New Delhi, October 20 : Making a fresh offer, Union home minister P Chidambaram today said Government was willing to open talks with the Maoists provided they “abjure” violence which, he said, was the only hurdle to hold the dialogue.
Chidambaram also said Naxalism cannot be bracketed with terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir and insurgency in the north-east and suggested that Maoists needed to be treated differently.
Srinagar, October 20: Asserting that his government was keen to encourage investment in the state, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today said a plan has been worked out to create favourable atmosphere to encourage investors.
“Three important ingredients essential to encourage investors in the state are conducive security environment, image and potential of the state and infrastructure available.
My government is working on all the three fronts vigorously,” Omar said while interacting with a visiting Confederation of Indian industry delegation.
Greater Noida, October 20: A 20-year-old Dalit woman has been allegedly gangraped by robbers at a farm house in Dadri area here, police said.
According to the complaint lodged by the woman, six robbers struck the farm house in Katehra village yesterday and allegedly gangraped her after robbing cash and jewellery from there, they said.
The woman and her husband were staying there in a servant quarter.
–Agencies
New Delhi, October 20: Making it amply clear that the government was completely against any control of the media or censorship, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Ambika Soni today said she had initiated a discussion on how an autonomous body can look into all media-related issues.
New Delhi, October 20: Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni Tuesday said she was hopeful of cabinet approval for phase III of FM radio that will also include first-ever broadcast of news bulletins on private radio channels.
“The cabinet approval should happen before year-end,” Soni said when she was asked about timeline for rollout of FM-III radio policy.
Soni was speaking at an interactive discussion on media, organised by PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry here.
Mumbai, October 20: The macho man of Bollywood Salman Khan said that he is fed up of giving his grudges with Shahrukh Khan a “National Issue”. He also said that he doesn’t talk to King Khan but why it has been hyped as a national issue.
the dashing actor also stated that it’s not an issue of India and Pakistan, that it has been hyping it this much. We should concentrate on other important issues of our country. He really wants to get rid of questions asked by media that what actually happened between him and Shahrukh Khan at the birthday bash of Katrina Kaif.
Paris, October 20: Merck and Co’s failed AIDS vaccine may not have worked, but it probably did not raise the risk of infection either, doctors said on Tuesday.
Data analyzed after the large clinical trial was stopped in 2007 contradict earlier findings that suggested some groups, such as uncircumcised men, may have been more vulnerable to infection if they got the vaccine, Dr. Susan Buchbinder of the San Francisco Department of Public Health told an AIDS vaccine conference.
Washington, October 20: A former U.S. government scientist was arrested on Monday for attempted espionage in an undercover operation with FBI agents posing as Israeli intelligence officers, the Justice Department said.
Stewart Nozette, 52, of Chevy Chase, Maryland, was charged with attempting to deliver classified national defense information to an individual he believed to be an Israeli intelligence officer.
Washington, October 20: The Supreme Court said on Tuesday it would hear an appeal by Chinese Muslim prisoners held for years at Guantanamo Bay who argue that they should be released in the United States.
The nation’s highest court agreed to decide whether federal judges in Washington have the power to order the government to release Guantanamo prisoners into the United States when no other country will take them.
Kanpur, October 20: Shiv Kant Tripathi, who has filed an economic offences case against high profile Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh, Tuesday claimed to have received threats in phone calls from unlisted numbers.
“I have received several phone calls warning me of dire consequences simply because I dared to lodge a criminal case against Amar Singh for his involvement in a Rs.500 crore scam,” Tripathi told IANS.
New Delhi, October 20: Praful Patel was elected unopposed as the All India Football Federation (AIFF) president Tuesday and the Union Minister wasted no time in listing out his priorities to take Indian football to world standards.
The civil aviation minister was elected to the top post at the Annual General Body meeting of the AIFF at its headquarters here.
Patel had taken over as acting president of the AIFF ever Priyaranjan Dasmunsi has been admitted to a hospital after a stroke last October.
Mumbai, October 20: The actor of the millennium Amitabh Bachchan who is also known by his very famous name ‘Big B’ in the tinsel world. He is in lime light for giving a statement for his late father Harivansh Rai Bachchan.
Noida, October 20: A man working as informer to the Delhi Police was shot dead by a gang of car robbers in the Sector-61 area of Noida Tuesday afternoon, when he was leading the police to them, police said.
Pramod Kumar had led a Delhi Police team to the suspected hideout of a car lifting gang in Sector-61. As instructed by the police, he went alone to the flat to call up the robbers to help police apprehend them.
Washington, October 20: The Obama administration on Monday launched a program to help the depressed U.S. housing market by effectively allowing state and local housing finance agencies to borrow from the U.S. Treasury.
The initiative, announced as new data showed a downturn in homebuilder sentiment, aims to restart a source of mortgage financing for first-time and low-income buyers that has been largely shut down by credit market gridlock.
Tehran, October 20: A court has sentenced Iranian-American scholar Kian Tajbakhsh, who was detained after Iran’s disputed June election, to more than 12 years in jail, the official IRNA news agency reported on Tuesday.
“The only thing I can say is that (the jail sentence) was more than 12 years,” lawyer Houshang Azhari told IRNA. Azhari, who did not give further details, said the sentence would be appealed.
Washington, October 20: The United States cannot wait for problems surrounding the legitimacy of the Afghan government to be resolved before making a decision on troops, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said.
Gates, speaking to reporters on board a plane traveling to Tokyo, described the situation in Afghanistan as an evolutionary process that would not improve dramatically overnight, regardless of what course is taken following the country’s flawed August election.
“I see this as a process, not something that’s going to happen all of the sudden,” Gates said.
New York, October 20: The New York Times said on Monday it would cut 100 newsroom jobs through buyouts or layoffs as it tries to counter lost advertising revenue.
“Let me cut to the chase: We have been told to reduce the newsroom by 100 positions between now and the end of the year.” Times Executive Editor Bill Keller told employees in a memo obtained by Reuters.
This is the second time in little more than a year that the Times has sought to reduce its newsroom staff. In 2008, the newspaper cut 100 newsroom jobs.
Earlier this year, it cut salaries by 5 percent.
Cairo, October 20: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Tuesday he would issue a decree on Sunday to hold elections by January 24, a move that could raise pressure on Hamas to sign an Egyptian-brokered reconciliation deal.
Egypt has been trying for more than a year to close a rift between Abbas’s secular Fatah party and Islamist Hamas, which won a parliamentary election in 2006 and took over the Gaza Strip in a brief Palestinian civil war in 2007.
Washington, October 20: The U.S. Internal Revenue Service is probing more than 100,000 doubtful claims of a tax credit meant for first-time home buyers, the Wall Street Journal reported on its website on Tuesday.
The $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was passed in February to help prod the U.S. economy back to life.
Lawmakers have expressed concern that significant number of claims might turn out to be fraudulent, the paper said.
Kabul, October 20: President Hamid Karzai agreed to face a second round of voting in Afghanistan’s disputed election on Tuesday after a U.N.-led fraud inquiry tossed out enough of his votes to trigger a run-off.
The dispute around the August 20 vote has stoked tension between Karzai and the West and complicated U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision on whether to send thousands more U.S. troops to Afghanistan to fight a resurgent Taliban.
Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon all welcomed Karzai’s decision to accept the run-off.
Srinagar, October 20: Jammu and Kashmir’s main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Tuesday said its demand for self-rule in the state was equivalent to freedom that does not undermine the sovereignty of India and Pakistan in their respective ruled regions of the territory.
“Self-rule is equivalent to de-facto azadi (freedom)… the freedom from siege – from mental, physical, political siege – but without undermining the sovereignty of India and Pakistan,” PDP president Mehbooba Mufti told reporters here.
New Delhi, October 20: Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni Tuesday unveiled a plan for complete digitalisation of television in India with a likely approval of a satellite-based cable distribution platform soon.
“There should be a sunset hour for complete digitalization,” Soni said at an interactive discussion on ‘Government Regulation or Self-Regulation’ that was organised by the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry here.
Before the year is out, the cabinet is expected to approve HITS (Headend In the Sky), she said.
Mumbai, October 20: Though Kurbaan is yet to release Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor have already been in the buzz of the most sizzling couple in Bollywood but when it comes to the screen they fear only one hit couple i.e. Katrina Kaif and Akshay Kumar.
May be that’s the reason why Kurbaan has been delayed by one week as Kat-Akki starrer De Dana Dan is about to release. The producers have postponed the dates of releasing Kurbaan due to this hit heavy wait starcast movie.
Lucknow, October 20: A newly purchased Tata Nano car that was parked in a parking lot in the posh Hazratganj locality of Lucknow caught fire Tuesday evening, its owner said.
Tata Nano catches fire in Lucknow
Nobody was hurt in the incident, said R.H. Rizvi, who bought the car in July from a Lucknow based dealer.
“I parked my car in the parking lot of a shopping complex and went to buy some gifts. I was shocked when the parking attendant came rushing to me within 10 minutes saying that the car is on fire”, Rizvi told IANS.
Ghaziabad, October 20: Following the death of Ashutosh Asthana, the prime accused-cum-witness in a corruption case involving judges of the higher judiciary, in Ghaziabad’s Dasna jail, the district administration conducted an inspection and found serious lapses in the medical facilities available there, officials said Tuesday.
Serious lapses found in Dasna jail