A Swiss woman aged 39 has been gang-raped by a group of 8 to 10 men as she and her husband were camped at a village in Datia district during their cycling trip from Orchha to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. The rapists overpowered the husband before raping his wife.

The victim has been admitted to hospital in Gwalior. She is conscious and has spoken to the authorities.

According to one report the husband said the men approached them at night and began beating him with wooden sticks before tying him up and sexually assaulting his wife. The attackers stole the couple's valuables including Rs.10,000 and a laptop computer, before fleeing into the woods.

More than 20 people have been detained in connection with the attack and the Swiss embassy has demanded a thorough investigation.

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Every time a commuter in Mumbai or Pune or other cities in Maharashtra takes a bus, 10 to 15 paise of the fare is set aside for a fund to help feed malnourished children. The money has been collected over the last 16 years through the Child Nutrition Surcharge and guesstimates say it amounts to hundreds of crores.

The mystery is that no one has seen the money or knows where it has gone !

The Minister for Children and Women's Development says she was unaware that the fund existed at all. Public transport officials acknowledge that some 200 crore of the fund has yet to be transferred to the state treasury. Transport departments in cities say they cannot afford to pass on the money collected and allege it has been used to maintain public buses and keep them on the roads as they are suffering huge losses.

One NGO chief called the whole business a mockery that exposes the government's real priorities.

Maharashtra is co-governed by Sharad Pawar's NCP and the Congress. However in many cities the local corporation is run by opposition parties who have done nothing to intervene even though transport bodies report to them.

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The UPA government gave the lion's share of its now five year old farm loan waiver scheme to Andhra Pradesh, but sadly reports say that struggling farmers are now selling their organs to pay their agricultural debts.

Almost 21% of the total farm loan waiver package was allocated to Andhra Pradesh, but as the recent Auditor General's report shows, blatant corruption ensued and a large number of ineligible farmers were allowed the waiver while many marginal and smaller farmers were denied any of the benefit and they continued to be trapped by debt.

The Auditor showed that the AP Grameen Bank altered land holdings of some 17 farmers to make them eligible, irregularities that were found not just in Andhra Pradesh but in several states.

In Andhra Pradesh specifically, the study revealed that in some 132 cases, ineligible benefits were permitted and in 100 cases benefits were extended to farmers on loans which were never ever disbursed.

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India's Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) reported it found lapses in 22% of cases of the flagship government scheme to write off debts of poor farmers. CAG reported that loans were written off, and waivers were given to many ineligible people while those eligible were not considered.

The CAG audited accounts of 90,000 farmers between 2011 and 2011 found serious irregularities, and accused bank officials of siphoning off funds meant for the farm relief scheme that was announced to cover nearly 30 million farmers across the country.

Observers say the scheme was announced by the Congress party-led government in 2008 and helped the coalition return to power in 2009.

In India some 10,000 farmers commit suicide in India every year, mainly because they cannot pay their debts.

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The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has named former Air Chief Marshal Shashi P Tyagi, three of his cousins and a former official of Finmeccanica, in its formal investigations into alleged bribes in the Rs.3.5 crore AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter deal. This investigation gives fresh impetus to allegations about the deal being marred by bribes paid to Indians and Finmeccanica chairperson Giuseppe Orsi was also named.

Others also named in the massive corruption scam are advocate Gautam Khaitan, Aeromatrix CEO Praveen Bakshi, AgustaWestland CEO Bruno Spagnolini and middlemen Guido Ralph Haschke, Carlo Valentino Ferdinando Gerosa and Christian Michel.

A CBI team that returned from Italy brought back documents relating to the Italian firms that include method of payments made by the IAF and investigations by Italian Police. Bank accounts of the Indian suspects are to be examined. Tax havens of Tunisia, Mauritius, Dubai and Singapore as well as the UK, Italy and India were used to route the kickbacks. All the suspects have denied allegations of kickbacks in the deal.

Meanwhile the MoD says they are awaiting formal interim reports from the CBI and by its joint secretary before deciding on the next course of action.

This is the second time a military chief has been named in a case relating to manipulation of military contracts against favours received from middlemen.

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