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A Village Burnt Overnight: Tears, Loss and Survival in Dhamangaon Blaze

  Sitting amid the blackened remains of his home, 32-year-old Nikesh Gawali carefully broke open a half-melted plastic box with a screwdriver. His hands shook slightly, not out of fear, but out of hope. “I’m trying to find my daughter Aarti’s gold earrings,” he said quietly, still focused on the box. “She’s just five. I got them made recently after months of labour work.” The plastic box, warped and blackened by heat, was one of the few things left from his two-room house on the outskirts of Dhamangaon village . All around him lay ash, broken tin sheets and charred wooden beams. The walls had cracked under the heat and the front room’s tin roof had caved in completely. What remained was a blackened debris all around - almost nothing to suggest a home once stood there. Nikesh earns his living as an agricultural labourer, like many in the village. Work is uncertain and depends on the season. Those earrings weren’t just jewellery - they were a small dream, a reward for his hard work,...

Act against erring ministers: Munde





Deputy Leader of Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) in Parliament Gopinath Munde, on Tuesday, flayed the State Government over ‘drab’ White Paper on irrigation and demanded Deputy Chief Minister and NCP leader Ajit Pawar to be sent to jail. “The Government is deep into corruption and White Paper has been published only to give a clean chit to Ajit Pawar. We strongly demand probe into the scam through Special Investigation Team (SIT),” Munde said while talking to newpersons in Vidhan Bhavan premises. White Paper was only a status report and its copies should be burnt in every village, he added.
For a short while, Munde watched proceedings of the Legislative Assembly from visitors’. Munde further said that price rise was breaking the neck of common man and the Government indulged into corrupt practices. He also flayed the Government for not taking any steps to tackle drought situation in State. He warned that BJP would take to streets if the Government did not take any action against guilty ministers.
Replying to a question regarding lack of unity in Opposition parties and no-confidence motion, the senior leader said that the Opposition parties were united though their agenda was different. BJP would support Shiv Sena in no-confidence motion, said Munde. “We know that we have no majority but no-confidence motion is opportunity to register our anguish over irrigation scam,” he said. Slamming Home Minister R R Patil for his ‘threatening’ comment, Munde said that the NCP minister did not have enough knowledge. 

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