British boss of Indian car giant Tata jumped to his death from 22nd floor of Bangkok hotel after a blazing five-hour row with his wife

• British-born Karl Slym was in Thailand for a Tata Motors board meeting

• He died after falling from a high floor hotel window in a 'possible suicide'

• Police believe it would be impossible to 'accidentally fall' from the window

• Officers said Mr Slym rowed with his wife Sally the night before he died

• They found a three page letter from Mrs Slym to her husband in his room

• Slym, 51, was hired to revive flagging sales at the Indian car giant

• Tata Motors stock fell by more than 6% on Monday following his death

• Company statement described him as a 'valued colleague' and 'strong' leader

By Nick Fagge and Ben Lazarus
PUBLISHED: 12:55 EST, 26 January 2014 | UPDATED: 20:45 EST, 27 January 2014

The British boss of Indian car giant Tata Motors jumped to his death from a Bangkok hotel room following a blazing row with his wife, it emerged yesterday.
Karl Slym was handed a three-page letter by his wife Sally detailing a ‘family problem’ on Saturday night after she became so enraged she stopped speaking to him.
In the early hours of Sunday the managing director clambered out of the tiny window of his room on the 22nd floor of the luxury Shangri-La Hotel and jumped, landing on the staff accommodation block.

Fall: British-born Karl Slym, managing director of India's Tata Motors has died after reportedly 'jumping' from a hotel balcony

Mr Slym was handed a three-page document by his wife Sally detailing a 'family issue' on the night he died

Karl Slym and his wife Sally, who had travelled to Thailand with her husband, during an awards ceremony

Mrs Slym had accompanied her 51-year-old husband to Bangkok for a board meeting of Tata Motors’ Thailand unit, but the couple were overheard engaged in a loud and bitter fight on Saturday night.
After giving her husband the letter she went to sleep, and only learned of his death from police officers who knocked on her hotel room door on Sunday morning.
Mrs Slym was treated for shock and was later interviewed by Thai police. She told them: ‘We rowed and rowed about family business from about 7pm. Then I wrote a long letter and went to bed.’
A Thai police source added: ‘The wife said that they had rowed so much about a family problem that she could not talk to her husband any more. They had been fighting and it had become very loud.

Mr Slym's body was discovered by staff on a ledge on the fourth floor of the riverside Shangri-La hotel

Mr Slym, with an employee at a plant in Halol, was heard arguing with his wife on Saturday night

Mr Slym and his wife were not talking the last time they saw one another, police said today

‘She went to the bedroom and decided to write her husband a letter to let him know how she felt. She gave it to her husband and then went to sleep.’ Officers declined to give details of the family problem.
Police Lieutenant Somyot Booyakaew said detectives found no sign of a struggle and were working on the assumption that Mr Slym committed suicide.

Read More Here

Related articles

• Tata Motors MD Karl Slym passes away
• Thai police suspect suicide in death of Tata executive Karl Slym
• Tata Motors chief Karl Slym dies
• Tata Motors stock falls after death
• Thai police investigating Slym's death
• Wife of British Tata boss Karl Slym was fast asleep when he 'jumped to his death' from their 22nd floor Bangkok hotel window
• Tata Motors executive Karl Slym dies in fall from hotel
• Top Executive at Tata Motors Dies in Thailand; Police Suspect Suicide

Blood bricks: how India's urban boom is built on slave labour

After children as young as four found working in squalid conditions, NGO launches 'blood bricks' campaign to raise awareness of human rights abuses in India's brick kilns

• Oliver Wainwright
• 
  
• theguardian.com, Wednesday 8 January 2014 09.54 EST

Blood bricks … Migrant labourers are forced to work in squalid conditions to fuel India's building boom. Photograph: Narendra Shrestha/EPA

Across India, once small trading towns are transforming into bustling centres, as global companies flood in to set up call centres, factories and software development branches, eager to capitalise on high skill-sets at low labour prices. India's cities are expanding ever outwards to accommodate an expected 600 million people by 2030, when over 40% of the country's population will live in urban areas – compared to just 10% a century ago. But this miraculous metropolitan boom comes at a price.
On the outskirts of Hyderabad, the sprawling capital of the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, thick clouds of smoke hang above a primal scene of bare-footed workers clambering atop kilns, hacking at mounds of clay and hauling heavy loads. This is just one of over 150,000 brick production units in the country, which together employ an estimated 10 million workers, churning out the building blocks of the new offices and apartments, factories and shopping malls. All told, India's brick industry – the second largest in the world after China – contributes around £3bn to the country's economy every year. Not that the workers see much of that.
“It's modern-day slavery,” says Andrew Brady, of Union Solidarity International (USI), a UK-based NGO that has been campaigning to improve the brick labourers' conditions over the last two years. “Entire families of men, women and children are working for a pittance, up to 16 hours a day, in terrible conditions. There are horrific abuses of minimum wage rates and health and safety regulations, and it's often bonded labour, so they can't escape.”

Workers stand on the kilns after closing the opening of a brick kiln and throwing firewood inside. Photograph: Harish Tyagi/epa/Corbis

The six-month production season is now beginning, when tens of thousands of families flock to work in the brick kilns of Andhra Pradesh, mostly travelling from the state of Orissa. A report by the BBC this week discovered children as young as four smashing coal to fuel the kilns, and stories of labourers having their hands cut off when they tried to leave their jobs. The report found workers forced to produce over 1,500 bricks every day, paid in advance and only able to leave after six months, along with children suffering from severe respiratory problems.

Read More Here

Related articles

• Why India's brick kiln workers 'live like slaves'
• VIDEO: India's trade in 'blood bricks'

The founder of a militant Islamist group blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks Monday accused the US and India of trying to hamper efforts to help victims of Pakistan's earthquake.

India, US trying to hamper Pakistan quake relief: top militant

by Staff Writers

Islamabad (AFP) Oct 14, 2013


Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, who has a $10 million US government bounty on his head, said joint US-Indian efforts to block funds for his Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD) organisation were aimed at stopping its relief work in Baluchistan, hit by a powerful quake last month.
JuD is seen as a front for Laskhar-e-Taiba (LeT), which Saeed founded and which investigators blame for the three-day carnage in Mumbai that killed 166 people.
The United States and India agreed on Sunday to step up cooperation to prevent the financing of extremist movements linked to Pakistan, including JuD and LeT.
But JuD denies terror accusations, and in Pakistan is known for its relief work after natural disasters, particularly the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and 2010 floods.
"Their aim is to hamper the relief work of our charity Falah-e-Insaniyat foundation in the earthquake hit Baluchistan, that's why they are trying to stop our funding," Saeed told reporters.
The 7.7-magnitude quake shook the southwestern province of Baluchistan on September 24, killing more than 370 people and leaving more than 100,000 homeless.
Both LeT and JuD are listed as terror organisations by the United Nations, but JuD operates freely in Pakistan and, despite the bounty on his head, Saeed lives openly.

Related articles

• India, US trying to hamper Pakistan quake relief: Hafiz Saeed
• Hafiz Saeed Claims India, U.S. Blocking Quake Relief

India's Criminal Lawmakers Resist Judicial Crackdown

Link TV

Published on Aug 16, 2013

 

According to a recent study, an astounding 30 percent of India's lawmakers are facing criminal charges raining from petty theft to rape and murder. Not surprisingly, the lawmakers themselves are resisting efforts to clean up parliament. LinkAsia's Ajoy Bose reports from New Delhi on the political maneuvering going on inside the world's largest democracy.

Watch more at http://linkasia.org.

Related articles

• Centre seeks review of Supreme Court verdicts on lawmakers
• Stock Guru scam: Court takes cognizance of charge sheet
• In India, lawbreakers are lawmakers
• Centre seeks review of Supreme Court's verdicts on disqualifying lawmakers
• Supreme Court agrees to hear review plea on judgement disqualifying convicted lawmakers

India : Inquiry set up into sinking of INS Sindhurakshak after unexplained blasts sink vessel leaving 18 sailors missing

India's submarine tragedy leaves navy facing awkward questions

 

The naval dockyard in Mumbai: INS Sindhurakshak is described by analysts as India’s most potent submarine. Photograph: Indranil Mukherjee/AFP/Getty Images

• Maseeh Rahman in Delhi
• The Guardian, Wednesday 14 August 2013 11.45 EDT

India's navy has suffered its worst accident in more than 40 years when a fire on board a Russian-built submarine triggered two explosions and sent the vessel nosediving into the dockyard at Mumbai. Eighteen sailors on the vessel were missing, feared dead.
The explosions, believed to be caused by onboard weapons detonated by the fire, broke out overnight on Tuesday on the INS Sindhurakshak, described by analysts as India's most potent submarine.
Naval chiefs were facing awkward questions after it emerged that there was an accident on the same vessel three years ago, in which one sailor died.
Three crew members who were on watch on top of the submarine managed to jump off the hull, escaping with minor injuries.
"But they are in total shock, and unable to add very much to what we saw of the explosion on TV," said the Indian navy chief, Admiral DK Joshi. "This is a tragedy, and a dent in our capability for the time being."
The 16-year-old, Kilo class submarine, which had undergone a £50m refit and upgrade in Russia and returned to active duty earlier this year, had docked at Mumbai for supplies and maintenance and was due to leave the next day.
Most of its 58-strong crew, including the commanding officer, were on shore when the submarine exploded.
"It was the Indian navy's best and most potent submarine," said defence expert Mohan Guruswamy, who had visited the INS Sindhurakshak last week. "It was the most modern and versatile submarine in all of Asia."


Read More and Watch Video Here

Related articles

• Navy loses INS Sindhurakshak, no contact yet with 18 submariners
• INS Sindhurakshak fire: 18 sailors trapped after explosion - NDTV
• Indian submarine sinks with 18 on board
• Indian Navy submarine explodes in Mumbai, 18 sailors trapped
• Fears for 18 as Indian navy submarine explodes and sinks in Mumbai
• INS Sindhurakshak fire likely to be caused by faulty batteries, say Naval sources; search on for 18 sailors on board
• India submarine explosion: All 18 sailors feared dead after navy divers find 'no ... - ABC Online
• Indian Submarine Catches Fire, Sinks in Port
• Indian sub explodes, sinks, 18 aboard

Tony Blair is a psychopath says Arundhati Roy - and Obama's no better

StoptheWarCoalition

Published on Mar 18, 2013

Writer and activist Arundhati Roy, interviewed on Democracy Now (http://bit.ly/XlSGv1) on the tenth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, 19 March 2013. She also says Barack Obama is no different from Bush or Blair.

Related articles

• Field Notes on Democracy by Arundhati Roy
• Arundhati Roy - God of small things
• Arundhati Roy on the buying off of Mandela and ANC by big capital: The engaged intellectual cannot empower people where there is no humility
• Amitava Kumar interviews Arundhati Roy
• Ant and Grosshopper - Indian Version of story
• Arundhati Roy called a traitor for Kashmiri rights plea
• Arundhati Roy: India's bold and brilliant daughter