Thane (Maharashtra): President Pranab Mukherjee yesterday paid homage to Marathi warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji, describing him as “a great military genius, a brilliant strategist and a great ruler”. Inaugurating a 2,200kg bronze statue of Shivaji at a public junciton in Kalwa suburb here, the President said that though Shivaji’s resources were limited, “he confidently faced the mighty Mughal empire by forming an army from hard working peasants”. “Chhatrapati Shivaji was a born leader with a personality that drew the best men to his side and commanded devoted service from his officers,” Mukherjee said. The President said that during his reign, Chhatrapati Shivaji instilled a sense of self-respect in his subjects by following basic principles like tolerance for all views, secularism, discipline, respect for women and protection of women’s honour, self-restraint, dedication and commitment to duty and strict enforcement of morality.
Kerala’s ‘first legislator’ dead
Thiruvananthapuram: Rosamma Punnoose (pictured), who was the first person to be sworn in as legislator soon after the first assembly polls in Kerala in 1957, passed away in Oman yesterday morning, her family said. She was 100. Incidentally, Punnoose was also the first pro-term Speaker of the Kerala assembly, as she had also administered the oath to other legislators at that time. Punnoose was living with her son in Oman for the past two years. Though she began her career with the Travancore State Congress in 1939, she joined the Communist Party of India in 1948. A law graduate, she returned to the Kerala assembly for the second time in 1987. She quit politics in 1998, when she stepped down as chairperson of the Kerala State Women’s Commission. Rosamma Punnoose’s husband P T Punnoose was also a prominent Communist Party of India leader, elected from the Ambalapuzha Lok Sabha constituency to the second Lok Sabha in 1957. Punnoose’s body will be brought to Kerala from Oman. The funeral will take place tomorrow at Thiruvalla. Punnoose celebrated her 100th birthday on May 13 this year at Thiruvalla. Kerala assembly Speaker G Karthikeyan visited her on her birthday to greet her.
Leh shivers at -15 degrees
Srinagar: At minus 15 degrees Celsius, Leh town in Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir was the coldest yesterday, as the night temperatures throughout the Valley remained below the freezing point. “The night temperature was minus 14.9 in Leh today (Saturday) which is the coldest this season so far in the town,” an official of the weather department said here. “It was minus 14.6 in Kargil while the minimum was minus 1.9 (degrees Celsius) in Srinagar, minus 8.2 in Gulmarg, and minus 6.9 in Pahalgam,” the official added. “The minimum temperature was 4.7 degrees (Celsius) in Jammu city today (Saturday). The night temperature was 2 degrees below normal in Gulmarg and Pahalgam, while it was 3 degrees below normal in Jammu city today (Saturday),” he said. The official said weather would remain mainly dry in the Kashmir during the next 24 hours. IANS
