Compiled by C. ARUNO, BENJAMIN LEE and R. ARAVINTHAN
LOCAL Indian cattle farmers enthusiastically took part in the Mattu Ponggal festival to celebrate their bovine friends, Makkal Osai reported.
The Mayilvaganam Muniandy family in Kajang were among those celebrating the third day of the Ponggal festival with gratitude, having been in cattle farming for three generations in Kajang West Country, said M. Sivaraja who heads the business.
He and his siblings along with their father work together to manage the farm, which was started by their grandfather.
They treat the cows they rear as part of their family, he said.
The cows were colourfully decorated, garlanded and fed delicious ponggal prasadham as part of the celebration.
> A man in India who married and impregnated a 17-year-old girl was arrested under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (PCOSO), Malaysia Nanban reported.
The man, identified only as Raja, 25, met the girl when his brother married the girl’s sister four years ago. He then married the girl who was still a high school student last year when she was 16.
The girl who is now pregnant was brought to a hospital in Salem as she was unwell. When doctors at the hospital realised she was underage and pregnant, they reported the matter to the Mettur police.
Raja has been charged under the PCOSO Act which raised the marriage age for girls to 18 in 2012.
The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.
