businessman being probed by him in a case involving meat exporter Moin Qureshi, officials said Sunday.

Oct 22: Hoshiarpur/Kottayam: Father Kuriakose Kattuthara, a key witness in the Kerala nun rape case who testified against accused Bishop Franco Mulakkal, was on Monday found dead under mysterious circumstances in Punjab’s Hoshiarpur district, police said.

Oct 23: New Delhi: Pushing for a “green” Diwali across the country, the Supreme Court on Tuesday imposed major controls on firecrackers, including an 8 pm to 10 pm window for bursting them and limiting the manufacture and sale of fireworks to only those that conform to permissible smoke and noise levels.

Oct 24: New Delhi: In an unprecedented shake-up in the CBI’s 55-year-history, both its Director Alok Verma and Special Director Rakesh Asthana were stripped of their powers and sent on leave in a dramatic overnight action by the government after their worsening feud sparked a serious crisis in the country’s premier probe agency.

Oct 25: New Delhi: In a relief to Aam Admi Party (AAP), President Ram Nath Kovind has rejected a petition to disqualify 27 of its Delhi MLAs for allegedly holding office of profit by being appointed as chairpersons of Rogi Kalyan Samitis attached to various city government hospitals.

Oct 26: New Delhi: The Congress on Friday took out nationwide protest marches to CBI offices accusing the government of trying to ‘cage the CBI’, as the party president Rahul Gandhi, along with several others, courted arrest and alleged “every institution was being ruined” in the country.

Oct 27: New Delhi: Tariq Anwar, who resigned from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) last month, returned to the Congress fold on Saturday, 19 years after he had quit the party along with Sharad Pawar and the late P A Sangma over the issue of foreign origin of Sonia Gandhi.

Oct 28: New Delhi: Former Delhi chief minister Madan Lal Khurana passed away here Saturday after a prolonged illness, his family said.

Oct 29: New Delhi: Declining an urgent hearing of the Ayodhya land dispute case, the Supreme Court Monday fixed the politically sensitive issue for first week of January before an “appropriate bench” and left a decision on the timeline to it, sparking demands for an ordinance for construction of a Ram temple at the disputed site.

Oct 30: New Delhi: In his strongest criticism of RBI yet, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Tuesday hit out at the central bank for failing to check indiscriminate lending during 2008 and 2014 that has led to the present bad loan or NPA crisis in the banking industry.

Oct 31: New Delhi: Enthused by 23 notches jump in the World Bank Ease of Doing Business, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley exuded confidence that India can now hope to achieve the target of breaking into top 50 rank in the coming years.

This is published unedited from the PTI feed.