Month: January 2013

Model-turned-actress Nargis Fakhri has dismissed buzz about her marriage after reports emerged that she is set to tie the knot with actor-producer Uday Chopra.

The 33-year-old, who made her Bollywood debut with Imtiaz Ali’s 2011 film Rockstar opposite Ranbir Kapoor, took to Twitter to clear the air about her relationship status.

“Happily single and totally into my work. I am not getting married anytime soon to anyone. Who started this rumour?,” Fakhri posted.

Reports had claimed that the actress and Chopra are set to marry in March this year.

Odisha Police on Friday recovered the half-burnt body of an unidentified girl near a canal in Odisha’s Puri district but it was yet to be established if it was a case of rape.

The body dressed in a black salwar with mehendi marks on the palms was found beside the Haripur-Balanga canal, about 25 km from here.

“We have recovered the half-burnt body of a girl aged about 20 years. Her identity is yet to be ascertained,” Puri Superintendent of Police Anup Sahul told reporters here.

After shaking a leg with ace choreographer Prabhu Deva in the song ‘Go Go Govinda’ from “Oh My God”, actress Sonakshi Sinha is all set to do a retro disco number in Sajid Khan’s “Himmatwala” remake.

The song ‘Thank God Its Friday’ is inspired by the 80’s disco and will have about 100 dancers and 400 extras in it. Sonakshi will dance to choreographer Chinni Prakash’s steps and the actress will be seen wearing a dress by Bollywood’s favourite designer Manish Malhotra.

Amid growing clamour for enhanced punishment to perpetrators of the Delhi gang-rape, Congress today underlined the need for a re-look at the Juvenile Act as one of the accused in the case is a minor.

“Everyone agrees that there is a need for a re-look into it. Relooking at Juvenile Act is important into these times… the definition of juvenile has to be re-looked at particularly in connection with the crime, which has happened.

A cashier of a nationalised bank has been booked for an alleged bungling of over Rs 30 lakh in Loni area of the district.

According to Station In-charge of Loni police station, senior manager of Punjab National Bank’s Baghpat Road branch has filed a complaint against cashier Tara Singh accusing him of cheating the bank of Rs 31 lakh.

“Tara Singh gave cash receipt to customers between September 19 to 27, but did not deposit Rs 31 lakh in the bank that he got from the receipts,” the senior manager alleged.

A case has been registered and efforts were on to nab the accused.

—PTI

Pakistan Friday reiterated that it wants to resolve the issue of US drone strikes in the country through bilateral talks, a day after an unmanned aircraft killed Pakistani Taliban leader Mullah Nazir.

Nazir and five of his companions were killed Thursday near Wana town of South Waziristan when a drone fired two missiles at his vehicle.

Xinhua said Nazir’s Wazir tribe had struck a peace deal with Pakistan in 2007 and both sides were holding the agreement. However, the US had accused him of sending fighters to Afghanistan for attacks on foreign and Afghan troops.

Under fire from the West over its suspect atomic programme, Iran Friday made a strong pitch for deepening relations with India in security and economic ares saying the two countries face “common threats and interests”.

The two countries also explored the prospects of cooperation in Afghanistan in the the run-up to the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country in 2014 and beyond.

An 18-year-old girl died in a hospital here after she set herself on fire unable to withstand the harassment by a neighbour who insisted on marrying her, police said Friday.

The girl suffered 90 percent burns after pouring kerosene on herself and lighting a match to her clothes in Ramnagar in Alwar, some 150 km from Jaipur, Thursday afternoon.

Doctors had referred her to a Jaipur hospital.

At least 16 inmates from a prison in Nigeria have escaped during a jailbreak, Xinhua reported Friday.

As many as 20 prisoners at the Sagamu prison in southwest Ogun state escaped Wednesday night, Xinhua quoted Zakari Ibrahim, comptroller general of Nigeria Prisons Service, as saying. Four inmates were later re-arrested.

He described the jailbreak as unfortunate and embarrassing to the prison authorities.

He said he would ensure that any prison staff found culpable will face the full wrath of the law.

A domestic help who tried to poison his employer, a woman, and her son by lacing their chapattis with mercury, was Friday sentenced to seven years’ rigorous imprisonment by a court here.

The accused, Kuldeep Singh, who was a domestic help in the house of Shavinder Kaur, 72, wife of a former judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, was convicted by the court for serving mercury-laced food to Kaur and her son, Amarpal Singh in October 2011.

A 24-year-old man was arrested here for making an extortion call, demanding Rs.500,000, to a sitting Congress legislator’s son, said police Friday.

Suresh, who has been carrying a reward of Rs.50,000 declared by Haryana Police, was arrested from south Delhi’s Safdarjung Enclave Thursday for making the extortion call to the son of Jaswant Rana, legislator from west Delhi’s Narela.

A case regarding the incident was registered Thursday.

Breaking his silence for the first time, the Delhi gang-rape victim’s friend said he wished he could have saved the 23-year-old physiotherapist trainee, who was brutally tortured by six people in a moving bus.

“I wish I could have saved her,” the friend, who was with the young woman on the fateful night, told Zee News.

The channel also identified him as Avaindra Pratap Pandey.

The 28-year-old, who is a software engineer, said that no one came forward to help them as they were dumped on the roadside semi-clad and bloodied.

Four months after a 14-year-old teenager was found dead under mysterious circumstances here in an apartment, Delhi Police Friday added charges of murder in the case on the directions of a court.

The incident was reported from Skylark Apartments in Dwarka’s Sector 6 in west Delhi.

Delhi Police have now registered a case under Sections 302 (murder), 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 201 (disappearance of evidence) against the unknown persons. Earlier, police suspected it to be a case of suicide.

Breaking his silence for the first time since the horrific Dec 16 gang-rape, the victim’s friend said he wished he could have saved the 23-year-old woman and blamed police for delaying taking them to hospital for over two hours.

“I wish I could have saved her,” the young man, who Delhi Police have said is a 28-year-old software engineer, told Zee News in an exclusive interview.

The channel identified him as Avaindra Pratap Pandey.

Delhi Police has filed a case against Zee News for revealing the identity of the rape victim by carrying the interview of her friend.

A meeting of state police chiefs and chief secretaries here Friday did not arrive at a consensus on the issue of death penalty for rape convicts, but broadly agreed to bring down the legally defined age of “juvenile” to 16 from 18 and fast-track trials of offences against women, officials said.

The day-long conference, addressed by Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, decided to take steps including increasing representation of women in police to curb crimes against them.

Two workers died and nine others fainted today after they inhaled poisonous gas at a lead plant owned by Hindustan Zinc in Rajsamand district of Rajasthan, police said.

Enraged over the incident, workers protested outside the plant and burnt three vehicles including a police van and vandalised property, SP Rajsamand Rahul Katkey said. They also pelted stones at police leaving two policemen injured.

Katkey said some poisonous gas leaked out leaving Devi Lal and Madhav, both aged around 35 years, dead. The cause of the leakage was not known, he said.

stated to be stable.

A 16-year-old girl was attacked here with a blade allegedly by an unidentified youth, when she tried to resist his sexual advances, leaving her critically injured, police said on Friday.

The incident took place yesterday in Paraswani village under Gaurela police station area when the Class XI student was returning from school in Kodri near her native, Superintendent of Police Ratanlal Dangi said.

The accused allegedly stopped the girl on her way back home at an isolated place between the two villages and attempted to outrage her modesty, he said.

Diesel, kerosene and cooking gas prices may be hiked soon while the government may separately take up a proposal to raise cap on supply of subsidised LPG cylinders.

The government may take a look at raising the cap on supply of subsidised LPG cylinders to 9 per household in a year from current limit of six along with the Vijay Kelkar Committee recommendations to deregulate diesel prices by next year along with steep hike in cooking fuel rates.

Andhra Pradesh Police Friday registered a third case against Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) leader Akbaruddin Owaisi for his alleged hate speeches while another court directed police to book the legislator, who is away in London.

A case under Indian Penal Code Section 153 (A) (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, language and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) was registered at Osmania University police station Friday. Police took the action on the directions of a city court.

Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenage activist, who was shot in the head by Taliban for advocating girls’ education, has been discharged from a British hospital treating her, the hospital said on Friday.

Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham said 15-year-old Malala would continue her rehabilitation at her family’s temporary English home before undergoing major reconstructive surgery in a few weeks.

With NRIs from Punjab settled in various countries coming forward with problems and issues that they face in their home state, the state government Friday said a high-level panel would be formed to safeguard their interests.

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal announced the formation of the high-level committee on NRI affairs comprising five senior cabinet ministers and an equal number of Punjabi NRIs settled across the globe as representatives.

The UAE’s first commercial batch of cheese made from camel’s milk is expected to hit supermarket shelves soon after a year of test production.

The cheese, which has a two-week shelf life, has a fat content of nine grams per 100 grams, lower than many other cheeses, which typically contain between 25-35 grams of fat per 100 grams.

As camel’s milk contains less than 10 percent of solids, its yield of cheese is low, and this low yield makes the cheese expensive.

The company, Camelicious, which makes the cheese, is also preparing to export it.

Parents should resist the urge to rush to comfort their baby when it cries at night, instead, infants should be left to soothe themselves back to sleep, experts say.

In a new study, researchers asked parents of more than 1,200 infants about their children’s sleeping habits and found that by the age of six months there were two distinct groups.

Andhra Pradesh Assembly Speaker Nadendla Manohar on Friday said the “hate speech” by Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi could be referred to the Ethics Committee of the House.

“This is an issue concerning ethical conduct of a legislator. Members are expected to act with restraint, responsibility and dignity,” the Speaker told reporters here when the issue of Akbar’s last month’s controversial speech in Adilabad district came up.

The Banjara Hills police have booked a case against Abhinay, grandson of Tollywood producer Ramanaidu for assaulting a private contractor, here on Friday.

According to ACP Ravi Teja, Abhinay had asked the contractor not to cause noise at a construction site. But, when the noise exceeded tolerable limit, an enraged Abhinay manhandled the contractor, the ACP added.

–Agencies