Post-Godhra riot

11 acquitted in another case VADODARA, Oct 29 (UNI): A Vadodara fast-track court has acquittedeleven persons accused in a post-Godhra case of communal riots andarson in Sandasal village under Savli taluka of the district.

About a dozen houses and shops belonging to the minority community in the village were reportedly set ablaze by a 200-strong mob on March one, 2002.

Eleven people arrested in connection with the violence were put on trial before Additional Sessions Judge D B Nayak of the fast-track court.

Pronouncing its verdict yesterday, the court ordered acquittal of all the eleven accused for lack of evidence, as most of the witnesses in the case had turned hostile during the trial.

Fly for Mata Vaishno Devi's 'darshan' CHANDIGARH, Oct 29 (UNI): Mata Vaishno Devi will come closer to the residents of City Beautiful with Air Deccan announcing the launch of its direct flights from Chandigarh to Jammu from October 31.

A media release issued here today said that Air Deccan would be launching direct daily flights on this route.

Bookings are open for travel from October 31 to January 31 next year.

Chandigarh and Jammu are currently not connected directly by train or air.

The new flight will especially facilitate Vaishno Devi pilgrias they would be able to reach much faster and fly at fares as low as 2nd AC train fares.

The flight would leave Chandigarh at 1400 hours and reach Jammu at 1505 hours.

The return flight would leave Jammu at 1525 hours and reach here at 1630 hours.

Promotional fare till November 15 fixed by Air Deccan would be Rs 1000 (one side).

Regular fare between the two places would be Rs 1500 which is just Rs 439 more than what a traveller has to pay for 2nd AC train from here to Jammu via Ambala.

Deccan Aviation, a business unit of Air Deccan, operates 15 scheduled helicopter flights from Katra to Vaishno Devi and back.

Radical Left at JNU Students' Union helm NEW DELHI, Oct 29 (UNI): Radical Left-wing students' union All India Students' Association (AISA) is once again at the helm of affairs in the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU).

Mona Das, the incumbent President and AISA candidate, today won the JNUSU elections dominated by the other Left unions CPI (M)-backed SFI and CPI-affiliate AISF.

While the CPI (ML) students wing AISA retained the top post, the Congress-affiliate NSUI and RSS-backed ABVP drew a blank in the contest for the main posts.

The other three central panel posts Vice-President, General Secretary and Joint Secretary - were won by the SFI-AISF combine.

Mona Das defeated Sona Mitra of SFI-AISF by 52 votes.

She polled 1,049 against Mitra's 997.

Dhananjay Pratap of SFI-AISF defeated Kanika Singh of AISA by 25 votes for Vice-President.

Pratap got 930 votes against Singh's 905.

Fauzan Abrar of SFI-AISF is the new general secretary.

He received 914 votes against 733 polled by his opponent Avdhesh Tripathi.

SFI-AISF's Arani Sinha defeated Sandeep Singh of AISA to become the new joint secretary.

Sinha got 960 votes and and Singh 711.

The SFI and AISF also won majority of the councillor's seats in the polls.

The NSUI and a few ABVP-backed candidates too emerged victorious in the councillor posts.

"The JNU students have voted for resistance to the UPA government's policies," said the victorious AISA presidential candidate Mona Das.

AISA national president Kavita Krishnan said the student prefer the union to the traditional Left unions SFI and AISF, whose parent organisations are supporting the present government at the Centre.

"We need to continue the struggle against corporatisation and commercialisation of education," said Das, a PhD student of the Centre for Political Studies in the School of Social Sciences.

SFI national general secretary Kollol Roy admitted it was a "challenge" to be part of the ruling front "but it was a challenge pregnant with opportunities".

The "Left opportunism" was responsible for the SFI-AISF losing the President's post, he added.

Red flags fluttered in the campus as the unions took out victory marches after the JNSU results were announced early today.