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The revised tariff will be effective from Sunday and the tariff cards can be obtained from the regional transport authority office by the auto-rickshaw drivers.

“One of the barometers of the law and order situation in a state/city is how the auto-rickshaw/taxi drivers charge their customers and how the government implements the rule of law. In Chennai, auto-rickshaws are notorious for over charging. I hope at least the government will now implement strictly the rule of law,” she said. Nitya a private sector employee told IANS.

In 2007, when auto-rickshaw tariff was last revised, the minimum meter rate was fixed at Rs.14.

All five Mumbai rapists held, Chavan assures speedy justice

Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj

Chavan Aug 26 said the Mumbai gang-rape case would be tried in a fast track court and noted criminal lawyer Ujjwal Nikam has been requested to appear as public prosecutor even as the fifth suspect was arrested.

The last remaining accused was arrested in Delhi, hours after the fourth accused was held in Mumbai, ending a three-day hunt that followed the horrific sexual assault of a photojournalist.

“The case will be tried in fast-track court to ensure speedy justice to the victim,” Chavan told reporters in Pune.

Mohammad Salim Ansari, 27, was nabbed at Bharat Nagar in north Delhi, a Delhi Police official told IANS.

An official said four officials from Mumbai Crime Branch and a team of Delhi Police trapped Ansari and took him into custody as he was going to a relative’s house.

He was taken to a hospital for a medical check-up and presented before a duty magistrate before being taken to Mumbai.

The Delhi court granted Mumbai police his transit remand for 48 hours, after which he would have to be presented before a court.

According to police, the fourth accused, Mohammed Kasim Hafiz Shaikh alias Kasim Bengali, was arrested at Mumbai Central railway station early on August 25. Co-accused Siraj Rehman Khan was arrested the night before.

A Mumbai court sent both Hafiz Shaikh and Khan to police custody till August 30 for questioning.

The 22-year-old photojournalist was raped by five men in an abandoned textile mill complex in central Mumbai on August 22 after her male colleague was beaten and bound.

The Mumbai gang-rape mirrored the December 16, 2012 sexual assault in a bus in Delhi on a young woman who eventually died in a Singapore hospital.

The latest incident shocked the entire nation, triggering fresh demands for death to rapists.

The Mumbai accused allegedly also shot pictures of the crime on mobile phones and threatened the victims with dire consequences if they complained to police.

The photojournalist was on an assignment for an English magazine and had gone to the desolate area to take pictures of the abandoned factories when she and her male companion were attacked.

Disgusted by the sordid details of the gang rape, Hafiz Shaikh’s mother told the media at her home in Mumbai that the authorities and courts were free to hand out the most severe punishment to her son.

“He deserves strong punishment,” said Chand Bibi in Agripada in south Mumbai.

Two other suspects, Vijay Jadhav and Chand Babu Sattar Shaikh, are also in Mumbai police custody till August 30.

While Shaikh was nabbed within 18 hours of the incident that shocked the nation, Jadhav was taken into custody on August 24.

The photojournalist remains warded in hospital after suffering serious injuries.

On August 25, her family pleaded for her privacy while the Maharashtra government said public prosecutor Nikam, who successfully called for death sentence to Mumbai terror attack accused Ajmal Kasab, is set to take up the case against the five rapists.

India-born Satya Nadella in running for Microsoft top job

India-born Satya Nadella, currently heading Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise group, is listed among likely successors to the information technology giant’s CEO Steve Ballmer, who is set to retire within a year.

As executive vice president, Nadella “runs a group that continues to churn out growth and profits,” noted Seattle Times in a story on the start of a guessing game among Microsoft watchers since Ballmer’s impending departure was announced.

“There is no single clear successor to a lightning rod of a leader who remains one of the most identifiable CEOs in the country,” it said.

“What’s more, the next CEO may well have a far different job than the one Ballmer is vacating,” the Times said as “Once the dominant force in technology, Microsoft now finds itself chasing companies in key businesses such as Google in Web search and Apple in mobile devices”.

Nadella, 44, as head of Microsoft’s $19 billion Server and Tools Business, is credited with the transformation of the business and technology from client-server software to cloud infrastructure and services.

Before joining Microsoft in 1992, where he initially worked as the senior vice president of R&D for the Online Services

Division and vice president of the Microsoft Business Division, Nadella worked with Sun Microsystems as a member of the technology staff.

Listing Nadella among potential Ballmer successors, the Wall Street Journal noted he “ran the Server and Tools business successfully from 2011 to this year and took over running the company’s important cloud-computing efforts in last month’s management reshuffle”.

“Indeed, in reassigning a number of top executives, that reorganisation seems a tailormade bake-off for the top job,” it said.

Nadella also figures on the New York Times’ list of current Microsoft executives who could be contenders besides Tony Bates, former director of Skype and now executive vice president of business development and strategy.

Speculation by analysts and executives about external candidates included Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook; Reed Hastings, chief executive of Netflix and a former director at Microsoft; Scott Forstall, who ran iOS at Apple until last year and John Legere, chief executive of T-Mobile, it said.

Nadella holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, a Master of Business Administration from the University of Chicago, and a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering from the Manipal Institute of Technology.

He is also an alumnus of the Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet.

US marijuana streak named after Sanjay Gupta

Indian American medical journalist Sanjay Gupta has had a strain of cannabis named after him since he suggested a relook at the use of medical marijuana changing his previous position on the controversial issue.

A Colorado medical dispensary named a new type of medical marijuana - Gupta Kush - after Gupta, CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent, adding him to a list of celebrities including President Barack Obama who have namesake cannabis strains.

“Dr. Gupta’s recent reporting on marijuana puts him at the forefront of the medical cannabis movement, and we thought what better way to honour his efforts than by giving him his own strain,” said Jeff Kless, owner of Helping Hands Herbals Dispensary in Boulder, Colorado, in a media release.

“We’d like to ensure he remains part of the annals of cannabis culture, and now he will,” he added.

Kless called naming a marijuana strain after Gupta as “our way of tipping our hat and honouring him for taking such a firm, science-based stance on behalf of marijuana as ‘real’ medicine”.

“The political and health establishments now realise that cannabis has genuine medical benefits, which we’ve been saying for years,” he said.

“Gupta Kush imparts a very relaxing state that calms the mind without compromising clarity. When the mind is quiet and happy, people allow themselves to heal. Medical marijuana helps that happen,” Kless claimed.

Gupta Kush is an indica strain with its origins in the Hindu Kush mountains of South Asia, the reported birthplace of some of the world’s oldest and most potent cannabis strains, according to the release.

It has a rich green colour hidden beneath a deep layer of trichomes, and a thick, hashy, floral taste. Onset is immediate and effects are long-lasting, it said.

Since publicly announcing his changed views on medical marijuana earlier this month, Gupta has inspired a more serious look at weed and even generated some pressure on Obama to re-examine his position on marijuana laws.

However, the White House last week indicated Obama isn’t looking to change current federal laws relating to marijuana anytime soon in the light of Gupta’s views.

Obama considered naming CNN’s Gupta as surgeon general in 2009, but the neurosurgeon later said he withdrew his name so he could maintain his surgical career. IANS