The big stories today...

1. MS Aiyar: I'm ashamed to belong to bureaucracy
2. Calm down and go home, father of UK riot victim says
3. Cameron to rioters: You will pay for what you did
4. Ramzan, Shravan gets Telangana stir postponed
5. President rejects mercy pleas of Rajiv killers
6. Ramzan, Shravan gets Telangana stir postponed
7. Govt has murdered people: Sena on Maval firing
8. Prakash Jha bends, agrees to Aarakshan cuts
9. Murdoch's son will not succeed him as CEO
10. JKLF's Yasin Malik warns of more violence
11. Pakistan embarrassed by fashionista Hina Rabani

Nath also writes to say that the Rs 500 million lawsuit was filed against The Caravan by one Kishorendu Gupta and the IIPM in response to the profile of Arindam Chaudhuri, IIPM's Honorary Dean, published in the magazine in February.

The profile was written by one of The Caravan's contributing editors, Siddhartha Deb, a renowned novelist and university professor based in New York, and it was widely acclaimed at the time of its publication for its thorough and even-handed portrayal of Mr Chaudhuri. 

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Anant Nath, Managing Editor, The Caravan gives an update on the defamation lawsuit that Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM) had filed against the magazine.

Nath says that the SC has issued notice to all other parties on our transfer petition and has stayed the proceedings at the civil court in Silchar.  

Caravan had filed a Transfer Petition before the Supreme Court of India asking that the suit be transferred from Silchar to Delhi High Court on the grounds that, except for one party to the suit, all other parties are based in or around Delhi.

In yet another faux pas, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna today got confused about an octogenarian Pakistani doctor lodged in Ajmer jail, saying the Government of Pakistan must consider his release on humanitarian grounds.

Krishna's strange answer during the Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha led to an intervention by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who clarified the matters.
Shivanand Tiwari (JD-U) had asked as to what the government was doing for the release of the wheel chair-bound Dr Mohammad Khalil Chisti, a virologist who was sentenced to life imprisonment in December last in a 1992 murder case while he was on a visit to India to see his ailing mother.

Krishna responded during the Question Hour by stating that this "particular person" was detained in Pakistan and it was a question to be considered by the government of that country on "humanitarian grounds".

As puzzled members looked on, the minister went on to say that Dr Chisti was confined to a wheel chair and was more than 80 years old, and he was sure that the Government of Pakistan would take a lenient view about the case. "We will, certainly pursue this at the level of the High Commissioner," he added.

The deaths of three men who residents say were mowed down by a car while protecting businesses from looters have heightened fears in Britain's second largest city. Jittery residents said they peer over their shoulders as they scuttle down the streets, says a report in cnn.

Businesses that remained opened all night close at the first sign of darkness. And the distraught father of one of the victims, who tried desperately to revive his dying son, appealed for calm.

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Cameron: Ahead of the London Olympics next year, Britain will show the world that it is fighting back and "looking forward". He concludes his statement.

The mild-mannered Leader of Opposition Ed Miliband says there are "no excuses" for the recent disorder.

This is UK PM David Cameron's full statement in Parliament today which has appeared on his official website. Read

The PM is expected to make a statement on the CWG mess any time now.

Mohammed Siddique in Hyderabad reports that the indefinite strike of the Telangana employees -- officers, teachers and workers in support of a separate state of Telangana has been postponed.

The Telangana Joint Action Committee today decided to put it off by about four weeks in view of Ramzan and Shravan. However, the mass agitation will be launched on August 17, as per the schedule to build the momentum across the region, said Prof Kodanda Ram, convenor of JAC.

The government employees will go on indefinite strike from September 6, he said.

Always on top of things, here's R Rajagopalan's tweets on the Parliament proceedings today.

Salman Khursheed Law Minister is browsing his BlackBerry in Lok Sabha during Question Hour. If Speaker had seen this, she would have objected.

Piers Morgan has hit back at reports that he was instrumental in Sir Paul McCartney's phone tapping, and claimed that the singer's ex-wife Heather Millers was behind the deed.

Sir Paul McCartney spoke out after Millers accused a Mirror Group journalist of tapping her voicemails from him.

However, Morgan, 46, who was the editor of the Daily Mirror at the time, has denied the claims and slammed Mills, 43, claiming that she has just been trying to ward off attention away from her own mischievous activities.

As China commenced sea trials of its first aircraft carrier, the US has sought an explanation from Beijing why it needs this kind of equipment and asked it
to be more transparent about its power projections.

"We have had concerns for some time, and we've been quite open about them with regard to the lack of transparency from China regarding its power projection and its lack of access and denial of capabilities," State Department
spokesperson said yesterday.

N Ganesh reports that trouble over the film Aarakshan has ended with filmmaker Prakash Jha willing to remove some 'objectionable scenes'.

The development came when Jha who was unwilling to show the film to any one obliged Maharashtra PWD Minister Chaggan Bhujbal, who said there were certain objectionable scenes which Jha agreed to remove from the film.

Ramdas Athavale leader of the Republican Party of India on Thursday after talks with Jha said that his organisation too would not protest against the film as Jha had promised that the 'anti Dalit' scenes would be scrapped.

Just in: The PM is ready to speak on the CWG issue in Parliament, most probably at 4 pm today.

Filmmaker Prakash Jha agrees to some cuts in Aarakshan and is talking to the governments of Punjab and UP to revoke the ban. The film, scheduled for release tomorrow, has been banned for its alleged anti-Dalit statements.

The daughter of a dead Indian pilot has thanked a Pakistani fighter pilot for apologising after shooting down the civilian aircraft that her father was commanding over four decades ago.  

Farida Singh's father, Jahangir Engineer, was flying the plane, which had apparently drifted off course along the border, and was subsequently shot down by Qais Hussain, who was a Pakistani pilot during the 1965 war with India.

Forty-six years on, Hussain wrote to Singh, saying that he was sorry for the loss of precious lives during the incident and was acting under orders from his superiors.

President Pratibha Patil has rejected the clemency petitions of three killers of Rajiv andhi whose death sentences were confirmed by the Supreme
Court in 2000.
The apex court had sentenced members of the banned Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) Murugan, Santhan, Perarivalan and Nalini to death in 1999 for the assassination of the former Prime Minister in Sriperumbudur on May 21, 1991.
A Rasthrapati Bhavan spokesperson said the clemency petitions of all three accused were turned down by the President last week. The apex court had confirmed the death sentence of Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan while commuting Nalini's sentence to life imprisonment.

Afzal Guru mercy plea coming up next...

Sangat TV, a Birmingham-based channel mainly in Punjabi, has emerged as the unlikely hero of the ongoing unrest in Britain with live coverage of events
that included showing its correspondents helping the police tackle rioters.

Indian-origin presenter Upinder Randhawa's sensitive coverage in which he expresses his own disgust at the rioting in Birmingham, has captured the imagination of viewers in Birmingham and beyond.

Major broadcasters such as BBC and Sky News have been carrying Sangat TV feeds prominently, while viewers have expressed much appreciation of its live coverage that is driven by the objective of ensuring that normalcy returns to
the streets of Birmingham.

The Taliban today denied that the fighters responsible for downing a US helicopter, killing 38 people, had been killed. The comments came after General John Allen, commander ofthe NATO-led foreign force in Afghanistan, yesterday said that the insurgents responsible had been hunted down and killed in an air strike.

But Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said, "This isnot true. After seeing the enemy statement, we contacted the mujahed (fighter) who shot down the helicopter and he's notdead. He's busy conducting jihad elsewhere in the country."

In the bbc.co.uk, a report that should, hopefully, make women hesitate when smoke up.

Apparently, women who start smoking increase their risk of a heart attack by more than men who take up the habit, according to a review of more than 30 years of research. A study of 2.4 million people, published in the Lancet, showed a 25% difference in increased risk. The reasons are unclear, say researchers.

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Chinese artist Ai Weiwei believed he was "close to death" during the more than 80 days he was held in a secret police detention centre, a source close to the artist told the BBC.

Beijing has banned him from speaking to the press since his release. However, the source said Ai was hooded, kept under constant watch with guards inside his cell and subjected to treatment designed to break him.

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See the riots in Britain through our slideshows.

Gang violence scorches Britain

Patchy calm in London, violence in new towns

Shrien Dewani, the Brit-Indian millionaire, who has been charged with masterminding his wife's murder during their honeymoon, will be extradited to South Africa to stand trial.  

Thirty-one- year-old Dewani, who is currently undergoing psychiatric treatment, is expected to appeal the ruling.  

His lawyers argued that he was mentally unfit to stand trial and if jailed, would face 'inhumane' conditions in South Africa's dangerous and overcrowded jails.

Rupert Murdoch acknowledged for the first time publicly that his son James is not the preferred choice to succeed him as News Corp CEO, at least in the near-term, says a reuters report. In the clearest indication yet that the phone hacking scandal enveloping News Corp's U.K. operations has damaged the succession ambitions of James Murdoch, his father endorsed top lieutenant Chase Carey for the job.

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In the Dawn.com, a report says that Yasin Malik, head of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, said Kashmiris welcomed the resumption of the peace process between Pakistan and India, stalled since the 2008 Mumbai attacks, but said it must deliver a settlement. "Now is the right time to focus on the solution,' Malik said. "There should be a timeframe for the process and it should not be a waste of time, as happened in the past.'

Read

From the Daily Beast.

The violence in Englands streets is no working-class insurrection but the uprising of the non-working, anti-working, would-do-anything-sooner-than-work class.

Read

From the Pakistan paper, the International News...

HRK -- Hina Rabbani Khar is drop dead gorgeous. Her three day fashion onslaught has left the Indians gasping for breath and ambulances howling all over the countryside. Here we are crooning with delight -- the men exchanging high fives, the women -- the sensible ones that is, shaking their heads slowly from side to side. Is HRK the nuclear device that we promised we'd explode over the Indian capital? Have we scored a major diplomatic victory over arch enemy India? Is HRK going to lead the country armed with nothing but a Hermes bag and change global policies with a snap of her diamond encrusted fingers.

Read more

In the Telegraph, London, Christina Odone's story of how immigrants love the UK more than the 'natives'. Or how Poles, Turks, Indians and Somalis have shown up the natives during the riots. Read

Seems like they've passed the cricket test as well.

The legend of Osama bin Laden is destined to remain apparently.

The Al Qaeda leader was protected by elements of Pakistan's security apparatus in return for millions of dollars of Saudi cash, an American security analyst has claimed.  

Raelynn Hillhouse's version, based on evidence from sources in what she calls the "intelligence community", contradicts the official account that bin Laden was tracked down through his trusted courier.  

Hillhouse says it was an ISI officer who came forward to claim the approximately 25-million-dollar bounty on bin Laden's head and to broker US citizenship for his family.

Today, on the eight day in Parliament, discussions on threat to internal security with special reference to the recent bomb blasts in Mumbai is expected to be tabled. Sor far 35 bills have been planned for passing in the session but at the end of eight days (of the 26 planned), none have been passed.

Good morning.

Sensex down in opening trade on profit-booking (The Hindu)

Market experts said sentiments turned weak on profit-booking by funds and retail investors on the handsome gains recorded in the previous session and a subdued trend on the other Asian bourses. Read

Asian stocks lower after Wall Street tumbles (The Hindu)

Asian markets headed sharply lower early on Thursday over mounting concerns about the health of Europes banks and Frances debt rating. Read

Keep your word, we will keep ours, India tells NSG (The Times of India)
India indicated it would strictly follow the reciprocity principle in implementing legal obligations by countries who have signed nuclear agreements with India. Read

Indians beat English at their language (The Times of India)

Students whose mother tongue is an Indian language fare better in the Test of English as a Foreign Language than those whose native language is English. Read

Obama administration to call for Syrian President's resignation (Hindustan Times)

The Obama administration is planning to call for the resignation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as soon as this week, a senior US official said Wednesday, turning up diplomatic pressure as Assad continues his bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators. Read

Pune firing: Totalitarian response to protests unacceptable (DNA)
While people have every right to protest in a democracy, 'it was not right to shut down the expressway and hold the state to ransom,' said Ajit Pawar'. Read

Mayawati govt bans Aarakshan for 2 months in Uttar Pradesh (DNA)
A decision to ban the film which is due to hit the screens on Friday was taken following a recommendation by a high level official committee set up by the BSP government. Read

HC to hear petition against Rajiv Gandhi trust land allotment today (Indian Express)
Villagers in Ulhawas allege that Haryana govt showed 'unholy haste' in leasing land to trust. Read