Picture Archive: Making Mount Rushmore, 1935-1941

Photograph from Rapid City Chamber of Commerce/National Geographic

There's no such thing as Presidents' Day.

According to United States federal government code, the holiday is named Washington's Birthday, and has been since it went nationwide in 1885.

But common practice is more inclusive. The holiday expanded to add in other U.S. presidents in the 1960s, and the moniker Presidents' Day became popular in the 1980s and stuck. It may be that George Washington (b. February 22, 1732) andAbraham Lincoln (b. February 12, 1809) still get the lion's share of attention—and appear in all the retail sale ads—on the third Monday in February, but the popular idea is that all 44 presidents get feted.

Mount Rushmore is a lot like that one day a year writ large—and in granite. It's carved 60 feet (18 meters) tall and 185 feet (56 meters) wide, from Washington's right ear to Lincoln's left.

The monument's sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, grew up in Idaho, a first-generation American born to Danish parents. He studied art in France and became good friends with Auguste Rodin. Borglum mostly worked in bronze, but in the early 1910s he was hired to carve the likenesses of Confederate leaders into Stone Mountain in Georgia.

He was about to be fired from that job for creative differences about the same time that a South Dakota historian named Doane Robinson had an idea. Robinson wanted to have a monument carved into the Black Hills of South Dakota, maybe Western historical figures like Chief Red Cloud and Lewis and Clark, each on their own granite spire. (Plan a road trip in the Black Hills.)

Robinson hired Borglum and gave him carte blanche. Borglum was looking for something with national appeal, so he chose to depict four presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.

Borglum wanted to represent the first 150 years of the nation's history, choosing four presidents as symbols of their respective time periods. He took a tour of western South Dakota, searching for an ideal canvas.

The sculptor was looking for three things: a surface strong enough to sculpt, a mountain big enough to hold several figures, and a mountain face that received morning sunlight. Mount Rushmore fit the bill and was already part of a national forest, so it was easy to set aside as a national memorial.

Work started in 1927. Calvin Coolidge attended the dedication ceremony. It took 14 years to finish the carving, conducted mostly in summertime because of the area's harsh winters.

There were approximately 30 workers on the mountain at any give time. In total about 400 had worked on it by the time the monument was finished. Though the project involved thousands of pounds of dynamite and perilous climbs, not a single person died during the work.

Borglum himself died of natural causes in 1941, though, just six months before the project was declared "closed as is" by Congress that Halloween. His son Lincoln—named for his father's favorite president—took over.

In the photo above, a worker refines the details of Washington's left nostril.

About 90 percent of the mountain was carved using dynamite, which could get within 3 to 5 inches (8 to 13 centimeters) of the final facial features. For those last few inches, workers used what was known as the honeycomb method: Jackhammer workers pounded a series of three-inch-deep holes followed up by chiselers who knocked off the honeycomb pieces to get the final shape. Then carvers smoothed the "skin's" surface.

—Johnna Rizzo

February 16, 2013

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Meteor Blast Creates Rush to Cash In

The shattered glass and broken walls caused by the massive explosion of a monstrous meteor over this remote, industrial Russian city is not even cleaned up, and people are already trying to cash in.

Some residents want to turn this city known mostly for its tank factory into a tourist destination, while others from all around the world are determined to find fragments of the meteorite.

Meteor hunters say it's a once in a lifetime opportunity. A small piece of the space rock that exploded over Russia Friday could be worth thousands of dollars, and bigger chunks could fetch hundreds of thousands.

SEE PHOTOS: Meteorite Crashes in Russia

"I haven't been able to sleep for the last two days because of this," said Michael Farmer, who runs the website Meteor Hunter. "This is a once in a lifetime event. We've never seen anything like this in the last hundred years."

He said he started planning a trip to Chelyabinsk as soon as the meteorite exploded.

"The next morning I was on the phone working on visas. I'd like to get a visa and get over to Russia as quickly as possible," he said. "When this type of thing happens, you know hours count so we try to arrange that as fast as possible."

A day after a massive meteor exploded over this city in central Russia, a monumental cleanup effort is under way.

Authorities have deployed around 24,000 troops and emergencies responders to help in the effort.

Officials say more than a million square feet of windows -- the size of about 20 football fields -- were shattered by the shockwave from the meteor's blast. Around 4,000 buildings in the area were damaged.

Nasha gazeta, www.ng.kz/AP Photo

The injury toll climbed steadily on Friday. Authorities said today it now stands at more than 1,200. Most of those injuries were from broken glass, and only a few hundred required hospitalization.

According to NASA, this was the biggest meteor to hit Earth in more than a century. Preliminary figures suggest it was 50 feet wide and weighed more than the Eiffel Tower.

NASA scientists have also estimated the force of the blast that occurred when the meteor fractured upon entering Earth's atmosphere was approximately 470 kilotons -- the equivalent of about 30 Hiroshima bombs, but it did not cause major damage because it occurred so high in the atmosphere.

"This was caused by a small asteroid, about 15 meters in diameter, coming in at around 18 kilometers per second, that's in excess of 40-thousand miles per hour," NASA planetary scientist Paul Abell said. "As the asteroid comes in, it interacts with the atmosphere and effectively it converts all the energy, the kinetic energy of the asteroid, the mass of the asteroid and the velocity and it's actually that velocity, the asteroid just effectively explodes and that creates the pressure wave, the blast wave that comes down."

Treasure hunters hoping to cash in on the bits of space rock aren't the only ones eager to find pieces of the meteor, Abell said. Scientists say the material could offer valuable information.

"One of the things we'd like to learn is first of all, what was the composition of the asteroid, where did it come from," he said. "We know it came from the asteroid belt but can we link it to a bigger asteroid and also, get an idea of the dispersal pattern."

Residents said they still can't believe it happened here.

"It was something we only saw in the movies," one university student said. "We never thought we would see it ourselves."

Throughout the city, the streets are littered with broken glass. Local officials have announced an ambitious pledge to replace all the broken windows within a week. In the early morning hours, however, workers could still be heard drilling new windows into place.

Authorities have sent divers into a frozen lake outside the city, where a large chunk of the meteor is believed to have landed, creating a large hole in the ice. By the end of the day they had not found anything.

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Will young adults face ‘rate shock’ because of the health-care law?

Many young, healthy Americans could soon see a jump in their health insurance costs, and insurance companies are saying: It’s not our fault.

The nation’s insurers are engaged in an all-out, last-ditch effort to shield themselves from blame for what they predict will be rate increases on policies they must unveil this spring to comply with President Obama’s health-care law.

Insurers point to several reasons that premiums will rise. They will soon be required to offer more-comprehensive coverage than many currently provide. Also, their costs will increase because they will be barred from rejecting the sick, and they will no longer be allowed to charge older customers sharply higher premiums than younger ones.

Supporters of the law counter that concerns about price hikes are overstated, partly because federal subsidies will cushion the blow.

The insurers’ public relations blitz is being propelled by a growing cast of executives, lobbyists, conservative activists and state health officials. They increasingly use the same catchphrase — “rate shock” — to warn about the potential for price surges.

Aetna chief executive Mark T. Bertolini invoked the term at his company’s recent annual investor conference, cautioning that premiums for plans sold to individuals could rise as much as 50 percent on average and could more than double for particular groups such as the young and healthy.

The danger of rate shock has also become the favored weapon of conservative opponents of the law, repeated in a drumbeat of op-eds and policy papers in recent weeks.

The argument is a powerful one because the success of the law, which was the signature domestic accomplishment of Obama’s first term, depends on enough people signing up for insurance, particularly healthy people. The issue is surfacing as the most recent significant challenge in implementing the health-care overhaul.

Supporters of the law complain that the warnings amount to a smear attack by special interests and political partisans, akin to earlier claims that the law would allow bureaucrats to deny life-saving care to save money.

“‘Rate shock’ is the new ‘death panels,’ ” said Wendell Potter, a former head of communications for the health insurer Cigna who is now a critic of the industry. “They’ve chosen these words very carefully to scare people. It’s the ideal term for what is, at its core, a fear-based campaign.”

Yet even analysts who favor the law concede that it will result in higher costs for some young, healthy people.

Most of the new rules that could push up premiums will not apply to plans sponsored by large employers, only to those sold to individuals and small businesses. These policies will be available on insurance marketplaces, or “exchanges,” that the law sets up in each state beginning in 2014, and that are ultimately expected to serve about 26 million people.

The law will require insurers to offer a generous package of benefits for exchange plans, including coverage of maternity care, prescription drugs and treatment for mental illness. It also caps customers’ out-of-pocket expenses.

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6.2 quake shakes Philippines' Mindanao

MANILA: A powerful 6.2-magnitude earthquake rocked the southern Philippine island of Mindanao on Saturday triggering panic, but there were no immediate reports of any damage or casualties.

The quake struck at 12:37 pm (0437 GMT), off the coast, about 30 kilometres (19 miles) northeast of the town of Sarangani, said the government seismology institute.

Residents said people rushed out of buildings in panic after the quake sent lighting fixtures swaying.

The government institute said it did not expect any damage or casualties and there was no risk of a tsunami.

The Philippines sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire -- a belt around the Pacific Ocean dotted by active volcanoes and tectonic trenches.

A 7.6-magnitude quake hit the country's east coast in August last year, triggering a tsunami alert that forced tens of thousands to flee their homes and causing a landslide that killed one person.

- AFP/ck

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India is an incredibly dynamic nation: US lawmaker

WASHINGTON, Describing India as an "incredibly dynamic country", a top US lawmaker has said there are a broad spectrum of opportunities, including in the economic sector, for the two countries to collaborate.

House member Peter Roskam, the newly-elected Republican co-chair of the Congressional caucus on India and Indian Americans, made the comment during a meeting on Friday with the Indian Ambassador Nirupama Rao on Capitol Hill.

Roskam, who is participating in a Congressional delegation visiting India next week, said that he looked forward to using his visit to learn more about India, and to help the House India Caucus in advancing the India-US strategic partnership.

He also spoke warmly about the Indian friends he had known since his childhood and said there were shared values and complementarities between India and the US, according to an Indian Embassy media release.

Rao, in turn, gave an overview of the current economic outlook of India and agreed with Roskam about the bright prospects for business and economic cooperation between the two countries, it said.

Both she and Roskam also praised the role played by the Indian American community in taking this relationship forward.

Earlier Thursday, Rao hosted a welcome reception at her residence for two newly elected House members, Ami Bera, the only Indian American member of US Congress, and Tulsi Gabbard the first ever Hindu-American to be elected to the US House.

The presence of Bera and Gabbard in the US Congress "brings great meaning to our mission and our task of taking US-India relations further forward to greater and greater heights," she said.

Throughout their lives, they have been touched by the spirit of India and by the message of great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi who personified the spirit of selfless service in the cause of freedom and democracy, Rao said.

She also wished them great success in the cause of serving their country and building friendship between two great countries - India and the United States.

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Severe Weather More Likely Thanks to Climate Change

Jane J. Lee

BOSTON—Wildfires. Droughts. Super storms.

As opposed to representing the unfortunate severe weather headlines of the last year, scientists said Friday that climate change has increased the likelihood of such events moving forward.

And though the misery is shared from one U.S. coast to another, scientists speaking at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Boston said, the type of extreme event may vary significantly from region to region. (Related: "6 Ways Climate Change Will Affect You.")

Heat waves have become more frequent across the United States, with western regions setting records for the number of such events in the 2000s, said Donald Wuebbles, a geoscientist with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

But the Midwest and Northeast have experienced a 45 percent and 74 percent increase, respectively, in the heaviest rainfalls those regions have seen since 1950.

The extreme drought that plagued Texas in 2011 has spread to New Mexico, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and northern Mexico, said John Nielsen-Gammon, Texas State's climatologist at Texas A&M University in College Station.

"The science is clear and convincing that climate change is happening and it's happening rapidly. There's no debate within the science community ... about the changes occurring in the Earth's climate and the fact that these changes are occurring in response to human activities," said Wuebbles.

In 2011 and 2012, major droughts, heat waves, severe storms, tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, and wildfires caused about $60 billion in damages each year, for a total of about $120 billion.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climactic Data Center, these were some of the costliest weather events in the country's history, said Wuebbles.

President Obama argued in his State of the Union address this week that the time is ripe to address climate change, saying he would skirt Congress to make such changes, if necessary.

His proposals included a system similar to the cap-and-trade proposal killed in Congress during his first term, new regulations for coal-burning power plants, and a promise to promote energy efficiency and R&D efforts into cleaner technologies. (Related: "Obama Pledges U.S. Action on Climate, With or Without Congress.")

The researchers said they are glad to see that addressing climate change is on the President's agenda. But they stressed that they wanted the public to have access to accurate, scientifically sound information, not just simplified talking points.

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Carnival Cruise Ship Hit With First Lawsuit

The first lawsuit against Carnival Cruise Lines has been filed and it is expected to be the beginning of a wave of lawsuits against the ship's owners.

Cassie Terry, 25, of Brazoria County, Texas, filed a lawsuit today in Miami federal court, calling the disabled Triumph cruise ship "a floating hell."

"Plaintiff was forced to endure unbearable and horrendous odors on the filthy and disabled vessel, and wade through human feces in order to reach food lines where the wait was counted in hours, only to receive rations of spoiled food," according to the lawsuit, obtained by ABCNews.com. "Plaintiff was forced to subsist for days in a floating toilet, a floating Petri dish, a floating hell."

Click Here for Photos of the Stranded Ship at Sea

The filing also said that during the "horrifying and excruciating tow back to the United States," the ship tilted several times "causing human waste to spill out of non-functioning toilets, flood across the vessel's floors and halls, and drip down the vessel's walls."

Terry's attorney Brent Allison told ABCNews.com that Terry knew she wanted to sue before she even got off the boat. When she was able to reach her husband, she told her husband and he contacted the attorneys.

Allison said Terry is thankful to be home with her husband, but is not feeling well and is going to a doctor.

Carnival's Triumph Passengers: 'We Were Homeless' Watch Video

Girl Disembarks Cruise Ship, Kisses the Ground Watch Video

Carnival Cruise Ship Passengers Line Up for Food Watch Video

"She's nauseated and actually has a fever," Allison said.

Terry is suing for breach of maritime contract, negligence, negligent misrepresentation and fraud as a result of the "unseaworthy, unsafe, unsanitary, and generally despicable conditions" on the crippled cruise ship.

"Plaintiff feared for her life and safety, under constant threat of contracting serious illness by the raw sewage filling the vessel, and suffering actual or some bodily injury," the lawsuit says.

Despite having their feet back on solid ground and making their way home, many passengers from the cruise ship are still fuming over their five days of squalor on the stricken ship and the cruise ship company is likely to be hit with a wave of lawsuits.

"I think people are going to file suits and rightly so," maritime trial attorney John Hickey told ABCNews.com. "I think, frankly, that the conduct of Carnival has been outrageous from the get-go."

Hickey, a Miami-based attorney, said his firm has already received "quite a few" inquiries from passengers who just got off the ship early this morning.

"What you have here is a) negligence on the part of Carnival and b) you have them, the passengers, being exposed to the risk of actual physical injury," Hickey said.

The attorney said that whether passengers can recover monetary compensation will depend on maritime law and the 15-pages of legal "gobbledygook," as Hickey described it, that passengers signed before boarding, but "nobody really agrees to."

One of the ticket conditions is that class action lawsuits are not allowed, but Hickey said there is a possibility that could be voided when all the conditions of the situation are taken into account.

One of the passengers already thinking about legal action is Tammy Hilley, a mother of two, who was on a girl's getaway with her two friends when a fire in the ship's engine room disabled the vessel's propulsion system and knocked out most of its power.

"I think that's a direction that our families will talk about, consider and see what's right for us," Hilley told "Good Morning America" when asked if she would be seeking legal action.

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Postmaster takes case for five-day mail delivery to skeptical senators

Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe took his controversial plan for five-day mail delivery before a congressional hearing Wednesday, where he told senators that the Postal Service “needs your help.”

Donahoe’s refrain was familiar.

●The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is losing $25 million a day.

●Last year, the Postal Service lost $15.9 billion.

●It defaulted on $11.1 billion owed to the Treasury.

As he has before, Donahoe pleaded with Congress, this time the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, to approve comprehensive postal reform legislation. Now, more than before, it looks as though Congress will do so.

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (Md.), the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told the Senate panel that after two months of negotiations, “we are close, very close” to agreement on a bipartisan, bicameral bill.

Without some assistance from Congress, said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate committee, “the Postal Service will drift toward insolvency and, eventually, the point at which it must shut its doors. . . . We have never been closer to losing the Postal Service.”

Although in some ways Donahoe’s appearance echoed his many other pleas for congressional action, this hearing drew a standing-room-only crowd on the third floor of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. That was probably influenced by all the attention generated by his surprise announcement last week that Saturday mail delivery will end in August.

Donahoe’s written testimony outlined several key legislative goals, but five-day mail delivery was not specifically listed among them. After repeatedly urging Congress to end the six-day requirement, Donahoe said postal officials had determined that he could take that action without congressional approval.

Moving to five-day delivery would close just 10 percent of the postal budget gap, Donahoe said, yet the controversy surrounding it stole the focus from other important financial issues.

Among them is a controversial proposal to move postal employees from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, which serves all federal workers, to a health insurance program run by the USPS.

Donahoe presented an updated health insurance proposal, but it received little attention compared with his five-day delivery plan.

Last year the Senate approved legislation, co-sponsored by Carper, that would allow five-day delivery two years after its enactment. The delay was designed to allow the Postal Service to study the impact of five-day delivery. Carper was among those who have expressed disappointment with Donahoe’s plan to implement it unilaterally.

“We are taking every reasonable and responsible step in our power to strengthen our finances immediately,” Donahoe told the committee. “We would urge Congress to eliminate any impediments to our new delivery schedule.

“Although discussion about our delivery schedule gets a lot of attention, it is just one important part of a larger strategy to close our budgetary gap,” he added. “It accounts for $2 billion in cost reductions while we are seeking to fill a $20 billion budget gap.”

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Experts tell flatulent flyers: let it rip

WELLINGTON: A group of medical specialists has provided an answer to a dilemma that has faced flyers since the Wright brothers took to the air in 1903 -- is it okay to fart mid-flight?

The experts' recommendation is an emphatic yes to airline passengers -- but a warning to cockpit crews that breaking wind could distract the pilot and pose a safety risk.

The study concluded that anecdotal evidence that flying increases flatulence is not hot air, finding that changes in air pressure at altitude result in the gut producing more gas.

When Danish gastroenterologist Jacob Rosenberg encountered the malodorous problem first-hand on a flight from Copenhagen to Tokyo, he enlisted some of the finest minds in his field to address the issue.

The result was an in-depth review of scientific literature on flatulence, looking at issues such as whether women's farts smell worse than men's (yes), what causes the odour (sulphur) and how often the average person passes wind every day (10 times).

The bottom line, according to the 3,000-word study published in the New Zealand Medical Journal on Friday, is that airline passengers should ignore the social embarrassment of breaking wind and "just let it go".

"(Holding back) holds significant drawbacks for the individual, such as discomfort and even pain, bloating, dyspepsia (indigestion), pyrosis (heartburn) just to name but a few resulting abdominal symptoms," the study found.

"Moreover, problems resulting from the required concentration to maintain such control may even result in subsequent stress symptoms."

The authors -- five gastroenterologists from Denmark and Britain -- said that while passengers may experience poor service from the cabin crew as a result of their decision, the health benefits outweighed any negative impacts.

However, they said the cockpit crew faced a lose-lose situation.

"On the one hand, if the pilot restrains a fart, all the drawbacks previously mentioned, including impaired concentration, may affect his abilities to control the plane," the researchers said.

"On the other hand, if he lets go of the fart, his co-pilot may be affected by its odour, which again reduces safety onboard the flight."

The authors canvassed a number of solutions to the issue of flight-induced flatulence, including using methane breath tests to screen wind-prone passengers from flights, but rejected them as impractical.

They did, however, note that the textile covers used on seats in economy class absorbed up to 50 percent of odours because they are gas permeable, unlike the leather seats in first class.

They suggested airlines could improve the odour-eating properties of the seats and issue special blankets and trousers to passengers to minimise mid-air flatulence.

"We humbly propose that active charcoal should be embedded in the seat cushion, since this material is able to neutralise the odour," they said.

"Moreover active charcoal may be used in trousers and blankets to emphasise this effect."

Air New Zealand declined to comment when asked if it would adopt such measures.

- AFP/fl

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1,455 death penalties awarded in India since 2001: National Crimes Records Bureau

NEW DELHI: Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) in its report "The State of Death Penalty in India 2013" stated that as per the records of the National Crimes Records Bureau (NCRB), Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, a total of 1,455 convicts or an average of 132.27 convicts per year were given death penalty during 2001 to 2011.

During the same period, the highest number of death penalty was imposed in Uttar Pradesh (370) followed by Bihar (132), Maharashtra (125), Karnataka and Tamil Nadu (95 each), Madhya Pradesh (87), Jharkhand (81), West Bengal (79), Delhi (71), Gujarat (57), Rajasthan (38), Kerala (34), Odisha (33), Haryana (31), Assam (21), Jammu and Kashmir (20), Punjab (19), Chhattisgarh (18), Uttaranchal (16), Andhra Pradesh (8), Meghalaya (6), Chandigarh and Daman and Diu (4 each), Manipur and Himachal Pradesh (3 each), Tripura and Pondichery (2 each) and Goa (1).

In the rest of the States (Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim) and Union Territories (Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Lakswadweep), no death penalty was imposed.

"This implies that on average one convict is awarded death penalty in less than every third day in India. The rarest of rare case doctrine for application of death penalty has become routine. Death penalty is no longer the exception but the rule," said Suhas Chakma, coordinator, National Campaign for Abolition of Death Penalty in India and Director of ACHR.

Thousands of convicts remain on death row. This is established by the fact that during 2001 to 2011, sentences for 4,321 persons were commuted from death penalty to life imprisonment with the highest number of commutation in Delhi (2462) followed by Uttar Pradesh (458), Bihar (343), Jharkhand (300), Maharashtra (175), West Bengal (98), Assam (97), Odisha (68), Madhya Pradesh (62), Uttaranchal (46), Rajasthan (33), Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Chhattisgarh (24 each), Haryana and Kerala (23 each), Jammu and Kashmir (18).

ACHR called for abolition of death penalty stating that "The execution of Nathuram Vinayak Godse for assassination of none other than the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi, has not acted as a deterrent against assassination of many prominent political leaders including former prime ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh, MP Lalit Maken and many other prominent political leaders."

There is no scientific or empirical basis to suggest that death penalty acts as a deterrent against any crime. Though no execution had been carried out since the execution of Dhananjoy Chatterjee on August 14, 2004, the number of murder cases have been reducing.

According to the National Crimes Record Bureau, in 2001 a total of 36,202 murder cases were registered in India. Though the population of India increased from 1.028 billion in 2001 to 1.21 billion in 2011, the murder cases indeed reduced to 34,305 in 2011.

Commenting on the execution of Afzal Guru, ACHR stated that India must assuage the sentiments of the Afzal Guru's family members who have effectively been not informed about the impending execution on February 9, 2013.

The state itself must not be flouting or circumvents the rules as it erodes the belief in the rule of law.

Guru was hanged out of the queue and was denied the right to appeal against the rejection of mercy petition.

"The interventions of the Supreme Court against rejection of mercy petition of Devender Pal Singh Bhullar, the Guwahati high court against rejection of mercy petition of Mahendra Nath Das and the Madras high court against rejection of mercy petitions of Santhan, Murugan and Perarivalan have established that the decision of the President of India on mercy petitions is further subject to judicial review and this opportunity to appeal has been denied to Afzal Guru," said Chakma.

On the recent rejection of mercy petitions of four accused namely Gnanprakasham, Simon, Meesekar Madaiah and Bilavendran who were sentenced to death by the Supreme Court in January 2004 in connection with the killing of 21 policemen in a landmine blast at Palar in Karnataka in 1993, Chakma said: "It appears that the Government of India in its attempt to address political fallout of the botched up execution of Afzal Guru and the expressed position of the members of the UPA Government on death penalty in certain cases will carry out further executions of death row convicts not connected with political sensitivities."

According to ACHR, India must follow its own civilisational values. Mythologies of India are full of stories about criminals being reformed.

Valmiki, the author of the epic Ramayana, was a highway robber known as Ratnakara until he came under the influence of Maharshi Narada to leave the paths of sin. Similarly, according to Buddhist literature, Daku Angulimala (dacoit who wears finger necklace/ garland of fingers) was a ruthless killer who was redeemed by a sincere conversion to Buddhism.

India as the land of Valmiki, Lord Buddha and Gandhi must follow its own civilisational values and take effective measures to join the countries which have abandoned retributive justice system and abolished death penalty.

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