saleem

Supreme Court accepts CPI-M leader Vijayan’s plea

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New Delhi, August 31: The Supreme Court Monday admitted CPI-M Kerala state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan’s plea against the state governor’s approval to the Central Bureau of Investigation to prosecute him for his alleged role in a corruption case as a minister in 1997.

A bench of Justice R.V. Raveendran and Justice B.S. Reddy admitted Vijayan’s lawsuit directly for hearing, skipping preliminary formalities like issuing notices to various parties to the lawsuit and seeking their replies, as it involved some important questions of law.

US general: New strategy needed to defeat Taliban

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Kabul, August 31: The commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan said Monday in an assessment of the war that a new strategy was needed to fight the Taliban, while NATO officials disclosed he is expected to separately request more troops.

Increasing U.S. forces is a hot-button issue that could ignite furious debate in Washington on the U.S. military’s future in an increasingly unpopular war. Some Democratic senators have increased calls for a timeline to draw down troops.

‘Sharm el-Sheikh was neither a step forward nor backward’

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New Delhi, August 31: Seeking to draw a line under the controversy surrounding last month’s meeting between Manmohan Singh and Yusuf Raza Gilani, National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan on Saturday replied in the negative when asked whether the Sharm el-Sheikh summit between the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan had been a step forward. “But,” he hastened to add, “it certainly wasn’t a step backward.”

Snowfall in Himachal Pradesh

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Shimla, August 31: Higher reaches of Himachal Pradesh experienced moderate snowfall, officials said Monday.

“Higher reaches of tribal Lahaul and Spiti district have experienced moderate snowfall since Sunday night. This (snowfall) was after a gap of more than four months,” public relations officer of Lahaul and Spiti district Sher Singh told IANS on phone.

The Lady of Keylong peak in Lahaul and Spiti district and the Rohtang Pass in Kullu district have also received snowfall, he said.

Congress-NCP buoyant, Shiv Sena-BJP downcast as poll dates declared

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Mumbai, August 31: Buoyed by the victory in the recent Lok Sabha elections, the ruling Congress-Nationalist Congress Party alliance in Maharashtra is confident of taking on the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (SS-BJP) combine in the Oct 13 assembly elections.

In sharp contrast, discontent prevails in the SS-BJP camp as poll dates were announced Monday.

However, the ruling Democratic Front (DF) alliance is wary of the newly-united Third Front and Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS).

Stalin, with wife, flies to London for health check-up

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Chennai, August 31: Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister M.K.Stalin left for London Monday and is expected to return Sept 9.

While there was no official reason given for the trip, it is said Stalin has gone to London for a health check-up, but no details were mentioned.

Stalin was to visit the US along with state government officials to discuss modalities of cleaning the Cooum river flowing through Chennai. He was to go to London from there.

Tata Motors posts Rs.329 crore loss in Q1

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Mumbai, August 31: The high-priced acquisition of Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) and dipping volumes have taken their toll on Tata Motors, which reported a loss of Rs.328.78 crore in the first quarter ended June 30, as compared to a profit of Rs.719.69 crore logged in the same quarter the previous fiscal.

The company’s consolidated gross revenue for the first quarter of the current fiscal stood at Rs.16,953.63 crore, while it was Rs.15,496.28 crore in the year-ago period.

Britain detains 470 children in immigration centres: Report

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London, August 31: More than 400 children were being held in British immigration detention centres with their families, a report said on Monday, citing official figures.

The Guardian newspaper said 470 children, many from countries suffering poverty and conflict such as Zimbabwe, Sudan, Sri Lanka and Democratic Republic of Congo, were locked up after arriving in Britain.

The figures from the Home Office were provided for a single day, on June 30 this year.
Most of the children were aged under five, and almost one third were held for longer than 28 days, the newspaper said.

Doctors’ strike enters fifth day in Patna, claims 38 lives

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Patna, August 31: A five-day-old strike by the junior doctors in a hospital in Patna has claimed the lives of at least 38 patients even as the Bihar government on Monday served notices to the medicos and asked them to return to work or face action, an official said.

A day after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar expressed his anger at the doctors’ strike that has paralysed health services in the Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH), Health Secretary C K Mishra served notices on doctors asking them to report back to duty.

Pak court issues notice to Musharraf

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Karachi, August: A Pakistani court today issued fresh notices to former President Pervez Musharraf and Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain after they failed to appear before it in connection with a case related to violence during a protest by lawyers two years ago.

The Sindh High Court had on August 20 issued notices to Musharraf, Hussain, former provincial interior minister Waseem Akhtar and others to appear before it today. Neither Musharraf nor his counsel appeared in the court and Hussain also was not represented in today’s hearing.

Chinese chopper violated Indian airspace: Army

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New Delhi, August 31: Indian Army Chief of Staff General Deepak Kapoor on Monday admitted that Chinese helicopters had violated the Indian airspace along the Line of Actual Control in Leh.

“There has been one incursion of a Chinese helicopter sometime back. At times this can also happen due to navigation error but this is not to justify that the incursion took place. It has happened and that has been taken up in the border personnel meeting with the Chinese,” General Kapoor said in New Delhi.

BJP leader Raje ready to quit, but on her own terms

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New Delhi, August 31: Former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje is likely to resign as Leader of Opposition in state Assembly on Monday. Raje will be meeting senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leaders in New Delhi.

She will also meet former BJP president M Venkaiah Naidu who is said to be acting as the mediator between her and BJP central leadership.

Before putting in her papers Raje is likely to insist on some benefits for herself and her supporters in the party.

Federer says opening match brings back memories

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New York, August 31: Roger Federer will take aim at a sixth straight US Open title Monday, playing a memory-making first-round match against an 18-year-old American wildcard with no Grand Slam experience.

The mismatch looks to be all in Federer’s favour as he faces nervous teen Devin Britton, ranked outside the top 500 and taking to the court at a major for the first time.

While he expects a victory, the 28-year-old Federer recalled a similar situation in his own tennis life in 1998 against Andre Agassi.

Major fire broke out at A.P High Court

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Hyderabad, August 31: A Major fire broke out in the Andhra Pradesh High Court building in the wee hours today. The fire started around 0400 hours in the second floor of the court which houses library and lockers of the advocates, fire brigade officials said. Most of the furniture and books were gutted in the said incident.

Heavy rains lash city, water enters into houses in low lying areas

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Hyderabad, August 31: Heavy rains lashed this Andhra Pradesh capital Sunday, inundating low-lying areas and throwing normal life out of gear.

The rains, which began in the late hours, caused severe inconvenience to people living in low-lying areas and especially to those who wanted to go out for sehr and Namaz.Most of the people were forced to stay back in their homes.

Low lying areas in Panjagutta, Khairatabad, Lakdi ka pul, Erram Manzil, Mehdipatnam, Toli Chowki and Dilsukhnagar and several other neighbourhoods were flooded.

There is someone in my life: Priyanka Chopra

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Mumbai, August 31: Priyanka Chopra talks on the love of her life in a chat with Swati Chaturvedi of Spicezee.com. Excerpts from the interview ‘Kahiye Janab’.

Q: How did you end up in the film industry? Was it difficult?

Obesity linked to swine flu deaths

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Paris, August 31: Obesity has emerged as a possible contributing factor in fatal swine flu cases, according to ground-breaking research looking at deaths caused by the pandemic in countries around the world.

The claim is made by a team from the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance, which has studied the characteristics of 574 deaths associated with the pandemic H1N1 influenza.

Illegal blood transfusion in Raj district; probe ordered

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Jaipur, August 30: A laboratory owner was arrested for allegedly collecting blood from donors without proper tests and supplying it to a nursing home in Rajasthan’s Sriganganagar district, even as the government ordered a probe into the case amid charges that the blood was HIV infected.

Police said a complaint was registered with Anoopgarh police station in Sriganganagar district, 484 km form here, on August 26 accusing a laboratory and a nursing home of transfusing HIV infected blood to patients.

Pakistan: Border blast sets NATO fuel trucks afire

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Chaman, August 30: An explosion ripped through a line of trucks ferrying fuel to NATO troops in Afghanistan, setting several oil tankers ablaze Sunday at a backed-up Pakistani border crossing, police said.

The blast appeared to be the second terrorist attack Sunday in Pakistan and the second in a week to target a border crossing. Also Sunday, a suicide bomber targeted a police station in the northwestern Swat Valley, killing 15 cadets.

Digging up the Saudi past: Some would rather not

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Riyadh, August 30: Much of the world knows Petra, the ancient ruin in modern-day Jordan that is celebrated in poetry as “the rose-red city, ‘half as old as time,'” and which provided the climactic backdrop for “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.”

But far fewer know Madain Saleh, a similarly spectacular treasure built by the same civilization, the Nabateans.

That’s because it’s in Saudi Arabia, where conservatives are deeply hostile to pagan, Jewish and Christian sites that predate the founding of Islam in the 7th century.

India terminates maiden moon mission abruptly

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Panaji/Bangalore, August 30: India’s first lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 has been terminated abruptly after repeated attempts to restore radio contact with the spacecraft failed, a top space official said Sunday.

“We had to terminate the mission as we don’t have contact with the spacecraft. Though we are disappointed with what has happened, we have managed to salvage a large volume of data,” Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman G. Madhavan Nair told reporters at Panaji.

Al Qaeda claims responsibility for attack targeting Saudi prince

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Riyadh, August 30: Al Qaeda Sunday claimed responsibility for a terrorist attack that targeted a Saudi prince and deputy interior minister, the pan-Arab al-Jazeera TV reported.

The terrorist organisation’s branch in the Arabian peninsula said in a statement published on an Islamist website that the perpetrator of the blast, which lightly wounded the Saudi prince, traveled to the Gulf kingdom through Yemen.

Trekker finds Lama Mummy in a mountain hideaway

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New Delhi, August 30: This is a rare photograph of a Tibetan monk called Sangha Tenzin which a nomadic biker, Anuj Singh, found mummified inside a tomb at Ghuen Village in Spiti, Himachal Pradesh.

Professor Victor Mayer, who studies mummies, says it is at least 500 years old. “He died around the time that Columbus discovered America.” Anuj had taken Professor Mair and his team from the University of Pennsylvania to see the mummy when they were in India for a research.

Apparently, the monk had given up his life while meditating in the position he was found mummified.

Contract TRANSCO worker dies in Old City

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Hyderabad, August 30: An youth who was working as a contract lineman with the APTRANSCO died a top of a electric pole while he was on the repair work. This gruesome incident took in the Nasheman Nagar area of Old city when the 26 year old Shabbir Khan was working on a pole and he accidentally came into contact with the live wire and died on the spot. He was performing fast while on work.

Seven dead after Indonesia ferry sinks

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Jakarta, August 29: Seven people were killed and 15 others went missing when a ship carrying 132 people capsized off the Indonesian part of Borneo island, police said Saturday.

The ship sank Friday moments after it left a harbour in Tapin district where it picked up additional passengers, said Rastam Hadi, a police officer.

The captain of the ship, who was among the 110 people surviving the accident, was detained for questioning, police chief Rizqi Maulana told the state-run Antara news agency.

Maulana said the ship was designed to carry 45 passengers.