Nikita Venkatesh

Member of Parliament from Nagaland, Neiphiu Rio has tendered his resignation as the Convener of the North East Regional Political Forum (NERPF).

In a letter addressed to Atul Bora, Co-Convener of the NERPF, Rio accepted responsibility for certain “setbacks” faced by the NERPF.

He stated that the failure of the AGP-BJP alliance to materialise and the Peoples’ Party of Arunachal voting against the NDA in the Rajya Sabha elections “have contradicted the stand of the NERPF in supporting the NDA.”

In a shocking incident, the son of a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader was arrested on Tuesday for the alleged abduction and rape of a 22-year old woman in a car here.

While Naseer Hyder, 23, has been arrested, a hunt is on for three other men allegedly involved in the incident.

The victim was sitting with her male friend in a car near her apartment on Thursday midnight when four men alighted from another car. The men reportedly posed as cops and forcibly got into their vehicle and drove them away, a police official said.

Two persons have been arrested for allegedly kidnapping and gang-raping a 28-year-old married Dalit woman in Odisha’s Kendrapara district, police said on Wednesday.

Saraju Mallick and Tukuna Mallick of Badagaon village were arrested yesterday, while search is on to net another man involved in the crime, they said.

The arrested persons were produced in Kendrapara Sub-divisional Judicial Magistrate (SDJM) court which rejected their bail applications and remanded them in jail custody, said Sub Divisional Police Officer, Nrusingha Charan Swain.

Google’s smart contact lens, that can measure blood sugar level, is on its way to be commercialized with the tech giant collaborating with Novartis to develop it.

According to The Verge, the lens which was developed and unveiled by Google X in January, analyzes tear fluid in the eye using non-invasive sensors to measure a person’s blood glucose levels constantly. The results can also be sent to any mobile phone wirelessly.

In the wake of Beas river tragedy where 24 students were washed away, Government has asked UGC and AICTE to frame guidelines on enforcing students’ safety when they are on excursion or study trips.

HRD Minister Smriti Irani said in Lok Sabha today that the two regulators – University Grants Commission and the All India Council for Technical Education — have been asked by the government to frame the guidelines.

Irani said upon hearing the news of the incident, she got in touch with the Himachal Pradesh government to ensure prompt rescue operations.

At least 20 suspected militants were killed today in a US drone attack in Pakistan’s troubled North Waziristan tribal region, where the military is mounting a major offensive to clear the area of the Taliban bases.

The unmanned aircraft targeted a suspected hideout of militants in Datakhel area of the district.

A security official said that four missiles were fired from the drone which destroyed a compound.

“Initial reports show that 18 militants were killed. The identity of those killed is not known as yet,” he said.

The decomposed bodies of a south Indian FILM PRODUCER, his wife and daughter have been found in mysterious circumstances in their flat here.

The deceased identified as Santhosh Kumar, who hails from Kerala owns a FILM PRODUCTION company Souparnika Films and was a co-producer of the hit Malayalam movie ‘Madambi’, the Khaleej Times reported today.

Family sources said the bodies of Kumar, his wife Manju and daughter Gouri bore multiple stab injuries.

The Dubai Police could not be reached for comments.

Four minor boys, who were employed as workers at three different HOTELS AT Mira-Bhyander in the district, were rescued and cases of child labour were registered against the HOTEL owners, police said Wednesday.

Acting on a complaint by NGO CCDT-Child Line, a police team conducted searches at the HOTELS yesterday and found that the minors had been employed as workers, constable S P Khot of Navghar police station said.

The accused have been identified as Gopal Suvarna, Sohar and Dinesh Patel, police said.

In a bid to attract INVESTMENT, the Uttar Pradesh government will soon be using a GIS system for mapping available industrial land, enabling investors to select a site online, officials said Wednesday.

Besides the Geographic INFORMATION SYSTEM (GIS) mapping system, it was also suggested at a meeting Tuesday that labour POOLS be created to provide skill-specific workforce to industries.

Know how to improve battery life of your smartphone? Attach a second screen.

This low-power screen will stop you from turning on the smartphone’s main display.

Called InkCase Plus, the device by Singapore-based firm OAXIS is able to display incoming notifications and run certain special applications.

The device comes with a 3.5-inch display, Bluetooth support and a built-in battery ready to offer 19 hours of continuous screen time, or up to seven days of standby time.

InkCase Plus is built with a high-density aluminium alloy frame shell and a hardened screen.

Two persons have been arrested on the charge of attacking the Block Development Officer (BDO) of Rajkanika in Odisha’s Kendrapara district in his office, police said today.

Both the arrested persons – Sangram Samal and Pravakar Sahoo of Aul – on Monday assaulted BDO Ramesh Chandra Behera at his office.

The BDO had filed an FIR against both accused,” said Kedarnath Sahoo, Sub-divisional Police Officer (SDPO) of Pattamundai.

Expressing concern over “grave instability that is fast seeping across borders” in West Asia, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that remaining mute spectators to countries being torn up can have grave consequences, and called upon countries of BRICS to explore ways to help end the crisis in Iraq.

In his statement on ” International Governance and Regional Crisis ” at the first working session of the Sixth BRICS Summit in Fortaleza, Brazil, he called upon the member-countries of BRICS to explore how they can work together to help end the conflict in Iraq.

Scientists have revealed that a new oral medication is showing significant progress in restoring vision to patients with Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA).

According to scientists of Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC), this is the first time that an oral drug has improved the visual function of blind patients with LCA, which causes visual impairment ranging from reduced vision to complete blindness, has remained untreatable.

As a row erupted over his meeting with Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed, journalist Ved Pratap Vaidik, considered close to Baba Ramdev, Monday rejected suggestions by Congress that he might have acted as government’s envoy, saying he was “nobody’s envoy but my own”.

Vaidik also defended his action, saying he has been meeting all kinds of people and it was a “simple thing” for him.

President Pranab Mukherjee will present the Gandhi Peace Prize for the year 2013 to Chandi Prasad Bhatt tomorrow at a function at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The Gandhi Peace Prize was instituted by the Government of India in 1995 on the occasion of the 125th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

This annual award is given to individuals and institutions for their contributions towards social, economic and political transformation through non-violence and other Gandhian methods.

Game of Thrones’ star Rose Leslie has bagged a role in an upcoming Hollywood supernatural thriller alongside Vin Diesel.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the 27-year-old Scottish actress will be starring in ‘ The Last Witch Hunter ‘ in which she and the ‘Fast and Furious’ actor must prevent a villainous witch queen from releasing a plague upon humanity by using an ancient relic, the Daily Express reported.

The much speculated iPhone 6 is reportedly facing severe production problems, which may delay production, or limit availability.

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo expressed in one of his research notes that problems Apple is facing with the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 are even more challenging for the 5.5-incher, possibly leading to delays, CNET reported.

Analyst believes that the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 may not launch by the end of 2014, or may launch after October in very limited quantities, the report added.

Referring to the TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) Amendment Bill, former union minister Shashi Tharoor said Monday that the law should not be changed on the basis of an individual’s preference, which in this case was the Prime Minister of India.

Mention of monkey menace in the corridors of power and how it can haunt even the high and mighty evoked peals of laughter in the Rajya Sabha Monday, even as a Congress member blamed the simians for mysterious disappearance of files.

Members burst into laughter in course of a serious debate on destruction of Home Ministry’s 11,100 files when Rajeev Shukla (Cong) condemned the act and said the situation was so bad that files were kept scattered in the corridors, where monkeys create havoc.

The members should not doubt the government’s intention in destroying files in the home ministry, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said Monday after questions were raised about the files shredded by his ministry.

“Don’t doubt the intention of government in destroying files. We will not do anything that will disturb the flow of history,” Rajnath Singh said while giving clarification on questions raised by members on the home ministry destroying some files.

Members quoting reports sought explanation from the home minister on 1.5 lakh files destroyed by his ministry recently.

A woman in New York actually spent three years living with her mother’s corpse.

Chava Stirn’s mother’s decaying dead body was recovered from the New York apartment, after the Police was informed by the neighbours about a foul smell and unexplained leak coming from the flat, the Daily Star reported.

Officers found of Susie Rosenthal’s skeleton stacked on a series of bin bags in the kitchen.

It is understood that Stirn had been living in the Brooklyn house before her mother died and did not leave after her death.

The second man to ever walk on Moon, Buzz Aldrin, recently revealed on his ‘Ask Me Anything’ session with online bulletin board site Reddit, that he was interested in composing a new song, entitled ‘get your ass to Mars!’ because he have heard Frank Sinatra sing Fly me to the Moon too many times.

Sixty-seven years after he led India to freedom from British rule, a statue of Mahatma Gandhi would be installed in Parliament Square in London by early next year.

British Foreign Minister William Hague and Chancellor of Exchequer George Osborne, who are on a visit here, today announced the plan for the statue of Gandhi, the inspiration for non-violent civil rights movements around the world.

Nagpur residents on Thursday expressed their satisfaction with the maiden general budget proposals of the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government, which was presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

The Budget proposed four more AIIMS to be set up in Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Vidharbha and Purvanchal with allocation of Rs 500 crore.

Director Homi Adajania, whose `Finding Fanny` trailer has garnered over a million views in just 22 hours, says he shot the quirky story in just 36 days.

The film stars Deepika Padukone, Arjun Kapoor, Naseeruddin Shah, Dimple Kapadia and Pankaj Kapur. Adajania enjoyed working with a bunch of talented performers in the film, which is set in a sleepy Goan village.