Water supply cuts in parts of Pune on January 19; Day 2 of G-20 Infrastructure Working Group meeting begins
For saving her cousin from electrocution, 13-year-old Laxmi Yedlewar from Nanded district has been named as one of the winners of the National Bravery Award this year. In September 2021, then 11-year-old Laxmi was home with her cousin Aditya — who was then four-years-old – at Thadisavali village in Nanded’s Biloli taluka, as all adults members of the family, including her parents, had gone out for work.
Laxmi’s father Ananda Yedlewar, who works as labourer in a farm, told The Indian Express, “Aditya went behind the house where we have toilet. Somehow, he fell on an electric wire, which had fallen from a tin shed separating two adjacent houses. As soon as she heard his cry, Laxmi ran out and saw Aditya stuck to the wire.”
In 1857, as the Indian revolt against the British government raged across the country, the authorities were keeping a close watch on revolutionary activities in Pune too. In August 1857, Poona Commissioner of Police A Bettington received information that “seditious conversations were being openly carried out in favour of the mutineers and against the British” at Poona Native General Library. Bettington was quick to send a report to the Governor in Bombay with a request that “the library should be closed down” and people who were said to have held such discussions be acted upon.
The British government, however, did not take any punitive action.
This wasn’t surprising. The library had come into being nine years ago, in 1848, due to the active interest taken by then British governor Sir George Clerk.
