WEATHER

Labourers warm themselves around a bonfire in a rice paddy field during a cold morning on the outskirts of Jammu yesterday.

Five children die in Delhi wall collapse
At least five children, all below the age of 10, died in New Delhi after a boundary wall under construction collapsed on them yesterday, a fire brigade official said. The incident took place around 9.30am at Dallupura village in New Ashok Nagar area of east Delhi while the children were playing near the wall being built on a plot of land. “We pulled out six children and rushed them to Lal Bahadur Shastri hospital, but five were dead,” a municipal official said. “All the children lived with their parents in single-room houses around the plot,” a police officer said. “I was in my house when I heard a commotion. When I came out, I found my two children trapped under the debris,” a woman, who lost her children, said.

UP minister’s son killed in car crash
The 17-year-old son of Uttar Pradesh Horticulture and Food Processing Minister Raj Kishore Singh was killed in a road accident yesterday after his speeding car rammed into the railings of a flyover in the Gomti Nagar area in the northern state’s capital Lucknow, police said. Shubham Singh crashed into the flyover after losing control of the SUV car he was driving. He was found stuck between the railings a few meters away from the car, which was damaged beyond recognition. The minister and family members rushed Shubham to hospital where he was declared dead.  Raj Kishore Singh is a Samajwadi Party legislator from Basti.

No proof of UFOs on border: Antony
There is no conclusive proof of sighting unidentified flying objects (UFOs) over the Sino-Indian border, Defence Minister A K Antony said yesterday. The minister was responding to a question in the Lok Sabha from member T N Seema who asked if it was true that Indian troops had seen UFOs in the Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir. Antony said in a written statement that China disputed the international boundary with India. “There is no commonly delineated Line of Actual Control (LAC) between the two countries,” he said. “Both sides patrol up to their respective perceptions of LAC. However, Chinese patrolling up to their perception of LAC is treated as transgressions.”

Lawmakers wear helmets to assembly
Congress legislators wore helmets to the West Bengal assembly yesterday, after a scuffle in the chamber a day earlier between the ruling Trinamool Congress and opposition Left Front members left three legislators injured. Three other legislators were suspended after the scuffle, which occurred on the issue of the operation of chit funds in the state. Over 20 Congress lawmakers wore helmets as they entered the house, but Speaker Biman Banerjee asked them to take off their protective headgear. “This was only a symbolic way to protest the ‘black incident’ that happened yesterday. This was not done to lower the esteem of the house,” Congress leader Manas Bhunia said.