Alexei Navalny daughter accepts human rights award on his behalf
Geneva, Jun 8: The daughter of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny accepted a human rights award on her father's behalf on Tuesday for his courage in facing down President Vladimir Putin's government.
Daria Navalnaya, a 20-year-old student at Stanford University in California, said her father was dedicating the courage award given by the Geneva Summit for Human Rights to all political prisoners in Russia and Belarus.
You really should be looking at my father instead, but he's in a Russian prison right now simply because of what he says, does and believes in and because he didn't die when the Russian government wanted him to, Navalnaya said in a video message for the online event.
Navalny was arrested in January upon his return from Germany, where he had spent five months recuperating from a nerve agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin accusations that Russian officials dismiss. He was given a 2 1/2-year prison sentence in February for violating terms of a suspended sentence stemming from a 2014 embezzlement conviction that he denounced as politically motivated.
He went on a 24-day hunger strike in prison to protest the lack of medical treatment for severe back pain and numbness in his legs, ending it in April after getting the medical attention he demanded.
Navalny was chosen as this year's recipient for its annual courage award by more than two dozen human rights groups.
His daughter said her father wrote her a letter from behind bars after he was chosen.
In his letter my dad asked me today to give this award to every single political prisoner in Russia and Belarus, Navalnya said.
Also taking part in the event was Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the main challenger in a vote in August in Belarus in which authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko won a sixth term. That victory that was widely seen as rigged.
In a nod to her father's sense of humor, Navalnaya said he wrote in the letter: First and most importantly, please do not screw up your first public performance. And second, don't forget to say how extremely proud I am to receive this high award.
Navalnaya, while active in blogging and standing up for her dad, has rarely made public appearances.
Navalny was given the award for his extraordinary courage and heroic efforts to sound the alarm about the Putin regime's grave violations of the human rights of the Russian people, said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, which co-organizes the event.
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Chamoli hydropower tunnel train collision: 88 injured, magisterial probe ordered
Gopeshwar/Dehradun (PTI): Chamoli District Magistrate Gaurav Kumar on Wednesday ordered a magisterial inquiry into the collision between two loco trains inside the Pipalkoti tunnel of the under-construction Vishnugad-Pipalkoti hydropower project, which left 88 people injured.
Earlier in the day, Kumar said that the accident occurred around 8.30 pm on Tuesday at the TBM (Tunnel Boring Machine) site inside the tunnel being built by THDC (India).
A loco train carrying workers for tunnel excavation during the night shift was about two kilometres inside the tunnel when another loco train coming from the opposite direction lost control and collided with it.
One of the trains had workers and officials on board, while the other carried material.
Upon receiving information about the collision, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami ordered proper treatment for the injured. He spoke to the DM over the phone and instructed him to ensure that all the injured receive the best possible medical facilities.
DM Kumar and Superintendent of Police Surjit Singh Panwar met the injured at the Gopeshwar District Hospital.
Kumar said 109 people were on board the loco train at the time of the accident, most of them labourers. None of the injured was serious, he said.
He said that 88 of them were injured, although none of them are in serious condition. They said that 84 workers were discharged after receiving first aid, while four are still hospitalized.
DM Kumar and SP Panwar also inspected the project site and sought detailed information about the incident from the project officials.
They instructed them to strictly implement all necessary safety standards to prevent a recurrence of such an incident in the future.
After inspection, the DM issued orders for a magisterial inquiry into the accident caused by the collision of the loco trains.
Meanwhile, the Railways said the trains involved in the collision had no connection with it.
"It is clarified that this unfortunate incident occurred in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district, involving a trolley used in the local transportation system during the construction of a hydroelectric project tunnel. The train referred to in the news reports is not an Indian Railways train, but a transportation system being used locally by the project team," the government entity said in a statement.
According to officials, rail-like vehicles are used to transport workers, employees, and materials for construction work inside the tunnel.
The project, being built between Helang and Pipalkoti on the Alaknanda River, will generate 444 megawatts of electricity through four turbines. The project is targeted for completion by next year.
