Accident claims lives

MUMBAI: A rail official says an overhead pipeline has collapsed on a passenger train near Mumbai, killing two persons and injuring 11 others. Railways spokesman AK Singh said the falling water pipeline crushed one of the train’s coaches in Thane district on Friday. Authorities were still investigating the cause of the accident. Train services were disrupted as water gushed out of the pipeline, flooding the area. Millions of people daily use a network of local trains to commute in Mumbai.— AP

Bal Thackeray roars

MUMBAI: Raj Thackeray may not be kingmaker but he has managed to decimate his arch rival, the Shiv Sena. It is because of Raj that the Shiv Sena - despite an anti-incumbency wave favouring it - has come fourth in the polls. The Shiv Sena performed worse than its alliance partner BJP which contested fewer seats in the Assembly polls. A stung Bal Thackeray, chief of the Sena wrote in the Saamna on Friday, “I should not be taught what Marathi pride is. I know what it is all about. We have accepted defeat and I will always remember it.” — Agencies

Somali pirates strike

BRUSSELS: Pirates on Thursday hijacked a Panamanian-flagged carrier in waters off Somalia, taking 26 crew hostage, 24 of them Indian, a NATO spokeswoman said. “The MV Al Khaliq, a Panamanian-flagged bulk carrier, has been hijacked early this morning off Somalia,” said a spokeswoman for NATO’s anti-piracy mission in London. “There were 26 crew on board, 24 of whom are Indian and two Burmese.” A second carrier, the Italian-flagged Jolly Rosso, also came under fire from pirates north of the Seychelles. The ship was travelling from Novorossiysk port, Russia to Mombasa, Kenya and was loaded with 35,000 tons of wheat. — AFP

MiG crashes, pilot safe

KOLKATA: An IAF MiG-27 fighter jet on a routine training sortie on Friday crashed in a tea garden near New Jalpaiguri in West Bengal but the pilot managed to eject safely. This is the ninth IAF Aircraft crash since January this year. “The aircraft was on a routine training sortie from the Hashimara airbase and crashed at around 1310 hours, nearly 15 kilometres from its take off base near New Jalpaiguri,” IAF officials said. The pilot, Flight Lieutenant Gautam, managed to bailout safely before the aircraft crashed, they said. The IAF has ordered a Court of Inquiry to investigate the causes behind the crash, they said. — Agencies

Racial abuse ruling

MELBOURNE: A group of youths nearly killed an Indian student during an armed assault in a grocery store in Melbourne for the “sheer thrill” of the attack, a judge said while sentencing one of the attackers to jail. Carrying wooden planks ripped up from a nearby bus stop seat, the seven youths raided the Impex shop in Sunshine yelling, “Are you Indian?” They randomly hit their victims on December 1 last year.There has been several attacks on Indian students in Australia. — Agencies