Month: November 2011

Mumbai, November 12: After Shah Rukh Khan`s `RA.One` and Ranbir Kapoor`s `Rockstar`, Bollywood is set to roll out some of its big releases like `Dirty Picture`, `Don 2` and `Desi Boyz` this year.

The jury is still out on the box office performance of Shah Rukh Khan`s mega budget sci-fi `RA.One`, which was aggressively promoted by the actor.

SRK, however, has another chance to prove that he is still the `King of Bollywood` with `Don 2`, his second outing this year.

New Delhi, November 12: Swami Agnivesh, who had a bitter fallout with anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare, has said he wants to apologise to the Gandhian if he has made any mistake.

Agnivesh, who ended his two-day stint on reality show Bigg Boss last night, said he would like to meet him as soon as possible.

“I will say sorry if I have said or done anything wrong. I will try to meet him as soon as possible. With all respect and humility I will apologise to him at the earliest opportunity,” Agnivesh said.

New Delhi, November 12: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will address Peoples’ Majlis in Male on Saturday, becoming the first foreign Head of Government to address the Maldivian Parliament in its 78-year-old history.

The PM is on Maldives to take part in the SAARC Summit, which concluded yesterday.

On Thursday, PM Singh had held talks with his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani.

Also on Friday, the PM met Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his Nepalese counterpart Baburam Bhattarai. The talks focussed on bilateral relations.

—-Agencies

Washington, November 12: Shots were fired on Friday night between the White House and the Washington Monument, said reports.

Police are probing the shoot out and have closed a stretch of Constitution Avenue near the White House. They have also recovered an AK-47 assault rifle.

Sgt David Schlosser of the US Park Police said the White House did not appear to have been the focus of the incident.

Secret Service spokesman Edwin Donovan said witnesses heard shots and saw two vehicles racing on Constitution Avenue toward 17th Street.

Hyderabad, November 12: Kadapa MP Jagan Mohan Reddy’s firm Jagathi Publications is under scanner. Value of Jagathi Publications was allegedly overstated by Rs 1,000 crore at Rs 3,500 crore

In what is being called another Satyam-like scam, auditing firm Deloitte reportedly admitted to fudging the accounts of the Kadapa MP Jagan Reddy-owned media house Jagathi Publications.

The company reportedly told a Hyderabad court it had pumped up the value of Jagathi by one Rs 1000 crore from Rs 2,500 to Rs 3,500 crore in April 2008.

Srinagar, November 12: Terming the alleged conversion of Muslim youths to Christianity here as “grave”, Moderate Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq on Friday said a committee has been formed to look into the matter.

“It (conversion of youth to Christianity) is a grave issue. Being the religious head and Mirwaiz, I am fully aware of my responsibilities.. a committee has been formed and assigned the job to collect all details,” Mirwaiz said addressing a Friday congregation at Jamia Masjid here.

New Delhi, November 12: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to stay investigation against suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt facing charge of hacking the email account of Gujarat Additional Advocate General Tushar Mehta.

It was based on the email transcripts recovered from Mehta’s email account that Bhatt had mounted attack on Chief Minister Narendra Modi accusing him of playing a crucial role in instigating the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat.

November 12: A mother has been ordered to stay away from her children, rightfully, after she was charged with felony child endangerment. Furthermore, if stupidity were a crime, she’d probably do 15 to life for that alone.

Los Angeles, November 12: A Los Angeles couple welcomed a baby boy at 11:11 a.m. today at Glendale Memorial Hospital, the only baby born in the facility at the time to coincide with the date of 11-11-11.

Bayron Baez, 8 pounds and 30 ounces, was born naturally this morning, said Ryan K. Lee, the doctor who delivered the boy.

“It was kind of coincidental, a little bit of luck and it just happened to be at that time,” Lee said.

Lee said some patients requested that they deliver their baby on Friday.

Sardarpura, November 12: “In the 400-year history of this village, we had never experienced communal tension between Hindus and Muslim before 2002. In fact, Muslims and Hindus had lived in this village so peacefully that it could be a model village for communal harmony,” said Munsafkhan Pathan, retired police official and one of the prime witnesses to Sardarpura massacre case.

Nowhere have the Muslims felt more at home in India than in Hyderabad. This is not just because of sheer numbers – 40 per cent of the city’s population is Muslim (around 27 per cent in Greater Hyderabad) – but also because a culture that is a synthesis of local and traditions derived from Islam dominates the region. But in the aftermath of the integration of Hyderabad into India it was not like this. The years that followed 1948 were years of confused identity for the Hyderabadi Muslim.

Kuala Lumpur, November 12: Two Malaysian states are set to change their Islamic laws to punish Muslims who engage in homosexuality, raising the prospect of gay Muslims being punished twice and stoking concerns about rising intolerance towards same-gender relationships.

Homosexuality is punishable by law in Malaysia by caning and up to 20 years in jail, but the legal amendments planned by Pahang and Malacca religious authorities would give the state governments additional ammunition.

New Delhi, November 12: The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the Andhra Pradesh Government and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) on a petition complaining that normal activities in the state have come to a standstill due to the Telangana statehood agitation.

New Delhi, November 12: With global oil rates softening, state-owned oil companies may next week cut petrol price by about Rs. 0.80 per litre which could be the first reduction since January 2009.

Global oil prices fell sharply today and if rates sustain and the rupee does not depreciate any further, a reduction of Rs. 0.60 a litre in petrol prices (excluding taxes) is possible, an official said.

New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in December, retreated 23 cents to $ 97.55 per barrel. Brent North Sea crude for December delivery shed 61 cents to $113.10.

Tehran, November 12: Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah says any attack on Iran will start a full-scale war in the Middle East region.

The Lebanese official said that the Israel and the US want to weaken the ‘Axis of Resistance’ by putting Tehran and Damascus on the defensive.

“The [US] must understand that war on Iran and Syria will not remain [restricted] in these two countries but will spread to other countries in the region. We are not issuing any threats but this is the reality,” he added on Friday.

Toronton, November 12: Toronto’s zoo is splitting up a pair of male penguins whose affection has drawn headlines and jokes about “Brokeback Iceberg.”

The African penguins have shared the nest they built since coming to the zoo about a year ago. But since the penguins are an endangered species, zoo officials plan to separate Pedro and Buddy so they can mate with females.

The pair has what’s known as a “social bond,” but it’s not necessarily sexual, Tom Mason, the zoo’s curator of birds and invertebrates, said Wednesday.

Melbourne, November 12: A Sydney escort agency that is selling the virginity of a teenage girl for thousands of dollars has sparked outrage among community groups

The group claims that this move is “putting women’s liberation back centuries”.

According to The Daily Telegraph, an investigation by sex industry consulting firm Brothel Busters has found MyOutCall Australia is offering the Chinese 19-year old student for four days in exchange for the 15,000 dollars sum, News.com.au reported.

Washington, November 12: A United States soldier, who admitted cutting and keeping fingers from corpses as war trophies, has been sentenced to life by a military court in Washington for being the leader of a thrill team that killed three Afghan civilians for fun.

A five-member military panel found Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs guilty at the end of a week-long court martial on Thursday, and said he should serve at least 10 years behind bars before being eligible for parole.

London, November 12: A nurse was sentenced three years in jail Friday for killing her baby by force feeding — the first such case in Britain.

Gloria Dwomoh, 31, was found guilty at the Old Bailey last month of causing or allowing the death of 10-month-old Diamond, the Daily Mail reported Friday.

The mother was said to be obsessed with the baby’s weight. She poured liquidised food down her throat with a jug when she was weaning her.

The incident occurred in March last year. The baby died she was taken to a hospital near her home in Waltham Forest, east London.

Yemen, November 11: At least 13 people were killed in heavy fighting in the Yemeni city of Taiz on Friday, a day after a U.N. envoy began a new mission to push President Ali Abdullah Saleh to quit under a Gulf peace plan.

Witnesses and medical staff said at least 30 people were also injured in the fighting between Saleh’s Republican Guards and opposition tribesmen in Yemen’s third largest city, a hotbed of anti-Saleh protests some 200 km (120 miles) south of Sanaa.

New Delhi, November 11: With Congress praising Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for rebuffing Team Anna on the state Lokayukta Bill, lawyer Shanti Bhushan on Friday wondered whether there was a deal between him and the ruling party at the Centre.

Stung by Kumar’s terse response to their criticism of Bihar Lokayuta Bill, Bhushan said there were expectations that a “very good person” like the Bihar Chief Minister will bring a strong Lokayukta law.

Mumbai, November 11: Indian Navy patrolling the Gulf of Aden yesterday thwarted a multi-boat attack by sea brigands on merchant vessels, apprehending 26 Somali pirates and confiscating arms and ammunition, in the fifth successful anti-piracy operation since September.

At about 9:25 Thursday morning, navy personnel aboard warship INS Sukanya spotted a group of five suspicious boats speedily approaching the merchant vessels of her group.

New Delhi, November 11: The BJP on Friday said the fall in industrial production, along with dip in other growth indices, shows that the country’s economic scenario is grim and wanted a discussion on the issue in Parliament.

“Index of Industrial Production (IIP) has come down to 1.9 per cent in September. Last September (2010) it was 6.1 percent. Industrial growth has come down from April to September this year,” BJP leader Yashwant Sinha told reporters.

Maldives, November 11: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday held talks with his Nepalese counterpart Baburam Bhattarai here and is understood to have assured him about the early signing of a bilateral double taxation avoidance pact.

The two leaders met on the margins of the 17th SAARC Summit in this picturesque Maldivian island, nearly three weeks after their talks in Delhi during Bhattarai’s maiden official visit to India.

Washington, November 11: The soldier accused of being the ringleader of a rogue Army unit that killed three Afghan civilians last year for sport, crimes that angered Afghan leaders and villagers and rattled high levels of the American military, was found guilty of all charges on Thursday.