While Bollywood filmmakers have been cashing-in on the trend of remakes and biopics, legendary actress Waheeda Rehman is not in favour of them.
Amid reports of biopics being planned on actor-filmmaker Guru Dutt and singer-actor Kishore Kumar, Waheeda feels making a biopic is not the right thing as it leads to showcasing too much of personal details of an artiste.
Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit today welcomed Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission’s observation that CAG should audit the finances of all three private power distribution companies in the national capital.
“We never opposed CAG audit of accounts of the discoms. In fact we had also said that there should be CAG audit (of discoms’ accounts),” Dikshit said.
The Chief Minister was asked about DERC chairperson P D Sudhakar’s comment that the accounts of the discoms should be audited by the CAG so that actual financial position of the private companies is known.
Maharashtra police arrested three men at a Miramar beach hotel near here in connection with an alleged ATM money heist in Ahmadnagar on July 20.
The operation was conducted jointly by the Pune-based Lonikand police station and the Panaji police, which nabbed them in a hotel with stolen cash amounting to Rs 1.16 crore.
Pramod Ingle, Sandip Kadam and Santosh Sonadkar were arrested by the Maharashtra police, solving an ATM heist that was reported near Wagholi petrol pump near Ahmadnagar.
Striking foreign service officers disrupted visa operations at Canadian embassies and consulates in cities around the world, including India, today after contract negotiations with the government broke down, their association said.
The foreign service officers have been on strike for four months, but this was the most extensive disruption yet of visa services.
The action involves Canada’s biggest visa processing centers at 15 embassies and consulates around the world.
A Panchkula court today framed charges against Ram Kumar Chaudhary, suspended Congress MLA of Himachal Pradesh for murder of a Dalit girl and his trial would begin on August 22.
The charges framed against the MLA are under section 302 (murder), sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 471 (using forged document), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information) and the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
After the district and sessions judge Ravi Kumar Sondhi ordered that charges be framed against him, the MLA pleaded not guilty.
Telangana supporters today said they would continue their struggle though a favourable statement is expected to come from the Centre on the separate statehood demand tomorrow.
Telangana Joint Action Committee (JAC) Chairman M Kodandaram told reporters the panel would go ahead with its struggle till the demand is realised and “got legal status”.
The JAC, comprising TRS, BJP and various people’s organisations, would go ahead with its plan to organise a pro- Telangana dharna here on August 1. JAC is spearheading the Telangana statehood movement.
The e-trip system introduced by Punjab government to bring transparency in transactions by traders and check tax evasion has become a bone of contention between allies SAD and BJP, which feels it might affect its vote bank in urban areas.
Punjab BJP brass led by party in-charge for state affairs Shanta Kumar, state party unit chief Kamal Sharma, ministers Chunni Lal Bhagat and Anil Joshi and veteran leader Balramji Dass Tandon met Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal here urging him to put the scheme on hold till traders’ apprehensions were addressed, party sources said here today.
Ruling BJP in Madhya Pradesh today accused the opposition Congress of adopting “dirty tricks” to malign its image by raising the issue of two of its ministers whose names found mention in a diary seized by Income Tax authorities from the premises of two mining barons.
Congress has demanded resignation of MP Public Relations and Culture Minister Laxmikant Sharma and Energy and Mining Minister Rajendra Shukla after their names found mention in a diary seized from the residence of the two businessmen associated with the ruling BJP.
Superintendent of Police of Tiruppur R Ponni and other police officials today appeared in persons before the Madras High Court in conenction with the arrest of a magistrate who allegedly cheated a woman police sub-inspector after promising to marry her.
The first bench comprising acting Chief Justice R K Agrawal and Justice M Sathyanarayana, who took suo-motu proceedings in the case, said the police officials did not follow the Supreme Court’s directions at the time of his arrest.
Before and after the arrest of the magistrate, the district Judge of the area was not appraised of it.
The BJP office here today received a letter threatening to kill 12 persons belonging to various Sangh Parivar organisations if their demand for immediate release of Abdul Nassar Madani, the Kerala-based PDP leader who is an accused in the 2008 Bangalore serial bomb blasts, was not met immedaitely, police said.
The letter sought immediate release of Madani lodged in a jail in Bangalore. It threatened to kill leaders of various organisations of BJP, including Hindu Munnani and VHP, if their demand was not met, police sources said.
A Saudi court sentenced today a rights activist to seven years in jail and 600 lashes for setting up a “liberal” network and alleged insults to Islam, activists said.
“Raef Badawi has been sentenced to seven years in jail and 600 lashes,” lawyer Waleed Abualkhair wrote on his Twitter account, adding that the judge ordered the closure of the website of the Saudi Liberal Network.
He said Badawi, a co-founder of the Saudi Liberal Network, was charged with criticising the religious police, as well as calling for “religious liberalisation”.
France’s former first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, is threatening legal action after an online petition asked her to repay nearly half a million euros used to fund her website while her husband was president.
A website developer started a petition asking her to repay 410,000 euros, the amount the website cost the French taxpayer from January 2011 to May 2012. As of today afternoon, the petition had already been signed by over 80,000 people.
The developer argues the site could have been maintained for much less, and wants the model-turned-singer to donate the money to charity.
Two persons, one of them director of a private firm, were arrested and police claimed to have busted a new gang involved in facilitating fraudulent admissions in Madhya Pradesh’s medical colleges.
They were identified as Santosh Gupta and Sudheer Rai, Deputy Inspector General Rakesh Gupta told reporters here.
Santosh, who hails from Jabalpur, was apprehended from that city while Rai is a local resident. Rai is director of a private consultancy firm which claims to help students get admission in private medical colleges in the state, he said.
A day after opposition Congress accused him of unilaterally taking decisions, Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal today said Shiromani Akali Dal always takes consent of its coalition partner BJP in the government’s functioning.
“BJP’s consent is taken in every decision of the government. BJP ministers are also part of the cabinet,” Sukhbir said here.
He was speaking at a function organised to give promotions to over 900 personnel of Punjab Police.
Taking a stand contrary to his party’s official line, TDP leader and ex-Minister Kodela Siva Prasad today opposed bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, saying such a step would be “disastrous” for the state.
In May this year, TDP President N Chandrababu Naidu had asserted that his party was not against creation of a separate state of Telangana and it was up to the Centre to take a decision on the contentious issue.
Prasad, who opposed separate Telangana, urged the central leadership of Congress not to divide Andhra Pradesh.
The Israeli and Palestinian delegations to renewed peace talks have agreed in principle to continue negotiations for at least nine months, the US State Department said today.
“They have all agreed to focus on having talks not just for the sake of talks, but this is the beginning of direct final status negotiations on a nine-month, at least a nine-month, timetable,” Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
“They have agreed to work together through the course of that time,” she added, speaking as the delegations arrived in Washington ahead of a dinner to mark the resumption of talks.
With seven consecutive Gram Sabhas held in hill slope tribal villages rejecting a proposal to allow bauxite mining on Niyamgiri Hills, ruling BJD today accused AICC spokesman and MP Bhaktra Charan Das of influencing tribals against the mining project.
Like the six previous gram sabhas, residents of Phuldumer in Kalahandi district today rejected the proposal of mining claiming that their religious and cultural rights would be affected due to mining on Niyamgiri Hills.
Taliban insurgents wearing police attacked a prison holding hundreds of militants in northwest Pakistan with bombs, rockets and mortars and have reportedly escaped with prisoners after a gunfight with security forces.
The attack around midnight yesterday, targeted the Central Prison in Dera Ismail Khan of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering the restive South Waziristan agency, hours before Pakistani lawmakers are expected to vote for the country’s new president.
At least six people were reportedly killed in a series of explosions that rocked the Christian neighbourhood of Sabon Gari in Nigeria’s second largest city, Kano.
Residents said that the attackers, suspected to be Boko Haram insurgents, carried out four big explosions yesterday targeting pubs on Enugu street.
Nigeria is fighting an Islamic uprising by extremists group Boko Haram based mainly in the northeast, where the government has declared a state of emergency.
A summer Carnival-like celebration in Haiti has turned violent. Haitian police spokesman Gary Desrosiers says 183 people were injured in street fights on the first day of the “Carnival of Flowers.”
One man also died when he fell off a float.
Haitian President Michel Martelly revived the “Carnival of Flowers” last year so the capital of Port-au-Prince could have its own Carnival-like party. His administration has moved February’s Carnival fete to cities outside the capital in the hopes of developing the countryside.
Attacks mainly targeting Shiite-majority areas of Iraq killed at least 57 people today, and security forces killed 10 militants, officials said, as the interior ministry warned of civil war.
Iraq is witnessing its worst violence since 2008, when the country was emerging from a bloody sectarian conflict.
More than 800 people have now been killed this month, and over 3,000 since the beginning of the year, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources.
With his ‘frank’ opinion on Narendra Modi and L K Advani leaving many leaders in BJP red faced, actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha today said he did not violate party discipline and stuck to his remarks.
‘It is wrong to see my statement as anti-Narendra Modi or pro-Modi…It is pro-BJP,’ Sinha, a Lok Sabha member from Patna Saheb, told PTI.
In a bid to reach out to Muslims, BJP today insisted that it is not against the community and accused the Congress of creating a fear psychosis in the minds of the minorities about the party coming to power.
The main opposition party asked its cadres to prepare for Lok Sabha elections, saying these could be held this year rather than next year.
The recent resignations of 16 YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) MLAs in support of a united Andhra Pradesh have not gone down well with its leaders in Telangana.
Former minister and a prominent party leader from Telangana, Konda Surekha, and her husband Konda Murali, have taken exception to the resignations of YSRCP MLAs.
The resignations were against the spirit of a resolution passed by the party, they said.
Surekha released an open letter addressed to party chief Jaganmohan Reddy here today, finding fault with the way the party is being run.
–PTI
Mounting pressure on the Akhilesh Yadav government, IAS officers in UP today rallied behind a woman colleague, who was suspended after she cracked down on the sand mafia, and demanded revocation of the order following which the chief minister promised to look into the issue.
As the issue snowballed into a major controversy, Akhilesh, who is on a visit to Karnataka, said in Chitradurga, “Once I get back (to Lucknow) tomorrow, I will look into the issue. There shouldn’t be any debate on suspension.” He was asked by reporters whether he would consider revocation of the suspension order.