Monica closer to dead end

New Delhi: The Portugal Supreme Court has turned down Monica Bedi?s petition against her extradition to India to stand trial for getting a fake passport but she may finally be sent to India only some time next year, reports our special correspondent.

Monica has exhausted her options in Portugal courts but CBI officials said she could make one last try and appeal to Lisbon?s parliament to let her return to Norway to her parents.

The Bollywood actress, whose arrest in Lisbon along with gangster Abu Salem made headlines a little more than two years ago, had recently made a similar attempt and written to President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to get the CBI to spare her.

The CBI has sought her extradition to make her face trial for getting a fake passport in India. But it is more interested in the opportunity to question her to get details about the functioning of the underworld and Salem.

That Monica also realises this came out clearly in her letters to the Indian dignitaries. She emphasised she did not know as much about the underworld as the CBI must believe and came to know about Salem?s underworld links quite late in the day.

Autistic boy denied residency

Sydney (AP): The family of a 12-year-old Indian boy has been denied permanent residency in Australia because of the child?s autism, his father said on Friday.

Rophin Morris was recently chosen to appear on a government-sponsored calendar honouring people.

Rophin, who is described as ?moderately autistic? by his father, Jude, was honoured on Thursday at the launch of the calendar to mark December 3 as international day of people with a disability.

The family, which came to Australia in 1993, first applied for permanent residency in 2002, but received a rejection saying their son did not meet the country?s health requirements. ?The wording used was that he had a condition that will cost the community,? Jude, who is from Kerala, said in a telephone interview.

After exhausting the immigration department?s appeals process, Jude filed a plea in September with the immigration minister ? the last resort before deportation ? and is awaiting a decision, which he has been told could take up to a year.

Children hurt in mishap

Thiruvananthapuram (PTI): Thirty-five children and two employees of a school for the mentally challenged were injured when the bus in which they were travelling turned turtle at Peroorkada here on Friday.

The children, from the P.R.S. Pillai Memorial School, were going to a function organised to mark World Disabled Day. While most of them received minor injuries, two had to be admitted to hospital.

Rebel abduction

Raipur (PTI): Suspected Maoist rebels abducted three forest department employees from Kanker district of Chhattisgarh on Friday. The two forest guards and a beat guard were kidnapped in the Pondgaon forest of Antapur police station area, about 250 km from here, police said.

Rape slur on cop

Dehradun (PTI): A constable, Vinod, was arrested for allegedly raping a girl in Rudraprayag district of Uttaranchal. The victim?s father, a resident of the Bhaisgaon area of the Rudraprayag district, has lodged a complaint with the police alleging that Vinod had raped his daughter, a Class XI student.

Aircraft snag

Chennai (PTI): A Kuala Lumpur-bound Austrian Airlines flight with 300 passengers on board made an emergency landing here in the early hours of Friday after one of its engines developed a snag. The passengers were taken to the airport?s lounge after the plane landed safely at 4 am, airport sources said. The Chennai air traffic control granted permission to the commander of the Airbus-300, on a flight from Vienna, to make the emergency landing when he got in touch after noticing the snag.

Mild tremor

New Delhi (PTI): An earthquake of low intensity shook areas along the Delhi-Haryana border early on Friday. No damage was reported. The quake, measuring 2.5 on the Richter scale, was felt at 12.52 am.

The population of the Great Indian Bustard, an endangered species, has shot up by at least 40 by September, 2004. A 200-hectare area in Gujarat?s Kutch region was declared a sanctuary in 1992 to protect the bird.