Islamabad, November 28: Prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani skipped a reception celebrating his son’s marriage in his hometown of Multan as he had to rush here to chair an emergency meeting to formulate Pakistan’s response to a cross-border Nato air strike that killed at least 24 soldiers. Gilani left the ‘walima’ or reception of his son Ali Musa Gilani at Multan to chair a meeting of the defence committee of the cabinet.
New Delhi, November 28: The Delhi High Court has issued a notice to Shiv Sena on the plea of a former member seeking registration of his splinter group with the Election Commission as a political party.
A bench of Justice S Muralidhar, who has now fixed the hearing on February 1 next year, issued the notice on an application to implead Shiv Sena as a party to the petition seeking a direction to the Election Commission for recognising the faction of the Maharashtra-based group headed by Bal Thackeray.
New Delhi, November 28: Anna Hazare has been given permission by the local civic body to stage protest at the Ramlila Maidan here from December 27 if a strong Lokpal Bill is not passed by Parliament during the ongoing Winter session.
The activists had applied to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) two days ago for allocation of the sprawling ground with a capacity of 30,000, and sources said they have been given the permission.
They said permission had been sought to hold the protest from December 27 to January 5.
Hyderabad, November 28: In the world of Kindle and iPads, there comes another e-gadget, but with a difference. It’s the Quran laptops that have become the latest rage among young believers, who like to slip the Q-notebook into their backpacks and tune into a chapter when they wish to.
Though this is equipped with no other software, the laptop is being lapped up by both the young and old alike. Each key is dedicated to one chapter of the Quran. When the key is pressed, the chapter opens and its recitation begins.
Mumbai, November 28: For the last few years, ace tennis star Sania Mirza has, time and again, been dragged into various controversies — be it her attire on the tennis court, her stance on pre-marital sex, a mistaken insult to the National Flag or the fuss around her marriage to Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik.
According to the athlete, every time she has tried to clear the air, her words have been twisted. That’s one reason why she’s now putting down the ‘real story’ behind all the reports published about her in a soon-to-be-launched autobiography.
Islamabad, November 28: Former Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Sunday joined cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, giving it a boost in the run up to the general election scheduled for 2013.
Mr. Qureshi, who recently quit the ruling Pakistan People’s Party after being estranged from it earlier this year, told a gathering of about 30,000 people at Ghotki in southern Sindh province that he would be part of Mr. Khan’s movement to bring about wide-ranging changes.
Jaipur, November 28: Six prisoners escaped from a jail in Rajasthan during a fogging exercise to contain mosquitoes Sunday, police said. Four were re-arrested, while two are still on the run.
According to the police, the incident took place in Gangapur sub-jail in Bhilwara district, some 270 kilometers from Jaipur.
“The inmates were undertrials lodged in jail on various charges,” a police officer told.
Hyderabad, November 28: A 41-year-old man was brutally killed by some unidentified persons in the limits of Kushaiguda police station.
According to police, the incident happened near Rajiv Gruha Kalpa in Cherlapally late Saturday. The deceased, Bharadwaj, was murdered by some unidentified persons using sharp-edge weapons.
The motive behind the murder is not yet known. Police have shifted the body to the Gandhi Hospital mortuary for autopsy and started investigation.
——-Agencies
London, November 28: A growing number of Muslim students at a leading British university are avoiding lectures on evolution, saying it is contrary to the creationist ideas stated in the Quran.
Professors at the University College London, a leading multidisciplinary university, have expressed concern over the rising number of biology students boycotting lectures on Darwinist theories, which forms an important part of the syllabus, citing their religion, the Daily Mail reported.
These students include three trainee doctors in one of Britain’s leading medical courses.
Moscow, November 28: The Arab League Sunday approved sanctions against Syria in the latest bid to dissuade the Bashar Assad regime from its crackdown on dissent.
There has been mounting international pressure on Syria to end its bloody crackdown on anti-government protests.
More than 3,500 people are believed to have been killed since the protests against President Bashar al-Assad began in March.
Nineteen of the regional bloc’s 22 member nations voted in favour of the unprecedented sanctions at a meeting in Cairo. Iraq, Lebanon and Algeria voted against the move.
Karimnagar, November 28: The last rites of slained Maoist leader Mallojula Koeswara Rao alias Kishanji, who was killed in a police encounter in West Midnapur in West Bengal, were performed under tight police security at Peddapalli in Karimnagar district here on Sundays.
Kolkata, November 28: The Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) has called a two-day nation-wide bandh from December 4 in protest against what it described as “the brutal murder” of the party’s Polit Bureau member Koteshwara Rao alias Kishenji in an encounter involving joint security forces in Burisole forest in West Bengal’s Paschim Medinipur district on November 24.
A “protest week” will also be observed by the Maoists from November 29 to December 5 in this regard.
Hyderabad, November 28: Celebrities are often soft targets of stalking and their social network sites are misused many times.
Latest victim to fall prey to a hacker intruding into the social network sites is Shruthi Hassan whose facebook and gmail accounts were hacked and misused.
Reading the victim’s mail secretly is one part of the game, while sending disinformation and mischievous content is another way of harassing celebrities. The same happened with the daughter of Kamal Hassan, who played the role of technocrat in the film Dasavatharam.
New Delhi, November 28: The Delhi High court will be hearing the bail plea of DMK Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi and that of 5 others accused in the 2G spectrum scam on Monday. The arguments on the matter could not be concluded on Friday. All six accused had approached the court after the Supreme Court granted bail to five corporate executives on November 23. The Delhi High Court had observed that just because the apex court had given bail to five accused didn’t mean that there should be walk over for the other accused.
Hyderabad, November 28: Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy on Sunday stated that the government would release Rs 270 crore to solve the drinking water problem in the Malkajgiri parliament constituency.
New Delhi, November 28: Almost a year before the 1999 conflict with Pakistan, Intelligence Bureau (IB) had informed the then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee about the logistical build up by the neighbouring country along the LoC in the Kargil region, an army think tank has claimed.
“On June 2, 1998, the IB dispatched a note to the Prime Minister with details about Pakistani logistics-building efforts along the LoC in the area opposite Kargil,” says a study by the Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS).
Hyderabad, November 28: The Telugu Desam Party on Sunday alleged that Pulivendula MLA YS Vijayamma has misled the Andhra Pradesh High Court with regard to the Power Purchase Agreements in the State.
Kabul, November 28: Taliban militants, who have shunned violence, are being provided monthly cash incentive of 100 pounds, besides being given amnesty for all crimes such as murdering children, beheadings and hanging women.
“Members of the Taliban who give up their fight are being paid 100 pounds a month and will be allowed to keep their guns in a new initiative to end the insurgency,” the Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported.
Washington, November 28: American Philosopher James H. Fetzer says presidential candidate Ron Paul of Texas is “too great a threat to the corporate interests that dominate the United States media to give him a fair shake.”
“He has won one straw poll after another, one caucus after another, he’s doing extremely well in Iowa,” Fetzer said adding that if Ron Paul wins in Iowa, “the shameless performance of the American media will be exposed because they will no longer be able to ignore and suppress the information about him.”
New Delhi, November 28 (Pervez Bari): Amidst clapping of hands by thousands of delegates from almost all the states in the country the chairman of the Popular Front of India Mr. E. M. Abdul Rahman hoisted the organizational flag at 9:30 a.m. to herald the opening of the two-day Social Justice Conference, (SJC), here at Ramlila Maidan on Saturday.
Hyderabad, November 28: Protesting the killing of top Maoist leader Mallojula Koteshwara Rao alias Kishenji in West Midnapur in West Bengal in the police encounter, Maoist Central Committee on Sunday called for observing two days Bharat Bandh on Dec 4-5.
A letter released to some media organisations by Maoists’ Central Committee member and spokesperson Abhay said that the committee has took serious note on Kishenji’s “fake encounter” and described it as “cold blooded murder”.
Vijayawada, November 28: High Court Chief Justice Madan Bhimarao Lokur and other judges on Sunday had the darshan of Goddess Sri Kanaka Durga atop Indrakeeladri in Vijayawada and performed special pooja.
Apart from the Chief Justice, High Court justices M V Ramana, Justice Eswaraiah and Justice Goapala Reddy bee lined to the temple in the wee hours by taking a holy dip in the river Krishna and sought the blessings of Goddess Kanaka Durga. Chief Justice Lokur and other justices offered silk clothes to Goddess and performed special poojas.
Hyderabad, November 28: Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad has decided to provide coaching to the Muslim aspirants for the UPSC examinations for civil services. The University’s civil services coaching academy is offering coaching for minorities, especially for Muslim women for the admission into all India services, at its campus in Gachibowli.
The coaching program is for the duration of five months starting from the second week of January 2012. A total of 100 seats will be available for the entry into academy, out of which 40 seats are reserved for women candidates.
New Delhi, November 28: External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna will Tuesday open a two-day conference of passport officers from all over the country that aims at streamlining the process to enable faster processing of travel documents.
Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai will also address the conference, which enables an exchange of views and experiences among the passport officers. It’s also an occasion for senior officials of the external affairs ministry to update passport officers on the latest policy developments.
Bhopal, November 28: A sexual harassment case has been lodged against a retired deputy collector in Shivpuri district of Madhya Pradesh on the complaint of his daughter-in-law, police said Sunday.
Geetanjali, the complainant, has submitted a mobile phone video clip as a proof of her complaint.
Along with retired deputy collector Raghunandan Gautam, Geetanjali, wife of Akhilesh Gautam, has also made her brother-in-law Kaushal Gautam a co-accused in the case.