Mars Rover Finds Intriguing New Evidence of Water

The first drill sample ever collected on Mars will come from a rockbed shot through with unexpected veins of what appears to be the mineral gypsum.

Delighted members of the Curiosity science team announced Tuesday that the rover was now in a virtual "candy store" of scientific targets—the lowest point of Gale crater, called Yellowknife Bay, is filled with many different materials that could have been created only in the presence of water. (Related: "Mars Has 'Oceans' of Water Inside?")

Project scientist John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said during a press conference that the drill area has turned out "to be jackpot unit. Every place we drive exposes fractures and vein fills."

Mission scientists initially decided to visit the depression, a third of a mile from Curiosity's landing site, on a brief detour before heading to the large mountain at the middle of Gale Crater. But because of the richness of their recent finds, Grotzinger said it may be some months before they begin their trek to Mount Sharp.

The drilling, expected to start this month, will dig five holes about two inches (five centimeters) into bedrock the size of a throw rug and then feed the powder created to the rover's two chemistry labs for analysis.

The drill is the most complex device on the rover and is the last instrument to be used. Project Manager Richard Cook, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said that operating it posed the biggest mechanical challenge since Curiosity's high-drama landing. (Watch video of Curiosity's "Seven Minutes of Terror.")

A Watery Past?

That now-desiccated Mars once had a significant amount of surface water is now generally accepted, but every new discovery of when and where water was present is considered highly significant. The presence of surface water in its many possible forms—as a running stream, as a still lake, as ground water soaked into the Martian soil—all add to an increased possibility that the planet was once habitable. (Watch a video about searching for life on Mars.)

And each piece of evidence supporting the presence of water brings the Curiosity mission closer to its formal goal—which is to determine whether Mars was once capable of supporting life.

Curiosity scientists have already concluded that a briskly moving river or stream once flowed near the Gale landing site.

The discovery of the mineral-filled veins within Yellowknife Bay rock fractures adds to the picture because those minerals can be deposited only in watery, underground conditions.

The Curiosity team has also examined Yellowknife Bay for sedimentary rocks with the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI).  Scientists have found sandstone with grains up to about the size of a peppercorn, including one shaped like a flower bud that appears to gleam. Other nearby rocks are siltstone, with grains finer than powdered sugar. These are quite different from the pebbles and conglomerate rocks found in the landing area, but all these rocks are evidence of a watery past. (Related: "A 2020 Rover Return to Mars?")

One of the primary reasons Curiosity scientists selected Gale crater as a landing site was because satellite images indicated that water-formed minerals were present near the base of Mount Sharp. Grotzinger said that the minerals' presence so close to the landing site, and some five miles from the mountain, is both a surprise and an opportunity.

The current site in Yellowknife Bay is so promising, Grotzinger said, that he would have been "thrilled" to find similar formations at the mission's prime destination at the base of Mount Sharp.  Now the mission can look forward to the surprises to come at the mountain base while already having struck gold.

Read More..

NY Passes Nation's Toughest Gun Law

Today New York became the first state to pass a gun control law -- the toughest in the nation -- since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting massacre last month.

Acting one month and a day since the rampage killing that left 20 first-graders and six educators dead, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the bill into law shortly after 5 p.m.

Called the New York Safe Act, the law includes a tougher assault weapons ban that broadens the definition of what constitutes an assault weapon, and limits the capacity of magazines to seven bullets, down from 10. The law also requires background checks of ammunition and gun buyers, even in private sales, imposes tougher penalties for illegal gun use, a one-state check on all firearms purchases, and programs to cut gun violence in high-crime neighborhoods.

As he signed the bill into law, Cuomo said it was not only "the first bill" but the "best bill."

"I'm proud to be a New Yorker, because New York is doing something, because we are fighting back, because, yes, we've had tragedies, and yes, we've had too many innocent people lose their lives, and yes, it's unfortunate that it took those tragedies to get us to this point, but let's at least learn from what's happened, let's at least be able to say to people, yes, we went through terrible situations, but we saw, we learned, we responded, and we acted, and we are doing something about it," Cuomo said. "We are not victims.

'The View' on NRA Shooting App: Think It Out Watch Video

"You can overpower the extremists with intelligence and with reason and with commonsense," Cuomo continued, "and you can make this state a safer state."

New York's law also aims to keep guns out of the hands of those will mental illness. The law gives judges the power to require those who pose a threat to themselves or others get outpatient care. The law also requires that when a mental health professional determines a gun owner is likely to do harm, the risk must be reported and the gun removed by law enforcement.

The legislation also includes what is called a "Webster provision," named for the two firefighters ambushed on Christmas Eve in Webster, N.Y. The measure would mandate a life sentence with no chance of parole for anyone who kills a first responder.

The National Rifle Association issued a statement after the bill's signing, saying it was "outraged at the draconian gun control bill that was rushed through ... late Monday evening."

"Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature orchestrated a secretive end-run around the legislative and democratic process and passed sweeping anti-gun measures with no committee hearings and no public input," the statement read. "These gun control schemes have failed in the past and will have no impact on public safety and crime. Sadly, the New York Legislature gave no consideration to that reality. While lawmakers could have taken a step toward strengthening mental health reporting and focusing on criminals, they opted for trampling the rights of law-abiding gun owners in New York, and they did it under a veil of secrecy in the dark of night. The legislature caved to the political demands of a governor and helped fuel his personal political aspirations."

Read More..

On inaugural eve, Obama’s most virulent foes want the celebration stopped

Eldon Bell, a retired Air Force officer and physician, is making no plans to see Barack Obama’s second inauguration, in part because Bell considers the president arrogant and dishonest, but more so because Bell is not yet persuaded that the swearing-in will occur at all.

“Whether I watch depends on who’s being inaugurated,” says Bell, 78. “If it’s this guy, probably not, because I don’t pay much attention to illegitimate things.”

At this late date, Bell and his fellow believers in the notion that Obama was born overseas or is otherwise ineligible to be president still expect some court somewhere to buy into one of their theories. After more than 100 court cases, no judge has.

Even after Obama convincingly won reelection despite four years of low popularity ratings, a sluggish economy and a highly motivated opposition, advocates of various counterfactual theories about the president — he’s a foreigner, he’s a Marxist, he’s a Muslim — say they’re sticking to their fight.

“This inauguration is a mistake and those who permit it to happen will have to live with their own consciences,” says Bell, a former Washingtonian who retired to South Dakota.

Most Americans have moved on from earlier dalliances with denials of the president’s biography. National opinion polls have shown increases over the past three years in the percentage of Americans who agree that Obama was born in the United States and that he is a Christian. But a persistent minority — between a tenth and a fifth in most polls — still believe he is Muslim, foreign-born or a socialist.

Those voters tend to be vehement opponents of Obama, and on Inauguration Day, they will not be at the party — and they’re still searching for ways to have the president declared illegitimate.

“Let’s face it, this is a man very deep into an ideology that is not American,” says the Rev. Clenard Childress, a New Jersey minister and antiabortion activist who says black and white voters alike returned Obama to office “to feel better about ourselves and get the guilt of racism off us.”

Childress says it’s 50-50 that Obama is a Muslim who was born in Kenya: “But what I really care about is do we have the same values? Do you believe in the sanctity of life? Do you believe in marriage as being between man and woman? And this president does not.”

Just because the election is over doesn’t mean the confrontations of the first term will end, Childress says. In addition to the fiscal battles on Capitol Hill, the minister says, social issues will keep Obama opponents fired up, starting with next month’s antiabortion rally on the Mall and continuing with court and political battles over same-sex marriage.

“There will never be more contentiousness than in the next two years,” he says. “I told my congregation: Just strap yourselves down, it’s going to be nasty.”

Those who monitor anti-Obama movements say the inauguration will do nothing to quiet the rapids. “The rhetoric since the election has actually gotten more vicious,” says Kevin Davidson, better known as “Dr. Conspiracy,” his handle on his Web site, Obama Conspiracy Theories, which keeps tabs on those who declare Obama’s presidency illegitimate.

Read More..

Islamists guerrillas flee French air strikes in Mali

BAMAKO: French air strikes forced Islamist guerrillas to flee towns in northern Mali and Paris secured new international support for military action as the militants struck back, seizing a small western town.

The Islamists said they had made a "tactical retreat" from Timbuktu and other key towns where they have imposed a brutal version of Islamic law for nearly 10 months.

But they struck back in western Mali where they took the small town of Diabaly from the country's weakened army, highlighting the daunting campaign ahead to restore order in the West African nation.

French jets on Monday hit Douentza, 800 kilometres (500 miles) from Bamako, which the Islamists have held since September. But residents said the fighters had left before the warplanes arrived.

In Timbuktu, where inhabitants have been executed or had limbs cut off in some of the worst abuses, the Islamists reportedly fled in anticipation of an attack.

"The mujahideen have left. They are really scared," said one resident in the historic city, where the militants have destroyed centuries-old Muslim monuments.

In Gao, another northern city held by the Islamists, the jihadists were nowhere to be seen after bombing by Rafale warplanes on Sunday, residents there said.

At least 60 insurgents were killed in Sunday's assault, according to residents and a security source.

Mali's Foreign Minister Tieman Hubert Coulibaly said in Paris that he believed more than 100 Islamists had been killed in the four days since France launched operations to stem a guerrilla advance towards Bamako.

A spokesman for the Ansar Dine (Defenders of the Faith) group, Senda Ould Boumama, said the withdrawal was a "tactical retreat" to reduce civilian casualties, in comments published on Mauritanian news website Alakhbar.

On top of the use of Rafale fighters and helicopter attacks, about 650 French troops are in Mali to halt the Islamist advance, according to the French defence ministry.

While jolted by France's arrival, the insurgents remained on the offensive in areas where French troops were not yet operating. The militants seized Diabaly, some 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of Bamako.

"We knew there would be a counter-offensive towards the west," French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told BFM Television.

"They have taken Diabaly, which is a small town, after heavy fighting and resistance from the Malian army, which was insufficiently equipped at that exact point."

Le Drian acknowledged that French forces were facing a "difficult" situation in the west, where he said the rebels are well armed.

France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius hailed the "quasi-unanimous" international backing for the offensive, strongly supported by Mali.

"We cannot simply push them back, we have to chase them away," Coulibaly told French television after meeting Fabius, "We simply now cannot allow a timeout for these forces to reorganise."

A meeting of the 15-nation UN Security Council on Mali also expressed unanimous "understanding and support" for the military intervention, France's UN ambassador Gerard Araud told reporters.

France and other council countries want to speed up the deployment of a UN-mandated 3,300-strong West African intervention force in Mali.

Nigeria, which will lead the force, plans to have 600 troops on the ground "before next week," President Goodluck Jonathan said. Benin, Ghana, Niger, Senegal, Burkina Faso and Togo have also pledged troops.

Britain and Canada have offered military transporters to the French military and the United States said it will share intelligence and provide logistical support.

"I commend France for taking the steps that it has," US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said.

Algeria said it had closed its 2,000 km (1,250 mile) desert border with northern Mali to stop Islamists crossing into the country.

The Islamists seized upon the chaos of a military coup in Bamako in March to seize northern Mali, sparking widespread international fears that they could set up a terrorist safe haven.

The UN Security Council had given approval for a military offensive that UN officials had said could not be launched until September.

But the Islamist offensive and France's military intervention has led to predictions by diplomats that the plans will be reviewed.

-AFP/fl

Read More..

National Conference may induct Congress MLAs in J&K Cabinet

NEW DELHI: Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah can expand and reshuffle his ministry on Tuesday following a prod from AICC president Sonia Gandhi on Sunday evening. Congress leaders like Saifuddin Soz have been asking for more representation from their party in the Omar-led National Conference coalition government.

Abdullah had dropped two Congress ministers, G A Saroori and Peerzada Mohammad Sayeed, on charges of corruption. Saroori, a Congress MLA from Kishtwar, was charged for an impersonation fraud in the medical entrance test that his daughter gave and Peerzada was accused of helping his step-son copy in Class X exams. They were exonerated by the CBI and a state-level investigation team.

Sonia asked for the inclusion of more Congress legislators in the J&K House. State governor NN Vohra rushed to Jammu from New Delhi to make arrangements for the oath ceremony of new ministers at 4pm on Tuesday. Soz and Ghulam Nabi Azad had briefed Sonia about the unrest in the Congress camp after berths meant for them were not filled.

Read More..

"Fantastic" New Flying Frog Found—Has Flappy Forearms

Scientists have stumbled across a new species of flying frog—on the ground.

While hiking a lowland forest in 2009, not far from Ho Chi Minh City (map), Vietnam, "we came across a huge green frog, sitting on a log," said Jodi Rowley, an amphibian biologist at the Australian Museum in Sydney and lead author of a new study on the frog.

Rowley later discovered that the 3.5-inch-long (9-centimeter-long) creature is a relatively large new type of flying frog, a group known for its ability to "parachute" from tree to tree thanks to special aerodynamic adaptations, such as webbed feet, Rowley said. (Also see "'Vampire Flying Frog' Found; Tadpoles Have Black Fangs.")

Rowley dubbed the new species Helen's flying frog, in honor of her mother, Helen Rowley, "who has steadfastly supported her only child trekking through the forests of Southeast Asia in search of frogs," according to a statement.

The newfound species—there are 80 types of flying frogs—is also "one of the most flying frogs of the flying frogs," Rowley said, "in that it's got huge hands and feet that are webbed all the way to the toepad."

"Females even have flappy skin on their forearms to glide," added Rowley, who has received funding from the National Geographic Committee on Research and Exploration. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.) "The females are larger and heavier than males, so the little extra flaps probably don't make much of a difference," she said.

As Rowley wrote on her blog, "At first it may seem strange that such a fantastic and obvious frog could escape discovery until now—less than 100 kilometers [60 miles] from an urban centre with over nine million people."

Yet these tree dwellers can easily escape notice—they spend most of their time in the canopy, she said.

Flying Frog On the Edge

Even so, Helen's flying frog won't be able to hide from development near Ho Chi Minh City, which may encroach on its existing habitats.

So far, only five individuals have been found in two patches of lowland forest hemmed in by rice paddies in southern Vietnam, Rowley said. The animals can probably tolerate a little bit of disturbance as long as they have large trees and temporary pools, she added.

But lowland forests are among the most threatened habitats in the world, mostly because they're so accessible to people, and thus chosen for logging and development. (Get the facts on deforestation.)

"While Helen's flying frog has only just been discovered by biologists," Rowley wrote, "unfortunately this species, like many others, is under great threat from ongoing habitat loss and degradation."

The new flying frog study was published in December 2012 in the Journal of Herpetology.

Read More..

Arias Denied Guilt Despite Sex Photos, DNA

A defiant Jodi Arias insisted she was innocent of killing her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander even after a detective told her that he had nude photos of them together on the day he died.

"Are you sure it's me? Because I was not there," Arias is heard saying in the police interrogation tape played for the Arizona jury today.

When Detective Esteban Flores tells Arias she is seen in pigtails in the photos, she asks with a tone of incredulity, "Pigtails?"

As Flores laid out more incriminating evidence, including that investigators found DNA of their blood mixed together, her hair stuck with blood and her palm print in blood, Arias was insistent.

"I would not hurt Travis. I would not hurt Travis. I would not do that to him," she told Flores.

At another point Arias said, "If I hurt Travis I would beg for the death penalty."

"Jodi, this is over. … you have to tell me the truth," Flores says. The detective suggests a motive for the killing to be jealousy, and cites the opinion of Alexander's friends.

"They don't just say you were jealous. You were absolutely obsessed… a fatal attraction," Flores in heard on the tape.

Arias, now 32, has since admitted to killing Alexanderfollowing their tryst in 2008, but has claimed it was self-defense. She is accused of stabbing Alexander 27 times in the chest, back, and head, slashing his throat from ear to ear, and shooting him the head with a .25 caliber handgun.

Arias is charged with murdering her ex-boyfriend in a "heinous and depraved" way and could face the death penalty if convicted.

The interrogation tape was played after the jury was shown sexually graphic photos that police recovered from Alexander's digital camera. Among the pictures were shots of Arias and Alexander posing naked on Alexander's bed, as well as pictures of Alexander in the shower.

Those photos were the last pictures of Alexander while he was alive.

Jodi Arias Trial: Jurors See Photos of Bloody Handprint Watch Video

Jodi Arias Murder Trial: Who Is the Alleged Killer? Watch Video

The final photos in the series show a body partly covered in blood on the bathroom floor.

See Full Coverage of Jodi Arias Trial

Watch the Jodi Arias Trial Live

See Jodi Arias Trial Videos

Arias looked away from the screen in the courtroom where the sexual photos were shown, as her mother watched from the gallery. Alexander's sisters, also seated in the gallery, looked away from the photos of their brother.

Computer analysts for the city of Mesa, Ariz., where Alexander lived, went over the photos in detail during the sixth day of testimony in the trial. The photos were time stamped June 4, 2008, beginning around 1:45 p.m.

Prosecutors have said that Arias drove from her California home to Alexander's house, arriving early in the morning on June 4. The pair had sex in the afternoon, took photos of one another, and then Arias killed Alexander, age 30, around 5:30 p.m., they said.

The photos on the bed occurred around 1:45 p.m., according to the data on the camera. The shower photos and the pictures of a bloody body part occurred around 5:30 p.m.

In earlier testimony today, the jury watched video taped interrogations of Arias as she repeatedly denied to police stealing and using the handgun that killed Alexander.

Arias told police that she had never seen a .25 caliber handgun and had no idea her grandparents owned one until they reported it stolen a week before Alexander's killing, according to the police interrogation tapes played in court today.

Police from Yreka, Calif., where Arias lived with her grandparents, described the scene of the home when Arias's grandparents reported a break-in. The door was pushed in, breaking the door jamb, and many drawers were opened in Arias' bedroom and her grandparents' room.

The only things reported taken were the handgun, a DVD player, and $30, while other valuable items, including a large pile of quarters and three other guns, were left untouched. Arias told police that her laptop computer was not taken because she had hidden it in a laundry basket covered with clothes.

Officer Kevin Friedman of the Yreka police department told the court today that burglary struck him as odd.

"I believed it was unusual that small items worth money or money, for instance, that the change was not taken," said Officer Kevin Friedman, of the Yreka police department, who investigated the alleged robbery. "I also thought it was strange that only one of the firearms was stolen from the cabinet."

In the police videos, Arias is seen calmly denying stealing the gun from her grandparents' home and using it when she killed Alexander in June 2008, a week after the burglary.

Read More..

Lines harden in debate over guns

Opposing forces in the debate over the nation’s gun laws staked out starkly different positions Sunday, with the head of the largest gun rights group declaring confidence that a ban on assault weapons would not win passage from lawmakers, while advocates of tightening restrictions on guns said such measures can be approved.

“I would say that the likelihood is that they are not going to be able to get an assault weapons ban through this Congress,” National Rifle Association President David Keene said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Keene’s comments came two days before a self-imposed deadline for an Obama administration task force led by Vice President Biden to offer concrete policy recommendations on curbing gun violence.

Obama has already said he supports renewing an expired ban on assault rifles and high-capacity magazines, while gun control advocates on Capitol Hill have promised to lead a charge to pass such a measure. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) will soon introduce such a ban in the Senate.

But the staunchest gun rights advocates, led by the NRA, have shown no willingness to endorse tightened restrictions on guns. After Biden’s working group met with the NRA last week, the gun rights group said it was “disappointed” with how little the meeting “had to do with keeping our children safe and how much it had to do with an agenda to attack the Second Amendment.”

The direction of the national gun debate will grow clearer after Biden’s group delivers its recommendations to the president. The vice president said last week that he was beginning to see an emerging consensus from gun control advocates and law enforcement officials he had met with around “universal background checks” for all gun buyers and a ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines.

Others have cautioned that any new restrictions on guns must be part of a comprehensive attempt to curb mass violence, including a closer look at security, the entertainment industry and mental health issues.

“An assault weapons stand-alone ban on just guns alone, in the political reality we have, will not go anywhere. It has to be comprehensive,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said on “State of the Union.” Manchin, a conservative, is the recipient of an “A” rating from the NRA.

Speaking from Newtown, Conn., where 20 children and six adults were fatally shot in an elementary school on Dec. 14, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said on the same program that he disagreed with Keene about the prospects of new gun control legislation winning passage in Congress.

“Newtown fundamentally changed things. And the NRA just fundamentally doesn’t get this,” Murphy said.

Groups on both sides of the debate are gearing up for what could be a tense legislative battle. Neera Tanden, president of the liberal think tank Center For American Progress, vowed a grass-roots effort among gun control advocates for new restrictions.

“I expect the president to play a strong leadership role, but progressive organizations will be working to — working with the states to show that we have the voice and really have the American people,” said Tanden on “Fox News Sunday.”

For their part, gun rights advocates continued to argue in favor of arming qualified citizens in an attempt to curb mass violence.

“We have got to face the reality that we have got to empower average people, including teachers and other people in schools, to be able to defend themselves,” said Gun Owners of America Executive Director Larry Pratt.

Former secretary of state Colin Powell offered optimism that lawmakers can reach an accord on at least incremental measures to curb gun violence.

“I think we’re at a very important point in our national dialogue on this,” Powell said on NBC News’s “Meet the Press.” “The NRA feels very, very strongly, gun owners feel very, very strongly, and at the same time the American people are concerned about the kinds of things that are happening in our society. Surely if we can’t get the whole ball of wax, I hope that there will be a way to find something in this continuum of things we can do that we’re able to do to demonstrate to the American people that this problem’s being taken seriously.”

Read More..

Benjamin Pwee joins DPP leadership as acting secretary-general

SINGAPORE: Opposition politician Benjamin Pwee has joined the leadership of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)as acting secretary-general.

He was co-opted into the Central Executive Committee (CEC) at a closed-door meeting on Sunday, while six other independents were officially accepted as party members and cadres.

The DPP's secretary-general, Mr Seow Khee Leng, went on leave from the party from Sunday and handed over the leadership reins to Mr Pwee.

The DPP said in a statement that Mr Pwee and his new team will prepare for the party's congress in March, where Mr Pwee will officially take over as secretary-general.

The new team also intends to reach out to other opposition parties through a joint Lunar New Year walkabout, as well as collaboration in various areas.

Mr Pwee is also discussing the possibility of an alliance leadership role to rally the opposition parties to jointly strategise and plan for the next General Election, due in 2016.

The new DPP leadership team will launch several activities, including a day-trip to Pulai and Batu Pahat for residents, monthly "happy hour" at a pub at Clarke Quay and monthly Meet-the-People sessions in selected constituencies.

Also in the CEC are Mr John Chiam (chairman), Mr Mohamad Hamim Aliyas (vice-chairman), Mr Wilfred Leung (assistant secretary-general), Mr Winston Lim (treasurer), Ms Juliana Juwahir (assistant treasurer) Mr Ting Tze Jiang (organising secretary) and Mr Sa'aban Ali (assistant organising secretary).

All, except Mr Lim, are ex-members of the Singapore People's Party.

- CNA/ck

Read More..

Bishnoi is a 'fukra', says Haryana speaker

CHANDIGARH: Haryana Speaker Kuldeep Sharma's verdict on Sunday upholding the merger of five HJCMLAs with Congress has triggered a war of words between the Speaker and HJCsupremoKuldeepBishnoi. Dubbing the Hisar MP as a "fukra" (loafer), Sharma said, "Bishnoi had said if the Speaker does not decide (the disqualification case soon), he will go to jail. That shows his shallowness, hollowness, lack of education and his upbringing. It shows he is a fukra."

The speaker was addressing a news conference here after quashing disqualification petitions against five HJC MLAs, who had extended a crucial prop to the Hooda government in 2009.

Sharma also said that Bishnoi was a corrupt person. "His character is that of a master defector. He is son of a master defector. His father defected in 1979 and was the founder of 'Aya-Ram-Gaya-Ram' politics. Now, he has got a dose of his own medicine," Sharma said.

Taking on the Speaker, Bishnoi, who was accompanied by his lawyer, told mediapersons, "This is not a surprise for me. He ( Kuldeep Sharma) is a born Congressman with a negative mind. This can be ascertained through his political career. He and his family could win only one of the five elections. I have heard that he has been offered a handsome political reward for giving this judgment.''

Bishnoi said, "He (Sharma) should look within himself before pointing fingers at somebody. He should get proper treatment for his stubbornness."

Bishnoi's lawyer Satya Pal Jain said, "This verdict is a rape of the anti-defection law by the Speaker".

Read More..