Woman gives birth in airplane toilet - then leaves the baby aboard

A woman has given birth to her baby in a toilet on an airplane - and then left the child behind in the rubbish bin when she disembarked.The Samoan woman gave birth in one of the plane's toilets during the Pacific Blue flight to Auckland on thursday, New Zealand media reported. It is believed the infant was found by an airline worker in the toilet rubbish bin more than an hour after the plane landed.Authorities only discovered something was wrong after the mother approached them saying she had misplaced her passport. They noticed she was pale and blood-stained.Pacific Blue crew are mystified at how the birth took place unnoticed, the Chief Officer's Network reported.The flight is only three and a half hours long - meaning that for a passenger to go missing for a long time could reasonably be expected to be noticed.Both mother and child are now recovering in hospital in New Zealand.

It is unclear whether the woman tried to return to the plane to reclaim her baby. Police and the airline are keeping a tight lid on their investigation.But police are investigating whether the mother, who is unnamed, abandoned her newborn child - and there could be criminal charges pending.

'Police are currently investigating the mother's actions... A likelihood of this investigation is a criminal prosecution,' a statement said.Pacific Blue said the woman's visa form was being examined to see how she boarded the plane at such an advanced stage of her pregnancy.The airline states that passengers who are more than 36 weeks pregnant must have medical clearance to fly. Gates-Bowey said 'the mother and baby are both well and at (a maternity ward in) Middlemore Hospital and back together.

'The Pacific Blue airline said in a statement yesterday: 'A female guest gave birth on board our flight DJ94 from (the Samoan capital) Apia to Auckland this morning.''We are relieved to have been informed that both mother and child are reunited, are well and are now being looked after in hospital,' the statement added.News agency New Zealand Press Association quoted an unnamed Auckland Airport staffer saying it was not known if other passengers and crew on the Pacific Blue flight from Samoa noticed the woman was in labour.It quoted the airport staff member saying that 'the baby was found on the aircraft' after landing.

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Lock on counter terrorist funding; State Bank of India installed Anti Money Laundering (AML) software Amlock

In order to ensure the  loyalty of its customers and counter terrorist funding, the  State Bank of India (SBI) has installed Anti Money Laundering (AML) software Amlock from 3i Infotech, an Indian software company.

Money laundering is the practice of disguising illegally obtained funds so that they seem legal. It can also refer to companies sending money offshore through accounting tricks to book profits there and avoid taxation.

The implementation was carried out in order to monitor the suspicious transfer of money and comply with AML measures. AML software will be implemented across the State Bank Group, consisting of SBI and its six associate banks - State Bank of Patiala, State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur, State Bank of Indore, State Bank of Hyderabad, State Bank of Mysore and State Bank of Travancore - totalling more than 16,000 branches across the country.

B S Bhasin, chief general manager for banking operations and principal officer for KYC/AML, State Bank of India, said, 'State Bank of India is delighted to partner with 3i Infotech to implement AMLOCK, its Anti Money Laundering Solution. We at SBI are in sync with global awareness for matters related to anti money laundering, and this partnership is a step to have an efficient technology system to keep pace with the global changes and meet regulatory and statutory obligations.'

M B Battliwala, senior general manager of 3i Infotech, told IT Examiner that Amlock recognises the pattern of suspicious transactions and makes the monitoring process easy, removing the need to examine millions of transactions.

Battliwala, however, refused to disclose the contract amount, calling it confidential. However, he said the Amlock software only recognises the pattern and does not detect offenders.

In India, the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act was made effective on 1 July 2005. Section 3 of the Act describes the offence of money-laundering as covering those persons or entities who directly or indirectly attempt to indulge or knowingly assist or knowingly are party or are actually involved in any process or activity connected with the proceeds of crime and projecting it as untainted property.

Section 4 of the Act prescribes punishment to the offender, with a minimum imprisonment of three years which can be extended to seven years. The offender is also liable to pay a fine of Rs 500,000.

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Father killed four day's old daughter to taught a lesson to wife

Niranjan Kumar a 29-year-old software engineer employed with Cisco in Bangalore has been charged with killing his four-day-old daughter by throwing her into a well because his wife had refused to abort the child. Chennai police have arrested him.
Niranjan Kumar allegedly harassed wife Sangeetha, 22, to have the abortion so she could continue working.

Fed up, Sangeetha moved to her parents’ home in Chennai seven months ago. But Niranjankumar kept up the pressure, urging her through emails to abort the baby. He is also alleged to have demanded Rs 5 lakh in extra dowry.

On March 9, Sangeetha’s parents informed Niranjankumar she had delivered a girl. Last evening, the engineer arrived at the hospital with his father and mother, chatted with his in-laws and wife in a way that hid his real feelings, and took the mother and child to his parents’ home in Chennai.

But around 3am, Sangeetha woke up to find her baby missing. After she told Niranjankumar, he is alleged to have replied: “The baby is sleeping inside the well.”

When a perplexed Sangeetha asked what he meant, Niranjankumar said he had flung the baby into the well because she had refused to listen to him and abort. A hysterical Sangeetha informed her parents, who filed a police complaint.

Fire services personnel, brought in by the police, later recovered the infant’s body, wrapped in a towel, from the well. The police said Niranjankumar had admitted to the crime. He is said to have told officers he killed the baby to teach his wife and in-laws a lesson. His parents are also being questioned to find out if they were involved.

Sangeetha’s father R. Balasubramaniam said he and his daughter had been fooled by Niranjankumar’s “kind words” at the hospital yesterday. “We really believed he was a changed man and loved his daughter. So, we allowed our daughter and the baby to go with him,” Balasubramaniam said.

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Madras chief justice worried over lawyers' strike

Chief Justice of the Madras High Court H.L. Gokhale Wednesday expressed concern over the difficult situation arising out of lawyers agitating nationwide while a section of advocates here returned to work after a long break.

"Lawyers are creating difficulties by agitating on various issues solvable amicably through peaceful dialogue. This is happening not only in Tamil Nadu but also on a nationwide basis and is a cause for concern," Gokhale said.

Gokhale was addressing subordinate judicial officers on the sidelines of a training session within the precincts of the high court.

"The misunderstandings within the legal fraternity must end quickly. Further, the need of the hour is continuing with complete honesty and high moral standards amongst all officials of the court, which include judges and lawyers alike," Gokhale added.

Work in the courts, however, remained paralysed as most of the lawyers stayed off work against the backdrop of the city police prosecuting over 100 lawyers for burning copies of the interim report on the law and order situation that prevailed in the court premises for three days since Feb 19.

An interim report was submitted to the Supreme Court by retired apex court judge B.N. Srikrishna last week after a probe. He had faulted the behaviour of lawyers and police personnel alike.

"Our strike will continue till police officials who assaulted our brethren illegally and brutally are brought to book. Further, those 30 odd advocates belonging to the ruling party will be removed from all posts in lawyers' independent bodies," Madras High Court Advocates' Association president Paul Kanagaraj told reporters.

Meanwhile, over 30 lawyers owing allegiance to the ruling DMK and those representing various wings of the government returned to work.

"We have understood the gravity of the situation and litigants' travails and therefore decided to return to work from today (Wednesday). The rest of our brethren should hopefully give up their confrontationist attitude and emulate us," R.S. Bharati, who heads the DMK lawyers' wing, told reporters upon returning to work following a ruling party decision.

Two separate benches of the Madras High Court are scheduled to hear cases pertaining to the lawyers' strike following police action against them and the pelting of Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy with eggs last month.

During police baton charges Feb 19, several lawyers and a judge were injured.

Last week, advocates in Tamil Nadu and the neighbouring union territory of Puducherry rejected Justice Srikrishna's probe report.

Protests by lawyers have been underway for almost two months now expressing solidarity with the suffering ethnic minority Tamils of Sri Lanka at the hands of the island nation's army.

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Punishment should be matching the severity of a crime

The Supreme Court has recommended that courts award punishment matching the severity of a crime, in accordance with the criminal justice system's principle of "proportionality between crime and punishment".
While imposing a sentence, the courts must also strike the right balance between the objectives of reforming a criminal and making it an effective deterrence for others from committing a crime, a bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat and Mukundakam Sharma ruled.
"Undue sympathy (to criminals) and imposing inadequate sentence would do more harm to the justice system and undermine the public confidence in the efficacy of law," said the bench. It added that "society could not long endure under such serious threats".
"It is, therefore, the duty of every court to award proper sentence having regard to the nature of the offence and the manner in which it was executed or committed."
The bench gave the ruling while restoring a 10-year jail term to a Rohtak native Raj Kumar who had been convicted by a trial court for a murderous bid on a man called Raj Swarup and causing him grievous injuries. He and three accomplices were held guilty of of assaulting Swarup and his two sons as they were on their way to attend a court hearing.
As a result of the assault, the victim suffers from a permanent loss of memory.
The Supreme Court restored the sentence of the trial court after setting aside a Punjab and Haryana High Court ruling, which had reduced the sentence to seven years without assigning any reason for it.
"Anything less than a penalty of greatest severity for any serious crime is thought to be a measure of toleration that is unwarranted and unwise," the bench said.
A mismatch between the severities of crime and punishment makes punishment unjustifiable, said the bench, adding that "uniformly disproportionate punishment has some very undesirable practical consequences for the society".
Maintaining that "protection of society and stamping out criminal proclivity must be the object of law", the bench said that this objective "must be achieved by imposing appropriate sentence".

The bench enhanced Raj Kumar's jail term to 10 years, saying that he was personally responsible for causing the grievous injuries from a sharp-edged weapon.
The bench, however, did not enhance the sentences of his other two co-convicts as they were not responsible for causing as ferocious injuries as those caused by Raj Kumar.
Recommending the synchronisation between the needs to reform a criminal and to deter a criminal from committing an offence, the bench said: "In operating the sentencing system, law should adopt the corrective machinery or the deterrence based on factual matrix."
"By deft modulation sentencing process be stern where it should be, and tempered with mercy where it warrants to be."
"The facts and given circumstances in each case, the nature of the crime, the manner in which it was planned and committed, the motive for commission of the crime, the conduct of the accused, the nature of weapons used and all other attending circumstances are relevant facts" to help determine the sentence, the bench said.
"For instance a murder committed due to deep-seated mutual and personal rivalry may not call for penalty of death, but an organised crime or mass murders of innocent people would call for imposition of death sentence as deterrence."

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