Bharatiya Janata Party wrests 5 bypoll seats

Modi magic resurfaced in Gujarat with the BJP shocking the Congress by walking away with five of the seven Assembly seats to which byelections were held.

The byelection victories have boosted the BJP's morale as well as reinstated Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi as the indisputable party satrap in Gujarat. Mr Modi has claimed this is a "trailer" of what is going to unfold in Maharashtra next month.

"We are not a party where one chief minister will claim credit for this. We are a party where lakhs of grassroots workers sweat it out and bring us this victory," Mr Modi said at a victory meet in Dehgam Monday night.

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Prohibition: Modi plans death for death law

The Narendra Modi government on Wednesday night announced that if any person died due to the consumption of spurious liquor in Gujarat, those responsible, and those involved in manufacturing the illicit liquor, would face the death penalty.

The Modi government plans to do this by amending the existing prohibition laws. Though the state government has not officially clarified how it would go about doing this, a senior Modi aide said amendments will be made to the existing Bombay Prohibition (Gujarat Amendment) Act. He said the Gujarat Cabinet has already discussed the amendments and that the amendments would be introduced in the Gujarat Assembly by July 29.

Ironically, the Modi government had given its assent to the Bombay Prohibition (Gujarat Amendment) Bill of 2003 to relax rules related to the procurement of raw jaggery and ammonium chloride, the two main ingredients used to manufacture hooch in Gujarat.

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Girl dies at hostel, kin allege ragging

On a day when the government announced the setting up of a central agency to prevent incidents of ragging, a 19 year-old girl fell to death from the terrace of a nursing institute’s hostel in Gujarat and her family members alleged she was a victim of ragging.

The police said Ankita Vegda, a student of first year B.Sc. at the Singhi Institute of Nursing, died after she fell from the terrace of her hostel building on Monday morning.

However, the girl’s father Ganpat Vegda alleged she was a victim of ragging.

“My daughter was ragged and I believe that was the cause of her death,” Vegda told media persons.

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41 kids die as bus plunges into canal

At least 44 people, including 41 children, were killed when a bus carrying school children fell into a Narmada canal at Bodeli in Gujarat's Baroda district on Wednesday morning.Thirty-two of the victims were girls. Driver Madhusudan Baria's carelessness is being cited as the main reason for the tragic accident. Worse, eyewitnesses claim that government help to rescue the children came in very late, and the crane to remove the bus reached the spot nearly three hours after the accident.

Four children, however, were able to miraculously swim out of the canal by jumping out of the bus window soon after it plunged into the water. Most of the students belonged to poor tribal families and were the first generation to attend school.

The driver's body is yet to be recovered from the canal. After 12 hours of rescue work, at least a dozen and a half bodies were yet to be recovered at the time of filing this report.

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