Sathya Sai Baba continues to be extremely critical with most of his organs are not responding to treatment.

Most of the news today centered around the Lokpal story and the alleged corruption rap on the Bhushans. The other stories were...

1. Dal, roti, chawal for 2G scam execs in Tihar
2. Team Anna: Bhushans won't quit Lokpal panel
3. Lanka may extend stay of players in IPL
4. 5-hour Mum airport shutdown on April 23, 30
5. Chargesheet against Malegaon blast accusedMutalik
6. Indian immigrants to UK spread TB: Lancet
7. No IPL, come home now, Lanka tells Malinga
8. Everything stinks: Lokpal's Hegde may quit
9. SIT chief taken off Ishrat Jahan case
10. Rizwanur case: Abetment charge on Todis
11. Bhushan CD NOT doctored: Delhi police

OK, moving on from Hazare and Bhushan, the Supreme Court today sought the Karnataka government's response on the bail plea of PDP leader Abdul Nasser Madani, an accused in 2008 Bangalore serial blasts case, with the presiding judge wondering how a wheel chair-bound person could pose a threat if released on bail.

A bench of justices Markandeya Katju and Gyan Sudha Misra asked the state to respond within a week and posted the matter for April 29.

By the way, if you haven't, read our blog Dilli Chaat on Amar Singh: How the rebel Samajwadi Party leader joined hands with the Congress' crack team to demolish the team of Anna Hazare.

Read

Something to satisfy your voyueristic urge:

The five top executives of telecom firms, who were sent to Tihar jail yesterday in connection with the 2G spectrum allocation scam, spent their night like other prisonersas they were not provided any special treatment.

Swan Telecom Director Vinod Goenka, Unitech Wireless (Tamil Nadu) Ltd Managing Director Sanjay Chandra, and three top officials of Reliance ADA Group -- Gautam Doshi, Surendra Pipara and Hari Nair were sent to the jail last evening.

"They had the usual prison food -- dal, roti, sabzi and chawal -- and after that they were sent to their respective cells (90-square feet, definitely much smaller than their bathroom at home)

They shared cells with other inmates as the jail was already overcrowded and slept on the floor like other inmates. All the five woke up early in the morning and were present for the head count.

Kejriwal: We have to stay united in these difficult times when corrupt forces are banding together.

Answering a hack, Kejriwal says that if the inquiry on the Bhushans (they have filed a petition with the SC) is negative, they should indeed be jailed.

He said all they wanted was to draft a good Lokpal bill.

Without exception, those of us who were at Jantar Mantar with Anna Hazare (if not in body, at least in spirit) want the Bhushans to emerge vindicted. It will indeed be tragic if the people who will draft an anti-graft bill for this country, are themselves corrupt.

And yes, the man behind the Lokpal movement, Anna Hazare, should have been present at this presser. Anna had said he will not comment on the CD as he had nothing to do with it. His absence is not a good sign.

Quick takes fromthe Lokpal press conference...

Arvind Kejriwal says:

• "We have filed a petition in the SC for an inquiry. Bhushans got land under UP government scheme, it was not a favour.
• We want a fair probe in the CD controversy, which is nothing but a smear campaign.
• We are ready for any inquiry.
• We are behind the Bhushans and are united in our fight against corruption.
• Corrupt forces are targetting us."

Have to hand it to Kejriwal. The face of civil society in the Lokpal drafting panel, the Magsaysay awardee, has conducted the presser with rare dignity, answering every question, without getting worked up. And almost always with a smile on his face.Compare that to Amar Singh's interview (and he didn't even have to face baying journalists) on CNNIBN.

So, what do you think? Should the Bhushans quit the Lokpal panel. Post your view

RTI activist and member of the Lokpal drafting panel, Arvind Kejriwal, addressing a press meet in New Delhi says that nobody from the civic body panel, part of the Anna Hazare's group, is quitting.

He categorically said that the country needs the Bhushans to draft the bill.

Kiran Bedi, whowas also at the presser and has been associated with Hazare's movement says they were with the Bhushans all the way and appealed to the Bhushans (who were not present) not to resign.

Kejriwal said if the Bhushans or for that matter, any member quits, the drafting of the bill will suffer as will the entire anti-graft movement.

In a truly sad turn of events,Karnataka Lokayukta Santosh Hegde today said he was reconsidering his decision to be on the joint drafting committee on Lokpal Bill, apparently upset over the vilification campaign against the anti-graft panel.

"I will be first discussing the issue with my colleagues and will take a decision based on it", Hegde, who had reluctantly agreed to be on the Lokpal committee due to pending work, said.

The former Supreme Court Judge, known for his vigorous campaign against corruption, said the current vilification campaign had put him off.

"Everything stinks," he said referring to "the manner in which the vilification campaign first went against (Anna) Hazare, then against Bhushans (Shanti and son Prasant)."

Hegde, who is due to retire in August as Lokayukta, said, "The anti-corruption crusade has unnerved some sections. Nobody expected Hazare to get the response he did," he said.

"There is no doubt there is an attempt to derail the anti-corruption crusade," Hegde, whose name was initially suggested along with that of former Supreme Court Chief Justice J S Verma to be the panel head by Hazare, said

Alright, the five corporates involved in the 2G scam (accused of cheating and criminal conspiracy) will have to spend four more days in jail after their bail hearing was adjouned till Tuesday.

For more on the story see our 14:06 pm update.

In a complete U-turn from yesterday, Sri Lanka may extend the stay of its players in the IPL.

Yesterday, the Sri Lankan cricket board and their sports minister turned down the BCCI's request to allow their players continue in the IPL.

The SL cricket board today has mandated that 11 players have to return by May 5. They include Deccan Chargers skipper Sangakkara and Kochi Tuskers Kerala captain Jayawardene, Suraj Randiv, Nuwan Kulasekara, Muttiah Muralitharan, Thisara Perera, Lasith Malinga (read our 14:29 pm update), Dilhara Fernando, Tilakaratne Dilshan and Nuwan Pradeep.

The Lankans are scheduled to leave for England on May 10, and the IPL-contracted players have to return home at least by May 5 to prepare for the tour. The IPL ends on the May 28.

Just in: The high court today removed SIT chief Karnail Singh from investigating the Ishrat Jahan case which came up for hearing today.

The decision was taken as Singh, who belongs to the Union Territory cadre, was recently transferred to Mizoram as Inspector General of Police. The government had initially said it would not hamper proceedings.

Singh was appointed by the HC as the chairman of the three-member SIT. The other two members are Gujarat-cadre IPS officer Mohan Jha, who was chosen by the state government, and IPS officer Satish Varma, who was the choice of the petitioners.

Hints of a distancing from the Bhushans?

Social activist Anna Hazare today said he would speak only on the Lokpal Bill. "I know nothing about the CD issue and will not speak on that," Hazare said, breaking his silence on the CD controversy and the UP land scam that has landed both Shanti Bhushan and his son Prashant Bhushan in trouble.

Earlier, co-chairman of the draft panel of the Lokpal bill said there was no pressure on the Bhushans to quit the panel, but remained mum on whether the CD was in fact, genuine.

Today, the government's Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory in New Delhi refuted claims that it was doctored triggering demands for his resignation Lokpal Bill panel. The lab said "there is continuity in the conversation" and the CD did not appear to be doctored.

News flash: Mumbai airport runway to be closed for five hours on April 23 and 30 as the runway intersection will be under repairs.

Want to see Virgin Group boss, Richard Branson, in a short skirt, tights and heels? The colourful CEO will be fulfilling his promise to be a flight attendant on a charity flight on May 1.

This is what his blog says:

Iwill be taking my place as aFlight Attendanton a charity flight to Kuala Lumpur on May 1st, and you could come along for the ride.I am fulfilling my side of a bet with Tony Fernandes over our Formula 1 teams Lotus and Marussia Virgin Racing.

It should be a lot of fun and the important thing is '" it's all for charity!

All proceeds are being donated to Virgin Unite, the non-profit foundation of the Virgin Group.You have until April 24th tobook your place on the flight, which will be my first (and almost certainly last!) time as a Flight Attendant.

Two big news stories: An army helicopter has gone missing in north Sikkim. There were two pilots and a soldier on board.

Maharahastra ATS files chargesheet against Pravin Mutalik in the 2008 Malegaon case.Mutalik had been arrested in February this year from Gokak town in Belgaum district of Karnataka by the ATS.

Mutalik (32), a member of Abhinav Bharat, had worked as a personal secretary to Lt Colonel Shrikant Prasad Purohit, another key accused held in the case, for three months before the blast.

Six people had been killed and scores wounded in the bomb blast on September 29, 2008, in the communally sensitive powerloom town of Malegaon in Nashik district.

In a setback to the BJP in general and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in particular, the Congress today won 18 out of 33 seats that went to polls on April 19 for the newly-constituted Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation.

The maiden contest for 33 GMC seats was a keenly-contested battle between ruling BJP and opposition Congress as Gandhinagar parliamentary seat has been represented by senior BJP leader LKAdvani.

The dawn.com says that the Pakistani army today rejected the notion that it was not doing enough to fight militants, hours after the top US military officer accused the country's military-run spy agency of continued links to a powerful Taliban faction fighting in Afghanistan.

The back and forth reflected the unusually poor state of relations between the two counter-terrorism allies, which sunk to new lows after an American CIA contractor in January shot two Pakistanis he said were trying to rob him.

Also read: Like Army, Like Nation: Nadeem Paracha's blog in the Dawn

In another indictment for India and the subcontinent, the British medical journal Lancet said immigrants arriving from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have a latent form of tuberculosis, that goes undetected by airport checks.

The Lancet says: "Our findings indicate that immigrants arriving in the UK from countries with high burdens of TB have a high prevalence of latent tuberculosis infection, which is strongly associated with tuberculosis incidence in their country of origin."

Here's why the Lancet was in the news recently.

This bit of news is from the Hindustan Times: Posing provocatively on the cover of German Playboy magazine with one breast exposed, Sila Sahin seems to be sending a clear and deliberate message to her conservative Turkish family.

Until now, Sila Sahin, a 25-year-old Turkish German living in Berlin, had been regarded as a glowing exampl e of how a modern Muslim girl should behave in a multicultural society.

The Muslim model has upset her family by stripping for a series of saucy shots for Playboy.

Not a peep out of Anna Hazare on the Bhushans land deal and CD scam, but RTI activist and Lokpal panel member Arvind Kejriwal says there is no pressure on them to quit the panel.

Didn't we tell you earlier that Congress national general secretary Digvijay Singh needs a zipper for his mouth. After various tirades against the Bhushans and the Madhya Pradesh CM (see our posts at 11:47 and 12.31 pm) Digvijay now says that if social activist Anna Hazare starts a satyagraha in Uttar Pradesh against corruption the party would welcome and support it.

"The Uttar Pradesh government has created records in corruption. We demand Gandhian Anna Hazare that like Maharashtra, he should start a satyagraha against corruption," Singh said.

"We will not only welcome and completely support his satyagraha, but will also provide relevant documents to him," he added.

He said that Congress president Sonia Gandhi was the first politician to support Hazare. He, however, raised doubts over the effectiveness of the Jan Lokpal Bill. "The Congress is fighting against corruption, but it cannot be checked only by theJan Lokpal bill," he said.

In the Pakistani army circles, they call him Mr David Petraeus. It is meant to be a derisive reference intended to make the point that the US general commanding the forces in Afghanistan is less of a soldier and more of a politician - a Bonapartist of sorts. There is some merit in the estimation that Petraeus is a smooth operator in the corridors of power in Washington and is ruthlessly ambitious.

Read MK Bhadrakumar's blog.

After yesterday's mandate by Sri Lanka's cricket board that 11 players have to return home by May 5, the selection committee today, asked Lasith Malinga to return home from the IPL and undergo rehabilitation after the fast bowler made himself unavailable for the upcoming Test series in England citing injury.

The SLC officials had yesterday cast doubts on Malinga's injury claims by stating that it was "awkward" that he continues to play for the cash-rich IPL while saying that he was unfit for the upcoming England tour.

Sri Lanka's new chairman of selectors Duleep Mendis has said that Malinga wrote to the Board to say he was unavailable for the three Tests starting in England from May 26.

Tata Motors is "at a very high stage" in finalising a production site for its small car Nano at an overseas location, which could be either in Latin America, South East Asia or Africa.

A senior Tata group official said that the automobile major was exploring various options at different places and looking at uninterrupted supply chain for the components.

Nano, touted as the world's cheapest car, is now produced only at Sanand in Gujarat for the Indian market.

In 2009, Tata Motors unveiled the European version of Nano -- Nano Europa -- at the 79th Geneva Motor Show.

For royal watchers in India: The Queen and Prince Philip hosted Kate Middleton's parents, Michael and Carole,(and a stiff upper lip)"at a private lunch at Windsor Castle" yesterday.

It is apparently the first time the Queen, who is official host and in whose name the gold-embossed wedding invitations have been sent, had met the couple. The fact she had hitherto reportedly "not yet felt the need" to meet them raised some eyebrows.

You should know that the bail hearing for the five corporate heads accused in the 2G scam for cheating and forgery, is on. They were sent to Delhi's Tihar jail yesterday. If they don't get bail today, it will be long weekend in Tihar since the courts are closed for Good Friday tomorrow.

The five men are: Sanjay Chandra, MD, Unitech Ltd and Unitech Wireless (who has since been sacked by joint venture partner Telenor), Vinod Goenka, MD, DB Realty and Swan Telecom (now Etisalat), Gautam Doshi, Group MD, Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) and Hari Nair and Surendra Pipara, Senior Vice Presidents, ADAG.

AKolkata city court today charged four accused in the Rizwanur Rehman case with abetment to suicide.However, it dropped thesamecharges slapped on three cops.

The court charged industrialist Ashok Todi and three others in the case of the mysterious death of computer graphics teacher Rizwanur Rahman.

The court said Todi, his relative Anil Saraogi and family friend Pappu should be tried under Section 306 (abetment to suicide), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.

The trial in the case will commence from May 16.

Rizwanur was found dead near railway tracks at Patipukur, few kilometres away from Todi's mansion (which incidentally is a tourist hotspot) in upmarket Salt Lake city, on September 21, 2007, just a month after his marriage to Todi's daughter Priyanka, on August 18, 2007.

Our Delhi correspondentsays the corridors of power are ripe with speculation that the May 2 joint panel meeting for the framing of the Lokpal bill may not be held. The 10-member panel includes Pranab Mukherjee, Kapil Sibal, P Chidambaram, V Moily and Salman Khurshid and five members from civic society including the Bhushans -- Shanti and Prashant.

In the backdrop of the Bhushan CD controversy, there is a proposal to defer the meet, even as the government geared up its agencies to sharpen criticism against the Bhushans

Based on it the government may take a view on the continuance of the Joint Panel.

The forensic analysis conducted by Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory on the CD said it was not doctored.

However, S R Singh, Director of Truth Labs, which conducted tests on behalf of Shanti Bhushan, maintained that he would stand by the report he had given that it was doctored. The conversation had "multiple gaps and signs of electronic editing at very very critical places," Singh had said in his report.

Pakistan's Supreme Court acquitted five of the six accused in the infamous Mukhtaran Mai gang rape case.

A three-member bench of the apex court upheld the verdict of the Lahore High Court in the case today.

The victim, Mukhtaran Mai, expressed deep sorrow over the Supreme Court verdict, and said that she would consult her counsel over filing a review appeal.

On 22 June, 2002, Mukhtaran Mai, a resident of Meerwala village, was gang raped on the orders of a village council.

Leaders of various political outfits are wooing voters in West Bengal as campaigning for the second phase of elections comes to a close today.

A total of 293 candidates including 27 women are in the fray for this phase in which 50 of the total of 294 seats will be covered.

Altogether 9,333,523 voters including 4,478,887 women are eligible to exercise their franchise in this phase that will cover Murshidabad, Nadia and Birbhum districts.

Digvijay Singh has a severe case of verbal diahorrea. After his continouous attack on the Bhushans (probably justified), he has now asked Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan that he needs to learn how to treat his political opponents from senior BJP leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee. (Will that go down well with the Cong?)

"Vajpayee had many qualities and the most prominent among them was that he knew how to deal nicely with his political opponents. This is something that is totally lacking in Chouhan. It would do him well if he learns (from Vajpayee) and improves on it," Singh said.

The remarks come after Chouhan allegedly did not allow Union Minister of State for Agriculture Arun Yadav to speak at a recent function.

Social activist Swami Agnivesh today claimed if Congress President Sonia Gandhi did not ask her party general secretary Digvijay Singh to stop statements "contrary" to her commitment against corruption, her party's image would be affected.

"We take as genuine the Congress president's reply to Anna Hazare's letter. But she should take action if Digvijay Singh speaks just the opposite to what she said in her reply," Agnivesh said.

Gandhi had yesterday assured Hazare that she did not support smear campaigns and reiterated her commitment to fighting corruption. "But if she does not rein in Digvijay Singh's statements, it will look like 'run with the hare and hunt with the hound'. This will spoil the image of the party and will be a big loss to it," he added.

Just in: Our man from Delhi says that a full bench of the Election Commission is meeting right now to formulate new guidelines on the basis of Left Front complaints that Mamamta Banerjee's Trinamool Congress has been distributing coupons in contravention of EC's model code of conduct.

If you remember, Senior CPI-M leader Gautam Deb on Saturday had alleged that all, but one of the 226 Trinamool candidates have been given Rs.15 lakh each in cash, and later coupons of Rs 100, 200 and 500 each were issued to them purportedly to show that the money was collected from the public.

With the government forensics lab saying the Shanti Bhushan CD is genuine, Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh must be distributing mithais.

Today, Digvijay Singh said he had not received any legal notice from Lokpal panel Co-Chairman Shanti Bhushan. "And even if I do, I will not reply to it," Singh said. "Bhushan should be aware that sending legal notices does not serve any purpose," he said, adding that the senior lawyer should file a case against him.

Bhushan had served a legal notice on the Congress leader demanding a public apology for levelling allegations against him on a property deal -- the allotment of farmhouse plots to him and his son Jayant in Noida from the Mayawati government for a fraction of the market price.

Read: The first-hand account of a Washinton Post reporter who was in Misrata, Libya, when the two photojournalists were killed.

Watch! Super cute 'Tickled penguin' video

The second phase of the six phase West Bengal Assembly elections will be held on Saturday. In Singur, five years after the Tatas abandoned the Nano factory in favour of Gujarat, politics in the Singur Assembly constituency still revolves around the failed project.

The abandoned factory shed, which stands a mute witness to the tumult that the place witnessed in 2006 marking the downhill journey of the Left Front, is the only talking point of the 2,05,434 voters, who are mostly rural, in this constituency going to the poll on May 3.

Everyone forecasts as Ma, Maati, Manush win.

US president Barack Obama has responded to the tragic deaths of two journalists in Libya.

Obama said he was saddened to learn of the killing and asked the Muammar Gaddafi regime to take steps to ensure the safety of media persons engaged in vital works.

"Journalists across the globe risk their lives each day to keep us informed, demand accountability from world leaders, and give a voice to those who would not otherwise be heard," he said.

Oscar-nominated British film director and war photographer Tim Hetherington and award-winning US photographer Chris Hondros were killed and two other Western journalists wounded in the besieged Libyan city of Misrata.

"Chris's tragic death underscores the need to protect journalists as they cover conflicts across the globe. Our thoughts are with Chris's family and loved ones," he said.

CNN.com profiles the men

Question is whether Gandhian Anna Hazare will now reply to UPA chief Sonia Gandhi after she wrote him yesterday saying she does not support the "politics of smear campaign".

Hazare today expressed happiness at Sonia's letter and said, "I was happy to read her letter where she said she never supported nor will support those who are attacking me."

Hazare had written to Sonia complaining against her "colleagues" (Digvijay Singh) who were trying to derail the joint drafting committee on Lokpal Bill.

While the Bhushans and the government have to get back on the CD, Twitter has already found them guilty. Some reactions...

• Anna was gentle, Bhushans are not. Their adamant behavior is not doing good for the Bill.
• Bhushansindeed have a great love for money. Will they explain how are they going to carry up there?
• Former Supreme Court judge and fellow member of the Lok Pal Bill drafting committee Santosh Hegde (also Karnataka Lok Ayukta) said that had such information come out in the public domain earlier, Bhushan would probably have not made it to the joint committee.
• Leading NGO activist Omkar Razdan, who was hospitalised while taking part in the fast-unto-death protest along with Anna Hazare, today demanded that the "tainted" members of the joint drafting committee on Lokpal Bill should voluntarily step down.

Details of the CD controversy.

In a statement that is expected to have an immediate and serious fallout on whether the father-son duo of Shanti and Prashant Bhushan remain in the joint committee framing the Lokpal Bill, the Delhi police said that theBhushan-Amar Singh-Mulayam Singh CD is not doctored.

Shanti Bhushan is the co-chairman of the committee. The CD was studied by the government-owned Central Forensic Science Laboratory whose report suggests that there is a continuity in the entire conversation. There is no evidence of patchwork and the conversation seems contextual.

In effect, this means the CD was not tampered with.

The dominant voice in the CD is alleged to be that of Bhushan telling Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh that judges can be fixed for Rs 4 crore.

Both the Bhushans have insisted that theCD was doctored.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today (in the aftermath of the continuing exchange of letters between Anna Hazare and Sonia Gandhi) said that corruption is a challenge and must be tackled boldly and promised that the government would introduce the Lokpal Bill in the monsoon session of Parliament.

He acknowledged there was a growing feeling in people that laws, systems and procedures are not effective in dealing with corruption and said, "There was little public tolerance now for prevailing state of affairs. People expect swift and exemplary action and rightly so."

Good morning.

Three big stories, not necessarily in order of appearance.

One. Oscar nominee Tim Hetherington and acclaimed photojournalist Chris Hondros died yesterday, while chronicling the gritty violence in the war-torn city of Misrata in Libya. Two other photojournalists were hurt in the incident.

Two. The Amar Singh, Shanti Bhushan, Mulayam Singh CD is not doctored, says the government-owned Central Forensic Lab. This is the CD where the trio allegedly say judges can be bought for Rs 4 crore. The police says there is no proof of patchwork and the conversations seems contextual.

Three. Sathya Sai Baba's health has deteriorated and his condition is extremely critical.

Details soon.