Even as her party demands the Prime Minister’s resignation, BJP leader Sushma Swaraj has asked the Government to announce cancellation of the controversial coal block allocations and institution of an independent inquiry.
The demand by Swaraj came when Congress President Sonia Gandhi called her last night in a bid to break the logjam in Parliament over the CAG report on coal block allocation.
Iran and Russia have common views on a large number of international issues and closer bilateral ties between them will facilitate regional and international peace and stability, Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani has said.
“The two countries share many interests and common views in international fields that can serve as a basis for constructive cooperation between Tehran and Moscow,” Larijani was cited by Press TV.
He was speaking during a meeting with Konstantin Shuvalov, the Russian presidential representative at the 16th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), in Tehran.
At least 15 people were killed in Syria Saturday when a booby-trapped car exploded at a restive suburb of Damascus in the evening, Xinhua reported.
It was the third car bomb blast hitting the country in a single day.
The car went off near a mosque in the Sbaineh suburb, reported state-run SANA news agency, adding that 15 civilians had been killed. The area is dominated by Palestinian refugees.
Earlier in the day, an explosive device ripped through an army officer’s car in the Damascus’s Rukn Addien district, killing the officer and injuring others, the state media said.
Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma, who introduced a new age of horror films with Ajay Devgn-starrer “Bhoot”, is all set to roll out its sequel “Bhoot Returns”.
After the success of the first part released in 2003, Varma was keen on making a sequel to be titled “Bhoot 2” and it was registered by producer Nitin Manmohan’s company.
At that time, Varma and Nitin were together. However, after they parted ways, the latter announced “Bhoot 2” with Vikram Bhatt as the director.
The CBI today arrested a SBI Global Factors (SGFL) officer attatched with its Hyderabad office, besides two senior executives of a city-based IT firm for allegedly submitting false documents to SBI for securying a Rs 15-crore loan, sources said.
The trio was apprehended by a CBI team which arrived here from Chennai and produced in a special CBI court which remanded them in judicial custody.
Two-time Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar was felicitated by the people of Chandni Chowk here Saturday.
The event was held on the main road of the cycle market which led to a chaotic situation. Lack of proper organisation led Sushil being delayed almost by half an hour as he tried to make way onto the dais through the surging crowd.
Local MP and Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal, who was supposed to felicitate Sushil, also failed to make it.
The Academy invites Applications from eligible Minority and Women Graduate candidates for one year Integrated Extensive Residential Coaching Programme for Prelims cum Mains of CSE 2013. Nominal One time fee of Rs.4,550/- towards Registration, Library, Health Centre and Deposit will be charged.
The Coaching will commence from October 8, 2012, Entrance Test for Admission will be held on September 23, 2012 at Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Srinagar. Short listed candidates will be interviewed at MANUU Campus, Hyderabad on October 3, 2012 for final selection.
An expert committee on tax laws Saturday suggested that the Indian government defer implementation of the controversial General Anti-Avoidance Rules (GAAR) until fiscal 2016-17 and abolish capital gains tax on transfer of securities to ensure investment and capital flows.
The committee, appointed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in July when he was holding the finance portfolio, in its draft report to the finance ministry recommended a series of steps which are expected to allay investor concerns.
With the death of an 11-year-old boy in Kolkata, the dengue epidemic has claimed its third victim in the state, the health department said Saturday. The number of confirmed cases has gone up to 638.
“An 11-year-old boy has died of dengue in B.C. Roy Child hospital today (Saturday). The total toll of dengue deaths in the state is three. The number of confirmed dengue cases in West Bengal has gone up to 638,” said a health department statement.
Nine-year old Sreeja Das was the first dengue victim in the state.
The epidemic first struck in the second week of August.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon has regretted that Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are yet to reach agreement on resolving Iran ‘s nuclear issue, and pressed for a “diplomatic and negotiated solution” to the prolonged problem.
“It is regrettable that Iran has [is] yet to reach agreement with the IAEA on a plan to resolve all outstanding issues,” reported Xinhua citing Ban as saying in a statement issued here Friday.
The secretary-general made the statement in response to the latest quarterly report by the IAEA on Iran’s disputed nuclear programme.
Even though India attained independence Aug 15, 1947, the country was undecided on its official national anthem on the auspicious day, an archived letter made public here Saturday has indicated.
The current national anthem, ‘Jana Gana Mana’, penned by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, was adopted and accorded the status only much later, by the Constituent Assembly Jan 24, 1950.
A few days prior to Indian independence, many district collectors of the erstwhile Bombay state (now, divided into Maharashtra and Gujarat), had written to the then chief secretary on this issue.
Around 6.5 million of the 117 million children and adolescents in Latin America and the Caribbean do not attend school, the regional office of Unicef said Friday.
Another 15.6 million youngsters currently in school may find themselves forced to drop out, according to the Unicef report, “Completing School: A Right to Grow, a Shared Duty”.
Kids who start school late and others placed in a grade lower than the appropriate one for their age are most at risk of not completing their education, the researchers found.
At least four people were killed and two others injured on Saturday morning when a US drone launched attacks in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal region of North Waziristan, reported Xinhua, citing local media.
According to local Urdu TV channel Geo News, the US pilotless plane attacked a suspected house in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan, Pakistan’s restive tribal region bordering Afghanistan.
The drone fired four missiles at the house located in the Daigan village, local media quoted intelligence sources as saying.
Two US soldiers were killed in an attack by anti-government militants in Afghanistan Saturday, the US Forces said in a statement.
“Two US Forces-Afghanistan service members died following an insurgent attack in Ghazni province, Afghanistan today,” the statement said, reported Xinhua.
However, it did not give more details, saying it is USFOR-A policy to defer casualty identification procedures to the US Department of Defense.
The army, deployed in Assam’s troubled Kokrajhar district, has started an operation to seize all illegal arms and ammunition there, informed sources said Saturday.
“The army has started an operation in the district today (Saturday). The operation will continue till all the illegal arms and ammunition are seized in Kokrajhar,” said a highly-placed source.
The sources indicated that similar operations might also be carried out in all the areas of Bodoland Territorial Areas Districts (BTAD) and in Dhubri.
Raj Thackeray’s comments threatening to brand Biharis as “infiltrators” have fuelled a controversy with leaders from various political parties slamming the MNS chief over the issue.
Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh said the Thackeray family itself belonged to Bihar and had settled in Dhar in Western Madhya Pradesh from where they migrated to Mumbai.
“If you look at the history of Mumbai, then it is a city of fishermen. Rest all have settled there from outside,” Singh said.
Intensifying the crackdown on the “terror module” busted in Karnataka, police have arrested five more suspects in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, as a probe showed that a nuclear installation and several defence establishments were targeted for attack.
With the arrest of the five suspects–four in Nanded and one in Hyderabad–who allegedly had links with the 11 people held by the Bangalore police, the number of those detained in the terror plot rose to 16.
An investigator today informed the court conducting the trial of seven men charged with involvement in the Mumbai attacks how funds were transferred from Pakistan to the US to acquire Voice over Internet Protocol connections that were used by the terrorists who stormed India’s financial hub.
Nawaz Naji, an official of the Federal Investigation Agency, informed the anti-terrorism court of Judge Chaudhry
The Syrian government Saturday released a total of 225 detainees who were arrested during the 18-month-old unrest but were not involved in acts of homicide acts, reported Xinhua, citing the state-run SANA news agency.
The released detainees are from the capital Damascus and its suburbs, according to the SANA report.
The Syrian authorities have released several batches of detainees that were arrested during the government troops’ operations on opposition strongholds and later turned out to have not committed any killings.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy today directed officials of Energy Department to conduct review meetings once in every three days for the next two months to tackle energy crisis in the State in an efficient manner. Reviewing the power situation with officials concerned at the State Secretariat, the Chief Minister asked the officials to take effective steps to meet the shortage of power and find ways and means to purchase power from power utilities, an official release here said.
The promos of ‘Barfi’ in which actressn Priyanka Chopra plays the role of a mentally challenged girl may remind viewers of Sridevi’s act in ‘Sadma’, but director Anurag Basu denies there is similarity between the two.
Basu’s directorial venture ‘Barfi’ features Ranbir Kapoor as a deaf and mute person, while Priyanka plays a mentally challenged girl.
Taking a serious note over the kidnapping of four women from Ujwala Rescue Home at Ramanthapur in the city by unidentified persons, Andhra Pradesh Minister for Women Welfare and Child Development Sunitha Lakshma Reddy today ordered a probe into the incident. The Minister directed the City Police and the Chief Secretary Women and Child Welfare Department to probe into the incident and submit a report to her. Earlier in the day, four women were abducted allegedly by a eight-member gang from Mumbai by attacking the security guards with iron rods and lethal weapons.
A team of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) today interrogated a Maoist and his associate who were arrested with sophisticated weapons used by US army two days ago in Hazaribagh district.
The NIA team, which has come from Delhi, is interrogating Maoist Anil Yadav and arms supplier Prafulla Malakar. Important information may be known about the Maoists’ international link from the duo” SP Manoj Kaushik said.
Pakistani Taliban have beheaded 12 soldiers captured during a recent attack on a security check post in the restive Bajaur tribal region and released a video showing their severed heads, a militant spokesman said Saturday.
Sirajuddin, a spokesman for the Swat chapter of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, told reporters in the country’s northwest by phone that the militants had released a video showing the severed heads of the soldiers.