A youth was killed and four others injured when a defective coffee machine exploded at a marriage function in Akbar Dedua village in Jaidpur area, police said today. Sudhir was killed, while Ashish, Lalit, Amit and Gazi were injured last night, police said. The injured were rushed to hospital where condition of three of them was stated to be critical, they said. PTI
A controversial bill that will give Pakistan’s intelligence agencies sweeping powers to conduct surveillance and collect electronic data has been passed by both houses of parliament, paving the way for it to be signed into law by the President. The Fair Trial Bill 2012, which has been criticised by rights groups for posing a threat to privacy and civil liberties, was passed by the Senate or upper house of parliament on Friday. It was passed by the National Assembly or lower house of parliament on December 20.
Former India cricket captain Sourav Ganguly has challenged before the Calcutta High Court a service tax claim of over Rs three crore, which was charged during his term with the Kolkata Knight Riders for IPL and playing for Team India. “While the original claim is of Rs 1.51 crore for the period between April, 2006 and March, 2010, another Rs 1.51 crore is in the form of 100 per cent penalty on the amount, which we have challenged before the high court,” said his counsel Amitava Mitra from the law firm Sinha and Company.
Former military ruler Pervez Musharraf kept such a tight lid on intrusions by Pakistani troops into Indian territory in Kargil in 1999 that the ISI learnt of the development when it intercepted Indian Army communications, a retired general says in his new book. Lt Gen (retired) Shahid Aziz, who headed the analysis wing of the Inter-Services Intelligence at the time, writes that when he brought “strange wireless intercepts” to the notice of then ISI chief, Lt Gen Ziauddin Butt on May 3 or 4, 1999, he asked Aziz to keep the documents with himself.
Superstar Salman Khan, who has been given the first ever Brand Endorser of the Year Award instituted by International Advertising Association, said he promotes only those products which he used. “I endorse only those products that I use,” Salman said at an IAA Leadership Awards function here late last evening. The 47-year-old actor has endorsed a number of products and is also the brand ambassador of some companies. “When I endorse a product, that means I am telling the public that you should also wear it, eat it or use it.
Amid support for the all-girls rock band of Kashmir pouring in from all sections of the society, Grandmufti of Jammu and Kashmir Bashiruddin Ahmad today termed singing as “un-Islamic” and asked them to abandon it. The Grandmufti issued a decree here today, terming singing as un-Islamic. “I have said that singing is not in accordance with Islamic teachings,” Ahmad told PTI. The cleric said he has advised the members of the rock band to “abandon” singing as it is against Islamic teachings and will not help them in playing any constructive role in the society.
BJP president Rajnath Singh today described Narendra Modi as a “very capable and popular leader” even as the VHP demanded that the Gujarat Chief Minister’s name be announced as the party’s prime ministerial candidate.
Rajnath, however, conceded that at this stage, it was hard to zero in on a candidate acceptable to entire NDA and maintained that the decision in this regard would be taken by the party’s Central Parliamentary Board (CPB).
Five employees of the East Central Railway (ECR) have been suspended for allegedly misbehaving with Bihar MLA Sivesh Kumar and his wife on a moving train, sources said today. Action was taken against four Travelling Ticket Examiners (TTE) and a booking clerk as they had allegedly misbehaved with the BJP MLA and his wife in an AC two-tier coach of the Danapur-Howrah Express on Friday after the train left Patna. Two of the five were detained for questioning.
Leading Pakistani journalist Ayesha Haroon has died in New York after a four-year battle with cancer at the age of 46, her family said today. Haroon’s husband Faisal Bari, her brothers and her mother were by her side when she died yesterday. Her body will be flown to Lahore on Wednesday and she will be buried the next day, her family said. A former editor of The News daily, Haroon started her career with the Frontier Post. She later joined The Nation and worked in editorial positions in various media organisations in Lahore and Islamabad. In 2007, she joined The News as its editor in Lahore.
A bandh was observed today in Nepal’s southeastern city of Biratnagar to protest the killing of a prominent Nepalese businessman who was found murdered in India after being kidnapped for ransom. Gangabisan Rathi, a 69-year-old businessman from Nepal’s Biratnagar, was abducted for ransom by Chandra Kumar Chudal, chief of Shiva Sena Nepal, and two other accomplices Surendra Kumar Mishra and Abhijit Basu from West Bengal.
Australian allrounder Glenn Maxwell was the biggest earner at the IPL 2013 auction here on Sunday, attracting a price tag of a million dollars from the Mumbai Indians.
The other big winners were Sri Lankan Ajantha Mendis (725,000 dollars), Australian Kane Richardson (700,000 dollars), Mumbai all-rounder Abhishek Nayar and Sri Lankan Thisara Perera (675,000 dollars each), South African all-rounder Chris Morris and Sri Lankan Sachitra Senanayake (625,000 dollars) and (Australia and The Netherlands fast bowler Dirk Nannes (600,000 dollars).
A stray snake disrupted the valedictory function of the International Buddhist conference for several minutes at Udayagiri conference hall in Jajpur district of Odisha today. A foreign delegate first spotted the reptile. On hearing about presence of snake, everybody got panicked, stood up and ran helter skelter before it was caught by police personnel on duty. About 200 scholars, researchers, Buddhist monks, academicians, travel agents, and hoteliers from India and abroad attended the three-day event that concluded today.
A 15-year-old tribal girl, student of a residential (ashram) school in Chhattisgarh’s Jashpur district, was allegedly raped by the husband of her school superintendent, police said. Mejharan Toppo, superintendent of the Gutakiya Residential School, and her husband Sunil Toppo have been booked, police said, adding a team of police officials has been sent to arrest the duo.
Film actors Salman Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Sonali Bendre, Tabbu and Neelam will appear before a court here in connection with the blackbucks poaching case of 1998. The court will read out the revised charges to all the actors, who are accused of killing two blackbucks on the intervening night of October 1 and 2 in Kankani village during shooting of the film ‘Hum Saath Saath Hain’. In September last year, the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (District) had framed Salman Khan under Section 51 of Wildlife Act, Section 27 of Arms Act and Section 148 (rioting and use of deadly weapons) of IPC.
The true number of Muslim immigration living in Britain has been revealed in new census figures.
The Office for National Statistics said that the number of neighborhoods that have a majority of Muslim residents has nearly doubled over the past decade.
The figures found that there are now 38 wards in England and Wales where Muslim residents made up more than 50 percent, up from 20 wards on 2001, the Daily Star reports.
According to the census, in the past seven years the number of Muslims living in the UK has risen by 37 percent to 2.6 million.
A 20-year-old BTech Electronics student of the National Institute of Technology (NIT) in Raipur, allegedly committed suicide by hanging herself in her hostel room on Sunday, the police said. The police identified her as Nagpur resident Neha Patil, who was doing her fourth semester in the institute. “The incident came to light after the girl did not respond to repeated knocking on her door in the evening,” the police said. “Later, authorities apprised the Saraswati Nagar police station after which cops rushed to the institute and discovered her body hanging from the ceiling,” the police said.
Rajauli in Nawada district and three other sites were under consideration for establishment of nuclear power plant in Bihar, Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Ratan Kumar Sinha said today. The final decision would be announced soon, he said. The Centre had proposed establishment of a 2800 MW power plant at Rajauli but when the state government expressed its inability to supply water for the project, the site could not be finalised. “Talks on Rajauli is on, it is not rejected,” Sinha said addressing a function at his alma mater Bihar College of Engineering-NIT.
Massive protest from the workers of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) on Sunday, forced the organisers of the fashion week here to cancel the event.
The members of the Hindu outfit staged their protest after a designer displayed his dresses with the image of god Ganesha.
According to the local police, the VHP had lodged a complaint against the organisers and the event had to be called off.
Scores of activists and their leaders belonging to various parties today took out a protest march to Raj Bhawan in a show of solidarity with APMCC chairman Vinod Pandit, who is sitting on a fast in Gujarat for various demands concerning Kashmiri Hindus. All Parties Migrants Co-ordination Committee (APMCC) chairman Vinod Pandit’s indefinite hunger strike at Porbandar in Gujarat entered fifth day today. The protest was lead by senior APMCC activist Sanjay Koul. Similar protests were also held in Delhi, Mumbai, Karnataka, Chandigrah, Phagwara and in Porbandar.
The Telangana Joint Action Committee (JAC) today announced plans to block highways and organise a ‘Chalo Assembly’ during this month and early March as part of intensifying the separate statehood agitation. The Hyderabad-Bangalore road and the Hyderabad-Vijayawada highway would be blocked on February 24 and March 2 respectively, JAC Chairman M Kodandaram told reporters here after a meeting of the committee. The JAC would organise a massive ‘Chalo Assembly’ programme during the Budget session of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly, which is likely to take place in the third week of March, he said.
Senior Congress leader and former Andhra Pradesh minister Sarojini Pulla Reddy passed away here today. Reddy, who was also a member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), had been unwell for sometime and breathed her last this morning at her residence here at the age of 85, Congress sources said. She had served as a state minister, holding different portfolios. The last rites, attended by her family members and several Congress leaders, were performed this evening. Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and other senior leaders have condoled her death. PTI
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Sunday demanded a CBI probe into the assets of Anil Kumar, son-in-law of late Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy.
The party has alleged that the evangelist amassed huge assets by floating 11 companies when Rajasekhara Reddy was the chief minister from 2004 to 2009.
BJP spokesman N.V.S.S. Prabhakar told reporters that Anil Kumar also invested hundreds of crores in other companies and committed irregularities.
Mainstream Left parties today slammed the UPA government for its alleged “anti-people” policies that have shaken the country’s socio-economic fabric. Addressing a joint public convention here, CPI(M-L) Liberation General Secretary Deepankar Bhattacharya lashed out at the UPA government and its predecessors for “mindlessly pursuing” economic reforms, which had helped corporates amass wealth and led to price rise and inflation. The Congress-led UPA government has also come a cropper on the law and order situation with crime against women and poor rising, he alleged.
Vodafone India has urged the government to immediately allocate the spectrum that it won in November 2012 auction, alleging that the airwaves were being used by the operators whose licences were cancelled on the Supreme Court’s directive.
In a letter to the department of telecom (DoT), released to media Sunday, Vodafone India said that there was an undue delay in allocation of spectrum.
The India unit of the British telecom giant Vodafone had participated in the 1800 MHz auctions held in November 2012 and acquired spectrum in 14 service areas at an auction price of Rs.1,127.94 crore.
The BJP should talk to other parties in the NDA to decide the alliance’s prime ministerial candidate in the wake of disparate views on the issue, Janata Dal-United MP Ali Anwar Ansari said Sunday.
Ansari, a Rajya Sabha member of the JD-U, told IANS that some Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders appear to be in a hurry to propose the name of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate but other alliance partners have indicated they have their own views on the matter.