Taking a line different from party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav who recently praised L K Advani, Uttar Pradesh minister Mohammad Azam Khan today termed the BJP veteran a leader of “weak character”.
“Advani was an accused in the Babri Masjid demolition case and he pays obeisance at the grave of Mohammad Ali Jinnah and terms himself as a secular.
–Agencies
Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad today opposed the application filed by the accused of Mumbai train blasts case seeking to call three persons — suspected members of terror outfit Indian Mujahideen — as witnesses.
Defence lawyers in the `7/11′ (train blasts) case want to call the alleged Indian Mujhahideen co-founder Mohammed Sadiq Israr Sheikh, alongwith Arif Badruddin and Ansar Ahmed as witnesses during the trial. These men were arrested in 2008,in connection with other blasts across the country.
Recuperating from a back problem,Australia skipper Michael Clarke kept his “fingers crossed” as far as participation in the upcoming IPL is concerned, and said he would “do as I’m told” by the medical staff in
deciding whether or not to play in the cash-rich T20 league.
“I’d be silly to make that decision (on the IPL) right now, I think I need to wait on the results, listen to the experts and then make a plan from there,” Clarke said on landing here from India, where his team was whitewashed in the four-match Test series.
At least 650 houses were gutted in separate incidents of fire in Samastipur, Begusarai and West Champaran districts of Bihar, official sources said.
The fire broke out in a heap of dried leaves and wild grass in Pataili and Shankarpur villages under Ujiarpur police station area in Samastipur and spread to adjoining habitats gutting about 250 thatched houses, the District Magistrate Navinchandra Jha said, adding fire tenders were pressed into service to douse the flames.
About two dozen villager received minor burn injuries while trying to contain the fire, he said, adding that the
A 19-year-old engineering student allegedly committed suicide by jumping from a high-rise building in Thakur village in suburban Kandivali late on Sunday night, probably due to severe academic pressure, the police said.
According to the Samta Nagar police, the deceased has been identified as Pratik Ramesh Kamat (19), who jumped off
the 24th floor of Challenger Tower in the Thakur village area around 10.30 pm yesterday.
He lived in Aangan building in the same area and had gone to Challenger Tower to visit a friend.
Police today arrested seven persons and seized 170 gelatin sticks, 50 kg of ammonium nitrate and fuse wires from Nadikudi village of Guntur district.
The accused used the explosives for illegal blasting of rocks for mining, police said, ruling out any connection with Naxals or other terror groups.
———————–PTI
The Centre today ordered a probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) into the circumstances leading to the arrest of suspected Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Liyaqat Shah amid conflicting versions by Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir police.
I have asked NIA to probe the case,” Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said here.
J and K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had spoken to Shinde on Saturday and demanded a “speedy and time-bound” probe by NIA into the circumstances leading to the arrest of Liyaqat.
Madras High Court today quashed the nomination of some members to Tamil Nadu Wakf Board and issued orders to reconstitute the board and eventual election of the new chairperson within three months.
Disposing of a batch of petitions, a division bench comprising Justices R Banumathi and K Ravichandra Baabu directed that till it was reconstituted, the Chief Executive Officer shall exercise all powers and functions of the board.
–Agencies
APSRTC Managing Director A K Khan on Monday indicated that the bus pass charges of students were likely to be hiked.
Flagging off a super luxury bus in the Miyapur bus depot this morning, Khan said student bus pass charges were not increased for the past 20 years. Now, a hike in students’ bus passes has become inevitable due to steep hike in diesel. Besides, the subsidy on student bus passes has reached 90 per cent, he added.
Congress MLA Devireddy Sudhir Reddy has said no one would be able to stop him, if he wanted to join the YSR Congress party.
Responding to the rumors that he would leave the Congress and join the YSRC, Sudhir Reddy said if he chooses to do so, he would hold a press conference and tell every one about it.
Speaking to the media here on Monday, Sudhir Reddy said he felt there was no need for him to respond to rumors. Telling that Congress leaders from Delhi also asked him to deny the rumors, he said he had questioned them why he should respond to speculations.
The Telangana Rashtra Samithi has finalized four names that would represent the party in the All Party Meeting on Babli project.
TRS will be represented by Pocharam Srinivas Reddy, Vinod and Vidyasagar Rao.
The all party meet will be held tomorrow on Babli project.
–Agencies
The High Court has adjourned the case pertaining to appointment of RTI Commissioners to two weeks.
The court has said that it will combine the previous petitions and take it up after two weeks.
The appointment has become a controversy with social organizations challenging the appointment saying that it has become a political rehabilitation scheme. Some of the members were in active public life, they protesters pointed out.
The CBI special court has posted the hearing of IAS officer Sri Lakshmi’s bail petition to Tuesday.
Sri Lakshmi, accused in OMC mining case, has applied for extension of her interim bail on health grounds. She surrendered before the court on expiry of her bail period.
The Court said that a decision would be taken only after the jail authorities submit her medical report given by Osmania and Gandhi hospitals.
–Agencies
Shiv Sena on Monday opposed the move to pardon Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt stating that it would send a wrong message to the society.
Speaking in the legislative council during a debate on law and order scenario in Maharashtra, Shiv Sena MLC Neelam Gorhe said, “There should not be a rethink on the Supreme Court’s judgement. It will send a wrong message to the society if Dutt is pardoned,”.
The Supreme Court, had on March 19, upheld his conviction under Arms Act for illegally possessing prohibited weapons including an AK-56 rifle and sentenced him to five years of imprisonment.
A South African neuroscientist is building the world’s first digital brain in order to uncover new information on mental disorders.
“What we are developing is a new foundation, a new instrument – a telescope – that will allow one to look deep into the brain, offering a more systematical approach to any disease,” Professor Henry Markram told the Sunday Times.
The Congress on Monday said Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav’s remarks that the future belongs to coalition governments do not bother it. Besides, there was nothing new in it, he added.
“He has not said this for the first time. Some regional parties only follow power politics and such remarks don’t bother us,” Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh told reporters here.
He said the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government is only bothered about the welfare of the people.
An Army Court of Inquiry (CoI) has recommended disciplinary action against 168 personnel, including the then Commanding Officer (CO) of an artillery unit for their role in a clash between officers and jawans in May last year in Nyoma in Ladakh.
The Northern Army Commander has confirmed the recommendations by the CoI for disciplinary action against 168 personnel including three other officers, 17 Junior Commissioned Officers (JCOs) and 147 jawans, Army sources said here.
Terming the emergence of a Third Front as “the most enduring mirage of Indian politics”, Congress Monday said the UPA government at the Centre is “absolutely stable.”
“In politics you always have different experiments which keep unfolding at different points in time. But if you look at the history of the past 20 years, the history of coalition politics in India, the reality is that a Third front or a Fourth Front or a Fifth Front has been the most enduring mirage of Indian politics,” Union Minister and Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari said.
Senior BJP leader LK Advani on Monday said the collegium system of appointing Supreme Court judges should be revisited to include the Executive in the process as reports of corruption, nepotism, favouritism and other ills have been gaining ground in the judiciary.
In his latest blog posting, Advani cited views of retired Supreme Court judges Rumal Pal and JS Verma as well as the Law Commission report to insist that the present collegium system- comrpising of Chief Justice of India and the four senior-most judges of the Supreme Court- is not adequate.
It is not the “three Cs– CAG, CVC and CBI” but “private greed” which is coming in the way of good decision making and these agencies were only asking questions in public interest as in cases of 2G, CWG and mining, Vigilance Commissioner R Srikumar said here on Monday.
“When we enquire… We find that private greed is coming in. As is the case of 2G. If that much mind boggling profits have been made, then who made it?,” Srikumar said.
Speaking at a function organised by Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), Srikumar said problem comes in when public interest is compromised.
The Thane police have booked a six people including the Kalyan (E) independant MLA Ganpat Gaikwad on the alleged charges of threatening a cable operator with a revolver and bashing him up, the police said today.
Gaikwad controls the cable TV business in Kalyan town and enjoys much clout among politicians in the district.
Congress Monday dismissed Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav’s view that coalition politics has come to stay in the country, saying he has not said “something new” and the party is not “bothered.”
“We work according to the situation, Whatever he (Yadav) has said is not something new,” Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh said.
Yadav had said yesterday that the era of one-party rule was over and the future belongs to coalition governments.
The US military is still weighing its lessons a decade after the start of America’s invasion of Iraq.
The tanks that went roaring into Baghdad on the so-called ‘Thunder Run’ were the epitome of American firepower.
According to CBS News, American military commanded by then-Colonel David Perkins tore through enemy fighters faster than they could react.
Perkins said that the higher the rate of battle the better it was for them.
Thousands of personal letters by 19th-century naturalist Charles Darwin, including an unpublished account of watching his beloved daughter-in-law die an agonising death in childbirth, will be released to the public online for the first time.
The Cambridge University project will begin with a correspondence – some 1,400 letters – with his closest friend, the botanist Joseph Hooker.
A 9-year-old girl crawled out of a mangled sport utility vehicle, climbed out of a canyon and walked about a mile in the middle of the night to find help after surviving a highway crash that killed her father in Southern California, authorities said.
The 2010 Ford Escape was launched about 60 meters down an embankment along a semi-rural stretch of highway about 1 am Sunday, said the California Highway Patrol. The vehicle overturned several times.