Tamil Nadu Policeman begged for help, ministers didn't care - News In Pictures

A case of shocking indifference came to light on January 7, when a sub-inspector of police in Tirunelveli district of southern Tamil Nadu, bled to death after gangsters cut off his legs.

Fourty-four-year-old R Vetrivel's cry for help went in vain even after Tamil Nadu Health Minister MRK Paneerselvam and Youth and Sports Development Minister T P M Mohideen Khan, travelling in a convoy, saw him lying in a pool of blood.

The convoy did stop, but neither of the ministers step out of their cars.

Goa politician who ‘raped’ Russian surrenders

After evading arrest for nearly a month, Goa politician John Fernandes, accused of raping a 25-year-old Russian woman, surrendered before the police on Tuesday. The surrender came two days after the Supreme Court refused to restore his anticipatory bail initially granted.

Fernandes has been arrested and would be interrogated, Deputy Superintendent of Police Chandrakant Salgaoncar said. He said the accused walked into the Crime Branch office at Dona Paula with his lawyer at 2 pm.

He also said the accused would be charged with destroying evidence as he had not handed over the clothes worn by him on the day he allegedly raped the Russian woman.

Fernandes, a south Goa politician, who unsuccessfully fought 2007 assembly elections on a ticket by Churchill Alemao's Save Goa Front Party, allegedly raped the 25-year-old Russian by spiking her drinks at Colva beach on the night of December 1.

Salgaoncar said the accused went missing when the Panaji bench of Bombay High Court rejected the anticipatory bail granted to him by the district and sessions court. The accused then approached the Supreme Court with the anticipatory bail plea. The SC refused to interfere with the high court order.

The crime branch will now initiate a probe into Fernandes' movements since he went missing. "If some people helped him to hide, we will initiate action against them," Salgaoncar said.

Police had issued lookout circulars after Fernandes went missing. He was declared an absconder by the First Class Judicial Magistrate of Margao.

Woman who mothered 25 kids Nepal's new 'heroine'

But the story of the village woman of uncertain age is making ripples in Nepal after a chance encounter led a filmmaker to train his camera on Santkumari and her family.

It is a large family. Besides her husband Jitman, the couple have eight children.

The size of the family would have been larger still had all the children survived. In her 27 years of marriage, a stoical Santkumari bore her husband 25 children, only eight of whom have survived.

Though the Pariyars live in Dhading district in central Nepal, close to capital Kathmandu, very little of the government's benefits have trickled down to them.

Let alone education, neither husband nor wife knew about planned parenthood and safe motherhood though Nepal's government has been spending millions of rupees on campaigns to promote family planning as well as mother and child health care.

On Friday, Santkumari blushed and hid her face while watching a film on her own life in Kathmandu.

"Mother of 25", a documentary by Ramesh Khadka, was screened in the capital as part of the five-day Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival that brings to the capital 59 films from 26 countries.

Santkumari, her husband and their 25th child Ganesh, were brought to Kathmandu to watch the film. After the end of the 40-minute documentary, the trio were surrounded by filmgoers who wanted to know why they hadn't resorted to family planning.

"We didn't know," the shame-faced couple said. "We came to know it was possible to stop the birth of children only after a neighbour mocked us and asked us to go for family planning."

Italian PM punched at a rally

An attacker hurled a statuette at Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, striking the leader in the face at the end of a rally last night and leaving the stunned 73-year-old media mogul with a broken nose and bloodied mouth.

Police said the attacker Massimo Tartaglia (42), who has a history of metal illness, was immediately taken into custody. The Italian leader was rushed to a hospital where he was being held overnight.

The attack occurred at a time when Berlusconi, one of Italy's wealthiest men, is embroiled in a sex scandal, a divorce case with his wife and public protests demanding his resignation.

TV showed the stunned leader with blood under his nose, on his mouth and under one eye as he was lifted to his feet by aides after the attack.

He was hustled into the back of a car, but he immediately got out, apparently to show he was not badly injured.

Nose Fracture But Berlusconi suffered a "small fracture" of the nose, two broken teeth and an injury to the inside and outside of his lip, said a spokesman for San Raffaele Hospital.

"He wanted to go home right away, but he is being held overnight as a precaution," he said. The PM was "shaken and demoralised", he added.