Celebrations as Telangana becomes 29th Indian state

HYDERABAD: Celebrations erupted in southern India to mark Monday’s creation of the new state of Telangana, the culmination of a campaign stretching back nearly six decades.
Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao, who at one stage went on hunger strike as part of the push to create India’s 29th state, was sworn in as chief minister during a morning ceremony in Hyderabad.
Rao raised the Indian flag, waved to crowds from an open-top jeep and inspected troops during a ceremony at a parade ground.
India’s new Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the first to congratulate Rao, promising his “complete support to the people and the government of Telangana” in a message on Twitter.
“India gets a new state! We welcome Telangana as our 29th state. Telangana will add strength to our development journey in the coming years,” Modi said, adding, “The birth of the state comes after years of struggle and sacrifices by several people. We pay our respects to them today.”
Addressing the parade, Rao said: “People of Telangana are looking forward to a progressive and development-oriented state. We will work in that direction and ensure a transparent administration.”
He also vowed to root out corruption and work for the disadvantaged sections of the society.
Court stays execution of 1993 blasts convict
India’s top court on Monday stayed the execution of a key plotter of the country’s deadliest series of attacks.
Yakub Memon, brother of the alleged main plotter and fugitive Tiger Memon, had been sentenced to death for his role in the 1993 blasts which killed 257 people in Mumbai.
The attacks on March 12 that year were believed to have been staged by Mumbai’s Muslim-dominated underworld in retaliation for anti-Muslim violence that left more than 1,000 dead in the city a few months earlier.
A panel of two Supreme Court judges referred Memon’s petition against his sentence to a higher bench of the same court which will decide whether the review should be held in open court, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
In the meantime the “execution proceedings will remain stayed,” one of the judges told the court.
Yakub Memon, an accountant by profession, his brothers Essa and Yusuf and sister-in-law Rubina were all convicted of involvement in the blasts at 13 different locations.
He has been in jail for two decades.
The Bombay Stock Exchange, the offices of the national carrier Air India and the luxury Sea Rock hotel were among the targets.
Tiger Memon and Dawood Ibrahim, the other alleged masterminds of the attacks, have been on the run since 1993.
Indian investigators say the plotters were helped by Pakistan’s intelligence service, a charge denied by Islamabad.
The bombings also embroiled Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt who was convicted and spent time in jail for buying weapons from gangsters accused of orchestrating the bombings.
Memon is challenging a recent rejection of his mercy petition by President Pranab Mukherjee, saying others convicted over the blasts have had their death sentences commuted.