Flight carrying Sushma goes incommunicado for 14 minutes

coastaldigest.com web desk
June 3, 2018

New Delhi, Jun 3: A VIP Embraer aircraft carrying External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to South Africa had gone incommunicado for 14 minutes, triggering a mid-air scare after the Mauritius Air Traffic Control pressed the panic button, an official statement said on Sunday.

Contact could not be established with the Indian Air Force flight IFC 31 after it left Male ATC for Mauritius airspace on Saturday, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) said in a statement.

But instead of the waiting for the mandatory 30 minutes, the uncertainty phase was activated, known as INCERFA in aviation parlance, it said.

"Mauritius ATC activated the uncertainty phase without allowing the stipulated time period of 30 minutes to lapse from the time when the aircraft last contacted ATC. This was perhaps done because the flight was carrying a VIP," the AAI said.

Since the Embraer-135 aircraft, carrying the minister, does not have a long range, it had stopovers at Thiruvananthapuram and Mauritius for refuelling.

The flight had left for Mauritius from Thiruvananthapuram at 2.08 pm. After it left the Indian airspace, it was handed over to the Male ATC which established contact with the flight at 4.44 pm IST.

Soon after it was handed over to the Mauritius ATC, the incident unfolded leading to panic. However, everyone heaved a sigh of relief when the aircraft came in contact with the ATC there at 4.58 pm, the AAI said.

The Ministry of External Affairs has not commented on the issue so far.

Swaraj is in South Africa to attend the BRICS and IBSA meets -- the two major groups where India has been playing a major role. She will also meet the top leadership of the country.

An official conversant with the ATC issues over the Indian Ocean region told PTI, the problem in contacting the flight could have arisen due to weak radar coverage as flights have to rely on VHF communication, which has their own set of issues.

The uncertainty phase is the first of the three emergency phases, the other two being the alert phase and the distress phase.

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News Network
November 18,2024

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Mangaluru: The Ullal police have arrested Manohar, the owner of Vazco Beach Resort, and its manager Bharath in connection with the drowning of three college girls from Mysuru at the resort’s swimming pool on November 17.

City Commissioner of Police Anupam Agrawal confirmed the arrests, stating that a case has been registered under Section 106 of BNS. The bodies of the victims, all in their twenties, have been handed over to their parents. The women had arrived at the resort for a weekend getaway on November 16.

Following the tragic incident, the resort was sealed by officials led by Mangaluru Assistant Commissioner Harshavardhan. The trade license of the resort, issued on June 13, 2024, has been suspended, and the tourism department has temporarily revoked the resort's registration. These actions prohibit the resort from engaging in any tourism-related activities until further notice.

Someshwara TMC Chief Officer stated that the suspension was due to the resort's failure to implement adequate safety measures, which resulted in the loss of three lives. Further investigations are underway.

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News Network
November 14,2024

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Bengaluru: The Prime Minister Narendra Modi led union government has requested the Karnataka High Court to direct the Mandya district administration and the state government to clear a madrasa operating within the premises of the historic Jama Masjid in Srirangapatna.

The Waqf Board, opposing this move, has claimed the mosque as its property and defended the right to conduct madrasa activities there.

The matter was brought before a division bench headed by Chief Justice N V Anjaria following a public interest litigation filed by a person named Abhishek Gowda from Kabbalu village in Kanakapura taluk. The petition alleged “unauthorised madrasa activities” within the mosque.

Representing the Central government, Additional Solicitor General of India for High Court of Karnataka, K Arvind Kamath argued that the Jama Masjid was designated as a protected monument in 1951, yet unauthorised madrasa operations continue there.

He noted that concerns over potential law and order issues have so far prevented any intervention. Kamath urged the court to direct the Mandya district administration to take action and vacate the madrasa from the mosque.

In defence, lawyers for the state government and the Waqf Board contested this request, stating that the Waqf Board had been recognised as the owner of the property since 1963 and, thus, conducting madrasa activities there is lawful.

After hearing both sides, the bench adjourned the case for further arguments, scheduling the next hearing for November 20.

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News Network
November 18,2024

Advisors to US President-elect Donald Trump have instructed his allies and associates to refrain from using the inflammatory language they previously employed when discussing issues related to migrants and the deportation of asylum seekers, in a bid to avoid “looking like Nazis.”

US media reports said that Trump’s associates had been asked to stop using the word “camps” to describe potential facilities that would be used to accommodate migrants rounded up in deportation operations across the country.

The reports said the US president-elect’s allies had been ordered to stave off such charged terms as they would bring to mind “Nazis,” and be used against Trump.

“I have received some guidance to avoid terms, like ‘camps,’ that can be twisted and used against the president, yes,” one Trump ally told American monthly magazine Rolling Stone.

“Apparently, some people think it makes us look like Nazis.”

The presidential advisers also cautioned surrogates and allies to keep racist terms, which have dogged Trump’s campaign, out of their remarks.

They said with Trump’s heated rhetoric that used to compare undocumented immigrants to “animals” and his slight that they are “poisoning the blood of our country,” detractors did not need to reach too far to find parallels to Nazi Germany.

Stephen Miller, who Trump tapped to be his deputy chief of staff of policy, specifically used the word “camps” to describe holding facilities that he hoped the military could put together for immigrants.

Tom Homan, who served as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is chosen by Trump to be in charge of the US borders, was no stranger to such language.

“It’s not gonna be a mass sweep of neighborhoods,” he said in an interview earlier this week. “It’s not gonna be building concentration camps. I’ve read it all. It’s ridiculous.”

Becoming a little more forthright about the new government’s aggressive deportation plans, Homan likened the early days of the Trump administration to the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“I got three words for them – shock and awe,” he said. “You’re going to see us take this country back.”

Trump made immigration a central element of his 2024 presidential campaign but unlike his first run, which was mainly focused on building a border wall, he has shifted his attention to interior enforcement and the removal of undocumented immigrants already in the United States.

People close to the US president and his aides are laying the groundwork for expanding detention facilities to fulfill his mass deportation campaign promise.

The businessman-turned-politician deported more than 1.5 million people during his first term.

The figure do not include the millions of people turned away at the border under a Covid-era policy enacted by Trump and used during most of Biden’s term.

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