Woman held with 5 kg of gold at airport

Sources said the woman was identified as Jamila Mohammad Shafi Shah (50),a resident of Kosamba in Surat.

Customs officials said she was a part of a racket and working as a carrier to deliver the consignment in Mumbai. They said she was also a frequent flyer.

After her arrest,Shah was produced before the additional chief metropolitan magistrate late in the night and was granted bail.

This is one of the biggest cases in which attempt to smuggle gold was thwarted at the city airport since the customs duty was hiked from one per cent to around six per cent last year.

IIM-A gets an acting director

IIM-Ahmedabad dean Ajay Pandey has been appointed as the institute’s acting director till June this year even as the Union ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) takes a decision on the new director.

An acting director has a three-month term.

Samir Barua,the incumbent director,had got an extension of three months and he will step down on March 31,2013.

When contacted,Pandey said,“As per the letter I have received from the chairman of the institute,which has a letter from HRD ministry attached,I will be taking charge as acting director from April 1. It is a caretaker’s role till the times HRD ministry decides on a new director in the next few months.”

A week ago,IIM-A’s Board of Governors (BoG) chairman A M Naik had told reporters that the institute would declare the name of its director in a week’s time.

Following a Board meeting in the first week of March,the selection committee led by Naik had shortlisted the names of Ashish Nanda,G Raghuram and Rakesh Basant for the top post and forwarded the same to HRD ministry.

While Ashish Nanda is a Professor of Practice at Harvard Law School,both Raghuram and Basant are faculty members at IIM-A.