Month: November 2012

A court here on Tuesday fixed January 31 next for consideration on an Action Taken Report filed by Delhi Police on a plea for lodging an FIR against NGO ‘India Against Corruption’ and its three members for allegedly making “defamatory” allegations against President Pranab Mukherjee.

Metropolitan Magistrate Ambika Singh put up the matter for consideration on the ATR after the police submitted it in the court. However, the contents of the ATR were not known.

In a shocking incident, a class IV student of a government school in Holenarasipur suffered head injury and loss of memory after her teacher threw her out of the classroom for not doing homework, officials said today.

The incident occurred on September 24 when the girl was taken to task for not doing home work given by her teacher Veerabhadrappa. Veerabhadrappa hit her and then threw her out of the classroom and her head hit the ground, Education Department sources said.

Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray was Tuesday discharged from Lilavati Hospital here after undergoing a second angioplasty Sunday, party officials said.

Uddhav, 52, underwent his first angioplasty in the same hospital July 20 and all three blockages in his artery were successfully removed after a surgery of nearly three hours.

The second procedure, a slightly simpler one, was conducted Sunday and lasted around 45 minutes.

At a meeting with Russian Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov Chairman of the State Council and the Council of Ministers of Cuba Raul Castro expressed gratitude to the Russian leadership for the aid to the Cubans, who were affected in the hurricane Sandy.

The meeting was held yesterday after the 10th session of the bilateral intergovernmental commission, which Manturov co-chairs from Russia, Russian Ambassador in Cuba Mikhail Kamynin said Tuesday.

A Myanmar drug lord and three of his subordinates were sentenced to death by a court in Southern China for the kidnapping and murder of 13 Chinese sailors on the Mekong River last year.

Another gang members received a suspended death sentence, while a sixth was sentenced to eight years prison term, according to a verdict handed down by the Intermediate People’s Court of Kunming in China’s Yunnan province.

President Vladimir Putin relieved Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov of his duties Tuesday, and appointed Sergei Shoigu as his replacement.

“Taking into consideration the situation that has emerged regarding the Defence Ministry, in order to create the requisite conditions for an objective investigation of all the issues, I made the decision to relieve Defence Minister Serdyukov of his duties,” Putin said.

Russia’s Defence Ministry has recently become embroiled in alleged real estate scams involving nearly $100 million run by subcontractor Oboronservis.

It’s a tie between President Barack Obama and his Republican rival Mitt Romney — in the first results in the presidential election from a remote hamlet in New Hampshire.

Both received five votes each in Dixville Notch in the state’s northeast corner, which has opened its polls shortly after midnight each election day since 1960, but Tuesday’s tie was the first in its history, CNN reported.

The result was unexpected, town clerk Dick Erwin was quoted as saying.

As China’s old guard walks towards the sunset, the country is poised for a new era of ‘princelings’ with a new pack of rulers, mainly offsprings of erstwhile Communist leaders, gearing up to take on the mantle

The new leaders hailing from influential families would be formally selected during the key Congress beginning on November 8. To be attended by 2270 delegates, the conference is expected to last for a week.

As America began voting Tuesday at the end of a gruelling, expensive campaign, President Barack Obama appeared to have a slight edge over Republican challenger Mitt Romney in the battleground states in what by all accounts is expected to be a cliffhanger.

The first daylight polls opened in Vermont, kicking off voting across the eastern US and parts of the Midwest as dawn broke. Several locations in Vermont opened their polls as early as at 5 a.m., while most opened an hour later.

China’s intriguing scandal relating to Bo Xilai took a new turn with revelations that Briton Neil Heywood murdered by the expelled Communist Party leader’s wife was a spy working for British secret service – MI6.

Heywood, who was closely moving with Bo and various top officials of the Communist Party as UK businessman had been providing information to the British secret service, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

The battle between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney for the White House might be hogging the limelight, but US voters will also elect the entire House of Representatives, one-third of the Senate and 13 governors in key elections Tuesday.

Republicans are expected to keep control of the House of Representatives, while Democrats were tipped to remain in sway of the Senate in today’s elections, media here reported.

The Senate’s 100 members serve six-year terms and one third of the seats are up for election every two years.

Iraqi officials say a car bomb that exploded near a military base north of Baghdad has killed 27 people and wounded more than 40.

Police say the blast struck around midday today as Iraqi troops were leaving the base in Taji, 20 kilometres, north of the capital. They say 19 soldiers are among the dead.

Hospital officials confirmed the casualties. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media.

The sister of a man suspected in the shooting of Malala Yousufzai has apologised to the teenage Pakistani rights activist, saying that her brother had brought shame to their family.

“Please convey a message to Malala, that I apologise for what my brother did to her,” Rehana Haleem said, referring to the actions of her 23-year-old brother Attahullah Khan.

“He has brought shame on our family. We have lost everything after what he did. What he did was intolerable,” Haleem said.

Emphasising that missiles and tanks can never guarantee stability and security, Pakistan’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry has said that judges have to ensure that all state institutions maintain the supremacy of the law.

“Gone are the days when stability and security of the country was defined in terms of number of missiles and tanks as a manifestation of hard power available at the disposal of the state,” Chaudhry said.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has asked Pakistan to probe the “cruel” mass culling of 21,000 Australian sheep over suspicion of disease.

Gillard used her meeting with her Pakistani counterpart Raja Pervaiz Ashraf during the Asia-Europe Summit here to tell him that Australians were distressed by “these acts of cruelty” and that she wanted the matter probed.

As many as 21,000 sheep were culled in Pakistan in September after livestock officials felt they were not fit for human consumption despite assurances from Australian diplomats that the animals were safe.

Sri Lanka’s top court has determined that a bill for livelihood upliftment, that is at the centre of tussle between the government and judiciary, be subject to a national referendum and a two thirds vote in parliament.

Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa announced the Supreme Court determination today in parliament.

The Supreme Court directive came in the background of attempts by the government to remove the Supreme Court Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake from office through a motion of impeachment.

A young man allegedly killed his wife and placed the body on a bicycle and pedalled to a police station where he surrendered himself in Odisha’s Dhenkanal district today, police said here.

25-year-old Upendra Pradhan, a truck driver, suspecting his 22-year-old wife’s marital fidelity strangled and slit her throat at Nua Analaberuni village under Tumusinga police station last night, they said.

This morning Pradhan took the body on a bicycle to the Pandua outpost where he surrendered before the police, Sub-Divisional Police Officer (Kamakhyanagar), R K Dora said.

Former team India captain Sourav Ganguly on Monday expressed his disappointment at pacer Ashok Dinda and middle order bat Manoj Tiwary not getting selected for the first two Tests of the forthcoming home series against England and said he would have picked both as a selector.

“It is disappointing to find Dinda and Tiwary are not in the squad. Dinda`s selection was important. No player in the country is more deserving than Tiwary and Dinda,” said Ganguly.

India has stressed upon the need for greater cooperation and exchange of information among nations to enhance cyber security and to address issues related to the management of the Internet.

“No nation can fight cybercrime or secure its cyberspace in isolation. Increased and focused cooperation among key players, governments, industry and international bodies, is essential to create a secure cyber space,” said an official statement quoting Communications and IT Minister Kapil Sibal’s speech at global event on Internet.

The Telangana Rashtra Samithi on Tuesday alleged that farmers from Telangana region were being discriminated in the distribution of relief and rehabilitation measures.

Global warming is causing aquatic animals to shrink 10 times more than land-dwellers in size, scientists say in the largest study of its kind.

The study by researchers from Queen Mary College, University of London, and the University of Liverpool shows that the body size of marine and freshwater species are affected disproportionately by warmer temperatures.

The findings could have implications for aquatic food webs and the production of food by aquaculture.

The Army troops deployed along the China border from Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh in northeast have reported more than 100 sightings of “Unidentified Flying Objects” (UFOs) in the last three months.

Agencies including the Army, DRDO, NTRO and the ITBP have not yet been able to identify these luminous flying objects.

Shah Rukh Khan`s ‘Jab Tak Hai Jaan’ releases on the same day as Ajay Devgn`s ‘Son Of Sardaar’ and the superstar says he is amused with the row over the two films, especially when everything had been sorted almost a year ago.

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Directed by the late Yash Chopra, ‘Jab Tak Hai Jaan’ (JTHJ) is coming out Nov 13 and ‘Son of Sardaar’ (SOS) is also releasing on the same day.

John Abraham, who showcased his biking skills in ‘Dhoom’, says modestly that close friend Mahendra Singh Dhoni is a better biker than him.

“Whenever Mahi is in Mumbai, we ride bikes together. I think he is a better biker than me. He is my closest friend whether it is from the cricketing world or from Bollywood,” John said on BIG CBS PRIME`s “India`s Prime Icon”.

John says that the Indian skipper is very grounded.

“A small town boy from Ranchi, he is very respectful. He loves his parents a lot and I feel that he is the best captain in the world,” added the actor.

Actress Esha Gupta, who broke away from her glamorous image with the role of a police officer in ‘Chakravyuh’, would now like to feature in an action-packed film.

“One major film that I would love to do in my life is a full-on action film and not the sexy kind of action. It should be a lot of action, jumping off the cars and buildings, all blood and all. I don`t know why I like such films and I feel that I can do them,” the 26-year-old said here Sunday at the Blender`s Pride Fashion show.