The Income Tax Department has slapped a fresh notice on Arvind Kejriwal, asking its former officer to pay up over Rs.900,000 in dues by the month-end.

The department says the new notice was issued because Kejriwal violated bond clauses under which he went on a study leave for two years.

Kejriwal and other Anna Hazare Team members termed the issuance of the notice as an action by the government's "dirty tricks department" under instructions from political bosses.

Kejriwal says he did not violate bond provisions and had resigned from the job after the stipulated three years of rejoining duty after his study leave. He stated he intends to 'reply appropriately' to the fresh notice.

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Parents of 222 girls in various towns and villages in Satara, Maharashtra, named their daughters Nakusa, Nakoshi or Nakushi that means unwanted or unwelcome. They were not happy to have daughers, but fortunately they were not aborted.

Now Dr Sudha Kankaria a social activist and president of the Save the Girl Child Mission, with the help of district health officials has decided to remedy this by renaming the girls, that will hopefully herald a new and brighter chapter in their future lives.

The 'unwanted' names gave them an inferiority complex and resulted in discrimination.

The girls have been asked what new names they would like and many chose the names of favourite Bollywood stars. Their parents were also convinced and agreed to the name change to ensure a better future for their daughters.

The girls were renamed at a public function presided over by Supriya Sule, Lok Sabha MP, and daughter of Sharad Pawar, the Nationalist Congress Party chief and agriculture minister.

Maharashtra is one of the worst states in terms of discrimination against the girl child. Many families discriminate against the daughter depriving them of education and good nourishment. Female foeticide is rampant in Maharashtra.

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Mukesh Ambani's 27 storey home Antilia in a rarified part of Mumbai, that has 3 helipads, six floors of parking and floating gardens and is billed as the world's most expensive, is not really his home, yet.

Friends of the family say that after the party guests have said their thank yous and goodbyes, the Ambanis actually often decamp to Sea Wind, their 14-storey apartment tower that Mukesh, wife Nita and their three children share, on different floors of course, with his mother and his estranged younger brother Anil and Anil's family.

Ambani is noncomittal and private about his reasons for not moving in to Antilia yet.

Among various theories is one that says Vastu Shastra is the explanation.

Vastu is a philosophy particularly significant in Hindu temple architecture, that emphasises the importance of directional alignments that create spiritual harmony. One Vastu expert believes Antilia ran afoul of one of the key principles of Vastu - the buildings eastern side does not have enough windows or other openings to let residents receive the energy of ample morning light.

Antilia was designed by Perkins & Will and the interior design firm was Hirsch Bedner Associates, both American.

Much negative energy was perhaps generated by the controversy that Ambani bought the land from a Muslim charitable trust that operated an orphanage, and that he bought it at a small fraction of its market value. Mumbai residents also criticised the building as an ostentatious display of wealth in a country where most people live on less than $2 a day, that too in a city where over half the population lives in slums.

That and other mysterious reasons apparently keep Mr Ambani from making the move to his luxury residence. One observer commented that it may actually be rather lonely at the top!

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Nabrangpur, a town in Orissa, shut down recently to protest a plan by authorities to hold a beauty contest during a tribal festival next month.

The strikers included shops, private and government vehicles, and processions were organised by various social and political organisations to stage protests at various venues.

The local administration had been planning to introduce a beauty contest for women during the Mondei tribal cultural festival to be held for three days from Nov 1, that is intended to be a showcase of the art, craft and culture of the tribals.

Authorities say the protest is unnecesary as the contest has not yet been finalised.

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In September, Government doctors set up a week long camp for free cataract surgery, in Balod, a small town in a Chattisgarh district.

Over 300 patients flocked to the camp that had just four visiting doctors from the district headquarters in attendance. Consequently each doctor was operating on three patients at a time, and after the surgery no post operative care was provided. The crowded camp was filled with patients some of whom were lying on the floor in filthy conditions.

According to some patients who were operated upon, they began experiencing acute pain within a day. They complained that the medicines they were given were infected, but doctors kept them in hospital regardless. Some eventually just left on their own.

Inquiries by the district revealed that the doctors, faced with complaints of infections, suppressed the cases and did not report them to the higher authorities. Two deaths due from the infected medications were reported and a number have suffered irreparable loss of sight.

The four doctors have been suspended and the government says it will fund the patients' treatment. But the elderly patients have not heard from the authorities, and say they'd rather pay the doctors to have their sight restored.

One public health activist said the botched operations serve as a caution on the perils of herding patients for mass surgeries in poorly equipped government camps.

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