Newswallah: Bharat Edition

Jammu and Kashmir: Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has appointed two of his close aides to take charge of the National Conference party in the Jammu region and the Kashmir region of the state, India Today reported. The move is considered a step toward preparing the young brigade in the party to take over the reins from the old leadership.

Assam: The juvenile justice system in the state is in “shambles,” according to a report by the Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR), with children being “routinely tortured in police custody,” a Sangai Express report on web portal E-Pao said. Assam had the highest number of cases involving juveniles among the eight northeastern states in 2011, the ACHR report said.

Bihar: Ina gruesome act of negligence, a tractor driver mauled three children to death when he rammed his vehicle into a school building in the state capital of Patna on Wednesday, according to an IANS report on the NDTV website.

Rajasthan: A 16-year-old girl was allegedly gang raped by two young men, Udai Meena and Anand Rajput, in Rajasthan’s Dausa district on Tuesday, according to a PTI report in Hindustan Times. The two, who were in an inebriated state, pushed the victim into a well when she attempted to raise an alarm, police officials said. The girl was rescued and was taken to a hospital in Jaipur, according to the local police.

Gujarat: On Wednesday, an accident involving a state transport bus and a minibus killed at least 21 people. Th! e victims, who hailed from Gilisan village in the Mehsana district of Gujarat, had been traveling to a religious function when the accident occurred. Transport department officials say that “reckless driving and untrained drivers” cause a majority of the road accidents that occur in India, according to a report on The Indian Express website.

Karnataka: The Madras High Court on Friday gave permission for the release of a film on the deceased sandalwood  smuggler Veerappan, according to the Hindu newspaper. The tri-lingual biopic could hit the screens as early as Feb. 14 or 15. The journalist Nakkeeran Gopal had earlier sought an injunction against the film’s release, but withdrew the case after watching the film, the paper noted. A. Natarajan, a enior advocate who argued the case on behalf of the film’s director, said Veerappan’s wife also filed an appeal in the Chennai Civil Court seeking to halt the film’s release. However, a civil revision petition was filed in Madras High Court questioning the appeal.