Hazare says the Delhi police have spoken to Kiran Bedi, who is a part of Anna's team, and they say permission to fast for three days may be granted. The police will then review the situation every day, reports Sanchari.

It may be remembered that Hazare and his team will go on a fast from August 16 to protest the Lokpal draft Bill which was tabled in Parliament last week.

In Mumbai, Anna Hazare addresses a meeting at the press club. Sanchari Bhattacharya reporting from the venue says Hazare spoke of the crackdown on Baba Ramdev at the Ramlila grounds in Delhi.

Hazare (addressing the government) says: Tumko lathi chalana hai, chalao. Goli chalana hai, chalao. Jab tak praan hai, hum lathi khayenge, goli khayenge.

Lok Sabha has been adjourned for the day over BJP protest of its party workers being lathicharged by the police at Jantar Mantar. The police also fired tear gas shells at the protestors.

While there were several protests across Delhi today, the biggest among them was by the BJP's Yuva Morcha against corruption during which the activists were lathicharged by the police. A senior police official said around 25-30,000 participants from Delhi, UP, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, MP, Rajasthan and Maharashtra had assembled outside Parliament.

The looting on the streets of Birmingham on Monday have put a question mark on the security in the city. However, the third Test between England and India will go ahead as scheduled, reports rediff.com's Bikash Mohapatra from the city.

Confirming the same, the Warwickshire County Cricket Club issued a statement to this effect this morning. Sources from the England and Indian camp also confirmed both the teams are keen to go ahead with the game.

The riots and looting in London in the last three days had ensured the cancellation of the football friendly between England and the Netherlands.

A bizarre story from the reality show, 'My Strange Addiction', which takes a look into the less-than-orthodox compulsive habits. It features a woman who is so close to the memory of her late husband that she eats his ashes.

Casie (26), who was widowed just two months before filming the show, is unable to stop herself from dipping her finger into her husband's urn of ashes and taking a lick of the grey dust. She said she first tasted the remains of her husband, Shawn, when she transferred the ashes from a temporary cardboard box into a special memorial urn. 

In Mumbai today, Anna Hazare flagged off a rally ahead of his proposed hunger strike from August 16 to oppose the Lokpal Bill. The rally, which was flagged off from Swami Narayan temple in central Dadar (East) is to culminate at Azad Maidan.

Hazare will also address a gathering at the Azad Maidan later in the day. The much-debated Lokpal Bill, which aims to set up an anti-corruption watchdog in the country, was tabled in the Lok Sabha on August 4. Hazare claims that the anti-corruption legislation tabled in its present form in Parliament, would not be able to deal with corruption.

Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal has asked the Department of Telecom to consider giving Trai quasi-judicial powers to adjudicate on penalities imposed by the department on telecom service providers.

"The department may like to vest such powers in the Trai which is a statutory authority, entitled to regulate the conduct of Telecom service providers," Sibal said in a letter to DoT Secretary R Chandrasekhar.

Quasi-judicial refers to the actions of an agency, board, or other government entity in which there are hearings, orders, judgements or other activities similar to those conducted by courts or body.

As Britain burns in rioting fury, a story of how vandals messaged each other saying: 'If you see a fed... shoot !' How looters co-ordinated raids via Twitter and BlackBerry as thier rage spreads like wildfire. On the Daily Mail.

Read

UK PM David Cameron has cancelled leaves of all policemen and has called for over 16,000 cops to patrol the streets. As of now, around 450 people have been arrested on charges of rioting and robbery.

N Ganesh sends us this update: Land acquistion protests by farmers on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway has turned ugly with two more protesters who were injured in the police firing dying of their injuries. The toll is now up to three.

Meanwhile the Expressway continues to be blocked. According to the police the stone throwing resulted in the injury of an additional superintendent of police, a police inspector and 29 constables, as well. 

The Treasury can cry foul all it wants, but the decision by Standard & Poor's to downgrade America's credit rating by one notch last Friday, and the subsequent plunge in the stock market, are serious symptoms of a loss of confidence -- an assessment that is fundamentally political, not economic, reports the New York Times.

Read

The England-Holland football match has been called off due to the riots in London, Birmingham and Liverpool as rioting continues unabated.

The bbc.co.uk says that rioting has spread across London on a third night of violence, with unrest flaring in other English cities. An extra 1,700 police officers were deployed in London, where shops were looted and buildings were set alight. Nottingham and Bristol also saw violence.

Read

However, the 3rd Test between India-England will go on as per schedule in Birmingham.  

What happened in Parliament today (which the news channels won't tell you about). Tweets from R. Rajagopalan:

MS Gill and Mani Shankar Aiyer in Parliament talking to BJP leaders bullet points on CWG. A union minister joked "this is a bitter club".

MS Gill former Sports Minister openly criticising UPA2. He held all high posts. CEC then to RS rose to Union Minister. Still he uses bad words.

Franciso Sardinha from Speaker podium said, do not make Lok Sabha as Central Hall. He said Cross talks and jokes not allowed in Lok Sabha.

BJP today attacked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for the appointment of disgraced Suresh Kalmadi as chairman of the CWG Organising Committee and charged Sports Minister Ajay Maken with committing "monumental deception" on Parliament.

Arun Jaitley said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh overruled objections by the Sports Ministry and his own office and favoured Kalmadi's appointment as OC Chairman. Demanding that all documents and files in this regard be brought before the House, Jaitley said while the effort was to stop the buck at Kalmadi, responsibility lies both with the Central and statement governments. "....none of them should be spared."

He also said if "heads are to roll", heads of the state (Delhi) government and the Centre must also roll

A report from the Tribune, Chandigarh: For the first time since 2010 when six tribal girls from Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh involved in the clinical trials of anti-cervical cancer HPV vaccine died, the government has admitted that 1,725 persons have lost their lives to drug trials in the last four years.

Read

The Rajya Sabha, which was witnessing Leader of the Opposition Arun Jaitley tearing into the Congress and the prime minister over the CAG report into the CWG scam, descended into commotion when a BJP leader from behind Jaitley shouted out a slogan mentioning Congress president Sonia Gandhi's name.

If it was meant to be a display of aggro, it was illtimed since the Congress cannot be expected to remain mute spectators to an attack on its president, that too at a time when she is recuperating from a surgery, reports Sheela Bhatt from the Rajya Sabha.

Even as the House was witness to such high drama, the BJP's youth wing stormed the gates of Parliament House to protest against the CWG scam.

N Ganesh reprots that eight people have received bullet injuries in the Bahur village, when they were shot by police personnel. Several policemen have also been injured in the stone throwing, while one police jeep has been burnt.

Traffic is at a standstill at the Mumbai Pune Expressway and there's a traffic jam that now stretches to more than eight kilometres.

The government has hit back at the Opposition accusing it of going back on its word and stalling the Question Hour in Parliament over the Commonwealth Games mess.

"It is indeed very unfortunate that despite an agreement yesterday that the House would run today, the Question Hour will be taken up and after that the calling attention motion on Sports Minister Ajay Maken's statement would be taken up, the Opposition has disrupted Parliament," Parliamentary Affairs Minister P K Bansal said.

Bansal said the sudden change in the stand of the BJP raised doubts on part of the genuineness of the Opposition on the need to have a discussion on the Commonwealth Games issue.

Traffic on Mumbai-Pune Expressway at a standstill: Protestors said that trouble arose near Bahur village when police officials tried to use force to clear the highway blockade. The protesters said that the agitation was peaceful and they were allowing vehicles to pass.

It was when the protestors began pelting stones, that police began firing resulting in the death of one of the protestors. As the news spread, angry villagers blocked the Mumbai-Pune Expressway and highway.

There are also unconfirmed reports of police vehicles being torched. Meanwhile additional police personnel have been rushed to contain the law and order problem and police officials claim that traffic has resumed from the old highway.

The state administration is still struggling to restore the traffic on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway.

Rediff.com's N Ganesh reports that traffic on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway has come to standstill after an agitation by farmers turned violent when one of the protestors was shot dead by the police.

The farmers from Maval Taluka in Pune had been protesting this morning and had camped on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway and the old Mumbai-Pune Highway as well.

The protestors were agitating against their land being acquired for a project that would provide more water for the urban population of Pimpri-Chinchwad.

Amid reports yesterday, that the government was planning to remove Air India chief Arvind Jadhav, the BJP today alleged he was responsible for "financial mismanagement" and demanded he should be sacked "outright" and disciplinary proceedings initiated against him.

Party spokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy alleged that the Prime Minister's Office was "straightaway responsible" for the "manipulated appointment" of Jadhav even after he was not found fit by it previous year "on the basis of lack of domain experience."

"The BJP would like to say here very categorically that removal is not a solution. The gentleman concerned who is responsible for a financial mismanagement of Rs 70000 crores should be sacked outright. He should be suspended and disciplinary proceedings should be instituted against him. That is important," Rudy said.

A report today says that the killing of Pakistan's Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti earlier this year was due to family rivalry over property and had no religious motivation.

Bhatti's murder in Islamabad was due to a property dispute between relatives and police concluded the killing was not religiously motivated in their latest report despite the fact that the Punjabi Taliban had claimed responsibility for the assassination.

Even as finance minister Pranab Mukherjee reiterates that the Indian economy is still strong, the reason behind the bloodbath remains.

The US is unlikely to see its long-term credit rating return to AAA any time soon, ratings agency S&P has said, reports the bbc.co.uk.

Its comments came as it downgraded the state-backed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac because of their "direct reliance on the US government".

It also lowered ratings for clearing houses and other institutions linked to long-term US debt from AAA to AA+. Late on Friday, the agency downgraded the US's top-notch AAA rating for the first time in its history.

Jaitley's telling statement meant to include Dikshit: The CWG is too big a scam for the buck to stop at one person. He also said the CWG bid was supported by the union government, the state government and the Indian Olympic Association.

Din in Parliament over Jailtey's remarks. RS adjourned till 12:51 pm.

In the Rajya Sabha, leader of the Opposition, Arun Jaitley rips into sports minister Ajay Maken, saying he had misled the House by saying the NDA government was responsible for appointing Suresh Kalmadi. 

Jaitley asks how was it that the CWG had became the fiefdom of a few. He points out that heads must roll (in this case, Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit). Jaitley says the CWG is too big a scandal to stop at a single person.

The Pentagon has ruled out media coverage of a ceremony marking the return of 30 US soldiers, including 22 Navy SEALs, who were killed when the helicopter they were travelling in was shot down in Afghanistan.

The return of the remains in flag draped coffins to the Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, possibly today, was denied media coverage because given the nature of the attack there were "no identifiable remains" of these servicemen, Pentagon spokesman Marine Col David Lapan told reporters during an off-camera briefing.

In a setback to the Jayalalithaa government in Tamil Nadu, the Supreme Court today rejected its plea for scrapping the uniform education system brought in by the earlier DMK government and directed its immediate implementation.

A three-judge bench of justices J M Panchal, Deepak Verma and B S Chauhan dismissed the state's plea that the Uniform System of School Education (Amendment) Act brought into force by the DMK government was sub-standard, lacked quality and was politically motivated.

The apex court also ordered that the act be implemented within 10 days.

Normal life in the Kashmir Valley was disrupted today due to a bandh called by Kashmir Economic Alliance, an amalgam of traders' bodies in the region.

Shops and business establishments across the Valley remained closed due to the bandh called by KEA to press for its demands, officials said. Public transport facilities were also severely affected due to the strike. However, school buses and some private vehicles could be seen plying the roads in the city and other parts of the Valley, the officials said.

KEA has been demanding the inclusion of revocation of additional taxes on property, power and water, end to the exploitation of the state's natural resources, revocation of new VAT return forms and immediate ban on movement of tourist buses from outside Jammu and Kashmir.

Parliament has adjourned till noon after an uproar over the CAG's  observations against the Delhi government in the CWG projects.

The Congress has filed a petition in a local court in Indore against filmmaker Ashok Pandit for his allegedly objectionable comments against former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Indore Congress chief Pramod Tandon and regional leader Raghunandan Singh Parmar submitted the petition against Pandit to the chief judicial magistrate Kapil Mehta.

The petition has been transferred to judicial magistrate O P Bohra and will be heard on August 29.

Australia's Finance Minister Penny Wong and her partner Sophie Allouache are expecting a baby, according to media reports.

Senator Wong is the first openly gay minister in federal politics and last year she publicly came out in support of gay marriage.

Wong said Allouache, who became pregnant by IVF, was due to have the baby in December.

"The biological father of the child is known to us, and will be known to the child," she said in a statement. "We have agreed with him that his name will not be released to the media. Like any expecting parents, the prospect of welcoming this child into our lives fills us both with joy."

The Indian institute of Technology, Kanpur, and the Sanjay Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences in Lucknow have joined hands to find the cause and treatment of Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease.

GERD is a condition in which the esophagus becomes irritated or inflamed because of acid backing up from the stomach leading to malfunctioning of the stomach valve.

"IIT-K and SGPGIMS have entered into an agreement to find out the cause, precaution and treatment of the GERD. IIT-K will study bio-mechanics of the disease and try to find out the treatment of the disease with the help of SGPGI doctors", Associate professor, IITK, Anupam Pal said.

With the fast-spreading London riots raising massive security concerns, Indian and English cricketers have been asked to confine themselves to their hotel rooms ahead of the third Test starting in Edbagston tomorrow.

Over 200 people have been arrested so far as the police continued to grapple with trouble spreading to newer areas in London.

The violence started after a person was killed allegedly in police firing. The unrest has since spread to Birmingham as well and the Indian and English cricketers have been reportedly asked to stay indoors to avoid trouble, the Daily Mail has reported.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has demanded the suspension of Question Hour in Parliament to discuss the CWG scam and Privilege Motion against Sports Minister Ajay Maken.

Maken had, last week, alleged that the NDA government was instrumental in appointing Suresh Kalmadi as head of the CWG organising committee.

Ahead of Independence Day, a retired professor has approached the Bombay high court challenging the use of the word 'Sindh' in the national anthem and has sought to replace it with the word 'Sindhu'.

According to the petitioner, Shreekanth Malushte, the word 'Sindh' in the anthem was replaced by the word 'Sindhu' in January 1950 by the government. "However, the national anthem continues to be sung and broadcast in a wrong manner by using incorrect words," the petition states.

It further mentions that 'Sindh' is a part of Pakistan while 'Sindhu' river is in India.

The hotel maid, who accused former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her, has now sued him in a New York state court seeking damages for a "violent and sadistic attack" that humiliated and degraded her.

Nafissatou Diallo, a Guinean immigrant, filed the civil suit in State Supreme Court in Bronx on Monday seeking unspecified damages for mental anguish.

"Believing that he was immune from the laws of this country, Strauss-Kahn intentionally, brutally and violently sexually assaulted Diallo and in the process humiliated, degraded, violated and robbed her of her dignity as a woman," the 16-page lawsuit said.

It adds that Diallo suffered physical and psychological harm due to the "senseless attack" and faces "permanent harm to her professional and personal reputations... from which she may never fully recover."

The civil lawsuit comes even as a criminal case against Strauss-Kahn, 62, is pending in state court in Manhattan.

The stock market continued to bleed for the sixth straight day today under pressure from debt worries in the West, with the benchmark Sensex dropping 558 points in opening trade. Another benchmark index, the Nifty, slipped below the 5,000-mark for the first time since June 10, 2010, in opening trade.

It was trading 172.05 points down within minutes of the opening bell at 4946.45, its lowest level since May 27 last year.

After falling 1,322 points in the past five trading sessions, the Sensex opened on a very weak note this morning, with heavy selling in stocks like Reliance Industries, Infosys, ICICI Bank and TCS.

The Sensex fell to as low as 16,432.00 points, its lowest level since June 1 last year, with a fall of 558.18 points from yesterday's close.

The index closed below the 17,000-level yesterday for the first time since June 10, 2010. The overnight meltdown in the US markets and the continuing downtrend in Asia this morning added to the woes of the Indian bourses.

Global markets have been in turmoil for the past two days after the creditworthiness of the US was downgraded by Standard and Poor's amid the American economy's mounting debt worries. The debt problems in Europe have already been hammering stocks across the world for about a week now.