New Delhi ,March 31: In an effort to curb child marriages, the government intends to remove a sub-section of the Criminal Procedure Code  which is considered a major obstacle in the way of taking action in cases of marital rape of a wife below 15 years of age.
The Union law and justice ministry has proposed to delete sub-section 6 of Section 198, CrPC.

New Delhi , March 31: The government has frozen 18 bank accounts of persons involved in terrorist and insurgent activities for terror financing under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. This includes 14 bank accounts of Moshin Ismail Chowdhary, a key member of the Indian Mujahideen (IM) terrorist outfit and also a key suspect in the blast at German Bakery in Pune in February. The IM operative had accounts at Ratnakar Bank’s Nana Peth branch in Pune, which have now been frozen.

London, March 31: For the first time, computer artists claim to have recreated the face of Jesus Christ from the Shroud of Turin, using cutting-age digital technology. The image was created by taking information and blood encoded on the Shroud of Turin — the bloodstained linen that many believe was the burial cloth of the crucified Jesus Christ — and transforming it into a 3D image, say the artists.
The image was recreated for the History Channel special programme The Real Face of Jesus, which will be aired this week.

Security personnel detain a man during curfew in Hyderabad on Tuesday. The police imposed curfew after three days of clashes between Hindus and Muslims and injured eight persons, including two policemen, on Tuesday. The clashes spread to new areas in the Hyderabad’s Old City, prompting authorities to clamp curfew in eight more police station limits. The police used teargas shells and baton-charges to quell the mobs. n Report on Page 4    PHOTO: Reuters

New Delhi/Mumbai/ Ahmedabad/Nairobi , March 30: About 100 Indians are feared captured and eight “dhows (modernised versions of traditional Arab sailing vessels)” seized by pirates off Somalia’s coast. A Gujarat-based shipping association said on Tuesday that seven of its vessels had been hijacked.
“Around Saturday afternoon we got information that seven of our vessels were hijacked by Somali pirates in mid-sea,” Kutch Vahanvati Association (KVA) president Kasam Ali Bholim told agencies in Ahmedabad on Tuesday. “Eight to 100 crew members of these vessels have been captured.

Geneva , March 30: The world’s largest atom smasher conducted its first experiments at conditions nearing those after the Big Bang, breaking its own record for high-energy collisions with proton beams crashing into each other Tuesday at three times more force than ever before.

Chandigarh , March 30: Five men who murdered a young couple to “preserve family honour” have been sentenced to death in a damning judicial verdict intended to deter the waywardness of Haryana’s self-styled “khap panchayats” (caste councils).
Pronouncing sentence over the 2007 murder of a recently-wed couple, Manoj, 23, and Babli, 19, who were brutally butchered by the bride’s family members for supposed violation of caste and kinship traditions after the local “khap panchayat” declared their marriage “illegal,” the additional district and sessions judge at Karnal, Vani Gopal Sharma, awarded the death penalty (by hanging) to five culprits, and rigorous imprisonment for life to a sixth man.

Buenos Aires, March 30: Argentina’s World Cup coach and soccer great Diego Maradona was bitten on his face by one of his pet dogs and had micro-surgery at a clinic, local media reported Tuesday.
Maradona, 48, taken to Los Arcos clinic during the early hours, was not seriously hurt and was expected to return home later in the day, the broadcaster Cronica said.

New York , March 30: French President Nicholas Sarkozy on Tuesday made a strong pitch for India’s inclusion as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
Speaking at Columbia University, Mr Sarkozy said emerging voices like India, Africa and the Arab world need to find a place in the UN Security Council, as he criticised the present structure of the world body.

New Delhi , March 30: The government on Tuesday announced it would go ahead with the controversial Women’s Reservation Bill even before undertaking an exercise to evolve a consensus on it among political leaders.
Law minister M. Veerappa Moily once again reiterated the government’s intention to move the bill in the Lok Sabha during the current Budget Session of Parliament without any dilution. The Rajya Sabha has already passed the bill.