Week in Review: Sept 27-Oct 3

Talkatora Indoor Stadium at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

Foreign teams who arrived in Delhi for the Commonwealth Games scrambled for places to practice for their events because, of the 11 venues earmarked for training only three had submitted necessary documents for getting mandatory clearance to allow practice. Five hundred constables enlisted to secure the practice venues complained about the lack of food. “All we get at the end of the shift is one roti, 50 grams of rice, a tablespoon of dal and half-a-litre of water,” said one of the constables. Ten thousand of the total 22,000 volunteers dropped out after enrolling for the CWG. The missing volunteers took with them kits worth Rs12,000, containing two sets of uniforms and free metro passes from their homes to the venues.

Ranjana Sonawane, a 30-year-old housewife from Nandurbar district in Maharashtra became the first Indian to get a Unique Identification Number. “I hope this will change the lives of every individual,” UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi said, while launching the scheme. Pakistani gunman Ajmal Amir Kasab was not from the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and was not part of the 26/11 terrorist attack, his lawyers claimed in a petition challenging Kasab’s death sentence. The BMC decided to compensate all victims of tree and branch collapses in the city, irrespective of whether the tree is in a public space or on a private property. Later in the week, 36-year-old Anne Fernandes suffered from fractured ribs and injured lungs when an unpruned tree branch crashed on her on a public road in Kalina. Railway estimates indicated that every day Mumbai’s 70 lakh train commuters throw 1,224kg of garbage inside trains and 2,796kg of garbage outside trains.

In a first step towards resolving the 60-year-old Babri Masjid-Ram Jamnabhoomi ownership dispute, the Allahabad High Court approved the Hindu belief that Ram had indeed been born there. It also ruled by a majority that the disputed 120 feet by 90 feet plot be divided into three equal parts among the three petitioners, the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and the party representing Ram Lalla. The Sunni Waqf Board and the Hindu Mahasabha indicated that they would challenge the HC’s decision in the Apex court. “If it is challenged in court, it will take another 60 years for the judgment,” said Hashim Ansari, the lone surviving petitioner from the 1961 Ayodhya title suit case. ”I am already 90 years old. Do you think I will be able to hear the verdict from my grave?”

New-York based publisher Alfred A Knopf reportedly acquired the rights to author Kiran Desai’s next book, tentatively titled The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, for more than Rs11.2 crore, making it the largest ever advance for a novel by an Indian author. A civic Environment Status Report showed that water contamination in Mumbai in August had risen to about 26 per cent in 2009-2010 from 13 per cent the previous year. A survey on women living in three slums in Wadala revealed that the toilet to people ratio was 1:1000. Figures compiled by 20 civic-run hospitals revealed that heart attacks are the largest cause of death in Mumbai. Astronomers discovered a new Earth-like planet called Gliese 581g that could potentially support life. “Either we have just been incredibly lucky in this early detection, or we are truly on the threshold of a second Age of Discovery,” they wrote in a scientific paper.