Month: February 2013

Several Bollywood biggies including Amitabh Bachchan, Kajol and Sridevi turned up at the premiere of legendary singer Asha Bhosale’s debut Hindi film ‘Mai’. The singer would be seen as an actor in debutant director Mahesh Kodiyal’s film. Also present were Anil Kapoor, his daughter Sonam, Shatrughan Sinha, Poonam Dhillon, Riteish Deshmukh and Sukhwinder Singh. The film is about a woman, who is abandoned by her son. “I am here to give good wishes to Ashaji,” Bachchan told reporters. Anil Kapoor said, “I am looking forward to working with Ashaji and Padmini.

A local court today sentenced three persons to life imprisonment for murdering a man in 2009. Additional District Judge V, Sanjay Kumar Singh passed the order and also imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 on each of the three men after finding them guilty in a murder committed on August 4, 2009. The victim was shot dead by the three at Meha village of Begusarai district following a dispute between them and his brother had lodged a named FIR against them. In another case, a Munger court sentenced a man to life imprisonment for murdering a person in 2011 at Rahmatpur village. PTI

Bones, skulls and other human remains were found while a pond was being dug up at Anadapur in West Midnapore district today. The skeleton parts were found during the digging of pond at Rajugram area and cases of unnatural death were lodged, said Superintendent of Police P Sunil Chowdhury. The Trinamool Congress alleged the body parts were of the party men missing since 2003 and they had been killed by CPI(M). The party said it would hold protest rally on February 2. PTI

A five member gang was arrested on charges of murdering a home maker after robbing her of jewels at her home in the neighbouring Reddiarpalayam, police said today. Police sources said the accused, all in the age group of 19 to 24 years, had contacted the woman over mobile phone and asked her to rent her house to them. They also gained entry into the house on January 25. They allegedly assaulted the 60 year old woman who was alone in the house. Police registered a case on a complaint from the husband and the investigation team today nabbed the five member gang in connection with the crime.

Flight operations came to a halt for two hours at the N S C Bose International airport here tonight due to technical fault of the ATC radar. Airport sources said as the monitor display went blank, three flights were diverted, while take-off of some outgoing ones was delayed. While one Jet Air flight was diverted to Dhaka, two other flights – of Air India and Indigo – were diverted to Bhubaneswar. Flight movements started again after 8:55 pm. The radar snag could also pose threat to some mid air international aircraft passing by the Kolkata sky. PTI

The Bombay High Court today asked the city police commissioner to file an affidavit explaining the rationale behind the order prohibiting MIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi from addressing public meetings here. The division bench here of justices P V Hardas and S B Deshmukh adjourned the hearing for a week. Owaisi was to address rallies here today and tomorrow.

The headmistress of the school, booked for destruction of evidence in the rape of a 7-year-old girl on the school premises, had directed the teacher to clean up the victim post the offence, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar told the state Legislative Assembly today.

“During the investigation, it was revealed that the headmistress directed the class teacher to wash the victim child to avoid any infections,” Parrikar told the House responding to the Calling Attention motion moved by independent legislator Vijay Sardesai.

A policeman was shot dead Thursday by unidentified assailants in Uttar Pradesh’s Mainpuri district in the parliamentary constituency of the ruling Samajwadi Party’s chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, police said.

The incident took place when policeman Ajay Yadav was bringing back two murder accused Rishi Rajput and Chandan Kumar from court to prison, Superintendent of Police Shalabh Mathur told IANS.

The policeman was attacked by car-borne assailants near Bhogaon and the murder accused fled with the attackers, he said.

Senior BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu said here today that he was not in the race for the Prime Ministerial post.

“Yesterday I was in Panjim where at a press conference I said that there were many leaders in the BJP who were capable of becoming Prime Minister,” Naidu said. Naidu said that at the press conference he had stated that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi was already a national leader who had the capabilities to become the PM.

Questioning UPA government’s commitment to root out corruption in the country, anti-graft activist Anna Hazare today said he does not trust Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi for enactment of a stringent Lokpal Bill.

“Both PM and Sonia Gandhi can no more be trusted to bring a stringent Lokpal bill to root out corruption … Had they been committed to the issue it would not have taken two years to take concrete decision in this regard,” Hazare told reporters here.

Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio today charged the Centre with ignoring the Naga political issue and alleged that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh never found time to visit the state.
“The prime minister has not visited our state in the past 10 years. He comes to Congress ruled states Assam and Manipur every alternate month but misses Nagaland,” Rio said.

He was addressing a programme to distribute tickets to ruling Nagaland People’s Front (NPF) candidates for the February 23 assembly poll and launch of the party’s manifesto.

Pakistan’s powerful army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani held a two-hour meeting with Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf against the backdrop of consultations within the ruling coalition on dissolving parliament ahead of the next general election expected to be held in May.

Kayani and Ashraf met at the Prime Minister’s House yesterday afternoon “without prior schedule”, The News daily quoted its sources as saying. Describing the meeting as important, the report said the two leaders discussed the security situation and “other subjects of national interest”.

Renowned Indian master chef Imtiaz Qureshi, whose family is credited for reviving the Awadhi cuisine, will serve up the distinctive ‘Dum Phukt’ at Abu Dhabi’s annual haute cuisine festival next month.

Gourmet Abu Dhabi is scheduled for February 5-20 across UAE’s leading restaurants, and the Indian chef will treat food lovers to his culinary abilities during the time.

Born into a family of legendary chefs to Mughul Emperors, going back to over 200 years, Chef Qureshi will be the guest chef at the five-star Beach Rotana Abu Dhabi’s Indigo restaurant from February 16-19.

Former BJP President Nitin Gadkari was today questioned for over four hours by Income Tax authorities in connection with the probe into alleged dubious investments in Purti group of companies.

Gadkari, who was earlier slated to appear tomorrow, was quizzed by Geetha Ravichandran, Director of I-T (Investigations) at the I-T office in central Nagpur’s Sadar area, sources said.

Claiming that his 1999 Kargil operation was a “big success militarily”, former President Pervez Musharraf has said that if the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had not visited the US, the Pakistani army would have “conquered” 300 square miles of India.

He defended his action to launch the operation in Kargil in the wake of fresh allegations that he masterminded the intrusions.

Ticket distribution, unity, discipline, membership and reaching out to people were some of the areas covered by Congress leaders Thursday when newly-appointed vice president Rahul Gandhi sought their views on how to strengthen the organisation for the 2014 polls.

“It (meeting) was very good… (we) discussed general things… (I) heard their views,” Gandhi told reporters after the over-two-hour-long meeting.

Relationships with the US, Russia, the ASEAN, Africa and the European Union (EU) are the pillars on which India’s foreign policy stands today, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said here Thursday.

Khurshid Thursday ended a two-day visit to Brussels after holding talks with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and with Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders, EuAsiaNews reported.

Khurshid called for a closer and deeper cooperation between EU and India not only on bilateral level but also on the international arena.