Hyderabad, August 04: The Andhra Pradesh government today decided to award the Rs 12,132-crore Hyderabad Metro Rail Project to Larsen and Toubro Limited.
The state Cabinet, which met here today under the chairmanship of Chief Minister K Rosaiah, approved the recommendations of a three-member committee to award the project to L&T that has emerged as the lowest bidder.
Washington, August 04: US President Barack Obama has asked young African leaders to follow the example of Mahatma Gandhi and change themselves first if they wanted to bring about real change in the continent.
“Back in the 1960s, when your grandparents, great-grandparents were obtaining independence, fighting for independence, the first leaders, they all said they were for democracy,” he recalled at a meeting Tuesday with 40 young leaders from across Africa.
New Delhi, August 04: Home Minister P. Chidambaram Wednesday said there was reliable intelligence that militants may have mingled with crowds and fired at security forces in Jammu and Kashmir where a “cycle of violence” has raged for more than 50 days.
“There have been instances where the security forces have been fired upon by someone in the protesting crowds. There is reliable intelligence that some armed militants may have mingled with the crowds and fired at the security forces,” he said in a statement in the Lok Sabha on the situation in Jammu and Kashmir.
New Delhi, August 04: Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad Wednesday said there is an urgent need to check the increasing population of the country but there will be no forced family planning drive for that.
“There will be no stringent law, force, but only through awareness, efforts will be made to control population,” Azad said in the Lok Sabha.
The health minister said population stabilisation should be the top priority of the central and state governments because unchecked population adds to poverty, unemployment and food shortage.
New Delhi, August 04: External affairs minister SM Krishna has written to his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi condoling the deaths due to the widespread floods there and expressing his distress over the devastation caused by the calamity.
The recent floods have submerged dozens of villages, killing over 1500 people even as rescue workers struggled to rush aid to the 3.2 million people hit by the worst deluge in in the country in eight decades.
Bahadurgarh (Jhajjar), August 04: A Station House Officer (SHO) of Bahadurgarh Traffic Police was arrested by a special team of the Delhi Police on the charge of accepting a bribe of Rs 14,000 from a transporter near Ghevra turn located on the border of Delhi and Haryana here today.
Jhajjar SSP Sourabh Singh placed the SHO Sat Narain Singh under suspension and ordered a departmental inquiry against him.
Colombo, August 04: Virender Sehwag led a strong Indian fightback with a blistering unbeaten 97 after the visitors restricted Sri Lanka to 425 to more or less restore balance in the third and final cricket Test here today.
Sehwag batted with his customary flourish and was just three runs short of what could be his 21st century as the visitors reached a comfortable 180 for two in their first innings at close on the second day.
Mumbai, August 04: Suspended IPL Chairman Lalit Modi has charged that the BCCI is shying away from acknowledging that its Secretary N Srinivasan attended the Disciplinary Committee hearing held in Delhi to probe into his alleged misdeeds in running of the T20 League.
In a letter sent to BCCI CAO Prof Ratnakar Shetty, Modi’s advocate Dhawal J Mehta of soliciting firm Wadia Ghandy and Co has queried why the Board “continues to be allergic to admitting and accepting, plain and simple, that Mr Srinivasan attended the hearing held on 27th July, 2010”.
Lucknow, July 04: A former sharp shooter of Chota Rajan gang was arrested here today by the Special Task Force of Uttar Pradesh police in a joint operation with Crime Branch, Mumbai.
Osama alias Rahul Rai was arrested from near Badshahnagar Railway station in Mahanagar police station area this morning in a joint operation with Crime Branch, Mumbai, ADG law and order Brij Lal told newspersons.
New Delhi, August 04: A Tribunal today upheld the Centre’s decision to extend the ban on Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) for indulging in unlawful activities.
The Tribunal headed by a Delhi High Court judge Justice Sanjiv Khanna passed the order after hearing extensive arguments from the government and the SIMI counsel.
The order passed by the Tribunal has been sent to the Home Ministry.
The Judge pronounced the order in his chamber in the presence of Additional Solitior General A S Chandhioke and SIMI’s counsel Mobin Akhtar.
–Agencies
Jammu, August 04: The Jammu and Kashmir unit of BJP today said it will soon take up the issue of worsening of situation in Kashmir with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
“All 11 BJP MLAs of J&K Assembly will take up the issue of deteriorating situation in Kashmir with the Prime Minister in New Delhi soon,” state BJP general secretary Sat Sharma told reporters here.
The BJP leadership will also make further action plan in connection with Kashmir turmoil with its central leadership in the next two-three days, he said.
Mumbai, August 04: The Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee apologized to the Lok Sabha on Wednesday for losing his cool over a remark made by a TDP member while protesting the construction of Babhli barrage.
“Madam Speaker, first of all I would like to express my reg refutation ret and apology because I lost my cool and temper with one of my young colleagues, which I should not have done. But nonetheless, it has happened on the floor of the House. I sincerely apologise to the House,” Mukherjee said.
Mumbai, August 04: Suspended IPL Chairman Lalit Modi has charged that the BCCI is shying away from acknowledging that its Secretary N Srinivasan attended the Disciplinary Committee hearing held in Delhi to probe into his alleged misdeeds in running of the T20 League.
In a letter sent to BCCI CAO Prof Ratnakar Shetty, Modi’s advocate Dhawal J Mehta of soliciting firm Wadia Ghandy and Co has queried why the Board “continues to be allergic to admitting and accepting, plain and simple, that Mr Srinivasan attended the hearing held on 27th July, 2010”.
Tehran, August 04: A grenade exploded on Wednesday near the motorcade of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the western city of Hamedan, but the Iranian president was unhurt, a conservative website reported.
“This morning a hand grenade exploded next to a vehicle carrying reporters accompanying the president in Hamedan,” Khabaronline.ir said. “Ahmadinejad’s car was 100 meters (yards) away and he was not hurt.”
The website said the alleged attacker was detained.
Hyderabad, August 04: The Andhra Pradesh government today decided to award the Rs 12,132 crore Hyderabad Metro Rail Project to Larsen and Toubro Limited.
The state Cabinet, which met here today under the chairmanship of Chief Minister K Rosaiah, approved the recommendations of a three-member committee to award the project to L&T that has emerged as the lowest bidder.
New Delhi, August 04: TDP and Shiv Sena clashed in the Lok Sabha today over the Babhli barrage issue forcing two adjournments, even as the government said the dispute between Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh was pending in Supreme Court.
“The Supreme Court is seized of the matter. Even a contempt petition has been filed in the Supreme Court which is pending …. Therefore, I would earnestly request all of you that there are other fora available for the point that we have raised here,” Water Resources Minister P K Bansal said.
Kuala Lumpur, August 04: An ethnic Indian housewife in Malaysia Wednesday said she would appeal against a civil court ruling that heard her plea questioning her conversion to Islam when she was seven years old.
Siti Hasnah Bangarama Abdullah, 28, was converted along with her four siblings in 1983 when her parents, both born Hindus, embraced Islam.
She sought a declaration from the court that her conversion to Islam was invalid, Star Online reported.
New Delhi, August 04: The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) today apologised to Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee after its MP Sivaprasad Naramalli shouted at him during an uproar in the Lok Sabha over the disputed Babhali barrage on the Godavari river.
The house witnessed the unpleasant scene when it reassembled at 11.30 a.m. after an adjournment following protests by the TDP and the Shiv Sena over the Babhali barrage at the centre of a row between Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.
Dubai, August 04: A militant group linked to al Qaeda claimed that a suicide bomber from its organization was responsible for an explosion on a Japanese supertanker last Wednesday near the Strait of Hormuz.
A group using the name Abdullah Azzam Brigades, which also claimed attacks in Israel last year and in Egypt and Jordan in 2005, posted a statement and photo on an Islamist website used by militants.
Patna, August 04: Bihar is one of the hotspots of child marriage in India as 51 percent girls there are married even before they are 18 years of age, officials said here Wednesday.
“Fifty-one percent of girls are married before they are 18 in Bihar,” said N. Vijaya Lakshmi, managing director of the Women Development Corporation of the state government.
In her welcome address at a day-long workshop on the prevention of child marriage in Bihar, she said the mean age at marriage for girls is 17.4 in the state as against 19.5 for the country.
Karachi, August 04: At least 62 people have died and 128 have been injured as angry mobs stalked the streets of Pakistan’s largest and most volatile city in unchecked violence after Monday’s killing of a MQM legislator.
Muttahid Qaumi Movement (MQM) leader and member of the Sindh provincial assembly, Raza Haider, was shot dead in Nazimabad area where he had gone to attend a funeral.
As the news spread, mobs torched more than 50 vehicles including buses and trucks and set several shops and fuel stations on fire.
Adaysseh, August 04: Israeli troops on Wednesday uprooted trees along the border with Lebanon where deadly clashes had erupted the previous day when the Jewish state tried to carry out the same operation, a correspondent witnessed.
The troops were seen using a crane that reached over a fence in a disputed border area near the village of Adaysseh and uprooting trees that were then thrown inside Israeli territory.
The same operation on Tuesday sparked a deadly border battle that killed two Lebanese soldiers and a journalist as well as a senior Israeli officer.
London, August 04: President Asif Ali Zardari has arrived here for what is expected to be a tense visit to Britain in the backdrop of Premier David Cameron’s warning that Pakistan must stop promoting “export of terror”.
Cameron, whose comments in India about Pakistan ‘looking both ways’ on terrorism sparked a diplomatic row, has also flatly rejected Zardari’s contention that the NATO forces were losing the battle in Afghanistan.
Patna, August 04: Bihar is one of the hotspots of child marriage in India as 51 percent girls there are married even before they are 18 years of age, officials said here Wednesday.
“Fifty-one percent of girls are married before they are 18 in Bihar,” said N. Vijaya Lakshmi, managing director of the Women Development Corporation of the state government.
In her welcome address at a day-long workshop on the prevention of child marriage in Bihar, she said the mean age at marriage for girls is 17.4 in the state as against 19.5 for the country.